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the-insomniac-emporium · 3 years ago

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RE8 Ladies + S/o with chronic pain HCs

Type/cause of chronic pain is kept ambiguous, but some of the hcs might seem geared towards migraines, since that's the main thing that I personally struggle with (and these are very definitely comfort hcs). Features Alcina, Bela, Cassandra, Daniela, Donna, Mother Miranda, and as a 'lil bonus Ava. Not particularly long, but the combined length of every character is enough to be put under a read-more (About 2,500 words in total).

Alcina:

It’s difficult for her to know that you are suffering, but be unable to deal directly with the source of the problem. Chasing off unwanted nuisances or hunting down threats to the castle was one thing, trying to solve complicated medical issues was another thing entirely. If only she could tear your condition asunder without tearing you asunder.

That being said, she’ll still support you endlessly, however she can. It doesn’t matter how expensive or hard-to-access possible treatments are. If there’s something you haven’t tried, and are interested in trying, she’ll find a way for you to get it.

The biggest, and arguably most helpful, thing that she does is set up a space for you within her office. She spends quite a lot of time there for her family’s business, but doesn’t want to leave you alone on bad days. So this was her idea of a nice compromise.

There’s a very comfortable sofa that folds out, a cabinet filled with the softest blankets, and several pillows of a few different sizes. Servants are instructed not to interrupt Alcina’s work without good reason, but she has a couple who ensure your snack cabinet is always well stocked.

If there are certain environmental factors to your condition, such as sensitivity to light and sound, she does her best to reduce their effects. Lights remain dimmed (or she’ll rely on candlelight), her music will be kept quiet enough to be soothing, and she’ll refrain from taking any calls while you are with her.

Bela:

To think that Daniela once tried to claim that Bela would “never need to know any of that (medical) stuff”! Sure, there haven’t been many people who have needed (and received) treatment from her, but that didn’t mean the skill was useless. Admittedly, she doesn’t know enough to replace one of your doctors, or try to create her own version of a cure, though no one really expected that much from her.

Still, she knows enough to help soothe your pain. Obviously there are different techniques for different kinds of pain, and she does research before trying anything specific. Bela’s also aware that you’ve been dealing with this for far longer than she has, meaning that you probably wouldn’t be pleased if she came in, acted like an expert, or assumed that you hadn’t really thought about the most popular remedies. So she’s tactful with how she approaches things, always checking if you’re familiar with a subject before she tries to explain anything.

Bela ends up surprising you with a lesser-known skill of hers: Massage. Studying anatomy has given her a decent idea of the body’s more sensitive spots, and the rest she’s figured out through her own, ahem, experiences. Regardless of where you’re in pain, your girlfriend can help reduce your suffering. Okay, well, if your pain is more internal than external, it’s a bit harder for her, but she can still help you relax.

One of her favorite things to do after giving you a massage is to just pull you in close for some cuddling. Preferably you’ll be in her lap, with her arms around your waist, her chin tucked on top of your shoulder. Then she’ll do her best to whisper you praises, reminding you how strong you are, and that she’s incredibly proud of you.

Cassandra:

She’s, uh, not great at this. At least not at first. Maybe she’ll never be more than good at it, though. But she’s definitely trying! And learning! By Jove, that’s something, right?

First things first, she’s always ready to try to distract you, primarily through kisses and gentle touches. Fingers softly trailing over your skin, lips tickling your neck, featherlight in all the right places… It’s not inherently sexual (though it can quickly go that route if you ask), just intimate. It’s harder for your brain to process pain when you’re also processing pleasure, so there is some science behind Cassandra’s methods, even if she herself isn’t entirely aware of that.

While she’s not great with words, there are certain things that she manages to articulate well enough. For one, she makes sure you know that you aren’t a burden. Taking care of you- no, helping you take care of yourself- is a labor of love, if a labor at all. More than that, she knows full well that you probably don’t like feeling pitied, or coddled. That, over time, being sick ends up being beyond frustrating. She never wants you to feel like your condition defines you, or like it puts any strain on your relationship.

That said, she’ll avoid telling her family any specifics unless you do first, and ensures that the staff know how to accommodate you (without telling them why, because it’s none of their fucking business, and she’s their boss, and for fuck’s sake it’s their job to do what she tells them. Maybe she gets a lil bit overzealous with it). At no point will she ever complain about helping you, or otherwise indicate that your needs are “troublesome”.

At the end of the day, the best comfort she brings you is her presence, simply being near you, endlessly loyal, tireless in her affections. Especially considering she gets clingier the worse your symptoms get.

Daniela:

Hope you enjoy cuddling. Seriously. There’s nothing Daniela loves more than curling up with you, and that goes double for bad pain days. Some adjustments will be made position-wise if you need, but she’ll still hold you as close as possible, for as long as you need. Although she might eventually fall asleep (because damn are you comfy), she’ll play with your hair or run her fingers along your scalp until she eventually dozes off.

If you want a little more from her than light snoring, or if she feels like going above and beyond, or honestly just if she’s thinking about how much she loves you (so all the effing time), she’ll do something she’s always loved in movies/books: Reading to you! She’ll pick special books that neither of you have read before, so you can experience them together on your sick(er) days. Which does, of course, mean that it might take months to finish even a single one. Surprisingly, Daniela won’t even briefly consider reading any without you. Even if the plot is really good.

But, uh, if you wanted her to read to you on a day where you aren’t bedridden? Hell yes, my friend, she’s absolutely down for that!

On days where she’s too busy to spend hours upon hours in bed with you, or days where her ADHD is just particularly bad, she tries her best to leave you with a “substitute”. AKA a massive fucking teddy bear, in a reddish brown color, with a green bowtie. Custom ordered (The Duke did not dare tease her for it). There’s a heart stitched onto the stuffed animal’s chest, which features your first initial alongside a D for Daniela.

Additionally, she has a blanket she only brings out for you, which she periodically sprays with her favorite perfume. That way you can hold it close when she’s not around, as if you were cuddling her. For her sake, though, don’t hold the teddy bear or blanket too tightly when she is around. Homegirl here will get jealous of inanimate objects, even ones that she gave you.

Donna:

“I think I have a tea for this…” Damn right she has a tea for this. Donna has a massive garden, with dozens if not hundreds of different plants, including a variety of herbs/spices. At least one of them has to be a little helpful for you. Whether it relieves pain, helps you nap off some of your misery, or just distracts you by tasting bloody-well delicious! Besides, few things make you feel quite as loved as holding a cup of freshly brewed tea in your hands, knowing your lover made it just for you. Like a hug in a mug, it is!

Similarly to Alcina, Donna will also try to create a comfortable space for you, but isn’t likely to put it downstairs with her workshop. Instead she’ll let you take over one of the larger guest rooms, customizing it to suit your specific needs. There will be some easy to care for plants for decoration (ones that won’t mind potentially missing out on natural sunlight), a couple relaxing paintings, and a shelf near the bed with things to help you pass the time, mainly books.

Furthermore, she’ll do her best to keep you company as often as possible. She’s naturally a fairly quiet person, so you won’t have to worry about sound if that’s something you’re sensitive to. While she prefers using a sewing machine, she’ll do things by hand while you��re in pain, just to reduce the chances of you getting irritated by the sound.

Speaking of potentially irritating sounds… by god can Angie be difficult to be around when you’re ill. Thankfully, Donna is perfectly understanding of this, and, as the only person Angie ever listens to, makes sure to give the doll a stern talking to about your health. To your immense surprise, it actually works. You’re not exactly sure what was said, but Angie certainly becomes a lot more compensating afterwards. She’ll keep her antics to herself, and usually even on another side of the house from where you rest, but only for as long as you’re tucked away in your room. As soon as you set foot outside, her restraints are metaphorically removed. All hell breaks loose (as is her universe-given right as the physical embodiment of both Chaos and Entropy).

Mother Miranda:

If the two of you weren’t lovers, there’s a decent chance you would completely misinterpret her actions. She might come off as irritated, like she has bigger concerns than your health, you fragile little human. After all, she is a goddess (well, practically). But the truth is that she’s aching inside every time you have a bad pain day, knowing that (for once) she cannot cure your ailment. Maybe if she had infinite subjects with the same condition as you…

But, at the end of the day, that’s the problem. There’s only one of you. One of her beloved, her little human darling, so dangerously fragile in comparison to the scale she works on. Even with all the time in the world, which she most certainly has, she cannot cure you without taking incredible risks. With your life at stake… It is a gamble she refuses to take. You are hers, and while she hates to see you suffer, the truth is that she’ll always be selfish enough to let you endure on your own.

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t help, though, just that she doesn't do a full-out experiment on you. Instead, she keeps notes. She’ll track your activities, bedtimes/when you get up, dietary habits, when you have pain, what you do to treat said pain, how effective the treatments are, etc, etc. All of this can be very useful in establishing patterns (a skill she’s gotten very good at, in her many decades of being a scientist), which can in turn lead to less pain days.

(For example, many people with migraines find that certain foods seem to trigger a migraine, or at least increase the chances of getting one. Though admittedly they don’t always end up cutting the food out of their diet. I mean, come on, you want me to give up chocolate? You want me to drink normal milk, like an adult? Kidding, kidding, I don’t have any food triggers. Nor do I particularly enjoy chocolate milk, nor do I dislike it.)

Moving on! While her work seemingly takes precedence over your condition, Miranda is not heartless, and she does do some things to lend you more direct comfort. Specifically, she tries to work in the same room as you when she can, normally while making electronic copies of physical documents, or while looking over the details of a finished experiment. She’s not always one for cuddling, so she won’t often get in bed with you during the daytime. But at night? Yes, fine, she will wrap her arms around you, maybe one of her wings too if you like how soft they are.

Just don’t think that she secretly loves every second. It’s not like she’ll spend half an hour whispering about how sweet and adorable you are as soon as you fall asleep, or anything like that. It’s twenty minutes at the most.

Bonus!Avaskian Caldwell:

“Oh, fuckin’ mood!” Followed by a solid thirty seconds of pure regret. Seriously, though, Ava has spent xer entire life (starting at age 10) dealing with chronic migraines. For a while xe also dealt with POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), which meant lots of chest pain, but that (thankfully) faded as xe grew into an adult, as is fairly common with the condition. If anyone in Castle Dimitrescu understands unrelenting, unexplainable pain, it’s xer.

That being said… Ava never really managed xer chronic pain, at least not when xe was at xer worst. Xe had to drop out of school because of it. Hell, xe didn’t have a “real” job until xe was almost 23! Didn’t have a chance until things just calmed down for xer. So xe gets anxious whenever you talk about your health, worried that things are (or will at some point be) as bad for you as they were for xer. Other than that, though, you might initially think that xe doesn’t care, or didn’t understand the conversation.

Truth is, xe knows how absolutely fucking ANNOYING it can be to have to explain your health to every new person you meet (like the dozen different doctors you’ve met over the years, possibly every nurse who takes your pulse and thinks it’s a little bit high). So xe did a shit ton of research on your condition, in order to reduce how much you need to explain. Sure, xe will still have questions, and there are always aspects that only you can tell xer, but it’s a nice gesture.

As for helping you destress, xe’s pretty much a mix of Bela and Miranda. You’ll get plenty of massages (because Ava has learned from personal experience what sort of touches help with which sorts of pain), but also some scientific insight on any noticeable patterns. Lots of holding you close and telling you that you’re the coolest person in the world, and that Ava feels beyond lucky to have you.

#alcina dimitrescu x reader #bela dimitrescu x reader #cassandra dimitrescu x reader #daniela dimitrescu x reader #donna beneviento x reader #mother miranda x reader #oc x reader #avaskian caldwell #j has ocs #re8 village #resident evil: village #hcs

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fanmoose12 · 3 years ago

Note

Hi fanmoose! Got a prompt for you, if you're interested: Levi seeing the 104th and the vets preparing gifts for Hange's birthday, but he's wondering what to give them so he goes above and beyond... all the Scouts are taken by surprise.

Thanks, and good luck!

i changed a couple of things..... hope you still enjoy it! thanks for the prompt <3

Jean got a notebook. Armin made a new quill, using a feather from the owl he and Mikasa caught. Connie brought from his home village a whole basket of peers Hange loved so much. Sasha was responsible for baking a cake.

Nifa made her favorite brownies. Mike decided to gift Hange a new jacket, Nanaba bought a new pair of shoes, Erwin got her a new pair of glasses and a microscope she was whining about for so long. Moblit drew a fucking portrait of her.

Even Eren, as obtuse as he was, prepared a present for Hange.

“My mom was very good at sewing,” he shared with Levi, in the middle of his training, “she didn’t teach me how to do it,” at that, his voice lost some of its edge, tints of sadness appearing, “but Mikasa knows how to sew and she promised to help me with it!”

Levi could only arch an eyebrow. “And how is that related to a gift for Hange?”

Eren leaned closer with a hand next to his mouth, looking so serious, like he was going to tell the biggest secret in the world. “I’m going to sew a plushie for Squad Leader.”

“A plushie? A fucking toy with your titan’s face?”

There was a beat of silence. Then… “Damn it.” Eren took head in his hands, tugging at his hair with alarming desperation. “Damn it! I should have sewed the plushie of my Titan! Hange-san loves it!”

Yeah, as much as it annoyed Levi, there was certainly no way he could deny that.

“So… what did you sew instead?”

Peaking beneath his fingers, Eren mumbled. “A plushie of me holding a heart that says ‘I love you, Hange’.”

Fuck… as dense as Eren was, Levi had to admit… the gift was not bad at all. Especially for Eren. Especially comparing to his gift, which consisted of…

Nothing.

Just two days were left before Hange’s birthday, and he still no idea what to give her. Hange was probably expecting a present from him. Or, maybe, she was not. She was nice like that – always giving without asking for something in return. Hange was also kind, she thought he was her friend, and even more than that. Best friend, she once told him. And Levi had to admit. He felt it too. Hange was his friend. The first one he made in Survey Corps. The closest one he had.

Some friend he was, apparently. Not even preparing a gift for her.

Sensibly, he knew that he was making a problem out of nothing. He could give Hange something simple – a shampoo she obviously didn’t possess; a book she would probably like and squeal in his ear about; a new shirt or a bottle of good wine.

Hange would probably enjoy these kinds of gift. They were certainly useful. But were they meaningful? Would Hange remember them, ten years from now?

He wanted her to. Hange was his friend, perhaps, even something more. He wanted only the best for her. That’s why picking up a gift was such a problem.

With only two days left, Levi was getting desperate. He was thinking about seeking out help, but just before he gathered the strength…

The help came to him themselves.

“Good day, Levi,” with a good-natured smile, Erwin invaded his office, Mike and Nanaba trailing after him. “Are you busy?”

Levi pointedly looked at the mountain of paperwork on his desk. “Yes,” he drew, “All thanks to you, Erwin.”

“Well, you can take a break,” Erwin waved his hand dismissively, and took a seat on the opposite end of Levi’s desk. Nanaba and Mike occupied the sofa. “We came to discuss something very important,” the smile was gone, as Erwin clenched his jaw and knitted his eyebrows in a hard line. Looking at that expression, Levi felt his stomach sinking. What was this all about? If it was about their upcoming expedition, then where was… “A little birdie shared with us,” Erwin interrupted his heavy thoughts, “That you still have no present for Hange.”

What? Levi gawked at his guests, switching his confused gaze from one to the other.

“And what is the name of that birdie?” He would find that birdie and give them a piece of his mind, for sure. Who dared get poke his nose into his personal matters?

“Please, Levi,” Mike joined the conversation, “You couldn’t get more obvious. I can smell your desperation from miles away.”

Levi’s annoyance rose. Birdies, smelling desperation. Could they talk like normal people?

Seeing his increasing frustration, Nanaba decided to come to rescue. She smiled, tucking a lock of her hair behind an ear. “I overheard your conversation with Eren. You looked a bit distressed, honestly I thought you were going to kick his ass again… And since I doubt Hange is enamored with Eren in that way, I concluded that you…”

“Are angry not because the boy is a titan and spends too much time with Hange, but because he already has a gift prepared, when you do not.” Erwin finished.

Well… the conclusion was sound, at least. But that didn’t mean that Levi felt any less annoyed.

“So?” he raised an eyebrow, staring judgingly at his intruders. “What do you want from me?”

“We want to help, of course,” the smile was back at Erwin’s lips. “And we have some ideas.”

“Such as?”

Nanaba bounced from her seat, crossing the room to bang her palms against the surface of Levi’s desk. He jumped slightly, certainly not expecting it.

“You know what Hange really likes?”

“Books?” Levi tried. “Science? Titans? Books about titan’s science?”

“No, dummy,” Nanaba shook her head, “Hange likes you.”

It took him a long moment to comprehend. Even then, the only thing Levi could get out of his mouth was a very faint, “Eh?”

“We all know how much Hans makes you happy.” Mike said.

They did? How so?

“You spend a lot of time with Hange,” Erwin noted, answering his unasked question.

“And you allow her to do things that you deny everyone else,” Nanaba continued.

“And when she is with you, that constipated expression disappears from your face.” Mike finished.

He… didn’t have a constipated expression. And while Hange did make his days more pleasant and his survival that easier and more enjoyable… Levi was sure that no one knew about it, but him.

“Listen, we all know that you like Hange, and we’re telling you that Hange likes you. That’s why…” Erwin lifted his chin, his smile becoming nearly devilish. Were they still talking about a simple birthday gift? “I made a reservation in a restaurant in Sina. Take Hange there, eat good food, drink some wine, have a good night… Make Hange happy.”

Their suggestion was certainly better than Levi’s nothing. However…

“What you’re offering seems a lot like fraternization. Isn’t that illegal?” he narrowed his eyes at Erwin, skepticism oozing from him. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“Perish the thought!” not swayed by Levi’s scary expression, Erwin chuckled. “You’re correct, technically, two officers are not allowed to enter romantic relationship, but I think it’s a little too late for that.” Huh? Just how Levi was meant to interpret that? “Besides… think about humanity, Levi! If you and Hange were to conceive a child…” the expression on Erwin’s face was so dreamy, Levi felt chills at the base of his spine. “A child born from the union of humanity’s strongest and smartest… It could very well save our world!”

Levi stared at his Commander, at loss of words. Saying ‘you’re fucked up in the head, Erwin’ seemed a little too rude even for him, considering that Erwin was his superior officer. Still… he was fucked up in the head.

“Don’t listen to him,” Nanaba spoke, attracting Levi’s attention. “But think about our offer. An evening like that will really make Hange happy. You want that, don’t you?”

Did he want to make Hange happy? More than anything…

“Do it for Hange,” Nanaba urged.

“Do it for love,” Mike added.

“Do it for humanity!” Erwin passionately concluded.

Fucked up in the head, Levi thought. All of them were. Himself, included. But what was he going to lose? Besides, their offer was better than anything he could have come up with.

“Alright,” he surrendered, a sigh escaping him. “I’ll do it.”

Nanaba cheered. Mike nodded at him with a smile. Erwin looked like he was about to cry. Then, to Levi’s horror, he saluted.

“Get out of my office now,” he shooed them away, lowering his gaze back to the papers. “I need to work.”

“Just another quick thing,” Nanaba patted his shoulder with a cheerful smile. “Walk Hange to the door of her room after the dinner. And make sure that you return after nine o’clock.”

Ah. So they had an ulterior motive. Of course. Levi shouldn’t be surprised.

“You’re planning something for Hange, I take it?”

“A little party,” Mike confessed. “We’ll deal with food and drinks, but you’re in charge of getting Hange there in time.”

Levi didn’t remember agreeing to be in charge of Hange, but… he didn’t like the idea of anyone else doing it in his stead.

“Nine o’clock, four-eyes’ room, I got it. Now get out of my office.”

Nanaba, Erwin and Mike didn’t need to be told twice.

___

After finding a solution to his main dilemma, Levi was now met with another, no less important and challenging than the previous one.

Erwin and the others got him a reservation at the restaurant. But... now he needed to invite Hange there.

His first attempt, executed not long after Erwin, Nanaba and Mike left his office, failed spectacularly, despite his expectations. He naively thought that a simple note, carried to Hange via Moblit, would suffice. But, perhaps, the note didn’t reach its destination. Or Hange forgot to read it. Or she somehow misinterpreted the sentence ‘do you want to dine together?’. Or the fault laid in the absence of Levi’s signature.

Nevertheless, he needed to do better.

His next attempt was slightly more successful. At least, he got some kind of reaction. Still not reaction he had needed. Apparently, there were ways that one could misunderstand the simple phrase ‘hey, four-eyes, want to eat with me?’. Levi had expected a very enthusiastic ‘yes’. Instead he received ‘I’ll see you at the dinner’ and a door to his face.

Evidently, he had to do not only better, but also be a little clearer about his intentions.

After lots of pondering, Levi decided that nothing could be clearer than throwing a shiny new black jacket from Mike at Hange and barking, “Get dressed, Hange. We’re going out.”

That got him an intrigued ‘oooh’ and a promise to be ready in five minutes.

Levi smirked to himself. Finally, his plan had worked. Finally, he got through that brilliant and extremely dense head.

___

At first, the dinner was, for the lack of better word,extremely awkward.

Erwin failed to mention just how fancy the restaurant would be. Turned out, it was fancy. Very fancy. Fancier than anything Levi had seen in his life. Even Hange, despite not being a street rat from Underground, was feeling a little off.

“Everyone is staring at us,” she whispered to him, leaning over the table to do so.

Hange was right. Everyone was gawking at them. Perhaps, the reason for it was their clothes. Both of them were dressed in their best suits. Still, their best didn’t even begin to reach the best of the gathered crowd. Perhaps, other guests were weirded out by Hange’s loud cheer at the sight of meat in the menu.

Or, perhaps, their reputation preceded them, and everyone in here knew about humanity’s strongest soldier and crazy titan scientist, two of Erwin Smith’s loyal devils.

Whatever the case was, Levi didn’t like the obvious staring. They came here to eat and have a good time, not be observed like clowns in the circus.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered back to her. He really was. It was Erwin’s mistake, but it was Hange’s birthday and it was his fault for not checking the restaurant beforehand. He was a scout, for fuck’s sake. It was his job.

“Don’t even start,” Hange huffed, waving her hand dismissively. “Not the first time I receive that sort of treatment. Probably not the last one as well.”

Hange paused, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “And if they want to look at us so much, let’s give them something to stare at.”

Levi’s lips twitched up. “And what do you suggest?”

“Let’s order the priciest meals they have, eat them like animals they think we are, and then run away and let Erwin deal with that.”

There were many reasons why Levi loved Hange. This was one of them.

___

True to Hange’s plan, they were at their worst behavior. They used spoons instead of forks, they drank straight from the bottle, Hange ate the dessert with her hands, smearing cake all over her mouth, cheeks, palms and shirt. Barely keeping himself from laughing out loud, Levi wiped it all with his cravat, as Hange cooed at his chivalry.

Two hours later, their stomachs were full, the crowd was scandalized, their hearts were merry and their eyes were shining with unbridled mischief.

“I think we’ve succeeded at making the worst impression possible,” Hange spoke, following it with a loud laughter. Several guest scoffed at the volume. Levi showed all of them his scariest scowl. The rich fuckers returned their attention to their plates in record time.

“It’s time we make our exit,” he agreed.

He looked at Hange more closely, thinking if he should take the risk. She had been touching him freely throughout the whole evening. She pressed their calves together under the table, she ran a hand through his arm, she let him touch her face and tilt her chin. She didn’t seem opposed to the idea, so… Levi took a deep sighed, searching for every bit of courage inside of him. Once all of it was gathered, he took Hange by the hand, helping her to stand up.

To his surprise and huge relief, she didn’t shake his hand off. On the contrary, she squeezed his palm and interlaced their fingers.

Hand in hand, they started towards walking out of the restaurant. On his way there, Levi discreetly pushed a plate of soup at some wealthy lady, staining her light creamy dress and receiving a indignant cry and a joyous giggle from Hange.

After that, they had to speed up a little. It was Hange’s birthday. Levi didn’t want to spend it in the prison cell.

Once they were outside and some distance away from the restaurant, Hange stopped.

“Shit, Levi! Had you seen her face? She was—”

She didn’t finish. Hange leaned against the wall and threw her head back, laughing without abandon. She doubled over, hugging her stomach, her mirth not ceasing. Finding her mood strangely infectious, Levi couldn’t help but chuckle too.

Still snickering to herself, Hange looked up to meet his gaze. Her whole body was shaking from the laughter, and tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. Disheveled, red-faced and laughing, she was the most beautiful sight Levi had ever seen. The moonlight and faint stars only accentuated her beauty.

Levi was lost in watching her.

Subconsciously, in a mindless attempt to get a better look at the wonder that was Hange Zoe, he leaned in.

