#i was talking to my mom about how we were talking about dna in bio and I ended up mentioning how I knew she was a little bit Italian

[gods-favorite-autistic]

Fun night to discover that A. My grandpa is not my grandpa and my mom is a sperm donor baby and B. I’m 1/8 Syrian???

[moongothic]

You know. If Crocodad Real. How would Luffy even react if he found out. Like really, how the fuck would he feel about it.

'Cause like how I went over in this post (briefly at the end), we don't even know how Luffy feels about Crocodile as he is right now, so can you imagine how that bombshell would impact things

Like my running theory is that Luffy still hates Crocodile but maybe not quite as much as pre-Impel Down since he kiiinda owes him etc

And Luffy does not seem to give a shit about blood connections, at least not that much. Like don't get me wrong, Luffy's family are the people who were there for him when he was a child, those are the people he cares about and his bio-parents don't really matter. But also, honestly, I think the reason Luffy doesn't give a shit about who his parents are is because he doesn't know them. Luffy cares about people who he knows and likes, and while he doesn't give a shit about Dragon right now, it's arguably because he simply just doesn't know him. If the two actually get to meet and know each other, like if Luffy takes a liking Dragon, he'll probably accept Dragon as his dad and as his family. But on his own terms. It's up to Luffy to decide

And that's why like. How would Luffy react to finding out he has another dad and that one is fucking Crocodile. Because he already hates the man. It would not be happy news for him I'm sure

The other thing is that normally Luffy does not give a flying fuck about people's sad backstories. He didn't care to hear what happened to Nami and her village for example, because what really mattered was that there was a person he cared about who was deeply hurt and in danger and he wanted to help said person. And that's where I'm so torn. Because on one hand, it would be perfectly on-brand for Luffy to not give a shit of Crocodile had a sob story to tell. But also, I could imagine Luffy being so fucking confused over the news that he'd want to hear the truth of like, who what where how why, in detail. So that, you know, he could make his own decision and figure out if he wants to considder Crocodile is other dad or disown him.

Like, both feel like things Luffy would do

So really, would the real deciding factor might be just... the circumstances where Luffy finds out???

God knows, I can not imagine Crocodile himself telling Luffy anything ever. The kid already hates him, he knows it, so he'd probably think it'd be for the best if Luffy never found out

So how else could Luffy find out then?

As far as we know, the only other person who could confirm it would be Dragon himself, and considdering how he probably feels about his ex (see: Alabasta Coup Attempt), I can't imagine him wanting to talk about Crocodile to Luffy in lenght or in a positive light. Like I can't imagine Dragon wanting to tell Luffy at all is the point, not unless he wanted to like apologize to Luffy because it is arguably his fault Luffy and Crocodile fought in Alabasta to near-death to begin with. (Sidenote since we don't know how the break-up happened to begin with, it's totally possible Crocodile could've asked Dragon to never let their kid find out what happened to his "mom")

And now, this is where I'm gonna go completely off the rails, but. As I was wondering if there was any other way Luffy could find out...

S-Croc is made with Crocodile's DNA.

(And actually before I even go into S-Croc, super quick sidenote: If Kuma can extract memories out of people and allow other people to literally see them... Like I can't tell if Kuma's memories got absorbed by Bonney when she looked into them or if Kuma's Memory Bubble is still on Egghead, but if viewing the memories isn't the same as having them inserted into a vessel permanently... Like if Kuma isn't turbo-dead, could there be a scenario where we have Kuma (or S-Bear) yeet out Croc's memories and have Luffy just look into them? Because god knows Crocodile might just refuse to speak about it and that could be the only way to get The Whole Truth if Dragon doesn't want to talk about it either?) (Of course, Crocodile would understand just How Persistent Luffy is so if Luffy just kept on annoying him about it, Crocodile could maybe give up eventually because he knows he can't get Luffy to piss off until he spills the beans)

So currently the Strawhat's plan is for them to go and escort the Vegapunks to Elbaf (if nothing goes funny after the flashback is over, which remains to be seen)

2. There is the mystery of what sex S-Croc is going to be, because there is a possibility that if Crocodile is trans then his Seraphim could be pre-T (though this entirely depends on whether or not Ivankov's HRT changes even the DNA of person. Since it's MAGIC HRT I would prefer it to, not gonna lie, and I would not appreciate any "you may look different but your DNA will tell the truth!" rhetoric in the story but I may be asking too much from Oda)

3. And there's also the mystery of what Devil Fruit ability S-Croc might have, since all the Seraphim have been given Fruit powers, and we know Vegapunk can't replicate Crocodile's Sand Logia.

All things considdered, I think the actual, most likely known ability S-Croc might end up with would be like, Mr 3's wax powers (hilariously), mainly because I could imagine it being flexible enough to work in Crocodile's fighting style, so it'd be the easiest for S-Croc to adapt to (like if you can make anything from wax, then why not sharp blades to fling at people) (Also we know Vegapunk would have access to this power since Mr 3 was in Impel Down, when they also got Daz' powers)

But also I had joked before how it'd be funny if S-Croc was a Crocodile Zoan for no reason. Like it'd be fitting since Crocodile was already the Only Logia of the OG Shichibukai, so making his Seraphim the Only Zoan would be funny as hell (if it's even possible, which we can't say if it will/won't be). Additionally, making him a Crocodile Zoan would be hysterically on-the-nose.

(Sidenote: If there was a crocodile Zoan Fruit, what sub-category do you think it'd fall into? Like would it be Ryu Ryu like all the dinosaur-themed Zoans are, or maybe even a different model of Uo Uo (same as Kaidou)? Since "wani" could be considdered a different type of serpent-dragon, and if Vegapunk was researching how to recreate Kaidou's fruit, it's plausible he might've accidentally recreated some other related-fruit in the process or afterwards?? (Also since Kaidou's Uo Uo is a specific model (Seiryu) it would make sense if there was another Uo Uo model Fruit, and this could be an excelent opportunity to use it))

The thing about Zoans though is that, as it's been brought up once or twice before, Zoan fruits can kind of have a "mind of their own" and influence the user in unexpected ways.

And as all we Crocodad Truthers know.

Crocodiles are protective of their babies.

ALSO: The Seraphim do have enough personal will-power that they may (slightly) disobey orders they've been given. Case-and-point, S-Snake undoing the Petrification on the Strawhats after Luffy asked her to, since S-Snake is fond of Luffy just like Hancock is

Sidenote, it was kind of made a point how Vegapunk considdered his artificial replica of Kaidou's dragon fruit a compete failure simply because instead of a blue dragon, the user would turn into a pink one instead. So if Vegapunk tried to make a Seraphim of Crocodile, knowing full-well he couldn't even give the Seraphim the same ability as the OG, and then the Seraphim turns out the wrong sex for no reason?? I could see him being confused as hell and considder S-Croc "a failed Seraphim"

So really, all we'd really need to happen would be for the Strawhats to somehow encounter the remaining three Seraphim while escorting the Vegapunks to Elbaf. Mind you, IDK how that could even happen since as far as we know they've been deployed the Emptee Bluffs

And then just have S-Croc either disobey orders to hunt Luffy or even even have him be protective of Luffy (following that Zoan Instinct, one even he can't explain, it's just Instinct). Have Sanji be like "hey why the fuck is this one a girl, isn't it supposed to be Crocodile", followed by Vegapunk explaining this Seraphim was a failure for reasons even he can't understand

Then have Jinbei remember the conversation Crocodile and Ivankov had at Impel Down (suspicious considdering Ivankov's abilities and this "failed Seraphim"), and maybe if Crocodile had any involvement with the Revolutionaries and Robin was suspicious of him she could even bring that up

Along with any other minor details that may be bothering the crew about the whole deal

And so if the Strawhats and Vegapunk just put all their braincells together and rubbed them real hard, they could maybe come to a hypothesis as to why S-Croc is a "failure" and protective of Luffy, and maybe even a potential explanation as to why The Real Crocodile was protective of Luffy in Marineford for no fucking reason

And maybe, just maybe, Vegapunk could confirm that suspicion with a DNA test. All he needs to do is check Luffy's and compare it to Crocodile's.

Not sure Luffy would want to do the DNA test, like knowing Luffy he might prefer to just ask Crocodile in person if they ever ran to each other again

But boy, if he somehow did agree to a DNA test, and there was a match... oh boy

But again. This entire scenario is BEYOND off-the-rails. Technically plausible! But honestly if Luffy is ever gonna find out (assuming Crocodad Real) then it's gonna be from Dragon

I just wanted to get the theoretical scenario out of my system okay, I had to get the brainworms out of my brain

[justaboot]

Okay but the thing about DT is that they’re related, but it’s still a found family. No one fills a traditional role, there is no nuclear family, and thats what makes it all so much more powerful, is that everyone had to chose and fight to have that role. 

“Donald is the triplets’ dad,” no, he’s not. That’s the point. He’s their uncle, and was always gonna be their uncle, even when everything was all sunshine and roses they were all going to be growing up in the mansion together. But he’s not their dad, he’s their clumsy, lame-ass, too-loud, long suffering uncle, and that doesn’t make that role any less influential and important, because he had a choice, and gave up everything to raise them safely.

Della should have been a given, but they didn’t get that chance, so what would have been a no-brainer became an uphill war to get home to the only traditional family spot, one they left open for her. She wanted it and fought for it in a way that bio-parents traditionally don’t have to. And the kids fought for her, too. She wasn’t taken for granted, and they fought to have a relationship with her memory before they even knew she was still alive. Once she came back, they had to start fresh, and you have to want it to make it work, and they did.

And I know I’ve got kind of a brand with my writing, but Scrooge isn’t, and was never, the twins’ father. He’s, again, their uncle. We didn’t seem much of Donald, (he was caught up in his own grunge thing,) but he had his rich uncle back and forth thing with Scrooge, and Della made him up as some god-king that she had to unlearn later, but they had a relationship offscreen pre-series. We’ll never know in canon what happened to their household, but he was an influence outside of their nuclear family, and he chose to take them in when they couldn’t be with their mother and father anymore. He went out of his way to raise them, and was he the best parent? No, of course not. But he brought them in. They were just his kids, and he let that be a complete sentence.

I could talk endlessly about Webby’s found role in the family. Bentina’s not Webby’s mom, she’s her Granny. (I’m not looking at the finale, I don’t know her.) She took her in. Webby’s not the triplets’ sister, they took her in. Donald grouped her in immediately. Della never knew any different, and how different is 4 from 3 anyway? You literally watch Scrooge decide to be her uncle onscreen.  (fine I’m looking at the finale-Choice is endlessly more significant than sharing DNA. “He’s her dad,” girl he already chose her, you’re undermining everything, he didn’t chose to have a daughter, he loved a little girl enough to make her his niece, it’s enough.)

LP was at their first Christmas together. They loved him enough to call him family. They loved Lena enough to call her family. Dude, even Goldie, she’s not Louie’s mother figure, shes a mentor. She’s some cranky old bitch from Canada who accidentally let slip she has a heart, and who she is was enough for them to keep dragging her back until it stuck.

No one was taken for granted. They literally made their own family. It’s enough. Send tweet.

[thenuclearmallard]

Pictures: Bio mom, myself, biological cousin (left)

Sometimes I get apprehensive about sharing how I look because there's the ongoing battle and worry if I am good enough. It stems a lot from my upbringing and the area I grew up in. 

I was adopted and brought to the US when I was 18 months old and I grew up in a poor city in Appalachia without any Native community or group. In 2019, I decided to do my first DNA test due to being an adoptee and I was hopeful I'd find relatives through the app. Unfortunately, I did not but I was able to confirm the beginning of my reconnection journey. With the results, it showed I am 97.9% connected to Russia with a breakdown of regions that are Native regions: Novaya Zemlya/Arkhangelsk (Nenets), Altai Republic (Altai), and Krasnador Krai (Circassian).

With those regions in mind, I decided to follow up with Ancestry to see, once again, if I was also able to find relatives. I was not, but the DNA aspect confirmed the already existing test that I've taken.

Being fortunate and in contact with my family, I brought up the regions that DNA pulled from and talked to my family about Nenets and Altaian lineage. They confirmed these regions and lineages and also said my biological mother grew up Tatar. It is very important to have family confirmation, as DNA is not your answer to who you are, it's merely a foundation point that you need to build on. With DNA, you can start a journey, but without confirmation of family/community, it's still just DNA and not full reconnection.

With a lot of research, I decided to get a red chin line that extends half of my chin as an attribute of reconnection. The artist who did this has rules for Natives as he is Native himself: I will not tattoo it you do not know what you are getting done. The red line means spiritual growth, maturity, and connectiveness to ancestors. Usually there is a major transition in life to have these chin lines or facial markings complete. I clinically died May 8, 2022 and got my line completed in summer of 2022. Black, blue, and red are colors that the Altaians will use for facial tattooing. Red is used to indicate a healing role within society. It was also chosen to assure there would no misunderstandings with other tribes and to separate ourselves.

Chin tattoos and other facial tattooing has died off significantly within the Soviet Union due to the forced assimilation and the liquidation of people. A lot of people were forced to lose their culture and those reconnecting are tying to preserve what's left.

I am honored to share my Indigenous lineage and to put our Natives on the map. I do not regret getting into activism. I do not regret reconnecting and continuing what is right. I will continue to be a voice for my people and my family. We will not be silent. We are still here. 

[lawnchairthethird]

Oversharing on the internet again

I just discovered some insane ass shit. I'm usually not one to overshare to strangers on the internet but my life has been a wild ride the past few months and it's a bit theraputic.

So I know a lot of you saw my whole family drama post when I went to visit my parents. So yeah, family stuff is messy.

A while, I paid to upgrade my 23 and me DNA test because I've been having health problems (nothing super serious, but stuff I need to figure out) and I wound up really looking into it. It's really important because I don't know my father and have no medical family history.

Out of curiosity, I was looking at the family tree feature. My great grandparents on my mothers side were immigrants from Finland through Ellis Island and I love finding information out about it. It's super interesting and cool.

I called my mom and was asking her if she knew any of the names that popped up as relatives so I could put them on the correct side of the family tree. She went ballistic. Told me to stop digging, asking me why I wanted to know. So I ended the conversation and called my grandma. My grandma is a ROCK. She's the only one who has it together in my family and she is an integral part of why I turned out okay. She even told me to stop, that there were things my mother was ashamed of and it was best to leave it. That was probably about a year ago that this all went down.

I had a doctors appointment yesterday, and my doctor and I were looking through the weird drug intolerances that are in my genetic expression so we could find a better medication for me. Of course, it got me curious again because that's human nature.

Last night, I googled my birth father's name. I've done it before, nothing ever comes up. I had always assumed he was dead because my mom told me he was a heroin addict. Well, A LOT came up this time because he's involved in high profile parole case for murder charges from 1992. At first, I wasn't sure if it was him, but the article was from the town I was born in. The timeline REALLY lined up- he would have committed murder when my mom was about six months pregnant.

I told my husband and we started digging. I found a bad picture of a newspaper article from 1994 when he was convicted. My mom was listed as testifying and as his girlfriend. He brutally strangled a woman in a school parking lot with her own pants. His fucking colloquially known as the 'stretchy-pants strangler'. He had previous charges for domestic violence and had been in jail for robbery. The quotes from him in the articles are creepy and manipulative and make my skin crawl.

And ya'll I'M FINE. Like I didn't know the guy and I assumed he was a bad person, but it's just....unreal. He's alive and I know what prison he is in. I saw a picture of him after spending 31 years not knowing what he looked like. I can't talk to my mom about it because she's so mentally fragile and I think me knowing would push her over the edge.

Do I like...write a book? This isn't how real life works. I always liked true crime, but I'm not sure if I like being one degree away from it.

So yeah. Now I decide how deep I dig- part of me wants to foia court records and arrest records. Part of me is like leave it alone.

TL;DR: my bio dad is a convicted murderer and i just found out

[aita-blorbos]

Are we the assholes for not saying we’re siblings?

I say “we” because I am writing on behalf of my brother [M22] and me [F15]. Also, technically, we’re half-siblings, but eh, we’re siblings.

So, going to the beginning, when my brother (who we’ll call A) and I met, we didn’t know we were siblings. He was just a guy who wanted a job with my dad (M33).

Then as we got to know each other, we realized that he had a gift that as far as I know, only people in my family had. Plus, he has a bracelet that looks just like one my mom had that was supposedly one of only two in the world (my mom had both at one point, but she lost one before I was born.

Lining up backstories a bit: turns out A’s parents were traveling musicians until he and his dad got caught in a fire that killed his dad, and his mom couldn’t be found. Lines up with my mom having left her father for a few years because she married someone my grandpa didn’t approve of before she came back, remarried, and had me.

A didn’t know his mom’s name, but he knew his dad’s last name (because it was also A’s last name, duh). So we went to marriage certificate office. Sure enough, my mom was once married to someone with A’s last name.

