#hes the 2 hero hes had practice in capturing surely

[scary-grace]

Opposites Attract (Chapter 5) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Your quirk lets you capture almost anyone with ease, and you can't believe you let Shigaraki Tomura escape. Shigaraki can't believe it, either, and according to the League, there's only one possible explanation -- you let him go because you've fallen in love with him. He decides to find out if it's true. You decide you won't fail to capture him again. You both get a lot more than you bargained for. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapters: 1 2 3 4

Chapter 5

“Shigaraki.” Spinner snaps his fingers in front of Shigaraki’s face, and Shigaraki snaps out of it in a hurry. As much of a hurry he can manage. He’s not used to having the kind of daydreams he doesn’t want to wake up from. “Hey. Toga said she’ll have a route for us soon. Do I really have to drive?”

“I can’t drive,” Dabi says. He’s leaning against their stolen truck, lighting a cigarette. “Compress. Can you drive?”

Compress waves his metal arm. “I’m disabled.”

“You pickpocketed me with that thing! Bullshit you’re disabled.” Spinner is getting desperate. He must be, if he’s looking at Shigaraki for help. “You can drive, can’t you?”

“You won the game,” Shigaraki says. “You’re better.”

Nobody in the League has a driver’s license, so they played successive rounds of Grand Theft Auto to see who was the least bad at it. Spinner beat Shigaraki pretty soundly. Spinner scowls. “If you said that’s why we were playing it, I’d have thrown the match.”

“Too late.” Shigaraki feels the urge to either pace or scratch, and for the first time in maybe ever, he starts pacing. “You’ll be fine.”

“Did you hit your head or something?” Dabi gives Shigaraki a weird look. “You’d better have hit your head, because if you’re high on something and you didn’t share –”

“I’m not high,” Shigaraki says. “We’re about to take revenge on Overhaul. The heroes did all the hard work. And –”

And I have a girlfriend. “And what?” Dabi says suspiciously.

“And I’m not driving. Buzz off.”

Dabi rolls his eyes. And another cigarette. Spinner looks like he’s practicing driving on an imaginary car. Shigaraki keeps pacing, wondering if he can get back to the same daydream he was having before. It was a good one. A lot of his daydreams have been good ones lately.

Shigaraki hasn’t made a ton of progress – or really any progress – on turning you to his side, but in spite of that, he’s pleased with how it’s going. He might have fucked up with the handholding, but what he got instead was a lot better – you sitting next to him for the whole second movie, tucked under his arm, very clearly not freaking out like you did in the kitchen. Shigaraki probably missed half the movie between trying not to squeeze you like a stress ball and trying not to pop one over the fact that you were about ten centimeters of elevation away from sitting in his lap, but it doesn’t matter. The movie’s one of your favorites. He’s willing to bet you’ll watch it with him again.

It’s going really well. Probably too well for the fact that you aren’t turned yet, because Shigaraki thinks about you too much for his own good and it would be easier not to wonder where you are and what you’re doing and if you’re thinking about him and how much you’re thinking about him if he actually had eyes on you. This Overhaul thing would be easier if you were here, too. Shigaraki’s pretty sure you know how to drive. You could drive today, teach Spinner later, and then the League would have two people who knew how to drive the getaway car.

Compress’s phone pings. “We have their destination,” he announces. He puts his phone away and cracks his knuckles one-handed. “I for one am looking forward to this.”

“Same.” Shigaraki watches as Spinner climbs into the cab of the truck, and Dabi and Compress take their places in the back. He himself climbs up on top, all according to plan, and raps against the cab’s roof with his knuckles. “Move out!”

It goes well. So well that Shigaraki’s almost suspicious, because his plans never come anywhere close to going off without a hitch – but this one does. They cut off the convoy transporting Overhaul. Shigaraki distracts the driver while Dabi takes out the single escorting hero. Shigaraki knew there’d be a hero escorting the convoy, and part of him was worried it would be you, which is why he put Dabi on hero-neutralizing duty. He knows you could handle Dabi. He doesn’t want to get stuck fighting you. For a lot of reasons.

Heroes always talk about how revenge doesn’t make anything better, but in Shigaraki’s opinion, they’re just doing revenge wrong. Stealing Overhaul’s quirk-canceling and quirk-boosting bullets and stealing his quirk along with it makes Shigaraki feel pretty damn good. It’s good for the rest of the strike team, too. Compress has a spring in his step as they walk back to the truck, and even Dabi’s bitching less than usual. Shigaraki, meanwhile, is already thinking about how he’ll tell you what happened. How you’ll be impressed. How you’ll agree that Overhaul deserved everything he got, and be pleased that Shigaraki gave it to him. How maybe this time you’ll understand that the rules you’re playing by get in the way of doing what needs to be done.

But he’s not going to need to tell you. You’ve already found out. “We’ve got trouble,” Spinner says, and when Shigaraki looks through the windshield, he sees you standing in the middle of the road.

Shigaraki’s heart sinks. You’re standing squarely in the truck’s path in full costume, right down to the boots that keep you from being yanked off your feet by your quirk. Even from this distance, he can see your expression, determined and perfectly calm. So much for the plan going well. Spinner is looking to Shigaraki for direction, a little more panicked every time he takes his eyes off the road, but Shigaraki’s frozen. And he has to make a decision. Now.

Maybe you’re here to help them escape. Maybe you’re here to join the League at last. You love him. You’re his girlfriend. There’s no way you’re just going to –

“Floor it,” Dabi orders, and Spinner hits the accelerator. “She’ll move.”

No. You won’t. Shigaraki sees you plant your feet, extend both hands in front of you, and he feels the exact moment when your quirk catches hold of the truck. You can’t stop it. It’s too close to you. But the front wheels of the truck lift, followed by the back wheels, up and over your head – and then it inverts into a slow barrel roll, still moving forward, steadily shedding momentum. Spinner’s got his seatbelt on. He’s the only one who doesn’t fall towards the ceiling.

But Dabi and Compress freeze in place. Shigaraki doesn’t. Shigaraki falls headfirst to the ceiling, because he still doesn’t have enough iron in his blood for you to catch him. And because he’s not paralyzed like the others – being rescued by you comes with a price – he can get all four of them out of here, because he learned from last time. Shigaraki ignores the sharp pain as his shoulder strikes the ceiling, fumbles in his pocket, and activates his phone’s location tracker. Kurogiri can find them now. It’ll be mere seconds before they’re safe.

The last of the truck’s momentum fades as it spins through the air, and you lower it carefully to the ground without turning it right-side up. Now that the strike team’s escape is secured, Shigaraki can focus on you, on just how insanely strong you are, how you can split your focus well enough to control the truck’s speed and rotation without losing your grip on Dabi and Compress. The heroes were stupid for letting you fill the role of an underground hero, keeping you away from the spotlight. Their loss is the League’s gain.

“Get us out of here!” Dabi snaps at Shigaraki as you walk towards the truck. Next to Shigaraki, Spinner looks similarly panicked. “We’re in a metal box. I can’t blast her without cooking us. If you don’t –”

Kurogiri’s warp gate swallows Dabi first, then Compress, and Shigaraki realizes all at once that while he’s about to escape clean, you aren’t. You haven’t done any of the things he knows you’re capable of to stop Kurogiri from rescuing them. You haven’t contracted the cab of the truck around them or bent off pieces of metal to bind them to their seats so Kurogiri can’t separate them from it. You’re going to be in trouble again for letting the League escape, and you’re going to be pissed at Shigaraki – unless Shigaraki finds a way to let you win at something.

And he’s got just the thing. As Spinner vanishes into another warp gate, Shigaraki fumbles the box containing the quirk-canceling bullets open in his pocket. He pries two out, palms them. Then he makes a show of pulling the box partway clear of his pocket.”

The box is metal. You melt the windshield one-handed – since when can you do that? – and snatch it, and before Shigaraki can stop you, you steal the box with the quirk-enhancing bullets, too. That’s fine. Shigaraki wasn’t going to keep those, and he only needs two of the quirk-canceling bullets for what he’s planning – and it’s not like he has a gun to fire them out of right now, anyway. You can keep the bullets, and he’ll escape. And he got to see you today when he wasn’t expecting to. Shigaraki smiles at you as the warp gate consumes him. He’s gone too quickly to see if you smile back.

Back at the hideout, Shigaraki discovers that nobody else thinks it went as well as he does. Spinner’s the least dramatic about it. “We got away,” he says with a shrug. “Overhaul was punished and we still got some of the bullets. All our win conditions were met.”

“They should not have been.” Even with the mask on, Compress somehow still manages to look disturbed. “That hero let us go.”

“Yeah, no shit she let us go. That’s the crazy one who’s in love with Shigaraki.” Dabi smirks, like he thinks he’s making fun of Shigaraki – except you are in love with Shigaraki, and Shigaraki maybe likes you a little bit. “Compress is right. If that had been any other hero, we’d have been fucked. Next time we should leave from the scene instead of driving off into the fucking sunset.”

Shigaraki can acknowledge when a plan needs some refinement. He nods in agreement, and Dabi, who seemed like he was looking for a fight, wanders off grumbling about how he needs a cigarette. Spinner sticks a little closer. “Did you know she could do that?”

“She stopped a train.”

“Yeah. That was one big thing moving away from her. She flipped us up and over her head while we were going 80km at her face,” Spinner says. “She’s really strong.”

Shigaraki struggles to hide his grin. “Yeah.”

“If she likes you, maybe you should use that,” Spinner suggests. “Her actions align with Stain’s principles, which means she can’t be happy with the way the rest of the heroes act. Maybe she’d want to join us.”

Spinner has good ideas. Next time there’s a plan to be made, Shigaraki should listen to more of him and less of everybody else. “Already on it.”

Spinner stares at him. “How?”

“How do you think?”

Spinner looks like he thinks Shigaraki is out of his mind. Then again, Shigaraki thinks Spinner is out of his mind for being so fixated on Stain. Spinner’s the weird one. A little weirdness doesn’t bother Shigaraki. Once he adds you to the League, it’ll straighten out. In the meantime, Shigaraki tucks the bullets away to an inside pocket of his coat and makes his way over to Kurogiri. “Is she back yet?”

Kurogiri’s yellow eyes narrow as he opens a warp gate into your apartment and peers through. “Not yet,” he reports. “It will likely be some time until she returns, given the paperwork that results from an incident like the one that occurred today.”

Shigaraki feels weirdly disappointed. He wants to see you now. But it’s not practical at the moment, and until he can bring you and the League together, he can’t let you distract him from them. “Keep checking,” he instructs. He turns to the other three and pitches his voice up. ��When Twice and Toga get back, we’re celebrating.”

“How are we going to celebrate? We don’t have any money.”

“Something will work out,” Compress says. “We’ve had very good luck today.”

They do have pretty good luck. Twice and Toga grabbed some stuff to fence on their way out of Overhaul’s compound, and with that sold, they’ve got enough to send Compress off in search of snacks. He comes back with half a convenience store and way too much money left over to have paid for most of it. Shigaraki doesn’t eat much. More for everybody else, and he’s going to eat later. You’ll cook at your apartment or you’ll order in, and either way it’ll be better than feasting on convenience store snacks. It occurs to Shigaraki that he’s getting sort of spoiled, and sort of picky, except the other way this time. After eating real food as often as he’s been doing, it’s hard to get excited about instant noodles.

He makes Kurogiri check on the hour to see if you’re back at your apartment yet. He wants Kurogiri to check on the half hour, but Kurogiri says no. “Allow her some time to get settled,” he says. “The chances that she will react poorly decrease the longer you give her.”

You haven’t reacted poorly to seeing Shigaraki, except the first time when you weren’t expecting him, and the last time when he tried to hold your hand without telling you he was going for it first. Shigaraki feels weird about that. You clearly thought he was going to be offended that you were scared to hold his hand, and he definitely wasn’t expecting you to panic like you did. To somebody else, it probably wouldn’t have looked like you were panicking at all.

But Shigaraki knows you. He should, since you’re his girlfriend who’s in love with him. And even if he was completely clueless, the fact that the shackles around his wrists and ankles were starting to vibrate would have been a major tell. You’ve been so calm both times he’s faced you in battle. It was weird that you freaked out holding his hand.

Maybe not weird. Shigaraki was freaking out, too, just on the inside. And maybe Kurogiri’s right about letting you have a little more space. “Go two hours before you check again,” he says, and Kurogiri nods. “I don’t want to, like –”

He doesn’t know what. This girlfriend thing is a good thing, sure, but he spends a lot more time being confused about shit than he used to. Shigaraki toys briefly with the idea of asking Toga for advice, then rejects it. Toga is still seventeen, and still basically insane, and besides, he’s not ready for everybody to know about you yet. He can keep you to himself a little while longer.

Shigaraki means to wait the full two hours, but he snaps at an hour and a half and tells Kurogiri to check. Sure enough, you’re back at the apartment, and it’s getting dark early enough now that no one will notice him outside your building. The difficult part is getting away from the others, but he tells them that he’s cultivating an ally – something they’re all supposed to be doing – and sneaks off through a warp gate onto your fire escape. The restraints encircle him almost the second he steps through, which means you were waiting for him to show up. Hoping he’d show up. Good.

He settles on a grade for the restraining job this time while he waits for you to let him go – a solid B. Like always, you don’t let him go all the way. He’s still got metal around his wrists and ankles. Lately Shigaraki’s been thinking about getting some metal of his own to wear, so you won’t keep fucking up your fire escape every time he swings by. The window opens, like always, and he climbs in.

But something’s different about your apartment this time. It’s subtle, but it’s there. Usually you’re already cooking, or just started. You’ve got the ingredients laid out and two place settings at your kitchen table – but you’re sitting on the couch instead. You aren’t watching anything, or looking for anything to watch, or even looking at your phone. You’re just sitting still. It’s weird.

Maybe you’re mad at him. Shigaraki speaks up as the window shuts behind him. “How much trouble did you get in?”

“Less than last time,” you say, without looking away from the black screen of your TV. “The HPSC had a rare second of self-awareness and realized that they should have come up with a stronger escort, given who they were transporting and who might be interested in getting revenge. And recovering the bullets didn’t exactly hurt my case.”

“I thought that would help,” Shigaraki says. You nod. “Uh –”

“One of the cops sent a distress signal before you crashed his car,” you say. “It went out to every hero in the area. Dispatch hit me up specifically.”

Just like the heroes should have seen the League’s attack coming, Shigaraki should have guessed that the heroes would send you to stop him. There aren’t many quirks better suited for stopping somebody escaping in a vehicle than yours. “It worked out,” he says.

“No, it didn’t.”

Shigaraki gets the worst hit of foreboding he’s felt in a while. “What do you mean? I got out, you didn’t get busted –”

“We got lucky,” you say flatly. “If there’d been another hero with me, I wouldn’t have had a choice but to capture you. You’d tell on me the instant you were in custody –”

“Hey,” Shigaraki says, offended. “You think I’d sell you out?”

“Why wouldn’t you? I’d have just captured you and ruined everything.”

“I wouldn’t sell you out,” Shigaraki repeats. The longer he thinks about it, the more offended he gets, but him being offended isn’t fixing this. Whatever it is. “If I turn you in, I won’t have anybody to break me out.”

Your quirk was basically designed for prison breaks. Shigaraki’s not kidding, but you must think he is, because you laugh, quiet and dull. “That’s why this can’t keep happening.”

You’re breaking up with him. Shigaraki feels like he’s gotten punched. You can’t break up with him. You’re in love with him. You can’t break up with someone you’re in love with, right? Knowing that doesn’t change the sinking feeling, the sickness sweeping up over him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean –” Your shoulders tense under your oversized t-shirt. “Do I have to spell it out?”

“Yeah, you do.” Shigaraki needs you to talk. He can’t come up with a countermove until he knows what you’re thinking. He pries off his shoes, hops the back of the couch, and sits down next to you. “Pretend I’m stupid or something.”

“When this goes wrong, and it will, one or both of us will lose everything.” You’re still staring at the TV, even though there’s nothing there. “It’ll be better to stop now, before it gets worse.”

“Before what gets worse?” Shigaraki asks. You don’t answer. You aren’t doing anything. What’s going on with you? “Look, if you’re done with me, just say that. Don’t make up some bullshit excuse about –”

“I let you escape. Again. What part of that says I’m done with you?” You don’t move, but the shackles are starting to vibrate. You’re getting upset. “We got lucky this time. Next time we’ll get caught.”

“Or not,” Shigaraki says. The despair from before is fading a little bit. It doesn’t sound like you actually want to break up with him, which means he might be able to talk you out of it if he plays his cards right. “Stay out of my way on the job and I’ll stay out of yours. We’ll deal with it once we can’t anymore, but – with your arrest profile, there’s no way they’re putting you on my case. You’re strictly small-time.”

You shouldn’t be, but you are – and that’s how you like it. You’ve said. Both times you’ve crossed the League, it’s been because you’ve been somewhere you shouldn’t have. If you stay where you’re supposed to be, this big clash between your feelings for Shigaraki and your responsibilities as a hero will never happen. Shigaraki looks around the apartment, trying to come up with his next move, and something on the coffee table catches his eye. He reaches over, nudges aside an English-language horror novel that’s been there for weeks, and picks up the pair of gloves.

They’re not your gloves. They’re new, and they’re weird – missing the thumb and first two fingers on each hand. They look like they were designed to be that way. Shigaraki goes from miserable and frustrated to some weird buoyant feeling he can’t describe in a split second, and the change in elevation almost makes him dizzy. And nauseous. He waves the gloves at you. “If this has to stop, what are these for?”

“Shut up,” you say, but your face is flushing, the same way it did when you got all awkward about the sex scene in the first Terminator movie. It was cute then and it’s even cuter now – more than cute, because if you went out and got special gloves that will let Shigaraki touch you safely, it means you want him to touch you. “At least admit that I have a point.”

“Yeah, you have one.” Shigaraki starts putting on the gloves. He wonders if Sensei knew about these, if they had them back when Shigaraki was a kid. If he had a pair of these, he wouldn’t have Decayed so many of his favorite things by accident. “But I have one, too, and mine’s better. You didn’t get made, I didn’t get caught, and Overhaul got what was coming to him and more. So we shouldn’t break up. We should celebrate.”

“Break up?” You look at Shigaraki like he’s lost his mind, and the last bit of worry evaporates. He never had anything to worry about. Of course you weren’t going to dump him, when you react to the idea of it like this. “How am I supposed to break up with you if –”

“You aren’t.” If Shigaraki wasn’t such a chickenshit, he’d kiss you right now – except the last time he sprung some kind of physical contact on you, you freaked out, and you already look sort of on edge. But you’re not breaking up with him. You don’t even want to think about breaking up with him. Fuck it. Shigaraki leans in.

In hindsight, he should have known better than to push his luck. He’s off-balance as he closes the distance between the two of you, courtesy of only putting one glove on and having only one hand to lean on. And because he’s off-balance, he misses. He manages to tag the corner of your mouth, but that’s it. The rest of his mouth is on your cheek, or maybe your jaw, and your skin is soft, smooth. So are your lips – the tiny piece of them he made contact with, anyway.  The opposite of his lips, which are dry and flaky and constantly cracking. How did Shigaraki forget how disgusting his mouth is?

He sits back from you, but it’s not far enough back. He retreats all the way to the end of the couch and tries to regroup. The longer he thinks about it, the more certain he is that there’s no way to regroup. He fucked up the first kiss. No bouncing back from that. He can feel you looking at him, and he knows his face is flushing. He knows how ugly it looks, too, and as the seconds tick past, Shigaraki’s options for what to do about it grow narrower. Turning away makes him look stupid. Covering his face with his hands makes him look like a little kid. Decaying your couch so you’ll kick him out is such a dumb idea that he can’t believe he thought of it. But the dumbest thing of all is just sitting here, waiting for you to figure out how to ask him nicely to leave.

“Quit staring,” he finally snaps. “Just kick me out already.”

“I’m not kicking you out.” You’re watching him from the other end of the couch, head tilted, perfectly calm. Your face is still a little flushed. “You have to warn me with this stuff, Shigaraki. It goes a lot better when it’s not a surprise.”

Shigaraki’s pretty sure it would have gone like this whether he surprised you or not. He doesn’t answer, and you get to your feet, leaving your end of the couch and sitting down next to him, close like the last time he was here. Your hand comes up to hold one side of his face, and your thumb runs lightly over the scar on his lip. Shigaraki freezes. This must have been how you felt when he tried to hold your hand the first time. Except you aren’t able to kill him just by touching him.

It feels like you could, though. Shigaraki’s heart is beating too fast. “What are you doing?”

You lean in slowly, not breaking eye contact. It’s intense enough that Shigaraki closes his eyes to avoid it, and a moment after he does, your lips press against his. Unlike him, you don’t miss. You don’t stay for long, either – longer than Shigaraki thought you would, shorter than he wants you to. Even knowing that his mouth’s disgusting. You sit back from him, looking pleased with yourself. You don’t look like that a lot, but you’re almost smirking, and Shigaraki remembers suddenly that he’s dealing with a hero, one who can flip speeding cars and stop out-of-control trains. “Uh –”

“It goes better when it’s not a surprise,” you say. “Don’t you think?”

It’s not even a question. Shigaraki nods, and you get up from the couch and head to the kitchen like absolutely nothing happened at all. Shigaraki sits there for another five minutes, inert like somebody’s stun-gunned him, before he pulls on the other glove, scrambles off the couch, and chases after you.

Whatever you’re cooking already smells good, but Shigaraki has something else on his mind. “Hey. You can’t just do that.”

“Do what?”

“Kiss me and walk away.”

“That’s what you were going to do,” you point out. “How was I supposed to feel about that?”

“It’s not the same,” Shigaraki says. You raise your eyebrows, and he grits his teeth. “You didn’t fuck it up like I did.”

You don’t make fun of him, but you don’t argue, either. Shigaraki gets back to the point. “You can’t kiss me and leave. That’s not what’s supposed to happen.”

“What did you think was going to happen?” You drop something into the pan on the stove and a cloud of steam billows up. “We’d kiss one time and then have sex on the couch?”

“That’s not what I thought,” Shigaraki says at once, except it must have been sort of what he thought, because his face goes up in flames. Either it’s what he thought or he thinks it would be hot. Or both. “It sounds stupid when you say it like that.”

“It sounds stupid because it is stupid,” you say.

“Why is it stupid?” Shigaraki challenges. Maybe you’re playing dumb. “That’s exactly what they did in Terminator.”

It’s also what they do in every porno Shigaraki’s ever seen – at least the ones that don’t cut straight to the sex. You stare at him for a second, jaw dropped, then burst out laughing. “What?” Shigaraki snaps, but you’re cracking yourself up. It would be cuter if you weren’t laughing at him. “Don’t just stand there and –”

“It’s a movie, Shigaraki,” you interrupt, wiping your eyes. “That’s not how it works in real life.”

“No shit it’s a movie. I don’t see any robots in skin suits from the future,” Shigaraki says, which only makes you laugh harder. “It’s not funny. I’m not stupid. If you just –”

“That’s how it works in movies. Maybe it works like that for some people in real life. That’s not how it’s going to work for us,” you say. Shigaraki doesn’t hate that, mainly because you’re implying that it’s going to work at some point. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to do things Terminator-style.”

Shigaraki is working on calming down. He thinks you might be joking a little bit. “Yeah, if we go that route, you get knocked up and I die.”

“Or you get knocked up and I die,” you counter, straightfaced. “That would be bad, too.”

Shigaraki’s pretty sure that would be worse. You’re snickering again. “You’re crazy.”

“I’d have to be,” you say. Some of the mirth evaporates. “Wouldn’t I?”

Shigaraki remembers thinking early on that you had a screw or two loose – for naming yourself after a villain, for getting dragged behind a train, for falling in love with Shigaraki in the first place. You having a couple screws loose worked out really nicely for him. “Yeah,” he says. He takes the three steps into the kitchen until he’s right alongside you at the stove. “I like it, though.”

He only got ‘like’ out of his mouth at the last minute. Something else tried to get through instead. You nudge him lightly with your shoulder and it almost comes out again. Shigaraki swallows it. “Okay, so not Terminator style,” he says, and you nod solemnly. Your mouth is twitching again. “Then what?”

“I don’t know,” you say. “We might have to watch some more movies.”

“Fine,” Shigaraki says, and you smile. Your rice cooker beeps on the counter behind you. “Which ones?”

“If you don’t hate old sci-fi, more of those,” you say. “I made a list.”

It almost gets out again. Shigaraki’s in trouble. He’s not going to think about that until later. “See, you could have led with that. If you’d started out saying you bought me gloves and made a list of movies for us to watch, I never would have thought you were trying to break up.”

“I told you. We weren’t breaking up.”

The last time you said that, Shigaraki kissed you and fucked it up. This time, he taps your shoulder with a gloved hand and waits for you to look up. He tries to remember what you did. Eye contact. One hand on the side of your face. You don’t have a scar on your lip like he does, but Shigaraki improvises, brushing his thumb across your lower lip. Your eyes widen slightly, and your lips part. Shigaraki leans in.

You were right, he decides as his lips meet yours for the second time. It goes a lot better when it’s not a surprise. And it gets even better than that when you set one hand on his chest and kiss him back.

It takes some getting used to, to see kissing as something other than an achievement to check off on the way to getting laid. Out of context, kissing is a weird thing to do for any significant length of time. In context, Shigaraki’s annoyed every time you have to stop kissing him so you can do something to the food. If kissing is where the two of you are at right now, he wants to get as much out of it as possible. Besides, you’ve got your quirk. You don’t need to let go of him to move things around on the stove.

“Come on,” he mumbles, after probably the eighth time you’ve drawn back. “Who cares if it’s messed up? Order takeout.”

“Are you paying the delivery fee?” You take your other hand off Shigaraki’s shoulder, too, when you absolutely don’t need it for what you’re doing. “Takeout’s expensive, it’ll take longer to get here, and this has more iron in it. You’re still anemic.”

“So I should come over more often,” Shigaraki decides. Then something clicks in his head. “Wait, is that how you decide what to cook when I’m here? By how much iron it has in it?”

“I cook like this all the time. My quirk doesn’t work as well when my iron concentration isn’t high.” You seem like you’re focusing really hard on stirring what’s in the pan. Too hard. Stirring doesn’t take that much brainpower. “And yours is still too low. That’s why I dropped you.”

“I figured.” Shigaraki’s not mad about it. A sore shoulder’s a small price to pay for not getting paralyzed like everyone else. “Do you feel bad or something?”

“That depends. Did you get hurt?”

“That depends. What do I get if I say yes?”

“No,” you say, and Shigaraki snorts. “Is this what it’s going to be like? We meet up after fights and figure out who owes what?”

That’s really stupid. “We’re going with my plan. That means we aren’t going to fight.”

“And what happens if we do?”

