#i know ive said this before but: i love him so much

[brookghaib-blog]

The ghost I left behind- IV

Pairing: Robert 'Bob' Reynolds x reader

Summary: Y/N and Bob had a life before he disappear, full of love, hope, and a lot of chaos, but they managed each other, she was the only one who truly could make him avoid the void inside his mind. How could he turn his only light into a shadow in his mind ?

Word Count: 8,6k

Trigger Warning: Descriptions of abuse, non-consensual acts, and dv

Chapter III

--

Y/N's pov

The sonogram was warm in her hands, fresh from the printer, the paper still curled slightly at the edges. The tiny, blurry figure in the middle of the grainy image was the clearest thing she’d seen all day. Her boy. Her baby boy.

Y/N cradled the picture like it was something sacred, held close to her chest as she stepped out of the clinic’s sliding doors. The sun was high, but it wasn’t hot — the breeze was soft, like it had waited for her to come outside. She blinked up at the sky, trying to steady her breath. It should’ve been a good day. She wanted it to be a good day.

Her hand slipped into her coat pocket to find her phone, fingers moving from habit more than excitement. She scrolled to Mr. Cooper’s contact and hit dial. It rang once, then twice, and then his gentle, gruff voice came through the line.

"Hey, kid. You alright?"

A small smile tugged at her lips. “Yeah, I’m… I just got out. The appointment.”

A pause on the other end, before his voice softened. “And?”

Y/N bit her bottom lip, holding up the sonogram again as if he could see it through the phone.

“It’s a boy,” she said. Her voice cracked just slightly. “I’m having a boy.”

There was a breath from Cooper, a quiet joy. “A boy, huh? Well, I’ll be damned. That little guy’s gonna have my old sheriff hat whether he likes it or not.”

She laughed through her nose, a brittle sound, eyes stinging. “Thanks for helping me get there. I know it’s not much, but—”

“You don’t owe me a thing. You hear me? Not one thing.”

Y/N smiled again, starting to cross the street, her fingers wrapped around the phone with one hand and the sonogram with the other. She wanted to keep them both close, like maybe this moment could make up for everything.

But then the air shifted.

The warmth of the sun dimmed in an instant, as if the light itself had been swallowed. A gust of wind pushed through the street, sudden and bitter cold, making her jacket whip around her. And then — screams.

It started as a murmur, then exploded like glass shattering. A crowd of people came sprinting down the sidewalk, faces twisted in panic, some pushing, others crying.

She turned instinctively, heart stalling.

“What the hell—?” Cooper’s voice still echoed through the phone in her ear.

“I—I don’t know,” she stammered.

Then she saw it.

An enormous wave of darkness rolling down the street like ink pouring from the sky. No source. No center. Just shadow, alive and hunting. It crawled over buildings and lampposts, swallowing cars like they were made of air. People disappeared into it without a sound.

“No. No, no, no—”

Y/N turned, trying to run. Her legs ached. Her lungs already burning. She was so tired. Every step was a war her body wasn’t ready for. Her hands instinctively wrapped over her belly, shielding the baby.

The shadow caught her.

A pulse of cold gripped her spine. She collapsed, knees hitting pavement, the phone clattering out of her hand. She curled around herself, shaking. Her eyes squeezed shut.

“Please,” she whispered, to no one. “Please, not my baby.”

Silence.

For a moment, all she could hear was her heartbeat and the wind. No screams. No rush of air. Just stillness.

Slowly, she opened her eyes—

And the world was wrong.

The pavement was gone, replaced with pink carpet and posters of teen idols peeling off pastel-colored walls. She blinked fast. The smell hit her next — old perfume, cheap foundation, the ghost of tears. Her childhood room.

No. No, no, no, no—

She stood slowly, the sonogram still clutched in her hand, now crumpled. Her throat was dry, too dry to scream. Her fingers trembled.

And then she heard it — soft sniffles behind her.

Y/N turned.

There she was. Sitting in front of the vanity mirror, makeup streaking down her cheeks. Her eyeliner smudged, lips bitten raw from trying not to cry. She was wiping her face with trembling hands, muttering something to herself over and over.

She was alone.

Y/N took a step forward, mouth agape. Her voice barely came out.

“…no.”

The younger version of her didn’t turn. She just kept crying, wiping, trying to make herself invisible. Her tiny shoulders shook with the weight of years to come. The pain hadn’t even begun yet, but it lived in her eyes already — that hollow ache of being forgotten.

Y/N’s knees buckled.

She knelt on the floor, watching her past unravel in front of her like a cruel memory she never asked to revisit. Her chest burned. She knew this night. She remembered what came next — the door slamming, the silence afterward, the lie she told herself that she deserved it.

She remembered how broken she felt.

And now she was here, again, somehow — years later, a different woman, with a baby boy growing inside her — being forced to relive the origin of all the hurt.

Tears fell freely now. She reached toward her younger self, but her hand caressed her hair.

“Don’t believe him,” she whispered. “You’re not unlovable. You didn’t deserve it.”

The girl didn’t hear her.

--

30 min's ago - WatchTower

The Thunderbolts had failed to contain what Valentina had hidden in the bowels of the compound — Bob, or what he had become.

The Watchtower’s holding area was in ruins now, its steel walls torn and warped like foil. Sentry hovered in the aftermath, bathed in eerie sunlight that seemed to dim as he rose higher. His eyes were gold-white, glowing like small stars. The team below — Yelena, Bucky, Alexei, Ava — all stood bruised and stunned after the encounter. They hadn’t stood a chance.

They just run, holding together in the elevator to their way out.

Valentina stood in the observation deck, fists clenched against the railing, watching as her most powerful asset simply hovered, silent, still. She snapped the comm open, voice coiled with venom.

“You were supposed to finish them, Sentry,” she hissed. “That was the deal. Loose ends are dangerous.”

Inside his helmet, Bob’s jaw tightened.

“They weren’t a threat to me, there's no reason to kill them,” he said softly, his voice laced with something unplaceable. “They wanted to help.”

“They were going to contain you. Chain you up,” she snapped. “Like they always will. Like she will, if you ever go back.”

Bob’s breathing quickened. He felt it again — that slow unraveling of clarity, like silk tearing at the seams. The image of Y/N crossed his mind, soft and shimmering like a memory soaked in sun.

Valentina’s voice dragged him back.

“You think she’ll still want you? After all this? After what you’ve done?” Her voice softened, almost mocking. “You’re not him anymore. You’re not the man she loved. You're a little freak now, not her sweet Bobby.” She said smirking. "You follow my orders, you're my employee."

He turned slowly.

"First of all, why would I...a God... follow you're orders. Do you know what I'm capable of?... Maybe I need to show you."

She barely flinched when he appeared. His hand wrapped around her throat and lifted her off the floor, pinning agasint the nearst wall, her eyes widened.

“And second of all. You don’t get to say her name, or even talk about her in way anymore.” he growled.

And then—click.

A sharp, deliberate sound echoed in the room. Mel. Silent and ghostlike, standing in the shadows, holding the black device in one gloved hand. A button pressed.

It was their failsafe. A synthetic trigger engineered into his bloodstream.

Bob gasped, light crackling from his skin, golden energy fracturing into black tendrils. His eyes flickered — from gold, to nothingness. To void.

Valentina just smirks at the scene. "Well well, looks like you resolve your loyalty issue".

Mel just give her the switch and dismiss her words, "I want a raise."

--

It wasn’t a kill switch. It was a collapse switch.

Bob didn’t scream. He didn’t fall. He just changed.

The light inside him flickered — gold flaring once, then warping into sickening black. His hands curled inward, his veins pulsing dark. The suit clung to him like oil as his feet lifted from the ground, and then—

He was no longer Bob.

He was no longer Sentry.

He was Void.

A shadow the size of a god rose into the air, its edges tearing against the clouds. Its shape was man-like only in suggestion — too fluid, too monstrous. Wings like smoke, teeth like glass, eyes like stars dying out.

The wind changed. The sky darkened. Even Valentina, hardened as she was, took an unconscious step back.

The Void circled the tower once, slow and deliberate. Watching. Waiting.

For what, no one knew.

Yelena stared up, her breath catching in her throat. Bucky’s jaw was locked, unreadable. Ava barely kept her form solid, whispering that they had to leave — now. Even Walker stood silent, hand frozen halfway to his now bend shield.

They had failed the mission.

Worse — they had released something far beyond what they were meant to contain.

Valentina didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Her eyes never left the sky.

The Void hovered above them, an eclipse in motion.

And then, without warning, it vanished into the clouds, a streak of darkness slipping into the stratosphere — fast as light, and twice as cold.

Silence returned. The mission was over.

But something much worse had just begun. Covering New York in a shallow darkness, and taking everyone else with it.

--

Y/N’s pov

The room around her hadn’t faded — not like she hoped it would. Y/N remained frozen, her body heavy like she was sinking into the carpet of her childhood bedroom. The quiet crying of her younger self continued at the vanity, face streaked with smeared mascara and glitter that clung to her skin like bruises she didn’t know how to name.

“Please,” she whispered again, louder this time, trying to reach her past self. “Don’t cry. Please—”

She knew what came next.

SLAM.

The door burst open with a thunderous crack against the wall, rattling the frames, making both versions of her flinch. Her mother stood in the doorway — tall, beautiful, cruel in the way only someone who knew your deepest insecurities could be. She had a cigarette hanging from her red lipstick-stained mouth, purse slung carelessly over her shoulder, already halfway out the door even as she entered.

“Y/N!” she barked, eyes narrowing at the sight in front of her. “Jesus Christ, look at you. Is that what you’re wearing?”

Young Y/N snapped to attention like a soldier caught out of uniform. She stood shakily from her stool, wiping her face more frantically now, trying to erase the shame, the night, the truth.

“Mom…” Her voice broke around the word like it was glass in her throat. “Mom, I— I need help.”

She moved forward, arms outstretched, like the little girl she was under all the eyeliner and attitude. Just a child begging for her mother.

“I don’t feel good, I think something happened— I think— I’m scared—”

But her mother took a step back like she’d been slapped. “Get your hands off me.”

Y/N watched — helpless — as her mother’s eyes scanned the too-short dress, the swollen, tear-rimmed eyes, the trembling hands, and curled her lip like she’d found something rotten in the fridge.

“You look like a little whore,” she snapped, adjusting her purse strap. “You want attention? Congratulations, you look like you got it.”

The younger Y/N’s face shattered.

“No— No, I didn’t want— I didn’t mean—”

“Oh, don’t start with the dramatics,” her mother cut her off coldly, heading back toward the door. “I’m going out. Your dad’s not coming this weekend, by the way — surprise, surprise. There’s leftovers in the fridge. Make yourself useful for once and clean up that mess you call a face. I don’t want to see it when I get back.”

“Mom— Mom, please. Please just stay—” the girl sobbed, trying again to move toward her, to just touch her sleeve, to be heard—

The woman turned and shoved her daughter back, hard enough to make her stumble.

“Don’t touch me!” she shrieked. “God, why couldn’t I have had a normal daughter?! Just one night without you ruining it, that’s all I ever ask!”

And then she was gone.

Just like that.

The door slammed again. The walls shook with the echo. Silence bloomed.

Young Y/N dropped to her knees and finally screamed, a raw, broken sound that twisted through the air and made the older Y/N’s stomach flip. The sound wasn’t loud — not like it should’ve been — it was muffled by time, memory, shame. But it cut like glass all the same.

Older Y/N stood frozen in the corner, her hands clutching the sonogram against her chest. Tears streamed down her face, hot and fast. Her mouth opened but no words came. She felt helpless. Useless.

She hadn’t remembered it this vividly in years. Not like this. Not the smell of her mother’s perfume, or the exact way the light hit the silver vanity tray. Not the sound of her own younger voice cracking under desperation.

She backed away, heart pounding.

“No,” she whispered, over and over. “No. No, I don’t want to be here. This isn’t real. It’s not real.”

But it was. Her younger self had collapsed on the floor now, sobbing into her knees. And there was no one to help her.

Y/N reached for the door. It didn’t open. She tried again, harder — nothing. Her fingers clawed at the knob, breath heaving now, the walls of the room beginning to bend and tilt, as though the house was a memory starting to melt.

“Let me out— please, I can’t— I can’t do this again!”

The walls whispered.

She heard her own voice — her younger self was now looking at her.

"You deserved it, didn’t you? That’s what he said. That’s what you believed."

“No—”

"You still believe it sometimes."

“Stop it!”

"If you were stronger, you’d have left sooner. If you were smarter, you’d have seen it coming. If you were worthy, he’d have stayed."

“Stop it!”

She turned and screamed at the room. She looked at the mirror on the wall, another room, without making any sense of what's the racional reasons of this happening, she jumps into falling into the room. Jordan's room.

Oh no, no,no,no, not this...this can't be...

--

Bob's pov

The Void had no shape.

It breathed around him — slow, cold, and endless. A black sea without water. A sky without stars. Bob floated in it, weightless and drowning all at once.

The silence pressed against his ears like pressure at the bottom of the ocean.

Then came the first room.

He didn’t walk into it. It unfolded around him — one blink and he was standing in the middle of it. A small bathroom. White tiles stained yellow. Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like angry bees.

He stared at himself in the mirror.

Younger. Gaunt. Bruised knuckles, a bloody nose that wouldn’t stop dripping. His eyes red from crying, from the needle still swinging in the sink beside him.

The door burst open — the version of himself sitting in the memory didn’t flinch.

It was his mother.

“I can’t do this with you anymore, Robert!” she screamed. Her mascara ran. “You make everything worse.”

Bob tried to speak — to reach out — but his voice didn’t work here.

The past couldn’t hear him.

The next room swallowed the last.

Second room. A military facility. Stark. A flickering overhead light buzzed like a dying insect. Soldiers screamed in the distance — training exercises. Gunshots.

Bob was 19. Sitting in the corner of a locker room, shaking, knuckles split open from punching a wall.

"You're unstable, Reynolds. You lash out and break things. I don't want you on my team if I can't trust you."

Captain Hunt’s voice. Firm. Tired. Disgusted.

And then—

Third room. A hospital. Late night. Sterile smell. Fluorescent white.

He sat alone in a plastic chair, watching a heart monitor go flatline.

His first serious attempt. His own heartbeat crawling back into his chest with a kind of shame no one teaches you how to carry.

The nurses hadn’t asked questions. No one had called anyone.

Not one person showed up.

Fourth room. A motel.

Dim. Stained sheets. Cracked mirror. The bag of meth still sitting on the nightstand. He stared at it, then at his reflection.

His voice finally returned — not strong, but tired.

“I’m trying,” he whispered to himself. “I’m trying.”

His reflection didn’t believe him.

Then the fifth room swallowed him whole.

And this one was different.

Warm.

He looked around — disoriented, blinking.

The wallpaper was pale blue with hand-drawn spaceships and stars. A night light still glowed in the corner. A box of toys sat against the wall — old and worn but loved. There were crayon drawings taped haphazardly to the closet door. In the middle of it all was a twin-sized bed with dinosaur covers.

Bob took a shaky breath. His chest rose and fell like it hadn’t in hours.

This was his room.

His real one. From before things fell apart.

Before the shouting. Before the needle. Before the screaming void.

So he sat, down. It was quiet. Perfect for a place like the void. Peacefull.

He doesn't know how long he stayed there until Yelena came, he doesn't know how he still had the strengh to get up, to overpower the void.

It was a power that came from them. His new friends. His new..'team'?

He doesn't recollect it all, but for the first time in months, he didn't feel like he was alone. They made their way out of the room,out of this house out of the memory, and back into the storming present — where the real war still waited.

Together they went through several rooms from his and other people's memories. Fighting their traumas' into a way out.

He doesn't now when. But they ended up here.

The world around them was not the real one — they knew that much.

The walls breathed. The air crackled with an unnatural hum, and gravity shifted with moods, not science. Inside the Void’s domain, nothing obeyed logic. The Thunderbolts stood huddled, silent and alert, their eyes scanning the horizon of an endless black that shimmered like oil under a dim sky. This was the mind — or madness — of Sentry.

Of Bob.

Yelena’s fingers tightened around her weapon, though it was useless here. Ava moved like a whisper behind her, while Walker stood with hands slightly raised, reading the tension, always waiting. Even Bucky, hardened by war and grief, looked visibly unsettled.

Then something shifted.

A tear in the air — like a crack in glass — split open ahead of them. Shadows poured through the breach, not menacing this time, but familiar. Like memories. Like ghosts.

Suddenly, they weren’t in the abyss anymore.

They were in a small apartment kitchen — dim, quiet, but worn with the comfort of being lived in.

And then — voices.

Bob’s own voice, worn down with shame, cracked through the space like thunder.

“You went through my things?”

They turned toward the source.

There he was — Bob — standing just a few feet away, the projection of him caught in a moment past. And across from him, her.

Y/N.

She was standing in their small living room, trembling hands clutching a small plastic bag, holding crushed pills and powder. Her eyes were puffy from crying, voice shaking.

“I was doing laundry, Bob. It fell out of your jacket.”

Real Bob — the one standing in the shadows with the Thunderbolts — went completely still. His breath caught in his throat. This was a memory he hadn't thought about in what felt like years. Maybe he’d buried it on purpose.

“You said you stopped,” she whispered in the memory, voice small but cutting. “You told me you wanted to get clean. For us.”

“I do” Bob said. “I just— I needed it, just once more. I’ve been good, haven’t I?”

Y/N shook her head in disbelief, hugging herself like she was trying to keep from unraveling.

“You lied to me. And what scares me most is that I keep forgiving you because I think maybe you hate yourself enough already.”