Hange leaned in too, her hand finding place at his shoulder. She moved that hand slightly, closer to his neck. Her fingers ghosted around his hairline, making him shiver.

He was looking in her eyes. Hange was looking at his lips.

The world around the two of them faded, the sounds of a street at night, the singing from the nearby pub disappearing to the background.

Levi didn’t know, had failed to register who moved first. But a moment later, his hand was on her waist, and Hange buried her fingers in his hair. And then, they were kissing – sloppily, desperately, without skill but with lots of passion.

Levi felt like he was struck by lightning. Nothing he had ever done before felt even remotely as good as kissing Hange did.

As the kiss progressed, becoming deeper, Levi found himself pressed against the wall.

Hange was everywhere – her tongue was in his mouth, her palms on his cheeks, her knee was rising, resting against his crotch. It was almost too much. And yet, not enough.

“Hange, Hange,” with some difficulty, he separated himself from her hot mouth and soft lips. “Hange, if someone sees us—”

“Oh, right,” still pressed dangerously close to him, she giggled. “Erwin would have a heart attack if we get jailed for making out on the streets. He’d deem us a disappointment to humanity.”

“Back to barracks then?”

Hange licked her lips and winked. Levi felt another strong surge of desire. “We can continue there.”

After that kind of promise, Levi hurried to find where they left their horses. He all but raced there, and jumped on his loyal stallion, grasping the reins a little too tightly.

Hange followed his suit. “Who arrives at the barracks first, gets to be on top?” she challenged.

Without waiting for his reply, she started off. Cursing, Levi struggled to keep up.

That day, he learned one essential lesson. Riding a horse with a raging boner was a fucking torture.

___

Hange was the first one to reach the stumbles. Dismounting her horse, she ran up to Levi, pulling him off the saddle and instantly connecting their lips. Levi would have liked to complain, but… who was he kidding?

Without another word, he brought Hange closer, putting his hand on her hip.

Just as the first one, the second kiss was amazing, enough to knock his breath out and make his knees buckle underneath him.

��If that’s my birthday gift,” Hange murmured, panting after they broke apart. “Then it’s the best one I ever had.”

And here Levi thought that there was nothing more enjoyable than kissing Hange. But as he saw her gentle smile, the adoring expression in her twinkling eyes, he was ready to melt in her arms.

However, he wouldn’t be himself if he passed an opportunity to use a sarcastic quip. “Is it better than Erwin’s microscope? Than Eren’s plushie?”

Hange put a finger to her chin, looking up with a thoughtful expression. “The microscope is really good, and that plushie is so adorable…” Levi’s good spirits vanished, as something ugly found its place inside his chest. Before it could manifest in a scowl, Hange caught his lips with hers once again.

“But nothing is better than you, shorty,” she confessed as they separated.

Hange likes you, Nanaba had said. She wasn’t wrong, it seemed.

“Your room or mine?” he asked, already tugging off Hange’s jacket.

“Mine. I was the one to win, after all,” she smirked, rapidly turning away and starting to run. Levi had no choice but to chase her.

___

He caught up with her near the entrance. Ceasing the moment, he wrapped arms around her waist, pressing her to him. Hange’s giggle turned into a moan. Levi delighted in that.

Exchanging messy kisses, they tumbled through the front door. Unable to break away from each other, they clumsily walked through the barracks, tripping and stumbling. And, despite the growing desire, they didn’t hurry as well. They stopped near the stairwell, so Hange could put a hickey on a spot above his collarbone. They paused at the middle of the hallway, so Levi could grind against her. Hange pressed him against the wall to whisper, “Fuck, Levi, this feels so good.”

When they reached the bedroom, Levi was ready to cheer. It was the longest walk through the barracks he had ever had. Was Hange’s room always that far away from the entrance?

With her hands shaking, she searched through her pockets for a key. She found it after a long minute that Levi spent kissing her neck. Once she fished it out, she put the key in the keyhole, and decided to celebrate that grand achievement with another breathtaking kiss.

Getting a little too eager, Levi pushed Hange forward. That was his mistake.

Apparently, the door to her room wasn’t closed. And, apparently,the room also wasn’t empty.

Unfortunately, Levi realized that and remembered the second part of Erwin’s plan a second too late. After he had heard the loud and cheerful ‘Happy birthday, Hange!’

With his arms still around Hange, he froze. Everyone else in the room froze too. The awkward silence settled over.

Levi’s thought frantically moved around his head, jumping from one corner to another. What should he do? Apologize? Let Hange go? Tell all of them to fuck off so he and Hange could finish what they had started?

However, he didn’t get to decide what to do with the unexpected audience. Hange chose for him.

“Guys!” she clasped her hands joyfully, her smile brighter than all the candles that stood around the room combined. “That’s so sweet! Thank you!”

She pulled away from Levi, sprinting to get to her friends. She gave a tight hug to Erwin, Mike, Nanaba, Moblit, Nifa, Eren, Armin, Mikasa, Sasha, Jean, Connie… Levi thought the string of people who wanted Hange’s attention would never end.

After hugs, came cake, and after cake was wine. He felt ignored, he felt utterly forgotten. He contemplated if he should go back to his room. He wanted Hange to kiss him again.

But instead he was sulking in the corner, munching on a cake Sasha had prepared. At least, the cake was good. But his frustration left a bitter taste in his mouth.

As his plate was emptied, Levi thought once again about leaving. But in that exact moment, seemingly out of nowhere, Hange appeared by his side.

“Planning to ditch the party early?” she wiggled her eyebrows, staring at him with unmasked mischief.

“It’s your birthday, not mine, four-eyes.”

“Exactly!” Hange threw an arm over his shoulders. “You’re my guest of honor!”

Ignoring the awakening of butterflies in his stomach and chalking them up to the effects of Sasha’s cake, Levi grunted, “Meaning?”

“Meaning I want you to stay!”

Levi rolled his eyes. He couldn’t really say no to Hange today, right? Although, he had troubles saying no to her any other day as well…

“And thank you for spending the whole evening with me,” Hange punctuated her gratitude with a kiss to his cheek. The butterflies were now flying freely, making Levi dizzy. It was hard to deny their origin anymore, with the trigger standing so close to him. “It was the best birthday I ever had.”

Well, that was all the gratitude Levi needed.

Before she left his side to receive more birthday wishes from their friends, Hange put her mouth above his ear, lowering her voice to a whisper, “Stay until the end, shorty. I’m not finished with you.”

She bounced off before he could give an answer. Perhaps, it was fairly obvious to her.

After all, how he could refuse Hange on the day of her birthday? How could he say no to receiving more of her attentions, and kisses?

With a satisfied hum, Levi settled against the wall, aiming his glare at all the guests. He couldn’t wait until all of them would leave. He couldn’t wait to have Hange all to himself.

#levihan #hange zoe

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shotgun--rider · 4 years ago

Text

Stay With Me

A @destielsecretsanta2020 gift for @princess-aleera

Summary: For the first time in his life, Dean has the opportunity for a real Christmas with his family. And it would be perfect, if Cas hadn’t decided to bail on him again. OR: Dean and Cas finally use their words.

Warnings: Dean’s cripplingly low self-esteem, Cas undervaluing himself...you know, the usual.

A/N: Did I anxiously rewrite half of this on Christmas Eve? Yes. Do I have any confidence whatsoever left in the quality of this fic? No! Nevertheless, merry Christmas to my lovely giftee and I hope you enjoy this dumb fluffy little thing!

By now, Dean should have really known better than to have any kind of expectations for Christmas. He hasn’t had anything less than a shitty holiday since Mary was alive, and then he’d been too young to remember it. The weeks leading up to the 25th in his childhood were marked out by shoplifting cheap gifts for Sam (usually practical stuff, like flannels and socks) and trying to convince John that they didn’t need to work a job on Christmas day. He’d managed to walk out with a paper-wrapped ham once, but cooking it in a motel room didn’t exactly turn out and Sammy got mac and cheese for Christmas dinner. Again.

Even when they got older, it still wasn’t much of a big deal. They’d toss badly-wrapped gifts at each other in the Impala, still the same kind of practical things as always. Once, Sam bought them dumb Santa hats from the Gas-n-Sip and they drove down the interstate wearing them for a couple dozen miles before Dean got fed up and chucked it into the backseat.

So, yeah, Christmas sucked ass. And usually Dean didn’t give it much thought, because it wasn’t like he had a lot of fond memories to miss. But this year...sue him, this year he’d thought it might be different. Jack had cheerfully requested a Christmas tree with such enthusiasm that they had caved and set one up in the library, and after Sam had spearheaded the decorating with Eileen, Dean had to admit it looked surprisingly festive. And once there was a tree, it seemed only right to put some effort into the gifts, so he painstakingly picked something out for each member of his little family. (It was paid for with a fake credit card, but it was the thought that counted.) And with several more YouTube tutorials than he would ever admit to a living soul, they were neatly wrapped under the tree, too.

It was shaping up to be something like a real Christmas, and he was starting to look forward to making new stupid traditions and watching the look on Sam’s face when he opened his gifts.

But Dean Winchester doesn’t get nice things. So even though there’s an ache in his gut he’s trying to ignore as he bends to fish Cas’s gift back out from under the tree, he’s not really surprised. Hurt, maybe. Pissed, definitely. But surprised? No, it only makes sense that the angel bailed on them on Christmas Eve, popping off to who the hell knows where and ignoring his phone the way he too often does.

This is what always happens, Dean reasons, shoulders a little hunched as he starts back toward his room. He’s an angel, of course he has better places to be than spending Christmas with a pair of boring human hunters. What does Dean have to offer him anyway? The gift in his hands is shitty, he’s demanded way more from the guy than he can ever repay, and he already knows he’s not good enough for Cas. So he’ll just quietly put the gift back and play the whole thing off if anybody asks.

He’s almost made it to his bedroom when he passes Eileen, the woman giving him a friendly smile that fades into a curious look when her gaze falls on the slightly unevenly wrapped box in his hands. She signs something that he doesn’t quite get, and Dean kicks himself again for being such a fuckup that he can’t even learn ASL right.

Eileen doesn’t seem to mind, asking her question again verbally and signing along to help him. “Does Cas get his present privately?” She punctuates with a little eyebrow wiggle, always trying to tease him about the angel.

Dean huffs, shaking his head. He manages the sign for no before speaking the rest. “Nah, Cas, uh, Cas isn’t coming to Christmas.” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

Eileen’s face scrunches. “What do you mean, he’s not coming? He was so excited--what did you do?”

“Nothing!” Dean says defensively, a private panic starting in his head at the thought that maybe he did, maybe he hurt Cas and he didn’t realize it. Or maybe Cas knew and left to save him the embarrassment. “He just said he had somewhere to be,”

“Did you talk to him about it?”

“He won’t answer his phone,” Dean says a little petulantly. He’s tried calling him about a dozen times at this point, and Cas has to have turned the damn thing off, because he doesn’t even get to the stupid endearing voicemail recording.

His brother’s girlfriend just gives him a look and folds her hands into a sign he knows immediately. Pray. “He’ll listen,”

Not for the first time, Dean wonders if Eileen is massively misinterpreting his relationship with Cas. Or at least, how much of a shit Cas gives about him. “Look, Eileen, I don’t think--”

Dean. She makes his name sign sharp and gently scolding. “Just talk to him,”

“Yeah, maybe,” he mumbles. He doesn’t bother to voice the but what if he still doesn’t answer.

He leaves Eileen with an attempt at looking nonchalant and makes it the rest of the way to his bedroom, flopping down on the memory foam mattress and staring at the ceiling. He’s positioned to one side as always, avoiding sprawling in the middle even though he would be well within his rights. Sam would probably spout some psychology bullshit about subconsciously saving the other half for someone. Yeah, right.

So maybe he’s a little more bitter about this than he thought. Squeezing his eyes shut, he huffs out a breath, half prepared to just pray to Cas so he can shout at him childishly. “Hey, uh, Cas? Listen, buddy--”

There’s an almost immediate flutter of wings and by the time Dean’s scrambling to sit halfway up, Cas is standing by the foot of the bed uncertainly, more rumpled than usual and his expression pained. “Hello, Dean,”

“Cas, what the hell?” Dean bursts out before he’s even fully decided to say the words.

“Dean,” Cas fixes his blue eyes on Dean’s face. “I think I may have made a mistake,”

“Really? What gave you that idea?” Dean shoots back sarcastically. “I mean, what the fuck, Cas? I get that you have obligations and better places to be, but goddammit, you have to stop leaving m--leaving without an explanation!” Vaguely, Dean realizes that he’s not totally in control of this conversation anymore, but he’s been sitting on this for a long time. “It’s Christmas, man,” he goes on weakly. “I know this is kinda your first one but you’re supposed to be with your family,”

“I know,” Cas rushes to agree, his face still flickering with distress. “But I could feel your longing after I left, and your prayer--” the angel slumps slightly in his too-big trench coat. “Dean, I don’t understand.”

“First of all, I was not longing. And b, what don’t you get? It’s not rocket science, Cas,”

“I left so that you could be with your family,” Cas explains, as if he’s not uttering the most insane thing Dean’s ever heard in his life. “But now you’re upset--I’m sorry, Dean,”

“Cas, what the fuck?” Dean says again, momentarily lost for words as he blinks at his best friend. “How do you not---you are family,”

Cas’s blue eyes blink a few times hopefully, before he seems to resign himself. “I try to be of use to you and Sam--”

“That has nothing to do with--” Dean stops. Oh, Cas. “Do...do you think we keep you around because you’re an angel?”

Cas tilts his head. “Well...yes,”

“Cas,” Dean says weakly. God, he wants to punch himself in the face for letting him think this way. “Look, Sam’s plenty useful, doing the research by myself would seriously suck ass. But he’s my brother either way. Family’s not--it’s not about being fucking useful.”

“Am I your brother, Dean?”

“Yes!” Dean bursts out, too loudly, kicking himself as his mouth continues without permission. “Yeah, I mean--yeah,” he trails off, not remotely willing to try explaining why that might not be the correct label after all. “You’re family, Cas.”

It’s probably just wishful thinking, but Cas looks almost disappointed. “Oh. I see. Thank you, Dean. I will--” a short pause, “I will stay for Christmas,”

“Great,” is all that comes out of Dean’s mouth in reply. “Yeah, that’s great.”

He wants to tell him that wasn’t actually what I wanted to say and I kinda think I might be in love with you and I want you to stay with me but the shadow of John Winchester and the fear of rejection keeps the words tightly coiled inside. Besides, they don’t do this. They don’t say things out loud, they never have. And--most of the time--that works.

So Dean swallows and smiles tightly and shoves away his newly-realized I love yous, turning around instead to find where he’d tossed Cas’s gift on the floor beside the bed. “You, uh, wanna put this back out--”

“Dean,”

Something in Cas’s voice has him straightening up immediately, and when he turns around the angel is looking at him with an expression he’s never seen before and--are those tears?

“Dean, I can hear you,”

Dean’s stomach sinks like a fear-filled lead balloon, but he asks anyway. “You can hear me what?”

“Sometimes,” Cas says quietly, “if you think something with enough intention, it can be heard like a prayer,”

Dean clears his throat roughly, bracing himself for Cas to explain gently how he has no interest in a man like Dean. “So, uh,” he trails off. Cas is still just looking at him with brimming eyes, which narrow suddenly.

“You are a good and righteous and wonderful man, Dean Winchester,” he says firmly, standing there so close and yet just out of Dean’s reach.

Dean gives a sheepish look. “Heard that bit too, huh?”

“Dean,” Cas says again, gently, waiting. Waiting so that Dean can go first.

And suddenly, with the knowledge that Cas already knows what he’s been trying to say, it’s infinitely less terrifying. “I--I love you, Cas,” he says hoarsely, surprising himself with how, after all this time, the words aren’t really that hard. “And you’re my best friend, and you’re family, and I don’t give a shit if you’ve got angel powers or whatever, and--” I need you please stay with me still gets stuck in his throat, the most dangerous out of all of those words, but Cas must hear it anyway, or be able to tell what he’s getting at, because he’s suddenly wrapped up in the angel’s embrace, the slightly shorter man warm and solid and thoroughly clinging to him.

He’d make a crack about chick flick moments, but he really doesn’t have a leg to stand on because he’s clinging to Cas just as tightly, gripping fistfuls of his trench coat and trying to reassure himself that this is real. This is real.

“I rebelled for you,” Cas is saying quietly into his shoulder. “I loved you from the minute I saw your soul for the first time.” And then he moves to meet Dean’s eyes, his own still looking a little watery, and finishes, “And I need you too,”

And Dean’s never kissed a man before, but after a confession like that is as good a time as any to bury the last of his father’s old words about fairies and manliness.

It’s clumsy at first, and not really fireworks and magic like chick flick romances like to claim, but it sends warm relief through his entire body. Dean shivers just slightly, pulling Cas closer as their mouths slowly explore, cautiously at first and then bolder, heat lacing the kiss. But more than anything, it feels like something he has been missing for so long that he stopped noticing has finally fitted back into place, and it’s overwhelming. But, Dean thinks as he helps toss Cas’s coat on the floor, so, so worth it.

***

The first real Winchester family Christmas is nothing short of chaotic, from the first moment that Dean and Cas finally emerge from their definitely-not-cuddling nest of blankets. Sam takes one look at them in the hallway and grins immediately, shaking his head with a loud “finally!” that has Dean scowling and demanding to know how long Sam has been paying attention to them. (The answer is far longer than Dean wants to think about)

They unwrap gifts on the floor of the library, indulging Jack’s inquisitive questions and periodically balling up wrapping to throw at each other. Sam’s hair is slowly collecting bows off the wrapping as Dean gets bored, though he eventually gives up when he has to choose between reaching Sam’s head and continuing to inch closer into Cas’s side.

For a moment, he wonders about the last Christmas when Mary was alive, and what she would say if she could see her sons and their hodgepodge celebration now. He doesn’t really mind, though, that he can’t remember it. This is all the holiday family memories he didn’t know he needed.

#destiel secret santa #destiel #destiel fic #deancas #spn fic

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blossom-hwa · 4 years ago

Text

Attach - MARK |Swing!|

I wrote 50k words in 10 days I think my brain is going to shut down

THANK YOU @deathbykpopboys FOR GIVING ME THE IDEA TO CONTINUE THIS FROM THE ORIGINAL DRABBLE (here). I LITERALLY OWE YOU MY LIFE. THIS STORY WOULDN’T EXIST WITHOUT YOU I SWEAR. THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME USE YOUR IDEAS, YOU DESERVE THE W O R L D

One more thing: a long time ago I promised @zhengtongue (fari love u) that all further Mark stories I wrote would be dedicated to her :) :) here’s the first Mark story I’ve written since then :) :) dedicated to you and @deathbykpopboys :D

Pairing: Mark x fem!reader

Genre: fluff, angst, Spiderman!au

Triggers: a lot of cursing, mild violence, some descriptions of sex (as in like. sex ed. no one actually does it), PANIC ATTACKS IN FUTURE CHAPTERS (I in no way meant to romanticize these triggers. If you feel I did, please let me know and I will fix it.)

Word Count: 9.2k

A disastrous field trip to OsCorp leaves you and Mark with two spider bites and a decision to make.

Attach >> Arc { 1 - Drifting Apart | 2 - Coming Home }

NCT Masterlist | Swing!

You wake up with a misplaced sense of excitement that makes you even grumpier than normal. It’s six in the fucking morning, finals and AP exams are in a month and a half, so what the hell is there to be excited about?

Then you open your eyes enough to see the permission slip sticking out the top of your bag and it clicks.

The field trip to OsCorp is today!

A grudging smile comes over your face. It might be six a.m., but you’re about to go on a field trip to one of the biggest biotech corporations in the world – you have a right to feel excited. You may be in high school, and some may say that getting excited over field trips is for little kids, but it’s OsCorp. Not Stark Industries, but still pretty damn close.

Quickly, you shower and dress, careful not to wake up your older brother. As you pass by his room, you feel a stab of guilt. Johnny worked another late shift last night, and he’ll probably have another one tomorrow. And here you are, taking a field trip.

Mood slightly dampened, you head out the door, locking it behind you with a quiet snick. In the lobby, you wait a few minutes for Mark to arrive. Exactly three minutes later, you hear his feet pounding down the stairs.

Any guilt you felt washes away at the sight of your best friend smiling behind his round glasses. Mark is what people might call a typical nerd – you’re a little too confrontational for that label – but you’ve known him for over ten years.

He’s so much more than that.

“Ready for OsCorp?” Mark pushes up his glasses, grinning widely.

You smile back just as eagerly. “Fuck yeah.”

The smiles stay throughout the train ride to school. Mark’s gets slightly smaller when Flash rolls through Midtown High’s gates and gives him that stupid smirk, but you distract him with talk about the labs you guys will get to see. The bus ride passes without fanfare – though Mark gets into a spat with your friend, Haechan, about the merits of computer science versus physics, fucking nerds – and soon enough, you’re is pulling into the huge parking lot at OsCorp.

Even Flash, who was griping about not getting to see Stark Industries and having to “settle for” OsCorp, is stunned by how immense the building actually is from the inside.

It’s fucking amazing. Pristine walls surround your classmates, while people in lab coats and business suits mill around beyond the huge lobby. Conference rooms with walls of glass let you see people giving presentations with complicated diagrams you’re itching to see.

Beside you, Mark catches his breath in delight. When you turn to him, he grins with so much excitement in his face that your heart melts for a moment.

He deserves a break. He deserves this excitement. With that, you link arms with him as a cheery intern starts the tour.

. . . . .

There’s nothing Mark would trade for being at OsCorp today. Even though he can’t go everywhere, the tour guide, Joy, makes the most of the places she has access to. With each new lab Mark enters, his wonder only heightens.

If this is OsCorp, he thinks, how cool is Stark Industries?

The tour ends with a video about what you all could do as future scientists and world leaders, and then Ms. Wilson herds the class back into the lobby to wait for the bus.

Mark has to use the bathroom. Though Wilson clearly isn’t happy about it, she lets him go with a stern warning to hurry.

He finds the bathroom quickly and starts to head back. But at some point, he takes a wrong turn or something because he’s now in a stark-white hallway that he hasn’t seen before.

Oh, come on. He doesn’t need Wilson to hate him any more than she already does. Confused, he looks around for someone to ask for directions, but there’s no one in the hall. In his frustration, he rolls his eyes towards the ceiling.

He barely suppresses a scream at the dangerous looking blue and red spider sitting up above him.

Normally, Mark just leaves spiders alone unless they get too close. He doesn’t have much love for insects or arachnids, but he doesn’t enjoy killing them. They just want to mind their own business, like he does.

This one, though, just oozes malicious intent.

Other spiders just want to do spin webs and eat bugs and stuff. Not this one.

Before he has time to yell, this one fucking leaps, silk tracing behind it, lands on his arm, and bites him.

A sharp sting races up his arm and the spot where the stupid arachnid bit him starts to throb. Belatedly, he starts shaking his arm to get rid of the thing, but it’s already climbing back up the wall and onto the ceiling.

For a moment, Mark just stares at the spider, clutching his arm.

“Mark?” Your voice jerks him out of his daze. Relief floods his veins, but terror and worry soon replace it. He opens his mouth to tell you to get away, but he can’t fucking speak. Then you turn down the hall.

Too late.

“Dude!” You jog forward, ignoring or misinterpreting Mark’s outstretched arm trying to push you away. “The bus is here! We need to –” You stop talking, finally realizing something’s wrong. Your eyes go to his arm, which is now bright red. “Mark? What’s –”

His vocal cords take that moment to start working. “Look up,” he whispers.

The spider leaps without warning, barely after a second after your eyes have even registered it. It settles on your arm quickly and you yelp.

It must have bitten you too.

Thankfully, you have more of a destructive instinct than Mark does. Your arm smashes against the wall with a resounding thud and the crushed spider drops to the ground. A spatter of liquid stains the white paint. You wipe your arm against the wall.

For a moment, you and Mark just stare at the spider’s corpse. Mark can feel the blood draining from his face.

“It bit you too?” you finally ask.

Mark nods tightly. “Yeah.”

You take a glance at your arm and blanch. Mark winces, seeing your skin already darkening with inflammation. With trembling fingers, you untie your jacket from around your waist. “Hide it,” you tell him when he looks at you questioningly. He numbly pushes the sleeves of his hoodie down.

Ms. Wilson yells at him a lot when he gets back, which he takes with a bowed head and many apologies. He barely hears it, though. The throbbing in his arm is almost overwhelming, and his mind is racing too fast to comprehend much of anything. When you all finally board the bus, you drag him to the back where the two of you sit, silent and scared.

That spider wasn’t from any lab he visited today, which means it was probably from some classified, secure experiment. Well, one that was supposed to be secure.

