#if i was smart id save this and turn it into a fic for freak week

[suckinitup]

see this should happen because dakota wants to talk to the trickster. i think that dakota should say something like "i just want to talk!" and the trickster is like oh ! talking?? do you have an appointment. and dakota is like what. and the trickster is like yeah i can fit you in for 1:30 pm tomorrow :3 and dakota is like oh! um yeah yes please yeah. and we'll talk? no fighting? you'll release ashe?

and the trickster says "we'll talk."

and its like. shenanigans. the boys dont know if they should treat htis like a date or a job interview or a war. william does NOT want dakota to go. obviously its a trap. vyncent wants to go with him. maybe he can help. dakota sees a shining light at the end of the tunnel--hes a hero, and heroes can save everyone. they dont actually know whats up with the trickster itself but maybe it needs saving, too, and he can figure out how to do that

anyway dakota shows up again tomorrow. hair brushed and clothes bugged and so fucking. scared and excited and wanting to get this over with. he's got the others with him and theyre dressed up real fancy too. vyncent has his hair gelled and william has a rose in his pocket and dakota is wearing a suit without the jacket. weird vibes here okay because theyre silly fuckers and this whole situation is ridiculous.

the trickster isn't there, but a door opens at 1:30 on the dot. dakota steps through before the others can say anything and it immediately closes behind him.

he's in a field, the grass up to his knees. The sky is a dull blue above him and white, fluffy clouds drift lazily across it. He sees the trickster in the distance and its not a long walk but it is long enough to sorta. take in what's there, and then keep taking it in. grow a little ball of dread. because there's the table, right, plopped right down in the middle of the field (and there are no disturbances in the grass, so the trickster probably Did just plop it right down). and there's two chairs. the trickster is sitting in one of them, chin in his hands, smiling as he watches dakota approach. and that's not BAD. a little unnerving. but the chairs and the table look nice and it looks like the trickster is going to take this seriously.

but there's also the meat.

it's piled high on a platter in the centre of the table, like a centrepiece. raw. indistinguishable except as something that was torn instead of cut. there are two plates on the table. one in front of the trickster's seat, and one in front of dakota's.

and the trickster fucking. stands up to greet dakota. smiles at him. tilts its head like a bird and scratches at its arm like ashe. its a perfect mockery of civility, and dakota stammers out something about being here to talk and the trickster says something back about not talking on an empty stomach. when the trickster sits down, dakota does too.

there's no cutlery, but there is a set of tongs on the table. the trickster takes them, doesn't clack them, and dakota can't do anything for a moment but watch it take globlets of meat from the centre platter and transfer them to its own plate.

the trickster takes another piece of meat and places it on dakota's place. dakota does not feel nauseous, but he wouldn't blame himself if he did. he tries to get the conversation going instead, "so have you decided to release ashe?"

and the trickster hums, not looking up as it piles the meat onto his plate the way it had its own. even portions. "I'm thinking about it," it says. "Why should I?"

this is an opening for dakota to make one of his big dakota speeches, and he takes it. the trickster places its chin in its hands again, grinning as it watches him. he falters when it reaches down to its plate, grabs a strip of raw meat between two claws and delicately places it into its too-wide mouth, but he wills himself to get going again. the trickster keeps eating, blood coating its hands. theres more blood on the platter, more blood on their plates, seeping from the meat and spilling over.

the trickster stops him when its about halfway through its meal and he's halfway through a sentence. "aren't you hungry?"

dakota pauses. gets a bad feeling in his stomach. says "um--i-- i ate earlier.' which is true, but misleading. he's terrified that his stomach will growl and give himself away.

for the first time, the trickster looks miffed. "That's rude." Its features twist into anger, and it stands, wings fluttering. Darkly, it says, "If you're not going to take this seriously, then neither will i."

"i'm taking this seriously!" dakota yelps. impulsively, he takes a handful of meat and shoves it into his mouth. its slimy and cold. He doesnt chew, speaks through it, "look! I'm eating! I'm taking this so- so seriously!"

the trickster smiles. sits back down. "You shouldn't talk with your mouth full."

dakota forces himself to swallow. he's eaten demons. he's eaten fartbo. raw meat? this is nothing. he's got this.

they go on like that. dakota eats, and the trickster does too. the trickster engages with him more now, asking questions. when dakota finishes his plate the trickster fills it up again and when he tries to protest it just says "dont be silly" and like. its just raw meat. its Gross but eating it is making the trickster listen to him. dakota feels like he's making real, genuine, concrete progress in his mission to save ashe. he brought ashe's headphones with him, and he starts fantasizing about getting to return them.

