#i spent like five minutes looking for one other other day convinced that it must be in there some

[estrangedandwayward]

Caved and started reading fire and blood and I'm so genuinely baffled that it doesn't have a map? What? Like it has a family tree which makes sense but there's no map. There's always maps in the main series books, most fantasy books in general, you'd think It'd be really useful in something like this

[venus-haze]

I’ll Keep a Light in My Window (Starlight x Reader)

Summary: After her Believe Expo speech, it feels like everyone’s eyes are on Annie. Among the messages flooding her Instagram DMs is an encouraging one from you, an old friend from her Capes for Christ days. The two of you reconnect, and Annie finds more than friendship with you this time around.

Note: Woman reader, but no other descriptors are used. This is my first Starlight fic! I hope I did her justice since this is mostly from her perspective. Inspired by the song from The Get Down because it’s so Annie. Do not interact if you’re under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 2k

Warnings: This is pretty much fluff with some angst, related to canon events and mentions of homophobia in the context of American Christianity. Obviously playing with the plot of S1 for this fic. Do not interact if you’re under 18.

Despite the crowd’s chaos in response to her speech, Annie felt her smile falter when she got backstage and was met with varying degrees of rage and disgust. Her own mother looked like she’d spent the past five minutes sucking on sour candy. 

‘Hello!’ Annie wanted to shout. ‘Did you see what I did out there? Aren’t you gonna congratulate me?’

Hughie had disappeared after meeting Ezekiel. She tried to pretend that him not even saying goodbye didn’t bother her. If she could get up on stage and bare her soul to thousands of people in person and millions at home, at the very least she could admit to herself that she was hurt. 

The drive back to the tower was tense. Everyone seemed to avoid making eye contact with her. As if she’d done something wrong. The longer she sat with what she said and did, the more she was convinced she made the right choice. Between what The Deep had done to her and how she was treated after saving a girl from suffering the same fate, they were just mad she called them on her complacency. 

As soon as she made it back to her suite, she pulled out her phone to find her Instagram had blown up even more than when she first joined The Seven. Her phone nearly crashed from the amount of notifications she had. Thousands of comments and messages, either rants or support. She scrolled through her clogged DMs, her stomach churning at the glimpses of abuse that piled on from irate strangers. One DM caught her attention, addressing her by her real name rather than Starlight. 

Hesitantly, she tapped the message to see the full contents.

‘Holy shit Annie!! You’re so badass🤩 Our Capes for Christ counselors must be shitting themselves right now lmao way to go!’

There were a lot of people from her Capes for Christ days, a constant rotation of hopeful young superheroes ready to use their powers for the glory of the Lord. Looking back, it was just a self-righteous vanity project for their parents and whatever religious sycophants hovered around. She tapped your photo, bringing her to your profile. Your brief bio gave your first name and that you were living in the city, but your supe name was nowhere to be found. 

She tapped your most recent photo. In a brightly lit hospital hallway, you posed in black scrubs with a handful of balloons. You’d posted it just a week earlier, the caption celebrating working as a nurse for three years. Most of the comments were congratulating you, but one comment finally jogged her memory.

‘might be thinking of someone else but were you red heart?’ someone commented.

You replied with, ‘Yeah I was a million years ago! Lamest name ever😂😂’

Right. Red Heart. Healing powers. Red Cross spokesgirl. White top with a red skirt and sparkly red shoes that reminded her of the Wizard of Oz. You were on the Capes for Christ circuit with her. At one point she considered you a close friend, close enough to invite you to the roller skating party she begged her mom for when she was ten, only allowed to invite three girls because that’s all they could afford. Memories of skating to Britney Spears songs and balancing a paper plate with room temperature pizza on her lap came back to her. You’d bought her one of the special edition birthday Barbies. Her mom never let her take it out of the box, claiming it’d be worth a lot of money some day. It was probably still collecting dust in their attic.

She could remember you going off to college after high school, dropping your superhero identity not long after. With healing powers, it made sense you’d go into nursing. Her mom had expressed a judgemental disbelief at your decision. Annie wished she at least had a choice like you. 

She scrolled through more of your photos. You seemed to be doing well since you got out. Got out. Like it was a cult. Maybe in a way, it was. 

Annie hit the follow button on your profile and messaged you back.

‘Thanks Y/N! I made a lot of people mad, but I’m glad I did it 😊’ she hesitated a moment before typing, ‘We should catch up sometime! You're still in New York right? I’m pretty new to the city.’

Before she could get too in her own head about whether asking you to hang out was weird when the two of you hadn’t spoken in years, you responded with the names of a few coffee shops on the Upper East Side and that you were off work the following day. 

Her mood had tanked before meeting up with you, getting chewed out by Stilwell and feeling some guilt for Ashley losing her job. She had to remind herself it wasn’t her fault. If they hadn’t enabled a sex pest for years, she wouldn’t have had to make her speech. 

Following the directions on her phone and getting a bit turned around in the subway, she walked up to the coffee shop a few minutes after eleven, when the two of you had agreed to meet. She rushed inside when she noticed you were already sitting at a table with your drink. 

Annie sat down across from you with her coffee, playing with the cup sleeve. “I’m so glad you had time to hang out. I still don’t really know anyone here, and it’s nice to see a familiar face.”

“Yeah! I'm not really in touch with a lot of people from back then, but I can totally introduce you to my friends. It’s an adjustment, but the city has a lot to offer if you know where to look.”

“Way more to do than Des Moines at least.”

“I can’t believe I nearly forgot,” you said, lowering your voice to an excited whisper, “congrats on getting into The Seven! Out of everyone in our weird ass group growing up, I always had a feeling it was gonna be you.”

“Thanks.” She gave you a strained smile. “It’s not exactly what I expected, but I’m making the best of it.”

“Sometimes that’s the most you can do,” you said.

“How about you? What part of the hospital do you work in?”

“With my powers, they have me all over the place, but it’s good. I can see I’m really making a difference.”

“That’s what I want. Sometimes I feel like they just parade me around to look nice, but they won’t let me do anything,” she said. “Like that stupid new costume. It’s like they make me wear it just to humiliate me for helping that girl because I didn’t do it their way. I feel like a joke.”

“Not after the Believe Expo. Anyone would be an idiot not to take you seriously now,” you said. “I mean, you said what so many people were thinking but were too afraid to say. It’s bullshit they’re treating you like this.”

“No, it’s—I’ll deal. We’re supposed to be catching up, and I’m like dumping all my problems on you. How have you been? Are you seeing anyone?” she asked. 

She wasn’t sure how she’d answer the question if you’d been the one to ask. Hughie could be so hot and cold, like he was hiding something. 

You were silent for a few moments before answering. “Not really. My girlfriend and I broke up a few weeks ago.”

“That’s great! I mean—not great that you broke up, I’m so sorry,” Annie said frantically. “Just you being—dating women. I’m happy for you.”

“That means a lot, Annie. I kind of parted ways with Vought because of it. I mean, they have this progressive face, but then they let Ezekiel spout his bullshit and put their name on that too?” you ranted. “That’s just me. It’s pretty much impossible to have a career as a supe without Vought, so I don’t judge.”

“Do you think I’m crazy for trying to change things from the inside?”

“It can’t hurt to try. Then at least you know you did what you could.”

She smiled. At least she could vent to someone who understood and actually gave a damn. Hughie was nice, but he didn’t quite get it. There was always some kind of disconnect. Maeve wasn’t nearly the mentor she was hoping for. She got it a little better now. Maeve had been in The Seven for years, Annie could only imagine how much it’d wear her down. 

On her way back from getting coffee, Annie stopped in front of a bookstore with a huge Vought display in the window. Her comics were front and center, a cardboard cut-out of her next to one of Homelander. The Deep’s comics were barely visible with clearance stickers slapped on the covers. Serves him right. She couldn’t believe he’d been her favorite at one point.

Sleepovers with the other Capes for Christ girls almost always led to a “who’s your favorite member of The Seven” discussion. The answers were always a lot of Homelander, some Lamplighter or Marathon Man, but you always answered Queen Maeve. Back then, she thought it was because you admired her strength, her trailblazing as the first woman in The Seven. Maybe it wasn’t that simple.

“That’s her! I swear to god it is!” Annie overheard someone whisper-yell.

“Who?”

“Starlight, over there!”

Annie kept her head down, speed-walking up the street. She ducked into the nearest subway, getting on the first train that stopped even though it was going further uptown. Pulling her hoodie up to obscure her face, she sighed. She had everything she ever dreamed of, but it seemed more and more like it was turning into a nightmare.

The following weeks were busy between her obligations with The Seven and helping Hughie with whatever cryptic stuff he was up to. She still found time to see you. Hanging out with you was the only thing that made her feel normal anymore. You were so confident in who you were, she felt comfortable finding out who she was outside of Starlight. With you, she could just be Annie. 

All of a sudden her association with Hughie had Homelander nearly turning on her. Maeve took up for her in nothing less than a Hail Mary moment. Then, to make matters worse, her entire world came crashing down when she agreed to meet up with Hughie despite his fugitive status. She wasn’t born with her powers, no supe was. Instead her mom signed her life away to Vought and allowed them to basically experiment on her. The cherry on top of the melting ice cream sundae that’d become her life was definitely getting shot immediately after finding out the news.

When she came to in the hospital, she saw you in your scrubs, slouched in the chair next to her bed. She reached out, taking your hand in hers. 

“Y/N?” she croaked out.

“Annie!” you exclaimed, jumping up from the chair. “Holy shit, how are you feeling? I did what I could when you got here. You heal fast, so you should be—“

“It’s all a lie! Our whole lives, Y/N! They fucking lied about everything!” she raged, her vision blurred by tears. “At least you got out. I feel so stupid.”

“Hey, don’t call my best friend stupid.”

She laughed weakly, sniffling a bit. “Thanks Y/N, for everything. All this time I was thinking I was doing what I wanted, but it was what everyone else wanted for me. It always has been.”

“Then start living for you, whatever that looks like. It’s never too late,” you said.

Her hand still intertwined with yours, she pulled you closer to her, your faces inches apart. Taking in your features, she admired how pretty you were. She’d always thought so, but didn’t know how to place it before. Since you’d reconnected, however, it was different. Butterflies in her stomach when you'd smile at her. Texts from you brightening her day. Hanging out with you being the highlight of her week. She didn’t have to try when it came to you. 

“I think I’ll start now,” she whispered.

In a moment of nerve-wracking bravery, Annie pressed her lips to yours. Relief swept over her when you kissed her back, smiling against her lips. Whatever happened next, she knew she could get through it with you by her side.

[reikaryu]

“ enchanted ”

— a yoon jeonghan x fem!reader one-shot ! for years, you’ve been trying to find the perfect one to be your husband. on one enchanted night, you finally meet him. but he isn’t who he seems to be. based off enchanted by taylor swift.

GENRE. fluff, royal!au

WARNING(S). mentions of food, very little angst somewhere at the back, intentional contradiction

WORD COUNT. 2.2k words

A/N. this song makes me so emotional because it played at my most memorable camp ever. that night is so special to me, which makes this song (and two others that I will write fics of too !!) special as well. I hope everyone likes this ! I put a lot of effort into it <3

There I was again tonight Forcing laughter, faking smiles Same old tired, lonely place

You were slipping in between the little gaps people left in the crowd, careful not to spill the wine in your glass. You greeted almost everyone who was in your way, keeping a kind smile plastered on your face. You hated these kinds of gatherings (or balls, as what your parents always preferred to use), but due to your heritage, you had no choice in the matter of attending.

As the only child of your parents, you had to take on the role of their heir. (They were their own parents’ only children and heirs too, which made you wonder whether they had no siblings by choice or genetics — or whether having only one child was a curse to the members of the Heralle family and those who married in.) And as their heir, attending these balls was absolutely necessary.

It wasn’t that you hated being an enchantress yourself. You actually loved it, but the duties that came with the title were dreadful even to mention. Finding suitors, going on ‘dates’ with them — you name it. They were boring and useless to you, because these suitors never piqued your interest once. You couldn’t even call any one of them handsome or good-looking. You were turning eighteen in a few days and spent the past six years searching for the one. But he never came.

So today was your nth chance to find him. You made sure no one familiar was invited, because anyone familiar couldn’t ever make your heart race.

But today’s ball was no ordinary ball. It was a ball every enchantress would experience only once in her life; a ball that was held especially for her to find her lifelong partner, even if she was convinced that she had. The Ball would be held precisely eight days before her eighteenth birthday, so they would be able to spend some time with their newfound significant other before their big day.

Walls of insincerity, shifting eyes and vacancy

Everyone you had met since your Enchantress’ Ball had started was not the one. You just knew it. Every man that approached you with what they thought were the most charming smiles on their faces was given a polite smile and curtsy in return, which perfectly hid your growing annoyance and frustration. Where was he? Did it usually take this long to find him?

You never stayed in one place for more than five minutes, your eyes frequently wandering in search of him. You might have already passed out from all the wine you drank if it wasn’t for your apparently high alcohol tolerance. The various guests must have found it vexatious that you kept switching tables, though it wasn’t your fault you were so alluring — one of an enchantress’ many gifts.

After switching tables for the seventeenth time, you made your way to your parents’ table, the guests excusing themselves, assuming you wanted some privacy with your parents. You sat down beside your mother, letting out the deepest sigh you’ve ever had that day. Your father smiled at your actions, leaning in to say, “By the way, sweetheart, your mother didn’t have the easiest time finding me.”

She chuckled, reaching out a hand to rest on yours. “Your father’s right, sweetie. I met fifty-eight suitors before he came about. I counted because they were all very memorable in a bad way,” your mother assured you, giving you a smile with all the motherly love she had. You felt better after your parents’ reassurance, excusing yourself to find more potential love interests.

Vanished when I saw your face All I can say is, it was enchanting to meet you

You walked around the ballroom, conversing with new people cordially, even making friends with the sisters of a few suitors, empathising with each other how arduous it was finding the one. That lifted your spirits by a ton.

You were nine suitors in after the conversation with your parents when you made your way to the drinks section, planning to refill your glass of wine, which had become your staple of the night. On your way to nowhere in particular after retrieving your favourite type of wine, you locked eyes with a suitor you hadn’t met before.

Your surroundings seemed to stop as you gazed into his irises longer (which they did, considering you’re a literal enchantress). Your eyes fell on his short blonde hair, noticing how it grazed his eyelashes and settled beautifully. His face looked so angelic, much like he was an angel himself.

Maybe he was the one.

Your eyes whispered, “Have we met?” ‘Cross the room your silhouette Starts to make its way to me

The world started moving again and no one raised any questions at the sudden pause in time. The blonde suitor cocked his head a little to the side, as if asking, Do I look familiar? Of course, he couldn’t have known that familiar faces don’t show up at gatherings held for you.

You forced your eyes to look away, turning slightly when someone called out your name near the dance floor. You made your way over, gracefully taking a sip of your wine. You remembered your mother had told you once, “If he is it, he’ll come to you if your attention isn’t on him.” Heeding her advice, you started small talk with one of the sisters you had met earlier.

Just like you’d thought, the handsome blonde suitor approached you from behind, apologising to those in the way. You felt his breath before he spoke, “Enchantress Heralle?” His voice matched his appearance all too well, and your assumption was all too right. You were going to excuse yourself but the sister you were talking to did it first, sending you a wink before taking her leave. You hoped she was right.

The playful conversation starts Counter all your quick remarks Like passing notes in secrecy

You smiled up at the blonde suitor. “Hello. It’s a great night, isn’t it?” you started, happy to see that he grinned at your reply. “Yes, it really is,” he breathed, “but I find it especially inappropriate to continue this conversation without introducing myself. I’m Yoon Jeonghan; don’t know if you’ve heard about me before.”

He was so graceful with his words, you’d almost thought that he was the male equivalent of you. You chuckled lightly, downing some of your wine, then swirling it in your glass out of habit. “Your family is quite well known in my household. The Yoons have been mentioned quite a few times during dinners,” you stated elegantly, keeping your smile. “I must say, however, that it is a pity I haven’t got to meet a member of the family before you.”

Jeonghan — god, even his name is so pretty — seemed flustered at your statement, but he managed to cover it up with his coolness. “The Enchantress Heralle has just praised my family. I find it quite an honour,” he teased lightly, “or do I call you Madame Enchantress Heralle?” He really did know how to make your heart flutter.

(The noun ‘Madame’ is only used when the referred woman is married.)

“Shall I remind you, Mr. Yoon, that the Ball you are currently at is my Enchantress’ Ball?” you answered in the same tone he used, “I must add that marriage is a topic for a more grown-up me with experience in love.”

“But of course, my Enchantress.” You did not fail to notice the change in approach. He sounded more dignified. “Forgive me for this, but I doubt you have yet to find a suitable partner.” He was now carrying a smirk on his beautiful features, and you find yourself lost in his eyes again. Those dazzling eyes of hazel.

“And I should be correct to say that I am definitely the one for you, should I be an enchanter looking for love as well.”

And it was enchanting to meet you All I can say is, I was enchanted to meet you This night is sparkling, don’t you let it go I’m wonderstruck, blushing all the way home I’ll spend forever wondering if you knew I was enchanted to meet you

That night, before you fell asleep, the happenings of your Enchantress’ Ball replayed in your head like a movie.

Your favourite classical piece was playing as you and Jeonghan navigated the dance floor. Everyone (including you both) was doing the dance that came as a set with the currently playing piece. You couldn’t be happier dancing with, at last, the man that made your heart flutter and butterflies erupt in your stomach.

Jeonghan seemed to be the best at whatever he did. He could dance without once stepping on your feet while keeping a conversation going on with you, as well as respond to passing dancers’ congratulations for him (which included your parents). The way he spoke with them made you wonder how this was your first time meeting. But after all, love at first sight is what every enchantress is cursed to.

When your feet got tired from all the dancing in heels, you pulled him aside to an empty table. You two shared fun things about yourselves and got lost in the moment as midnight neared, which meant that you would be Blessed soon.

Fortunately, the Blessing went smoothly — it was better than anyone could think. A total of forty-three lords, ladies and those with titles offered their Blessings for you and Jeonghan. It was a record that broke your great-grandmother’s, who had forty nobles Bless her.

Soon enough, your parents had said their words and the guests were taking their leave. Jeonghan bowed and left a kiss on the back of your hand before he turned and exited your home.

“I’ll see you sooner than you think, my Enchantress.”

If only he knew the state he left you in. How did he do that to you? This effect he had on you seemed so foreign, but what were you to expect when you didn’t engage in any romance for almost eighteen years?

The lingering question kept me up 2 AM, who do you love? I wonder ‘til I’m wide awake And now I’m pacing back and forth Wishing you were at my door I’d open up and you would say, “Hey”

You couldn’t sleep thinking about the handsome blonde suitor. You flipped over multiple times on your bed just to keep pondering about your love at first sight.

Did he actually feel the same things you did to him? Was he an actual enchanter?

But of course, he is. An enchantress will always find their future partner or soulmate at her Enchantress’ Ball.

With that thought finally drifting towards the back of your mind, you got out of bed as you simply couldn’t fall asleep. You remembered your mother telling you that love does many things to people. You recalled that it blinds them, which was the most prominent trait of love, but it also keeps them pondering about many things.

Which was currently happening to you. There you were, pacing around your bedroom, your mind filled with nothing but the handsome blonde suitor— Wait, why are you still calling him that? He told you his name, didn’t he?

Oh, Jeonghan. What a beautiful, angelic name that rolled off your tongue so smoothly. The name of the man that you so desperately wanted to appear right outside your door.

Hell. You couldn’t get your mind off of him.