So by now I bet you’re wondering why we don’t just ask our mom. Well, my mom disappeared about 10 years ago when I was 5… and now is where we get into the “us not telling people we’re siblings” part of it.

We think we actually met our mom. Or at least we met someone that matches the age and physical appearance we assume our mom would have based on 10+ yr old pictures. [let’s call her L, she’s F41]

And she has a bracelet that matches A’s and my mom’s. And she’s had amnesia for the past 10 years.

Also, as far as asking my dad, my current dad adopted me. My birth dad (aka mom’s second husband) disappeared 7 years ago. Since then, my adopted dad is just my dad… and that’s why I don’t want to ask him.

In theory, A and I could tell my dad and we’d get DNA tests to confirm and maybe even talk to L and all be a big happy family! But also, we’ve just had a crazy few months and things have finally settled down, and we kinda don’t want to stir things up again so soon.

Plus, my dad has been the most steady thing in my life for the past 7 years. We may not be family by blood, but we are the definition of “family is who you choose,” and I don’t want him to think that I’ll ditch him just because I’ve found bio family.

Not to mention, how do you go to someone who doesn’t remember the first 3/4ths of her life and go “Hey, we think we’re your kids!”? L has started a new life and has practically adopted a new kid (I’m not sure about legal technicalities), who admittedly I’d be glad to have as a brother as well, but we don’t want L to feel like she has to abandon him for us.

We feel kinda bad whenever someone comments on how alike A and I look, or pokes fun at how we act like brother and sister, but it just seems like it’d be better to not really say anything, at least not yet. Still, we feel bad keeping it a secret, especially from my dad and L.

So AWTA for not admitting we’re related?

((OOC Note: Yes, this is headcanon, OP and A don’t canonically know, but I think they’re smart enough to figure it out.))

[princess-of-the-corner]

…k, I WASN’T thinking of Hawks being her dad, but now I AM. Not sure how that works exactly - I don’t imagine Hawks would leave his kid if he knew about her - & we are NOT killing him, soooo…honestly, I’m not sure how to feel about Hawks being her bio-dad? Like, I feel like that might be something they figure out fairly early.

Okay now I'm thinking on it more.

This is gonna get a little fucked up so

The whole deal that Hawks made with the Commission when he was a fucking child is just.

"So perhaps you have simply forgot what you signed Oh, honestly, did you not read the colony policy That defines you as company property? That waivers your say in autonomy?"

So yeah they just. Collected some DNA samples at some point. Then when the main plot of bnha kicks in Hawks just. Stops taking orders from them. They try to get him under control, but the whole of society has shifted in ways that they can't force him to continue being their puppet without everything they've done getting put on blast, they look into other options.

And while there's plenty of hopefuls, none are quite as good. And tbh since most of the Heroes know what happened to Nagant and Hawks, they're protective of anyone the Commission scouts so while there's still Heroes getting made, they're not getting their 'special little soldier' out of any of them.

So whoever is in charge of this project decides to just make a child from scratch. And since they can guarantee a good Quirk with Hawks' DNA being added in.... then instead of choosing some random woman they go with one of them hoping that the bio-connection between the child and her handler would result in said child being much more obedient (after all, one of the reasons Hawks was so obedient was them having his mom in custody and knowing that defiance would result in hurting her).

This is also like. Their fuck you to all of the Heroes. Because like. Between Hawks, Nagant, and the Todorokis, they..... kinda set the groundwork for the idea. So the Commission members would know and get a chuckle out of it. And god the devastation and guilt they'd feel if they ever /did/ find out.

And yeah the result is Nijiko. And baby goes through a LOT.

I'm not sure how she'd end up escaping? All I can imagine is one episode of Castle(The Good, The Bad, & The Baby) where someone involved grows a conscience and decides to get her out of there. They manage to make it away from whatever facility is holding her, but are fatally injured. The Heroes find them first but can't get any info from the corpse and Nijiko isn't really talking much.

The Commission is PISSED but can't really show their hand here because Nijiko was kept hidden there's no record of her so her mom can't be like 'oh thanks for finding my baby!' because while she can prove bio-relation there's no record of her existing and that'd raise red flags.

So they just. Have to wait it out and try to get their hands on her again and just put her through their 'training program' later.

And ofc Hawks has no idea about any of this. Like if prompted he might remember the Commission taking some DNA samples or something(but also given the Commission they might not have told him that's what they were doing). But even then the idea of someone using those samples to make a kid....

I think it'd be a while before anyone makes the connection on the bio stuff because like.

So Hawks is. He does not want kids. Given his own traumas, he can't see himself being any kind of good father. Even after he gets a bit of therapy, he still doesn't want to chance it. And considering my endgame ship is him and Toya, who is also in the 'I have a lot of trauma and feel that I should not be trusted as a father', they're not planning to have kids ever.

However if there was a bullshit situation like this where he found out he had a bio kid of some sort, he's not going to abandon said child and he'd try to be a good parent. Same with Toya tbh. And they would be good at it! Trauma makes them scared to try and they wouldn't be perfect but they're capable of figuring things out and asking for help!

Which is why I think it'll be a while before they figure it out since the kid is for the Shoji-Tokoyami family instead of those two. Have Fumikage and/or Mezo find the kid and take them in and then a few years down the line after everyone in the family has established in their heads that they're Nijiko's dads. Hawks is def like. An uncle though. Partly in a 'the extended family' way but also birds of a feather flock together and all that.

Not sure how they'd find out. Maybe something genetic pops up that makes them look into it? Maybe her mom tries something to get her back and ends up revealing the situation? Who knows.

At this point they would tell Hawks and yeah he'd be a bit messed up about the situation and feeling guilty for the fact a kid was made to go through what he did. (Everyone is quick to assure him that it's not his fault!!). He wouldn't try to be anything more than an uncle though because he knows Nijiko has actual good parents now and he's still a part of her life, so trying to adjust that isn't good.

They'd tell Nijiko when she's like. Old enough to comprehend the situation.

[radioactive-earthshine]

Political Thriller AUs..... where the Arranged Marriages are more lethal than the cyanide-laced donuts. How are you feeling around this AU?

10/10

Arranged Marriage AUs or Betrothal AUs are sort of a weakness of mine particularly when the author is wise enough to include more of the political reasons behind the union rather than "force my idiots to fall in love" which is the common path a lot of these AUs take. It's not a BAD direction and I do sometimes want to see End Game of my idiots falling in love but that's not necessarily what's important.

It's the why, what is this world, what are the stakes, what's going to be broken if one, or both REFUSE, do they have other people they want to marry etc.

There's a lot you can do with these AUs other than "teehee they had no choice but to fall in love"

As for who I would do this to I have a Konbart one pingponging in my head that the concept is Krypton never was destroyed, Tomar-Re managed to stabilize the planet and save them all, but Jor El sent Clark to Earth anyway because he was certain it was going to happen, and the fallout afterwards was a lot of political upheaval and he was caught in the crossfire and was murdered (possibly by Dru). Things unfold more or less identically except Clark finds out where he is from, that they are all alive, has his own adventures there as a adopted child meeting the bio fam and their culture some 25 years later, meets his mom who did manage to survive the post-near-apocalyptic event. He has a lot of inner struggles of 'what is home' and knows in his heart it is with the Kents and his mom knows this too.

Eventually Kon comes along, but he's created on Krypton, not on Earth, as a sort of co-opt project between planets. Krypton wanted a way to try to genetically engineer Kryptonians to be able to have their powers AND live in any environment regardless if they have a red sun. Earth was needed because Krypton does not have as advanced of knowledge on genetic manipulation as Earth does, and use with the Earth Metagene was something even their own geneticists were curious about. The only way they were able to do this was cooperation between planetary governments. Kon was a secret side project that when exposed blew up because 1.) they used Kal's dna 2.) they were successful and 3.) they have a fucking clone running around and Krypton had actively BANNED cloning due to the last time they dabbled it and it ended badly.

Clark finds out about this clone and storms there like WTF - It's a mess. There's back and forth bs on what to do with him - some politicians are just 'kill it' but most are 'well no hold up, he actually has some intriguing abilities, we can use this!' Meanwhile Clark is just - 'sort this out, now, or I'm taking him to Earth.'

So they agree, he is an El, so he is released to Lara to protect and raise. Lara by now has high status (for now) and power under her so while critics might grumble, there is nothing they can do less they be shot off to the Phantom Zone.

Things settle down, but only so much.

Earth starts becoming a bigger presence in the interstellar community, Krypton is ever paranoid that Kal on Earth with an endless supply of Metas is a threat to them and so tensions begin to rise.

Some of the more warmongering Kryptonians want to conquer Earth, its conditions are ripe for them to be as their ancestors should have been under a young sun, and humans are soft and need help from aliens and only a spare few of their own kind are even worthy their grace as something approximating equal (metas, Amazons etc).

Clark knows if he just evacs Kon and Lara from the growing tensions on Krypton it would send a message to various Kryptonian politicians that Earth just may be that shady after all and Clark really is plotting against them so he works with his mother to try to find a solution. What would make the tension lesson so diplomacy talks could go positively.

Lara suggests an arranged marriage, because nothing makes Kryptonian's more excited than the prospect of legally bound by blood and law cooperation.

Clark says no before he even hears who or why. Lara persists and explains that while he, who was raised among people that do not partake in arranged marriages, and he who has a very singular mindset of what a marriage should be, arranged marriages are common among Krypton and nothing will show the wide majority of their people that Earth is willing to be neighbors and allies than by participating in one of their most time honored traditions.

Clark relents, and asks who. It is Kon. He has to think about it because that's his little brother. After much self reflection and dismantling his initial responses to the suggestion he relents that it is not a bad idea.

The hard part is deciding who would be a good match for Kon - but the fact that any gender is open for consideration makes things easier. After weighing all the options they have, and getting a lot of "wtf no!" Bart is suggested partly as a joke by [redacted].

Fucking Bartimus. At first he is written off as absolutely NOT eligible due to his more or less canon impulses but out of all the suggestions between metas and Amazons and Atlanteans Bart is the one who is in a position best suited to protect himself against literally everything. No one can touch him unless he wants to be touched. He's also from prominent Hero Family and has a name for himself on Earth as Impulse so it's not as if he's really ineligible.

So they agree.

Bart's not happy about this AT ALL and he thinks they chose him just to get rid of him because this takes place just little while after Max vanishes and he's feeling like he's being yanked around (he is 18 though, he just had longer with Max) and he's had so little control of his life this is just one other thing he has to deal with. Wally tries to explain but he does it badly so he pisses him off even more. Iris explains and he's beyond listening at this point. It takes Helen letting him rant at her and talking through things for him to come down that maybe they really don't HATE HIM.

So he shows up and lets Clark explain it and he, after thinking about it for 2 seconds (for Bart he was going back and forth for about 20 minutes though) agrees that this will be interesting and might just be the right thing to do - and because no one else will I guess it should be him.

Kon meanwhile wasn't taking the whole thing seriously enough because he didn't honestly think it would happen.

He was wrong when Lara told him they found him a husband. Cue record scratch, glass shatters and a cat yowls sound effect. Cue panic. Cue the last 5 years of being totally out of control of his life and being yanked around by anyone and everyone as a political pawn exploding.

It takes a long time for Lara to calm him down but she has a tough job because everything that Kon is freaked out about is TRUE. She reminds him that this good for him and their people, that she too was from an arranged marriage, and that the match they secured for him was a good one and it is for the good of everyone and, dickishly, what would Kal do?

So Kon is sort of guilt bullied into it even though he agreed to it in the first place (very quickly and was just like 'hey just so long as they're hot!') and knew it was happening but he didn't think it would actually happen.

Seeing Bart's picture does dispel some of his anxiety, he is cute, he's attracted to him, he has a nice bod, super speed sound pretty neat and he knows Clark wouldn't choose someone who was creepy.

Little does he know Clark didn't even choose Bart at all at first and Bart wasn't even an option until everyone said NO.

So there they are, both initially GRRRRRR about the whole thing not because of the other but because of the situation. Kon feels like he just a tool to be used, and Bart feels like everyone just wants him gone even if everyone has done everything to explain that's not the case and they believe in him. Bart's older and wiser to know that if they really did believe in him, he would have been up for consideration at the start instead of [redacted].

Overall the stakes are pretty basic - get married just to open the door to start a meaningful conversation. Not even to STOP a conflict, just to hopefully get communication better. If either Kon or Bart balk on it it has the potential to exacerbate tensions between Earth and Krypton though Earth has more to lose.

In the end Kon and Bart do find love.

And that's what I have for this Arranged Marriage AU on my spreadsheet that MAY or may not ever be written, and as always some details may just change entirely.

Send me a fanfic/media trope or theme and I'll rate and tell you what I might do with it or something.

[mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune]

Helluva Boss Theory: Stella Isn’t Octavia’s True Mother (and Stolas Is The True Victim NOT Stella.)

[Note: do NOT reblog without permission, reading this post is optional, and this will talk about Stella while being Octavia’s Bio-Mother, but also at the same time not being Octavia’s True Mom....this will also mention r*pe in this theory post, and Toxic-Feminist who think it is just women or girls who go through that, need to shut up, please.....and if some Toxic-Feminist and their Toxic-Male Counterparts who are just as bad as them, don’t want to read this either, then well, they don’t have to......but anyway, to those who aren’t Toxic-Feminist and aren’t their Toxic-Male Counterparts....please feel free to still read this, if you want to, it’s okay if not everyone reads this, as I said before, it is optional.]      

this theory was possible thanks to one of the episodes of Helluva Boss, which is thanks to The Circus, as well as a episode from Futurama, where Kiff became Pregnant with Leela’s children....but technically, Amy would be the true mother, even if the DNA came from Leela....

so in other words, Stella is the Leela, but in slightly different way....

and Stolas is Kiff, and Blitz is Amy.....

Stella may have had the Egg, but she is possibly not the reason why Stolas was finally able to have a child with Stella.

and it is pretty clear that their “tries” was not of full consent from Stolas’s part, if it does indeed hint to that, and some fans have theorized because of the episode The Circus, when Stolas and Stella married, Stella herself had forced herself on Stolas even when he didn’t want to and possibly wasn’t ready.

and we know how Stella talks about how Stolas does nothing, and she does all the work, it is pretty clear to what it may imply, and even fans can figure out what it does imply to, even when it is not fully said but is hinted....

Stella has been violating Stolas since they first got married, which I guess it does make some alternate counterparts of herself in Fanon Timeline AU who never did such a thing, a bit more likable than her main timeline self....

some might argue that Stella did Nothing wrong, but that is like nothing wrong my butt.....she not only had verbally abused Stolas, she had also physically abused him.....

and it’s possible that Stolas’s thoughts of Blitz and his feelings to him, and possibly the last time they saw each other were perhaps maybe when they were maybe 19 to early 20s....

also no one has to take this theory seriously, as it is just that, a theory...

and the Egg that would become Octavia finally coming into existence...

it meant two things for Stolas, one, he got the one good thing that came out of that marriage, that is Octavia, who he would love and treasure no matter what....and two, it meant that he wont ever be touched in THAT way by that monster woman again, and forced against his will to mate with her.

and while he was still stuck marrying to her, at least until the divorce....

the scars that Stella had place on Stolas would still be there, and even if he might feel bad about hurting her, he might not fully understand what she did to him when they were still married, was really messed up, and no true spouse or soulmate would do such a thing to their other half.

Stella isn’t the victim, if she wasn’t such a pathetic excuse of a woman, and had shown a bit of gentleness to Stolas, and didn’t r*pe him all the time, maybe they could of had a better relationship even if it was just platonic and not romantic at all, like being married but in the friend zone.

Stolas might of been wrong to cheat, but with how she treats him, at least this time, when he did sleep with Blitz, it was of his full consent.

and if it truly does imply it, then it is possible that Stolas NEVER gave Stella full consent to do the things she had did to him when they were married.

even if he does hate her, he might still not fully understand that what she did to him was wrong and had done damage to him both mentally, emotionally and physically.

and if they had to bleep censor Stella confessing what she did to Stolas, when they were still married, and on their first night together as husband and wife, and even the other times when he didn’t want to have s*x with her...

and if Octavia had just came into the room and heard her Mom’s confession, then she might be disgusted with Stella and have a full understanding what Stella did was both cruel and wrong.

Octavia could have more of a understanding about Stella forcing Stolas into having s*x with her....

Octavia could learn about it both in books and online, and knowing about what it does to people both in the living world and in hell...

it could turn out that half of the Sinners that end up in Hell, in Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel.....were victims of r*pe.

and I wouldn’t be surprise if half of those sickos that did it, were the ones who do that messed up corrective r*pe.....which is just as bad as the other type.

and excuse me if this Earth Angel, hopes that those who do that corrective r*pe, end up going to Hell for it.......or better yet, the Abyss.

and even if some Earth Angels tell me “don’t think that way.”, well with how messed up some humans are, and even how messed up some angels are, it’s kind of hard not to have those thoughts....

 and like I said in the post before this one, if I had a Angelic Weapon, it would be boxing gloves to punch the stupidity and insensitivity out of some Masculine Angels, both those who have Fallen and those who have not....

anyway, it is possible that the fans could be guessing right about Stella having forcing herself on Stolas, even when he didn’t want to.