“You still can’t grab me,” Shigaraki says with a shrug. “Unless you want to do it like this.”

He pulls your hand, wraps it around his waist, then steps in close. “And if you do it like this, we’ve got bigger problems than whether you’re trying hard enough to capture me.”

You still don’t look convinced, and instead of bringing your other hand over and putting it back on Shigaraki’s shoulder or on his chest or anywhere, you’re still stirring whatever’s in the pan. “All you have to do is not go plus ultra,” Shigaraki continues. “I know that’s a lot to ask from somebody who went to UA –”

You roll your eyes. “How long have you been sitting on that one?”

“About as long as you’ve been sitting on being in love with me,” Shigaraki says. “So, the whole time.”

“Shigaraki –”

“The plan is a good plan. It’s going to work,” Shigaraki says. Since you’re finally looking at him – and not touching anything on the stove, and probably expecting it now that he’s done it a few times – he kisses you. Then he keeps trying to talk. That doesn’t go as well. “It’ll work out.”

It’s going to work out. For Shigaraki, absolutely – and for you, too, once you finally realize the truth about the system you’re upholding. Maybe all it’ll take is one more clash with the League, one more time where you catch the blame that should belong to everybody, not just to you. Or maybe you’ll wake up one morning and it’ll all make sense, the way it all made sense to Shigaraki after he talked to Midoriya at the mall before Kamino. Either way the game ends, Shigaraki wins big.

He hasn’t gotten a win like that in, well – ever. And with the way things are going right now, he doesn’t mind waiting a little while for it to happen.

[staarstuckbyou]

𝙘𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙝 𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙙 — 𝘌-1610 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘹 f!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 ✮

𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮 — you accidentally land in Earth-1610 after a long day, where you meet Miles.

𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙧’𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨 — this takes place after ITSV and before ATSV. reader kind of assumes that Miles is in the society while he doesn’t really know what she’s talking about. No use of Y/N!

Technically, this wasn’t against the rules. Why give dimension-jumping watches if you weren’t supposed to jump dimensions with them? Besides, you had already finished your missions for the day and you were sure as hell Miguel wasn’t gonna call you for backup. Your constant dimension-hopping got on his nerves but he didn’t have a reason valid enough to stop you. He never said anything more than a, “you’re abusing the power of that watch” so you took it is a, “good to go!”

Walking through HQ, a burger in hand while looking through universes, searching for Earth-1160; your home world. You successfully captured an anomaly, but only after 2 hours and the help of Hobie. After that you stuck around to help clean up, despite your exhaustion. All you wanted was to get home and sleep til next week.

You sighed as you stuck your burger into your mouth, swinging through the city and landing on the side of a school, pulling out your phone to text your best friend.

𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦. 𝘔𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘦𝘭 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘺 𝘢𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩, 𝘐 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘳.

You click send and watch as it sent excruciatingly slow.

𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥

Not delivered? Your face scrunched up as you shoved the rest of your burger into your mouth.

𝘏𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘰??

𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘶 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘬 𝘮𝘦?

𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨

𝘪 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘵 5𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨

All messages went undelivered. You sighed, annoyed, but stuffed your phone back in your pocket and swung away to the direction of your place. Although…

You squinted at the sunset. It was a really nice day. A little stop on a rooftop wouldn’t hurt. You pulled down your mask completely as you scouted out a decent building to land on.

Unbeknownst to you, a certain high schooler had attentively watched you from his dorm window, rushing to grab his suit as he when he saw you leave.

Your hands hit the concrete and your legs swung under you. The breeze was just right, and people on the streets started to thin out. A sigh escape your lips and-

𝘛𝘏𝘞𝘐𝘗!

In seconds you were on your feet, webbing up the figure creeping up on you. You pulled him close, noses inches away.

“Who are you?” You demanded. “It’s super creepy and really not smart to sneak up on a hero enjoying her break.” You shook him a little, watching his brown eyes go wide. He let out a nervous laugh, arms going up in defeat. As much as he could at least, bending at his elbows.

“Calm- calm down. My name is Miles, uh, Morales.” He smiled a little. Your frown only deepened. “Okay? Is that supposed to make me less weirded out?” Your grip tightened on the web. “Honestly, I’m about two seconds away from webbing you upside-down somewhere. Can’t a girl get any peace around here?”

Miles’ smile dropped. “No- wait no you don’t get it. I’m Spiderman.”

In a split second, he went invisible and your web exploded right in your face. You stumbled back coughing, head whipping around ready to fight.

A web latched onto your back, yanking you backwards with a yelp and rolled you up before you could figure out what happened.

You were met another spider-mask, white eyes outlined in red. You could practically hear his grin under the mask. “So it’s my turn to ask. Who are you? Why are you in my universe?”

A moment of hesitant silence. But you told him your name.

“Why in the world did you introduce yourself with just your name?” You said, eyes narrowing at him. “It doesn’t give me much to work with.” Miles laughed again, a lot less tense. He pulled off his mask, and released you from his web trap. Glaring at him, you turned away and checked your watch. E-1610, it read. Damn, you really were in the wrong universe. Preparing to make your leave, you stepped forward. Even if he was a little cute, what he did made you want to escape as soon as possible.

A hand touched on your shoulder and you stopped. “Wait,” Miles said. “I’m really sorry for startling you like that. Can we talk?” You turned to look at him, and he slowly retreated his hand. “It’ll be quick, and you can go where you need to go.”

As you studied him further, you noticed his small freckles, and how nice his hair looked- despite having that mask on a minute ago.

Maybe you could spare a moment for the cute boy.

Another sigh. “Okay. But I can’t stay for long.” Your mask came off, and you finally faced him maskless. “Honestly, I’m really just tired. I didn’t mean to be hostile.”

When he didn’t say anything, you glanced at his face (not noticing the slight red tint to his cheeks) and walked past him, plopping down on the side of the building where you were before he found you. He cleared his throat and followed, taking a seat close by.

“So what world are 𝘺𝘰𝘶 from?” he started, looking down at the streets below you. You smiled wryly, following his gaze. “You say that like people stop by your world a lot.” Miles let out a laugh. “You wouldn’t believe.” was all he replied. Tilting your head, you continued. “Well, now that I think about it, it’s not that unusual these days. Anomalies left and right, you know how it is…” You scratched your head, memories of your earlier fight filling your head and you grimaced. Seriously, Miguel needs to stop giving you hard missions. Miles hummed in response, then stopped abruptly.

“Anomalies?” he questioned. You scoffed. “Yeah, anomalies. Miguel sent me off to fight this huge ass sand guy variant.” Shaking your head, you scrunched your nose at Miles. “I swear, he hates me.” But Miles’ eyes only met yours curiously. “Miguel?” he asked again. “Is he your boss?” Now it was your turn to return a strange look.

Silence filled the air. You had to give this some thought. You glanced at the sunset, then back at Miles.

“…You know what. He isn’t the boss of me!” A spike of rebellion shot through you, probably because of how tired you were. It was making you slightly delirious. Miles leaned back in surprise from your sudden outburst.

“Who is he to send me out to fight sand dudes and creepy octopus guys? Miles- you’re really bad influence!” You exclaimed, laughing. Miles watched you, his eyes golden in the sunlight. A smile broke out in his face, his laugh slowly joining yours. When the laughter subsided, he grinned, “Woah, don’t blame this on me now. I was only making you more independent.” You returned his grin and rolled your eyes playfully. “Well thanks for looking out for me, let’s hope it doesn’t get me fired.”

Miles turned back towards the sunset. “I don’t think they’re gonna fire someone as amazing as you, a girl who beat up a sand dude and a creepy octopus guy.”

Your eyes stayed on him, mesmerized by the way the sun kissed his face. Heat bubbled in your stomach. “Yeah sure…I bet other guys have done better.”

Miles leaned forward, resting on his arms placed between his thighs. “Maybe, but not as cool as you.” A short laugh escaped you. “Very true. They’ll never be as cool as me.” You replied sarcastically.

The conversation flowed on. You asked about his life, and he asked about yours. You both excitedly exchanged your stories on villains you fought recently, embarrassing moments during them and your cover up stories to the people around you.

It was twilight now, and the streetlights were turning on. You pointed it out, then a comfortable silence fell over the two of you as you watched New York light up. You were really surprised with how you guys clicked so fast. He was so easygoing, opening up your real personality despite the sour first impression.

And not to mention, he was really, really pretty. The more time you spent talking, the more you noticed. You’d only known him for a few hours, and a look from him had your face warm. As many universes as you hopped, you were yet to meet someone that made you want to visit again so soon like this.

In this train of thought, he caught your staring. Instead of pointing it out, he only returned the gesture, a small smile playing on both your lips. He hadn’t realized how the space between you two closed as you talked. He was overly aware of your body heat near his, how your shoulder was a lean away. It sent his head reeling. He internally scoffed at himself. There’s no way a single conversation with you had him sparking a crush- It’s gotta be a superpower of yours.

A truck passed by, blaring his horn and a random New Yorker yelled curses at him. The small commotion broke the trance, and you whipped your head away, flustered by the exchange. Pretending to check your watch and then the sky, you stood up. “It was fun having a ‘small chat’ with you Miles. I wish I could stay, but it’s getting late.”

A strange feeling was washing over you, making you sheepish. Seriously, what was going on? You backed away, waving with a shy smile. Miles got up and walked away from the ledge, towards you as you faced away from him, ready to open a portal.

“So we’re friends then?”

A moment of hesitance, and he spoke again. “You’ll come back, right?” You put down your watch, staring at the ground in front of you. Chuckling, you walked up to him again and put your hand to your chin in fake thought. “Well, if I’m free…I supposed we could meet here at this time, tomorrow.” Hand on your hip, you held out your hand. “If that’s ok with you, of course.” His grin lit up the sky. In your mind, it could’ve replaced the full moon tonight.

Miles took your hand in his, eyes meeting yours softly, one more time. “I’ll hold you to it.” he smiled. When you pulled your hand back, he immediately missed the contact.

And you kinda did too.

You step back once again, making sure to open the proper portal this time. When it opened, you heard a gasp behind you.

You stepped through it, into your room.

“Nice room. Is hopping through people’s dimensions another superpower of yours?” He said, trying to hold back his amazement. You giggled, “Haha. For sure. It includes accidentally crashing into people’s universes uninvited.”

Miles pulled his mask down, hand on his neck and looking away. “Then I’m glad you crashed in mine.”

Your face went hot.

“That was really corny.” Was all you could mumble, flustered.

“But I’m glad I crashed here too.”

Just as he looked back at you, you yelled out “Bye Miles!” and slammed the portal shut, collapsing on your bed.

Miles had a cheesy smile on his face, doing a little hop-step to ease the giddiness and swung off. Same time tomorrow, here. He’d be ready.

You, on the other hand, was hurriedly changing out of your costume, ready to shower and sleep until next week.

As you pulled your shirt over your head, an annoying beep you’d gotten far too used to emitted from your watch.

“Lyla, what is it now?” you groaned. You stared at the holographic figure flying in front of your face. “Don’t tell me Miguel has some emergency mission he needs backup on.”

Lyla giggled and crossed her legs on some invisible chair. “Come on, don’t be like that. I just wanted to ask what you were doing in 1610.”

Your eyes went wide and the butterflies came rushing back. “What?” You huffed. “Were you stalking me?” Lyla rolled her eyes with a smile. “Calm down, I just noticed you weren’t at home.”

Your eyes narrowed at her, falling down onto your bed. “You were most definitely spying. I just went to the wrong dimension on accident, similar numbers and whatever.” You buried your face in your sheets. “Satisfied?”

Lyla glitched towards you, leaning forward with her hands behind her back. You lifted your head and raised an eyebrow. “Besides, I hop from dimension all the time. Why’s it a big deal if I go to that one?” You asked suspiciously. Lyla laughed and glitched to your shoulder. “Geez, so defensive for nothing! I was only asking sweetie. Entertain me with a little conversation, girl.” Lyla chortled.

Sighing, you relaxed and laid back into your bed. Lyla moved to hover above you. It reminded you of Tinkerbell, in a way.

“I’m sorry. Just been a long day, y’know?” Lyla nodded understandingly. “Okay then, I’ll leave you to get some rest.” She teleported to closer to you, a phone in hand. “I’ll go back to bothering Miguel. But if I get rebooted, it’s on you.” The AI poked playfully. You let out a half-hearted laughed, closing your eyes when she left and hearing your watch power off.

Easing into a deep sleep, you couldn’t help but feel a little excited for tomorrow, no matter what life threatening situation Miguel throws you in.

Your phone buzzed.

𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘰??

𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘶 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴?

___

Going to sleep without showering? weirdo (i was too lazy to write it in after i noticed)

Requests are open! I hope you enjoyed. I haven’t written in forever lol

[whumble-beeee]

Show Me What You're Made Of

The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping | Cont'd from Part 2

CW: escape attempt, disabled whumpee, trans whumpee, flashbacks (ptsd), past captivity references, needles mention, tied up, gunshot, general violence

* * * * * * * * [There are some scenarios in which you will want to invite a staged escape attempt just to foil it. Usually, this is done as a way to give hope to your captured hero only to viciously rip it away, but it can also be useful in making them reveal any powers they may have previously kept hidden.

It must be noted that inviting a non-staged escape attempt is very risky and generally a terrible idea, as there is always a chance the hero will be able to overpower you. Don’t get cocky, and always have a fail-safe. If done correctly, a failed escape attempt can be devastating to both a hero’s emotional and physical well-being and aid in long-term hero-keeping.]

* * * * * * * *

Stan was not a fast runner in any capacity. Especially without the use of his cane or any magical intervention to help his knee move along.

He could run without a mobility aid, sure, but that didn’t mean that a sharp pang of protest from his damaged knee didn’t light up his entire leg with every heavy step, and it certainly didn’t mean that he had the balance required to keep running smoothly like your average able-bodied person.

That realization blasted him like a truck as soon as he stood up and took his first steps to bolt toward the door, but at that point, it was way too late to turn back. 

He pitched himself toward the wall and slammed into it with a methodically placed shoulder, using the cold cinderblocks to keep balance. With that support, and if he ignored the steadily increasing pain-filled protest from his leg, he could practically run normally! 

Then a yell. He could hear footsteps pounding up behind him, gaining on him.

For a brief moment, he could already feel the iron grip around his wrist or his shirt, or the arm snaking around his stomach, the heave backward just as his fingers brushed the door handle, the slam to the ground, how he’d be bound up and forced back to that stupid chair and probably be tortured or whatever else the mercenary saw fit to do to him. 

Fuck that.

If he couldn’t outrun him, he’d just have to fight him off.

Stan whirled around and sent out the sturdiest force he could muster to grab onto the bounty hunter's ankle. Just enough so that it caught in the air and missed the floor entirely, and the hunter pitched forward with a surprised shout and fell face-first into the concrete floor, the residual blue glow of the magic still half enveloping his leg. Stan could feel the energy seeping out of him like a punch to the gut, but he didn’t stop to see the rest of the damage before turning around and booking it again.

He slammed the mercifully unlocked door open wide and frantically ran outside, hesitating for just a moment because he didn’t expect to run face-first into what looked to be a warehouse wall, complete with a wide hallway he couldn’t see the end of, high ceilings, blank walls, and cold clinical lighting like a goddamn horror movie.

And no exit door in sight.

He raced to the nearest hallway turn, ignoring his pounding head and screaming weak knee and imminent exhaustion and burning lungs and the ever-threatening presence of the bounty hunter and just focused on the one and only task of ‘RUN!’ He couldn’t afford any other thoughts.

He finally barreled past the blind corner, and there was a door! Stan allowed himself a small relieved laugh at the sight of it.

A flash of the mercenary streaked in his periphery. Stan only squeaked slightly. He needed to get away, to slow him down again, he was so close, so close. So he twisted around to throw some sort of magic bullshit at him again when–

And his knee torqued.

He stumbled.

Lost his balance.

He shoved into the wall again so he didn’t fall flat on his face, and tried to push up again and run, or attack, or do something. And in that moment, despite everything, he saw a flash of red on the back of his hand that he hadn’t noticed before that drew all his attention; A tiny little smiley face, no doubt carved in the first time the bounty hunter messed with him when he was tied to the chair.

Then the bounty hunter tackled him to the ground.

Stan fought to get back up, but all he managed was a terrified shuffling of limbs and a feeble attempt at drawing up enough energy to fight the mercenary off as he quickly pinned Stan down with a straddling of the hips and threw a devastating punch across Stan's jaw that made him have to blink exploding stars away.

He held up his arms to protect his face, instinctively trying to curl up and away from the source of the pain. Noise surrounded him, that frizzy buzzing sensation filling his head with cotton and making it hard to think. His entire body felt like it was seizing up.

He wasn’t done yet. This wasn’t done yet.

“GET OFF!!”

Stan used every last bit of power he had to push the man off of him. The walls around them glowed an electric blue, and the bounty hunter lifted violently up into the air with a surprised yelp. But not before he grabbed the front of Stan’s shirt and dragged the hero right along with him with an equally terrified shriek. 

Then Stan slammed face-first into the ground, barely managing to get his arms under himself in time to soften the landing. One which was not made any softer by the person landing on top of him.

“Holy shit... you don’t know when to quit, do you?” the voice above him cut through heavy breaths, a suddenly prominent southern twang vibrating through a growl of his voice.

Stan felt a punch in the right of his ribcage.

His muscles seemed to stop working entirely for a moment. Then a strange blooming agony started working its way outward throughout his torso.

His eyes unfocused. He curled in on himself as much as he could. It wasn't much at all. He couldn’t move. He felt an increasing pressure emanating from the area, the unbearable stinging pain spread throughout his torso and he squeaked trying to hold in a full-blown scream, breathless yet barely able to suck in a single gasp into his shuddering body. 

He barely even noticed when a hand tangled through the hair at the back of his head until it yanked him up and arched his back, causing what felt like knives stabbing through his ribs. He gritted his teeth. If nothing else, he wasn't going to give the bounty hunter the satisfaction of hearing him scream. 

The hand slammed his face down into the ground. The sides of his vision starting to go dark. Then slowly receded back again. A ringing sound reverberated throughout his entire body, and he all but went limp pressing his forehead into the floor.

“Y’know, runt,” the voice of the bounty hunter penetrated Stan’s clouded mind with hard breath. He could feel the man messing around with his belt pouches as he pressed his knee sharply into Stan’s lower back. “I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to use this. I think it's demeaning and kinda inhumane, but you just had to fuck around and find out, didn’t you?”

Stan shook his head and squirmed fruitlessly, terrified of whatever this guy could possibly think was demeaning and inhumane. 

He didn’t have to wait long to find out, because suddenly a strip of smooth leather ran under his neck and pulled tight under his Adam’s apple. 

Stan froze mid-struggle. Clenched his hands, and his teeth, arched his back and pressed his face into the floor even more. He could only see bright white. 

He already knew what the collar felt like.

And suddenly he wasn't in the dingy warehouse corridor anymore.

"No, no, no no no NO NO PLEASE STOP PLEASE!!"

The red eyes flicked down to his sister, pressing her face into his side and squeezing into him as tight as she could.

Then back up to him, holding his hand out threateningly, blue glow dancing across his fingertips.

“How old is she?”

He snarled, arms protectively pulling her into him. “Stay AWAY from us!”

The eyes softened slightly.

So why was a gun still pointing at his head?

–

He threw his hands violently out at the person in all-black combat gear and a slight electric blue glow enveloped their side. Their narrowed their eyes and hissed in annoyance.

“Collar the older one, and for gods sake, find the younger one and dispose of it or something.” The person in all-black combat gear nodded at him. “She’s the only one we need alive.” 

–

He tried to fight back. He didn’t have the cane back then. Didn’t need one.

His powers were so new, and they were so many, and he was just a kid.

He never stood a chance.

The gun. The eyes behind it. Red sparkles, red and scary.

He faced them down. 

They were supposed to be gone forever.

Then the rough woven fabric of a collar too tight around his neck.

The large hands squeezing his upper arms painfully, forcing him forward.

Restraining him.

Fighting.

Held down.

Experiments. 

Needles.

NEEDLES.

Where was his family?

He clutched at the collar as it wrapped around his neck. He could feel his powers leeching away as he fought to keep his freedom.

CLICK.

The sound reverberated through his skull.

And now the cycle had begun anew.

An arm wrapped around his chest and strong-armed him to his feet. Stan would have screamed if he remembered how to. Instead, a strangled gasp choked out of his vocal cords as a heavy hand clasped onto his shoulder and propelled him forward. 

He immediately stumbled and fell to one knee, agonizing pain bolting up and down his bad leg and almost face-planting in the process, because when were his hands cuffed behind his back again? 

He felt the collar sitting on his throat and he tried to bring his hands up to rip the damn thing off, but he couldn't.

He couldn't, he couldn't, he tried but he couldn't.

A voice lilted somewhere all around Stan, and he could feel the hands grabbing at him. He shrieked and fell forward, scrambling all of six inches before he was backed up and shivering against the wall staring up at the heaving bounty hunter.

He did not look amused.

“You are so pitiful, you know that?”

Stan brought his knees up and pressed his face into his legs, as if that small protection could put the world between them.

“Chiquito, if you don’t get your ass up and walk with me back to that room, I will pick you up and throw you over my shoulder like a sack of goddamn potatoes and spike you into the fucking floor when we get there, do you want that?”

Stan stared glassily into the floor. “... you– you– y-you were– you were there-ere.”

“I was–... What?”

Stan’s gaze snapped to his eyes. Those dark eyes. He couldn’t see it now, but he was sure there was a red glint in the right light.

“You!” He shouted, as if that would clear up his babbling. “You were– it was you!”

The mercenary stared at him. Then clenched his fists, looked up, took a hissing deep breath, and released his fists again.

“You can have a mental breakdown when we get back, runt. Are you gonna walk there or am I dragging you there?”

He didn’t remember. 

Of course he didn’t remember, it must have been ten years ago. Stan was just a kid, and everyone thought he was a girl back then. He himself thought he was a girl back then.

Things were different now. Things were going better.

“I– I– We–... Walk.”

“Great.”

He reached down and dragged Stan up by the upper arm, completely ignoring the way he violently flinched and tugged back. 

Stan did his best to keep up, but in addition to hunching over the searing pain in his chest and trying to ignore the prickling bruise that must have been forming on his cheek, his leg was oozing spikes of lava up and down his entire hip and leg. Stan stumbled and almost pitched forward if it hadn't been for the bounty hunter's iron grip. 

The bounty hunter groaned incredulously. “Oh my god!” 

“Wait, wait, I– Don't–!”

That was all he managed to get out before he was swept off his feet and thrown over the man's shoulder, hitting the soft part of his stomach right on the bone, knocking the wind from his lungs and setting his side on fire all over again. And now he was upside down. His brain felt like it was made out of slime.

He barely managed to gather his bearings enough to start kicking and yelling when he was unceremoniously dumped against the wall, where his head cracked against the cold cinderblock and he bounced to the ground with a strangled gasp.

The world went bright white as the searing pain shot through his entire being, snaking around his brain and squeezing it in a chokehold so that there was no more thought, nothing else but the primal urge to curl up into a little ball to protect himself and the silent open-mouthed screams of a trapped animal clawing desperately for its life, seizing and twitching and paralyzed all because of a too hard smack to the head short circuiting any chance it had at survival.

Stan could barely feel anything over the deafening ringing in his ears, the buzzing feeling in his body as if he were entirely made of bees, the dizziness tilting the world around him on its axis like some bad carnival fair ride.

What was that all about?

Then he finally spotted the mercenary again, coming at him once more with chain in hand, and he may as well have been dunked in ice water with how fast that image sobered him up.

He clumsily kicked out with all his might, pressing his back into the wall as much as possible to get away while simultaneously realizing that with the wall behind him, probably concussed, dizzy, tied up, and in agonizing pain, there was no way he was going to win this fight.

He kicked anyway.

Even as the hunter seemed to grab the ankle of his good leg easily, he still tried to slam his foot into the hand of the bounty hunter to just get him off. He even managed to get a solid kick in, causing the hunter to jolt back with a pained cry and let go. 

Stan felt some sort of twisted sense of pride that he managed to get a hit in even in his sorry state.

Which was quickly crushed when two hands grabbed either of his ankles and lifted them up high into the air, so high that Stan was only touching the ground with the upper part of his back. He couldn’t even use his arms for extra support with the way they were firmly stuck near the small of his back.

There was panting above him. “Alright, you gonna–”

“Let me GO!” Stan yelled, trying once more to kick out of the hold, pressing painfully down into the ground with the back of his head and writhing around erratically in one last herculean act of defiance. He kicked even as his bad knee screamed for him to stop, to rest, even as the fists around his ankles just tightened and became more rigid in response, even as the mercenary grunted out a string of curses trying to wrangle him in.

He wasn’t just gonna give in.

“¡Basta ya! Fucking stop, you lost!”

“Fuck you, make me!”

A sharp kick struck him square in the middle of his spine, and he nearly cracked his teeth with the clench of the jaw he made trying to hold back the scream. He almost involuntarily had to take a moment to catch his breath, then before he could start his protestations again, the cold metal claw of a manacle clamped around his ankle and locked in place with a final click click click that made Stan’s hairs stand on end.

But he was still upside down. The mercenary didn’t let go.

In fact, he held Stan up by only one leg now, and seemed to be fiddling with something that Stan couldn’t see because of his own overturned and battered body getting in the way. He could hear each heavy breath the mercenary seethed out, each one filling him with more dread.

He felt like he’d been hit by a truck. The adrenaline of the situation finally started to ebb away as it started to sink in that he was well and truly trapped, leaving room for the much more paralyzing fear that Stan had been battling since the moment he woke up here. 

Not to mention the blood rush from being upside down for so long was stinging at his face and making his brain hurt. And dizzy. And everything felt like it was shrouded in clouds. Or maybe that was the concussion.

“Jesus Christ,” the mercenary finally breathed. “One hell of a fucking kicker…”

Stan wrenched his head up to snarl at the man and tried to kick his hand off his ankle.

He snatched it out of the air mid-kick, haphazardly pressing a small bundle of twine into his skin as he knocked Stan’s ankles together and held them there as he began to wind the thread around them.

“Yeah, no more kicking.”

Stan still tried to wriggle out with increasingly weaker and weaker cries of anger, even as his ankles were anchored together, even as the blood rushed to his head and made him more and more dizzy, feeling the pressure in his face rising, and his breaths becoming shallower and slower.

Even as all of his efforts did absolutely nothing, and he was left panting and shaking with effort to not go completely limp as his legs were still held up high above him.

Stan didn’t even have the energy left to fight anymore. Tears stung at his eyes as he finally let his head lay on the ground.

