#i really wanted to have an actual spider in the webs portrait

[eeriedragone]

CEASELESS WATCHER and THE WEB (2/?)

(1) (2) (3) (4) ...

More DE x TMA Fear portraits. Keeping in mind that in this au the Fears would replace the Skills, the Ceaseless Watcher would be of course the the one that would talk the most (at least at the start). It go from being like Encyclopedia to Shivers, but in the most stalkery manner.

The Web would rarely give an action/dialogue option directly, because Jon would be very scared of it and reticent to follow through on what it says, but it would manipulate the other Fears into doing its bidding undetected (if that makes sense).

[linagram]

deleted MV scenes!

I'M FINALLY DONE WITH THESE DJSJKDKD

anyway, this is just a collection of scenes and concepts and themes that were originally supposed to appear in some prisoners' t2 mvs, but for one reason or another i've ended up not going with them. perhaps i will add one or two of these into their future mvs, who knows!

- One of the first ideas I had about Akio's MV was adding some chess motifs and there was supposed to be a scene with Akio and Arata playing chess together, Akio losing to him and Arata opening his mouth and revealing that one of the pieces was on his tongue. Yes, it was basically a "smart kid not understanding how he's losing to me and me who's been eating his pieces when he wasn't looking". And now it's possible that Deep Cover will have a chess theme. Canongram stop stealing my ideas!! /j

- Fun fact: that scene was deleted not only because I don't know anything about chess, but also because Arata was supposed to be shown in a very sympathetic way, explaining Akio's obsession with him. His true colors will be shown in Akio's T3 MV though.

- I also had a thought about adding a scene where when Akio's getting hanged, MV focuses on Akio's neck and then the video suddenly cuts to Chise's neck and shows that even though both of them died the same way, Chise has noticeable red marks on his neck, implying that the murder methods were actually a bit different.

- Shun's MV had a huge number of different concepts, for example, I was thinking of his MV having a royal theme, but that concept was abandoned after I finished writing Akio's MV and also I thought of his MV having a casino theme? I will not elaborate. I also really wanted his MV to have a wedding theme, but then Mahiru's album cover was revealed and I got scared that his MV will be too similar to hers, so I changed it. But Mahiru's MV theme turned out to be different, so I can already say that another prisoner will most likely get a MV with a wedding scene in season 3.

- Some examples of deleted scenes from the wedding MV: There were several wedding cakes, but all of them looked different and had different decorations (I forgot what they're called..) and if you looked closer, you could notice that next to the small figure of Shun, the small figures of brides were all different. Shun was also supposed to propose to his "ex" and it looked all cute and romantic in his head, but in reality Hina looked at him with disgust and fear and rejected him.

- In the end, Shun was supposed to be shown sitting and watching TV with Kei, who looked like he was about to cry while Shun held his hand and smiled.

- I had a LOT of concepts for Kei's MV in mind, and before I started writing Naomi's MV, I was thinking of giving him a "devil form" or a scene that takes place in hell instead of Naomi. But I thought that would be too obvious or predictable for someone like him and instead gave it to Naomi.

- There was also a possibility of Kei getting a MV with an art theme, but I thought it would be too similar to Aimi's T1 MV. The MV was also supposed to show Kei painting a portrait of Ruka.

- Kei's "almost final" MV was supposed to start like this: everything is completely black and then we see a coffin the same color as Kei's image color and there's a spider web drawn on it and we see Ruka walking closer to it and opening it. Kei is asleep and then Ruka kisses him and forcefully drags him out of it. It was supposed to mean that not only Kei helps Ruka feel "more alive", it's the same for Ruka helping Kei and it also was supposed to be a reference to Snow White. Why Snow White? It's up to you to figure out :)

- Kei's almost final MV was supposed to reveal a lot about his past, but then I was like "We don't even know a lot about his crime. Why should I reveal his backstory here".

- For example, Kei's younger version was supposed to be shown and he was supposed to follow older Kei around and find his current lifestyle shocking meanwhile older Kei found his younger version embarrassing.

- There was also a scene of Kei getting cannibalized by the women he killed and the lyrics referenced his VD title and him existing only for others' entertainment.

- The first concept I had in mind for Eiko's MV was her going on a date with Takeru, but since he lied to her and pretended to be someone else and she didn't even know what he looked like, he would change his appearance every few seconds and in the end Eiko was supposed to "take off his mask" and reveal that Takeru was a corpse all this time. Shun's MV ended up having a similar scene instead, with him talking to Hina and her boyfriend even though both of them are dead.

- Asahi and Yurika's MV concepts didn't change much, but I just find it interesting how Kei saw what those women did to him as actual cannibalism meanwhile Yurika, despite her theme and her MV's aesthetic, still saw a lot of the scary things as candy, chocolate and all that stuff. Kinda reminds me that she's still very young even if she's legally an adult and how her parents forced her to live alone hoping that she would become more mature..

- There was also a scene with Asahi going full John mode and breaking everything with a bat, showing how he doesn't care about the things Satsuki buys for him.

- Riku had a completely different MV concept at first. Yes, he was still supposed to be a famous musician, but most of the MV was supposed to take place at this really cool house and Riku was supposed to be shown as someone who lives a very comfortable life, someone who's both rich and talented, but overall feels empty on the inside. There was also a scene with his friend's ghost haunting the place where he lives.

- In the end Riku and Yue were supposed to fall together from the roof of an insanely high building and Riku would be shown as the only survivor and everyone would ignore Yue's body. Riku was supposed to look at his body with disgust and turn back to his friends and fans while wearing a suit covered in Yue's blood and the last scene would reveal that Riku is missing a shoe.

- I also wanted Riku's MV to have a vampire theme, as a reference to Riku and Yue's relationship, with both of them drinking each other's blood even though it hurts them and they need human blood and not the blood of another vampire. But then I read what I wrote again and went ".. No, I won't be able to continue saying that Riku and Yue's relationship was platonic after this".

[owlixx]

Comics I Read Yesterday

Moon Knight ‘16-‘18

So, Marvel Unlimited is weird. They count 3 very distinct runs here as one big run. The ‘16 Lemire run was pretty fun because the tv show clearly rips it off but the comic is of course way better. But then yesterday I finally got through to the end of the ‘17 Bemis run about fighting Amon Ra/Sun King which was fine, I guess, but not on the same level. And then that turned into the ‘18 Bemis run which started by revealing an insane version of how Marc Spector developed his split personalities that seemed a little over the top edgy to me, so I put it down.

In the end, I like Moon Knight. He’s cool. But now I know to be a bit more skeptical of Marvel Unlimited’s comic issue collections and just put a series down if it suddenly changes art style and writing style in a direction I don’t like. And I also wanted to put this down so I could get cracking on the long list of good, short series ahead of me.

Contest of Champions ‘82

This was just kind of a silly, fun one. Very early crossover, of course. Only 3 issue. It was apparently supposed to be a tie-in for the Olympics until the US pulled out in ‘80. That explains the focus on now-obscure international and why they must compete “at all four corners of the Earth”. Very simple, very straightforward. Not a ton of questioning the nature of the competition or nitty gritty about the rules, just some toe-dipping into “hey wouldn’t it be neat if X met Y”. It is very funny to see these all-powerful deities drafting for their team and leaving out Hulk/Thor so they can instead take “Le Peregrine” or whoever so more countries can be included. And the contest itself is so silly - just lay hands on a golden object that’s…nearby. Easy read since it’s so short, but so funny that there’s a sequel and a whole phone game based on this and that it’s really the template for a lot of these crossovers.

Secret Wars ‘84

This one I was much more looking forward to. I love Symbiote Spider-Man, although we really just get the design and origin here. Overall this was a lot of fun, much more fleshed out than Contest of Champions. I really liked the dynamic of villains vs heroes vs xmen vs galactic. I also liked that they didn’t just play the game here, and instead Doom tried to break the rules. Also I just generally like Doom and he was pretty cool in this one. I think I had only ever read the last issue as a kid since my dad owned it physically so it was nice to finally make sense of how Cap broke his shield, plus the general events leading up to the finale. I also really liked when they were stuck under the mountain and all combined tech and powers to soup up Iron Man for one big laser. I think the weakest part of this was the weird Jonny Storm/Colossus love triangle with the local alien healer woman. It was funny also though how the villains included respectable names such as Doom, Galactus, Kang, Doc Ock, Lizard, but then also people like Absorbing Man and Wrecking Ball who have really faded into obscurity. Also fun to see what seemed like the origin of Titania! Surely her backstory has been retconned to not be “in the 80s, a chunk of Denver was pulled into a planet arena and Doom gave magic powers to two random women off the street”. Also cool to see Rhodey in the Iron Man suit and Monica Rambeau Captain Marvel! Certain unsavory folk would have you believe that such characters only started to exist like, a year ago. Also I switched from reading on just my phone to busting out my foldable laptop and reading these in portrait mode on it. The Marvel Unlimited web interface is a nightmare, so it’s best used in tandem with the app, but it’s fine once you’re actually inside the comic you want and boy does it look good on a larger-than-life screen.

Kitty Pryde and Wolverine ‘84

This one was a lot of fun! Seems like this is where the name Shadowcat comes from as far as I can tell? I really liked how small-scale and personal this was, especially coming off the heels of Secret Wars. I would imagine that at the time, this kind of intimate, personal story was a little less common, but that’s just me guessing. I genuinely wasn’t sure how this was going to go, which is a lot of fun. I do always think there’s something kind of inherently funny about Wolverine being a weeaboo, but it’s not a problem or anything.

[narratingnarrator]

THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES PORTRAIT

This was when I had a lot more time on my hands to do something big. I like working with scrap cardboard as we usually have heaps of it, so it's always interesting to figure out what I can make out of it.

(Initial concept art)

So, in The Magnus Archives podcast, there are 14 different fears, each represented by an avatar many overarching symbols and I wanted to include every dear in the portrait.

For example; The Web - is a fear entity that feeds on the fear of being controlled without knowing it.

In my piece, you can see the red string and pins (referencing the investigative nature of the audio drama) are set up in a similar way to a spiders web- particularly a spider on caffiene- from a study I found on the differences in spiders webs when on certain drugs.

There are clay maggots I had painted to represent The Corruption, John, the main character and center of the painting is already an avatar of The Eye, the spirals on the yellow frame literally represent The Spiral, the void John is in nods to both The Vast, The Lonely and The Dark and the burnt edge I had scorched with a lighter represents The Desolation.

Whilst I am really proud of this piece I actually didn't get all 14 fears in- fears like The Hunt, The Stranger, The End, The Flesh and The Slaughter are all missing representative pieces from the painting, so if I were to recreate this piece I'd absouletly try to fit all 14 fears on there next time.

[leetlesapphiretiefling]

Hi there! I am an arachnophobic player of Hades 2! Don't worry, I completely agree with you!

I play a good handful of video games, and while I do my best to avoid spiders if I can, sometimes it's inevitable!

My friend got me into Cult of the Lamb before remembering there was an entire section full of spider enemies. Now with COTL, the designs of the spiders in that art style don't freak me out, at least, not so much to the point where I can't play it. However the skeletons the spider enemies leave behind freak me the fuck out so I do my best to not look at them.

With Arachne, her portrait artwork doesn't freak me out at all! She looks lovely and adorable and I dare say she is in my top five favorite Hades 2 characters! However she does bother me! Her world sprite, her little spider sitting on the web, absolutely makes my skin crawl.

But there is an easy solution to this problem! You seem when you talk to Arachne, along with her portrait a background appears, and that background looks like willow trees! If you stand in the right spot (A little to the right side of Arachne's world sprite, and a touch down) you can actually block her world sprite with some of the dangling leaves of Arachne's portrait background!

I know it's not a perfect solution, but it works for me, and it makes it so I can play the game. Game devs do NOT have to bend over backwards to accommodate their players if it isn't a larger issue. Arachne is the ONLY spider in the entire game. They're not going to add an entire arachnophobia mode to take out one spider!

We are lucky to be getting the game at all. Especially with how awful the game and general creative works ecosystem is right now. (I know ecosystem isn't the word I'm after but I can't think of the proper one at this moment.)

We are living in a world of mass layoffs for game devs, a world where a TV show can be cancelled before it'd ever really had time to get off the ground, a world where movies that are highly anticipated just get canned for bullshit reasons. We have to appreciate the games and movies and TV shows we do get, because that number may dwindle.

So to recap: I am an arachnophobe, who plays and enjoys Hades 2, and I don't think it needs a spider safe mode. Because there is One. Fucking. Spider. In the entire game. And she's an optional character at that! You could go through the game and completely avoid her, because her room has a special symbol so you know it's her room! (You may need to encounter her once at the very beginning, it's been a while since I've played from the beginning and I don't remember how that first run goes.)

But the best thing to do it to look up what she looks like, portrait art and world sprite. If just the world sprite bothers you, do what I do! Block her out with her portrait art! If her portrait art bothers you, you never have to see her if you don't want to.

Games devs do not have to bend over backwards to cater to whiny bastards. Get over it.

I just read an article in which someone complained about Hades 2 accessibility and how including Arachne, as a spider, makes the game less accessible because arachnophobic players exist. And I have to say something about that because it's representative of a certain online trend that is truely making real accessibility look ridiculous.

Creators, studios, artists etc are in no way obligated to cater to your specific needs.

If you complain that including certain things people might be afraid of makes something inaccessible, you are diluting the discussion on accessibility. Content, media in general, cannot be adapted to everyones needs. That's why there is a concept called a "target audience." There are people afraid of the dark and afraid of being alone with men etc. If you had to exclude darkness and male villains from horror games, that would ruin many of them. Don't like certain parts or themes of a game and don't want to play it because of that? You are not the target audience then.

To think that all media and content needs to be made for YOU specifically is self-centered and shows that you do not understand how the world works. And if you play a game based on greek mythology, you have to deal with the existence of a spider. Don't like that? Don't play the game.

The world isn't made just for you. We wouldn't kill all spiders and fuck up the ecosystem just so you could be less scared. Deal with your issues, your fears, and avoid media that scares you. You don't have a right to personalised art unless you pay the artists. Want a game to your taste? Fund it. Pay people to make something for you. But stop claiming bullshit like "Including spiders in Hades 2 is an accessibility issue!" It is not. You don't understand what accessibility is. And you're ruining the discussion about real accessibility.

I think this is an example of a trend that has been going on for a few years. People seem to be convinced that all content needs to be adapted to them. Video game culture and the constant accessibility of SO MUCH content are some of the concepts linked to this shift in my opinion. Additionally I would consider the whole generative AI debate another result of the manifestation of this mindset. It's entitlement to consumption. And it's directly linked to maximalism, capitalism and consumerism as I understand it. This is an opinion. I get someone might disagree. But I find it frankly offensive to complain about a detail in an amazing game that is honesty cheap as fuck for what you get. And its disrespectful towards generations upon generations of people who have carried on the story of Arachne.

[mgparker]

it started with a click!

[platonic tasm!peter parker x reader]

summary: Spider-Man seeks your help after you catch him trying to take a self-portrait... little did you know, it was for Peter Parker’s side job at the Daily Bugle

warnings: platonic little blurb, peter making horrible excuses, slight fluff but not really, spoiler-free

Work was finally over. You had just finished a double shift at a small finance office in lower Manhattan. Part of you wishes that you had more of a backbone, having taken the shift from another co-worker who claimed to be coming down with a cold.

Certainly didn’t look like it when they posted themselves at a party an hour later on social media.

Because you left so late, you had to sacrifice your daily ride with another co-worker who worked the same hours as you. Miraculously, they could afford a car in New York City and though you found it completely useless in a city with endless public transportation, you still took advantage of the offer.

Grumbling under your breath, you stomped your way to the nearest station, trying to make the trip shorter by cutting between buildings. You were making your way past the isolated area of a parking garage, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible, when you suddenly caught a flash of movement from the corner of your eye. You turned to look, prepared to find a shady person lingering in the area but what you saw was completely different.

It was Spider-Man, the masked vigilante-turned-hero that was on your TV almost every single day. He seemed to be headline news every week, from stopping robbers and terrorists to defending helpless kids from bullies.

You felt your heart stop, partly from excitement and also from anxiety. You watched as he set up a tripod, adjusting a camera to point towards the sky. Then, he climbed the wall of the parking garage before quickly jumping off, right on time with the camera’s self-timed click!

When he returned to the ground, he finally noticed your presence, heart sinking as he realized what you had seen. “Uh, hey!” He laughed nervously, trying to downplay the situation. Maybe you’d think that he just liked to take pictures of himself…? “You alright there?”

Behind the mask, Peter Parker was nervous, more nervous than ever. It didn’t help that you were actually very attractive.

“Um—yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m fine. All good here,” you tried to stop your word vomit but to no avail. “S-sorry to disturb you. I’ll just go now. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he reassured, feeling a bit guilty that you became such an anxious mess in his presence. “I’m not upset. I was just… taking pictures… for—for my wall! Yeah, my wall. I kinda have this wall that I fill up with fan-mail and there was some empty spaces so…”

It was a weird explanation, clearly an excuse, but you had no right to question the hero. It was insane that you were talking to him in the first place. “You do your thing, man.”