It was bright red and blue. It attacked without provocation.

Clearly, it wasn’t meant to have gotten loose.

Why was OsCorp even making these things?

Mark sneaks a glance at his throbbing arm. He doesn’t dare look under the hoodie sleeve for fear that someone else will see, but it hurts.

What effects will that bite have?

Can I even treat it?

Dread pools heavy in his stomach. Some spiders are extremely venomous.

Am I going to die?

Mark’s hand reaches over and grasps yours tightly. You try to give his hand a reassuring squeeze, but your hand is clammy and cold with anxiousness.

Any residual excitement from visiting OsCorp is gone. Only terror floods his veins.

. . . . .

The spider bite doesn’t go away for seven days, and with every hour that passes, the stupid thing only looks like it’s getting worse.

You try to ignore it at first. After all, you can’t exactly call in sick for a bug (or arachnid, whatever) bite. If you did, that would a) sound stupid and b) make your brother worry, which he really doesn’t need. So for the first three days, you grit your teeth, cover the bite with long sleeves even as the days begin to warm uncomfortably, and trudge to class.

The only thing that keeps you going is that you’re not alone. If anything, Mark is panicking a lot more than you. With every day that passes, he grows more and more outwardly concerned with the spread of red inflammation and the aches all over his body.

At least at first, you’d like to think that you hide your concern better than Mark. But by the third day, the inflamed part of your skin is about the size of your hand and hot to the touch, and you’re sure you don’t look much better than your best friend.

Mark comes over after school that day because Johnny’s working late and the two of you want to talk, alone. But at first, you don’t even speak – just lie on your bed and stare at the angry red spots on your arms.

“Are we going to die?” Mark finally mumbles, somehow sounding both panicked and resigned.

You want to reply with a ‘no, definitely not, stop overreacting,’ but the aches feel horrible and you have the strong urge to vomit. Neither of you have looked up your symptoms because the spider was clearly unnatural and WebMD will only make you feel worse, but you don’t need to be a genius to know that something is very wrong.

Nothing gets done that night, and it’s with a sinking feeling in your stomach that you hug Mark tightly before he walks up the several floors to his own apartment. Not wanting to eat for fear of it just coming back up, you messily scribble some answers to your homework and pass out.

You wake up the next morning and vomit all over the floor.

Johnny wakes up to the sound of crying and retching and immediately calls in sick for both of you when he opens the door to you trying to drag yourself to the bathroom, studiously avoiding the pool of sick on your floor.

Bleary-eyed and lightheaded, you text Mark and tell him you’re not going to school. He doesn’t reply until several hours later. He went to school but got picked up early after he threw up in class.

By day five, you have a high fever and Johnny has to take another day off. Luckily, it’s Saturday. You don’t have school. You hope you feel better by Monday.

But on day six, Sunday, you’re shivering and aching all over and the fear of death breaks you down. Tears stream down your face as you toss and turn in bed, intermittently yelling and muttering gibberish that Johnny can’t understand. At one point, you become aware of him sitting on the side of your bed, silently crying. With the last of your energy, you touch his fingers and squeeze lightly, tears still running down your cheeks.

You hope desperately that Mark feels better than you do.

On day seven, you feel slightly less disgusting. You stop vomiting sometime in the afternoon, and the redness of the spider bite has started to fade. The aches are still there, but they’ve concentrated in your stomach, back, and legs, so you don’t hurt everywhere anymore.

You wake up the next morning, already resigned to missing another day of school. But something immediately feels very, very wrong.

You don’t hurt. At all.

This makes you panic even more than when every part of you was in pain.

You roll out of bed with a frantic thud and practically rip off the blanket to check your arm. No redness. No heat. No sign of inflammation.

Your back doesn’t ache. Neither does your core. But wait, what the fuck - are you taller?

Everything’s clear, you realize. No blurriness from your near-sighted left eye, even without your glasses. You can see every leaf on the scraggly tree just outside your bedroom window.

You might have stopped vomiting, but this all still makes you feel like dry heaving. A hand goes to your stomach and you freeze.

Peeling up your shirt slowly, you look down and almost scream.

You have abs.

Abs.

With shaking fingers, you pull out your phone and dial Mark’s number. You know he’s fine enough to pick up – you and him were texting sporadically yesterday. He answers with a groggy, “Y/N, what the fuck.”

“Mark.” You try to breathe. “Do you hurt at all?”

Dead silence on his end.

“... No.”

“Is the bite still there?”

“... No.”

“Do you have fucking abs?”

“No – what the – Y/N, what the fuck is going on, what the fuck?”

He might be hyperventilating at this point. You can’t blame him. You think you’re about to vomit your guts out again.

“Meet me outside,” you snap, hastily changing your clothes. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but those spiders at OsCorp were... they weren’t fucking normal.”

That’s an understatement.

It takes ten minutes to convince Johnny you’re fine, you really are, you swear, you’re not vomiting and you can’t miss your French quiz today, you’ve already missed a week of school, yes you promise you’ll call him if you throw up again. When he finally lets you go, you race down the stairs faster than you’ve ever gone before.

Mark’s already there. For a minute, you two just stand outside the ratty apartment building with similar looks of shock and panic on your faces. Quickly, you tell Mark about what’s happened to you. He confirms it all.

“Are we like. Fucking. I don’t know.” You pull on your hair out of frustration. “Superhuman? Spider-people?”

On any other occasion, Mark, lovely logical intelligent Mark, would laugh and ask you if you were feeling all right. But now?

He shrugs, but you can tell he’s at least considering your words. “Maybe?” he replies in a very small voice, and then you realize he’s shaking.

The overwhelming need to protect your best friend rises up in you, but you can’t protect him from the spider venom in your veins. Frustration bubbles up in your chest and you clench your fist, but one look at the lost look on his face drains the panic from your body and you just envelop Mark in a hug that he immediately returns. “We’ll figure it out, Mark,” you mumble in his ear. “We’ll be fine. No matter what. Okay?”

“Okay,” he whispers in your ear.

“Good.”

Then you find that you can’t fucking detach yourself from him.

It’s not that you don’t want to. You literally can’t. Your fingers are somehow stuck to the back of his shirt and you have a feeling that if you yank hard enough to pull yourself away, a patch of cloth is going to come off with your hand.

“Mark? Try to let go of me.”

It turns out he can’t either.

“Mark, we have ten minutes before the next train leaves.”

Long story short, you miss the train. And as the two of you sheepishly walk in late to homeroom, you have a terrible feeling that you’re going to be missing many more trains in the future, too.

. . . . .

That first hug, sadly, does not bring an end to the adventures of Mark and Y/N sticking (literally) together.

Mark tries to be careful, he really does. He knows you’re trying too. But you’re both so used to linking arms, hugging, and holding hands that it’s difficult to remember that touching literally anything could result in a whole stupid fiasco.

You two are late to homeroom every. Single. Fucking. Day. Of. That. Week. Because neither of you can remember to keep your stupid hands to your stupid selves.

On Tuesday, it’s the hug.

On Wednesday, he grabs your arm to avoid a group of rushing passerby.

On Thursday, you playfully shove him.

On Friday, Mark wakes up praying for one day of peace, just one fucking day before he can bury his head in his pillow for two days straight and dream that this never happened.

And it would’ve been perfectly fine if you hadn’t fallen asleep on the train.

It’s not your fault, not at all. The night before, you were up so late trying to fix a bug in your computer science assignment that you almost fell asleep waiting for the train. Almost as soon as you board, you’re passed out.

Mark is stupid.

Normally when one of you falls asleep, the other will hold their hand or arm to keep them from slumping over completely. It’s basically instinct now, so when your head lolls onto his shoulder, Mark quickly grabs your hand and nudges you upright.

Then he realizes his mistake.

Fuck.

His slight jolt of realization shakes you awake. Mark’s heart sinks as your tired eyes open and immediately zero in on their linked hands.

You’re wide awake now.

You try to tug away. It doesn’t work.

“Fuck,” you say eloquently.

Mark winces. “Sorry. I swear I didn’t mean to, it’s just…” He winces again. “Habit?”

Honestly, after a week of this, Mark would have thought the two of you would get better at detaching from each other. But every morning, without fail, it’s been exactly like this – flailing limbs, anxious yanking, clothes threatening to rip.

The two of you stumble into the train station still stuck together. With his free hand, Mark checks his phone and groans.

“We have five minutes.”

Unsticking takes fifteen.

Mark is normally a pretty mild person. He can take a lot more of Flash’s shit than you can without batting an eye, and his teachers usually like him for his calm demeanor. But as he slips into his seat, face hot and ears undoubtedly bright red, he thinks he’s going to lose his mind.

Four late days in a row. Four fucking days.

He stifles a groan. If you two don’t figure out this sticking situation soon…

The bell for first period rings literally minutes after he sits down. With a sigh, he reaches down to pick up his bag, praying that he won’t stick to it, when Mr. Thomas, his homeroom teacher, calls for you and him to stay behind.

“Someone’s in trouble,” Flash sneers as he passes by.

Mark wants nothing more than to punch him in the face.

Thomas is a cool teacher, as far as Mark has known. He’s chill, likes to make jokes, and has two kids of his own – he knows and cares for his students. This knowledge just makes Mark feel so much worse, and as the two of you walk up to his teacher’s desk, he readies himself to make an apology.

“So, I’m sure you two know why I wanted to talk to you today.” Mr. Thomas’s mild voice contains a hint of reproach, and Mark winces. Next to him, he sees you do the same. He opens his mouth to apologize.

“I understand.”

Both of your heads snap up. How does he know?

“First love can be very overwhelming, especially at your age.”

Mark blinks. Then he blinks again.

His teacher just smiles benevolently. “Believe me, I would know. I met my wife when I was in high school, and we had some crazy memories. First love is a beautiful thing.”

Mark doesn’t want to hear anymore. He can already feel the redness creeping up his cheeks.

Please, Earth, just open up and swallow me whole.

“But let me give you some advice.” Mr. Thomas leans forward slightly, looking the two of you in your unwilling eyes. “Romantic rendezvous in the morning shouldn’t be more important than getting to school on time.”

A sort of strangled eep comes out of his throat just as you sputter, “Romantic rendezvous?!”

“You both are very intelligent and hardworking students, two of the best this school has ever seen, and I do think you two are a good fit for each other,” Mr. Thomas continues as if he hasn’t heard anything. “However, it’d be a shame for such good students to give up on your schooling for a boyfriend or girlfriend.”

“We’re – we’re not dating,” Mark protests. “Mr. Thomas, seriously –”

His teacher holds up a hand. “Mark, Y/N, if you two can’t control your… urges, you should at least be safe. I trust that you two both know that.”

There’s a stapler next to Mr. Thomas’s computer. Maybe he can staple his hand and go to the clinic. Or he could bash his head against the edge of the desk and knock himself out. Maybe grab those scissors in that cup of pens and just slit his throat right then and there.

Some sort of croaking noise leaves your throat. Mark doesn’t need to look at you to know how you’re feeling.

Mr. Thomas sighs. “But beyond that, school really should be your first priority.” He flashes a smile that Mark can’t find the presence of mind to return. “That’s all I wanted to say. I’ll give you two passes for next period. What do you have next?”

Passes in hand, the two of you stumble into the now-empty hall. Mr. Thomas’s parting words – “Remember my advice!” – rattle around in Mark’s mind.

That didn’t actually happen. There’s no way Mark’s homeroom teacher just gave the sex talk to him and his best friend who happens to be of the opposite gender. This is all just a really, really long nightmare, and Mark will wake up in a few minutes, wrapped in warm blankets.

He pinches himself. It hurts a lot.

Not a nightmare.

“That has to be illegal,” Mark mutters. “Fucking… what the fuck even was that?”

“I want to die,” you mumble.

There’s a bit of silence.

“Well…” You swallow hard, resolutely looking anywhere but Mark’s eyes. “I’ll be… going to class?”

He nods dumbly, then watches you disappear down the hall. The closing of the door jerks him out of his daze and he turns around, heading to his own class.

Head down, he hands the pass to his teacher and takes his seat, ignoring Flash’s smirk and Haechan’s look of worry. He grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to wake himself up from this real-life nightmare.

Could this day get any worse?

. . . . .

You honestly think, after leaving homeroom, that nothing could make this day even worse.

By third period, you’re cursing your naivete.

It’s like the stickiness is on tenfold today. Your fingers glue themselves to everything – textbook pages, the disgusting desks, pens, even a whiteboard marker from when you go up to solve a problem in calculus.

It takes a five-minute tugging match for Mr. Garcia to finally peel the marker off of your skin. The giggles of your classmates join the vestiges of Mr. Thomas’s “advice�� in bouncing around your brain like a million vicious ping pong balls.

After that, you avoid raising your hand to answer questions at all.

By the time you meet back up with Mark, you two have come to a silent agreement to not touch each other whatsoever. You studiously ignore each other all throughout English, and at lunch, you sit across the table, not next to each other like normal. At the same table, your friends look like they want to remark on the situation, but they wisely keep their mouths shut.

When you get up to throw your trash away, Diana, a girl you know but don’t really talk to, walks up as well. “Hey, Y/N,” she greets.

“Hey.” You try to smile.

“Um, I just wanted to ask.” She bites her lip, looking sympathetic. “Did… did you and Mark break up?”

You can almost hear the Windows shutting-down noise as your brain short-circuits.

How could you have broken up if you were never dating in the first place.

With an effort, you turn to her and swallow. “We were never dating,” you enunciate carefully. “So we never broke up.”

Diana immediately flushes bright red. “Oh, fuck, sorry. It’s just, Flash told everyone the two of you were together? And you guys seemed super close and all so it really looked like you were. I really did think you guys were dating, you looked super sweet together. But you didn’t talk much today, and you two looked pretty worked up this morning, so people thought…”

You’re going to kill Flash. You’re going to beat him up behind the school and slit his throat with your own nails.

“Well, we’re not.” You smile as best as you can. “Um, yeah.”

It just doesn’t stop. Until now, you never realized this many people actually paid attention to your personal life. Five more people have come up to ask if you and Mark are okay by the time chemistry rolls around, and as you take your place behind the cramped lab table with the boy everyone thinks you’re dating, you can practically feel the steam billowing out of your ears. Mark doesn’t look nearly as angry as you, but he looks a lot more confused and annoyed.

You brush fingers a few times as Mark pours out the acid and you try to set up the buret for today’s titration. Thankfully, you don’t really stick this time.

But then Mark gets his hand stuck to the Erlenmeyer flask and you have to spend ten precious minutes trying to tug it off, causing you to almost not finish the lab and earning both of you another black mark in Ms. Wilson’s mental book.

You ignore anyone who tries to ask you or Mark anything as you all but run out of school, only relaxing once you’ve thrown yourself onto a seat on the train. Mark slides down next to you and puts his head in his hands.

“Tell me this is all a nightmare,” he mumbles.

You don’t have the heart to tell him the truth.

By the time you’ve walked up the stairs to your apartment, you think you’re going to pass out. It’s been a long day. You don’t care if you have homework or if Mark’s staying over for a bit – you just want to lie in your bed and sleep away the horrors of today.

Then Johnny opens the door before you even have the chance to unlock it and you just know from the glint in his eye that everything is about to get ten times worse.

“Y/N, Mark. What a lovely surprise!” Your older brother is all welcoming words and terrifying smiles. “I got a very interesting call today from a certain Mr. Thomas. Mei did too –” and at this, poor Mark looks like he’s going to faint right then and there – “but she couldn’t leave work, so she asked if I could come home early and give you both a talk.”

You think you’re going to vomit.

“Johnny, whatever Mr. Thomas told you, it isn’t true,” you plead. “I swear on my life –”

“So you two haven’t been late to school every day this week?” Johnny raises an eyebrow.

You think you’re going to die. “Well, yes, but –”

“Have a seat.” Johnny gestures grandly at the small kitchen table, where he’s pulled out two chairs. To your horror, it looks like he’s enjoying this. “Mei and I think it’s time we gave you The Talk.”

If your day was bad before, Johnny gleefully takes it straight to hell.

“So boys have appendages that are called penises,” he begins sagely, “and girls have vaginas. You may know these by more colloquial terms, but those are a bit crass for my household.”

Bullshit. Johnny calls his co-workers dicks and Ten an ass every other night.

“Both of these are integral to the process of sex, and thus, baby-making,” Johnny continues. “During sex, the male – or whatever they identify as – will put the penis inside their partner’s vagina. Of course, that’s traditional. Other forms of sex include oral and anal…”

You’re five seconds away from putting your hands over your ears and just screaming bloody murder. Mark is looking down, fists screwed into his shirt, and his face is so red that he looks like he might implode.

Meanwhile, your evil older brother is grinning like the Joker. It’s infuriating and terrifying. You really, really want to reach out and punch him and just brawl like when you were younger, but your feet feel rooted to the floor.

Johnny’s spiel pauses for a second as he takes a dramatic breath. Immediately, you’re on guard. Whenever Johnny wants to be dramatic, it’s never a good thing.

“So in anal sex,” Johnny starts, “the appendage goes in the –”

Oh my god.

“We’re not fucking!” you finally explode.

Mark breathes a sigh – you think it’s one of relief, but you can’t be sure – while your brother just blinks. “Pardon?”

Your face burns hot, but you grit your teeth and stare Johnny in the eye. “Mark and I are not fucking,” you repeat carefully.

“Who said anything about you and Mark?” Johnny raises one perfect eyebrow.

Oh, you want to punch him so badly.

“But thank you for bringing that up!” Johnny smiles benevolently like a teacher rewarding you for doing something good in class.

You groan, knowing you’ve just made things so much worse.

“You two are hormonal teenagers, so you’ve undoubtedly already started to feel those urges.” Johnny keeps smiling pleasantly, even as you’re having war flashbacks to this morning in homeroom. “That’s perfectly normal. So – and I’m not saying you’re fucking –” he gives you that look that means uh huh, I totally do not believe you, but I’ll drop it for now until you prove yourself wrong – “but if you do become sexually active, you should always get tested for STDs and STIs first, and take preventative measures such as using condoms and birth control.”

That’s it. You’re just going to die. Slit your own throat with, you don’t fucking know, the pencil lying by Johnny’s arm. Maybe you’ll just grab that piece of paper over there and cover yourself in tiny papercuts and bleed to death. That couldn’t possibly hurt as much as hearing Johnny talk right now.

“Now back to anal sex!” Johnny smiles.

Mark lets out a small groan and buries his face in his hands. If anything, Johnny’s smile grows wider. “Anal sex is when –”

“Jesus Christ, Johnny!” You grab the pencil you wanted to slit your throat with and hurl it at your brother. The blunt point pokes him harmlessly in the chest and falls to the floor. “I don’t know what the fuck Mr. Thomas told you, but I – we –” you gesture helplessly between you and Mark – “we’re not doing anything! And I know all of this, dude, I go to high school!”

Even after that excellent point, Johnny still goes on for another ten minutes before he allows you to drag Mark to your room and slam the door shut.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” you mumble into your pillow.

Mark just makes a little pained noise in his throat.

The two of you do end up passing out for the best part of an hour before spending the rest of the afternoon finishing homework. Mark can barely look Johnny in the eye when he says goodbye, and as soon as the door shuts, you round on your older brother.

“What the fuck did Mr. Thomas say on the phone?” you snap.

Johnny raises his hands in a gesture of surrender as he stirs pasta in a pot. “He just said you and Mark have been late to homeroom every day this entire week, and he was sure it wasn’t much because you are both stellar students, but he worried that the two of you were becoming distracted because this wasn’t normal behavior.” He scrunches his eyebrows. “He might’ve mentioned… romantic rendezvous?”

You sink to the floor with a groan.

“I was just messing with you earlier.” Johnny’s words make you open your eyes to catch his teasing smile. “Seriously. I think I know you and Mark well enough to trust you not to do anything stupid.”

Suddenly, you become very aware of the spot on your arm where the spider bit you, the stupid thing that caused this whole mess in the first place. “Uh huh.”

“But I do want you to be careful.” Johnny’s eyes turn serious. “Mark is still a teenage boy, and you’re still a teenage girl. I do trust you, but things can still happen, even if they’re unexpected.”

Internally, you gag. Outwardly, you just nod. “I know.”

“Good.” Johnny turns back to the pasta, then quickly looks back at you. “Doesn’t it look like Mark filled out a little?”

Your heart literally leaps into your throat. You hadn’t really thought about it before, but the spider venom has caused you both to pack on some muscle overnight.

Sure, part of you is worried that Johnny is catching on to something weird. But something else is also making you sweat.

A memory of your linked hands from the morning flashes through your mind. In it, you realize, Mark’s arms are bulkier. A lot more than before.

Heat rises in your cheeks. You want to fling yourself into the void. “Y-yeah,” you squeak.

“Y/N, dating your best friend isn’t anything embarrassing –”

“We’re not dating!” you protest.

Johnny just gives you The Look again as he pours the water out of the pasta. “Okay.”

For the umpteenth time that day, you will whatever god is listening to just smite you down right then and there.

. . . . .

There are a lot of things that come with being a sort of spider-person that neither you nor Mark realized would happen, but in hindsight, they kind of (not really) make sense.

. . .

One: the sticking thing. It does make sense. Spiders walk on walls and other vertical surfaces by sticking to them with the little setules on their legs. Mark hypothesizes that maybe there’s some sort of electrostatic force between your skin and objects around you that makes you stick. After a moment of thought, you agree.

Doesn’t matter. Mark never wants to go through that ordeal of the first week over again.

He used to idolize Johnny. Johnny was something between another parent and the older brother he never had, embarrassing but cool and kind and so, so strong. Even after your parents died and he had to drop out of university to take care of you, he always stayed strong.

But now? After that disastrous Friday, Mark knows what you mean when you complain about Johnny being a menace to your health and well-being.

And of course, that’s not the end of it. Aunt Mei just has to get her hands into it too. The literal day after The Talk, you walk up to his apartment to work on a research paper together for the lab you two volunteer in. When he takes your laptop to read something, the device somehow gets stuck to his skin.

Mei comes home early that evening and walks in on you practically straddling him, trying to yank your laptop away.

Even Mark knows that it definitely doesn’t look that way from her perspective.

But all she does is say, “Use protection,” and close the door behind her.

(You leave early that evening, rushing out of the apartment with a face hot with embarrassment and lowered eyes. Mark slinks out of his room at some point to get something to eat, and Mei just gives him a smirk.)

Thankfully, after a couple more weeks, the two of you more or less figure out how to stop sticking to every goddamn thing you touch. It’s more of a thing that happens when either of you are nervous or stressed, so as long as you two keep calm and purposely remind yourselves not to stick to stuff, you’re fine.

Mr. Thomas still gives you a few looks, but now that you’re coming in on time to homeroom, he doesn’t say anything.

Thank fucking God for that.

. . .

Two: both you and him somehow buffed up overnight. Well, probably during the time that you two were sick. That explains the aching muscles in his stomach and his back – he has abs, and he’s definitely taller. So are you.

Spiders are strong. Relatively. So the new muscles kind of makes sense, even though it’s hard for Mark to get used to at first.

What doesn’t make sense is how much strength these muscles actually contain.

The first casualty is Mark’s apartment doorknob. You go to open it one day after visiting the lab and it just… fucking… twists all the way around. Mark finds himself staring at a doorknob in your hand and an open door with a hole in it.

You squeeze your eyes shut and sigh heavily. Mark rubs a hand over his face. “Mei is going to kill me,” he groans.

The two of you spend five panicked hours fixing the doorknob instead of working on the research paper and Wilson’s lab report. When Mei comes home, she doesn’t notice anything (which really is a miracle), but from that day on, whenever the doorknob squeaks or stalls or does anything weird in his vicinity, Mark freezes.

A trail of broken things starts littering your paths. A stapler he pushed down too hard. His locker door, which now has a dent in it. One of your bedroom floorboards, though you hide the crack in the wood under a pile of clothes. Someone’s old MP3 player on the sidewalk literally shatters beneath his feet. Pens, pencils, and highlighters break in your hands. No one wants to lend either of you supplies anymore, so he becomes more vigilant about his own.

Oh, you also “accidentally” step on Flash’s calculus binder, flattening the metal rings and breaking the covers. But you don’t regret that.

It’s like he’s a toddler again, hiding broken toys or messily fixing them with scotch tape and glue. The only difference is now, he uses duct tape and superglue and is somehow even worse at hiding things than before.

Mark starts putting away all of his and Mei’s valuables into high-up cabinets with the excuse of keeping them safe from his clumsiness. He advises you to do the same. Eventually, you two learn to control your strength and the number of things you break slowly dwindles to zero.