Stolas might feel bad about hurting Stella, because of the affair, but their marriage was arranged, and the arranged marriage wasn’t the true problem.

the problem was with Stella and her forcing Stolas into something he didn’t want from her, and the only thing that came out of it, that saved him from further abuse, was when Octavia when she was finally born.

Octavia was the one good thing that came out of that marriage, and Octavia might of not fully understood that her parents never loved each other even before the affair, and it is clear that Stolas did try to tell Octavia but couldn’t find the right words to explain it to her.

Stolas even tried to give Octavia a normal life, even when Stella went from forcing him to sleeping with her, to just verbal abuse and possibly physically hitting him.

even if Stolas’s feelings for Blitz is one-sided, and Blitz might not be in love with Stolas yet, but like Garnet said before...

“love at first sight doesn’t exist, love takes time, and you at least got to know the person first....”

this can be true for Stolas and Blitz, they have known each other since they first met as kids, and while Stolas may have experienced a love at first sight, but he might of not known he had fallen in love with Blitz, and the love he felt for Blitz would have to take time to fully grow and bloom.

and while there is those who do OTP ship Stolas x Blitz and hope they do end up together, and the ship is no longer just Semi-Canon.

but it might take time for it to go from Semi-Canon to Full Canon.

love takes time, and I think it might take trust.

Stolas might say pervy things to Blitz, and even still values him as his first friend and still sees him as one, but at the same time, he is in love with Blitz.

and even if Stolas made that agreement about his book with Blitz,

could it be possible that Stolas, the Prince himself, might not fully realize that he is in fact in love with Blitz, even if he watched some show with some characters Gabriella in it...

even with the hearts in his eyes, and being really happy to hear from Blitz and to be with him, I guess it could be possible the chances are that Stolas might not fully realize that he is in love with Blitz, and has only half realized it.

and Stolas finally being well semi-free from Stella, could be in a way thanks to Blitz, and it could take more emotional healing for him and accept the fact that Stella did do far worse than him when they were married.

it might be possible that Blitz could be viewed as the true mother or true other parents of Octavia, and not Stella.

which once again, this theory is thanks to the whole episode from Futurama and even the episode that may or may not imply that Stella forces herself on Stolas.

the only differences between Stella and Leela, is that Leela didn’t force herself on Kiff, and just tried to save him, but when she grab his hand, she had accidentally got him pregnant.

 but since Kiff’s feelings for Amy were what made it possible, Amy would be the true mother, even if the DNA came from Leela.

so even if Stella had many “tries” in trying to get a Egg....

what saved Stolas from another r*pe from that woman, would be that he had thoughts of when he had last saw Blitz, possibly when they were almost close to their 20s.....and Stolas feelings for Blitz was what made it possible for Octavia to be born.

Stella might want to put the full blame on Stolas, for their ruined marriage and him cheating on her.....but it wasn’t Blitz or Stolas’s cheating with Blitz that had ruined the marriage.....it was Stella who ruined it, the moment she forced herself on Stolas without his consent.

and yes if it is true that it does imply it, and it is not just a fan theory or guess, then that would mean that it is canon.

just because they were married, doesn’t mean it is okay for any spouse to do that messed up stuff, like saying “oh, it’s okay their married....” the frag it is!

even if a couple is married, there should be mutual consent from both parties.

I mean if Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel were real, I would rather be married to Alastor because at least he wouldn’t try to touch me in that way without my consent, yeah he is a dangerous Overlord, but he seems more safer to trust than some sickos who try to r*pe either because they can’t control their disgusting urges or if they are trying to do that disgusting corrective thing...

 heck, even if Ozzie and Fizz are all about that lust, I don’t think those two would be okay with what Stella did, and I guess would be clueless about it.

I mean Ozzie and Fizz would probably be a lot safer for me to marry if they were real, than some sickos who try to do forcing thing without consent.

and yeah like I had said before, I had a panic attack a few years ago....if I remember right, it was around 2015.....we were about to move to the house that we live in now.

I was alone and it may have been just a little dark, I don’t like being left in a car alone, no matter if it is day or night....and yeah, I did end up hitting my head on the ceiling of the car.

and I know the reason for the panic attack, was because I was scared of r*pe.

I’m not sure if anyone else has experience like that, I know I was hyperventilating when it had happen.

I think I am doing much better since that happen, and I can still have my guard up and try to do my best to protect my Maidenhood.

I don’t want my first, to be taken by someone who would try to r*pe me.

and yeah I can still call my virginity by Maidenhood, even if I am Nonbinary-Girl.

a Maiden is someone who hasn’t had s*x....but it is possible that the word can be misinterpreted.

if Nfirea’s Grandmother, calls herself a Maiden, she isn’t a maiden...

I’m talking about the characters from Overlord, not the Overlord 2007 video game series.....but the Overlord that has Ainz Ooal Gown.      

if it is true that Stella has both played the blame game and even played the victim is true, then it could be possible that her forcing Stolas without consent, into having s*x, could possibly be true.

yeah, Stolas shouldn’t of cheated, but it’s not like Stella was 100% a good wife who was emotionally supportive, maybe like in a Alternate Universe where a Alternate Timeline version of herself is not as bad and did care for Stolas, didn’t do what was possibly implied.

even if Stella might not see her actions as r*pe, but it just seem to have implied it by the way she words that Stolas doesn’t do anything and just stares at the wall while she does all the “work”.......and that he is terrible in bed.

yeah, it isn’t Stolas who is terrible in bed......it’s Stella who’s terrible in bed.

so yeah this is a mix of a theory about Stella NOT being Octavia’s true mother, even if she did have the egg, and it might of been Stolas’s feelings for Blitz and the last time they saw each other, may have been when they were almost in their 20′s....and how it was Stolas’s remembering the moments when he last seen his old friend Blitz and his feelings for him, that what allowed him to be come free from Stella’s forcing herself on him.

Octavia was born out of love, but not from Stella and Stolas’s love.

she was born from the love that Stolas felt for Blitz, which might of been a blessing that saved him from any further spouse abuse from Stella, at least in the s*xual way....

Stella was never the victim, she had both physically and verbally abused Stolas throughout their marriage, and once Octavia was born, Stella no longer had to force herself in that way on Stolas ever again.

which may have made Stolas happy, not having to go through that again, even if he still had to sleep next to her.

saying that Stella did nothing wrong, and Stolas is in full blame, wouldn’t be right, in a way they are both at fault, but Stolas is perhaps only at 98% at fault for having the affair while still being married to Stella, but Stella is still at 100% at fault because what she put Stolas through before the affair had happen.

Stolas taking some kind of happy pills, might have do do with his loveless marriage with Stella, we wont know until we find out more about those pills.

he might of started to take them, sometime after his first night with Stella.

it isn’t just women or girls that go through terrible stuff that Stolas had possibly went through, and even a lot of people no matter their gender, know this fact.

and yeah even if it be nice that what fans are theorizing about Stella having forced herself on Stolas, might not be true.

but it could still be implied but not be fully confirmed.

we can only wait and see if it is true.

and even if the theory might be seen as weird, but it is just I’m gonna view how Stolas was able to finally become a father to Octavia, and it being his love for Blitz had let him be free from Stella touching him each night without his consent, I mean if it is true that it was not of his consent....

even if Stella was hurt that Stolas cheated on her, it might not of been because she had loved him, and maybe we will find out more if it isn’t just because of her being worried about her image and the Ars Goetia name.

but if the theory and the possible implying is indeed true....

this would mean that Stella is the one that hurt Stolas first, and far worse than he had done, and she can’t hide behind her fancy title either.

anyway it’s okay that not everyone agrees about the theory that has to do with Stella technically not being Octavia’s true mother, because of the whole it being like how Kiff got pregnant with Leela’s accidental help, but the feelings of love were towards Amy who is seen as the true mother, even if the DNA came from Leela.....

so yeah, Blitz is Amy, Stolas is Kiff and Stella is Leela.....but in a slightly different way, I’m weird and that is how I am gonna view it.

now I am going to post a FNAF theory next.    

[twoheartshookingup]

Dad’s Best Friend 1 - It’s A Girl

Summary: After finding your biological dad, he introduces you to his work colleagues. But one of his best friends intrigues you more than he should. Series Masterlist Here

Warnings: smut (oral (f receiving), piv sex, fingering, light spanking, hair pulling, thigh riding), infidelity, mentions of terminal illness, mentions of hospice care

Words: 2.3k

—

You stared at yourself in the mirror and took a deep breath. You could do this. It’d be fine. You were just meeting your bio dad’s entire work team at a big family event, and they didn’t know he had a kid. In fairness, Jack Mumford didn’t know that he had a kid until you’d appeared on his sister’s 23 and Me as a niece.

It had taken a few weeks to meet, but finally you’d been able to talk. He was funny, completely surprised that you even existed. He’d known your Mom for a few months, but they’d split up before she knew she was pregnant. You’d always wondered about him but never really had the chance to find out who he was until now. He was fun, and when you told him you were a nurse he was delighted to hear. So you put on jeans and a shirt with a pair of high tops to go see them.

The drive in was nerve wracking, but he’d put your name at the gate of the large concrete building. It was a visitors badge pinned to your jacket and he brought you in.

“Meet my daughter.” The grin on his face was obvious to everyone as you shook hands with members of his team. The names mostly went over your head until he introduced you to his Captain and his Commander. You shook hands and were polite, the carefully controlled shock clear on their faces.

“So, when did you find each other?” Hicks asked as you smiled, your dad grinning broadly.

“My sister did a DNA test thing, they found each other. I never thought I’d be a parent, and I missed most of it, but I want to make up for lost time.” He spoke first, an arm around your shoulder.

“Exactly. It’s weird having a dad, but nice.”

“Mumford can I…who’s this?” A tall greying man came across and you made yourself not stare at him. He was tall and clearly fit, a silver cross hanging around his neck.

“My daughter. Meet Deacon, he’s on 20-David. They’re the second best team, after mine of course.”

“Nice to meet you.” You held out your hand and shook his, his large one enveloping yours.

“Likewise. He mentioned you’d met, it’s nice to have you around. Welcome to the madness.”

You wandered around meeting everyone, laughing and joking. Mumford’s team were great and immediately took you under their wing as one of their own. You were introduced to everyone quickly as his daughter but it was weird at the same time. It was so clear how highly respected he was and that respect went straight to you just because you were a relation. They were welcoming and offered you food, pulling up a chair.

You fell into conversation with the two younger members of a team, Chris and Street.

“You want to get a beer? You and me?” Street asked, and you smiled.

“I mean why not? Could be fun to actually know what happens with swat. I’m pretty sure Dad doesn’t tell me the things that would make me worry.”

“You’d be surprised. Our jobs are a lot of training and getting ready, but when shit hits the fan it really does. There’s a bar a few blocks away, Millers? Meet us there?” Chris asked and you nodded.

“I wasn’t inviting you,” Street retorted back to her, making you both laugh.

“We both know she has better taste than you anyway!” Chris replied and you couldn’t help but laugh at it.

It took a while longer for it to finish up, everyone mingling. Finally you left, hugging your dad goodbye.

“I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow?” He asked, but you shook your head.

“New hospice care client. I’m not sure what my days will be like. Our next day off definitely.”

The few months you’d known him made you hug him firmly before heading out, waving at your new friends. Mumford raised an eyebrow at you and you shook your head while frowning before leaving.

Sitting in the bar with Chris and Street was just what you needed for some peace and relaxation. They shared war stories about their jobs, some of the scenes they’d been on. You replied with some of the happier moments of your job. Hospice nursing wasn’t for everyone but you loved it, loved making sure that people left the world knowing they were as cared for as when they came in. A glance went between the two of them as you spoke, and you raised an eyebrow.

“What? Did I say something wrong?”

“No, it’s just…” Street trailed off before Chris picked up.

“One of our coworkers, his wife is dying of cancer. She’s reaching hospice stage so we’re all too familiar with how it goes. They’ve got kids, their youngest is still in diapers.”

“That’s rough. Look, if he needs anything he can always get in touch with me. I’m more than happy to help anyone from Swat. Dad said everyone there is like a family.”

“That’s true.”

They left soon after, on call from midnight so they wanted to head to their respective places. You exchanged numbers and hugged them goodbye.

Instead you stayed at the bar for a burger and a coke instead of going home. You were starting with a new patient tomorrow, and the first day was always the toughest. They hated needing help, hated knowing that hospice care was the end. And you didn’t blame them, it was nearly impossible for them, their families, their friends. You were there to make life easier.

“Mumford’s kid, right?” The cop from earlier, a Sergeant from the stripes on his arm that you saw.

“Yeah. Deacon? What did you do to get that nickname?” You took a bite of your burger, nearly missing his response.

“Go to Mass on Sundays? You know he’s really glad you found him, right? He never knew he had a kid but he came into work the day after you met on cloud nine.” He signaled for a beer, pointing over to you.

“I’m fine. Heading after this.”

“Stay for a while. I’m in no rush to head home.” He seemed exhausted, and you just smiled.

“Why not? I’m not in work till eight.”

By unspoken agreement neither of you talked about work, instead laughing about the Dodgers season. When you revealed you were an Angels fan he grimaced and shook his head.

“You’d look better in blue!”

“Are you flirting with me?” You just came out and said it as you wanted to run your hand through his beard. He was hot and fit and his eyes kept flicking to your lips.

“Maybe?”

You didn’t want to make out with him at what was clearly an LAPD bar, so instead you put money on the counter and picked up your jacket to head outside. You’d barely made it out into the cool night air when Deacon was right behind you and pulled you to him. His lips were warm and surprisingly soft against yours, his hands slipping into your jeans pocket to pull you against him.

“Deacon,” you breathed out and stared at him, your hands running through his short silver strands. What were you doing? You usually wouldn’t, you’d usually walk away. But there was something here…it was undeniable.

“Come home with me.”

Instead of a response he kissed you deeply, groping your ass. You separated after a moment and he took a step back, adjusting himself.

“I’ll follow you.”

The car behind you should have worried you but you knew it was Deacon, knew he was safe. He pulled up less than five seconds after you did and followed into your apartment building. His hand went around your waist as you stood in the elevator and once you were into the apartment he used it to push you against the wall.

Hot hungry kisses trailed along your jaw and down your neck as he went, leaving marks in his wake along your collarbone. He pulled your hair back to get more access, making you groan as he did.

“Deac, please.” His thigh was between your legs as you ground down, desperate need between you. He looked into your eyes, his brown ones list filled and desperate.

“Are you sure?” He asked as he watched you nod.

“Positive. Please, I need you.”

His hands went on your ass and you jumped up to wrap your legs around his waist and grind your core into his denim clad bulge. You directed him to your bedroom, thanking whatever deity existed that you’d cleaned up and were wearing matching underwear. His groan of appreciation when your tee came off and he saw the cornflower blue bra made it worth it. Calloused fingers ran over the lace to make your nipples pebble as you undid his jeans in desperation.

It didn’t take long for you to both be down to your underwear, the bulge in his briefs clear. Deacon pushed you against the bed and kissed down your body, stopping at every freckle and mark that was there. Finally he stopped between your legs and spread your thighs with his strong hands. His fingers grasped tightly and you could tell he’d leave bruises against your skin but you didn’t care. His tongue dragged a stripe on the outside of your soaked panties as you moaned. It didn’t take long for him to pull your underwear off you and toss it across the room. You tried to see where it went but instead one of his thick fingers entered you to make you see stars.

It was need and lust as you fucked his fingers back, an unintelligible babble of want on your lips. When his lips met your clit and his fingers curled up you came with a shout. He eased you through it and dragged it out until you were pulling away from overstimulation.

“You ok?” Deacon asked pressing kisses to you with his soaked beard scratching your chin.

“Gimme a minu’e,” you replied in between them as you felt your strength return. You went to roll him over but Deacon stopped you, pulling you onto your hands and knees. You grabbed a condom from the nightstand and passed it back to him, a soothing hand rubbing your ass before he slapped it gently. The force made you buck and made him chuckle.

“You liked that? Maybe next time we can try something else?” The idea of a next time made you smile but before you could say anything he entered you oh so slowly.

His thick cock stretched you and you had to breathe out slowly while he pushed in. Hands on your hips held you steady as his fingertips dug into your soft flesh. But once you were ready and gave an experimental movement he was off. One of his hands pulled your hair back, your back arching even more as he did. The other stayed on your hip for leverage as he fucked you hard and steady. Staying upright would have been impossible if not for his hand in your hair and you moved your fingers to your clit. Every movement brushed off your most sensitive spots, Deacon fucking you hard enough to make the bed shake. He pulled you flush against his chest and forced your hand from your clit, replacing it with his own. The one that had your hair moved to your tits, groping and squeezing roughly. He pinched a nipple and made you keen in need.