Shifting from foot to foot, Spider-Man nodded, awkwardly side-stepping towards his camera. You were aware that you should’ve started walking away by now but your anxiety was keeping you rooted in place, watching him study the picture on his camera.

The hero shook his head at the picture in what seemed to be disappointment. “You don’t like it?” You blurted.

“Eh, it’s okay,” Spider-Man mumbled distractedly.

“I can help, you know. I was actually part of photography club in high school.”

Oh my God. Why did you say that? That’s so embarrassing. Why would he want your help? Why, why, why—

“Yeah actually. That would be kinda cool,” Spider-Man said after a moment, walking over to hand you his camera.

You were shocked, taking it hesitantly and praying that you wouldn’t drop it. You waited until Spider-Man got into position, hanging off the top of the parking garage, and then bringing the camera to your eye-level. “Ready when you are!” You gave him a thumbs up and he launched himself away from the structure, flying through the air and giving you his classic web-shooting pose.

Thankfully, you hit the shutter button right in time because suddenly a sticky glob of web covered the lens of the camera. Before you could react, Spider-Man landed in front of you, pulling the substance off of his camera and apologizing for startling you. “Sorry,” he said. “Let’s check this out.”

Pulling the camera out of your grasp, he clicked on the gallery button, making sure that you could see the screen too. “Woah!” He laughed in excitement. “This is so cool!”

Staring at the image, you honestly agreed with his statement. It was Spider-Man in his iconic pose, soaring toward the camera with a web stretching out at the viewer. Honestly, it might’ve even been good enough to be featured on the news.

“I’m glad you like it,” you stammered, your ears suddenly feeling rather hot.

“What did you say your name was again?”

“I didn’t,” you smiled. “It’s Y/N.”

“Nice to meet you.” He shook your hand, smiling back through the mask.

You should really get going now. “I’ll see you around maybe,” you grabbed your bag from the ground and started to make your way down the road again. “And don’t worry about credit… that is unless you’re actually putting it up on your fan-mail wall.”

“Uh—it is for the wall!” The high-pitched tone in his voice said otherwise.

“Well in that case, remember it’s from me!”

“You’re a fan?”

“Sure,” you called back, giving him a shrug while still walking away. You turned the corner and Spider-Man was gone from your line of vision. 

For the rest of the day, all you could think about was your weird experience with New York’s most popular hero, excitement fluttering in your stomach as you thought of how lucky you were to take that shortcut.

Later that night, on the other side of NYC, Peter Parker stared at a printed copy of the photo you had taken that night, smiling at the memory and deciding that he would indeed just keep it for himself. Partly because it would be wrong to take credit for your work, but mostly because he wanted his own personal reminder of you.

Satisfied, Peter placed the framed picture on his bedroom desk, next to his computer where he could glance at it regularly.

It took a few days but you finally saw Spider-Man on the cover of the Daily Bugle again, grabbing a copy from your local coffee shop. Only, you were absolutely shocked to see that it was a picture from the day that you met him. 

And in tiny letters at the bottom of the picture, the name ‘Peter Parker’ was printed. In that moment, you figured out Spider-Man’s true identity but respecting his privacy, you kept the information to yourself.

There was no way you would be able to find this Peter Parker in such a populated city, unless you showed up to the Daily Bugle headquarters and that was definitely not an option... It would be weird and stalker-ish, in your opinion. 

Besides, you had only met Spider-Man once. 

So you carried the sacred piece of information with you, not expecting to ever confront the hero again but being pleasantly surprised when he ended up finding you two weeks later on your way home from work again. 

“Y/N!”

Startled, you whipped your body around, scanning your surroundings before finding the hero waving at you from the top of a one-story building. Spider-Man jumped down to the ground, joining you on your walk.

“Hi.”

.

.

.

check out my masterlist

tasm!peter parker taglist: @lemur46

[perhaps-in-anotherdream]

Hi, I just wanna ask do you know what is the inspiration for the New CN halloween cards? Like victor is spider but is there any type of monster connected to it? I wanna know them all if possible

Hello! Unfortunately, not all of the date blurbs give much concrete information.

Until the dates are released, what I can tell you – the name of the event in Chinese is “风月怪谈” (fēng yuè guài tán). The term “guài” here is the broad terminology for “yāoguài” (yōkai in Japanese, in case you’re familiar with it).

It’s basically Chinese mythology about monsters that prey on humans. They might promise you to help fulfill your wishes in exchange for feeding on your soul / life.

Chinese folklore itself is very rich so to speak, and PG simply went for the broad terminology. Tbh, I’m still kinda clueless as to which direction they went with this LOL. It’s not that I’ve spent much time thinking about it either haha~ couldn’t make the time to be more specific ༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ

—

» Regarding Victor’s Spider Spirit (with a little treat LOL):

The edit is from: 小虫喜欢���子

The only thing that comes to my mind is 盘丝洞 LOL. It’s actually based on a novel written by Wu Cheng'en (Journey to the West, 1592).

The story is about a monk who was a god in his past life and wished to be reincarnated as a human. So in human form, he is very special. One will become immortal if they eat him, making him the target of demons. His handsome features also make him an object of desire to lady demons who want to marry him, and these lady demons are seven spider sisters who capture him using their web. But they are compelled to release him after the monkey (one of the monk’s disciples) defeats the demons.

Though his date blurb doesn’t sound anything similar, with this synopsis, I’m really looking forward to how the writers have handled it LOL~

–

» Regarding Lucien’s Painted Skin Monster – the inspiration is drawn from a short story “画皮” (huàpí) written by Pu Songling. There are several movie adaptations of this as well, with variations of course.

The broader meaning of the term 画皮 itself gives away the synopsis – “the painted skin which transforms a monster into a beauty.” The central character here is a ghoul which disguises itself as a beautiful young woman. It fits itself into a portrait of a woman drawn on human skin, hunts for men and eats its prey’s hearts.

–

» As for Kiro’s and Gavin’s themes––

The date blurbs aren’t very specific about the hints about the monsters?? In Kiro’s blurb, they simply mentioned a monster that feeds on human souls (妖怪以人的灵魂). And Gavin’s blurb hints at him being an antiquated mural (上古的壁画).

From what it seems, though, Kiro is likely a creature who paints scrolls so lifelike that you’d believe them to be genuine and walk into the painting. You can’t escape that illusion, and then they get to keep your soul. And Gavin likely is a spirit that possesses another body. I can’t remember the exact mythological terms for these at the moment LOL.

Anyway, these are just assumptions for the time being, so take them with several grains of salt haha. I still need to read the dates to be able to give definite answers. And for that, we have to wait for the release~ (⁠・⁠∀⁠・⁠)

—

[fandomsonrequests]

keep in touch

fandom: ATEEZ

characters: spiderman!yunho

reader: gn!blackcat

word count: 2.7k+

summary: life as spider-man is sometimes never easy- especially when your past catches up to you.

notes: spiderman au, somewhat loyal to black cat’s plotline, some angst

a/n: if ever you’re unfamiliar with black cat in the marvel universe, basically she was a criminal that dated peter parker. here’s her page if you wanna read more about her. she’s a really cool character :D

Yunho sighs as he settles down onto a building’s rooftop edge. He momentarily rips off his mask, allowing himself to breathe after swinging around the city in his suit. The cool night breeze brushes against his dark hair as his eyes take in the sight of the city’s multiple lights, flashing in different fluorescent colors. 

[Another day, another crime solved right Yunho?] 

Mingi’s voice came into the hero’s intercom along with the slurping noise of a drink going through a straw. The slightly taller male chuckled, somewhat tiredly, as he leaned back onto his arm with his feet dangling along the edge. 

“I can’t believe Kingpin managed to smuggle truckloads of those weapons.” He recounts as he runs a hand down his face. “Who was it for again? The Demons?”

[It was actually for The Underground. Which is ironic because they hate his guts.] 

“I’m not sure what they want from him or vice versa but we should keep an eye on them. I don’t have a good feeling about their arrangement.” 

[That’s what I’m here for- the guy in the chair to keep watch on stuff you can’t.] Mingi chuckled. [Well anyway- I’m gonna shower, dude. I’ll see you back at home.] 

“Leave some food for me, please. I don’t wanna have to eat frozen pizza again.” Yunho grunts as he gets up on his feet, pulling his mask down back over his face. 

His best friend assures him to leave out some of the dinner, brought to them by their other friend Wooyoung because God knows neither of them could cook, before leaving the channel on the intercom. Yunho brushes off the dirt from the back of his thighs as he prepares to swing back home when he spots movement in the corner of his eye. At first, he thought it was just some flock of pigeons that escaped from their coop again. But when he turned his spider senses started tingling; that, and because that movement happened to be a single figure. The figure leaps across the building swiftly and silently before dropping down onto the dome roof of the fancy art museum nearby.

Yunho sighed, thinking that its probably an Underground member or one of The Demons from the way a stream of light trailed behind them. But as he swung closer, his gut told him it wasn’t just his average, run of the mill criminal. He had a feeling that they were much more… sophisticated than the Underground or the Demons. 

He landed with a barely audible thud on the glass dome of the art museum. His mask adjusts to the darkness inside the museum, eye lenses shifting and tilting so he could see clearer. After a while of scanning from his position, nobody seemed to appear. “Huh,” he huffs when there seemingly was no one. “Where are they?”

The man crawled his way over to one of the vents of the building before slipping inside and quickly making his way into the museum. He lands with a thud onto the linoleum floor, a variety of paintings and sculptures displayed in every direction. “I mean I get why some of these paintings are here but some of these abstract ones seem a little silly…” he tells himself when he observes a framed piece with a yellow background and a black square in the middle. 

He goes up to the main piece, which is smacked right in the middle of the floor, covered in glass while a velvet rope keeps people from going too close to it. It was a famous portrait made by an old, and I mean old, European artist that was probably around in the Renaissance era. It was meant to be on display for a while before being shipped back to the Louvre. 

“You’re probably here for this, aren’t you?” Yunho called out to no one in particular. “If you are, I highly suggest you stop before I catch you. But if you still want to ignore me, I’d rather we take it outside. I don’t want to break anything in here.”

“That’s never stopped you before though,” a voice responded making him jump a little in surprise. “But then again, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you, Spidey.” 

Chills ran down Yunho’s back at the familiarity of the voice. The voice he was once, maybe still is, so enamored by. The one that whispered the most filthiest to the most comforting words in his ear. 

“_____,” He starts, hoping his voice wasn’t as shaky as he had anticipated. “Still into art, I see.” 

You emerge from the shadows behind the large painting, a devilish smirk on your plump lips. Your clawed gloves trailed along the intricate curves of the painting’s golden frame. Your gaze pierced his, like a predator locked onto its prey. You step forward, hands drumming against the glass that kept you two separated. 

“Still into saving people, hm?” You hum, smirk growing wider. “You never change, Yunho.”

“I thought you left this… ‘business’ long ago?” Yunho presses on, determined to not fall under your spell again. 

Deep down, the poor boy was still head over heels for you. He’s created so many memories with you, grew as a person because of you. There were nights where he’d sometimes think of you, how you fit so comfortably in his arms. Or when you hugged him from behind in the morning, hair all over the place with the cutest pout on your lips. He missed telling you how much he loved you most of all. 

“You know me, baby, old habits die hard.” You reply with a small chuckle as you move to take the painting off the hook. But he could tell that you were hiding something from the way your shoulders tensed for a fraction and how your confident smile faltered. 

“_____, please, put that back. You don’t have to resort to this kind of thing anymore.” Yunho begged while looking for a way to get into the glass box. How the hell did you slip in there anyway?

Your smile returns but it’s tight-lipped, almost forced. You sigh, head turned down and lip caught between your teeth. You turned to look over at him but your hand never left the picture frame, showing that you were still hellbent on taking it for yourself. Despite the mask you had on, Yunho could see the signs of a troubled person through your eyes. 

“If we weren’t in this kind of setting right now I’d probably be already swooning into your arms,” You chuckled as you tried to make light of the situation. “I appreciate the concern, Yunho. I really do. But this time… I just can’t turn away.” 

And before your former lover could say anything you had already thrown down a pellet, causing the glass box to be filled with smoke. As soon as the smoke cleared, you and the painting were nowhere in sight. Yunho looked around, adrenaline rushing through his veins once more, and caught a glimpse of the light that emitted from your gear from the top of the building. 

Wasting no time, he shot out his web and swung after you, following the trail of fluorescent lights you left behind. He watched as you skillfully jumped from rooftop to rooftop with the painting in one arm. You moved slower with the object in hand but nonetheless, you still managed to always be one step ahead of him. 

You glance behind you when you felt that someone was chasing you and groaned inwardly. Although, part of you, the one that was still soft for Yunho, was quite impressed that he still managed to chase after you.

“Back off Spidey!” You call out to him, managing to evade a web that he shot at you to restrain you. “Don’t make this difficult.”

“The only one making this difficult is you, _____!” He replied as he scanned for a path that would lead him right to you. 

Suddenly, his comms open and a voice filters through. 

[Dude you were supposed to be home five minutes ago. Why are you going further away from the apartment?] Mingi asks with a confused tone.

“I sort of ran into trouble,” Yunho grunts as he pulled himself to the next building. “It’s _____.”

He could hear his friend splutter behind the comms. [ The _____? As in Black Cat _____?] 

“Yes, them. Can you help-” Yunho gets cut off when something hits him in the chest, momentarily stinging him and jamming his comms as a wave of electricity runs through him. He stumbles back against the roof of a building, his web-shooters momentarily malfunctioning. He looked up to see you blow a flying kiss before continuing on down your path. 

He sighs to himself. “Well, I guess we’re going to have to do this the hard way…” 

Yunho may not have his web-shooters right now but he still had the agility and reflexes of a spider. He jumped and crawled from one building to the next as he trailed after you, still hot on your tail. 

“You never know when to quit, do you?” You say when you notice that he was still after you. It was once amusing but now, it was starting to get on your nerves. Especially since you were on a tight schedule with your… client. 

“I mean that’s how I ended up with you.” He retorts as he jumped from an antenna down to the glass roof of a condominium’s greenhouse. “You played hard to get and I played along with you.”

[You’re back online.] Mingi suddenly butted in to notify his friend.

Yunho took this as an opportunity to catch you off guard and literally catch you in his webs. He shot out short but consecutive bursts of webs towards you, making you stumble on your path and fall towards an apartment building roof. The painting clatters out of your hand and skids across the floor. 

The young man took this as a chance to catch you, webbing both of your hands to the concrete floor before you could get up. He lands by your feet, opting to take the painting first before you could escape. You struggle to free yourself from your bonds, glaring up at him. 

“The webs will dissolve in an hour,” Yunho informs you as he walked towards you. He didn’t want to resort to this but you were just too stubborn. “I’m going to let you off once, but only if you tell me why you’re doing this.”

You stopped struggling and suddenly smirked up at him. “Awe, at least I know that you still have a soft spot for me.” You tease, crossing your legs together despite your compromising position.

[Are they really flirting with you right now?] Mingi asks in disbelief. [Dude- that’s like some spy movie shit.]

“Not now Mingi,” Yunho whispers over to his comms but your ears manage to pick up what he said. 

“Hi Mingi!” You call out from your spot on the floor. “Hope you’re doing well.” 

[Did they just-]

“_____, please. You can trust me. Why are you doing this?” Yunho asks you, removing his mask to prove his point. 

Your breath hitches momentarily. It’s been a while since you’ve seen him, a few years in fact, but he still managed to sweep you off your feet. “All I’ll say is that something from my past has caught up with me. And whether or not I liked this job- it’s something I couldn’t just turn down without losing something as a consequence.”

“Is someone forcing you to do this?” He asks as he steps closer to you. 

You, on the other hand, decided to flip tables. While Yunho was distracted with interrogating you, you had managed to cut bits of the webs on your wrists with your clawed gloves. As soon as he was in proximity with you, you kicked up your feet and tore your hands way from the floor. Yunho toppled to the ground with you on top of him, knees pinning his legs to the floor while your hands held his wrists down. 

“Hm, it’s been a while since we’ve been in this kind of position.” You tease, leaning over him to grab the painting. You chuckle at the way a beautiful red shade dusts his cheeks, his furious blush traveling all the way up to his ears. 

[Oh, man. I’m not listening to this.] Mingi resigns before logging off of his comms, leaving Yunho alone with his thoughts and you. 

“... does this have something to do with your family..?” He guessed, hoping that you’d let down your walls around him. 

Your jaw clenches at the mention of your family. That’s when Yunho knew that you were in trouble. He knew how much you loved your family and what they meant to you. Hell, he loved your family too. They welcomed him like he was their own son when the two of you were dating back then. 

“______- please. You can trust me. I can help you with, with whatever the hell this is.” He whispered up to you. 