Of course, there are accidents. One time in PE, you run the mile a little too fast (which is an understatement – you beat everyone else in your group, which has never happened before), and now Coach wants you to join the track team. Then Mark squeezes a glass buret a little too hard in chemistry one day and the thing just fucking shatters onto the table. While he hastily grabs the broom and starts sweeping up the pieces, you tell Ms. Wilson he accidentally dropped it while Flash keeps insisting that he saw Mark snap it with his bare hands.

Ms. Wilson might vehemently dislike you and Mark, but she now thinks Flash is insane. The one spot of joy Mark now finds in chemistry comes from Ms. Wilson narrowing her eyes at Flash whenever he says something remotely stupid, like she’s thinking of sending him to the school psychologist.

After all, who would accuse spindly, nerdy Mark of having the strength to shatter a reinforced glass tube in his palm?

He’s never particularly liked the stereotype people placed him in, but now he’s pretty thankful for it.

. . .

Three: he has reflexes sharper than he’s ever had before.

It’s not the same as, say, having his senses enhanced. They are enhanced – both of you can see clearly without glasses, he can hear things he’s never been able to before, and his nose wrinkles at smells no one else can detect. Sometimes it’s overwhelming and he has to duck into a quiet shop to escape the bustling noise of New York City.

But this new sixth sense reflex thing? It’s different.

It isn’t fake. Like, Mark could say he’s developed a sixth sense for when Flash wants to be a little shit, meaning he hears when Flash snorts or shuffles around in the back and knows to duck his head.

But this?

Mark first realizes it a few weeks after the spider bite. He’s minding his own business, talking with his friends before class, when Flash decides to be stupid and throw an apple at his head.

Mark doesn’t see Flash. He doesn’t see the apple. He doesn’t hear any swoosh of wind or feel anything in the air. But something in his head screams DANGER DANGER DANGER and he whips himself away from the apple, which smacks into his locker.

The hall falls awkwardly silent as Mark tries to process what just happened.

He didn’t even notice Flash’s arm or the apple. He didn’t see it, didn’t hear it, didn’t feel it. But somehow, he knew something was wrong. He knew to duck away.

You recover a few seconds later. “What the fuck, Flash?” Then you pick up the apple, throw it back with far more force, and the hall descends into its normal levels of chaos. You all go to class, but in his peripheral vision, Mark can see you raising an eyebrow at him.

“What was that with Flash?” you ask later, when you two have boarded the train home. “I know you didn’t see that apple coming. Your back aas completely to him.”

Mark shrugs. “I just felt… I don’t know, really. I didn’t see him or hear anything. Just, something in my brain screamed danger and I just kind of moved.”

You look around, making sure nobody is paying attention. “Spider thing again?” you whisper.

“Maybe?”

For the next week or so, nothing happens that would trigger whatever the hell that was again. Mark makes sure to keep everyone he talks in sight, not allowing anyone to get behind him or to surprise him. He only ducked away that first time, but is surprised again, he has a feeling that his reactions could be a lot worse the next time. Like more violent.

The two of you are walking home from the lab when you hear scuffling in a nearby alley. Common sense tells Mark to keep walking, but as you two pass by, he can’t help but look. You stop walking too.

It’s a mugging, but the muggers clearly don’t have a lot of experience. Sure, they’re in a mostly-empty place, but the sun’s barely gone down and they’re trying to get money from a teenage girl who probably doesn’t have much on her. But one of the two has a gun.

He should just walk past and ignore it. Things like this happen all the time. Cops would just escalate the situation, and he’s too weak to help much.

The realization hits him with a jolt. But he isn’t weak anymore.

Mark feels your gaze on him and he turns to meet it. You raise an eyebrow, cocking your head slightly toward the alley. He nods.

He’s always been light on his feet, but the spider bite seems to have made him almost soundless as he steps into the alley. The muggers don’t notice either of you at first, they’re too focused on their crying victim.

It happens quickly. You dart behind the unarmed man and pull him into a chokehold. His partner has fast reflexes though and immediately aims the gun at Mark.

DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER –

Mark drops to the ground seconds before the bullet sinks into the wall behind him.

Together, you subdue the men, leaving them groaning by the side of the street. Under the blanket of darkness that’s now fallen, Mark crushes the gun with his shoe, hoping nobody is paying attention to the dark object under his feet or the cracking noises. The girl thanks you effusively and runs off, and the two of you head on home.

This is what gets him thinking. You two are strong now, sticky, and have a sort of sixth sense for imminent danger.

It terrifies him to think of it, but the more he does, the more it makes sense.

You guys could keep doing this. Patrol the city, help people get around safely. Everyone knows the NYPD and the justice system aren’t shit. They couldn’t charge the drunk kid with a rich daddy who killed your parents. They couldn’t find the thief who shot his uncle. People will keep committing crimes, and the NYPD won’t be able to stop them.

But maybe, just maybe, Mark thinks, you could.

. . . . .

Mark is the one who brings up using your newfound skills – you refuse to call them powers, that’s just a step too far – for the good of the neighborhood.

“Think about it,” he says, looking at his hands. His face is pale, but he keeps going. “We have these, uh, enhanced abilities. Remember how we helped that girl get away from the muggers? What if we could do that for more people?”

You’re usually the brash one in most situations, but here, you take a step back. “There’s a lot of things to think about if we want to do that, Mark.” You chew your lips, thinking. “We can’t get caught, or else we could get arrested too. We need to be able to get away quickly and without injury, or Johnny or Mei will find out. We can’t afford a lot of hospital bills, either. We would need to move fast. Really fast.”

Mark nods. “I know. It’s just…” He looks at his hands again. His fingers are just as slim and graceful as they used to be, but both of you know the strength that now lies within them. “I don’t feel right, being able to help people but not doing it. You know.” He looks at you, and though his face is pale and his voice a little shaky, he’s resolute. “You and I have always tried to help people whenever we could.”

There’s bitterness there and you echo it, remembering the inept, corrupt legal system that couldn’t even bring justice to your family. The same law enforcement that couldn’t bring justice to Mark’s.

You could help prevent that. You could prevent the crimes in the first place, find the criminals and tie them up for the police to put away. Help make sure no one else has to deal with what you and Mark went through.

“Okay.” You rest your chin on your fist. “All right. Let’s say we hypothetically do this. We need to be able to mask ourselves as much as possible, keep our DNA away from the scene. This can only happen when Johnny and Mei are doing late shifts, so they don’t catch on.”

“First aid,” Mark adds. “We’ll probably get into scrapes and things. But we’ll also need to be able to immobilize the criminals and get away fast…”

Silence falls as you start thinking. Ropes are bulky and get heavy. Chains are even worse. Carrying them around would slow you down, so there’s no point. What you need is something lightweight and sticky, but strong.

An idea begins to form in your mind. You and Mark volunteer in labs at a nearby university. Professor Wang in the organic chemistry lab is really chill and lets you perform experiments with polymers and stuff he doesn’t need anymore. Mark works in mechanical engineering with Professor Tuan, who lets him build things out of scrap plastic and metal.

Spider bites.

Spider webs.

You could create synthetic webs, while Mark could make something that lets you shoot them out. There’ll be a lot of test trials and you’ll need to find an empty space for that, but if it works?

It’ll be so worth it.

Your mind races with possibilities. You could immobilize criminals, stick them to walls or the ground. You could stopper guns, or at least slow bullets down. You could trip people up with webs on their legs, keep them from punching or shooting with some on their arms.

And you could swing from buildings, which solves the travel problem.

“I have an idea,” you say. Mark raises an eyebrow.

A smirk grows on your face. “But we’re going to need to work on your fear of heights first.”

. . . . .

Mark thinks he’s going to have a heart attack, and he’s not even the one jumping first.

The two of you have taken a day off to go to Central Park – not for fun or anything (well, you insist it’ll be fun. Mark has other opinions), but to test out the strength of your web fluid. You’ve already done some trial runs with inanimate objects and you think it’s strong enough to hold both yours and Mark’s body weights, but you need to check.

Mark wants to argue that you have the rest of summer break to check, but you insist on doing it as early as possible. “We need time to fix mistakes,” you point out. “Plus, the earlier we finish this, the earlier we can... start doing stuff.”

He can’t exactly argue with that.

The web shooters are working well, Mark is finally thankful to say. Every single time he remembers the first test trial, he wants the earth to just open up and accept him into the void.

(He didn’t realize just how strongly the shooter would actually eject your “webs.” He also didn’t know how to aim very well. Long story short, you got a glob of polymers right to the face and Mark consequently wanted to die right then and there. The ensuing purple bruise on the side of your face made you the subject of several kinky jokes on Flash’s end.

They stopped when you picked up his new calculus binder and hit him over the head with it.

At least you found out the webs were indeed sticky enough.)

“I’m going!” you yell, startling Mark from his thoughts. You’re at least twelve feet up in a tree in Central Park, looking determinedly at a sturdy branch poking out from another trunk around ten feet away. Mark’s heart flips when he sees how high up you are.

Jesus Christ. Twelve feet, and he already feels like he’s going to start screaming.

What’s going to happen when he possibly has to swing off a building?

With shaking hands, Mark holds up his phone, fingers poised over the record button on the camera app. For whatever reason, you’d insisted on recording each “trial” like it was an actual laboratory test. Mark just goes along with it.

“Ready?” he yells.

“Yeah!”

He presses the record button.

For a second, you stand on your branch, staring steadily ahead. Then you raise your right arm, shoot a line of webbing to the next tree trunk, and leap.

Mark’s breath catches.

A screeching yelp tears itself from your throat as you swing through the air, using your momentum to rise back up and land neatly on the tree branch. Mark holds his breath as you wobble back and forth slightly, then drop into a steadier crouch. He sighs in relief and stops the video.

“Holy shit!” You climb down the tree and run over. “Holy shit! That was so fucking cool, Mark!”

“I’m sure,” he replies in a faint voice, looking at the tree you leapt from.

Twelve feet. It’s just twelve fucking feet, not like the monstrosity that is Trump Tower. It’s not even as high as his apartment building.

And yet he still wants to die.

Fucking acrophobia. Mark squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself to take a breath.

Your hand goes to rest on his shoulder. “Hey, Mark.”

He looks at you.

“If you’re really not ready today, it’s fine.” The excitement in your eyes is gone, replaced by calm concern. “We can do this another day. Or we can figure out another option closer to the ground.”

God, what did Mark even do to deserve a friend like you? Even after all the work you put in to making the synthetic webs – a stroke of genius, by the way – you’re willing to put it all aside for him. Just for him.

He steels himself. “I’m good. I’m fine.” He flashes you something resembling a smile and starts hauling himself into the tree. “I can do this,” he mumbles once he’s on the branch.

Then he looks down and almost throws up.

Placing a hand on the tree trunk, he looks away and forces himself to take a deep breath. He’s fine. He’ll be fine. He trusts in his web shooter to be accurate. He trusts in your webs to be strong enough.

He trusts that even if he falls, you won’t let him get far. He trusts that you’ll keep him safe.

“Ready?” you yell. Mark looks down again to nod, but the world isn’t spinning anymore. He locks his eyes onto the tree you jumped into and aims his web shooter.

“Ready!” he yells back. Faintly, he hears the beeping noise that signals the start of the recording.

Thwip. Web fluid shoots out and latches onto the branch. Before he can lose his nerve, he jumps.

A yell rips from his throat as he hurtles to the ground. Air rushes past his face as he swings his body up, up, until the branch is in view and he can plant his feet against it, using the last of his momentum to pull himself up. He wobbles a bit, then plants his arm against the tree trunk to steady himself.

He gasps shakily. The ground still looks so small from here, but the drop feels a fraction less frightening than it used to be. He takes one more deep breath, then starts to slowly climb down the tree.

As soon as he reaches the ground, you race over and engulf him in a strong hug. “You did it, Mark!” you all but yell into his ear. “You did it!”

Despite himself, Mark lets out a trembling bout of laughter, hugging you as close as he can. “Holy shit,” he mumbles, drinking in the steadiness that you bring to him. “Holy fuck.”

The two of you spend the rest of the afternoon in the secluded spot, leaping from the tallest trees you can find for longer and longer distances. You take notes as Mark pulls the sticky but mostly solidified web fluid from the branches, analyzing how some of them seem to have solidified and cracked a little under stress. “They need a little more flexibility,” you tell him as the two of you pile the web fluid into a bag. You think you can recycle it to make more. “With the adjustments you make on the shooters, I think they’ll be even better next time.”

“Yeah.” It’s all Mark can say. As he sits down next to you on the subway, he suddenly feels so drained and tired that he automatically slumps and places his head on your shoulder.

A small, surprised laugh sounds next to his ear, and he feels your hand go up to pat his head. “You did great today,” you murmur.

He smiles. In that moment, while your hand continues stroking his hair, he feels like he could do anything.

Anything for the world.

Anything for you.

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redbeanboi · 5 years ago

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bucci gang college!au

the college au that you didn’t know you needed:

I’m bored and I’m still thinking about university because I’m swamped with work!! Here’s some hc’s I have of what the boys would study in university.

Bucciarati:

maybe it’s because I’m planning on doing it myself, or the fact that I can’t help but thirst over the image of Bucciarati in a turtleneck, but I can see Bucciarati studying History in undergrad and going for Library Science/Museum/Archival Studies in grad school. Bucciarati is always portrayed as a reliable worker who can keep his mouth shut, etc.... So I think this kinda fits into Archivist stuff, since, depending on who you work for (the government specifically), you constantly have to handle secret/sensitive material. Important and absolutely vital position! And Bucciarati working in a library/museum setting is also really cute to me, but if anything I can see him working as an Archivist for an organization or maybe even the government.

Giorno:

I know I’ve seen people put Giorno in some kind of Life science, like plant or animal study, but... and don’t get me wrong, maybe it’s because I project my boyfriend onto Giorno because they’re freakishly similar in a bunch of ways, but!! Giorno going into Mechanical Engineering/Robotics is absolutely my jam!! And after graduating from school, I can see Giorno eventually working for a company that makes prosthetic robotic limbs. Something about “breathing life” into an object and giving someone a new arm/leg/etc. gives me Giorno vibes... Also my boyfriend is sorta working on stuff like this so that’s another reason why I see Giorno doing this stuff. Giorno’s also very smart, and I think something like Mech E would really challenge and push him. Plus, when making prosthetic limbs or when working with robotics in general, a lot of engineers will observe and study animals and movement and such. Everything about this field of study just screams “Giorno” to me.

Mista:

I know we like to poke fun at Mista a lot, but I think he likes reading a lot and could easily apply himself to some difficult courses. Maybe it’s the fact that he works with guns a lot and is just very smart in general, but I’m thinking Mista would go into Physics. Catch him doing his physics coursework with Giorno because they’re both slumped on the same problem. Now, i don’t think he’d ever consider going into academia, but if he did, he’d definitely be that professor who just has his TA do the lectures while he does his research. I could also see him just working in the same engineering company as Giorno? Possibilities are endless, I think he’d be able to do anything really. Maybe he’d a mechanic if he doesn’t want to go to uni and goes to trade school instead.

Fugo:

Fugo going into law school?? I know that didn’t exactly work out very well, but I do think that he’d feel challenged and would get to make the most of his intellect. He’s a smart guy and I think he might do Philosophy for undergrad as most people would go that route anyway. Plus I like imagining Mista complain about Fugo’s readings (”this Plato guy thinks way too much about this damn cave—” “Shut up mista”).

Abbacchio:

Hm. Maybe law school for Abbacchio too?? On the other hand, because he seems to really like classical music and is the kind to dwell on the past, I could also see him doing Music History, minoring in either piano or composition maybe. If he decides to do some accompanist work for a classmate who’s awful and studies vocal performance, he will complain about it to the other guys (”how the hell can you be tone deaf and studying music at the same time??”). He and Bucciarati hang out a lot....sometimes Bucciarati will accompany Abbacchio to the practice rooms. Sometimes they’ll spend an awful amount of time there (mostly for practicing, alright?? they’re responsible students. don’t be cheeky)

Narancia:

I know it’s easy to get carried away with “ahahaha Narancia doesn’t know 16*55!!” but let’s set those jokes aside and acknowledge how smart he can be. Now since this is a college!au, I’m going to say that Narancia would go into some field of study that allows him to use his strengths. I think he’s always shown really good instincts. Also, I know he totally misinterpreted Giorno during this one fight, but I always love how Narancia is the only one to notice that Giorno’s waving to them during the Babyface fight (so what if he didn’t realize there was an attack yet!!)??? ++ Aerosmith’s ability to detect carbon dioxide is, in my opinion, the biggest example of his instinct/ability to catch onto things real quick. Narancia also remembers a lot of information (I mean, he got everything Trish asked for when he was running errands). And!! he is very concerned with Trish after Venice despite not knowing her very well. I think that’s very telling of his character. A guy who is very concerned for other people! So! I can see him doing healthcare in some shape or form. Narancia getting a BSN?? Nurse Narancia??? yes please!!

BONUS!!

Trish:

I know Trish becomes a popstar in PHF (which,,,, don’t hate me but,,, I’m not super crazy about it), but I can see her studying fashion design. Maybe it’s because I used to go to a school with a really rigorous fashion design program, but I can see Trish having fun there (while also being challenged!) and also putting out some really great work. Expect the guys to come and hang out with her in the studio when she has to work on projects overnight—Bruno and Abbacchio are the first to come and the rest come waltzing in soon after. Mista and Fugo usually come last to join them and bring a lot of snacks for the night.

-----

A/N: I’m going to probably write some kind of comp fic using these ideas but.... enjoy !! based on a conversation I had with @jojo-reads .... thank u friend.

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muddyhippy · 4 years ago

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Night Terrors, Chapter 5: Check-ins and Check-ups

A Lily Of-Many-Names Mechanisms Story

Okay, this is my last attempt to get this posted and picked up by the mechanisms tag before I just accept defeat and scream into the void! Apologies for the multiple times I have posted this now, I’m just trying to make Tumblr do it’s job for once! This will probably get self-reblogged once as a last ditch attempt because that sometimes works to make a post of mine appear on my own dashboard!

Summary

Lily has another nightmare filled with darkness and bad ones later than her usual night terrors torment her and when her usual source of comfort is nowhere to be found she decides to try her luck with the one person she’s pretty sure will still be up…

Featuring; Some science officer observations, discussions of nightmares, lots of comfort, medical practice, some past Jonny whump, and some soft mechs at the end!

CW-Medical examination, blood test (very minor), needles (very brief), discussion of nightmares (ALL of these are tagged on AO3 too)

(This is also posted on AO3 but I am not including links on this post to see if tumblr will actually allow it to appear outside of my own damn blog! If you want the link there’s lots of versions on muddyhippy!)

Check-ins and Check-ups

There was a tentative knocking at the lab door.

Raphaella frowned, she checked the ship’s time, 4:54 am. That was unusual. The only one who bothered to knock like that was Lily and Lily would be in bed by now and—

Ah.

Raphaella moved in a fluid motion, rising from her workbench and opened the door to be greeted by a slightly soggy Lily, the tear tracks and snotty nose was evidence of what had happened, clutching a fuzzy lump of something.

“Jonny not in his room?”

Lily shook her head, “M’sorry.”

Raph sighed. It wasn’t a great inconvenience, she was hardly interrupting a breakthrough, she’d just lost track of time documenting one of her less hazardous bio-concoctions. Without a word she scooped Lily and her fuzzy thing up and carried her back to the bench. Lily immediately cuddled in close to her, Gemini tucked against her chest, breathing in the science officer’s familiar scent of chemicals, leather and a hint of flowers from her long golden hair. Lily loved Raphaella’s hair, it was so beautiful and silky. She loved being allowed to play with it, threading her little fingers through the fine strands and trying to plait them carefully.

“You want to tell me what it was about?” prompted Raph.

“It was silly.” Lily thought the science officer was so clever and busy with all he experiments she felt shy and small and silly admitting what was wrong, she was a big girl and she should be able to handle one little nightmare. Even if it had really scared her. Lily hadn’t wanted to bother her, Raphaella was always kind when she did her checks on her but that was always at the same time, they were planned. So were all her fun science lessons. This was definitely interrupting and interrupting was rude.

Raphaella sighed, disappointed at Lily’s conclusion, “If it upset you then by definition it is not silly. Just because dreams are caused by synapse transfer and your brain’s interpretation of events does not mean that the outcome can be deemed ridiculous if it has an impact on you.”

“Oh.” Lily wasn’t entirely sure what that meant but it sounded like she didn’t think Lily was silly after all.

“Quite.”

“I dreamt the Aurora was all dark and cold and I could hear banging like a big, angry someone was trying to get in.” Lily explained quietly.

“I see.” Raphaella frowned.

Lily quailed a little, misinterpreting her expression and began to hide her face, “I said it was silly.”

The science officer sighed, realising what Lily thought she’d meant, “And what did I say?”

“Sorry.” The child cast her eyes down as she mumbled.

Very gently Raphaella caught Lily’s chin and pulled her face up to meet her, “No, don’t be sorry. This is a perfectly rational thing to dream Lily. You’ve been very brave and you continue to be brave. My research indicates that nightmares are a way of processing something very frightening and unpleasant that as happened to you. What happened to you was not silly so your way of processing it is also not silly.”

It had actually be a good excuse to research nightmares in general since she knew full well the whole crew got them, regardless of age. Her own ones were manageable if unpleasant, determined to remind her of things she’d much rather forget.

Lily’s lower lip wobbled dangerously.

Raphaella sighed and for once decided to take a leaf out of Jonny’s book.

Logical rational explanations could wait until she was little older. And she knew Lily responded extremely well physical comfort, she’d seen evidence of that be beyond that farthest doubt.

“Come here little proton, it’s alright.” Raphaella wrapped both her arms and wings about the upset child and began rocking her like she’d seen Jonny do. It seemed to work after all and if observed action had been proved to yield positive results then who was she to argue with empirical evidence?

“It’s alright. You’re safe. Aurora is never truly dark, Nastya, Jonny, Tim and Brian don’t really like the dark either so she makes sure it’s always bright enough. And no one can get into Aurora without our say so. Aurora wouldn’t let them in anyway.”

“An’ you’d shoot them if they did.” Came a convinced voice.

“We certainly would. Or do something more interesting but we’d make sure they never got to you.”

“Promise?”

Raphaella was not in the habit of keeping promises, they were ephemeral and inconsequential unless you could use them to get what you wanted but this one felt important.

“On my honour as a scientist.”

Lily’s eyes widened at the words, that was very important. Raphaella was the best scientist there was and science was very, very precious to her. So she very much meant it.

“Thank you.” Lily snuggled closer

Raphaella sighed once more, not really put out, she began to card her fingers gently through Lily’s silvery hair. It had been more pleasant than she’d been expecting to show Lily an exact comparison for her hair colour in the natural world, sunshine reflected off the surface of the lake. She rather thought the explanation of how light travelled and refracted might have gone a bit over her head but Lily had been an enthusiastic listener all the same which was better than her crewmates most of the time. She had been thrilled at being compared to sunshine too.

Lily tentatively inched her fingers towards Raphaella’s cascading tresses, seeking the comfort they represented, Raphaella was kind and she was safe, she looked after her using her science. Lily loved sitting on the science officers’ lap, it made her feel important and special when Raphaella spoke science to her, (like when the others told her about things they loved too) even if she didn’t always understand it, she especially loved it when she let her play with her hair. Lily wanted to grow hers just as long.

The science officer gave Lily her warmest smile, the one she had cultivated especially for the child. “Go on little proton, I don’t mind.”

Lily gave her a smile filled with wonder that quickly turned into one of happy, soothed exhaustion. Two hands, one large, one small, each carefully combing fingers through soft hair, both knowing a singular form of peace.

It took precisely two minutes and thirty seven seconds for Lily to fall asleep under the science officer’s ministrations. Lily had never fallen asleep on Raphaella before, she wasn’t normally the lulling type, leaving it to the others when the occasion arose but this was immensely satisfying, she could now see why Jonny never really complained about holding her till she slept.

She was glad this interaction was being recorded too, it would be useful to refer back to when comparing different calming methods they all used to see which was the most effective. She had a suspicion that despite all their research, Jonny’s instinctive cuddle and rocking combination from the first night was probably the more sure-fire way to settle Lily. Not that she’s tell him of course. He didn’t need to know just what a comparably good job he was doing. The thing Lily had been clutching was likely to be a Jonny concoction too, the man was deceptively good at needlecraft, he’d mended enough of the crew’s clothes over the years when sufficiently bribed with whiskey, he’d even fixed the Toy Solider’s uniform when it got torn badly enough, complaining that he’d done so only because he couldn’t stand it moping around lamenting the damage.