then of course the trickster mentions something about sourcing the meat. and dakota swallows another bite and says "what is it, anyway? it's not bad"

and the trickster says, "accountant," and smiles and dakota goes cold.

and like. listen. okay. im not a cole expert and im not pretending to be. this is all for fun. in canon he'd probably get up and start yelling and trying to throw up etc etc. but to the jury i present three facts: he has eaten a demon; he has eaten fartbo; he really, really wants to save ashe.

he keeps eating.

and the horrible thing is? it seems to be working. the trickster is listening intently. it seems to be thinking, actually giving his words considerations. it asks him about heroism, if he's happy, if he would be happier with ashe back. it never tells him anything about itself--nothing about its thought processes or its values or anything, but its engaged.

so dakota chokes down mouthful after slimy fucking mouthful. there are no utensils, and he has to hold every piece of person in his hands before he holds them in his mouth.

its at the end of the meal, both of them bloodied, the trickster idly sucking the blood off of its claws when dakota asks, eager and desperate, "so you're going to let him go?"

and the trickster looks at dakota. it cocks its head to the side. smiles suddenly, shit-eating and pleased. It says, sweetly, "no."

dakota thinks he can hear the sound of his own heart breaking in real time. he's frozen, processing, processing more because after all of this it can't just say no--

the trickster stands and reaches over, pats him gently on the cheek and singsongs, "I think you need a nap-kin!" more darkly, more satisfied, it says, "here," and holds something out.

a dress shirt. torn. shredded by someone's claws.

dakota takes the shirt, hands starting to shake, and stares down at it. "This was fun!" the trickster chirps. "Let's do it again!" It scratches its chin like ashe, thoughtful, and says, "what do you think about having hero, next time?"

and thats when dakota snaps, lunging to attack him, but the trickster has already stepped, laughing, through a doorway and it disappears just as dakota reaches it. he's left alone in that field with a table, two chairs, and no pile of meat.

dakota breaks down, and he doesn't stop breaking down. vyncent and william find him in a field of dirt, table set smithereens nearby, and dakota still covered in blood

the trickster should make dakota cole eat raw meat. Yes it is person meat. accidental cannibal dakota cole

[lowkey-yyy]

pls spare some more mha and bsd crossover stuff 🙏🧎

been seeing old fics on ao3 abt dazai and eri and ur post kinda created a snowball abt it 💅

GLADLY ,,,

So like with MHA n BSD crossover I feel like my hc of Dazai hating kids is included here so for them to get Dazai near this random kid from a mission would be a battle and a half,, id say in this au Dazai would be around the kids age and likely at this point on living with Aizawa because he is a goddamn menace (affectionate) and cannot be trusted in the dorms on a daily basis, only visits.

So Aizawa bringing Eri home would be a big change for Dazai also the fact this kid realizes that he is just like her, right out the window Dazai goes, Aizawa is freaking the fuck out and a manhunt begins for Aizawa's mini clone. They have to look everywhere for him as he has gone full run away mode in their eyes and Aizawa doesn't know what triggered this full fight or flight response at seeing a child for 2 seconds.

Turns out he went to Kunikida's dorm and forced the blond to let him stay, they were found snuggling when Kunikida was not down for breakfast (as per his ideals) and they came to check on him, the kids had to call and reassure Aizawa that Dazai was safe and sound just asleep.

In general Aizawa 100% would have his hands full with Dazai thrown in but he is ready for a challenge, this child is insanely smart and talented just horrifically traumatized and mentally ill. Aizawa would have to fight for weeks to convince the kid not to sleep in Kunikida's room and at least try to meet Eri.

It was painfully awkward and both kids had no idea what to do but stand there while Aizawa was praying for a miracle, Dazai would be especially helpful in keeping a handle on Eri's quirk but if he was running from her there would be no chance of it happening. This new arrangement made a few more things known as Dazai was strangely defensive of Aizawa being his adult and his alone, he didn't want to share the teacher with some gross kid! He was a little mean to Eri for a while as the Heroes tried to learn more about Dazai, apparently he was territorial as he refused to let Eri see Kunikida, touch his stuff and would completely ignore her if he felt she was taking too much of Aizawa's attention from him....he also one time kicked her off the couch when she tried to insert herself into Dazai and Aizawa's bonding on the couch as the younger boy soaked up his mentor's reluctant affection...The couch incident as it was dubbed left a scolded Dazai curled up in Kunikida's bed and Aizawa covered in scratches and bandaids the next day...