This is me praying that This was the very first page Not where the story line ends My thoughts will echo your name, until I see you again These are the words I held back, as I was leaving too soon

He attempted to will himself not to think about how wonderful the night was. As much as he tried to gaslight himself, his mind was persistent.

Swearing at himself, under his breath, Yoon Jeonghan started to regret his decision.

Damn him for being banished all those years ago when he was seven. Damn him for creating an entirely new identity for himself. Damn him for ruining a happy family. Damn him for falling in love.

He knew he shouldn’t be doing this. He knew before the Ball started. Unfortunately, fate had other plans.

This fate — he thinks he knows what its plans are. He thinks that his fate is to be locked up in that dark tower of dungeons forever.

How he wished he could stay with you just a little longer. As selfish as it was, he wanted this to be the start of something. He can’t deny his feelings even if he wanted to. Magic was strong like that.

He hoped for a day more to spend time with his first love. Maybe even a chance to say those three words.

Please don’t be in love with someone else Please don’t have somebody waiting on you

It has never crossed his mind that you might not have experienced ‘love at first sight’. He realised that soulmates may not always have positive feelings towards each other.

He had always dreaded the day he would experience one-sided love. He imagined it to be the most painful type of love to ever exist.

It was so hard trying to find a Ball he could attend. A family that reminded him of his own, whose members probably already forgot about him.

Jeonghan wanted so badly to start his own family and raise the future generation unlike his parents. He wanted to be a good — if not, the best — father to his children, especially alongside the woman he loved. He would never, not in a million years, abandon his children as his parents did to him. He would fight heart and soul to free a child of his from the grasp of those dark dungeon walls.

He desperately wanted to prove to the gods above, and everyone else, that he was not a bad person. That he was not a criminal and he would never be.

He hoped he was your one and only chance. Because you were his one and only chance. He wished upon the millions of stars in the sky that he was reaching that point in life where he could officially turn over a new leaf. That milestone.

After you, Yoon Jeonghan would never find it in himself to love again.

──────

Two hopelessly in love individuals — one well-versed and one with limited knowledge in the history of Enchantment — fell asleep thinking about each other that night. Little did they know that fate had plans and it wasn’t going to change them anymore.

reblogs are appreciated ! ♡

taglist — @i520sn @piakae @enhacolor

[ gen. masterlist | svt masterlist ]

[mooncalvin]

I thought you would never (George Russell)

Summary: just some friends to lovers fluff.

George had always been passionate about Racing. From the moment he sat behind the Wheel of a go-kart as a child, he knew that it was what he was meant to do. And as he escalated through Formula One, he had never felt better.

Signing a contract with Mercedes was something he could only have dreamed of, but as the 2022 season started, he couldn’t feel but feel disappointed. The car was slower than he had hoped, and he was struggling to keep up with the other drivers. 

It was in Bahrain where he met her. She was the daughter of one of the new engineers in Mercedes, and as he entered the garage after the race  he saw her talking to Toto and her father about how nervous she was of meeting Lewis Hamilton, not even acknowledging him. The only thing he could think was how cute her enthusiasm was, laughing about how he had been euphoric too when he had met his favourite drivers as a kid.

He didn’t really want to speak to Toto after, knowing that he had only achieved P4 because of the issues with the Red Bull car, but he went either way, his curiosity about the girl winning over his common sense. 

“Hi”, he said and cringed instantly, feeling like a teenager again.

“Hello George, you already know Mr. Gomes and this is her daughter” Toto introduced them. George noticed how she had stopped talking when he arrived looking away bashfully. He shaked her father’s hand and smiled at her not really knowing what to say next.

“You did great out there” he complimented him with another smile.

“Thank you, but it could’ve surely been better” he laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

“It sure could have, we need to work through it” Mr. Gomes said and Toto nodded.

After all the fuss of the race, the only thing he wanted was going back to the hotel. After he arrived he decided to go to the rooftop of the hotel, not feeling tired enough to go to bed yet. There she was, sitting in one of the hammocks reading a book. She looked up and smiled almost instantly when she saw him.

“Hi” she greeted him.

“Hey, I didn’t know you were here, I can go if you want” he excused himself.

“No, don’t go, you can stay here if you want, I should be the one going, I don’t want to be a bother”

“No, it’s okay” he took a seat in the hammock to her right. After five minutes, he broke the silence.

“Have you met him?” he asked.

“Met who?”

“Lewis. I heard you talking to your father and Toto about it when I entered the garage” he didn’t actually know why he had said that.

“Oh yes, it was great. I'm a big fan of his, and now that my father works for you I knew I had to convince him to bring me here. I’m sure he thought I am crazy or something like that.” she laughed.

“I was freaking out when I met him too”, he laughed with her.

“It must be amazing to be you” he blurted.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Being here, doing what you have always dreamt and working with your idols, I would love it” 

“Mind if I ask you what you do?” he said, genuinely curious.

“I am a journalist, I write for the newspaper back home” she answered, and he saw how her face shifted, sad smile on her lips. He looked ate her, not really knowing how to handle the situation. She noticed him and changed her mood almost instantly “Don’t worry, I really love my job, it’s just that I would really like to try new things you know?”

“Yeah, I feel like that sometimes,” he stated.

“I don’t believe you!” she joked.

“Yes, it wasn’t true,” he laughed with her.

That was the first of many nights together. Every race that she was in, they always ended like that, talking and joking into the early hours of the morning. At a certain point, this ceased to be enough, and they spent even the days when they were not in the same place, Catia at home and George at wherever the race was that week or at home in London, talking through facetime or texting as if they had been friends forever. 

It wasn’t a secret that they had feelings for each other, but it seemed that they were the only oblivious ones. Her parents couldn’t help but laugh when they saw her smiling at the phone and she told them that it was only George and George was more distracted than ever, that got him a couple scoldings from Toto.

It was in Brazil, after a hard season, that he won his first Grand Prix, and she was there to celebrate it with him. Just after getting off the podium she went running to him and as they embraced each other their hearts started beating faster. They looked at each other’s eyes and everything stopped around them, but it didn’t last long, as George was taken away from her by his team. 

He didn’t see her until later that night at the team party to celebrate his victory. He went out to have some air and he found her at the club’s terrace, she seemed absorbed in her thoughts. 

“Hey” he greeted her, feeling the tension between them.

“Hi” she smiled weakly. After a minute of silence she spoke again “congratulations, I just  realised I haven’t told you before”

“Thank you for being there, I was so happy to see you”

Another silence.

“George, do you like me?” it took him by surprise how bold she was.

“Yes, I like you, otherwise we won’t be friends”

“I’m serious George” she rolled her eyes.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he looked her in the eyes

“I don’t know, you tell me”

“Of course I like you, almost since I met you” he said sincerely. That surprised her.

“Well I like you too”

“Nice”

“Now are you going to kiss me or something?”

“I thought you would never ask”

[farmerbebop]

Back by unpopular demand: one last holiday update. It doesn't have much action but it's a holiday so we don't really need that.

1. I suddenly got some skin rashes and showed them to mom. She immediately took out something she called "all-purpose spray" and I only got a chance to say "What even is an all-purpose spray?" before she sprayed it on my skin. She said I must have forgotten to apply sun cream in the afternoon when I went out for an hour or so, which is true. She said I can't go out after lunch until late afternoon again because it's too hot. The next morning at 9 a.m. she just put tons of sun scream on me and sent me out and said when I'm back and can't find her on the beach that means she is back at the hotel, and I must be back for lunch.

You can see why no healthy child can get sick and no sick child wouldn't get well under my mom's care and when I did get sick as a kid she never failed to remind me of what I did wrong. I would lie sobbing on my bed until my dad came back from work and assured me I did nothing wrong and if I would just drink some orange juice everything would be alright again. (My dad can convince a general of an enemy army to drink his orange juice if he has to but that's not the point here.)

2. The Hippocratic Museum is small and had only a few visitors when I was there so 'the old man with a book' personally gave everyone a tour. He was the only one there before another woman came and sat at the counter. She gave me a free postcard for the five that I bought.

For someone who used to eavesdrop on other people's guide in museums like me, this is great. One time I was eavesdropping when I realized no one would believe I belong to this group of people the way I look.

At the Roman Odeon I saw a man wearing only his shorts standing at the top posing for a photo and felt quite relieved because now I am not the only one who looks like a three-year-old next to Patrick McGoohan.

3. We wanted to go on the "kindergarten train" as I call it, the one that takes a bunch of tourists around town, but the driver told me they have to wait until they have at least six passengers. After a few days we finally caught the right moment and we got driven around town together with another family. After a while, a man from a restaurant nearby ran out and greeted the driver and he stopped in the middle of the road to talk to the man for like five minutes. My mom, too used to living in Germany after nearly 30 years, has never seen anything like this and was like "Can you believe this?"

Mom can't walk far so our evenings were spent within 10 minutes walk from the hotel. One time we went to a pub on the street overlooking the harbour and it has less non-alcoholic choices than the street vendor has corn products (boiled corn, grilled corn and popcorn). I inherited the love for glutinous carbs from my grandma and so I prefer grilled corn everyday to choosing between a drink called virgin something and another called pornstar something. My best friend is still struggling to find a boyfriend because most of them run away when they find out she has a PhD. I WONDER WHY.

4. Mom asked me how to send a heart emoji as reaction instead of a thumbs-up on facebook post because her niece posted a photo of her daughter's birthday. None of us is sure what the birthday girl's real name is. We only know her by her pet name. She is four years old and the other day she just told her grandpa "Grandma does housework the whole day and you do nothing. What are you sitting there for? Sitting there will only make you fat."

Almost every kid I have seen is better with words than I was at their age. Back when my little sister was a small kid, whenever I washed the dishes, she would say "Do you want to hear a story?" then bring a chair and sit down next to me and make up a story on the spot. When she went to the toilet for a longer time I had to come too, so that she could tell me her stories.

I sometimes have to read letters from electricity company, insurance company, etc. for my mom. I have headaches every time reading those letters. Mom said even Germans sleep on the street because they can't handle the paperwork for unemployment benefits.

5. Mom's boss called to make sure she is coming back on time. Mom said business is not that good so he gets bored sitting at the shop. He tried to reduce the electricity costs by not allowing mom to turn on her music player. Mom took it home and after one time taking care of the shop he said the music player can return.

He also runs a private taxi service, used to make money by buying and reselling flower shops, had a restaurant once, saved quite a lot of money. He hired his wife with a high salary and transferred the money to her to legalize it so that they could use that money to buy a house. Then his wife ran away.

This job doesn't pay much but mom can't work the whole day anymore so her choices are limited. She also doesn't want to have her own shop. She is too old for that. She said there's this woman who did the cleaning in the hospital for years, bought a shop with her savings, but she doesn't know how to do the work so she has to hire an employee. It's not possible to make any profits with the rent and the salary to pay so now she still has to clean the hospital.

6. Mom asked if my dad still wants me to get married. I told her he has enough to worry about beside that. She laughed and said he is probably just tired of talking to me about it.

If there's anything my dad is not tired of doing, it is talking. He can be so drunk he can't even walk, but he can still talk in metaphors and if he wants to say he doesn't like what you have done he will say it in a way that makes you vomit blood, if you can understand it within three days.

I remember him talking a great deal about getting married but I can't remember the details. The gist of it is, he believes there are some good guys out there.

Mom said getting married is like gambling. But if there's one choice that has to be made right when things go wrong it is the choice between your husband and your kids. And you always have to choose your kids.

She also said if you can't find a partner, no one is gonna take care of you when you are old. We really never ask where the hell our government is.

7. There's a place in the world where I would crawl back to if I'm fatally wounded and I'm sure the island of Kos also means the same thing to someone out there. Once you have seen it, you'll understand why it's the birthplace of Hippocrates.

[specialinterestshows]

It’s judgment time for the Judgment Day’s tag-team champions in this final chapter of my Damian Priest x Finn Balor fic, Tryst Of Fate.

Warnings for this section: Guilt, hickeys, sex mention

-

Tryst Of Fate (Part 3/3): Judgment

Liberation, redemption, awakening /

Doubt, punishment, destruction

It was having to keep her team focused in the face of anything - that had to be the most difficult part of being a main player in the most dominant faction in the WWE.

Keeping a group of ambitious, hotheaded wrestlers from turning on each other was a thankless job, but someone had to do it - and Rhea did it well.

She sat on the bed of her hotel room with her Latino heat one evening, deep in thought - his head rested on her lap as she ran her fingers through the longer part of his soft, dark mullet. Despite the fact that Dominik was completely relaxed, Rhea just couldn’t seem to let herself do the same.

“Dom-Dom?” she asked, still gently stroking his hair.

“Hmm?” he replied sleepily, keeping his eyes closed.

“Does The Judgment Day seem… off to you?”

“… Damian’s been weird,” Dom mumbled after a moment’s thought, “Dunno why.”

“Finn too,” Rhea muttered, “Maybe there’s still tension between them because of JD…” She let out a heavy sigh before reaching her conclusion.

“I’ll just have to talk to them.”

“Where are they?” Rhea paced back and forth in the locker room the next day. The show started in less than an hour, but Finn and Damian were nowhere to be found. Looking at her phone for what must have been the tenth time in the last five minutes, she groaned at the sight of her last few unanswered calls.

Only a moment later, the locker room door opened and in “snuck” Finn - at least, that was what he seemed to think he was doing, until he locked eyes with Rhea.

“Fucking finally,” she greeted the guilty-looking man, walking over to where he now stood.

Taking in his nervous stance and the sweat that shone on his brow and bare chest, Rhea scoffed, “Fuck’s sake, I don’t see why you insist on running yourself ragged before AND after shows, but-“

And that’s when she saw it. A rather large, red hickey on his shoulder, with a bit of purple blooming up. The pieces fell into place all at once: the strange behavior, the long hours spent “training” - and the size of that bruise.

Rhea moved past a confused Finn and strode down the hall, not slowing for a second until she had the door to the gym in her sights.

Almost the moment she turned the corner, the door swung open, revealing Damian - also glistening with sweat and tightening his belt. The sight of Rhea made him freeze.

“Looks like you had fun,” she said, crossing her arms as she walked steadily closer.

“What do you-“ he tried to put on his most convincing confused face, but Rhea’s glare grew in intensity and he gave up with a sigh.

“How long have you two been sneaking around?” she asked, trying to keep an even tone.

“Mira, we weren’t trying to-“ Damian began to apologize before being cut off.

“How. Long.”

“A few weeks? …Maybe a month?” Damian replied quietly.

Rhea’s distinct lack of reaction for a few seconds clearly unnerved him; even when she finally smirked, he never let his guard down.

Bringing one arm around swiftly, Rhea watched Damian flinch before slowing the momentum on her punch to his shoulder. The blow landed solidly, but without much force.

Surprised, Damian relaxed a bit and opened his eyes to see the Eradicator beaming at him.

“You’ve been fucking before and after every show for a month?” Rhea let out the delighted laugh she had been holding in, “It’ll take a while before you beat mine and Dom’s record, but well done! Can’t say the Judgment Day doesn’t have stamina, huh?”

Damian allowed himself a chuckle as Rhea playfully elbowed him.

“You’re not mad?” he checked.

“Why would I be?” she asked.

“I… dunno,” Damian admitted, looking embarrassed.

“Come on, hot shot,” Rhea waved him over as she turned back in the direction of the locker room, “Let’s hope I brought enough makeup to cover that hickey you left on your boyfriend.”

[end part three of three]

-

Tag List (thank you!)

@domripley , @falloutboy-lover , @aut0luminescence

[poledancingdinos]

Shattered

Pairing: Charles Brandon X OFC (Emily)

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings: Angst, forbidden love, unplanned pregnancy, abortion

A/N: Part three is here. If you haven't read my Charles Brandon Modern AU yet, find them here : Part 1 | Part 2

Masterlist

Charles shook the water off his head before flipping the hood of his jacket back. It was a rainy mid-September day, the kind that would normally lead to him staying indoors and spending a quiet evening alone in his flat but Henry had sounded preoccupied over the phone and he’d forced himself to accept the man’s request for a drink at the pub.

Henry sat at a booth in the quiet, near-empty bar, a half finished pint in his hand and two other empty glasses pushed to the side of the table.

“How long have you been here?” Charles asked as he slipped into the seat across from Henry.

“Honestly, I have no idea what time it is. I left my parent’s house at half five.”

Charles looked at the clock on his phone and let out a low whistle.

“Three hours then.”

Henry grunted an acknowledgment and downed the remaining beer in his mug.

“I’ll get us another round. I’m going to need it if I’m going to say any of this out loud.”

Charles watched with a concerned frown as Henry stood from the booth, nearly falling as he stumbled over the leg of the table but by some miracle managing to stay upright. He returned a few minutes later, setting down two more pints and shockingly not spilling either of them.

Henry glared at the gold liquid like it had personally wronged him before lifting it to his lips and taking a gulp.

“So what is it, mate?” Charles prompted. “You’re worrying me.”

“She’s pregnant.”

Though he didn’t know for sure who Henry was referring to, those words, at their age, always sent them straight into a panic.

“That girl you’ve been seeing?” Charles asked as clarification.

“No. My sister,” he hissed. “Emily is pregnant.”

Charles sat back in the booth. She couldn’t be, could she? They’d used protection. The condom hadn’t broken. Had she been with someone else since that night? Was she already pregnant before they were together?

Luckily for him, Henry misinterpreted his petrified expression as simple shock.

“Yeah,” Henry scoffed, “I couldn’t believe it either.”

“Did she—” Charles cleared his throat. “Did she say who the father is?”

“She refused to tell me the fucker’s name. She wanted me to help her take care of it without getting our parents involved.”

Charles' breathing sped up, turning into ragged breaths. He took a few large sips of his beer, hoping the alcohol would take effect quickly and calm his mounting anxiety. At least he hadn’t been summoned to get his face rearranged. Not yet anyway.

“Will you?” Did Charles want that? Not that he could stop her from getting a termination if that was her choice.

“Fuck no.” Henry looked almost offended at the idea. “Not until I get an answer. She’s not telling me who it is, she doesn’t want our parents to know and she’s rushing to get rid of it? I’m worried something happened to her.”

Something did happen to her. Charles happened to her. What had he been thinking? He didn’t remember being that pissed but he must have been if he managed to convince himself sleeping with Emily was a good idea. Sure, she’d been of age but that didn’t change that he was five years older than her.

“Then why are you here with me rather than back there with her?”

It made Charles angry to think that Henry had just left her alone at a time like this but he was more so angry at himself. He’d thought a lot about Emily since the night they had spent together. More than once he’d been tempted to give her a call and see if she might be interested in going on a proper date. If this was really his fault — which he was choosing to believe until he knew for sure it wasn’t — he should be the one by her side.

Henry dropped his head in his hands. “I lost my temper and yelled at her then came her.”

“Right,” Charles stood, putting his coat back on.

“Where are you going?”

Charles grabbed Henry’s elbow, pulling him to his feet. “I’m taking your drunk arse home to apologize to your sister and tell her you’re going to do absolutely anything she asks.”

Hopefully he’d be able to steal a moment alone with her while he had an excuse to be in their house.

Henry yanked his arm from Charles’ hold and fell back onto his seat. “I’m not doing anything until she tells me what happened.”

Struggling to keep his cool and seem inconspicuous, Charles put both his hands flat on the table and leaned forward.

“Do you think she will tell you anything if you let your pride rule your actions? She’s eighteen, she’s most likely terrified enough as it is and all you can think to do is sit here and sulk because she didn’t share how it happened?”

Henry’s head fell into his hands.

“She’s my sister, Charles,” he whispered in a broken voice.

Charles’ breath hitched, feeling the same rush of emotions bubbling up his throat. The difference was, he couldn’t be there to support her, not without attracting the wrath of his best friend and more than likely her parents as well.