He’d even carefully embroidered eyes on the thing Lily held which seemed to be some sort of geological shape. She could admit whilst in her own company only that the craftsmanship on it was rather remarkable. He’d obviously gone to some effort to make her something with crystalline accuracy in some sort of fuzzy fabric and given how tightly Lily had been holding it but she’d never seen it in the mess at meal times nor had it accompanied the child to her check-up sessions, it was her comfort-at-night object. That, that was surprisingly thoughtful of him. She smiled quietly to herself.

He definitely didn’t need to know what a good job he was doing.

Maybe a hint.

He also didn’t need to know the general positives these interactions were having on the pair of them and by extension, the rest of the crew. They would all work it out eventually and if she said anything too soon the idea would be dismissed out of hand, no, it was much better to be able to make unobtrusive observations and predictions unhindered.

Lily was beginning to grow at a healthy rate, she wasn’t back up to where she should be yet but after three months she was now making steady progress. At her last weekly check-up Lily was now projected to be back on track to reach where she should be for a healthy eight year old in the next three months. They’d successfully reversed the physical damage done to her by the three weeks of acute malnutrition but the longer effects of a lifetime of not having quite enough would take longer to mend.

Still, it felt, well, nice to see her improving.

The first time she’d insisted on a proper check had been only few days after Lily had joined them. She’d asked Jonny to bring her to lab so she could get a real idea of what they were working with for Lily, exact height and weight, not to mention resting heart rate, lung capacity, bone density and a blood test to make sure everything was functioning as it should be. Lily was human so there were some basics that could be taken for granted but Raphaella wanted a solid starting point for knowing how best to reverse the damage of long term malnutrition.

She’d argued with Jonny about it for 47 minutes before he finally saw sense and agreed to bring her along. His hang ups over poor medical practice were one thing and even understandable but not to the point that it impeded Lily’s recovery.

He’d grudgingly agreed, especially when the others added their voices in assent and Raphaella assured him that she’d keep to the bare minimum of procedures to assess Lily.

Marius had argued that it was so they could help her not hurt her. Given how delicate the matter was nobody teased Marius that surely it should be him leading the investigation if he was, in fact, a doctor. As it was, they all recognised that Raphaella’s dedication to the scientific approach would probably yield better results long term. Marius and Brian advised on what she should be looking for specifically all the same.

It was Nastya who’d finally swung him into accepting the proposal. She pointed out that if they didn’t check her properly when they could have and it turned out that they’d ensured the damage done by her ship management was permanent then that made them no better than the idiots that had led her mission. A grim accolade no one wanted to earn, the more Lily talked about life on her ship the more everyone was convinced it was mission led by utter idiots doomed to failure.

She added quietly that they weren’t like their creator, that Carmilla would only be interested in tests to see how she could exploit Lily. They needed to conduct tests to work out exactly how to help Lily properly and make sure she stayed healthy and happy.

Jonny couldn’t argue with that. Well, he could. But he wouldn’t, Lily being safe and well and as healthy as she could be was too important. Kid was a bag of bones, a mortal bag of bones at that and he should know, she still spent half her time attached to him and he was honestly worried by how light she was. He had very vague memories of being young except for a few key things but if he really thought about it he was sure at eight he’d been taller and broader. That wasn’t a bullshit boy vs girl nonsense thing either, he was sure he’d been taller and heavier at her age and that was with his family set up. Something was wrong. Raphaella was right, they did need to check.

He didn’t have to like it though.

Raphaella wasn’t sure which of the two were the more nervous coming in to the Lab.

She made it more into a game in an attempt to settle them both, it wouldn’t do for their nerves to set up a negative feedback loop. She got them both to play catch with one of her more robust recorders so she could check hand to eye coordination and reflexes. She challenged Lily to scrunch up as small as she could then stand on her tip toes and then stand as straight and flat-footed as she could on her weighing scales.

Raphaella had Jonny pick her up and hold her as though they were posing for photo whilst she deployed the scanner for Lily’s bone density, explaining that she wanted close ups of her smiling face. It covered her dental development too.

Checking her ears and throat had been relatively easy, getting silly to pull as ridiculous faces as she could whilst trying to sing ‘Old King Cole’ worked on her throat and the otoscope was hardly invasive.

Jonny had managed to keep things light enough asking if Raphaella had found some of Ashes’ missing gold down there. Lily had been indignant and Raphaella had played along, pleased he was trying to make things easier.

The blood test was unsurprisingly a little harder of a sell.

Lily went rigid with fear when she saw the needle.

Hmm. Understandable but not helpful, it was one of her smallest ones as well.

Jonny cleared his throat, his own spine stiffening and also not taking his eyes off the syringe. “Why don’t we have a go with the stethoscope first?”

That was a surprising suggestion coming from him. Raphaella had been planning to brace herself and try to use that as a wind down but maybe there needed to be buffer. She decided to put it to Lily to decide.

“Lily, I’m not going to hurt you. I need to take a little bit of your blood to check everything is working as it should be inside you. Your blood can tell me all sorts of important things that you yourself won’t be able to tell me.”

Lily still looked scared. Raphaella found it wasn’t an expression she liked to see on so young a face. Raphaella had no problem being seen as intimidating or even down right terrifying by those who crossed her path or got in her way. That was half the fun, but on Lily? No, she didn’t like being the cause of that fear one bit. The test was still needed though.

“But you’ve got a choice,” she continued in the tone she’d already modulated especially for the child, no-nonsense but gentle, firm but soft enough to put her at ease most of the time. “I can take this sample now then use the stethoscope to listen to your heart and lungs or I can listen first and then take the blood sample but either way I need to take it.”

The child had tried to melt into Jonny, clinging to him, fingers burying in fabric and belts.

Raphaella tried not to notice that the comforting hand that was running up and down her back was trembling.

Lily turned to face Jonny. “What do you think?”

Jonny tore his gaze from the poised syringe and did his best to look relaxed and nonchalant despite the fact his heartrate had audibly trebled, “I think it’s always better to get the thing that scares you done first. Raph’s right though, she’s only doing it because she wants to make sure you’re okay inside and out. It won’t hurt, it’s more like getting a sharp pinch on your skin for a second and then it’s done.”

He didn’t mention that it was fine when blood was being taken from you rather than a bunch of different poisons being injected into you over and over again to see how quickly each one affected you and how quickly you came back. How each one burned and cramped and ripped through every single system until he was desperate for death. He was the first after all. Carmilla had to make sure her new creation was full-proof and indestructible. That he could come back from anything.

“How do you know?”

Jonny smiled ruefully, “I’ve had a lot of injections over the years, given lots of samples too. It doesn’t hurt.” ‘It’s what comes after’ remained unsaid.

“Oh.” Lily clearly thought about it, weighing up the pros and cons. She eyed the stethoscope on the science officer’s workbench. She knew how that worked at least. There was something right next to her that might make her feel braver. “If Raphaella takes a sample can, can I listen to your heart while she does it?”

Jonny was halfway to opening his mouth to say ‘no’ on sheer reflex when Lily added in a small voice, “I don’t want to watch. I don’t like blood. It goes bad and gloopy and changes colour too quickly. And it smells horrible.”

Well fuck. He could hardly say no to that.

“You won’t be able to smell it Lily, it’ll be in the syringe.” Raphaella tried to distract, she was well aware of Jonny’s dislike of anything to do with exam practice. She was actually impressed he’d not just dumped Lily on her and run, that he’d taken part so far. He had more courage than she gave him credit for, that or a greater sense of guardianship than she’d expected. Either way, he was making her job much easier and she appreciated it.

Raphaella had tried to get a better understanding of his Mechanism not long after she’d joined the crew, intrigued by the ticking of his chest. She’d come at him with a stethoscope and woken up in the wreckage of her workbench recovering from 6 gunshot wounds.

She hadn’t pursued that line of research further.

“Still don’t like it.” Lily half spoke into Jonny’s chest and half to the science officer.

“That’s fair enough.” Conceded Raphaella

Lily’s eyes were doing the thing again. The thing where they took up half her face, she gazed imploringly up at him. “Please?”

Fuck. He really had to immunise himself against that. Later. Now though?

He swallowed. “Sure.”

Raphaella raised an eyebrow, fully prepared to snatch Lily out of his arms and rocket skywards if he looked like he was going to detonate like he did last time.

Jonny gave her tiniest nod.

This was Lily. He shook himself internally. It was Lily. Lily couldn’t hurt him if she tried. Okay, well she could but she wasn’t armed right now and she liked his ticking. He forced himself to watch her, to brace for the touch of the disc. He’d be ready, he’d know. If he closed his eyes there was no guarantee he’d be able to hold it together for her. This was Lily reaching to him for comfort, he reminded himself firmly. She needed him to distract her from something frightening but necessary. Lily wasn’t going to sigh and tut and then open him up.

He wasn’t strapped to a table.

He forced himself to breathe as calmly as he could, the way Ivy had shown him from one of her books when he’d taken refuge once in the earliest incarnation of the library.

He was fine, he was holding Lily. He was free to move. He was holding Lily and being reassuring because needles were frightening. He was proving it was fine. It was fine.

The disc made contact.

It took everything in him not to bolt.

“Jonny, your ticking is very fast.” A little voice piped up matter-of-factly.

Before he got a chance to answer Lily had already drawn her own conclusions.

“I know I’m not a proper doctor like Raphaella but I won’t hurt you. See?” She took the disc off then pressed it even more gently against him, then rested her head on him too, trying to be reassuring.

Fucking Hell. That she thought she could hurt him? Like this? At all? But the pressure helped. Carmilla had never been gentle with his chest. She’d never been gentle full stop.

Lily was.

This was Lily and it was fine. He held her a little tighter. “I like this,” she spoke quietly, as if she was speaking directly to his heart but then again, when wasn’t she? “I can hear your ticking all around. It’s going slower now.”

It took two tries to speak.

“T-That’s because you’re doing a good job.” Raphaella was watching him like a hawk, despite the fact he’d drained of colour and there was a noticeable (to her experienced eye at least) tremor running through him he was still sat still and solid for Lily, making no sign that he was about to flip her workbench.

“I am?”

“Of course.” He managed the ghost of his usual grin, “I don’t let just anyone listen to me.” If only she knew how true that was.

Lily beamed at him, utterly delighted. Just as Raphaella took her moment.

Jonny was aware enough of the situation to catch Lily’s face as she turned to see the source of the sudden pinch, directing her back to look at him, the surprised ‘Eeep!’ already escaping her lips. “Keep looking this way Lemondrop, it’s alright. Keep listening to the ticking.”

Tears pricked the corners of her eyes.

“It’s alright,” he ran his fingers through her hair, hating that she was upset, hating that they were doing this. He’d always sworn he’d have nothing to do with anything like this but here he was. A necessary evil. “It’s alright, she’ll be done soon. You’re being very brave.” He didn’t dare rock her and risk jostling the needle so he hummed instead.

She clung to him with her other hand, with a muffled whimper but did as he asked. It didn’t hurt, not really but the idea of something being stuck in her was an idea she didn’t like. Still, Jonny had her and she could hear his ticking loud and clear and he said she was being brave so that was good. She could hear him humming Rose Red as well and she couldn’t help but relax, Jonny had her, she could hear his ticks and the humming and she could smell his spicesmokewhiskey.

It was okay.

She was safe.

They were looking after her because she was part of the crew, they cared about her. It was alright.

All at once there was the feel of something going away and something pressing on her arm.

“There we go, all done, good girl, you’ve been very brave.” Raphaella finished taping the small cotton gauze to her arm covering the tiny pinprick of blood.

Lily took a moment to take in the sight of her arm and then the science officer, Raphaella had been right, it hadn’t hurt. It had been scary because she wasn’t sure what it would be like and she was scared it would hurt because they were bigger and stronger and braver than her and that they said it wouldn’t hurt because it wouldn’t hurt them when they had to have needles in them but actually, it had been a bit of a shock but it hadn’t hurt at all and Jonny had made her feel safe all the way through and he wouldn’t do anything to hurt her or let anything else hurt her anyway.

She gave a sunny smile to Raphaella.

“It didn’t hurt!”

Despite herself, Raphaella was rather pleased, she allowed a knowing grin to bloom across her face, rather than the haughty scoff that she saved for the others, “I did say.”

“You did!” Lily beamed wider.

“Well I’m glad I was proved correct. Are you ready for me to take a turn listening to you?”

“Yes.”

“Good, I just need a listen to your chest and then we’re all done. Can I have the stethoscope back?”

Lily carefully removed the buds from her ears and hand the piece of equipment back, she missed hearing Jonny’s ticking quite so loudly. She leaned against him instead.

Raphaella decided not to comment on the sudden drop in tension from Jonny the second the disc was taken away from his chest.

With gentle efficiency she had the device in her own ears.

“Can you sit up straight for a moment please?” Lily did so, “then take some nice deep breaths for me.”

Lily did the best she could.

After a few minutes Raphaella sat back, satisfied.

Her initial suspicions were well founded, Lily was almost chronically underweight and under-height but that could be fixed with care. Her lungs and heart seemed strong through and her reflexes as well as hand to eye coordination were sharp and focused, ears and throat were clear of infection too and that was the most common source of ailments for human children according to her research. Lily was a fighter and, pending the results of the blood tests had no reason not to make a full recovery. That was pleasing and definitely worth the few uncomfortable moments.

She gave Jonny a short nod over Lily’s head.

The relief in his face was something Raphaella was going to remember for long time to come. She might find him deeply irritating most of the time but he’d certainly proved himself when it counted. He was many things but could not be accused of being a selfish bastard. At least, not right now.

“Alright then, all done here. I think you’ve earned something nice.”

“Really?” Lily perked up even more.

“Oh yes.”

“What?”

“I happen to know Brian’s been busy in the kitchen with Marius.” She happened to know exactly because they’d planned it earlier, it was only fair for Lily to get some sort of recompense for having to go through something unpleasant. It was something they all wished they had had when they were young (not to mention everything that had happened since they were young).

The excited squeal that erupted was something that warmed both of the adults in the room and would certainly not get passed on to the chocolate cake bakers. It wouldn’t do to give them ideas after all.

Not for the first time they found themselves hand in hand with Lily, swinging the excited child all the way to the mess.

Raphaella came back to the present and smiled as she held the currently comforted and sleeping Lily, the child had got far more used to the weekly check-ups following the first one, it helped that her blood came back fine and healthy, no underlying issues to be concerned about so no more blood tests were needed.

She still liked to listen to Jonny’s heart with the stethoscope during the check-ups.

Jonny still endured it for her sake.

Raphaella thought that over the weeks he’d looked a little more relaxed each time.

The check-ups proved what they were seeing in real time. Lily was mending. She was putting on healthy weight and starting to grow, her skin was starting to have a glow to it again. It felt nice to have used her research and scientific approach for unquestionable good for once. She’d shared her findings with them all. The rest were pleased too. They’d made a comprehensive list of supplies with Ivy and Raph’s information that Ashes organised and sourced. Marius and Brian eagerly added more recipes to the collection and the others made a point of each eating vaguely healthy snacks every so often so as to not make Lily feel like she was the odd one out. Regular mealtimes helped too.

It was satisfying to see that improvement over time, Lily was proving to be a fascinating research study that Raphaella was very much invested in. It was also immensely satisfying that the rest of the crew was just as invested her topic of study for once. Seeing Lily grow and heal and improve was something that was having a positive effect on the rest of the crew, she’d noticed (and made notes of course) that the crew interacted more frequently and more positively usually when Lily was present but sometimes even without her there. These developments were, pleasing, to put it into layman terms. Though Raphaella wasn’t entirely sure why. It would take further investigation of course but she did have eyes, the positive interactions were slowly improving the general well-being in the crew, communal mealtimes and friendlier banter seemed to be improving moods across the board.

Most notably of course was Jonny.

His general comportment had softened a little, his violent outbursts reduced and he definitely looked like he was sleeping more regularly. Raphaella estimated his alcohol consumption had dropped by a least a bottle a night which was rather impressive, it wasn’t like the alcohol did anything long term since all their mechanisms prevented permanent internal damage, especially when one was killed far too frequently to even consider organ failure due to extensive alcohol poisoning. But still, it was nice to see him looking more, centred, for lack of a better word.

Heavy boots made their appearance on the peripheries of her hearing.

Think of the devil…

Raphaella took a moment to soak up the situation, Lily had fallen asleep against her peacefully and easily as if she were her mother. It was a completely new experience but not an unpleasant one it turned out. Raphaella had enjoyed introducing the scientific process to Lily over the past three months, teaching her the basic principles of chemistry and physics and now botany since she’d set up the hydroponics lab with Nastya and Ivy. That had been a fun collaboration and all three enjoyed Lily’s delight at each seed sprouted and new leaf grown.

She’d added a whole new strand of research to her study too, the poisons and toxins of plants were fascinating and she was eager to put those to good use when the next opportunity arrived. There was always opportunity for hybridisation too. Excellent.

The heavy boots stopped right outside the lab door followed by an uncharacteristically gentle knock.

“Come in Jonny.”

The first mate entered looking annoyed at the presumption that quickly melted into relief when he saw a sleeping Lily in her arms.

The science officer gave him an appraising look. Despite the obvious panic at not knowing where Lily was Jonny still looked calmer and better rested than he had for centuries. Raphaella found she liked that look on him, he seemed far more settled, music rehearsals with everyone had become a lot more productive too, always a bonus.

She still found it funny he refused to use his ship communicator to ask the group chat where Lily was on an evening she had a late nightmare-startled wander, clearly too proud to admit he’d lost her. It wasn’t as if she could get into any real danger any more. Both the Octokittens and Stowaways knew not to touch her and Aurora wouldn’t let her get lost anywhere too dangerous. Then again, the day he did they knew it would be a serious one.

As it was the first mate was only looking marginally stressed and panicked, a whole lot better than she’d seen him look.

Jonny took in the sight of Raphaella as he entered the lab. From the lights behind her and a sleeping Lily in her arms the science officer resembled an angel that he’d seen statues of on multiple worlds, beautiful and terrible, just as he remembered the preacher talking about on Sundays when he was small. He’d seen what Raph could do to somewhere or someone that irked her and he’d come to believe all those stories.

Still, the look she was giving Lily as he walked in was something else, it was a face he knew she saved just for Lily, that slight softness, a pride in her eyes and smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

Jonny knew Raphaella was incredibly pleased by the progress Lily had made both physically and with all the science lessons she’d been teaching, Lily had talked his ear off about all the things she’d made by experimenting. The physical checks were good too, in their way. Much as he hated them. If he really had to admit it, the checks were worth it, it was good to know Lily was on the right track at least, that they weren’t making a mess of her, at least not physically.

“Thought she might be here.” Came his way of explanation,

“Well congratulations.”

“She been here long?”

“Only half an hour or so.”

“Good.” He stayed curt, not wanting to give her room to rinse him more than he was expecting, Raphaella had a way with words that could cut like one of her scalpels if he wasn’t careful, most of the time it didn’t bother him but if it was about Lily and how he handled her, it tended to cut to the core of him, much to his annoyance.

“How did you lose her this time?”

“I didn’t lose her!” he snapped, “She just got up when I wasn’t around. I do check the times on things you know, she’s usually up at 11, 1 and 3 so much that you can set a metronome by her. It’s not my fault she just got up out of sequence!”

“And you weren’t in your room because?” pressed Raphaella, not giving an inch.

“Because I wasn’t!”

“Jonny,” Began the science officer in a deceptively gentle voice, “I could wake her up and make Lily ask you with her big blue accusing eyes.”

The first mate looked furious he was about to say ‘you wouldn’t dare’ but Raph absolutely would to prove a point and he really didn’t want to risk having to admit the truth to Lily, he found it incredibly hard to lie to her properly after all.

“Fine, Lily mentioned a birthday coming up some months from now and I am making something for that. Away from my room. Lost track of time. That’s it.” He ground out.

“A secret something I take it?” Raphaella teased, amused to have caught him in such an obvious lie, Jonny on the whole was usually quite good at lying. He managed it effortlessly on stage after all. And he was damned good poker player.

“You won’t find it.”

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with the bits of clothing several of us have missed over the last few weeks would it?”

Jonny’s ears began to turn red.

“No.”

‘Aha.’ Thought Raphaella. But she was intrigued enough to let it stand, it was honestly rather refreshing to have Jonny do something vaguely productive outside of his musical and lyrical talents, repair work not-withstanding. There were only so many theoretical studies of chronic alcohol abuse and sleep deprivation she could observe before it got tiresome. This proved to be far more interesting.

“Alright then, well I await to see the results with bated breath.”

“Fuck off Raph.”

“I could just wake her.”

“I could just shoot you.”

“You know you won’t.”

The impotent rage on Jonny’s face was amusing to witness.

“Fine, but I fill find a way to make you suffer.”

“I look forward to it.”

He matched her feral grin, feeling like he’d at least gained somewhat of an upper hand he moved on to the more important issue, Lily hadn’t been out of her bed unexpectedly for the last month, not since she found Brian during the poker game.

“What was it about this time?”

“Doors being rattled and banged on by enemies in the dark.”

“Oh, standard then. Good.”

“Standard? I thought they were all like this one?” This was interesting, there were others? Raphaella got halfway through that thought and froze.

Uh, Jonny realised he’d not actually shared a lot of detail of Lily’s nightmares, he passed on the basics to everyone at Tim’s insistence after she’d climbed in with him, demanding to know at least what they might have to deal with if the crew was now fair game to ask comfort from. The others had backed him up, the bastards, and he’d been forced to share a bit. He didn’t really want to, nightmares were private things after all and it wasn’t fair for him to share stuff that bothered someone else but as it had been pointed out, Lily was a child whom they all cared about, whom they were all guardians for and thus they all needed to know likely sources of upset and triggers to avoid when they spent time together, either during the day or if they happened to be the ones to comfort her at night.

He’d relented, wanting to make sure she always had some solid options for comfort. He knew in excruciating detail how unpleasant it could be to suffer that sort of fear and misery on your own. Until you learned to ignore and bury it that is.

So the others knew the basics at least, it was always the threat of attack, rattling and banging and bellowing in the dark unsurprisingly. He tended to keep the extra details to himself though, he knew how desperately Lily wanted to be seen as a ‘big girl’ by the crew. Even though there was nothing she could say or do that would actually make them think she was somehow less. Kid had endured enough and was still pretty functional, that was one hell of an achievement already. And she was stil mortal.

Sometimes her nightmares was flavoured with gunfire (though not Tim’s apparently, that sounded different according to Lily, Jonny had no idea how the hell gunfire could sound ‘friendly’ but supposedly Tim’s did-children clearly had a higher nuance of sound perception-it made music lessons all the more interesting that was for sure), sometimes it was visions of what was left of her crew, her parents dying and on one particularly horrendous night images of her parents demanding to know why she hadn’t saved them. He had mentioned that one to Marius and then the rest of the crew since it had taken the singing of the entirety of ‘Alice’ to lull her back to sleep bookended with ‘Rose Red.’

The one about her being left behind that she told to Brian was concerning, that one he had talked to the others about straight away, worried that taking her to a planet had, in fact, been a bad move. Given that that was as near as an admission to the idea he’d been wrong about wanting to take her planetside actually had them all discussing it properly with only minimal jeering. It ended up being pointed out that since it was such a new experience, even though it had been very positive, Lily’s subconscious was so traumatised it wasn’t surprising it had sparked off a different set of nightmares.

It had assuaged the guilt a little at least. He was glad she clearly had really enjoyed the visit.

“Jonny?”

He realised he’d been staring into the middle distance and not actually talking. Shit.

He refocused on her. A look crossed Raphaella’s face that he’d seen maybe once or twice before in all the years he’d known her. A hint of worry.

“Does, does she have nightmares about what we, what I,” she corrected, “do here?”

That question knocked him sideways, his initial instinctive bastard response died on his lips. This was Raphaella actually asking him, Jonny, for reassurance, reassurance that what she was doing wasn’t physcologically damaging their charge. He’d never seen the science officer look unsure before. Jonny realised he had a choice, he could lie and tell her that yes, the check-ups upset Lily and he’d had to calm her down from a lot of nightmares inspired by Raph’s actions or, or he could be honest.

He thought about how genuinely devastated he’d be if one of the others told him that the reason Lily had come to them wasn’t because she couldn’t find him but that she was scared of him, that she’d had a nightmare about him because of something he’d done. He felt his guts twist. No, he couldn’t do that to Raphaella, he could murder her happily along with the rest of the crew whenever Lily wasn’t about and he’d been suitably bored or antagonised but lying about this?

He couldn’t do it.

If he stopped to think about it, there were quite a few things he couldn’t do now. All involved Lily, he couldn’t lie to the others about her, they were all in this together, more so than anything they’d been bound by previously. Jonny knew he was the primary source of Lily information but he actually respected that fact and that he should share as much as was reasonable to make sure it was as easy for the others to comfort and look after her as possible. This communal guardianship parenting thing they’d fallen into was working but it needed proper communication much as it felt like pulling teeth sometimes. It was needed so he did it. So they all did it.