“So fucking tight and wet for me. All I can smell is you. Gonna cum for me? Cum around my cock like a good girl, that’s what you need to do. Cum for me baby.” You felt the coil in your belly tighten as you came, Deacon putting his hand over your mouth to muffle your cries. You felt his thrusts stutter as his lips sucked a mark into your shoulder while he came. The two of you fell forward together into the mattress with his arms around you. Once he recovered he moved away and you groaned at the loss of warmth.

When he came back he pressed a kiss in between your shoulder blades, making you turn over and look at him quizzically.

“What was that for?”

“My cross left a mark, it looked cute.”

He looked ten years younger than when you’d first met him, light in his eyes as you reached to kiss him. But before too long he had to leave.

“I should go…” he trailed off and you nodded, pulling a shirt on to go with him.

“Sure. You said maybe we’d do this again?”

“Yeah. Here, where’s your phone?”

He put his number into your cell and called his from it to make sure he had it before kissing you one last time. His kisses were intoxicating, all you wanted was to keep doing it. But you both had work the next morning so you kicked him out of the apartment with a smile on both your faces.

The next day you pulled up outside your newest patients house and reviewed her file one last time before going in. Annie Kay, forty, a married mother of three with brain cancer that had metastasised to her bones and lungs. Your job was to make sure she got to die with dignity and as little pain and suffering as possible. Her doctors thought she only had weeks left, so you’d be here a lot until she passed. But this is what you did, so you stood out of the car and grabbed your medical bag before fixing your clothes. At least you didn’t have to wear scrubs and could wear jeans and a comfy tee.

Knocking at the door you swallowed, waiting for it to open.

“Hi, I’m the nurse? I’m here to meet Annie and help you all out with what’s happening.”

“What?”

That voice that you’d heard whispering filthy things into your ear ten hours before was there, and you looked up to see Deacon’s brown eyes staring at you in shock and horror.

[soulmate-game]

This is an alternate ending for my Bio!dad Joker / Bio!mom Harley AU. Or really, the timeline itself will be entirely different starting from the moment that Marinette’s plane lands in Gotham. If you haven’t read the original, you can do so here.

—*—*—*—*—*

“He’s going to find out, Mom.”

“No he won’t, don’t be silly! I’ve been very careful about hiding you from him, Nettie-pie.”

“Mom… I just have a bad feeling. I don’t think we can hide who I am from him. If he sees me, I think he’ll know.”

The phone went silent.

“If he hurts you, I’ll kill him. If I was crazy about him, Sugar, then I’m head over heels for you. Not even he can stop me from caving his skull in if he tries his usual tricks with you.”

“... My plane leaves soon, I’ll talk to you when I land. And mom?”

“Yeah, honeycake?”

“I love you.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Marinette often hated how accurate her intuition tended to be. She had barely even stepped out of the airport before she had felt the prick of a needle in her neck and the sensation of being shoved into a small, dark space before her vision cut out.

Looks like her mom wasn’t able to hide her existence away as well as they thought.

And unfortunately for Marinette, her darling asshole of a father had apparently had ample time to plan his first meeting with her. If he had just used the much easier to acquire Chloroform on her, then Marinette likely would have woken up early enough to come up with a plan. Chloroform was unreliable and wore off fairly easily. But no, he had actually had the time to steal hospital grade anesthetic.

Which meant that Marinette woke up with her wrists zip-tied to heavy links of chain above her head, and her ankles connected to the chain below her with what felt like ten layers of duct tape.

Lovely.

“Ah, there she is! Good morning, sleepyhead!” Those were the high-pitched, dramatic words she heard when she came back to consciousness. She didn’t even need to open her eyes to know who the speaker was— she had watched enough videos online and not-so-legally obtained Asylum and Prison footage to immediately recognize the speech patterns and tone that was echoing around her.

Apparently keeping her eyes closed was not allowed, because it was only a few seconds later that Marinette felt a harsh slap sting her cheek and whip her face to the side. Oh, that would become a bruise without a doubt. Her teeth betrayed her, cutting into the inside of her mouth with the force of the hit. So, when Marinette opened her eyes to glare at the sperm donor responsible for half of her DNA, she aimed her bloody spit right at him. It landed on his shoe, which only a few seconds later slammed into her gut.

Marinette gasped for air even as the chain she was on swung violently, making her dizzy and upsetting her stomach. Too bad she didn’t have anything in there to throw up on him, she thought angrily. The chain links rattled loudly, ringing in her head alongside the electric pain of both of her newly forming bruises.

“Honestly, is that any way to treat your dear ol’ Daddy?” Joker cooed with false offense, one hand over his heart. Marinette glared at him as best as she could as she continued to sway in the open air, the chain she was tied to being the only thing keeping her from plunging straight down into a vat of sickly green, bubbling liquid.

Marinette didn’t need to be told what that liquid was. And joker knew that, the moment he saw her look down at that vat and saw the realization almost immediately cross her face. So instead of explaining, he laughed. Loud, high, and deranged.

“Good, good! That idiot Harley kept you educated, at least,” he said between psychotic chuckles. “Ah yes, and she somehow managed to choose the perfect name,” he glided over to her, as if he was some ethereal demon of chaos instead of a human. His paper-white hand reached out, grabbing her chin in a crushing grip and turning her face this way and that. Inspecting her as if she was a piece of china and not a living being. “So easy to adjust. Right now, you’re Marinette. Just like how, all those years ago, your mother stood here as Harleen. But just as she was dunked into acid and became my harlequin,” he stepped back and grabbed Marinette’s shoulders. He spun her like a top, making the metal chain creak and clink as it wound into a few weak coils and then released back out, trying to go straight again. It sent Marinette twirling through the air in a horrid half-spin, one-eighty degrees one way before sharply spinning to the other side. Joker laughed.

“Just like that, you’re gonna go from boring old Marinette,” he stuck out his tongue like a child, as if the mere taste of her name was bitter. “And you’ll be reborn as my new little Marionette. Aren’t you excited?!”

“Fuck you,” Marinette spat, even as she tried to blink and return her vision to normal. She was far too disoriented to even come up with a plan— but she was still coherent enough to register that the sky was dark outside the high windows of the factory she was apparently in. She had been missing for a few hours then, which meant that her mom and Momma Ivy would have called for help a long time ago. Maybe if she just stalled long enough, it would get there in time. “I’m not a puppet. Not for you, not for anybody!” She snarled.

Joker rolled his eyes, but his smile still widened. “Oh, that’s what they all say. In fact, your mother put up a good resistance there for a while, but her inner chaos couldn’t resist me. You’ll bend even easier, I have no doubt,” her ran his hand along her cheek in a motion that was so gentle that it felt foreign, wrong, to her coming from him. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to whiplash her, take all her hope away before dangling the option he wanted her to choose in front of her like a carrot on a stick.

Too bad he didn’t know her at all. She cringed away from his gentle touch, revolted by the mere feel of his skin on her’s.

“And your accent is a nice touch,” he cooed as if her reaction didn’t bother him at all. It probably didn’t. “Exotic. Just the thing I need to freshen up my usual act a bit, the Boston twang my old Harlequins had is just… stale by now, don’t you agree?”

Marinette clenched her jaw at the reminder that he had tried to pass off a cheap look-alike as her mom when she disappeared, back when she was pregnant with Marinette, to hide her baby from Joker. How he had discarded that woman like trash when Harley went back to him, only to replace her again when her mom left him for good.

No matter how badly Joker spoke of her mom, Marinette knew that Harley had been the only Harlequin of his to actually last. The only one he kept around, and there was a reason for that. Now, he was looking for another replacement. One that was more than a cheap knockoff, and he was hoping that a teenager with not only Harley’s genetics, but also his own, would be the exact kind of right-hand prop he wanted. An obedient little puppet of chaos, just for him.

But Marinette was nobody's toy. She had been used and taken advantage of enough back in Paris, she had spent her whole life struggling to escape the side effects of her parentage. To deal with the things she inherited.

The obsessiveness, the way she was so quick to get attached. She knew she inherited that from her mom. But there was also the rage, the anger that Marinette constantly had to stuff down. Hide below the surface before it hurt someone. Keep under a tight reign and hide away in the back of her mind, her own dirty little secret.

The constant reminder of just who her biological father was. Because that anger, that viciousness, could only have come from him.

She had spent her whole life trying to carve herself her own identity, to create beauty with the chaotic elements she got from her blood. And she couldn’t blame her mother, not really. Her mother at least did her best to help, and always leant an empathetic ear when Marinette needed it. But Joker?

Oh, she could, and would, blame him even long after he was dead and gone. Because he was the one who hurt her mother, he was the one who twisted her and drove her to feel unfit to be a parent. And sometimes, Marinette thought it would be better if Joker never existed. Sure, that meant she never would have been born. But wouldn’t that have been easier, too? To not ever have to experience the struggle that came with being his daughter, a title she never consented to?

But she couldn’t change the past. She was alive, and she would use her life to spite everything that the Joker stood for. That would be her revenge. He wanted a toy?

Joker had been monologuing, but Marinette drowned it all out as she kept her periphery vision on the windows above her. Shadows moved out there, with familiar bright yellows and shadowy blacks. The bats were there. She just needed to stall.

She opened her mouth. Joker pulled a lever.

Marinette dropped.

Wire whizzed through the air, knocking the breath out of Marinette as it wound around her torso. She was barely able to piece together what was happening; one of the bats shot a human-safe grapple to try and pull her away from the acid.

But the chain and her restraints were stronger, heavier, and just dragged the grapple down with her body.

The impact sent a large wave of sickly green liquid surging over the side of the vat, and Marinette was dragged from view underneath the surface.

It burned.

She distantly felt the tape around her ankles peel itself away from her skin, the combination of acid and wetness rendering it useless. She felt the chemicals burning at her, sending painful tingles across every last inch of her skin. It got in her mouth, she didn’t have any breath in her to hold and ended up swallowing some. It seared her throat and created a river of lava inside her. It hurt.

It hurt so bad, she just wanted out. Out. Out. Out!

Someone pull her out now!

The zip tie around her wrist loosened enough for her to pull herself free, right as something heavy slammed into the heavy metal bowl. The entire container sloshed, slamming to fall onto its side. Marinette’s body was pulled alongside the rush of liquid as it flowed out, and she was able to breathe air again. Sweet, cooling air.

And then she hacked up acid, spitting and spewing it in an attempt to purge every last drop she had accidentally ingested. Like a cat choking on a hairball, she coughed and hacked and her chest convulsed and contracted to try and help her. Her ribs ached, she figured that the grapple that had tried to save her had ended up fracturing or breaking a rib or two. But all she cared about was breathing and getting rid of the chemicals she had inhaled. She needed it out. All of it. Out. Out. Out of her!

“Try to take a deep breath,” a gruff voice commanded, soft but solid. Something stable for her to cling to. So she did as it asked, forcing herself to stop hacking and instead focus on inhaling. As slowly as she could. It was difficult, the first few breaths cut themselves off with more involuntary coughing, but the owner of the gruff voice stayed nearby. Repeated it’s request. “Deep breath. Steady, now. In. Out. Good.”

Marinette was just starting to calm down, just starting to claw herself out of the haze of panic and adrenaline, when that wretched laugh cut through the air again.

“There you are! Heheheheh! My cute little Marionette!”

Marinette froze. She could barely think, barely understand her own emotions. But she knew she was different now. She knew there was no way back, he had taken it from her. He had taken her normality, he had taken all of her years of hard work and burned them right in front of her.

He had won. The bats hadn’t been fast enough. But, if her foggy mind was correct, Batman was the one trying to bring her back to lucidity. Batman was the one trying to help her get air back in her lungs.

Not her so-called father.

If he wanted a toy, she’d be a haunted doll. She’d harass him, haunt him, until he wanted nothing to do with her. She’d come back, like a possessed porcelain doll refusing to be thrown away. She would make him regret ever awakening the monster that she had spent so long forcing down. Because she was her father’s daughter, yes. But she was also her mother’s daughter.

And most importantly, she was Marinette Quinzel-Isley. Her own damned person. The Chosen wielder of the Creation miraculous. And she would never bow down and be used by anyone, ever again.

Tikki’s words from so long ago echoed in her mind. Resounded even louder than Joker’s laughter;

“That’s all order really is, Marinette. The decision to take all the chaos and madness around us, and make it make sense. Make it do something good.”

And wasn’t that everything Marinette had ever done? It was a part of her now. Like a tattoo she had inked into her very soul.

She took the chaos she was given, and turned it into something beautiful. And right now? Right now, the most beautiful thing she could think of was Joker’s face when she slammed her fist into it.

“Easy,” Batman repeated, but for a different reason now. Marinette’s lungs still stuttered a little, but her breathing was mostly under control. Now, he was saying it because Marinette was forcing herself to her feet. Her legs trembled under her, threatening to lay her out on the floor again. But she was every bit as stubborn as Joker, which made for a terrifying combination with her all-consuming fury. The acid had broken the mental chains Marinette had been using to hold it back, and now it burned fierce and bright in her eyes.

So Marinette kept herself up right, cognizant of Batman’s hand on her shoulder but ignoring it. She grit her teeth against the burning light of the room, everything suddenly too bright and colorful. Too vibrant. But it did little to distract her. She realized that one of her hands still gripped the heavy chain that had sent her drowning in the acid, and sent a snarl at her darling, jackass of a father as she whipped it out right towards him.

“Marinette!” Batman yelled, his grip tightening on her shoulder. But he didn’t pull her back, which spoke louder than any words he could have said to her right then. He wouldn’t save Joker from his daughter, he knew the man deserved at least this much pain. And sure enough, the metal links slammed right into Joker’s side, winding around him like a crushing whip.

But that was all Marinette had the strength to do. As soon as she saw Joker’s body hit the floor, writhing in agony and painfully loud cackles, her hand let go of the chain and her body tumbled down. Batman caught her.

“Red Hood, Nightwing, get Joker back to Arkham,” Batman’s order faded in and out of focus. Now that her most pressing desire was taken care of, the effects of the acid reared their ugly heads with renewed ferocity. Everything was too bright, too loud, and her thoughts echoed in her head like voices wrestling for supremacy. “Robin, Black Bat, stay on alert. Harley said that she’s incredibly trained,” he warned his partners. Marinette didn’t begrudge him, the only other two people who had survived being dunked into those chemicals hadn’t exactly treated him with kindness and pacifism. But she could barely focus on them anyway, too distracted by trying to reign in the chaos in her mind.

But Joker would never stay silent, even as he was dragged away in chains.

“Hehehahahahaha! Paper white, paper white!” He jeered cheerfully. “That’s my girl! Violent just like Papa!” Red hood knocked him out with a harsh punch to the side of his neck before he could say another word. But it was enough— enough for Marinette to gasp in realization.

Her skin. It was paper white, just like his. Not even Harley’s skin had been bleached like the Joker’s after her dip in the acid. That had always been makeup. Her mom had a healthy, peachy complexion like anyone else. A complexion Marinette had shared— until now. Now, she was unhealthily pale. Just like him.

A painful screech tore itself from her already raw throat, and Marinette’s fingernails immediately began to tear at her own skin. Red. Red was better than white— she didn’t want to look like him. She couldn’t. White was bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.

“Marinette! Stop!” Strong hands clamped around her wrists, pulling her hands away from herself even as she wriggled and tried to keep clawing at herself.

“No! No no no!” Marinette howled. “I don’t wanna look like him! I don’t wanna be like him!” She managed to get one hand free and immediately tried to tear away at her face. Batman was able to wrestle her arm away before she could do any damage besides a few angry red lines. “I refuse! I refuse! I refuse!” She shook her head, not feeling as tears flung themselves off her cheeks.

“Okay,” Batman’s voice was solid again, soft and grumbly and stable. She grabbed at it again, drawn to anything that might help bring her stability. She needed his unflappable attitude right then, and he probably didn’t even realize how badly. “That’s good. But you don’t need to rip your skin off to do that, you know that right?”

Marinette hiccuped, finally sinking down to sob as the weight of everything she had lost pressed down over the chaos of deafening light and blinding sound that continued to jumble around inside her head. “He changed me,” she choked out. Batman nodded even though she wasn’t looking at him.

“He did.”

“Th-that f-fucking bastard,” Marinette managed a sad chuckle before devolving right back into sobs. “I wo-worked so h-hard. N-never hurt any-anybody. Never… never yelled. Ne-never hit… Not people who didn’t attack f-first.”

“I know. Your mom told me,” he confirmed calmly. Solid, tethering. Marinette swallowed another gulp of air, trying to calm down. But everything was too much.

“Mom!” She suddenly realized out loud, turning and grabbing at Batman’s chest, clinging to his uniform. She didn’t even care that she almost sliced herself on a batarang, she clung to him desperately with wide, crazed eyes. “G-get Mom and… and Ivy! They… they can help. They know—“ Marinette paused to breathe, then resumed. “Momma Ivy— she gave me—gave me a diluted… th-thingy, years ago, I can’t remember—“ Marinette’s eyebrows furrowed as she tried to get her mind to calm down. To work.