From then on they had to work on slowly getting the two to a stable living condition and as others took Eri for sleepovers and days out Dazai perked up, he would reluctantly share stuff with her on the rare occasion but he liked Aizawa and didn't want to be replaced as his favourite kid even if he denied seeing Aizawa as a father figure.

Aka Aizawa becomes Dazai's filling for the void Oda left behind so he lashes out at a child to try and protect what he has.

As for the class? They are relentless in teasing Kunikida for Dazai sleeping in his room and the two cuddling, they think its adorable but Kunikida disagrees (he does agree but he is in deep denial) Dazai and Kunikida make an excellent team in the training and classes but the bandaged boy has a knack for trying to off-himself in training and Kunikida has to save him constantly, its also tough to get Dazai to do practically any normal kid things, he just doesn't get it and sometimes feels left out but the others try to include him all the time they can.

Kunikida also notices Dazai's unhealthy behaviours and tries to help when he can, he sneakily tricks Dazai into eating food in the cafeteria, forces him to wash up after gym and when Dazai stays in his room he drags the shorter boy into the sheets to snuggle up so he has to sleep.

Grr i love mha bsd crossover,,, i could think up ideas for days

[rosy-cheekx]

Aesthetic prompt- song: "in hell i'll be in good company" by the dead south; vibe: steam off a warm drink, heavy rain on windows; color: cool gray, bronze, red :)

Took me long enough! This fic is months in the making, but I am so excited to finally be able to answer this prompt. This is chapter 1 of probably 3!

A Phoenix Razed

Chapter 1- Rebirth

---

3 days since Great Yarmouth

Tim’s hands encircled the paper cup in his lap. The cup was small, he noted; he could clasp his fingers together easily. Or maybe his hands were just big. The tea was dark, way over-steeped, and the herbal scent bloomed out in waves alongside the rising steam. There was no sugar, no milk, none of the usual accoutrement Tim used to take tea. Just harsh, bitter, black.

It’s what you deserve.

Tim rolled his eyes at his internal monologue, drama queen, and sipped the beverage. Agh, still hot? He sucked in air through his teeth, startling Martin, who he’d forgotten was beside him.

“Tim?” He snapped his eyes up from where they had been resting on the book, lips moving to form words Tim hadn’t been listening to. “You alright?”

“Hmm? Oh. Yeah, burnt my tongue.” Tim’s words sounded like a shrug, slumped and uninterested, now out of his reverie.

Silence stretched between him and Martin. Or, Tim wished it was silence. The only sound was the low static of the EEG, a rainbow of wires between the machine and Jonathan Sims’ scalp, shaved to accommodate the electrodes. What Tim wouldn’t give for any level of sound other than what they experienced right now. Any less, and there would be an answer to the question, “Will Jon ever wake up?”, and more would mean his heart was working, or lungs, or any other number of body parts to which machines were attached, waiting for any sign of response.

It’s your fault he’s like this.

It should have been you.

Tim exhaled and sipped the tea again, more careful this time. It was still hot—he was pretty sure the burn on his tongue made it feel even hotter—but he tempered his expectations and swallowed a sip of the bitter liquid, letting the raw flavor coat his throat.

“-there’s not much point to this, huh?” Martin asked, slipping a tattered bookmark between the pages of the book he had been reading—he was hoping to annoy Jon with poetry into waking up with Tennyson’s Ulysses—and letting it slip from his lap to the bed, green cover stark against the yellowish-white of the thin blanket.

“I don’t know, Marto, doctors said he might be able to hear us. Maybe dear Alfie will bore Jon back to life,” but Tim’s words lacked the bite and humor that was meant to be there.

“Don’t-” Martin warned softly, shaking his head and pushing his reading glasses through his fringe of curls. “He’s not…he’s still alive. He’s just lost.”

“You’re right,” Tim nodded, placing a hand on Martin’s shoulder lightly before pulling it away as he felt the round of Martin’s shoulder twinge under his touch. “You know what I mean.” He rubbed at the bandages that wound around his abdomen, letting himself indulge in the ache of raw skin and muscle and fat, the hiss of pain atonement for his sins.

Martin sighed, a slow, burdensome sound. “Yeah, I do.” At his words, Martin’s phone rang, and he looked at the caller ID before shoving the phone deep in his pocket, ignoring the call as he did so. “Listen, Tim, you know I’d stay longer if I could-”

“No, I get it, Martin.” Tim stood as Martin did, grabbing the IV bag by his chair for support. “Duty calls. I must away, my love.”