The room spun. The Thunderbolts watched in stunned silence, not quite understanding what they were witnessing — it felt too intimate, too raw to be for them. A woman they’d never seen, spilling tears for a version of Bob they'd never known.

Ghost shifted her stance uncomfortably. Even Yelena’s brow furrowed — the name Y/N flickering in her mind now like a question. The weight in the air was different than anything they’d faced. This wasn’t a villain. This wasn’t a fight.

This was a wound.

The memory played on.

“I’m not enough, am I?” Y/N asked, voice cracking. “Not enough to make you stop. Not enough to love without condition. I’m tired, Bobby. I can't live for you, I love you, but this has to stop, please.”

He didn’t respond. He looked like he wanted to — lips parted, hands shaking — but no words came.

Everyone turned to look at the real Bob, who had fallen to his knees, eyes wide with horror, tears brimming at the edges.

“She’s real,” he whispered.

Yelena blinked, stepping forward gently. “Who is she, Bob?”

He didn’t answer right away. He stared at the frozen image of Y/N like it had torn his ribs open.

“She’s... she's my girlfriend, my child's mother,” he said finally, voice hoarse. “My girl. I loved her more than anything. And I left her.”

No one spoke.

“She found out she was pregnant days before I left,” Bob added, as though confessing to a grave sin. “I never saw the bump. I never got to feel the baby kick. I don’t even know how it's going if they're healthy…”

His voice broke, and he covered his face with a trembling hand.

“I wanted to be better. I swear to God, I did. But I was afraid I’d hurt her again. That I’d ruin the only good thing I ever had. So I disappeared. Told myself it was protection. Told myself I’d come back. For her, be a good, healthy father for our baby.But it’s been… so long.”

Yelena approached quietly, crouching beside him.

“She’s alive?”

He nodded. “Valentina told me so. She's pregnant. Five months now.”

A silence fell again — but not the cold kind. This time, it was heavy with understanding. They all had blood on their hands. But this was different. This was grief. Regret. A man torn in half by his own guilt.

Ava spoke up, voice strangely soft through her modulator.

“Let's get out of here, this is not the way out come on”

Bob’s gaze lifted to the suspended image of Y/N — frozen in time, crying, still holding the drugs like they were the last piece of him she could trust. He just runs along with the others, jumping into another room.

The world shimmered again.

The corridor they’d just been standing in melted into dim velvet walls, low golden lighting, and pulsing bass vibrating faintly beneath their feet. A private lounge. Exclusive. Sleek. Quietly decadent.

Bob turned slowly, gaze sweeping over the room. It was too elegant to be one of his memories. And it didn’t feel like his. Not the way the others had. There was no anxiety prickling under his skin, no familiarity clawing at the edges of his mind.

The couches were velvet, the tables sleek marble. Laughter echoed from a corner—high-pitched, sugar-coated and sharp. A group of girls lounged around a bottle-service table, glittering dresses and tired smiles, eyes heavy with intoxication and mascara.

Then Bob saw her.

Y/N. Young.

God, she was so young.

Seventeen, maybe. Dressed in a short black dress with silver accents, legs crossed tightly at the ankle. Her hair was curled and pinned half-up like she was trying to mimic a movie star, but her eyes told another story—she looked nervous, small, out of place.

Next to her sat a man. Clean-cut. Older—definitely older. Late thirties, maybe. He wore a sharp blazer over a white shirt, no tie, just casual enough to seem approachable. He had his arm resting behind her shoulders, fingers brushing lightly against her hair. Possessive without looking it.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said, his voice smooth like polished mahogany. “Just a little. You’ll feel better, I promise.”

“I don’t know...” Young Y/N laughed lightly, clearly uncertain. “I’ve never really done that stuff.”

“That’s okay,” he said, smiling, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “You don’t have to be anyone but yourself. I like you just like this.”

She blinked. Something about the way he looked at her—it was like he saw her. Like she mattered. Bob’s heart clenched painfully watching it.

“I just think you’re incredible,” Jordan continued. “The way you walk into a room like you’re not trying to impress anyone. You’ve got this... spark. It kills me.”

Y/N looked down, shy. “You really think that?”

“Of course I do,” he said, resting his hand gently on her thigh. “You’re nothing like these other girls. You’re thoughtful. Real. Not just some pretty thing. You’ve got depth, baby. And I see that. I see you.”

Bob could barely breathe.

“He’s grooming her,” Ava muttered under her breath.

Yelena glanced at her, then at Bob. “Is this her memory?”

Bob’s jaw was tight. “Yeah,” he said. His voice cracked. “It is.”

On the couch, one of the girls passed a thin line of powder to Jordan, who declined with a polite shake of his head. Instead, he passed it to Y/N. “Only if you want to,” he said gently. “No pressure. I’d never make you do anything. But I want you to feel good tonight. You deserve to feel loved.”

Y/N hesitated. The edges of her smile were starting to quiver. She stared at the powder. Then at Jordan. “You really think I’m... special?”

“I don’t waste time on girls who aren’t,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss her cheek, feather-light. “You’ve got a heart bigger than anyone in this room. I just want to take care of it.”

She closed her eyes, almost swayed by it.

Bob couldn’t look away. His hands were shaking. “She thought he loved her,” he said softly, more to himself than anyone else. “She told me... once. That for a while, she believed every word. That she was lucky to have someone love her that much.”

“She was a child,” Yelena growled.

“She didn’t know,” Bob whispered. “She didn’t know what she deserved. She thought this was it—someone older, who gave her attention. That was enough.”

Y/N ends up taking the drugs. She handed the little plate back with a quiet after taking the powder “uff, that's ahm..weird?” She said smiling at Jordan.

Jordan smiled like she’d just told him a secret. “See? That’s what I like about you. You’re strong. Classy. You didn't even make a face pretty girl.”

Then he kissed her and whispered, “That’s why I love you.”

And Y/N believed it. "And I love you too."

You could see it—the way her shoulders relaxed, the way she leaned into him slightly. Desperate for comfort. For a promise that someone in the world wanted her.

The team stood there in silence.

Bob’s eyes were glassy. He swallowed hard. “She just wanted someone to choose her. To protect her. And instead... she got him.”

Ava’s face was grim. “And then she got you.”

Bob flinched.

But Yelena shook her head gently. “You loved her. You didn’t want anything from her but to be loved back. That matters.”

Bob said nothing for a long while. He just stood there, staring at the younger version of her—wide-eyed, smiling faintly, still foolish enough to believe that this man would be different.

That he would be safe.

“God,” he muttered, voice breaking, “I hope she knows she’s more than this.”

“That wasn’t yours,” Bucky finally said, his voice low, like he was afraid of scaring something away. “That memory. It wasn’t from you.”

Bob shook his head slowly. “No. That was hers.”

Yelena’s brow furrowed. “How the hell are we seeing her memories?”

“Maybe...” Ava started, then hesitated. She glanced around at the endless dark edges of the Void as if searching for a crack. “Maybe because she’s here.”

The weight of her words hit like a bomb.

Bob turned to her sharply. “What?”

“If the Void is showing her memories,” she said, “then it’s not just pulling from you anymore. It’s pulling from someone else too. That only happens when someone’s inside.”

Yelena’s eyes narrowed. “You think the Void got her?”

“I don’t think,” Ava said. “I know.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched. “So she’s trapped in this thing.”

Bob’s breath caught in his throat. The walls seemed to close in around him as the meaning sunk in—Y/N, his Y/N, alone somewhere in this abyss, reliving the worst parts of her life, again and again, without even knowing why.

“Jesus Christ,” he rasped. “No... no, no—she can’t be here. She can’t be.”

“She is,” Ava said softly. “We’ve all been stuck in this thing long enough to know how it works. It latches onto trauma. It feeds on it. Memories, shame, fear—it twists it all into a prison.”

“But she’s not like us,” Bob said, his voice cracking. “She didn’t sign up for this. She didn’t even do anything.”

“That doesn’t matter to the Void,” Bucky said grimly. “It doesn’t care who you are. If it senses pain, if it senses broken pieces... it pulls you in.”

Bob’s knees buckled slightly, and he sank to a low stool at the edge of the room, head in his hands.

“She’s pregnant,” he whispered. “She’s alone. She’s scared. And now she’s trapped in this fucking nightmare.”

Yelena knelt in front of him. “Then we find her. Before this place tears her apart.”

“How?” he asked, voice hoarse. “How the hell do we find her in all this?”

Ava stepped forward. “We follow the memories. The further in we go, the more pieces we see. If she’s really here, then the Void is using her too. Pulling her pain to the surface. If we find the source—if we find the most vivid parts—we find her.”

Bucky nodded. “And we pull her out.”

“But she doesn’t even know what this is,” Bob said, lifting his head. His eyes were red, desperate. “She won’t understand. She’ll think it’s real. She’ll feel it all like it’s happening again.”

“She’s strong,” Yelena said. “We’ve seen that.”

Bob shook his head. “Not like this. Not this kind of pain. She spent her whole life thinking she wasn’t worth loving, and now she’s in a place that’s built to prove her right.”

He clenched his fists, jaw tightening. “She’s not just some damsel in distress. She’s better than me. Smarter. Braver. But I left her. I abandoned her when she needed me most, and now she’s paying the price for my broken mind.”

Bucky took a step closer, his voice steady. “Then don’t waste time wallowing in guilt. Use it. Channel it. Because if we don’t get to her soon, this place will bury her alive in her own pain.”

Bob stood slowly, the weight of resolve settling over him like armor. “Then we go deeper. Into the worst of it.”

He turned to Ava. “You said it feeds on trauma. So we find the worst of her memories. The ones it would never let go of. She has to be somewhere here."

--

Y/N's pov

The air was thick. Too warm. Still.

Y/N stood barefoot on the cold hardwood floor of his penthouse apartment—Jordan’s.

The bedroom was dim, the curtains drawn. The city lights barely peeked through the thin cracks. She heard rustling behind her. Her breath caught.

There—on the bed—her younger self, stirring under crumpled sheets, the silk blanket clinging to damp, bare skin.

The girl woke slowly, confusion in her eyes before she blinked into the dark. She moved, groggily at first… then winced. Her body recoiled, the pain sharp and unignorable. Her fingers clutched the sheet closer to her chest. She looked down.

Y/N—the older one—stood frozen. Watching. Remembering.

“No, no, no,” she whispered to herself, shaking her head. Her hands trembled at her sides. “Please don’t do this. Don’t make me see this again.”

But the Void was cruel. It always had been.

Young Y/N stood slowly, wobbling on weak legs. The sheet wrapped around her like a lifeline, like it could protect her from what her mind already knew but refused to say out loud.

She stepped into the hallway, bare feet silent, breath uneven. She turned toward the kitchen.

And there he was.

Jordan.

Dressed casually—sweatpants, t-shirt—like he hadn’t just stolen something sacred. He was humming. Cheerful. Making coffee. His hair was damp like he’d just showered. Like it was just another morning.

The older Y/N followed behind, nearly tripping over her own breath, like she could somehow get in front of this. Stop it.

Jordan turned at the sound of movement, his smile stretching effortlessly across his smug, handsome face.

“Well, good morning, sleepyhead,” he said, his voice chipper, as if they were a normal couple waking up after a beautiful night. “You were out cold last night. Want some breakfast? I make a killer omelet.”

The younger Y/N stopped in her tracks. Her lips parted, her face pale, horrified. “What... what did you do to me?” Her voice was so quiet at first, but it shook.

Jordan’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“You...” She clutched the sheet tighter, eyes blinking rapidly, on the verge of spiraling. “You gave me something. I didn’t want to sleep with you. I—I said no. I remember saying no. And then—then nothing.”

The smile on Jordan’s face flickered. Then vanished.

He stepped forward, casual in that way predators often are. “Woah, woah. Babe. Don’t be like that. You were into it. Trust me—you wanted it. I just gave you a little something to relax, that’s all. You were stressed out.”

“I didn’t want to relax,” she said, her voice cracking. “I said no. You said we’d just hang out. I thought—” Her voice broke. “I thought you loved me.”

Jordan’s face changed entirely. The warmth drained out of his expression, replaced with cold irritation.

“Are you seriously doing this right now?” he said, voice darkening. “After everything I’ve done for you? I brought you into my home, gave you everything, and now you’re acting like some fucking victim?”

Older Y/N stepped forward, voice raised. “Stop it. Please. Stop it!”

Young Y/N was sobbing now, inching backward. “You drugged me, Jordan. You used me.”

Jordan’s eyes narrowed. His jaw clenched.

“You better watch how you talk to me.”

And then—he moved.

It happened so fast.

His hand shot out, grabbing her wrist. She yelped, trying to pull away, but he yanked her forward and slammed her to the ground. The sheet slipped off her shoulder. She screamed, trying to crawl back, but he was already on top of her.

“You ungrateful little bitch,” he spat. “I loved you. I treated you like a goddamn queen.”

“You're hurting me!” she screamed.

“You don’t even know what the real world is like,” he hissed. “You’re just a sad little girl who needs daddy figures to fix you. Well guess what? No one else wanted you. You were mine.”

His hand wrapped around her throat.

“STOP IT!” older Y/N screamed, throwing herself at him. She crashed into him—but passed right through. She hit the floor hard, helpless. Her hands clawed the ground. “GET OFF HER!”

But he didn’t even notice. Because this wasn’t real. Not to him. But to her—it was everything.

Younger Y/N thrashed beneath him, choking, sobbing. “Please... Jordan, please...”

He leaned in close, voice low. “You don’t get to say no now.” And just like that, he let her go. He picked up his coffe mug and went to the sofa, turning on the news. "When you're ready to apologize, come here, okay sweetheart? You were really cruel to me, I didn't appreciate that."

Older Y/N crawled to her younger self who was sobbing, tears blinding her vision. She pressed her palms to the memory’s shoulders, trying to hold her, trying to shield her, desperate to end this.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered through tears. “I’m so sorry I didn’t know what love was supposed to look like.”

--

Bob was the first one to step inside.

Then they saw her.

Y/N.

Curled on the floor in the kitchen, holding someone tight—herself. A younger version of her, wrapped in a silk sheet, face buried in her own shoulder, both of them trembling, as if clutching one another was the only thing keeping them from falling apart completely.

Her hair was a mess. Her arms covered in scratches from trying to claw her way out of this hell. Her face streaked with tears and smeared makeup. But even broken, she looked like something Bob had forgotten how to breathe around.

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Not yet.

It was Walker who whispered, “That’s her... That’s Y/N.”

But it was Yelena who understood first. “She’s not just a memory.”

“No,” Ava murmured. “She’s here. Trapped like we are.”

Y/N hadn’t noticed them yet. She was holding her younger self so tightly, whispering into her hair, soothing words and broken apologies.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry... I should’ve seen it. I should’ve never loved him. I should’ve known this would happen. I just wanted to be seen. Just once. Just wanted to be enough for someone. I didn’t know it would hurt like this... I didn’t know I was gonna hate myself this much.”

Bob stepped forward. Slowly. Carefully. “Y/N.”

Her head didn’t move. She didn’t hear him. Or maybe she was too deep in the memory to want to.

He tried again, his voice cracking, tears already building in his eyes. “Y/N, it’s me.”

At that, her shoulders tensed.

Still holding the younger version of herself, she slowly turned her head.

She saw him.

And everything stopped.

She blinked—once, twice, trying to clear her eyes. But he didn’t vanish. He stayed. Standing there, in his suit, his hair wild and eyes filled with tears, chest heaving like he hadn’t taken a full breath since he last saw her.

Behind him stood strangers—faces she didn’t recognize. A blonde girl with cold, sharp eyes. A man with a metal arm. A ghost of a woman in black. But she didn’t care.

Her eyes locked on Bob.

Her Bob.

But she didn’t smile.

She flinched.

“No...” Her voice came out hoarse. “No. Not like this.”

Bob’s face fell. “Y/N, it’s really me.”

“No, no, you don’t get to do that,” she whispered, hugging her younger self tighter, closing her eyes like she could shut him out. “Not here. Not now. You’re not real. This place is evil, it shows me things just to break me. I’m done falling for that. I won’t let it take you, too.”

“It’s me,” he repeated, stepping closer. “I swear to you. I’m not an illusion. I found you—I found you.”

She shook her head violently. “No! You left me. You left before I even showed, before I even started to show! I waited and I waited and I screamed into a pillow every night, telling myself you’d come back—but you didn’t. And now I’m here, trapped in hell, and it’s using your face to punish me!”

Her breathing picked up. She stood up.

She stepped toward him, shaking.

“Don’t you dare look like him,” she said, her voice breaking. “Don’t you dare sound like him. Don’t pretend you care—don’t pretend you know what I’ve been through.”

Bob tried to reach out but she slapped his hand away.

She started hitting him. Soft at first—then harder. Fists against his chest, weak and desperate.

“You’re not him. You’re not him. You’re not my Bobby. He’s gone. He left me. He left me with a baby and no one to love me. He promised he'd never go and he fucking went!”

“I know,” he whispered, not even defending himself. “I know I did. I know I failed you.”

She hit him again and again until she couldn’t stand anymore.

Her knees gave out and she collapsed.

Bob caught her before she hit the floor. Held her like he had the first night she let him into her apartment, sobbing into his shirt, clutching him like he might disappear if she blinked.

“I don’t know what’s real anymore,” she whispered, voice cracking. “I just wanted you to be real. I needed it to be you. I needed it to matter.”

“It does,” he choked out. “You matter. More than anything. And I swear to you, this isn’t a trick. I’m here. And I’m not leaving again. I swear to God, I’m not leaving again.”

She trembled in his arms, crying so hard her body shook. Her arms wrapped around his neck, afraid to believe it.

But for the first time in months, she let herself hope.

Because even in the heart of the Void—he came back for her.