“All tuckered out?” the mercenary's voice came from above him. “This seems to work pretty well on you. Maybe I just just let you hang like this for a bit. I’ve got this like, chain thing in the middle of the room hanging from the ceiling, I could probably just like, clip this in–”

“No, no, no, no no no…”

“You’re sure?” The southern drawl was ever-present. “Just wanna make sure you learned to never fucking do that again… y'know, I could hogtie you, you’re already most of the way there.”

Stan felt something break just then. He heaved in a desperate, hitching breath. “Just… please just put me down. Please.” 

His voice was barely even a whisper. Every breath put more strain on his lungs.

A moment passed.

Then the hold on his ankles released, and his body came crashing to the ground. His feet hit extra hard, and his bad knee felt like it was being attacked by angry stinging bees. 

But he didn’t care.

He just rolled onto his side so he wasn’t lying on his bound wrists and lay there.

He heard the boots of the bounty hunter approaching him, and he used whatever energy he had left to open his eyes and stare up at him, pleading with him to not actually hogtie him, whatever that meant. He didn’t think he could handle more.

But the bounty hunter just stared back down at him, briefly meeting his eyes before giving his body a once over, then a small nod. He nudged Stan lightly with the toe of his boot, and Stan’s wandering eyes opened and focused back on the man before he even realized they had closed.

“Not gonna pass out on me, are ya?” the mercenary asked, as if they had just had a light sparring match instead of an irrefutable beatdown.

It almost seemed like he cared. Maybe he did.

Stan swallowed. “I’m– not.”

“Good. Don’t.”

The mercenary whipped around and started to walk away, giving Stan a faceful of the revolver strapped to his hip, still completely clipped in and unused.

He never stood a chance, did he?

Despite everything, a feeling of something akin to a mix of rage and sorrow bubbled up within his stomach.

“He-hey! Wait!”

The bounty hunter turned to face him again quizzically, and somehow that made Stan’s annoyance just grow.

“You didn’t even–” Why was he mad about this? “You didn’t use the gun! Coward!”

The mercenary’s gaze shot to his hip. Then back up to Stan. His nose twitched. Face blank, calculating.

Then in one smooth motion, the gun was out of the holster and pointing directly at Stan, and a deafening blast rang out throughout the entire room.

Stan felt a burning sting whiz by his ear, high-pitched and cutting through air microseconds before the blast shook him to his core. He screamed and ducked into himself, violently shoving back into the wall and cowering into a small ball.

Even as the ringing died down and Stan realized he wasn’t a splatter on the wall behind him, the stinging on the shell of his ear didn’t die down. It got more intense. He felt a single drop of something tickling down the side of his ear before dripping down onto his shoulder. Then another.

His attention ripped up to the mercenary, only to scramble further into the wall when he found the gun still pointed at him. 

Another drip.

The mercenary flipped the revolver once and shoved it firmly back into its holster.

“I’ll use the gun next time.”

* * * * * * * *

Next

taglist: @flowersarefreetherapy

[pennysperfectpolls]

Symphogear adoption poll round 2

Hibiki Tachibana, Chris Yukine

Shirabe Tsukuyomi, Kirika Akatsuki

Miku kohinata, Elfnein

Some propaganda and spoilers under the cut

Hibiki: the protagonist. She doesn’t fight with a weapon because she needs to hold girls hands. Her only ambition in life is to save people and go on dates with her girlfriend Miku. She was god once, it was bad. Her dad left after she almost died once. At least He’s trying to be better now but come on dude.

Chris: the Tsundere/ Lancer of the group. Fights with oh so many guns and surfs on missiles. Her backstory is so fucked up. Her parents performed charity concerts in War torn countries. They died when she was like ten and she was captured by bad guys. Eventually she ended up with a very abusive woman who made her be evil for a while. Eventually she did joy the found family and regained her love for singing. That’s all just season one. She’s grumpy and easily embarrassed but tries to be a good “big sister” for Shirabe and Kirika. Definitely has a crush on Hibiki and Miku.

Shirabe: the Yo-yo Master. Cuts monsters with giant buzz saw chain saws and exclusively fights on rollerblades. Practically inseparable from Kirika to the point she has trouble working with anyone else. They were part of the same “turn orphans into magical girl weapons” experiment along with Maria. She briefly had a heart to heart with a man I’m pretty sure was her grandfather but she never realized. She’s pretty quiet.

Kirika: Shirabe’s golden retriever girlfriend. Self proclaimed “happy go lucky girl from the depths of hell.” Meaning she’s cheerful and goth. She fights with a scythe and loves shouting the word “Death” all the time. Part of the same “Turn Orphans into magical girl weapons” experiment as Shirabe and Maria. She took longer to join the good guys because she thought she was being possessed by an immortal ghost lady.

Miku: the token normal girl for most of the story, unless she was being brainwashed by the bad guys. Has “my girlfriend is a superhero” traumas. She was also god for a little bit, it was also bad. Maybe the real god was these lesbians we found along the way. She and Hibiki call each other “my sunshine” or “my sunflower” and every time my heart melts.

Elfnein: a doll created by and with the memories of a several hundred year old witch who wants to destroy the planet after her dad was burned at the stake. Elfnein helped stop her and got adopted by the hero’s support staff. She acts as the guy in the chair for the latter seasons. She’s very sweet and polite.

[scaredgirlsilly]

Gabriel took me on THE BEST DATE EVER!!!!!!!! He took me to the ULTRAKILL Credits Museum!!!!!!!!

I've wanted to go ever since I was a little bot!! I can't believe how amazing he is 🥹 I only got a few pictures cause I just couldn't look away from his beautiful face!! But I couldn't NOT capture at least some moments of this day so we can look back at it when we're older 🥰🥰 so here's some of the highlights 😁

Here he is in front of the statue of the CEO of New Blood! (Also hes so tall 🥵 HES ALL MINE LADIES YOU CANT HAVE HIM!!)

Our first stop was, of course, himself 🤣 you know sometimes I think he's his own favorite person, but I can't really blame him since hes mine too 🥰😍

And since we were there, we decided to pay Minos a visit 😝 I kept telling Gabriel to get down from there and that we are gonna get in trouble but I can't say no to a face like that 🥰🥰 but you can't tell anyone 🤫🫣

Suck it Minos you big ol nerd!!!!!!!! 😝😝😝😝

Next he took me to see the aquarium, probably one of the most romantic things a man can take you to 🥰🥰 He was cracking me up with all this talk about a size 2 fish that I felt like a fish out of water I could barely breath 🤣 If you are gonna stay with someone for the rest of your lives, make sure its with someone with a sense of humor ☺️😚

We then went to see a movie. I thought it was kinda boring (I mean. The movies about me 🙄😝) but he made it pretty fun if you know what I mean 😉🤭🥵

We couldn't sit through the whole movie with all our fooling around so we decided to go have some fun in the bathroom (No pics you perverts!! But I will say it was Amazing 🥵😵‍💫)

Then we got to go on a picnic with Hakita himself!!!! 😲🤯😵‍💫 Gabriel seemed unimpressed but Hakita's been my hero since I was a little bot so I was starstruck. I probably majorly embarrassed myself but I don't care 😝 How many people get the chance to meet their hero??

AND a surprise visit from kitty???? Look at that adorable face 🥺🥺 Could this day get any better?? Gabriel tried to pet it but the cat hissed at him 😢 He tried to hide it but I could tell he was a little hurt by it. Even after all this my beautiful strong man has a soft side 🤗🥺

Yes Gabriel, I do 🥹🥺They have a little gazebo for mock weddings and I practically had to drag him there but I could tell thathe appreciated the gesture. And all of your favorite characters from Ultrakill were there too!! God I hope one day we can have our real wedding here 🥰🥹

After that Gabriel took me to see a sight I could only dream of 😍 Technically we aren't supposed to be here, but it was so beautiful and Gabriel was so amazing, it made me feel like a teenager again, breaking rules for love 🥰🥰

Gabriel, I love you. You make me the happiest bot in hell. Just one day with you beats a million lifetimes in heaven, and I can't wait to spend the rest of our lives together.

[minty-mumbles]

Shifting Hues (Chapter 1: Blue Earrings)

Summary: In all the eras of Hyrule's history Wild has travelled to with the heroes of courage, red is considered a feminine color. Wild likes the color red. 

Or: A fic that follows Wild’s journey to discover themselves

A/N: Beta read by @supraobsessed !

(Read on AO3 | Chapter 2)

~~~

It’s traditional for Hylian men to wear blue earrings. 

Wild doesn’t know why. He just knows that most of the Hylian men he knows, at least those who have pierced ears, wear small and simple blue hoops. Time, Twilight, and Warriors all wear them. 

There are exceptions, of course. Not everyone likes tradition, or cares to adhere to it. Legend wears gold studs and small silver hoops. He even has multiple sets of piercings in both of his ears, which isn’t common for men or women. But still, his earrings are simple. Masculine, even if they aren’t blue hoops.

Sky wears spiky orange hoops, made out of strange orange metal. But they're small, and they have magical properties, and Wild is pretty sure that's the only reason Sky wears them in the first place

But Wild- well.

Wild.

Wild wears flashy pieces of amber that dangle from his ears. If he turns his head quickly enough, they tap against his neck comfortingly, reminding him that they’re there.

He has some blue hoop earrings, stored away in his slate. He’d woken up from the shrine wearing the blue hoops and hadn’t given it a second of thought. He hadn’t even noticed he had earrings on at first. 

The first time he’d seen a woman wearing dangling gems from her ears, Wild had known that was what he wanted. He’d stopped the woman in the street, asking her where she had gotten the earrings. The woman had laughed, asking him if he was looking for a gift for a special girl in his life. It had thrown him off balance so badly that he hadn’t even corrected her. 

The woman told him of Isha, a renowned jeweler who lived in Gerudo town but had warned him that as a man, he wouldn’t be allowed into the town. He’d have to do some trade with one of the Gorons that traveled to Gerudo Town to get his jewelry. Apparently Gorons- not having genders like the rest of the Hyrule’s races did- are allowed into the town indiscriminately. 

They traded the uncut gems they mined for the finished jewelry that Isha produced. Then they took the jewelry around the rest of Hyrule for other races to buy. Wild would have to buy from one of the Gorons.

It’s well worth tracking one of them down, the woman had told him. Isha’s products are always high quality. 

He’d been quick to do so when he next had time to spare. The plain uncut gemstones he mined or picked up after fighting a talus were enchanting, with all their raw facets that reflected sunlight. He wanted that beauty captured in a form he could wear.

He’d bought the amber earrings he wore most often from a Goron in Hateno town. Thinking back on it, Wild suspects that the Goron had seen how eager he’d been and overcharged him, but he hadn’t cared at all about the extravagant price. 

The second he got his hands on those pretty earrings, the blue hoops had come out of his ears and had gone straight into his slate. He hasn’t touched them since, and his collection of jewelry made by Isha had expanded significantly.

Wild had gotten his amber earrings blessed by a Great Fairy, enchanted to increase his defense. For practical reasons, but also so if anyone ever asked him why he wears the more feminine jewelry, he’d have that answer for them. 

No one ever asks though, which he’s thankful for. He doesn’t like to lie, and he’s not very good at it.

He doesn’t think the other heroes have even noticed that he wears flashier earrings. If they have, they didn’t find it strange enough to comment on.

~~~

Wild’s still relearning things about the culture he stumbled into when he was released from the shrine. He knows he’s pretty socially inept, and he doesn’t pick up on other people’s cues very well. Whether that was a personal quirk or an effect of his amnesia was up for debate. 

It wasn’t just reading other people’s body language he had trouble with, though. There are norms and traditions that people assume Wild knows, when he just didn’t. 

Thankfully, people in his era were more than used to merchants and other travelers who spend most of their time out in the wild and are a little rusty with social interactions. They’re also more than willing to be more flexible with such things when they learn who Wild is. 

His entire Hyrule seemed to feel a debt to him, for a reason Wild can’t explain. He had only been fixing his own mistakes when he’d walked into Hyrule castle and taken on the Calamity. He doesn’t deserve praise for finally finishing his duty a hundred years too late, even if everyone else seems to think they can never repay him. 

Regardless of why though, people were a lot more willing to overlook his social blunders, and slowly but surely, he’s been learning. 

He doesn’t love everything he’s learned so far. Some things seem just arbitrary and pointless. The pressure to conform to these norms grates under his skin.

For example, he’s pretty sure that red is considered a feminine color. The whole masculine versus feminine colors thing confuses him; he doesn’t understand how it’s decided whether colors are masculine or feminine. 

Red is a feminine color. Wild thinks it might be because Gerudos so often have red hair, and Gerudos are always women, but he doesn’t know. 

Wild likes the color red. 

He likes it more than any of the other colors, he thinks. It’s bold, like the blood that has soaked every aspect of his short life. It’s bright, like the autumn leaves the Akkala region is known for. It’s a cleaner, purified version of the sickly purple-red color of malice. 

People always tell him blue is his color, and failing that, green suited him best. Wild, reluctantly, thinks he agrees. With his pale coloring, any bolder, warmer colors he wore stood out too much. The softer blues and greens fit him better. So when someone asks him his favorite color, he says blue. He doesn't know why. 

It’s not like men aren’t allowed to like red, but admitting he likes red feels like he’s admitting to something else, and he doesn't know what.

~~~

Wild has ruby red earrings that he keeps tucked away in his slate. The jewelry protects him against the cold, warming him when he travels too high in the mountains, or stays in the desert at night. However, when the temperature is decent, they act as regular earrings with no magical properties.

He doesn’t wear them too often. He worries they’re too gaudy, that they’ll attract too much attention to his odd jewelry choices. 

But today, he wakes up and finds himself wanting to hide away from everyone. He hasn’t even opened his eyes, and he already knows it’s going to be one of those days. One of those days he would rather spend hidden away in the woods, far away from any prying eyes. The mumbled speech from around the campfire from the early risers among the heroes makes him want to turn over and hide in his bed roll.

He doesn’t want anyone's eyes on him, on his form, or his clothes. It all makes him feel so wrong. 

He forces himself to sit up anyway. The camp is still quiet. As usual, he’s one of the first up, with only Time, Twilight, and Four sitting around the fire. He has to get up and get breakfast ready. And to do that, he has to get dressed.

He selects his normal outfit- the Champion’s tunic, trousers, and a black cloak- from his slate, and it appears on his body with a quiet fwoosh and a blue glow. None of the other heroes even look at him, more than used to the noise by now. Although he wears the Champion tunic every day and usually never has a problem with it, today it hugs his form in all the wrong places. Wild swallows down a hot, uncomfortable, nameless emotion, and tugs his cloak tighter around himself. 

He needs to get up and make breakfast, but he really doesn’t want to. 

He needs… something, today. Something just for himself, that no one else will comment on.

So he swipes through his slate and pulls out the ruby earrings. The earrings are incredible works of art. Isha did a wonderful job with the gemstones Wild had brought her. She’d managed to shape the stone so they caught the morning light as Wild holds them up in the sun, but still retain their rough and somewhat natural shape. 

Wild puts them on, and smiles as the weight of them tugs on his earlobes. They’re a little heavier than his normal amber earrings, and they pull at his ears a little more than he's used to. The sensation- that little reminder that they’re there- soothes his irritation away.

Throughout the day, none of the other heroes seem to notice his wardrobe change, but Wild notices, constantly. He finds himself fiddling with the jewels throughout the day, running his fingers over the smooth facets of the gemstones. The tap-tap of his fingernails against the stones makes him smile.

Every time he sees himself in something even slightly reflective, his eyes are drawn to the beautiful red stones, hanging like drops of blood from his ears.

He’s washing dishes after supper in a river, and he sees himself. His long hair and red earrings are reflected back at him from the water, and like he has all day, he pauses and looks at himself for a moment. He can see the smile beaming from his face in the reflection. Maybe it’s vain to care so much about how he looked, but he couldn't help it.

And when he turns his head just so, and the ripples in the water are particularly strong, he can imagine that his cheekbones are a little less sharp, that his face is softer.

It’s times like this that he's glad that he doesn't have a larger frame with more muscle mass like Time or Twilight do. He’s always loved his leaner build, meant for flexibility and running instead of the solid muscle meant for overpowering strength. It would be harder to pretend, even for a moment, if he was built like that.

~~~

Wild knows he should’ve gotten rid of the vai clothes after he no longer needed to enter Gerudo town. Or at the very least, he should have tucked them away in a chest in his house, and not put them on again. 

He put the clothes on again.

Of course he did. He can’t leave well enough alone. 

He did so only once. It had been well before he was whisked away on this new journey, before he even knew about the heroes of the ancient past or of the spreading infection of black blood. 

He had wanted to put on the clothes again, but he knew he couldn’t go back to Gerudo Town. 

No matter how careful he was, Riju would eventually hear about his return, and she’d want to know why he’d returned to the town when there was no reason to do so. He didn’t want to be disrespectful of the Gerudos’ culture. If their laws said no men in Gerudo Town, that meant no men in Gerudo Town.

So when he inevitably cracked after weeks of thinking about the clothing, he didn’t go to the town. Instead, he tucked the clothing into the bottom of his bag, and took it out to the middle of the woods near Hateno, far away from any prying eyes.

But he still hasn’t been able to bring himself to put it on. What if someone saw him? He’d known the thought was irrational. There was no one out here who would possibly see him.

He wanted to put it on so badly. 

He wanted to put it on, but someone could see him. No one would be fooled for long, especially if they knew him. The clothing was made for women, but it didn’t conceal his masculine figure. It definitely didn’t conceal his scars. 

(Wild wasn't an idiot. The Gerudo guards, along with everyone else in Gerudo town, knew who he was. They knew he was a man. The only reason they had let him stay was that their Chief had given him permission to enter the town, and they’d needed his aid badly. It also helped that Wild never caused a scene or took advantage of being allowed inside the walls. He was also willing to adhere to their traditions, and wear the vai outfit. If he went back now- when he had no need to and Riju no longer had any reason to let him into the town- it likely wouldn’t turn out so well.)

So he left Hateno, leaving any sign of Hylian life behind. He ended up at the Great Plateau, his birthplace. 

No one would find him there. Most couldn’t scale the walls, and those who could, like the Rito, usually didn’t find any reason to.

It was dark by the time he’d arrived, and by the time he slipped the clothing on, nighttime had fallen completely. But it had been summer, and the night breeze had been balmy, so even with the thin fabric of the Gerudo clothing, he’d felt comfortable. 

He’d felt more than comfortable, actually. 

It had made him happy, somehow, to know that if someone looked at him, they might not have seen a man, even if just for a moment.

He had left the clothes on all night, and had simply existed. He’d hunted, he’d explored the plateau (even though he’d long since memorized it like the back of his hand,) and he’d laughed, a good deal more than he usually did. 

He’d felt light on his feet, and he had almost been dancing when he entered the Temple of Time.

And then he’d turned around to face the front of the temple, and he’d seen the stoney face of Hylia, eyes closed in perfect peaceful prayer, and everything had gone quiet.

Not that there had been music playing before, or any sound at all besides his own heartbeat, but it felt like the whole world stops breathing when he’s faced with the pinnacle of why this was wrong, wrong, so very wrong.

He wondered if Hylia had been laughing at him, or if she’d been watching him at all. He wondered if the goddess even has the ability to laugh. He felt ashamed, when he thought of her looking at him when he was dressed like that. 

Hylia had chosen him to be the hero. 

He’s the hero, and everyone knows the hero was always a man, even if they didn’t start out as one, like Hyrule and Warriors.

And men don’t wear women’s clothing. 

Wild doesn’t understand why, but they don’t. 

Did these feelings mean that Hylia chose the wrong person to wield the sacred blade? Or had she chosen correctly, and it was Wild who was just… wrong? 

