#but that just goes back to the need to break down and reconstruct these systems since they harm men and especially women

[teayaki]

I often see people discuss the narrative of women being put down by men and the social and economical systems that they have built.

But as I have grown older, I have realized that the depths of these inequalities are truly not understood.

They are not understood because they have never been felt.

Many men in their lives will never experience the painstakingly meticulous ways in which our characters as women are picked apart. They will never feel the scrutiny of every eye in the room, silently judging you and picking apart your face, your body, your hair, your skin, your stance, how you smell, how you smile, how you stand, how you move, how you speak, and even how you breathe.

Everything, everything, is up on a platform for review.

And not because we want it to be, but simply because we exist in the same room, the same town, the same country, the same world, as men.

We exist. But we exist "differently" and so, we must be examined.

But we are "different" and therefore we can never be as good as them.

Everything about our character must be questioned.

There is a noticeable apprehension before a group of men truly trust the character of a woman.

"Are you sure? How can we verify this?"

"We must ask another group of men for the same answer before we trust a woman."

I read fiction books in my high school about women living during the turn of the 19th century, struggling with themselves. Struggling to fill the voids in their lives, these feelings of a lack of purpose. Struggling to maintain a decent status amongst their peers. Fretting appearances whilst fretting personal fulfillment.

But, they could never find peace or satisfaction with themselves, and it wasn't due to a lack of trying. It was because there is only so much that these women are allowed to do within their current restrictive societies.

And when these women were at their lowest, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope in their lovers. Yes, surely these men who flirt and kiss and "love" them will truly try to understand them.

Laughable.

Their lovers extinguish that last glimmer of hope.

They do not see these women as people, independent persons, but as objects, attachments, dolls.

Your autonomy is nonexistent and your character will forever be questioned.

There is nothing like the deep sorrow of women.

It is the tragic realization that you will never be recognized or valued for who you are.

Simply because you exist, you will be questioned, you will be scrutinized, and you will not be valued.

When you are forced to constantly swim through a repulsive, putrid narrative like this, how could you not break?

So, before you men blow off our pain, because you don't think it's that bad, remember that people like you have always been placed on a higher pedestal. You have never had to have this type of deep-seeded sorrow and existentialism forcibly shoved into your heart. You will never have to experience the subtle and silent, or even loud and violent, acts that are carried out against us, simply because we are women.

You will never feel it, because you don't have to.

But if you can empathize, please do.

And if you can't, keep walking until you fall off the face of the earth.

[iphoenixrising]

DickTim Week 2021: Day 5 Winged!Talon Tim au

So. another dual prompt and I really regret nothing about this one tbh. I took tomorrow’s Talon and today’s Wings and made a Winged!Talon!Tim fic. Of course, I talked to the wonderful babes on Capes & Coffee about a what if combination and this just, whew. Careful, it might break your heart a little, but damn if it isn’t an interesting idea.

Not beta read, so don't be a hater :D

Previous Talon!Tim universe posts: The initial idea, Babe and I talking it out, Talon Training Ask, Ra’s vs the Court, Talon and Ra’s, Talon and Ra’s take 2, Talon and Shiva short.

**

Watching B take on the new and improved Talon is really the entertainment of the year.

Once upon a time it had taken all of them plus more to take down as much of the Court of Owls as humanly possible. Of course, like rats, the Bats knew there would be no way to get the entire Court or all the Talons, not when the upper echelons of Gotham had spent the better part of 200 years creating, storing, training, and obtaining more.

Politicians were investigated, corrupt cops removed, and criminals burrowed underground once word of what the capes did to save the day got passed around.

For the first time in years, crime in Gotham was at an all time low.

But, as the coin flip dictates, nothing good lasts forever. Trouble is always brewing below the surface to eventually rise to the top and try to take over.

Case in point:

The Bats of Gotham have come up against a new threat wearing the signature Talon armor, and the call goes out to all available capes for help taking on the undead mercenary before another crime family ends up in the Obituaries rather than Blackgate.

The fact the Court is still up and running after the Batfamily took them down in a fiery blaze that ended with all their Talons gone, Sensei exposed, and most the ruling families imprisoned or poisoned by Lincoln March, is like a kick to the abdomen after they closed that particular book. Worse, with a new Talon soldier is sighted running around Gotham, another circus kid has been kidnapped and turned into the right hand of the Court of Owls. Dick, with his absolute survivors guilt, is the one to make going after the Talon and whoever is still behind the scenes a top priority.

Which is how they find themselves in the middle of Knight’s Stadium facing down a Talon that is too short to be March. Red Hood, Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, and Black Bat pretty much got their asses handed to them in the first twelve minutes. Pretty hard to understand until you take into account the new and improved Talon facing them now is terrifying in a completely different way than most undead assassins are.

He knows them.

He knows them in ways that lets him fight fast and furious with vicious accuracy, striking at weaknesses few of the vigilantes of Gotham realized they even had.

He isn't as big as Lincoln or even Cobb, not nearly as old. He hasn't been kept in cryostasis waiting for the next generation to need his skills. He doesn't have creaks in his joints from being put on deep freeze too many times.

This one is silent and efficient, obviously trained in multiple types of martial arts, is highly proficient with or without the standard Talon knives, is a master tactician, counters the majority of their moves with alarming consistency–

and the fucking Talon has wings.

Honest-to-God wings.

Everyone had assumed the metal monstrosities on his back were weapons of some kind, but the glint of steel in the streetlight flash a warning before the lumps moved in an arch, extending far out past his shoulder blades, slicing into Red Hood’s body suit with a razor-sharp edge, shredding the armor like paper.

It’s not enough he’s got weapons obviously made specifically for his skill set, it’s not enough he’s an assassin and doesn’t hold to the same standards of non-lethal combat, it’s not enough that he can use his wings to fly or to fight like he’s using another limb to kick the shit out of them, and it’s not enough that he effortlessly counters so many of their attacks that he has to have some kind of inside information on all of them and their fighting styles.

The knives are definitely a thing when the Talon can throw them hard enough to penetrate parts of their suits in between armored plating, which further drives the theory that this is a person they’ve dealt with before. Intimately. Few people in the world know how their suits are made. Even more, few people know particulars enough when their suits are constantly reconstructed.

The only thing on their side that tipped the scales in their favor–

–the Batman.

The wings threw him off his game, obviously, but not enough to stop B from holding his own with swift and merciless force.

It's like watching a dance of fast and furious fists, blades in Talon's hands glinting deadly in the night, finding B's suit over and over and over until he's made it to blood and bone. He takes every hit the Batman can dish out, head snapping back, left, and right with the volley of jaw-breaking blows and bone-shattering kicks.

None of it gives the Talon pause. When a move makes him drop a blade, another is already in hand, cutting into their body suits, wings flipping out to defend or distract, sweeping moves and well coordinated attacks.

The unnatural appendages are like another arm, another leg, an extension working on the same central nervous system, regardless as to how the Court managed to make it happen.

A jump kick off a trash can is a lucky shot as a wing catches B in the ribs hard enough to knock him into the wall of Mike's Famous Hotdogs. The only thing saving the Dark Knight from a concussion or permanent brain damage is the plating in his cowl.

It gives the Talon enough time to make a final bid for a battered Nightwing, Red Hood, and Robin struggling to their feet again, eyes for their fallen mentor.

Before he can lunge forward to start the attack yet again, the Talon just stops, pauses like he’s stuck or something, and in the span of a breath, both wings extend fully, flap powerfully once to propel him up into the Gotham night.

O tries her best to track his flight through the city, but no one’s arms are working well enough to toss a tracker on him.

She loses him over Cape Carmine, slams her palms against her system in frustration, makes sure she gets as much footage from the confrontation as possible.

After some sleep and a whole lot of bandages and ice packs, the Bat family meets in the Cave to watch the footage, breakdown the Talon’s fighting style, his weaponry, and make theories on his identity.

O helps out with readings she has of electronic pulses she managed to capture coming from the armor over his wings. She thinks she might be able to use it to track him if they can get close enough for her equipment to ping the signal again.

B makes a trip to Arkham since Freeze apparently hasn’t stopped producing the formula used to put Talons in cryostasis.

It’s not until Gotham’s power grid has a massive surge that O and the Bats can pinpoint a possible location, all of them invested in one hell of a fight to get the last rats still scurrying in the underground.

The plan of attack comes together smoothly once they’ve scoped out the location, seen the shady activity, and together, they make one hell of a plan.

**

And because, you know, Gotham, it is completely normal for the Court of Owl's headquarters to have a skylight.

Natch.

For this one, they've got Batgirl and Black Bat, Red Hood and Robin, Nightwing and B, a real family affair.

O's quiet voice over comms leading them through the maze of traps and empty rooms, abandoned libraries and spooky ball rooms. The laboratory isn't the most horrific they've all ever seen (because the Joker's summer place is literally the stuff of nightmares), but a few of them do gag on the smell alone.

The plan, however, goes horribly awry when the clear sounds of tormented screaming echoes from right under their reinforced bootheels.

Black Bat's fists clench hard, her breathing wheezes out when the tone, the utter agony goes right through her.

A shudder slides up Robin's spine as all of them turn toward the noise.

Without a flicker or a word, the Batman moves, strafing in the shadows toward the sound. He can't assume it's an innocent civilian with something the Court wants, but he's betting on the fact that scream will lead them to whoever is running the show.

The medieval room has bars and reinforced locks, implements hanging on the wall. The cement brick is stained rust colored with old blood, the vestiges of training, and the awful realization they've found another hidden niche in the city that always existed right under their noses is punctuated with the abrupt drop in temperature, with the sudden charge in the air, with the zzzzcrack snapping beyond the door, replaced with a muted buzzing Robin can feel in his back teeth.

B is already on his way to the roof, Batgirl down through the floor vent while Nightwing picks the locks with fast precision, knocking the tumblers around.

Robin and Red Hood stay close to the reinforced door, balancing on the balls of their feet, katana and .45s at the ready.

Black Bat takes the high road, ceiling tiles giving way under her Bat-a-rang. She gives a sharp nod before she's up and gone.

"All right. Ready?" Nightwing stands, cracks his neck, flips his escrimas in both hands, works his shoulders to prepare for the strain of each blow he plans to give.

"Ya betcha ass," Hood murmurs low, a cut figure with both guns at his sides, gloved fingers on the trigger guard.

"Don't disappoint," Robin snarls, "either of you."

"Nice pep talk, squirt," Nightwing snickers.

"Tt, back up your mouth with action."

"Better shuddap, Demon. Golden Boy ain't fuckin' 'round. Neither is the Bat. We get one more chance a' this asshole. We ain't gonna blow it again, ya feel me?"

"Finally, something we agree on, Hood."

"Other than N's shitty mullet?"

Nightwing swiftly glares at them both over his shoulder, unconsciously putting himself front and center of the trio, ready to be the first in once they get the signal.

– which is the sound of the glass raining down from the heavens.

Three booted feet kick the door hard enough to take it off the hinges, lying against the faded stains like a fallen body.

First step in the room is the complete opposite to what they'd all been expecting.

The two Owl masks aren't the usual, but a perversion of the originals, crudely drawn yawning mouths complete with fangs dripping blood.

But.

The boy on his knees, arms in a binder holding the appendages hostage at a painful angle, is dripping the real thing. Rivulets down his chest and where his back is partially visible. Some from the base of the wings going into the back of his shoulder blades where the skin is torn and raw.

The bar gag shoved in his mouth doesn't take away from the splatters on his chin, the bruising on his face, the swollen eye. But it's his wings that makes the Bats falter from the initial rushing attack.

His wings are without the armor, are bound straight up above his restrained body with hooks grotesquely puncturing through the downy softness, desecrating the beauty with blood and gore. The angle makes the pull to his back where the wings are part of him just another agony on top of atrocity.

"Fuck," from the first Owl mask, and a swift move frees the Talon's bound arms, the appendages flopping uselessly to the floor, only his trapped, tortured wings keeping him up on his knees.

The second Owl shoves the first back, "let him take care of them. Let's get out of here!"

The first Owl snarls out something low and foreign, the phrases rolling off his tongue.

The words lock into place, and the Talon's head snaps up, snarling around the gag in his mouth.

When his face is finally, finally visible, the protectors of Gotham are frozen in their tracks.

Familiar violet-blue eyes, too-long blue-black hair, cut jawline and pointed nose. Tiny scar on his right cheek from the time he caught Ra's al Ghul's ring across the face.

"Jesus Fucking Christ," is barely heard through the Red Hood's synths and in no way fully expresses his utter horror at what these dirty motherfuckers have done.

Robin wretches, bile burning the back of his throat once those eyes swing up to the masked parody of the Owls and his bare upper body is visible through the blood and sweat on his chest, when the scars peeking through on his collar bones form a half-visible Y-incision, when the coloring of the bared wings now makes sense (robin's wings, Damian Wayne thinks with his heart beating pitter patter fast, and his stomach in knots, they put robin's wings on him...).

And the hurt, agonized noise coming out of Nightwing's chest is the only noise he can make when those dimmed, dazed eyes swing from the Owls back to the vigilantes frozen in their spots, when there's no spark of joy or fondness or stubbornness he's so used to seeing staring him down.

The errant thought, the first instinct, is the only humane way to deal with this new Talon is to put him down for good wars with the man behind the mask that only wants to reach out, wants to pull the Talon into his body and curve over, to scream at the injustice of it all, to rail at himself for not even suspecting.

Another switch flipped and the hooks release his wings, blood splattering on top the old stains.

"Get them! Don't fuck it up this time or you won't get another chance," the second Owl shoves the Talon's injured shoulder in the direction of the horrified vigilantes.

They don't even bother to take the gag out of his mouth before setting him on his target.

A flap of wings, and the Talon is on his feet again, swaying only slightly. He's in the boots and pants from earlier, the rest of his uniform tossed carelessly behind him by his tormentors. A sweep of his feet and the knives glint in bare palms, a whisper of a sound.

The curved, clawed blade glints in the overhead light when the Talon raises it and cuts the strap of the bar gag in his bloody mouth, turns his head to spit it out without looking away from the vigilantes.

The Batman, grim and stoic in the face of this surprising turn of events, gives the barest nod. From her hiding spot behind the complex machinery, Black Bat takes off after the running Owl members, leaving the rest of the family to deal with their former third Robin.

The wings flinchingly flare out and their former bird hunches over, ready for the attack.

“Wait! Wait, wait, wait,” the Red Hood removes the helmet, leaves the domino underneath. He keeps one hand out in peace, slowly dipping down to put his helmet on the ground. “Is us, Tim. Timmy. Baby Bird. Is us. Yer family. Gotta lookit us, yeah?”

For the first time, the Talon speaks, “who’s Tim?”

And then he lunges.

**

The fight happens very differently this time.

The former power behind the punches is obviously dulled with the Talon’s identity reveal. He doesn’t hold back, is utterly ruthless with his attacks. He takes out B’s right knee, puts Hood down on the stained floor, knocks Robin into the wall with crushing force, and slams Batgirl’s head off the operating table.

He stands over Nightwing, wicked blade in hand and robin’s wings spread wide. He takes a knee, the sharp edge right above N’s adam’s apple, staring down impassively into the whiteouts.

“Timmy,” N spits blood, grunting when one knee pins his arm down. “Timmy, please. I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I love you and I’m sorry they did this to you.”

Those eyes don’t change in the slightest. “You should not have tried to oppose the Owls.”

“We beat them once,” Nightwing gasps, “and you helped us, Baby Bird. You were with us then, don’t you remember.”

“I was nothing before the Court perfected me,” the Talon replies emotionlessly.

“You were perfect before they ever touched you.”

“No,” and the Talon leans down, puts them a breath away. “The only thing you and those others do is put the criminals back in prison, back in Arkham for them to escape again, for them to kill and destroy over and over again. Like this, I can stop them permanently.”

“Oh Timmy,” and behind the whiteouts, Nightwing’s eyes spill over, his vision wavery. “Timmy–”

“Don’t call me that. Stop calling me that.”

“You know me, you know us. You have to remember–”

“Lies. All of it lies!”

Nightwing’s chest stutters, his fist clenching, “it’s not. None of it is. Not even this–”

And he’s fast enough to grab the back of the Talon’s neck, to lean up enough against the blade pressed against his throat, can bring their mouths together, can kiss him like he’s dying and the Talon is the only thing that can save him.

It’s sloppy and awkward because the Talon doesn’t know what’s happening, gasps against the vigilante’s mouth. The tongue sliding over his, the muffled moan in his mouth sparks something in the back of his brain where the Court of Owls could never touch.

When Nightwing pulls back, stares up at wide violet-blue eyes, when the blade falls away to clatter against the block, when the Talon’s mouth trembles and tears fill his eyes, when his wings flutter and falter, fold in on them both, when his voice goes hoarse with, “D-Dick?” Nightwing throws both arms around his waist and holds on.

[literallymechanical]

Well, are you going to fill us in on "why we are morally obligated as a species to some day blow up the Earth"? Sounds like a supervillain backstory

(This was originally inspired by qntm’s fantastic satirical essay, “To Destroy The Earth,” but I disagree with him on a few key points. I highly recommend checking out qntm’s fiction, particularly Ra, Fine Structure, and There Is No Antimemetics Division. Disclaimer: this is a thought experiment, I’m not actually going to destroy the Earth.)

Let us begin with this: you want to destroy the Earth.

That’s not a question or an instruction, that’s an axiom. A fundamental truth from which a logical system is built. It’s your Statement Zero, the singular concept from which the rest of these instructions are built: you want to destroy the Earth. You might not know why, and you certainly don’t know how. Trust me, you really don’t know how. Take all of your cultural knowledge of Death Stars and hyperspace construction crews and throw it out the window, because it’s not worth a clipped penny.

That being said, here are a few reasons to somebody might want to destroy the Earth:

You want to wipe out humanity

You want to wipe out some other species

General misanthropy

It’s obstructing your view of the Moon.

You want us to colonize Mars or Venus, and you figure this is the best way to get everybody on board.

These are bad reasons to destroy the Earth. If any of these sentiments resonate with you, please stop reading this essay. This isn’t for you.

Anyway, let's put a pin in the “why” for now. We'll get to it later. Let's tackle the "how" first.

To destroy the Earth, you need a Plan, with a capital P.

The shape of the Plan is extremely simple to define, much simpler than the relatively detailed (and, in my opinion, fragile) instructions others have outlined. It has just two parts.

Figure out how to destroy the Earth. This is defined as the Earth not being there when you're done—any chump with nuclear weapons can scour the Earth, you're trying to make the entire thing go away.

Destroy the Earth.

However, a lot of shapes are simple to define, but hard to draw. The Mandelbrot set can be defined by a single equation and a couple of instructions, but the result is a fractal. This Plan will be fractally intricate as well. We certainly can’t draw up the full Plan right now. We can barely even begin to draw the outline. Let’s take a quick stab at it anyway.

First of all, I don’t know how to destroy the Earth. We can speculate a bit, but we certainly can’t choose a method yet—you'll likely need multiple redundant strategies anyway. “Blow it up” is one idea, but the gravitational binding energy of the Earth is about 2*10^32 joules, and there is no conceivable technology that can handle that sort of power right now. “Launch bits of it into space one by one until there’s nothing left” sounds promising, though it will take a while. “Mess with its orbit until it’s close enough to the Sun’s Roche limit to get ripped to shreds” is a fun idea. Or maybe in the next million years, you'll come up with a better way.

The most important part of that statement is “the next million years.” It will take a very long time to figure this one out. A million years is a pretty good estimate, though if you'll proactive it might take as little as a couple hundred thousand.

That brings us to the hardest part of the Plan: making sure the Plan survives a million years.

Right now, you're in a precarious position. Climate change probably won’t entirely wipe us out, but it will likely disrupt civilization enough that the Plan will be lost. Nuclear war might actually cause us to go extinct. A killer asteroid certainly would. Therefore, the first thing the Plan needs to do is save the world. Reverse climate change, or at least halt it. Nuclear disarmament. Peace, or as close as we can get to it. Medicine, spaceflight, art, prosperity, happiness, survival—all part of the Plan.

Colonizing other planets, and eventually other solar systems, is also in the Plan. Not just for a backup in case of killer meteor, but also because when you do destroy the Earth, you’ll need somewhere to stand. Remember, you're not trying to wipe out humanity here! Just destroy a planet. This will be tricky. It’s very likely that there’s no such thing as faster-than-light travel, so it will take a while to spread across the galaxy. This might take up the bulk of the million-year timeline.

(Quick note: you may be tempted to conquer the Earth, or set yourself up as some sort of galaxy-spanning God-Ruler. In my personal opinion, this is a bad idea. Right now, empires typically last a couple hundred years before falling. Do you think it would be easier to hold on to multiple planets than just a bit of land around the Mediterranean? I believe that it’s best to have your Plan set up a system where people can survive and thrive without needing you.)

But as tricky as interstellar colonization may be, it’s still the easy part. The hard part is that the entire Plan has to reconstruct itself from scratch if everything goes wrong.

The Plan has to be the most massively redundant, self-repairing, and robust project humanity has ever undertaken, or will ever undertake. The Plan needs to be able to resurrect our entire species on its own, without human intervention, in case something goes wrong (e.g. nuclear war) and we all get wiped out. Here’s one idea: computerize the Humanity Reboot Protocol, stamp the code onto platinum bricks, launch a million copies into deep space and onto every rocky body in the solar system, and have it check back in every once in a while. You can have that one for free.

The Plan also needs to have a way to re-motivate humanity to destroy the Earth. Maybe that’s as simple as posting it to tumblr and having a lot of people read it, but it will probably be a bit more complicated. Crucially, the Plan does not have to be visible. Nobody actually needs to know that the Plan exists, if you’re clever enough. You might be tempted to turn it into a religion, but religions change and die. Remember: the Plan has to eventually pop off, no matter what we do to ourselves.

The Plan is now its own entity, both distinct from and deeply intertwined with humanity.

(As a side note, this begs the question: What if the Plan is already in effect? If it’s a good Plan, we wouldn’t be able to tell. What if some sufficiently motivated creature set things into motion ten thousand or a hundred thousand or a million years ago? Food for thought.)

Alright. So, enough time has passed, and you’ve figured out how to destroy the Earth. I use “you” loosely at this point. Maybe, against all odds, you’ve figured out immortality, or mind-uploading, cloning, whatever. More likely, you’ve been dust for a million years. That’s not important. Regardless, “you” are standing on Mars or wherever and your metaphorical finger is hovering a metaphorical big red button marked “DESTROY THE EARTH.” Step 2 of the Plan.

Let’s pause here and go back to that pin from before: Why? Why are you destroying the Earth?

Well, a lot of reasons. If I were doing this, my Plan would include abandoning the Earth for other star systems and setting it up as some sort of museum. I'd take all the biosphere with me, of course, and make better Earths elsewhere. Imagine a hundred Earths, each of which are perfect nature preserves, or more! Imagine finding a good silica-heavy planet, turning it into molten glass, and sculpting it into something beautiful. Imagine spelling your name in an Oort cloud. Imagine an ocean planet full of whales.

Imagine coming back to a deserted G-type solar system with a few dusty rocks, an asteroid belt, and a handful of gas giants. Imagine breaking them down to make raw materials for a Dyson sphere.

Bam! Earth destroyed! You did it!

Maybe a paleontologist somewhere will figure out that this might be the planet where we first evolved, and it would be nice to put it somewhere safe. Hey, does that count as destroying the Earth? Where the Earth once was, there is now empty space. No more Earth! That sounds pretty destroyed to me. Bam! Earth destroyed! You did it!

Maybe your Plan is different, and the Earth is still inhabited. For what it’s worth, I hope you’ve made it a paradise, one of a thousand Edens across the galaxy. It would be a shame to blow it up… but if Sol-3 is just one paradise among many, what makes it significant? “Earth” is our homeworld, but now there are a thousand homeworlds, so what is “Earth?” What makes this one rock special? Nothing! You’ve successfully destroyed the entire concept of “Earth.” That might be harder than blowing up a planet! Well done! You did it!