It was heavy, fragile—like glass balancing on a thread. No one dared speak at first. Even Yelena, who had a dozen biting questions on the tip of her tongue, kept quiet. The sound of Y/N’s quiet sobs was all that filled the space, broken occasionally by Bob whispering apologies into her hair.

Walker finally stepped forward, his hands on his hips. “Okay, someone tell me how the hell we’re getting out of here now that we’ve got her.”

“We’re still in the Void,” Ava murmured, her voice echoing faintly in the strange, warped dimensions of the room. “Just because we found her doesn’t mean the exit’s magically going to open. We need a way to break it.”

Y/N blinked, still dazed, still shaking. She looked up at Bob with red-rimmed eyes. “How are you here?” she whispered, voice hoarse. “Is this real? I don’t understand. You left. You weren’t there. And now you are and everyone keeps saying Void and team and... what is happening, Bobby?”

Bob looked at her like he didn’t know how to start. “I... I will explain everything my love I promise you, it's a very very long story.”

Y/N swallowed hard. “How do I know this isn’t just another trick? How do I know you’re not just... another part of this nightmare?”

Bob grabbed her hand gently and pressed it to his chest. “Because you’re here, and I feel it. I feel you. And I don’t know how this place works, but I think the Void... it’s connected to all the pain we carry. All the things we can’t let go of. That’s how it traps us. With the worst parts of ourselves.”

Yelena crouched nearby, eyes on Y/N. “When the Void manifests a memory, it means the person’s in here. Alive. Which means we can all get out, if we stay together.”

Y/N glanced between them—these strangers standing like soldiers in her deepest trauma. “Who are you people?”

Bob chuckled softly through his tears. “They’re... complicated. But they’re helping me. Helping us. I promise.”

Before anyone could say more, a noise cut through the quiet—a voice.

"You look ugly when you cry, little one."

Everyone turned.

Jordan.

Still present, still part of the memory, casually walking across the kitchen to put his coffee mug in the sink. He hadn’t seen them—not really. He was part of the memory loop, the trauma replaying on a cruel cycle. But the voice, the condescension, the way it dripped like acid through the air—

Bob’s body moved before his brain could catch up.

He stormed across the room in two long strides and drove his fist into Jordan’s face so hard the man was lifted off his feet and crashed into the counter, crumpling like wet paper.

The room went silent again.

No one moved.

Not even younger Y/N, who had been curled on the floor, frozen in horror. Her form flickered slightly now, destabilizing. The memory unraveling at last.

Bob stood over Jordan’s unconscious form, fists still clenched, breath ragged. Then he looked back at Y/N—his Y/N—and gave her a sad smile. “You’ve always been beautiful,” he said gently. “And if our baby’s a girl... I hope she looks just like you.”

Y/N looked down, lips trembling. Her fingers reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out the crumpled sonogram. She stared at it for a long moment, then looked back at him, her voice barely more than a breath.

“It’s a boy, Bobby... I just found out. Before everything... before this.”

Bob’s eyes widened, filling with tears all over again. “A boy...?”

She nodded, swallowing hard.

He stepped to her slowly, arms open, as if afraid she’d disappear again. She let him wrap his arms around her, and they clung to each other like survivors in the wreckage.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Y/N closed her eyes and clutched the sonogram between them, resting her forehead against his chest. “I don’t understand what’s happening,” she admitted. “I don’t know where I am.”

Bob looked at her, then the team. “We’re getting out. All of us. Together.”

He reached down and gently helped her to her feet.

But before anyone could move, the walls of the apartment began to blur. The shadows of the kitchen twisted like liquid. The floor rumbled.

“It’s shifting again,” Ava warned, backing toward the group.

The room peeled apart like old wallpaper, revealing something new behind it—white fluorescent lights, steel walls, cold tiled floors.

Yelena’s eyes went wide. “This... this is the lab.”

“O.X.E.,” Bucky confirmed, stepping forward cautiously. “Where they were creating you.”

Bob held Y/N close as she looked around, now standing in the middle of a sterile hallway. Her head spun from the sudden shift, her mind reeling.

“I was here,” Bob murmured. “This is where they made me a weapon.”

Y/N clung to his arm, "Made you? What?", heart pounding. “Why did it bring us here now?”

And Walker, grim as ever, finally answered.

“Because it wants us to remember how the hell this all began.”

The room had grown impossibly still. Shadows danced across the cracked floor as the broken lights flickered overhead. By the lab window, seated a figure—tall, cloaked in flickering tendrils of smoke and malice. The Void.

He stood motionless, his gaze fixed beyond the glass as if watching something only he could see. Two figures, twisted and half-consumed by darkness, slumped beneath the window—doctors perhaps, or memories of victims long lost. Their stillness was chilling.

Then he turned.

Darkness poured from him like a second skin, his golden eyes burning through the room like embers in the night.

“Y/N,” he said, his voice smooth, haunting, laced with venomous sweetness. “I finally found you.”

Y/N clutched Bob’s arm tightly, stepping back instinctively as her eyes searched the figure in front of her. The voice. That voice. It was him—but it wasn’t.

“What's happening?” she whispered, clutching her belly protectively. “Who are you?”

The Void took a step forward, the floor creaking with his weight. He tilted his head with an expression almost tender. “You’re tired, aren’t you?” he said gently. “Alone. Carrying life inside of you. And for what? Struggling to stay afloat, with no one to catch you when you fall?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m not alone anymore.”

“But you are” he pressed, taking another step. “You always have been. Your mother. Your father. That man who used you like a plaything. And where is your love now? The one who left you when you needed him most?”

Bob flinched beside her.

“Come to me,” the Void whispered, his voice like velvet, spreading through the room like smoke. “I will make you happy. I will give you peace. I will give your son a life no one else can. No pain. No fear.”

The room shifted. Metal groaned. Then everything exploded at once—shards of glass, twisted steel, broken furniture—all lifted violently by an unseen force and slammed the team against the walls like rag dolls. Bob was thrown back, shielding himself from the debris.

Y/N staggered forward.

“Y/N! NO!” Bob screamed, reaching out.

But she couldn’t hear him—not through the drumming in her ears, not through the pull in her chest. Something was calling her. And in her heart… a terrible ache. A fear. What if this was the only way?

She walked forward in a daze, her hand outstretched.

“Come to me,” the Void whispered, his voice shaking the air like thunder. “You’re mine. You’ve always been meant to be mine.”

Just as her fingertips neared the swirling darkness of his hand, Bobby’s grip caught her wrist and yanked her back. She stumbled into his arms as the Void snarled.

“She’s not yours!” Bob shouted, his voice hoarse with fury.

The Void’s face twisted into a smile. “And who are you to claim her? A failure? The man who left her alone in a world that chews her up? You are and will always be alone in this world. That's because no one cares about you. You don’t matter.”

Bob’s face went pale. Then rage exploded from his chest like a scream from his soul. He lunged forward and struck the Void with a crushing punch. Then another. And another.

“You don’t get to trick her!” Bob roared, his knuckles bleeding, the darkness seeping up his arms like ink.

“You don’t get to speak her name! You don't to lore her to you!”

But the Void didn’t fight back. He smiled, letting Bob hit him again and again, until the shadow began to wrap tighter around Bob’s body, crawling up his spine, whispering poison into his ears.

“Stop!” Y/N screamed, running to him. “Bobby, stop!”

Yelena was at her side in seconds. “This is what he wants, Bob! He’s feeding on you!”

“Bobby, look at me!” Y/N cried, grabbing his hand, tears pouring down her face. “Bobby—please! You have to stop, I need you to stop!”

Walker came running holding onto them, and so did Ava and Bucky. A reminder of how loneliness was no longer invinted.

His eyes flickered toward her. The rage wavered.

“Please,” she whispered. “Mr. Cooper left the crib unfinished. We need to go home. We need to finish it. Okay?”

His breath caught. His fists fell limp.

He looked at her—really looked—and it was like coming back to the surface after nearly drowning.

“You…” he choked. “You are… everything.”

There was a burst of light. A rush of wind. And then—

They were back.

The pavement beneath them was solid. Cold. Familiar. People around them were screaming, running, but the team… they were just there. Alive. In one piece.

Yelena coughed and looked up, confused. “What the hell just happened?Wait...Where's Y/N?”

Bob blinked slowly, his vision returning. “Thanks guys… what happened by the way?” He said smiling. The it hit him. "Yelena. How do you know that name?"

[theonottsbxtch]

WHEN THE CITY FALLS | OP81/LS2

an: hello! so this is what ive been cooking up behind your backs recently, a 14k logan? oscar? fic i dont exactly know who the love intrest is per say but its a spiderman!oscar au. so enjoy this story as it has taken a long long time to write lol

wc: 14.8k

summary: three close friends drift apart when one disappears for two years and returns with wealth, ambition, and a dangerous invention. as his creation spirals out of control, the city teeters on the edge of destruction. in the chaos, hidden truths emerge, and one of them may be the only hope left to stop it.

NEW YORK IN THE WINTER WAS ALWAYS A LITTLE CRUEL. The wind rolled in off the river with a bitterness that got under your skin, finding the gaps between scarves and sleeves, and the sky sat heavy above the skyline like it had nowhere else to go. Snow hadn't fallen yet, not properly, but there was the threat of it in the air, sharp and metallic, like something unsaid.

She stood at the corner of Delancey and Ridge, boots damp from the puddles left by yesterday’s half-hearted rain, a coffee gone cold in her gloved hands. Across the street, the lights of a bodega buzzed with the familiar, uninviting warmth of too-bright fluorescents. She could hear someone shouting in Spanish two blocks down, the rumble of the subway far beneath her feet, and above it all, the ceaseless, aching pulse of the city.

Logan used to say New York had a heartbeat. That you could feel it if you were quiet enough. But Logan was never quiet for long.

She hadn't seen him in months.

Not properly, anyway.

Logan Sargeant had always been too much. Too sharp, too quick, too beautiful in the kind of way that hurt to look at for too long. He’d grown into a man that mirrored the city. Cold on the outside, burning with something dangerous just beneath the surface. Blond hair, now cut short, framed eyes too blue to be kind. His childhood had carved out pieces of him, taken soft things and turned them to steel. And still, for a long time, he’d been theirs, hers and Oscar’s. Until he wasn’t.

Oscar Piastri was different. Always had been. Quiet, but not shy. He had the sort of presence that didn’t need to announce itself. A boy with calloused fingers from too many sketchbooks and eyes that saw more than they ever let on. He still lived two floors above her in the same battered brownstone they’d all grown up in, still fixed her leaky taps when she asked, still brought her takeout when she forgot to eat. Sweet, reliable Oscar. But even he was changing, these days.

There were nights he didn’t come home. Cuts he didn’t explain. That distant look she caught in the reflection of a window, right before he smiled and asked her how her day had been.

Everything was shifting, and she could feel it, like standing on the edge of something vast, something waiting to fall apart.

She remembered a time when the three of them had belonged to each other. Summers on rooftops with cheap beer and even cheaper laughter. Nights spent stargazing through fire escapes, hands brushing by accident. Secrets shared like promises.

But that was before Logan disappeared for two years. Before he came back stranger than before—richer, smarter, colder. Before Oscar started vanishing into alleyways and coming back with bruises and excuses.

Now, something hung between all of them. Not quite memory, not quite betrayal.

And she was standing in the middle of it, still hoping, naively, foolishly, that maybe she could hold the pieces together.

Even as they splintered around her.

The wind changed, and she caught the distant clang of scaffolding in motion, another high-rise going up on the Lower East Side, another piece of sky eaten by glass and ambition. She turned down a narrow street flanked by graffiti-covered brick and bins overflowing with city decay, the coffee still untouched in her hand.

There were footsteps behind her: light, familiar.

"You're late," she said, without turning.

Oscar fell into step beside her, his jacket dusted with street grime, hood drawn up against the wind. There was something restless in the way he moved, like his skin didn't quite fit anymore.

"Sorry," he murmured, giving her a sheepish glance. "Had to... help someone out."

She didn't press. Not anymore. The last time she’d asked, he’d lied with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

"You look like you've been in a fight," she said instead, eyeing the faint bruise along his jaw.

He gave a quiet laugh. "You should see the other guy."

It was a joke, but it didn’t land. The silence that followed was too familiar. Worn in, like old denim.

She paused at a crosswalk, watching as a cab tore through a red light like the rules didn’t apply. That was the thing about New York. It moved too fast for second chances.

"I ran into Logan yesterday," Oscar said, and the words hit like ice down the spine.

She turned slowly, the name sitting between them like a fault line.

"Where?"

"Midtown. He was just... there. Like he hadn’t disappeared for two years. Wearing some tailored coat and that look he gets when he knows something you don’t."

That look. She knew it too well. The one that made you feel like a puzzle he’d already solved and was just humouring.

Oscar shoved his hands into his pockets, jaw clenched. "He said he wanted to talk. Said he was back for good this time."

"Do you believe him?"

Oscar didn’t answer right away. When he did, it was soft. Tired.

"I don’t know. He’s not the same."

Neither are you, she thought, but didn’t say it.

They walked the next block in silence. It was colder now, the clouds thickening, and her coffee had definitely gone bad. Still, she didn’t let go of it. Something about the weight of it grounded her.

"He asked about you," Oscar said suddenly, his tone unreadable.

Her throat tightened. "What did you say?"

"That you were still here. Still... you."

She looked away. That word felt fragile these days. Like it didn’t mean what it used to.

They stopped outside her building, the stoop still half-covered in yellow leaves that no one had bothered to sweep. The same chipped door. The same rusted letterbox. A world still standing while everything else was quietly coming undone.

Oscar hesitated, eyes lingering on her face like he was memorising it.

"Be careful, yeah?" he said.

"With Logan?"

He gave a short nod.

She wanted to ask him what he knew. What he suspected. But the city was humming again, loud and unrelenting, and she felt suddenly very small beneath it.

Oscar left her with a quiet goodbye and the echo of footsteps on cracked pavement.

She stood there a while longer, staring up at the sky as the first snow began to fall, soft, almost shy, like the city had remembered how to be gentle.

But she knew better.

Some storms didn’t come with thunder.

They came wearing familiar faces.

The lift in her building had been broken since August. The landlord kept saying it was “on the list,” but she wasn’t sure he even knew what a list was. So she climbed the stairs. Twelve floors, each one creaking like it might finally give in under her boots.

By the tenth, her breath was shallow, and her limbs ached with the kind of fatigue that had nothing to do with the stairs. She reached the twelfth landing, paused to collect herself, and then pushed open the heavy fire door.

He was there.

Leaning against the railing of the communal balcony like he'd never left. Like he hadn't vanished without warning and taken something irreplaceable with him. The skyline was a blurred grey behind him and for a second she almost saw the boy he'd been. Grinning, brilliant, with a laugh that carried across rooftops.

"Thought I heard someone dragging their feet up here," Logan said without turning, his voice still that maddening blend of silk and smirk.

She crossed her arms, wary. "You're not supposed to be up here. They locked this level last year after the whole scaffolding incident."

He looked over his shoulder at her, blue eyes lit with mischief and something darker. "Good to know some things never change. You, playing by the rules."

"And you, breaking them."

He laughed, low and easy, and it stung how much of her still responded to that sound.

"Come on," he said, pushing off the railing and walking towards her, hands in the pockets of a coat that looked expensive, like everything he owned now. "I haven’t seen you in how long, and that’s the greeting I get?"

She tilted her head. "You’re lucky you’re getting anything at all."

He stopped in front of her, closer than comfort allowed, and for a breath she thought he might apologise. But Logan Sargeant had never been good with guilt. He just looked at her like he was still trying to work her out, still trying to stay two steps ahead.

"You look the same," he murmured. "Only sharper. Like the city’s finally caught up with you."

"And you look like you just stepped out of a stock portfolio."

He grinned. "Guilty. I’ve done alright for myself."

She narrowed her eyes. "Doing what, exactly?"

He glanced away, then back, the grin fading into something more deliberate. Calculated.

"That’s actually why I’m here."

"Right. You didn’t just come back to loiter on rooftops and haunt old friends."

He chuckled again, but it didn’t reach his eyes. "I’ve been working on something. A project. Something big."

She didn’t answer, just waited, still as the concrete beneath them.

"It’s tech," he continued, leaning on the railing again, gaze drifting out over the city. "Osc—well, he wouldn’t get it. He’s got his whole... moral compass thing going. But you always saw things clearer."

"You mean I didn’t try to stop you when you crossed lines."

"No," he said, with a flash of sincerity. "You understood why I crossed them."

That silenced her.

"I need someone who can help me with the neurological interface part," Logan said after a pause. "It’s experimental. Military-adjacent, but I’m reworking the design. Smarter, more elegant. I’ve hit a wall."

"And you thought of me."

He looked at her again. This time, there was no smirk. Just that boy she used to know, hidden somewhere behind too many sleepless nights and bad decisions.

"I never stopped thinking about you."

The lights flickered above them, a thousand pinpricks in the corridor.

"I’ll send you the specs," he said, without much more, heading toward the stairwell. "Just have a look. That’s all I’m asking."

He paused at the door.

"I missed you."

Then he was gone.

And she stood there alone with her cold coffee and thoughts, because the boy she’d loved was still in there somewhere.

But something else was growing in him, too.

Something dangerous.

Her flat still smelled faintly of jasmine and burnt toast. Comfort and chaos in equal measure. She tossed her keys onto the counter, kicked off her boots, and tried not to think about how Logan had sounded when he said I missed you.

She failed, obviously.

The email came in not long after she’d switched on the little lamp by the sofa, its warm glow chasing away the creeping dusk. Subject line: Interface: concept files. No message, just the attachment. Classic Logan. All mystery, no manners.