He left almost immediately, using his slate to teleport away. And he hadn’t gone back to the Temple of Time for a very long time, in the vai outfit or out of it.

~~~

When Wild was invited to join this group of heroes from the past, he hadn’t hesitated to say yes. The only time he had faltered when getting ready to leave was when it came to packing his clothes. He took his regular outfit, his heat and cold resistant clothes, his climbing gear, his Sheikah stealth outfit, and any other pieces of clothing that may help him on this journey. 

He also took the vai clothing with him. He’d shoved it down to the very bottom of his bag, and when he rejoined the other heroes, he could have sworn that they would be able to tell what he carried somehow. 

No one could, of course. As many talents as the heroes of old possess, none of them had x-ray vision. 

Wild doesn’t know why he had felt compelled to tuck the silky fabrics into his pack. Sometimes he regretted bringing them with him on the journey. It’s not like he could wear them, and it put the clothing in constant danger of being discovered. But he had brought it with him, so there was no use regretting.

So now, several months into the journey, the vai clothes remain at the bottom of his pack for the most part. None of the other heroes have the habit of riffling through other people’s bags, so he doesn’t worry too much that they’ll find the clothes as long as he’s careful. 

Sometimes, late at night when he’s on watch, he puts his bag in his lap. His hand slips into the bag to feel the silken fabric brush against his fingers. Only one hand, primed and ready to casually remove it at the first sign of someone waking up.

It’s comforting for some reason, to remember how the fabric felt against his body. To remember that what he’d felt when he’d worn the clothes- that inexplicable joy, that freeness- had been real, even if he can’t experience it again. 

He doesn’t dare take the clothes out of his pack though, let alone put them on. Not even in the dead of night, not when there’s a chance that someone could wake up and see him. He doesn’t want to think of the questions that might arise from any of them seeing him dressed like that.

His late-night habit backfires on him, and bringing the clothes on the journey comes back to bite him eventually. 

Wild doesn’t see the moment that Warriors finds the veil. He’s not really one to go through someone’s bag, so Wild has to assume that he had forgotten to put the clothes back at the bottom of the bag. That part of them had been poking out of the top of his pack and Warriors eyes had caught on the blue fabric. 

Warriors doesn’t think the clothes belong to Wild, to Wild’s immense relief. Instead, he thinks it’s a gift for some girl Wild likes. It’s still not a good outcome. It’s still embarrassing. 

But at least there doesn’t seem to be any inkling in Warriors' mocking tone that he knows about Wild’s shameful secret.

The others pay dearly for their teasing with their burnt taste buds, but his revenge doesn’t make Wild feel much better. The whole situation should make him angry. Instead, it’s only stressing him out and upsetting him.

He does his best to ignore the hurt bubbling up inside of him while he’s around the other heroes. He pushes it down, replacing it with righteous anger, angry glares, and a sharp thwack on the back of Warriors’ hand when the man tries to sneak food that isn’t spiced to high heavens. 

Once the commotion around dinner has mostly calmed down, he walks off alone into the nearby woods. No one dares follow him, not while his temper is still so obviously sensitive and ready to snap. 

He keeps going until he’s far enough away from their camp. When he’s determined that no one will hear him, not even Twilight with his wolf-like hearing, he stops. Slumping down, he sits at the base of a tree. 

Slowly, WIld lets go of the anger he’s been using all evening to suppress his other emotions. Sadness and confusion and frustration well up to replace it, and tears are quick to start flowing from his eyes.

He doesn’t know… why. 

Why he’s crying, why he’s so upset about this. Warriors and Legend- and Sky and Twilight to an extent- were only teasing. And the others didn’t interfere or stop them because they had only been teasing. Usually Wild is all too happy to engage in that kind of play and banter. But this time… it hurt.

It hurt because even though they hadn’t even known Wild’s most tightly kept secret- even though they hadn’t known that the vai clothes are his, and not a gift for someone else- they still made fun of him. What would they say if they knew the full truth- if they knew he was the one who the clothes were for? 

Because men aren’t supposed to wear these kinds of clothes. And everyone knows that the hero is supposed to be a man and-

And Wild isn’t a man.

Wild growls, posture shrinking defensively against the tree as if that would help stave off the thoughts. They shake their head as they finally let themself think what they’ve known for a while. Their teeth grit in anger, and slam their hands down on the soft earth. Sharp nails dig into the loose, moist soil. It’ll be a pain to clean under their nails later but Wild doesn’t care! 

This isn’t fair! It isn't fair, Goddess damn it!

They’re not crying anymore. The tears still well up in the corners of their eyes, but they blink furiously, not letting them fall. Why did this have to be them? Why couldn’t anything be simple for them? 

This is how Hyrule finds them, an indeterminable amount of time later. Angry and seething at no one except themself for daring to feel like this. Wild doesn’t know if Hyrule had been looking for them, or if he’d just been wandering nearby and happened to hear Wild’s distress.

Hyrule’s concerned, as anyone would be if they found their friend rocking back and forth on the ground, one hand digging into the earth and the other, still muddy, gripping tightly at their hair. 

He sits next to Wild, slowly and carefully, as if trying not to startle a wild animal. There’s a moment of silence where he just looks at Wild with concern gleaming in his eyes. 

After a moment, Hyrule reaches out, giving Wild plenty of time to draw away from him. When they don’t move away, Hyrule eases their hands from their long hair. 

Wild lets themself relax slightly. They can’t bring themselves to clutch at Hyrule’s hands as punishingly as they had been gripping their hair, so they’re forced to let their muscles loosen.

Hyrule looks at them carefully, no doubt trying to find Wild’s cause for distress. When he finds no obvious injuries or ailments, he asks them what’s wrong, but Wild has no answer for him. 

If anyone would understand, Hyrule would. Or Warriors. But Wild can’t help but think of the relief that Hyrule and Warriors must have felt when they figured out they were men, when they knew that was what they were supposed to be. What the hero was supposed to be. 

Wild can’t help but think of how angry Hyrule might be, at Wild for wanting so desperately what Hyrule himself has rejected.

Any thought of telling Hyrule dies before Wild even opens their mouth. They can’t tell anyone about this. Not now. Not yet.

[way-of-love]

The Heat of Adam (Teth-Adam x FemReader) (Spoilers) (R-RATED) (PART 3)

-Currently you are the sister-in-law to Isis, the woman who found the tomb of Teth-Adam. You are the sister of the deceased husband of Isis and the only living aunt of Among, Isis and your brothers son. You felt for Adam during your time with him knowing all along that he was filled with more good than bad. During your journey with him and your family, you finally knew you cared for him more than you should...-

PART 1 PART 2

Yes there's a PART 4 :) Also sorry for how short it is, I didn't want my poor friends to wait until the week after but I promise you its so worth it!! We've all been through heartache and I think it's about time we had a little more.

During that whole speech about how you and Adam were adults, clearly the two of you should’ve known better than to practically have sex in the middle of the kitchen where anyone, especially Amon, could have walked right in and have been traumatized. His favorite superhero shoving his tongue down his only aunt's throat...you couldn’t look up at her. It was too embarrassing! And rightfully so. You felt like a teenager all over again when you got scolded in the living room. It was fair, it was right, and it was just. You’d be mad too if a trusted member of your family who was supposed to be taking care of the house was caught swapping spit with a random boy. 

But Black Adam wasn’t random, and he definitely wasn’t a boy, you felt that much, he was a powerful man who for some reason captured your heart. And upon his return you found yourself forgiving him a bit too quickly to the point you were gripping and kissing him like a deprived lover.  

Maybe you looked too easy for him. That all he needed was a rightful justification, look ill and she was all over him. Was it that easy for him? If Isis didn’t walk in on the two of you, would he have... had his way and left again?  

That was your fear that he’d come back to loving arms and then when hes had enough run off and play a hero. Was he like other men?  

During the scolding Adam stood there listening to Isis standing right by you as you sunk deeper and deeper into the old couch praying it’d swallow you whole. Your eyes glanced over at Adam and only saw that he didn’t look ashamed, embarrassed or remorseful whatsoever. In fact, you’d dare say he looked quite proud. This bastard was ruthless! 

After Isis had her fill of discipline, she welcomed him back with a kind smile. Isis was already in on how you felt about Adam because after you came back from your mini ‘vacation’ overseas you were quiet. Too quiet for her liking so she pestered you until you told her what occurred during your visit there. As usual, she went on the defensive saying he was no longer welcomed back inside her home but after talking to her about how you felt and what you both talked about the early morning he flew you back home, her opinion . She wasn’t angry but she was smiling and comforting you telling you everything was going to be okay and one day he’ll come around. You truly weren’t sure you would though.  

At that point you were ready to forget about this Black Adam and live your life as the young woman you were and wait for no man. That was what you were planning to do before he showed up unannounced. Now, after dragging him out of the apartment promising Isis something like the public display in the kitchen would never happen again in her home, you managed to avoid the giggling stares of both your brother-in-law and your nephew on your way out.  

Adam had absolutely nothing to say as you lead him through the streets of Khandaq, well more like he flew you over the top of the buildings as you told him where to go. Flying over the rooftops when the sun was already setting gave you the perfect view of the colors that flooded the sky, it looked the same as the day he was imprisoned. You wondered if he remembered how the sky looked when you both spoke one on one for the first time, did he remember how sad you looked when he flew right out of the hole in the broken apartment wall? He probably did feel something, he must’ve, if he was willing to talk to you for goodness knew how long. Were things going to change after this, after they’d discussed what needed to be discussed? While flying over the hills and mountains you decided on a decent spot that overlooked all of Khandaq.  

He placed you back down on your feet and you couldn't tear your eyes away from the view before you. The city of Khandaq looked absolutely beautiful at this time of day with the sun setting on the horizon with vibrant hues of gold, purple, and pink decorating the already lit city. With the statue of Adams son gone it gave way to new light. But you knew that the destruction of the statue made Adam feel dejected. Like, let’s be honest here, anyone would feel the same if the last piece of your own son was destroyed. He had nothing but the sour reminder of where the pillar of his son, the true champion of Khandaq, once stood. And even after all that he didn’t look unfazed by the destruction of it. Even now while you side eye him trying to decipher the expression he was wearing; there was no emotion on his sun blessed face but what looked to be content. No smile, no furrowed brows, no wrinkles on his forehead. Just contentment.  

It had your mind fill with questions you wanted answered. Why’d he come back? Why did he suddenly attack her with a kiss? Why did he look for Amon but not you? He looked content but why? 

As these questions plagued your mind you couldn't find it in yourself to ask any of them. Why? Because there was a moment brewing between you two and you weren't going to ruin it, not now at least. After what felt like an eternity he finally glanced down at you and you fully turned to face him. Even in while trying to have a moment he could see the restraint in your questioning, it was your job to gather intel after all.

" It's good to see you're doing well," He spoke up first. "I apologize for appearing so suddenly. I...I didn't want any misunderstandings between us, there's a reason why I came back here. To you."

You remained silent crossing your arms over your chest, now you knew by the tone and his stance that his return wasn't for a romantic rendezvous. What was happening now was that he was giving you information and you had yo give it to your people because the Justice League nor the Justice Society will do anything. But you can.

"There's been a rise in child trafficking here in Khandaq. After what happened with Inter-Gang, things were going smoothly but when I was gone," He looked down, you saw anger flash across his features.

"Someone, rose up and decided peace wasn't an option for our people. I know what's been happening Adam," Closing your eyes for a brief moment you looked back at the setting sun with a sorrowful expression. He was surprised to hear you knew about the kidnappings but seeing that you weren't out and about doing what had to be done irked him. Reaching out he gently grasped your upper arm.

"Y/N, why didn't you tell me sooner? Has your organization not received any information about this? Do you know who's behind this? Do you know?" It wasn't the fact that he was bombarding you with questions that annoyed you, in fact these were the perfect questions to ask during a time like this one. Standing with the man you've been pinning after, on a cliff overseeing your country during a sunset, a perfect time to ask about everything else indeed. Queue the sarcasm.

This moment was for the both of you to catch up, to discuss what will happen next between the two of you. Hell, you wanted to know why he kissed you so suddenly when he returned. It was one thing after another with this brute! Without missing a beat you uncrossed your arms and brushed his hand away from your arm, in a lesser friendly way.

"We have information that the children being smuggled aren't for anything sexual. Just being used as workers and mules for the same magical metal our previous king perished for. The location to the mines they're using is still unknown but I've been working on it, should be on towards our boarders but I'm not sure where. That's why I was in America a few months back, I knew before your little team in tights knew," You didn't bother to look him. You felt...awful. The kidnappings were serious problem and your organization had some trouble trying to find the man responsible for it. And he was a smart man indeed. Kidnapping children from a country no one cared for, no government will ask questions when paid a heavy sum, no trace to leave behind.

But if this situation occurred in America, the heroes would move and assemble to take the threat down. There are no heroes here in Khandaq, there were only people like you to keep people safe.

Adam didn't take too kindly to your tone or the dismissal of his touch but he didn't question it. Instead he gave you his hard stare that you ignored with a nonchalant one.

"So, this is what you brought me here for? To exchange information so you can run back to your little team in America in hopes they can do something? Because I can assure you that it will not happen. They've ignored us for years before you came and you ignored me for a year before you came just to ask for information, tell me, was that kiss just to butter me up and open me up to actually talk to you?"

You weren't stupid, you played the same card once or twice. Your body for information. And this time he used your feelings, how you felt about him, to open you up.

Again, he remained silent. There was your answer.

With sarcastic smile you raised your hands and brought them back down releasing a humorous laugh. "Perfect! Simply perfect!"

There was one thing about your job being spy that they always told you, use your targets emotions whoever they maybe, get close and use their emotions to get what you want. And now you had a taste of your own medicine.

"I want to go home." You mumbled.

"I'll take you home," He reached for you but you dodged his touch. You didn't want his help.

"I said I wanted to go home, not with you."

"I'll take you home and leave, I won't stay," Again he tried to reach for you but you dodged him again. "You can't get off this rock without my help Y/N."

He was right, you couldn't get off this cliff even if you wanted to. It was too steep, too high, and way to rocky to climb down. But you wanted to so bad to say no and tell him to fuck off but he was your only way down. So, swallowing your pride and anger you slipped your hand into his out stretched one. He pulled you to him and wrapped an arm around your middle securing you against his chest wile the other wrapped around your shoulders forcing you to lay your head on his chest as he took off. You hated that no matter how many times you do this you enjoyed it more each time, the flying was freeing.

The harsh reality hit you when you finally landed on the balcony of the floor you and your family were staying in; whatever you had between the two of you was probably not going to work out. Taking a step back from him you turned to head back inside but his hand grabbed your arm holding back from opening the door. You really wanted to avoid him. This...this feeling didn't settle well in your stomach.

"Back off Black Adam." You didn't yell, you didn't rip your arm away from his grasp, you didn't look at him. But what you did look at was his reflection in the glass door. The man you sought after looked like he was hurt. How ironic. He was hurt because you were giving him the cold shoulder? How did he think you felt?

Apparently Teth Adam wasn't good at reading people and he definitely wasn't good at reading you, the woman he desired to be close to. It wasn't at all his intention to deceive you, like you thought, he wanted to ask and even beg for your forgiveness if that's what it took for him to come back to your good graces but instead his raw emotions took over seeing you shocked, hurt, and angry all for a small minor thing he didn't care to explain after. He could have gone to find you during your America trip after he deliberately ignored you but he didn't.

Now, he was far from your good graces because of yet another mistake he made rushing into one subject because his raw emotion was dangerous. He hurt you and now you both were suffering. His hold on your arm was gentle, barley squeezing. The heart ached, yours and his.

So close together yet miles apart.

"You don't have to say anything. It was just a rush of emotions, you said so yourself, you didn't want me to misunderstand and that's what I did," Sighing you took your arm from his grasp and pressed a hand to the glass door pushing it open.

"I'll let you know what I have on the smugglers or kidnappers, whatever you want to call them. Then you can go back to America and do whatever heroes in tights do." And with that you left purposely leaving the door open behind you in hopes he'd follow you, grab you and spin you around just to tell you that this was just a mistake, this hero stuff, saving the world didn't matter because what mattered was here in Khandaq. What mattered was you and this little family you both had.

But instead of felling his warm rough hands on your bare arms you felt the gust of cool wind on your back bringing your hair forward into your face and sending papers around the living room to scatter.

It hurt to know that he never looked at you the way you looked at him.

You stumbled upon a man who started a fire within yourself that cannot die. However, the saddest, most awful truth you will ever come to find-

Is that he may not be the one you spend your life with.

Now that you had your answer you quickly made a bee line to your room, the door furthest from the front door, the kitchen and the place where your heart broke again. You knew you’d see him again soon and it was just to give you whatever intel you had to stop the smugglers from taking anymore children from your country. And you prayed it was enough to save them and you from seeing Adam here ever again.

[gryfflepuffinthetardis]

The Tribe

Season One Masterlist

Unfinished Business

A Real Rain

Summary: When a group of college students are brutally tortured and murdered and one is kidnapped, the BAU is led to believe that their UnSub has an extensive knowledge but impractical understanding of Native American ritual which leads them to consult with the reservation policeman who is also an activist, then they start to suspect that a cult is involved.

Warning: Blood, Mention of torture, Mention of Main Character's Torture, Mention of Acid, Cult, Mention of Native American Culture being used against them; Hate on Christopher Columbus (he was not a hero. It's a fact. Look it up. Many historical figures were not as noble as they seem.)

Notes: I am a very white, very pale Caucasian from Irish descent and (possibly) Italian descent (my granddad was adopted but we think his parent(s) were Italian, but honestly I think he spoke to me once in my life while my mom all but had to get a restraining order against his wife with me), however if memory serves me right I am descent of a Native American tribe very distantly across many generations but last I heard of this I was 13, however I feel that doesn't really mean much in terms of... whatever, I can't think of the right word nor do I really want to talk much about it, while the OC is half American/Scottish, Half Mexican and from Aztec descent which was a Native American tribe, this is just because the Aztecs were in central Mexico and it's surrounding areas. I "canonically" (if you can refer that to fanfic) made Zoe a descent of the Aztecs because the Aztec culture is still a significant part of the Day of the Dead celebration. The tradition is a blend of Aztec beliefs about honoring the dead with Catholic practices introduced by Spanish conquistadors, in fact the Aztecs celebrated a similar holiday focused on the Goddess of Death in their culture, Mictecacihuatl. I did some research on this, and I think what the Aztecs were known for fit Zoe quite well but please correct me if I'm wrong because I did short-ish Google searches.

The Aztecs were known for their fearless warriors and pragmatic builders. They had a powerful military which includes elite warrior units like the Jaguar Warriors (who were full-time soldiers considered to be the knights of the Aztec kingdom known for their ferocity in battle and serving as peacekeepers and law enforcement when not at war) and the Eagle Warriors (but I'm not sure what they did as oppose to the Jaguar warriors but from what I've read they protected and policed the city, served as leaders, captured enemies to sacrifice to the Aztec gods which they seemed to actually be known for and I'm ignoring what I read about cannibalism but they were awarded the titles for acts of exceptional bravery in combat)

They are lesser known for their doctors or "ticitl" (If that's spelled wrong let me know) but still known for it, they were skilled in herbal medicine and surgery, even having their own kind of anesthetic using narcotic plants, they used obsidian knives to remove tumors, drain wounds, and agave thorns for eye surgeries.

The Aztecs were known for human sacrifice, especially during troubling times (like pandemics or other crises) and they were performed to honor the gods. The most common was heart extraction, they believed that the heard was both the seat of the individual and a fragment of the Sun's heat (not sure what that means though)

I think these unintentionally lead to Zoe quite well with the fearless warrior and doctor part and even the specification of the heart, I didn't actually know that, I just knew that the modern Day of the Dead culture had roots in Aztec traditions so that works quite well. Let me know if I'm missing anything and let me point out, I have great respect for other cultures, I have great interest in the beliefs that they have and find it fascinating. Just as I have great interest in Mexican culture of the Day of the Dead.

Note 2: I did change most use of the word "Indian" to "Native American" except when used by Blackwolf (because he is Native American and he can use that word while it's distasteful if others do but still don't feel good about it!) or any explicitly racist characters. Zoe's reservations towards Blackwolf are more for his attitude towards the FBI and violence and it's more annoyance for what she feels Blackwolf and Hotch are being rather... well, I can't quite think of the word other can "testosterone" and I think that feels like an exaggeration of what it is. Arrogance, maybe.

“There is a battle of two wolves inside each of us. One wolf is evil, representing anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, lies, inferiority, and ego. The other wolf is good, representing joy, peace, love, hope humility, kindness, empathy, and truth. The wolf that wins is the one you feed.” — Native American Proverb

March 6, 2006

Penelope Garcia was heading back to her batcave with cleaning supplies when she spotted Sean Hotchner enter the BAU. She stopped and handed the cleaning supplies to a random person and followed him.

"What are you doing out of your bunker?" Elle asked, coming up to Garcia, Zoe looked over, shaking her head. She honestly didn't see it.

"I was on my way to file the things that I... file." Garcia said, staring at Sean.

Sean spotted them and went to ask them where he wanted to go.

"Excuse me."

"Hey." Elle said, playing cooler than Garcia.

"I'm looking..."

Zoe stood up, "Hey, Sean."

Sean looked over to see Zoe who he had known from his brother working at the BAU. "Hey, Zoe. I heard you were working here."

"Yeah, your brother finally cracked from his workaholism and was briefly crazy enough to hire me. Follow me." She said and nodded before walking off and Sean followed.

Elle looked at Garcia and asked, "'Brother' as in... That's Hotch's brother?"

"Maybe Hotch is adopted."

"So, gonna tell him now. That'll be fun for us." Zoe snarked as she walked

"How'd you know already?" Sean asked her.

"I know everything Sean." Zoe said, "You're not the lawyer type. Top of the stairs. Good luck."

Zoe went back to her desk where Garcia had gone to badger her with questions and didn't get answers.

About five minutes later, there was a muffled shout from Hotch's office and Sean stormed out.

"Here he comes." Garcia said.

"That's Hotch's brother?" JJ asked.

"Uh-huh."

"I don't see it." JJ said.

"Eh." Zoe shrugged.

Hotch went after his younger brother, "Sean, listen to me. All I'm saying is you're twenty-five years old and it's..."

"You know what? Don't profile me, Aaron!" Sean shouted, pointing at him and then he stormed off.

"Now I see it." JJ said.

"See ya, Sean." Zoe called after him. "Be careful not to crash!"

——————————————————————————————————

They gathered in the briefing room where JJ presented the next case, handing them the files, "Terra Mesa, New Mexico. Five dead. All from Mesa University. No signs of sexual assault and no sign of theft."

"Five nineteen-year-olds. Minimal defensive wounds? One of them was impaled on a six-foot wooden pole." Morgan read from the file.

"Who'd want to torture five college freshmen?" Elle asked.

"They weren't tied up and no one escaped?" Morgan asked.

"No single UnSub could have exerted this much control over so many people." Spencer noted.

"So, you think there was more than two?" Elle asked and Spencer nodded.

"I think we're looking at a pack." Gideon said

"A pack?"

"Three or more that kill in unison. As in nature, the group dynamic dictates that the pack's survival is dependent on their ability to hunt successfully." Spencer explained.

"And, as in nature, a pack will keep on killing until it runs out of prey or is stopped." Hotch added.

"Stopped by what?" Elle asked.

"A stronger pack." Zoe said.

——————————————————————————————————

Nietzsche wrote, "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe."

Hotch, Gideon, and Spencer met Zoe at the crime scene who drove on her motorcycle and waited for them.

"Sheriff, I'm Special Agent Hotchner. These are Agents Reid and Gideon."

"I thoughtany Doctor Noble-Valdez said there were more of you." Sheriff Jimmy Rhodes said.

"The other agents went straight to the station house to look at the victims' files." Hotch asked. "Has forensics had any luck?"

"The county CSU went through for prints and trace evidence. They said with all the workmen tramping through here, looking at footprints would be a waste." Rhodes said, "Come on." He lifted the police tape.

"The bodies were almost completely skinned. Yet, there's so little blood." Hotch said.

"Well, this explains why." Zoe said, looking through the photos, "The UnSub avoided areas of skin on the wrist and throat, areas where the veins and arteries are closest to the surface."

"Why would they do that?" Rhodes asked.

Zoe hesitated to tell him but Gideon did it for him. "They didn't want them to bleed out."

"These kids were skinned alive." Spencer explained.

They entered another room, "Two cases of beer. Two sleeping bags." Gideon stated.

"There's a third sleeping bag upstairs." Rhodes said.

"Everything you need for a night of teenage romance."

"It's unlikely that two couples brought a fifth wheel to take notes." Gideon said.

"Sheriff, it's possible there was a third girl here. A sixth victim." Zoe explained.

"I'll get my deputies to canvass the area. See if anybody saw a girl." Rhodes said.

"You said there was another one outside?" Zoe asked, referring to before the team arrived.

Rhodes showed them where the other victim was killed, a bloody wooden pole was stuck in the ground.

"He was like the others. Coroner said from the amount of blood he was alive when they impaled him."

"I know this is going to sound strange, but the way the victims were flayed alive, mutilated, and now the impalement display of this last victim..." Spencer listed but trailed off.

"What?" Gideon asked.

"These were all war rituals of the Native American Plains Indians." Spencer explained.

"Does that mean something to you, Sheriff?" Hotch asked.

"I'll say it does. Everything you see around us is Apache land. This whole basin is a sacred burial ground and was the site of a number of massacres as I understand." Rhodes explained.

"So, this development is on their land?" Hotch asked.

"It was their land, but they didn't have the money or the inclination to build on it. So the town seized half of it."

"Yeah, last year the Supreme Court ruled that cities can use eminent domain authority to seize and repossess undeveloped private land for private development." Spencer explained.

"And now the town is looking for investors to build on the other half. The Apache are fighting it, of course, in court." Rhodes said.

"There been any violence until now?" Gideon asked.

"Nothing like this."

"You know anybody on the reservation capable of this?

"I don't know. Reservation's federal jurisdiction." Rhodes said.

"Sounds like where we need to go."

We'll call Garcia. See what she can find." Hotch said.

"If she's done drooling over your brother." Zoe muttered.

"What?" Hotch asked, haven't heard what she said.

"What?" She asked in faux obliviousness.

——————————————————————————————————

When Hotch got off the phone with Garcia, he turned to Rhodes and said, "Blackwolf?"

"John Blackwolf?" Rhodes asked.

"You know him?" Gideon asked.

"Native American activist. He's been in a little trouble related to his activism, but nothing violent. And not around here."

"Should we call the reservation police and alert them?" Hotch asked.

"I don't think that's a good idea." Rhodes said.

"Why not?" Zoe asked.

"Blackwolf is the reservation police." Rhodes said.

——————————————————————————————————

Zoe was forced to ride in the car until they got to the reservation school.

"Jane Bear, these are FBI agents. Gideon, Hotchner, Reid, and Noble-Valdez."

She shook hands with Gideon and Hotch. Spencer just waved and Zoe shook her hand. "Just call me Zoe." Zoe insisted.

"Miss Bear is the president of the tribal council and principal of the reservation school."

"A president and a principal? Must be a busy woman." Gideon said.

"We're out here on our own, Agent Gideon. We all do our part." Jane Bear said.

"Is, uh, John inside?" Rhodes asked.

"This about the Terra Mesa killings?" She asked.

"They just want to talk to him." Rhodes said.

"John Blackwolf has done more to help his tribe than anyone. Hell, Jim, how many times have you called him in to find lost hikers? How many drunken campers has he tracked down for the park service? John is a peaceful man..." She defended,

"Who would not hesitate to defend this tribe with force if attacked." Rhodes added.

"What does this have to do with Terra Mesa?" She asked.

"Well, a lot, if John considers the building of the Terra Mesa development on Apache land to be an attack." Hotch said.

She sighed and turned to lead them towards and inside the school, "The developers have paid a lot of families to leave the reservation. So many families have gone now that we can barely fill a single class."

They entered the class as Blackwolf taught the class, "Forcing the Dene, the Apache nation, to abandon their homes and live in government controlled internment camps. Does anybody know the last tribe to surrender to the American government?

"Chiricahua." Spencer whispered

"It was the Chiricahua Apache." And does anybody know the name of the last leader of the Apaches?"

Some kids raised their hands as Spencer whispered, "Geronimo."

Blackwolf pointed to a boy and he said, "Geronimo."

"That's right. He was caught by the US army five times. But the Ga'he had given him so much strength he escaped each time." Blackwolf said, "Samuel.

"Yes?" The boy from before asked.

"Tell the men and woman from the FBI who the Ga'he are."

Spencer spoke instead, eager to share his knowledge. "The Ga'he are mighty spirits who dwell in desert caves."

"Reid, is your name Samuel?" Hotch scolded and the children and Zoe giggled.

"Sorry." He apologized.

"Are the Ga'he good spirits or bad spirits?" Gideon asked.

"They're both." Blackwolf said, "Like men."

"I'll take over for you, John." Jane said.

They met Blackwolf outside as he put on a coat, holding a giant dagger in a sheath.

"Mister Blackwolf, I'm Agent Gideon. These are agents Hotchner, Reid, and Noble-Valdez."

"You look like a college professor." Blackwolf said to Gideon and then looked at Spencer, "You look like his student." Then he looked at Hotch." You, you look like FBI." Then he looked at Zoe, "You look like a misbehaving student." Zoe shrugged.

"We're with the Behavioral Analysis Unit." Zoe said.

"Profilers should know better."

"How's that?"

"We don't do massacres. You do." Blackwolf said.

"Me, personally?" Hotch asked.

"Your government."

"We don't want massacres. Not any more than you do." Zoe said. "It's not fair to base us off our government." Then she thought for a moment and said, "Though to be fair, 'national hero' Christopher Columbus committed mass rape and genocide, among other things."

Blackwolf looked at her, narrowing her eyes as if trying to get a sense of her vibe. She just stared back, unwaveringly.

"Mister Blackwolf, we'd like for you to take a look at these photos and help us figure out how these kids were killed.

"You're not asking because I'm a cop." Blackwolf said.

"No, we're asking because you're an expert on Native American culture, particularly Apache Culture." Zoe deadpanned and handed him the photos, still never breaking eye contact.

"I don't base my opinion on pictures, Mister Hotchner. I have to walk the ground."

"Makes sense." Zoe said.

——————————————————————————————————

They approached the crime scene.

"We should start inside. Forensics says the outside's been contaminated from all the construction traffic."

"Of all the Native American tribes, the Apache were most renowned for their tracking ability." Spencer said, "It was said they could track a man or animal through any condition by simply noticing the slightest disturbance in the environment."

"It's profiling the dirt." Hotch said.

"It's more than that, Hotch." Zoe said.

"I notice you don't carry a gun." Spencer said.

"Twenty-one feet." Blackwolf said.

"What?" Spencer asked.

"Ask Agent Hotchner and Agent Noble, there. They're the real gun hands."

"Why do you say that?" Hotch asked.

"You carry two guns and I don't know how many you have but it's more than two."

"I like to be prepared." Zoe said.  "And it's Doctor Noble-Valdez."

"Any relation to the Valdezes?"

"Yes. The maximum distance an attacker with a knife can close in the time it takes to react, draw your side arm and fire is twenty-one feet.

"Inside twenty-one feet, I win. Outside 21, I have other options besides shooting a man."

"Like negotiating." Spencer said.

"Like running."

"I have more than just guns. It's not just one or the other. I only use them to protect myself and others. I've had more guns held to my head than you'd think. I was trained by Maze Valdez. She taught me to always be prepared. Always have a plan to kill everyone you meet in case they're planning on killing you first. And in my case, they usually are. I taught myself to be a weapon so the odds are usually in my favor." Zoe said. She wasn't following Blackwolf, she was walking with him, tracking with her own skills.

"You have other options."

"Of course, I do. Just because I have a plan to kill if I need it doesn't mean I'm going to. I'm a doctor. I try to save as many lives as I can. Some people just don't give you that choice." Zoe said. "And they're usually men."

"Why do you say I carry two guns?"  Hotch asked.

"Your right instep print's heavier than your left. And since you don't appear to have a club right foot..." Blackwolf said.