He fixed Raphaella with as sincere look as he could manage.

“No Raph, she’s never had a nightmare about you or the check-ups, I think she’d settled into them, always asks me stuff about what you do in the lab so I reckon you’re fine.”

Raphaella tried and failed not to look relieved.

“Oh, well, thank you that’s, that’s preferable.”

Yeah, it is. Her ship’s done enough of a number on her, she’s been here long enough now to know, I think, that we’re not trying to fuck her up.

That seems like a reasonable conclusion. She’s not been put off by what she sees on a daily basis, between Tim’s shooting practice, TS’s stories and my science if that’s not affected her negatively then, for the moment we may remain in grace period.

“What do we do when that ends?”

“We’ll have to slowly introduce more regular elements of life on board to get her more used to things, little by little, it seems to be working so far.”

Jonny considered, Raph did have a point, last week something had exploded and whilst Lily had gone stock-still and the colour drained out of her face she hadn’t cried or outwardly panicked, instead asked Jonny very quietly if they could find out what happened, because ‘it was probably Tim trying his new canon that he had been showing her through the building process but could they go and check please just to make sure?’

So they had and it was. Jonny was feeling pretty fucking murderous but Tim had ignored him and got there first, explaining when they arrived exactly what he’d been upto, that he was sorry it went off without her there to see but the trigger had been too sensitive. He’d shown Lily the system and rig so that she understood the weapon and where the sound had come from, feeling much happier that she knew this was something to protect them and not a sign that they were under attack.

Jonny had planned an elaborate murder for Tim and braced himself for an onslaught of nightmares that never came. Well they did but it was just the usual, banging on the doors in the dark one nothing to do with Tim or his explosions. He’d been waiting a full eight days and nothing. He was beginning to suspect Tim’s approach of including Lily in the construct of the weapon really had been a big help. Clever bastard.

“Yeah, that’s, that’s probably as good a plan as we’ve got.”

Raphaella considered, Jonny didn’t have to have been kind a moment ago. But he was. She’d almost entirely forgotten what it was like to be concerned about the long-term effects of her science and she hadn’t liked the feeling whatsoever. He could have made it worse and didn’t. That certainly counted for something and definitely towards her working theory about him and his own developmental track.

“It’s probably better than what she would have in any other circumstance or with anyone else who might have rescued her. We’re all doing well with her, physically and mentally, we’re all in this together and it’s working, I can see it in my results and charts as clearly as I see it on her, against more odds than I think even Ivy would be comfortable calculating we’re improving her, as a crew, she’s healing and mending, and,” she considered her words, “you’re both the catalyst and accelerator in this compound of all of us, with all the variables.”

Jonny began to open his mouth.

“You’re good for her, my research indicates it.” Elaborated Raphaella stiffly. Being kind and gentle with Lily was far easier than she expected it to be, transversely being articulately kind to her crewmates was decidedly harder, she’d had very little practice and took refuge in her scientific terms, they always flowed more easily.

Jonny’s eyes widened at the implication of what she was saying. That it was her saying it.

Still, with him, sometimes actions spoke louder than words.

Very carefully she handed over Lily to him, fuzzy rock thing and all, taking care to catch Jonny’s hand in the process and squeeze it for the briefest of moments.

She was deeply surprised to receive a returning squeeze, equally as brief.

She tried to read his face, a myriad of expressions flitted over him, shock, confusion, wariness, pride and elation before settling back to his default of ‘cocky bastard smirk’

He held Lily close a moment then allowed a softer, sincere expression to linger in his eyes, “Thanks Raph, s’what the crew’s for, everyone’s got a job with this one.”

He sobered and shifted, face returning to its usual look, his regular swagger sliding into his stance, “See you at breakfast.” He threw out his familiar feral grin without the need or will to add a snarky comment and sauntered out with a Lily tucked up against his chest who was at least half an inch taller and several pounds heavier than when she arrived.

They were working as a crew and it was mending Lily.

Not for the first time Raphaella considered the pair as they left her lab, a fond smile spreading across her face. The unlikeliness of this scenario had already cost Ivy one full notebook but the science officer could honestly conclude that she was deeply satisfied by this anomaly and looked forward to the further variables it generated.

Otherwise, what even was the point?

Smile still on her face she settled down to update her research log on the day’s nocturnal events. Her file was getting decidedly long.

Raphaella found that only pleased her more.

#the mechanisms #jonny d'ville #raphaella la cognizi #Lily Of-Many-Names #the mechanisms fanfic #soft!mechs #part of my Lily series on AO3 #Night Terrors Chapter 5 #If this doesn't work I'll be miffed.#please tumblr just work

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garregmachmatchups · 5 years ago

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hi mod ava!! would i please be able to request a regular matchup?? i’m bi, so i don’t mind any gender. i hope this isn’t too much info, but i hope the layout makes it readable?? thank you so much!!

personality

the good:

curious

i love to learn? is that a good thing? (as long as I’m not being graded on it,,, otherwise that’s a disaster)

open-minded

thoughtful

good conversationalist/listener (or, at least I’d like to think so,,, i can talk for hours and hours)

trustworthy (ish)

compassionate (or at least, i try to be!!)

patient

accepting (within reason aadjsdfkjhfds essentially i just try to not judge people)

understanding (i do my very best!!)

the bad:

prone to catastrophizing (that’s the anxiety poking through)

indecisive (I cannot make a decision to save my life)

shy (it’s not that I’m quiet or withdrawn, I’m just Deeply Afraid Of Rejection)

unforgiving (while I can be pretty patient, once I’m done with someone, I’m Done)

prone to melancholy (I do my best to fight it, but that melancholy be Strong)

overthinker (i literally write a whole dissertation in my head about a topic literally No One cares about… or i’ll decide to pick apart my relationships with others when it’s really not that deep. this one’s a mixed bag.)

irresponsible (ish. i can take care of myself and my roommate, but i get a bit scared of Responsibility with a capital R. idk if i’m making much sense but,,, i can take responsibility, i’m just scared i’ll mess up so i try not to?? ir’s something i really need to work on)

the neutral:

opinionated (I’m putting it as a neutral trait bc I’ve been told that I’m “interesting to talk to” because of it, but my god… sometimes I wish I’d just calm down,,, and there are just some things it’s not worth being opinionated on, you know?)

Sensitive (with a capital s)

imaginative (fun for creative things, bad when your catastrophizing)

talkative (for similar reasons as opinionated… I love to talk and I have So Much to say, but sometimes I wish I’d just learn to… shut my damn mouth)

my sense of humour (i’d describe myself as a “chaos goblin”, and one of my friends once said I’m a “mixed bag of human”, meaning that he can never predict what I’m going to say to him next; essentially i have a very “flexible” sense of humour, but the more absurd, the better)

perceptive (neutral just bc while it’s good when dealing with people I like, it’s fuel for anxiety)

a bit of a “mum friend” (in the sense that,,, i’m always concerned with people’s health and wellbeing but that can come off as overbearing at times? and it’s ironic that i’m a mum friend because as stated earlier, i can be kind of irresponsible hhh)

Interests

reading (when I can actually commit to a book sjkdfhs)

writing (when I’m not LAZY!! Also, my genres tend to be more along fantasy or urban fantasy lines? A little sci-fi, when I’m not scared off by trying to do worldbuilding for that genre because O H B O Y science & technology is a LOT scarier than magic tbh)

trawling Wikipedia for an unreasonably long time

drawing

character analysis (my favourite part of engaging with any new media skdfhkfhj)

anthropology (it’s my uni major and I love it!! so much!! i could talk about it for hours!!)

history (shamefully, i am a nerd)

art history (I LOVE ART, my fave artist is probably alphonse mucha? If you’ve never seen his stuff definitely have a look! It’s A Lot but it’s stunning)

sociolinguistics (it’s so interesting!! And I guess languages too, but I’m so bad at learning them asjfdhddsklj)

fashion (in a way? I just love pretty clothes, and my style is… a lot of patterns, especially animals and flowers, and it’s retro-adjacent?)

D O G S

most animals tbh (I love foxes and owls! i also adore mythological creatures, like dragons and griffins and all that)

again, i hope this isn’t too much!! thank you again, and i hope you enjoy the rest of 2019!! (when will i stop using exclamation marks my goodness–)

Hewooo!💕Omg I love your matchups I can’t believe you asked me for one I feel honored lsfdjdjakj. I really hope I don’t disappoint lol. Also haha I got inspired. So without further ado, let’s get to it! Your match is…

Claude von Riegan!!!

Bro you and Claude are like two peas in a pod. You both share a passion for knowledge, curious about the world and people around you. It’s a big part of who you are, which makes it all the more important for you to find someone who sympathizes with that need. For Claude, it’s one of his biggest motivators. Same as you, he appreciates different cultures and societies greatly. For that he needs someone who is open-minded and accepting, someone who can support his dreams, a world without borders, as well as someone who can accept who he truly is. With Claude’s curious nature, he always looks to be engaged, so your conversational and passionate character would certainly be intriguing to him. I can just imagine you two going on about for hours and hours, discussing anything and everything that comes to mind, especially about stuff relating to different cultures and different ways of life. Because Claude is more on the lighthearted side, someone with a sense of humor would be best suited for him, so someone who is as “chaotic” and unpredictable as you would be perfect to keep him engrossed and prying. All the same, Claude’s light-heartedness would be greatly beneficial to you, as you often struggle with anxious thoughts and feelings. A calm presence in your life to remind you things aren’t as bad as they seem, especially one as rational and reasoned as Claude. As we all know though, Claude despite acting light-hearted is quite secretive and wary of others. Therefore the fact that you have a trustworthiness about you could really get Claude to open up to you more so than to others. You being patient and perceptive would also be of great help, knowing Claude has his reasons as well as you being willing to wait until he opens up. Together, you’d be sure to change yourselves and the world for the better

Headcannons:

When you first meet Claude, you are incredibly drawn to him, as he possesses a very mysterious air about him, which of course only entices your curiosity.

Claude, sensing this, in turn, becomes curious about you (meanwhile everyone else just senses sexual tension)

Um, lowkey a detective couple? Discovering the mysteries of the world together…or your classmates’ secrets

Also tea time with you guys is #DEEP. Just thinking about the world and life in general

Sometimes it just turns into you rambling about your opinions or just in general things you want to talk about and Clause just listening to you with admiration or vice versa where he just talks about his vision of the world and you just staring at him in wonder, just goals

When Claude first hears you talking so passionately about stuff like anthropology and history, he immediately goes “Yep, they’re definitely the one”

He really appreciates how patient you are with him, even when you are curious about him. He promises though that one day he’ll share everything with you

Claude is always there to help whenever you start overthinking or catastrophizing, as he always has a logical argument as to why the situation is not as it seems. If it’s something more serious though and you really start panicking, he’ll hug you while reassuringly tell you it’s okay (he doesn’t always help with the indecisiveness though, like my bro how are you so chill about every decision you take)

He could also be of great help with your fear of responsibility, teaching you to have faith in yourself

Loves that you are imaginative, seriously you just brought his schemes up to a whole new level

Also haha chaotic couple, people are either dying of laughter with you guys around or are super confused about your dynamic (or scared who knows)

I get the impression that because Claude is always so immersed in his goals and responsibilities he has, he sometimes forgets to take care of himself, so you being a sort of mom friend would definitely be good for him

Umm also i’m pretty sure Claude loves dogs and animals (he rides a wyvern for christ sakes). He’ll totally take you out on a ride on his wyvern, just soaring across the sky seeing the world

If you’d ever take an interest in Almyran art history or fashion the man will love you forever. Honestly just taking an interest in the Almyran culture, history, etc. Will increase his love tenfold

Ughhh I just stan

Other matches: Ignatz Victor, Petra Macneary

Hope you enjoyed the matchup! If you feel like you weren’t portrayed correctly/I misinterpreted your information let me know and I’ll make the corrections!

#fire emblem three houses #fe:3h #regularmatchup #request #golden deer #submission #fire emblem matchup #three houses matchup #2

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spectral-musette · 6 years ago

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So, the Avengers: Endgame spoiler ban is lifted, and I’ve had a chance to mull over my responses, so I’m finally going to try to write up some thoughts. I was hoping to have seen it again in the interim, but that didn’t work out, so I’m relying on memory from one viewing – it’s possible I’ve missed or misinterpreted things.

Spoilers to follow, so scroll carefully, Ye on Mobile! Also, sorry about the Long Post (TM), I apparently I had a lot to say.

Time-wise, for its 3 hour length, the film didn’t feel long to me. It maintained its momentum and nothing felt laggy or tedious, even the big battles.

Time travel-wise… Okay, positive stuff first. I thought that revisiting the settings of earlier films was absolutely delightful and nostalgic. It felt very satisfying to have those call backs to earlier adventures and cameos of old enemies (Crossbones, Pierce, Zola, and, surprise, even Sitwell). The Cap vs. Cap fight was hilarious, and I loved seeing Steve so utterly exasperated with himself (“I can do this all d-“, “YEAH, I know.”). The scene in the 70’s was good, though some of the Tony and Howard stuff rang a little hollow to me. I think that’s mostly because I’ve always had trouble reconciling Dominic Cooper’s Young Howard Stark (who I’m very fond of, especially after Agent Carter) to the older version of Howard we see in various flashbacks. They look, sound, and act nothing alike; my friends and I always joke that Hydra replaced Howard sometime in the 60’s. So while an aged up Dominic Cooper Howard probably would’ve made me emotional, as it was, I was more moved to see 20 seconds of Jarvis than for all the stuff with Tony talking to his dad about fatherhood.

Using the “Quantum Realm” for time travel was… okay…. Insofar as the “science” of the Ant-Man films has absolutely never made any damn sense (and that’s …. fine. They’re funny and joyful, and I enjoy them a lot anyway. I don’t go to Marvel movies for “realistic” science fiction), throwing time travel into the mix felt like it just might as well happen. I guess I understand why they chose to go with the “nothing we do in the past can affect our own timelines” approach, but frankly it’s still giving me a headache. I also understand not over-explaining, but there’s a middle ground there that wasn’t quite achieved for me. I guess, based on the scene with Tilda Swinton (sorry, haven’t seen Dr. Strange and don’t know her character’s name) and Bruce, we’re supposed to assume that every journey to the past (cue Anastasia music) creates or perhaps just shifts the time traveler into an alternate reality that branches from their original reality at that point? And then when they travel back to the time they started from via the quantum realm, they return to their original version of reality. So the actions that they take in the past affect that alternate reality, but not the reality that they came from and return to. That’s the only thing I can figure out that makes sense to me at all, but unfortunately the film didn’t make that especially clear. Maybe seeing it again would clarify? So this is gonna be a big factor in how I feel about Steve’s ending, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Also, a tangent re: time travel… While Tony (an engineer) and Bruce (a biologist) are both brilliant, this seems a little outside their areas of expertise! You know, wouldn’t it be great if we had a character who was an astrophysicist who could really tackle this type of thing - OH HEY, we do! I realize that there were probably issues with getting Natalie Portman back in a substantial role, but I love Jane Foster a lot and I would’ve loved seeing her work with Tony and Bruce to save the universe with a handful of Pym Particles.

OKAY, there’s an awful lot to cover, so I’m going to break down some of my feelings by character just to try to stay organized.

(First, a disclaimer that I haven’t seen Captain Marvel yet, so while Carol seemed like a great character, I don’t have a lot to say since I don’t really know her yet. That said, this seemed like an adequate introduction to the character and I am interested to know more. We have the problem of “if Fury could’ve called her anytime why didn’t he call her during the Chitauri attack/to fight Ultron/etc.” But all the individual titles that come after the team-ups have that problem a little bit… Where were the Other Avengers in Thor 2 or Iron-Man 3, etc.? Sometimes you just have to accept and move on.)

Briefly:

Nebula and Gamora, Tony, Bruce, Scott, with a quick note about Wanda and a very conspicuous absence

And the heavier stuff regarding:

Thor, Natasha, and Steve (and Sam and Bucky).

Nebula and Gamora:

While the Guardians aren’t really my thing, I did vaguely know that in the original Infinity Gauntlet comic storyline, Nebula takes the gauntlet from Thanos and fixes reality. I understand not following the comics exactly for the sake of surprise and to fit with the changed version of the universe, but it still felt wrong to totally take that away from her. Especially given what Thanos has done to her, personally, it seemed fitting that she was going to be the one defeat him. I’m glad she was still pivotal to the story, but it felt like an extra kick in the teeth that past!Nebula was the catalyst for Thanos catching up with our heroes rather than getting to be the one who saves the universe. And forcing her to kill her past self felt like it should’ve been treated with much more gravity than it finally was.

I’m really glad we “saved” Gamora by bringing the version of her from the past into the current timeline (however that works), but I feel so bad for anyone who’s really invested in Gamora/Peter Quill. It’s so heartbreaking that their entire history never happened as far as she’s concerned, that we’ve not only removed that very key relationship, but her character growth over the past how many years. It is at least hopeful; Peter remembers, and has the chance to woo her again, but that’s still got to sting.

Tony:

So Tony Stark sure did die.

I’m not sure… he really needed to? I mean I don’t think I get the rationale of the Infinity Gauntlet killing/maiming the user. I recall the handwavey line about gamma radiation, but if you don’t immediately die after using it, couldn’t you juuuust, say, use the Reality Stone to be like, “hey what if I wasn’t mortally injured”? Couldn’t somebody ELSE do that? I’m not sure I get that.

So that said, I’m not sure if RDJ was really pushing for “you gotta kill me off” for dramatic effect or just to step out of the franchise? It would’ve been kinda cool to see retired Tony working as Avenger-support, working on suits for Rhodey and future Iron-heroes (Iron Patriot? Iron Heart?), mentoring Peter and other youths, and living his nice life with Pepper and their munchkin.

But what a way to go, huh? Dramatic self-sacrifice saving the the planet(/universe?), and a funeral that almost everybody who’s anybody shows up for.

Bruce:

I’m with Valkyrie that I preferred EITHER version to PermaHulk Bruce. Honestly, the Hulk himself had sort of become an independent character, especially after Ragnarok (my issues with Ragnarok aside). So by Bruce settling into this “I look like the Hulk but I act like Bruce” limbo, are we … essentially killing the Other Guy? I don’t like that. I mean I prefer Bruce obviously, but I’m really uncomfortable with that solution.

Scott:

I really love Scott and he was delightful as always in this film. I’m heartbroken for him that he missed (another) 5 years of Cassie’s life, though. I’m also pretty sad we won’t get to see the little girl who has played Cassie so far in any future films since we’ve aged the character up to a teenager. Also, I would’ve liked to see more of Hope! I loved Scott and Hope’s little moment when Hope calls Steve “Cap” and they trade expressions between Scott going “SEE, HE IS REALLY COOL, RIGHT?” and Hope being like “Yeah, okay”.

Overall I guess the Ant-Fam is sorta tangential to the main MCU Avengers cast, so while it was nice to have everybody play together, briefly, I’m pretty content that we’ll see more of Hope (and Janet!) in future Ant-Man/Wasp titles.

- Similarly, while T’Challa and the Wakanda fam were definitely underused in Endgame (especially the entirely absent Nakia), Black Panther 2 is happening. It’s disappointing to not get a substantial amount of characters that you like in the big team-up films, but it’s good to know they’ll be returning later.

Wanda:

We are really leaving Wanda in a rough place of having lost her twin brother and her android boyfriend within a pretty short amount of time (that’s rough, buddy). Plus, one of the characters that we’ve seen her have a pretty strong bond with is Steve, and he’s out of the picture too. I’m not sure where we’re going with this character, honestly. Hopefully it’s not continuing to hurt her.

It really seemed conspicuous that nobody so much as mentioned Vision by name in this film. Wanda referred to him indirectly, but that was it. I get that Vision isn’t immediately able to be saved since he didn’t vanish in the Gauntlet event, but, yikes, can anybody besides Wanda please attempt to give a damn about him?

I know sometimes we like to pretend that Age of Ultron didn’t happen to us, but Vision was still an interesting character, and some major plot points of Infinity War focused on the value of Vision as a person. I feel pretty bereft that he’s (apparently) gone beyond recall with so little mourning.

Thor:

*heavy sigh*

Thor’s characterization was….???

Unpopular Opinion: despite its good points, I overall didn’t really like Ragnarok, and Thor already sort of felt out of character to me at that point.

Another Unpopular Opinion: I actually really love The Dark World. Thor’s relationship with Jane, and his characterization of gentleness and humility in that era really were important to me.

And I get that Hemsworth is genuinely good at comedy and probably likes doing it. But Thor has always been a funny character. We just used to be laughing with him instead of at him.

I was so uncomfortable with the way the film framed Thor’s brush with depression and alcoholism. Because Thor has lost so much at this point, he has every reason to struggle. I want to say that Thor wouldn’t have given up, but the same time I can believe that this almost unimaginable weight of loss (Frigga, Odin, Loki, Heimdall, The Warriors Three, Asgard itself) would take some toll. And yet the framing of his scenes treats his grief and despair as cause for humor. We’re expected to laugh about an unkempt beard and a big belly instead of being concerned about the fact that a character that we loved considers himself a failure. And there’s nothing funny about this situation to me. It just made me uncomfortable and sad. Revisiting Thor 2 and having him talk to Frigga was on the better side, but I’m disappointed that we couldn’t save her.

Natasha:

*heavier sigh*

Okay, I think a lot of the problem here is that it’s just really difficult to kill a main character any time other than in the last act (we also saw this problem in Star Wars Rebels, but that’s another can of worms). So because Natasha died at such a midway point in the movie, I still can’t shake the feeling that she’s not really dead. Nothing about it felt final to me. Clint trying to emphasize that, because Red Skull said so, it was impossible to bring her back (it’s freaking RED SKULL, why would we trust him???) just made me think even more that she was definitely coming back. Everything seemed to point to her dramatic reappearance and then it just … didn’t happen. That’s not to say it won’t happen in a future film, though, but it still feels deeply unsatisfying and unceremonious now, and that feeling really was a blow to my overall enjoyment of the film.

It also sat really badly with me that Natasha made this choice not just to save Clint (which I would believe; their friendship is really great and I love seeing Natasha’s extremely profound but non-romantic bonds with Clint and with Steve (though I would’ve preferred Natasha/Clint to Natasha/Bruce)), but because she fundamentally felt less worthy than Clint. I don’t like the idea that Natasha went to her death still feeling such guilt, still feeling like a monster (according to that awful scene in AoU), for the things she did as a very young person under the influence of brainwashing. I don’t like that at all.

I’m also really disappointed that we didn’t pursue Natasha and Bucky’s relationship from the comics in the MCU. Because the idea of two people with very similar emotional wounds coming together to support each other as they heal is just really appealing (#looking for baggage that goes with mine). That throwaway line in Civil War (“at least you could recognize me”) really had me convinced that we were going there. I guess we still could, but there are a lot of “ifs” standing in the way now.

Steve:

Another disclaimer: Steve is absolutely my favorite Avenger, and I ship Steve/Peggy really hard.

Aaand I still felt uncomfortable with the resolution.

Maybe it’s just the difficulty I’ve been having getting my head around the time travel shenanigans.

So a lot of the criticisms I’ve heard/read about Steve going back to the 1940’s to Peggy seems to be functioning under the assumption that Steve is living within the timeline as we know it in MCU canon, staying completely hidden, and just not changing any of the bad things that canonically happen: Bucky becoming the Winter Soldier, Hydra infiltrating SHIELD, etc.

But we’ve been told that time travel doesn’t work that way – that Back To The Future, Doctor Who way – in this universe, right? This brings me back to my Alternate Reality take. So my understanding is that after Steve returns the infinity stones to the points in time that the Avengers yoinked them from, he basically occupies an Alternate Reality for a lifetime (Tilda Swinton’s thing about the branched off timelines being consumed by the ~forces of darkness~ only applies IF the infinity stones aren’t returned, and he took care of that). And he could’ve done anything in that Alternate Reality – married Peggy, saved Bucky from Hydra, prevented any wars and disasters he could. Basically it was Steve’s own personal Happiness AU. And then, (presumably after Peggy’s death), he uses the Pym particles and the Quantum Realm to return to his original reality.

Except, in that case, shouldn’t he have returned on the platform instead of dramatically showing up on that park bench?

So…I’m confused and I don’t like it.

Even from the Alternate Reality take, the situation of that choice is complicated. In choosing to be with Peggy, he’s tearing himself out of the lives of all of his loved ones in his Original Reality – Bucky, Sam, Wanda, (whatever the situation was with Sharon Carter that we absolutely never resolved?), etc.