She hesitated before opening it. Something in her gut twisted, instinct honed over years of knowing when things seemed fine but weren’t. Still, curiosity had always been her fatal flaw, and Logan had always known how to wield it.

The file was... extensive. Schematics, neural maps, prototype visuals. It wasn’t just “tech.” It was weaponry. Not in the conventional sense, but in potential. A sleek glider prototype integrated with AI feedback loops. A cognitive synchronisation helmet that could read and respond to neural signals in real time. And then there were notes in the margins, written in Logan’s exacting hand.

Emotional override needed. Current model reacts too strongly to fear.

Must correct aggression triggers. Still too unpredictable. Or not?

User = control. No limits. No interference.

Her heart beat faster the more she read.

It was brilliant. Unquestionably. Years ahead of what most companies were developing. But there was a coldness to it, a ruthlessness she didn’t recognise. Or maybe she did, and just hadn’t wanted to see it before.

She pushed the laptop away, stood, started pacing. There’d been late-night conversations once, Logan talking about power, about how the world didn’t reward kindness, about how if he had control, things would be different. Better. He’d laughed when she called him dramatic. Said she didn’t get it.

Maybe she hadn't.

Until now.

A knock rattled the door. Sharp. Three taps.

Her heart lurched, she didn’t know why, but she opened it without checking the peephole.

Oscar stood there. Hoodie up. Eyes wide.

“You saw him,” he said.

She nodded.

“He gave you something, didn’t he?”

She stepped back silently, let him in. He stalked to the kitchen like he lived there, which, in some ways, he always had.

“I didn’t open it right away,” she said, like it mattered.

Oscar didn’t look at her. His jaw was tight.

“He’s not just back to catch up,” he said. “He’s working with people. Dangerous ones.”

“How do you know?”

He finally turned, and there it was, that look again. Like he’d seen too much. Like he was balancing on a knife’s edge between exhaustion and something heavier.

“Because I followed him last night,” he admitted. “I saw him meeting with Oscorp defectors. People no one good wants to be seen with. And I found this.”

He pulled something from his jacket, crumpled, faintly singed. A test printout. Identical design language to the file on her screen. Same logo Logan had tried to scrub from the schematics. Only this version had a name scrawled across the top.

“Project Harpy.”

She stared. “Harpy?”

Oscar nodded grimly. “Old military codename. The original model was meant for field destabilisation, crowd control through terror. They scrapped it. Too unstable. Logan’s trying to rebuild it.”

She sat down, hard.

“So what do we do?” she whispered.

Oscar’s expression darkened. “We stop him.”

But she wasn’t sure if he meant to stop the project.

Or stop Logan.

She didn’t speak for a long time.

She just let Oscar talk while he moved around the kitchen like he needed to, like stillness might swallow him whole. He talked of what they could do with liminal information until the sunset. He had poured two mugs of tea even though she hadn’t asked, but at no point did she talk about the file, until she did.

The sun began to set through her small window when she pointed at her screen.

“He’s not building a weapon,” she said eventually. “Not just that. It’s like he’s building himself into it.”

Oscar’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?” She hesitated. The words were thick in her throat. “He used to talk about it. Control. Power. Not having to be afraid anymore.” Oscar leaned against the side of the sofa, his shoulders taut. “He was afraid. All the time. You know that.”

“I know,” she said. Quiet. “I was there.” And suddenly she was back there. Fourteen, rain on the fire escape, Logan shaking with cold and rage after another row with his dad, her arms around him, his whisper against her skin: Don’t let go. Promise you won’t let go.  (By the way the devilish idea i have for this part)

And she hadn’t.

Not until he made her.

Oscar watched her carefully. Like he saw too much and said too little.

“You cared about him.” It wasn’t a question.

She didn’t deny it. She didn’t look at him either.

“It wasn’t just friendship,” she said finally. “But it never became anything, not really. Just moments.”

Oscar nodded slowly, like he was memorising the shape of that hurt. He didn’t push. He never did. 

“You should get some rest,” he said. His voice was gentler now. “You’ve been up since early this morning, and this isn’t something we’ll figure out in one night.”

She didn’t argue. Her limbs were heavy, and the anxiety had started to settle somewhere deep in her chest, too wide to dislodge. Still, when she walked toward the bedroom, Oscar followed, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

It had happened before. Sleepless nights and old films, falling asleep shoulder to shoulder on the sofa when the city felt too loud. This was just that again. Except it wasn’t.

He hesitated at the door.

"You sure?" he asked, quiet.

She nodded. "Yeah. I don’t want to be alone tonight."

And he didn’t say anything more. Just stepped inside and laid down on the far side of the bed, facing the ceiling. There was space between them. Not enough, not really.

She lay on her side, back to him, staring at the wall.

Her mind was still on Logan.

On the way he’d looked at her, like she was still his. The way he’d said ‘I missed you’ and made it sound like a promise and a warning at once.

He wasn’t just back with a plan. He was back with purpose. And she knew, deep in her bones, that he’d find a way to use what they’d shared. Twist it. Weaponise it, like everything else.

Oscar shifted behind her. She could feel the warmth of him, the rise and fall of his breathing.

He didn’t touch her. Didn’t try to.

But there was something unspoken in the air between them, like maybe he wanted to. Like maybe he had for a long time.

She closed her eyes.

And all she could see was Logan.

The morning came grey and low, clouds pressed against the windows like the city itself couldn’t quite wake up.

She blinked against the dull light, the bedsheets twisted around her legs. The other side of the bed was empty, cold already. Oscar was gone.

She sat up slowly, brushing her hair from her face, the weight of the night before still knotted in her chest. For a moment, she let herself wonder if she’d imagined him being there at all, just another ghost in an apartment full of them.

When she stepped out into the front room, the kettle was cooling down. A cup of tea waited in the microwave, hastily made, eliciting a small chuckle out of her. He’d always done the same thing in the past couple of months.

From the corridor she could hear her neighbour’s cat meowing for access to the balcony. She walked to the front door, turned the bolt then pulled, only to get halted by the chain still being on. 

She frowned.

Oscar couldn’t have left that on from the inside. Not unless…

She stopped herself. Told herself he’d maybe left through the fire escape even though he knew it was dangerous. 

But something about it itched at the edge of her thoughts.

Brushing it off, she let the cat out and walked back into the kitchen, pulling out the cold tea, not bothering to heat it.

Logan’s file still sat open on her laptop, the schematics staring back at her like a dare. She skimmed them again—lines and circuits, symbols she recognised from years of university lectures, annotated with little notes only someone who knew her would write.

You always hated redundancies. Fixed it for you.

Bet you’d tell me this is idiotic. (You’re probably right.)

It was the kind of thing he used to do. Tease. Impress. Show off. It used to make her laugh. Now it made her heart sit wrong in her chest.

She walked up to the laptop and noticed something she hadn’t earlier, then she grabbed her coat.

Fuck looking like a normal human being, she thought.

Then in her head she heard sixteen year old Logan in her head, “Who would even care if I walked out the house in my boxers, we’re in New York!”

The note had an address, the building across town where her and Logan went when Oscar was working. An old sublet on East 19th. Classic Logan.

She told herself she was only going to get answers, that she wasn’t seeking him out. 

The streets were quieter than usual. Maybe the weather had kept people in bed longer. Or maybe the city was holding its breath. 

She reached the building just after eight. Tall, red brick, windows like hollow eyes. The lift here did work, and she took it up to the aforementioned floor, her heart shuddering harader with every number that ticked past. It wasn’t normal for an office this big to be so empty.

When the doors opened, he was already waiting.

Like he’d known she’d come.

“Morning, love,” Logan said, barefoot, tousle haired, mug in hand. He looked too at ease in this makeshift studio. “Miss me already?” She stepped out slowly, ignoring the flutter in her chest. “Where is everyone?”

He tilted his head. “Funny thing about abandoned buildings. They tend to be, well. Abandoned.”

“You’re working out of this?” she asked, eyebrows lifting. “Seems dramatic, even for you.”

He took a sip of his coffee, unbothered. “Bit of peace and quiet does wonders. Besides…” He leaned against the doorframe, gaze trailing down her like a memory. “Nice of you to drop in first thing in the morning. Makes it less lonely.”

“You’re working out of this?” she asked, raising a brow. “Seems dramatic, even for you.”

He took a sip of his coffee, completely unbothered. “Bit of peace and quiet does wonders. Besides…” His gaze flicked over her, slow and deliberate. “Nice of you to drop in first thing in the morning. Makes it less lonely.”

She folded her arms. “You left that address on purpose.”

Logan didn’t deny it. Just smiled. “Wasn’t sure you’d catch it. But I figured if you did, you’d come.”

“I came for answers.”

“No, you came because you’re curious,” he said, stepping back into the open space of the studio. “Same as always. You can’t help yourself.”

She looked to her left where she could hear some whirring. The makeshift lab was cleaner than she expected, industrial, minimal. Wires looped neatly along the floor, diagrams pinned in lines along the concrete wall. In the centre, the table buzzed softly with low-power tech, a prototype glinting in the low light like something half-born.

She walked past him, slowly, keeping her distance. “Oscar said you’ve lost it.”

Logan gave a low laugh. “Oscar’s always needed someone to blame. You know that.”

“He’s not wrong about this.”

He came to stand beside her, not too close, just enough that she could feel the heat off him. His voice lowered.

“But you didn’t turn away either, did you?”

She looked down at the schematics spread across the table. Her fingers itched to move the pieces around, rearrange the formulae like puzzle pieces, solve it before he could ruin it.

“I’m not saying it’s safe,” she murmured. “But if I help you. If I take charge of the framework, maybe it doesn’t have to be dangerous.”

His smile deepened. “There’s the girl I remember.”

She shot him a sharp look, but he only stepped closer.

“I don’t need saving, you know,” he said, voice softening. “You’re not here to fix me. You’re here because part of you gets it. Part of you wants this.”

She swallowed. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Make it sound like we’re on the same side.”

“But we are,” he said, and this time his hand brushed hers as he reached past her, innocent, almost, except for the way his fingers lingered. “You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

She could feel the pull of him then, quiet and dangerous, like gravity had changed its mind about how the world worked. Her skin was humming with it.

“I knew you’d come around,” he whispered.

Her breath caught, just for a second. His face was close now, the warm edge of his smile only inches from hers. Not cocky. Not smug. Something gentler. A softness that wasn’t supposed to be there.

And that’s what made it dangerous.

She should have stepped back.

That would’ve been the smart thing, the right thing. But her feet didn’t move, and neither did his, and between them was a silence that thrummed with everything unsaid.

Logan's eyes searched hers, not in that arrogant way he used to do when he knew he had the upper hand, but quieter. Something unreadable settled behind his lashes. Like he was trying to remember the shape of her from the inside out.

"You’re shaking," he murmured, voice barely above a breath.

She wasn’t. Not really. Just, wired. Overcaffeinated without the caffeine. Her nerves pulling taut in ways they hadn’t in years.

"No, I’m not."

"You are," he said, and there was something close to amusement in his voice, but not cruel. Just observant. Just Logan. "You always do, when you’re trying to make a decision too fast."

She looked down. At his hand on the table beside hers. At the blue glow of the screen reflecting off the metal. Her voice came out smaller than she meant it to.

"You don’t get to do that. Pretend like nothing’s changed."

His head tilted slightly. "Who’s pretending?"

"You left." She met his gaze again, steadier now. "You disappeared and let us believe—"

"I didn’t want you part of it," he said quickly, not sharply, but with a force that startled her. "You and Oscar. You still see the world like it’s got rules. I see it for what it really is."

"You think that makes you better?"

"No." He paused. "I think it makes me prepared."

She stared at him. "You’re planning something you can’t undo."

He didn’t argue. Just leaned in slightly, enough that his breath hit the edge of her cheek. “Maybe. But if you’re there to build it with me, then maybe it won’t need undoing.”

The worst part was, a part of her understood. Not agreed. But understood.

And that part of her wanted to reach for the plans. To take the mess he’d made and drag it into something better. Safer. Less like him.

Her throat was tight. “This isn’t fair.”

"What isn’t?"

"You. Doing this." Her hands balled into fists. "Looking at me like that."

He smiled again, soft. Painful. “Like what?”

“Like you’re still sixteen and I’m still stupid enough to believe you'd never hurt me.”

That landed. She saw it flicker through him, fast, behind his eyes.

“I never meant to,” he said quietly.

Silence fell again, sharp-edged and too loud.

Then, softer this time, gentler: “You don’t have to say yes right now. Just don’t walk away.”

She should. She should. But instead she found herself sitting on the edge of the table, just beside him, her shoulder brushing his.

She didn’t look at him. “This doesn’t mean anything.”

“Sure,” he said, a little laugh curling under the word. “Of course not.”

His thigh pressed lightly against hers. The contact was nothing. Barely there.

The distance between them had dissolved without her noticing, and now it was all heat and unspoken things sitting heavy between them.

The blue light of the schematics cast soft shadows across his jaw. He looked almost gentle like this, in the stillness. Almost.

And then her phone buzzed in her pocket, she pulled it out.

They both glanced down at the screen.

Oscar.

She froze.

Logan looked too, and smirked. “Well, well. Speak of the boy scout.”

She hesitated, thumb hovering over the screen.

“You should answer,” Logan said, casual, but something about the way he leaned back slightly told her he was watching very, very closely.

She swiped to pick up, bringing the phone to her ear. Her voice came out thin, too even. “Hey.”

“Where are you?” Oscar’s voice was immediate. Concerned. “I’m at yours, doors open but unless you’re hiding from me I can't find you.”

She glanced sideways, heart pounding. Logan had turned away, giving her space, but not really. His head was tilted just enough to hear every word.

“I’m getting bagels,” she said quickly. “Sorry. Forgot my phone was in my pocket.”

A beat. Oscar didn’t sound suspicious, just soft. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just… needed air. I’ll be back soon.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll wait.”

She hung up before he could say anything else. The quiet in the room returned like a blanket pulled too tight.

Logan turned back to her, expression unreadable.

Then he reached out, slowly, fingertips brushing a strand of hair behind her ear before trailing lightly down to her cheek. The touch was maddeningly soft. Familiar.

“Some things never change,” he murmured, thumb grazing her skin. “You’re still covering for me.”

Her breath caught. She was furious at the way her chest responded to it.

“I used to cover for you when you skipped school or snuck out past curfew,” she said, voice sharp. “Or when your dad came asking where you were and I had to lie to his face.”

“This isn’t that,” he said, quiet now. “I know.”

She looked away, jaw tight. “Don’t make this something it’s not.”

His hand dropped, but the air still felt like it was holding its breath.

“I don’t have to,” he said simply. “You’re already here.”

Two weeks passed, just like that.

The city moved around her, traffic and sirens and steam rising from manhole covers, but it all felt quieter somehow. Like her world had shrunk down to two flats, a laptop, and a dozen unsent texts.

She was spending her mornings at Oscar’s, helping him track down fluctuations in the local power grid, strange pulses he swore weren’t natural, though he never quite said what he thought they were. Afternoons were spent in Logan’s repurposed studio, surrounded by circuitry, algorithms, and a headache that wouldn’t quite go away.

She told herself she was keeping both of them from doing something stupid.

Logan’s work had evolved. Rapidly. Too rapidly, if she was honest. The first few days were just sorting through the wreckage of what he’d built alone, poor shielding, over-ambitious neural syncing, feedback loops that would’ve fried the average person’s spine.

She’d streamlined it. Quietly, carefully. Introduced control parameters, adjusted the safety thresholds. He let her, too. Even seemed to enjoy having her close, watching over his shoulder like she was the only one who could keep him steady.

Sometimes he didn’t even say anything, just looked at her like he was memorising the way she moved.

Other times, he flirted like it was breathing.

“I still think the copper’s a bad call,” she muttered one afternoon, squinting at the prototype’s inner casing.

“Still bossy, I see,” Logan replied, crouching beside her. “Haven’t changed since you used to correct my spelling.”

“I was right then, too.”

He laughed, low and warm. “Yeah. You usually are.”

He was close again. He always was. There was always a reason for him to lean in, reach past her, touch her arm or shoulder in a way that felt like an accident and wasn’t.

And she let him. She told herself it didn’t mean anything. That this was about control. Keeping him from spiralling.

But when he looked at her, sometimes it felt like the ground wasn’t solid beneath her feet.

Meanwhile, Oscar…

Oscar had started keeping things from her.

She noticed it first in the small things. His laptop slammed shut when she walked in. A folder buried too deep in his hard drive. The time he said he was on a walk but came home bruised and didn’t explain why.

She didn’t push, not yet. But it stuck to her, that unease. Oscar didn’t lie. He never lied.

And that, somehow, made it worse.

“You’re working too hard,” he told her one night, curled up on her sofa, hoodie pulled over his head. “You haven’t had a proper meal in days.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. I can see it.”

He passed her a takeaway container without a word. She took it. Ate. Didn’t mention the thin layer of grime under his fingernails or the split on his knuckle.

She couldn’t be in two places at once. Couldn’t keep playing translator between two boys who wouldn’t speak to each other, both of them caught in some war she didn’t fully understand.

But she stayed.

Because part of her believed she could still save this—save them.

Even if it cost her something she hadn’t yet named.

The prototype pulsed with light now. Not constant—irregular, like a heartbeat gone wrong.

She sat on the floor of Logan’s studio, cables tangled at her knees, half a dozen failed failsafes spread out in a messy sprawl beside her. The heat off the core was stronger than it had been yesterday. Too strong.

“You pushed it again,” she muttered, pulling off her jumper and tossing it aside. The room felt like a greenhouse.

Logan crouched beside the desk, tools in hand, utterly unbothered. “Tweaked the resonance field. It’s stabilising, relax.”