"You can't tell that from my footprints." Hotch said. "There's no perceptible difference between them."

"Your problem isn't with your prints. It's with your perception." Blackwolf said.

"Hey, can we get back to tracking or am I going to have to do it all myself?"  Zoe asked. "Am I going to have to solve the crime myself too?"

They went to the blood-soaked in the ground. Zoe was obviously annoyed with being with this company as Blackwolf observed the ground.

"What do you see?"

"There's a saying, 'Once too much blood has been spilled on the same ground, that ground develops a thirst for it'. This is all consistent with Native American warfare rituals. But it's not Apache." Blackwolf said and he stood up and handed Zoe the photos back, "Whoever did this carried out the most brutal practices of the Apache—Navajo, Comanche, Pueblo, and Sioux."

"No one tribe ever did them all. Not like this." Zoe said, her knowledge wasn't as extensive but she did know that.

"Real Indians would know that. This wasn't Indians." They started walking again, "And if you want to figure out who did this, it might help to know there was a sixth person in the house.

"Why do you say that?

"What did Maze Valdez teach you?"

"How to survive." Zoe said and then she spotted something and started walking forwards with intention.

"Female. Ninety, 95 pounds. Size six shoe. Fallen arches. She was walking alone when she was ambushed by two men." Blackwolf said as Zoe walked a good distance around the footprints.

"We also believe there were at least three suspects." Hotch said.

"Three? Yeah." Blackwolf scoffed. "Two over here plus at least six over there." He pointed behind them. "Because while these two carried this girl struggling to their vehicle to the east, at least six others ran single file to hide their numbers, from the west."

"So, you're saying that there were eight?" Hotch asked.

"At least."

"And one hostage."

——————————————————————————————————

They walked through the police station and Blackwolf spoke to Hotch, "Doctor Noble-Valdez trusted my ability, you didn't. You wanted to see how I'd behave at the scene of the crime. You can at least tell me how I did."

"Your lack of an emotional reaction at seeing the carnage leads me to believe you're innocent." Hotch said.

"A guilty man would have feigned disgust?"

"Exactly."

"You know what counting coup is?"

"No."

"The Apache knew they could easily prove their superiority by killing many of the enemy tribe. But they also knew killings would start a fierce blood feud which would result in the waste of lives and resources." Blackwolf explained.

"Makes sense." Hotch replied.

"So the Apache proved their superiority by counting coup, stealthily stealing property, usually horses, from right under the nose of their enemy. To the Apache, killing, unless absolutely necessary, was a sign of stupidity and weakness."

"If this is your way of saying you're not the killer, we already know that." Hotch said.

"So why am I still talking to you?" Blackwolf asked.

"Hotch." JJ approached, "So, if there was another girl out there, no one's reported her missing. None of the papers have received any claims of responsibility or ransom demands."

"We'd like for you to stay and help with the profile briefing." Hotch said.

"If it'll keep the FBI off the reservation, I'll stay."

——————————————————————————————————

They gave the profile with Spencer starting first, "Each torture ritual had specific religious significance, but only to the tribe that practiced it. It's highly unlikely that any one tribe would mix them all together like this."

"Meaning?" An officer asked.

"Whoever did this obviously had knowledge of Native American culture, but they had absolutely no practical understanding of it." Zoe explained.

"What we know is this pack shares a singular vision. Whether they share a religious faith, racist ideology, or political manifesto each member of this unit has surrendered its individual identity to the group." Morgan explained.

"It's the act of kidnapping that reveals the nature of this pack." Hotch said.

"From the German Red Brigade, to the Munich Olympics, to Iraqi insurgents, the act of kidnapping is a characteristic of political terrorist groups." Elle said.

"We could be looking for a domestic terrorist organization like the Symbionese Liberation Army that kidnapped Patty Hearst." Alexander said.

"But these are Native Americans, right?" The officer from before asked.

"I seriously doubt it. The torture and mutilation you see here are very confused imitations of warfare practiced by Native American tribes."

"You trying to tell us that Indians wouldn't be so brutal?

No. Zoe was descent from Aztecs who were known for having fearless warriors known for their ferocity and bravery in battle and they were known to sacrifice animals, but mostly humans, including children to their gods, most typically by slicing the heart out of the sacrificed and spilling their blood on the temple alter.

"No." Blackwolf said. "I'm saying that Indians wouldn't be so confused."

——————————————————————————————————

The team went into Rhodes' office with him.

"Can we really be sure he's right?" Rhodes asked.

"Well, I'm fairly certain Blackwolf wasn't in on it. But you don't need to be Einstein to realize these people were Native Americans, or they were people who made it look like Native Americans." Gideon said.

"Why would anyone want to frame these Native Americans?"

"Possibly to turn public opinion against them." Zoe said, "Jane Bear said that the developers had paid so many families to leave the reservation that they could barely fill a single class. Sheriff, you mentioned the Apache were fighting the land grab in court. Public opinion would be a significant factor."

"Is there anyone besides the developers who might be vehemently opposed to the Native Americans getting the land back?" Hotch asked.

"The ADU." Rhodes said.

"Who's that?"

"The American Defence Union. Founded by a local businessman named Roy Minton. They're like the Minutemen who patrol the borders. Only these guys blame everything on the Native American."

So like a certain politician [(and unfortunately future president-slash-future candidate for presidency for some reason) on everyone who isn't Caucasian or male.

"Who are the members?" Elle asked.

"Minton's people are mostly white, construction workers, building supply vendors, working class people that believe Native Americans are standing in the way of progress and commerce." Rhodes said.

"Well, that makes sense." Zoe deadpanned. Unfortunately the most common thing about Americans is that a White person that blames other races is usually not too far away.

"Whether they feel the Native Americans are standing in the way of progress, or profit or they're just genuine racists." JJ said, "I think Minton and the ADU are strong suspects.

"Let's bring Minton in." Hotch decided.

——————————————————————————————————

Hotch decided Zoe being from Aztec descent should come with them to interview Minton, though she didn't seem too enthusiastic about it as she met Hotch's usual deadpan gaze with her own deadpan gaze.

"Mister Minton, any idea who might be behind these killings?" Hotch asked Minton.

"The Indians have a history of violent behavior, especially the Apaches." Minton said as if it was a modern fact.

Native Americans. Zoe mentally corrected, hiding her distaste with her usual stoic (semi-)professionalism.

"Did you know that they used to kill white settlers? Decapitate the bodies. Put their victim's heads on wooden pikes outside their houses?"

“Yeah, and Christopher Columbus actually killed so many Native Americans that historians have stated it’s difficult to pinpoint but due to the combination of violence, enslavement, and disease following Colmbus’ arrival, it can be estimated that up to ninety percent of the native population died. Doesn’t make every Caucasian responsible for that.” Zoe said in her usual deadpan voice but there was a noticeable coldness to her tone. “It was a long time ago. You still seem pretty upset about it.”

Minton ignored the info about "national hero" Christopher Colmbus.

"That was the other night. My family has been dealing with the Apache for one hundred and fifty years." Minton said.

"You know, your rhetoric sounds just hateful enough to justify violence." Morgan said.

"We don't need to stoop to their level. We're fighting the Indians in court." Minton said.

"Is that right? Then why all the guns, Roy?" Morgan asked. "Our records show that your two hundred members carry over four-hundred-and-fifty firearms."

"We're simply exercising our constitutional right under the Second Amendment. We have the right to defend ourselves."

Zoe refrained from scrunching her nose as she had said something similar earlier. Only she had reason to carry firearms. She had been attacked so many times. So many people wanted her dead. Actively and in the past. She had been hurt by men who took advantage of owning guns and weapons that she

"Four-hundred-and-fifty guns, Roy. I don't think so." Morgan scoffed, "That's not self-defence. That's plain paranoid."

"Not anymore."

When they were done, they regrouped with the team at the police station.

"If Minton's as fanatical as he pretends to be, he wouldn't file lawsuits." Morgan stated.

"Or organize labor unions." Elle said.

"The Native Americans are keeping Minton and the members of the ADU from making a lot of money on the development and construction of the Apache land."

"I agree. He's using racist ideology to cover simple greed." Gideon said and turned to Rhodes, "Sheriff, I'd like you to put Minton under surveillance.

"You think he's guilty?" Rhodes asked.

"Not likely, but we've just given Minton reason to believe that some faction of the ADU may have taken matters into their own hands and Minton may lead us to them." Hotch explained.

Morgan's cell phone rang. "It's Garcia." He unclipped the phone from his belt and picked up, "Hey. What do you got? Okay. Nice job." He hung up, "Think we might have found our sixth victim."

——————————————————————————————————

Alexander, Zoe, Hotch, JJ, Morgan, and Elle went to Ingrid's father's house and he let them in. There was something off about him that Zoe just couldn't shake. Morgan went to look through Ingrid's old room.

"How old was Ingrid when your wife passed away?" Zoe asked Peter Greisen.

"Fourteen." He said.

"And then you raised her on your own?" Elle asked and he nodded.

"Why didn't you report your daughter as missing, Mister Greisen?" Alexander asked with a slight edge to his tone.

"I didn't know she was missing. She has her own place. She has her own life at school. Her own friends." Greisen explained.

"When was the last time you spoke?" Elle asked.

Griesen thought about for a second and said, "A couple weeks ago." And then he explained, "She's been going through a phase the past couple months. Distancing herself."

"Has anyone threatened Ingrid?" Elle asked.

"Not that I know of." He said.

"Have you received any menacing phone calls or seen anyone in the neighborhood? I mean, anything that's been unusual at all?" Zoe asked.

"No. Nothing like that."

"We have reason to believe the people who kidnapped your daughter may be politically motivated." Hotch said, "They killed those kids and they kidnapped Ingrid in the name of their cause."

"We think the first thing, or, the best thing, you can do to help your daughter is for you to go on the news."

"How will that help Ingrid?" He asked.

"If we can personalize Ingrid to the public, the public will take any harm that comes to her at the hands of the kidnappers personally." JJ explained. "Hurting her would hurt their cause."

"It will stop them from killing her?" He asked.

"It might."

——————————————————————————————————

They met up with Morgan in Ingrid's room.

"Hey."

"So?" Morgan asked.

"Fathers' blame themselves when their child is kidnapped. As irrational as it is, it's typical." Hotch said and Alexander and Zoe looked at him. "This guy didn't do that. Why not?"

"Well, in these situations, innocent parents, they don't hide their feelings of guilt, while guilty parents do." Alexander said.

"So we're thinking this guy's guilty?" Morgan asked.

"Of something." Hotch said.

——————————————————————————————————

While Greisen went on air, they continued to look through Ingrid's room for clues when Elle came in saying, "We've got a caller on the line."

"Has Greisen been prepped?"  Hotch asked.

"The caller doesn't want to speak to Greisen. In fact, he doesn't want Greisen to know that he's even calling."

Hotch took the phone, "This is Special Agent Aaron Hotchner."

"Yeah. We have Ingrid Greisen. We'll turn ourselves and the girl in under one condition." The man on the other end of the phone said.

"I'm listening."

"You don't tell Greisen about it."

"What does it matter to you what I tell Greisen?" Hotch asked.

"Because he paid us to kidnap her."

——————————————————————————————————

Alexander, Hotch, Elle, and Morgan brought the kidnappers in and got the girl to the hospital. Zoe heard she was nonresponsive. Morgan, Spencer, and Zoe went to the hospital while the rest of the team interviewed the kidnappers and the father.

As the three approached Ingrid's room, Morgan's phone rang. "It's Garcia."

"We got this." Spencer said.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Yeah." Spencer nodded.

"Yeah, believe it or not, I have some experience with kidnapping trauma." Zoe said.

"Okay." Morgan said and answered his phone, "Yeah. Talk to me." He walked off and Zoe and Spencer went to Ingrid's room.

Zoe looked through the window on the door to see the young blonde woman in the bed. She was awake, just staring in front of her.

Zoe mentally flashed back to the following days at the hospital after she escaped those eight months. It was a blur to her but she could remember seeing the pictures of her, she didn't look at the camera but past them, just into space.

Spencer opened the door and held it open for Zoe. She approached Ingrid, muttering a thank you to Spencer.

"Hello Ingrid. I'm Doctor Spencer Reid, this is Doctor Zoe Noble-Valdez. We're with the FBI and we were wondering if you could..."

"Griesen, Ingrid. nine-four-three-two-three-nine-four-eight-seven."

Spencer and Zoe looked at each other to confirm that they both heard this insanity that sounded like it came from a computer.

"Excuse me?" Spencer asked.

She looked at them and spoke more slowly, if it wasn't for the utterly blank look in her eyes and tone in her voice, she almost would've sounded annoyed that she had to repeat it, "Griesen, Ingrid. nine-four-three-two-three-nine-four-eight-seven."

"Can I see your hands?" Zoe asked, she didn't wait for a response and took Ingrid's hand, examining her hand. Zoe stroked her hands over Ingrid's palm and then her fingertips, feeling the grooves of Ingrid's fingerprints under her own fingertips. She didn't find what she had been fearing to find... to both her relief and disappointment.

She gently placed Ingrid's hand back on the bed and looked at Spencer, gesturing for the door.

Spencer still confused nodded and they left without another word.

"What's up?" Morgan asked, approaching, confused as to why they were out so soon.

"She's brainwashed." Zoe said at once. "Cult, most likely."

"Why'd you ask to see her hands?" Spencer asked.

"It's not the same cult as the one they built around me." Zoe said.

"How do you know?" Morgan asked.

Zoe hesitated, her jaw clenching, then she sighed and held up her hand, “She still has her fingerprints.” She held up her hand, “one of the first things they did once the cult was built was that they burned off my fingerprints with acid. It was a long shot, anyways."

Spencer gently took Zoe's hand and saw she had no fingerprints.

"I..."

"Don't." She pulled her hand back, on guard, "Just call Hotch." They didn't move. "Call Hotch!" She snapped.

Morgan took his phone out and turned away from them as Spencer gave Zoe puppy-dog eyes.

"Ingrid isn't catatonic anymore, but she's answering every question with only her name and Social Security number." Morgan told Hotch through the phone. There's more. Garcia did some checking. Ingrid hasn't been enrolled in school for over a year. She had good grades. Just suddenly dropped out and vacated her campus apartment. She left no forwarding, Hotch. We have no idea where or how she's been living."

——————————————————————————————————

Ingrid had been in a cult and the Greinsen intended on bringing Ingrid to a deprogrammer and he feared that the cult had been responsible for the killings but didn't want his daughter to go to jail. During the night Minton and his family was attacked and the police officer patrolling them was killed.

They went back to the police station to update the profile now that they knew a cult was involved.

"We're looking for the cult leader. Typically men between the age twenty-five and thirty-five with a high level of intelligence." Zoe said as cults were her specialty. "A sociopathic underachiever with an extremely abusive childhood. And obviously someone with an interest in, and an affinity for Apache culture and rituals."

"Look for males with criminal records for lesser type crimes." Morgan said as Zoe crossed her arms, she had put her motorcycle gloves on now because Spencer kept looking at her hands in sympathy. "Drug possession, petty theft."

"What about school records?" JJ asked, "The victims from the first crime scene went to Terra Mesa University? Maybe the leader was there, too."

"That's great." Elle said, standing up, "Look for students who studied Native American cultures extensively."

"We need to do it all." Morgan said, "With this second strike it could be a spree."

Zoe had to excuse herself now that her part of the profile was done, she had to meet up with Blackwolf, Hotch, and Ingrid at the house where the family was killed.

——————————————————————————————————

Zoe got off her motorcycle, glancing at the house. She went to take off her gloves before stopping and changing her mind. She approached Rhodes, Blackwolf, and Hotch who had just arrived too.

"Sorry about your man, Jim." Blackwolf said.

"I appreciate that." Rhodes said.

"That her?"

"She won't give us anything, but her name and her Social.

"Thanks." Blackwolf said."

Okay. They're ready. Everybody out." he called to the officers and went to the car and yanked Ingrid out, "Come with me! My friend wants to show you something." He pulled Ingrid to Hotch, Zoe, and Blackwolf

"Ingrid, my name is John Blackwolf.

"I know who you are." Ingrid said, the first words other than her name and social. "You are the son of Benjamin Blackwolf of the Chiricahua Apache.

"Come with me." Blackwolf said and turned to head into the house.

They walked through the hall of the house, next to a cluster of pictures of the kids was smeared with blood as the family had tried to escape. They walked past it and into one of the daughter's room.

"What do think happened here, Ingrid?"

Ingrid looked around, the books and trophies had lines of blood on them when the girl had been stabbed, blood was splattered on the white curtains, lots of blood was stained onto the bed, on the girl's paintings. Her name had been Nicole.

Ingrid looked back at Blackwolf and said, "I think three little trespassers met the vengeful blade of the tribe."

"What tribe would that be?" Hotch asked.

"There are only two people. The Apache, and those who trespass against us." Ingrid said.

"You're not Apache, Ingrid." Blackwolf said.

"No. You are not Apache." She argued, "Not anymore. Grandfather tested me. He sent me to the desert mountains to be blessed by the Ga'he. The Gahe have brought Grandfather back to us, build his new tribe to reclaim the sacred land for the Apache."

"Where is Grandfather?" Hotch asked.

"Did Grandfather ever tell you where the name 'Apache' comes from? It comes from the Zuni word 'apachu,' it means 'enemy'. And if Grandfather knew the first thing about the real Apache he would have taught you to refer to us as the 'diné'. It means, 'the people'."

"Grandfather said that you and all the living Apache are like the Jews of old, lost and wandering the desert in search of their Messiah. And he has come..." She argued but Blackwolf cut her off by speaking over her.

"The diné don't believe in a Messiah."

"You were lied to, Ingrid." Zoe said.

"The Ga'he..." Ingrid started.

"Don't use a word you don't understand. The Ga'he are not magic fairies. They are not gods as you understand them." Blackwolf said and he grabbed one of Nicole's shirts covered in her blood and held it up to Ingrid and he grabbed her harshly with her other hand, having her squeak in fear. Zoe refrained herself from jumping in as Blackwolf shouted, "This is not the blood of an enemy! This is the blood of a little girl just like you are. You've been fed bits and pieces of a culture you don't understand."

"You don't know." She said when Blackwolf let her go."

"What we do know is that you've been manipulated and exploited by a very disturbed individual." Hotch said.

"You are a liar!" She cried and she turned back to Blackwolf, "You have disavowed your ancestors. Only those who dwell in the dead lands deserve to live!"

Blackwolf looked at Hotch and Zoe.

——————————————————————————————————

Zoe was helping Garcia find potential cult leaders while Spencer looked through the paper files while the others figured out where the cult may be.

"Stop looking at my hands." She said, without looking up.

"Sorry. It's just... they should've grown back."

"Minor burns or injuries usually don't permanently change them. They didn't understand that. Within a few weeks, they were growing back and they burned them again and again. Until I stop screaming. I finally explained it to them. It would take a third-degree burn or other serious injury that affect all the layers of skin that the fingerprint is encoded into. At least five. Three months in and they had burned nine layers and, they're gone." Zoe explained.

"I'm sorry."

"I know you are, Spencer. I don't need your pity. I don't want your pity. It's been five years. I've accepted it. I just..."

"How were you never converted?"

"I wasn't a victim of the cult. I... I was the inspiration for it. Because I refused to break. If I was ever innocent, they took it from me but I still refused to break and I continued to fight, when they would've broken. They were broken and my fight confused them and so the cult formed. Even if they tried, I knew the truth." Zoe said, "Here's someone. Jackson Cally."

Spencer moved his chair to look at her screen.

"He was expelled from TMU six months before the others for drug possession and there was a string of colleges before. Every single one, he studied religion and Native American culture and he was in a seminar on Native American culture with Ingrid Greisen and look, John Blackwolf guest lectured." He read.

"Send it to Garcia. "

——————————————————————————————————

Zoe went with Hotch, Elle, Morgan, Blackwolf, Rhodes, and other officers to an abandoned motel off of Route 29 that Blackwolf speculated might have be where the cult was.

They kicked the door down and went through the darkened motel until Hotch found someone. A man with his back to them his arms behind him

"FBI! Don't move! Put your hands out to the side and turn around very slowly." Hotch said and Cally held his arms out. "Jackson Cally?" Zoe, Morgan, and Elle entered the room behind him. "Grandfather?"

Cally finally turned around.

"There's no one else here, Hotch." Morgan said.

"Where are the others?" Zoe asked.

"Hunting." Cally said.

—————————————————————————————————

Zoe was on the phone with Spencer as he read the paper file that he printed of what Garcia had pulled up. "Jackson Gordon Cally, thirty-two years old. Spent most of his childhood moving from foster home to foster home."

"Hang on a second. I'm going to put you on speaker." She said and pushed the button, "Go ahead, Spence."

"Simply another sad, but unremarkable statistic aside from the fact that he had an IQ of 189." Spencer said. Zoe was unimpressed.

"Any criminal record?"

"At eighteen, he spent twenty-two months in prison for auto theft. I just spoke to the warden at the prison. Said when he was there he found religion and began preaching to his fellow inmates. And that he once convinced a mass murderer he was doing time with to beat to death an inmate that was threatening Cally."

Zoe was still unimpressed. That wasn't surprising. Cult leaders were known to be rather persuasive.

"Ever since he was a child, this guy just survived on cunning, force of personality." Gideon said.

"He spent twenty-two months in the clink. Was released and then bounced from university to university studying, you guessed it, Native American cultures." Spencer said.

"Okay, thanks, Spence." Zoe said and hung up.

Cally reminded her of an unremarkable version of her ex-boyfriend. High IQ. Highly persuasive. Abusive childhood. Underachiever. Criminal record.

"What's his connection to the Apache?" Blackwolf asked.

"Aside from taking your class? Nothing that they could find." Zoe said. "With sociopaths like Cally, there is no connection."

"If it hadn't been Apache he would've found some other culture to attract and manipulate his followers." Hotch said

"Like Manson, Cally's been forced to become an expert profiler of sorts. He reads the people around him. He finds a way in, and then he brainwashes them to serve his needs." Zoe explained.

"And the only way to figure out his game is to play it." Hotch said, "I'm going to give him exactly what he wants."

"What's that?" Elle asked.

"An audience. Zoe, you have experience with cult leaders?" Hotch asked.

Zoe stared at him, unamused at Hotch-levels.

"Alright, but I have a suspicion. Give me a moment."

——————————————————————————————————

Zoe sat in a chair in front of Cally, the moment she sat down, his eyes flickered to her necklace, a Day of the Dead necklace, she didn't have her leather jacket on and had her shirt sleeves rolled up slightly, revealing her alebrije wolf tattoo on one shoulder and her tattoo of Santa Meurta on the other.

"Hello Mister Cally, I'm Special Agent Doctor Zoe Noble-Valdez with the FBI." She said.

"You know, I've spent my whole life talking to cops and doctors. There's something different about you. You're not just a cop or a doctor. Are you?" He said.

"You're very perceptive." She said, only barely meaning it.

"So what are you?"

"I'm a profiler."

"So am I."

"You're not the leader, are you?"

"No. That'd be the suit back there, Special Agent Aaron Hotchner."

"But your colleagues still respect you a great deal. They think you're very smart but you also scare them a little. You worry them. You're a mystery to them that they can't quite profile."

Zoe raised her eyebrows.

Cally looked at Hotch, "And they look at you to find all the answers. Leadership is a grave responsibility."

"Well, they don't call me Grandfather." Hotch remarked.

"Well, in my tribe, Grandfather is simply another word for 'teacher'."

"Did you teach your tribe to murder?" Zoe asked.

"No, I don't teach murder. I teach love. Love of land. Love of ancestors. Love of the tribe. These trespassers poison the land. You know the Day of the Dead stems from Aztec beliefs."

"I did know that. I'm from Aztec descent from my mother's side." Zoe said.

"Not many do. The remaining Aztecs have forgotten who they are. But the Apache will soon remember who they are and they will hunt these trespassers off their land until no one but the Apache remain."

Blackwolf stepped up, "You think you speak for the Apache, but you're nothing, but a coward and a killer."

"I haven't killed anyone." Cally chuckled.

"Your tribe killed a family last night. A mother, a father, and three little girls. Ages, five, eight, and eleven." Zoe said, "Do you think that your little tribe is going to wage a war with all the white people in this state?"

"Pretty soon, we won't have to." Cally said

"Why's that?" Hotch asked.

He turned to Blackwolf. "What's going to happen when the angry white men come to the doors of your children blaming you for the killing of their people? What are you going to do? Call the cops? No. You're going to string them up. You're going to put their heads on poles and rape their women just like the savage animal you really are. Like the savage animal your father was before they shot him down."

Blackwolf grabbed Cally by the front and slammed him against the wall. Zoe only looked mildly interested in what was happening while Morgan shouted, "No, Blackwolf."

Morgan pulled him off as Zoe got up and stepped up to Cally.

"And you! You're just like your ancestors. Who sacrificed children by cutting out their hearts while they were still alive. By eating their flesh!"

"I'm a vegetarian." She remarked and walked past him with Hotch outside to Blackwolf.

"Let me in with him, alone." Blackwolf said, "I'll get him talking."

"You've done more than we could have hoped for." Zoe reassured him.

Hotch turned to Morgan and Elle, "You guys take Cally down to the Sheriff's Office."

"You tell that man he's welcome on my reservation any time." Blackwolf growled, pointing.

"Cally's a racist. That's why I took my jacket off. To show my tattoos. Not all Mexicans are from Aztec descent but I just happen to be and he could make that assumption if he studied Native American cultures. You just tipped him over the edge." Zoe explained. "It was never about the Apache. It's just about power and control."

——————————————————————————————————

It turns out a bunch of guns were missing from Minton's house. The cult was going to stage an ADU attack against Native Americans since the ADU didn't actually attack anyone.

"The school's our most vulnerable target." Blackwolf said.

"Cally likes killing kids." Zoe scoffed.

They got out and walked through a dark room of the school. Blackwolf heard Hotch taking out his gun.

"Put that away."

"What?" Hotch asked.

"You don't need it." Blackwolf turned to them. "Use your baton. There are many paths to the same place. Trust me."

"Just so you know, you sound like a fortune cookie." Hotch deadpanned.

"You asked what Maze Valdez taught me. It was how to be the ultimate weapon. I don't need a gun. The Aztecs have fearless warriors known from their ferocity and bravery but they did it to protect their tribe. Our best bet is stealth. Pick them off one by one. My cousin is a modern ninja. Stealth is my specialty." Zoe said.

——————————————————————————————————

When the cult members arrived, the one classroom was empty. Zoe slammed a door shut, bringing one closer and she punched him in the carotid sinus, a pressure point in the front of the neck. When pressure is applied it can trigger carotid sinus syncope, a response that causes fainting, it can happen even if someone were to wear a tight collar. If this pressure point is struck, the body’s receptors are confused into thinking the body’s blood pressure is too high and the body attempts to correct this by suddenly dropping blood pressure which can lead to insufficient blood supply to the brain and then fainting.

Zoe led a few away while Hotch took out one and then pulled another into a classroom. Blackwolf pulled the rifle from another and the cult member took out his knife, Blackwolf took out hers.

Zoe had three following her, not sure if they had someone. She circled around a shelf and grabbed one, pulling behind it and hitting their head against the wall.

"Who's there?" A member shouted but Zoe was gone.

She grabbed another's rifle, kneeing them in the groin and kicking them away. He and the other member watched as without looking she pulled the ammo and threw the gun aside.

Then there was a gunshot. Hopefully, by Hotch, Zoe looked away and the last member holding their gunshot at her but she rolled out of the way and she spun when she shot again, dodging the bullets until the gun went click, click, click.

The first member she had disarmed lunged at her but Zoe simply grabbed his hand, twisting it to just to the point of intense pain, making him shout in pain but the most terrifying part was the intense look of hatred in Zoe's eyes, that they would attempt to come and kill children. The other member ran at her and Zoe pushed the first member into them, making sure to hit their heads together.

Hotch and Blackwolf showed up, having heard the shots and had become concerned but Zoe was still standing unhurt.

"You took out three at once?"

Zoe just shrugged.

Zoe tied up all the members, tightly so they would have no chance of escape and applied pressure on the woman's wound that Hotch had shot to keep her from shooting Blackwolf

The rest of the team arrived as the three were sitting in front of the school.

"The children?" Gideon asked.

"They're fine." Hotch said.

"Did you actually think I'd let any of them get hurt?" Zoe asked.

"We got them out before they got here. We took down these six." Hotch said.

"Without firing a shot?" Spencer asked.

"Captain America here shot number five." Blackwolf said, looking at Hotch.

"You're welcome."

"And one of them shot all their bullets at Zoe and missed." Blackwolf said.

"They're not exactly a sniper with a gun." Zoe dismissed.

"Number six is cut up pretty bad. I don't think he's going to make it." Hotch said.

"At least I didn't shoot him." Blackwolf muttered.

"I think I'd rather be shot." Morgan remarked.

"One of them has a broken wrist and a concussion, two of them have just a concussion, and one of them has an injured caroid sinus." Zoe said.

"There's an old Apache saying, 'You can take many paths to get to the same place'." Hotch said.

*Edited October 23, 2024*

[attackfish]

More You Had One Job please?

Continued from: [Link], [Link], [Link], [Link], [Link], [Link], [Link], [Link], [Link], [Link], [Link], [Link], and [Link].

1. Zuko follows the Avatar north, catching up to him and his friends occasionally, always failing to capture him. Special import and focus must go to the time Zhao captures Aang, and Zuko must sneak into one of the most secure Fire Nation fortresses on the Earth Kingdom continent to break him out, and how this all ends with Zuko unconscious, and having to be rescued by the Avatar, who feels the need to talk at him about friendship. Zuko, who is a lot less tightly wound and afraid of failure, having spent the last three years succeeding at things and becoming a boy hero to his people, pretends to go back to sleep, and then makes his move, attempting to capture and again, who runs off into the swamp.

2. But nothing really materially changes until after the debacle at the North Pole, where Zhao gets himself killed by an angry fish spirit. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. But anyway, Zuko and Iroh escape the Northern Water Tribe fortress by the skin of their teeth and spend three weeks on the back of Zuko's increasingly large baby dragon, before landing in a resort town of all things, where they lick their wounds and charge the bill to Ozai. When he gets the bill, he will be furious, but then when isn't he?

3. And Ozai is furious. Not about the bill. He hasn't gotten that yet, but about the fact that Zuko hasn't actually captured the Avatar. Sure, he's always hated it when his son succeeded at a task he was supposed to fail at, but he has also gotten very used to enjoying the fruits of those successes, and in this case, Zuko found the Avatar, and then failed to capture him, which is the worst of all worlds, and now it's Ozai's problem, whereupon the vanished Avatar who wasn't getting up to any trouble, wasn't his problem before. So he sends out his much more competent and wonderful daughter, to collect her brother, so that he can't do anything else, and get them into even more trouble, and he never thought he'd want his son back in the Fire Nation, but please bring him back before he does something else.

4. But this isn't the same Azula who goes in canon to pick up her failure of a brother, who believes her father's favor and disfavor is right and deserved, thanks to her competence and her brother's utter incompetence. This is an Azula who has watched her brother achieve impossible success, while she is stuck at home, and her father is constantly talking about how wonderful she is, and how stupid and useless Zuko is, when he's out there conquering Ba Sing Se for them. It's really not possible for her to deny to herself that her brother is incredibly gifted, and that her favor and his disfavor are arbitrary, and she has no idea if she is actually going to succeed in capturing her brother. And she has no idea how her father is going to react to her failure. He might cast her off and decide she's as useless as Zuko, or he might completely ignore her failure, because his favor is arbitrary.

5. So she isn't all that surprised when she first fails to capture her brother and uncle, when they see through ber lies and escape. But the thing about that failure, is that part of what happens is that she has to make her goals public, and now everybody knows that her father wants her brother locked up, that he doesn't want him to continue hunting the Avatar and possibly capture him, he wants him in a prison cell. And the thing is, Zuko is practically a fire nation folk hero. He captured Omashu for them. He captured Ba Sing Se for them, he raised a dragon. He is nearly single-handedly responsible for conquering the Earth Kingdom for them, and he is responsible for the greatest string of Fire Nation military victories the world has ever seen. Ozai might not have realized that the rest of the world doesn't see his son the same way he does, but the rest of the world is noticing. And when push comes to shove, the rest of the Fire Nation is starting to think about which one of them they would support, Ozai, or Zuko.

[the-girl-without-a-face]

We're All Mad Here (MHA fanfic)

We're All Mad Here by the_girl_without_a_face

Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia Rating: General Audiences  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply  Relationships: Kaminari Denki/Shinsou Hitoshi, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead & Shinsou Hitoshi, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead/Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Class 1-A & Shinsou Hitoshi  Characters: Shinsou Hitoshi, Kaminari Denki, Class 1-A (My Hero Academia), Midoriya Izuku  Additional Tags: Class 2-a at this point, Shinsou Hitoshi is in Class 1-A, Insomniac Shinsou Hitoshi, Shinsou Hitoshi Needs a Hug, ShinKami Week 2021, ShinKami Week, Adopted Shinsou Hitoshi, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead Adopts Shinsou Hitoshi, Pre-Relationship 

Summary: Shinsou Hitoshi realizes some things about Class 2-A, a certain loud blond and himself.

Words: 1721, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