“Exactly… She is your sister and she needs you.”

Henry sniffed, rubbing his hands up and down his head before nodding in acceptance. This time, when Charles helped him to his feet, Henry didn’t fight. After wrestling him into a cab, both men headed back to Henry’s family home.

The outside lights were already on and as soon as they made it up the front steps, it was clear that the atmosphere inside was tense. The screams coming from inside the home could be heard before the door was even pushed open.

“How could you be so careless? You’ve thrown your life away for some boy!”

Henry tripped on his shoes as he kicked them off, causing the front door to slam against the mirrored wall of the entryway. The loud bang drew the attention of the three other occupants of the room. Emily sat in the stairs with her arms wrapped around herself. Her eyes were red and swollen, making it obvious that she had been crying for a long period of time.

Her mother sat on the couch, her back to the stairs. Though her tears weren’t as obvious as her daughter’s, there was evidence that she too had been crying. Her husband stood only a few feet in front of their daughter. His chest heaved from his enraged ranting and his hand was clenched around a thin white stick. It didn’t take long for Charles to understand what was going on.

“Henry, we didn’t expect to see you home tonight.” He looked behind Henry to the young man he’d seen in his house more often than not when the boys had been teenagers. “Charles.”

Elizabeth stood abruptly from the couch, looking between the two men. Charles placed an arm around Henry’s waist and led him further into the main room.

“He’s a bit pissed,” Charles said by way of explanation.

Moving towards her son, Elizabeth placed a kiss on Henry’s cheek and took Charles’ place to lead him to the couch.

“Charles, darling, thank you for taking Henry home but our family needs to be alone right now.” 

The man in question sprawled out on the couch, ignoring everything happening around him. Charles’ eyes briefly flickered to Emily before returning to her mother. He dipped his head, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning to the door.

It wasn't often that Charles smoked but after ordering a ride on his phone, he walked to the corner and pulled out the joint he’d slipped in his pocket before meeting Henry. By some miracle, there was a break in rain, allowing him to remain dry as he waited for the driver to arrive.

An hour later, Charles reached his flat. He didn’t bother switching the lights on as he shrugged off his jacket and hung it on the hook in the little entryway. He moved to the living room and fell backwards on the couch, throwing an arm over his eyes.

The weed had helped settle his nerves somewhat but his mind wasn’t nearly as quiet as he wished it to be. Charles’ phone buzzed in his pocket, the faint light from the screen coming to life feeling all too bright in the pitch black flat. When it buzzed again, he pulled it out and tossed it across the room where it made a muted thump against the thick rug.

He ignored it as best he could but eventually the blinking LED light was too annoying to put up with any longer. He rolled off the couch, cursing when he hit his knee on the table. He was prepared to simply switch the device off completely but the text preview on the home screen caught his attention.

He dropped down onto the ground, leaning against the wall. He absentmindedly moved his free hand over the rug, feeling the smooth fibers between his fingers. He’d originally purchased it to cut the cold coming from the floor of his semi-basement flat. He hadn’t noticed until then how good it felt against his skin.

The number on the screen was unknown but that didn’t matter. Charles knew who it was.

Unknown: Does Henry know it was you?

Unknown: Is that why he went to see you?

That answered one of Charles’ countless questions although it seemed that where one interrogation was resolved, ten more arose. He unlocked his phone, retracing the password pattern three times before he finally got it right.

Brandon: I never told anyone about us.

It wasn’t even a question of breaking the generally accepted rules of male friendships by sleeping with his mate’s sister. Sure if Henry found out it would most likely earn him a fist to the jaw but he had no interest in sharing what happened with anyone else. He normally had no qualms about spilling the gory details of his conquests. In fact, he’d built up quite the reputation for it during their Uni years but Emily was different. 

Brandon: Are you sure that you’re really…

He didn’t know why he couldn't bring himself to type out the word. Maybe because he didn’t want any proof of what was being said in case her parents found her phone. Her father had looked about ready to tear someone’s head off earlier.

The next time the screen lit up, it was with a picture of three pregnancy tests from three different brands. So much for his attempt at discretion. One had a little plus sign, one had two parallel pink lines and the last read “Pregnant 3+”. That made four positive tests counting the one her parents found. Unless maybe she had taken this picture before that happened? Charles did some quick mental math which only confirmed what he had already figured out.

Brandon: Were you ever going to tell me about the baby?

Unknown: No.

Brandon: Why not?

While waiting for Emily to answer, Charles looked at the picture again. Just barely in the frame of the photograph was an assortment of colorful pamphlets. The shot was too out of focus for the titles to be legible but on the top one was a picture of what was clearly a heavily pregnant woman. She had already consulted a doctor then.

Unknown: Because it wouldn’t change anything. The newly received message read.

Unknown: Whether you agree with it or not, I’m not keeping it. It was foolish of me to think Henry might actually help for once rather than freak out and make this about himself. 

Brandon: He’s worried about you.

That’s what it had been, hadn’t it? Henry had been worried? He was a prideful man but walking out on his sister was because he’d been shocked, not because he was angry. Right?

Unknown: He had no reason to be worried until our parents found out. All I needed was someone to drive me over and sign me out.

Brandon: If that’s really what you want then I can do it.

Almost ten minutes passed as Charles stared at the screen but he received no response. He ignored the sting of the obvious rejection, instead changing the subject to something he hoped would elicit a response.

Brandon: How did you get my number?

He was not ready for the interaction to end just yet. He’d spent the last month trying to forget how much he’d enjoyed falling asleep with Emily in his arms that night. Trying to forget the feeling of her body against his. The feeling of her finally being his even if only for a moment.

Unknown: I copied it from Henry’s phone when it fell out of his pocket.

Brandon: Your brother won’t let this go. He thinks you’re refusing to tell him who the father is because you were forced.

Charles waited for the words to come. For her to answer "I was". Part of him wished he could blame his stupid decisions on alcohol but he knew that he was not drunk enough for that. He was clear headed enough to hesitate before going after her. To know there was a risk that they might get caught. To have a nagging feeling in his stomach from the fear that she wouldn't reciprocate his advances — or his feelings.

The truth was that he was fully responsible for his decisions that night. And the truth was that she probably didn't feel the same way he did. She most likely didn't even realize there was more to it for him than just a quick shag.

Brandon: What can I do to help?

Anything. He would do anything which only made him angrier at himself because he knew that he was selfishly searching for a reason to be near her.

Unknown: You can stay away.

His thumb hit the call button before he could think better of it. He pulled the phone up to his ear and rested his head in his hand with his elbow leaning on his knee.

The line connected and a whispered hiss replaced the ringing. “Charles.”

“Don’t hang up," he begged. "Please.”

“You can’t call me like this.”

“Why are you whispering?” he asked, ignoring her reprimand.

“My father took my bedroom door off its hinges.”

“He what!” Charles shouted, getting to his feet and pacing the room like a caged animal. Was that what it would have felt like if she had decided to go ahead with the pregnancy? Em whispering updates over the phone in the middle of the night, telling him to stay away so her parents didn’t find out. Would she have said that she didn’t know who the father was so that his name didn’t appear on the birth certificate?

“I guess he figures that no door means no opportunity for pregnancy,” she scoffed. “Either that or he’s hoping I’ll break and tell him who it was to get it back.”

There was a moment of silence as both let the implications of her statement hang in the air. Her father would probably try to have him arrested. He was a very powerful man and was just as prideful as his son. He would see this as a personal affront. Because that was what was important. His pride. Not the life and feelings of his eighteen year-old daughter who found herself unexpectedly pregnant.

Charles could picture Emily in her bed, hiding under the covers to muffle the sound of her voice. There was no good way to have a conversation such as that one but exchanging hushed words over the phone was definitely one of the worst on the list.

“Let me take you out. On a proper date. No one needs to know about what happened before, just… give me a chance to start over and do this right. The way I should have from the beginning.”

“No, Charles," there was a pause while Emily sniffled followed by the rustling of the sheets as she shifted. "You can’t use your charm to make things better. Not with this.”

“I’m not. This isn’t an act, it never was. Please.”

“No. I wish I could but no. I can't see you again. Goodbye Charles."

The line cut off before he could voice a protest. He slowly lowered the phone, staring at the outgoing call menu on the screen. I can’t see you again. Not “we can’t see each other for a while”. Not “we need to keep a low profile”. “I can’t see you again”. That was definitive. She made up her mind.

Just like that, all hopes of Emily and him ever ending up together had been shattered. Unfortunately, he couldn’t say the same about his feelings. Those were very much alive, only seeming to grow stronger with every passing day. 

Part 4 here: Second Chance

[mariacallous]

In 2021, Bradley Anderton, then an assistant district attorney in North Carolina, represented a woman suing a man for misdemeanor sexual battery and assault on a female. She alleged that the defendant had groped her, then beat her up after she’d rejected his unwanted advances. Photographs of the woman showed cuts, bruises, and a black eye.

In court, the defense prodded the woman about her work, knowing she’d been an OnlyFans creator and that the defendant was among her subscribers. Anderton objected, arguing that her job was irrelevant to the case. The judge, unfamiliar with OnlyFans, took a five-minute recess to look it up, then returned to the courtroom and allowed the defense to display images from the woman’s account—he believed the published content explained “the dynamic” between the two parties. Anderton’s client lost the case.

While a judge’s conflation of online sex work and consent would be misguided, also egregious is that he made a significant legal decision after googling OnlyFans on the spot. Assumptions generated about the platform within a matter of minutes were permitted to influence the outcome. 

“Her sexual behavior online, in the eyes of this old, conservative judge meant that she was ‘asking for it,’” says Anderton. “If the OnlyFans account hadn’t been discovered, I believe the case absolutely would have gone in a different direction. He looked it up and made a very fast snap judgment about what it was.” 

In this case and others involving sexual assault and social media, the complainant’s fate rests on the judge’s awareness of how online communications platforms work. Though evidence in sexual assault cases frequently includes social media communications, many judges, often due to a generational gap, lack competence in their intricacies. 

In 2016, for instance, the accused in Canada’s first Twitter harassment case was acquitted. The judge ruled that while he believed the complainants genuinely felt harassed, they had no reasonable grounds to be fearful, despite the accused tweeting a reference to one complainant’s location when she was at a bar. According to journalist Alexandra Kimball, who covered the case, “The first couple of days [of the trial] were largely spent explaining the conventions of Twitter to the judge,” including explanations of tweeting, retweeting, blocking, hashtags, and handles. Had the judge been more knowledgeable about Twitter’s potential for harm, it’s possible he may have understood it as a vector for potential danger and not merely an arena of petty squabbles. (Kimball wrote that after reading the accused’s posts, “ … any reasonable woman would find the sheer volume of his tweets frightening.”)

If a judge does not understand a platform, says California-based lawyer Sam Dordulian, the case is likely to be thrown out or ruled unfavorably. Dordulian noted one case in which a defendant accused of sexual assault argued that the incident must have been consensual because the complainant—a business associate—sent him a LinkedIn request before they met. The judge was unfamiliar with the professional networking site, and had to be convinced that its primary utility was not arranging hookups. 

“The court is so behind when it comes to holding offenders accountable for internet-related crime,” says Melissa Sinclair, social action program director of HAVEN, an advocacy organization for survivors of intimate partner violence. “Abusers are catching on to that, and it emboldens them. It makes them more dangerous, it makes them more willing to take risks, and it increases the level of danger for survivors.”

HAVEN’s services include accompanying sexual assault complainants to court. Sinclair recalls one case in which an assailant continuously sent threatening Snapchat messages to his victim, promising harm if she reported him to police. The judge struggled with understanding the platform’s auto delete functionality, wondering why there wasn’t any proof of messages allegedly sent. “That was very confusing to the judge,” says Sinclair. “The defense was arguing that the proof was no longer there. We went around and around and around.”

That the court system is ill-equipped to process sexual assault cases involving social media isn’t just lagging; it’s scary. In another case, Sinclair brought Facebook posts to the attention of a judge on behalf of a client who had a personal protection order against the man who wrote them. The order stated that the man was banned from posting about Sinclair’s client, but the judge didn’t see how Facebook posts—even in violation of a personal protection order—were within his purview. 

Social media and digital communications are fundamental to how we live. They preserve records of relationships and transactions, charting the histories of dynamics that can eventually turn criminal. For judges to allow their understanding to stay inadequate creates perilous conditions for survivors. 

“Judges and judicial ethics practitioners are aware that judges need to be competent in technology, and that includes social media,” says Marla Greenstein, executive director of the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct and a member of the American Bar Association Judicial Division. 

The Judicial Conference of the United States, which is the federal policymaking body overseeing judges in the US, does not currently ensure that judges understand social media. Individual states have judicial education representatives who are responsible for continuing education, but the level of education varies, and tends to focus more on how judges conduct themselves on social media, not how the public uses it. Judges, while not forbidden from having personal social media accounts, are expected to follow a long list of rules governing who they communicate with and what they can say. A social media tip sheet published by the American Bar Association’s Judicial Division includes reminders such as not posting the dates or locations of judicial meetings, not hinting toward the likely outcome of a case, and to be careful about what they endorse with likes. 

According to the Judicial Conduct Reporter, published by the National Center for State Courts, social media misconduct was the basis for 14 judicial discipline cases in 2021. One was a judge asking for Red Cross donations in the wake of Hurricane Florence. Others involved commenting on cases or providing casual legal advice. Occasionally, disciplines involve judges using social media for sexual purposes. In 2022, a judge in New York was removed from office for “posting, disseminating, and/or approvingly commenting on sexually charged content or images on Facebook that were demeaning toward women,” according to the NCSC. The same year, in Kansas, a judge shared and requested sexually explicit photos with a complainant and complainant’s wife through a dating site. It’s easy to see why some judges view personal social media use as a disruption to impartiality, or fear that logging on will lead to reprimand. For others, a generational gap is to blame for misunderstanding social media as merely superfluous or distracting. 

Such avoidance, while rooted in what judges may feel is an ethical precaution, makes little sense in an era so dependent on social media. If judges aren’t able to properly understand and contextualize the evidence before them, what good is the court as an arbiter of justice?  

In recent years, advocacy groups have increasingly lobbied for “trauma-informed” practices in the legal system. “Adequately understanding trauma and its effects requires a coherent and integrative framework that takes into account the nature of traumatic experiences and helps legal professionals, community members, and service providers better understand, accept, and relate to people who have been severely psychologically harmed,” write Melanie Randall and Lori Haskell in the Dalhousie Law Journal. Understanding social media, then, could be considered part of a trauma-informed courtroom.

Attorney and domestic relations mediator Ayanna D. Neal says it is the responsibility of the attorney to educate the judge. “Attorneys frequently assume that judges are aware of everything … You can never assume in a trial that the fact finder knows what you’re talking about,” she says. According to Dordulian, many attorneys do spend significant courtroom time explaining how social media works. But as he put it, “it’s very difficult to explain things that are new and novel to a judge.”

In many cases, attorneys bring in experts to demystify a platform’s basic tenets, though the definition of “expert” is loose, and their knowledge, too, is subjective. In the Canadian Twitter harassment trial in which the accused was acquitted, the appointed social media expert was a detective constable. Even with the officer’s expertise, the judge noted in his verdict that there were “gaps in the evidence about Twitter,” and that his understanding was limited to that evidence.

“I did the thing that everyone tells you to do when you’ve tried everything and it hasn’t worked, and I went to our friendly neighborhood police officers,” the complainant recently told BuzzFeed. “I don’t understand the let-the-courts-decide people. Look around you. It’s not working.”

Right now, qualities requiring proof for a successful judgeship application include education, training, legal experience, ethics, and skills. Some say prospective judges should be required to demonstrate social media knowledge in the application package, including understanding of basic functions like direct messages or the message-delete function on platforms like Instagram. 

It also seems reasonable to require judges to attend annual social media training to keep up with new platforms and updates around how they work. If a judge thinks Instagram is still just for photos, how are they to understand its potential for harassment?

There are nuances to consider when developing education for judges. Greenstein, from the American Bar Association Judicial Division, points out that judges should not independently research case elements such as social media, as that could result in bias. It’s best, she says, for judges to have general knowledge and to be guided by experts brought in by attorneys. “In any judicial education training there is an ethical boundary,” she says. “How much can you train on addiction and how it affects the brain without biasing a judge?”

Still, too many sexual assault cases have been fumbled and misconjectured due to judges’ lack of social media awareness. Ensuring judges understand how platforms work is a necessity of fair examination. Their confusion is a loophole abetting injustice—and abusers know it. Without mandated training to even out the discrepancies in judge awareness of social media, sexual assault cases will continue to be botched.

“Judges are not even running their own courtrooms, in some respects. Defendants are,” says Sinclair. “They know how to manipulate and get around the system, and it undermines the judge’s authority. At what point is education required to catch them up to this?”  

[thetravellingvagrant]

Day 3: In Which I Am Awed By Tentacles

To no one's surprise greater than my own, I was up early and raring to go, sticking - in what must be some kind of record - to my own rules re: leaving the house before 10:30 for more than one day in a row. So early, I was up, in fact, that I even had time for a fairly leisurely breakfast, made from the supplies I had purchased yesterday and mercifully not out of hot dogs and some old wraps; the former of which had all been eaten and the latter developing a nasty, crinkly texture. 

I had, instead, purchased some cream cheese in anticipation of a couple of lovely slabs of morning toast. Upon returning to the hostel that night, I realized that the kitchen did not come equipped with a toaster, but that was fine, a lovely…open face cream cheese sandwich would suffice, I thought. I cracked everything open, salivating uncontrollably as I did and…nope. That was not cream cheese. I don't know what sort of cheese it actually was - my best Google suggests it may have been queso fresco - but it was crumbly and aggressively bland and did not spread well at all. Why the fuck can't I get any nice food, here? It must exist. 

I choked down the first of two sandwiches I had made opting to quietly discard the second in the bin before begrudgingly making two more sandwiches for my lunch - this time with some salami which would, I hoped,though was entirely wrong, would mask the taste of the cheese and heading out into Lisbon once more.

My plans for the day were to take a little train just outside of the city to a town called Algés which housed the Vasco Da Gama aquarium. An aquarium for which every entry in TripAdvisor read “actually much better than the big, proper aquarium of Lisbon, actually” in what was either a real push to emphasize how good it was or, more likely, a half-inflated effort to convince themselves that the time taken to visit wouldn't have been better spent in a far superior fish-zoo. I hoped it was the former - pretty sure it was the latter.

Regardless, I had read on their website that they had an in-tact, embalmed giant squid on display - an incredibly rare creature with which I am mildly obsessed and one which I have never even heard of there being an in-tact specimen of, in a museum, let alone seen for myself - so to be honest, I didn't care if the aquarium was on fire or, worse, in Cumbernauld; I was going.

After a thirty five minute walk up and down and up about three hundred and fifty different hills, I found myself at the appropriate train station and effortlessly - to an almost suspicious degree - had purchased a ticket, passed the barriers and found myself pootling along the tracks to my destination, within minutes. Lisbon's infrastructure is very intuitive and really makes a converted effort to stop any self-conscious travellers having to embarrass themselves or speak to anyone. It is thoroughly appreciated. I hate both of those things.

On the other end of the trip, I walked for around ten minutes a long the edge of a ring-road, thereby legitimizing this vagrancy, and found myself in front of the big, intimidating, closed doors of the aquarium. Remembering my resolution, I steeled myself and headed towards them, like the very brave little soldier I am, ready, in the event they didn't open, to just turn away like “I was only looking at the nice signage anyway, actually” to any bemused onlookers, of which, there were none.