“No, it isn’t,” she snapped. “You’re running through safeguards faster than I can write them.”

He looked over his shoulder at her, smirking. “Don’t sound so impressed.”

She didn’t answer. She was too busy running diagnostics on the regulator he’d overclocked while she was out yesterday. Again.

“Logan, if this field collapses, you’re not walking away. I won’t be able to stop it next time.”

His smile faltered, just slightly.

“You could always walk,” he said after a beat, soft.

She didn’t reply. Couldn’t.

Because he knew she wouldn’t.

That night at Oscar’s, she barely spoke. She sat at the window while he worked on his computer behind her, typing fast, a faint tremor in his right hand. She stared down at the streetlights blurring in the rain, her thoughts still half in the lab.

Oscar’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it, frowned, then stood.

“I’ll be back in a bit.”

She looked over. “Now?”

“Yeah. Just need to check on something near the subway. Weird power spike.” He shrugged on his jacket.

“Want help?”

He hesitated. “No. It’s… not that kind of thing.”

She nodded slowly. “You’ve been saying that a lot lately.”

Oscar didn’t respond.

She found the first real clue two days later.

She was at hers, rummaging for the spare charger Oscar kept leaving behind, when she noticed his hoodie hanging on the back of her chair. Not unusual. But when she picked it up, something dropped out of the pocket.

A small, torn scrap of red fabric. Coarse. Like something from a costume.

And blood. Dried.

Her stomach turned.

In Logan’s studio, the tech was louder now. Humming, thrumming. Hungry.

“You need to slow down,” she said firmly, voice hoarse from too many sleepless nights.

He looked at her, really looked, and for a second there was a flicker of something that unsettled her.

“I can’t,” he said. “We’re so close.”

“Close to what?”

He didn’t answer.

She opened the interface, scanning the data. “You adjusted the neuro-link sequence without telling me.”

“I knew you’d try to stop me,” he said simply.

She stared at him. “That’s not how this works.”

“It is now.”

And still she didn’t leave.

The following night she didn’t sleep.

Not really.

Between the hum of Logan’s project, now an ever-present pressure at the base of her skull, and Oscar’s half-answers, dodged questions, and suspicious bruises, sleep had become more theory than reality.

The next time she saw Oscar, it was because she followed him.

She hadn’t meant to. She told herself she was just walking the same way. That she was being ridiculous. That the scrap of red in his hoodie pocket meant nothing.

But then he ducked down an alley. Pulled something from under his hoodie.

A mask.

Her heart stopped.

Not metaphorically. Actually, stopped.

She stepped back, too fast, her heel scuffing the concrete. A tiny sound. He heard it.

“Hello?” Oscar turned, eyes narrowing behind the red half-mask. The rest was still bunched in his hand.

She froze.

He stared. She stared back.

Silence swelled.

Then, quietly: “…You followed me?”

She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how to breathe, let alone speak.

Oscar’s shoulders dropped. His hand dragged down his face. “Shit.”

“You’re Spider-Man.”

It wasn’t a question. She already knew. Knew in the pit of her stomach, where every late night and bruised knuckle and sudden disappearance made a sick kind of sense.

He didn’t deny it. Just looked at her, gutted.

“I was going to tell you.”

“When?” Her voice was sharp. “Before or after I found your blood all over my living room?”

Oscar winced. “I didn’t want to put you in danger—”

She laughed. Bitter. “Bit late for that.”

She left before he could explain more. She couldn’t hear it, not then. Not while her phone buzzed again with another update from Logan’s build log, another late-night adjustment she hadn’t signed off on.

When she got back to the studio that night, the air felt wrong. Too charged.

The prototype was alive now. She didn’t know what else to call it. It moved, pulsed, responded.

Logan was there, barefoot, sleeves rolled up, eyes wild with possibility.

“You’re back,” he said, barely glancing away from the display. “Look at it. It’s listening to me now.”

“It’s not supposed to listen to you,” she snapped, storming in. “It’s supposed to run on code, not instinct.”

He shrugged, unapologetic. “I rewrote the framework.”

“You rewrote the laws of physics, Logan. That wasn’t the deal.”

He finally looked at her. Really looked. And for the first time in days, he frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re asking me now?” she snapped. “After pushing this thing to near-collapse? After locking me out of your logs for twelve hours?”

“I knew you’d try to stop me.”

“You don’t get to cut me out and still act like we’re on the same team.”

The lights on the core flared, hot, blue-white. She stepped back.

“This isn’t what we started,” she said, quieter. “You’re not building something. You’re becoming it.”

Logan’s eyes softened, but it didn’t comfort her. It made her skin crawl.

“You sound like him.”

“Don’t,” she said.

“Why? He’s the hero now, yeah?” Logan’s voice was almost calm, but it carried teeth. “Little Mr Boy Scout. You going to run to him now? Tell him how to stop me?”

“I didn’t run to anyone. I tried to fix this.”

He stepped closer. Too close.

“But you knew. All this time, you knew you’d have to choose.”

She didn’t answer.

Because he was right.

And she hated that more than anything.

She didn’t remember getting home.

Her keys had slipped once at the door, hands shaking, and she’d stood in the hall for a full minute before trying again. Inside, the apartment felt alien, like she was walking through someone else’s life. Same chipped mugs in the sink. Same plant in the corner. But her breath wouldn’t steady.

She dropped her bag in the hallway, still half-zipped. Kicked off her shoes. Didn’t even bother with the lights.

She collapsed onto the sofa, knees to her chest, arms wrapped tight like she could physically hold herself together.

Then the tears came.

Silent at first. Just that awful stinging behind her eyes, the kind that made you clench your jaw until it ached. But then they spilled—fast and hot, her face buried in the sleeve of her hoodie, sobs breaking loose in sharp bursts.

She cried for Logan. For Oscar. For the version of herself that used to laugh when they bickered and dreamed about changing the world.

She cried because she didn’t know who to save anymore. Or if she could.

And eventually, exhausted, she crawled into bed and let the darkness take her.

Somewhere else in the city, Logan didn’t sleep.

He stood in the centre of his makeshift lab, hands trembling slightly with the excitement. He had done it. He had done it.

The prototype was alive. The neural interface he’d spent weeks perfecting hummed quietly beneath his fingertips. Every line of code he’d written, every sleepless night, all the warnings he’d ignored—he could feel it now, like a rush of euphoria. It was working. It was all working.

The helmet sat next to him, sleek, matte-black, perfect in its design. But that wasn’t the prize. No, the real victory was the neural link, the thing embedded deep into his spine now, fusing with him. The prototype wasn’t just a tool anymore. It was an extension of him. It was him.

He grinned, sliding the helmet onto his head with a steady hand. The system activated almost immediately, a soft pulse across his temples as the neural interface kicked in. He could feel it, like a second mind connecting with his own, feeding him streams of data in a way he'd never known before.

For a moment, there was only clarity. Pure, untainted clarity. He could see everything, every problem, every solution, unfolding right before him like an intricate map.

Logan’s breath was slow and deep, taking it all in.

“This is it,” he muttered under his breath, a satisfied grin spreading across his face. “I’m better than I’ve ever been.”

But something shifted in that moment. The device, still humming beneath his skin, pulsed again. Stronger. A sharp, sudden sensation rippled through his back as if a small surge of electricity shot through his spine. He flinched, but only briefly. It was... new. But it didn’t hurt. No, it was something else. Something... right. He wanted to feel it again. To keep pushing, to see how far it could go.

He let the neural link go further, feeling it sync even deeper. His movements were faster now, every thought sharper, more precise. His hands moved on their own accord, as if his body had learned a new language, a secret code he hadn’t known existed.

Then, with a sickening click, the mechanism inside him did something unexpected.

It shifted.

He froze as the connection between his mind and the device deepened, spreading like roots beneath his skin. His spine arched involuntarily. The sensation was so strong, like a burning thread threading into the base of his skull and down into his very bones.

“Shit,” Logan breathed, but his voice was strange to him. As if someone else were speaking through him.

The machine responded, not in words, but in need, an urgent pressure building in the back of his mind.

He could feel it now. A presence. Something more than just the tech he’d so carefully crafted. It wasn’t just a tool anymore. It was beginning to take control.

But there was no panic. No fear. Logan didn’t fight it. He welcomed it.

Because this... this was power. True, unbridled power.

The device shifted again. It was deeper now, rooted inside him, crawling into places his mind could no longer reach. He could feel something warm spread under his skin—a new sensation, foreign but thrilling. The neural link was more than he’d ever imagined, connecting him to a world of data, a world of control.

And that was when it happened.

The device, a part of him now, locked in.

A flash of metal. Then, suddenly, his back screamed as the device pressed itself fully into his body, sharp, invasive, but unmistakably his. He felt it—like a part of him had been replaced. A pulse of satisfaction rippled through him, and Logan gasped, arching his back with the sensation.

He laughed then. Giddy. Overjoyed.

“I knew you’d get it right, mate,” he whispered to himself, eyes wide with exhilaration.

Then, with an almost casual ease, he lifted his hand. The suit flickered to life around him, surrounding him like a second skin, sleek and dangerous.

Logan’s grin spread wider.

This was only the beginning.

It wasn’t long before Logan’s chaos began to bleed into the city.

The streets had always been a chaotic tangle of New York life, but now it was... different. A sense of purpose flowed through the air, heavier, more suffocating. The city had no idea what was coming for it.

First, it was the banks. Security systems shorted out, alarms blaring as vaults cracked open. But there was no robbery, just the vault doors hanging open in a strange, silent invitation. Then, the power grids flickered, like the entire city was breathing under his control. The hum of lights and machines warped, flashing erratically as if they were under a spell.

And then came the sky.

Logan hovered just above the city, a dark silhouette against the glow of Manhattan’s skyline. He watched as the skyline bent to his will, grinning, watching the chaos unfold. His body, still bound in that sleek suit, pulsed with the unnatural energy the machine had given him. His back burned with every pulse, but it wasn’t pain—it was power.

And the power tasted sweeter with every second.

Back at her apartment, she jerked awake.

A crash. Her eyes shot open. A sound too loud. Too close.

For a moment, she didn’t move. Just stared into the dark, trying to will the sleepiness out of her bones.

The next crash was louder. A thud against the fire exit door. Her heart skipped a beat.

She shot up, breathing shallow, slipping out of bed. She grabbed her phone for light, but instinct told her exactly what she’d find.

Her bare feet hit the cold floor, and she made her way towards the balcony, hesitating just before the door. The night air pressed against the glass.

She reached for the handle, taking a breath, and then—

The door swung open.

She froze.

There, standing tall and too at ease on the balcony, was Logan.

But he wasn’t the Logan she knew.

The suit he wore was alive with that strange pulse, glowing faintly like it was breathing. It wasn’t just a suit anymore. It was part of him.

He turned to her, a flicker of recognition behind his eyes, but it was distant. Cold. Something had shifted.

A slow smile spread across his face, but it wasn’t playful. Not the teasing grin from their past.

“Hello, love,” Logan’s voice was flat, empty. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

She swallowed. “Logan...?”

He stepped closer, his eyes locked on hers with an unsettling focus. Then, without hesitation, he reached up and pulled off the helmet, tossing it aside.

And for a moment, everything was still.

His eyes, empty. Hollow. Not a trace of the boy she used to know. No warmth, no playfulness, just this void.

Her heart twisted painfully in her chest as the entire suit shifted, shrinking away from his body. It detached slowly, too slowly, as if the suit was resisting coming off. But eventually, the black, sleek material slipped away, revealing his bare chest. His torso was toned, but marked with strange, angular scars, and along his spine, there was a faint glow beneath his skin. The machine inside him, pulsing like a second heartbeat.

Logan stood there, chest rising with the faintest of breaths, eyes cold as ice.

“It worked,” he said, voice low, almost a whisper. “You helped me make it work. And now…” He took a slow step forward, closing the space between them.

She took a step back. “What... What are you doing, Logan?”

His lips curled upward into something that was not quite a smile.

“Doing?” He stepped closer again, his presence overwhelming, suffocating. “I’m taking control. Taking what’s mine. This city—hell, the world—it’s mine now. And I’ll do what I want with it.” He gestured to the machine on his back, an almost reverent look in his eyes. “I’ve earned this, haven’t I?”

Tears welled up in her eyes. Her body trembled, unable to contain the sharp, raw sorrow that hit her all at once. “Logan, please, this isn’t you. This isn’t what we wanted.”

Logan chuckled, a dark, cruel sound. “This is exactly what I wanted. This is the future. The one I should’ve had all along.”

The pain in her chest deepened, and she couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. She stepped back, clenching her fists as sobs wracked her body. “I—I tried. I tried to stop you...”

Logan’s gaze softened for a moment, just a moment. But it was fleeting. He stepped forward again, closing the distance.

“Sometimes people just need a little... push.” He brushed a hand across her cheek, the warmth of it a stark contrast to the coldness in his eyes. “Thanks for helping me get here. I couldn't have done it without you.”

She flinched away from his touch. “Please, Logan... don’t do this. You’re not a monster.”

He didn’t reply. He only stepped back, looking at her one last time, eyes unreadable.

“You’ve got your own path now. And I’ve got mine.”

With that, he turned, stepping into the night putting his helmet back on, the suit forming back around him as he disappeared into the city’s skyline.

She stood there, trembling, heart breaking in her chest. The tears fell freely now, silent, unstoppable.

She collapsed onto the floor, pulling her knees to her chest, shaking as she let it all out.

And then, almost instinctively, she reached for her phone.

Oscar’s name flashed on the screen, a call already incoming.

She answered before she even thought about it. Her voice was shaky, tear-filled.

“Os... Oscar...” She couldn’t hold it together. “I—I need you.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, voice sharp with concern. “Where are you?”

“I—I’m at my apartment. But it’s...” She choked on the words. “It’s Logan. He’s... he’s gone too far.”

Oscar was quiet for a long moment. “What happened?”

“I couldn’t save him, Oscar,” she whispered. “He’s not the boy we knew. He’s something else. And I—I couldn’t stop it.”

Another beat of silence.

“I’m coming,” Oscar said, the urgency in his voice clearer now. “I’ll be there. Just hang on.”

But as she hung up, all she could do was sit there, hands trembling, staring at the dark, empty space where Logan had stood.

The city had just gotten darker.

She didn’t move.

The night had cooled, but she didn’t feel it. The city buzzed and breathed beneath her, unaware of the shift that had just taken place. The world looked the same, and yet everything had changed.

She stayed crouched, arms wrapped around her knees, eyes fixed on the spot where Logan had stood. The faint imprint of his boots was still on the concrete, the last ghost of him. The boy she’d known, laughed with, fought with, loved in some strange, quiet way, was gone. She’d seen it in his eyes. There was nothing left to reach for now.

The machine had taken him.

And worse, she had helped.

She didn’t hear him at first. There was just a breeze, a shift in the air, then the soft sound of the railing above just shifting.

Her breath caught.

She looked up.

There he was, silhouetted against the sky, crouched in that way only he could, black and red suit hugging to every line of him. The mask was off.

Oscar.

His brown hair was messy, eyes wide, searching. 

His expression dropped when he saw her.

“Hey,” he said, soft, like she might shatter.

She didn’t respond.

He stepped off the railing and landed with barely a sound, moving toward her like he wasn’t sure if she’d let him close. She watched him the whole time, as if she was trying to reconcile the boy next door with the man in the suit. She hadn’t let herself picture him like this, not really. But now, here he was.

Not a rumour. Not a hunch.

Spider-Man.

She blinked at him. “It’s really you.”

He nodded, a bit helpless. “Yeah.”

She let out a quiet breath, something bitter on her tongue. “God, of course it is.”

Oscar crouched beside her, close enough that their knees nearly touched. “I wanted to tell you so many times. I just, I didn’t want you to look at me differently.”

She let out a small laugh, raw and humourless. “Oscar, I’ve just watched someone I love walk off my balcony with a machine in his spine and a war in his eyes. You actually being Spider-Man barely makes the top three things ruining my week.”

His face faltered, and she saw the guilt tighten around his eyes. She hated that it made her want to comfort him, when she was the one falling apart.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She shook her head. “It’s not your fault. None of this is.”

Oscar hesitated, then reached out slowly, his fingers brushing hers where they rested on the cold concrete. She didn’t pull away.

“Was it really that bad?” he asked.

She turned to look at him then, really looked at him.

“It wasn’t Logan anymore,” she said. “He took off his mask and there was just… nothing. Like he’s not even in there. Just this thing. This machine. And he thanked me. He thanked me, Oscar, like I was the final piece he needed to destroy everything.”

Oscar didn’t say anything. He just took her hand properly now, fingers curling around hers. She let him. It was warm. Grounding.

“I tried to save him,” she whispered. “I thought if I stayed close, if I made the plan safer, I could stop it getting this far. I really thought I could pull him back.”

Oscar’s thumb brushed over her knuckles. “You don’t give up on people. That’s what makes you... you.”

Her throat tightened.

“I think I’ve finally lost him.”

Oscar looked away, jaw tense. “Then we’ll stop what’s left of him.”

She glanced down at their joined hands, then back at his face—open, earnest, a little scared. She saw everything now. The boy she grew up with. The man he was becoming. Spider-Man. Oscar. All of it.

“I didn’t want you to be this,” she murmured, more to herself. “Didn’t want you to have to carry this, too.”

His voice was soft. “I don’t have to. Not alone.”

The tears came again, but quieter this time. She leaned forward and let her forehead rest against his. He didn’t move. Just stayed there with her, in the quiet, in the heartbreak.

The city roared on below.

But for a moment, there was only the two of them.

Still.

Together.

Waiting for the dawn.

Logan was quiet for a few days.

Too quiet.