~~~

Shinsou Hitoshi knew Class 1-A was weird. 

He did, truly. He saw them at the Sports Festival, where each and every one of them showed a new level of silliness, power and strategy thinking. Most of the students did, he himself gave a speech once he lost the fight against Midoriya.

He saw the self-proclaimed Bakusquad running, laughing, and shouting during lunch. He spied the Dekusquad behave quieter, but just as chaotic as the others, filled in mumbling, hand gestures and floating things. The others weren’t flashy, but did still attract trouble and chaos wherever they went.

His theory was confirmed (yet again) during the Joint Training exercise. 1-B was a bit milder, except for a few… special students. The kid with rabies was surely to be avoided if one didn’t have constant vaccination. Which was once his case, but Shinsou had been taking his shots after he was adopted by his mentor and his husband. Well, Dad and Papa now. 

And those two were another reason why he thought he wasn’t meant for 1-A’s specific brand of crazy. His Dad told stories of the class during dinner; Papa and Shinsou were barely surprised at their antics anymore.

That said, he was quite surprised when he was placed in Class 1-A.

“The 1-A classroom is bigger than Vlad King’s,” Aizawa explained when he asked. “It was just logical.”

It was a known fact every classroom at UA was exactly the same size. 

Shinsou knew Aizawa knew his son understood half-words and neither said anything about it. Still, it felt nice to be cared about.

First day in class 2A and he was already in for a loop.

Theorical classes in the morning and heroic training later. To get them going as a start of the semester, it wasn’t a simulation, but simple quirk training. Most students never really stopped practicing with their quirks, they used it all the time for anything no matter how big or small. If it made life easier and didn’t hurt anyone, why not right? Except… that was exactly why Shinsou didn’t get to practice much with his own.

He resigned himself to train with the capture weapon when he saw a lithe figure excitedly approach.

“Hey, Shinsou. Do you need someone to practice with?”

The electric user who called him a ‘hopeful hero’ – Kaminari Denki – looked way to happy to spar. 

“Aren’t we supposed to work alone?”

“If you choose to, sure, but it’s quirk practice and you need a guinea pig, so I’m volunteering. That is if you want.” 

There were some remarkable times in his life when Shinsou used his quirk. He didn’t properly remember the very first time, but he sure remembered the backlash of it. He used it once on a teacher without meaning too and had to be moved to another school. There was once when Aizawa-sensei asked him to brainwash him, for practice, but Shinsou took a whole minute to fully comprehend the seriousness of the man. Another time with Aizawa was when they were sparring and he managed to get the older man to answer (quirks were allowed during sparring). The most recent one was with Papa. Shinsou hadn’t slept in three entire days and was seeing two of everything and his head was pounding and his quirk default mode is on, so he ended up brainwashing the man to get him a painkiller for the headache. The teen had lost any smidge of sleep when he realized what he had done; eyes blurry and shaking hands apologizing in JSL. It took a long time to convince him his parents weren’t angry and they loved him anyway, quirk mishaps and all.

Now, an almost-complete stranger offering to be brainwashed? That one was going to the records. 

Midoriya had heard the conversation and jumped over.

“I’d be willing to let you practice too!” The green haired boy said. “Your quirk is so cool, I’ve seen it in action before, everyone here has, and you’ve actually used it me before, so if you want someone new to test it, I’d be happy to step aside. You’re very powerful and I’m sure you know how to make it work best for you and what you need to work on. I wonder how it works and would love to learn more about it. Does the person you’re brainwashing do specifically what you mean or does the wording matter? If the second, I wonder if the meaning for different people can have different understanding on the command-

Kaminari placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, effectively cutting of his muttering.

“Midoriya, calm down. I’m sure you’ll get your answers eventually, but for now let Shinsou breathe.”

Midoriya looked at Shinsou again, noting the definite lack of shoulder movement from the purple boy.

“I’m sorry! Sometimes I talk too much, I’ll let you be. If you want any imput, I’ll be right over there with Todoroki!”

And off he went.

“Are you okay?”

Kaminari looked concerned. “Is the sun bothering you? It’s quite hot today, but I guess it could be worse. We can move to the shadows?” he pointed to the area where the buildings blocked the sun.

“You want me to use… my quirk… on you.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you have to ask me a question to activate it?”

“Well,” Shinsou eloquently spluttered. “Yes.”

Kaminari jumped back and got into a fight stance.

“Do it, Shinbro, I’m ready!”

Again, weird. And cute. But mostly weird.

By the end of his first week, Shinsou had been through an emotional rollercoaster. After crash coursing their bizarre manners, he was physically and mentally tired. Training had been a lot harder than what he was used to. He did manage to keep up, but still felt better when he saw other students struggling alongside him. Every single one of them had to get better and he could work with that.

Shinsou naively thought that there wouldn’t be much more to shock him after that. But then a wild electric boy appeared again.

Kaminari stood by his desk, Monday morning, just minutes before class. He looked sheepish with his hands linked behind his back and Shinsou thought he hadn’t had enough coffee to deal with that much energy so early in the morning.

“You’re Aizawa’s son.”

“How observant of you,” Shinsou remarked drily, but it didn’t seem to deter the blond nor his smile.

He had a suspicion where this was going, but he hoped they knew better than to think their homeroom teacher would just favorite him and give him an undeserved spot in the heroics class. 

Mineta’s expulsion had come at his own expense and after Shinsou had secured his spot at the joint exercise. No one could say Shinsou stole his place. He earned it fair and square, and had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but he was ready to defend his ground… which was swiped right from under his feet by the blond boy.

“Can you do the smile?” Kaminari asked, excited enough to let out a spark or two from his hands. Not that Shinsou was paying attention or anything.

The purple haired boy balked for a moment.

“You know we’re not actually related, right?”

Sero leaned his chair back so it dangled on its back legs only. “But you look so much like him! Are you sure he’s not your biological father? Or maybe an uncle or something?”

Todoroki’s eyes gleaned. “I can help you get a blood test if you want.”

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Sero raised hand to Todoroki to high five. The elemental teenager looked confused at his hand before taking it in a hand shake.

“We’ll work on that, Roki.”

He dismissed the offer and both boys dropped the subject. Sero and Todoroki turned back to the math homework.

“So, no Aizawa-smile then?” Kaminari hadn’t moved away, but looked ready to let Shinsou have his peace if he so desired. He shrugged and smirked at the taller boy. “I bet you got a cute smile anyway.”

Shinsou pointedly decided to ignore the flirting and go back to a safer subject.

“I can do it,” he declared then cleared his throat. “The grin, I mean.”

“Wait, really? That was just an excuse to talk to you, dude, that’s so cool.” 

The purple haired boy would dissect all that later alone in his dorm room.

“It’s an acquired art,” the taller boy sighed. “There’s a whole technique behind it.”

“Oh?”

Shinsou looked down for a second and then back at Kaminari with the so called Aizawa-grin. He had perfected the art after imitating his mentor’s facial expression in the mirror many a times, but no one had to know that.

The blond boy gasped loudly before falling into hysterics.

“Oh my,” he gasped. “Guys, check this out!” 

2-A looked at the commotion, more specifically at Shinsou, then collectively fell into hysterics.

The singular spark that graced Kaminari’s hand earlier returned tenfold when he laughed. Shinsou watched it run through his hands, up his arms and tangle in his hair. 

Mina’s shout brought his sole working braincell back to the world outside of Kaminari.

“Dude, you look just like him,” the pink girl shrieked. 

“Oh so he does it for Denki, huh?” Sero wiggled his eyebrows.

Between all the noise, he realized no one was laughing at him. They were praising him as though the grin was something other-wordily and not just plain weird. 

Oh. 

Shinsou just never thought he would ever be their kind of weird, but… maybe he already was.

“Welcome to the class, bro, you’ll fit right in.”

It took him a few seconds, but Shinsou realized he didn’t feel overwhelmed nor more tired after interacting with the blond and the rest of the class. If anything, laughing with them brought a sense of settling in. He hadn’t grasped just how nervous he was about the change in courses.

Overall, Shinsou felt better about his place among the students in Class 2-A.

Among the kids in his class. 

Kaminari shot him a smile and Shinsou briefly questioned if his sparks could reach his heart from two rows over.

Yeah, he thought as he turned back to the board and wrote the lesson title on his notebook, he could get used to that.

[sanchoyowrites]

Thank you for the response, it was an interesting read! One more question in the twice and hawks situation, what do you think hawks shouldve done? He thought that twice shouldve been unable to move due to the injuries he gave him so he wouldn't have to kill him, I saw Ts dedication to the lov not letting him get taken down, obviously T not dying wouldve been great but looking at what he was going to do, hawks couldnt have let him go. If H killing him was so bad wouldnt letting T go be worse?

I’m glad you thought so! :) 

Okay, so, no, I don’t think letting him go would’ve been worse. I actually think Hawks could’ve stopped it before it even got to the point that it did. He knew Twice was mentally ill. That’s why he said he’d try to make sure Twice got help. He also did it because of a bit of selfishness and naivete imo- he liked hanging around Jin and genuinely thought it was a good offer. 

But him knowing how mentally ill Jin was- and him claiming to be a hero- why wouldn’t he have questioned HOW he ended up a villain? The only way to stop villains- to really stop them- is to fix the society that makes them villains in the first place, otherwise, stopping Jin would be a short-term fix. Like slapping a band-aid on a gushing wound. Like, sure, you stopped one villain, congrats, but more of them will keep cropping up until you guys fix the entire system!

He should’ve had a conversation with Twice sometime in those several months of hanging around together. Really listened. Heroes should NOT have the authority to act as executioners. Sure, the situation COULD escalate because of Twice escaping. But is it right to kill him to prevent that? He may have just ran to get his friends to safety. He could’ve tried to escape and passed out from blood loss. He could’ve met up with Dabi and let him handle it and sat it out because of the injuries Hawks already inflicted. But we can’t know- and Hawks couldn’t either- because he made a call he really had no right to make. Heroes aren’t supposed to kill. Period. There is no reason Hawks should have had the right to make that call. Heroes in bnha aren’t allowed to arrest villains, they have to restrain them and turn them over to the police. Heroes are supposed to be upholding justice and saving people. They aren’t if they can’t properly de-escalate a situation, or take measures to prevent it from escalating in the first place. 

Especially when that person was probably the closest thing he had to a real friend. :(

[additional meta written by someone with more skill at explaining this than me]

If you’re asking what I’d personally like to see more than Hawks killing him? Well anything tbh, but the ideal situation would’ve been Hawks having a conversation with him, then truly thinking on how he could improve society for people like Twice. (I..think most LOV stans like me wanted Hawks to switch sides but. yeah. That didn’t happen.) If he was so deadset on taking Twice out of the equation, if he really couldn’t be swayed, then I would’ve personally preferred to see him doing it..like..in those months before instead of the last minute? Just slip a drug in his drink if you gotta capture him. It’s still extremely scummy but there’d be less chance of Twice lashing out if he’s- you know, unconscious at the time? 

TBH no matter what Hawks did, until he really understands how Twice feels about the LOV and the current society, Twice would lash out. The only route that would work would be compassionate and have empathy for the whole league, and that’s one I just...don’t see Hawks doing in canon. 

But that’s what fanfics are for I guess?

[sundeathh]

So hey! What's up? I uh, could use a favor. I'm kinda going through some nonsense and could really use some daddyzawa headcannons. Maybe his reaction to you send nudes or him seeing you in a lutty version of his hero costume? Or both. Please, my love.

Helloooo!!! Alright sweetie, I practically wrote a fucking book for this request. I believe I probably went further than necessary but I just couldn't help myself!

Sorry it took a long time for me to reply, but anyway, I hope you enjoy it!!!

.

NICE COSTUME, NICE VIEW

Request | Masterlist | NSFW / +18 only

Pairing: Aizawa x Fem!reader

Fandom: BNHA | MHA. Word count: 5,6K

CW: Smut, unprotected sex, heterosexual relationship, reader being a tease and taking control, good boy/girl calling, several pet names.

1. First of, I believe that if you sent a full nude picture to him he would nearly pass out; he is a really reserved man so he usually don't receive nor send those kind of pictures;

2. He would cringe at first for being caught off guard but he would like it anyway;

3. If you dressed in a slutty version of his hero costume, he would be rather confused, yet unbelievably aroused. That's why I wrote the following headcanon! Enjoy!

Oh, how daring of you to come up with this idea while he was still at work.

Shōta still wasn't sure how you managed it; you just sent him the picture randomly and without any further context.

Anyway, he had to admit that it was pretty good, if nothing else – it was totally unexpected, of course, but also very well done.

He was on his break at work when he received your picture. And, as soon as he opened it, he was speechless. 

Thus, he didn't respond. He had no idea if he should just text you some sort of compliment or if he should go to the restroom and do...something? Take a photo for you, maybe?

However, his lack of answer didn't bother you that much; you weren't expecting an immediate reaction from him at all.

You knew he had a tendency to be dense sometimes, and although it infuriated you in the beginning of your relationship, now it didn't bother you as much – in fact, it turned into the exact opposite, you loved taking advantage of this.

So you had already decided that you were definitely going to get through that thick skull of his with what you had planned. It would require more effort than you thought, but it would be worth it.

You put on a tight black long sleeved shirt, imitating his own hero costume; however, yours was more revealing, since it was thinner and more transparent than his.

You also wore one of his spare capture weapons loosely around your neck and goggles over your head – almost mimicking cat ears. You weren't wearing pants, showing off the long length of your legs and thighs that seemed so inviting, covering just what had to be covered with lace panties and the shirt itself. 

Shōta knew you could make yourself look good if he had a say in the matter, but damn this costume wasn't showing that off at all; he wanted you without it. 

He sighed. What was he supposed to think? He wanted you. No, he needed you. He felt an incredible urge to just leave work and come to you, without even taking anything else with him. 

It took everything in him to not call you right then and there or text you asking what the hell you had been thinking about. So he settled for just roaming his eyes up and down the picture as he admired your form, his face flushed red from his thoughts and embarrassment.

Damn did he want to be with you now. 

He closed the picture before he stared at it for another few seconds. He knew how you made his heart race every time you sent something to him but it was different now. You never sent anything like that before. 

Another sigh left his lips as he rubbed his temples, trying to clear his mind. He had to stay calm to actually focus on work again.

After taking a deep breath, he turned back to work; aware that he would have a lot of paperwork to get done.

Unfortunately though, now his mind was elsewhere.

× × ×

The day went by, and Shōta couldn’t stop thinking about your picture. Not only was it incredibly hot, but also incredibly provocative.

He hated to admit it but he wanted you naked; not that he hasn't seen you naked for several times before, after all, you were together for years now. But it was definitely a need anyway.

So that's what he was hoping for when he knocked on your door after work.

You opened it with your usual smile, and he couldn't help but notice your outfit – you were thoughtful enough to put it back on when it was time for him to leave work.

He knew he was blushing furiously from the way his heart beat and the warmth spreading across his cheeks.

Then, he cleared his throat awkwardly, trying to regain a bit of his composure before he spoke.

"Can we talk? In private?"

You raised an eyebrow at him but nodded anyway, stepping aside for him to enter. He walked inside, still trying to figure out what he was going to say.

And, once you both entered the room, you shut the door and looked at Shōta expectantly; you could tell he wanted to speak but it was clearly taking him some effort. 

"Um... I... well..." he paused for a moment.

"What is... this?" He finally asked, pointing at your outfit. He didn't mean it rudely though; he was truly confused as to why or what exactly you were wearing.

"Oh," you said, slightly taken aback by his question. "I was inspired."

"Inspired?"

"Yes! Inspired." You repeated slowly, as if making sure the word really got through to him.

"By my costume." He finished dumbfounded.

You smiled and nodded. "Yup!"

"Right..."

The awkward silence that followed after that grew a bit uncomfortable. However, neither of you said anything.

That is, until Shōta decided it was better to go straight to business instead of trying to come up with something else to say.

"So what does this mean?" He asked.

"Hm? What do you mean?" You tried to play dumb.

"This," he gestured toward your attire, "what does this mean?"

"Oh, well... it means that I like your costume." You explained simply. "So I just tried to show you that."

A faint blush returned to his face and he nodded his head.

"Alright. I suppose that makes sense." He stated. "I am just surprised, I guess. I don't usually see you dressed in such a revealing manner."

"Yeah. I don't dress like that at all. I did it now just to show you." You replied, flashing a mischievous grin. "Didn't you like it?"

His face heated up again at your words. The fact that you thought of him like that made his heart flutter like crazy. He loved it.

Shōta cleared his throat again before answering your question.

"I can assure you it doesn't bother me."

"Good." You responded simply before looking away and shifting your weight to one foot. "Did you like it then...?" 

He stared at you with wide eyes for a moment, slightly shocked by what he wanted to answer.

"I liked it. Very much in fact. It... it looks very nice." He replied slowly.

It definitely caught him off guard; seeing you in his uniform, especially since it showed way more skin than his.

"I'm glad." You looked over at him with a smile and added, "I can take it off now if you'd like."

He swallowed nervously and shook his head. This was getting ridiculous. How could you affect him so much?

"No, I don't want you to take it off." He insisted. "I mean... I...I like it on you. I like seeing you like this. But if you want to take it off and put on something else I won't stop you."

It sounded cheesy and he cringed at how lame it sounded when he said it, but he figured this was the best he could offer you to express what he meant; you could read between lines, after all.

"Oh, well, I wasn't thinking about changing though... just taking it off. Completely. If you want me to, of course." You shrugged playfully and gave him a flirtatious smirk.

"Please don't wear anything else tonight." He said, grateful that he kept his voice steady considering how hard he was finding it to keep his composure – you were always so bold, but that just further fueled his desire for you.

"Okay." You agreed, giving him a small nod. "Is that everything?" You asked with a hint of sarcasm.

He groaned inwardly. Did he really seem too desperate to you?

After realizing he must've been silent for too long, he cleared his throat.

"Yeah... that's all." He replied. He knew if he stayed any longer his resolve would crumble completely.

"Alrighty then..." you replied joyfully, before standing on your tiptoes to give him a peck on the cheek.

He froze up, not sure whether to hug you and thank you or kiss you. So he settled for both; it was the appropriate thing to do.

"Don’t worry. I won’t show it to anyone else." You whispered to him after pulling away, smirking.

He couldn’t hide the heat that spread across his face; not only because of your teasing comment but also because he knew you were serious.

He pulled away as well, embarrassed but happy nonetheless. He stood there staring at you for a second before he finally managed to find his voice.

"Good... that's good. I don’t want anyone seeing you like this either." He muttered, his cheeks turning red again.

You smiled, feeling satisfied.

"But I thought you liked it!?" You teased.

"I said, I don’t want people to see you like this." He repeated, slightly annoyed.

You giggled. "Oh~? Shōta, are you... jealous?" 

"I'm not jealous." He flatly denied it. "I just don't want other men seeing these pictures of yours, alright?"

"You're totally jealous." You poked his chest, grinning. "But it's okay, Sho. I promise I won’t show them to anyone. Not even to you."

He rolled his eyes at you, but relaxed as soon as he saw you smiling.

"I trust you." He said softly.

"Good. But we have lots of unfinished business to attend to. Are you staying or do you still have work for today?” You asked, changing the subject.

"Just let me finish my reports first." He assured you with a nod. "But I can do it right here if you don't mind. Then we can spend the rest of our nights together." 

"Of course I don't mind. Do you want to work here in the living room or...?"

"Here. No distractions." 

You pouted playfully at him but complied.

"Very well, Sir Aizawa."

With that, Shōta sat down on your couch and began to fill in paperwork as you went to your bedroom, giving him space to finish work; he needed something else to occupy his mind for a while.

Unfortunately though, that other distraction quickly evaporated, and thoughts of you came back to his mind again.

It took every ounce of self restraint he possessed to not go into your room and jump on top of you immediately; he knew he wasn't going to finish his work if he went that route. So he forced himself to concentrate, doing all the paperwork he could do while he tried to calm down and stop thinking about you in that very specific way for a bit.

After about half an hour, he gave up and went to you to ask if he could use your bathroom. He needed a cold shower to get rid of the needy feeling he had of having his pants pulled down by yourself since you sent that picture earlier.

When he walked into your bedroom, he noticed you had changed your provocative attire into something more comfortable: your usual sleeping clothes.

No, that was not it. He realized you were already wearing one of his shirts, actually – it was a little too big for you. 

You were reading a book, and you turned your gaze up when you noticed him enter the room.

"Can I use your bathroom?" He asked quietly.

You raised an eyebrow at him but nodded anyway, motioning to it. "Sure, go ahead."

He thanked you before walking passed you and disappearing into your bathroom. He stayed there for a while, and when he got out of there you weren't caught up in your book anymore.

Instead, he found you in the kitchen preparing some snacks. Your hair was wrapped in a messy bun, and his eyes lingered momentarily on your frame.

You were still as attractive as ever.

He felt a blush creep up onto his face and he quickly averted his gaze to make sure you didn’t catch him ogling your body.

"Hey. Are you feeling better?" You asked, coming over to him, a warm smile adorning your lips.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah I am. Thanks." He told you honestly. "Sorry... I lost track of time."

You chuckled lightly at that. "It's fine. Now come over here and eat." You ordered and pointed towards the table. 

He did as he was told and ate his food. You didn't speak a word, instead choosing to just sit there eating and watching him.

And, once you finished, you excused yourself from the table and went to the sink to clean the dishes.

Not long after, Shōta was back to his paperwork, only this time he was sitting at the kitchen counter instead of on the couch.

After another moment, it seemed like he was becoming progressively stressed and irritable and it was starting to worry you; but you didn't want to distract him after he asked you not to, so you limited yourself to glance at him occasionally at each sigh you heard him make.

When he finally had it all done after a few more minutes, he set down his pen and exhaled deeply, before looking up to meet your worried gaze.

He smiled weakly at you as an attempt to reassure you that he was okay. But you didn't buy that, of course.

So you leaned over the countertop, watching him carefully.

"Done?" You asked softly.

He nodded but remained silent, letting out a deep sigh. He hadn’t noticed how tense he’d gotten until you spoke up to him again.

"Are you alright?" You inquired gently.

His brow furrowed slightly and he frowned.