Silence surrounds the both of you. Your brows are furrowed as you look down at the man under you. You can see in his eyes that he was genuine, sincere in wanting to help you. He still loved you and you could see that in his gaze. And it tore at your heartstrings to see that he still felt something for you despite what you did to him back then. When you worked under Kingpin to get some powers from him so that you wouldn’t become a liability to Yunho and when you teamed up with Hammerhead to take him down later on. 

Your anger and bitterness from your break up with Yunho and your drive to prove yourself worthy in the criminal underworld brought him so much pain and yet— here he was ready to drop everything to help you. A person who not only crushed his heart, but pieced it back together only to break it again. 

You hadn’t realized that you were crying until you felt a hand brush your cheek. You flinch at the contact, backing away from Yunho and getting up from the floor. Yunho didn’t miss a beat and stood up after you. “_____,” He sighed and approached you. He took one more step towards you when you didn’t move away. 

“...why are you doing this..?” You ask him when he was right in front of you. This time, when he reached up to cup your cheek again, you didn’t pull away. You instinctively leaned into his touch, a small sigh escaping your lips. 

Yunho flashes you his signature smile. The dorky, lopsided that smile that never failed to lift your spirits. “Aside from the fact that I’m still head over heels for you,” He chuckled softly. “It’s the right thing to do. I know you’ve tried quitting this lifestyle before, and I can help you get things back to normal. But you just have to put your faith in me. There are other ways to go about things.” 

You release a heavy sigh, eyes fluttering shut as you let his words sink in. “Fine,” You say after a while. And you swear his grin grew wider. “Only if you let me off this once.”

“A deal’s a deal, baby.” He says but snatches the portrait away from using his webs. “But we’re gonna have to put this back.” 

Now it was your turn to smile. You shake your head and chuckle at him, fingers trailing up his arm to pinch his cheek. “Whatever you say Spidey.” You purr, leaning in to kiss the corner of his lips. 

He freezes up at the sudden action, his blush returning to his cheeks. He only reacts when you toss his mask back at him, already backing away from the rooftop. “I’ll see you around~” 

You blow a kiss at him and hop off the ledge of the building, traveling back to your home. Yunho watched as your figure disappeared into the night, the weight of your lips still lingering against his skin. As he reached up to touch the part you kissed, he looked down at the painting you had stolen. It was still safe, thankfully, but a sticky note was plastered onto it. 

Here’s my number. Keep in touch xoxo

[anxiouslyfred]

Lockets and Emo’s

Summary: Virgil can guess a lot about their soulmate from the knife locket they were drawn too, and the portrait within, but they’ll wait for them to visit the shop he works in.

/\/\

People always talked about how accurate the portraits in their lockets were, and that they'd never have been able to find their soulmate if not for the picture held inside. Frankly, people talked a lot of nonsense and no matter how accurate a painting was, it was still limited by the paint, the artist and the amount of space available in how detailed it could be. Even photographs suffered that limitation.

When Virgil first got their locket, they had been far more interested in the process of the caravan, being blindfolded in the room with the lockets until one called his hands to them, and afterwards sitting with the soul artist as though for their own portrait but actually so they could get their energy to reveal the image of their soulmate. They'd been lucky enough that the locket in their hands filled them, providing more space for the image to appear in. That gave him more details to look for in the faces of others alongside the reflections of who their soulmate is in the design of the locket.

Remus hadn't cared when he was taken to get his locket. It wasn't that he didn't want to meet them, but that he'd spent the week reading about the soulmates who didn't work out, and just wanted to discuss with all the workers there if there's anyway to know how soulmates will actually react to each other. After all, even in fiction there were soulmates like Heathcliffe and Cathy who were perfect to destroy each other, as well as political ones, where the soulmates might try to be romantic, or friends, but their connection really only grows when they work together as colleagues and nothing more. Surely the different types of soulmates had been studied and the people in the caravan should know if he could tell just what he was heading to having.

He had kept asking those questions while blindfolded and being led from the room with a rather bland looking lockets and even while sitting with the artist as the tiny thing had his soulmate painted inside it. None of the staff replied or even spoke to him beyond gentle words to guide him through the process, no matter how many times Remus insisted they could throw him through the areas if they wanted to.

It wasn't until a week later than Remus looked at his locket and found the spider webs and checked patterns engraved into the locket, only visible in some lights. It at least made him more interested in the soulmate that was supposed to be portrayed within it, with dark eyeshadow showing from beneath a long fringe. At least it wasn't any of the emos he'd been through school with, none of them had worn eyeshadow underneath their eyes and almost all of them hated his rebellious punk style.

Virgil wasn't going to go out socialising to try and find the guy with a wild smile, a fringe bleached white and green-brown eyes, but they could just about cope with a retail job, so long as the shop was small and wouldn't insist he speaks to people as they enter. That would at least give them a change to people watch in case someone similar to their portrait wandered through.

Well, that and they could hopefully watch for anyone causing a scene because whomever the locket represented definitely would grab attention quickly. Virgil wasn't quite sure what they were most amused by when looking at the locket, just how gaudy it was or how intricately made  it was. The main body seemed to be made out of a dagger, cut in half width ways and blunted just enough to be safe to wear, although still functional if they wished to stab someone. There was even a hilt instead of a normal ring to attach it to the chain.

Remus had tried visiting all the normal areas he'd heard of emo's hanging out in, making a scene and sometimes getting into fights at all of them. They might agree that the police needed to be shut down and capitalism was a burden but apparently got very protective over the bands they claimed. It wasn't Remus's fault he sometimes was looking for something with a bit more of a dancable beat to it.

He only decided to try to shops in local towns that emos might visit on a whim, or rather after Roman had gone on a long speech about “It's not merely fashion Remus, any fool could follow that, it's about aesthetic and truly reflecting the prince within me.” All he had asked was just why his brother was dragging them around shops that seemed to sell mostly steampunk accessories when his brother usually preferred swords, leather and ruby jewellery.

Seriously, Remus could and would make anything his style within a day of climbing around in it. A few tears, a bit of dirt and perhaps some thorns from the bushed he scrambled through and the jobs done, but it definitely made sense that someone who's locket reflection hid the details probably wouldn't be out around the town regularly.

When he first entered an out of the way shop, Remus had been torn between making a scene and just trying to steal a couple of the spiked piercing they had in a display case. It was always more fun to steal things that were locked to normal shoppers, but he actually knew the words to the song that was playing so obviously had to make a display table his stage and sing along. Checking the staff out for patchwork clothes or under the eye eyeshadow could wait a while.

He made it halfway through the song before someone caught his arm and essentially through him to the floor as they yanked him down. “If you're going to dance on the merchandise you had better get to cleaning it up right the hell now, Maniac!” The store assistant who'd yanked him down demanded, glaring and waving a hand at where he'd been dancing a second before.

Remus would have argued, except he could recognise that long fringe anywhere. They eyeshadow just underneath them only cemented that his was his soulmate, and the shaking in their hands was probably because they were realising the same thing.

“Hi, I'm Remus, he/him, and sure thing. You gonna give me instructions on what to do, Spiderpatch?” He asked instead, bouncing up, as close as he could to the other, pouting a little when he was still looking up at them.

“Virgil, they/them, and if that's what it takes then yes, but I think you're smart enough to figure it out yourself.” They growled out.

Mentally Virgil was still freaking out. Usually when people started making a scene to that degree they would actually wait until they finished and then clean up after them. This was way too close to a confrontation for them to be comfortable with, but the man was more accurate to his mental image of his soulmate than anyone they'd ever seen and it at least gave them something to say without bringing that up.

“Smart enough, sure, willing to do it without my soulmate or some kind of threat to motivate me, yeah, I don't wanna.” Remus teased, not expecting a knife to be pulled from Virgil's hoodie and held up towards him.

Virgil smirked at the blink that flickered between their face and their hands. “Well I've got both thanks to your locket, so how about you get folding?” They asked, gesturing once again to the ruined display, although thankfully there were no footprints on any of the tops. Glancing around they saw why as Remus had apparently thrown his shoes across the room while climbing onto the table.

“It's a knife locket? Oh my god, I have the most awesome reflection in locket form ever! I'm in love with this locket even if you're making me fold shirts to get a date with you.” Remus was bouncing even as he finally turned to start tidying up the display, already rattling of other thoughts and well aware Virgil was stood watching him.

“So what's mine like then, if you're so enamoured with the one for you?” They hadn't decided about going out with Remus yet so decided to ignore the offer when they finally spoke up again.

Remus barely paused, grabbing the locket from his pocket to shove into their hands. “Really interesting. The best light to look at it in is like night club strobe lights. They bring out the designs on it perfectly. I bet in here you can barely make out there's even any pattern on there. Seriously, date? Hang out as friends? Phone number? Can I have something to say I'm seeing you again? Hell if you'd prefer just to make me work here I'm down for it.”

Virgil snickered at the ideas but shook their head playfully horrified when Remus mentioned them working together. “I'm not giving you more chances to damage the merchandise. How about we text for a while, get to know each other and see what we'd like from there?”

“Phone number then.” Remus turned around pulling his phone out only to pout and exaggeratedly deflate when his realised they were no longer holding the knife locket out at all. “Come on, I liked having you ready to cut me. A bit of pain is brilliant.”

“Not what I meant when I said getting to know you, but noted, if we ever get to a sexual relationship, you have a pain kink.” Virgil remarked, quickly typing in their number before waving towards the staff area. “I can't have my phone out on shift since I got too grouchy with my co-workers so text me and I'll reply when I get out of here.”

Remus took his phone back with a grin, “Sure, I'll go and see what mischief I can get into before I come to walk you home.”

“Didn't agree to that.” Virgil tried to call after him, but Remus had already turned to race out of the store.

[official-weasley]

The Irreplaceable Charlie Weasley: Pt. 1, Ch. 6

PART 1: WHERE IT ALL BEGAN Chapter 6 - Christmas Weasley

Nova

It was the last week of October and I think it's safe to say that we finally got used to doing homework and all the professors. Tulip and I are proud to say that it has been 13 days since we last got lost on our way to lessons.

Now that we went through all the subjects a couple of times and it feels more real since we don't have any more introductions in classes, I have to say that I was surprised how well I was doing in Charms. When we did the Levitation Charm I was the first to get the feather flying almost to the ceiling. I also managed to cast Lumos on my first try and so far have been so good that I've earned Ravenclaw 35 points in just that class.

Tulip wasn't doing that bad in Charms either, even though she was beating us all in Astronomy, for which we later found out that her uncle is an Astronomer and has been teaching her since she was 5.

Penny, of course, was exceeding in Potions, something not even Snape could deny. She knew the answer to every one of his questions and when we finally had to brew our first potion, she had to help all three of us not to blow up half of the Dungeons.

History of Magic was still as dull as ever, something even Penny couldn't deny as Tonks told us one day, having dinner, that she was drooling on her notes, after falling asleep in the middle of the lesson. Penny denied the accusation and said that she was just resting her head because she stayed up all night working on her Transfiguration homework.

Speaking of Transfiguration, it is by far my favorite subject! I had no idea how I will do in the class and what exactly was expected from us as every time I saw Professor McGonagall she seemed so strict. I wasn't wrong about that as she gave detention to Tulip the first time she came in class 5 minutes late because she was confident she could find the classroom on her own and get one more piece of toast instead of going with me.

Because I was one of the first to arrive in class, I sat down in the second row on the right side and after a couple of Gryffindors came in I spotted the redhead immediately.

“Nova! I forgot we had this class together!” Charlie sat next to me without even asking if the seat was taken.

“Isn't Jae going to be mad if you don't sit next to him?” I knew now that the boy Charlie was spending the most time with was Jae Kim, a fellow First Year with whom Charlie also shared his dormitory. It was getting quite annoying sending notes across class to each other in subjects we had together so I didn't mind Charlie sitting next to me.

Besides, I wanted to prove to Tulip that she should've gone with me to class.

“Nah, we can't be together all the time and besides I want to spend more time with you.” He grinned at me. “And if it happens that you're good at Transfiguration I can benefit from it as well.” He was taking a couple of pieces of parchment out of his bag.

Perhaps Charlie was going to be great at Divination if he decides to take the subject as I was indeed amazing in Transfiguration. At first, I thought I was just lucky when I transfigured a matchstick into a needle perfectly. Then it also happened with the quill which was in perfect condition transformed from a fork.

Charlie was in awe at first and was excited that I was going to be the one who helps him with his Transfiguration homework. Much to his and Tulip's disappointment, I've made them do the homework in the Library on their own. However, I was with them all the time and I did check and correct it when they were done with it.

After I also cast Revelio correctly on my second try, Professor McGonagall made me stay after class one day to talk about having Advanced Classes in my Second Year if my talent would continue to grow. I accepted at once and I couldn't wait to tell my mum as Transfiguration was one of her favorite subjects as well.

We didn't do any practical magic in Defense Against the Dark Arts yet, but we have learned about a lot of dangerous creatures which Charlie and I always discussed after class.

—

The day after the 'slug incident' as Tulip liked to call it, I woke up very early as I kept thinking about how I have to finish my drawing of Pip. I decided to get out of bed and go down for breakfast alone. I knew I could bring Pip with me so I thought I could finish the drawing while munching on my toast.

I went to the Owlery and for the first time, I had to actually wake Pip up and he wasn't so happy to see me as he wished to sleep for a little while longer. Nonetheless, he gave in to my strokes on his head and hopped on my arm. Together we made way to the Great Hall which was practically deserted except for a couple of Ravenclaws that were half asleep and looked like they were studying for their O.W.L.s.

I put some jelly on my toast and opened my notebook.

“Now, where were we Pip?” I took out one of my pencils. I started working on the feathers again and was quite happy with the progress I was able to make since Pip was too tired to peek at his portrait.

“Good morning, Nova.” I heard a really sleepy voice say behind me.

“Mind if I sit next to you?” Charlie asked, sitting down before I could even answer him. I couldn't help but chuckle when I saw what a mess his red hair was.

“Good morning. What are you doing up already?” I helped myself to another piece of toast, while Pip was trying to get some of the crumbs left behind from my last one.

“We got a lot of homework yesterday by Professor Snape and I better get on it before I forget.” He shuffled a few spoons of cereal into his bowl. “Name and describe seven differences between the Wiggenweld Potion and Blood Replenishing Pooo...tion.” He yawned.

“Seven differences, what did you do to Snape?” I gasped.

“How did you know we managed to destroy a cauldron?” He poured milk over his cereal now.

“I didn't, I just thought you had to do something wrong since we only got three differences.” I put more jelly on my toast as I decided one thick layer wasn't enough. “And how did you manage to destroy a cauldron on your first lesson? We weren't even working with them?”

“Well, one of the Slytherins wanted to show off by performing the Fire Making Charm under the cauldron and it exploded.”

“A cauldron exploded, where?” Penny interrupted my laughing. She had a concerned look on her face. She was followed by Tonks who looked as if Penny woke her up so abruptly that she will never recover.

They didn't even sit down properly when Tulip came running to our table, panting.

“I...thought...I...missed...breakfast.” She said, trying to catch her breath.

“Tulip you have got to get a watch.” Penny chuckled.

“And who is this red-haired laddie?” Tonks reminded me that I haven't introduced Charlie to them yet.

“Oh, right! Sorry, Charlie. Tonks, Tulip, Penny this is Charlie. The boy I told you about yesterday. Charlie this are Tonks, Tulip and Penny.”

“Nice to meet you!” They exclaimed as they each shook his hand.

“Do you mind if he seats with us?” I asked, not knowing if they would be bothered by having breakfast with a boy.

“Get off it! He's one of us now.” Said Tonks while stuffing a huge piece of toast in her mouth. Charlie couldn't help but blush a little.

“Say, Charlie, Penny is really good at potions, perhaps she can help you with your homework.” I said while trying to make Pip, now completely awake, to be still.

“Homework, Potions homework?! What do you need?” Penny was so excited about what I just said that I thought she was going to scare Charlie away from our table.

He just chuckled and told her all about the cauldron, for which of course she scolded him as if it was his fault and then helped him with his homework so much that he was done before the beginning of the first class.

—

On Halloween, the girls and I decided to visit Hagrid and take him up on his offer of rock cakes and tea. We loved how beautiful the whole school was, now decorated in candles, spider webs and there were pumpkins everywhere.

We made our way down to Hagrid's hut, announced of course, with a letter Pip took to Hagrid one day prior. Hagrid was delighted that we were going to visit him and told us to come down after breakfast. Even though it was Wednesday, the lessons were canceled for the Halloween celebration which was happening at dinner.

Once Hagrid's hut was visible, we could see he has decorated it with webs and there were pumpkin patches all around it.

We knocked on his door and could hear a bark, which could only have come from a really small puppy. When Hagrid opened the door, a soft grin on his face, Penny got knocked down to the floor by Fang to which we got introduced after we helped Penny get up.

We promised ourselves not to say anything about Hagrid's rock cakes as indeed they were hard as rocks and kept making excuses that we have to save ourselves for dinner. Tea, however, we didn't mind and we drank about 5 kettles of it. Hagrid told us all about why he is living on the Grounds and he couldn't stop saying nice things about our Headmaster Dumbledore as he was very grateful for the position he gave him at the school.