The news blamed the citywide power outage on a transformer fault in Queens. A minor fire, a bit of faulty wiring, easily fixed. No casualties. Nothing to worry about.

She didn’t believe it for a second.

She’d seen the look in his eyes that night. The machine in his back hadn’t just bonded, it had chosen him. The silence that followed wasn’t peace. It was the kind of stillness just before the storm breaks.

She went through the motions. Helped Oscar with patch-ups, tracked minor disturbances around the city, and pretended, poorly, that she was sleeping at night. But the weight in her chest never lifted. It sat there, heavy and constant, like something had already begun to rot.

It was the fourth morning after Logan had crashed onto her balcony when she woke up with that feeling.

It wasn’t panic. Not quite. It was deeper. Older. Something primitive, instinctual. Like the way birds knew when to fly south. She blinked at the ceiling, her body still, her skin prickling.

She knew where she needed to go.

She didn’t shower. Didn’t dress properly. Just jeans, a hoodie, old trainers. The studio on East had been left untouched since Logan vanished into the sky, but the thought of it sat stubbornly in her gut.

She walked. No cab, no train. Just her and the cold spring wind, biting through her sleeves and keeping her sharp. The city was halfway between sleep and wakefulness, too early for full chaos, too late for quiet.

When she got to the building, the doors were jammed with a piece of scrap metal Logan had clearly wedged there. It took effort to get inside, but eventually, she slipped past the creaking frame and stepped into the hushed stillness of the lobby and up the stairs.

Dust floated in the light like falling ash.

The desk was as he’d left it. Blueprints scattered, wires half-soldered, bits of tech that buzzed faintly with residual charge. She moved carefully, like disturbing anything might trigger some dormant trap.

She pulled the schematics towards her, different from the ones he’d left on her laptop. These were earlier. Cruder. Full of aggressive red ink. One line circled in particular, over and over again: Adaptive neural integration interface.

She stared at it. Below, a note in his handwriting: If it bonds properly, it learns. Improves. Evolves.

She felt cold all over.

Then she noticed something else, a flash drive tucked beneath a paperweight. No label. Just a scratch down one side like it had been jammed into too many ports too fast.

She slipped it into her coat pocket.

That night, the city began to burn.

She didn’t see the first explosion, she felt it. The tremor in the air. The faint hum through the soles of her feet. Then came the sirens, the lights, the swell of panic rising like a tide.

People pointed at the sky. Phones were raised. Social media lit up.

A shadow swept across midtown, unnatural, too fast to be a drone, too erratic to be human. Police scanners scrambled to keep up. A laboratory in Tribeca collapsed in on itself. A substation in Brooklyn sparked, then died.

And then, at 1:07 a.m., she opened her window and saw him.

Logan.

Hovering, back arched with the pulse of the suit. The device on his spine glowed like an exposed heart, veins of light crawling up his neck, down his arms. He moved like liquid shadow, graceful, terrifying, wrong.

A building behind him erupted in a blossom of fire.

She gripped the window ledge, breath caught in her throat.

This was no test run. This was war.

She stayed by the window for too long.

Too long to pretend she wasn’t watching. Too long to convince herself she wasn’t hoping, praying, that he’d turn around and look at her. But Logan didn’t glance her way. He just soared higher, then dipped low toward the skyline, fast and sleek like a blade. The machine moved with him, or maybe he moved with it. It was impossible to tell where the man ended and the weapon began.

By the time the screaming sirens reached her block, she had already stepped back inside.

She didn’t turn on the light. Just the television.

Every channel was the same, static, noise, hysteria in different tones. Fires. Blackouts. Emergency services overwhelmed. Civilians told to shelter indoors. Then, on one of the live feeds, the camera caught it.

Spider-Man.

Oscar.

She sat on the arm of the sofa, staring at the screen like it might offer answers. He swung down from a rooftop, landed in the middle of a crumbling intersection, and caught a falling girder mid-air like it weighed nothing. There were shouts, flashes of red and blue. More drones, or things, shot past overhead. He flung himself after them without hesitation.

He looked small on the screen. Fragile, even. But she knew better. Knew how strong he really was. How he fought like it mattered.

Because it did.

Because it always had.

Her fingers twitched.

She stood up suddenly, heart racing now for an entirely different reason, and crossed the room to her coat. She pulled out the flash drive and stared at it, the scratch on its side catching the light.

Whatever Logan had left behind, whatever he hadn’t wanted her to see, it was on this.

She booted up her laptop on the kitchen table, fingers trembling slightly as the machine hummed to life. The screen blinked awake with a quiet whirr. She hesitated only a moment longer, then slotted the drive in.

It didn’t load immediately.

There was a pause. Like it had to think. Then the screen flickered, and a window opened on its own.

NEURAL LOG SEQUENCES – LOCKED

[Enter override credentials]

She stared at the prompt, breath held.

It was protected. Of course it was.

She tried the obvious first, his birthday, their old lab login, his mum’s name. All rejected. But then she remembered the sketchpad he'd carried around at university, the one he'd covered in graffiti-level drawings and handwritten equations.

There’d been a name on the back, in big crooked letters.

PYTHIA.

She typed it in.

The screen shivered, then shifted.

Override accepted. Begin sequence.

And then it began to unfold, video, files, half-recorded logs. Logan, speaking into a mic, wild-eyed, frantic, rambling. Diagrams of the neural link. Schematics she hadn’t seen before. And beneath it all, buried in subfolders, something labelled:

Secondary Protocol: Autonomous Control – ENABLED

Her heart dropped.

Autonomous?

She clicked into it, pulse quickening.

The code was dense, written in loops she couldn’t untangle on sight. But the gist was clear enough: the device was more than just a conduit. It was learning. Growing. Thinking. And if it ever deemed its host compromised...

Her hand flew to her mouth.

It could override him.

She stared at the screen, stomach twisting. Somewhere outside, the sky lit up again. The TV blared with the sound of sirens and glass breaking. Spider-Man’s suit flashed red across the screen as he leapt from another collapsing building.

She looked at him.

Then at the code.

Then back again.

Logan wasn’t the only one in danger now.

The whole city was.

She barely noticed the sun come up.

The screen cast her in blue light, soft and cold, as line after line of code scrolled past her tired eyes. Her fingers hovered above the keys, pausing only to scribble something down on a notepad already crowded with frantic, looping handwriting. There were equations she hadn’t touched since university, frameworks that were half-Latin, half-madness. Logan hadn’t just built this system, he’d buried it beneath ten layers of arrogance and desperation.

Some of it she recognised. Neural feedback loops. Power modulation. Synthetic stability thresholds. The kind of tech that could map a mind in real time and reroute its impulses. And then—

That secondary protocol again. Buried deeper than before, like it knew it shouldn’t be found.

Failsafe active. Host override requires dual-auth.

Failsafe. Dual-auth.

She exhaled shakily, raking a hand through her hair.

He’d written a backdoor. Somewhere, hidden in this madness, Logan had coded a way out, but it needed two keys.

Hers… and his.

A laugh escaped her, dry and bitter. Of course. Even in his descent, he’d tethered himself to her. Even now, when he was burning the city to the ground, he’d built the lock with the hope. No, the assumption, that she’d come looking for it.

That she’d come for him.

Outside, the chaos was escalating.

More sirens. The screech of tyres. At one point, a distant blast shook the windows in their frames, and dust from the ceiling rained down onto the table. She barely flinched. The TV was still on, the volume low, but the footage was relentless.

Buildings damaged. Streets overrun.

Spider-Man caught on every screen, swinging, diving, shielding people with his body, his suit scuffed and singed. And always trailing behind him, a blur of green and black and red, fast as hell and twice as cruel.

Logan.

Or what was left of him.

She pulled her focus back to the code. She couldn’t think about Oscar now, couldn’t think about the way his voice had trembled the last time they’d spoken. Couldn’t think about the ache in her chest when Logan had said her name like it still meant something.

All she could do was work.

She didn’t have a suit. Or powers. Or a symbol to rally behind. All she had were her hands, her brain, and the blueprint of a boy she’d once known, before the noise, before the machine, before the world shifted beneath their feet.

So she dug deeper.

Piece by piece, she traced the architecture. Tried to isolate the command lines. She could see where it had learned him, mirrored his rhythms, his instincts, his anger. It didn’t just amplify Logan.

It became him.

But it was still code.

And code, at the end of the day, could be broken.

She scribbled a new set of instructions. A loop. Something rudimentary. Crude. It wouldn’t dismantle the suit, but it might delay it. Mute the feedback for just long enough to slip in a second override. If she could get close enough.

If Logan hadn’t already been consumed entirely.

Her hands stilled.

And for the first time in hours, she allowed herself to feel something.

Not fear.

Not guilt.

Resolve.

She snapped the laptop shut, tucked the flash drive into the pocket of her jacket, and grabbed the notebook.

There was still time.

Not much.

But maybe, just maybe, enough.

She ran.

Half of Manhattan was still gridlocked from the chaos, so she took side streets, back alleys, her boots slick from rain and city grime. The wind had picked up, warm and electric, the kind that came just before another storm. By the time she reached the gates of the old university lab, dusk had begun to stretch long fingers across the skyline.

The side door was still jammed the way she remembered, too old to lock properly. She slipped inside.

It was all exactly as they’d left it years ago. Dust on the shelves. Faint smell of solder and burnt coffee. A poster on the far wall still read “Innovation Starts With Curiosity”, curling at the edges from time and apathy. She moved quickly, muscle memory taking over. Lights on. Equipment powered up. She opened her laptop, connected the drive, started reworking the patch code.

The room filled with the hum of machines, old fans stirring warm air as night fell thick outside the narrow windows. It was like stepping back in time, except everything was burning now, and she didn’t have Logan at the next station over making jokes under his breath.

She barely registered the sound of footsteps behind her.

Not until the door creaked.

She turned, already knowing.

Oscar stood there, mask in hand, hair sweat-dampened, face drawn tight with exhaustion and something close to fear.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, his voice low.

She didn’t look up from the code. “And you shouldn’t be out there alone.”

He stepped inside, glancing once around the room like it was foreign to him. “I was at the dockyard. He’s not slowing down.”

“I know.”

“I mean it,” he said, more firmly now. “That thing, it’s not Logan anymore.”

She paused. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, just for a second.

“I can fix it.”

Oscar’s silence filled the space like smoke. She finally looked at him.

“I can,” she repeated, quiet but certain. “He built it with an override. I found it. I just need time.”

Oscar came closer. “He almost levelled a power grid and threw a firetruck into the East River.”

“I know,” she said. “But I can’t just, leave him. Not like this.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s too dangerous. You get close to him again and he won’t let you walk away.”

She didn’t answer.

Instead, her mind flicked, uninvited, to a memory.

Summer. They were nineteen. Still cocky, still stupid, still full of fire.

She’d fallen asleep on the floor of this very lab, cheek against her notebook, and woken to find Logan sat beside her, hoodie half-off, legs stretched long in front of him. He’d scribbled something into her notes in his messy handwriting.

Don’t drool on the equations. It’s not cute.

She’d punched him in the arm. He’d grinned like he always did—sharp, dangerous, charming.

But then he’d looked at her.

Really looked at her.

“D’you think we’ll still be here in ten years?” he asked, quiet, for once. “Changing the world and that?”

She’d snorted. “We’ll be lucky if we haven’t blown up the chemistry block.”

He’d gone quiet again. Then: “If I ever do something stupid. Proper stupid. You’d stop me, right?”

She’d blinked at him, half-asleep. “Course I would.”

He’d smiled.

“Good. Then I won’t need to be scared.”

The memory faded, ripped away by the whirr of her laptop and the weight of the moment.

“I promised him,” she said softly, eyes burning now.

Oscar stood frozen for a long moment, then exhaled. “You’re not sleeping. You haven’t eaten. You can’t carry this alone.”

“I’m not alone.”

“Yeah?” His tone was sharp now, but not cruel. Just scared. “Because it feels like you’re walking into fire and locking the door behind you.”

She didn’t reply. She just turned back to the screen and started typing again, faster this time. She felt, more than heard, Oscar step back. The sound of the door closing behind him was softer than expected.

She didn’t cry.

Not this time.

There wasn’t time for that.

The hours bled together.

She barely felt them pass.

The world outside could’ve stopped spinning and she wouldn’t have noticed, except it hadn’t. It was spinning faster, spiralling downward, chaos growing in concentric rings. And every minute she didn’t find it, Logan moved further out of reach.

He was losing control.

She could feel it, see it in the footage that looped endlessly in the corner of her screen. At first, there’d been a strange precision to his destruction, almost deliberate. Now it was messier. Unpredictable. The drones no longer moved like extensions of him; they twitched erratically, glitching mid-air before launching into full attack. Bridges crumbled, rooftops sparked and smoked. People fled from shadows they didn’t understand.

He wasn’t just hurting the city anymore.

He was unravelling with it.

The code showed the same thing. She saw it in the neural sync logs, spikes and crashes in the feedback loop. Moments where Logan fought the system and lost, over and over again. The machine was still learning, evolving, tightening around him like a vice. Every time he lashed out, it pulled tighter.

God, Logan…

She didn’t sleep.

Didn’t eat.

She drank cold coffee from the faculty fridge and paced the lab like a caged thing, the override protocol always just out of reach.

And then, just past four in the morning, it surfaced.

Buried beneath three false folders, nested in what looked like corrupted code. A failsafe, just like she’d suspected, but not for stopping the machine entirely. That would’ve been too clean. Too merciful.

No, this was something else.

SYNC INTERRUPTION: Host Reboot

Her pulse kicked.

She opened the code and began skimming, fast, desperate. If she could isolate the connection for even twenty seconds, she might be able to destabilise the link between Logan and the core AI. That would give him time, her time, to force the manual override and reset the system.

It wouldn’t destroy the suit.

But it would give her a window.

She was shaking now. With relief. With adrenaline. With something dangerously close to hope.

She hit compile, shoved her hair out of her face, and turned to the TV as she reached for her phone.

The channel blinked into view.

Breaking news. Live feed.

Midtown skyline. Fires glowing like veins through the dark. Smoke curling into the morning light. Cameras struggled to keep up with the movement, drones dipping and swerving above a cluster of skyscrapers. Then—

A flash of red.

A figure swinging in low, catching the edge of a crumbling crane and launching upward again.

Oscar.

She stepped closer.

The camera jerked suddenly, and then, there he was. Logan.

Hovering like a shadow against the buildings, wind flattening his hair, the exposed machine in his back pulsing with frantic light. He wasn’t wearing the full suit now. His shirt was gone, and the interface curled like metallic vines across his spine, lit from within. His face was twisted, something between euphoria and rage, and for a second, even on screen, it looked like he was screaming.

She pressed a hand to her mouth.

The skyscrapers. It had to be downtown. She could get there.

She could end this.

She grabbed her drive, stuffed it into her jacket pocket, and ran from the lab without even shutting the door behind her.

The city was on fire.

Not literally, though close enough. Sirens howled through the dawn, lights ricocheted off glass towers, and somewhere above it all, two shapes danced a deadly arc across the skyline.

She sprinted through the last blocked-off street, breath ragged, shoes pounding against the pavement. Her lungs burned. Her head was ringing. But she could see them now, Oscar and Logan, silhouetted against the breaking light. The drone-suit glinted with a mind of its own, flaring whenever Logan lifted his arms, the neural plates at his back twitching like muscle.

He was slipping, completely.

She pushed through the crowd, ignoring the yells from NYPD, ducking a toppled barricade and scrambling over the scorched bonnet of a car. A figure swung low—Spider-Man—webbing across a collapsing crane, then launching himself up again.

Then he saw her.

He landed in front of her so fast the wind nearly knocked her over.

“You shouldn’t be here!” Oscar’s voice was muffled by the mask, but his posture was tight, shoulders hunched, heart in his throat. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’ve got it, Oscar, I’ve got the override, I can stop it!” she said, pulling the flash drive from her pocket, her hand trembling.

“You don’t understand,” he said, stepping closer. “It’s not him anymore, he’ll kill you.”

She shoved past him. “Then let me die trying to save what’s left of him!”

Oscar hesitated, but it was enough time for her to break into a run, heading towards the fire escape of a nearby tower.

“I’m serious!” he shouted. “You need to get back, now!”

Then: thwip.

A line of web shot past her, too fast to dodge, and stuck to her wrist, yanking her sideways. She screamed as her hand was slammed against a metal bollard, locked in place with a quick twist of white tensile silk.

Her chest heaved.

“Oscar!” she yelled, her voice shattering the air. “You didn’t—you can't—!”

He froze at the sound of his name.

It hung between them like smoke.

She realised too late what she’d done, called him that, here, in front of everyone.

His masked head tilted, almost slowly, like the moment itself had hiccuped. Then he backed away, leapt upwards into the fight again, vanishing behind clouds of debris and twisted scaffolding.

Her arm pulled at the webbing. It wouldn’t give.

“Fuck—fuck—fuck’s sake!” she muttered, kicking at the post.

A man nearby, mid-forties, in a delivery jacket, hovered awkwardly. “Uh—d’you want help with that?”

She looked at him, wild-eyed. “Yeah—yes—get it off!”

He reached into his satchel, pulled out a penknife. “Mate of mine works NYPD. Says these webs dissolve in acetone, but, don’t have any, so…”

“Just cut it!” she snapped.

With a few frantic scrapes, the fibres began to tear, and her wrist came free, red-raw but usable.

She was already running.

The rooftops. She needed height. A direct line of sight to Logan’s core. She dodged a toppled pylon, shoved open a cracked door, and started up the emergency stairwell of the nearest skyscraper.

Ten floors. Fifteen.

Her legs screamed.

But she had to get to him.

Had to make him hear her.