"I guess so. Just stressed, I suppose." He murmured.

"Oh…" you replied, sounding somewhat concerned.

The pause that followed afterwards felt like an eternity to Shōta as he watched you; he wasn’t sure what he should do now that the silence had gone on for so long – you seemed nervous, and nervousness didn't suit you.

He found himself wanting to reach over and cup your cheek, or brush the strands of hair away from your face, anything so he could make you don't feel like that. But he just kept looking at you.

Eventually though, he opened his mouth to speak again.

"Would you... like me to carry you back to your bedroom?" He suggested softly.

"Huh!?" You exclaimed, surprised; you didn't expect this sudden boldness from him.

He smiled lightly in amusement.

"I mean, it seems like you are getting tired, so... yeah." He explained innocently.

You chuckled. "Alright, yes. Please!" You answered, making your enthusiasm clear.

Then, he stood up and walked around the counter, picking you up easily as if you weighed nothing. He carried you bridal style into the bedroom and placed you down gently onto your bed.

He laid down next to you and rested his weight on one of his elbows, prompting his head up to stare down at you for what seemed like ages as you gazed back at him, waiting for him to say or do something; your eyes shining from excitement and your lips forming a huge smile.

Finally, he broke eye contact and ran a hand through his hair.

"Do you think..." he paused, swallowing thickly.

"Do you think maybe we could... you know, continue our earlier activities? ...like... uh..." his face turned a light shade of pink as he trailed off.

"Like what?" You prompted him with a smirk, clearly amused by his awkward behavior; he was really struggling trying to find the right words to express how he was feeling and what he wanted at that moment.

He smiled and averted his gaze.

"Like... cuddling maybe?" He mumbled.

You laughed quietly, unable to resist the urge of poking fun at him.

"Cuddle? Is that all?" You joked. 

He glared at you, his embarrassment becoming more apparent.

"No...!" He grumbled, averting his gaze once more.

You giggled. "Why is someone embarrassed about it?" You teased him again, unable to help yourself; he looked adorable when he was flustered. "Or perhaps it has nothing to do with the 'cuddling' part of it?" You smirked.

He sighed, closing his eyes momentarily. "Quit the teasing."

"Sorry. I can't help myself." You nudged him playfully and smiled.

He gave you another stern look before leaning down and pressing his lips against yours tenderly.

"Don't tease me anymore." He said after pulling back. You giggled again and continued to tease him anyway.

"Didn't know I was getting you worked up that much." You whispered, running your fingers through his soft locks. 

He sighed once more, unable to stop the blush that appeared on his cheeks again.

"Just shut up already." He scolded you, before reaching around the back of your neck and pulling you closer, causing you to gasp slightly in surprise. Then, he kissed you again, deeper than before and that alone made you melt beneath him. 

It wasn't exactly a tender and gentle kiss like before. This time it was far more passionate and he was far more aware of what your reactions meant.

After a few moments passed, he pulled back from the kiss, unable to stop himself from staring at your flushed features. He wondered to himself if he should get you out of those clothes now.

So, he slowly traced his hands along your sides, earning a slight shiver from your body. Then, he leaned in and pressed one last lingering kiss to your lips, hoping it'll be enough to put some pressure in his pants.

You moaned quietly against his lips and this sound drove him insane. How did you manage to turn him on like this so easily?

He pulled away from your lips just enough for him to be able to speak properly, before whispering to you.

"If I recall correctly... I thought I told you to not wear anything else tonight."

"Yeah, well," you grinned mischievously. "I've never been good at following orders."

"Really?" He questioned, raising an eyebrow.

You nodded, leaning forward to press a chaste kiss to his lips.

"Now hurry up and lay there like a good boy." You teased him. "I’ll take care of everything else!"

"I'd rather do it myself." He complained.

"Oh, come on!" You whined. "What's there to do!? I can take care of that myself! We aren't teenagers." You argued.

He narrowed his eyes slightly. "But-"

"No 'buts'." You cut him off. "Let me put it like this, Shōta-" You said as you grabbed his hand that had been caressing your side and pulled him toward you; then, you moved your hands to the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head, leaning forward and giving him a quick peck on the lips before nipping at his lower lip slightly.

"-I don't mind doing it for you, love. So lay down and let me take care of you." You finished, ordering him again.

He huffed, but complied anyway. He knew he couldn't win any battles with you when you were determined to do something. Besides, he didn't know what else to say, so all he could do was do as you say.

After making sure he was laying comfortably, you straddled his hips and placed both of your hands on either side of his chest, leaning down with a grin on your face and pecking his nose before capturing his lips with yours again.

He returned the gesture immediately and wrapped his arms around your waist; his hands sliding up under your shirt to hold you close.

And, after a few seconds of this, you slipped your tongue between his lips – which he responded enthusiastically, eagerly opening his mouth to allow you entrance. 

Then, as soon as your lips left his, you trailed kisses along his jawline and down the side of his neck, letting your lips wander around as you explored his skin and trailed downward, enjoying the way his breath hitched whenever you touched him.

When your teeth brushed against the sensitive skin just above his collar bone, he growled low in his throat, gripping your hips tightly to pull you closer onto his lap.

You reacted at that with an approving hum, wasting no time as you proceeded to nibble and suck lightly on his pulse point; moving your hips slowly on his lap to cause a little bit of friction, craving more of him.

His breathing quickened, and he gripped onto your hip bones even tighter as his erection grew harder than ever within his trousers – he had to fight the strong desire to just push you down onto the mattress, desperate to get inside of you. 

You smiled against his neck and continued to grind against him, eliciting a shaky and audible breath from him.

Oh, you were having a lot of fun – you allowed yourself to explore his chest and stomach, trailing kisses along each individual muscle as you went, taking your sweet time to savor every inch of his body as you worked your way down towards his pants. 

By the time you'd reached the waistband of his trousers, his breathing was labored, and he was almost panting with need. Suddenly though, you heard him whimper; so you stopped immediately.

"Hm?" You murmured, looking up at him worriedly.

He gulped. "Can't.. you... keep going... like that...? ...please?" He begged, his voice laced with lust.

You smirked. "Of course. I wouldn't want to deprive you of your precious release..." you replied, offering him an innocent smile.

He looked at you suspiciously.

You chuckled, reaching for his waistband to remove his trousers along with his boxers, tossing them aside to make sure they land somewhere where they wouldn't bother him in the morning.

Then, you ran the tips of your fingers slightly over the insides of his thighs, his cock twitching in anticipation.

He bit his lip harshly. "Are you... are you just gonna...stare at my dick all night?" He asked impatiently. "...is that all you're gonna give me?" 

You giggled. "Nope, of course not." You said as you took his member in your hand; he let out a quiet sigh of relief as soon as your fingers began to massage him thoroughly.

"Eager, huh?!" You teased, and he only gasped in response.

After a short while, you inhaled deeply and licked your lips, lowering your head to position his shaft at the entrance of your mouth.

Shōta's eyes were glued to your face; he felt his muscles tense in anticipation as he watched you slowly drag your tongue across his tip, making him gasp once more at the sensation. 

Soon enough, he reached up and tangled his fingers in your hair, biting his lip as your tongue swiped against the underside of his length.

He let out a shaky breath, watching in absolute bliss as your tongue glided around him.

After you got tired of teasing, you took in another deep breath before sucking him into your mouth; and he couldn't help it – his grip tightened around your hair as pleasure coursed throughout his entire body.

An involuntarily moan left his lips and he tilted his head back, allowing his body to fall helplessly backwards against the pillow.

After a few long moments of stimulation, a small amount of precum splashed onto your lips, eliciting yet another groan from him as you licked it clean.

Then you began sucking again, slowly at first, until you felt him bucking his hips into your mouth as he felt his need for release growing.

He moaned your name between shallow breaths and heavy gasps, gripping your hair painfully as your mouth engulfed him fully.

His breath caught in his throat as his orgasm overcame him; causing him to let out a breathless "fuck!" as he pushed your head further down his length.

Your cheeks then became soaked and you swallowed him down as hard as possible.

Muffled gasps left him as he desperately tried to catch his breath; his grip on your hair loosened and eventually his hand slipped to the bed.

He laid there, breathing heavily as he tried to process what happened. Everything was hazy and his heartbeat was racing. He was so unbelievably weak at that moment, he thought he might pass out any second.

"Y/n..." he managed to say in between heavy breaths.

The sound of his voice sent shivers down your spine; he sounded completely wrecked from your actions, and you grinned widely as you whipped your saliva from the corners of your mouth.

Then, you crawled up over him and placed a light kiss on his neck, causing him to tense up instantly, but relaxing again right after as you continued kissing his skin.

And, when you finally pulled away from his neck and gazed into his eyes, you smiled warmly.

"Hey baby." You whispered, stroking his forehead lovingly as he rested his hands on your hips and returned your gaze.

"Everything okay?" You asked, still smiling at him.

He smirked weakly before responding.

"I think I came earlier than planned." He admitted. "But I'm alright now."

You giggled. "Don't worry too much about it, Sho." You said, giving him a reassuring kiss. "I liked seeing you like that."

He narrowed his eyes as he stared at you.

"You are... something else." He murmured, before grabbing you by the waist and pulling you close on top of him again.

You smiled softly as your lips found his once more, brushing it lovingly against each other.

You didn't pull away or deepen the kiss; you preferred to enjoy his gentle touch rather than rush through it – however, before you knew it, his tongue slid against your bottom lip, and you gladly opened your mouth, welcoming his tongue inside.

He slipped his tongue past your lips easily, feeling intoxicated with the taste of you on his own tongue. You brought your legs together underneath you to support yourself against him, leaning your weight against him as he held you tight in place.

His large palms traveled downwards to rest on your ass, and you gasped in delight when he squeezed it gently.

You could feel he was getting hard again beneath you. Unfortunately though, you were still clothed.

So you reluctantly pulled yourself away from him, breaking the kiss momentarily; causing him to growl quietly in protest.

"Sorry, baby. I still need to undress." You apologized.

"No problem. Just hurry up already."

You chuckled softly and pecked his lips. Then, you stood up straight again to pull your shirt off over your head in a haste, before getting rid of your underwear with the same promptitude.

He lifted himself up on his elbows, watching eagerly as you crawled back onto him. You straddled his lap again, smiling up at him.

He smiled brightly in return and placed his index finger on your lips.

"Not yet." He warned you.

You narrowed your eyes at him. 

"Fine. We'll just wait a little longer until you've satisfied me..." you said exasperatedly.

"Good girl." He cooed as he pulled you closer to him, leaning back against the mattress with you on top of him.

You pressed your lips together again, moving in perfect sync. The kiss wasn't heated or aggressive like last time; instead, it was sweet and soft, full of love and affection.

You cupped his face with one hand as he held you tightly against him. And, when the kiss turned more passionate, Shōta felt his arousal throbbing again, and you moaned quietly as he sucked your upper lip into his mouth.

He broke the kiss after a minute, and you took advantage of that to sit yourself back up, running your hands lazily down his chest, lingering slightly in between his scars before settling your hands at his hips.

He gave you a questioning look and you just smiled and gave him a quick wink, signaling that you were okay.

He seemed satisfied with this response and moved his hands to rest on your hips as he urged you down to continue what you were doing. You obliged without hesitation, lowering yourself on him, making sure he understood how much you enjoyed touching him. 

He let his fingertips graze the skin on your hip bones, tracing lazy circles on them as you shifted slightly, leaning down to taste his lips as you rode him slowly, eliciting sounds of approval from the both of you.

You closed your eyes contentedly, feeling his tongue entering your mouth for a moment before he nibbled on your lower lip, pulling you close.

He had his hands resting on your hips as he allowed you to work at your pace; which you enthusiastically did.

And, as soon as you felt your legs becoming weaker, you couldn't hold back the whimpers that started to emanate from your mouth.

"Sho... I need you." You breathed out after you felt that you couldn't work your hips alone anymore.

A flash of lust filled his eyes the moment he heard those words leave your lips; so he quickly nodded, pushing you up carefully as he sat up on the bed, tugging you on top of him afterwards.

He grabbed your hips and hoisted you up onto his lap, earning a surprised cry from your lips. His arms wrapped around your waist securely as he rocked his hips upwards with slight pressure, creating friction for both of you.

You moaned softly as he leaned forward and pressed kisses onto your shoulder and neck, sending goosebumps all the way down your spine.

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders as you tried to grind back against him; your breathing being already erratic.

"That feels so good..." you uttered quietly as he sucked on that sensitive spot on your neck – just an inch below your ear; and now it was his time to smirk triumphantly.

"So does having my dick inside of you." He said smugly.

You blushed profusely when he mentioned that, and you instantly buried your face in the crook of his neck, hiding your embarrassment as well as your desire into his skin.

He chuckled slightly at your reaction and tightened his hold around you.

"Don't hide from me, Y/n." He told you.

You inhaled deeply and nodded, lifting your head up again.

"I know...I'm sorry." You mumbled apologetically before you kept doing your best to ride him properly.

His breathing quickened as you picked up speed again; he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from moaning out loud.

"Fuck...!" He breathed out roughly as you rolled your hips harder, causing him to tighten his grip around you; the sound of the bed cracking rhythmically beneath your movements echoing through the bedroom, muffling both of your moans.

You could feel yourself becoming more stimulated by every passing moment, and Shōta could feel it too – you were clenching tightly around him.

Naturally, he increased the pace as well, leaving you breathless with pleasure as you fought back tears.

"Shōta... I... I-" you stuttered, being unable to finish speaking as a deep groan took over your speech; your climax crashing strongly into you, bringing hot tears to your eyes as you tilted your head back, feeling the waves of pleasure coursing thoroughly your entire body.

A pleased gasp left him when you collapsed onto his chest – your body was trembling, your soaked pussy was squeezing him perfectly – right there; right where he liked it the most.

So his arms wrapped around your waist tightly, and he kept his pace until he came as well; emitting a satisfied grunt while filling you up with his warm cum.

Afterwards, the room was completely silent; except for the sounds of the heavy breathing coming from the both of you. 

And, after another few moments passed, Shōta finally lifted you off of his lap and laid you down next to him, before turning towards you to capture yourself in his tight embrace.

"I really missed you." He admitted in an almost inaudible voice.

You chuckled lightly. "I missed you too."

A small smile played on his lips and he placed a kiss on your forehead.

"I can't believe you did that." He murmured sleepily, resting his head comfortably against the pillow.

"Did what? What did I do?" You inquired curiously.

"Made me come first." He muttered in reply, bringing you closer as his arm tightened around your waist. 

You felt your cheeks instantly heating up, yet you couldn't help but grin at him.

"Well, I kinda got carried away..." you admitted.

"I don't care, it was amazing." He said confidently, nuzzling against your hair.

A huge smile grew on your lips.

"How long will it take for you to recover from this?" You asked in amusement. 

"As long as it takes... I should be fully recovered by tomorrow morning though."

You laughed before cuddling up to his side.

"I guess you better go to sleep then."

"Mhmm." He murmured sleepily as he kissed the top of your head. "You go to sleep too." He said.

"Okie dokie buttercup."

"Y/n!" He exclaimed with annoyance, trying not to laugh.

You grinned as you poked his side teasingly. "What?!"

He looked up at you, seeming genuinely annoyed.

"That was horrible." He scolded.

You pouted childlike and shook your head. "I thought it was hilarious, I can't deny that."

He let out a small chuckle, amused.

"Whatever. Now go to sleep."

"Hmmph!" You mumbled mockingly, snuggling closer to him.

He smirked before placing one last tender kiss on the crown of your head, letting his eyes fall shut as his exhaustion took effect.

You also let out another small chuckle before resting your head against his chest; allowing his heartbeat to lull you into a peaceful sleep.

Likes, reblogs and comments are appreciated! Requests are welcome, check the fixed post.

[hunterartemis]

So I thought, What if Kanthony had a Bollywood Playlist?

Yeah, not many brown girls show up in a steamy Regency storyline and this must be venerated with a bollywood playlist (other than the haldi time string quatret version of Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham) I have given links on the title of the songs to enjoy

1. Ajab Si ( From the Film “Om Shanti Om” )

The title of the song means “something strange”. It speaks about the strange beauty in the beloved’s eye. The scene of the song depicts the hero smitten with the eyes of the heroine, and has a fateful encounter with her when she is publically walking into a glamourous red carpet. Although the first encounter of Kate and Anthony was not in public but in private, but I do have a feeling that the first time Anthony saw her, he felt drawn. The song also speaks about being dumbstruck by the air of the beloved and her beauty and Anthony was surely dumbstruck by Kate’s scathing comment: “your character is as deficient as your horsemanship,”

2. Dilbar Mere (From Satte pe Satta)

A classic Golden Era number inspired from the tunes of Donauwellen Walzer (aa tune which inspired quite a number of Bollywood songs in the golden era) I think this song fits perfectly for Anthony when he tries to win both the sisters over, especially Kate by hook nook and crook so that he could marry the season’s diamond, Edwina. The song is like a challenge thrown to the beloved. “My darling” the song means “how much will you torment me? I shall light a fire to your heart that you’ll have not choice but to melt”. It reminds of of Anthony reminding Kate “by the end of your stay, I can assure you, your opinion of me would much improve”

3. Dil Yeh Ladaku (From Saala Khadoos)

The number is quite different. The scene depicts how the student falls in love with the teacher she so desperately hates. In the second and third episode we saw a delicious bit of rivalry between the two headstrong and very independent character. The lyrics says “my heart which is a fighter now fights with itself today” The song is filled with cuteness and confusion of falling in love with someone whom you seem to despise. (not to mention the title of the movie means : Bloody Scrooge)

4. Lahu Muhn Lag Gaya (from Raam Leela)

This is a steamy number from a film which was loosely based on Romeo and Juliet: two people from enemy gangs falling in love. The scene of the song depicts a scene from Holi, where the heroine completely captures the hero’s heart after she kisses him in stealth. This act befuddles the Hero and after a few awkward moments, he shares a few flirtatious moments. The title means “I have tasted the blood, which had slept in my veins, the vigor has awakened.” I particularly love this number for the Viscount and Kate’s “bee scene” and Anthony’s befuddlement after Kate unwittingly flashes her thigh during the hunt

5. Ajeeb Dastan Hy Yeh (from Dil Apna Aur Preet Parayi)

Another golden era number for our favourite couple. The song is quite poetic that portrays “the one that got away” feel before Katy Perri made it famous. Even the movie title means “my heart my own and my beloved is of someone else’s”. I think it captures the perfect feeling both Kate and Anthony faces after Anthony’s engagement with Edwina. Anthony practically gets mad when he hears for the first time Kate saying “I am returning to India” and Kate practically breaks her heart when Anthony proposes Edwina

6. Shiqayat (from Gangubai Kathiawari)

The title that means “complaint” starts with the lines “it takes great heart to spend your evenings with only the memories of your beloved; it takes great heart to kill yourself everyday” then it proceeds “I have heard he has great complaints about me, it could only mean he has great love for me”. The context of the song is really painful: the heroine marries her beloved off to another girl because of greater motive and she comes to attend the wedding: drunk and sad and avoids looking at her beloved, who is now newly wed. The context is self explanatory: both Kate and Anthony’s denial of love : “it will be bearable and it will pass and it will feel as if we never felt it before.” ouch

7. Tu Janey Na (From Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani)

The scenario is the hero is helping the girl he loves to run away with the guy the heroine loves. He is practically arranging the marriage alter for the girl. The song starts with “How to tell you why I want you, Darling I can’t; what my heart wishes to say my eyes tell to you, but you don’t know”. I really really imagine Anthony would be thinking something like this when he stands in the alter and Kate walks down the aisle as Edwina’s Bridesmaid. The song also says “we didn’t meet even if you and I met each other, there is a thousand mile chasm between us” this feeling must be solidifying as Anthony saw every moment pass to his wedding.

8. O Meri Jaan (From Life in a Metro)

It is a long struggle of social standing, situation and then the grand realisation of love for one another... despite all the circumstances. The song is about warmth of love and following the selfish desire for the beloved, I think, when Anthony cries and tries to propose, this song would be perfect, the climax of the song says “my heart does not understand any other relation, I don’t know what has happened to it, my arms seeks you madly and only you... where are you oh my life my love”

[shotorozu]

you like their hands

character(s) : shinsou hitoshi, kirishima eijirou, monoma neito (2/?)

legend : [Y/N = your name] they/them pronouns, quirk left unmentioned

post type : headcanons + small scenario [fluff, the mildest of spice] not even nsfw

note(s) : i was gonna put denki in this but i had a hard time thinking about what kinda hands he’d have, so i’m putting him in the next post

»»————-　♡　————-««

shinsou hitoshi

his hands are big, and his fingers are quite thick.

really likes wearing rings and bracelets, but he usually doesn’t wear them when he’s working (i’d say that bc wearing jewelry while doing physical activity HURTS)

regarding texture, his hands were initially soft— but due to transferring in the hero course, they roughened up over time

he’ll use hand cream if you want, but he doesn’t go the extra mile. and his nails are trimmed at all times. painting his nails a black color would be great once in a while.

lol i forgot to mention nails in the last post

he notices right away that you like his hands when he catches you staring at them when he’s cracking his knuckles

like.. people have said that his hands are nice, but he doesn’t really say much about them bc they’re not you

scenario

a crack sound is briefly heard in the rather silent room. the scrolling on your phone halts, and your eyes follow the sound of the crack.

ah, he’s cracking his knuckles. you think to yourself, and you’re left just simply admiring the way he applies pressure on a knuckle. who knew that his rather— large hand would look appealing, even while cracking his knuckles.

you snap out of your observation, but instead of just simply going back to whatever you were doing, you’re met with lilac eyes. “you were staring again.”

your cheeks heat up, and you opt to just turn your head to the opposite direction. “sorry,” you apologize. however— that’s not what hitoshi was looking for apparantly.

“if you like my hands alot,” he scoots next to you, hands sliding up and down your arms— his firm grip practically making the pre existing butterflies in your stomach act up again. “then you should’ve said so, kitty.”

is he conscious of his actions? hm. you could say that

he’ll purposely play with his capture tool right in front of you— the material wrapping around his hand. and he can only laugh when you immediately get absorbed into it

the back of his hand will brush against your cheek. then, when he comes in to kiss you, he’ll cup your cheek— kissing you with his other hand resting at your nape

under the table, his hand will start to slide against yours, interlocking hands with you. he’ll act like nothing is happening, but on the inside— he’s taking in your reaction

a little spicy, but when he wants you to look at him— he’ll do that thing where his thumb brushed against your bottom lip, as it almost dips right into your mouth

if he feels a little extra, his hand will also be tugging on your hair (if you’re fine with that. otherwise, he’s sticking to the one above)

oh and he also does that thing where he rests his hand on your neck, thick fingers squeezing your throat lightly.

overall— THIS MAN omg, he’ll entertain your interest in his hand nicely, just for you. and every single thing he does is memorable

kirishima eijirou

his hands are quite normal regarding size, they are almost always veiny, a lot more than bakugou’s actually. i think at some point he was concerned about them

his hands are rather flushed in color, but that’s because of his quirk. his fingers have a few tiny scars here and there,

he occasionally has pen marks on his wrists due to bad penmanship, and his nails.. don’t look the best, but they’re not the worst it’s bc of his quirk

the palms of his hands are ridden with callouses. but he wears them with pride because it’s the pure evidence of his hard work with his training.

but he starts to get worried about them when he goes to hold your hand.

you always had a thing for kirishima’s hands, but you just never had the chance to tell him that. i guess asking you did it for him

scenario

did you even realize how hard you were staring at his hands right now? it happened every single time he enlaced his arms around you, his hands resting at the sides of your arms

at first, he thought it might’ve been because his hands are too rough, or you might’ve been in discomfort— because maybe, just maybe, he accidentally activated his quirk?

the fact that he can’t exactly tell what it is worried him, maybe he should just ask you.

but his worry washed off when you told him upfront that you ‘liked his hands’

“wait so.. you’re staring at my hands because you like them?” kirishima wants to confirm your words, and— so casually, by the way— nod in agreement.

tracing the veins on his hands, you elaborate “your hands are really nice, i can tell how hard you must’ve worked.” pressing your smaller hand against his, you smile.

eijirou takes a moment to process it, but it’s surprisingly quick. “oh t-thanks!” he sheepishly took the compliment, a small blush sporting on his cheeks. “i’m glad it wasn’t because you thought they were weird.”

kirishima unintentionally feeds your interest with his hands. like sometimes.. he’s just not aware of it, but yes— he is feeding your interest well

will always make you compare hand sizes with him, chuckling softly at the dazed look on your face when your palms touch

if you allow him, he’ll fix your hair for you. doesn’t matter what hair type you have, he’ll do LOTS of research to know how to style it

those hands are magical

if you get a papercut, or a wound from cooking— he’ll patch you up, then he’ll press a kiss on the bandaid.

he’ll do this thing where he’ll squeeze your sides when you pull in for a hug. but if you’re not okay with that, he’ll opt to just rubbing your back with his hand— rocking you softly as he hugs you

a little spicy, but his hands do wander a lot. you might need to even hold them in place to make sure they don’t go too wild

in addition to that, he’ll just SLIGHTLY, activate his quirk to make sure you’re conscious of his touch. his finger tips gliding against your back, sending shivers down your spine.

but of course, he’s careful. he doesn’t activate it to the point it causes scratch marks, nor will his actions draw blood. he doesn’t wanna do that

in short— kirishima’s a little clueless at first. he wouldn’t really tease you in public, but he’s surprisingly attentive to your interest.

monoma neito

his hands are on the tipping edge of slightly above average. he doesn’t have a lot of veins on his hands, but they do pop out depending on what quirk he’s using

monoma’s hands are pretty spotless of any scars (from cuts, abrasions, etc.) because he gets REALLY annoyed with wounds pretty easily

to the point he’d want to attend to the wound immediately, he doesn’t let them sit— it’s just a personal preference

his nails are at the perfect length. not too long and not too short to the point it hurts, you don’t know how he does it.

wears watches on his wrists, and not the digital type— he sorta acts like he can read it easily, but it takes him a few seconds to even get to know the time

you know this because kendo snitched on him and told you LOL

you secretly hate yourself for this, but you really like his hands because of how he takes care of them. you’d never tell monoma even though you’re dating him

scenario

you’re unsure of yourself on how your boyfriend— monoma, found out about your fascination with his hands. it was supposed to be a secret for the rest of your life, and you only remember talking about it once out loud

which you assumed was a close call, considering that you thought he didn’t hear it at all— but he did.

“so i heard you like my hands, huh Y/N?” monoma’s teasing tone does not aid the situation. your cheeks heat up with embarassment, and you can’t get yourself to answer his question— without sounding like a fool anyway.

you fake annoyance, “where’d that come from?” you ask, and monoma doesn’t seem to want to switch the topic

“i’m asking you a question, dear Y/N— i heard you like my hands,” his tone would’ve sounded condescending to any other person, but you can tell that he’s either genuinely curious

or just teasing you, because that’s how he is.

to aid his question, he brushes his fingers along your neck— near your pulse. you jolt, stunned by the sudden action— heart beating rapidly against your chest.