The doors did not stay shut, however, and instead whooshed open in a flurry of glorious victory. I'm just going to walk into every closed set of automatic doors I see from now on. So drunk on the power of entering a public building I was that I didn't even mind that the reception desk was manned by three big blokey men, all having a conversation about tits or something. I waded into their in depth discussion about areolas and loudly proclaimed “I want to see some ruddy fish!”. Cowed by my presence, poise and power, the weakest of the three men was left with no choice but to take my money and issue me with a ticket and safe passage to the exhibits within. God it's good being alpha.

Once inside and once my heavy breathing had abated (a tactic I often employ to intimidate weaker men), I started to have a poke around. The Vasco Da Gama aquarium is actually only half aquarium and half museum; a feature which I did not mind at all. I like getting to look at living animals as well as their badly stuffed counterparts and being able to do both in the same building represented a wild thrill for me, on par with killing a man or doing a really big Frisbee throw.

There were interesting elements to the museum, as well as a couple of choice examples of bad taxidermy

What the fuck are you supposed to be?

Though, on the whole, I found the experience a bit lacking. The exhibits and their descriptions were all a bit dull and dry and around 80% of read along the lines of “I tell you what, this Portuguese king really loved his boat!” Which, while delightful, isn't especially interesting on the third, fourth or subsequent reads.

The aquarium, sadly, also felt a bit sparse with very little variety in their fairly small collection. I sometimes take quick notes on my phone while I'm walking around for ease of blogging later. My single note for the aquarium read ‘...it's just some fish”. Which I know is the point of an aquarium, but I bet you know what I mean.

It didn't take me too long to look around and while I was quite enjoying the thrill of being the only person in an entire aquarium, and there were, admittedly, some pretty cool prawns to look at

Look at them lil legs go!

it just wasn't really doing it for me. All told, I didn't spend more than two hours in the Vasco Da Gama, even including the time spent to do a proper good colouring in with shading and everything on the interactive touch screen panel designed entirely for the use of bored or belligerent children

...Yes, a member of staff /did/ catch me doing this.

And so, after a genuinely really exciting and far longer than I'd care to admit gawp at the giant squid, which was admittedly really fucking cool and probably the most fascinating and great thing I've ever seen in any museum including the animatronic velociraptors in London’s natural history museum

Pictured: The most incredible thing you've ever seen

I was away.

I sat in the courtyard of the museum watching their collection of koi fish (which, squid excluded, were the most interesting thing about the place and the only ones which I could have seen for free) while I ate one of the two sandwiches I had prepared for the day's lunch, discreetly discarding the other in a nearby bin. The salami did nothing to dull the taste, or lack thereof, of the cheese. I'd really like to eat something nice, please.

I decided to undertake the forty five or so minute walk to the amusingly named St. Jeronimo’s cathedral which I had erroneously assumed was up a right big hill, though in reality was in perhaps the flattest portion of the city imaginable, winding past the Belém tower as I went.

The tower was really neat and really very photogenic 

Pictured: Not the most incredible thing you've ever seen.

Though was absolutely lousy with tourists, selfie sticks and, probably, pickpockets, so after taking my pictures - with the correct phone orientation; a castle still counts as a landscape - I quickly moved along, with my hand planted firmly over my wallet as I went.

After not too long at all, I found myself outside of Jeronimo's, which my feet were delighted and my eyes dismayed to learn wasn't up a massive big hill. The cathedral was also neat and photogenic, though short of paying the substantial entry fee to go inside, the idea of which dismayed both my feet and my brain, offered little more to me than a brief photo opportunity.

Pictured: Eh...

By this point my feet were aching and I was all tired and thirsty. I had been out for close to six hours with only a single, awful sandwich for sustenance and so I opted to hop on the train back the Lisbon proper, with only another…thirty five minute walk separating me from a nice bed. Great.

With more than 45,000 steps on my pedometer over the previous two days, I made as brief a job of the walk back as my broken trotters would allow, dropping into a nearby lidl on the way to buy what I thought was Herby cream cheese but actually ended up being Herby laughing cow, instead - what the fuck is it with this country and food? - before I was finally home. A nap and a cry later, I hobbled through to the communal kitchen and had a weirdly spirited conversation about the weather with the receptionist who kept calling me “Mister Lawrence” two days prior which ended incredibly abruptly as I microwaved, what I must admit was quite a pleasant dinner: some traditional Portuguese dish made of all pork and beans and that. I forget it's name, but it was basically quite nice.

Basically quite nice dinner consumed and my reserves of energy running dangerously close to less than zero, I decided to turn in for the night, in preparation for a fairly early bus ride to Faro in the morning, having seen a nice giant squid today and I want everyone to know that.

[sophiefilo16]

Quick Write #2

Title: The Honorable Family

Dario Ricci, son of mob boss

Lila Winston, daughter of police chief

Context: They kidnapped her to bribe the chief into looking the other way on a crime/letting one of their own go.

 -

I gently tug my wrists. Yep, still tied. Do I honestly expect the zip tie to magically go away? No. Am I still going to keep checking every five minutes? Yes.

The guard on my right straightens at the sound of the garage door rattling open. This must be who they’re waiting for. With the sun at his back, the man steps in. I greet him with a sneer.

He saunters over to me in all black like he thinks he’s someone special. In a way, he is. But not any way I care about.

Sporting an air of whiskey and cigarettes, he comes within a foot of me and crouches to meet my glare. If my hands were free, I’d punch him right in his square jaw. Which admittedly, isn’t quite as punchable as I always imagined. He’s actually kind of cu—

What the hell am I thinking?!

“Don’t worry. We ain’t gonna hurt you none. Just need to make ya pops a little scared is all.”

He speaks with that classic mix of a New York-Italian accent. I’m half-convinced it’s fake.

I harden my glare as I respond. “Sure, as if I’d believe what a Ricci has to say.”

The man simply smirks with a sparkle in his eye. How infuriating! Does he think this is a game?

But the way he’s so relaxed in his suit as he looks at me calmly… Maybe he really means it? Actually, now that I’m really looking at him, he’s pretty young. Probably barely older than me. He’s clean-cut with a dangerous charm to him, but knowing he’s bad news doesn’t stop me from being lured in.

No! Focus, Lila! You’re the daughter of Deputy Chief Brian Winston. You can’t get wrapped up in shiny hair and soft lips.

I spit at him. Or try to. It doesn’t get very far since these jerks haven’t given me in water since they kidnapped me. But it’s the thought that counts.

“You think I’ll cooperate?” I jeer. “Like hell! I’ll never play nice for the people who killed my mom!”

That wipes the smirk off his face. He tilts his head a bit. Imagine that. A kidnapping, murdering gangster trying to play innocent. It only riles me up more.

“Don’t think I don’t know!” I continue. “You strapped a bomb to her car thinking it’d be my dad. You murdered an innocent woman just to avoid getting caught! I’ll never cooperate with you! I’ve spent every day since then determined to make you pay for what you did to her! To us!”

As I glare at him with enraged, teary eyes, he stares back at me with a cool gaze. Are these really the eyes of a cold-hearted killer?

 My boys weren’t kidding when they said she’s a handful. This girl really is something else. She’s got guts, though, talking to me like that when she knows my father runs this town. Look at her. Makeup half-ruined and clothes a mess but still glaring at me like she could actually take me with her hands behind her back.

It’s cute as all hell. If I didn’t have business to take care of, I’d see what she’s really all about. Wouldn’t mind a pretty little voice like that filling my bedroom.

I stand up and pull out a smoke. She somehow looks even more disgusted with me. It’s a good reminder of the beef between our bloods and keeps me from getting too distracted by that face.

“We ain’t the ones who snuffed ya ma,” I comment as I light the cig between my teeth. I take a deep drag and hold the smoke in my lungs for a moment before continuing.

“The Riccis don’t mess with family that don’t mess with us, and if we gonna get dirty, we don’t use no pussy tricks like no bombs.” I take another pull to hide my disgust at the thought. The Riccis pride ourselves on being the last honorable mafia family in the state. But Little Miss Cop Jr. wouldn’t understand that.

“Nah, if we really had beef, we would’ve settled it up close and personal. In fact, only reason we didn’t make a move on your old pop sooner…is ‘cause of you. We weren’t tryna leave some girl to the streets. You should be lucky the Riccis look out for stuff like that ‘cause these other families wouldn’t have given a damn no matter how old you are.”

As I tap the ash off my cig, I level her a steady gaze. She can think whatever she wants, but she’s not going to slander my family’s name like that without me having something to say about it.

We stare at each other for a while until her face softens. With wide eyes, she asks, “You…didn’t kill my mom?”

“You deaf or something?” I scoff.

“Then…who did?” For the first time, she’s looking at me without hate in her eyes. Honestly, I hate it. It was easier to treat this as just a job when she wasn’t looking so desperate.

“…Probably the Bruscas. Or the D’Amicos. They do coward shit like that. But back in those days, it would’ve been Raffas running things. Who knows?” Taking another long drag, I stare over her shoulder to avoid those big green eyes.

“Can…can you help me? Figure out who did it?” I choke on the smoke. Is this chick crazy?

“And why should I help you?”

She scoots forward with that pleading voice, and I can’t help looking at her. “Please… I don’t have anyone else I can ask.”

Damn. I always was a sucker for a cute face. Running around with these goody-goody girls is nothing but trouble. Cousin Rob can speak to that. Still, the poor girl’s looking for who messed with her family. There’s respect in that.

[wil-is-done]

When You’re A Mystery Kid - Chapter 38: Report

Summary: Raz delivers a report on the current state of things.

Word Count: 2.806

-

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a repost.

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters featured here.

Another day at the Mother Lobe, another round of paperwork to sort through. 

All that Raz could do was suffer through it and try to get as many as he could done before someone inevitably came by his desk to drop off yet another stack of goddamned paperwork.  If he’d known that forming an elite super team would involve a literal mountain of paperwork, he would’ve had second thoughts about this whole thing. Raz was tempted to skip the reading and just sign them all with reckless abandon, if not for Lili’s extreme warning to never ever do that. She’s convinced that the higher-ups have been trying to screw them over with hidden terms and confusing clauses. The worst part of it was that, so far, she’s been absolutely right. Raz spotted at least five carefully worded sub-clauses that essentially would’ve let the higher-ups have the final say on every action that the Mystery Kids made, and that was just today. Still, even though reading them all was for the team’s own benefit, the tedious task was practically hell for him.

So, when Sasha messaged him to come to his office ASAP, Raz was more than willing to oblige. 

Raz was at Sasha’s door within minutes, which was impressive considering their offices were at opposite sides of the Mother Lobe. He lightly tapped the plasma display beside the door. The door slid open without a sound. 

Sasha’s office was your standard-issue Psychonaut agent office, and one of the few to stay that way. He kept it almost completely barren, personalizing it only with things he deemed functional, like a globe and a star chart. It was a stark contrast to Milla’s office just next door. His desk and chair were positioned at the center of the room with a pair of chairs in front of it, spartan just like the rest of the room, but Sasha wasn’t there. Sasha was staring out the window, with his back to Raz, and a phone pressed against his ear. 

“You must make them see reason, Richard,” he spoke. He didn’t seem to notice Raz’s arrival at all. “The Psychonauts cannot stand alone, and neither can the Consortium. We need to cast aside past rivalries. We need a united front.”

Raz hesitated to call out to Sasha. It looked like an important call, and the tone in Sasha’s voice was one he always uses in grim situations. Sasha spent a moment in silence. Raz could barely hear whoever’s on the other end of the call talking.

Eventually, Sasha spoke again. “Remember; gather support. I already have Milla’s. Next, I’ll try to add Forsythe to our cause.” There was a brief pause again, with the other person talking. Sasha rested a hand on the window and sighed. “I know Hollis and I have a rocky relationship, but she can be a powerful ally. Like I said, cast aside the past.”

The mention of that name made Raz painfully realize that this call was not something he should be eavesdropping on. He immediately, timidly broke his silence. 

“Uh… Sasha?”

Sasha spared a glance over his shoulder, before speaking to his phone, “We’ll continue this later, Richard. I have company.” He ended the call, turning in place to fully face Raz. “Come in, Razputin.”

Raz stayed rooted on the spot for a moment, watching Sasha as he moved to sit down at his table. He didn’t seem to mind the fact that Raz caught the last bit of his call. He didn’t look like he even realized Raz was listening in at all. If that was the case, then Raz won’t be the one to tell him. He stepped into the room as if nothing was amiss. 

“You called for me, Sasha?” Raz asked as he sat down on one of the chairs in front of Sasha’s desk. 

“Indeed,” Sasha replied, sitting down on the other side of the desk. “How have you been?”

“Pretty good. All the paperwork’s been torture, but I’ve lived through worse.” Raz’s tone took a bitter turn near the end. A ghost of a smile appeared on Sasha’s lips. Raz decided to not make a big deal out of it, and move on. “So, uh… what’s this all about?”

Sasha raised an eyebrow. “Excited to get back to your paperwork?”

“No! No, definitely not.” Raz cleared his throat. “Just… curious.” 

“Very well.” Sasha rested his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. “I’m simply asking for an oral report of everything that has transpired lately.”

Raz blinked. That’s unusual. “A… report?” 

“From you, yes.” Sasha nodded. “I know I usually go to Lili for this sort of thing, but I’d like to hear what you have to say, for a change.”

“Oh. Okay. Um…”

Man, where to start?

“Well, Lili’s been trying to get me into this new cartoon show that she’s watching. It’s all about these living breakfast foods, but they’re crying all the time? I try to keep an open mind when watching this kind of stuff with her, but for this one… I just don’t get it. I can’t see why Lili is so into this show, and-” Raz stopped dead in his tracks, realizing that Sasha had a stare fixed on him, looking extremely unimpressed. “That’s… probably not the kind of report that you’re asking for. Right.”

One more time. Raz straightened up in his seat. “Progress on our permanent headquarters has been going pretty much according to schedule. If nothing comes up, it should be done by Thursday next week. Well, at least, that’s what Dipper and Wybie said.”

“It seems a tour would soon be in order,” Sasha added with a knowing smile. Raz nodded enthusiastically. He absolutely cannot wait to see the finished Mystery Kids headquarters for the very first time. Definitely going to be his highlight of the month.

“Oh, I gave Danny and his team level two security clearance to our network and archives, just like you said.” That moment when he gave it to them played once more in Raz’s mind. He’d never forget the astonished looks on their faces, just from getting such a low security pass. “They were pretty ecstatic about it, actually. Imagine how they’d react when they get the same clearance as us.”

“A token of goodwill to appease them for the moment.” Sasha nodded, slow and calculated.

“Um, the effort to integrate Cheesebridge into modern times has been going pretty well. Finally got support from the Irish government. They’re surprisingly chill with suddenly having a couple thousand new citizens.”

Sasha quirked an eyebrow. “No notable incidents in the integration process?”

“Nothing notable enough for Eggs and Winnie to tell us about.” Raz shrugged. “The Boxtrolls, especially, have been integrating super well with modern technology. Way more than the humans. Last I heard, they were trying to reverse-engineer a freaking computer.” 

Raz saw how Sasha’s eyes lit up behind his darkened glasses. There wasn’t even an attempt from Sasha to hide his excitement, not that Raz could blame him. Just like Raz when he first encountered them, psychic communities all over the world have shown intense levels of fascination with the Boxtrolls ever since the news got out. With their unique brain structure, their strange physiology, and most importantly, their utterly alien psychic signature; they were the most exciting thing to happen in the psychic world in the last decade. The fact that they are integrating excellently at such a rapid with the modern world would no doubt only add more fuel to the fire.

“Oh! Speaking of!” Raz suddenly exclaimed. “Kubo!”

The light in Sasha’s eyes dwindled. His lips thinned into a line. “Ah, yes. How is he doing?”

“Not bad. I think.” Raz’s lips curled into a smile. Taking care of him had been an experience. “Lili’s been doing most of the heavy lifting; teaching him modern customs, history, helping him learn English. I try to help out wherever I can.”

“He hasn’t been giving either of you trouble?” Sasha asked. His tone, especially after his reaction to the Boxtrolls, felt strangely flat. 

Raz decided to ignore it for now. “No, not at all. He’s a quick learner. His English especially, it’s… he’s got this gift with languages or something.” Raz, realizing that he was suddenly at the edge of his seat, composed himself. “So, yeah, it’s been kinda fun. It’s like… like having our own kid.” His smile promptly vanished, as he realized the gravity of his words. “Uh, d-don’t tell Lili I said that.”

“My lips are sealed.” There was an effort from Sasha to keep a straight face, Raz could tell. 

Raz sighed in relief. He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “Well… I guess that was everything. Uh, nothing more to report, sir.” 

Raz wore a polite smile as he waited for Sasha to respond with a comment, or to dismiss him to go about his day. However, what followed were several long, uncomfortable moments where Sasha simply stared at Raz in silence. It wasn’t even that intense, but it still made Raz squirm in his seat, just a tiny bit.

“That… was all?” Sasha suddenly, finally spoke. 

“Uh…” Raz wracked his brain for a moment, and found nothing, “yeah? I don’t think I missed anything… did I?”

“You did not receive contact from your old friends from Whispering Rock?”

Raz blinked. That question came out of nowhere. “Wh-what? No. Not recently.”

“Then when was the last that it happened?”

“Uh… probably back in February,” Raz answered. Probably for the best to just roll with it, for now. “Out of the blue, Bobby sent me a selfie of him and Chloe, and he’s giving me the middle finger. Still not sure how he got my number.”

“What about Dogen Boole? Have you heard from him? You are friends with him, correct?” Sasha asked. Behind his glasses, his eyes narrowed. 

“Yeah, yeah, we are. Last time we talked was last year, though.” He couldn’t help but feel a smidge of guilt. It really has been way too long since he talked with Dogen. “Been super busy, what’s with chasing Loboto, getting stationed in Gravity Falls, and now, well, all of this.” 

“What about Maloof Canola? Were you friends with him?” Sasha leaned forward in his seat, ever so slightly.

“Maloof?” It took a bit to remember him, but Raz still has a clear mental image of him. “I mean… yeah, sure, I’ll count him as a friend. I haven’t really had a chat with him, so.”

“Milka Phage?” 

Raz had to spend an embarrassing amount of time thinking hard to remember who Sasha was referring to. He wasn’t proud of that fact. “She, uh… spent most of her time invisible, so we’ve never really talk talk, you know?”

“Franke Athens and Kitty Bubai?”

“Oh, those two.” Raz remembered them pretty well. They made quite an impression on him. “Believe me, I tried. Pretty sure the only people they like are each other.”

Raz was starting to think Sasha was about to quiz him about his relationship with every camper back in Whispering Rock, but no more questions came. Instead, Sasha’s steepled fingers turned into fists, his gaze shifting from Raz to his desk. His eyebrows furrowed, seemingly deep in thought. The silence stretched. Eventually, it became long enough that Raz felt the need to break it. 

“Sasha, is something wrong with them? Are they okay?” he leaned forward in his seat. Throughout this conversation, a lump was forming at the back of his throat. He was starting to fear the worst. 

Sasha spent a moment staring at him, then another moment considering the question, before he answered.

“They did not return to camp this past summer.”

Raz’s blood went cold. He held back a gasp. Don’t jump to conclusions just yet. 

“That, in itself, wasn’t unusual. It is well within their families’ rights to withdraw their child from the camp at any given point,” Sasha continued. “What was unusual was the fact that when we tried to contact their families for further details, we received no response.”

Sasha licked his lips and drew a deep breath. Raz leaned forward even more, listening with rapt attention. “I assigned a few agents to look into it, and they found something… troubling.”

Sasha threw his gaze to the side. Raz could’ve sworn he saw something close to genuine worry flash across Sasha’s eyes.

“Their parents, in one way or another, have had past dealings with StrexCorp.”