In conclusion, here is why I say it’s a moral imperative to destroy the Earth:

Eventually, a baby bird has to leave the nest. Somebody needs to be the mom bird who lures her chicks off the edge, and it might as well be me.

[naminethewriter]

Order

Loceit Week, here I come! I’m being very spontaneous with this, so we’ll see how it goes 😉💛💙 @loceitweek2021

Here on Ao3

Masterpost | Loceit Week Masterpost

Characters: Logan, Janus, Patton & Roman mentioned

Relationships: platonic Loceit

Rating: G

Words: 1,010

Summary:  Logan values order but the library is anything but orderly when Janus arrives on his search for Logan.

Normally, any realm that Logan had control over would be perfectly organized. He preferred it that way. Efficiency was one of his values and things getting lost in clutter was the least efficient thing there is. So of course Janus expected the library, a storage space for all the knowledge Thomas had acquired over the years, to be as clean and organized as it always was. However, once he made it through the big double doors, he was greeted by stacks of books all around the space and many shelves either half- or entirely empty.

Logan sat in the middle of the room, at one of the reading tables, typing away at his laptop though he regularly stopped to check over a book to his left until nodding, moving it onto a pile on the right and grabbing another book from another stack to his left. Janus watched this process for a few minutes before clearing his throat and stepping towards the logical side.

 “Logan, dear. What are you doing? It doesn’t look like a complete mess in here.” Logan’s head shot up and now Janus could see how frazzled he looked. Logan stared at him a few moments before his brain seemed to catch up to what Janus had said.

 “Oh-“ He took a look around. “-I guess it has gotten a bit chaotic in here, my apologies.” Janus held up his hands in a placating manner.

 “Don’t apologize, it is no issue of mine. I was just… surprised considering your usual care for order.”

 “Ah, yes, I see where the confusion originated from.” Logan nodded and rightened his glasses. “While this may seem to be chaos, it actually serves the purpose of me having an easier time to organize.” Janus lifted an eyebrow.

 “Of course. That is definitely apparent.”

 “You see,” Logan continued without acknowledging the interruption, “I am currently cataloging these books in a digital Format, so I – or anyone else for that matter – can look up the book they are looking for and identify it on the characteristics defined in the catalog.” Janus took a seat across from him, folded his hands and leaned his head closer.

 “And you are doing that instead of using your perfectly reliable previous system, why? Considering how many books there are I find it hard to believe that you have the time to do this next to your usual commitments for Thomas’ well-being as well as take the time for yourself that you need.” Logan crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

 “What are you insinuating, Janus?”

 “That it is uncharacteristic for you to do such a major reconstruction of your usual habits and routines without some sort of prompt.” He smiled in a way that would seem kind to anyone who didn’t know him well enough. Logan could instead see the challenge within.

 “Contrary to what you seem to believe, this is a project that I wanted to get around to for a while. My organization system before was efficient but still held too much room for failure. This method will be much more secure.”

 “Oh, I’m sure it is. Still, this came a bit sudden. There is no unanticipated break for Thomas, your timing is questionable. As we both are sure to agree, this is a massive undertaking and as sure as I am that you would consider organization a hobby of yours, you are aware that you technically do not have any more time than usual to do this, so why did you make the decision to start this project right now and work on it through dinner?” Logan quickly glanced at the clock on his computer screen. Indeed, it was past dinner time. That explained Janus sudden interest in Logan’s activity. He swallowed.

 “I apologize, I lost track of time.”

 “I know that Logan, I’d rather you answered my question,” Janus said, a hint of coldness in his voice. Logan sighed.

 “A few weeks back, Thomas encountered a certain trend of people organizing their bookshelves based on the colour of the cover rather than the contents. Since then Roman and Patton have been pestering me to let them use that method here in the library as well, because – and I quote – ‘It would look so pretty!’ and ‘It’s all about the aesthetic, nerd!’”

 “I see,” Janus hummed. “And I presume they have annoyed you into giving in?”

 “Even I only have so much patience for foolishness. However, considering that I would not be able to follow this new system effectively, I decided to use this opportunity to install my digital catalogue and then let them- “ Logan pulled out one of his vocabulary cards. “-‘go wild’ once I was done.”

 “And how far have you come?”

 “I have finished with the non-fiction books and am currently working on the fantasy section,” Logan explained while holding up the last book he was working on. Janus nodded.

 “Alright.” He summoned his laptop. “I will help you finish that section and afterword you will eat and take the remainder of the day off to do something more relaxing.”

 “This is-“ Logan tried to protest weakly, but Janus cut him off.

 “I’m sure it is, however staring at the screen for so long is straining on your eyes and I’m sure you still have many more books on your reading list that you should get to as well, correct?” Now Janus’ smile had morphed more into a satisfied smirk. Logan huffed.

 “You are not wrong. Very well, I accept your terms.”

 “Of course, you definitely had a choice,” Janus chuckled before securing his own stack of books to work through and receiving access to the databank from Logan.

 “Thank you, Janus. I truly appreciate your help,” Logan said, over both their laptops. Janus gave him a genuine smile.

 “My pleasure. I do use this library; it would be beneficial for me as well if I could continue to find what I’m looking for. And I look forward to spending more time with you.” Logan blushed and ducked his head back down.

[intpstyle]

Detective Conan Meta: Trauma, being seen & the Inner Child

Okay, so it’s 6AM and I woke up with this essay half-formed in my mind and I need to talk about DC. Yesterday, I saw a quote on tumblr that read

“to be loved is to be seen”

and it literally haunted my dreams. I dreamt of Shinichi being unable to tell Ran who he is for so long now (we won’t go into the half a year debate (in this post)) and it got me thinking about the unbearable loneliness of it all. Then I thought of Heiji and of how liberating it must be for Shinichi that some people do know him for who he really is - that some people see him, that some people are able to love him, all of him, because they’ve recognised him even when he looks like a child. And that got a chain reaction of symbolism going in my brain because THINK ABOUT IT, Shinichi is literally forced to live as his own inner child.

So, we open with this lovably weird 17-year-old (fuck no, in the manga he’s actually only 16) with barely any survival skills who’s been left alone in a huge mansion because his parents went adios, who doesn’t have a whole lot of close friends because he always found it difficult to connect with others because he’s so focussed on his detective work and who, when he finally manages to ask the love of his life out on a date and inevitably stumbles over another murder, claims that “you get used to it”, that corpses don’t affect him, that nothing really affects him and, worst of all, he actually means it. This is our protagonist. He’s All Grown Up. He always tried to be All Grown Up. Frankly, with parents like these, he always had to be All Grown Up. And it’s okay! Because he found something he loves doing (finding the truth, restoring justice, helping people) and he’s good at it and people actually love him for it (look at all these fan letters, Ran, look at them!)

And then Ran (bless you, angel child) starts crying because - because so many reasons. One, she’s still affected by what happened. Two, she sees the love of her life being strong - and he always has and had to be strong; it must be so bloody exhausting and he’s not even aware of how tired he is, but to ask him to take a break, to take a look at what all this death and suffering and loneliness really means, to take it in, to stop, would be to take the one thing away (apart from her, but she doesn’t know that) that keeps him stable and grounded and to risk having him fall apart. I don’t think she knows this consciously, but Ran is empathetic and has been around Shinichi all her life - this, I think, is the moment it really hits her that this brutality (a literal decapitated corpse that spews blood like a fountain on a roller coaster!!!) has become her best friend’s “normal”. She is scared. She is worried. And she shows it.

And then Shinichi (bless you, cool child) tries to play it down, to make her feel better, to show her that this is nothing to despair over. He, too, is trying to be considerate of this incredible girl who always takes on other people’s burdens and their pain and grins and bears it. But it isn’t all compassion - he frankly also does not have the tools to deal with someone being so vulnerable and innocent and, dare I say?, child-like. And what does he do? Does he stay and engage with her side of things? Does he hear her out and consider that he HAS become callous and somewhat addicted to shedding light on the dark sides of other people? That he feels uncomfortable feeling the light turned back on himself? No! No, of course not! He’s 16 and has the emotional range of a tea spoon (#relatable). Instead, he latches onto the next sign of mystery and turns back to his quest for truth where he feels safe and needed. He LITERALLY tells Ran to “go ahead” and that he’ll “catch up” and boy, will he ever (emotionally).

We all know what happens next: he bites off more than he can chew. He stumbles over a case that even he admits is “serious” and is LITERALLY hit over the head with the realisation that this - socio-economic corruption, systemic criminal organisations, being vulnerable and opening up to a loved one - is the world of adults and he is NOT ready for it. So he, like everybody else, is given the choice to call it quits or to choose life, start over and re-learn the things he missed out in childhood to become an adult. He becomes his inner child again (the first chapter literally ends with the dialogue

“You okay!? Can you stand up, little boy?”

“Huh?”

and he’s trying. He’s trying to stand up, okay?) and it smarts. In this old/new form, he is taken care of, but not taken taken seriously by the policemen (”You must’ve been scared”) and it freaks him out that they treat him (the master detective!) like a child again. At this height, he fails to get into his own house (some more symbolism right there) and he is not recognised by Professor Agasa until he shows him some impressive deduction work, demonstrating that this really is at the core of his character - he enjoys and is good at mysteries. That was never the problem. Neglecting just about everything else was (- the same goes for OG Holmes, I’d argue). Seeing how the situation he went through literally (damn that’s a lot of literally) turned Shinichi back into a child, Professor Agasa warns him not to inflict the same traumatic damage on others - especially since the situation is not yet resolved. (...but Agasa’s involvement is another can of worms)

There’s a whole other post in Shinichi’s choice to call himself “Conan Edogawa” and wearing his father’s glasses as well (aka trying to redefine his identity by viewing the world through the lense of the people he admired (notably his father’s frames without the lenses though!)), but the most interesting thing happens when Ran shows up. He tries, desperately, not to be recognised - not to be seen - by her in this form because it’s not HIM (it is though) and because it would involve Ran in danger; would put her in the adult world he couldn’t deal with and couldn’t protect her from, thus, ironically, infantilising her and (although in an attempt to be heroic, nonetheless still) limiting her agency.

And this is where the irony really kicks in - because Ran finds it much easier to talk to this raw, vulnerable version of himself that he doesn’t allow her to see as a “grown-up” 16-year-old. It is now, as a child that asks straight-forward questions, that he learns that Ran really does love him and that she knows the good (dependable, brave & cool), as well as the bad (full of himself, bit of a jerk and obsessed with mysteries) sides of him better than he does. At the very moment, he, touched by her vulnerability and wanting to open up, decides to tell her the truth, he is again reminded of the Men in Black by Kogoro falling down the stairs like a sack of potatoes and he (dependable, brave & cool) decides not to involve anyone in the mess he brought upon himself until he can stand up to the world of adulthood that he shrank from.

The beauty of the series is that Shinichi slowly realises, bit by bit, drop by drop, excruciating chapter after excruciating chapter, that the way for him (an INTP) to become an adult is precisely by letting others see him as he is and thus forming lasting, real and dependable relationships (by developing his Fe). This tragically begins with Akemi Miyano (a first step and another reminder that he is not capable enough yet), is slowly built up with the Detective Boys (who are honestly so important for him), continues with Ai (#bestpartners, for both of whom Professor Agasa, the eternal child-inventor, is a safe haven where they can catch up on what they missed out on, Ai obviously much more so than Conan), reaches a really, really sweet high with Heiji (#bestbromance), a rather dissatisfying conclusion with his parents (who, and I cannot stress this enough, decide the best way to convince their traumatised son that his life is in danger is to point a literal gun (okay, it’s a pistol) at his face in disguise) and climaxes with Eisuke Hondo (at which point he is confident enough to proclaim who he is even while still in the form of a child (although that doesn’t make the context of the situation any less stupid (thus proving that he IS still a love-struck teenager at the end of the day))). tl;dr By being both the professional adult “Sleeping Kogoro”, as well as the cooky child “Conan Edogawa” at once, Shinichi can play with both facets of his teenage life until he reaches a level of stability that allows him to integrate the child mind into his adult mind - and that will be the point at which he’ll be able to fully become (not just temporarily play the role of) Shinichi Kudo.

PS: It is also interesting to compare Ai’s and Shinichi’s approaches to being stuck in their childhood selves. Shinichi, not as scarred and slowly building up a network of people he trusts, is eager to move on and begs Ai to give him the temporary antidote as often as he can - he WANTS to grow up and be a grown-up so badly. There is so much (Ran) waiting for him there.

Ai, on the other hand, is much more cautious and warns him not to jump the gun. To her, much more scarred and still rather alone, this is an invaluable second shot at life and she is as careful with it as she humanly can, constantly worrying and on the look-out that someone could drag her back to the prison of responsibilities and obligations. That’s why it was SUCH a pivotal moment for her when she used and realised the use of her adult form when she saved the Detective Boys from the fire. She, too, is slowly connecting the two halves of herself but I suspect that it’ll take her an entire childhood to do so. (Also, interestingly, as an INTJ, she puts down her roots in a very different way from Conan. She cherishes her new relationships and protects them fiercely, but the real signs of her settling down ever-so-slowly is her growing willingness to reconstruct her internal moral system (Fi) and to acquire and find security in material possessions (Se), like her designer handbags and her little football-man-phone-strap.)

[n7inky-fanfics]

One Day at a Time

The destruction of the Reapers did not mean galactic peace. While the treaties Shepard had brokered during the war remain mostly intact, there is no shortage of pirates, criminals, gangs, and terroristic organizations bent on creating chaos and destruction. The Council began directing their Spectres towards overseeing and protecting reconstruction efforts and maintaining peace. Now that scientists are close to unlocking the key to repairing the mass relays, the galaxy has settled into unease. No one knows if crime will get better or worse with the relays back online. All factions are getting agitated, and more fighting is breaking out.

Sometimes, Kaidan pities the poor soul on the wrong end of Shepard's gun. More than once, he has heard all sorts of people shout something along the lines of "Oh shit, it's Shepard!" as they realized they were about to die. Shepard is a skilled soldier who dominates the battlefield with equal parts strength and grace. Fighting alongside her can be almost beautiful in an odd and violent sort of way, especially when she used her biotics. It took her almost a year of practice fighting on her military grade prosthetic leg, but she has now found that grace on the battlefield again. In the end, her skills and her career could not be taken by the Reaper War. The galaxy kept its greatest protector.

Today, they are both back on Mars, of all places, fighting a remnant of Cerberus that is attempting to steal more data from the archives. If intel is correct, their goal is to find weapons they can use "for the betterment of humanity", which is their way of saying anti-alien terrorism. Kaidan does have to admit that some part of him enjoys taking down pieces of Cerberus. After all the horrible things he's seen them do, including all that they have put Shepard through, he's glad to eliminate every last cell in the galaxy. It's a worthy career goal.

As the smoke clears, Shepard begins checking the bodies for data pads, hoping to find anything to indicate how many of them are at the archives and what their exact plans are. After all, if this was just an outdoor lookout team, there's bound to be more already inside. She freezes as she reads one of the data pads. Kaidan can barely see her face through her helmet, but her reaction to the data pad can't be good. "Shepard, what is it?"

She clears her throat and says calmly "It's not pertinent to the mission. Let's move on." She drops the data pad and continues towards the entrance. Kaidan trusts Shepard, but curiosity gets the better of him and he glances down at the data pad as he passes by. It currently displays the owner's profile. He can see an image that he guesses matches the body they found it on and a name. "Andrew Mason".

As they enter the archive, they happily find a distinct lack of civilian and scientist casualties. This time, intel learned of the plan early and decided to evacuate the scientists and ship in more soldiers. Unfortunately, Cerberus still puts up a good fight and many of the Alliance soldiers were injured or killed before the Spectres arrived (travel between systems takes more time now that the relays are gone). Shepard hops on to the nearest terminal and accesses the system logs. "Ah, here it is. Someone opened an archive five minutes ago. We can take the tram there."

"Perfect. Maybe this time we'll make it through without getting shot at." Immediately after making the joke, Kaidan winces at the realization that bringing up their last mission on Mars might not be a good idea. Sure, they've worked everything out, but it still could be a touchy subject. He was pretty cruel to her last time, before he almost died in front of her.

"Doubtful." Shepard laughs lightly as they board the tram.

They ride quietly for a moment before Kaidan asks "So, will I get to know who Andrew Mason is?"

"Maybe later. Now's not the time."

"Fair." Kaidan says. He smiles at her, hoping she can see it through the helmet. His is much more open and visually blocks less of the face. Shepard's preferred gear usually allows less visibility, but it also has fewer structural weak points. He noticed a change in her treatment of her armor not too long after he got back on the Normandy, but he's never said anything. Without asking, he already knows why Shepard chooses armor with the most reinforced environment system, and why she carefully and almost obsessively maintains it. He would, too, in her shoes.

He refocuses himself on the task at hand as they begin approaching their destination. They've almost made it when a Cerberus soldier begins firing at the car. They both take cover behind the wall and the dance begins yet again. As the car docks, Shepard throws up a barrier and runs out, shooting at several men in a row as she charges to cover. Kaidan focuses on the heavy trooper slowly approaching from a distance and Reaves. Together, they feed off each other's energy. The can move in sync, watching each other's sixes and supporting each other throughout the entire battle. Before long, the docking zone falls silent as the battle ends.

They take turns clearing doors until they finally get to the archive. They take cover on either side of the door. He opens it carefully, and Shepard immediately swings around to cover him with her pistol. The immediate entryway is surprisingly empty. Shepard gestures for him to follow, then slowly and quietly moves inside the room until they reach a sharp turn. She takes cover against the wall and peers around the corner, gun at the ready. As soon as she does, she is thrown backwards by a large biotic force. Her gun fires before she even hits the wall. Kaidan swings around and unleashes a singularity that pulls the target into the air. Shepard fires again, making several headshots that eventually pierce the armor and hit their mark.

"Thanks for the cover, Alenko." She says, her smile coming through in the sound of her voice. She pats him on the back and pushes further into the room, where the target had been collecting data onto a drive. She plugs the data into her omnitool and runs it through analysis softwares. Liara would be able to tell them more, but it appears that intel was correct. They had been here for advanced weapons blueprints. Shepard begins forwarding the information back to the Normandy, then turns to head back to the LZ. Kaidan follows her.

Getting back to the Normandy and conferencing with Admiral Hackett is no big deal. After the verbal debriefing, they retire to her cabin to write their mission reports. Kaidan's ship, the SSV London (named for the Battle of London that ended the Reaper War), is still getting it's final touches before he'll be able to take it out on a shakedown run, so he rode along with Shepard for this mission and their last several. As they settle into the couch with their tea and data pads, he can't help but smile. This is a good life, one he hadn't expected to attain. Every day, sometimes several times a day, he still finds himself thankful that they had found Shepard after the Crucible. When the Alliance had formally declared her missing in action, with the caveat that she was most likely dead, Kaidan refused to lay down and wait for them to declare her death. He contacted Hackett with an emergency QEC on the Normandy and told him that until they found a body, Shepard was to be considered alive and in need of assistance. They all owed that to her. Seeing her here and now, living her life with him, is something he is grateful for every day.

As Kaidan is putting the final touches on his report, Shepard sets her data pad on the table and walks to her shower, stripping off articles of clothing as she goes. He fumbles over the keyboard, leaving a line of text that reads "ghdhshgdg" as he watches her go. Knowing that he's watching, she calls "finish your report first, and then you can join me." He deletes the line of typos, hurriedly wraps up the report, and follows her for an enjoyable interlude.

Their activities eventually end with them cuddling in her bed. She lay with her head resting gently on his chest, her hand absentmindedly rubbing circles on through his chest hair. He has one arm around her back and gently brushing strokes down her upper arm. He can feel her back subtly rise and fall with her breath. They lay this way for a while before he feels a slight dampness on his chest, where her head is. "Hazel, are you okay?" he asks, looking down at her. Her face is buried in him. She stifles a sob, and he feels the shift in her breathing as she forces herself to cry silently. He wraps his arms around her tighter. "Sweetheart, whatever it is, I've got you." Slowly, she pulls herself back and looks at him. He reaches up to her and gently wipes the tears from her cheeks. She pulls herself into a sitting position against the headboard, and he follows so that they are sitting side by side.

She leans her head on his shoulder and quietly says "You asked about Andrew Mason?"

"Yeah. Do you want to talk about it?"

"I knew him... from before the Alliance." she ends the sentence at barely a whisper. Her shoulders tense and she looks down at the floor. "He was one of the younger kids in the Reds before I left." He gently reaches for her hand and takes it in his as she continues. "I heard he'd gotten out, that he'd joined the Alliance some time after my death. I had hoped he'd do well and go far, but it didn't work that way. I checked his records when we got back to the ship. His team got ambushed by some pirates about seven months before the Reapers invaded. He was discharged honorably for medical reasons, for PTSD. I guess that's when Cerberus got to him."

"Hazel, I'm so sorry." he says.

"The hell of it is that I can see myself in that kid. In what he came from, in his escape. What if I somehow influenced his decision to leave like that? How many kids joined after hearing fantastical stories about my life, only to be swooped up by Cerberus when the Alliance didn't live up to their expectations or to die in battle before they got the chance to reconsider?"

"Hey, stop that. It's not your fault, Hazel."

"How many people died because of me? Will continue to die because of me? Because I failed?" Her voice cracks and she lets out a shuddering breath.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Backup. Failed at what?"

"I couldn't save them all. I can never save them all."

"Hazel, stop. Look at me." He gently places his hand under her chin and guides her to look at him. "You are not responsible for every person in the galaxy. You've spent far too much of your life fighting galactic wars practically on your own. Enough is enough. We stopped the Reapers. Now, we just do what we can to make things a little better. One day at a time, okay?"

She nods and he pulls her into a tight embrace. "One day at a time." She sniffles.

[softbiker]

Bucky Barnes Oneshot

Warnings: a couple of bad words

Word Count: 3.6k

Summary: After being injured on a mission, Bucky winds up spending a day with the Avengers newest recruit. Bucky x Reader

A/N: This is my submission for @nacho-bucky ‘s writing challenge! My prompt was ‘the smell of freshly baked bread’. As a side note, I drank a whole pot of coffee yesterday and wrote this in one afternoon, so it’s also unedited :) As always, let me know what you think! 

By the time the quinjet is an hour out from New York, Bucky Barnes is in an irredeemably foul mood.

Breaking up terror cells in Germany was supposed to be an easy mission - in and out, with the practiced ease of their well-oiled strike team. Really, they took the mission to spare German special forces the trouble...that, and a potential connection to an old Red Room contact of Natasha’s. With their “dream team” (Sam’s words, not Bucky’s) of Cap, Bucky, Sam, and Natasha, this should have been a light op, a scrimmage, Nerf ball.

Turns out superheroing is a contact sport, and they’ve got the bombs and broken ribs to prove it. A train station, a decoy, and an explosive device Natasha failed to disarm. With Sam coordinating civilian evacuation, there had only been a couple dozen injuries, but the suspect had slipped away, leaving them bruised and empty-handed.

Bucky had taken a brutal hit as he pulled Nat to safety, and now he is curled in his seat on the jet, metal hand holding his ribcage. He watches Steve scowl in the cockpit, jaw unflinchingly tight as he goes over the mission in his head. The captain doesn’t know how to let things go - never has, never will. Sam is actually piloting the quinjet, making unreturned small talk about a basketball game he went to last weekend. Natasha sits across from Bucky, a Stark tablet in her hands, dissecting bomb schematics and diagrams of diffusion techniques. There’s a little scab of dried blood on her bottom lip that she pokes at with her tongue, red brows lowered in concentration.

Bucky is exhausted - his hair smells like dust and smoke, his mouth is tangy and dry. There’s dried sweat underneath his uniform and he itches and his feet are hot in his boots and his ribs really fucking hurt. He lets his head fall back against the seat, and wishes they were home already.