“see,” monoma presses his hand against your chest, where your heart is palpitating, grinning in a way that’s teasing you “it’s true, isn’t it? sweet Y/N has a thing for my hands, hm?”

you furrow your eyebrows, and flick his forehead— and he hisses in reaction, “fine then, i do like your hands.” you finally give in, admitting final defeat.

ever since then, you haven’t heard the end of it

definitely that person that’ll just randomly bring it up to you, no matter what hour of the day it is.

“oh Y/N, you were totally fawning over my hands earlier—”

“i will castrate you.”

you know he means well most of the time, but sometimes he just loves teasing the heck out of you.

but that doesn’t mean he neglects your obvious interest in his hands.

he’ll compliment you, he’s a snarky person in general— but to you, he’s totally smooth with it.

slides his hand from your forearm to your hands, only to bring them up to his lips, pressing a kiss against your hand

squeezes your hand everytime he sees you, it’s kind of a nonverbal greeting at this point

similar to kirishima, he likes comparing hand sizes— teasing you about the size difference (even if it’s not even a big of a difference, he’ll take that chance.)

does this thing where he rubs his thumb against his palm. does it a lot when he’s concentrated about something, or just out of the blue

a little spicy, but he’ll make you tell him what you like about his hands, and what you like about the things he does with those hands of his. if that makes sense

he wants all of the details, doesn’t care if it’s mundane, or things he does when he’s feeling a certain way.

he wants to know, because as soon as you’re done with your spewl, he’ll do exactly what you like, teasing you while he’s at it. and so he can start incorporating those habits whenever he’s around you.

totally someone that’ll make you suck on those fingers. oh, but he’ll purposely get some dessert on them— asking you to suck them off

“good grief, i got some dessert on my fingers again. Y/N, come suck them off”

sometimes he’s serious, sometimes he’s just teasing.

overall— it’s pretty adventurous. he starts to act on it as soon as the revelation is revealed to him.

but i’d say he does just fine.

»»————-　♡　————-««

likes and reblogs are appreciated, thanks for reading!

i do not own bnha/mha and it’s characters. boku no hero academia/my hero academia belongs to horikoshi kohei. i only own the writing, and i do not profit off of my hobby

do not plagiarize, translate, repost, or use my work for audio readings without my consent :))

[nyx3927]

 @musicfeedsmysoul12​ and @lurking96 this is both of y’all’s fault with that thread about how too many fics where Izuku jumps, gets a quirk and just make Bakugo regret it without any actual character change. Just: Izuku goes splat, and now Bakugo is an uwu soft boy who’s really sorry but had no character development visible.

Y’all both get some of the blame for this fic outline I created after a bang, chocolate, and on 2 hours of sleep. It’s still a really rough outline and I don’t have time to polish it up into an actual outline, draft, then fic with my summer classes and job right now. Enjoy my stream of thought with no filter

The Ripple

Izuku has a concussion from Bakugo attacking him at school so his eyesight is off. Everything else is the same up to when All Might leaves him on the roof.

The concussion fucked with his vision, balance, and depth perception. So he ended up accidentally stepping off the side of the building. (Hush, I know that there’s a railing. We’re pretending that when All Might jumped away from Izuku on the roof, he accidentally took like half of it with him.)

Crash, boom, blood. Ambulance carted him off to the hospital and that’s the last we see of Izuku for a while.

They don’t know that All Might was the one who got him up to the rooftop because the notebook with the signature was blown off the roof and into the river. By the time that it was found, it was nothing but mush and the writing was illegible, all runny and blurry. They also just assumed that a villain ripped the railing off in a previous battle and the owner hadn’t gotten it fixed yet.

Inko tells Mitsuki that they think it was suicide because he couldn’t have accidentally gotten up on the roof (No evidence of All Might). Katsuki hears that but refuses to tell anyone that he told Izuku to jump off a roof because that could hurt his chances of being a hero.

Entrance Exam

Fast-forward to the entrance exam, everything proceeds as canon except for the bits with Izuku, which never happened.

Uraraka is stuck under the boulder with the zero pointer bearing down on her. Canon shows no evidence of any pro except Present Mic at the site, and he was last seen at the gates so he isn’t close by to Uraraka.

Uraraka couldn’t escape from the boulder in time and the kill switch takes up to 30 seconds to receive and process. So, the robot steps on the boulder and crushes her leg. She’s rushed to Recovery Girl but the damage is so severe that they have to amputate a leg.

As compensation, UA takes care of all the medical bills and offers her a spot in the Hero Course at UA with her entire tuition paid for all 3 years. Uraraka accepts to make it easier financially on her parents, so she shows up to the first day of classes with a prosthetic leg that she painted pink in an effort to make it less sad.

Quirk Assessment

A random extra is put into 1-A, but they and Mineta are promptly expelled. The extra just didn’t try at all, relying upon the idea that the teacher wouldn’t actually expel anyone on the first day. Mineta was just too pervy/not heroic enough so he got the boot.

Aizawa was reminded of the death of Oboro when Uraraka nearly got crushed, so he’s on high alert to expel those that he believes would never be good at heroics/ would just get themselves killed. Extra not trying and Mineta just focusing on being a perv, made him convinced they would get killed so he just expelled them straight away [No readmission for them]

This shocked Momo who thought he was bluffing and made her more cognizant of the fact that not everyone plays by the same rules as her.

Battle Trial

Battle trials happen. Momo and Uraraka are paired up together and fight twice in the trials. They won both times because Uraraka floated the bomb and Momo in the fight against Todoroki so that it was impossible for Todoroki to capture them. They win against Iida and Bakugo because Uraraka takes advantage of Iida’s unwillingness to hurt someone he views as disabled/helpless and knocks him out with a bat from Momo, then touches the bomb, Momo just created water and soaked Bakugo so he couldn’t use his Quirk and then ran from him.

All other trials proceeded as in canon.

USJ

Since Tsuyu is the only one in the Water Zone [Midoriya not in the story and Mineta expelled], she just went straight for the shore and got back to the entry area via the river. She witnesses the entire beatdown of Aizawa and his fighting, so she’s very traumatized. But because she’s amphibious and is completely underwater [In my hcs, she can breathe underwater as long as water can access most of her skin. So her suit is very permeable and water can get through it], Shigaraki never sees her and so he doesn’t try to kill her.

Rest of the USJ goes as canon dictates including Aizawa getting his head smashed by the Nomu

Sports Festival

Because 1-A has 2 less students, only the first 40 to get to the finish line can pass on. Todoroki ended up getting first place by icing over Bakugo’s legs at the tunnel entrance. Everyone else that originally passed in canon, also passed.

All the teams are the same, except for Uraraka’s team which doesn’t have Midoriya, and Shoji’s who doesn’t have Mineta.

Bakugo is going after Todoroki instead of Uraraka’s team because he’s focused on snagging the winning headband. 

Uraraka uses her Quirk on her team and they just hang out in the sky for awhile, since after the boulder, she practiced to be able to lift more weight so that never happens again. 

Shoji’s team is the same as canon, especially because Mineta never actually did anything important to the team.

Todoroki never uses his fire because he used his ice to create a dome that kept everyone else away from his team. Bakugo runs around stealing other headbands since he can’t get to Todoroki.

At the end of the round, Todoroki is in first, Bakugo is second, Uraraka is third and Shinso is fourth.

Ojiro and Shoda both drop out citing the fact that they couldn’t remember the event as the reason. Shiozaki Ibara and Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu replace them

So now we have the 1v1 battles with the following students.

Uraraka Ochako

Tokoyami Fumikage

Hatsume Mei

Bakugo Katsuki

Kirishima Eijiro

Ashido Mina

Sero Hanta

Todoroki Shoto

Iida Tenya

Yaoyorozu Momo

Kaminari Denki

Shinso Hitoshi

Aoyama Yuga

Shiozaki Ibara

Tetsutetsu Tetsutestu

Shinso gets a free pass onto the next round because he is a gen ed student so they wanted to allow him the best chance possible and it’s better for the optics of UA for watchers to see a hero student beating up another hero student instead of a gen ed kid.

Todoroki v. Sero -Todoroki won ala iceberg

Kaminari v. Shiozaki  -Kaminari won by sending electricity through her hair and knocking her out because Aizawa forced him to start thinking outside of the box after he nearly died during the USJ [shiozaki has to have nerves to control her vines and nerves have electricity traveling through them. So they’re a conductor and Kaminari can send his electricity down them]

Iida v. Hatsume -He doesn’t accept her gadgets and just pushes her out of bounds. After the Uraraka debacle in his battle trial, he realizes that he can’t just go off his perceptions and has to be wary of them.

Ashido v. Aoyama - Ashido won

Tokoyami v. Yaoyorozu - Yaoyorozu won by creating an explosion of light and blinding them, then pushing them out of the ring. Uraraka taught her to take advantage of what she can do and Aizawa forced her to realize that others don’t have the same rules.

Tetsutetsu v. Kirishima - Kirishima won by charging Tetsutetsu and knocking him out of the ring. Again Aizawa forced him to not just behave as a shield because of the USJ

Uraraka v. Bakugo -Uraraka won by taking off her prosthetic, leaving it as a decoy and floating herself so that he couldn’t hear her coming, and the dust from his explosions had blinded him. She tackled him from above and hurled him out of bounds. He got a concussion and Recovery Girl forced him to stay in the infirmary.

Todoroki v. Shinso -Shinso won by coming after Todoroki’s weak spot and making him talk

Iida v. Kaminari -Kaminari won by shocking Iida’s engines when he tried to grab him. Made him collapse, and then just dragged him out of bounds.

Tokoyami v. Ashido- Tokoyami won by Dark Shadow kicking her out of bounds

Uraraka v. Kirishima -Uraraka won by preying on Kirishima’s desire for manliness and to not hurt a girl. Got close enough to float him and then just push him out of bounds. Aizawa has plans to lecture Kirishima about when to be manly and when to not be.

Shinso v. Kaminari -Shinso won. He could tell that Kaminari was a memelord, so he just took advantage of that and said a meme that Kaminari couldn’t resist completing. [Don’t know what yet, I’ll figure it out later]

Tokoyami v. Uraraka -Tokoyami won. Uraraka lost because she couldn’t use her Quirk on Dark Shadow and Dark Shadow was the one to attack her. [See doc of quirk analysis for more in depth in case we forget]

Shinso v. Tokoyami -Shinso won by mirroring Tokoyami’s speech patterns which knocked him off guard and got him caught into Shinso’s Quirk.

Shinso got first place, Tokoyami got second, Uraraka and Kaminari shared third place.

Hero names

Todoroki -Shoto

Bakugo -King Explosion

Iida -Tenya

Uraraka -Weightless [As a pun on weigh less because of her amputation and her quirk. She’s not quite as bubbly and didn’t feel like uravity reflected her anymore]

Tsuyu -Froppy

Kirishima -Red Riot

Yaoyorozu -Creati [I really want to change this but I don’t know to whaaaat!!! I’ll come back to it later]

Tokoyami -Tsukuyomi

Jiro -EarJack

Shinso -Silencer [Stupid but his quirk makes people silent plus I love MLB silencer design of the , not the helmet tho that is ugly looking and the coloring needs to be more muted imo]

Internships

Shinso gets an internship with Aizawa to assess whether or not he’s fit for heroics. Aizawa also prescreens all of his students' internships to make sure that it’s a good fit for them. [He’s a lot more protective of where they because he wants them to be actually learning useful heroics not shit like how to clean and pose for a camera.]

Mirko offers an internship to Uraraka because she wanted to teach a fighting girl that was perceived as helpless by society. [Society views disabled as helpless, a girl is also viewed as helpless, both is bad combination. Mirko wants to prove anyone can be badass with the right training]

Yaoyorozu gets put with Fatgum because Aizawa sees that she’s struggling with the fat part of her Quirk and knows that if she went with Uwabami, she’d develop more insecurities. [Uwabami is a TV actress/model. She’ll pass on weight/beauty related insecurities because that’s what a lot of actresses have and she seems focused more on a fanbase]

Kirishima goes with Rock Lock to be faced with the blunt truth that ideals are nice, but you can’t have them rule your life as a hero. [Canonly, he’s very blunt and pragmatic, so he’d believe that trying to be manly is fine, but there is a time and place for it.]

Everyone else goes with their canon internships.

The Nomus attack Hosu. Because Gran Torino isn’t there, the Nomus are more dangerous and more civilians die. All the heroes are focused exclusively on managing the Nomus and the interns kinda fall to the wayside since they can’t do anything.

Iida slips away and Manual is too busy putting out fires to notice.

Iida runs off and finds Stain. Battle commences and Iida loses.

Stain calls him and Native fake heroes. Native gets a sliced throat. Stain is a little more lenient with Iida because he is a kid. He goes through the fabric pants and slices the femoral artery to the bone. [Femoral artery cuts can lead to death within minutes especially with Iida running on adrenaline which kicks up the blood pressure and rate of bleeding.]

Endeavour comes through with Shoto burning all the nomus and destroying them. Finally the city is quiet and the search for the dead begins.

Every hero in Hosu grid searched the entire city to retrieve the dead and bring them to the morgue for claiming. 

Manual was the one to find his dead intern and Native. He had to call UA and tell them that he got a student killed while under his supervision. He gets blacklisted by UA and Aizawa puts out a warning on the Underground network that if others are under his care, that he might lose track of them.

Once everyone returned from their internships, they left red spider lilies on his desk as a way to guide him to the afterlife.

Training Camp

The villains still want Bakugo because they saw his aggression, violence, and determination to be the best during the sports festival and the internships. So they think he’d be an easy switch to flip.

This time, Aizawa doesn’t dump them out in the middle of the forest because he’s focusing on forcing his students to interact and bond with each other instead of doing their own thing. So they all stay on the bus and Aizawa makes them talk about something semi-important with a seat partner for 10 minutes before switching so that everyone talks to more than just their friend groups.

When they arrive, Kota is his bratty self and Aizawa shuts that down fast. He tells him that he has two options, one: stay with his aunts and uncle or two: stay with Aizawa. Aizawa can’t have an itty-bitty child running around loose in the forest when 17 hormonal teenagers are letting off their Quirks which are dangerous. [it was an awful idea in canon to let Kota hide in his treehouse. Imagine if one of the kids near the mountain lost control of their quirk.] Kota chooses to stay with his aunts and uncle at all times because Aizawa is scary.

Once the training starts, he pairs everyone up with different partners to force their Quirks to improve.

Ashido-Kirishima to strengthen her acid and his hardening by hurling acid at him

Tokoyami-Kaminari-Aoyama to force Aoyama to maintain his laser beam for longer, Tokoyami to force him to strengthen Dark Shadow against light, Kaminari to power multiple light sources without burning them out and not going into whee mode so he can avoid the laser beam and Dark Shadow

Ojiro-Koda to force Koda to vary the animals that he calls and Ojiro to give him experience with fending off multiple opponents of varying sizes and skill levels without seriously injuring them.

Todoroki-Bakugo-Tsuyu to force Todoroki to be able to control both sides of his quirks and switch them easily, Tsuyu to force her to get accustomed to varying temperatures and making sure they don’t knock her out, Bakugo to force him to sweat more in both cold and hot temperatures so that he’s more versatile.

Jiro-Shoji-Hagakure to force Hagakure to improve her stealth and fighting, Jiro to make her be able to detect people sneaking up on her, and Shoji to improve his locating skills and stealth. [Shoji is a big boy and needs to work on stealth]

Sero-Sato to help Sero with his dodging and speed, and Sato to help him retain more of his planning and forethought while his Quirk is activated

Uraraka-Yaoyorozu to make Uraraka work on her sickness and weight limits and Yaoyorozu to adapt to planning on the fly and create items quickly.

Aizawa forces them to break away from their training partners when it’s time to make dinner and everyone is required to help in some way during the meal. The help can be gathering the ingredients, preparing them, doing the actual cooking, plating, setting the table, cleaning up after, anything as long as they contributed.

Repeat until the trial of courage.

Vlad wants to do the trial and Aizawa refuses to do it. Aizawa is actively trying to squash out the competitiveness of his students in order to make them work together and ask for help so that they’ll survive longer in the hero society. Uraraka lost a leg because people wouldn’t cooperate to help her in the entrance exam and Iida died because he was too focused on himself and didn’t ask for help. The trial would just reignite the competitiveness and ruin his progress.

1-B does the trial on their own while 1-A is given a maze they have to navigate.

The maze is created by Pixie Bob and is huge. It’s large enough that the students on the ground can’t peek over the walls to see the path. There are two students on the ground, the leader and the guide. The leader can see the walls and the turns but has earplugs in so they can’t hear the guide if the guide tries to talk. The guide can hear the directions from the person who sees the entire maze but is blindfolded and has to guide through tapping the shoulders of the leader. The person outside and looking down has to direct their team through the maze quickly without crashing into other teams. The leader can’t just guess a direction because Pixiebob will shift the maze if they try to do that so they can’t backtrack. It’s in teams of three so Aizawa is directing the last team. [Kinda inspired by survivor but with my own twist]

All of them rotate through each position with different teams each go round to impress on them the importance of all the roles.

In the last round, Bakugo was the person issuing instructions, cursing and screaming through the mic the entire time.

That’s when the villains attacked. But there were a few changes in the lineup. 

Toga wasn’t there because the police picked her up and Inko got her case taken on to get her on parole and took her into her home when she saw her at the station while continuing with the criminal charges levied against the owner of the building that Izuku had fallen off of. The appearance of a girl bullied and ostracized for her Quirk, who was going down the path of no return, Inko saw Izuku in her. As such, she wanted to care for her and show her that villainy wasn’t the answer and that there are people who cared for her in spite of her blood Quirk. [Toga is stuck with Inko at this point in time and has a tracking anklet to make sure that she’s behaving. Rehab is going really well with the unconditional care that Inko is providing.]

Dabi got an infection and landed in the hospital ER as an unknown patient and wound up in a coma while his body was busy trying to fight the infection of his staples. [The man’s a walking open wound. You can sneeze in his general vicinity and have a high chance of taking him down in a couple weeks. Haven’t decided if I want to wake him up or not. Depends on my feelings]

Mustard joined the attack via Toga due to them being closer in age and talking. No Toga, no Mustard. [He’s sulking in detention right now.]

So the only ones left are Mr. Compress, Magne, Spinner, Muscular, Moonfish, Twice and the Nomu. Much smaller and no long-range attacks.

Their mission is to get in, extract Bakugo and get out with minimal damage. That’s what happened.

Muscular, Moonfish, and the Nomu all rampage on the opposite side of the mountain to draw attention to them. Magne and Spinner break up the 1-A class and drive them apart. Twice and Mr. Compress work together to snatch up Bakugo in a marble and then they all book it. Muscular and Moonfish are both left behind to keep the heroes distracted long enough for them to get back to Kurogiri and through the portal. Nomu ended up buried in a mountain via a very anger Tiger at the disruption of his naps. The students all worked together to try and bring down the villain to retrieve their classmate, but when that failed, Yaoyorozu managed to attach a tracker to the villains top hat.

Injuries were minimal and the three heavy hitting villains were arrested and locked up. The only casualty was Bakugo being kidnapped.

Kidnapping Arc

Blah, blah, join us you can be stronger and win a villain-Shigaraki

No, fuck off, go fuck yourselves-Bakugo

Repeat until All Might shows up

Then AfO activates goop Quirk [really need a better name for that. better than vomit transport quirk at least. That was my first thought], drags the league and Bakugo to him. Bakugo is held by him, hand on his temple ready to crush him.

Rest of Heroes all show up on the battlefield but aren’t moving so that Bakugo doesn’t get hurt. Essentially a stand off.

You know, you can tell whether or not someone has the potential for villainy by their greatest regret -AfO

AfO has a quirk that allows the user to see someone’s greatest regret, with more details the longer that the quirk is activated. He also has a quirk that allows him to project whatever he’s thinking about in a video format for everyone to see. [the man is old. he probably had a habit of taking whatever quirk he wanted when he was younger before all might turned him into a very ugly potato/alternate darth vader]

Quirks activate and it’s the scene of Bakugo telling Izuku to get jump off a building spliced with the news from Inko that Izuku was suspected of jumping off a building

Interesting. Why is that your greatest regret?-AfO

Quirk gives him more details. 

Bakugo only regrets saying that because if it ever became public, he'd never reach the spot of number one hero which is his only goal in life.

Guess you are nothing but a villain after all. Too obsessed with yourself to see the damage you caused.-Afo 

Afo shoved the boy away from him and forcibly activated Kurogiri’s Quirk to allow the league to escape.

Every hero on site is frozen in shock at the reveal of what a hero student of UA, the most prestigious hero school that graduated most of the top heroes in Japan, actually believed.

At that point, AfO flips All Might the finger and just goes through the portal because the news would shake society’s faith in UA which is really good. He can kill All Might later. [or just wait for any infection to take the man out. He lost his stomach so he probably lost his spleen too which is kinda important for the immune system.]

Fallout

Bakugo is booted to gen ed because Aizawa refused to teach someone that was just going to end up hurting someone later in life. Because Aizawa is an Underground Hero who specializes in information and predication, schools tend to believe in what he says about the potential/future of heroes in training especially when he has evidence to back up his beliefs. So no other school will take him on as a hero student.

Bakugo is essentially blacklisted from heroics because everyone wants to believe that a hero is good and just. And when the illusion is broken before it has a chance to solidify, they have no chance of becoming a hero. 

Aizawa goes and apologizes in person to Inko. Because even though he had no way of knowing, he feels like he should have recognized the abusive tendencies and/or egocentrism  of Bakugo earlier. So, allowing it to continue was a slap in the face to his victims.

Inko accepts his apology because she didn’t know about it either so how could she blame him when she was closer and still missed all the signs. She offers to let Aizawa visit Izuku because Eraserhead was one of his favorite heroes because of how much skill he had. But because Eraserhead was underground, he didn’t have any merch or enough information to write about him.

*Split path here depending on the angst level I want

1. Izuku is in a coma, all healed up, just hasn’t woken up. When they came, Izuku had just woken up a half hour ago so the doctors were busy checking all his vitals, memory, joints, etc. Inko cries, Aizawa stands away because he’s allergic to emotions, and Izuku is just silently fanboying because he sees one of his favorite heroes.

2.Izuku is in a coma and doesn’t wake up. Inko introduces Aizawa to him and tells Aizawa about his dreams and his story. Aizawa makes sure that at least once a week, he comes and visits to talk to him. He also brings other heroes to introduce to Midoriya to make sure that others know about him.

3.Aizawa and Inko go to a graveyard and the name Midoriya Izuku is carved into a family grave marker with flowers and an All Might figure in front of it. Inko tells Aizawa that Izuku died from falling from the building. They thought he jumped randomly, but with the new info, Inko is thinking that Bakugo might’ve pushed him verbally over the edge. Aizawa promises to investigate more.

[domxmarvel]

Shield

Masterlist    Part 2 Sword

Requested by: @oyasumimosura​

Pairing:Adrien Agreste/Chat Noir x Gender Neutral!Reader        

Words: 659 

Request: Could you please do Adrien Agreste/Chat Noir x reader?  Miraculous x Marvel crossover This takes place in season 4, Where the reader comforts Chat/Adrien because they know Adrien is getting sadder every day. The reader was always with Adrien/Chat, whenever he feels down the reader is always welcoming him at their home. They always got each other’s back. The reader was Stephen Strange’s apprentice  who accidentally made themselves travel to another universe which is the Miraculous Ladybug one, so (y/n) decided to live a normal life in Paris.

It's been a few weeks since you accidentally sent yourself to a different dimension. Although it wasn't that bad,you got to meet Chat noir,who you accidentally found out was Adrien Agreste. The two of you become friends very quickly,since you were the only one he could really talk to about being Chat noir. 

A little while ago you noticed that he wasn't as happy,and he wasn't making as many jokes as usual. 

"What's bothering you?" You asked,quickly followed by. "And don't even think about saying it's nothing"

"I don't think Ladybug needs me anymore" You lifted his head up by his chin,moving your hand to his cheek. 

"Then she's a fool,you've been there since day one. Chat noir you're irreplaceable and don't you dare think otherwise" He stood up and put his arm around your waist,suddenly you both leaned in and kissed. 

"Y/N" You pulled him back into another kiss,one that was way harder and more passionate than the previous. Chat pushed you back until your back hit the wall. He was about to kiss you again,when his phone started ringing,another akuma was loose in Paris. He scoffed "Ladybug can take care of that by herself" You pushed him away from you.

"No,I'm not letting you abandon Paris because you think Ladybug doesn't need you" Something about your words seemed to knock someone sense into him. 

"You're right,what was I even thinking"

"Go,I'll be here when you get back" He kissed your cheek. 

***

You were practicing some of your spells,when you were interrupted by a flash news broadcast. 

"Don't be bemused,it's just the news. Ladybug and her team are currently struggling against Hawkmoth's newest akumatized villain. You quickly turned to the screen,seeing all the heroes laying on the ground barely able to fight back. Before you had even realized what you were doing you had already jumped through a portal to their location. You could already see the villain running towards Chat noir,you quickly formed a shield over them. Everyone turned to Carapace.

“That wasn’t me”

“Then who did this?”Chat looked up at the golden shield you formed over them.

“I did”You walked right through the shield.

“Y/N what are you doing here?”You looked him up and down,he was barely standing up.

“Are you hurt?” Looking at his hand you noticed some blood,not an alarming amount but enough to make you worried. You turned to Ladybug “Do you know where the akuma is?”

“Yeah,it’s in the bracelet on their right hand” Forming a whip you stepped out and tied the villain up,throwing the bracelet to Ladybug. She quickly captured the akuma and turned everything back to normal. You ran over to Chat to make sure he was okay,as you put your arm around him,he immediately leaned on you.

“Come on I’ll take you back to my place”

When you got back,you let him lay down. Using your magic to heal him,his ring started beeping before he transformed back. Plagg laid on his chest.

“That was painful” Plagg whined,Adrien tried to sit up,but you quickly forced him back down.

“Would it be less painful if I brought you a big piece of camembert?” Immediately Plagg cheered up. You got up and brought him a big piece of cheese,he flew up and clung to your cheek. 

“Y/N you’re the best person in all of Paris”

“Thank you Plagg”You set the plate down in front of him and sat down next to Adrien. “Feeling any better?”

“A lot,thank you for saving us today.”He sat down and leaned his head on your shoulder. “I don’t know how we would’ve defeated that villain without you. But why now? You've never stepped in before"

"Because this time I was scared that I'd lose you,Adrien you're irreplaceable"