Raz reeled back, eyes wide open. He was worried for them before, but now he’s terrified. Anything even remotely related with StrexCorp was no joke. 

Raz jumped from his seat. “Does that mean they’re in danger?!”

“They might be.” Sasha made a calming gesture with his hand. “We don’t know for sure. Calm yourself, Razputin.”

Raz sat back down, but he was far from calm. “What do we do now?! Can we do anything?!” he sputtered. 

“I will continue to look further into this case. Send agents to dig deeper, perhaps find a clue to their current whereabouts.” Sasha pointed a finger at Raz. “You will continue to do your paperwork, settle into your new headquarters, and join the Mystery Kids on missions as needed.” Raz was about to retort, but Sasha cut him off. “You have too much on your plate already, Razputin. Trust me, we have this covered.”

Raz slumped back on his seat. “I just want them to be safe,” he sighed.

“You’re not the only one,” Sasha said. 

“One thing you can do,” Sasha began again, and Raz was all ears, “if any of them contacts, through any means, notify me immediately. Understood?”

“Yeah. Definitely will.” Raz enthusiastically nodded.

“Excellent.” Sasha smiled. It was a pretty big smile, by Sasha’s standards. “One final thing before you are dismissed, if I may?”

Raz gestured for him to continue. 

“Let us keep this matter between us for now,” said Sasha, almost sternly. “Do not share this with anyone. Friends, family, even Lili.”

“Not even Lili?” Raz echoed, incredulous. “Sasha, Dogen’s her friend too. They’re all her friends! She deserves to know.”

“This is a sensitive case, Raz. Secrecy is paramount. I’m sure Lili would understand.”

Raz rose from his seat again. “But, I mean, if we tell her, she can-!”

“Agent Aquato.” Sasha’s voice rang clear throughout the room. Raz couldn’t help but shrink back from him. “This is not a request. This is an order. Understood?” 

The expression on Sasha’s face made it painfully clear that his word was final. So, Raz sighed, and murmured his answer. 

“Understood, Agent Nein.”

“Good. That is all, Razputin. You are dismissed.”

There was no point in arguing further. Not when Sasha had taken on that tone of voice. Without another word, Raz turned in place and made his way to the door. With every step, his mind buzzed. Questions, worries, doubts; all of them and more quickly snowballing into something big, something that left a pit in his stomach. What happened to them, to his friends? What kind of connection did their parents have with StrexCorp? Why this high level of secrecy? Why can’t he tell Lili? What does Sasha think he’ll uncover, to the point that Lili, the daughter of the Grand Head of the Psychonauts, aren’t allowed to know about it?

As he passed the threshold of the door, Raz took a glance over his shoulder. Sasha had left his desk, once again standing at the window, facing away from Raz, with a phone pressed against his ear.

“Richard, it’s me again. Where were we?”

The door slid closed without a sound. Raz was left with only his thoughts, and an awaiting mountain of paperwork.

-

Problems just keep piling up for these kids, don’t they?

Another expositional chapter where it’s mostly just people talking with each other. Not the most exciting type of content, I know, but it serves its purpose. Really, all the chapters for this month are basically the epilogue for the Weirdmageddon Saga. So, you know, don’t expect a sudden burst of high-octane action in the last two.

But, like I said, it serves its purpose, and for this one, the purpose is giving y’all a taste of the scope I wanted to achieve in the next saga. The world is in a constant flux, people are constantly doing things even though they’re not on-screen, and the Psychonauts basically become the connective tissue that connects everything together, with its reach extending everywhere. The Psychonauts lore is just so interesting, you guys. 

Last but not least, there are a few hints to two future additions to the group. One is pretty blatant, and one is a little more on the subtler side. Let’s see if y’all can spot it. 

[anthonysstupiddailyblog]

Anthony’s Stupid Daily Blog (204): Wed 5th Oct 2022

Went in to do overtime this morning and since it was time and a half that means I made £100 for 5 hours of work in the warehouse which is no bad thing. I would have volunteered to do the whole day but I had an appointment tonight at the Spire at 5:30 so I needed to get away early. While I was working my manager came up to me and congratulated me as I had passed my probation. I had assumed that I had passed the thing anyway since it's been nearly four months since I started working here and probation ends after three months but I was nevertheless happy to have this confirmed. After my former manager turned out to be a bit confused about how our productivity was reflected in statistics and told me I needed to improve even though in reality I was one of the top stowers on the floor, I was a bit worried that I might not last long with this company. However this news eradicated all that and I was so happy that I screamed "YEAH, PARTY" and high fived my manager which I think might be a first for me. I wanted to high five my manager at Aldi but I wanted to high five him in his face because he was a fucking knobhead. This was such a relief as I've been so worried about job security lately especially with rising energy bills on the horizon. After the horrible experience at the call centre I was also worried that maybe I was just a dumb cunt who can't do anything right and would never succeed in any job but my manager's reassurance that I not only passed my probation but "absolutely smashed it" was validation of all the hard work I've done over that last few months and also perhaps that I'm not a dumb cunt, maybe I just needed the right job to flourish in. After work I spent a few hours on Google Maps going over the route I would need to take in order to get to the Spire without using motorways. Up until now I've been too scared to ride my bike there because it's an unfamiliar route that involves busy duel carriageways but whenever I get the bus to the Spire it often just turns up whenever the fuck it wants and I couldn't risk being late for this appointment. Most of the journey went by without a hitch but just as I got into Gateshead there was a long line of traffic. I'd neglected to factor in that with it being the run up to 5 o'clock there would be a shitload of people returning home from work. In addition to this the scenery wasn't looking familiar to me for some reason and I was convinced that I'd gone the wrong way. While I was sitting in a long line my phone started to ring which convinced me that it was now half 5 and the hospital was ringing me to ask me where the fuck I was. I was really pissed off, convinced that I'd fucked up but as I continued further down the line I started to recognize the roads and houses and was now re-assured that I had gone the right way after all. I think because I normally screw things up somehow whenever I've got somewhere important to be my brain must have seen everything seemingly going according to plan and thought "Nah this cant be right, you must have fucked up somewhere. This is YOU we're talking about after all". I got to the hospital at 5:25 and it turned out it was my sister ringing me not the hospital staff. I had gone into panic mode all for nothing and had actually arrived five minutes before my appointment. The amount of times I'd gone over the route should have reassured me that I was on the right path but for some reason I allowed my paranoia to take over like I always to when I need to be somewhere. There was a bit of a wait but that was fine by me as I was just happy I'd gotten here and I was now even more reassured that even if I had been a bit late the appointments were pushed back anyway so I wouldn't have missed mine. Instead of playing on my phone I decided to try a bit of eavesdropping and hoping pick up something amusing or interesting the other patients were saying. Sadly though they were all a bunch of boring cunts who didn't say anything juicy. Although there is the possibility that all the people in that waiting room also had their own blogs and were likewise intending on eavesdropping in order to write about it too. In future if I'm planning on eavesdropping but no-one else in the room is doing or saying anything I should just let out a minging fart just so the other people can write in their blogs "And then this freaky looking guy in a biker jacket let out the worst fart I've ever smelled in my life". I eventually got called in to see the doc who did my surgery a year and a half ago. As you would expect he has forgotten all about me because he has probably done hundreds of operations since then so I had to jog his memory. I told him that although I only felt mild discomfort for the first year after the operation, in the last six months or so the pain has started to return which has me worried that I may have herniated yet another disc. I was expecting the guy to refer me to physio yet again but surprisingly he said that he would refer me for an MRI scan to take place sometime before the end of the month. What a legend this guy is. Not only did he potentially save me from paralysis but also he, like me, has realized that the physio guys are a bunch of useless cunts and with neck pain it's better to just cut out the middleman and go straight to MRI. Obviously I'm hoping that I don't have another herniated disc and the doc will be able to tell me what exactly is causing so much discomfort in my spine and will be able to sort it out.

[secretsofblackthornhall]

Julian to Magnus

Hi Magnus,

So I know you told me only to get in touch for a “real emergency,” and I think you might have already left for vacation. But we’ve got some ghost trouble here at Chiswick House and we could use a little advice. Just in writing! No need to interrupt your time away! Unless, um, you think it really is an emergency.

Chiswick House is in awful shape in general, so it’s hard to know what’s a real problem and what’s just a hundred years of neglect. Other than one small area nobody’s touched the place since, it seems, the time of Tatiana Blackthorn.

We have some garden gnomes here doing the structural repairs and the big stuff, masonry and framing and so on. I mean, they’re not actually garden gnomes, I think they’re brownies, but they have the big pointy hats and the beards and everything. They’ve been moving pretty slowly, but recently Kieran was here and he had a talk with the foreman (this guy named Round Tom who is not even all that round) and since then things have sped up a lot. And there is a lot less complaining about the work conditions, and a lot less disappearing for the day if the tea runs out for more than five minutes. On the other hand, they’ve started leaving little offerings around intended for “the Un-Seel Laird,” which I gather is Kieran. Not anything Kieran would want, I don’t think. A lot of acorns and pretty rocks, mostly? And the occasional portrait of Kieran in chalk, which let me tell you, it’s a good thing they’re competent at construction because their portraiture could use some work. We’ve been keeping all the stuff in a box for him just in case.

I’m rambling, sorry. It’s just us rattling around in this giant ruin and all we want is for someone to listen to our dull stories about home renovation. But what I actually want to tell you about is the ghost.

I’m sure there are dozens of random spirits going back centuries that have some kind of faint presence in the house—Round Tom hinted as much to me—but there’s definitely some specific one that is actively haunting the place. We’ve had some poltergeist-y stuff. Mostly harmless pranks: vases overturned, drinks spilled, music faintly playing in the distance but originating from nowhere, weird hot spots, weird cold spots, doors slamming, doors closing very slowly on their own. To clarify, I do NOT mean poltergeist as in the movie Dru made me watch. No one has been sucked into evil dimensions or levitated (yet!). Still, it seems like we ought to try to get out ahead of this, so Emma and I have been trying to communicate with the presence directly. Whoever it is, they haven’t responded to us speaking to them, and it’s starting to feel silly to constantly talk in a friendly voice to nobody, like we have an imaginary friend. All that happens is the next morning someone has stacked all the gnomes’ hats into a hat tower and we have to convince the gnomes it wasn’t us.

Lest you think we haven’t tried smarter things than just yelling “Here ghostie ghostie ghostie,” Tiberius sent us a device he’s been working on, like a Sensor for ghosts. I spent some time walking the halls and eventually found a spot along some random corridor where the Sensor went crazy. I busted the wall open with a sledgehammer—somehow I feel like you would approve, although the gnomes did not—and behind the plaster, wedged between two of the beams, was a Ouija board that must go back to at least Tatiana’s time, if not before. There was no planchette, so we made our own out of scrap wood and furniture tacks. Maybe there was something bad about using that instead of something that went with the Ouija board, I don’t know how it works, but in any event, we tried the board and it went really badly.

We tried to do things officially—Emma and I waited until midnight, we got dressed up nicely, and we went down into the cellar. (There are a bunch of rooms down there that are highly spooky and look like they’ve been used for ghost-ish business in the past.) We extinguished witchlights (no electricity down there any more than it’s anywhere else), lit lots of candles. Ghosts love candles, right? We had a bolt of black silk to sit on that Emma found in a trunk somewhere, and we sat on either side of the board and both put our hands on the planchette.

Us: HELLO

Nothing.

Us: WEMEANNOHARM

The candles guttered, but most of the windows in the room are smashed, so with the usual draft from outside I’m not sure we can count that as a response.

Us: WHATISYOURNAME

We heard a scratching sound coming from one of the walls, and we opened up that wall in great excitement, but it turned out to be a badger. Actually, it was a mother badgers and some badger cubs, which was very cute until the mother starting trying to kill us. So we had to interrupt and go get the gnomes to help us and they relocated the badger family to a glade of some kind. (They also issued us a bill for “badger decampment.”)

This was all very disappointing. Emma said that maybe it was rude to ask for the ghost’s name before introducing ourselves.

Emma: MYNAMEISEMMACARSTAIRS

Me: ANDMYNAMEISJULIANBLACKTHORN

Well, that got a reaction. As soon as I finished the last “N” the board leapt off the ground and twisted violently around. The planchette went flying and Emma went to go retrieve it from the other end of the room, but then when she came back the board went flying around in the air and, I am sorry to say, we chased it around for probably two full minutes without catching it. Eventually the ghost got bored, I guess, and the Ouija board stopped in midair and shattered into pieces, which fell to the ground. And all the candles went out. (There were sixteen pieces, if that means anything. Emma says no, I said we should mention it anyway just in case.)

So…any advice? Too much ghostly energy for an old Ouija board? Defective board in the first place? Does the ghost want to be left alone? (If so, why does it keep knocking things over?) Did we offend it? There hasn’t been anything like that since, but exploding Ouija board seemed sufficiently threatening that I wanted to get in touch. What do you think is our next step?

Again, I’m really sorry to bother you, but your help would mean a lot to me. I really want to make Blackthorn Hall a place that the Blackthorns can use again, a place that will feel like a second home for all of us. And it would be nice if people in London associated the Blackthorns with a grand manor house rather than an infamous wreck. Which is not going to happen if visitors wake up with their hair tied to the bedposts, or have their suitcases upended on the staircase. In payment, we promise you as much babysitting as you like, whenever you need. Although maybe once we’re no longer living in a collapsing death-trap.

Much obliged—

Julian

[wkemeup]

Graveyard

summary: As the unofficial healer for the Avengers, you pride yourself on the ability to mend heroes with the touch of your hand. Only, your gift comes at a heavy price — one you keep secret from your friends —and when Bucky asks you to do the impossible, they’ll discover why your gift is called a sacrifice, too.  pairing: bucky x healer!reader word count: 10k warnings: canon level violence

As a child, you were told it was a gift; placed upon a pedestal above the quaint suffering of a rural town and removed of your innocence for the good of strangers. You’d been made to be revered – honored – for the touch that could mend the broken.  

It began with a cut upon your father’s finger – a slip of a kitchen knife that had left a small bead of blood in its wake. Curious eyes glanced up at your father as he hissed at the sting of it and you’d reach forward to place your infant hand upon the cut, a grip so mall it barely wrapped around his finger. He stilled as a soft glow began to emit from your palm. When you removed your hand and began to cry, your father was stunned to find his skin perfectly intact – no trace of a scar in its place.  

They told you it was a gift, celebrated you as if you were a blessing from Heaven itself. But they were cruel in their rejoice, selfish in their praise. They had not considered your gift was not a gift at all – but a sacrifice.  

Like energy, pain could not be destroyed— but it could be absorbed. It could be transferred. Your father’s cut had not simply disappeared, but instead manifested on the finger of an infant for a few short moments before it faded into your skin; laid to rest amongst a sea of foreign injuries that did not belong to you.  

“Look sharp, kid! We’ve got incoming,” Banner’s voice startled you from your thoughts as he stood at the doorway to your lab. Arms folded over his chest, an amused smirk upon his face, he must have caught sight of the quinjet landing in the hanger from the windows overlooking the loading dock.  

You nodded, setting down the drill beside the stun absorption pad you were engineering for Stark’s newest suit. You didn't have to wonder long who was on the latest mission and currently on their way to your office, because a familiar bickering began to carry down the hall and into the lab, forcing a smile onto your face.  

For a mechanical engineer, you saw more of the Avengers post-mission than the med wing did these days. You’d been hired for your multiple PhDs and borderline genius IQ, but once you’d rushed across the room to spare Stark from a rather unpleasant laceration on his palm from an experiment gone haywire, your lab had quickly become a rotating door of injured Avengers.  

Sure enough, Barnes and Wilson stumbled their way into the lab, Sam draped over Bucky’s shoulder, barely able to put any pressure on his left leg. While Sam tossed you his charismatic grin and those big, round, puppy dog eyes, Bucky favored to dispose of his partner on the lab table with an aggravated grunt.  

“What do we have today?” you smirked, rolling up the sleeves of your coat as Bruce shook his head in amusement.  

“Broken ankle, I think,” Sam replied, gesturing to the mess of bandages and improvised splint.  

You nodded as you stepped closer, examining the injury before you brushed a hand over the swollen joint. Sam whined at the contact, the pain clearly breaking through the lighthearted grin upon his face though he tried to suppress it. His hand curled into a fist.  

“You know I’m not a medical doctor, but I’d have to agree,” you nodded, planting your hands on your hips.  

“You could just get the x-rays and go through PT like a normal person,” Bucky grumbled off in his corner of the room, narrowing his eyes in warning upon his partner. “She’s not here as your personal healer, Wilson.”  

Bucky was always hesitant of your powers. He never said why, but you wondered most days if he was still seeking penance for the evils he’d committed under Hydra, if maybe he felt as though giving you his pain absolved him in a way he was not worthy of.  

Or perhaps it was a degradation of his pride. Men often found strength in their ability to withstand pain. Though, it seemed to bother him when the others would come to you for injuries like this, too, almost as if he worried they were taking advantage of you.  

He was a good man; certainly, more concerned with your consent in healing his friends than your parents and the town who spent your childhood exploiting you ever were.  

“I don’t mind, Bucky,” you told him, smiling encouragingly back at him until he started to relax his shoulders and uncrossed his arms, softening under your gaze. “If it means less time on the bench and more time out there saving lives and having your back, I don’t mind at all.”

“Yeah, Barnes, who’s going to watch your back if I’m held up in a cast?” Sam teased, chuckling under his breath until Bucky stepped forward and not so subtly bumped his hip to the side of the lab table. The sudden disruption of the table moved his ankle just enough to instantly wipe the grin from Sam’s face.  

“Try to relax for me, Sam,” you eased, stepping forward as you started to remove your gloves. You leaned over the edge of the table, slowly removing the splint and the bandage surrounding the swollen muscle. You handed it off to Bucky as you examined the dark purple and blue discoloration on his ankle.  

He hissed as you laid your palms on his leg, clenching down on his jaw.  

You closed your eyes, concentrating as you felt for the break beneath the surface. A crack splintered through the bone, the surrounding tissue swollen and aching.  

A gentle glow began to emit from your palms, a warmth that spread from your hands and directly onto Sam’s skin, through the muscle, and deep into the bone. You could feel the subtle fragments as they began to mend, the swell in his joint as it shrank, the slight movements as he regained feeling.  

Exhaling a tense breath, you shifted your stance onto your right leg as the pressure started to build in your ankle. It wouldn’t last long, just a few minutes in comparison to the weeks of treatment and months of physical therapy Sam would have endured – an easy trade for a man who spend his days so selflessly on the line in the service of strangers.  

You could sense Bucky watching you and you were careful not to let the pain show on your face. There was a privilege in healing the Avengers like this. It gave your life meaning beyond the injuries of your hometown; of careless teenagers falling off skateboards or angry men in bars who took an argument a drink too far. You’d happily take on a few moments of pain in service of heroes.  

Not that you’d let them know.  

“You should be good now.” You held your hands up, the soft glow fading away from your palms as you tucked your hands into your pockets. Careful of the momentary break in your ankle, you took a cautious step away from the table to lean on the chair at your desk. No one noticed the wince in your expression as you put the slightest pressure on the fresh injury.  

“I will never get tired of that.” Sam looked down at the foot in awe, rolling at the ankle and amazed to find the swelling and bruising disappeared completely. He jumped down from the table, bounding on his feet just to test out the freedom in his mobility.  

“Alright, Wilson. Enough,” Bucky rolled his eyes. “You’re going to hurt yourself again and Y/n’s not going to be so generous next time.”

Sam smirked, pausing for a moment as he contemplated. “Nah, my girl will always take care of me. Won’t ya, sugar?”  