**********

She pops her head up over the back of the couch when she hears them. What a sight they make: Bucky, propped up on Steve’s shoulder, Natasha dust-covered and buried in her tablet, Sam still sweaty and tugging at the harness on his suit. She still smiles, tentative but kind.

“Hi guys.” She lifts her fingers in a little wave. “Everyone okay?”

Bucky grunts in response; Natasha says nothing, making a beeline for her room and a shower. Sam, without doubt the most talkative person on the team, props himself on a stool and blows a harsh breath past his lips.

“We’re alright, yeah,” he sighed. “Barnes is a little beat up but he’ll get over it - he’s just  dramatic.”

“Fuck you, too, Wilson.” Bucky flips Sam off over his shoulder as they hobble towards the elevators.

She winces, not yet used to their harsh banter.

“Hey man, be nice in front of the rookie, alright?” Sam hollers, mock-offended. “You’re creating a hostile work environment!”

Steve chuckles a little at that, jostling Bucky’s tender ribs, which makes him scowl at his best friend.

“Bucky is a hostile work environment,” Steve deadpans. They’ve reached the elevator, and shuffle inside, turning to face the common room. Bucky catches the rookie’s eyes as she giggles behind her hand.

“She’s fine,” he rolls his eyes, sparing a wink for the rookie. “When I make it hostile, bird brain, you’ll know.”

The elevator doors close, and he leans on Steve a little heavier, and jabs his elbow into Steve’s stomach.

“Thanks a lot for that, by the way,” he huffs.

“What?” Steve feigns innocence, and very poorly. “Didn’t know you were so worried about making a good impression on the rookie.”

“I’m - I’m not.”

“Uh huh.”

“Shut up.”

They meet Dr. Banner in the medical wing where his lab adjoins the clinic; Sam had messaged him half an hour ago that they were inbound with a broken supersoldier, and Bruce had taken the liberty of setting up some of his supplies. Of all the doctors on staff, Bucky favored Dr. Banner - he was mild and soft-spoken enough to not trigger Bucky’s anxiety, in spite of the needles and IV drips and the snapping of latex gloves.

An X-ray and some bandages later, Bucky is removed from the active duty list for two weeks.

“Even with your advanced healing factor, I wanna be careful with this,” Bruce says, taking off his glasses to scratch the side of his nose. “I mean, your medical history is a little blurry, to say the least - and with all the shit HYDRA pulled, who knows what kind of stress your bones have been through before.” He taps away on his tablet, notifying FRIDAY and the admin system to remove Bucky from the roster. “In the meantime, take it easy - no missions, no training, no lifting weights. Probably avoid the motorcycle, too. I’ll check on them again in two weeks, and we’ll go from there.”

Steve is nodding - he never leaves Bucky by himself in medical - and crosses his arms. Neither of them have changed out of their uniforms yet, and in this sterile observation room, Bucky can finally smell the layers of grime and sweat clinging to them. His nose wrinkles when he gets a little whiff of himself, feeling bad for the nurse who bandaged his ribs.

“Oh I almost forgot -” Bruce turns around and reaches for something on his lab bench. A little blue bottle, full of round white pills. “Here. I developed these for the two of you - since you metabolize normal painkillers so quickly, I figured we might need something that would work in the event you sustain heavy injuries which…well, seemed likely. Take 2 every 4 hours, okay?”

His metal fingers grip the little bottle, rattling the tablets inside.

“Sure thing, doc.”

**********

She lifts the hem of her shirt, wiping at the sweat on her forehead, and leans against the wall of the gym. Her breath comes in short pants as her chest heaves, trying to cool down from her last bout with Agent Romanoff.

“Heads up.”

Her hands barely make it up in time to catch the flying water bottle headed for her face.

“Good catch,” Romanoff smirks a little. She’s sweating, too, but in a way that’s decidedly more sexy, little red curls hanging by her face. She looks fresh from a Pilates class, not a suicide workout - the rookie can feel the heat of her own face, the sweat drenching her clothes, and knows she’s not nearly as glowing as her trainer.

“You did really good today,” Romanoff continues. She keeps saying to call her “Natasha” but that is so hard to do with a woman so intimidating her alias is one of the world’s deadliest animals. “Really good. You’ve shown tons of improvement since we started. I’m going to recommend we start letting you shadow on missions in a couple more weeks.”

“Wow, really?” Her face lit up in spite of her exhaustion.

“Sure.” Natasha smiles. “I know it’s gotten a little boring, having you go through all of this.”

“Boring” was an understatement. Despite having a few years of experience under her belt - well, according to Tony Stark, vigilantism barely counts as “experience” - the rookie was assigned to a training program for her first couple of months on the team.

“Too much of a risk to put you in the field right away,” Stark had rattled off, handing her forms to sign and an official t-shirt (‘Look Mom! I’m an Avenger!’) and a tablet with a map of the compound. “Legal says we can avoid liability issues with a training program before we gradually phase you in, and I’m inclined to agree, so! Welcome to the team, but not officially!”

Her days consisted of early morning workouts, followed by combat and tactical training with Black Widow herself, and then...well, not much. There was research, of course, and she stayed on top of the intelligence briefings with the rest of the team. She went to meetings and official dinners and unofficial karaoke nights, but the rest of her time was mostly her own. Frankly, she was chomping at the bit to get back out there, in the action. Helping people.

“Well, hopefully it’ll pay off,” she sighs, giving Agent Romanoff an exhausted smile. “I wouldn’t want to be the weak link on the team.”

“You won’t be, believe me,” Natasha shakes her head. With a glance at her watch, she picks up her own water bottle and heads for the door. “Now I’ve gotta run, Skype meeting with Fury in 5. I’ll see you later, Rookie!”

**********

Bucky Barnes was feeling good.

Like, damn good.

Like, ‘Banner should label his controlled substances’ good.

Thing is, post-HYDRA and post-fugitive and post-cognitive reconstruction therapy, Bucky was more mentally okay than he had been in decades. He had the occasional rough day, and he definitely wasn’t perfect by any means, but with the shrinks that Stark had on retainer, he was getting better at dealing with it all. His physical health, however, was more of a moving target. In spite of receiving a bastardized supersoldier serum, he had been pumped full of so much other shit and gone through so much physical stress that his body had fundamentally shifted equilibrium. Multiple appointments with Dr. Cho and Shuri revealed that his chronic pain may never fully heal - if it did, it would be a very gradual process. Normal painkillers in reasonable doses did nothing for him, so Bucky settled in to his discomfort, carrying it the way he carried his knives and his scars - always.

24 hours into his medical leave, a few doses of pills down, and he couldn’t feel a single ounce of pain in his body - he shifted his awareness to each part of himself, like that guided meditation thing Wanda did sometimes, and he couldn’t find the pain, not even lurking behind the muscle and metal. He might be a little miffed at being off the active duty roster, but if his whole vacation is going to feel like this? Well, he doesn’t mind to let Steve handle the next threat to world peace.

With his schedule suddenly wide open, Bucky wonders what he’ll do with his day. He can’t remember the last time he truly had nothing to do - it’s an exciting prospect. So he lets himself ease through his morning, sleeping in, long hot shower, slipping on those plush Black Widow pajama pants Nat gave him as a gag gift. He knows everyone else will have had their breakfast and moved on to morning briefings and training drills by now, and he wanders down to the kitchen in the hopes that they’ve left him some coffee.

He sees her there, perched on a stool at the island and frowning at the tablet in her hand. There’s a little scrunch to her nose when she does that, he notices.

“Good morning,” he says softly, trying and failing not to startle her.

“Oh, hey Bucky,” she smiles, watches him round the island to the coffee pot on the counter. “I didn’t see you there.”

“S’okay. I’m quiet.”

“You didn’t get tapped for the recovery mission? They’re going after your suspect from Berlin again, I think.”

“Oh, I’m off missions for two weeks.” He turns, giant ‘Don’t forget to be awesome’ mug gripped in his metal hand. “Banner’s orders. You didn’t hear about my smashed ribs?”

“Oh no, I guess not - are you okay?” Suddenly she’s concerned, and a little sheepish. “Sorry, I’m still a little out of the loop I guess.”

He feels guilty for that - she’s eager, bright, kind, a brilliant recruit. But it can take a while before you’re ‘in’ with the team. Not because they exclude her, but, well - a group made up of outsiders has a hard time adding new faces to the mix.

“Don’t apologize. Not your fault.” Bucky digs around in a jar on the counter for a few sugar packets, dumping them into his mug. “Anyways, I’m off the roster for now. Gotta figure out something to do with myself, I guess.”

Her smile is slow, ducked under pretty lashes - he really needs to stop noticing these things.

“Would you - I mean, you can hang out with me if you want?” She chews on her lip. “I’m done for today - my training with Natasha ended early and they didn’t need me in on the briefing so…”

The rookie was lonely - he could see that, anyone could. The fact is, between their own training and missions, it had been a little hard for the team to spend very much time with her. Bucky himself was often a bit of a loner in his free time, preferring to hole up in his room with books and movies rather than go out for drinks or another karaoke night. And yet, he found himself feeling eager at the thought of spending a relaxing day with the new recruit, getting to know her a little, hearing that funny little laugh through her nose.

“Sounds great, Rookie - what did ya have in mind?”

**********

“Okay, I just wanna go on the record and say I called it. I called it!” She’s grinning. “I knew you would love this.”

“Well, hey, in my defense, I’ve never hated beautiful women.”

She just rolls her eyes, kicks her feet out to rest on the coffee table in front of them. There’s a pile of DVD’s, all hers, laying across the surface, picked through and ranked in order of what was most important for Bucky to see. His film education was obviously lacking, considering he missed out on 70 years of movies, and didn’t even know what he liked anymore, so he was content to let her pick. After raiding the kitchen for an array of snacks, they settled in, opposite ends of the same couch with a bowl of popcorn and dark chocolate M&M’s between them.

Approximately 20 minutes into the movie, Steve appears, just passing through for an apple from the fridge. He stops in his tracks behind the couch, the crunch of the fruit in his mouth just above their heads.

“What is this?” he says around his mouthful. If his Ma could see him now, Bucky thinks.

“It’s called ‘How to Marry a Millionaire’ - came out in 1953,” she answers, smiling over her shoulder at him. “It’s one of my favorites honestly.”

“That’s - that’s Lauren Bacall!” Steve perks up, smacking Bucky’s shoulder.

“Yeah, punk,” Bucky rolls his eyes. “Betty Grable’s in it, too.”

“No shit!” Steve is grinning now, and he gives the rookie a conspiratorial look. “Y’know, Bucky used to have her pin-up poster. The one in the white bathing suit? Had it in his suitcase when he shipped out.”

“Oh, really?” She’s looking at him now, eyes sparkling at the rosy blush climbing up Bucky’s cheeks. “Betty Grable, huh?”

He clears his throat. “Well, everybody had that picture, I mean...it’s famous for a reason. All the boys had ‘em.”

“No, no, I get that,” she shrugs. “I just had you pegged as more the Rita Hayworth type, that’s all.”

It takes him back for a second, Steve too, that she knows these starlets, that they could’ve been having this same conversation 75 years ago. He can see that look in Steve’s eyes, sly and knowing as they slide towards him. Bucky works his mouth, tries to control his smile.

“Well, nothing wrong with her either,” he drawls, spreading his arms along the back of the couch. “But did you see Grable’s legs?”

“I just thought you might’ve had a thing for redheads!” she laughs.

“They’re alright, I guess - now Dugan on the other hand…”

Neither of them notices Steve leave the room, tossing the apple in his hand and a huge dopey grin on his face.

**********

“Tell me again what the recipe says?”

“One cup of pumpkin puree.”

“Oh - shit, I thought you said one can.”

She smacks her forehead. “No wonder the batter is so goopy!” She rolls her eyes playfully. “You’re trying to ruin my bread, Barnes.”

“I swear I’m not, doll - it was an accident.”

“Okay, new plan - we just make a double batch since the can has two cups in it.”

She shuffles around behind him, grabbing her flour and sugar and sour cream and other ingredients, hands flurrying to measure and fix the dough. It’s mid-afternoon now, a couple of movies down, and they (she) decided they needed to get in the fall spirit by baking a ridiculous amount of...breads. The banana bread is already in the oven, the pumpkin will be on its way as soon as she fixes his mistake, and a blueberry bread (made from muffin mix) is next on the list.

“But...what’s so special about making it into breads?” He had asked, causing her to look at him like an idiot.

“Ask me that again after you try them, Bucky.”

So he shut up and cracked eggs and sifted flour, stirring when her arm got tired. He was already regretting his words now that the smell of the banana bread was drifting towards him from the ovens, and he had to admit the pumpkin and cinnamon from her bowl was making his stomach growl. With all the bowls and measuring cups laying around, they were making enough sweet breads to feed an army, but hey - the Avengers are practically a small army of their own. And besides, Bucky intends on taking an entire loaf - baker’s privilege.

He decides that he likes watching her work, bouncing around the kitchen, some oldies playlist on the speakers, her tongue poking out between her lips. She’s got her sweater sleeves pushed up over her elbows - he had to help with that, after she got dough on them. This song is good, too, and he wants to ask her who wrote it-

“Are you gonna stand there staring at me, or are you gonna help?” she quips over her shoulder. He has no idea when he last smiled so much.

“You’re the boss, Rookie.”

**********

She’s got her feet in his lap now, and they haven’t said a word in an hour, and Bucky doesn’t even remember taking his last dose or two of his pain pills but he doesn’t feel a goddamn thing.

There’s a huge book in her lap, Stephen King - a favorite, he’s learned.

“I read at least one of his books every year in October,” she tells him. “You know, to get ready for spooky season.”

“Spooky season? What the hell is that?”

“You know, Halloween time!” she smacks his arm. “It’s Halloween first, Buck, you gotta get in the spirit.”

“I’m -” he sputters, face drawn in the most adorably confused look. “Halloween first?”

She hands him a book of his own and now here they are - he’s 20 pages into The Shining, but he’s stopped paying attention because she’s yawning behind her book and her eyes are fluttering shut, and it shouldn’t be as distracting as it is.

He forces his eyes down to his own page, to Jack Torrance and haunted hotels, but they’re drawn back up when her book finally drops the rest of the way to her lap. Her head slumps sideways onto the back of the couch, mouth open just a little. He draws the blanket down around her feet and tucks it in a little tighter, but other than that, doesn’t move a muscle. He’s just fine right here, thank you.

He’s sinking in again, driving up the twisting mountain road to the Overlook, when his phone buzzes in his pocket. Carefully - in the way highly trained superspies can be careful - he lifts his hips up and pulls his phone from his pocket, managing not to dislodge her feet or wake her up. She merely sighs in her sleep, nuzzling her face into the couch pillow. A text notification from team group message lights up the screen.

It’s Natasha. A photo, a photo which she somehow managed to take without him knowing, of him and the rookie, practically snuggling on the couch and reading together. Her legs are propped over his lap, and Bucky’s eyes are staring straight at her over the top of his book. Nat has captioned the photo: “looks like Barnes found a good nurse.”

He snorts a little. Natalia. Glances up at her, still sleeping, and tilts his phone upwards a few degrees and snaps a picture to send back.

“She sleeps on the job” he types, thumbs still slow on the phone keyboard. Instantly, his phone starts buzzing with more texts from the team, but he mutes it and lays his phone on the coffee table. He doesn’t feel like talking now. Well, talking to them.

“Hey...Rookie,” he whispers, reaching out and shaking her shoulder a little. She hums in her sleep, but makes no other move.

“Rookie, I gotta ask you something.” He wiggles her leg a little, shaking her feet in his lap, and whispers her name. He’s rewarded with her eyes fluttering open, her mouth drawn down in a pout at being woken up.

“Whatisit,” she sighs, still slumped into the cushions. He clears his throat. Here goes nothing.

“So, there’s a charity gala for the Stark Foundation coming up next weekend,” he starts bravely. “And - and the whole team is going anyway, so I know you’re gonna be there, but - well, maybe you would consider going...with me?” Courage runs out, and his brain backpedals. “I mean, just as a friend?”

She huffs. “I can’t believe you woke me up for that.”

“Oh.” He looks down, hair falling in his eyes. “So...you don’t want to go with me?”

“Of course I’ll go with you, Barnes,” she sighs. “Now shush. I was napping”

His face hurts from the stretch in his cheeks when he smiles. He’s gonna give Bruce those pain meds back.

[simonalkenmayer]

Is there truth to 'history repeats itself'?

How long have you been here? Not long. Or you’d witness history repeating in the asking of that question.

Yes, it does. With new permutations every time. It’s called hysteresis. The pendulum swings. Humans get angry, it goes back the other way, they respond, and back and forth, moving slightly to one side with every swing. But let’s also say the pendulum is on a stand, and it’s never ending circle actually looks more like a series of interlocking rings. I’ve been watching a long time. Long enough to see quite a few arcs and the aftermath as it emerges.

I saw the Great Depression coming. Saw the economic collapse me of the 80’s, 2008. Watched you go from colonizing slave owners to red hat wearing sad white men who get angry on talk radio. Watched it flow from kingdoms and vassals to a middle class, to a world of billionaires and inherited forever-wealth. I’ve watched you explore and recoil and then burn things down, only to lament their absence. It shifts, in new ways. Always moving one degree away.

People compare this time period to Nazi Germany, but that’s because it is a very obvious arc. Many things fell apart and were remade, and it all centered on hatred, which was very different from how many of the world’s events had been moving. There are groups who have always been mistreated, I am not denying that, but that was one of the first times in a world of global communication and travel that hatred became systemic and so on display. Full view. Live on television. So to you it’s huge. And it was, because again, it was the first time all the events of the world were visible at once. For the first time, all the competing, localized pendulums went silent and change was had globally.

But that was again, the global arc. Within the city of the world, there are little neighborhoods of short, little homes to ideas that impact others. Slavery, to the reconstruction, to Jim Crow and segregation, to civil rights, and then the backswing. Democracy to socialism to communism and the fascists and back again.

The larger pattern of your repetition is an easy one to see. It’s the sketch of your inability to reconcile your base instincts for self preservation, with the magnanimity of high thought.

A small example: you are genetically evolved to want to eat, but you learned the world was difficult. So when you have a good food cycle going, animals, farms, you want to keep it. You don’t want another person having what’s yours, but you also know you don’t like it when people don’t share with you. What’s to be done? You can create an entire system of superstitious beliefs that regulate the behavior of your people and enforce sharing, or you can make it law, or you can vilify the people you think are trying to take your food. Or...if you’re a smart, cunning, greedy villain with a strong ego and a weak soul, you can find a way to make religion, law, and popular opinion all move in your favor. If you do a good enough job, it will outlast you, and eventually it will become so well-engrained it won’t even need to be regulated by anyone. It will just self-sustain. Perpetual motion.

All the little arcs of time are writing out this pattern. Confusion, leads to fear, leads to hate, leads to anger and at the risk of sounding like Yoda, manitu falls into a cycle of darkness. Bravery rises. People fight back. They begin something new. It promises much. Real change occurs in increments, and then inevitably you break down into the narciccism of small differences and let your shoes lead you back to the dark path.

However! There is more awareness now than there has ever been, and for that you can thank global communication. It is less and less possible to remain insulated without extreme work. And yet it is easier and easier to find vulnerable people to turn. What will happen now is either a global pursuit of etiquette online, or a complete breakdown of communication and massive war. What we see now is the hysteresis. The pivot, the tipping point. We’ve seemingly reached a moment when the pendulum has swung very far one way, and we are building the momentum to swing it back. One hopes.

We will see how it happens.

[brokenjardaantech]

captain allen appreciation week 2020 day 1 + 7: vacation + acceptance

notes:

i combined day 1 & 7 as they happen to be the theme of the same story. it's also a prequel to a fic that i haven't written a word yet.

a little bit background since i think things can be confusing:

allen's full name is Louis White Allen. his dad's french and his mom american, though he's raised in alaska. his sister, anna allen, is a commissioned officer in the air force. the siblings speaks both english and french fluently.

sara ryder replaces elijah kamski as the inventor of androids.

this fic is set in september 2038, about a month after connor was first deployed at the phillips' hostage situation.

tags: griefing, family issues, brief mentions of childhood neglect and parentification

ao3 link if that’s what you prefer

-----

To this day, Lou's heart hammers when he sees a call from the military. Last time he received one was ten years ago, and he ended up with more questions than answers, answers that he knows he and his father very likely will not get in their lifetime. Staring at his phone vibrating on the coffee table, Lou debates whether to induce his cats' wrath - one sleeping on his lap and the other he hasn't stopped petting since they finished dinner - by standing up and interrupting their naps. It's not like he's at his full mobility anyways; his cybernetics still needs about half an hour to sync with his nervous system properly and to download the newest software. Whoever the fuck is in charge of calling the family of a soldier who went AWOL in Göttingen can wait.

It seems that the universe has other plans, as the air suddenly becomes charged with static and the phone launches itself towards Lou's chest. The tip of his fingers are numb, a common occurrence after his and his sister's unexplainable outbursts, but he manages to catch the phone before it hits his chest or, heaven forbids, his cat, who is startled awake and promptly returns to sleep after her favourite bed has no intention to move.

He accepts the call. 'Allen speaking. I don't think I have family members in the military anymore.'

'I don't know how many of yours are with us,' the voice from the other end lacks the robotic quality of an android's, so it seems the military is still using humans to contact family members, 'but this concerns your mother, Commander Deborah White. You're the only next of kin we can reach, Mister Allen.'

Lou does sigh. Just as he thinks he can leave her behind after all these years... 'What about her?' Not that he feels strongly that she was gone, as she wasn't quite there for her family to begin with, but something about a Commander going missing on the flagship of a fleet always sits wrong with him; as poor of a mother Deborah White was, a woman with her service record didn't deserve to simply vanish. 'I thought she went MIA more than twenty years ago.'

'She was until a few hours ago. I wish I can break it to you more gently but... we found her. Her remains, at least.'

The beat of his heart suddenly becomes too overwhelming. The air swells with the familiar buzz of static, and it takes all of Lou's self-control to not break everything in the living room with a shattering hazard. There is also the urge to hang up, to pretend that this is just one of those weird dreams he never can remember the details of, because he doesn't need to be burdened with a closure; he wasn't close enough to her to want that, he tells himself. Knowing that she's gone is enough. However, 'How?' is what he says in the end. He closes his eyes, free hand buried in his cat's fur, trying to convince himself that he is doing this for his father.

'Your mother's bones were found in a sealed compartment in the USS Blue Ridge when we were scrapping her. She must've been sitting there for years. Her skull indicates that -'

'Thanks, but I don't think I need to know that,' Lou swallows, willing himself to not think of the implication of an intact skull. It would've been a horrible way to die, sitting in cold seawater for days, feeling her skin rot away before dying of starvation; he'd rather her snap her neck upon impact and go painlessly. 'Anything more?'

'Yes. How would you like to deal with the body?'

Something tickles Lou's chin. When he opens his eyes, he finds the third cat trying to squeeze himself onto his already-occupied lap and purring as if having sensed the human's distress and wanting to soothe him. He recalls how his mother joked that she would probably die at sea and his father's reluctant acceptance of the entire affair; Papa's resignation after he received the news, saying, 'At least she got what she wanted.'

'She spent most of her life at sea,' he replies. No need to rub salt on his father's wounds. 'Let her rest there as well.'

'Very well. If you wish to, a memorial will be held in two months' time. Families of other deceased will attend. You may find support there.'

Support my ass, Lou thinks. It's been twenty-something fucking years. Yet, for some reason, he still promises that he'll consider going before hanging up. His finger hovers over his father's contact afterwards, but remembering that it's midnight in France and that he has a month worth of leave accumulated, he opens his browser instead and starts searching for plane tickets.