And we’re not completely sure it was a choice, exactly. It’s possible that in the ongoing work to return the infinity stones, Steve somehow got trapped in the past (don’t know why he would’ve had to go to the 40’s, but I guess he could’ve run out of Pym particles there and had to wait for Hank to invent them to even be able to make the trip back).

Also, narratively speaking, it feels a little like we’re invalidating Peggy’s grief, and her character growth that went on in Agent Carter (even if her happy ending with Steve is going on in an Alternate Reality). I wasn’t totally sold on Peggy and Daniel Sousa yet (though I do like Daniel as a character a lot), but Peggy had a whole lifetime that didn’t involve Steve except as a beloved memory. Where is she in that arc when Time Traveler Steve comes back into her life?

Also, even if it IS an Alternate Reality, there would STILL be a version of Steve frozen in the ice in the 1940’s in that reality. How do we deal with that?

And how do we deal with the fact that Steve isn’t the man that Peggy lost anymore. He still loves her, but he’s changed, he’s lived almost a decade since then. How do they find their footing with each other? I’m sure it isn’t impossible, but it’s interesting, and it’s not addressed at all.

I think that’s what bothers me the most – that this is a whole huge adventure – Steve’s entire LIFE – that we’re shoehorning in at the very end of the movie without showing any of the really interesting bits or answering any of our questions about it. I guess that leaves the situation as a fertile ground for the imagination, and maybe that’s a space that the MCU intends to explore someday? I would absolutely watch the hell out of Steve’s Time Travel Romance with Peggy, somebody take my goddamn money.

Anyway, I’m happy about Sam taking up the Shield as Captain America. Bucky-Cap also could’ve been great, but I feel like, with the place we left Bucky in his recovery, he doesn’t need that responsibility yet. Let him rest. Wherever we’re going with the series featuring Sam and Bucky is going to be really interesting, and maybe we’ll get to the point where Bucky really wants to work towards atonement and is ready to share the burden of the Shield with Sam? I’m looking forward to finding out.

Overall, most of my feelings about the movie were pretty positive. It was a complicated story to tell with a lot of characters, and mostly it was handled pretty well. Some of those threads did fall flat for me, but they didn’t totally invalidate the parts of the movie that worked.

#spoilers #Avengers Endgame spoilers #Endgame spoilers #long post #I had in my outline that I was going to talk about Clint #but I accidentally skipped that #it's briefly in Natasha's section #I could go into it more but this is already too long

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gingerseattle-blog · 6 years ago

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“Heels” - Spencer Reid x Reader

Hey, holy shit, I haven’t written serious fanfiction in 3, maybe 4 years? And never for Criminal Minds or as an “x Reader” ship. So like, pardon my inexperience? I’ve just been reading a LOT od Reid x Reader fics and I wanted to write the one that I would’ve wanted to read. If Spencer is wildly out of character then. Yeet.

TW: attempted rape, some major violence, sexual assault

“You know, the BAU has an opening for a new profiler. You might find it fun, Dr. Y/LN,” Dr. Reid commented offhandedly as you exited the courthouse together. A practiced clinical psychologist, you were often being called in as an expert witness on cases. Dr. Reid, as an FBI profiler, was almost always at the courthouse for the same reason. Over the years the two of you had grown from strangers to acquaintances to friends. And, if you allowed yourself to look at him as more than a peer, you found yourself starting to develop feelings outside of the realm of casual friendship. Not that you would ever admit it to yourself, much less to Dr. Reid himself.

“Can the federal government even afford me?” You replied with a snort.

“You work at a public hospital and take contract work from local prisons. I’m sure a pay cut would be out of the question. And high heels aren’t a necessary part of the dress code.”

You let out another snort before leaning down to fish through your purse for a pair of tennis shoes to change into from your professional heels. “I only wear the heels on court days. Plus, I enjoy my job too much to consider leaving it. I can’t just,” you stuck your tongue out while thinking of the right word to use. The word escaped you as you knotted your laces and you sighed. “I can’t leave my patients. It’s not as easy as talking down a crisis situation, shooting a gun, and calling it a day. I actually get to watch these people recover.”

Dr. Reid shrugged and held out a hand for you to stand back up to your full height. You ran a hand through your hair, shaking it out of the neat curls you had worked so painstakingly hard on to look put together for court. Dr. Reid smiled at you as you blew a strand of hair away from your face. You walked together to the nearest coffee shop in a companionable silence.

-----

“You know, Warden, there are other treatments for mental illness besides intense medication,” The click of your heels reverberated off of the walls of the prison as you walked with the warden of the prison from an annual psych visit at the local maximum security prison. This was an argument you were constantly having with the directors and wardens of the prisons you visited, one that you never won. It was a waste of breath, but you figured you may as well continue emphasizing it. Maybe it would click one of these days.

“Dr. Y/LN, while I appreciate your experience, we don’t like to change the routine here at Elkwood. Now, I would love to take you up on your suggestion, you know that the guys who sign my paycheck won’t go for-“ The two of you froze as a deafening alarm rang out. “Get to the front of the building!” He yelled, pushing you forward down the hallway.

Except, his shove was too forceful and your heels were too high and you landed face first on the tile. When you looked up and over your shoulder, you saw one of the men you had just visited in the psych unit rounding the corner.

In his hand, you noted all too slowly, was the blood soaked ridge of a sharpened toothbrush.

------

“It could be a psychotic break? The instigator gets put in solitary one day too many and when he’s let out, he snaps?” Derek suggests, flipping through inmate profiles. Rossi nods absently from the driver’s seat.

“Possibly. But from the preliminary reports, we’re talking about a man who has created his own weapon. That takes time and a desired target. This was premeditated.” Spencer pipes up from the backseat of the FBI van. This case was local, a hostage situation at a federal prison just outside of DC so there was no need for the jet.

“What else do we know so far?” Rossi asks.

“Two dead, one visitor is being held hostage. I won’t know who it is until we can get the visitor sheets or footage. If our subject is capable of killing but has taken this one person hostage, they must be special. I’m thinking it’s a family member. Either his own or someone else’s, maybe to use as leverage.” Spencer looks out the window as they pull into the parking lot of the prison. There’s a familiar car in the visitors parking space, but he can’t place where he’s seen it before. He takes in the bumper stickers as he hops out of the van. A few pro science stickers, including a very familiar “Hail Sagan” sticker, college alumni decals, and a hospital parking pass.

“Hotch,” Spencer calls nervously. “Who’s our hostage?” Deep down he knows it’s you, but until he knows for sure he can deny it.

“A senior clinical psychologist from University Hospital. She was here for a routine check up on the inmates in the psych unit.” Hotch looks down. “Her name is Doctor-”

“Her name is Doctor Y/N Y/LN.” Spencer swallows.

“A friend of yours?” Derek cocks an eyebrow while tightening his bulletproof vest.

Spencer nodded, unable to speak. An acquaintance, a friend, a woman that he admired both for her intellect and sharp personality. A woman that for years he had been trying to convince to come work with him in order to be closer to her. A woman that was now in very real danger.

-------

“I’m beginning to lose my patience with you, good doctor,” A patient of yours, Noah Pearson, a convicted serial rapist with a rap sheet that spanned for miles dragged his makeshift blade across your cheek. You felt a sting and the warm wetness of blood welling up the surface and you winced.

“Do you think I carry hard pills on me wherever I go? You’ve got the wrong kind of doctor for that,” Your voice was far stronger than you were currently feeling. Noah had you backed into a corner of the hallway, one hand on your shoulder to keep you firmly in place facing the wall and the other reaching over your shoulder to threaten you with his shiv. “Noah, listen to me, I’ve known you since you got here. I know that you suffer from episodes of severe mania. You don’t take the medicine they give you anyway, so why are you doing this?”

A drop of the warden’s freshly spilled blood dropped from the tip of the shiv onto your shoulder and you shuddered. Noah’s grip on your shoulder tightened and he stepped closer, almost completely flush with you. “That’s what I want,” He sighed into your ear. Your hands balled into fists. “I’ve been watching you since I got here, good doctor. You and I both know that I’ve been a good boy since I’ve gotten here, and as a shrink, don’t you know you’re supposed to reward good behavior?” Noah’s tongue slid along the ridge of your ear and you whimpered. Noah misinterpreted this as pleasure rather than the fear it truly was.

“The medicine lowered my sex drive,” Noah’s breath was hot against the skin of your neck. “Was it really medicine for mania, good doctor? Or were you just trying to keep me from wanting you?” The hand that was previously on your shoulder drifted softly down to your lower back. “Or maybe you’re playing a game of eugenics,” his hand grabbed the flesh of your ass tightly and you cringed. “Oh yes doctor, I’ve been reading. I know what you people can do with medicine. But you have no idea what I can do to you.”

In your heart of hearts, you knew that struggling was not only what Noah craved in his victims but would most certainly make the situation worse. You knew that keeping him talking and groping was probably the safest option for you.

However, your sympathetic nervous system was kicking into overdrive, adrenaline building up in your mouth as a scream that you kept locked away behind tightly locked lips. You were shivering, eager to run or twist out of Noah’s grip. He had grown tired of the fabric preventing him from touching your skin. Obviously, he was more adept with women who wore loose skirts rather than suit pants as his wrist was going at your waist band at just the wrong angle. If you weren’t scared shitless, you’d find it pathetic. You wondered briefly if he would be as disgruntled to find that you wore comfortable granny panties rather than the lacy thongs he enjoyed on his victims. Adrenaline pumping, a small giggle escaped your lips at the thought.

“Cunt!” Noah exploded. “What the hell is there to laugh about when you have a knife to your throat?!”

“Not a damn thing.” Another male voice, soothing in its familiarity but new in its sharpness, sounded behind you. “Let her go, Pearson. You’re done having fun.”

Noah spun you around, the shiv pressing sharply against your jugular. “Oh Mr. Reid, is it?” You let out another giggle when you saw Dr. Reid’s mouth twitch with annoyance at being called “mister.” A totally inappropriate reaction, both his and yours. However, after years of being called ‘Mrs’ despite not being married and being an accomplished woman with a PhD, you would have done the same thing in any other situation.

Noah’s grip tightened to a point where you knew you were going to be bruised if you walked out of this situation. “See, Mr. Reid, the good doctor here is crazy like me. Giggling in the face of rape and staring down the barrel of a gun. She may have a good laugh if I just slit her throat,” Noah sliced very slowly against your throat. Things stopped being funny when you felt yourself bleeding.

“Stop!” Doctor Reid screamed.

“You’re right Noah,” You gasped, an idea taking root. “We’re just alike.” You slowly shifted so that you could see him out of the corner of your eye. “I do want you. You’re just my type, so big and intimidating.” Noah blinked, momentarily shocked to the point of loosening his grip on you. You turned to face him, gripping his waist and leaning your hole body to suckle at his neck, hoping that Doctor Reid would understand your point.

A shot rang out and blood splatter joined your own as Doctor Reid took your hint and shot Noah in his unprotected shoulder. You fell to the ground, unable to think, unable to breathe. You knew what you were doing. You knew that you had to give Doctor Reid a clear shot. But you were unprepared for the noise of the gunshot and the shock that came with watching a man be shot beside you. You faintly heard Doctor Reid shout for a medic over the ringing in your ears. He helped you stand and walked you out to an ambulance.

Shock, blood loss, your arm was grazed by Doctor Reid’s bullet as well. Someone wrapped a blanket around you and laid you on a stretcher before you closed your eyes.

-----

Your head was absolutely pounding. You opened your eyes just a sliver and winced at the sharp white light. Was this the afterlife? White light definitely checked out.

No, you knew this light. You knew this awful rubbing alcohol smell too. The sharp pains in your neck and the inside of your left elbow were new though.

“What-” you managed to rasp, your throat hoarse. You had no idea what you wanted to ask, let alone if there was anyone there to answer.

“Take it easy Y/N.”

Doc-tor R-reid?” You sounded out, unsure of the integrity of your vocal chords. You coughed, hoping it would clear your throat.

“It’s me. It’s Spencer. Relax, you’re in the hospital. Can you open your eyes?” His voice was as soft and certain as ever.

“Too bright.”

“Hold on,” you heard him get up, then a soft click. “Now try.”

You inched your eyes open again, relieved to see that the room was now dark. You blinked a few times and you saw his face, shadowed though it may be, just as right and safe and gentle as always. You smiled. “Thanks.”

“Of course. Can I get you anything?”

“Water?” Spencer grabbed a pale pink pitcher you were used to seeing beside your patients’ beds, further solidifying that you were back at work and not dead. He handed you a cup of water and you drank eagerly.

“Better?”

“Much,” You sighed, your throat feeling closer to normal.

“Well it might make you feel even better to know that my boss was impressed with your work in the prison today,” Spencer’s eyes took on a playful glint.

You groaned. “I’d like to go back to thinking I’m dead now, if you’d be so kind.”

“No really, wasn’t it you who said the BAU only talks down crisis situations, shoots a gun, then walks away?” Spencer was on the verge of laughter, you could hear it in his voice. “Well you got that crisis situation talked down, enabled me to shoot my gun, and then we walked away together. You’re basically my partner now.”

“Are you teasing me? I’m laying in a hospital bed. I was sexually assaulted. I was assaulted assaulted. I have a needle sticking out of my arm and a bandage around my neck. What makes you think this is the appropriate time to gauge my potential career shift?” You were mostly exaggerating, but it chilled you to think about where you were and what happened to you just hours prior.

Spencer quieted immediately. “It’s not appropriate, but I was nervous. I’m laughing about your potential career shift because I’m so glad that you’re still here and okay enough to discuss a potential career shift.” He ran a hand through his messy curls, frowning. “I knew it was you in there as soon as I saw your car in the parking lot. Because that’s just our luck, right? To always show up in the same place at the same time for reasons we both hate.

“But I was so proud of how you reacted. You read Pearson like an open book and you played him. You recognized your own weaknesses and strengths and you used them to stay alive.” The smirk returned. “Almost like a BAU agent.”

You scoffed, but grinned despite yourself. You understood what he meant about being happy to be alive, and after laughing during your own inappropriate moments, you could hardly begrudge him this. “You know Doctor Reid, I was almost touched there for a second.”

“Spencer.” He replied quietly.

“What?”

“You always call me Doctor Reid. Call me Spencer. We’re close enough at this point to be on a first name basis, I think.”

“Spencer then.” You relaxed back into your pillows, your cheeks warming slightly. “Nothing says ‘bonding’ like working together to shoot a serial rapist.”

“Hey, you know what, if you’d been a BAU agent this never would have happened.”

You laughed again. “How so?”

The smirk was back in full force. “You don’t have to wear high heels at the BAU.”

You threw a pillow at him.

#criminal minds #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #david rossie #matthew gray gubler #reid x reader #deadass i have no idea what i'm doing #@ my friends who i know please don't judge me #i'm just a psych crim justice student #this gets kinda ehh tho #so like #don't read if that makes you uncomfortable?#i'm sorry #i really am sorry #please enjoy if you'd like to tho?#yeet

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romvnova · 6 years ago

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Becoming The Raptor Wrangler: Chapter Four

“Holy shit.” The explicit word tumbles carelessly from Owen’s lips as he swipes his hotel keycard, the door unlocks and he pushes it open. The room’s luxurious and huge. Not one room but three joined rooms not including the monstrosity of a bathroom. He takes a moment to poke around, fingers skimming over the real Italian marble bathroom countertop. The mirror has a small wifi signal glowing blue in the left hand corner and an idle power button and his eyebrow rises.

Owen immediately feels highly uncomfortable knowing that this is where Mr. Misrani’d put him up: a fancy ass hotel room that was evidently made for a serious VIP. A room, mind, that Owen likely couldn’t even afford for an hour. And they were giving it to him during his stay on Isla Nublar: which was indefinitely …or for as long as the park still drew revenue and stayed open, at any rate.

He tosses his duffel bag on the bed, yanked the zipper open and pawed through it until he found a cream colored henley shirt. He pulled his sweaty shirt over his head, balling it in his hands, glimpsing around for a hamper to toss it into, before remembering the walk-in closet. He disappears into it, dropping the balled up shirt into the lined basket before stepping out.

“Jesus christ.” He snarls, hand shooting out to grasp the closet’s doorframe to steady himself as his heart pounds all the way up into his throat. Still trying to come down from the anxiety attack he’d gotten on the Main Street of being around so many goddamn people put him on edge. An already too-familiar red head standing by his bed in his hotel room with no warning damn near sent the war veteran into a second episode. “Don’t you knock?”

She turns around, startled — and that in particular was rather comical to Owen — as if she didn’t expect him to be there. Her eyes widen and she tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear, sheepishly, knowing she’s been caught. Her cheeks flush a bright red to rival her hair as her eyes linger, perhaps a bit longer than she’d have liked, on his bare chest.

“I —,” Claire takes a deep breath, squaring her dainty shoulders as she strolls nearer. “I did knock. You didn’t answer so I thought…” but she trailed off with no obvious intention of fully explaining herself.

“You’d just let yourself into my hotel room?” He finishes for her, giving a mocking nod. “Y’know if you wanted to be alone with me in my room all you had to do was ask.” He teases her with a cocky, lopsided grin, brushing past her. She makes a cute indignant noise in the back of her throat from behind him that causes a chuckle to rise in Owen’s own. It was inappropriate and he’d likely just broken five different fraternization rules right then and there but god, he can’t help himself. There was something about Claire Dearing that makes him want to banter with her.

Perhaps it was the fact that he suspects she can not only handle it but return what he gives her tenfold.

“I wasn’t…” She inhales deeply and lets it out in a heavy sigh. “We’re on a tight time schedule, Mr. Grady.”

“Owen.” He corrects her automatically as he pulls his cream-colored henley shirt on and zips his duffel bag back up, turning to face her once more. “That’s fine.” He replies and holds his hand out to her. “First, give me that key card you used to get in here.”

She glares at him and procures a small, white keycard from her pocket and places it in his hand. His fingers curl around it in his palm and he smiles at her, causing her nostrils to flare as he moves around his bed to place it in the nightstand, making a show of closing the drawer.

“Please Mr. Grady. I was going to return it to the front desk when we left. Don’t insult me.” She rolls her eyes and scoffs, making it very clear that any idea of ‘them’ and ‘hooking up’ positively disgusted her.

Well good, Owen thinks in an internal huff.

“Word of advice, Miss Dearing?” He words it to sound like a rhetorical question because he’s going to give it to her anyway, whether she wants to hear it or not. “Don’t ever sneak up on me again. It’s disrespectful, I don’t appreciate it, and you could cause me to go into an PTSD episode.” It wasn’t meant to be a threat; just a warning, but he feels incredibly disrespected by her for just letting herself into his hotel room regardless of whether she knocked or not, her subtle insult of him didn’t help to soften the wound either. To be fair, he’d been as cruel as her but damnit if he didn’t feel justified in it.

“Now, I believe we’re on a tight time schedule?” He encourages her to lead the way with an errant gesture of his hand to the hotel room door. To Owen’s surprise Claire doesn’t lead him back out the front where all the guests flock like herds of sheep. Instead, she takes him out the back entrance for hotel staff.

“I’ll have your keycards set to unlock these doors so you can avoid Main Street.” She tells him distractedly over her shoulder as she types on her tablet, clutched once more in her grasp.

He’s begrudgingly grateful, and he wonders whether she’d been more observant to his panic attack on the Main Street than he’d originally assumed.

Which caused Owen to immediately reassess and analyze the scene in his hotel room. He thought Claire was being impatient. Barging into his room because they were on a tight time schedule as she didn’t hesitate to remind him the first chance she got …but what if he’d misinterpreted the whole thing?

What if, assuming she was more observant than he’d given her credit for, she’d been checking up on him. Not because of the schedule but because she’d seen his episode he thought he’d been slick in hiding?

“I’m sorry I startled you, Mr. Grady.”

“Owen.” Her cheeks flush a lovely shade of red as she catches his gaze from the other side of the black and blue Jeep they were going to be taking. Owen watches as she fusses with her hair as he climbs in the passenger side. It doesn’t completely hide her face but he suspects it helps to keep him out of her peripheral vision.

Owen grabs the roll cage bar over his head as she peels out down the dirt road. The Jeep’s suspension is built for the uneven terrain but speed isn’t graceful on the dips and bumps and it jars his teeth together.

“This is the raptor paddock and cage.” She says as she puts the Jeep in park in front of the giant metal construct. Construction workers are hard at work on it, welding and fusing it together in places.

“Is it safe?” He points to the catwalk as he hops out of the Jeep.

“Yes.” Claire replies and he wastes no time jogging up the stairs, taking them three at a time. He steps on the metal catwalk, fingers running over the railing as he looks below him at the ‘cage’. It’s an open space and in the far corner is the entrance into their massive paddock. It stretches far enough to allow the raptors to roam and run without feeling claustrophobic. Plenty of forest, a massive watering hole, and plains.

He looks over his shoulder as he hears the sound of Claire’s heels on the catwalk.

“I wouldn’t…—” He started, ready to grab her if it looked like she was in danger of losing her balance…or breaking an ankle. Once again, Claire Dearing navigated the metal grate of the catwalk in a manner that would, Owen doesn’t doubt, give a runway model a serious run for her money. She gives a soft clear of her throat and smiles at him, a bit smug a bit charming as he lean his hip casually against the short catwalk railing.

“We’re going to have four ACU guards stationed at each corner of the cage,” She points to the spots on the wrap around catwalk. “Armed with non-lethals, of course, as per our safety regulations.”

“You put twelve amps in those raptors, it’ll destroy their trust in me in an instant.” Owen tells her.

“So …what? You’d rather risk being killed?” Claire questions him.

“I’d rather ACU not interfere with my work.” He tells her, taking a step closer to her.

“It’s company protocol. There has to be at least four ACU guards per carnivore paddock while the trainers and handlers are working with them.” Claire tells him simply, her tone implying that he’s not going to negotiate it with her.

“Fine,” Owen agrees watching as Claire’s shoulders sag a little with relief. “But while they’re stationed in my paddock, with my raptors, they’ll listen to me. If I tell them to hold fire, they better damn well hold their fire.”

Claire blinks up at him, clearly deliberating the terms he gives her. “I can manage that.” She eventually murmurs in compromise.

“Good.” Owen says before he turns away from her and walks the rest of the catwalk, eventually following her down the stairs and back to the Jeep.

“Owen Grady, this is Dr. Henry Wu.” Claire introduces them as the elevator doors open to the incubation lab. It’s sterile and white and reminds Owen of a military medical facility. Out of all the scientists there, Dr. Wu is the only one wearing a bespoke black suit.

Owen shakes the doctor’s hand.

“Dr. Wu, this is Owen Grady. He’ll be spearheading Project IBRIS.” Claire says as he leads the way down the corridor of glass walls and doors. As they move past, Owen glimpses around him with muted fascination. He’d never been one for science, but there’s something methodical about watching them work: extracting DNA from amber samples. Playing with double helix’s suspended on touch screens in their areas, mixing genomes.

“What’s the survival rate of the hatchlings?” Owen asks as Dr. Wu leads them down a secondary hallway and presses his hand against the reader to unlock the door with a soft hiss. Claire takes a step to the side to allow Owen to pass before her, as he comes to stand before the two large nests, each nest holding six velociraptor eggs.

“The typical rate is two per nest, but it’s a bit of a lottery, Mr. Grady. Sometimes it’s two, sometimes it’s one …sometimes it’s none at all and the process starts all over.” Owen feels his brows furrow at the utter lack of emotion in Dr. Wu’s voice as he says it. Owen isn’t sure if the man is just apathetic or if, after years of dealing with failed incubations he’s just grown …desensitized.

Owen frowns but leans closer to examine the next that Dr. Wu hovers around, hand pressing against a draw diagram with neat scribbling written on it. He looks down at in surprise.

“What’s this?”

“Ah, each raptor hatching has mixed DNA with a different reptile to give them all a unique appearance. I thought it would be easier for you to tell them apart that way.” Dr. Wu makes it sound like it’s an generously altruistic act but Owen can’t help but feel insulted.

“How incredibly kind of you.” Owen deadpans sarcastically, letting out a low grunt of pain as he feels Claire step on his toes in a clear warning.

“Sorry, Mr. Grady.” She murmurs in an apology that sounds sincere but he knows damn well isn’t. She puts on a good show for Dr. Wu.

If Dr. Wu noticed the silent battle of stares happening between Claire and Owen he pays no attention to it, or rather draws no attention to it. Instead, he lets the band of his black rubber gloves snap against his wrists as he puts them on and points to four eggs in the oldest nest.