“The serum she gave Harley?” He asked. “The one that made her immune to poisons, and gave her increased physical abilities?”

“That!” Marinette agreed frantically, nodding. “I was too— too little, to give the real thing, so she diluted it,” she swallowed her spit and winced when it burned her throat. “It… I think it’s helping with the—the—the—“

“The chemical’s effects?” Batman suddenly sounded like he was paying much more attention than before, his shoulders a little straighter at her explanation. “You think it’s slowing down or numbing what it did to your mom and Joker?” Marinette couldn’t talk anymore, it hurt too much. Everything hurt too much, so she just nodded. “Good. That’s good, Marinette. Robin! Get Harley and Ivy down here, now!”

That was when the voices started. Sometime during the ten minutes it took to get her Mom and Ivy to her, they had apparently been waiting nearby anxiously incase the Bats had needed backup, the voices had built from ominous whispers to devious shouts, ordering her to do things like slam her elbow into Batman’s throat or see what happened if she splashed Robin with some of the acid that was still on the ground.

Her body didn’t move. She kept herself carefully still, focusing on ignoring her impulse to listen to one of the voices. She was still lucid enough to know that she would regret it if she did any of that. That the Bats were more on her side than any of the voices or the Joker were. But it was growing painful, and Harley and Ivy walked in to Batman trying to keep Marinette from hitting her own head. She had devolved to trying to knock herself out to get the voices to be quiet.

“Shut up,” she hissed, her voice hoarse and gravelly. “Shut up, shut up, shut. Up!” She was clearly talking to herself, her eyes screwed shut as she continued to try and hit her head. Harley gasped, hands flying to her mouth and eyes watering at the sight. This was something she had hoped she would never see.

“Harls,” Ivy spoke softly, putting a gentle arm around her wife’s back in support. It hurt Ivy to see Marinette in so much agony, but she knew it pained Harley even more. And much more personally. “Come on. We can help.”

“Y-you’re right,” Harley agreed shakily, taking a deep breath to try and compose herself before they both approached their daughter. Batman didn’t let go of Marinette, but did lean out of the way to give them access to her.

“Honeycake?” Harley called out softly, a little unsure how the chemicals were affecting her baby’s personality right then. The first few days were going to be the worst, and she knew that. The Dunk never took it easy on it’s victims. Marinette gasped, stopping her muttering and raising her head to look at Harley with wide eyes.

“Momma?”

Harley had to swallow heavily to shove back the sob that wanted to bubble up out of her. She had to be strong for her baby. She couldn’t break yet. But Marinette hadn’t called her Momma since she was little, now she called Pamela ‘Momma Ivy’ and her just ‘Mom’.

“It’s me, sugarplum,” she assured her daughter, kneeling down and cupping one of Marinette’s cheeks in her palm. And that was when she noticed it, and couldn’t help but widen her eyes in shock. But Marinette’s senses were so sensitive that she noticed it right away, and stiffened.

“Wh-what is it?” She grew frantic when Harley didn’t immediately respond, only winced in sympathy. Marinette knew that wasn’t good. “Mom? What is it? What did he do? What else did he do to me?”

“Darling,” Harley started, licking her lips nervously. “My sweet baby girl, your right eye… it’s green now, sugar.”

Marinette’s world froze. She tried to smile, but it came out lopsided and disbelieving. “No,” she somehow managed to breathe. “No, mom, I have your eyes. Your blue eyes. I love your eyes,” Her voice steadily got more and more panicked as she went on, not wanting to accept what her mother was clearly seeing. She watched as Harley’s face broke a little, a few tears escaping before the older woman could stop them. Marinette shook her head again, slipping her tiny wrist out of Batman’s hold and raising it to her eye. “No. It’s one of his tricks. He—he must have slipped a contact in my eye when I was passed out, that’s— that’s— that’s all—“ but her fingertip met her normal eye. No contact to be felt. Marinette’s hand fell into her lap limply. The room was absolutely silent as everyone gave her a few seconds to process just how much she had been changed, entirely against her will. She opened and closed her mouth, not sure whether she wanted to yell or curse or cry. Instead, her voice just came out in a very tiny, broken:

“...fuck.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Marinette had gone mostly mute. She would say a word here or there, but for the most part she was doing a good impression of a vegetable. She stayed silent, as still as possible, and just stared at the ceiling of her hospital room.

She had been like that for the past two weeks they had been monitoring her in the Acid’s aftermath. Her ribs, which had turned out to only be bruised thankfully enough, had healed. Her cheek and torso were healed up too, only the barest hint of sickly yellow to show as a reminder of Joker’s hits on her. Sometimes the cameras would catch her talking to seemingly empty air, only for a nurse to rush in and see that Marinette had gone silent yet again.

Tikki was doing her best to help. She had been separated from Marinette, but Pamela had found Marinette’s purse and returned it— and subsequently Tikki— when they had gotten her to the hospital. She was the only person Marinette regularly spoke to, because Marinette knew Tikki understood. Tikki had been around since the Big Bang, she had seen worse things than a little insanity. Tikki had always been there to help her feel at ease with her mind and body. She shared a piece of Tikki’s soul, even, according to the tiny god.

But talking to anyone else was too hard. Too scary. She still had those damned voices at war in her mind, trying to convince her to do things that made her lock her joints and keep her body absolutely still before she acted on any of the coaxes. Possibilities she had never considered before came startlingly easy to her mind now— like how it would only take two seconds to tear her IV out and stab it into her nurse’s eye. How she could use her blanket to strangle Momma Ivy, or how she could fake jumping out the window and Harley wouldn’t waste a second trying to save her.

They were horrible thoughts. Intrusive, ugly, and far too loud. She didn’t want to act on any of them, but sometimes she found her fingers twitching only a second before she could follow through on one.

She spent a lot of time meditating, because of it. Which is why most people thought she was ignoring them. She didn’t mean to, she just needed to meditate. It was like her brain was a giant room filled with filing cabinets that held her thoughts and emotions. Her whole life, Marinette had carefully kept this room alphabetized, organized, and neat. Every file in its correct drawer. Until Joker had come along, and ripped the entire place apart. Tore certain files in half, broke her cabinets, ruined her filing system. And now she had to put the room back together, one drawer and piece of paper at a time.

That’s what the meditation was doing. She was getting reacquainted with herself. Learning what had changed in her mind and trying to adjust. She couldn’t be the old Marinette anymore, but she’d be damned if she let the Joker turn her into someone ugly like him.

So she needed time.

One day, towards the end of those two weeks, she got a visitor slipping through her window. Considering her room was on the tenth floor, she had it pretty narrowed down as to who it could be. Batman had visited her every night, a silent shadow in the corner, but he had already left for the day so it couldn’t be him. None of the other bats had dropped by after the second day.

She turned her head to see that that was now changed; Red Hood sat on her windowsill with one leg inside the room and the other bent on the sill itself. He looked the very picture of comfort despite being a stiff wind (or quick shove— no, bad brain) away from falling to his death. And then Hood took off his helmet, which was ugly enough to inspire some of the more violent suggestions in her brain and make them seem appealing.

“Ya know. Red Hood used to be what Joker called himself,” were the first words out of the vigilante’s mouth. Marinette’s eyebrows pulled down, and it was clear she was confused (and a little angry) at what he told her. He grinned, his eyes still hidden by the domino mask on his face. “Eh. The bastard killed me, ya know. I was the second Robin, a lifetime ago.”

Marinette’s eyes widened at that, and the violent voices dimmed and seemed to grow muffled. Marinette couldn’t quite understand what they were trying to tell her anymore, which made her figure that she had better pay attention to what Hood had to say. She licked her dry lips, and spoke softly. Her throat was still damaged from the acid, so she couldn’t speak very loudly yet.

“Then how are you… you know, here?”

The man chuckled. “Another group of assholes happens to have a magic pit in their basement. It’s a glowing green lake, ten different types of bad news. But it brings people back to life, and they dunked me in it without even caring for a second if I even wanted to come back.”

Marinette’s shoulders relaxed all on their own. It seemed to sink into her brain all at once, a simple:

Oh. He gets it.

“I guess the water doesn’t take it easy on your brain, either?” She hazarded an educated guess. He laughed, shaking his head.

“Not at all. I went off the deep end for a while, and killed a lotta people. They deserved it at least, but I don’t like how violent I was back then. Before I learned how to cope. Attacked people who were innocent. Red Robin almost died when I attacked him, back then, when he was just Robin.”

“Then why’d you keep calling yourself Red Hood?” She asked, tilting her head. He finally turned his head to look straight at her instead of just staring out the window. His grin widened, but it was lopsided. The grin of someone who was healed from some serious shit, but knew that it would always ache. A bittersweet expression.

“Cuz he doesn’t own that name. I made it into something that stands for at least a little good. Something that scares the assholes who don’t care about killing or abusing innocent people. Hell, some people take comfort in the name Red Hood now. And you know what that means?”

Marinette shook her head, and his grin widened into a shark-like smile.

“It means I stole it from him. The name Red Hood. He’ll never use it again, and now it stands for the opposite of anything he’d agree with. You can do that too, you know. Find something to steal from him, or use something he gave you, and make it your own.”

“Turn the chaos into something good,” Marinette said dreamily, clearly quoting someone. Red Hood nodded.

“Exactly. It’s not gonna be easy, but you got the choice here. You ain’t going back to who you used to be, but you can take the victory away from him.”

“... make him regret ever dunking me in that stupid vat,” she agreed, narrowing her eyes as they filled with determination for the first time since her body hit the acid. “He wants a puppet, an obedient little doll, I’ll give him Annabel.”

“There ya go,” The vigilante slid off the windowsill and approached her bed, holding out his hand for a shake. “I can help you get to that. What do ya say?”

Marinette was silent for a long minute, staring straight into his masked eyes. And then, a slow smile spread over her lips. “I got one question, Red Hood.”

“Shoot.”

“How do you feel about black cats?”

—*—*—*—*—*

This took four hours, holy hell. I’m actually happy with how this turned out. What do you guys think? I even got to max length on Tumblr 😂

[yuta-nakamots]

misfit - j.sc

Pairing - Sungchan x Reader

Genre - Horror/Thriller, Angst, Fluff

Warnings - serial killer, character death, violence, murder, implications of sex

Summary - A murderer is on the loose, killing with no regret and ending the lives of more than just a few people. No one knew who it was, turning against each other upon even the slightest bit of doubt. Maybe you should’ve been more careful with who you chose to trust. 

Word Count - 5.3k

A/N - this is inspired entirely from a dream I had a few days ago. I've added very little to what I saw in my dream aside from Sungchan as the male lead. yes, I am freaked out by this and yes, I am scared of writing for Sungchan bc I don’t know his personality all too well but as an ‘01 liner myself I have faith in us

Written for the #NeoHalloween writing festival hosted by @nct-writers​. Check out the masterlist here.

For five months now, your town has lived in fear. A serial killer was on the loose and he was known by the name of Hickleback Jack though no one knew where the name came from or who had started it. Each month, the population of your town voted on the local community board to have one person executed who they thought was Hickleback Jack. So far, not a single guess was right leaving five innocent people dead. Well, five plus an extra thirty, give or take.

See, the thing about Hickleback Jack, was that every time the votes came in at the end of the month, he could see just who voted for him and targeted them as his next victims. He killed six of those people over the following month, adding up to seven dead each time the town guessed incorrectly. It was getting to a point where no one trusted each other, no one dared to say anything against each other in fear of being accused or in fear of being the next to fall mercy to Hickleback Jack.

Not much was known about this killer other than his appearance. He’s male with a tall and broad figure though he always covers his face with some kind of mask. His common weapon is known to be an axe. People have claimed to have seen him late at night under the dim orange glow of the street lamps but he was never caught by the authorities, leaving everyone restless and waiting for the next kill.

The night was still young when you had gotten home from school and it was a Friday night which was basically an open invitation for you to call over your boyfriend, Sungchan. He had transferred in to your university at the start of the school year, and had ended up sitting next to you during your sophomore seminar class, leading to the start of your friendship with him.

A simple friendship soon blossomed into a relationship after Sungchan’s bright personality began shining through his somewhat intimidating exterior. You lived without fear when Sungchan was around, the love you had for him blocking out anything else in the world that wasn’t him.

You sat on your bed, your homework spread out in front of you while you held your phone up to your ear. “Do you want to come over tonight?” You ask as soon as he picks up your call.

You hear rustling on the other end of the call before Sungchan clears his throat and speaks, his voice husky from sleep. “Sorry, can you repeat that?”

“I said, do you want to come over tonight?” You paused and heard him yawn. “You fell asleep after class didn’t you?” You smiled to yourself thinking of your boyfriend’s handsome face as he napped after getting back to his apartment once he finished with his classes for the day, which was a common occurrence now that the semester was in full swing.

“Mmm,” he hummed in thought, “as much as I’d love to, I really shouldn’t have taken that nap because of how much homework I have.”

“Oh, that’s okay, do your homework first,” you reassure him, “maybe we can hang out some other time this weekend. It’s only Friday after all.”

“Definitely. Are you starting yours right now?” Sungchan asked.

“Yeah, I’d rather not wait and end up cramming on Sunday night.” You laughed, knowing that said event has happened more times that you’d like to admit.

Sungchan let out a noise of agreement. “I’ll let you know when I’m done with my homework though.”

“Same here.” You promised.

“Alright, let’s get to work and I’ll talk to you soon.” He told you.

“Sounds good, love you.”

“Love you too.”

With that you hung up, eager to start on your homework in hopes of getting to spend more time with your boyfriend. You actually had a lot of it this weekend thanks to molecular biology, and you figured that if you couldn’t talk to Sungchan, who had yet to take the course, you called up your study group discord instead. Luckily, many of them were in similar situations as you, faced with the daunting task of completing all the worksheets assigned during class earlier in the day.

“Okay so was anyone paying attention during the lecture today?” Your classmate Chenle asked.

“I know Yeji fell asleep so you’re in the same boat as her.” You interject, recalling the sight of both of them knocked out in their seats as the professor droned on about the functions of the structures inside cells.

Yeji let out a gasp of shock at how blatantly you called her out. “I may have fallen asleep but at least I still know that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.”

“Everyone knows that, Yeji.” Your other classmate Jaemin said, his voice void of enthusiasm.

“Okay, Jaemin, we get it, Mr. Serious.” You teased.

“Yeah, this is a biology study group, not a bible study group, lighten up a little.” Chenle jokes.

Jaemin scoffed, “sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who’s trying to do well in this class.”

“Well not all of us enjoy the taste of coffee with six shots of caffeine in them.” Yeji argued back.

“Guys,” you called out as Jaemin and Yeji started arguing, “guys!” They finally stopped to hear what you had to say. “Let’s just get this over with sooner rather than later because I know none of us want to be awake at 2am trying to figure this out alone.”

“Agreed,” Chenle said, “so question three, the one about the DNA mutation, how is missense different from nonsense?”

“Missense is where one of the bases mutates and changes to something else, therefore changing the protein level,” Jaemin explained, “nonsense is the same theoretical concept except it spells out one of the stop codes.”

Yeji let out a groan, “can you slow down, or like, I don’t know, use easier words or something?”

Most of your night passed by like this and before you knew it, it was already nearing midnight and you could tell your classmates were just as exhausted as you. “I think we should call it here.”

“Definitely,” Yeji confirmed, “tomorrow morning at 10?”

You all let out similar answers of acknowledgement before Chenle spoke up. “The poll closes on tomorrow night so make sure to vote if you haven’t already.”

Because of how long this has been going on for, everyone was already on the same page once someone mentioned the poll or voting. “There were only five kills this month so I wouldn’t be surprised if the last one is announced tomorrow or Sunday morning.” Jaemin chimed in.

“All the recent kills were related to the university so I know a lot of people are suspecting someone in our age range.” Yeji informed the group.

Jaemin let out a chuckle, “if the killer actually is a college student, I wouldn’t be surprised since it is getting close to the last wave of midterms and then finals so that would explain why the victims fall into the same category.” The chat fell silent at that. “I’m just saying that he’s getting a little lazy by grouping all his kills like this.”

“Jaemin, are you sure you’re not the killer?” Chenle asked with a laugh at the end.

“Guys, I can promise you that I’m not the killer, I swear on my life.” Jaemin promised.

“Alright, that’s enough detective work for tonight, I’ll start the call again around 10 tomorrow. Sounds good?” You conclude, wanting to curl up under your covers already, which is exactly what you do once everyone wishes each other a good night and hung up.  

Morning came a little too quickly for your liking, the bright sunlight flooding into your room through the window and forcing you awake. Checking your phone, you saw that it was 9:30am, meaning you had some time to spare before your next meeting with the bio study group, along with a notification from Sungchan that he had sent well after you had fallen asleep.