----

A month later, Lou finds himself in the commune of Gâvres with a large backpack on his shoulder and missing his cats very dearly. They aren't even his cats, technically; his neighbours keep them as outdoor cats, and Lou, unable to stand the thought of them suffering out in the winter cold of Detroit, took them in, and now they spend more time at his than at their original owners'. Having dropped them off at Hank's - that man takes better care of his pet (now pets) than himself - Lou isn't worried - he doubts his neighbours will even notice that their cats are gone. Emotions are terrible things, however, and the purpose of this trip alone makes it different from all the time he has visited his father before. At least he hasn't just recovered from nearly dying from implant rejection this time.

'Louis?'

Lou turns when he hears his father's voice and the awkward weight reminds him that he hasn't taken off his backpack yet and has been standing in the living room of his father's house staring at nothing for the past few minutes. Not waiting for his son to take it off, Papa Allen crosses the room and embraces Lou, sweat and all. 'How are you?' he asks in French, and when Lou answers truthfully in the same language, 'I missed you,' somehow everything in the world goes right again. Fuck the deviant crisis, fuck the android-infested America that makes his nerves buzz every single waking moment, fuck absent mothers still managing to make a comeback years after she died. He's just Louis Allen, absolutely not a SWAT captain, not the only survivor of the Blast, not the pioneer/guinea pig of CyberLife's groundbreaking cybernetics technology.

He has to let go of his father. 'I hope it's okay. What I did with Mom.'

Papa sighs. 'How about you take off that thing first,' indicating the backpack, 'and settle down for now.'

So Lou walks up the stairs and deposits his backpack in the room designated as his, and, catching sight of the other bed in the room, his legs suddenly feel weak, and he lowers himself, trembling, onto his mattress. Smart, fearless Anna, whose brain always runs - ran - a lot faster than the rest of the world.

Who graduated top of her class and as the Valedictorian of the academy, and subsequently disappeared without a trace.

His left leg twitches. The feeling of something foreign using his body returns, and when he leans forward - with a difficulty that wasn't there before - to take off his sock, it reveals white and grey chassis. A stark reminder that he owes her his life two times over despite her being the younger sibling.

‘How come I’m still alive?’ was the first question he asked after he regained his voice. ‘Ryder threw a fucking building on me.’

‘I dug you out, Lulu,’ replied Anna. ‘Freaky glowy telekinesis finally has its use. I was hungry for hours afterwards.’

At that moment, Lou made the mistake of looking down and seeing his pure white leg. ‘What the hell happened to my leg?’

‘CyberLife’s newest tech.’ As if to demonstrate how he should use his new leg, she gave his feet a poke, and Lou nearly screamed from the sensation. He did not expect to feel anything at all, but apart from the looks, the leg felt...real. ‘Fucking building crushed half your pelvis, your entire left leg and a rib. It’s already minced when I uncovered you, so they need to rebuild everything from scratch. I asked them to add something that can help you control the telekinesis better as well, so we’ll need to test it out later. No more randomly exploding shit. And before you ask, yes, your junk’s unharmed.’

Lou’s coma-addled brain struggled to process the influx of information, and all he got was, ‘I should’ve died.’

Anna hit the break to what seemed to be the beginning of a technical jargon-filled rant. ‘Well yes,’ she gestured just like the meme, ‘but you lived.’

‘No one survives after being crushed by a building, Anna,’ he said, voice rising. Then he asked in French since English felt too raw, ‘Exactly how much tech is in me right now? And how long was I out for? Why did CyberLife choose me?’

She looked away.

‘Anna?’

‘I don’t fucking know, okay?’ she replied in the same language. ‘You were on the brink of death when I dug you out, and there Ryder was, offering to save your life for no cost. You were in a medically-induced coma for one month and was out for reconstruction for another. It took your body two weeks to get used to the cybernetics and...here you are.’

‘Ryder offered,’ Lou said slowly, ‘to save me? As in Sara Ryder?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anna, she was the one who threw the building on me!’

‘I know. One more reason to let her save you.’

‘But you did it anyway.’

‘I did.’

‘Even though you know it’ll probably come back to bite our asses.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘You know the answer, Lulu.’

And Lou has stopped denying that he does a few years ago. Anna joined the Air Force to fly, to be closer to the sky, but he knows that it wasn’t enough; from the way she turned her eyes towards the aurora when they were young, the attention she paid towards all news related to space observation and exploration, to the talks about leaving the wasteland that is known as earth behind and finding a new home in the cosmos - Anna belongs to the abyss of space. The military was simply a stepping stone towards something greater, a greatness that she must be working towards somewhere on this god-forsaken piece of rock.

The place where Lou’s flesh meets his implants aches in anticipation of the storm that will no doubt force them to remain indoors for days. Grinding his teeth in the numbing pain, he uses his hands to put his non-functional left leg onto the bed and lies down sideways with his back towards his sister’s bed, his phone buzzing in his pocket to notify him of an unexpected software error that may take hours to fix. Switching on do-not-disturb, he shoves the offending piece of technology underneath his pillow and loses his fight against jet lag and pain.

----

Lou wakes up cold and hungry. He is covered by a blanket that wasn't there when he fell asleep, so his father must have checked on him when he realized that his son was doing more than putting down his luggage, and the dark sky outside the window almost brings him back again before it flashes.

Then the booming thunder reminds him that it isn't dusk at all.

He successfully rolls over on his other side, which means that his cybernetics are functional once more. Kicking the blanket away, he sits up and grimaces at the taste of his mouth.

He feels better after his regular morning rituals, though the lack of three furry friends harassing him and brushing against his feet is something that he'll need to get used to, and his father is cooking lunch when he reaches the kitchen.

'Morning, Louis,' Papa says as he hands the pan over to his son. 'What did they drag you through to have you sleep for so long?'

Lou is glad that he can use concentrating on not burning his food as an excuse to buy himself a minute. Should he tell his father the truth, or should he avoid talking about work just like many people do during their vacation? 'Things are getting bad in Detroit,' he decides in the end as going on a vacation at one's father's house isn't exactly normal either. 'Androids are breaking their programming and starts having their own thoughts. CyberLife's trying to cover it up, but I've dealt with enough violent deviants - that's what they're calling those androids - to know it's gonna be a problem real soon if they don't solve it now.' A pause to think of how to continue. 'I'm glad you're not in America anymore.'

'It must be exhausting,' is his father's reply, and that's all Lou needs to realize that his father has no idea what he's talking about. Then again, the man moved back to France before androids were a thing, and although they kept in frequent contact, Lou never talked much about his work; the police getting reformed means that SWAT is deployed only when peace is not the option - that means seeing people get hurt or die constantly. Androids aren't really a thing in Europe, so his father never experienced the 'androids taking over everything and making everyone lose their jobs' shit. He won't understand.

'That's why I'm here.'

They lapse into silence as Lou finishes cooking and empties the content of the pan onto two plates. Never one for formality, Papa brings them to the living room, sitting at the corner of a couch while Lou retrieves his plate and fork and curls onto the window sill. At this proximity, he can feel the raindrops hitting the glass as if he is standing in the rain.

Papa clears his throat. 'About your mother, Louis.'

Lou tears his eyes away from the raindrop he's betting on to win. He hastily shoved some eggs into his mouth to buy himself some time to mentally prepare for the conversation. 'What now?'

What he actually says isn't what Lou expected. 'I'm glad about what you did with your mother's body.'

'Her skeleton, you mean,' he replies. 'What's left of it anyways. I don't think they found the whole set.'

'Still,' Papa isn't looking at him. 'That's what she would've wanted. And by I'm glad - I'm not opposed to it.'

'That's it?' Lou turns back towards the rain. 'That wasn't your reaction when they told you that she was MIA.'

'I was young - younger - back then,' a sigh. 'It wasn't fair to you. Or to Anna. Especially to Anna. I'm sorry.'

No it wasn't, Lou wants to say, but - 'I've made peace with it a long time ago. Mom, me and Anna, Alaska; that was all you knew. I... I don't blame you for it.'

He has to close his eyes and press his forehead against the glass. He considers switching to German to further detach his emotions, but then he realizes that nearly everything has fled his mind from disuse. Why does he think spending his vacation with his father right after they discovered that his mother might have died painfully a good idea?

'That's what I thought I'd react when you called me, you know?' Papa says. 'I thought I'd break down. Then I realized that I've moved on and... that's it. Hard not to after more than twenty years.' Even with his vision gone, Lou can still feel his father's gaze on him. 'You've done that for your mother. Have you, for Anna? It's been ten years.'

'Have you, Papa?' Lou asks instead of answering even though he knows his answer. 'Can you stand the thought of your daughter gone as well?'

'After your mother?' the father feeds himself a mouthful of food and swallows. 'Kind of have to.'

'Of course you did. I raised her, not you.'

That is the last thing he says to his father before the storm goes away.

----

Emotionally exhausted, Lou goes to sleep early despite waking up not ten hours ago.

He knows he’s dreaming as soon as he opens the door and discovers his childhood living room behind it. The room is dark, so the lights must have been switched off, and even though it feels like he has smacked his hand all over the wall it’s on, he still can’t find the switch. It does bring him closer to the window, outside where a storm is going on at full force and paints everything white, and although he knows that what he is seeing isn’t real, he dreads the upcoming and necessary shovelling.

The world is suddenly lit up from behind him, followed by the voice of Neil deGrasse Tyson and the clicks of a keyboard. When Lou turns, Anna is there sitting in front of the couch, her brother's homework scattered in a semi-circle around her, and an old, bulky laptop snug between her crossed legs. It should have been a normal day in their house in Anchorage had Anna been a child but not an adult, which is the form Dream Anna is appearing in - she is younger than him by nearly eight years.

‘Where’s the light switch?’ Lou asks, looking around for good measure. ‘As much as you enjoy Cosmos, a documentary about space isn’t sufficient lighting.’

‘Relax,’ says Anna. ‘Eye problems aren’t in our genes.’ Then, waving at the papers around her, ‘Everything’s done. Your teachers didn’t suspect a thing,’ she gets younger and younger following each syllable until her age makes sense, ‘but you asked me to do it on a separate piece of paper, so I did. Feel free to copy directly if you wish.’

That is when Lou realizes that she’s playing games on the notebook, something that looks like a simplified version of Temple Run but set in space. ‘No thanks,’ he says. ‘I’d like to keep the creases on my brain.’ Then he notices that his sister didn’t really answer his question, so he asks again, ‘How am I supposed to switch on the lights?’

‘With your phone,’ is the matter-of-fact reply. ‘Don’t tell me you uninstalled the fucking app for cat pictures.’

‘For one last time, Anna, I don’t download cat pictures.’ And it hits him. ‘Wait, phone? The house isn’t automated when you’re at this age.’

‘Is it?’

Anna stands up and stalks closer to her brother, and she grows and grows and grows until they’re off the same height and she looks... older, how she should look like if she’s alive she’s still here. She is now Major Anna White Allen of the United States Air Force, dressed smartly in her dress uniform except for her cap, which she holds in her right hand. Their surroundings have also changed to that of the Phillips' penthouse terrace, harsh wind whipping around them.

'You aren't real,' Lou breathes, feeling light-headed. ‘You - you’re gone. Just like Mom.’

‘Open your eyes, then. End this early if you want to. Forget that this ever happened. I don’t mind.’

It is followed by a terrifying moment of wakefulness, the images blurring and then regaining clarity as he stays asleep. ‘And Papa wants me to let you go,’ he says with a sad chuckle.

‘Why?’

‘We found what’s left Mom. How long do we need to wait to find what’s left of you?’

‘Why are you talking like I’m dead?’

‘Cause you probably are, like Mom?’

‘I know you think we’re alike,’ an eye roll, ‘but we’re different.’

‘Say you’re not dead. Where the hell are you?’

‘Does it matter?’

A blink. They’re floating in space, Anna dressed in some form of armor, and Lou in normal clothes. He attempts to draw a breath and wakes up choking and crying, the dream completely forgotten save for the faint image of Anna falling towards earth and getting burnt to crisps.

----

A few days later, Lou finds himself walking on the beach with his father. The sky is cloudy and the wind is strong, so it is cool even though it’s September and Lou grew up in Alaska. They started throwing questions back and forth ten minutes into their walk, some of them silly and simple and give them a good laugh, but the others -

‘Answer me honestly, Louis. Do you think Anna’s dead?’

It is easy. ‘No.’

‘Where do you think she is, then?’

Lou’s face suddenly becomes too hot to bear. ‘Does it matter?’

‘If it affects you, yes.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it. She wouldn’t want us to speculate.’

‘But she’s not here, is she? Maybe you’ll feel better after you say it out loud.’

Lou sighs, oh how the turntables… ‘In space, probably.’

‘You’d think we’ll hear about that.’

‘Secret space programs exist, Papa.’

‘Not in America.’

‘I never said it’s an American program,’ Lou says as he kicks a rock away. ‘Do you know what they said when I received the first call from the Air Force? They asked me if Anna has ties with other space agencies even though she’s never been in NASA; she just talked about other countries’ space programs so much that they suspected her having ties with them.’

‘Hmm.’

‘What does that even mean?’

‘You know you won’t see her again, right?’

Lou halts his steps. Anna? Gone forever? ‘Does it matter?’

Papa sighs. ‘You’re in denial, Louis. You didn’t do this with your mother.’

How dare he - ‘Of course I didn’t, she was barely there!’ he has to put a few steps between them. ‘I raised Anna! How do you think that’s even comparable?’

‘I simply don’t want you to live in uncertainty for the rest of your life.’

‘You just don’t know your daughter,’ he counters. ‘She told me she’ll come back.’

‘You know -’

‘You don’t know shit!’

He runs. His lungs and legs are strained when he gets home, his father’s home, but he doesn't stop at that. He packs his stuff (not that there’s much to put back into his backpack), jumps into his rental car, and is back in Brest before he knows what he’s doing. His return flight is next week, so he has a lot of time to kill.

In the end, he takes a trip around the country alone, going to places he both never had time for and, if he’s been there before, misses dearly. He may have forgotten what they’ve talked about, but he remembers Anna visiting him often. The images flee his mind whenever he tries to recall them, but he doesn’t think they’re talking on earth, and he always wishes that he at least remembers some of it.

A few months later, he’ll learn that his speculations are closer to the truth than he thinks. A few months later, Louis Allen will prove his father wrong.

But he doesn’t know that yet. Therefore, after collecting the cats from Hank and unpacking his luggage, he takes all of Anna’s things and puts them into a box, telling himself that it is the first step towards admitting that maybe, it’s a big fucking maybe, he will never see his sister again.

[justphilia]

There’s a definite chance I might not be writing this BUT

I had a detroit become human idea for a Mob Psycho fic, it’s pretty loose considering I had the idea while sitting in the back of a car and standing under the shower head.

There’s probably a chance I would be writing it but it’s kinda leaning to a “Nah, probably not”.

With that being said, I kinda don’t want to trash the idea as a whole without it meeting the light of day, so I’m gonna spill my ideas here so I can look back and think; “Wow. That’s shit.”

To add, this whole thing will sound more like babbling than an actual summary, so excuse me lmao.

Tsubomi doesn’t have any friends. But coming from a wealthy family, her parents decides to buy her a friend. Cue Shigeo/Mob. 

I had a funny model name for all the child androids ‘ESP(insert number, for Shigeo it’s 100)’ despite this being a no powers AU. Then I realized it probably wouldn’t fit because I am low key planning for all the espers to be androids and realized ‘Wow, ha ha, that’s a lot of androids’ so now SOME of the espers are androids.

Okay so fast forward and Tsubomi’s parents are thinking, “We should replace Shigeo, he’s kinda old fashioned now.”

“Mom we only had him for 4 years.”

“Exactly.”

But Tsubomi’s really attached to Mob because he’s her best friend, and doesn’t tell him he might be replaced until he finds out himself. He goes bat shit crazy and tries to kill himself and Tsubomi. Cue Serizawa, a cop android.

Serizawa calms my boy down and Shigeo’s like, “You’re right, I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m so--” bang. Tsubomi low key gets traumatized, Shigeo is bleeding blue on the floor.

We shift to the next scene where Shigeo wakes up on like a bed except it’s actually a table. Cue Reigen, he works at Cyberlife as a child therapist/repair worker. Actually, my man was suppose to be just a repair worker but he got promoted to child therapist for calming down a raging Teru.

“Kid, you remember anything?”

“I- Sorta? Where am I, am I gonna be killed?”

Reigen’s like sweating because he isn’t sure himself, Shigeo’s the first kid who tried to commit murder. But as they talked, Reigen’s kinda surprised to realize that Shigeo’s actually a really really sweet kid.

Shigeo asks how Tsubomi is doing and if she hates him. Reigen tells him she’s fine and she misses him. Which is the truth, but he doesn’t mention that Tsubomi did end up getting a replacement in fear of ticking Shigeo off. Cue Ritsu, the replacement android best friend.

There’s a sort of cell holding all the ‘defect’ child androids, like a little playroom but also an actual cell, and inside there’s: Gou, Rei, Takeshi, Daichi, Kaito and Teru.

Cue Teru, who is the only one who has a similar case to Shigeo; he punched a kid in the nose and sent him to the hospital, which made his mom very very pissed and sent him for repairs. Because of this, he’s enraged further and the staff can’t send him back unless his attitude changes to the “ideal son”.

Teru thinks being an android is a gift, he can’t die and he’s pretty much flawlessly shaped. When he meets Shigeo, he asks why he looks so plain, and it’s revealed it’s because Tsubomi didn’t want anything flashy.

And mostly because Shigeo’s an older model.

Each kid (except for Teru) had an actual defect to their system. Gou has somehow obtained a built in lighter function, which isn’t suppose to be there. Rei has the reconstruct and construct feature for unknown reasons. Takeshi is basically a walking magnet, except he doesn’t really know when it’s turned on or off (when it’s turned on, it’s strong enough to accidentally pull all the others towards him and it gets pretty annoying). Daichi and Kaito’s memory cloud keeps syncing with one another, which disrupts them from being able to remember the right things correctly (i.e Daichi gets Kaito’s memories and believes they are his own and vice versa).

The only reason they’re still stuck here is because they come from middle class families (except for Teru), so they’re way behind on the waiting list to get repaired.

Shigeo, on the other hand, came from a rich family, so he’d be out in no time. This makes Teru very mad, he states it isn’t fair that Shigeo gets to be let out sooner than them even though he just got here.

He tries to attack, but unfortunately for him, they’ve installed a software that prevents Teru from being able to kick and punch. Like a parental lock sorta? The same has been done to Shigeo.

Shigeo only makes Teru even more mad when he says he wishes he was human. If he wasn’t human, none of this would’ve happened, “Teru, if you were human, you wouldn’t be right here y’know? Your mom wouldn’t need to send a real human boy for repairs.”

And Teru is pissed because he knows Shigeo’s right. 

But being the cunning bitch he is, he smiles and pretends to accept Shigeo’s opinion, and he asks for a hug. Shigeo happily agrees and let’s Teru wrap an arm around him.

Then Teru squeezes.

“Teru, I can’t, you’re crushing- I can’t--”

“Oh, I know. If I break you enough, you’ll have to stay here with us even longer.”

Shigeo tries to retaliate, but due to the software, he’s unable to kick himself free. The rest tries to intervene, but Teru threatens them to stay back or he’ll squeeze harder.

“Can a human do this? Shigeo? Can they?”

Shigeo manages to break through the system and finally breaks free, he’s back in his aggressive mode and actually starts attacking.

He takes it too far when he rips Teru heart out.

Everyone is screaming at this point and Reigen’s rushing towards the cell like mad. Serizawa is there too, because he wanted to visit Shigeo to see how he’s doing.

“Why are you running?”

“Something bad is happening, I need to be there- Woah there buddy!” Serizawa picks Reigen up and surprises him. Then the android fucking bolts.

When Reigen finally reaches the cell and enters, he finds Shigeo on the ground, bleeding out once again, and Teru staring motionlessly at Shigeo.

“He...gave me his heart.”

Shigeo is sent to be repaired again and this time, he’s kept in a separate cell, because no one knows how he managed to break through their system. It’s almost impossible for a child -and not to mention an OLD- model to be able to do that.

While Reigen’s thinking in his office, cue Mitsuura, who says it’d be a shame for all those child models to lose their cool abilities. He jokes about just creating a child model meant to possess those abilities, like a tiny cop or something.

Cue Suzuki, no no, the other Suzuki. Mommy Suzuki. Except she’s a single lady who surrounds herself with Touichirou, the first ever android model made. That’s right, she’s head of Cyberlife.

She comes in, because she can’t sit still, and says, “Not a bad idea, man.”

Mitsuura has a fit and thanks the woman.

“So, about that old model that broke my parental control lock?” She turns to Reigen and he huffs, shrugging.

“I really don’t know, ma’am.”

She hums, definitely interested. Unlike the OG DBH, in this AU, they’re more lenient in the deviancy of androids because Suzuki believes they can have rights too. Except they don’t need to get paid, unless they want to? Honestly my idea for that aspect is low key fuzzy.

So anyways, Suzuki remembers Mitsuura’s idea and basically starts sketching out the draft. Cue Shou, who doesn’t exist yet but he’s in the making.

“Can you take the extra components of those child androids and keep them somewhere for later use? I’ll be needing them.”

“Ma’am, those androids are at the back of the waiting list, we can’t just--”

“Just do it.”

Cue Roshuuto, who seriously believes they should just kill Shigeo. “He’s too dangerous” blah blah blah SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Anyways, Reigen doesn’t want to do that because a) android or not, that’s a kid and b) You can’t make that decision and neither can I. Only Suzuki can.

Roshuuto sorta frowns, because everyone knows Suzuki plays favorites; and that favorite is Reigen. He’s the reason why Touichi now has a bit of sentience, before that android was pretty ruthless.

So if Reigen personally doesn’t want to get rid of Shigeo, then Suzuki would say the same too.

Meanwhile, Teru has been showing signs of positive improvement in attitude, there’s a speculation it might’ve been because Teru now has Shigeo’s heart, but that’s just dumb. That kid believes he just killed another android and he’s not sure how he feels about it, so he decides the least thing he could do was to be a better android.

Since Shigeo doesn’t share the same cell as them and nobody told them Shigeo survived, everyone in the playroom thinks Shigeo is dead.

Teru gets sent back after that, and the rest of the kids got their needed repairs.

Meanwhile, Shigeo and Reigen has daily consultation sessions, where they try to find the source of Shigeo’s issues. It takes about a month and Reigen hands Shigeo his cellphone number, saying if Shigeo ever needed him, Reigen would be there.

Shigeo gets sent back to the Takane’s family, because if he doesn’t, Tsubomi will throw a fit. She doesn’t do it often, but when she does, it’s ugly. It’s not like she’s spoiled, but when she strongly and firmly wants something, she’s determined enough to get it.

Originally, Ritsu was meant to be a direct replacement of Shigeo. He even had the bowl cut and everything, but Tsubomi’s intelligent and manages to figure out Ritsu’s a fake. She doesn’t get mad at him though, he doesn’t deserve it, instead she just befriends him too. Ritsu becomes a whole new person he wants to be, even mussed up his hair to look different.

So Shigeo meets Ritsu for the first time, and he’s sorta confused and upset, but Tsubomi got attached to Ritsu as well and refuses to leave him. Ritsu says he’s glad to finally meet Shigeo, because he has heard so much about him, and Shigeo decides he could like Ritsu.

I kinda stop making ideas from here, but I had a rough idea what happens next. Teru and Shigeo do meet again at some point, and Ritsu does meet Shou at some point too.

There will be background Serirei, and Shigeo does eventually grow a crush on Tsubomi and confession and oh no it went wrong. I think that’s when Shou makes his first appearance?

Because they think a child can calm another child down. It doesn’t work.

Nobody realizes Reigen’s probably the only thing that can help until the very very last minute.