It didn’t slip your notice when Bucky tensed up at the pet name. You started to laugh, the teasing smile dropping from his face as his hands curled into fists. Sam really knew how to press his buttons and it seemed, surprisingly enough, you were one of them.  

“Bucky’s got a point, you know. Fancy healing powers are reserved for field injuries these days.” You were only teasing, both of them knowing you’d have healed a papercut if they’d ask. Still, Bucky smirked, taunting Sam over your shoulder as if he’d won.  

You eased yourself off the chair as you started to regain feeling in your ankle, giving more pressure to the heel to find it barely noticeable. You rubbed at the joint with your right shoe to find the swelling had disappeared as well.  

A few moments to spare him weeks of pain. Easy trade.

“What about you, Sergeant?”  

Bucky paused, raising an eyebrow at you.  

You took a step forward, glancing over him in search of injuries. Nothing more than a few cuts that his own advanced healing would take care of overnight. Still, there was one injury you’d been trying to convince him to allow you to heal in the year since you’ve known him.  

“You going to let me work on your shoulder yet or are you still being a masochist?”  

Sam snickered under his breath as he crossed the room to watch what Banner was doing over his shoulder. Bucky gave you that knowing smile of his, the one that pushed up into his eyes and left behind beautiful creases and lines on his face; an exhale of a laugh on his breath.  

“It’s not necessary, doll. I’m fine.”

A frown tugged at your lips. “You always say that, and yet...”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Bucky shrugged. He was watching you with those sweet eyes of his, creating a warmth that spread in your chest entirely independent of the powers in your hands.  

“You shouldn’t have to handle it in the first place,” you pressed, a pain in your voice as he placed a hand on your shoulder, letting it slide down your arm. It was an intimate gesture, more contact that he had with most people, and he offered it willingly. You tried not to let the shivers show in your spine as he pulled away.  

It looked as though he wanted to say more, but Steve suddenly appeared in the doorway, causing Bucky to take an abrupt step away from you. You hadn’t realized how close you’d been standing to one another.  

“Debrief in five,” Steve ordered, eyeing Sam and Bucky, though paused as he saw you, offering a short smile in acknowledgement before disappearing down the hall.  

“I’m not letting this go, just so you’re aware,” you teased, pointing at Bucky’s shoulder as he started to wave Sam towards the door. He smiled, keeping his back to you until Sam was clear of the room and he leaned into the open frame, one quick glance back at you.  

“Wouldn’t expect anything less, doll.”

***

The next month saw another broken leg, a fractured clavicle, two minor lacerations, a sprained wrist, and a number of superficial cuts – all from various members of the team. Though there was always the one exception who wouldn’t accept your offer no matter how badly he was favoring his right arm.  

The clavicle was certainly a challenge to get through, but the world needed Natasha Romanoff in the field, not strung up on a gurney and a brace for a handful of months. It took longer than some of the other injuries to heal, but you’d managed, even if you had to excuse yourself to the restroom as soon as you’d finished, even if you had to shove a towel into your mouth to keep from screaming as it mended itself together under your skin.  

The truth was you liked being useful. You liked the stunned smiles on their faces and the appreciation in their eyes. You liked seeing them run a hand over perfectly smooth skin where an open wound had just been. It gave you a purpose.  

And sure – your work on SHIELD tech was important and perhaps not all of the injuries in your hometown had been a waste of your abilities, but there was something exceptionally gratifying in mending someone who was untouchable, in healing the people who saved the world.

You’d take a dozen broken clavicles for them.  

It was late after your evening shift and you’d taken to running a few laps on the indoor track around the gym. Blow off some steam, use the state-of-the-art equipment Stark spent thousands of dollars on, give your mind something to think about beside how you were going to rewire Sam’s wings to expand in a more fluid motion.  

You’d just started to break into a sweat when you noticed Bucky setting up at the row of punching bags. The gym was otherwise empty as the sky favored the stars over the sun, and you started to smile as you watched Bucky shrug off his jacket and drop the bag at his feet. He rolled back his shoulders, concentrating on the bag as he readied his fists. But as the first punch hit the bag, the smile quickly fell from your face.  

It echoed up into the rafters, startling you enough to still your sprint abruptly. He let out a grunt as he pummeled at the bag; left jab, right hook, kick, until it broke at the seams and split open to spill sand in heaps upon the ground. He moved on to the next one.  

You clasped a hand to your mouth, looking around the gym to confirm you were in fact alone with him. He’d been on a mission as far as you were aware for the last week. You’d missed him hanging around the lab, asking questions as you worked on new advancements on the stun guns for field agents. He must have gotten back a few hours ago and something clearly went wrong.  

“Bucky?” you called, voice far too soft to be heard across the gym and above the thunderous clash of his knuckles to leather. You jogged a few paces closer, wincing as he threw the entirely of his momentum into a hit that would have broken an ordinary man’s hand. “Bucky? Are you alright?”

But he didn’t hear you. You took a cautious look back at the doors, wondering if you should go find Steve, or maybe even Sam – someone who might know what happened, someone who might be able to talk him down. But you were the only one around. You cleared your throat, stepping up just behind him.  

“Bucky?”

You hit the ground before you knew what had happened.  

A blinding pulsing in the back of your head, the wind momentarily knocked from your lungs, you opened your eyes to find Bucky hovering over you. He held a closed fist in the air, the other digging sharply into your shoulder between his grip, pupils blown wide and dark. It took a moment before he seemed to realize who was laying under him.

“Y/n?” He blinked, confused. His stare flickered to the fist held above your head, knuckles dripping red and bloody, and he pulled away instantly, a flash of horror written over his features. “Shit-- I didn’t... What are you doing here?”

You rubbed at the back of your head, brushing over a slight bump that would certainly mend itself within a few minutes. Slowly, you sat up, careful of the sudden darkness that swept over your eyes, though something cool grabbed onto you before you could fall back against the floor.  

“Hey, come lean against the wall, okay?” Bucky urged, carefully guiding you to adjust your position until you could press your back to the chill of the plastered walls. You sighed in contentment, the pain in your pain already dissipating. Bucky swallowed nervously. “Did I hurt you?”

“I don’t stay hurt for long, Buck,” you told him with a teasing smile, though he did not return it. You set a hand on his forearm, squeezing it lightly before returning it to your lap. “I’m alright. I promise. Are you?”

Bucky narrowed his eyes.

“You were beating that punching bag within an inch of its life,” you clarified, chuckling as you gestured to the exploded bag on the floor, and then to the one still hanging with sand streaming down the seams.  

“Rough mission,” was all he said, his eyes downcast.  

You nodded. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head.

The two of you sat in silence for a while, listening to the soft buzz of the air conditioner and the faint chirp of crickets outside the windows. You didn’t expect him to say anything. Bucky was a man of few words, but you hoped the company was enough. He didn’t make an effort to move away, not even when your thigh brushed against his.  

He was trying to close his fist when you heard him hiss in pain. His right hand was coated in dried blood and fresh, open wounds on his knuckles. They’d barely started to crust over and with every attempt to close his fist, they cracked open, drawing a painful sting in their place.  

“Will you let me heal your hand?”

Bucky paused, setting his hand down on his leg. “Y/n, it’s not necessary. I won’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking. I’m offering,” you countered. “Besides, it is necessary, actually. How are you going to punch the bad guys if you can’t close your fist?”

“I’ve got another,” Bucky argued back, though a smile had etched its way onto his face. He raised his left hand, making a show of it as he curled his fingers into a fist one by one. “This one’s pretty indestructible so...”

“Please, Bucky.” You turned towards him, folding your legs as you held out your left hand for him to take. “Just this once. Let me do this.”

A stormy array of ocean blue and thunderous skies stared back at you, unsure. His eyes flickered down to your hand. Always so hesitant to ask for help, always so reluctant to accept the good things when they were offered. But as he watched you, searching for signs to run, to back out, something softened.  

He swallowed and slowly, placed his right hand into yours.  

You smiled, adjusting your grip gently on his hand. You placed it to lay on you knee as you hovered your left hand over his knuckles. The warm glow illuminated from your palm and Bucky’s breath hitched as he must have felt the sudden rush of energy it produced.  

The scars began to mend before his eyes and just as you felt the stinging prick on your own knuckles, you quickly pushed your right hand into the pocket of your jacket to hide the scars as they formed.  

“That’s incredible,” Bucky exhaled, withdrawing his hand as soon as you were finished. He held it out in front of him, examining the dried blood coated around perfectly intact skin. He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re incredible.”  

A rush of heat burned in your cheeks as you looked away, a smile breaking onto your lips. It was enough to distract you from the stinging in your hand tucked away in your pocket.  

“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” you asked, biting on your lip nervously. “Think you could do with the company and I’d like to keep you from breaking more of these expensive punching bags.”

Bucky laughed at that, nodding. “Yeah, that sounds nice.”

He stood and offered you his hand, thinking out loud about which one of the movies on his list he wanted to try out next. You pulled your hand from your pocket and took his as he offered it to you; the knuckles already clean and healed.  

***

“You should see it, Fitz! It’s a goddamn stroke of genius.” You held up the ventilator no bigger than the pad of your thumb up to the light, admiring your work.  

“I’m sure Stark will be thrilled,” a thick Scottish accent crackled through the speaker on the com beside you. “Send me the schematics, will you?”

You pursed your lips, a smile etching through. “Think you can one-up me?”

“No never,” Fitz laughed. You could hear him tinkering in his own lab on the quinjet, the small clicks of metal and the buzz of a drill humming over the speaker. “Just want to see if I’m still head of our class or not.”

“Pretty sure we both know that title belongs to Simmons.”

There was a slight pause, then, a dreamy, “yeah, you’re right.”

A sudden knocking at the edge of the lab startled you as you spun around in your chair, nearly dropping the ventilator for Stark’s suit. Bucky stood in the doorway, clutching at his left shoulder as fingers dug into the muscle. He wore a sort of guilty look upon his face though he pushed out a smile and waved.  

“Hey, Fitz, I’ll call you tomorrow, alright?” you said over your shoulder to the speaker, waited a moment for his response and ended the call. You turned back to Bucky as a smile grew upon your face. “What can I do for you, Sergeant? I didn’t miss movie night, did I?”

“No, you’re in the clear,” Bucky chuckled, though it was tense. He stepped further into the lab, relaxing a little as he noticed no one else was around. It was pretty late for you to be working, but you were so close to finishing the ventilator, and well, time easily got away from you with Fitz on the other end of the phone.  

“Coming to keep me company then?” you teased. “I’m actually about done anyway, so we could set up the next movie on your—”

“No, I— um...” Bucky started, losing his nerve rather quickly. He exhaled a tense breath, eyes casting down to the floor. “I was, um, wondering if you could work on my shoulder?”

You raised an eyebrow. Even after that night in the gym, Bucky was still hesitant to your offers to heal his various injuries from the field. He’d give you that sweet smile of his, a soft pink in his cheeks, and tell you that he’d be fine on his own. You never doubted that, but it didn’t mean you couldn't spare him just a few hours of that pain.  

“The, um,” Bucky winced, gritting his teeth as he pushed his hand deeper against the tissue, “the nerve endings are acting up. Shuri said it’s to be, uh, expected given how Hydra butchered my arm all those years ago, but...”

“Come here.” You were already removing the files and paperwork from the table, gesturing for him to take a seat.  

His whole left arm was slack at his side as if he could barely tolerate to move it. Shallow breaths hitched in his lungs as he leaned against the table, settling against the hard, metal surface.

“Can you take this off?” you asked, nodding to his shirt. Bucky’s cheeks flushed and you cleared your throat nervously, playing with the ends of your hair. “It’ll be more effective if I can touch the area directly.”

He removed his right hand from the muscle at his shoulder and gripped at the hem of his shirt. Slowly, he started to pull it over his head, though you could tell from the harsh exhale in his breath that it was causing him considerable pain.  

“Here, let me help you.” You stepped forward and helped ease the fabric up his torso and gently guided it off his right arm, over his head, and eased it down his left. He seemed more at ease with the shirt removed, but a chill swept up his spine in the cool air of the lab.  

You kept your eyes on his, determined not to let your gaze fall to the hardened muscles on his chest and stomach.  

“I won’t be able to heal the scars,” you told him as you moved around to stand behind the table. “Just try to relax for me, okay? I’ll do what I can for the pain.”

Bucky nodded, his hands clenched into the lip of the table, enough to warp the surface. He could barely muster out a response.  

“My hands are a little cold, so...” you muttered out nervously, rubbing your palms together in an effort to warm them.  

Then, you set your hands against the mess of scar tissue surrounding his shoulder, starting at his shoulder blades as the glow illuminated bright enough to light up the corner of your lab. Bucky gasped, the first breath in a long time completely filling his lungs as he felt the relief within your touch. You could practically feel the tension melting off his shoulders.  

It didn’t take long before the pain made its way to your body. Starting out slow, in numbing aches, until it was so sharp, it felt like a dozen edges of sharp blades puncturing into your shoulder. You clenched your jaw, held your breath, thankful that Bucky couldn’t see your face when you bit down on the inside of your cheek and tears sprung into your eyes.  

“God, that... shit...” Bucky sighed, his grip releasing on the table. You could hear the smile in his voice, the relief, and it helped to push aside the pain as it manifested in your body.  

You moved your hand up his back, sliding along the scars where his skin met metal, taking as much of his pain as you could. Bucky was exceptionally strong, able to withstand far more than you could without passing out completely. You couldn’t take it all, especially if you wanted to keep him from knowing how your gift truly worked, but you took enough.  

You swallowed back the lump in your throat, preparing yourself as you moved around to face him. There was more on his chest, by his clavicle, you couldn’t reach from behind him. You'd had years of practice, learning how to keep the pain from displaying on your face. You could get through this for him.  

As you stepped in front of him, keeping a steady hold on his shoulder, you could feel his eyes watching you. The glow under your palms was bright enough to illuminate the lab, but it was a gentle light, as soft as the burn of a candle or the golden rays of a sunset. Bucky watched you with a kind of awe that made your stomach twist into knots.  

You guided your hand along the scar tissue on his chest, doing your best to ignore the goosebumps as they rose in your wake. Your heart was stammering, louder than the pain radiating in your shoulder, though it lessened the more you worked. The pain had nearly left him entirely as he started to take in more even breaths, relaxing his muscles as you felt them soften under your touch.  

You exhaled a tense breath through your nose, concentrating on gathering as much of the pain as you could, on mending the broken nerve endings as they misfired and frayed under the torn appendage. You barely noticed as Bucky crossed his right hand over his chest and laid his hand palm against your hands.  

“Thank you,” he whispered, his fingers curling around the undersides of your hands until he gently tugged them away. The glow faded until the lab was only lit by the soft light of the lamp at your desk and the reflection of the moon peering in through the window.  

You met his eye, the pain still prominent in your shoulder though you forcibly softened the clench in your jaw as he looked over you. His eyes flickered down to your lips for only a second, but it was enough. Your heart skipped.  

Bucky slowly released your hands, letting them fall gently against his thighs, as he leaned forward to cup the sides of your face. Fingers tangling into your hair, you stepped closer, pressed against the table between the parting of his legs.  

You wondered if he could feel how fast your heart was racing, or if he could hear it, because you were certain it was going to beat straight out of your chest. The fading pain in your shoulder you’d taken for him was nothing but a forgotten memory as he pressed his forehead to yours, just waiting.  

The moment his lips touched yours, you lost your breath; fireworks and butterflies, twists in your stomach and clamoring in your heart. You could feel his smile as it spread into his cheeks, your hands seeking more of him as you slid them up the sides of his bare chest. He was beautiful and perfect and so incredibly wonderful, you’d take hours of his pain, years even, if you could keep kissing him like this.  

“Hey, Y/n, I thought you were already done for the—oh, sorry!”

You jolted away from Bucky, restless and a little disheveled, Bucky’s cheeks flamed red, as you turned to find Banner standing awkwardly in the doorway. His hand was shielded over his eyes, his back quickly turned to you as papers littered the floor at his feet. You started to laugh, hand clamping over your swollen lips as you looked over at Bucky.  

“It’s no worry, Bruce,” you giggled, quickly skating over to the door to help him pick up the files. Bucky meanwhile shrugged his shirt back on, fixing the flyaways in his hair.  

“So sorry,” he mumbled again, clearly embarrassed by his intrusion as he glanced over at Bucky apologetically. He gathered the papers into his arms. “I’ll be going now and, um, I won’t come back, okay?”

You couldn’t help but laugh as Bucky’s eyes blew wide in Banner’s quick escape.  

“Still want that company?” you offered with a smile, extending your hand to him. The pain was long gone from your shoulder as he shook himself from the flush in his cheeks and nodded. He took your hand and led you down the hall to the living room. There was another movie on the list to get through.  

***

You couldn’t remember the last time you were this happy. Your cheeks began to hurt from how often you were smiling, as if it were a permanent fixture on your features. You’d even caught yourself humming along to the radio as you dusted the surfaces in your lab the morning after Bucky had kissed you goodbye on the landing dock in front of at least a dozen agents.  

He’d been away on a mission for the last few days, but he called when he could. You’d spend whatever spare minutes he could get on the satellite phone with him, distracting him from whatever was going on in his end of the world with talk about your latest project with Stark or old stories from the academy with Fitz or what the next movie on the list was going to be.  

He wasn’t a man of many words, but you liked knowing he was on the other end of the line. You could picture his smile perfectly in your mind, the way he chewed on his lower lip, how his eyes fell downcast to the floor by your shoes, the flush of pink in his cheeks. It was enough.  

“So, things are really heating up with you and Barnes,” Natasha commented as she sipped the top of her steaming coffee before it could spill over the edge. You shrugged, though it was hard to contain your smile. Natasha grinned. “I think it’s good for him. You, too. Don’t know the last time I’ve seen him this happy. He seems more relaxed. Like maybe he’s not carrying the whole world on his shoulders anymore.”

“Helps when he’s not in excruciating pain on a daily basis,” you added, tapping at your left shoulder. He’d let you work on it a few times since that first night. It always took some convincing, but the pain was never as bad as it was that evening. You could take it. You’d do it a thousand times for him without question.  

Natasha nodded, a pleased look upon her face. She parted her lips to say more, but a sudden commotion at the end of the hall stole the words from her tongue. You set your coffee down on the counter, peering out around the tables to find agents jumping out of the way of an oncoming train.  

“Y/n!” Bucky shouted, voice breaking in the effort as he sprinted down the hall and slammed into an unsuspecting agent. Papers flew into the air as he sprinted towards your room. “Y/n!”

“Bucky?” you called stepping out into the hallway where he could see you.  

He skidded to an abrupt stop, his hair flying over his shoulder as he turned in your direction.  

“Y/n! Thank God.”  

It wasn't until Bucky stood in front of you that you realized he was covered in blood; soaking into his hair, caked under his finger nails, drenched into his suit, and stained to his skin. Your eyes widened, breath all but leaving your lungs, as your hands clutched against his jacket. He tried to pull you back towards the stairs, but you couldn’t budge, not with that much blood all over him.  

“What-- What happened? Are you hurt?” You started seeking out exposed skin an effort to draw away any pain you could, even if you couldn’t see any exposed wounds.  

Bucky's hand slid over yours, pulling it away. He softened, though you could still see the frantic rise and fall of his chest.  

“It’s not my blood. It’s Steve’s.”

Your stomach sank; relief mixed into an ugly shade of guilt and grief. Natasha was already sprinting down to the med bay, coffee mug cracked and spilled upon the tile floors. Her footsteps echoed through the hallway, the sudden clanging of the double doors startling you from your daze.  