“As you can see these eggs have stress fractures along the egg shell. I estimate they’ll hatch within the next couple of days or so, but I’ve taken the liberty of syncing this tablet,” Dr. Wu gestures to it and Claire grabs it off the table for him and hands it out to Owen. “to these monitors. I want you here from sun rise to sun fall watching them, but the tablet’s alarm is set to go off if they begin to show increased signs of activity. Your employee ID card will get you into the lab’s elevator and into this room exclusively.”

“Alright.” Owen agrees. He knows the importance of being here when they hatch, of imprinting upon them the moment they’re born. It’ll jumpstart and further help to cement the bond he’ll work to create with them.

“Well,” Owen pulls up an office chair and lowers himself down into it. “Best get started.” He says dismissively.

Dr. Wu takes his exit then, not needing to be told twice until it’s just Claire and Owen. She procures a sleek, white phone from her pocket and holds it out to him. Gingerly, Owen takes it. Like everything in this lab it looks highly breakable.

“Company work phone. It’s pre-programmed with everyone’s numbers. ACU, Dr. Wu, the park rangers are all on your speed dial.” Owen thanks her, watching her as she hesitates for a moment before she glimpses back over her shoulder and exits the lab room, heading back the way they’d came. Owen rubs his eyes and stretches in the chair before he turns his gaze to the two nests, his eyes drawn to an egg in the second nest. It’s a bit bigger than the others: not noticeable upon first glance and it’s shell is almost a matte pearlescent color with tiny, iridescent blue vein-like marks, easily missed if one wasn’t studying the egg as intensely as Owen finds himself. He stretches out a finger to touch the egg, the rough texture of the shell warm beneath his fingertips. He follows an iridescent blue vein’s path along the egg with a gentle trace of his fingertip and recoils his hand and drawing in a sharp breath when he feels the egg thrum like a heartbeat. Owen’s brows furrow before he decides he better not touch them again, lest Dr. Wu catches him.

He looks like the kind of man who’d love nothing wrong to read him the riot act and given that Owen’s fairly sure Claire’s already given herself that power he doesn’t want the two of them to gang up on him. He settles back in the chair, watching the monitors and comparing them, making sense of the scientific mumbo-jumbo enough to have a grasp on what he’s looking at and what he’s looking for.

#becoming the raptor wrangler #owen grady #claire dearing #henry wu #jurassic world #jw

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jbuffyangel · 7 years ago

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Crossing Lines: Arrow 6x14 Review (Collision Course)

Am I supposed to agree with the Newbies at some point? Am I supposed to be more conflicted over this OTA versus Newbies Civil War? Cause I'm not.

Let's dig in...

Original Team Arrow versus Newbies

Someone pointed out to me, in the midst of all my snarky tweets about the newbies, I have a bias and it's disgusting. Horror of horrors.

Of course, I have a bias. This is an Olicity blog and I worship at the altar of John Diggle (re: see blog name). My bias is plastered everywhere. I'm not reporting fact based news. This is my opinion and it is framed by the things I like and don't like (re: see my pretty banner). I am super okay with my bias and hopefully everyone reading these reviews are too! If not, I'm sure there's someone out there who agrees with the newbies.

Somewhere. Moving on.

Cayden James is dead and Oliver thinks that's pretty shady because it is. There's no time to investigate because Star City is missing $70 million and Oliver would really like to pay the electric bill. Anyone else think it's a little odd Star City is on the verge of financial shut down because of $70 million? Isn't it supposed to be like Seattle or something? I'm not saying $70 million wouldn't put a hitch in Seattle's giddy up. I just feel like they should be able to absorb it better. Whatever. Government finance ain't my thing - other than giving them exorbitant amounts of our paychecks every week only to be charged MORE when we file our taxes.

I miss the days when Oliver was a billionaire. He could just cut Star City a check and bake cookies with Felicity and William. Yeah, that's right. FELICITY AND WILLIAM BAKED COOKIES.

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

This ranks high in the domesticated adorable scale. To be fair, I think William baked the cookies and Felicity did the science, math and physics part, but it was still cuter than all the cute in the world.

I love this gif. This man is stupid in love and is so happy to raise William with Felicity. Remember the days when Oliver thought he’d die alone? Now he’s all heart eyes over cookies.

Source: oliverxfelicity

Felicity rocks her hacker goddess skills and gets Oliver the Corto Maltese security video, which shows the person who stole the money:

Source: katie-mcgraths

Bl*ck S*ren. My kingdom for Arrow to burn that wig. I thought she had a bullet wound? When did she have time to go to Corto Maltese? You know what? Never mind. Best not to spend more time than necessary on her.

Of course, Dinah finds out Evil L*urel has all the money and we're off to the races. Oliver is adamant Dinah should not kill BS.

Remember when Oliver used to break people's necks? Six years later, plus extensive morality lessons from John Diggle, an intelligent, beautiful and light inspiring woman to go schmoopy for, and an impressionable son has turned Oliver Queen into a freaking Care Bear. Tender Heart if you want to be specific.

"I don't trust you to do the right thing."

To his credit, Oliver states he's the last person to lecture anyone about murder, but he's not going to dwell on the obvious. Oliver is the only one who can kill people. Everyone else is a hard nope. Is Oliver being a hypocrite? Yes and no. Yes, because his policy on killing is harder to nail down than Jell-O. (He only kills when necessary and only if the Big Bad is super evil. I think?)

No, because Oliver has killed and knows what it can do to a person.

In many ways, Oliver is the best person to speak about the consequences of murder.

Source: jamescarstairs

Settle down, honey. This isn't Quentin you are talking to. Oliver barely acknowledged L*urel when she was alive. He is certainly not blind with "the feels" over her evil doppelganger. Oliver just wants to pay the water bill.

Dinah: If you are going to threaten me Oliver, you better be damn sure you can deliver.

Honestly, it's like the noobs have amnesia because they act like they don't know Oliver Queen.

Of course he can deliver, but sure snowflake throw the gauntlet. Noobs versus Team Arrow, Round 349,834.

Source: gothsmoak

Apparently, it is Dinah's first day out of the academy because she leaves a bloody shoe print in the alley where BS was shot. You are a lieutenant Dinah. Didn't anyone teach you how to control a crime scene? Lord, this is like working with Barry Allen right now.

The footprint leads OTA to believe Dinah took BS. They break into the newbies bunker, and by break in I mean walk in with the lights shut off, which leads to the trading of words. Fightin' ones.

Dinah: Since when is our word not enough?

Part of this newbie amnesia thing means they forgot everything that's happened since 6x09. Everything from 6x09-6x14 is the reason why your word is not enough, Dinah. Can brain cells start to fire please? Be smarter noobs.

Rene throws Vincent's death in Oliver's face and Diggle rightfully points out if these impertinent toddlers listened to them in the first place Vincent might still be alive.

Source: herostairss

Curtis flips his shiznit over Felicity hacking their system to search for Bl*ck S*ren's heat signature. Is there anything that doesn't get Curtis' undies in a twizzle these days?

Oliver: She's tracked all of you because we needed to know if one of you broke our trust. One of you did.

Ya hear that amnesia boy? THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! REMEMBER? Suck it Rene. Oliver says all of this in his growly Arrow voice, which makes it so much better. Don't ask me why. Growly Arrow voice makes everything better.

Dinah: You have already punished Rene for that mistake.

Rene is still testifying right? Can we get some clarification on that, show? I maintain kicking Rene off Team Arrow hardly equates to Rene sending Oliver up the river for life without the parole.

Dinah: You know it's just too bad he doesn't look like L*urel L*nce because if he did you would probably forgive him for murder!

Solid burn Dinah. I got nothing.

Curtis starts shrieking about OTA breaking into their bunker and finally annoys Felicity enough to tell him to shut his trap. GLORIOUS.

One of the reasons it's hard to be interested in the remaining villains is because the noobs seem to be campaigning for Big Bad. Rene adopts a fairly nefarious tone and talks smack about William. Man, Damien Darhk wasn't even that low.

Rene: Oliver wants to fight because that's how he solves his problems. That doesn't make you a hero. It makes you a thug. It's a real shame because he's going to feel so betrayed when he figures it out. You know who I'm talking about don't you hoss? William.

It's a little difficult to stomach Rene lecturing Oliver about fighting and parenting. This is the same man who left his daughter in foster care, so he could kill people like Damien Darhk just like the Green Arrow. Alright, his reasons were slightly more noble, but that's the basic gist.

Rene getting up in Oliver's face is all a ruse to plant a bug on him, which is also hard to believe. Felicity needs to wear the red dress for that to happen.

The newbies over hear OTA's conversation with Quentin, Thea and BS.Oliver agrees to help Bl*ck S*ren get out of the country in exchange for the $70 million. The only thing I agree with the newbies on is Bl*ck S*ren will never give the money back.

OTA ditches the bug and this is where things really escalate. Curtis says he can track OTA to Bl*ck S*ren's location if he uses the chip in Diggle's arm.

It's going to hurt Diggle A LOT if he does.

Rene is almost gleeful when he says, "You act like that's a deal breaker hoss. That guy is the whole reason I got shot." It's difficult to determine if Rene knows Curtis is talking about physical pain. Rene immediately drew a comparison to his physical pain (i.e. bullet wound). However, Dinah tells Curtis not to worry about John's feelings. Dinah's reference implies Rene was merely speaking about emotional pain, but that could have been her misinterpretation. The waters are murky for sure.

What is not murky is Dinah's response when Curtis clarifies he's talking about physical pain. She doesn't hesitate, not even for a second, when she tells Curtis to find OTA. Perhaps, Dinah feels morally justified in her quest to kill Bl*ck S*ren. Perhaps, she even feels morally justified to hurt John physically because his lies about his injury put everyone on the team at risk. Rene was wounded after all.

However, John didn't make his choice with the intent to physically harm his fellow team members. He convinced himself that his presence as Green Arrow saved more lives than it cost. Rene's injury was a terrible consequence of John's poor choices, but it was not one he made deliberately.

The newbies are making a deliberate choice. They have full knowledge Diggle will be hurt, even severely. They know John will be unable to defend himself in the field. There are no questions. No what ifs, buts or maybes. The newbies know exactly what will happen.

Furthermore, their intent is clearly based on vengeance. Rene wants revenge for his gunshot wound. Dinah wants to kill Bl*ck S*ren as revenge for Vince. These are not noble pursuits filled with good intention. Rene is actually laughing about Diggle and gleefully congratulating Curtis on a job well done as they drive to the cabin, "I pity those fools now."

The juxtaposition between the two teams and their conversations prior to battle is quite telling. Dinah tells her team not to hold back. If they do then they will get hurt.

Source: gothsmoak

Whereas Diggle worries about the cost of OTA's plan. Bl*ck S*ren avoids capture and they end up hurting the people who used to be their friends. Oliver counters with his own philosophical question, "Would John be asking these questions if the people coming after them didn't look like Rene, Curtis and Dinah?" Of course not, but John also adds, "But I have to wonder would we be doing this if the person they were after didn't look like L*urel?"

It's really not about that for Oliver, which he will make clear in a minute, but what matters is Diggle is the only one arguing caution. And that's after the newbies deliberately hurt him. Diggle tells Oliver they may cross a line they can't take back. Dinah tells Rene and Curtis to cross the line and not look back. It's a stark contrast between the teams. It's also very difficult to side with the newbies when OTA are the only ones debating morality.

The decision is already made for Oliver. He agrees with John they are about to cross a line they can't take back, but the newbies crossed it first. They crossed it the minute they deliberately hurt John. You do not mess with Oliver Queen's first wife. He will defend bae no matter the cost.

However, I don't think Oliver is only speaking about John. Rene's betrayal cut to the core for Oliver. He brought Rene into the fold, trained and trusted him. The newbies may feel they were treated "differently," but Oliver made himself vulnerable to Rene, Curtis and Dinah. He trusted them with his biggest secret. Oliver put his life into their hands and not just out in the field. They each have the power to take Oliver from the people he loves (Felicity and William). This is exactly what Rene did. His betrayal is as much a threat to Oliver's life as the newbies messing with Diggle's chip.

Oliver even gave Rene a second chance and he still left him high and dry. Curtis and Dinah had their own reasons for leaving the team, but they also sided with Rene. Neither of them have told Rene what he did to Oliver was wrong. In fact, Curtis defended it. They are complicit in the betrayal in that sense. If Dinah and Curtis can morally square outing Oliver Queen as Green Arrow to a prosecutor then how does Oliver trust them again?

And no, the threat of losing his daughter does not justify taking Oliver from his son. There were other options Rene chose to ignore - like telling Oliver and asking for help. Even if it did justify it, Rene should respect a natural consequence of choosing Zoe is forfeiting Team Arrow. But he didn't. Instead, Rene believed his choice should be consequence free. He acts like a toddler whose favorite toy was taken away.

Of course, Dinah, Curtis and Rene have their own list of betrayals. Most of which I find inferior to the betrayal that kicked off this civil war. We have to remember how we got here, because it's important.

Source: oliverxfelicity

Felicity is furious Curtis hurt John and is ready to kick his ass. Oliver should have let her go. Mr. Terrific would have been on the ground in less than a minute. Unlike him, Felicity can throw a punch.

Curtis only lasts in the fight for as long as he did because of the T-spheres. The same T-spheres anyone can operate, which continues to bolster my why-do-we- need-Curtis-in-the-field argument.

Source: dmichellewrites

The T-spheres ultimately don't matter. Oliver puts him down hard. Next?

Oliver knocks Rene down and warns him to stay down. Rene refuses and picks up an AX. Yes, an ax.

Rene takes Dinah's instructions not to hold back to heart and swings at Oliver with all his might.

I ask everyone to consider the bodily harm Rene would have inflicted on Oliver if any one of those swings landed. The injury would be bloody, severe, awful and very likely life threatening.

Source: olivergifs

Oliver defends himself. Plain and simple. He kicks Rene hard in the chest and sends him flying into a tree. This unintentionally reopens Rene's wound and he's rushed to the hospital. Rene's injury is life threatening, which requires recuperating off screen for while. This is fine by me. I need a looooong Rene Ramirez break. Perhaps a permanent one.

Curtis convinces Dinah not to kill BS by waxing poetic about how they formed a new team to be better than Oliver Queen. ARE THE WRITERS REALLY EXPECTING US TO BUY THIS?

All the noobs have done is bitch about OTA, pitch hissy fits, act like hypocrites and try to kill BS. But sure kids, you are really living in the light.

Diggle and Felicity go to the hospital to check on Rene, while Oliver wisely stays behind. Oliver knows his presence will only create a more volatile scene. He does tell Diggle and Felicity to pass along his apologies.

Source: gothsmoak

Curtis and Dinah believe Diggle and Felicity have lost the right to ask about Rene. They are done with them FOREVER. Lord, if only it were true.

Let's run it down:

Rene was injured in a fight the newbies started with OTA.

Oliver warned Rene to stay down and he refused.

Rene escalated the fight to life and death by swinging an ax and Oliver defended himself.

Diggle and Felicity show concern for Rene and check on him, even though Curtis deliberately hurt Diggle's arm, Dinah hit an unarmed man with her staff, Rene almost shot Felicity and tried to kill Oliver.

The newbies tell Diggle and Curtis they don't have the right to ask how Rene is doing while Rene was gleeful over hurting John.

The newbies tell Diggle and Felicity, once again, this is all their fault despite Rene's betrayal being the catalyst for this entire conflict.

Oliver actually feels guilty about hurting Rene. He is sorry it came to that and Rene is in the hospital. I'm not hearing a lot of sorry from the newbies over hurting Diggle,

Source: gothsmoak

shooting at Felicity, Quentin and Thea

Source: gothsmoak

and swinging an ax at Oliver. And yes, I know Felicity jumped in front of Rene’s gun. By why did she do that? To stop Rene from shooting at an unarmed Thea and Quentin. This woman, who was paralyzed from a gun shot wound, threw herself in front of a bullet to protect her family. She has more courage, honor, loyalty and selflessness in her pinky finger than Rene does in his entire body.

Nor were the newbies debating the morality of crossing the line. They simply acted without remorse, believing the ends justified the means, and then blamed everyone else but themselves. It's getting difficult to tell the difference between the newbies and the villains.

Quentin Lance, Bl*ck S*ren and Thea Queen

Quentin has taken an extended vacation to Crazy Town, is keeping Evil L*urel in some cabin and is lying badly about it. Quentin used to be captain of the police department. That has to require some undercover work. You'd think he'd be better at lying, but nope! What's worse is Oliver's Spidey sense doesn't tingle. It says to me he's really preoccupied with this stolen money cutting into his son's tutoring time. This cuts into his sexy time with the wife by default. (Sure would be nice to actually SEE the sexy times.) Stick with me folks! I can always connect it back to Olicity sex.

Quentin pulls out the photo album (JUST PUT IT DOWN MAN AND STEP AWAY)

and blah blah blahs to Evil L*urel about redemption. Yawn. Quentin lays all of Bl*ck S*ren's evil firmly on the dead father trope. Not everything a woman does relates to a man issue, show. Sometimes we just do stuff because we want to and it has nothing to do with the presence or absence of a man in our life.

Quentin doubles down on the "It's Not Evil L*urel's Fault" psychoanalysis and states, "My guess is that it's been a long time since you had a chance to decide what you want your life to be."

Really? REALLY? I’m drunk-Scott-Moir-yelling-about-Canadian-hockey annoyed. It's called free will Quentin and Bl*ck S*ren had it since the day she was born. There are plenty of people who grow up without a father who don't turn into serial killers. Bl*ck S*ren has been CHOOSING her life for a long time now. Bad things happening to you is not a free pass to do bad things to others.

Thea's Spidey senses does tingle (she really needs to be Mayor) and she follows Quentin to this remote cabin he owns. She placates Quentin and all his crazy, which is just beyond irritating. Can someone please tell this man he has gone round the bend?

The only moderately enjoyable aspect of these cabin scenes was KC going all in with the camp. Her over the top villain reactions felt like a suitable balance to the lunacy of this Quentin Lance storyline.

Quentin offers to leave the country with Bl*ck S*ren. He's going to open up a little shop with her in Barbados, make straw hats together and save her soul. WHATEVER DUDE.

Seeing as how Quentin's character is in shambles, I am in favor of this plan. Ship both Quentin and Bl*ck S*ren off and we can get back to a Lance free show.

Oliver believes Bl*ck S*ren will keep the money and she will kill Quentin the moment she is out of the country. It's good to see our lead still has some sense. But Oliver chooses to go along with Bl*ck S*ren's plan because he believes in Quentin. I don't think Oliver believes Quentin's plan will work, but he wants to show Lance the trust and loyalty he deserves.

Oliver and Quentin's relationship has been rocky no doubt, but in the end they forged something based on mutual respect and dare I say love.

Quentin was prepared to go to prison for Oliver once. Oliver cannot take the little hope Quentin has left. No matter how ill advised. Is it a huge risk? YES, but Quentin eventually set aside all he knew about Oliver and chose to believe in him. Oliver is simply offering the same belief in return. He isn't choosing Bl*ck S*ren. Oliver is choosing Quentin Lance.

If you give Oliver loyalty and trust, then you will receive the same in return. Your problems are his problems. It's the piece of him the newbies never understood - particularly Rene.

The line of the episode, of course, has to be what Oliver says to Bl*ck S*ren:

Source: olivergifs

HAHAHA!!!!!!!! I cackled. I cackled in an evil way.

There is no love lost between Oliver and BS. He has his head screwed on straight. L*urel is dead and BS is not L*urel. Instead, BS is an annoyance Oliver wants out of his face. To be fair, this is how he used to treat L*urel when she was alive, but he's just more forceful about it with BS.

It's like the writers know exactly how we feel about BS and gift us with these scenes so we can abuse the gifs.

In all my days, I've never seen a show throw shade on a character they created more than Arrow does with LL/BS. Things that make you go hmmm.

Quentin admits how badly he screwed up. Thea reassures Quentin he loves BS in the only way it matters - through the eyes of a father. It's a clunky line, but she's not arguing BS is dead L*urel. Thea is simply saying what Quentin feels for BS is beyond reason

and biology. It's similar to the way Thea could never quite untangle herself from Malcolm Merlyn. Or how Malcolm Merlyn could rationalize every evil thing he did in the name of loving Thea. Or how Robert Queen loved Thea as his own even though he knew, biologically, she was not. Thea is over identifying a little too much, but since her days on Arrow are probably numbered I’m going allow her some wiggle room. At least she learned something about fathers and daughters in the midst of all her daddy drama over the years.

Love is often unexplainable and it certainly isn't bound by biology. It doesn't make Quentin's actions rationale, healthy or right. He is merely acting from gut instinct, a love printed into his DNA, for a woman who wears the face of his daughter but is absolutely nothing like his daughter. The thin connection of hot sour soup notwithstanding.

"I know how much we all wish she was like the L*urel that we lost. She's not."

This line from Oliver does feel like a final verdict (God willing) on Bl*ck S*ren's redemption.

Quentin believed in Bl*ck S*ren time and time again. Time and time again, Bl*ck S*ren chose evil. There comes a point when unconditional love meets free will. Quentin's love for Bl*ck S*ren, no matter how irrational or misguided, doesn't change the fact that she rejects it. I don't believe unconditional love requires we be okay with everything a person does. You can disagree and demand better from someone while still loving them. At a certain point, Quentin has to accept the choices Bl*ck S*ren makes. His love doesn't go away, but it doesn't change who BS is. Quentin is in the enabling BS. Hopefully, we move to tough love next.

Rather than redeem BS, Arrow doubles down on the evil and we end "Collison Course" with BS pretending to be dead LL.

Source: katie-mcgraths

Now THIS is a storyline I can get behind. This sounds fun.

I am not here for more "Let's redeem kuku-for-cocoa-puffs" and dragging Quentin & Thea down with her. Also, there's no better way to snap Quentin out of his "She's L*urel" delusions than to have BS mess with memory of his L*urel and try to steal her life.

In a way it's giving LL fans what they crave. They want BS to be redeemed and to assume dead L*urel's life. So, it's like LL didn't die at all. It's still wonky logic because the two women are different people, but whatever. Arrow is delivering on that wish fulfillment, but with a twist. It will be Bl*ck S*ren pretending to be dead LL, which will continue to highlight how different these women are and hijinks will ensue.

I believe "Collision Course" presents a cross in the road. A definitive point where BS could have gone right, but instead went left. She could have chosen to be good and return the money, but instead she becomes an imposter. Quentin very clearly offers a path in which BS can be redeemed, living somewhere tropical as father and daughter, but BS goes another way. Oliver's line to BS is foreshadowing, which why there's emphasis on the shot.

Source: olivergifs

What's the end goal here? I think there's one of three options. 1) Quentin dies and it's finally the trigger for Bl*ck S*ren’s redemption. She leaves town to lead a good life somewhere on a different Earth, but never to be heard from again (Oliver's wish). 2) Quentin and L*urel leave town together as planned in 6x14. 3) L*urel continues to be a villain and wreak havoc in a similar way Malcolm Merlyn did.

None of these options equate to BS becoming good L&urel, joining the team and being BC again. One, they have a Bl*ck C*nary on the team. Two, it lands Arrow back to square one with a character they exhausted and were done with. And three, a villain is the only way to make the character different. The minute BS chooses another path then I think she hits the road just like "Collision Course" laid out.

Stray Thoughts

They never treated you like equals Curtis because you weren't equals. Everything in your behavior now proves that.

Curtis' hologram image of BS was baaad. The show doesn't want to spend more money on this character than absolutely necessary.

I love Juliana Harkavy, but something about her performance was just off putting tonight. She needs to scale it back a little.

The fire department and the teacher's union were super snotty about the $70 mill. It's like they want to put out fires and teach children. Calm down folks.

Curtis taught Felicity to hack something? Give me a freaking break. Oliver's magical powers in Season 4 were easier to buy than that.

OTA was back in the van, which always gives me Season 2 nostalgia.

Dinah also doesn't know how to tail someone because she was 30 feet behind Diggle's bumper.

"I found something that can bury Queen." The new DA works for Dragon and what he has to bury Oliver is Roy. Roy confessed to being the Arrow and is supposed to be dead. If Roy is alive then it's all a lie and the new DA can convict Oliver of being both the Arrow and Green Arrow.

Is it ever up to the newbies to save the city? No. You serve a supporting role in saving the city at best. Get a grip.

Next week is Roooooooooy. Give me all the Theroy. I need to snuggle Colton Haynes.

Disclaimer: Any gifs on the blog are not mine. If you would like a gif removed from my reviews, please message me. 6x14 gifs credited.

#arrow #original team arrow #OTA #arrow 6x14 #arrow reviews #anti newbies #john diggle #felicity smoak #oliver queen #anti rene ramirez #anti dinah drake #anti curtis holt #anti black siren #anti quentin lance #anti laurel lance #arrow season 6 #season 6 episode reviews #season 6 episode review

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