So anyways, that’s the end of it. I don’t know what to do with this idea because now that I’ve spilled them all on the table, I kinda feel like writing it now. Though I already have two other projects planned, one being Nap’s birthday gift fic and another being a secret project that features Ritshou and amnesia, so it might be delayed to maybe June :(

[lisatelramor]

Be a Better Me Ch3

AN:I know having Kaito's robot self have more or less biological functions is a little weird. But someone, even Kaito, woulda noticed him not eating. Or bleeding. Or sleeping. So weird almost biology it is.

Chapter 3

Surprisingly it’s Hakuba, not Jii, who barges into the room first.

His hair is a mess and his sleeves are rolled to his elbows with stains on his shirt that can only be ‘blood’. There’s something fragile in his expression like he’s expecting to find Kaito on his deathbed and a deep relief when Kaito meets his eyes with an impassive stare.

“You’re okay,” Hakuba says.

“For a certain value of okay, sure,” Kaito says.

Hakuba scowls. “Don’t even start. You almost died in my arms.”

“I didn’t know you cared that much,” Kaito says, only half sarcastic.

“Of course I care,” Hakuba says. “I might want to arrest Kid, but I never would want to see you dead.”

“Funny,” Kaito says drily, “because that’s what an arrest would get me.”

Hakuba bites his lip, tense as a riled cat. Kaito half expects to be pounced on like a mouse, but Hakuba takes a breath and settles. “Are you in pain?”

“I have a leg that got vivisectioned and reconstructed, a bullet hole in my shoulder and a chest full of dented ribs,” Kaito says. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Hakuba says, “since I don’t know how much you feel in the first place.”

“What, the screaming didn’t make it clear?” It’s cruel to say that probably, and Hakuba goes grey-white, looking sick.

“Right,” he says. “That was a foolish question.”

“It hurts but not unbearably,” Kaito says, taking a bit of pity on him. “Like a deep bruise so long as I’m not moving. I don’t know if I’m on a painkiller or if my system’s just…filtering it out for the moment. I don’t know if I can even be affected by pain killers.”

“You can,” Hakuba says, still pale. “Some. The Professor—you can.”

“Ah.” Kaito doesn’t want to know what Hakuba saw. Well, he knows some of what he must have seen. “I haven’t taken anything since… I wasn’t sure.”

Hakuba swallows, shaking off horrors of Kaito in pieces. “You weren’t always like this,” he says.

“A robot? No.”

“When… How…?”

“Before you met me. As for the how… I can’t exactly say I get the science of it.”

Hakuba’s face pinches. “The whole time.”

“The whole time,” Kaito says tiredly. “I didn’t know for a long time, so don’t feel bad about not noticing. So far as I can tell, the whole point of…whatever it is I am was to mimic human life as close as possible.”

“You didn’t know.”

“Imagine my shock,” Kaito says, “when I found my own corpse.”

Hakuba pales impossibly further looking like he’s going to be sick. He sits heavily. “Corpse.”

“I have all the memories of Kuroba Kaito,” Kaito says as detached as he can make it. “Up to and including the moment of his kidnapping. I don’t have any memories of how he—I died.” He takes a breath. “The body’s in the basement of this building actually. His body. My body. However we’re framing it.”

“Why?” Hakuba asks horrified.

“Kuroba Kaito’s just fine,” Kaito says in a flat, dead tone. “He’s right there, going to school, living his life. Surely the body’s a mistake. It’s not like there could be two of him.” Or three. He still doesn’t know what happened to the remnants of the other robot. He doesn’t really want to look either. More honestly and openly he adds, “I don’t know what to do with it. Him. My mind says I’m him, but he’s dead and I’m not human so who the hell knows.”

Hakuba shakes his head.

“The person who made me and killed him is dead,” Kaito says. “There was another robot, a less…human… robot. It killed the doctor. Tried to kill me. I think something went wrong with its programming or maybe it wasn’t meant to mimic a human like I was. I don’t know. I know I don’t have skin that peels away or rockets in my elbows.” He sees skin peeling in his nightmares often enough.

“It feels like… there should be something…”

“To do?” Kaito gives him a cool stare. “There isn’t. There’s no justice here. There’s a corpse and there’s me, a poor replacement with a dead man’s face.” Doubly true with Kid.

Hakuba’s face twists. “You’re the only Kuroba I know. You said you didn’t even know the difference so how the hell does that make you a poor replacement?”

“Because I’m not him,” Kaito says, voice breaking, mask shattering. “You found me and you saved me, but why? The wires had to be obvious.”

“How could I not?” Hakuba says. “You were dying and aware and bleeding out in my arms, how could I not do everything to keep you alive? You might be mechanical, but you still have breath and a heartbeat and a sharp, human mind.”

“What does it say that a person can be reduced to numbers and code?”

“What does it say that emotions are just collections of chemicals and thought and memory just electric firing in the brain,” Hakuba shoots back.

“I took his place.”

“From what I can tell it sounds more like you keep him living on,” Hakuba says boldly.

Tears well up and Kaito stubbornly doesn’t shed them. “Why does everyone keep acting like I’m human?” he asks.

“In your mind are you any different?” Hakuba asks, like it’s a genuine question.

“I don’t know,” Kaito says feeling small. “I just know that physically I am.”

“Well,” Hakuba says, “I for one can’t believe a mere robot could possibly outthink the entire Japanese police force.”

Kaito snorts bitterly. “Like bots haven’t been beating humans in strategy for ages. Chess masters weep. Try again.”

“Fine,” Hakuba says. “I don’t think a robot would cry from fear and pain and express terror over dying. Or do magic tricks just to see Aoko-chan smile. Or give a damn about whether it can run circles around the Japanese police force, but we both know you have an ego that loves to be satisfied doing just that. You’re as human as can be given the circumstances.” Hakuba boldly sets a hand on Kaito’s good shoulder and Kaito stares at the point of contact. “Regardless of how your current existence started, you’re as alive as I am so far as I can tell, Kuroba-kun.”

It’s profoundly weird to be touched by Hakuba’s words, but Kaito is. It’s almost like they’re friends at the moment, not rivals. Kaito has to look away. “Thank you for not letting me die,” he says after a moment.

“There wasn’t any other choice I would have made,” Hakuba says seriously.

There’s a cough from the door, Jii standing there with a phone in hand and a tense expression. Hakuba looks at him and draws back.

“I should go,” he says. “Now that I know you’re going to survive.” He nods to Jii and walks toward the door, and a tiny part of Kaito wonders if he’ll go looking for Kaito’s body or not.

But that’s not really something important. Hakuba seeing it or not can’t bring back the dead. Jii takes Hakuba’s place at Kaito’s bedside with a sigh and slow, heavy movements that make him look every bit as old as he is.

“You’re not arresting me?” Kaito calls after Hakuba.

Hakuba glances back with the familiar expression of disdain on his face. “Kuroba, if I catch and arrest you, it’s not going to be because you’re bleeding out and vulnerable.” Like it’s obvious that he won’t take advantage of what he knows and yet also isn’t going to stop chasing Kaito. Kaito blinks. Well, Hakuba always has had his own system of honor. Kaito can’t say he understands it though.

He waves and leaves and Kaito looks at Jii to see him watching Hakuba vanish with a conflicted expression.

“Jii?”

Jii shakes his head. “I’m glad you’re okay,” Jii says quietly. “I should have been there last night, ready for anything that went wrong.”

“I’m the one that told you I’d be fine on my own,” Kaito says. “And they hit me six blocks from the heist, it’s not like we were expecting that.”

“Still. I should have been there for you.” Jii passes a hand down his face. He’s old enough to be Kaito’s grandfather, looks every year of that age, worn down and exhausted. “I spoke with your mother.”

“Oh.” Kaito tries to curl into himself but can’t and so just hunches his good shoulder and ducks his chin.

“You didn’t talk with her.”

“I… I meant to eventually.”

“Kaito-bocchama,” Jii sighs, a reprimand and exasperated care all in one.

“It’s not really something to bring up over a phone call,” Kaito says. “I was hoping…” Chikage hadn’t visited in months. When he was sixteen she’d come back every other month for a week or so, but since he turned seventeen… It was a conversation he’d hoped to have in person, or perhaps never at all if it could be avoided, no matter how much it was a needed conversation.

“She’s coming home,” Jii says tiredly.

“For Kaito,” Kaito says, meaning the real Kaito.

“For both of you,” Jii says. “You could use your mother’s support.”

There’s no point in protesting that she isn’t really his mother. Kaito just nods. “Is she… Will there be a burial for him?”

“It’s too soon to say.”

They can’t just keep Kaito in a glass box, forever preserved like some messed up Snow White tribute. It’s not what he’d have wanted. It’s not what Kaito wants. He’s not sure what he does want, but leaving his body in a box like a specimen isn’t it.

“The Hakuba boy has a surprising amount of medical and chemical knowledge,” Jii says after a moment. “There were some things he cleared up from the doctor’s notes last night. He might be able to understand them better than Hiroshi-san.”

“Are you suggesting making Hakuba a proper ally?” Kaito asks with brittle humor. “Hakuba. Hakuba whose father’s the head of Tokyo’s police forces Hakuba.”

“Hakuba-kun isn’t his father,” Jii says, “and he’s proven to care enough to ignore the legal scope of right or wrong.” He sighs again. “Kaito-bocchama, the fact of the matter is neither Hiroshi-san nor myself is an expert in this field, and you’re likely going to need more than what our knowledge can provide long term.”

“Hakuba,” Kaito stresses.

“If he’s willing you might as well take advantage of it. Otherwise we’ll have to start looking elsewhere and it’s harder to be sure who you can trust.”

Trust Hakuba or trust a stranger? Well, irritatingly, it’s pretty clear who he’s more likely to trust. It’s some kind of cosmic irony. The world, Kaito’s learning, seems to have a sick sense of humor or he wouldn’t exist at all.

It’s a scary thought though, the idea of handing over what made this body work and letting Hakuba study it. It might be more trust than he can give to anyone. With Jii he didn’t have much of a choice.  “I’ll think about it,” he says.

o*O*o

It takes three days—an astonishingly fast time—for Kaito be up and walking again. In part this fast recovery is thanks to the fact that he doesn’t actually have to heal a bone; a bonus for metal bones he guesses. But on the other hand, the internal healing is taking time. The Professor had tried to explain his understanding of how Kaito’s bio-mechanical processes worked—the synthetic blood, tissue, and skin all having a self-replicating and repair process to keep him operational without needs for frequent major repairs. The technicalities go in one ear and out the other, and Kaito will have to do a lot of reading to get a better idea of how his own body works.

In the time Kaito’s stuck at the Professor’s home, Hakuba visits every day, somehow managing to be far less abrasive than normal, and maybe even verging on friendly. It’s kind of creepy and Kaito will be relieved to get on with their usual bickering banter the moment Hakuba gets over whatever weird combo of guilt and pity he seems to have for Kaito at the moment.

Most of his visits also lead to him studying Kaito though, so maybe Hakuba’s just got science on the brain instead of detective-ing. It had been more than a bit uncomfortable to have him on his knees, examining Kaito’s leg and knee joint.

Kaito’s still not sure if it was because it was Hakuba doing it, or if it’s the implications of having someone on their knees at his feet that was the bigger discomfort, and he’s not going to examine that too closely. The last thing he wants to do is find out how this body might differ on hormonal levels. He’s spent this long pushing those sorts of thought out of his head, he can keep doing that.

His leg’s in a light cast, just to ensure that everything heals up correctly, and Kaito’s already finding it obnoxious. He’s broken bones before, but every time it’s a hassle to deal with. He hobbles in circles on crutches, resigning himself to a week of this at least probably, knowing it could be a lot worse.

Most of all he just wants to go home. No offense to the Professor, but he misses his house and his bed and his doves. He’s always hated being a guest and he wasn’t exactly an invited one this time.

There’s a soft knock on the door to the guest room Kaito’s using and he sighs. Probably Agasa again. He keeps double checking Kaito’s healing and Kaito gets it, really, it’s all experimental and new, but it’s annoying and he’s vibrating out of his skin with how he can’t even literally climb the walls.

“Come in,” he says, less graciously than he should considering he is, of course, a guest. But if Agasa had a problem with Kaito’s attitude he could take it up with Jii because Kaito’s been through so many emotional rollercoaster moments lately he’s done. Just done.

There’s silence and Kaito glances up from trying to see if he could get the crutch to work more comfortably with his still healing shoulder and looks straight into familiar blue eyes. “Kaa-san,” he says numbly.

She stares, doesn’t come closer to hug him or say anything and Kaito remembers; he’s not her son.

“…I didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” Kaito says to break the silence.

“I’d have been here sooner if I could,” she says. There’s nothing in her voice to let on what she’s thinking and Kaito can’t remember ever seeing her so closed off. It’s her version of Toichi’s poker face and it’s an iron wall.

The silence stretches and the guilt rises back up in his gut. “I… should have said something as soon as I re—”

“What did we do for your last birthday?” Chikage asks, cutting him off.

Kaito blinks. “We… went out to dinner with Aoko to that Korean barbecue place. We shared bulgogi and you took me to get a tailored suit because you said it was a good time to have nice formal wear that actually fit.” She’s almost cried because he looked so much like his dad when he was younger.

“When did you lose your first tooth?” Chikage says, showing no reaction.

“When I was six and a half,” Kaito says immediately. “I lost both my front teeth because I messed up a flip and landed on my face.” It had hurt and he’d cried, terrified that he’d lost them for good until his mom explained he was going to lose them anyway. They hadn’t even been very loose, just starting to wiggle. “I drank from the gap with a straw until they started to grow back in.”

Something in Chikage’s shoulders loosens, but her face still remains a wall. “Why are you afraid of fish?”

Kaito flinches, instinctively trying not to remember one of his childhood traumas. “C-can I not answer that? F-finny things are evil and whoever created koi ponds is a sadist.”

“And what wat your first magic trick?”

“Vanishing coin,” Kaito says. “Only I had trouble with it so Oyaji had to show me about four different ways to do it before I was able to get one I could make work. Of course then I had to get all of them right over the next month.”

Chikage closes her eyes and lets out a slow sigh. “Kaito.”

“Yes?”

She shakes her head. “No, you don’t understand. You’re still Kaito.”

He realizes she was testing him. Testing how close to Kaito he was and he curls in on himself. “I’m what’s left of him.”

She shakes her head again, but finally crosses the room to pull him into her arms. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Kaito asks, off balance and vulnerable, feeling like a child in her arms. He has the memories but technically he’s never been a child. Or, well, technically he isn’t even a year old yet.

“I wasn’t here when you needed me,” she says. “You’ve always been so self-sufficient that I forget sometimes you’re not an adult yet.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“Well you’re my kid, and I haven’t been a very good mother.” She holds him a bit tighter. “I’m going to try to do better.”

“But I’m not your Kaito,” Kaito says.

“You’re not,” she says and it’s almost a relief to hear it even as it hurts, for someone to acknowledge that he isn’t the same. “But I’ll mourn him in my own time and you’re him in every other way that matters. You’re not a replacement,” Chikage whispers, voice shaking, “but you are a part of him.”

“Have you seen…?”

“No. I wanted to see you first.”

And make sure he really is her son, in a way. Kaito closes his eyes. He can feel her shake, crying silently, but he makes no effort to move from the embrace. He needs this too. This is a situation where there is no winner. Her son is dead, and there’s an identical false copy in his place, like Kid pulling of a jewel heist. Kaito just isn’t sure what his flaws are yet, apart from the physical, that mark him out as the fake. He’s lucky that they seem to love him anyway.

Chikage pulls away, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. “Thank you. I know it’s been you I’ve talked with for months now, but…”

“You had to be sure,” Kaito says, understanding.

Chikage nods. “Are you well enough to come home or are you still under observation?”

Kaito pouts. “I think I’m fine, but Jii and the Professor want to do another day of tests just to make sure my leg is healing right.”

“Jii mentioned it was bad.”

“Well, they replaced the fibula in my leg and had to fix all the connections and my knee joint so…”

She looks a little paler, glancing at his walking cast with new understanding. “You shouldn’t be walking at all.”

“I don’t heal like a human does,” Kaito says with a grimace. “It’s…faster. You’d think I wouldn’t need to heal at all but the bastard that built this apparently liked realism.”

“That’s probably for the better,” Chikage says after a moment. “If you functioned too differently…”

He’d what, stop feeling human? Kaito’s already there, feeling like some unholy science experiment most of the time instead of a robot, but that’s honestly not really better. He’s not going to say that to his mother though. If he was a little more robot he’d hurt less, probably feel less… and possibly end up exactly like the other robot. Shit. Okay, yeah, maybe the realism is for the best.

“Jii said you haven’t had lunch yet,” Chikage cuts into his thoughts, “and that it’s important that you do.”

Kaito grimaces again. “Yeah. Funnily enough, my system processes food for fuel just like a human’s. It’s no wonder I never noticed anything was different. But they have me on a weird diet because apparently the fake skin and all,” he gestures at his leg, “it can self-repair, but it needs certain building blocks to do it. If I see another kale protein shake I am going to throw it at them.”

Chikage laughs, wiping the last of her grief from her face. “I’ll have to see if I can put together something that tastes better.”

“Please. Also I haven’t had sugar in days. I’m having withdrawal.”

“…Can you get withdrawal?”

“I have no idea, but I’m craving chocolate like crazy.”

She snorts. “You always have liked chocolate.” Her hip bumps his good side gently, like the times growing up when he helped in the kitchen. “I’ll see what I can do.”

While Chikage works her magic in the kitchen with help of the Professor and Jii, Kaito gives in to the restlessness and hobbles back and forth around the wide open living area. The Professor, for all he’s an inventor and scientist, seems to also be a bit of a mystery and romance geek. He has a collection of hard-bound novels on a bookcase, and while there’s a few science books in the mix, most of it’s fiction.

Kaito would like to be playing with a deck of cards, or spending some quality time with his doves, but since his cards were ruined along with his Kid suit and he doesn’t have any of his birds on hand, a novel isn’t the worst way to pass time. Although Kaito’s never been a huge mystery fan. He wrinkles his nose at the Sherlock Holmes collector’s edition. Hakuba’d like that.

Kaito has just started in on a romance instead—very tasteful cover full of wistful stares and absolutely no nudity—when his mom wanders out of the kitchen with a blender full of something that looks chocolatey. Jii follows with his hands full of kale like he expects Kaito to choke that down raw. Gross.

“Well, I couldn’t get a concession on the shake, but this will taste a lot better,” Chikage says with a grin. “Plus, chocolate.”

“Heck yeah,” Kaito says.

“You really should,” Jii starts, but Kaito’s mother waves him off.

“One meal isn’t going to hurt.”

So Kaito puts down the book, hobbles over to get a glass, and that’s when the front door opens without even a knock, and a child wanders in with a scowl behind oversized, thick rimmed glasses.

“Hakase, I need a breath of sanity and some help with the watch,” the child says, not looking up as he kicks off shoes like he lives here. “It keeps sticking when… I…” He catches sight of the group standing in the hall between the kitchen and living room. His eyes flick from Chikage’s pitcher, to Jii’s handful of kale and land on Kaito’s crutches, following up to his face where the gaze freezes. “What the hell?”

“Well,” Kaito says, “that’s the first time an elementary student’s sworn at me.”

“Aoko-chan swore at you all the time,” Chikage corrects.

“That was when we were both in elementary school. There’s a difference.”

“Hakase?” the child calls a bit louder, uncertain.

The Professor bustles out of the kitchen. “Ah, S-Conan-kun, I didn’t know you were coming over!”

“What’s going on?” Conan asks. Kaito realizes this is the kid he saw from the Professor’s roof that one time. Clearly he’s pretty close to Agasa, but it’s not like Agasa’s going to go around spilling secrets to a six year old.

Agasa looks between Conan and Kaito’s group. “Ah, I have a few guests at the moment, Conan-kun, and I’m doing some work as a favor for a friend.”

“A friend,” Conan says, his shock turning sharper.

Kaito shivers as those eyes pass over him again. It’s like he’s being dissected by a laser beam, and Conan’s weirdly interested in his face.

“Yes.” Agasa laughs awkwardly. “Jii Kounosuke is an old friend, and the others are…”

“More or less his extended family,” Chikage cuts in cheerfully. She glanced Conan over. “He looks just like you did when you were that age, Kai-chan,” she says. “Well, a bit neater than you ever were.”

“Are you saying I was a slob?”

“Kaito, honey, your hair has never laid flat a day in your life. Add that to your tumbling and getting into trouble…”

Kaito scowls. The kid looks like someone stuffed him into nice clothes like they’re trying to make him a mini adult, what with the blue suit jacket and tiny bow tie and how his hair’s carefully combed. Can’t help having a cowlick though. And those shorts… What a dorky sense of style. Conan catches him looking and scowls right back. Defensive little guy.

“Who are they anyway?” the kid asks, his voice tilting up like he’s trying to sound younger than he looks, which kind of fails with his entire body language, but Kaito’s not going to be the one to give him acting lessons. It probably works on some people, but that’s because a lot of adults barely look twice at children. “He looks a lot like…”

“Ah, this is Kuroba Chikage and her son Kaito,” Agasa says. “And that’s Edogawa Conan. He’s—”

“Related to the Kudos isn’t he?” Chikage says, looking at Conan intently. “He looks so much like their son Shinichi did as a child.”

Conan blinks rapidly. “Uh. Shinichi-nii-san is my cousin,” he says. “Wait, Kuroba as in the magician Kuroba Toichi?”

Chikage grins. “Exactly the one. You remember Yukiko don’t you, Kaito?” she asks tilting her head in Kaito’s direction.

“Uh.” Yukiko, Yukiko… He had a vague recollection of an actress and a smiling woman with ringlets in her light brown hair. “Not well.”

Chikage pats him on the shoulder. “You were five, so I’m not too surprised. You were such a charmer, giving her a flower and everything.”

The memory comes into focus, handing off a flower to a beaming woman because his father had said that’s what you do when you met a pretty girl; you were polite and gave them flowers to leave a good first impression. He’d done the same to Aoko not long after too. “Oh yeah.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet a relative of theirs at any rate,” Chikage says. She finally hands Kaito a glass of protein shake and he almost fumbles it before holding it with his bad arm and keeping his good one for the crutch.

“Yeah,” Conan says, flicking Kaito yet another look.

“Is it the injuries?” Kaito jokes, “because I assure you it’s normally my charisma drawing attention.”

It’s both hilarious and cute how Conan’s nose wrinkles for a split second before he covers it up again—definitely needs acting lessons—and shrugs. “You just look a lot like Shinichi-nii-san.”

Chikage laughs. “They would wouldn’t they?” she says, and Kaito doesn’t get the joke really, but fine. There’s apparently a guy running around with a face that could be his own. At least this time it’s not another murder-bot so he’ll take it.

Of course, face doubles make him think of the corpse downstairs, and that’s… Yeah. Yeah, no, not thinking too close about that. At least this double must be running around alive and well he supposes.

Well as interesting as being confronted by a child half his size is, Kaito has other things to be doing. Namely eating, sitting, and trying to convince his mom and Jii to take him home. “Right,” Kaito says. “We were going to have lunch, but that’s taken care of.” He mock toasts with his glass as much as he can with his arm in a sling. “It looks like you need to talk, so we’ll be in the kitchen.”

Conan shuffles like he’s feeling a little guilty for barging in, but it’s not like he interrupted anything actually important. However he’s feeling, it isn’t enough to keep him from gripping the Professor’s sleeve and pulling him off to have a private conversation.

Kaito sinks into a kitchen chair and takes a sip of his shake. Mm, chocolate. “This tastes ten times better than what they’ve been feeding me.

“It’s not nearly as healthy,” Jii says with a sigh.

“You know, you absorb more nutrients when you enjoy what you eat,” Kaito shoots back. Humans did anyway. But since there's no way of knowing if that applies to him, he’s just going to claim that factoid as valid.

Jii sighs like he’s the victim. It’s not even his taste buds.

Chikage snorts and pours herself her own glass. “He’s always been picky,” she says to Jii.

“I’m not picky.”

“You cut most seafood out of your diet and you live in Japan.”