“Please, I—I need you,” Bucky begged, his voice shaking. Tears were burning in his eyes. You’d never seen him this afraid; this shaken and helpless. “It’s not good, Y/n. He’s-- He’s--”

“Okay.” You pressed a hand to his cheek, brushing your thumb sweetly across his face and smeared the tears as they cleaned the dried blood away. You didn’t need to hear anymore. All you wanted was to take his pain, even if your gift couldn’t touch it as it nestled deep into his heart.  

By the time you reached the med bay, a storm of chaos had already barreled through. Lab equipment was knocked over on its side. Dozens of agents frantically running around, shouting orders at one other. Papers and schematics lined the floor with imprinted of boots damaging the print. But it was the trail of blood that drew your attention.  

Droplets trailing from the loading bay of the jet to down the med wing to the surgical room. Dark red and oozing. Taunting. Far too much for any ordinary man to have lost. You tried to stifle the gasp as it hitched in your breath the moment you saw him.  

Steve was strung up on a gurney, suit cut down the middle and flayed open, exposing his chest and the three bullet holes expelling pints of blood. The hands of several agents were pressing down onto him, trying to keep pressure on the wounds, deep red slipping out from between their fingers. The look on their faces said enough – he wasn’t going to make it.  

“Where’s Helen?” you gaped, staring at Steve.  

“Ten minutes out.” Tony stumbled into the room as he rounded the corner, holding a stat phone in his hand. “She’s in the chopper.”

“He can’t wait ten minutes.” Bucky gripped tight to you hand and you could feel the tension radiating in his muscles. You wanted to take it for him but he pulled his hand before you could, turning to face you. “You’re all we have. Y/n, please. I can’t lose him.”

Bucky had never once asked you to heal someone like this. He could barely muster the will to ask you to heal his own wounds, to ease the constant stream of pain in his shoulder, and the open wounds on his hand. But with Steve’s life in the balance, he didn’t have room to be hesitant anymore. He couldn’t risk his best friend’s life.

But he didn’t know it would risk yours in the process.  

You swallowed, glancing back nervously at Steve. “I’ve never healed anything this bad before, Buck. I don’t know if I can--” survive this.  

Could your body heal fast enough to take on his injuries? Could you do them one by one? Would he live long enough to even try? Would either of you?  

“Y/n, please. He’ll die without you,” Bucky begged, his voice wavering. Tears reflected in his eyes; gentle pale blue obstructed by a swarm of fear and guilt and desperation, a redness straining into the surrounding white until his cheeks were wet. The dried blood cleared in streaks as they traveled down to his jawline.  

You watched him as he bit down onto his lip, shielding his face from the others as he waited. The frantic beeping of the monitor strapped to Steve’s chest was growing frantic, irregular, and you knew there wasn’t much time left.  

The worst you’d ever attempted to heal before had been the stabbing of a stranger. You’d found her clutching stomach in an abandoned alleyway in Queens, contents of her purse spilled to the pavement, jewelry torn from her neck. You'd knelt down beside her and took her pain without so much as a second thought.  

As her wound began to close, your skin split open, blood soaked into your shirt, your vision grew dark and hazy, until it was nothing at all.  

The last thing you remembered of that night was the horror in the woman’s eye as she scrambled away from you and ran back to the safety of the open streets. You woke in a pool of your own blood hours later – longer than it had ever taken to heal before.  

A scar remained on your stomach from that night. The only one on your body. A warning.  

Test the limits of your gift again and learn why it’s called a sacrifice.

But as you looked back at Bucky, at a man who never dared to ask you for anything until it was unbearable, who wore his own scars and healed his own injuries in fear of exploiting your gift, who was impossibly gentle for the evil he was surrounded in for decades – you couldn’t find it in yourself to say no. You didn’t want to.

Bucky must have noticed the change in your expression because his shoulders softened immediately, a heavy sigh sinking through his body. He pushed forward and pressed a quick kiss to your lips; short, chaste, and still—filled with a world of emotion, of gratitude, of relief. It gave you the courage to do what needed to be done.  

Tony began to shout for the room to clear the moment you approached the table. You stared down at Steve, whose skin had grown nearly translucent, the monitor above displaying his heart beat as it evened out to a nearly thin line. He was fading fast. You wouldn’t have much time.  

Everything around you became muted, distorted, as you channeled your focus; the huddled whispers of the agents hovering over Steve with their hands pressed to open wounds sounded as if they were miles away.  

Bucky stood at your side, watching anxiously though he tried his best to remain stoic and unaffected, though you knew he was splintering apart at the seams. Natasha and Sam were huddled in the far corner, talking quietly amongst themselves as they tried to put the pieces together as to what happened out in the field. Tony was shooing away stay agents with the threat of force, while Banner did his best to remotely disengage the power on Tony’s glove.  

None of it registered. Not beyond the flow of blood coating Steve’s chest and dripping onto the floor, your shoes stepping into the pool below. It was a miracle he was still alive at all. The serum was the only thing tying him to this Earth.  

You stretched out your hands, hovering over his chest and the agents quickly dispersed. You didn’t dare steal a glance in Bucky’s direction as the glow began to emit under your palms, afraid he might see the goodbye in your eyes or the apology for what he was about to witness. There wasn’t time.  

The pain was sudden. Sharp. Like you’d felt the bullets rip straight through you as if you stood on the battlefield in Steve’s place. You cried out at the impact of it, nearly thrown from your stance as you clutched into Steve’s body.  

Bucky jolted beside you, startled as you cried out again, desperate to choke down the screams before they passed your lips. He stared at you, wide eyed, as you clenched your jaw.  

“Y/n? Are you—”

Another scream tore through you and Bucky visibly flinched. You didn’t have the energy to hide the pain from him, not with three bullets tearing through you. You had to save Steve; put the full force of your power into healing his wounds before they consumed him whole. Damn the consequences. Damn the sacrifice of your gift.  

Your body was always meant to be the host of broken bones and bullet wounds and bruises. Made to be broken and mended. A host to others. A graveyard of injuries that did not belong to you.  

It was what your parents had told you from the time you were a child; that you were a gift to others, that you were a vessel to better the world. But it came at a price; one, it seemed, you’d soon enough pay.  

Your legs began to shake as a wave of darkness cast over your vision, tunneling, consuming the space around you. You could only vaguely make out Bucky’s voice calling your name, his tone laced confusion and concern, but you blocked it out. Daring to look in his direction now would only hinder your resolve and you needed to save Steve’s life.  

Concentrating your power, a scream ripped through your lungs as the glow illuminated the entire room, enough that Bucky was forced to shield his eyes.  

The wounds were taking hold on your body. One at your stomach. Another along your ribs. The third, just above your chest. Exit wounds opening on your back. You could feel the drip of blood as it slid down your skin; thick and unrelenting.  

You were growing light headed as the pain started to dissipate. But the wounds were still fresh on your body, still open and bleeding; the pain shouldn’t have faded so quickly.  

The steady beep of the monitor indicated that Steve was stabilizing, the flesh had nearly closed, and you barely registered Helen’s voice as she rushed into the room, ordering her team to take over.  

“Hey, hey, you did it, sweetheart. You did good,” Bucky exhaled. He had the most beautiful smile on his face; filled with a sense of pride an awe, stunning and handsome beyond belief, even with traces of concern still evident in his eyes.  

But you were stone. A statue. You couldn’t move without fear of collapsing completely.  

“He’s stable now, Y/n,” Bucky eased, trying to pull you gently away from the table. “Come here, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

Bucky hand set against your stomach when you didn’t follow and he froze; the sticky wet residue of fresh blood on his hand. He stared down at his palm in horror as the blood began to seep through your shirt in three distinct spots, all perfectly aligning with the ones on Steve’s chest.  

Bucky darted forward, pushing up your shirt to find the wounds he’d seen healed on his best friend moments ago littered over your stomach. His mouth went dry, throat lined with sandpaper, rocks shoved down into his lungs. His hand trembled as it reached out and touched the bullet wound on your ribs. His breath hitched as he felt the warmth of blood and the tear of flesh in your skin.  

He couldn’t breathe.  

“Is Steve alive?” Your voice was barely a whisper and you wondered if Bucky could even hear you at all. His eyes were glossed over in fresh tears, lips parted in shock as he stared back at you. You could hardly keep your eyes open.

Before he could respond, your legs gave way and you stumbled back out of Bucky’s hold. Your vision was closing in, a dark cloud of black swarming around you as your foot caught on the edge of toppled lab equipment. You were in Bucky’s arms again before you made it to the floor.  

You didn’t hear him screaming for help, didn’t hear the shattering crack in his voice, or the crash of equipment behind you as Simmons raced into the room. You didn’t feel his hands as they desperately pressed onto the open wounds, or the heat of his breath as he begged you to ‘stay with me, sweetheart’. But you felt the warmth of his embrace.

It was comforting as the darkness pulled you under.  

***

A heaviness draped over you. Soothing. Pressing you into the soft cushion below. A repetitive chime rang above; even in tone, consistent. It drew you back from the kind embrace of shadows, calling you toward a flicker of light.  

Pressure squeezed at your hand. Cold and warm at once. Solid and soft.  

You listened for the chime; allowed it to guide you as the rest of your senses awakened.

The chatter of voices in the distant too muffled to distinguish. The distinct smell sterilizing alcohol that burned in your nose. The heat of a thick blanket tucked around your legs. The chill of a breeze streaming from the humming vent above. Scratchy bed sheets and laundry fresh clothes a few sizes too big for your frame.  

You groaned, trying to adjust to the influx of light as you opened your eyes. It was a room you recognized. White. Clean. Far too bright. You’d been within the walls dozens of times before, but never laid upon the bed. It was a strange view.  

Glancing down, you found yourself dressed in a dark grey t-shirt that didn’t belong to you. The logo was faded on the chest but it was still recognizable. Vintage. An eagle at the center of a circle, it’s wings remarkably similar to the symbol of the Howling Commandos. Around the edge: Strategic Scientific Reserve. You’d seen Bucky wear it until the hem frayed. Sure enough, as you reached for the bottom of the shirt, you found the split seams.  

A slight squeeze on your hand again drew your attention to your right. There, you found Bucky hunched over the side of the bed; both hands encasing yours, his forehead rested on the very edge of the mattress.  

A smile tugged at your lips until it started to ache. Unused muscles, must be. You wondered how long you’d been out this time. Must have been longer than a few hours. Bucky’s back would need your attention after the way he’s been sleeping.  

“Bucky,” you tried to call, but found your voice was nothing more than a breath of air. You winced, testing it again. “Bucky?”  

He only hummed in response. The sweet vibrations nestled against your arm. It took him a minute as he lifted his head, stretched out his upper back, matted hair fallen down into his face, before he caught your eye; glancing around the room, checking the door, the heart monitor above, like it had become routine, until he realized you were watching him.  

He froze, eyes wide. “Y/n?”

You nodded sleepily, pushing out a smile. “What’d I miss?”

Bucky didn’t laugh. His hands were still gripped tight to yours, squeezing at them as if he were checking to make sure you were real.  

Your smile began to fall the longer he stared at you. “How long was I out? Is Steve okay?”

Bucky cleared his throat, nodding, though it seemed strained. “Y-yeah, Steve’s fine. Doc said he’d make a full recovery thanks to you.”

“That’s good,” you replied, but Bucky couldn’t so much as force a smile. He couldn’t seem to look at you, his hands playing with the lines in your palms. It was then you started to notice the dark circles under his eyes, the wrinkles in days old clothing, the hallowed look upon his face. Your stomach sank. “How long was I out?”

Bucky’s paused for a moment, his movements stilling as he traced your lifeline. He sighed, resuming again. “Six days.”

“Oh.”

A silence swept over the room. You’d never been under that long before. Frankly, you were a little surprised you woke up at all given the extent of Steve’s injuries. Your fingers dipped under the hem of Bucky’s old t-shirt and grazed over the bullet wound on your ribs, feeling for the raised edges of a fresh scar. It didn’t heal, as you suspected the others hadn’t; laid to rest next to the knife wound from the woman in the alley. Injuries you were never meant to survive.  

“Were you ever going to tell us?”  

You looked up, startled by Bucky’s voice as it wavered. He brushed at his eyes; red and glossy.  

“Were you ever going to tell me?”  

“No,” you admitted and Bucky’s shoulders slumped. He sank back further into his chair and you could read the disappointment on his face. You gritted your teeth, preparing to deliver the same speech you’d been telling yourself for years. “My body could handle it, Buck. It was only a few minutes of pain to trade for weeks or months of your own. It kept you in the field and off the bench. The world needs you guys. It was worth it for me. I could handle it.”

“Until you couldn’t!” Bucky snapped, startling you as he tugged his hand from your grasp and began to pace around the room. His fingers raked into his hair, gripping at unwashed strands. “You almost died, Y/n! You almost died because I fucking begged you to use your powers to save Steve and I—Jesus, Y/n — if I had known what it does to you, I never would have asked you to do that!”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you,” you replied gently, wanting nothing more than to ease him. Bucky shook his head, unwilling to accept your answer. “Bucky, if you knew that healing a papercut hurt me, you wouldn’t let me do that either.”

He paused; arms folded over his chest though he wouldn’t look at you. “No, I wouldn’t.”

You softened, sitting up in the bed, though a dull pain rushed made it rather difficult, leaving you to clutch at your stomach. It ached as you moved, an unfamiliar feeling, and the tension quickly faded from Bucky’s shoulders when he heard you whine.

You pushed through the pain in your stomach, holding up a hand as Bucky started to step forward to help you. It would fade. It always does. You’d heal and move on, until the next injury came through. It was routine. It was your life.  

So, you told him as much.  

“I’d do it again.”

Bucky frowned. He looked like he wanted to just lay on the bed beside you, curl up against your chest and sleep. He was exhausted. And still—he couldn’t let it go.  

“You almost died—”

You shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

“A sacrifice?” Bucky’s face contorting in horror. “Are you insane? You're not a sacrifice, Y/n!”

You nodded, determined; the words of your parents, the village elders, ringing in your ears. “That what this gift is, Bucky! I can’t actually heal anyone other than myself, but I can transfer the injuries and the pain to my body. That I can heal. It’s what I was born for! It’s my purpose. I was made to be a sacrifice.”

“Not for me!” Bucky held his ground, voice firmer than you’d ever heard it. “Nothing is worth that to me! Do you understand that? I won’t trade your life for anyone’s, not even Steve’s, and I sure as hell don’t care how many bones I break or how bad the nerves in my shoulder misfire. I won’t put that on you again. The team won’t either.”

You clenched your jaw, heart starting race. No one had ever challenged you on this before. No one had ever questioned whether your gift should be used at all. No one ever seemed to care of the effect it had on your body, never thinking to look past the extraordinary abilities to the mutilation under the surface.  

No one until Bucky.  

You curled your hands into the thin sheets at your waist. “Bucky, don’t be ridiculous. I’m saving you all from weeks of unnecessary healing. I can handle the pain. It’s an easy trade for—”

Bucky’s fist met the wall. “You’re worth more than just a vessel for our pain, Y/n!”  

“What the hell is going on in here!?” Helen Cho rushed into the room, eyes darting between Bucky standing by the corner of the room, shaking out his hand, and you as you laid in the bed at the center, the heart monitor above pulsing far too quickly.  

Bucky seemed to notice the frantic beeping of the monitor and the anger quickly drained from his face.  

Helen glared at him as she stepped closer to you, beginning to check your vitals. “You should leave,” she shot over her shoulder. Your stomach twisted to knots as Bucky nodded defeatedly and walked to the door.  

“No, don’t--” you called, voice small, nervous. He paused in the frame, glancing back at you with a raised eyebrow. “Please, Bucky. Stay.”

Helen set a hand on your shoulder as if to ask if you were sure. You nodded.

“You may be able to heal yourself, but you’re still recovering,” Helen advised, tapping on the IV drip. “Take it easy, alright?”

Bucky remained stoic by the door after Helen left. He didn’t say anything for a while, his eyes focused on the tile floors at his feet, waiting until the heart monitor chimed in even, steady counts.  

“Will you sit down? You’re making me nervous,” you chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. It got him to look at you, at least. While he couldn’t muster a smile, it was clear he was drained of the anger that had quickly taken hold of his body; anger that was never once reserved for you, but for the voices in your head that deemed you unworthy of more than a body to be used by others.  

Bucky sank into the chair at your bedside.  

“When’s the last time you slept, Buck?”  

He stayed silent. It was enough of an answer. You didn’t dare ask the last time he left this room, not with the shiny reflection at his roots and the red strained in his eyes. Six days at your bedside, hunched over on a cold, unforgiving chair, clutching your hand. It ached deep into your bones.  

“I mean what I said,” Bucky mumbled, slowly brining himself to meet your eye. He reached out for your hand, letting the comforting chill of solid metal lay below as the warmth of flesh and muscle laid on top. He brought your fingertips to his lips and gently kissed at your knuckles.  

You sighed at the feeling. “Bucky, I...”

“You’re more important to us than your abilities,” he pressed, a sincerity behind his words and laced delicately into sweet shades of blue. “You do a lot of good to keep us safe with the tech you’ve been building and the adjustments to the suits. You’re incredible at what you do, Y/n. Your worth isn’t based on how many injuries you can heal or how much pain you can handle. We care about you. I care about you. Isn't that enough?”

You didn’t know.

You’d never known anyone to prioritize you over your gift. You parents had exploited it from the moment it was discovered your ability; showing you off, treating you as an idol to be worships and adorned. They put their child through broken bones and lacerations and asthma attacks. They sat back and watched as you healed strangers of arthritis and sprained ankles and migraines. Their child cried as they collected their winnings.  

Were you afraid it would happen again? Is that why you kept it from the team? From Bucky? You’d convinced yourself it was noble to silently suffer in their place, but you started to wonder if it amounted to little more than your parent's words whispered into your ear: your ability is a gift to the world, a sacrifice unto yourself.

“Would you ask any of us to suffer in your place?” Bucky questioned, drawing you from the mess inside your head with the gentle vibration in his voice.  

“I just want to help you...” you murmured, tears slipping past your cheeks.  

Bucky reached forward and brushed the tears as they fell, sliding his hand against your cheek and nestling against your hair. You leaned into the touch.

“So, we find a middle ground, okay?” Bucky offered, smiling enough to push into his cheeks, though his eyes were still heavy. “No trivial injuries. No life-threatening injuries. We take the stuff in-between case by case.”  

“Your shoulder,” you added, determined. Buck started to shake his head but you pressed harder. “Five minutes of pain to spare months of yours, Bucky. No lasting damage. Don’t argue with me on this one.”

It brought the smile back to Bucky’s eyes as he eventually nodded. You knew he had no real authority to decide what injuries you could and couldn’t heal, but you’d never had anyone who dared to put you first. You trusted him to do that; you trusted him more than yourself, anyway.

“We decide the rest together,” you told him. “I get the final say but... I need you to tell me if I’m pushing it too much, but I won’t be too cautious, either. No discriminating against Sam.”

“No promises,” Bucky chuckled, playing with the ends of your hair dreamily. “The other stuff I can deal with.”

“Okay,” you exhaled, relief sweeping through your body.  

“Okay.”

“Think I’ll be lucky if anyone on the team even lets me touch them for a few months after this ordeal, though, huh?” You laughed and though it ached in your stomach, it was considerably less than it was moments earlier. You didn’t mind the dull pain. It was familiar, almost a comfort. Steve was alive because of it.  

“Yeah, can’t say anyone was thrilled to find out how your powers actually worked,” Bucky chuckled. “But they’re happy you’re alright. I’m sure Steve will be, too. He was pissed when he woke up and learned what you did.”

You clenched your jaw. “Never good to be on Cap’s bad side...”

“No, it’s not,” Bucky agreed, wide smile pressed to the back of your hand, his lips touching over exposed skin. “He doesn’t like when anyone else pulls a self-sacrificial move. It’s kinda his thing. Diving into the Atlantic and all. We don’t really need two of you running around...”