It was almost time for the dinner celebration in the Great Hall when I had to wake Fang, who fell asleep on my lap because I couldn't stop scratching him behind his ear. He got off me not very happy about it and we thanked Hagrid for the tea and the cakes and ran up to our Houses to change, our stomachs growling as we didn't eat much at Hagrid's.

The feast was even greater than the one we had on our first day at Hogwarts. Of course, Tulip and I were a bit bummed as Tonks and Penny couldn't join us. For bigger celebrations and events, students had to sit at their House Table.

When the feast officially ended and a lot of students left the Great Hall we could finally be joined again. Charlie also sat down next to me, looking a bit blue.

“What's wrong, Charlie?” I asked while Tonks was still nibbling on a chicken leg.

“It's my birthday in December and this is going to be the first time I spend it on my own. Of course, I have my brother Bill...”

“And us!” Penny interrupted him. I could already see her planning a birthday party for him.

“Wait, your birthday is in December?” I finally looked away from Penny's cheering face.

“Yeah, why?” Said Charlie a bit cheered up.

“My birthday's in December too. When exactly is yours?” I asked.

“The 12th.” Charlie said surprised.

“Hers is on the 14th!” Penny showed excitement for me.

“Oh, this is going to be so much fun! You two can celebrate birthdays together!” Said Tulip, mimicking Penny. I chuckled as I knew she was only doing so to mock her.

“Wicked, I would love to!” We were all so excited that Charlie completely forgot he was sad about not having his family here for his birthday.

“Why don't we go down to Hagrid's and celebrate there?”

“Oh, that's a great idea, Tonks! Nobody will bother us and we can have some of Hagrid's delicious tea.” Penny applauded Tonks.

“You guys are friends with Hagrid as well?” Charlie beamed.

“We just met him today officially but he is amazing and so nice. How do you know him?” I said while putting the finishing touches on my Pip portrait.

“Oh, I have been going there since the first week. Ever since I saw he has a puppy. How adorable is Fang?” We all nodded in agreement. “And he is giving me all these amazing books about animals and he promised me to take me into the Forbidden Forest next year. I keep trying to persuade him to take me this year but he reckons I'm too young and we could both get in trouble.” Charlie sighed.

“That settles it then.” Penny said slowly as I could see she was debating in her head why would anyone in their right mind want to go to the Forbidden Forest of their own free will. I, on the other hand, couldn't wait to get Charlie alone to ask him to owl me as soon as Hagrid agrees to take him, as I would love to join them.

“We just have to figure out how to bring some of our own food, since Hagrid's rock cakes aren't the best to, well, chew on.” Charlie clutched his lips as if his teeth were still hurting from biting into Hagrid's cakes. We all chuckled in agreement.

“I think Tonks and I can handle that one.” Said Tulip proudly.

I scribbled a message for Hagrid on a piece of parchment and gave it to Pip. However, he refused to go before I showed him his portrait.

“Alright, alright. Here you go.” I turned the notebook to him. He tilted his head for almost 90 degrees and stared at it for a couple of seconds. Tonks and Tulip who were on the other side of the table looked as well. When Pip hooted in agreement that he likes how I portrayed him, I turned the notebook to Penny and Charlie who felt left out for seeing it last.

“Another brilliant drawing, Nova.” Complimented Charlie.

“You are so talented. I wish I could draw like this.” Penny said, disappointed.

“You can't have both a pretty handwriting and know how to draw.” Tonks rolled her eyes playfully at her.

“She's right, you do have pretty handwriting.” Charlie said, half to himself as he was copying some of Penny's Potions notes. Penny couldn't hide the blush on her cheeks so she pretended to talk to Pip.

—

My birthday has always been amazing but nothing compared to the one I had with my friends at Hogwarts. As planned, we all gathered at Hagrid's on my birthday after we finished our lessons on Friday.

Charlie and I almost got into a fight as we couldn't decide when to celebrate. I was quite alright with celebrating my birthday on his birthday so that he wouldn't have to wait for two more days, while he insisted that it would be rude to me not to celebrate my birthday properly and that his birthday was in the middle of the week anyway and was more convenient to do it on my birthday which was on Friday. I agreed after Charlie didn't want to hear another word about it. He even waited until Friday to open all the presents his family has sent him. Of course, we also invited his brother Bill, who was delighted to accept the invitation and was very happy to see Charlie was finally doing well and finding more friends.

We had so much fun that night at Hagrid's. We drank tea and ate so much food which we later found out Tonks and Tulip smuggled from the Kitchens. Of course, they didn't want to tell us how they got in and kept giggling instead, every time we asked them.

Fang was rather conflicted as Charlie and I fought who was going to pet him next but he didn't complain at all when we finally agreed that sitting in front of the fire, both scratching him at the same time wasn't so bad either.

Even though Hagrid's rock cakes stayed untouched, he surprised Charlie and me with a birthday cake. It had 13 candles on it, pink frosting, and Happee Birthdae Charlie and Nova scribbled on it. Charlie and I each went on one side of the cake, looked at each other, closed our eyes, and blew our candles.

I've made a wish to always have such an amazing time with my friends as my First Year at Hogwarts has been nothing but great so far.

It was then time for us to open presents. Charlie got a jumper with the letter C on it from his mum. A bag full of candy and firecrackers from his twin brothers Fred and George. Something that Penny named a Rubber Duck from his dad, with a note attached that he should see if it floats on the Black Lake and a brand new edition of From Egg to Inferno: A Dragon-Keeper's Guide from Bill, for which Charlie jumped up so much that Hagrid's hut shook a little and we all laughed.

Tonks and Tulip gave Charlie a scarf with a Dragon embroidered on it. Penny gave him a book on Potions for easier understanding and I gave him a book I've made myself. I called it Fantastic Dragons and How to Train Them. Inside were my drawings of every known species of Dragons and descriptions of the most important details to know of each breed.

It seemed I've made everyone speechless, as they were staring at the book, while Charlie was slowly turning the pages, as his cheeks became slightly pink. He then put the book down and gave me the type of hug my mum usually gave me when she was super proud of something I did.

I got a scarf from Tonks and Tulip as well, just that mine had a Niffler on it. Penny bought me a set of magical pencils that dependingon how you rub them draw in different patterns. Bill gave me a new notebook with a special type of paper that changed colors depending on what you draw on it and Charlie gave me a necklace that had a little Dragon as a charm.

He showed me that if you rubbed the Dragon gently, it would breathe fire and I was in awe of how thoughtful his gift was. I put it on at once, bending my head down as I tried to hide my watery eyes.

Hagrid's gift for both of us was a set of 10 tea bags he made especially for us and we each got a book about Magical Creatures called The Creature Care.

That night when we finally said goodbye and Tulip and I climbed the stairs of the Ravenclaw Common Room, our family owl Waffle was waiting for me on the window shelf of our dorm. I opened the window to let her in and I took the letter and the present from her.

I must've frowned when I was reading the letter as Tulip rushed to my side. “Nova, what's wrong?”

I looked at her, sadly. “I think I'm going to spend Christmas alone.” I said miserably.

“My mum wrote to me. She was sent for Azkaban duty during the Christmas holidays and my dad is stuck in Egypt as they've just discovered a new tomb.” Tulip sat on my bed, putting her hand on my back, rubbing it in circles.

“Blimey Nova, if I knew I would've asked my parents to stay.”

“No, no. It's fine. You should go home and see your family. I know you can't wait to see your parents again.” I sniffed as my nose clogged from tears gathering in my eyes.

“We ALL want to see our families, Nova. You could ask Tonks or Penny if they could stay.” She tried to cheer me up.

“No, no. Penny has to go home as her sister can't wait for her to tell her all about Hogwarts. And Tonks, even though she doesn't want to admit it, misses her parents as well.” I put on a fake smile. “I'll be fine, really. I'll have Pip and I can play with all the amazing presents you guys gave me!” Tulip smiled at me, trying to hide that she felt sorry for me.

That night I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking what will I do for the Christmas holidays all alone. I didn't think this was going to happen and as much as my aunt could be annoying squeezing my cheeks and feeding me her not-so-tasty pie, I was seriously considering going to her for the holidays.

But then I remembered. I didn't know if Charlie was leaving home for Christmas. That's when I decided to owl him in the morning, to ask him what his plans for the holidays were.

I woke up with the sun gently brushing my face. I wrote Charlie a letter, asking him about his Christmas plans and thanking him again for the necklace, which I was still wearing.

I sent Pip to the Gryffindor Tower in the hopes that I wouldn't wake him up. I knew how much he liked to sleep in.

Pip found me not even an hour later in the Courtyard. I opened Charlie's letter at once.

Hi Nova,

I am so sorry to hear that you won't be able to spend Christmas with your mum and dad. But Bill and I are going home, mum misses us too much.

If you'd like I can ask her if you can join us? I'm sure she wouldn't mind.

Love, Charlie

I smiled at how small his handwriting was. Christmas with the Weasleys? Bill and Charlie were so amazing, I think their family can't be any different. I sent Pip back with a reply that if his family really wouldn't mind I would love to spend Christmas with them at the Burrow.

The next week went by as fast as you can say Kneazle. Our professors gave us so much homework to do over the holidays that I kind of regretted not staying at Hogwarts.

Penny in the meantime, couldn't stop talking about all the Muggle pastries her dad was going to make, for which Tonks and I couldn't deny, sounded delicious.

Tulip was waiting to pack almost until the last day, while Penny scolded her that she should've done it already and that she has been packed since the weekend of my and Charlie's birthday party.

The day before I was supposed to go spend time with Bill and Charlie's family Tonks, Penny, Tulip, Charlie, and I were sitting in the Great Hall for breakfast. Charlie was just explaining how each year they enchant a gnome and put it on the Christmas tree without their mum noticing. Which gave a brilliant idea to Tonks and made Tulip laugh so much that I thought she was going to fall off the bench.

I was about to put a spoon full of cereal in my mouth when an owl flew straight into my bowl, splashing us all with milk. Errol hooted confusingly as she had a couple of corn flakes on her head. Tonks flicked it off her, while Charlie took the letter she had tied around her ankle and frowned.

I placed my head on his shoulder as I read the letter with him.

My dear Charlie,

I am sorry to say that you and Bill ought to stay at Hogwarts this Christmas. Your brothers thought it would be funny if they set a whole package of Filibuster's Fireworks off in the living room.

Thanks to them, we are going to spend Christmas cleaning up the mess they've made. I would rather see that you, Bill, and your friend Nova spend a nice, quiet Christmas at Hogwarts.

I have already written Dumbledore a letter to sign you up on the list of students who are staying for Christmas as it is too late for you to do it.

Don't worry, you'll still get your presents and know you will be missed greatly.

Please give this letter to Bill if he's not reading it with you.

Love and lots of hugs,

Mum

“Oh, Charlie I am so sorry.” I hugged him.

“What's going on?” Asked Penny confused.

“My bloody brothers, that's what!” Charlie said, so mad that even his freckles got red.

“Language little brother.” Bill came to our table and upon seeing Errol playing with Tonks said: “What did Fred and George do now?”

“They blew up the bloody living room with them fireworks they always carry around.” Charlie was still frowning and gave Bill the letter.

Bill rolled his eyes slightly then smiled at Charlie.

“Look, we can make a nice Christmas for ourselves right here, can't we Nova?” He winked at me to encourage his idea.

“Yeah, we can celebrate here, see how the Castle looks in the snow. Perhaps have a snowball fight?”

“Hey, I want a snowball fight!” Tonks intervened.

“It's not going to be the same. I miss mum and dad, and Ginny and Ron. Even Percy and those cheeky trouble-makers.” Charlie frowned at the last few words. “And how are we supposed to celebrate Christmas with Nova? She is not allowed in our Common Room. We won't even be able to open the presents together.” He added.

“Charlie, listen. We can work something out. We can be here in the Great Hall on Christmas Eve for as long as they'll let us and then in the morning we can bring our Christmas presents here and open them together, what do you say?” Bill ruffled his hair.

“Oh, alright.” He said and let Bill squeeze him in a hug.

Later that afternoon we said goodbye to Tonks, Penny, Tulip, and Jae as they were all packed and ready to go to Hogsmeade Station to catch the train home.

On Christmas Eve it was just as Bill promised. We were sitting at the Gryffindor Table eating as many gingerbread cookies as our stomachs were letting us. I was drawing in the notebook Bill gave me while he was still explaining to me how exactly the enchanted paper worked. Charlie was trying a new hairdo on Pip, which he didn't appreciate as much as he appreciated the attention Charlie was giving him.

It was getting rather late. The time passed so quickly as Bill and Charlie were telling me all the stories of their previous Christmas when Fred and George almost set the Christmas tree on fire. How they were happy when they found out they are finally getting a sister and how their brother Percy is something else in the family. Bill then told me the secret recipe for Christmas cookies their mum makes every year to which they made me swear I will never tell her that I know and how their dad was obsessed with everything Muggle-related, which explained the rubber duck Charlie got for his birthday.

We then said goodbye as the boys went to the Gryffindor Tower and I went to Ravenclaw's. When I woke up in the morning, I couldn't help but feel excited. I put Tulip's Christmas present on her bed and as the Hufflepuff Prefect stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas as well, I decided to ask her, if she could put Tonks' and Penny's presents on their beds.

I put on a hoodie and the most comfortable pants I could find as I was still full from the previous day. Then I grabbed all my Christmas presents that were waiting for me at my bedside and rushed to the Great Hall.

Bill and Charlie were already there and Charlie beamed with excitement when he spotted me.

“There you are! What took you so long!” Charlie hurried me to take a seat at the Gryffindor Table.

“He meant to say good morning, he is just too excited for the presents.” Bill apologized on Charlie's behalf. “See, mum felt so bad that Charlie and I couldn't come home for Christmas that we both got an extra present.” Bill explained Charlie's excitement.

I chuckled as Charlie threw all of them on the table.

“This one's for you Nova,” he handed me a big soft package wrapped in red gift paper. “And this one.” Continued Charlie, as he gave me another, now a smaller soft package. “This one is from me.” Charlie beamed proudly as he gave me yet another present.

“If this one is from you, who are the other two presents from?” I was in awe at how many presents they had for me.

“Well, this one is from me.” Bill shook the small package Charlie gave me before. “And this one,” he said while blushing a little, “is from our mum. She felt bad that she couldn't meet you.” Bill chuckled as he pointed at the red soft package.

I gave Charlie and Bill each their present. Charlie opened it at once and he gasped when he saw what he got. I got him a snowball in which I recreated the Burrow as much as Bill could help me in detail.

“Since you can't go home for Christmas, I thought I'd ask Bill to help me bring home to you.” I smiled. I couldn't help but notice that his eyes got watery.

“Th-thank you.” Was all he could say, his eyes still on the snowball.

I got Bill a new Gryffindor tie as his old one was looking rather ghastly after he didn't take proper precautions in his last Potions class.

I opened their mum's present first and when they saw what I got they both chuckled. It was a navy blue Christmas jumper with baby blue N in the middle.

“Mum gives us one every year. When you get a Christmas jumper from our mum, you officially become a Weasley.” Charlie grinned.

I didn't know what to say. I took off my hoodie and took a while to get the jumper over my head so that I could cover my red cheeks. It was so soft.

“I love it! I didn't get anything for her though.” I felt bad.

“Don't worry, Nova. She doesn't make these to expect something in return.” Bill showed on the jumper he was wearing. His was burgundy with a golden W on it, while Charlie's was green with a red C on it.

I then opened Charlie's present which had a little notebook in it. “It's a self-doodler.” He explained excitedly.

“A self-what?” I opened the notebook and found it empty.

“You turn to the desired page, tap it with a wand, and whisper the creature you would like to see. Try it. He took my wand out of my back pocket and handed it to me.

I tapped on one of the pages and whispered: “Niffler.” Something started to form on the page. It was as if someone was drawing the creature in front of me.

“It draws all common creatures on your demand. The sketch stays there until you close the notebook. I thought it might come in handy when you draw.” He scratched the back of his head.

“Char...Charlie, this must've cost a fortune.” Was all I could say as his gift left me speechless. I looked at him and caught him quickly glance at Bill. I looked at Bill and he winked at me, indicating that he helped Charlie to buy me the gift.

Lastly, I opened Bill's present and chuckled when I saw it was a hat. It was amusing to me that we both got each other a piece of clothing.

After we ate our breakfast and opened the rest of our presents, Bill sent everything upstairs while we got dressed and headed outside. It was beautiful as snow has been falling all night and all morning. We went through the Main Courtyard and decided to go down to the Black Lake where we had an epic snowball fight and I couldn't help but think of how jealous Tonks was going to be when I tell her about it.

After 2 hours in the snow, we were practically freezing, so we decided to pay Hagrid a visit before heading back up to the Castle for dinner. He made us hot chocolate this time and Bill and Hagrid were in a heated discussion about creatures that might be found in ancient tombs as Charlie and I played with Fang.