“I’ll eat ffff—seafood,” he grumbles. “But only the kind I like. Shrimp and crabs and clams are fine. And it’s not like I boycott anything that has finny things as an ingredient, it’s just the less it resembles them the better.”

“See?” she says to Jii. “Picky.”

Kaito rolls his eyes. The chocolate shake, whatever else is in it aside, helps. Sitting here with his mom helps. He hadn’t realized how much he missed her actually being there, but it’s calming. Even though he knows it doesn’t work that way, having a parent present makes him feel a bit more like things are going to be okay. Like somehow Chikage will fix things even though he knows full well that’s not how it works. She can’t just sweep in and fix the Kaito downstairs or make Kaito actually human. She can’t wipe away any new traumas either. Couldn’t when Toichi died, can’t now. Parents aren’t all powerful and don’t have all the answers. But it’s pretty nice to let her take over being the adult for the moment.

He’s tired.

The last swallow of shake is rich on his tongue. He could probably pick apart what’s in it, but he’d rather enjoy it. Especially because life keeps reminding him how fleeting the good moments are lately.

“So, could I go home if I promise to let Hakuba look me over every twelve hours or something? Pretty sure I’m not going to fall apart at this point.”

Jii looks heavenward like he’s asking for patience. Chikage pats Kaito’s shoulder. “One more night,” she says. “I’ll talk to Agasa-san about what we can do to keep track of how you’re doing at home.” Her smile slips a bit. “I have a few arrangements to make before we move you anyway.”

“Ah.” Right… “Do you want me to come with you to…?”

She shakes her head. “I’d like a bit of privacy if that’s okay.”

“Yeah.” Kaito looks at the empty glass in his hand. “He’s your son so…”

Jii coughs softly and takes their glasses to wash them and Chikage stands to go face her dead son. She gives Kaito a wan smile and he wishes he could keep her from going and looking. She needs to look, but if it haunts Kaito, it’s definitely going to haunt his mother.

Kaito flees for the roof for lack of better places to go. He takes the romance book with him but he kind of doubts he’ll end up reading it.

It’s another beautiful day. It feels like the weather should reflect such heavy things like dead sons and imperfect copies, but nature doesn’t care what the piddly beings scrambling around on the earth’s surface are experiencing, it just does what it always does.

He ends up pulling out his cracked cell phone, now with a strip of clear tape across its front to keep from breaking worse until he can get a new one. There’s an unread message from Hakuba that goes on and on about the chemical properties of Kaito’s blood compound. Apparently Hakuba must have borrowed his grandfather’s lab space again. “So glad I’m providing you entertainment,” Kaito texts back sarcastically.

“You should know how your body works,” Hakuba sends almost immediately.  “I’ll be over tomorrow to go through more research notes.”

It’s Hakuba who’d eventually hacked into the doctor’s personal computer. Kaito doesn’t doubt that the facility upstairs had been full of even more detailed information, but there had been enough filed in the remains of the living area and foundry for everyone to work with. Agasa might have been able to use the synthetic blood from the chest freezer and patch Kaito’s skin with similar samples, but it’s Hakuba who’s intent on understanding how they work and can be reproduced. It’s just weird how Hakuba’s not hounding him about the Kid thing at all.

“I might go home tomorrow. I’m trying to make it today, but they’re not budging.”

“Kuroba, don’t be an idiot. Your leg is still in a delicate state and we still don’t know if the loose wire in your head he fixed was the only one.”

“Vision has been working normal and no brain problems here. Besides, my mom is here and she’s going to be watching closer than Jii probably.”

“It’s good for there to be another set of eyes,” is all that Hakuba sends back and Kaito scowls at the message.

There’s a few from Aoko, worried about him, but he’d made it sound like he had a bit of an accident and was fine but not really up for visitors. It would only work for so long, so that is another reason to return home. Kaito’s life is a mess these days. Just one lie after another.

Although… less lies at the moment than there have been. He wants to believe that’s a good thing, but less lies mean more people hurt with the knowledge that Kaito’s dead. It’s a tossup whether it’ll be a relief long term or just another problem.

[medeafive]

Blood and Stone - 12

Masterpost

"I'm not sure that's actionable," Pepper remarks. "We don't want to burn our source, after all."

"It's useless anyway if we don't know where they'll move," Fury states coldly. "So nothing changes. You'll keep observing Barrandov and once they pack up and leave, we'll start patrolling the entire city until we find them again. The other ones are located, yes?"

"Yes," Sharon confirms. "We'll pull back now in order not to make them suspicious, only check in once in a while that they're still there."

"Bílá Hora's under control," Natasha mutters. "That's what he said."

"Time's running out," Fury reminds them. "So, how is the ice block?"

"I don't know," Tony replies. "How are you?"

"Fuck off," Natasha hisses.

"I was talking to Fury," Tony replies graciously. "It turns out you can actually be a nice person, you just don't like us."

"Stop acting like fucking children," Fury interrupts. "Banner?"

Bruce rubs the dark circles under his eyes. "I don't know. I looked at the vampire blood and it's got some properties that… The frozen man might have not gotten frost damage, my colleagues might be right about that, but if we're going to thaw him, we'll need to reconstruct a lot of tissue. And maybe injecting him with vampire blood could do that. I might be colossally wrong, though."

"You'd turn him into a vampire," Fury states.

"Injecting vampire blood does not turn you into a vampire," Bruce replies. "That has been extensively studied, in Russia, ask Natasha. Only the poison bite. I looked at the poison and the blood and… it's not very scientific but think of a beehive. The vampire cells in the blood are workers, they can't reproduce, so they just do their job until they fall apart. The poison, though, has the bee queens. They keep churning out workers and new queen cells, and that never ends. So, if we inject him with vampire blood, the workers will repair his body and then die, leaving him a functioning and human body. I hope. Again, I'm at the very start of understanding this massively complex system, it might totally backfire."

"The guy also must have frozen really really quick," Tony adds. "So there would be no real cause of death. He's just frozen in time."

"Do we even know if it's a guy?" Pepper asks critically. "You can't really make that out, in the ice."

Tony snorts. "Well, if it's a woman, she's certainly very tall and has very broad shoulders, cupcake."

"But we have no idea who he is," Clint remarks.

"None," Fury confirms. "They fished him out off the coast of Norway. He was inside some sort of plane but the cold salt water has corroded that so badly they haven't figured it out yet."

"But you'd need a lot of vampire blood, right?" Sam asks. "For his whole body."

"Oh yeah." Bruce rubs his eyes again. "A lot."

"I don't think Natasha's friend will give us that," Tony comments. "Depending on how much she has him under her thumb."

Yeah, they're not even on good terms. "Not an option. I could get a little, probably, but not a lot ."

"What if we smoke out a hunting party?" Sam suggests. "The one near Central Station. Three vampires. I mean, the Castle won't be surprised that we're hunting them."

"We couldn't hit them with silver, though," Sharon objects. "Contaminates the blood."

"That's gonna be tough," Clint remarks. "Without our weapons."

"We can still break their bones," Natasha argues. "Snap their necks. Cut their heads off with anything that's not silver. Even if we can't fully kill them, we can incapacitate them enough that we can get their blood, and then we can drive a wooden stick through their hearts."

"You're vicious," Tony remarks. "Seriously, you want to bring live vampires into the lab?"

"I'm not comfortable with that," Bruce announces. "Also, the UV traps will burn them to a crisp, even if you drag them in here."

"Turn them off for a short while," Sam suggests. "We're not going to be overrun because of that. And collecting the blood outside the lab is just not possible, we don't have the equipment for that."

"True," Bruce admits. "Maybe we could… cordon a part off for that."

"So," Fury states. "A raid."

"We are a lot of people," Clint admits. "Only three vampires, even if they're trained. It's doable."

"We were going to do it sooner or later anyway," Pepper reminds them.

"Barton, Carter, you know all the exits, draw up a plan," Fury orders. "Everyone else, keep staking out Barrandov, even if it's pointless, keep up the appearances. Banner and Stark stay in the lab, of course."

"My… friend might stop by tonight," Natasha offers. "Not sure, though."

"Might?" Tony repeats. "I better fucking hope he does. I really need the X-ray. Yeah, yeah, it won't kill him, we checked."

"Well, then we're all good," Fury remarks. "Now, get the fuck to sleep, you all look like zombies."

  She sleeps late into the afternoon. Sharon is in the gym, boxing against a sandbag. She almost turns right around but has already been noticed. "Oh. Hey."

"Hey," Natasha replies unenthusiastically.

"I'm not that good in unarmed hand-to-hand," Sharon admits, punching the sandbag again. "So I thought I'd train a little. Did you sleep well?"

"No," Natasha confesses. "Bunch of nightmares."

"Mhm." Sharon lowers her fists, breathing, sweat forming on her forehead. "I get those, too. I think every hunter does."

"Maybe," Natasha sort of agrees. "Uh, we could try sparring, if you want."

"Oh, sure." Sharon unwraps her hands. "You should get warmed up, though."

Natasha sighs, grabbing a jumping rope. "Right. Give me a minute."

"Mhm, sure." Sharon rolls her head slightly. "You didn't seem very happy this morning, if I may say so. Something with your friend?"

Natasha snorts, over the whipping sound. Yeah, how can she explain that. "I might have pissed him off again."

Sharon shrugs. "Happens, right? What was it about?"

She finds she doesn't want Sharon to view his involvement in their endeavor with suspicion. "I don't know. Just the- mixing of an interpersonal relationship and work, I guess. That always kills it."

"Quite the opposite, I'd say," Sharon disagrees. "He wouldn't be here if not for you, after all. You should be proud of that."

She's running out of breath, so she just bites her lip and says nothing, skipping over the rope. Sharon starts stretching, quietly. Someone's in the kitchen, frying something noisefully. Natasha stops, finding she kind of wants to talk. If it works for Pepper and Sharon and everyone else, really, why not for her? "I just- I don't know if- No, I guess that's too much."

"No, no, tell me," Sharon encourages. "Anything. Won't tell anyone else, promise."

Natasha sighs and goes to stuff the rope away, avoiding eye contact. "Maybe it's dumb but- what if he just wants sex?"

It's out, as cringy as it is. "Oh," Sharon remarks, pushing up and sweeping a fashionable escaped strand of hair back. "Oh. No, that's not dumb. Not at all. He's a vampire, after all."

Natasha snorts absent-mindedly. Right. "Maybe not all vampire."

"This job takes a lot," Sharon goes on. "Physically and mentally and- just, how it changes you. But there's gotta be limits. And sleeping with a vampire is one of those, I'd say."

Oh. Now she feels- every time she tries to do the same things as everyone else, the normal things, she ends up feeling bad about herself, like she's different, almost in human. "Forget about it."

"No, no, that's a totally real concern," Sharon interrupts. "You shouldn't feel that, just because he's helping us, that you have to do everything to keep him hooked. No one can ask that of you. Draw a line. And for him, just… just keep him at arm's length, as much as possible, without totally driving him away, of course."

Turns out Sharon is way more cynical than she looks. "No, really, forget about it. Come on, get in the ring."

Natasha holds the ropes up for her. "I'm glad you're talking to me, though," Sharon remarks, climbing through. "So, what are we doing?"

Natasha shrugs, feeling more comfortable. "Dunno. You have some training, right? Not a total beginner?" Sharon nods. "Okay, then let's just go. Hit me."

Sharon breathes deeply, taking a fighting stance. She strikes out with a hit and a kick, but Natasha grabs her leg, pulls it up and throws her down. Sharon hits the ground hard. Natasha doesn't waste time, moving to side control, pinning her opponent to the ground from the side of her torso, applying weight to her chest, slamming her chin up so that she can't bite- oh, tapping out. Shit. She gets up quickly. "Oh, sorry. You okay?"

"Yeah," Sharon rasps out, rubbing her jaw. "Wow, you really don't pull your punches."

"Habit," Natasha admits, pulling her up. "Vampire's way stronger, way faster, can't take any chances."

"No, you're right," Sharon agrees. "Did you do that a lot?"

Natasha shrugs. "In the beginning, when we didn't yet know what would work… we just broke them down, physically, incapacitate them, then cut off their head, burn them, all that. Wasn't very refined. Didn't have good tools either."

"Sounds brutal," Sharon remarks.

"Certainly," Natasha confirms. "Wanna go on?"

"Oh yeah," Sharon says. "Don't wanna get eaten by vampires after all."

  "Uh, hey," Natasha remarks. "Can I ask you something weird?"

"Great start," Sam comments, licking his finger. "Why, what is it?"

"Do you think I should pray?" Natasha asks, picking around her salad. "Even if I don't believe? Or is that blasphemous?"

Sam chuckles. "I don't know. Do you feel like praying?"

"I definitely feel like I should do something," she replies. "Something that's not… running around and killing things, you know? Something pure ."

"Try cooking," Sam suggests. "No, really. Praying is kind of like talking to Allah, and if you don't believe in that, it's probably weird. Or meditation. Everyone's different."

Natasha snorts. "Thanks, I already spend enough time sitting around and thinking, I don't need more of that."

"So you need a hobby?" Sam asks. "To keep busy?"

"I guess I wanna- something that feels better," Natasha explains. "Something that makes me feel better, about myself and all."

"I get it, it's grinding," Sam allows. "Yeah, you can try praying, if you want, no harm in that. But maybe you already know something that lifts your mood and you just forgot?"

"Maybe," Natasha admits. "I'll think about it. Uh, sun's going down, I guess I should leave you to it."

Sam snorts, grabbing his plate. "Wow. Are you the sharia police now?"

"No, no, I just don't wanna- I don't wanna keep you from it, really," Natasha repeats. "Think I'll go upstairs again, take a nap."

"Good idea," Sam remarks. "Sleeping is definitely keeping me sane."

  She doesn't actually sleep, just lies awake staring at the ceiling, mulling over the intractable uneasy feeling, so the knock doesn't startle her. "Yes."

"Your friend doesn't wanna submit to more tests," Tony's voice says. "You need to get down here and make him."

Anger bubbles up in her chest. "I'm not forcing him to do anything."

Tony sighs with exhaustion. "Just come on down. He says he wants to talk to you."

Well, she doesn't want to talk to him, after slamming the door last time, which was totally dumb and overreacting and pointless. Urgh. Hasn't she sufficiently proven she is horrible at this, this whole human shtick? She thought at least this… "Fine. Be down in a few minutes."

She doesn't bother getting dressed, just a t-shirt and sweatpants, combing her hair to one side, and then she shuffles down to the lab. Autopilot. Bruce is talking about some scan he wants to do, trying to calm and reassure a James who's clearly not even listening. Tony is looking as annoyed as he sounded, slouching on a chair arms crossed. "Oh, good that you're here," Bruce exclaims. "We actually found a way we can do the MRI, despite the metal in his arm, and in his teeth, I should add, so you just need to tell-"

"We need to talk," James interrupts.

Great. Phrase she loves to hear. "Fine. Let's talk ."

"Not that door," Tony interjects, tapping one foot. "That way's the ice block."

There's another door, fortunately, though it does have a glass pane. Will have to do. James has a quizzical look as he closes the door behind him. "What does he mean by ice block?"

"Long story," Natasha replies, crossing her arms. Another room with unholy amounts of lab equipment, for God knows what. "So. If it's about the fact that I was shitty to you last time, last night-"

"It's not about that," James interrupts.

"Oh." Somehow, that's worse. "What is it, then?"

"I'm going to leave town," he states. "And so should you. And everyone else, probably."

"What?" Oh, she was so right, he's just going to disappoint her. "Are you crazy?"

"There's another black cloak," James states. "In Prague. Arrived last night. I managed to avoid him so far but it's clear Schmidt sent him either after you or after me, in any case we need to-"

"Are you panicking?" Natasha asks.

"Am I- of course I'm panicking!" James groans. "The game's up and we need to see to it that you get out of it alive, that nobody's hurt because of my dumb-"

"Maybe it's not up," Natasha suggests. "Maybe he was just told to check in with you, see how it's going, that you're still doing as you're told. Then we'd just need to convince him everything is alright and boom, problem solved."

"You don't know him," James points out. "He's not going to leave without you, dead or alive. God, I thought he was in America anyways, that means we have to calculate with even more black cloaks-"

"James," she interrupts again. "I'm not going anywhere. Dead or alive."

"I can't stand the thought of you-" He sighs. "Run. Please. Just run. If you care for me, just a little bit, run."

"That's a real low blow," she remarks.

He rolls his almost white eyes. "I don't want anything to happen to you, doll, and this guy is going to drag you straight to hell and I just can't let that happen. Look, I would have liked to- be with you, really, but the only place you'll be safe is far from all this. Far from me. I can't protect you."

She breathes out. It's not like the prospect of another black cloak leaves her unfazed. "I think- I think we should talk to the others."

"It's not about them," he says. "It's about you. He's after you. Schmidt's after you. They don't understand, or they don't want to believe… but I know you need to run. It'll be hard but you're shrewd, you'll keep them off your tracks. I wish I could help you, I really do, but you'll only be safe far from me."

"No, you don't understand," Natasha returns. "We're a team."

  "This is bad," Clint remarks. "Really fucking bad."

"Are you sure it's-" Sharon tries.

"Yes," James snaps. "I'm sure. Absolutely fucking sure."

"Well, there's only one real solution," Sam remarks. "And I don't say this lightly, but we have to kill him. Simple as that."

"Nowhere near fucking easy, though," Tony replies. "Unless he's, like, the weakest black cloak in existence."

"He's not," James states coldly.

Clint groans. "If we don't kill him, he'll abduct Nat," Sam points out. "Or he'll tell Schmidt what's really going on, and then we have all black cloaks crushing down on us. When is your deadline again?"

"About 25 days," Natasha says. "And we're nowhere near ready."

"If we'll ever be," Tony mutters.

"Maybe we could convince him it's all right without Natasha?" Sharon suggests. "If she stays in here? He couldn't break in, right?"

"I can break in," James states coldly. "So Pierce can also break in."

"Seems we're back at killing him," Fury remarks. "Are you up for that?"

"Me?" James asks incredulously. "I'm- I don't know. He's strong. Maybe. It's a toss-up."

"And you don't want to risk that," Tony accuses.

"I don't give a fuck about dying," James returns coldly. "But if he kills me, Natalia's time is up. That's why she needs to run, right fucking now."

"I'm not going anywhere," Natasha repeats. "We always calculated we had to kill some amount of black cloaks at the end of this. This is only one. We'll kill him, as quietly as possible, without James' help, so that no one gets suspicious. And then we proceed as planned."

"We could upgrade the tower security," Bruce remarks. "We made you a mask and goggles and a hood, so you'd be safe from it. And then we could stay in until we're ready."

"This may be a bad idea," Pepper suggests. "But why don't you just talk to him, find out what his orders are?"

"Talk to him?" James repeats surprised. "What the hell would I tell him why this is taking so long?"

"Same thing you told the Castle," Natasha replies. "I'm stubborn as hell. That's pretty evident."

"Is Schmidt going to get suspicious?" Sam asks. "If his guy doesn't return in the next three weeks?"

James breathes out. "I don't know. Maybe not. Probably not. It's likely he'll just stay on until the deadline and then drag her to Schmidt, whether she wants to or not. Communication with Schmidt is difficult. I guess I could… ask Pierce."

"Different question," Sharon throws in. "Who's going out tonight? Are we still doing that?"

Clint groans. "Sam and I were supposed to. But I'm not very keen on dying, unlike certain other people."

"But we haven't seen the black cloak yet," Sharon argues. "And he probably knows that. So if we start holing up in here now, it's suspicious because we don't officially know yet."

"I don't think he'll randomly attack you," James says. "Not his style. But I could follow you, if you want, and distract him if he makes a move."

Clint clearly doesn't like putting his life in James' vampire hands. "Good enough for me," Sam states.

"I could… teach you some stuff," James suggests hesitantly. "What works against vampires. If you are really going to kill Pierce."

"You couldn't have done that earlier?" Tony questions.

James snorts. "Let's be honest, you just would have used it to kill me."

Silence. "Maybe," Fury acknowledges. "What changed?"

"I don't give a fuck anymore," James states coldly. "I want Natalia to get out of this alive. That's all I care about at this point."

"No one's dying on my watch," Fury returns. "Especially not Romanoff."

"What tricks, though?" Pepper asks, leaning on the table. "I'm curious."

"There's a few," James replies, nostrils flaring lightly. Yeah, he smells the blood. "Electricity, for instance."

"I thought electricity doesn't work," Tony points out.

"It doesn't kill a vampire," James acknowledges. "But it knocks out our senses, at a certain intensity. It's very painful and disorienting."

Tony grins widely. "Oh, I'd love to try that."

"Wilson, Barton," Fury interjects. "Are you ready to go out?"

Clint shrugs, Sam nods. "Guess we have to," Clint says. "I'd appreciate the backup, though."

"If you come back before sunrise and stay the day, I promise I'll stop Tony from electrocuting you," Natasha suggests to James.

"Oh yeah," Sam agrees. "There's a lot to talk about."

[baronfulmen]

Untangling Palpatine

Today's exercise is trying to figure out what Palpatine was doing between Episode 6 and Episode 9, and whether or not there's some way the shit we see can make sense.

We start our plot reconstruction at the end of Episode 6, when Vader throws Palpatine down random Death Star shaft #45,641.  There's that burst of energy that appears to be Palpatine being disintegrated, but clearly that's not the case so let's say his force lightning just caused some component on the wall of the shaft to explode.

So Palpatine hits the bottom, fall softened somewhat by a force push but not so much that he's unharmed.  He breaks a lot of bones, plus he once again lightninged himself which seems to be a problem he's got.  Some maintenance worker sees him and flips, calls some other guys in and they get him to safety.  Right at this point the whole place is about to blow, but they get him to an escape pod or something.

So he's alive, and the movie is over.  Anakin has not really brought balance to the force, so I guess that prophesy is a bust - but then I don't know it was confirmed to be specifically about him anyway.  Maybe that was about Kylo or Rey or something.  The Empire doesn't cease to exist right away, but it's not doing great.  It could use some leadership.  Leadership like, say, the Emperor.  But no, he for some reason would rather let the empire fracture and fall into chaos - maybe that was a little too close for comfort, and he wants to lay low until the heat dies down some.

But he can't completely let things go, so he pulls out the old clone vats and makes some pseudo-emperors.  Because that was always a thing he could do, I guess.  He names one Snoke, and one Sloke, and one Skoke, and one Billy just to mix things up.  He sends them to each part of the splintering empire and most of them get killed and that's fine.  He salvages a few areas, and the biggest group turns into the First Order.  And he uses the force to control Snoke - it's not clear how sentient Snoke is when the Emperor isn't pulling his strings, but let's say he's mostly a figurehead and has very little intelligence or initiative of his own.

But meanwhile this body is getting pretty ragged, and his kid (that we've never heard of) has run off and married some girl and knocked her up.  Okay, well that's fine, maybe the kid will be force sensitive or something and he can use that.  It's... not clear why this needs to happen.  His own son is not a person of any interest, presumably the force skipped a generation.  There are other force sensitives out there, does blood relation matter so much?  If it does, is there a reason he can't use a clone?  Also, can he just have more kids himself?

Even if the force lightning has rendered him sterile, wouldn't he want to kidnap his living son and use him as a breeder?  But no, even though for some vague (possibly religious) reasons he wants to use a relative he decides he doesn't care about his kid.  He has the entire might of the first order plus a few million other remaining Empire soldiers at his disposal but he wants this mission to have the personal touch so he sends just one guy to go get his son, his daughter in law, and his granddaughter.

He could give the guy his coordinates - he already has a whole fleet of ships flying to and from the "secret" Sith planet day and night working on production of the planet-killing Star Destroyers, plus all the support personnel, etc. but instead he wants this guy to use one of the two Sith Wayfinders.  One is somewhere in a forest in a box for some reason, the movie never explains that, but the other was right by his throne room in the second Death Star.