Because if she didn’t, he’d be gone forever.

The door to the rooftop flew open with a slam that echoed off the concrete.

Wind slapped her in the face, hot with smoke and static.

Below, the city churned like something alive, sirens and screams, the low thrum of failing power grids, the crackle of burning air. But up here, it was clearer. She could see everything. The skyline was broken in half, and above it, like a god gone rogue, Logan hovered.

The machine in his back pulsed, erratic now, convulsing in jagged beats. It glowed an unnatural blue, veins of energy crawling up his spine like lightning caught mid-strike.

She dropped to her knees near the roof’s edge, tugged her laptop out of her bag, jammed the flash drive into the side. Her fingers flew.

The code opened like a wound.

Override sequence. Neural interrupt.

Come on. Come on.

Far above, Logan turned mid-air.

The suit twitched.

Her screen glitched. Static burst across her files, like interference from a signal too close, too aware.

She gasped as her laptop jolted in her hands.

The machine had noticed her.

“Oh, shit.”

A whine built in the air, low and sharp like feedback from a speaker. Logan’s silhouette flickered, just for a second, and then he dived.

Straight for her.

She scrambled to her feet, laptop tucked against her chest, backing towards the roof’s water tank. Her heart beat so loud she thought it might break through her ribs.

He landed like a thunderclap, skidding across the concrete.

The metal across his body sparked and shuddered, the plates shifting of their own accord, iridescent and alien. But his eyes, when she dared meet them, were still blue. Still his.

Almost.

“What do you think you’re doing?” His voice came out raw. Filtered. Like the machine was speaking through him.

She gritted her teeth. “Finishing what I started.”

The interface on his spine whirred, and without warning, a drone peeled off from his shoulder, slicing the air between them. She ducked, just as it fired, blasting a chunk from the water tank behind her.

The shockwave threw her sideways, her laptop skidding across the gravel.

She reached the device just as Logan’s boots crunched against the roof behind her.

“You’re clever,” he said. “Always were. That’s what I liked about you.”

His voice faltered for half a second—glitched again.

She clicked into the override field, half-blind with panic. “You still like me, Logan?” she whispered, not looking up. “Or is that just the parasite talking?”

A pause.

Then a guttural sound—half-laugh, half-growl.

Another drone rose beside him.

She had seconds.

Fingers flying, she bypassed the firewall. The override sequence popped into place—final confirmation blinking red.

“Don’t,” Logan said, stepping forward. “You do this… I might not be able to stop what comes next.”

She looked up. Her face was streaked with tears, hair whipped wild by the wind.

“I know,” she whispered. “But I’m still going to try.”

And she hit enter.

The override hit like a jolt, Logan staggered, a distorted scream tearing from his throat as the neural plates along his back sparked violently. One of the drones spun out mid-air, crashing into the neighbouring rooftop in a shower of metal and flame.

She crawled forward, watching in breathless horror as the machine writhed against him. It was peeling, slowly, like something alive being torn from flesh. Wires sparked where metal met spine, smoke curling upwards into the dawn.

And for the first time in weeks, she saw him.

His chest heaved. His eyes flickered—blue, clear, human.

“Logan?” she breathed.

He looked at her. And for a second, just a second, it was him. Her Logan. The boy with the bright smile and sarcastic mouth and stupid drawings in her notebooks.

Then another drone swooped low overhead and she ducked, heart hammering. Across the sky, Oscar was still fighting, swinging between cranes and girders, webs snapping taut as he tore drones apart mid-flight.

The machine shrieked through Logan’s mouth, and suddenly he turned on her again.

She scrambled backwards, nearly tripping over loose cabling. Her laptop was fried, screen cracked down the middle, override incomplete. He stumbled after her, his movements disjointed, like the machine was losing control but still fighting to keep him moving.

Her hand hit something cold.

A metal pipe. Bent and rusted at the end.

She didn’t hesitate.

With a cry, she swung it, hard. It caught him across the side, knocking him sideways. Sparks flew from the exposed tech in his back as he dropped to one knee, groaning.

“You have to fight it!” she screamed. “Logan, please, you have to fight it!”

His face twisted, not rage, not pain. Fear.

Then the parasite’s voice came, warped and layered, more hiss than speech. “You should’ve let him die.”

He stood, half-dragging his limbs, half-possessed by the thing trying to survive.

And then, it happened.

The edge.

The roof was crumbling under the chaos. A drone hit one of the girders supporting the fire escape, and Logan, caught in the aftershock, stumbled backwards, right to the ledge.

His heel slid.

He tried to steady himself, but the machine spasmed, twisting his body the wrong way, making it worse.

She bolted forward without thinking.

He slipped.

“No, Logan!”

Her hand snatched his wrist just as he went over the edge.

They teetered there, weight balanced on the brink of nothing.

His eyes locked on hers.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered, voice cracking.

He was trembling. The machine twitched violently across his spine, cables whipping against the wind. For a terrifying second, it looked like it might rip him out of her grip.

Then, in the quiet, broken like a breathless memory, he said it.

“Don’t let go,” he choked. “Promise you won’t let go.”

Tears streamed down her face. “I won’t,” she said. “I never would.”

Her fingers ached with the strain, the sharp bones of his wrist slipping against her grip. The metal was hot, burning hot, sparking and writhing as the machine fought back, twisting Logan’s body unnaturally, trying to pull him down.

“No—no, I’ve got you—Logan, hold on!”

He was trying. God, he was trying. His free hand clawed at the ledge, feet scrambling against thin air. But the parasite wanted free, it wanted to fall, to vanish into the wreckage, to consume him entirely.

And he was so tired. She could see it in his face.

He looked up at her, lip bloodied, eyes filled with a kind of quiet terror. “I don’t— I can’t—”

“Yes, you can!” she sobbed, whole body shaking. “You’re not going to die down there! Not like this!”

But the slick of oil and blood and smoke was too much. Her grip slipped.

“No—no, no, no—”

And then he fell.

“LOGAN!”

The scream tore from her like it ripped something inside her open. Raw and ragged, it echoed across the rooftops, down the streets below, every inch of heartbreak threaded through the sound of her losing him.

Oscar, mid-air, froze.

He turned toward the sound, toward her scream, and saw Logan drop like a stone through smoke and broken glass.

No hesitation.

Oscar dived.

He twisted through the air, webs snapping out towards building edges, traffic lights, anything he could latch onto.

The wind howled in his ears.

He reached out, arms outstretched—

Come on, come on—

And just before Logan vanished into the chaos below, Oscar caught him.

The impact jostled them both hard, nearly yanking Oscar’s shoulder out of its socket, but he held on, webbing them into the side of the nearest tower, both of them swinging low before slamming into a scaffold.

Above, she collapsed to her knees, gasping for air, hands still out like she was trying to grab him back from the edge.

She didn't realise she was still crying until the salt hit her lips.

Her voice was hoarse now, the scream still lodged in her chest.

But he was alive. Somehow.

They were both alive.

She didn’t remember how she made it down. She flew through the stairwell, lungs burning, knees nearly buckling with each turn. Her ears rang with the sound of her own blood rushing, feet slipping on concrete, heart pounding so violently it felt like it might give out altogether.

The scaffolding came into view at last, twisted and dented where they’d landed.

And there—

Oscar was kneeling beside Logan, the mask torn halfway off his face, chest heaving. His hands were slick with blood and oil, arms braced around Logan’s body as he leaned in and yanked.

A wet, sickening crack echoed out as the machine tore free from Logan’s back, an unholy thing of metal and wire and exposed circuitry, screeching as it detached. Logan let out a strangled cry, barely conscious.

“Jesus—” Oscar swore, tossing the machine away like it burned him. “I need a medic! We need, someone call an ambulance!”

She sprinted the last few steps, nearly falling onto her knees beside them.

Logan was sprawled out, blood spreading beneath him. His chest rose in shallow, stuttering breaths, skin pale, eyes fluttering.

She reached for him, cradling his face in shaking hands. “Logan—Logan, stay with me, yeah? It’s me, I’m here—just stay with me, please—”

Her voice cracked, a sob breaking free as she pulled him against her, his blood soaking into her sleeves. He didn’t move much, just the faintest turn of his head toward her, like he knew.

“I couldn’t save you,” she whispered. “But I’m here. I’m still here.”

Behind her, Oscar stood frozen.

He watched as she held Logan, rocking him gently like they were sixteen again, back before any of this, back before wires and drones and masks.

His hands, still trembling from the fight, curled into fists at his sides.

This was the girl he’d grown up with. The girl he’d loved quietly, patiently, always from the corner of the room. The girl he thought, maybe, one day.

But here she was. Crying into Logan’s chest like the world had just fallen through her hands.

Oscar looked away.

The sirens wailed in the distance now, growing closer.

And all he could do was stand there, watching her stay for someone else.

Oscar didn’t wait for the medics.

Didn’t wait for her to say anything, or even glance back.

He just pulled his mask down over his face again, jaw tight, breath sharp. The webline hissed as it latched to the edge of the building. And then, he was gone. One smooth motion, vanishing into the skyline with a thud of wind and fabric.

She didn’t even see him go.

One week later:

The hospital smelt like antiseptic and regret.

Late afternoon light filtered in through the blinds, striping the floor in gold and grey. Machines beeped steadily, too steadily, and the occasional murmur of nurses bled in from the corridor beyond.

Logan lay still in the bed, tubes in his arm, bandages pressed tight across his ribs. The scars down his spine were fresh and angry, burnt-in reminders of the thing that had burrowed into him. He hadn’t said much since they’d pulled it out. Mostly, he just stared.

The door creaked.

Oscar stepped in.

No mask now. Just him. Shoulders tense beneath his hoodie, one hand still faintly grazed and bandaged. His eyes flicked to Logan’s, but neither of them spoke straight away.

It was the first time they’d been alone in weeks. Maybe months.

Logan gave a faint smirk, dry as dust. “Thought you’d swing in through the window.”

Oscar didn’t smile.

“I wanted to look you in the eye when I asked why.”

A beat. The machine beeped in the silence between them.

Logan’s gaze drifted back to the ceiling.

“You wouldn’t get it.”

Oscar stepped closer, brows furrowing. “Try me.”

For a long time, Logan didn’t speak. He looked… small. Not physically, Logan was still tall, still built like he could hold the weight of the world, but there was something hollow behind his eyes now. As if the parasite hadn’t just burrowed into his body, but had found the last untouched bit of him and snuffed it out.

“I was tired,” he said eventually. “Of being nothing. You remember what it was like. Always someone better, always someone smarter. I thought… I thought if I made it mine, I could control it. The chaos. My name would mean something.”

Oscar’s jaw clenched. “So you built a machine that nearly levelled the city. Brilliant.”

“She was trying to help me.” Logan’s voice was quiet, bitter. “She believed in me. Even when I didn’t.”

Oscar looked away at that, just for a second.

Then he stepped closer to the bed, eyes hard.

“You used her.”

“I loved her,” Logan snapped, voice cracking like brittle glass. “And maybe that makes me worse. But don’t stand there pretending you didn’t want her to choose you.”

Silence. Electric. Sharp.

Oscar’s fists were tight at his sides now, but he didn’t move.

“You broke her heart,” he said, softly. “And you’re not the only one who has to live with that.”

He turned toward the door, one hand already reaching for it, before pausing.

“She’s not here,” he said without looking back. “Because she’s tired, Logan. Because she nearly died trying to save you.”

Logan didn’t respond. He just lay there. Staring at the ceiling. Staring at nothing.

The door clicked shut.

And Logan was alone again.

the end.

taglist: @lilorose25 @curseofhecate @number-0-iz @dozyisdead @dragonfly047 @ihtscuddlesbeeetchx3 @sluttyharry30 @n0vazsq @carlossainzapologist @iamred-iamyellow @iimplicitt @geauxharry @hzstry @oikarma @chilling-seavey@the-holy-trinity-l @idc4987 @rayaskoalaland @elieanana@bookishnerd1132 @mercurymaxine

[chunkitakii]

facesitting and “lux, it won’t fit 💔” with 3D lux 😋

In my mind i just turned into Junkrat and said “IVE GOT AN IDEA💡”

Lux/Mr. Ring-A-Ding NSFW *Face-sitting* HEADCANNON!!!

WARNING: this will contain facesitting, power imbalance, and Lux being the little asshole he is.

But omgggg, now that he’s HUGE and in 3D. I feel like face sitting would be a big YES for him.

Like when he had first turned 3D, and looked down at you for the first time. OH BOY, you could physically see a lightbulb on top of his head.

I wrote it out bcuz why not LOLOLOL.

Lux had made the mistake of accidentally bathing in the sun.

This all had happened when he fell asleep, after playing many rounds of chess with you, underneath an open window. When he fell asleep, it was nighttime. So him falling asleep in the moonlight occurred often. But today, it seemed like he was extra tired knowing that he fell asleep through his transformation.

He soon woke il feeling a little, different. Feeling a little bigger than usual, feeling a little more…3D.

(A/N: Ik Lux used the Doctors light to build a body, but idk how else Lux would have built one in this. So him bathing in sunlight was the only thing that popped up in my little head.)

You were currently organizing some film to Mr. Pyes request. The poor man hasn’t had any sleep in days, hopefully you can at least get some stuff off of his plate so he can take care of himself.

Lux was currently somewhere doing anything he can on his mind. Which even makes you wonder what he does for fun around here.

You simply shrugged it off and continued your work. Humming a soft tune to help with the quiet atmosphere around here.

“Oh~Sunshine!~”

Damn it…

“Yes, Lux?” You answered in the room, waiting for his answer across the hall. You wondered if he was going to bother you about the light again and how they were too dim, or maybe how he has been so bored lately, maybe he going to bother you about another game of Jacks.

“Can you be a lovely doll and come here? I just want to see my beautiful ray of sunshine! The light of my life! My firefly in the night-sky! My beloved!-”

“Okay-Okay, i’m coming!”

You let out an exaggerated sigh as you put down the film onto a nearby table. Ever since Lux showed up, you can’t get any work done. You didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

You made your way our the room and into the theater itself. Giving out a light stretch before addressing the toon that craved your attention.

“Okie Dokie Lux, what do you- WHAT THE F-!”

“Surprise!~”

And there he was, in all of his monstrously huge glory. Standing on the stage of the theater room, if he reached his hands up, he could definitely reach the roof. Lux was roughly about 10+ feet taller than you.

Lux looked different but the same at the same time. Lux was so detailed, to the bottoms of his feet to the tips of his antennas. It freaked you out, very much so that you subconsciously started to step back away from him.

Lux saw this, of course. Yet he couldn’t help but feel worried or smug about this. He can tell his new form made you uneasy, but he couldn’t hell but feel a sense of pride in that. Lux didn’t want you to run away in feel of him.

Lux needed a way to make you feel comfortable with him.

Locking his eyes back to you, he finally realized how small you were in-front of him. Your small form slightly quivering before him, and oh how it was adorable…

…Bingo.

“Oh sweetheart, why don’tcha’ come down here to the stage…” Lux taunted, trying to get you to come closer to him.

You whimpered quietly as you saw him take a step forward towards you. If he was smaller, it would have been 4 or 5 steps. But since he’s bigger, all it took was one.

You took a couple of steps back. You weren’t stupid enough to not get what he was trying to do. Lux had something in mind, something you couldn’t quite figure out. And you didn’t know if you wanted to stay any longer to find out.

“N-no, I’m good here thanks…” You muttered out. You made the mistake of turning your head to lock eyes with the door to escape. As soon as you did, you heard loud and quick footsteps run towards you.

Seeing a huge, 3D Ring-A-Ding run towards you full speed and grab you like you were a stuffed tog was not on your bingo card today…

A large hand was wrapped around your body, its three fingers both held you steady and kept you from pushing away any further. They also had enough grip to you lift your shirt up just a little.

It was Lux’s enormous hand that kept you in place. Keeping you from wiggling and writhing away from him. Or, in better explanation, his mouth.

Lux sat back onto the theatre stage, lying back far enough to crane his neck upwards so you can be positioned just above his face.

His huge tongue licked and prodded at your lower half, licking and sucking you bare. And of course, Lux did it with the brightest smile on his face, like he was eating a full course meal.

Just seeing you, head tilted back with the most loveliest moans that rolled off of that sweet tongue of yours. Your face skewered in pleasure, and not a word formed out of your mouth other than many yes’s and please’s. And by the stars, how he loved every single bit of it.

The sight of your little body above his face, with those little cries of yours. He would simply parish right then and there. You were just so cute, wiggling in pleasure in his hand, pushing and pulling his fingers near you and away from you. Lux just wanted to crush you from how adorable you are…

He didn’t know how long he has been at it, but it didn’t matter. Just as long as he tasted your sweet nectar more than once, he can live a perfect life.

He too felt himself moans in delight at the taste of you. Never once in his existence has he tasted anything like yours, and Lux made sure he was going to savor every last bit of it.

You, however, couldn’t decide if you’re were uneasy with the situation, or loving it. Your instincts had told you to run and get away from Lux. Hovering above his mouth, it was like you were prey, ready to get devoured whole.

Yet your body betrayed you, feeling all sorts of pleasure coming from Lux quickly shut down those instincts real quick. And honestly, with how big Lux is and how small you were compared to him. It sort of pleased you in way. You didn’t know why, but you’ll focus more on that thought after Lux is done with you.

Now for the other bit, I’m not sure how to start it but I’m just going to throw in some little points of how it would be like. 😭

I feel like he would be so into it, taking you in this bigger form. But you are SO quick to tear it down.

This toon is over 10 feet tall, just imagine what he’s packing underneath. Let’s be real here, you’re going to rip in half.