I said goodbye to the boys and returned to the Ravenclaw Tower with the biggest grin on my face. I was wondering if mum and dad would be mad if I said that this was the best Christmas of my life. I completely forgot that I wasn't home for Christmas and by Charlie's excitement and the smile he had on his face when we parted ways I think it's safe to say that so did he.

[balancerseye]

Do you have any thoughts on the attributes of avatars (like, how Desolation avatars are mad out of wax and tapes appear around Jon as an Eye avaatar) ?

Not particularly actually, some fears I find rather abstract and hard to tie into any kind of avatar. I mostly just work on what seems to feel like it fits? So I wrote down at least what popped into mind, sorry it took a hot minute.

Also PS, I got this ask before the most recent episode so. Spoilers for something.

The Buried: Shovels, anything weighted, vials of dirt, bog bodies (I just think there should be a bog body avatar. Cool End/Buried mix.), Gravediggers

The Corruption: Insects of course, fungi and particularly cordyceps (if you wanna make a corruption/web avatar), disease and mold, whatever is going on in the houses of those extreme hoarders, moss (I actually really like moss)

The Dark: Obsidian, blindfolds, sunglasses, and also honestly blinding oneself? I'd almost call the Dark the antithesis of the Eye. Eclipse iconography.

The Desolation: Fire. Yes, I know it's about heat and not fire but y'know. Also like you say wax, burns, charcoal, and anything that's broken and torn due to the desolation being so about destroying things.

The End: Skulls and Bones everywhere. Also while being a more death-positive person I think the End would be about preservation of bodies, steel lined caskets, formaldehyde, catheters, the waxy appearance only treated dead bodies have. Either way I would hate it.

The Eye: Eyes, portraits, cameras, security guards whose eyes you can't see but you know are staring, books, and honestly way too much academia stuff.

The Flesh: *Jonathan Sims voice* "Meat". Also just the warping of the human form in ways that shouldn't be possible, I feel like any flesh avatar should get to reassemble their bones the way they want. They're neat. I also think anything that touches on a warped image of the self fits into it, the fear of the body itself.

The Hunt: Animal features, claws, just everything that turns folks into beasts? But I also personally classify regular old human hunters under this, like guns and snares, traps and all that.

The Lonely: Fog, empty rooms, being at parties where you know no one and honestly? In some way phones and social media could be a good asset of the Lonely, seeing others having fun and being unable to partake in it.

The Slaughter: Weaponry and war paraphernalia, it's so distinctly just senseless violent. Also I'd say those military bands that precede an army since music is also tied into it.

The Spiral: You know those optical illusions and magic eye pictures? I personally classify any patterns that are difficult on the eyes as Spiral, also ferns because of their shape, and impossible architecture you get persistently lost in.

The Stranger: Masks, anything that obscures or warps the face in some way since so much is that you know something's wrong but don't know it. Also mannequins, taxidermy and wax figures.

The Vast: It's very location based so I'd say space suits and submarines are the way to explore the fear of the vast. Bungee jumping too, the nagging fear that maybe the line snaps. Also this:

Source

The Web: MOTHER OF PUPPETS IT'S ON SIGHT Obviously webs, spiders, I'd personally think of any kind of string bound puppet too? That and those tv personality folks that try to sell you things that break on day two for too much money. Also the Tapes, like I suspected.

[multiverseofmiracleshq]

After leaving the Inn, a group of heroes led by Sam Wilson headed to the Town Museum. It was there that the items & weapons that had been confiscated by the town were inventoried along with a fragment of the Reality Stone. Things couldn’t be too easy of course, and the group ran into U.S. Agent and Elektra. There was no time to waste. The mission was simple: get your gear and get out. Town Hall was waiting.

These events come AFTER the INN and BEFORE the HOSPITAL and TOWN HALL.

THIS IS THE OFFICIAL CHAT LOG COVERAGE OF THE IC

MATT MURDOCK: Matt entered the museum first, the rest of the group filing in after him. There wasn’t exactly a welcoming party at the door as one might have expected, so things took on an eerie quiet for the time being, as if Zemo’s cohorts were spiders, waiting for them to stumble into their web. Matt blinked and Elektra’s alternate face flashed behind his eyelids. He swallowed harshly, unsure of how the encounter was about to go down, but eager to get things going either way. “What’s the plan here, Sam — ?”

SAM WILSON: “We get in, we get out stuff and we get out. Seems easy, but, I’m gettin’ the feeling that nothing is here. My guess is they’re going to need all the help they can get at the Town Hall.”

ELEKTRA NATCHIOS: The town was a facade that had shattered. Chaos was eating its way out of the cracks and running rampant on the streets. The inmates of Pleasant Hill had come back in full force. The former sheriff had tried to intervene before she had felt the shiver run down her spine as well. Still clad in her officer uniform, Zemo’s request to play guard at the Museum had been indulged only because she wanted to see who was going to show up. One shoulder resting against the wall of the vault, the assassin watched the supposed heroes trickle in. Better her to see them than Walker or Bullseye. “Theft is still illegal in Pleasant Hill.” A wolves smile appeared on her face. “More or less.”

MATT MURDOCK: “Elektra,” Matt gasped, the name falling past his lips without his consent. She had been missing this entire time, and his search had been fruitless, but here she was, playing sheriff in this fucked up Westview/Stepford hybrid. Unaware if she too had been woken up from the memory of her false past, Matt refused to speak up, so as to not cause any more trouble than they already had to deal with.

STEVE ROGERS: Steve wasn’t familiar with either individual dressed in red, but if Sam was willing to work with them, they had to be assets. At Elektra’s comment, though, Steve’s eyes lingered on her briefly. “Let’s just be sure.” Steve said. If it turned out there was nothing there, then at least they could cross it off the list. “I’m gonna spread out, start looking.” and with that he broke off to find whatever it was a piece of a reality stone looked like.

GWEN STACY: Feeling incredibly naked, Gwen followed closely behind Steve. “Where do you think they hide alien life forms?”

STEVE ROGERS: Steve glanced at Gwen from his peripheral before his eyes returned to scanning the area as they walked. “Don’t know...—but in my experience, after your first alien or two y’kinda just know one when you see ‘em.” cosmic forces included. “They don’t really blend in.” a beat “Unless they’re skrulls.”

ELEKTRA NATCHIOS: “Matthew.” The name was said quietly, fondly. Holding both hands out in front of her, the device that Zemo’s lackey Fixer had created to counteract the Reality Stone hummed. Returned to the red and black uniform she had entered the town in, Elektra approached. “They’re going to get attacked, you know. Zemo told John Walker to make himself at home, be territorial.”

GWEN STACY: “It’s a symbiote,” Gwen elaborated even though he hadn’t asked. She was pretty sure she’d never actually sustained a conversation with him before, but Miles and Cindy weren’t there.  Symbiotes responded to sound. That was known. It seemed too risky to attempt a whistle though, so Gwen just looked around for a jar or something of the kind.

MATT MURDOCK: Matt froze as Elektra's appearance shifted back to the one he was much more familiar with. A mixture of relief and worry left a sour feeling in his stomach. This was all coming to a close, and soon. And by their luck, things would likely get messy. "I think they can hold their own against Walker. It's Zemo I'm concerned about. We can't let him go through with whatever he's planning, Elektra. It could be disastrous."

ELEKTRA NATCHIOS: She shook her head, dark hair swinging. “Zemo is a megalomaniac, Matthew. You’ve faced those before, no? I have no desire to be on the losing side of this. The stakes are too high. There’s a vault in the middle of the museum behind a portrait of a star. That’s where the  Stone fragment is. It’s what Zemo wants but he can’t have.” Dark lips tugged downwards. “I missed you.” Real? Fake? A bit of both.

STEVE ROGERS: “What’s a symbiote-?” Steve started to ask but before he could finish, something came hurling out of nowhere. The first one whizzed by him, hurling straight for Sam. Steve’s head whipped back around to search for the source, activating the vibranium gauntlets strapped to his wrists that T’Challa had given him. Instead he had just enough time to throw his arm up and block the second object flung in their direction. It bounced off his shield gauntlet and ricochet right back to its owner: “Walker.” Steve said.

JOHN WALKER: So he’d been stripped of the Cap title and shoved in a prison — turned inside out with the face of someone else just to have the Avengers show up and try to cause more problems than already existed. They didn’t know when to stop making things worse, so he wasn’t surprised to see Sam—maybe a little surprised to see Rogers, though. Whoever the hell else was with them. “Traitor.” Walker said, regarding the former Captain. “What are you doing here, Sam? Go home. You don’t belong here. None of you do.”

MATT MURDOCK: Matt took a few steps backwards, his own expression having yet to betray his true feelings. He had to get this information to Sam - or Steve - or whoever else would be there to listen. The search for missing weaponry and armor had stretched out to neighboring rooms, but Matt could just make out the beginnings of a confrontation between Walker and many others. Was Elektra allowing him to leave? It was shocking, but possible. "I have to help them - I've gotta go, Elektra --" I missed you. Matt gave no response, but his expression said otherwise.

SAM WILSON: Sam held up a hand, wincing slightly as he caught the shield with one hand and his bicep strained from the effort to stop it. “Belong here? I think I do. Got some wings with my name on ‘em, and my friends were being held against their will. You know how  that feels, don’t you?”

ELEKTRA NATCHIOS: He was walking away. If he asked, she would have helped him. She didn’t know the Vault codes but it could be cracked. Elektra wanted to help, to be whole. She wasn’t a Pleasant Hill caricature anymore, but he turned and left without returning the sentiment. Matthew felt the same. Elektra had trained herself to respond to the dips of his voice and twitches of his face. Did he not trust her? Maybe. She watched his form recede before stepping back into the shadows.

JOHN WALKER: John caught the second shield when it returned to him, eyes trained on Sam. “Yeah, that’s right. I do. And what did any of you do about it besides show up late?” He asked.

SAM WILSON: “Better late than never?” Sam asked wryly. “Look, three Captain America’s. We can sort this out.”

KATE BISHOP: Unabashedly eavesdropping, Kate had listened in on Matt and Elektra and was hightailing it towards Steve and Sam. “Picture of the Star. Vault.” She spoke in a quiet rush to Sam, grabbing his arm. “The Stone.”

GWEN STACY: Gwen was going to break down the complicated facts behind sentient alien goo when shields were being thrown and she was ducking for cover. Choosing to take that moment to break off, it took a few minutes for Gwen to find a clay statue that looked like a spider. Wincing as she knocked it over, spiders spilled out from inside and quickly covered her body. There was a a moment of blackness as the symbiote reconnected with its host and Gwen left for Town Hall.

JOHN WALKER: “Look, whatever it is you think you came here for—turn around and leave. Nobody needs you here.” The world had cast him aside the second he made his first mistake amidst war. He had no reason to return to the shambled title he’d been left with after they dishonorably discharged him for avenging his best friend. “Honestly Sam, you’re walking in the light today but what about tomorrow? Eventually  you’re gonna do something they don’t like and they’ll toss you aside just like yesterdays trash. — happened to Steve.” He glanced at the former Captain. A man he’d once held so high on a pedestal. “I guess it’s true what they say — don’t meet your heroes.” He stared at Steve.

STEVE ROGERS: The muscle in steve’s jaw jumped as his teeth ground together, it wasn’t really the insult that irritated him as much as the arrogance. He had a hard time listening to men boast about things they had no idea about. “You think being a hero is a crowd at your feet and that’s your problem.” Steve said. “That’s why you were never a good Cap.”

RIRI WILLIAMS: Moving on her own, Riri had found her suit disguised as a suit of armor. The nanotech had felt cold as it responded to her wristlet and covered her skin. The light of her repulsor lit up the darkened museum until it found Sam, who was staring at an oversized painting of a falling star with Kate. “That it?” She asked, hand canon already firing up.

JOHN WALKER: Okay, that stung. The heat that burned through his cheeks then was a mixture of embarrassment and fury. “Oh, screw you—.” John replied and he flung his shield at him, using the seconds that it took Steve to deflect it to propel himself across the fifteen feet of space between them. A deafening clang rang out as they slammed into one another, vibranium meeting metal. Despite matching strength, the shock reverberated through John ten fold, practically chattering his teeth. He groaned, pushing against Rogers as he pushed back—then Steve kicked his right ankle out from under him and drove John backwards. It was a series of fists and blows between the two of them, and where Walker had youth, Rogers had experience.

KATE BISHOP: “Are you going to shoot an Infinity Stone??” Kate looked to Sam in surprised confirmation.

SAM WILSON: “It’s only a part of one.” Sam tossed out as if it made it any better.

RIRI WILLIAMS: “It’s a little more exact than that.” Riri grit her teeth. Her repulsor had a precision setting and it carefully carved out a section of the painting and vault. The lock required a code, but she let N.A.T.A.L.I.E. interface with it for a second before it clicked open. As her suit created a nano chamber, Riri carefully scooped the Stone in and secured it. “Feels kind of dumb to drag it to Zemo, so I’m going to the hospital.” Without waiting for confirmation, Riri flew out.

SAM WILSON: Finding his wings and a shield ( one that wasn’t his ), Sam nodded at Bishop. “We need to get to the Town Hall. Steve’ll follow.”

STEVE: Maybe a little part of him had wanted to hit him the first time he saw him on that TV, adorning a shield that wasn’t given to him in a uniform that no real place in this world anymore. Walker was arguably an equal match in terms of strength—he’d been trained just as well as any other soldier, but he was sloppy. He let his anger get the better of him rather than channeling it like fuel. It left him open and Steve took every shot he gave — a jab to the liver here, a blow to his kidney there. Without that healing factor, he’d be pissing blood for weeks and by the look on his face, he was starting to realize the rapid succession of Steve’s hits were a little more than it could keep up with. Steve had lived in this form for a long time—he’d spent himself to the point of total exhaustion more than he could count. he knew what it took to reach that breaking point.

ELEKTRA NATCHIOS: The museum slowly emptied. Rogers finished beating the living hell out of Walker and left him to be picked up by some S.H.I.E.L.D. guards. The inmates were buzzing that Bullseye was down and Taskmaster had abandoned post. When the former Captain America vacated the premise, Elektra danced over Walker to peer into the Vault. Empty. Good. She had liberated her sai’s from a display already, but the assassin still did a check of the museum before she exited to escape Pleasant Hill.

[subukunojess]

Your New Best Friend

Finally, a new fic! I have always wanted to write for the Beetlejuice fandom and with the whole chaotic life going on, I got some time to write it. It has taken me months, but I finally finished this. I’ve always wanted to write a one-shot about what happened between acts of the musical and really delve into Lydia and Beetlejuice’s friendship. I hope you guys enjoy under the cut!

Your New Best Friend

Fandom: Beetlejuice the Musical

Major Characters: Beetlejuice and Lydia Deetz

Word Count: 6,018

Links: Archive of Our Own, Deviantart, Fanfiction

Summary:  What happens to Lydia after she summons a demon at Dinner Night and kicks out all the adults? A sleepover filled with vandalism, pizza, and beheadings, that's what. Oh and friendship too!

When Lydia Deetz summoned Beetlejuice in anger, she didn't know what to expect. Her entire plan turned out wrong that night. Everyone seemed to enjoy getting possessed by actual ghosts, treating it as if it were a joke. A money-making joke to dance and celebrate about. It made her sick. She had her doubts when she stood on the dining table and called out his name, sensing him materialize right by her side. She hesitated until she saw her own father kiss Delia, a woman he dared to replace her dead mother with. At that point, the third call rumbled out of her mouth in a natural scream that didn't hold back. 

"BEETLEJUICE!"

Then all hell broke loose. 

Food and furniture went flying in different directions. Chandeliers caught on fire. A murderous roast pig went on a rampage. It wasn't until the ghost summoned a giant version of himself, complete with massive hands and an even bigger head, that everyone decided to run for their lives out of the house. Lydia sat down on one of the chairs, watching all the chaos happen before her. She got a glimpse of Charles reaching out to her by the door and for a moment, she raised her hand slightly towards him, only for her to drop it and turned her head away while closing her eyes tight. She heard the front doors slam shut with a loud bang, then silence. She opened her eyes and she was met with an empty house. No family. No humans. No ghosts. Just her and the demon she summoned.

"You did it." Lydia said in a quiet voice, still in awe and shock that what transpired was real. She stood up from the chair and went up to the demon. "He's really gone?"

"Oh yeah," Beetlejuice nodded with a wicked grin on his face, "It's our house now, kid!" He snapped his fingers and a burst of energy surged through Lydia and the entire house, sending a shiver to the girl's spine. Then the walls popped with black and white stripes as the furniture and decorations warped into twisted contortions of themselves. Both the human and demon slowly turned into a circle, watching this change happen right before their eyes. 

"Whoa." Was all Lydia could mutter at the moment once the initial changes were complete. 