So Palpatine force-projects over there, floats around as a ghost, confirms that the throne room survived surprisingly intact and the wayfinder is sitting there in his secret closet.  Cool.  He floats over to the coast, picks a spot at random, memorizes the shape of the wreckage from there, and then commissions a knife.  Why?  Style, that's why.  He writes some coordinates on there - in Sith, obviously - although he doesn't make the coordinates very specific so it's down to luck if the guy will stand at the correct part of the coast for the shape of the blade to line up.

Then he sends the knife to the guy, so the guy can use it to get to the wayfinder and use the wayfinder to get to the planet where the millions of Empire people already live while they build the mega-fleet.  Not overcomplicated at all.

The guy goes, grabs the Emperor's son and daughter in law, ignores the child chasing after them yelling "mamma, don't go!" because surely that's irrelevant, and then briefly and ineffectually questions them before stabbing them to death with the map-knife.  He could go back and look around for the child but it's been a long day and he doesn't want to. Instead, he goes to some other random planet, parks in the middle of the desert, falls into a patch of beads that somehow drops him into a tunnel without letting the beads through, and then he gets eaten by a snake.

Palpatine knows the guy has never returned, but he doesn't send anyone else to check out Jakku or go get the wayfinder or anything.  It's fine.  Everything is fine.  He didn't care that much anyway, and he's already decided that he would rather manipulate Han and Leia's kid who is almost old enough to start training.  Thankfully, despite being surrounded by powerful force sensitive people who love him nobody notices Palpatine reaching across space to mess with the kid.  He does this as Snoke, and sometimes as Vader just for giggles.  Anakin's force ghost thankfully never appears to the kid, that would have fucked up everything.

Eventually he gets Ben to do the privileged white teenager thing and shoot up his school, and brings him into the First Order.  Thankfully, Luke responds by retiring and not fighting the remains of the empire in any way or making any effort to clean up his mess.  This opens the way to really ramp up the First Order, which the opening crawl of Episode 7 implies has just become serious AFTER Luke took off even though with the scope and power they have that's not really possible.  Whatever, we'll say this is the time they start gaining back the ground that was lost in some areas.

So we're at the start of the first of the new movies, Episode 7.  Even though by now Palpatine must already have the Star-Destroyer sized Death Star guns designed, he still has the First Order build the Starkiller Base which is maybe not the best use of resources.  But it works, and in one shot blows up all the goodguys apparently. ��Just like that, as the next movie makes clear, the First Order is the main power in the galaxy and the new republic is back to being a tiny group of plucky rebels.

All that's left is the cleanup, but Palpatine doesn't reveal himself or his millions of troops and gigantic fleet of Star Destroyers that must be at least partly completed by now.  He's still holding out for some perfect moment.  Then the Starkiller base gets blown to hell, and there's someone that seems to be a new Jedi.  He orders her killed - does he know this is his granddaughter?  Unclear.  Certainly he keeps ordering her killed after he knows, but it's possible he doesn't find out who she is until... I don't know, until she's close to his Snoke Puppet.

Either way, he tries to get Kylo to kill her.  Luke shows back up, then dies which is what the First Order wanted anyway.  The rebel forces are down to like twelve people, although between episodes 8 and 9 their numbers somehow swell a bit.  It doesn't matter, things are great and it's all over but the party planning.  The fleet of planet-killing Star Destroyers are done, but he buries them underground so that he can have a cool dramatic reveal.  Snoke is dead, and Kylo wants to take over the First Order, but he figures that's easy enough to deal with.

How?  Why, by sending a voicemail to the galaxy as a whole yelling at them.  It's... a roundabout way of doing things to be sure.  He could have just appeared to Kylo, or sent in a Snoke clone (Spoke is almost ready, just needs to be pulled from the vat), or sent the voicemail just to the First Order, or a million other things.  But nah, he tells everyone he's alive at once and then waits for Kylo to hunt him down.  Then he tells Kylo he's Snoke and pretended to be Vader and whatever else, and he dramatically raises all the star destroyers from the ground, but he doesn't deploy them.

The First Order is cool with all this.  It's probably strange for them to find out he was somehow secretly Snoke or in charge of Snoke or whatever, but fine.  And they probably wonder why he didn't bring in the enormous fleet of star destroyers before, and who the millions of people manning them are, but... fine.  Whatever.  It still means they won.  At this point he has told Kylo to kill Rey again, and also revealed who she is.  "Hey, go kill my granddaughter.  Thanks!"

He gets bored at some point and sends out one of the Star Destroyers, blows up a planet.  This star destroyer isn't explicitly accounted for later.  Just saying.  Then he sits back, and he waits for the next thing to happen passively.  He senses, presumably, when Rey is coming.  He certainly is aware when she enters the system, and he must know that she could be bringing the remains of the resistance down on him.  This would be a great time to launch all the star destroyers.

Nah.

So Rey walks in, and he tells her that he WANTED her to come even though he had been sending people to kill her this whole time.  He convinces her that he wants her to kill him and become the new Big Bad Sith - this is super clumsy if it's true, but if it's bullshit it's not a bad idea.  So let's give him some credit and say he never wanted her to kill him and it was reverse psychology - kill me, please, this is my plan!

Kylo shows up too, somehow.  Wait.  Rey stole his ship, right?  Whatever, he called an Uber.  Anyway, he's there and Palps tries to have him killed but that doesn't work.  Then they're both there in front of him and he remembers that he can suck the life out of them.  He couldn't do that to the Snokes Crew, but here's the pick me up he needed.  And then he chucks Kylo down a bottomless shaft because that always works, and... well, okay, it didn't work when Vader threw him down one.  But surely this time it will.  And then he tries to kill Rey.

In the past when he tried to use force lightning on someone with a light saber it went really badly.  This happened several times, but it's his go-to move.  Sure, he could pick up Rey and bash her into a wall until she's paste or something but no!  Force lightning is sooooo cool!  I mean, he's strong enough now that he can, somehow, use force lightning to target every single enemy ship in the sky without looking so killing Rey is no big deal.

Just like those other times, though, she blocks it with the light saber.  It's doing the feedback thing some, and she looks super intense like she's going to try something.  He could just stop the lightning and do that force smash thing.  But but but... force lightning!  So he keeps going.  She blasts him, somehow, and he keeps going, and she does it again and he... explodes.

Huh.

It kinda seems like if he had done anything differently he would have won, and like every part of his plan was needlessly overcomplicated.  It seems like he had the power and resources to take over the entire galaxy at any moment and yet remained invisible enacting redundant or contradictory plans until the last minute.

So, can it work?  Is there a story that makes the revelations of Episode 9 fit into the rest of the story?  Kinda!  But it's super, super stupid.

[rpgsandbox]

One moment sets the course of destiny.

But what if that one moment was changed in the smallest of ways?

What if one madman's plan actually were to succeed beyond our known history?

Darker Hue Studios presents its second project:

Haunted West, A Historical-Fiction, Weird-Western, Spaghetti-Action Game.

This is a game about hope through struggle. It is a game that pieces together the stories of the largely forgotten people of the Old West, the people who have been whitewashed by history. Discover the American experience in the Weird West.

Grab your rifle, jet pack, and spurs to battle traitorous rebels in the defense of freedom, join the fight against temporally displaced dinosaurs, rustle cattle to make ends meet, and hijack a train full of illicit Confederate gold!

I hope you’ve got the grit and gumption to see this through.

Head 'em up. Move 'em out.

                                               The Train Heist

The Old West—The Wild West, The American Frontier—is one of the world’s most familiar modern myths. The time was draped in ruggedness; there was an idealized dream of freedom, and a notion that just one person could shape the world. That myth belongs to all of us. Yet so many stories of truth, justice, and the American Way have been stolen, erased, and never recorded. Haunted West aims to tell many of those stories, to shine a light on the proud people who shaped America and fought for her just as much as those people whose stories are central to widely-known American folklore.

Haunted West honors the many forgotten voices of the American Frontier, tips its hat to the Weird West genre, rides the trails with the Spaghetti and Hollywood Westerns, and drinks at the saloon with historical truths. It’s a game about our real-world history that does not whitewash it, but instead amplifies the voices that shaped the West, and thereby America, helping define the world. We’ve taken an entirely new approach to the Weird West genre in gaming, with a system built from the ground up to enable you to tell the kind of stories you want, and accurately represent the history of the Old West while running games as gritty or as pulpy as you want.

Haunted West approaches the Weird West in a unique way, riding the rails toward something new. This is fertile ground for all. Haunted West explores the true history of the American Frontier with a focus on the tales of the forgotten, unknown, and overlooked, and all through Weird-West-goggles.

When I was young, growing up in the deep South of Alabama, I would watch Westerns with my grandmother on our one television in the house. Though we weren't always close, we huddled around that TV and explored the great Old West together, and that's how my love for the genre began. The only problem? No one looked like me unless they were cast as the villain or, sometimes, the butt of the joke. Haunted West aims to change that.

In Haunted West you'll battle the Weird, take side jobs to get by, and help shape a nation one step at a time. Experience adventures in the vein of Deadwood, High Noon, Gallowwalkers, Hell on Wheels, The Magnificent Seven, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., and more.

This is a role-playing game inspired by real-life icons such as Bass Reeves, Belle Star, Cathay Williams, Tom Threepersons, Ah Toy, Nat Love, Kate Warne, Jerome Crow Dog, Joaquín Murieta, John Henry Holliday, Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons, Jackson Sundown, Mary Fields, and Fee Lee Wong.

Haunted West hears the voices of the past and amplifies them for all to hear.

"We need to haunt the house of history and listen anew to the ancestors' wisdom." - Maya Angelou

The world of Haunted West: Reconstruction begins close to our known history, but branches off a few years into the Reconstruction era following the Civil War, dropping you in the middle of an evolving historical timeline. The War’s aftermath burns bright in people's minds, no matter if they or their kin fought with the victorious North or the traitorous South.

In our known history, John Wilkes Booth assassinates Abraham Lincoln, which accidentally elevates Andrew Johnson, a Southern former slave owner, into the presidency. He goes on to fight against every change the people, their country, and fallen soldiers had earned.

Haunted West: Reconstruction creates a timeline in which, in addition to killing Lincoln, Booth's assassination plot also kills Johnson as he had originally intended. Lafayette Foster becomes President, and without presidential opposition, the Southern confederates are not allowed back in congress. The land is divided and given to the enslaved people as was actually planned in our known history, changing the power dynamic of America, with black landowners battling against traitors who are terrorizing them and trying to steal their legally-owned land.

We've worked with historians to help us imagine how that new dynamic plays out in our alternate timeline.

We think you'll love exploring the alternate timeline. As a gamer, I love world meta plots but I also like having the ability to run my own game. So in Haunted West we give you options. The game is layered, empowering you to run a purely historical game including many of the forgotten voices of the Old West, where you're more likely to die of dysentery than a bullet; or you may choose to take a turn toward the Spaghetti and Pulp Western; or, my hope is you'll want to take the ride into the alternate timeline which can be played in either gritty or pulp style—your choice.

That’s right, this is an entirely new system specifically designed with the Narrator's and players' enjoyment in mind. The system’s core mechanic is a 1d100 based system with some new twists. It’ll feel familiar and easy while having a level of complexity to appeal to old school gamers.

The rules themselves layer on top of each other for ease of use and can be applied in many ways.

Why a New System?: We created a new system to provide exciting versatility of play styles, a system that is tailored to create iconic stories of the West, and a consistent way for you to tell your stories. For me, it was important to have something fresh to empower the player and Narrator alike. The system is easy to pick up for new gamers and has levels of complexity for old school gamers looking for that. But at the heart of it, it’s built to aid in telling stories.

The Essential Mechanics: The ‘Ouroboros System’ is unique in its approach to modular play and has a number of easy-to-apply rules. The core mechanic is a 1D100 roll under system with degrees of success and failure that have different impacts. Skilled Paragons are able to invest a portion of their successes into ‘The River’ and use that portion for a later challenge when the chips are down. Each skill is associated with 1 of 7 different attributes that confer a starting percentage in the skill.

Paragons:  Paragons are our system's player characters. We chose the term 'Paragon' because they are iconic, modeling an aspect of the Old West and larger than life.

                                     Mock Up of Character Sheet

Skinwalkers, vampires, werewolves, aliens, clockworks, monstrosities, magic, and more await you here!

The Weird populates Haunted West on the fringes. People may know about it but rarely discuss it; it's not proper, and if you name it, you give it power. The Weird is rarely in plain sight and anyone that has a touched it is forever changed by it. These folks have seen beyond the horizon and understand the world is more, more dangerous, and more wonderous than anyone imagined. But unlike a Mythos protagonists, the people of the West are made of stern stuff. They don't faint or break easily.

Haunted West builds its Weird from myths, stories passed down from generations, real-world sightings, and from the recesses of our minds. We've got supernatural horrors, science fiction aliens with technology to astound, and more. Stepping out of your door into the world isn't for the faint of heart.  

                                         Artwork: Battling the Weird

Haunted West is a core book containing everything a Narrator needs to run scenarios in the Weird and Wild West. The book itself is an exquisitely designed hardcover 8.5” x 11” book clocking in at well over 130,000 words. Haunted West will be printed in two editions. The first will be available via offset printing for our US customers and the second will be available through DrivethruRPG for our overseas fans which will help to minimize the cost of shipping. Both versions of the book will be FULL COLOR! Our goal is to deliver the book to you Summer 2020.

                            Mock-up cover. Final design is pending.

This hefty tome would give any cowpoke pause from its hidden secret and arcane lore of the past. If you’ve got the resolve, I’ll tell you a bit about it and hold back a few prizes for a surprise when you open the book. Rest assured it’s not a snake in your boot.

A brief, “Howdy, partner!” We’ll chat around the campfire about history, how to apply the Weird, the horrors and wonders of the West, and the new system.

Then we sit a spell at the trading post to make some characters, what we're calling Paragons, and you'll have your choice of 10 distinctive archetypes that cover a lot of ground, enabling players to make any character they can think of. The creative posse has built a detailed Life Path system to guide character creation from your lineage, to your crew, to a few antagonists that don’t fancy your face.

Each Paragon has a couple of aptitudes making them more than a run-of-the-mill town person. Maybe they can shoot a little straighter, train horses a little faster, or rumor has it that some sawbones can bring the dead back to life.

Skills are the salt-of-the-Earth of what a Paragon can do. Qualities are those small traits that make you stand out. It could be something like striking looks, a 500-dollar bounty, or an intimidating gaze that forces any law officer to keep walking.

You can’t have the weird without a little magick. We start the ball rolling with four historically-based Western theme magicks of the time. They've been researched and gamified for those looking to meet at the crossroads to barter with a demon.

                                                     Book excerpt

We'll delve into an engaging narrative about the true West from before time until the early 1900s. Our story is sprawling with unknown visages and we touch on a lot of them, like an old friend buying the first round at the saloon. We’re storytellers crafting a tale that has never been told.

Haunted West takes the reigns and gives you all of the West, above and below to explore. Paragons may be dueling clockwork gunslingers in Deadwood, trading for supplies with the Lakota, holding the line with Texas Rangers against an unknown army, debating Southern politicians in halls of power on the East Coast, or stealing aboard steam-powered cities in the heavens. We are boundless.

The book comes primed with over 50 historical folks for the Paragons to meet, call out, run from, or with whom to posse up. These are real-life icons pulled from history, and their voices are waiting for your breath to make them live again.

See 'Methods of Play' for all the gunslinger goodness.

What kind of no-good scallywag would I be without offering a Narrator a helping hand for running games, discussing the careful economic and racial divides you’ll need to navigate? I am not alone; I've got a crew of diverse voices to help tell the tales.

Haunted West: Reconstruction is the world setting. The entire book up until now has been a historical game plus how to apply the Weird, and this section gives you over 10,000 words dedicated to the alternate timeline. In this timeline, in addition to killing Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth's assassination plot also kills Johnson as he had originally intended. The alternate timeline imagines how this new reality plays out.

The world of Haunted West is a grim place of untold horror, the supernatural, sights that shatter even the toughest gunslinger, with wonders beyond description. It is the Old West—the frontier of America—with her people arriving from every corner of the globe, seeking fortune, fame, and a moment in the sun.

The Paragons encounter rumors of some flying machine beyond description that's leaving mutilated cattle in its wake. They need the thing stopped before they go bust. But a deeper horror awaits those who follow the Aerostat.

We present over 40 creatures pulled from folklore and myths, both supernatural as well as alien, to baffle and combat your players' Paragons.

We’ll have a foldout train map of the United States, a reusable town map, and an old west hex map for miniature combat.  

                                            Artwork: Ghost Town

Kickstarter campaign ends: Fri, November 1 2019 3:00 PM UTC +00:00

Website: [Darker Hue Studios] [facebook] [twitter]

[entering-mymind]

Chapter 2 - The Child

This is the second episode of the series where I have inserted my OC character (Mando's daughter) into the Disneyplus television show. With her addition I believe this helps the viewers understand the choices Mando makes in the series. Would love to hear feedback! I do not own these characters and the story and dialogue goes to the respected credit of the screenwriters and creators of the show.  

           Mando and his daughter knew their trek back was going to be difficult due to Mando’s daughter’s ankle being injured, but the two had no choice as they slowly walked back to the Razor Crest.

She used the pulse rifle as a walking stick not wanting to slow down their mission. They continued their journey down in a ravine trying to keep a low profile, away from any prying eyes from the child who sat, exposed, in its hovering pod.

Mando had programmed the pods controls into his gauntlet making it follow close to the both of them. She knew she shouldn’t but in a way she felt uneasy around the child, like it was drawn to her for no particular reason.

“It’s staring at me again,” she said in wariness, but her father ignored her complaint because the tiny lizards that had been following them suddenly sought refuge.

Clearly seeing this as a warning Mando silenced his daughter and unclasped his blaster but the ambush began. From a top, a group of orange reptile Trandoshans rained down on them hoping to end their lives with their scepters, with quick thinking Mando tried to draw all of them away from his daughter and the child.

He quickly pressed a button and sent the pod a safe distance away but a Trandoshan was already battling his daughter. Luckily she was holding her ground while Mando took on four others. With ease he eradicated one, obtaining the creatures scepter and then using it against his attackers since he had no time to draw his blaster.

Each opponent was eager to end his life when he wasted no effort to end theirs first, but one Trandoshan, realizing their lose, split from the group and headed towards the child, scepter raised for the kill. Trying to react quickly, Mando was about to throw his scepter, but his distance was to far, it wouldn’t reach the assailant. The creature inched closer when his daughter had everything under control.

In success she had defeated her attacker and got off one shot to disintegrate the determined assassin. In relief she slumped to the ground exhausted while the remnants of the Trandoshan settled and revealed an active tracking fob.

                                                        *   *   *

Since the both of them were pretty beat up, Mando decided to make camp so he could attend to their wounds. He was relieved that his daughter was not injured further where he was not so lucky. On Mando’s upper right arm he sustained a deep gash, he applied his medical laser to stitch his wound but it was much more difficult than he predicted.

“Let me help,” she reached for the device but he declined.

He continued his procedure in distress when no one noticed the child climb out of its pod and reach towards Mando’s wound as if it wanted to somehow heal it. In shock Mando quickly instructed his daughter to put the child back in its confinement while he continued his work. With no argument she complied and gathered the child placing it back in the pod.

She went back to sit next to her father when he popped off his armor chest plate to reconfigure some schematics. He found this as a good enough time to show his daughter how to reconstruct the wiring, but her attention was brought back to the child who was by her father’s side again, reaching for his wound willingly.

Intrigued she watched the child with extreme intent somehow able to read its objective, she was just about to tell her father but he had lost his patience, scooping up the child and placing it back in its pod. The two glared at one another as if the child was also trying to communicate with him when Mando pressed a button and closed the containers lid.

The next morning the three finally reached the Razor Crest but a loud sound of chatter filtered through the air. In horror a clan of Jawas were taking apart the Razor Crest and claiming them as their own in order to sell, in disbelief young Mando stared on wondering how the Jawas over rode the Razor Crest’s security system and then she realized she never set it.

Mando quickly dropped into position signaling for his pulse rifle and scanned the area to see which Jawa had the most pivotal part of his ship. Finding it hard, as all of them had a piece, he pulled the trigger disintegrating any Jawa that came in his scope. Immediately the Jawas started to clamor, making haste for their Sandcrawler, while others fired their weapons any which way.

Mando took out a few more before the vehicle began to speed off, he rose to his feet disarming the pod and screaming at his daughter to stay put. He took one last aim and shot at the Crawler’s engine but it didn’t slow it down. In haste he ran after the Sandcrawler climbing onto the machine trying to find a way to the top.

With quick reflexes the Jawa driver attempted to ram the Crawler into a rocky wall, hoping their assailant would get knocked off but no such luck. Mando found a landing awaiting his opportunity to ascend to the top, a few seconds passed by and his moment came.

He deployed his grappling hook catching a canon gun harnessed on top. He began his difficult assent as the Jawas threw anything and everything his way. Not giving up, Mando threw overboard whatever Jawa got in his way as he finally reached the summit, but awaiting him was a whole clan of Jawas, each with a stun gun.

Several blasts fired his way, sending electro shocks through his entire body, paralyzing him in an instant. With no ability to move, Mando fell backwards, falling several feet before making contact with the hard ground. Stunned, he couldn’t move or speak when he felt the veil of unconsciousness slip over him.

                                                         *   *   *

“Papi!” Mando heard in the distance a small voice call his name, a name he never thought he would acquire, “Papi,” the voice began to break through his subconscious as his real first happy memory, from his younger days, played before his eyes.

She was so young, her tiny frame use to fit in the crook of his side when he cradled her in his chest. So small, so fragile, he would give his life for her, a promise he made to protect her until his dying day, but that word always swelled his heart, because it was her first.

“Papi, can you hear me, please wake up. Oh man I can’t carry him,” she said to herself defeated.

With a disgruntled moan Mando finally came to, assuring his daughter she would not have to.

“You’re alright,” she was about to hug him but knew better in this instance, instead she kept her distance believing this was a safe beat for now, “Do you need help getting up. I can help you, whatever you need,” she pestered unintentionally while Mando knew her intentions were in the right place, but he was beyond frustrated.

One simple task she had to complete and this one simple task she never fulfilled, why couldn’t she remember to initiate the Razor Crest’s security system? Granted the situation they were put in from being attacked by the Nexu and Blurrgs didn’t help matters but she should have known, her one task.

“Here let me fix your pauldron,” she continued when Mando put up a hand to silence her and so he could catch his breath.

“It’s okay, I’m fine,” Mando stood applying pressure to some sore muscles while gaining his composure.

With patience his daughter waited next to the child anticipating her father’s next command. Once he was ready he programmed the pod back to follow him when they made their way back to the dismantled ship.

The destruction to the Razor Crest was severe, stripped clean of all essential parts, and with no power, Mando sat in the cockpit defeated - for once - when he heard no movement coming from his daughter. Believing it was a start to an episode for her, Mando immediately went to the lower deck to check on her, but instead he was met by her faint sobs.

He knew all to well what his daughter was upset about, all of her works of art were destroyed while her art supplies were missing.

She sat on the floor in sadness upset with herself for not setting the security system. All of this was her fault, she deserved for her passion to be destroyed and stolen; especially the paints she was most excited to create with that Karga just gave her.

Mando could see the weight his daughter was placing on her shoulders and didn’t want that kind of responsibility or stress on her. He sat in an exposed cargo hold behind her and put a hand on her shoulder, in relief he didn’t feel the unusual vibration that could overrun her unexpectedly, actually she seemed depleted of energy, he had to make things right.

“This is not your fault,” Mando began.

“Don’t patronize me, instead scold me, let me have it, freeze me in carbonite as punishment! I really messed up and I deserve this outcome,” she said while her voice broke.

Mando knew all to well his daughter hardly ever cried, no matter how bad she hurt herself physically the emotion barely manifested, but this instance was different because her actions affected him, it affected their mission, and it affected her passion of creativity.