“Alright, alright,” you laughed, swatting Bucky away. Your cheeks hurt from smiling, the pain in your stomach long forgotten, or maybe it had finally healed. You supposed it didn’t matter.  

They were scars that would never heal. Like the knife wound. Like mesh of hardened tissue around Bucky’s shoulder, stretching out onto his chest and back. Reminders of when you were too both close to the edge, to the brink of darkness. Reasons to push back towards the light.  

read the sequel here!

Thank you so much for reading! ❤️ If you enjoyed this fic, please consider supporting me at my ko-fi account ✨

[mammonsturtle]

Five More Minutes

I had an idea. Nothing complicated, just a simple short fluff? thing with Diavolo and Mammon. (Little bit of angst, oops)  Started this at 2 in the morning, so it might be lackluster and not proofread. Enjoy and happy Valentines Day!

Diavolo stirred in his sleep before rousing himself awake, it was routine for him to be up so early as the crown Prince of the Devildom. He yawns and streches very much like a lion roused from slumber that must set off on his kingly duties. 

He gets up to start the day before his butler can come and fetch him himself. Only to be held back by the arms the clung against his chest as he looks down and smiles at his sleeping lover. Diavolo chuckles softly as he chooses not to get ready, for now.

“Good morning my little crow.” he murmurs against Mammon’s ear, reaching down to give him a gentle nip on his earlobe and Mammon groaned against his chest. “Ngh…Five more minutes.” he mumbles as he held the larger demon tighter. Diavolo sighs as he ruffles Mammon’s hair and settles back down against the plush sheets. 

Pulling over the blankets over Mammon and himself, he relaxes once more. “Very well. Five more minutes and not one second more.” he agrees and grants Mammon and himself extra time, albeit quite short. It was a comfortable silence as Diavolo held Mammon, the latter snuggled tightly against his chest as he ran his fingers through his soft hair. 

He wondered if Mammon could hear how loud his heart was beating as it was rare that Diavolo got any time to relax as he knew he had to go soon. Barbatos would wake up the pair sooner than later, and he’d rather let Mammon sleep the day away.

They were quite the odd pair, even Mammon’s brothers, especially Lucifer and Belphegor didn’t understand them. Leviathan, Satan, and Asmodeus were quite skeptical of the arrangement as they were convinced that Mammon was in it for the money. Which would be understandable given the Avatar of Greed’s priorities, but all the brothers agreed and only seemed to see things from the monetary standpoint.

If only they knew the other things Mammon was greedy of.

As he had put it to Lucifer, it was essentially two lonely demons needing such a simple thing as love. Both of them craving the need for someone to be there for them, to let them know things will be alright. 

The basic need for love and acceptance, Diavolo craved companionship and Mammon was simply greedy for the affection and praise that Diavolo showered upon him. Mammon would pick up on Diavolo’s emotional states and stick around until he was ready to talk about it. And in turn Diavolo would comfort Mammon with his bear hugs and warmth whenever he had come from the House where his brothers were being too harsh on him and he just needed some comfort.

It was quite apparent when Mammon obviously chose to stay with Diavolo more so than his own brothers. Mammon spent more time with Diavolo as he only stopped by the House of Lamentation to get some belongings and then leave to go to the castle. Cementing that he’d soon be living with Diavolo permanently.

“Young Master? Are you awake?” Came Barbatos’ voice from the other side of the door and Diavolo sighed. “Yes, Barbatos, I am awake, just let me get ready.” he told the butler as he heard a grunt from the other side. Loathing to leave Mammon by himself, he leaned down to kiss him tenderly on the forehead. 

“You gotta go?” Mammon asked as his eyes fully opened and pouting. “Is Barbatos gonna throw us both in his torture chamber if we don’t?” Diavolo chuckles, “Perhaps. Shall we try our luck Mams?” Mammon groans and burrows back into the blankets, not wanting to be reminded of Lucifer’s punishments and Barbatos’ early days of punishing Mammon when he came to stay for good.

“Promise me you’ll stay out of trouble? I’ll be done with work as soon as possible, and then we’ll get to spend the rest of the day together.” Diavolo promises as he pats the lump in the blankets. 

Mammon peeks out from under the blanket, eyes looking hopeful, “Will ya? The whole day? No interruptions. Not even from Barbs.” he bargains as Diavolo smiles, “And no interruptions from your brothers as well, right?” Mammon nods, not like they haven’t tried before. It was apparent the the brothers were jealous of Diavolo having all of Mammon’s attention.

“I must be off my little crow, parting is such sweet sorrow.” Diavolo frowns and gives Mammon a hug as if he was saying goodbye for good. Mammon groans and reaches up for a quick kiss. “Don’t be so overdramatic Dia. We’ll see each other soon.” Mammon breathes as he burrows back into the warmth of the blankets. “You promised, remember?” he reminds him before closing his eyes. Diavolo chuckles, "Of course. I'm a man of my word."

Now ready to take on the day, Diavolo smiles at a sleeping Mammon before leaving. Duties as the crown prince were routine and dull, but he had a reminder that someone he cherished was waiting back for him at the end of the day. Heart and arms open when he needed him, and that was worth the toils of such a man of power.

[phoenixyfriend]

Rey Gives No F*cks About the Grandfather Paradox

Okay so since nobody’s suggested a fic under these terms, I ended up expanding on this post on discord and things snowballed. We kept to the basics of the entire plot revolving around Rey really hating her grandad and leveraging her blood relation to not be unalived about it.

With contributions by @atagotiak​, @dracothulhu​, @thepallaspalace​, and several others. The title comes from @gelpenss​.

The basic thing I absolutely need is this: Rey gets thrown back to the middle of the clone wars, and the subsequent plot leans in really heavily on her being, genetically-via-clone-dad, the daughter of the guy running the entire galaxy.

Nobody knows what to do with her.

The timing is mid-TCW for the past (because I want Ahsoka there) and vaguely between Episodes 8 and 9 because I... never watched E9 and don’t want to worry about the timeline. The only things that matter is that Luke is dead (he can die as he did in canon) and that Rey knows she’s Palp’s granddaughter (not the way she does in canon).

We'll say Luke found out from Anakin's panicked force-ghost and just went "well, fuck, okay, I should tell her this before she ends up in a situation like mine and finds out mid-battle or something."

Luke, prior to time-travel: Okay, so, now that I'm dead I know some things I didn't before. Like who your parents were. In the interest of full disclosure because I was in a very similar situation and I don't want you learning the way I did, I'm just going to come right out and say that your father was a clone was Sheev Palpatine. Rey: ... Luke: Are you okay? Rey: I don't know who that is.

(She grew up on Jakku, the history education was a little subpar.)

Setting The Scene

Imagine Rey showing up during or immediately before the clone wars. There’s this phenomenally powerful feral teenager from a desert backwater who tells you that if you ran a paternity test, it would probably pop up the Chancellor. She may or may not bring up cloning. She accuses said Chancellor of being a Sith Lord.

Your other phenomenally powerful feral teenager from a desert backwater, who may not be a teenager anymore but only barely, is very offended by this because Palpatine’s a Very Nice Old Grandfather Figure, but also he’s a little full of side-eye because if the blood test comes back as proof, then Palpatine had a kid and didn’t even know about them, or lied to Anakin, and that’s! Bad! Family’s important!!!

Palpatine hears about this daughter he apparently? Has? And is very confused because the timing doesn’t match up with ANYTHING he was doing, so the kid isn’t natural, and he says as much. (There is an explanation! It’s not a correct explanation, but he does come up with one.)

Finn and Poe and BB-8 all get dragged along because why not have the gang there? Nobody that’s already born, because [handwave] conservation of souls or something, IDK, point is the only person dragged along that’s even remotely close to already existing is Luke’s Force Ghost, who mostly hangs around begging Rey to be less impulsive. Finn is good because he is a nice polite boy, but for actual useful information they need Poe. The unfortunate situation is that the three do not land together. They land at the same time, in completely different corners of the galaxy. This means that nobody is there to curb Rey being her most impulsive self.

Time travel Rey knows two things. Luke’s dad ends up evil. Palpatine has always been evil.

She can solve one of these problems by killing the other, yes?

Rey: Ready to Rumble

See, the initial idea was this: Rey tried to break into the senate to kill Palpatine, got arrested, and then used the "he's biologically my father" card to get out of jail free. (Force Ghost Luke follows her like “please take five seconds to think this through.”)

But.

But.

It would be very, very, very funny if The Force just dumps her in a flash of light in the senate building and she just attacks Gramps on sight. Just a shouted "YOU!" and no-hesitation attempted murder.

Palpatine has no idea what's going on.

Rey took maybe two seconds to get identity confirmation and then started swinging.

[Image Description: An individual in a green metal helmet with an eye slit, holding a pistol. In the upper left, upper right, and lower middle are the phrases “I do not know who I am...” “I don’t know why I’m here” and “All I know is that I must kill.” End description.]

Of course, she gets arrested. There are Master Jedi in the Senate. There are Clone Troopers. Palpatine isn’t the weak old man he pretends to be. Of course she’s stopped.

But she isn’t executed in time for Palpatine to stop her from ruining his entire reputation.

Immediately after Rey fails to kill her Shitty Granddad, Luke's ghost shows up and begs her to not talk about the Sith thing because it will completely undermine everything she's trying to do. Pass off the attempted murder as something else!

Rey, panicking: "that fucker left me on a desert planet for 10 years!" "You owe me 19 years of child support you son of a Hutt!"

The Jedi have to do the investigation, because the girl showed up with a laser sword, and the conversation is, uh... interesting. (“Where did you get that lightsaber?” “I got it from a mysterious old pirate lady I never met before. I don't know, I was being shown around by a smuggler and a Wookie.”)

Interviewer: Why did you try to assassinate the Chancellor? Luke: Say it wasn't assassination. Rey: It wasn't assassination. Int: You weren't trying to kill him? Luke: Assassination has to be politically motivated. Rey: This was, um... not political. Assassination is political, right? Int: You mean this was personally motivated? Rey: Yes. Int: I see. What personal motivation? Luke: Jakku! Rey: He's my grandfather. Int: ... Rey: Possibly father. Nobody was very clear on that. Int: ... Luke: Tell them to run a paternity test. Rey: Oh hey, a blood test would tell us which, right? Int: ............ Rey: I spent ten years as an orphaned scrapdealer on Jakku. He's my father. I'm kind of a little angry. Int: ........... Luke: Good job, kid. You bought yourself some time. Int: I'm going to get a medic to see about that parternity test.

Obviously, it comes back positive. Congratulations, Sheev, you’re the father.

Rey comes with a ready-made built-in excuse for hating Palpatine that nobody can question or fault her for!

Rey, pouring Truth into the Force: I didn't even know I was related to the Chancellor until a few months ago, but it's his fault I grew up the way I did, and he should take some responsibility!

The entire thing is mostly kept hush hush but someone leaks it to the press and Palpatine's ratings tank.

"Chancellor, I think we'll need to waive family visitation until she wants you a little less dead." "I would like to find out why she wants me dead, and indeed, where she came from." "...sir, for your own safety--"

Who would win? A master plan years in the making spanning decades of manipulating and work? or One (1) paternity test

"Okay, so, Rey Palpat--" "Ew, no, I don't want his name." "You--okay. Sure, we can understand that. Is there a name you would prefer to put on the paperwork?" Rey, who would have gone by Skywalker in honor of Luke but can't do that when Anakin is right there and all: "Can I think about it?"

Rey: I don't know what I want my last name to be but I know I don't want his, and most of the people I’d want a name from have famous families like you... Luke's ghost, pointing out the Literal Nobody that she cares about a lot: How about Solo? Rey: ...Solo, then.

(A few months later she runs into Poe again and he offers for Finn and Rey to both take his name because honestly they need SOMETHING but at that point she’s already decided on Smuggler Dad.)

Backtrack a bit. We’ve got a bigger cast.

They all arrive separately. Poe, for one, does better than Rey, who is aiming for a murder, but not quite as well as Finn, who is currently being adopted and hidden like a secret cat by a bunch of Alpha Clones on Kamino. He vibes with the names-or-numbers thing. He doesn’t necessarily tell them where and when he’s from, but he’s very sweet and a great liar and they adopt him wholesale anyway.

The Finn situation is just... "Buir Ti, we need you to hide this man, we've decided he's our little brother but if Nala Se finds out she'll make him leave."

Of course, this leads into Shaak Ti teaching Finn how to Jedi.

Maybe consider Finn needing to almost be tricked into learning Jedi things because he willfully forgets it could apply to him. Finn does not like to think of himself as special, which is super valid, but frustrating for Shaak Ti when it comes to, you know, getting him to acquire knowledge. Finn's training at some point is "here, levitate objects with the Force to entertain the tubies." It’s a lot easier to convince him to practice when it involves the babies.

(Everyone on Kamino looked at Finn and went “oh I love him I’m keeping him and teaching him things.”)

(He’s just very lovable.)

Poe, meanwhile, buys the trust of Anakin Skywalker via R2D2 declaring BB-8 the absolute most baby of droids. R2D2 met BB-8 three hours ago but.

"Hey Obi-Wan this is Poe I met him like five days ago but R2D2 says he checks out because his droid is a baby." "That's nice, Anakin, did you know the Chancellor has a daughter who tried to assassinate him in broad daylight yesterday? Because guess who had to stop the Chancellor from getting assassinated by his daughter in broad daylight yesterday."

A summary so far:

Finn, on Kamino: Hey, um, I don't know where this is, but it's not where I was a few minutes ago. Do you think you could get me a comm? What's your name? Poe, on [dice roll] Denon: Oh, hey, you're General Skywalker? Nice to meet you, I'm so sorry about my droid, she's a little excitable and thought your R2 unit looked like a friend of hers-- Rey, on Coruscant: DIE, GRANDFATHER

Finn: [Peacefully vibing on Kamino, unaware of the chaos and bonding with the clones] Poe: [Trying to explain how he knows someone who tried to kill the chancellor and defend Rey] Rey: [Arrested for trying to kill the chancellor]

Just... just...

Anakin: Some guy ended up lost on base yesterday with his droid, how’s your day going? Obi-Wan: I had to stop someone who claims to be the chancellors daughter from murdering the chancellor after she seemingly blinked into existence in the Senate building. Poe: 😐

(Poe: Oh, so that's where Chaos^2 went.)

Poe: In her defense, she is his... well we don't know if she's his daughter or granddaughter, but she's definitely related to him, and she definitely grew up in a shitty situation that was his fault, so...

(Poe is trying very hard to explain this and not get arrested on the military base.)

As you’ve probably guessed, what's especially funny about all of this for me is the fact that Palpatine is fully aware that this girl shouldn't exist, but can't find a single piece of evidence about where she came from. He didn't start any experiments that could result in a female child, and he didn't have sex in that period of time, so where the hell--

Rey spends so much time in jail... BUT they do eventually assign her a Jedi Master. Possibly before she actually proves her evil grandfather is in fact evil. Most votes went to either Plo Koon or Obi-Wan. Plo, because he’s dad-shaped, and Obi...

"Obi-Wan, you already raised one feral desert child with implausible amounts of power, you handle this." Rey in return is very "Sweet, you vaguely remind me of Master Luke," and nobody knows who the hell she's talking about. Obi-Wan is NOT on board with this plan, she'd really be better off with Plo or like........ Mace.

Reunion Tour

What I need out of this is the eventual Finn and Rey reunion scene that is just excited screaming while someone in the background explains to Shaak Ti that yes this is apparently Palpatine's terrifyingly force-sensitive daughter who hates him.

(Finn senses Rey’s approach and just. Gathers the everyone to wait. He’s just :D REY MY FRIEND REY GUYS MY FRIEND REY IS COMING.)

Anakin shows up with Poe--just a guy who signed on to the military, no big deal--and then Poe and Rey are EXCITED and everyone's just like "Cool, how do you know this literal terrorist child?" And Poe has to scramble and "Uhhhhhhhhhhhh she saved my droid from a scrapheap once and BB-8 is basically my child so I owe her one."

Rey knows that Anakin ends up evil so she’s maybe not actively hostile but definitely very “I’m watching you.” That said, she vibes with him on a lot of things that he maybe doesn’t actively notice.

Rey picks up a snake, snaps off the head for venom avoidance, and starts biting off chunks. Obi-Wan's reaction: [undisguised horror] Anakin and Ahsoka: Ooh, where'd you find that? (Obi-Wan: And now I’m up to three feral children.)

What Does Palpatine Even Do?

OBVIOUSLY at a certain point, Palpatine is just phoning up every ally he has to figure out who broke protocol to synthesize a daughter for him.

So of course, Palpatine blame Plagueis.

She'd have been born five or so years before Naboo, just a few years younger than Anakin. It's such an EASY theory to build a conspiracy around. It is ENTIRELY WRONG, but it’s plausible! And anyone who might have been involved to say otherwise is probably dead!

A random bio-kid shows up you can’t possibly have contributed genes to? Maybe it’s the evil bio spark that did it.

Palpatine tries to placate her with the ‘my genes were stolen for an experiment and I didn’t know’ thing. It doesn’t work because her actual main complaint is he’s evil in her future but he tries.

It'd be a struggle to even get access to her, because of the aforementioned “maybe don’t try to talk to the daughter(?) that hates you” thing, but you know who Palpatine does have access to? The Chosen One.

Rey kind of decides on her favorites early on (she gravitates to Dad Energy and Sad Old Men so Plo and Obi-Wan are on her list, and that means decent time around Anakin and Ahsoka). It's really easy to talk Anakin into helping to some degree because "he'd like to connect to a daughter he never knew" and "a child of her power on a planet like that, you'd know her struggle, my dear boy" and so on. Anakin tries to connect! He tries to play up Sheev’s kind political work and how it can’t have really been his fault! It doesn’t work. Rey does not believe a word of it. Mostly she doesn’t even seem to hear him.

Rey's just like "...oh right, you're the melted mask that Kylo Ren was always ranting about," which means absolutely NOTHING to Anakin, but he mentions it to Palps, who loses his goddamn mind trying to figure out what she's talking about, because it also means absolutely nothing to him.

Here’s the thing: Rey’s already decided that Obi-Wan is cool, because Luke said so, and Plo Koon is dad-shaped, and she also gravitates towards earnest kindness in general, like she made friends with Finn real quick, so Ahsoka? Already getting along great.

She doesn��t dislike Anakin, really, he isn’t evil yet, he’s just... meh. She’s a little suspicious and she likes him less than the others but... Anakin.

Rey, to Anakin: You are my least favorite. Anakin, to Palpatine: YOUR DAUGHTER HATES ME???

And he goes from “she’s a lil standoffish” to “she doesn’t like me” to “she hates me” as is normal for Anakin.

It’s just an escalation of this one time Palpatine wants Anakin to not have rifts and trust issues with a person, at least not until later, because he needs information.

Meanwhile, that very moment, Rey is just like "huh, nobody here is listening to me about how make a sixth-hand carburetor work, where's Luke's dad?"

Anakin is venting to Palpatine about how hard it is to talk to Rey, and she's over in the Temple just like "Hey, that guy was useful last time, I should ask him," but also she only ever thinks of him as Luke's Dad.

(At one point, Obi-Wan is having a bit of a break down, and then Anakin starts having a breakdown about that, meanwhile the clones are (badly) trying to hide Finn behind their backs, Rey is watching Ahsoka practice and being like "I want two lightsabers," and Poe is trying to keep R2 from stealing BB-8 and Force Ghost Luke is just face palming in the background.)

(Rey deserved a saber staff, maybe one that can detach and turn into a jar’kai set. Possibly a pike. Mostly I just wish she got more chances to whack things with a big stick.)