"Looks like we're not invisible anymore!" Beetlejuice crooned, his voice even more gravely as he wrapped his arm around Lydia's shoulders with a triumphant laugh and pulled her close, proud of his handiwork and excited for the chaos to come. For a moment, the lights flickered a couple of minutes as the two stood at the center of the living room, taking it all in. Then Beetlejuice dropped his arm and glanced at Lydia to see her reaction. 

There was a spark in her eyes that the demon hadn't seen before. It wasn't like her resting mourning face or her mischievous grin. It was a genuine sparkle of awe and happiness. At least, he guessed it was. He wasn't sure with breather emotions. 

Then Lydia did something that took him aback; she closed her eyes and let out a snarling roar that rolled into howling laughter. She twirled and hopped in place, flapping her hands as fast as she could while chirping and squealing. When she heard herself doing that, she opened her eyes and stopped immediately.

"I'm sorry." Lydia said, looking away out of embarrassment. "I-"

"What are ya saying sorry for?" Beetlejuice asked with a scoff before he grinned and bounced on his heels in excitement, waving his hands in circles. "No one has ever reacted like that to my work before. I like it! Gimme more of that! Gimme, gimme, gimme!"

Lydia blinked, flabbergasted at the response. Then again, this was a demonic spirit thing that was probably invisible since forever she was talking to. Although she had to keep on her toes, she decided to throw caution to the wind on embarrassment by pushing herself forward with a smile, waving her hands around as well. 

"That was cool and scary at the same time!" Lydia exclaimed with a laugh as she and Beetlejuice bounced together. "The way they screamed and ran as your arms were like WOOSH! Now that's what I call a dinner party!" After a minute of laughter, she steadied her breathing and stopped in thought. She didn't think she'd get this far into her plan if she were being honest with herself. Lydia expected something to backfire and her father to punish her in some way. Now that she was alone with the demon, she didn't know what came next.

"... So what now?" She asked with a tilt of her head. Beetlejuice grinned.

"Anything you want, kid; we're free! No boring breathers or newly-deads tying us down! It's time to go wild and have some real fun!" He floated up a few feet in the air, streamers popping out of his hands before he landed back down on his feet. "Remember: no holding back on me, Lyds. Tonight's your night, so you get to call the shots! Think of all the things ya wanted to do without Chuck and adults around and do 'em!"

"Okay...?" Lydia quirked an eyebrow, hesitant. After thinking for a moment, she went and picked up an oddly-shaped vase from a stand nearby. Strange how Delia's 'art work' didn't change with the rest of the house. She jutted her hip to the side and mocked, "As my guru Otho always says..." She then threw the vase hard on the ground, shattering it into pieces as she exclaimed, "Shut up, Delia!"

"Yeah, shut up, Debra!" Beetlejuice cheered in agreement as he stuck a striped tongue out towards the broken pieces. "Serves her right trying to tell you what to do!"

Lydia nodded. She reached for another piece of artwork when she stopped herself. She didn't want to make too much of a mess and most of the other pieces were heavy anyway. It wasn't because she felt sorry for the woman trying so hard to get her to like her. To change. Not at all! She recovered by rolling her head back to stretch it out. She probably looked ridiculous, but this was her night after all. It wouldn't hurt to act like a demon. 

"As much as I want to break more things, I got a better idea. Let's trash Daddy's office!" Lydia suggested. 

The demon clapped and rubbed his hands together with a sinister smile. "Oooooh, let's!"

"Last one there's a rotten egg!" With a sly grin, the girl poked at Beetlejuice's nose, tagged him, then ran off with a laugh. It took the demon a minute what had just happened. 

"Hey, that's not fair!" He protested, but laughed as well as he dashed up the stairs after her. 

On the second floor, Lydia ran down the hallway and skidded until she arrived at her destination at the end of the hallway. She got inside the room first, surveying her father's office of what potential damage to cause. The office wasn't too elaborate, consisting of a file cabinet, book shelf, desk, and laptop. Charles didn't get to set up the desktop yet. From the corner of her eye, Lydia saw a picture frame lying face down on the desk. She carefully picked it up and gasped.

It was a family portrait with her dead mom. Emily Deetz was a foot or two shorter than her father, but she easily dominated the photograph with her smile. Lydia would best describe her mother as a chocolate cake decorated with black icing laced into spider web designs, cookies that looked like gravestones, and whipped frosting that were shaped to be ghosts. On the day of the photo, Emily wore a straw sunhat, a nice lilac blouse with a pair of jeans, a pair of rose-gold eyeglasses, and her bat necklace which was really a large rubber, red-eyed bat with a string attached to each wing. Her mom would say that on a full moon, she would turn into a giant bat demon that preyed on vampires, monsters under the bed, and tangerines. It made the young girl smile each time she said it. 

Lydia placed a hand over her mouth and choked a silent sob. She didn't think her dad would keep the picture let alone have it framed on his desk. Before she could process it further, she heard the demon coming from down the hall. Alarmed, she unfastened the back of the frame and pulled the picture out, placing it in a pocket of her dress before she threw the empty frame to the ground.

"Hey, don't start without me, Lyds!" She heard Beetlejuice exclaim outside the room.

Lydia turned towards Beetlejuice, only to shriek when she saw a huge rotting egg slanted against the wall instead. She covered her mouth as she watched the thing sprout golden eyes. 

"Guess I'm the rotten egg." The egg spoke in Beetlejuice's voice.

"Couldn't you just teleport or go through walls or something?!"

"Whoops! Kinda got lost in the moment there." With a puff of green smoke, Beetlejuice shifted back to normal, dusting his suit a bit. He then cracked his knuckles as he went inside the office. "So how should we wreck this place? You take the first swing." He then gasped and snapped his fingers before he suddenly pulled out a baseball bat from behind his back and handed it to Lydia with a smile. She smirked and rolled her eyes in response, but her face fell when she grasped the bat in her hands and surveyed the room. It was different thinking of all the things she could do out of anger versus actually doing them. The bat trembled in her grasp for a minute, but she thought about her father and steeled her resolve as she raised the bat.

"This is for ignoring me." Lydia said, then whacked the desk in front of her as hard as she could. 

"Yes." Beetlejuice nodded with a wide grin, taking a step back as Lydia swung at the walls and furniture. 

"This is for moving out of our house!"

"Yeah! Keep it going, kid!"

"This is for treating me like I'm invisible!" Lydia roared as she threw the bat down on the chair. 

"There ya go! That's what I'm talkin' about! Lemme do something! Lemme do something! I can do anything ya want-" Beetlejuice stopped himself when Lydia opened her mouth to speak and he cut her to it. "Except setting the room on fire. Am I right? You breathers usually don't like rooms on fire. I can even eat anything!"

Lydia raised an eyebrow. "Anything?"

"Anything."

Upon hearing that, the teen looked around until she spotted something in a hidden shelf: her father's laptop. Grinning, she grabbed it along with its plug and shook it right in front of the demon. "How about this then?"

Beetlejuice nodded, excited. "I never had that before! Throw it here!" The ghost smiled as he floated backwards and opened his mouth in order to catch the object like a snack.

Lydia immediately closed her eyes when she saw him open his mouth. Jaws should not bend that way. Ever. She counted to three and threw the laptop in Beetlejuice's direction. She heard a couple of chews and swallows before she opened her eyes to see Beetlejuice slurp up the charger cable like spaghetti. Once it was swallowed, he hiccuped and licked his teeth clean of keyboard letters. Lydia took a wary step back. 

"Do you eat teens by any chance?" She asked out of curiosity, hoping that he didn't. The prospect didn't seem to look good as the demon floated in her direction and poked at her arm in thought. She sighed in relief when he shook his head. 

"Nah, it depends. Yer kinda scrawny lookin' to me and ya probably taste salty. Besides, adults got more meat on 'em!" 

"Oh... good to know. If we have any cranky neighbors, I'll feed them to you!" Lydia smiled nervously as she held a thumbs up, not knowing whether he was serious or not. Or both. Once she saw that the damage was enough in the room, she led the demon out to the hall.

"Before we do anything else, I got to change out of this dress. It's too... bright and cheerful." Lydia almost gagged, then she smirked at the ghost. "Meet me downstairs?"

"You know it." Beetlejuice pointed finger guns at the teenager before he teleported himself back downstairs, sitting on a chair covered in spikes. He stared off in thought. 

"... can you believe it?" Beetlejuice addressed his audience as he pointed a thumb upwards. "A breather who actually sees me and she said my name. And we got an entire haunted house to ourselves! This is going to be- oh my gosh, I know this fanfiction trope!" In an instant, the demon took out a printed packet from his back and skimmed through it, squinting a little. "This is the part where the writer goes in between scenes from the original source material in order to show character development, relationships, and something called 'fluff'."

Beetlejuice paused with a neutral expression on his face until he suddenly burst out guffawing and slapping his knee, throwing the packet over his shoulder and causing it to burst into flames and disappear. 

"Like that'll ever happen!" He exclaimed after his fit of laughter, standing back up. His face lit up when he heard footsteps from above and he turned his head to see Lydia at the top of the steps. Instead of a normal nightgown or whatever young breathers wore to sleep, she seemed to wear a red poncho that looked just like a spider web over a black shirt and leggings. She also wore fake claws in both her hands, a makeshift wolf tail tied around her waist like a belt, and one of those headband things with animal ears on her head. Around her neck was one of those traditional cameras he had seen breather tourist with whenever he got the chance to explore. With her pale face and eye shadow, she looked spooky.

Lydia let out a loud roar as she laughed, stomping down the stairs, "Grrr! I am Lydia Deetz, the Werewolf Demon! I've come to scare the breathers, kiss all the cool girls, and eat everybody else!"

"Oh no! Connecticut is doomed!" Beetlejuice laughed along with her. He floated right behind her and suddenly grabbed her, lifting her off the ground. Lydia was about to protest when she looked down and saw how high off the ground she was. 

"I'm... floating? I'm floating!" She smiled and let the demon lift her up higher to the ceiling. She outstretched her arms and wiggled her claws, pretending she was a flying witch or a real ghost. She then snarled to the air. 

"Ya need fangs ta be a werewolf demon!" Beetlejuice concluded after taking Lydia's new costume into consideration. With a blink of his eyes, a couple of Lydia's teeth sharpened into fangs, making the girl's grin grow. He chuckled and levitated back down to the floor. "What's with the red spiderweb get-up anyway?"  

"My mom made it herself because I liked spiders. When I was little, I pretended to be a spider witch and I begged to be one when I got older. I wear it to bed every night ever since." Lydia said as she fiddled with one of the poncho's edges and she was placed down. "My favorite Halloween costume was this full body werewolf suit my parents got me when I was nine or ten. It doesn't fit me anymore, so I had to improvise."

"Huh. Even some breathers have good tastes." The demon commented, his face unreadable, but he gave her a thumbs up. Lydia poked her new fangs with the tip of her own tongue before her face lit up.

"I gotta get a picture of this. To celebrate our new house!" She went up to Beetlejuice and grabbed her camera, turning it around towards them and pressing on a button as the camera flashed and the demon winced, shutting his eyes tight. 

"Sorry! Didn't think making an old time selfie would be weird." Lydia apologized. While he adjusted his eyes and the photograph started to develop, Lydia also took out her cell phone from one of her pockets. Although she had a phone and she appreciated the modern advances of cameras in her generation, there was something about using a traditional camera that her parents used and a physical photograph instantly appeared that appealed to her. Nonetheless, the occasion called for both types of pictures. When Beetlejuice was ready, Lydia opened up the camera on her phone and took a picture of herself and Beetlejuice with playful, snarling faces and no flash that time. She then went to her gallery and to her surprise, there was Beetlejuice clear as night on her screen.

Beetlejuice gasped, grabbing the phone from the teenager's hands as he examined the handiwork, "I'm visible in photos and technology now! I wish I could say the same thing about the other one." A third arm of his seemed to pop out from the ground, holding a photograph of Lydia and a blurry shadow creature with two yellow lights in the background.

Lydia rolled her eyes and giggled as she reached for her phone. "Glad to make your night, then. Let me just post the digital one on my tumblr and twitter."

The demon almost dropped the cell phone in shock, but Lydia caught it just in time. 

"You got a tumblr too? We really are BFFFF's!" Beetlejuice grinned and bounced on his heels. 

"How did you get a- oh, wait. Let me guess: it's a hell site, so demons automatically get accounts?" Both she and Beetlejuice smirked and shot finger guns at each other.

"Exactly. You're catching on to the whole being a demon thing!"

"Good to know." The teenager typed and started posting as she continued, "I'm not an online person myself, but sometimes I post some good shots and see what's strange and unusual out in the world. What's your username so I could follow you?"

"3xthecharmguide: Shameless plug-in is shameless!" He announced in an almost mocking monotone as he looked out towards what she guessed was space. 

"What?"

"What?" Lydia snorted and shook her head. Once she had finished with her post, she searched for the username until she found his blog. "Huh.... just some pictures for now. I could help tune it out for you if you want. And wait till I show you Tik Tok!"

"You breathers are into clocks now?" Now it was Beetlejuice's turn to raise an eyebrow in confusion. The teenager chuckled and rolled her eyes. 

"I'll explain it later." She was about to say something else when she felt her stomach growl and she winced. She didn't eat anything for the whole day and she was too busy organizing the dinner party with the Maitlands to care. Beetlejuice seemed to hear the growl and raised an eyebrow.

"Hungry? All that food from that fancy party is probably gone by now. And I think I saw that roast pig almost ate a man. It. Was. Awesome!" 

It then occurred to Lydia: now that everyone living left, there was no one who would make dinner or drive to the grocery store anymore. Sure, she could cook simple things on the stove and use a microwave, but even with that, the fridge and pantry wasn't really filled up ever since she, her father, and Delia moved into the house. Curious, she turned to the demon.

"Can you cook?"

"Do you like stale popcorn and roasted rats?" Beetlejuice grinned as a large flame formed at the palm of his hand. Lydia stared at him in disgust, then pulled his hand down by the wrist without batting an eye.

"No, put the fire down. I'm good." She said, then shrugged. "We could order pizza? And I have a stash of snacks hidden in my room. If we're lucky, maybe there's a monster movie marathon tonight."

"Monster movie marathon?!" The demon exclaimed with a big smile on his face as he bounced on his heels. "Yes, yes, yes! That's a thousand times better! Let's do it!"

With a smile and a nod, Lydia strolled into the kitchen and dialed on her cell phone, calling the nearest pizza place in the area to order delivery as she opened the cupboards and got out two blenders. Luckily, the blenders didn't change with the kitchen and other appliances either. 

“Hey, can I have two large pepperoni, one mushroom, and one Meat Lovers all with extra cheese please?” She asked as she placed the blenders down onto the counter and plugged them in. Beetlejuice hovered over her like a child wanting attention and Lydia gently pushed him away. When he kept insisting, she went to the freezer and got an ice cube out, placing it on the edge of the counter without any thought to it. In response, the spirit focused on the cube and hovered over it instead. As Lydia listened to the person on the phone and gave them the address, she couldn’t help but feel like a mother. She suppressed a gulp and hung up the phone once the order was placed, trying to dismiss that thought from her head. 

"Lydia, the ice cube is shrinking!" Beetlejuice cried out as he pointed to the melting ice cube, poking at it with a finger. 

Lydia stared at disbelief, blinking a few times. "It's melting."

"'Oh... okay." The demon shrugged and seemed to accept this as he picked up the ice cube and placed it in his mouth. A few seconds later, he stuck a black and purple striped tongue out from his mouth, exclaiming, "All gone!"

With a chuckle, Lydia opened the fridge and got the milk, ice cream, and syrups, placing them onto the counter. She then got a big spoon, what was left of the cereals from the cupboards, and any other condiments she could find since something told her the demon had strange tastes.

"Unfortunately, we only got neo- neopol- Napoleon? Uhhhh... the chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla ice cream!" Lydia stuck her tongue out from stumbling on the word. "We're so gonna get new flavors for next time. Like Rocky Road! Or black cherry chocolate chip!"

"Or maggot chili chocolate and horse flesh!" Beetlejuice added with a smile. 

"Ewwww? I'm not going to ask." Lydia scooped up half a tub of ice cream for her blender and the rest for Beetlejuice's. She squirted strawberry syrup while the demon chose chocolate. As for toppings, they used sprinkles, different cereals, and mustard for some reason. For a last finishing touch, Beetlejuice added squirming earthworms and beetles in his blender. To make it fair, Lydia put two big helpings of gummy worms in hers. Once every ingredient was in, they blended their concoctions at the same time as some sort of race to see which one was done first. Beetlejuice won by default. Before they could prepare the other snacks, 

Ding-Dong!

"Pizza's here!" Beetlejuice cheered at the doorbell and clasped his hands together with a wicked grin on his face. "Let's scare 'em."

Lydia rolled her eyes and shrugged with her own grin. "Why not?" With a snap of the demon's fingers, the two disappeared in darkness and the front door opened to reveal a young adult male carrying a large insulated bag of pizza.

"Uh... pizza delivery?" The man called out to the house, noticing no one at first. He then gasped when Lydia popped up from the ground in front of him, her arms behind her back.