Mando got up from his seat and knelt in front of her but her head was bent down not wanting to envision the scolding he would bestow on her.

“Look at me,” he knew she wouldn’t so he placed his index finger beneath the tip of her helmet, “Please look at me.” Finally she did but her shoulders slumped in depression, “We all make mistakes,” he declared.

“But…” she tried to explain further when he silenced her in a gentle manner.

“Let me repeat myself. We all make mistakes. As long as we learn from them then we won’t repeat them,” Mando moved his hand to the side of her helmet acting as if he was stroking her cheek.

She vaguely nodded her head in agreement as the both of them saw the child place its hand on her knee, showcasing her comfort as well. A hint of relief washed over her when she envisioned an outcome that would work out for them in the end.

                                                         *   *   *

The journey was long but she knew better than to say anything, complain she was tired, hot, or that her ankle still ached, no she knew better; especially with all that had happened she would walk forever to make up her mistake. Mile after mile they walked when finally she saw where they were headed, back to the Ugnaught’s homestead.

He was busy fixing a transmitter, his back turned away from his approaching guests when he seemed to sense their return, “I thought you were dead.”

Mando just shook his head while his daughter shrugged her shoulders and whispered, “Almost.”

The Ugnaught continued with his work while Mando and his daughter sat attaining to their armor, obtaining some freedom the child was allowed to walk about as it chased after a small frog like creature.

“This is what was causing all the fuss?” the Ugnaught questioned.

“I think it’s a child,” Mando said.

“It is better to deliver it alive then.”

“My ship has been destroyed. We’re trapped here.”

“Stripped. Not destroyed. The Jawas steal. They don’t destroy,” the Ugnaught declared.

“Stolen or destroyed makes no difference to me,” Mando said a bit hostel.

“Doesn’t your ship have a defense mechanism? Surely this wouldn’t have happened it you had set it.”

Young Mando just put her head down and made her way towards the child that was chasing the frog in the distance. Mando watched where she was headed when the Ugnaught gave Mando a tool to help fix his gauntlet that he was attempting to fix himself.

“That is not the issue at hand. My concern is how to get my parts back,” Mando said.

“You can trade,” the Ugnaught suggested.

“With Jawas? Are you out of your mind?”

“I will take you to them. I have spoken.”

While the two were in discussion young Mando watched the child finally catch the frog it so longingly craved. She believed it was only going to play with it but then it took a nasty turn. The child put the frog in its mouth and started to swallow.

“No…no…no…” she squealed as her father turned in their direction to witness the consumption.

“Hey spit that out,” Mando commanded.

“Eww…to late,” she said dry heaving when the child burped and giggled happily.

                                                     *   *   *

The Ugnaught saddled up his Blurrg and harnessed a small hovering wagon behind. Mando and his daughter sat in the back as the child floated near, they had to trek in the rain during the night while the hot sun dried them off during the scorching day. Finally the Sandcrawler was spotted and they made their way towards it.

“Greetings,” the Ugnaught shouted to the furious and on guard Jawas, “They really don’t like you for some reason.”

“Well, I did disintegrate a few of them,” Mando pointed out.

“You need to drop your rifle.”

“We’re Mandalorians. Weapons are part of our religion.”

“Then you are not getting your parts back.”

“Fine,” Mando put the rifle aside as everyone got out ready to approach where the Jawas set up shop.

The Ugnaught could hear the Jawas clamor and rectified one last thing, “And both of your blasters,” he addressed to Mando and his daughter.

Mando glared at the Ugnaught as if he had just insulted him when young Mando put her hand on her father’s arm pleading to comply, “Please,” when she pulled her blaster out and put it in the wagon, unhappy Mando did the same while the Ugnaught approached the Jawas in good spirits.

“Good day,” the Ugnaught started.

The Jawas responded well and allowed the Ugnaught to wave over the two Mandalorians, everyone took a seat on the ground when the Jawas began to negotiate in their language.

“They will trade all the parts for both of your Beskar armor,” the Ugnaught translated.

“I’m not gonna trade anything. These are my parts. They stole from me,” Mando said angrily. The Jawa in charge started to ramble again when Mando attempted to speak broken Jawa, “They…they…belong…to me!”

Immediately the Jawas laughed at his dialect while the leader stated the obvious, “You speak terrible Jawa. You sound like a Wookie.”

“You understand this?” frustrated Mando blasted them with fire as the Ugnaught and Mando’s daughter grabbed him in order to help settle him down.

“Whoa. Easy, easy there,” the Ugnaught waved his hands. The Jawa spoke again making other demands when the Ugnaught spoke back, “They are Mandalorians. They cannot give you their Beskar armor. What else may he trade?”

The Jawa stood and pointed to the child when both Mando and his daughter shouted to get away from it.

“There must be something else,” the Ugnaught was running out of ideas.

The Jawas encircled together what seemed like a deep discussion.

“What are they saying?” young Mando felt she could finally speak.

“They speak about an egg,” the Ugnaught grunted and hung his head in his hand.

“The egg? What egg?” Mando questioned, but all the Jawas did was chant “the egg” over and over again as if it was a sacred relic.

Everyone climbed a board the Sandcrawler and stood in the bridge as they made their way towards wherever this egg resided. The Jawas continued their chant of the egg when Mando sighed in annoyance, in a bit of retaliation the Jawa driver hit a bump sending Mando upwards hitting his head since he was the tallest. All the Jawas laughed in unison while Mando didn’t find it funny but noticed his daughter unable to hold in her chuckle.

Finally the Crawler came to a halt as everyone made their way to exit. At the foot of the hatch Mando began transferring the pod’s controls over to his daughter’s gauntlet when she put her hand over his controls.

“I’m coming with you,” she informed.

“No you’re not,” he confirmed.

“Yes I am, I must learn from my mistake,” she glared up into her father’s helmet determined.

Realizing she was stubborn like him, plus they were losing daylight, he didn’t want to argue and signaled for her to follow. They made their way to a cavern and along one side was a large hole, what resided inside was unknown to them. They stood at the mouth of the cave readying themselves for battle, Mando unclasped his pulse rifle handing it over to his daughter.

“Wait, I didn’t prove myself with your weapon, so I shouldn’t be trusted with it,” she declared.

“You did your part back at the ravine, you will do it here also. So this is the plan. I’m going to flush out whatever is in there, once it emerges you blast it in the head, alright?” Mando instructed.

“Okay.”

“Take your position to the side so once it follows me you can kill it.”

Quickly following her father’s orders she took her position, knelt down on one knee, rifle in hand, and her eye in the scope. The child’s pod floated near her as this was also her responsibility to protect it.

Apprehensively Mando walked into the cave with his blaster at the ready. He was hoping to take care of the creature himself but it was entirely too hard to see. He clicked on his helmet light to get a better view when he noticed bones sprawled about the floor and a gigantic eye staring back at him.

Young Mando sat perfectly still awaiting for her moment when she heard rapid gunfire. Concerned she knew not to move from position but the choice was clear once she witnessed her father being tossed like a rag doll from the cave. Mando landed harshly on his back, stunned, possibly injured and stuck in the mud.

“Papi!” she exclaimed viewing the damage to her father’s armor.

In reaction she ran to him concerned for his health and safety. In a bit of a daze Mando slowly rose noticing his daughter was attempting to fix his damaged chest plate. It hung on like a loose tooth when from the cave echoed an angry roar as the Mudhorn emerged from the darkness in rage.

Locking in on its targets the Mudhorn dug its foot into the mud getting ready to charge like a bull.

“Oh no you don’t!” young Mando assured as she rose to her feet ready to protect her father at all costs.

The creature roared its final warning before charging but young Mando took first initiative. She fired multiple shots at its head, with this she walked closer towards her prey believing the rifle was penetrating the hide. In reflex the Mudhorn used its elongated horn to deflect most of her shots but she continued hoping to kill it.

Realizing before she did, Mando screamed for her to dive out of the way but it was to late, with its massive horn it smacked young Mando to the side, sending her ten feet from where she once stood. Not pleased with her outcome, the Mudhorn kept focus on her and charged again smashing its horn on her body.

“NO!” Mando shouted and ran with all his strength to get to her aid. Mando blasted the furry creature with fire, hoping to set it ablaze and turn its focus on him. With one last swing the Mudhorn sent her sliding across the way and making contact with the surrounding rocky walls. Mando received the creature’s attention but continued blasting it with fire until the flammable gave out, this allowed the Mudhorn to swing its mighty horn and make contact with its new target.

This blow sent Mando a few feet back, splattering him back in the mud, once the Mudhorn got closer he released his grappling hook in order to hog tie it but instead the Mudhorn took him for a ride.

Realizing this as a failed attempt he released the wire allowing the Mudhorn to be free when it circled around to make another crucial blow. This one made the world stop for Mando, absolute silence filtered through his ears, nothing registered to his brain until he was brought forth by a small tremor trembling around him.

With all his strength he slowly rose to a knee, Vibroblade in hand, ready to make a last stand, when he noticed the Mudhorn awaiting its opportunity and make its final strike. In apprehension Mando could hear his daughter in distress, below him two lines manifested in the terrain but cracked around him and instead headed straight for the Mudhorn.

Sensing the impeding danger the Mudhorn charged, Mando bowed his head, Vibroblade extended, he would go out like a warrior. The Mudhorn ran with a roar and went to end its target, but the closer it got the harder it ran because something was forcing it back and then lifted it off the crumbling ground beneath it.

Mando glared up in awe unaware of what was happening, the creature was floating in mid-air, it had to weight at least a ton, how could this be? From the corner of his eye Mando noticed the child had its arm extended, eyes closed, and concentrated with all its strength. Giving everything it had the child collapsed backwards and went unconscious releasing the exhausted Mudhorn into the manifested hole below. Trapped, the Mudhorn thrashed and wielded its horn but this just caused it to fall further into the sinkhole, allowing Mando to perform a safe kill.

Exhausted, Mando stepped back analyzing what had just happened before him, but realized the danger wasn’t over yet. The ground beneath him continued vibrating creating other sinkholes unexpectedly as if an earthquake was beginning. He looked around and noticed the surrounding rocks were being shaken free from the walls, almost creating an avalanche and trapping them inside.

In haste he ran towards his daughter who had propped herself up on the wall while her hands were placed on the ground. Her whole body shook without freedom, she didn’t have control, he had to get her to get control.

Mando knelt in front of his daughter hearing her battle through clenched teeth and low moans as if she was ready to bellow out a scream.

“Hear me,” Mando began as she tried to constrain herself but found it difficult, he knew how bad an episode could get, he had to help her prevent it from fully releasing, “Focus on my voice, only my voice, breath, relax, focus, hear me,” Mando kept repeating while witnessing his surroundings crack vigorously, raining loose debris around them.

Her legs moved up and down anxiously, her chest rose rapidly, while her back arched and froze in anguish. It was as if she was fighting something off internally, preventing it from escaping and reeking havoc on the outside world.

As a last resort Mando would sedate her if need be but he knew she wasn’t that far along, he could bring her back. Without hesitation Mando clutched onto her hand and placed his forehead onto hers.

“Hear me, breath, focus, relax, breath, hear me, please hear me,” his voice almost cracked wishing he could take this torment from his daughter, “Hear my voice, only my voice, come back to me Mi Pequeno,” with this the world began to seize, the ground opened no more while the walls stopped crumbling.

The tension from her body slowly vanished, her hand started to loosen around his, when her breath returned to normalcy.

“Papi, you’re alive,” she spoke out of breath.

“Can’t get rid of me that easily,” he tried to make her laugh as he heard a small chuckle escape.

He kept their hands interlocked and pulled her to his chest, holding her for as long as he could.

“I need to check on the child and collect the egg, will you be alright?” Mando finally released his hold to over look the damage to her and armor. Nothing appeared to be broken physically, the armor did its job, but was destroyed in the process.

“Yes,” was the only word she could speak. This episode really took a lot out of her but it was never the end. A continuous battle always struggled inside her and it was only getting stronger, unfortunately she kept this to herself not wanting to worry her father because he had enough on his plate.

In a loving gesture he stroked this side of her helmet as if caressing her cheek, he got up with sore muscles and checked on another exhausted child. Sleeping soundly the child looked alright, no physical injuries he could see, so he went to the cave to find the egg which, with success, was rewarded to him.

                                                         *   *   *

The Jawas began to pack up believing they wouldn’t come back as the Ugnaught encouraged them to stay a little while longer. Restless the Jawas started to leave while the Ugnaught sighed in distain but on the horizon three figures approached.

“Mando!” the Ugnaught shouted as the Jawas returned.

“We have it, we got the egg,” Mando stated tiredly.

Eagerly the Jawas collected the egg, sliced the top half open and consumed the yellow sticky yolk inside. Shaking their heads Mando, his daughter, and the Ugnaught returned to their transportation as did the Jawas, everyone going their separate ways.

“I’m surprised you waited,” Mando said.

“I’m surprised you took so long,” the Ugnaught replied.

Piled high in the wagon was the Razor Crest’s parts as the Ugnaught steered them back to his homestead by Blurrg. Mando and his daughter sat in the front of the wagon where the child followed in its pod still asleep as young Mando rested on her father’s shoulder.

“Is it still sleeping?” the Ugnaught asked.

“Yes,” Mando rocked the pod gently noticing its breathing.

“Was it injured?”

“Not physically,” Mando stayed vague.

“Explain it to me again. I still don’t understand what happened.”

“Neither do I,” as Mando glanced at the child and then to his own.

By nightfall they had returned to Mando’s ship.

“There’s no way we’re gonna get this to work without a full maintenance facility. This is gonna take days to fix,” Mando said honestly.

“If you care to help, it might go faster. There is much work to do,” the Ugnaught handed Mando some tools so he could fix his and his daughter’s armor.

“Let me help,” she said in a heavy tone pushing her body up to exit the wagon.

“No, rest,” Mando laid a hand on her shoulder preventing her from getting up.

For once, without argument, she laid back down and fell asleep just like the child.

Mando and the Ugnaught worked all night and into the morning getting the Razor Crest back together and online. Easily enough the two managed and the ship was fully refurbished.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Mando sincerely said, “Please allow me to give you a portion of the reward.”

“I can not accept,” the Ugnaught said, “You are my guest and I am therefore in your service.”

“I could use a crew member of your ability, and I can pay handsomely,” Mando proposed.

“I am honored but I have worked a lifetime to finally be free of servitude. Besides you have your kin, she makes a great asset, am I right?” the Ugnaught said as she helped maneuver the pod onto the Razor Crest.

“You are correct, then I guess all I can offer is my thanks,” Mando ended.

“And I offer mine, thank you for bringing peace to my valley,” the Ugnaught started to leave when he was reminded of something, “I believe these were also taken from your ship,” the Ugnaught dug deep into his satchel to reveal young Mando’s art supplies.

Ecstatic himself, Mando collected the items in his possession overlooking and accounting that everything had been returned, except he didn’t recognize these new sets of paints. At the moment he wasn’t concerned and was just happy his daughter would be able to create again.

“Truly thank you. You don’t know how dear these items are to my daughter.”

“I don’t have to imagine,” the Ugnaught said in honesty while mounting his Blurrg, “And good luck with the child. May it survive and bring you a handsome reward. I have spoken.

Mando nodded and closed up the ship, he checked on his daughter and found her sleeping, finally, soundly. Happy he placed her supplies beside her so when she awoke those would be the first thing she would see.

He took the other sleeping child up with him to the cockpit and fired up the Razor Crest. The Ugnaught watched as they took off and signaled them for a safe journey. The Razor Crest left the planet with ease as Mando set his coordinates for Nevarro. He glared over at the still child rocking the pod reminiscing on when his daughter use to be young, how quickly the years had passed. She would only be in his care for a month or so and then she would reach the age of independence. Would he be ready for her absence? Now was not the time to think of personal matters, he had to finish the mission first and foremost.

[avatarsarny]

Post S8 Arya/Gendry? With a cherry on top?

Well, anon, since you asked so nicely. Just in time, bc I really needed to get this out of my system. This is for @gendrie, @gendryadempsie, and @starrynightshade, whose blogs and fics have kept me sane over the past few weeks of D&D’s clownery. Thank you guys for feeding us with that sweet sweet Gendrya content throughout :)

For context: In my head, everything ended similarly to D&D’s bad fanfic version with some notable adjustments: Jon is not exiled to the (nonexistent) Night’s Watch; he decides against being king and goes to bring the Wildlings back down to the North with Tormund (bc the lands beyond the wall are a barren wasteland wtf) and thereafter settles at Winterfell to be Hand to Queen Sansa. Bran is made King of the 6 kingdoms as he was in the show, with Tyrion as his Hand and ruling with his council. Jaime did not turn on Brienne in the last moment, didn’t erase years of character development, and instead left to kill Cersei himself, finally realizing the disease she really was, and became Queenslayer for the good of the realm. He survives Daenerys’ attack on KL and is serving Bran in the new Kingsguard, under Brienne the Commander. 

Finally, Arya does not randomly decide to become Christopher Columbarya and sail the ocean blue, erasing years of her own journey to finally be home with her family again, no sirs, she finds Gendry after the sack of KL, after she realizes what Sandor was trying to tell her to do, to choose life, and tells him to ask her again. You can guess the rest from what you read below :)

And in keeping with the pack survives narrative (bc that’s what good writing is about!! Consistency!!) the Starks remain closer than ever, visit each other often, and don’t end up alone and separated! Hope yall enjoy!

P.S… Okoye. You’ll see why soon. definitely not taken straight outta black panther Ahem. Continue.

“And reinforcements from the Stormlands will arrive tomorrow, Your Grace, if I’m not mistaken. Lord Buckler of Bronzegate sent me a raven saying twenty ships worth of food and supplies will be here just after sunrise.”

Bran nods in approval and looks up at the sunlight streaming in through the windows of the newly - reconstructed King’s solar. Daenerys’ rampage had left little of the Red Keep standing, but some of the personal chambers had remained mostly intact, so the new King and his council lived in close quarters for the past three months while they supervised the city’s recovery. There were still many injured and many more starving, so Bran called upon every Lord and leader in Westeros, high and low, to contribute whatever they could to the city’s smallfolk; who had suffered the most.

Bran glances over at the man across him. His blue eyes are bright with belonging and purpose, his dark hair is gradually breaking free of the short crop he had sported when Bran had first met him, and he wears fine leathers in same way his father and uncles had, only this time adorned with clawlike marks on the shoulders of his tunic.

The young King smiles at this observation. Stags don’t have claws. But he can think of another animal that does. 

Gendry catches his King’s gaze. “What is it, Your Grace?”

Bran’s smile grows ever so slightly. “When is my sister returning, my Lord? It’s been a fortnight since her last raven.”

Gendry sighs and looks out a window, where the city gates rise from the sea of ruined buildings far out in the distance on one end, and the azure waters of Blackwater Bay lay calm and still. “I’m not sure. She said she wouldn’t leave Queen Sansa at Winterfell until she’s made sure she’ll be well protected.”

“Won’t Jon be there soon?”

Gendry blinks. “Yes - er - I didn’t know that until this morning - got a raven from Tormund. How’d you find out?”

Bran throws him an unimpressed glance. “Well I am the three eyed raven. I flew over Jon and Tormund’s group last night. They’ve settled the Wildlings in some unoccupied lands about a day’s ride from Winterfell. Sansa wants Jon to be her Hand, and it looks like Jon’s agreed to it.”

Gendry nods slowly, trying to process the King’s extraordinary statement in a way he can understand. “I’ve heard of your abilities, Your Grace, but forgive me, I’m not sure how one flies when they can’t even walk. But if what you say is true, then you can see where your sisters are, too, can’t you?” He grins then, and maybe in front of a different King he’d be punished for his audacity, but Bran is no ordinary King. And Gendry has never been one to worship the ground at a highborn’s feet. 

But he’ll fight for any one of the Starks. Arya and her family time and again showed kindness and mercy to the common folk, and beneath their ferocious direwolf fangs they shared a gentleness for the innocent that Gendry had rarely seen among the rich and powerful. Even Sansa, the Red Wolf of the North, held a great tenderness concealed beneath her icy, calculating exterior, and people everywhere adored her for it.

Bran’s smile widens into a true grin, then. A feat so rare Gendry thinks he should get Grand Maester Samwell to check on their King’s health. 

“Yes, I can see everything. Anything, anywhere, at any point in time. But sometimes it’s nice to put it all away for a while, and be a normal man. Or at least act like it,” he replies. “I did see Arya, by the way. It appears she’ll be staying in Winterfell for a few more weeks before she starts her journey back here.”

Gendry’s face falls, but he catches himself and hopes the King doesn’t notice. The least she could do is send a raven, but she’s been oddly silent since her last message to him, and he’s getting worried. If she doesn’t send more word soon, he’ll go off to Winterfell himself.

Bran quirks a brow at him. “Storm’s End needs someone like you, someone who will take care of the people. Your uncles left the Stormlands in such disarray, but the Stormlords are willing to follow your command. Don’t worry about my sister, she can handle herself.” He smiles serenely at the former blacksmith.

 But what about me? Gendry thinks. Does she not understand that every day we’re separated feels like an eternity to me?

None of it will mean anything, if you aren’t with me, so be with me…

It will be nearly four months since Arya left to help Sansa settle into her role as Queen in the North. Four months since he last held her in his arms, since he tasted her on his lips and felt the warmth of her smile, since he saw the heat and tenderness in her gaze she reserved only for him. 

She had sought him out after the Dragon Queen had stormed King’s Landing, after Jon drove a dagger through his aunt’s heart and liberated all who would come under her tyranny. She had been covered in ash and blood and he’d never felt more fear in his entire life, that he would have to watch her die like this, but she was mostly unhurt, the blood had not been hers, not all of it.

“Ask me again,” She’d rasped, coughing out grey soot and clutching at him for dear life. “I thought I wouldn’t come back from Kings Landing. I was going to die there, and I couldn’t do that to you, I had to refuse,” She whispered, tears falling from her eyes and down her grimy face. “I couldn’t hurt you.”

And oh, she had never looked more beautiful, he had never loved her more fiercely than he did in that moment, not even on that night they thought would be their last, when she had kissed him down in the Winterfell stores and made breathless, frantic love to him. “You could never hurt me, love,” he’d said, wiping her tears away and crushing her to his chest. “I know you don’t want to be a Lady, I’ve always known. We can go wherever you like. Do whatever you want. I’ll follow you anywhere you go, till the end of my days,” he promised, and released her so he could kneel before her in the ash and dust. “My life means nothing without my family. Please be my wife. Please be my family, Arya of House Stark.”

And with that, she’d tackled him into the rubble with all the strength she could muster, and kissed him senseless. “I love you,” She’d breathed against his lips, “I will be your family. Your - your wife,” she broke off in a quiet moan, as he moved to press searing kisses down her throat. She held his face in her hands, stilling his sweet movements to look earnestly up at him. “And I will lead by your side, Gendry of House Baratheon.”

He stared at her in shock, his hands coming up to bracket her own. “You - you want to rule the Stormlands with me?”

Arya smiled at him, even though it hurt to do so and her face was bleeding. “I want to be here for the people who can’t protect themselves. I want to make our world a better place than the one we grew up in…I couldn’t save them in King’s Landing,” she’d paused as more tears trailed down her cheeks, and he dutifully brushed them away with the pads of his calloused fingers. She would tell him about the girl and her mother, later. The little family that had saved her from the stampede, only to end up burnt beyond recognition in the end. “I have to make sure this never happens again.”

Gendry kissed her forehead, the bit of it that wasn’t cut open. “As m’lady commands,” he’d murmured, threading their fingers together. “Now let’s get you a maester.”

“I also need to teach you how to use a fork, none of those idiot lords will respect you otherwise.”

He laughed and scooped her up into his arms. “I’ll need all the help I can get. I don’t know any other rich girls willing to teach me.”

Part 2 coming soon :)