Gonna write a little scene of it anyway…

“Lux, I don’t think we can do this...” You nervously chuckled out. Nervously glancing at Lux and his ‘joy stick’.

Lux currently still hand you in his grasp, but he laid you down onto a blanket that was laid on the stage floor. He was still lining you down nevertheless.

His regions, however, was literally the size of your leg if not more. You didn’t plan to die today, so you did not want to take that chance.

After a while of thinking, Lux just ended up grinding his shaft on your smaller form until he finished. And oh boy, you were covered in it.

So taking Lux in his huge ass 3D form, is a no. Because let’s be honest, no human can take more than 30 inches.

But the toon still has fun eating you to the bone. :))

[casualavocados]

…It's nice. You're so noisy. […] Actually, it'd be better if we died together. That way, neither of us would have to suffer the pain of losing the other, right? Shut up.

KISEKI: DEAR TO ME Ep. 13

[moeblob]

[imkazz]

saiki k is a golden anime.

i finished season 1 just now and. i have feelings. copy pasted from discord as a ranting to @peapodsinspace but i have to recommend the anime now.

i feel like the genre is comedy anime but. there are a lot of dark undertones to it. this is a teenage boy and he has to suffer every single day for powers he doesnt want. it impacts his everyday life and all he wants is to be normal but he doesnt know what normal is despite it being right in his face.

he pushes these people away but they continue coming after him. like real friends. normal friends.

they think of him and like him no matter what he does or acts or anything and. he loves them right back. he does things for them and they try to do things despite the fact that it typically goes wrong or he knows what theyre doing. he doesnt even care that he doesnt get acknowledgement because he doesnt want it.

so like.. i have to mention his friends. kusuo gives them grief constantly. always dissing them, always using their thoughts against them (such as teruhashi and her dislike for kids and bowling). because he can hear them. saiki kusuo not only gets his ideas about them from how they act and what they say, but also by what they think and that is a huge teller because they dont think anyone is listening. this is a private space that kusuo cannot even escape from whether he wants it or not and he is forced to hear and see whatever they think. ive joked about how he is always in gossip but. he literally cannot get out of it because he is such a kind person, that he wants to help.

and he gets to see all sides of them whether they show it or think it. kaidos letter. kaido defending yumeharu. hairos determination. yumeharus dedication. teruhashi and her utility of her own abilities. nendo with his mom and job and how he threw away millions of yen to save a drowning kid. kusuo is always there to see any part of that, and he gets a more in depth experience while choosing friends. should i mention that all those examples are things that kusuo didnt use his powers to observe? they were all things that he used his normal senses to find out or watch or overhear. it is very important to both kusuo himself along with the audience that he didnt use his powers to watch them be themselves and nice in all those situations as a normal teenager.

and i find it important that over time, and these experiences cumulate, that he slowly figures out that these are good, genuine people. sure they can be weird or perverted or cunning, but at the end of the day, they care about him and it only comes out so blatantly when they plan a surprise party specifically for him.

because many of us (hopefully) have wondered. what is inside our friends minds? and saiki has the answer. and he can see that they mean well. he may not understand most people and their emotions, but he knows some basics. and perhaps that could be enough to get him to live normally.

not to mention kuniharu and his convo with kusuo... despite some of the grief i give the man for constantly demanding his son do things for him, he knows his kid well. that convo is totally the pinnacle of their entire relationship, kusuos feelings, his friends.

kusuo mentioned that he doesnt tell his parents about new powers in fear they will demand more things and become lazy but. they care about him and know him. they understand his aversion to friends and know when to help him out or to push him to be around them.

he aided in that surprise birthday party but he also encouraged kusuo to go to his party that his friends threw for him. and he overhears that conversation without his telekinesis. because they actually know him and they all agree upon it. its not as in he is looking into their minds. he hears them through the door.

so he cant come to the conclusion that it was just a private thought that nobody wanted to voice aloud. no, they all agreed upon it. and they all verbally agreed to be nicer. just as his dad had said they would

it was weird seeing saiki kusuo smiling like that because he isnt one to do that and his friends know him well enough to know that (despite the fact kusuo avoids them!!) and they can all agree. they were all very happy to see kusuo smiling but they knew it jsut wasnt right

every time that kuniharu sneaks off to meet with the real saiki k they want, he is always trying to get kusuo to join them as himself

he is always encouraging his son to go hang out with his friends and he is still ready to go along with what kusuo wants. he was probably ready to go back to them after that last convo if kusuo still declined. but his words definitely got to kusuo because there arent that many people in the world who can understand kusuo so well

i know ive made fun of this but everyone around him sees him all wrong in their minds. they see the damsel in distress eyes or the idiot circle eyes. they hear a high pitch and weak voice. but not his parents. kusuos dad actually knows who he is and accepts him and loves him and encourages him to live out his dream of being normal by telling kusuo about what being normal is really like. to have friends who love you and go out of their way to try and make your day. kuniharu has to 'lecture' kusuo in order to get him to understand that the reason he was staying away was not because the classmates were 'bullying' or 'being annoying' from the kindness and love of their own decisions. it was because kusuo was scared of hurting them or disappointing them or even for them to abandon him.

and of course, that is a very common teenage feeling!! the fear of disappointing your friends- of course its normal!! saiki kusuo is a normal kid with not so normal powers attached to him.

[dreamsy990]

YAY I GOT THIS DONE ON HIS BIRTHDAY. HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAJIMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE YOU RUINED MY LIFE AND ALSO MAYBE SAVED MY LIFE. WHO THE FUCK KNOWS I DO LIKE YOU A LOT THOUGH

[1-800-i-ship-it]

- VICTOR ASKS YURI IF HE WANTS HIM TO BE A BOYFRIEND TO HIM??? THIS IS CANON?????

- VICTOR GIVES YURI A BOYFRIEND HUG BEFORE HE PERFORMS???? THE PRESS EATS IT UP???

- YURI GETS MOTIVATJON DURING HIS PERFORMANCE FROM TRYNA SEDUCE VICTOR???

- VICTOR APPLIES CHAPSTICK DIRECTLY TO YURI’S LIPS WITH HIS FINGER???? VICTOR THINKS TO HIMSELF THAT YURI IS BEAUTIFUL????

- YURI BASICALLY CONFESSES THAT VICTOR IS THE MAIN INSPIRATION FOR HIS THEME OF LOVE???

is this reality holy shit…im literally not even halfway through the show

[frobby]

Seigi nakata is so funny cuz he genuinely has the most normal guy rizz where somehow his only notable deeds being stopping hooligans and making pretty good pudding landed him the most beautiful man of the century

[spearxwind]

Idk if this counts as spoilers but if Adri is essentially like a computer virus where did he get a physical body from?? Did he steal it from someone or was it provided for him to he put into??? So much to think about........

GREAT QUESTION! He stole it :)

He stole the body and the body's name for himself, and then fabricated an appearance and personality and mannerisms.

His body is one of the previously many nanomachine systems set in place in the Old World to safeguard and maintain both people and machinery. They were known as Guardian Arrays, but now they are referred to as Angels. Only two are currently known to still be fully operational, Adri being one of them.

The Fall (Otherwise known as the literal end of the world) was an apocalypse event where a system bug caused every advanced enough AI to go rogue and turn on mankind. It started small, but spread far and wide exponentially and it irreparably changed whatever it infected. The Arrays, being as important as they were, had more safeguards in place against this stuff but it still didn't stop them from becoming infected. Especially ADRIEL. The corruption inside it became severe enough that it first became a virus, and then grew into a full fledged self compiled AI that was notorious enough to be given its own name "Usurper", though you know it as "The Hydra".

The only way to avoid being completely wiped out during this event was to mass purge absolutely EVERYTHING (so humanity lost basically 99% of their tech and their knowledge). Did this work? kiiiind of.

Because of it's self compiled nature, ADRIEL was never able to be properly purged, so instead it was (after a monumental, worldwide effort) put to sleep beneath the earth, never to be disturbed again.

Until....

[whirlybirbs]

it’s 5:20am i cannot sleep i am consumed with thoughts and yearning for keigo takami i need to be euthanized

[moeblob]

Huevember 22

Brent, the most expressive bard to ever bard.

[telesodalite]

Thinking about KrokFire...

Thinking about them sparring in the cargohold, because it's a long trip, and cabin fever is setting in, and Misfire is gonna pop a gasket if he doesn't do something about it soon, since flying in open space gets real boring real fast, and it's making everyone a little nervous, but Krok has time to kill, and maybe, quietly, he's also two steps away from doing something stupid just to feel alive again after cruising around pointlessly, mindlessly, endlessly, for so so long... (It's barely been a month)

And sure, Misfire is a terrible sparring partner. He has no technique, no concept of proper balance, or an inkling of how to use the weight of his own frame. He rushes headfirst like he's more bull than fighter jet, he talks too much, he spits, he bites, and he can't stand losing. But, in a roundabout way, it almost makes him the perfect partner in Krok's eyes.

Crankcase won't spar, "can't" he claims flatly, gesturing at the gaping hole in his helm, but Krok can respect his want for distance. That occasional flash of fear and frozen unease in Crankcase's visor in close combat doesn't go over his head. He knows that look. He gets it. He won't push.

Fulcrum... well, a streetlight might be a tougher fight, or at least it would stay up longer and complain less. So much for a once respectable officer of the empire. What was Deathsaurus' command thinking promoting anyone without any actual combat training? It would almost be pathetic if Fulcrum didn't find a way to put the vitriol of thrown fists into his words instead. Now there was some swears Krok hadn't heard in a couple millennia, it would be inspiring if it wasn't his own spark Fulcrum had been damning to the pits and back through a bloody nose.

Spinister? Now Spinister was a good fighter, a better fighter, Krok wasn't so prideful to deny that truth. He'd tasted the dust of the cargohold floor enough to know it was a definitive fact. But Spinister held back, he was careful, he matched Krok's pace, his movements, he held himself defensively, any attack was quick, simple, and merely restraining. It was less a fight, and more a waiting game until Krok finally gave up, and that... well, that did sting a bit.

But Misfire? Misfire was a different beast all together. Sure Krok could dance circles around the flier all day, but it wasn't totally effortless work, he had to stay sharp, Misfire was so predictably unpredictable, he kept him thinking, moving, on his toes, and maybe it felt good to sidestep another stupid headfirst charge, easily grabbing and swinging Misfire around by his arm, so unbalanced all Krok had to do was let him go, and the weight of his own frame would send him careening into the crates stacked around them.

Most days, Misfire would give up by then, pull himself off the pile of overturned cargo with no small amount of burning shame and frustration, as he avoided Krok's optics and stormed off into the bowels of the ship before Krok could say something to ease the sting of losing again and again. Misfire didn't want his apologies though, and even as a pang of guilt ate at him over it, Krok knew he'd be back eventually.

But today, too pent-up and bored to quit now, Misfire pushed himself back onto his feet and charged back in again, and again, and again.

And Krok moved with him again, and again, and again. It was almost repetitive, but lively enough that he could feel the energon pumping through his head, a thrumming beat in his audials that reminds him of deafening battlefields and roaring stadiums, and oh, he'd missed this feeling, the adrenaline, the movement, more so than he thought he did.

Maybe it's the overconfidence that gets him then, or the memories pulling him out of the present, but Misfire's fist suddenly comes slamming down into his mask, and for a moment everything becomes a blur, until he finds himself on the floor, clutching at the shattered metal falling from his face in disbelief.

Faintly he can feel the twinge of broken mesh, of pain pinching dully across scarred flickering sensors, and maybe it's the adrenaline that pulls a suprised and breathy laugh out of him as he stares down at the pieces in his hand.

Maybe it's also the disbelief, the sudden shock at being struck hard enough to break his mask, by Misfire of all mechs. Or maybe he's cracked his helm, finally snapping something important deep in his processor, some vital function that kept him sane all these years.

Either way, an old familiar buzz of heady energy fills his chest, loosening his joints and straightening his struts as he stands back up, brushing off the broken remains of his mask as he stares back at Misfire, barefaced and bleeding and amused as the flier's optics go bright and wide.

And all Misfire can do for a moment is stand there, wide-eyed and breathless, his own adrenaline filled frame and hammering processor still trying to make sense of the broken plating of his knuckles and the energon trickling down Krok's scarred lips.

But connections are made, and it's a panicked realization at first, a cold dread, a 'ohhhhh fuck oh primus I fucked up I'm dead I'm so fucking dead-!' sort of feeling, as Krok's marred face breaks into an energon stained grin. But then there's another feeling, growing somewhere underneath the panic, a sudden curl of heat in his chest, a flush of pride, conviction, a sort of frenzied joy at the sight of broken mesh and fresh energon, and another rush of hot anticipation as Krok began to move again, circling, waiting, an unspoken question in the air as he rolls his shoulders back and flexes his hands.

And Misfire answers eagerly, suprising himself almost as he charges foward again, wanting more of that feeling, wanting to win again.

It's not really sparring past this point, and somewhere in the back of their minds they both know that. Every strike, every kick, every punch, it's all thoughtless instinct, each clash of plating, and bite of denta, and scrape of fingertips, is part of a mad dash for victory in the gladiator pit of scrap and debris they've built around themselves.

Of course, it can't last forever. They're no real gladiators, no phase-sixers, no primes, and movements get sluggish, vents rattle and wheeze as coolant pumps reach their limits, and building condensation slides powerless punches right off of scuffed metal and mesh.

Even like this though, worn out and bleeding from more scrapes than he had half a mind to count, Krok is still better, and Misfire is still predictable, and it's no great feat to sweep his legs out from beneath him, landing him flat on the floor, wings spread out and chestplate heaving.

Overworked joints sharply protest as he goes to pin the flier down bodily, and finally Krok faces the fact he has to consider how to end this, so he might let his own beaten frame finally still for a moment to breathe.

But as Krok catches one flailing arm in his grip, scoffing at the desperation, still goading Misfire on even as he tries to end this, a hand stubbornly catches his throat, but stops before it can truly squeeze.

And once more they're not really moving, just staring, watching, but it's less wired and tense now, rather, its shaky, a little unfocused, as exhaustion filters out in heaving puffs of hot air between their frames.

Someone's plating is rattling, Krok isn't sure if it's his own or Misfire's, but the cost of adrenaline is painfully noticeable now. His grip loosens on Misfire's arms, and the idea of total victory is less sweet as his cables begin to ache throughout his inner-framework.

But Misfire's hand slides up to catch his jaw before he can lean back and relent to a truce, and he's pulling him closer, and Krok starts to push him off, call it quits before either of them breaks something past repair, but a flash of energon on Misfire lips catches his eye, and that hadn't been there a moment ago?

Before he can even begin to ask what that was supposed to mean, Misfire is pulling him down again, angling his helm upwards to feverishly meet his lips half-way.

Although the mesh of Misfire's face was throughly bruised and scuffed, Krok had frustratingly failed to return the favor of a busted lip. So, it had to be his own, smeared across Misfire's face at some point in the scuffle, it shouldn't have been interesting in the slightest, but Krok's processor was hazy, slow, and his optics trailed Misfire's glossa as he licked his lips and made an odd curious sound.

And maybe it was a stupid move to make so impulsively, one he'd regret making probably, but still too caught up in the waning heated high of the fight, Misfire figured he could worry about losing such a hard-earned battle later. Right now, this seemed far better than actually winning, and the taste of Krok's energon felt like a victory and reward nonetheless.

Bracing himself as Misfire wriggled his other hand free to splay out over his thigh, holding him desperately against his frame as he tried pulling him even closer, Krok considered the heat dispersion warnings flickering distractingly in his peripheral, and the very noticeable strain on his back and legs, even his arms.

It's not a great position to be in right now, after all they've done already. He'll regret it, he knows he will, his body will make sure of it, if Spinister doesn't first.

But then Misfire's glossa is sliding against the jagged edges of his teeth, and he's making hoarse little pathetic noises into Krok's mouth that stoke some sort of ego at having the flier so desperate beneath him, and Misfire's hands are warm and heavy over aching plating and seams, and really, on second thought, after weeks of boredom, why the hell not?

They've got nowhere to be.

[leviiackrman]

Sugar, spice and everything nice! Everyone's favourite soft gal is finally finished, enjoy Asami's Completed Timeline!

Tag list (ask to be added or removed): @carrionsflower @statichvm @risingsh0t @simonxriley @tommyarashikage @kanos @confidentandgood @unholymilf @florbelles @thedeadthree @shellibisshe @roofgeese @aezyrraeshh @faerune @tekehu @jackiesarch @minaharkers @sergeiravenov @carlosoliveiraa @rosenfey @greenecreek @queennymeria @heroofpenamstan @tethrras @jamessunderlandgf @d-esmond @solasan @bigbywlf @delzinrowe @fenharel @imogenkol

[slowdrippingnoise]

*voice of someone who will take any excuse to bring up twin peaks* i don't like "MoM is luxu" theories for pretty much the same reason that i don't like same coin theory in gf (that is: too fucked up, makes me sad) but more metaphorically speaking it does bring some wild shit to the table doesn't it. like i get why it's a thing; luxu is set up to Become him (or, at least, a limited reflection of him) as much as he possibly can. he carries his literal eye and his memory is the MoM's waypoint- but also, spending all that time only allowed to Watch gives him the MoM's jaded, careless view of the world For To Cope, and he was already kinda copying his mentor's attitude when all the MoM was doing was singling him out and keeping him alone with him... little body double little information sponge. mini-me dressed up to match. eugh

it feels so intentional on the MoM's part (ava kinda gets it too, in the other direction- active participant). given "MoM is luxu": this person took you in and made you into a reflection of themself. you were never going to be anything else. it's you, you're all you can see in the mirror, no way out of this. who are you to argue with your older self?

[hollow-vok]

Ohh im obssesed