"To be...." She moved her arm forward to hold out Beetlejuice's head in her claws as she dramatically posed, "Or not to be!"

"Is that really the question?" The head replied with a crazed look in his eyes as he stared at the delivery boy, a fanged grin on his face. 

The delivery person dropped the bag and screamed at the top of his lungs in response before he charged out of the house and into the streets. 

"I love that sound!" Lydia and Beetlejuice sighed in unison. Lydia then turned Beetlejuice's head to face her as she lifted it up and they both laughed with the demon's body jumping in joy from the background.

Monster Movie Marathon night was underway without a hitch. Lydia got all the chips, candy, cookies, and juice boxes she had in her bedroom while Beetlejuice set up a brand new television decorated in stripes and spikes because aesthetic. Along with their pizza, snacks, and drinks, Beetlejuice also conjured up some popcorn, soda, and a pair of 3-D glasses for himself. When they had gathered up everything, the two of them hopped onto the sofa, blender glasses in hand, and Beetlejuice turned on the TV with a snap to his fingers.

"Good evening, Spooks and Ghouls." An announcer greeted from the television in an eerie echo that sent nostalgic chills to Lydia's spine. "We welcome you to our weekend monster movie marathon starting with that classic cult film 'The Boogeyman straight from Hell!'"

Beetlejuice and Lydia smirked as they grabbed a slice of pepperoni pizza each. Pizza, monster films, and no crummy adults? What more could they need? They clinked their blenders together before taking a swig of their respective milkshakes in unison. The two then proceeded to watch the film, occasionally commenting on how cheesy or inaccurate it looked with the demon explaining what would really happen. At one point, Beetlejuice had swallowed his blender in one gulp, glass and machine included.

Lydia still couldn't believe that this striped man lying down on the floor and staring at the screen with a grin on his face, the same man who had begged on his hands and knees for her to say his name earlier yesterday, was an actual demon from Hell. She knew demons took on many forms, but a chubby dead guy who looked like a dumpster-diving raccoon didn't cross her mind. Even though she had her doubts, she was enjoying his company. He was funny, gross, scary, and goofy once she observed him. Back in New York, her only friend was her mother. She didn't really have a best friend until now.

Time passed and another movie played. A vampire flick. Lydia slouched forward, her head resting on the palms of her hands as she watched the film with an eager smile, engrossed by its tone and horror. Beetlejuice took up the rest of the unusual couch with his legs hanging off of the armchair that looked more like a tentacle as he laid on his back, crossing both his arms and legs, and stared at the ceiling in thought. He couldn't believe his luck or what happened either. He found a breather that could actually see him. At first, he planned on ditching the kid and the dreadful house somehow, but that changed within the last few hours. Lydia was much more fun than the stiffs he knew both in the Netherworld and the breathers residing in the house. She was creative, spooky, funny, dark, and one of the few beings that could keep up with his antics. Who knew there were breathers like this out in the world and he hadn't met them yet! He wished he had someone like Lydia in his younger centuries. 

Beetlejuice glanced to the side, watching as Lydia's grin grew at the sight of a breather's face contorting in horror with a shadow overwhelming them. The demon then smirked. Lydia Deetz was officially his new best friend and he was determined to keep it that way as long as possible. Forever even.

Before Lydia knew it, it was midnight. The movie marathon had ended and the TV shut off by itself. As she rubbed her eyes that seemed to buzz from focusing too much on the screen, she surveyed the damage of the living room. Or the after-living room now. Empty pizza boxes, chip bags, soda cans, and candy wrappers scattered across the floor. Crumbs were everywhere. Although Beetlejuice ate the most, Lydia felt stuffed from all that pizza and junk food she ate. She slowly stood up from the sofa and took a step forward, only to sway to the side. 

"Whoa there, Scarecrow!" Beetlejuice caught the girl in his arms just in time and pushed her back standing. "Ya look like you're about to pass out in a grave."

"Me? Pass out? Not for Lydia Chrysanthemum Deetz! I'm full of energy!" Lydia protested while holding back a yawn as she stood up straight and put her hands to her hips... only to fall back onto the sofa. 

Lydia took a few minutes to rest. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was a tiny window near her eye. Upon seeing it, she jolted awake and sat up. It seemed that she was outside and someone put a replica model of the house and the hill it sat on near her while she was sleeping. She was going to dismiss it as such when she examined the detail of the model and some movement caught her eye. She squinted to find two familiar people waving their arms from one of the windows.

"Adam? Barbara?" Lydia blinked. Sure enough, a tiny Adam and Barbara were waving at her, looking quite shocked to see the now giant teenager. Lydia waved back only for her to let out a scream as something scooped her up in the air by her arms and hugged her tight.

"Lyds, yer just the right size to take over this town!" A familiar gravely voice boomed with a cheer. Lydia struggled against the giant demon's grip, feeling like her bones would pop if he got any tighter. 

"I still need to breathe!" She wheezed out. With a sheepish "Oops!", Beetlejuice let go of her and placed her down next to him.

"Would you look at us? Two scary demons ruling Connecticut together and having our kind of fun. First order of business, we make stripes, black, and nail polish the top fashion statement. We're going places, kid!" Beetlejuice pulled Lydia close to him and started walking off, throwing his ideas out there. Lydia shook her head with a smile and was about to listen when she glanced up and caught something at the corner of her eye coming from his striped shirt. In a shirt pocket that seemed filled with who knows what, Lydia swore she saw tiny arms trying to climb out and a woman's head popping out. 

"I can breathe! Freedom!" A tiny feminine voice squeaked. The teen's eyes widened.

"Um... Beej? What is that?" Lydia asked, pointing to his pocket.

"What is what?" The demon stopped, causing the obvious human in his pocket to scream and fall back down. He looked down and nodded. "Oh right, that! While you were napping, I decided ta get myself a random breather to play with. Don't worry, she's a big fan and my pocket's not that bad."

Lydia's face fell. "Beetlejuice, no. If we're gonna haunt anything together, we're not kidnapping people!"

Beetlejuice rolled his eyes and groaned. "Ugh! First, it's no killing. Now, it's no kidnapping! What's next? No floating? And it's not even a kid!"

"Oh, thank-"

"It's the writer."

"Dude!" Lydia threw her hands in the air, resisting the urge to strangle the giant demon. "You can't just go into a writer's house and steal them away!"

"Why not? There's no rule saying that I can't and she doesn't seem to mind. Right, babe?" 

In response to the question, a tiny tan hand poked out from the pocket and formed a shaky thumbs up. 

"See? She has a way with words!" The ghost chuckled, using one of his fingers to gently push the hand back into his pocket. When he saw Lydia give him a disapproving frown along with her arms crossed, he sighed. 

"Alright, alright! I'll take her back to her house. But first, I'm takin' you ta bed. Ya gotta have a lot of energy if yer gonna be scary at your own haunted house tomorrow!" 

"Wait, what?" Before Lydia could question or protest, she was scooped up by the waist and hung to the demon's side as he carried her off somewhere. Then it became blurry for her. She couldn't tell how much time had passed or where she was. As she let out a yawn, she started to see things. Memories of her when she was seven or nine. Nights when her father would stay overnight on a business meeting and she and her mother would pretend to be giant monsters parading in their home while eating and doing whatever they wanted. At the end of their play, Emily would pick her up, carry her upstairs to bed, and tell her a story as she tucked her in.  

Lydia then remembered. She was at a haunted house in Connecticut with two ghosts in the attic and a demon who was taking her upstairs to bed. She groaned sleepily. No wonder grown-ups warned children about eating late at night. As she hung to the demon's side, she couldn't help but reminisce about the good times that she would never have again for a long time. 

"Once upon a time... there was a girl who wanted to be... a werewolf...." She mumbled to herself with a soft yawn as the demon trudged through the hallway. "Her daddy wanted his daughter... to be a perfect little girl... but her dead mom wanted her happy... so the girl ran away to the woods... so she could become a werewolf. She... she... she-"

"She came across a demon deep in the forest." Beetlejuice continued with a sigh. "Very powerful, looks great in stripes, and had lots of cool powers and dance moves, but he was lonely because nobody could see him and nobody else was like him. When he saw that she could see him, he got really happy. So he offered her a deal. 'If ya summon me and gimme all the bugs I can eat, I can make ya a werewolf and we could be friends'.

The demon reached the bedroom and went inside, noticing that it was bare of anything interesting save for the dark curtains and spider sheets on the bed. He placed her on top of the bed as he continued, "So she tried to get all the bugs she could get. Mostly earthworms, ants, and some ladybugs ta add a little luck. Sure, she got mud and leaves all over her, but she did it. She said his name three times and poof! He was summoned just like that. He made her a werewolf without the bite thing and they hung out together in the woods, scarin' all the breathers they wanted."

Lydia grumbled in a daze, maneuvering herself so a blanket was covering her up. She smiled and snuggled against the bed, finally asleep. The demon was about to leave when he saw something fall from under her pillow and landed onto the floor with a silent flutter. Beetlejuice bent down and picked it up, examining it. It was a photograph of Lydia and her dad that he immediately recognized, but it was the woman that threw him off. He never saw her in the house or of the recently deceased around the area. 

Then it hit him.

He said nothing, some of his hair strands turning purple as he pinched the corner of the photo and tore off Charles's head. He grabbed hold of the other corner, but let go after a long second. He opened the bedside drawer, placed the photo in, then closed it shut. Beetlejuice glanced over, watching Lydia turning to her side, out like a light. Before he disappeared, there was a hint of a smile as he patted the side of the bed.

"Sweet nightmares, kid."

[main-to-card-games-and-pain]

irondad fluff

I couldn’t get this headcanon out of my mind, so I quickly wrote a little ficlet for it. It’s not checked over, and not great quality, but it would not leave my head until it was written. The headcanon was that Tony is secretly an excellent artist, and has an entire sketchbook of just portraits of Peter. I hope you enjoy it! 

“Kid, hand me my workbook please,” Tony called from his bench, just barely looking up to shout the request. 

Peter, who was just chilling on one of the couches doing homework, was quick to participate in any sort of procrastination. Teenage limbs jumped up in all their awkward glory, his finely tuned senses scouring the room for the requested item. 

He spotted it on a worktable at the other end of the lab. Peter sighed dramatically, beginning his trek. 

He felt like Valjean from the beginning of Les Mis. He decided to make Mr.Stark aware of this fact. 

Tony rolled his eyes when he heard the first few notes of “Look Down” being hummed quite loudly from somewhere behind him, and he could tell that Peter was doing a stupid dilapidated walk with it. “It’s five feet away from you, 24601, stop being a teenager.” 

“I am a teenager,” Peter whined, “and it’s not five feet away, it’s all the way across the stupid lab.” 

At this, Tony did glance up, because he knew for a fact that he’d just seen his workbook on the coffee table behind the couch, so he didn’t know what Peter was going on about. The inventor almost had an aneurysm when he realized Peter’s mistake. The book was already in the teenager’s hands before the inventor could interject. 

“Oh, uh, no, no, uh, no Underoos,” Tony shouted awkwardly as he hurriedly stood from his bench, the trinket left abandoned, “that’s not my workbook.” 

“What do you mean it’s not your workbook? Yes it is,” Peter replied exasperatedly. 

“I think I know what my own workbook looks like, thank you very much. You know what, it’s fine, I’ll grab it myself.” Tony feigned nonchalance crossing towards his actual workbook, picking up the admittedly similar looking book. He waved it sarcastically at Peter, trying not to give away that he was having a minor stroke at the kid just holding it. 

“Well, then what’s this one? Cause you use it all the time.” Peter looked like he was going to open the book, Tony did the only thing he could think of. “Ow! What the Hell, did you just yeet a walnut at me?”

It was, admittedly, not the best quick response Tony had ever thought of. 

“I’m Iron Man. I can do what I want.” Peter rolled his eyes and went back to trying to examine the mystery book. “Seriously kid, put it down and go do your homework.” 

The thing that Tony should have realized about teenagers, is that if they think you don’t want them to do something they will do their goddamn best to do that thing. So when Peter sensed that Tony was trying to keep something from him a mischievous glint came into his eye, his smirk moving from the book to the inventor back to the book. 

“Ah, shit" Tony thought, realizing his mistake.  

“Is it like your diary or something?” Peter taunted, a coy smile breaking out on his face. “Dear Diary, Peter Parker is the best thing to ever happen in my life, he is perfect in every way imaginable.” 

You’re not wrong kid. 

“That’s none of your business, Spider-Baby, give it to me.” Tony advanced towards the kid, but he was a teenager, an enhanced teenager at that. And evidently, he had his web-shooters on. 

As soon as Peter saw Mr.Stark get just close enough to maybe grab the book from him he was propelling himself up to stick on the ceiling. 

“Pete, what did I say about going onto the ceiling?” DadVoice Activated. “And I told you, I don’t like webs in the lab, they take forever to dissolve and they leave stains.” 

The teenager paid him no mind, straightening out so he was just stuck with his feet. “Mr.Stark you’re on the ceiling now too, you’re breaking your own rule.” 

The mechanic rolled his eyes. “Seriously, get down.” 

“Let’s see whats in here first.” 

Tony was resigned to his fate at this point, there was no stopping a determined Peter. His cheeks flushed prematurely, his heart felt like it was beating ten times faster than normal. The book was opened painstakingly slowly, Peter’s breath catching a bit as he examined the first page. 

“Oh,” the kid whispered, just barely audible, even with the total silence that had fallen in the lab. Peter flipped back upside down and hung from his fingertips, gently letting himself fall to the floor. “That’s me,” he continued, equally as quiet. 

Because the mystery workbook was no workbook, it wasn’t even a notebook. It was a sketchbook, and it was full of drawings of Peter. 

Tony didn’t try to take the book from him as he examined it, turning each page with a reverence and taking in every detail of every drawing. He watched as Peter sat in a chair, bent over the sketchbook, barely realizing that he was basically looking at Tony’s heart. The inventor never should have left the book out, he was usually so good of tucking it into his locked drawer. 

Peter inspected each drawing, tracing each line with his finger. 

They were pencil drawings of him, doing dozens of different things; working at his bench, smiling, sleeping, looking out a car window, eating, laughing, portrait after portrait showed Peter’s life through Mr.Stark’s eyes. The detail was so well thought after that each sketch looked like a picture. They must have taken hours to complete. 

“Do you… do you do these from memory?” Peter asked, entranced. 

“Some of them,” the mechanic replied with a whisper, “not all of them.” 

“They’re good.” This was a moment, one that both mentor and protege feared would break if they spoke any louder than a whisper. “I always thought you were working on a Mark or something…” 

“Yeah, well,” Tony breathed, struggling to find words, “Iron Man isn’t the most important thing in my life.” 

Peter got to the end of the book, closing it with all the care of a treasure. Gently the teenager stood, offering his treasure back to Tony. The inventor wasn’t able to say whatever it was he was going to say before the kid had scampered away, out the window and into the world. 

Now look what you’ve done, you freaked the kid out. 

And it was completely understandable that Peter was freaked, it was probably super fucking creepy for the teen that he had a book of drawings he’d never known about. It was stalkerish, and he had no right, Hell, Peter would be fully justified in cutting contact. 

Tony still didn’t know why he couldn’t draw anything else anymore. He’d drawn Peter for the first time when he’d been bored in the lab, and the kid had been sitting across from him, gnawing on his lip as he worked on his web-shooters. 

Later, Tony looked at the sketch and felt such a swell of love inside of him because that was his kid. But now… 

“FRIDAY, don’t let anyone into the lab, and turn up my work playlist,” Tony commanded with a heavy sigh. Peter probably wouldn’t be come around as much anymore, but he’d still promised the kid he wouldn’t drink if he got upset. 

So Tony fully intended to work until he forgot how much the lab didn’t feel right without Peter. 

Peter crawled through the window in one fluid motion an hour later, bag swung over his shoulder. He winced as the AC/DC grated on his sensitive hearing, looking around the lab for Mr.Stark. 

“Mr.Stark?” He called, taking a few tentative steps forward. Was Mr.Stark mad at him for looking at the book when he told him to stop? “Mr.Stark, I’m sorry I left, I wanted to show you something.” 

The music turned off. 

“FRIDAY what the Hell, I didn’t say-” Tony emerges from his nook, where he’d been bent over working on a suit. He loses all the wind in his sails when he sees Peter standing there, completely unassuming. “Oh, hi.” 

Peter furrows his brow, still grinning, cause Mr.Stark is being weird for some reason. “Hi, Mr.Stark, I just went home to pick something up. I wanna show you something” 

Tony’s too dumbfounded, he honestly couldn’t understand why Peter would still want to be around him. “Sure, kid.” 

Peter shrugs off his pack, his movements slowing as he removes a similar looking book from the pack, he almost looks timid. 

“I have one too,” the teenager offers with a grin, self-consciously holding out the book for Tony to take. 

The inventor wipes his hands of grease before accepting, opening the book as if it were a precious relic. Tears come unbidden to his eyes as he quickly realizes what Peter’s just shown him. 