Sungchan > y/n

2:14am: Just got rescheduled to work opening shift tomorrow.

2:15am: Didn’t finish my homework but I can stop by at your house after work with my stuff and we can hang out and have fun once we’re both done?

Your heart warmed at how he stayed up late trying to finish his homework for you and that he suggested the idea of coming over after his shift at a small local restaurant finished just so the two of you could be together even if you’d be focusing on your own tasks for a while.

y/n > Sungchan

9:32am: Sorry I didn’t text back earlier, I just woke up!

9:32am: But of course you can come over, I might even be done with my work by then ;)

You plugged your phone to let it charge and left it on your nightstand as you made yourself breakfast downstairs. The house was quiet since your mom already left for work and you dad worked a night shift job and was probably sleeping at the moment. It was strangely serene as you prepared yourself a bowl of cereal though the calm was rudely interrupted by the sound of your ringtone coming from your room.

Deciding to get it after eating breakfast, you poured the cereal in first, thinking about the way Sungchan had told you before that he liked to pour the milk first and let the cereal soak up the milk. “It makes it super soggy and I like it.” He tried reasoning with you, to which you only raised an eyebrow at.

Just as you put the milk carton back into the refrigerator and was about to take a bit of your cereal, your phone started going off again. You placed your bowl onto the kitchen table and made your way back up to your bedroom to see what it was that was so important this early in the morning. Checking the notifications, it was Yeji who had been calling you so you shot her a message.

y/n > Yeji

9:39am: What’s up?

Yeji > y/n

9:40am: I just dreamt that it was Jaemin who was the killer

9:40am: please call me right now I feel like I’m going to go insane

You heeded her words and called her immediately. “So what happened in the dream?”

“I don’t know, I just remember being chased by a man with an axe and I was running to the school to try to see if I could get help but then I tripped and when I turned around, it was Jaemin.” Yeji blurted out without a single breath in between.

You paused, trying to take in all the information she just threw at you. “Do you have any reason as to why you think you dreamt this?”

“The way he was talking last night,” she stopped to catch her breath, “he spoke so in detail that I couldn’t help but overthink like, what if he is actually the killer? What if we’re next?”

“Well, you can vote for him in the poll if you want but personally, I don’t think it’s him.” You think of your next words carefully. “I’m not trying to invalidate your thoughts but Jaemin does come from a reputable family-”

“Y/n, it could be anyone. Family doesn’t matter. We have no information on the guy, we don’t know what economic class he’s in or anything.” Yeji interrupted.

You took a few seconds to gather your thoughts before speaking again. “That is true, but we all know Jaemin wants to be a surgeon right? He’s in all these difficult classes and he maintains such high grades-”

“Okay but how is that relevant?” Yeji interrupted yet again.

She was getting on your nerves but you held yourself back. “Listen, I’m just trying to say that with the amount of time and effort he puts into school, I don’t think he could be the killer. The killer plans his kills well enough that we just can’t find him and that probably takes just as much time as school does for us.”

Yeji took a while to respond though when she did, her words surprised you. “Now you’re starting to sound like the killer.”

“Yeji, I can promise you that it’s not me. I’m just as scared as you are in this whole situation,” you reasoned, “I’ll even vote for Jaemin if it makes you feel better.”

She let out a sigh across the line. “Okay fine. Maybe a kill will happen while we’re on the call and it’ll clear Jaemin’s name.”

“I think you’re letting it all get to you, just try not to think about it for a bit.” You advised.

“But am I really overreacting y/n? We live every day in fear of being the next victim. Tomorrow is not promised to any of us, so am I really overreacting?” You look over at the clock on your wall as she spoke, realizing that it’s already 9:55 and you should probably start the call already.

“No, I don’t think you’re overreacting, I’m just saying that constantly thinking about it to this extent isn’t good for you. We still have school to pay attention to,” you explain, “speaking of, I’m gonna start the call now.”

“I can’t just stop thinking about it that easily but whatever, let’s just hope that we’re not associating ourselves with a murderer by doing this.” You can only shake your head as you start the call.

Chenle joined immediately followed by Yeji. “Good morning ladies, President Zhong here. How are we doing on this fine day?”

You rolled your eyes even though a smile spread across your face. “I’m doing good, Mr. President. Ready to finish off these worksheets.”

“Good, good,” Chenle affirmed, sticking with his act, “and you, Miss Yeji?”

“Fine.” She shot out.

Chenle let out a quiet chuckle, “someone’s a little grumpy this morning. Maybe we should’ve met a bit later.”

“No, let’s just get this over with.” Yeji grumbled just as Jaemin joined.

“Great! Now that the head brain cell is here, let’s get this meeting started.” Chenle exclaimed.

Four hours into your meeting and eight out of ten worksheets later, your phone begins to ring with an incoming call from Sungchan. “Hold on guys, I gotta take this call. Hello?”

“I’m downstairs, come pick me up.” You couldn’t deny the butterflies that spread throughout your chest upon hearing your boyfriend’s voice. You got up to let him in though you certainly didn’t miss the teasing coming from your laptop as your classmates yelled about you and Sungchan.

As you made your way downstairs, you froze halfway down the stairs, seeing Sungchan already in the kitchen eating the bowl of cereal you forgot about. “I’m guessing you made this for yourself earlier and forgot to eat it.” He said through a mouthful of food.

“Babe, no, don’t eat that, it’s like five hours old. The milk is probably stale.” You exclaimed, worried about his health if it really did go bad.

Sungchan only shrugged as he took another spoonful into his mouth. “Tastes fine to me.”

You rolled your eyes before turning to head back upstairs. “Join me in my room once you’re ready, you cereal monster. Leave the dishes in the sink too.” As you returned to your room, you couldn’t help but wonder how Sungchan got in though you figure he’s probably seen you use the spare key under the doormat a couple times since you often were too lazy to get your own keys out of your bag most of the time.

When you sat down in front of your computer again, Jaemin had just finished explaining the answer to the problem you guys were working on earlier so you chimed in asking him to go over it again though he was quickly overrun by an excited Chenle. “Is Sungchan there?” He practically yelled.

“No, not yet, he’s eating some soggy cereal downstairs.” You inform him.

“Alright, let me know when he comes in.” Chenle says, unphased by your boyfriends’ odd preference of cereal.

Halfway through Jaemin’s explanation, Sungchan came into your room, placing his bag down at the foot of the bed before he took his jacket off and stripped out of his work uniform. “I heard a door open, is that Sungchan?” Chenle shouted over Jaemin once more.

“I never get to fucking speak in this group.” Jaemin huffed, at which Chenle muttered a quick ‘sorry’ back.

“Yes, Chenle, Sungchan is here,” you announce, looking over at the boy in question who had just finished pulling a shirt over his head and winked when he saw you staring at his body, “he seems very flirty today, must be because of you, Mr. Zhong.”

Sungchan sits down next to you and places a kiss on your cheek, smelling oddly of cleaning supplies, but you pay no mind to that, figuring he must have used them at work. “How’s it going Chenle?” He asks, though his attention is only on you and he places his hands on your cheeks and leaves a quick kiss on your lips.

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t just hear the two of you kissing,” Chenle remarks, earning a laugh from Sungchan, “but anyways, you should come back to the basketball team. We miss our giant point guard, you know.”

“Nah, I’m too busy these days. I already have work and school plus I still want to spend time with y/n.” He commented as he shifted to lie on his stomach next to you.

“Man, who knew a girl would be all it took to make this dude throw his love for basketball out the window.” Chenle taunted.

“Love makes you do things, you know how it is.” Sungchan replied, resting his head on your thigh.

Running a hand through his hair, “anyways,” you divert, “back to what Jaemin was saying about meiosis.”

“Thank you, y/n, I thought I’d never be able to speak again.” Jaemin uttered pointedly. “As I was saying, the main difference between meiosis and mitosis is that it creates four daughter cells instead of two like mitosis does.”

“Hey guys, wait, did you see the article that just came out?” Yeji inquired. “It’s another death.”

There was a moment of silence before anyone said anything. “No but you can read it to us.” Chenle concluded.

“Okay,” you could hear the deep breath Yeji took before reading the article, “it says here that the body was found at around 1:20pm in an alley between the lower-income housing apartments, the cause of death is assumed to be by Hickleback Jack using his axe, and the estimated time of death is anywhere from 12 to 1pm.”

“Wow,” Jaemin began, “so he just killed out in broad daylight.”

“Not gonna lie Jaemin, but I thought you were the killer.” Yeji let out blatantly.

You were mildly shocked at her bluntness, but not surprised given how stressed everyone was. “Me?” Jaemin gasped, “Yeji, you know I’m pretty much Rapunzel with how much time I spend in my room studying. And when I’m not studying, I’m either editing pictures or playing video games.”

“It’s true,” Chenle confirms, “he really doesn’t leave his room. We had a sleepover once and I felt like I was becoming a hermit like him.” Sungchan slightly wheezed at that, sending Chenle over the moon. “Did you hear that? Did you guys hear that? Sungchan thinks I’m funny!”

“Yeah yeah, enough about me being a hermit. But Yeji,” Jaemin addressed, “why did you think it was me?”

Yeji hesitated before responding. “I just- the way you were talking the other night...I don’t know. It just sounded so specific and detailed that I couldn’t help but think that it could have been you.”

“I don’t think a murderer would simply reveal his plans like that, you know.” Sungchan proposed.

“Well yeah, but it’s just the way he spoke, it was like he had things organized...you know what? Let’s forget I said that, but I know the four of us are clear.” Yeji resigned.

Sungchan sat up, “wait, why am I not cleared?”

“Y/n, what time did he call you?”

“Like 2-ish.”

“Exactly. Sungchan, you don’t have an alibi, as far as we know, until 2 and the time of death is stated to be 12 to 1pm.”

“I was at work earlier in the day, though.”

“Can you prove it to us?” Yeji pressed on.

“Yeah, my coworkers can vouch for me.”

You were quite surprised at how aggressive Yeji was being towards your boyfriend but you didn’t see any reason to stop her since she had very valid arguments. “Send a screenshot of it to Chenle and we’ll verify you from there.” Yeji commanded.

Sungchan slouched down a little next to you. “I don’t have the numbers of my coworkers though.”

“Alright, then you’re still on the list of suspects.”

After finishing all the worksheets for microbio and ending the call around 3:30, Sungchan pulled out his laptop and started typing away at a half-finished lab report for his human A&P class. You fell asleep curled into his body, his warmth and the constant tapping of his keyboard lulling you to sleep.

When you woke again, you immediately noticed the absence of a large boy next to you and frowned to yourself. As you came to, you heard noise coming from the kitchen and identified your mother’s voice followed by Sungchan’s. Noticing the time on your phone, you guess that he was probably helping her prepare dinner since it was already past 6 and your family ate around 7 before your dad left for work.

By the time you made yourself presentable and came downstairs, your mom and Sungchan were already setting the table. “Looks like our sleepyhead finally woke up.” Your mother exclaimed, making you grimace. “You didn’t tell me Sungchan was staying over,” you were about to open your mouth to say that you didn’t know that either but you weren’t given the chance to do so, “it’s okay, especially with that killer still on the loose, it makes me feel better knowing there’s someone around to protect my baby.”

You looked at Sungchan as if asking him for answers though he seemed to only avoid your gaze, reluctantly taking the seat across from you at the dining table. Your father walked in, delighted to see your boyfriend. “Sungchan! Good to see you, how are things at school?” He asked as he joined you all at the table.

“Okay for the most part, I haven’t taken to my writing class all that much though I enjoy my other science classes.” Sungchan answers.

Your dad hums in approval while you stare down Sungchan, trying to get him to look at you. “Remind me again what you’re majoring in again?” Your mom asks, Sungchan whips his head around faster than you can make eye contact with him.

“I’m majoring in forensics.” He states.

“Interesting, interesting,” your father contemplates, “you know, y/n here wants to become a pediatrician. The two of you are practically opposites in the science field, one dealing with crime and the other dealing with children.”

Sungchan let out a laugh, “I guess opposites really do attract then.”

You hated how well he entertained your parents and you hated how much they liked him. For the rest of dinner you tried to pin him down through your stares and even played a game of footsie with him but nothing seemed to work. It was only once the two of you were back in your room getting ready for bed that you were able to talk to him.

“Look, I’m not mad at you or anything, I’d just appreciate it if you talked to me first before just telling my parents that you’re staying over.” You told him as you went through your skincare routine.

Sungchan jumped onto your bed as he apologized. “Sorry, I just thought that since both of us finished our homework and with the killing today, it would just make sense for me to stay over.” He opened his arms, inviting you in as you stood up after finishing your night routine.

You copied him, jumping into your bed straight onto Sungchan, effectively pushing the air out of his body. He grunted as your weight fell onto him though he still wrapped his arms around your waist and shifted you up the length of your body so your face was level with his. “Hi” you giggle, shy from the sudden close proximity.

“Hey.” He says back with a smile as you slide off him, leaving an arm and leg slung over his body. “Tired?”

“No, not really, I took a nap earlier since someone didn’t care to wake me up.”

“You looked too cute, besides, you need all the rest you can get.” Sungchan explained, using his free hand to squish your cheeks. “If you’re really not tired then I know a way to make you tired.” His hand found its way down to your butt to further emphasize his point.

“Ew, no, not now.” You quickly refused, moving his hand up to your waist. “Just go to sleep and I’ll probably fall asleep after you anyways.”

“Oh wait,” Sungchan said, reaching over you to the nightstand for his phone, “did you vote on the poll yet?”

“No, I almost forgot.” You groaned, lazily reaching for your phone as well.

You pull up the local community board and enter your information, looking at the list of all the citizens, pondering on who you’d give your vote to. “Who are you voting for?” Sungchan asks, looking over at your screen.

“I really don’t know.” You tell him, though truthfully, you had someone in mind.

Thanks to the nap you had, you really couldn’t fall asleep no matter how hard you tried. You ended up dozing off occasionally but you’d wake up half an hour later only more irritated than when you first fell asleep.

You don’t remember what time it was, but at some point, Sungchan had removed himself from your grasp, unaware that you were still awake, though you made no effort to stop him thinking that he was just going to use the restroom and come back. Five minutes passed, five minutes turned into ten, then twenty, and you decided to check on him once thirty minutes had passed.

The house was completely dark, not even the light from the bathroom was on. You checked inside in case Sungchan had maybe gotten hurt and passed out, but he was nowhere to be found. After searching almost all the rooms in your house, you had yet to find any sign of him. After a bit of thinking, you had wandered out to your mothers’ greenhouse thinking that maybe some time with the plants would help to calm your mind.

It did anything but that.

Not long after setting foot inside of the small shed, you heard screams coming from nearby, getting closer and closer. You watched from the inside of the tinted glass as three girls ran through your backyard and into the next property. You couldn’t help it that you were frozen to your core, knowing who was coming.

You saw his frame as he jumped over the fence from the other end of your yard, axe in hand, running through the open grass and you thought he might have noticed you until he stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes glued on you. You should’ve ducked down as soon as the girls ran past but it was too late now and there was no second way out of the greenhouse.

You knew you should have tried to run, maybe smash through the glass panelling but something in you told you that maybe, just maybe, you’d be able to stop him. Steeling your nerves as he crosses the threshold of the greenhouse, you call out to him. “I know who you are.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

It was as if your world was crumbling before you, the once so comfortable relationship you knew felt fake, even though Sungchan, your loving boyfriend stood right there. The only difference was that you knew who he really was.

“Why?” You start, “why did you kill all those innocent people?”

“It’s all for fun, y/n.”

“What do you mean ‘for fun’? Those are real people you know, people with families and friends who miss them dearly.” You nearly cry out as he continues to approach you.

“You see, life is a game.” He paused his words as he came to stand in front of you. “Laws are nothing but a social construct that us humans follow mindlessly until our own demise.”

He takes a step closer to you, but you stand your ground. “Laws are what keep us safe and keep us happy. They allow us to lead our lives peacefully with others-”

“They are nothing but limits.” He closes the distance between the two of you, an arm wrapping around your waist, pulling you towards him, and you allow him to do so. “My dear, sweet, y/n. If only you weren’t so smart, I wouldn’t be faced with this dilemma.”

“You wouldn’t kill me.” You were trying to persuade him just as much as you were to yourself. “You’d never.”

“Oh? And what makes you think that?”

“You love me.”

“I do, I love you so dearly, but now that you know who’s behind all the killings, there’s no way that I can let you go.” You felt his axe nudge the back of your leg as he brought both arms around you. To an outsider, it would look as if a couple were having a conversation, but for you, this was a fight for your life.

“Take off the mask.”

“Why should I?”

“So I can talk to you properly.”

He took off the mask without much more convincing, his normally handsome face now distorted by the crazed look in his eyes. People often say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and if they really were, then Sungchan didn’t have a soul.

“I swear to you that I won’t ever tell anyone about this, about you.”

“I don’t believe that you’ll keep that promise, my dear.”