“I uh- I don’t draw as much and stuff, so I never really finished that sketchbook. Aunt May glued all those other drawings in from when I was like, seven.” 

Peter had his own sketchbook to show, this one burst with colour. Crayon drawings stuck out on the edges, the inexperienced drawings of a child evolving into pencil crayon sketches of a pre-teen to present day portraits. And they were all of him, of Tony, Iron Man. Well, Iron Man in the beginning, and now Tony. 

“Mr.Stark…?” Peter looked up at him with unhidden worry, Tony realized he was crying. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you…” 

“No, no kid, you didn’t upset me.” Tony wished he could find the words to tell Peter how much his life has gotten so much better since he came into it. How much Tony loves him. “These are great, they’re so, so brilliant kid.” 

Peter’s cheeks were flushed, just like Tony he had been waiting for a rejection. He smiled at his mentor, nodding. “I-I was thinking… maybe, we can draw each other? In each other’s books though.” 

It takes Tony off guard, but he realized almost immediately that he had never been more willing to do anything in his life. Anything to make this kid happy. 

“I would love to Peter,” Tony says. “You are my world kid,” he thinks. 

taglist: 

@just-the-daydreamer @keep-a-bucket-full-of-stars @thetranslucentwallaby @friendly-neighborhood-ash @delphinium2 @ladyreyreigns 

[rj019]

Title : Genius, YouTuber, Artist, Musician and Spider-Man

Fandom : MCU

Pairing : Starker(tony stark x peter parker)

Rating : Mature (NSFW, Sexual Content) but it'll be in the later part of the story not in few chapters of starting.

Prompt : Social Media

Read on ao3 here. And Ch 0 here.

Chapter summary:

Avengers finding out things about Spider-Man.

Here's 1st chapter! Enjoy!!!

_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_

CHAPTER 1

Peter went home and just go to sleep after cleaning up and eating something. He doesn't want to worry about anything right now he's really tired. He knows that now probably all eyes are going to be on Spider-Man. He just needs to lay low for a while and people and media will forget about it soon. As for shield he doesn't want to think right now so he went to sleep.

But before he got too deep into sleep his eyes went wide open as he got an idea to take care of shield issue once and for all. He finally relexed and went to sleep happily.

 

____________________________________________

 

The day after ferry incident at Avengers 

 

The Avengers were in the common room area watching news while having breakfast for last day at the tower since tonight the things were gonna moved to the compound. And they were leaving tomorrow morning.

The news was about Spider-Man and the ferry incident that happened yesterday. Suddenly some news reporter said that they got exclusive footage of the ferry incident. Now everyone was curious about it and wanted to see what actually happened there.

Then the footage played. It was shot from the port. They sees as the some guy with metal wings was fighting with Spider-Man. He was trying to escape from his web. It wasn't so clear as it was in distance. Suddenly an energy blast happened and the ferry was split in half.

Everyone was shocked as to what was that blast. Now even Tony was more interested.

The ferry was sinking but it suddenly stopped. Spider-Man had connected both sides strong points with his web.

Bruce said, " How strong are his web to hold that much of weight together?"

Suddenly webs broke and ferry again started sinking. 

Everyone gasps.

But then again it stopped. Spider-Man was holding it together.

"Jesus Christ! How strong is this guy?", Tony said.

But it didn't look like Spider-Man could hold on for a long time but suddenly some bots were seen flying towards the ferry. Some bots were on the left side, some were on the right side of the ferry. They started pushing ferry togather. But some bots were still in the air. As the ferry got together, the bots in the air started mending it together. The clip ended.

Everyone was shocked as to what just happened. Tony asked Friday to get the clip and play it at the bots part. Tony started analysing it. His thoughts were confirmed that the bots were using arc reactor technology. Tony was in speechless for a while. 

"Who is this spider guy? How does he have my arc reactor technology and all this bots and stuff. Does he even have AI in his suit? It looks like it which will explain how he called the neno bots there." said Tony.

"May  be he had figured out your reactor. Crom the look of it he looks like a genius if he is one who made all those neno bots and AI." Bruce replied.

Tony tells him, "If he had figured it out then how does he not showed it the world. He could have sold it and got so much money. He would have made fortune."

"May be he does not want attention on him and wants to keep it to himself. As for why he didn't sell it, it can be that he knows how much danger it can be if it's in wrong hand. The guy can be genuinely good. After all if he had bad intentions, he would have shown it till now. He is out there for years. Even before NY battle. I saw some of his videos where he is helping people from aftermath of the battle on YouTube." said Pepper.

Nat and Clint were silent. 

Steve spoke up, " Not only that his strength stronger than me or Bucky combined. Why is this guy out there on street and not in Avengers team?"

"Shield is trying to get in contact with him from even before Avengers formed. He has been out there for almost 7 years. We don't know anything about him at all. Not who is or what his powers are or if they are biological or not. Everytime anyone goes after him he somehow knows someone is following as lose them. He was on Fury's list to get on the Avengers. He was on the top spots. But he never got to interact with him. Sheild is still trying to find out about him. The guy is good at cover his trials." Nat explained.

Everyone was blown away by that.

" I don't think so after this all Fury will get him away after this. He can be a big threat if he has this much power in his hand and ever gets on the other side." Clint adds.

" We need to find out who he is. If he is smart enough to figure out my arc reactor and make those techs, I need to have him work for my company and on our team." said Tony as he stood up.

" Wanna help Brucie? And all of you?"

Everyone nods. They all wants to find out who he was. They were bunch of curious heads. 

They tried all afternoon but got nothing and Tony was annoyed.

They decided to take break. Nat, Pepper and Wanda were watching some video on YouTube with others when he and Bruce entered the common room. Looks like the video just started. 

Pepper called them to watch it with them and played from the start.

There was a guy with mask who was playing a tune on guitar and started singing. The song was about Avengers. His voice was so pleasant to hear. There was so much details in lyrics. It continued for 2 minutes. After that video got cut. And the guy appeared again and said 'hey guys it's me again your cinnamon. Oh it's embarrassing to say this name now that I'm much older. I can't believe it's been so many years since we started this channel. I was like 6 when my aunt made my first video. Well it was my new song about the Avengers. Hope you guys liked it. Now let's go to today's video. I'm going to paint a portrait of all of the Avangers' whole team, everyone, new and old members in 15 minutes today while answering some of you guy's questions.' video cuts again.

Wanda paused the video. 'The song is so good. The lyrics are really detailed.' she said as others agreed. She played video again.

The guy appeared again but this time in a different place with canvas colours and all things to paint with. He starts working on canvas fluently and fast but neatly like he's been doing this for years like a professional artist. There was a woman with same mask as him sitting on chair beside him. He turned to her and said 'As you all know she is my Aunt and she will be reading the questions. You can start.' 

The woman smiles to camera and started cheerfully, 'Hey everyone once again! Let's get started with questions. So the 1st one from @user01 how much is your IQ? Your experiments are damn awesome and thing you make is just wow.' 

The boy smiles to the camera but go back to painting as he replies, 'I don't know I have never took an IQ test. I don't want to scare people away ' he gave a quick wink at the camera then goes back to painting. He is already done with base and outlines.

The lady starts to laugh and asks other question. ' this one is from @user02, are you still studying? ' the lady gave camera a weird look which said seriously?

The laugh can be heard from behind the camera. But the guy ssh them down. And replied 'Well you can say I am since I'm working to get my 4th PhD. Next question.'

' @user46 asks who is your favourite avanger? Look like this is a new to you videos. '

Everyone was paying attention now. Eager to know who was it.

The guy continues to paint as he smile and said, ' welcome to see our madness. My favourite avanger is Iron Man. He has been my favourite even before the Avengers were formed since he started. Tony stark has been my idol and crush from when I was 12. You can imagine how I must have felt when I found out he was Iron Man. If you wanna know there is a reaction video on my channel from 6 years ago.'

The lady asks next question ' @user8502 here wants to ask why can't I hack into you account to find out who you are? ' The lady and the camera guy and the guy himself starts laughing but his hands not stopping.He was half done and it was already looking great. 

When they calm down, the guy starts speaking ' you atually tried. Well it's good I made my account unhackable all those years ago cause I didn't want anyone to know who I'm and I still don't. Atleast for now. ' 

They continued with next question, '@user18qq how old are you?'

'I'm 19 and going to turn 20 in 5 or so months.'

'@userttl do you sell your art works?'

'No I'm sorry but I don't sell my work. I have a entire room filled with my all work since my childhood to now in my house.'  He smiles fondly.

'@user77kl what's your sexuality? Are you in relationship? '

This time the aunt continues to speak up, 'not that I know of. Are you cinnamon? '

The guy blush and shakes his head ' No I'm not in any relationship and I'm Bi. Come one aunt let get to next question I'm almost done' he blushes harder.

The aunt coos but ask the next question ' so @user63 wants to know what is your plan for future? '

' I haven't thought yet. I will probably applying for jobs in some famous companies. I'll stark industry too. Who knows if I get the job there and meet my crush. ' the guy smiles. He is almost finished he is just adding details everywhere. The portrait look awesome and he is still adding so much details. It's on professional level good and it not even done in even 15 minutes its only been 12 minute 47 seconds.

'ok looks like you're almost done so last question from @user3945 do you write your songs lyrics? They are so deep and detailed. I've heard all of your songs. You have some ones for individual songs too for Avengers. ' the aunt read.

'Thank you so much for listening to my songs. Yes, I myself write lyrics and compose all my songs.' he replied.

The guy adds some last details and finishing touches. ' So that was the last question for today and my painting is done.' he look behind camera ' how much time it took? '

The camera guy replied, 'it's been 13 minutes 53 seconds' 

' well looks like it took less then 15 minutes. Tada!!! ' he motions to portrait painting.

It was outstanding. It didn't look nothing like it was done in less then 15 min. The video cuts. Then it back again the boy and his aunt is standing togather smiling at camera.

The guy spoke, ' Thank you everyone who watched my video. Please like, share and comment. And if you are new and liked my video you can subscribe my channel. And as always guys if you wanna know how the portrait looks after drying, I'll be posting a pic of it at my Instagram. Check that out. Bye guys see you in next video. Till then take care.' 

Everyone stare at screen as the video finishes.

Rhodey speaks up, " It's a second genius we found in one day. Jesus 4th PhD at 19. Seriously? "

Wanda butts in " The video is 8 months old"

Scott joined in, "Is it only me who is all of a sudden feeling dumb? "

Pietro replied, " you were always dumb."

" If he gets in applies for job at SI we'll find out who he is, unlike some spider." Tony said.

" The guys is telented. Did you see his painting? It was awesome and so detailed and he made it in less than 15 minutes. I was on a professional level good may be better. I can't imagine if the guy did take his time to make something, it will definitely be a master piece. " Steve said.

" No one's gonna talk about the boy's crush on Stark?" Strange said.

Everyone looked at him startled.

"When did you come?"

" I'm here since the song part. You guys didn't noticed. " He replied smugly.

"Tony has been his idol and crush for eight years now. Woah! Even before you become Iron Man." said Clint.

" That mortal did look like there'll be a cute face beneath that mask, what do you think son of stark? " Thor asks.

" Yeah he was cute and had nice voice and all but I'm not gonna date any fanboy if you guys are implementing on that. " Tony sternly replied.

They were talking about the boy when FRIDAY spoke up. " Boss you are having a call from Happy."

"Connect the call Baby girl."

" Hey Happy"

" Boss the plane has took off. Everything is in order."

" Okk Hap. Thanks. "

The call disconnected.

" Looks like we're moving tomorrow as planned."

 

 

 

Not even half hour later Happy's call came again.

"Hey Hap. Everything fine?

" Boss! The plane has crashed at the Coney Island Beach."

Everyone's face turned to horror. They all stood up and went to suit up.

"What the hell Happy. I thought you said everything was in order."

" I'm sorry boss but everything was. The police is already at the scene. They said there was some guy webbed up there with a note from Spider-Man that he was trying to steal the stuff from plane. Some guy called 'flying valture guy'. I'm already on my way to the scene. "

" We'll be there soon too. " 

The line cuts off.

 

Avengers reached at the scene. It looked like disaster. Happy came to them.

"Boss everything is safe. Spider-Man had removed the carrier boxes from the fire before it could damage and the guy who wanted to steal it was webbed up to it. Sheild agents took him to the jail. He is the same guy from the ferry incident yesterday. He was selling some illegal weapons which were mixed with alien tech, they were after him for a long time."

Avengers let out the sighs. 

" It's good nothing's stolen or damaged. Get the stuff to the compound. This time we all will be going with it." Tony said as he motion to the others.

____________________________________________

 

Next day at the compound in the meeting room

 

 

Nick Fury and the Avengers were having the meeting.

" You all know about yesterday's incident was handled by Spider-Man. The plane which was crashed at the beach was not supposed to crash there. I want you guys to look at this video clip which our satellite captured." Fury said as he played the clip.

Spider Man and the Vulture was fight on the top of the plane. Valture broke on of the wings and plane started to crash towards the city and the buildings. 

Spider Man webbed the othe wing and changed the direction of the crash. The clip ended.

"You must have got enough idea how strong this guy is from this and the ferry incident. He is got so much power and advanced technology in his hand. If he is to ever turn on the other side. He can be a great threat. But he isn't showing any signs of that happening since it's been years since he is doing this superhero stuff and looking out for little guy. He had defeated many supervillain like green goblin, lizard, doc oct, electro, sandman etc. I think he will be a great asset to the team. I want you guys to find out who he is and convince him to join the team. Shield has been trying for years but he always got was without any traces. I'm giving you this mission. Hope guys can do it. "

Before anyone could speak up there was a cough heard which was non of there's. As the looks around the didn't saw anyone. They got into a fighting position. 

_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_

Cliffhanger!! Hope you guys liked it.

(人*´∀｀)｡*ﾟ+

(Peter has finished the 4th PhD mentioned in the video in this chapter. Cause the video Avengers are watching are eight months old. He even finished this fifth PhD in chemical engineering too but now he doesn't want to do anymore studying for now so he isn't working on any and is atually thinking about starting to find a job.

And Howard and Maria lives at Malibu mansion.)

[pomrania]

For the two-maybe-three people who care about my Leverage AU in the TMA ‘verse, here’s something about the powers everyone has.

Nate’s the only full-fledged Avatar of the crew, with the Web.

He can feel someone’s “strings”, of their strongest desires, and tug on those same “strings”. When he does so, he experiences it himself; so if someone is hungry and he tugs on their “I could really use a burger right about now” string, then he himself starts feeling hungry (and craving a burger) as well.

There’s also something that he thinks of as “paired surrender to the web”. This doesn’t have very many practical purposes for him, other than freaking someone out; but it has become part of his Gloat, to serve as feeding the Web further. He can’t take control of say someone’s arm; but he can “serve” both his arm and the target’s arm to the Web, temporarily. That means that the target’s arm moves independent of the target’s control, and Nate’s arm moves likewise; something else is control of it for the moment. Listen I know this sounds awkward, but I can’t think of a better way to put it right now.

He doesn’t rely on those powers. He’s damn good at manipulation just on a human level.

The “paired surrender to the web” tells his target, subtly, that the target was manipulated by more than just some con artists; and that feeds the Web. Because you can avoid being manipulated by other people, theoretically at least, but how do you avoid manipulation by a force you don’t understand? You can’t, thus the fear.

He can “paint” an object or location with spiderwebs, but not with any precise control. So like, he couldn’t do a portrait using spiderwebs as the medium, but he could totally go into a room and cover everything but one chair with a thin layer of spiderwebs, if he wanted the place to look abandoned with the recent addition of a chair.

There’s also some “passive” abilities he has.

For one, he doesn’t accidentally drop things any more, it just doesn’t happen. Things don’t accidentally fall out of his pockets either. They “stick” to him, slightly.

He’s also always aware of any spiders or spiderwebs in the vicinity. SOMETIMES he can track a specific one, if it’s placed on/in something, but it’s not reliable.

These aren’t necessarily the “limits” of his abilities, but it’s what he has at the moment. 

Eliot is pretty much a normal human, albeit a tough and badass human.

Everything of his, that isn’t just from acquiring knowledge like anyone else could do, is entirely about noticing Powers at work, and protecting himself somewhat from them.

Like, if Jude Perry grabbed his shoulder then he’d still prolly get a very nasty burn. However, he can tell someone is dangerous from looking at them (human), is good at dodging someone’s touch (human), knows that some people can burn with just a touch (human), can sense that someone is touched by Burn-It-All-Down-And-Exult-In-Ashes (not a human ability), and generally wears things that would give him a bit of extra protection (human).

He’s slightly resistant to spooky things that would control his body, and moderately resistant to spooky things that would mess with his mind. Not on the level of an avatar, but he actually has a fighting chance; and he does his best to AVOID situations where he’d have “a fighting chance”, because that still means “a chance he might lose” and he never wants that, not with THIS stuff.

He knows some stuff of “playing one Power against another”, but he almost never uses that; it’s his second-last resort.

(He doesn’t talk about his last resort.)