“You know how much I love you. As long as we can stay together, I will not say anything.”

“This is not a tale of beauty and the beast. I am no beast to be tamed and there is no happy ending to this story.”

“Sungchan, no. You don’t mean that.”

“Do I really not mean it, or is that what you would like to believe? Something tells me it’s the latter.” He held you tight against him with one arm, the other raising his axe. “It’s truly a shame that your beauty must go to waste, you were truly a wonderful person both inside and out but I’m afraid that your life must end here.”

Before he could prep his swing, you pulled away and grabbed the nearest pot, launching it at him, the ceramic breaking against his head making dirt rain down upon both of you.

Not even a second passed before his axe was flying at you, lodging itself into your neck, nearly severing your head from your shoulder. You should’ve been thankful really, thankful that Sungchan had given you a quick death, not his usual route since it was so painless and easy for both the victim and the assailant.

He liked a struggle, but for you he made an exception out of love so that the last thing you’d see was him, your lover, before everything stopped.

[boldlyanxious]

None the Wiser 2

Masterlist

All fic masterlist

Bruce bio-dad--father-daughter bonding

Her parents pulled themselves together while she changed. She came back down hoping they would be back to normal but their anger and fear seemed to have moved on to calm sadness and trepidation. While she was in her room one of them had made tea and they were sitting close on the couch talking with quiet voices. When Marinette reappeared they sat her down to talk.

"Honey, did you take a DNA test?" her dad spoke first.

"Uh-m yeah. I just sent it off last weekend. Did it come back already?" Marinette asked.

"Was there a reason you did it without telling us?" Sabine asked.

"We have been studying genetics in biology class. I knew both of you have O+ blood but that meant there was still a small chance I could have O-," she took a deep breath that didn't calm the twisting feeling in her stomach. "When I tested my blood in class it showed that my blood was A+. I just wanted to know how but I didn't like the idea of asking because--"

Her voice trailed off instead of finishing. Her parents understood what she was suggesting and pulled her between them. Marinette had been so angry at Lila when she arrived and then she shifted so quickly to confusion based on her parents' moods that she didn't know how to feel. She just sank into the couch and allowed her parents to hug her until her father began speaking again.

"Marinette, your mother wasn't with another man." She looked up at him. "When we decided we wanted children we expected that it would happen but it never did."

"After a series of visits with specialists, I eventually conceived you after using in vitro fertilization." Sabine continued.

"But you never told me." Marinette said.

"No. It didn't matter because when we were successful we took the clinic at their word that biologically you were ours." Tom said.

"They lied? Why?" Marinette asked.

"We don't know." Sabine said.

Her mom went on to explain everything that the man had told them about how he thought they had conceived his child. Her dad went further to tell her of their fears that the man would try to gain custody of her. He said they had plans to call a lawyer but that the man seemed to like he could probably afford a better lawyer. They didn't know what to do yet but they wanted her to always have her phone with the gps activated just in case.

---

Tim didn't catch up to Bruce until he was leaving the patisserie. He pulled him away from the building and directed him to a local diner. He didn't start talking about it until they were seated in a quiet booth.

"So how did it go?" Tim asked.

"I was just going to talk to her parents but she ended up coming in at the end. I got to meet her," Bruce said with a smile.

"I can't believe you rushed over like that. How did they react?"

"They seemed kind of stiff or aloof. But maybe that is just how they are when they aren't serving customers."

"Maybe you went into their home and claimed that their child was actually yours and they think you are trying to take her away from them."

"That seems like a stretch."

"Why else would you rush off to tell them. Did you tell them about the circumstances? Maybe that the situation was not consensual and that you now have custody of Damian from a similar situation."

"Well that seems like an awfully dark take on the situation."

Tim just gave him a look as Bruce finished paying the check and they walked back to the hotel in silence.

---

Marinette was happy that her mask covered so much of her face so no one could really tell that she wasn't as happy as she had been. She did fine when she returned and got everyone to sing to Alya and served the cake, hiding the side that Lila had 'accidentally' bumped. Kitty Section went on and performed all their old hits and a few new ones. Adrien joined them for the songs he was familiar with.

Marinette looked around after they finished and everyone seemed to be having a good time. Her mask worked with everyone except one. Luka could always see right through her dark moods and get her to talk about it.

"Is your mood just from your costume change or is there something else on your mind?" Luka asked.

"I was really angry when it happened but there is something else."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I'm not sure if I should. Or even if I can."

"Dance with me." He held his hand out to her. "You can talk or not."

So they swayed to the song and Marinette remained quiet. But when it was over she pulled him to the hallway and explained everything her parents had told her. Luka didn't know what to say but he didn't feel like she really wanted to talk about it anymore. Instead he just held her until she pulled away.

She didn't say anymore about it but she seemed to be feeling a bit better about it after talking about it. She had Alya pick the next activity and so everyone excitedly ran out into the night to do the scavenger hunt that Nino helped her make. They all were to be back to the hotel by 11 and they headed back up to the rooms. The desk clerk checked to make sure they all returned and reminded them to keep the noise down for the other guests.

They piled into one of the rooms and turned on a movie. They talked through the first one but went quiet during the second one most of them enjoying the creepy feeling of the scary movie and a few of them drifting off to sleep as it got late. Marinette didn't really like scary movies she snuck away to get her sketchbook instead of watching. She looked up a while later when Adrien came into the room. He got ready for bed but then came and sat by her.

"Are you okay, Marinette? You've been quiet since you got back. Are you still upset about Lila?"

"Not really. I'm not happy about her ruining my dress but that doesn't seem very important right now."

"Okay. I'm here if you need me. Not just for dealing with Lila."

Marinette nodded, not wanting to discuss her parentage any more. They talked about other things for a bit before Adrien told her he would be in trouble if he didn't sleep and looked too tired for the photo shoot tomorrow. Marinette prepared to get up and let him sleep but his hand on her arm stopped her.

"You can stay. It's dark in the other room and they were starting the sequel for those still awake. I know you don't like scary movies."

Marinette continued drawing even though it was very late she didn't feel like she could sleep.

When she woke much later it was disorienting. She knew she wasn't in her bed because the ceiling would be closer to her loft but it was much too soft to be her lounge chair. She shifted to move her sketchbook where it was digging into her side but was prevented by pressure across her midsection. When she turned over she realized she was in the hotel bed. The room was dark because of the curtain being closed with one line of daylight shining into the room directly on to Adrien's blond hair. Just as she noticed him in the bed next to her his eyes opened.

His arm that was over her trailer up her back as he pulled himself to sitting up. His green eyes met her blue ones and he pulled his arm back running his hand through his bed head down to the back of his neck. She knew that meant he was uncertain or nervous. She felt the same as she got out of the bed carefully making sure her pajamas hadn't shifted.

"I'm going to go find some coffee downstairs." Marinette whispered. "Do you want one?"

"Please."

He looked around noting that there were others sleeping in the room besides the two of them. He looked down and checked the time before adding.

"I should get a shower though. My ride will be here very soon."

---

As she was getting their coffees, Marinette was amazed at how well she had managed waking up to her long-time crush sleeping next to her in a bed. She should have had a life changing discovery that took up all her over-thinking power much sooner. As she finished fixing the 2 cups of coffee she turned and then saw the younger man who she had seen with the man who claimed to be her biological father. She could see where he had been sitting with a newspaper when she entered but now he was blocking her way out.

She froze and looked around. She took a step back but with one step her back was against the coffee bar. He was at the opening of the narrow entrance that blocked the counter from the view of the public entrance. He lifted his hands in a surrender motion before speaking but that didn't stop her heart from beating quickly as her fight or flight response triggered her adrenaline. Her parents told her to leave her phone on her at all times but she didn't think it would matter in the hotel. She should be safe here.

"Okay, this was clearly a bad idea but I needed to talk to you."

Marinette said nothing. She was still looking for an escape.

"I told him to wait. I tried to tell him not to go off and talk to your parents without planning but he doesn't always listen." Tim took a breath before continuing. "No one wants to change your life. He simply wants to be a part of it."

"You just expect me to believe you?"

"No. I'm hoping you will give us a chance. Would you be willing to meet him?"

"I did meet him."

"More than an introduction. Maybe breakfast in an hour right over in the dining room. It's a public place with plenty of access to the exits."

"I won't hide anything from my parents."

"You shouldn't hide it from your parents."

---

Marinette carried the coffees back upstairs and tried to calm herself. Most of the party-goes were still sleeping. She snuck around gathering her things but left her bag plainly visible so if it was still there when she woke her friends would notice it. She checked that her phone had a charge and confirmed that she still had the gps turned on before calling her mom to tell her what she was doing.

Her mom really didn't like the idea but eventually caved when Marinette said she was curious about the man. Adrien came out of the bathroom ready to leave for his photo shoot but could hear her side of the conversation when he retrieved his coffee. He paused to give her a concerned look that she waved off.

They ended up walking back down to the lobby together. It has not been an hour but Bruce was already sitting there waiting. She had explained to Adrien that she was meeting with the man but not why. She just told him it made her parents very nervous.

Rather than let her walk up to the man alone Adrien waved Nathalie over and walked up to the man. He introduced himself in an arrogant manner that Marinette had never seen him use. He told him that the only meeting with Marinette would be in the park where his bodyguard would be watching. Marinette just stared at Adrien taking charge like that but the man complied with a smile.

It took a few minutes for him to gather the things but Adrien pulled Marinette after him without waiting for the man to follow. In only a few minutes 3 hotel employees had brought out a table and chairs and set it up under a tree and near the fountain. Marinette remembered to text her parents the change and got a quick response back that it made her mother feel better to know that someone else would be looking out for her since the bakery was too busy for either of her parents to be available.

She walked up tentatively and Bruce motioned for her to sit. He was smiling again but Marinette thought he also seemed a bit nervous about her reaction. She tried to calm herself with deep breaths. This was all happening so fast, she didn't know how to handle it.

"So, I'm assuming your parents told you a little about me." Bruce started off awkwardly.

"Yeah. They told me last night that you think I'm somehow your child."

"Yes, the results of your test were flagged because it was a match to my biological son Damian and a half match to me."

"I don't understand how any of that is possible. I only sent the test in a week ago."

"I own the company who did the testing. Typically it would take time to compile results but since it was a match, I was sent and alert."

"So what do you want from me?"

"I want to get to know you. Possibly have a relationship. Calls and emails. Maybe even visits after a time."

She made a face when he suggested visits.

"Perhaps not just yet on visits. But I could visit. I have other children who would like to meet you. Here, in Paris, if you would allow."

"I'm not sure yet."

"That's fine. Tell me about you. Do you bake like your parents?"

"Well, I can make most of the things from the bakery. And I cook dinner when it is my turn."

"But it's not your passion. What is your passion?"

"Well I really like designing clothes and accessories."

"That's really cool. Do you have any pictures?"

Marinette pulled out her phone and showed him the album that she had set up as a portfolio of sorts. He listened to all she said about each item and asked questions. He was very excited to see the album cover she designed for Jagged Stone and then the picture of her with him when he was wearing his Eiffel Tower glasses. So she showed him the Kitty Section outfits and told how XY tried to steal her design and the band's music. Then she flipped past a few more of her own clothes and gifts for friends until she came to the picture of Adrien in the hat she designed.

"This boy again. Is he your boyfriend?"

"Oh no. Nothing like that. His father held a competition and the prize was having him wear my design on the runway for his brand Gabriel."

He gave her a knowing look as she turned a bit pink but kept scrolling through. He paused a bit longer on a picture of him in a blue scarf.

"He can't know I made that. It was for his birthday but there was a mix up and he thought it was from his father."

"But you couldn't correct the misunderstanding?"

"I could have. But he was so happy that his father got him something like that I didn't want to feel like I was talking that away from him."

"That is very sweet."

He spent a moment just looking at this daughter he had just met and couldn't help but be amazed. He could tell that their time was ending but he wanted to find a way to drag it out. But she was getting restless and the model's bodyguard was mean mugging him.

"Well Marinette, I hope I can see you again during my stay. I would walk you to wherever you are heading, but I think that the bodyguard would like to see us walk away separately."

"I think my parents want to see me anyway."

She reached out to shake his hand. He wanted nothing more than to pull her into a hug but he settled for shaking her hand and briefly putting his other hand on the back of hers before releasing it.

Next

Taglist

@laurcad123 | @redscarlet95 | @acoolspacegirl | @nerd-nowandforever | @justafanwarrior | @pawsitivelymiraculous | @vixen-uchiha | @tumbling-down-hills-and-stuff | @violetfandomaddict | @catthhay | @fusser90

All the tags worked. I don't think that has ever happened to me. If I missed you sorry. Just tell me again. I will tag I just had a lot of notifications overnight.

[rip-a-dip-dip-you-potato-chip]

"That one insane cousin" (wip)

sooo, for some context, I wanted to do a Kaijudo (rise of the dule masters) crossover. And in order to do that, I decided that my Kaijudo Oc Ren would be distantly related to Max on his mom's side. also Twitter. anyway, these are just various parts of the 5,999 words I forced my had was forced to typ that I think are nice or funny. you may call me out if you wish I have no shame.

Forge Ferrus spit out the coffee he had been drinking and started coughing like crazy, startling the other three people in the room.

“What’s the wrong Commander?!” Kat said standing up looking at her leader concerned. Once Forge got his coughing under control he looked over the document on his phone one more time before answering.

“Steel just sent me an Email” he wheezed

“Did something happen to Max?” Berto asked quickly, pulling up the radar and footage from all around Copper Canyon to see if their boy was in trouble.

“No, Max and Steel are fine. Or well Steel is. Max, I think Max is freaking out”

“Why would the kid be fracking out? Is he or is he not okay?” Jefferson asked, taking a sip of his own cup of joe.

“Remember that school project, Max was telling us about”

“The one with the DNA swab?”

“That one, they got back the results today and Steel sent me a copy. Turns out I have a niece”

It was Jefferson’s turn to do a spit take.

-

@MaxMcG to @SRGC_

HelpImBlueNow: umm hi this might seem weird but my biology class is doing this genetics project, and as I was looking through the results, you just so happened to be one of them. Again I know this sounds insane, especially since I spent the better part of my day more or less tracking you down only to find this twitter acc

HelpImBlueNow: But here's the proof!

HelpImBlueNow: {File of the genetic results}

HelpImBlueNow: you don’t get to answer right away! I know this might be confusing, like I straight up freaked out when I found out so take your time in making a decision just know that I would be so down for getting to know you.

[2:00]

SlitherininRed: holy shiisdahvkjsdbh

[2:05]

SlitherininRed: sorry my friend snatched my phone earlier today, just got it back.

[2:07]

SlitherininRed: uhh ok this is intense…

[2:20]

SlitherininRed: Okay so I talked it over with my friends and family and they said I should give you a shot since you seem legit

SlitherininRed: just like know I haven't had the best luck with bio fam, the last person I met that had blood relation to me gaslit me into having a panic attack

SlitherininRed: I really hope you aren't insane

[3:30]

HelpImBlueNow: oh my gosh I'm so sorry I had no idea that must have sucked :( Promise I'm not insane, we well at least that insane.

[3:37]

SlithrininRed: oof ya it 100% did suck, still in therapy for it, no need 4u to be sorry tho not like u caused it.

SlitherininRed: and thank you for reassuring me you're not that crazy.

[3:45]

HelpImBlueNow: np lol, I’m Max btw Maxwell Mcgrath

[3:48]

SlitherininRed: Serenity Gardner, but I prefer to go by Ren lol

SlitherininRed: anyway I got work soon, wanna talk more later? I’m free around 7 pm.

[4:00]

HelpImBlueNow: Sure! I'm down 7’s good, just know my mom and uncle might join in.

[4:05]

SlitherininRed: That's fine, my folks might as well

SlitherininRed: anyway gtg, talk to you later ig

[4:08]

HelpImBlueNow: {thumbs up emoji}

[4:10]

-

SlitherininRed @SRGC_

“If anyone asked I was on the bench”

-

“Even when it’s in a city that has supervillains?” Max chimed in.

“Phff rather deal with supervillains than brush up on my French honestly.”

-

“How was your flight,” Molly asked as the three started to walk to the exit.

“Eh, it was alright the inflight movies were garbage though, I mean seriously there’s only so much Disney one human can take”

-

“I find the company that Miss Gardner keeps is quite interesting”

“Phff of course you’d say that”

“Yes I would, after all, it's not every day you see a young lady make a flamethrower out of a lighter and perfume”

“For the record, Lucy isn’t an arsonist, that idiot was trying to mug us and she just reacted faster than any of us anticipated. Besides, I blame Hector for giving us all lighters”

“So you say”

“Just shut up and drive David”

“Sure thing Ryan” with that the divider slid into place.

____

Anywho, I have an ult versions where Ren and Max ain't related and Ren's like 25 and a detective working for N-Tech but I'm not going to post that as it's mainly a crackfic(and I want to keep it for myself) but I do have two more one of which I have yet to write but the other one I have and it's about one of my two MaxSteel Oc's CeCe. but ill post about her another time.

[losingmymindtonight]

“Daddy?”

Tony looked up in surprise. It wasn’t often that Morgan wandered into his office when her favorite cartoon was on. It had weird animation, revolved around something like a family of ducks. He watched it with her, sometimes, but it never really made much sense.

“Hey, honey.” He beckoned her closer, and she eagerly made her way up to his chair. It was a display of comfort that he never would’ve showed with Howard, and he always cherished those moments. Little specs of validation. “What’s up?”

“Is Peter coming over today?”

He blinked. Morgan asking for Peter wasn’t out of the ordinary, per say, but it was strange that she was asking if he was coming on a school day. She usually understood that the kid had to stay in the city during the week, despite how much she didn’t like it.

“No.” He watched her expression carefully. “Peter’s at school.”

Her face fell. “Oh.”

“Why, darling?” He brushed his palm over the crown of her head. “Is everything alright?”

“I wanted to ask him a question.”

“Well,” he smiled softly, “I’m quite good at answering those too, y’know. Why don’t you run it past me, and if we can’t solve it on our own, then we’ll give Peter a call, m’kay?”

Morgan bit her lip. “We wrote our names at playgroup.”

He nodded. Pepper had told him about that, sent him a photo of Morgan, purple marker in hand and face twisted up in concentration, carefully tracing the outline of Morgan Stark beside a bunch of other kids.

“I heard. Mom said you did a great job.”

The praise didn’t light up in her eyes like it usually did. Instead, she kept gnawing on her bottom lip, obviously deep in thought. “I finished early so I got to do more names. I did yours, and Mommy’s, and Peter’s.” She stared up at him, full of that childlike intuition that constantly took his breath away. “Is Peter not my brother?”

Well, okay. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting.

“What’re you talking about? Of course he is.”

Logically, he understood that this question had been inevitable. Morgan couldn’t dwell within the cabin’s walls forever. Eventually, the world was bound to start shoving concepts of DNA matches and blood is thicker than water into her head. To most people, brothers were defined by genetics. Your mother birthed you, and your mother birthed your brother, and therefore you were siblings.

There was, as usual, little thought given to the outliers.

So, yes, he’d known. He’d known that this was coming. He and Pepper had even prepared for it, had talked about it before. And yet hearing it out loud was jarring. It had taken him so long, through wars and loss and reunions on battlefields, to finally understand that Peter had always been his kid. Sure, he didn’t donate any genes to his DNA, but that didn’t matter. In fact, nothing had ever mattered less.

“Mommy said that too,” Morgan muttered, face scrunched up in frustrated contemplation, “but Miss Chrissy helped me write his name and when I told her that his other name was Parker and not Stark she looked at me funny and then Katie’s mommy said that that meant he wasn’t my real brother.”

Cool. Awesome. Time to kill Katie’s mom. The next PTA meeting was gonna be awkward as hell.

He took a deep breath. These were… these were the hard moments of parenting. Trying to explain the complicated things without screwing it all up. But he’d done it before. He’d explained both Peter’s absence and sudden reappearance. He’d explained the loss of his arm and the ugly scarring on his face. He’d explained tragedy, and joy, and everything in between.

He could explain this bit, too. Or, at least, he probably could.

“Well, first of all, Katie’s mom is wrong.”

Morgan frowned. “You’re not supposed to say that about adults. Miss Chrissy said so.”

“Well, Miss Chrissy’s wrong, too. Adults aren’t always right.”

“Even you?”

He snorted. God, if only Peter was here. He’d be getting a real kick out of this. “Yeah, even me.”

“So Peter is my brother?”

“Of course he is. It’s just… Peter’s your brother in a special way.”

The concept seemed to glitter through Morgan’s face. She didn’t look confused or frustrated or sad anymore. She looked intrigued.

“How?”

Oh. He… hadn’t exactly processed that having this conversation also meant having the how babies are made conversation. How did he end up with all the hard parenting moments? Where the hell was Pepper when he really needed her?

“Well, see, your mom and I made you together,” he said slowly, really hoping that he could dodge the specifics of how they made her. “You’re half her, and half me. Do you want to learn a really big word?”

“Yeah!”

“Since your mom and I both made you, that means that you’re our biological child.”

“Is Peter not your bio,” Morgan’s face screwed up as she chewed through the new word, “biological child?”

“No, squirt, he’s not.” Although there are moments that I wonder, believe me. “Remember how I told you that May is basically Peter’s mom?”

“Mhm.”

“Well, he’s not her biological child, either.” He paused. This next bit was the really hard part. He’d set it up, but now he actually had to explain. “A lot of times, people become parents the way that your mom and I did when we had you. They get together and they make a biological kid. But sometimes, people become parents because they adopt kids.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that they pick them,” he said, because that was genuinely the simplest way he could think to put it. “They choose to become their parents.”

“Why?”

“Well, some kids don’t have any parents of their own, because they left or passed away, so that means that other people, like me and your mom and May, get to take care of those kids.”

Morgan nodded, thoughtful. “So you became Peter’s parent ‘cause his first mommy and daddy died?”

“Sort of.” He smiled gently. “It can get really, really complicated, but none of it actually matters, because this is all you need to know.” He bopped her on the nose. “Peter is 100%, without a doubt, certifiably your brother. It doesn’t matter if you’re not both my biological kids, you’re still my kids. Period, done, end of story. Oh,” he added, smirking, “and Katie’s mom is an idiot.”

Morgan glared. “Mommy said that it isn’t nice to call people that word.”

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Damn Pepper and her genuinely optimistic life lessons.

“And it isn’t very nice of Katie’s mom to tell people who is and isn’t their brother either, is it?” He countered.

Morgan looked nonplussed at that. Eventually, she shrugged in defeat. “I don’t think Katie’s mom meant to make me sad.”

Jesus. These kids. They were going to be the death of him.

“I’m sure she didn’t.” Because if she did, I’m really gonna kill her. “Do you understand now, squirt?”

“Yeah!” She responded, previous trepidation forgotten. “Peter’s my brother ‘cause you decided that he is. ‘Cause you chose Peter.” She grinned. “That’s so cool! Like picking out a puppy from the shelter!”

Oh, boy. He was definitely telling the kid about that analogy later. He would never live it down.

“Exactly,” he said, biting back a laugh. “And if you’d like, you can tell Katie’s mom that next time you see her. That way, she doesn't accidentally make anybody else sad.”

Morgan’s face brightened at the thought. It was obvious that she hadn’t picked up on the sarcasm in Tony’s voice. Which, of course, had been the point.

“That’s a good idea, Daddy!”

He winked. “I’m full of those, you know.”

And, sure, Pepper was probably going to kick his ass after Morgan schooled Katie’s mom in How Not To Be An Asshole next playgroup session, but it would be totally worth it.

He’d have to have F.R.I.D.A.Y. hack into the playgroup’s security cameras. That was one event that he just couldn’t miss.

[spade-riddles]

Submission:

Hi there! I’m the anon who asked for a conversation about what we (as Kaylors) actually fear from Karlie and Taylor letting the world assume Jerk is the baby’s bio dad. Switched to submission format because the Tumblr word count is tiny and asks get eaten and muddled, which makes it really hard to express yourself properly 😅

First I wanted to say thank you for engaging in a mature discussion about this. I really appreciate it. A lot of other blogs have either stopped believing Karlie and Taylor are together any more, or are more idealistic and don’t want to even talk about a less than perfect outcome to this story. It’s frustrating because while I understand the need for optimism (I feel that need too!) I don’t want us living in la la land and feeling disproportionately upset if we don’t get our perfect ending. 

So. I should probably lay out where I stand: I think there is a high likelihood Karlie and Taylor will let people assume the baby is Jerk’s, at least at first. My reasons are simple. 

1) The baby is due very soon. Taylor is used to sneaking around and we’ve talked before about how she is able to live in secrecy. The pandemic has definitely made that easier for her. But a baby is a whole different ball game. It will be frankly exhausting to sneak around pretending she’s not a mom, hiding her baby. And the more she hides it, the higher the risk of it being exposed by social media and becoming a huge gossip story. Taylor Swift’s secret baby! Kissgate was bad enough, I don’t think Taylor would want to risk a Babygate.

For this reason, she’s going to move soon to incorporate Karlie back into her life. Probably as a new single mom friend who is staying with / spending a lot of time with her after her marriage break up. The story may even go out that the feud rumors were bogus all along and the girls were good friends the whole time, and Taylor gave  Karlie the strength to leave her bad relationship. I expect Tay to be named godmother, which will allow her to be seen more with bub while the full picture is waiting to fall into place. 

2) So Taylor and Karlie are being seen together once more. Taylor looks like a great friend, Karlie’s image is slowly being rehabilitated as Taylor goes on a charm offensive, and the baby is a fixture in Taylor’s life that people think is sweet, but don’t really question because she’s supposedly still with J*e. 

No-one talks about J*sh at this stage. No-one interacts with him on social media, and they do their best to limit any media mentions of him as “Karlie Kloss’s baby daddy”. This is easier than it seems. Taylor has connections at Vogue, Karlie owns W, and Tree is an expert at shutting down unwanted stories. Any publication that wants future access to Taylor or Karlie will play ball, because why wouldn’t they? No-one is that invested in linking Karlie to a past beard forever, and no-one wants to bully a newborn child over a connection insiders will know isn’t even real. Sure, Scooter and his Page Six sock puppets will probably churn out articles stirring the pot, but that’s nothing new. The girls can ignore it or deflect attention, as they do now. 

3) Stage three of the plan sees the resurgence of “Kaylor” as a thing people are shipping. Hardcore fans will obviously know they’ve been together all along, but the wider public will start to wonder if Taylor has deeper feelings for Karlie, or if Karlie left her husband because she hopes to “get back together with” Taylor and take another go at their 2014 relationship. People start to link past songs to Karlie and speculate that lingering feelings for her “best friend” are what has stopped Taylor locking it down with J*e. J*e is boring and only seen on miserable pap walks with Taylor, but Karlie is seen hanging out with her and their friends in happy, seeming domesticity. People begin to talk about how much like the old carefree Taylor Tay seems again. The sunshine effect in full swing. 

4) Eventually Toe break up and Kaylor are revealed to be in a relationship. You’ll never please the homophobes but by now most fans are happy for Taylor. Taylor, who has de facto raised the baby since birth, jokes that she’s “daddy”. Karlie gives a more serious interview about what a wonderful parent Taylor is and how she has always considered her as much the baby’s mom as she is, because she was there all along and never gave up or walked away. She won’t be drawn on her ex husband but does make a statement about “what a great influence” Taylor is on their child. Etc etc. By now we’re a few years out from the Trump administration and J*sh is still known and disliked, but is hardly a household name. He was only ever “famous” (I use the term loosely) for being Karlie’s beard. 

People can disagree with me on this. Yes, his family are odious and will be in trouble for years to come, probably. But J*sh has always been a fringe member. He’s not Jared or Ivanka, who people really know and hate. He’s more like his father - people know he’s shady like the rest of them, but most people couldn’t immediately pick his face out of a line up, and they don’t know the details. I’m sorry, but it’s true. The general public don’t care about Jerk half as much as Kaylors do. Once he loses his celebrity connections he’ll fade from public consciousness. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. How many people reading this right now would know if Dick Cheney passed them in the street? Not many, I’m guessing. Time passes and memory fades. People will “know” he’s the father, but in a fuzzy way, and soon enough it will fade to the point where this is brought up as surprising information. People won’t even remember she was married to him. It’ll become weird trivia that no-one really wants to talk about anyway, because it seems disrespectful. 

5) At this point, people either assume Jerk has a private relationship with the child, or they notice how Karlie never ever talks about him and speculate that he’s estranged from the child. It’s likely Karlie and Taylor would then go down the route of having Taylor officially adopt the baby at this point, though a public marriage would probably predate that, and all these things take time to roll out and seem natural. Even U-Hauling it!

If J*sh is smart, he’ll keep quiet during all of this. If Kaylor were smart, they would have engineered reciprocal NDAs, where Karlie can’t reveal their marriage was fake, but Jerk can never speak about the baby in return. And I think he might go along with this policy of silence. Remember, what he was always getting out of the arrangement with Karlie was that he appeared straight. Why throw all that away? He won’t want any real involvement with the baby, because it isn’t actually his. But it suits him that people think he got a woman pregnant, and it suits him that he can pretend to be a dad. Just “a private dad” who doesn’t see his kid much. Yes, we might get some annoying stunts where he tries to pretend, but if Karlie and Taylor continue to never give him any oxygen, it’ll eventually reach a stage where people can choose their own version of reality. Some people will think he’s involved and some won’t, but most people frankly won’t care either way. 

And I do think that’s the ideal scenario for both of them. Sure, Karlie could eventually leak gossip stories suggesting he’s not the dad. But that would be a hit to her reputation at a time when she is actively trying to rebuild it. WE might all be passionately anti-Jerk and gleeful at the idea of a cheating narrative, but I don’t think it would go down so well with the wider public. He may be from a scummy family but he’s always been viewed as “the one who’s not as bad”, and Karlie still made the apparent choice to marry him. Even if he was scum it would look bad to treat him like that after pretending she loved him .To say that she cheated with some meaningless random guy and got knocked up by him, and this other dude has never even been involved with the kid … . I won’t mince words here. It would make Karlie look terrible. People won’t be saying “ha ha he got what he deserved”, they’d be saying “ wow, Karlie is a sloppy mess”, “wow, how cruel to get knocked up behind her husband’s back”, and finally “wow, Karlie seems so unstable, she’ll treat Taylor badly too and bring trouble down on her head. She probably only even got back with her because she didn’t want to be alone. Taylor should RUN!“ 

This is NOT the impression they want people to have of Karlie. Which brings me to: 

6) Karlie’s reputation has suffered enough, and Taylor knows it. Taylor is no stranger to pivots, and she’s no stranger to playing the long game. What’s most important to her at this stage? I think it’s that she gets to live a free and open life with the woman she loves and the child they’re raising together. I don’t think she cares who is assumed to be, basically, the sperm donor. She will be daddy with this plan, and that’s what counts. So yeah, I think she would go for it. It’s a sacrifice I think she would make. 

And really, if he’s not involved in the baby’s life, is it even a sacrifice? We all talk about the “association” around here, but the child won’t have any actual contact with him and Taylor can freeze out any mention of him in the media. There is no actual threat to the child that I can see. Letting people assume he’s the father is NOT the same as letting him into the baby’s life. Kaylor not correcting people’s assumptions doesn’t mean they’re going to actively stunt with him. They can just choose to say nothing, the way they did with the “feud”. 

What’s the worst that will happen if people assume the baby has K*shner DNA but is estranged from the family? Seriously, people. Give me answers.

Not just “I don’t want people to think Taylor’s baby has his icky genes”. Because genes don’t make a person and they don’t necessarily make a family either. Taylor’s love and parenthood would not be ANY less if it was assumed she was the adoptive mom with no biological link to the baby. The baby would not be assumed genetically evil for having a few chromosomes from that awful family. Tr*mp’s own sister has been one of his biggest critics, remember? Genetics don’t dictate your politics or your moral compass.Only a fool would actually seriously accuse an innocent baby of being some kind of devil spawn, just because they thought it was Jerk’s. 

The K*shners can’t claim or take the baby. They can’t force Karlie and Taylor to stunt with them. So there’s no “using the baby to whitewash Jerk’s reputation”. There’s no putting the baby in danger. And the media aren’t going to bully the baby, because it’s poor practice and would make them look terrible, as well as costing them potentially lucrative future relationships with Karlie and Taylor. 

Taylor isn’t “letting Jerk take credit for her baby” either. Not if they refuse to stunt and if it plays out the way I described. Taylor will eventually get recognition as the baby’s real other parent, while Jerk is phased out. Taylor is patient. For the end game I believe she could stand a few months of this. 

 I’ve turned it over and over in my head and this is the only realistic solution I can see. All our other theories - Karlie pretends to be Taylor’s surrogate, Karlie pretends she slept with someone else, Karlie and Taylor expose the fake marriage, all of those theories - they all seem like wishful thinking. They would never be credible outside our tiny fandom of people who want any memory of Jerk purged forever. (Not possible. The Jerklie history will always exist on the internet, just like Taylor’s supposed “relationship” with Calvin.) We just have to let it go. Separate our heightened negative feelings from the actual likely long term consequences. 

This is what will probably happen, if we’re being really sensible and honest with ourselves. We need to stop being so absolutist and thinking it’s the end of the world, because it really doesn’t have to be. It can be just a bump in the road instead. I think we’d all be a lot happier if we adjusted our outlook about this possibility, to be honest. This all or nothing way of thinking is creating so much unhappiness and stress, I hate to see it. We need to just breathe! 

I truly believe we won’t get everything we want - but good things are coming. 

This is so long, sorry! But I had a lot to say. 

Yours, 

let’s call me, Pragmatic Anon