Martin scoffed, the pale sound muffled and diminished by the emptiness of the room. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Try to go on without me.” His voice dropped the light in it as he placed a hand on Tim’s. His hands were freezing, Jesus. “Seriously, Tim, if you need me…”

“I’ll call.” Tim waggled the phone in the pockets of the linen pants the hospital had provided. “Promise.”

--

“I hear the Great Grimaldi’s in town.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I know.”

He wished the moments after were fuzzy. He wished he could chalk his memories up to delirium or carbon monoxide poisoning. There was the detonator, small and squat in his hands. There was Grimaldi, or Nikola, or whatever that thing was. And there was Jon, kneeling, eyes piercing him in a way he had never experienced before. A moment of true lucidity amongst the madness of the Unknowing.

Tim had pressed the button, resigning this to be his final image, his final memory. The things in the world he hated most, all splayed out in front of him, with the promise of all the things he loved waiting for him. A win-win, really. Go out with a bang, leave a mark on the Stranger, cause some errant destruction, and finally see Danny again. The Stranger would never forget the Stoker brothers, that would have been for sure.

But the combustion and the flames had swept over him like a hot wind. He felt the flames lick the sides of his face, felt smoke choke his lungs, felt impossibly hot ash and air swirl around him in a tango. The building had crumbled around him and Tim had been unable to move, forced to witness every last nanosecond of the chaos he had caused.

And he reveled in it. He had won; he had beaten the Stranger. To know he had avenged the deaths of Danny and Sasha was prize enough.

None of it made any sense. He shouldn’t have survived.

How had he survived?

-

5 Days After Great Yarmouth

“Tim.”

Basira was in Tim’s room, wheelchair parked in the corner and sitting in a visitor’s chair. Her body was tense and still, reminiscent of a panther in some documentary he had watched with Jon. Ready to strike? Or run?

“Basira.” Tim’s voice was careful. “Martin said you weren’t up for visitors today. Glad to see you’re okay.”

“Save it.” Basira’s hands were fisted in her robe, the white and yellow one matching Tim’s, declaring them both as patients under observation. Tim frowned, pulling his IV behind him to sit on his bed, wincing as he bent and adjusted himself. “Daisy’s gone, Jon is…whatever he is. I survived because I was smart.”

Her voice was low and sharp, accusing him of…something. Tim felt blood boiling under his skin, as he waffled somewhere between furious and confused. “Excuse me?” He said pointedly, voice measured, squeezing tight the paper cup of tea in his hand.

“Tim, how are you not dead?” Basira gestured with her hand. “Your burns were all superficial. You broke your arm in the collapse, but you managed to survive the fire.” She shook her head and smoothed the fabric that lay there with her hand. “You and I both know you shouldn’t be alive right now.”

Tim took a steadying breath, though it did little to conceal his frustration. “So what, you think I’m fucking magical or something?” He could feel the heat and pitch rise in his voice. “You think I’m like...like those freaks we read about in the statements? Like-like Jon or Elias or like fucking Nikola?”

Basira opened her mouth to speak but Tim cut her off. “You know why I was there, Basira. For Danny. For Sasha. You bloody well know none of this was supposed to happen.” He gestured in the general direction of where Jon lay, dead to the world. “The audacity to assume I-”

“Tim!” Basira cut in, interrupting his increasingly desperate tone. “Look!” She pointed down. Following her gaze, Tim saw the paper cup he was holding. The cup of tea was steaming. No, it was boiling. He could hear the roil of the water, see the bubbles blossoming on the surface. On instinct, he yelped, tossing the cup of bitter black tea across the room, hitting the sink on the far side of the wall squarely. He winced as the liquid splashed across the mirror, the cup rolling to a stop in the basin.

“What the fuck?” He wiped his hands on his robe. “How the hell did that happen?”

“Did it burn you?” Basira asked, eyes passing over him studiously.

“Ah…” Tim turned his right hand over, checking for any splash marks or blisters on his palm. “No.”

“Are you sure?” Basira asked, raising her eyebrow. At Tim’s irritated roll of his eyes, she folded her fingers together.

“You know that’s not normal, right?” It wasn’t a question.

Tim nodded, voice stolen from him as he processed her words. “Are you trying to say I’m fireproof or something?”

Basira shrugged. “I dunno. Sounds weird enough to be right. I’d say ask Jon about it, but obviously…that’s not happening quite yet.”

“This is so fucked,” Tim mumbled, scrubbing a hand down his face in exhaustion. “I hate this job.”

--

Tim was walking in a black room. Kind of. It wasn’t black, really, nor a room—just the concept of space, devoid of color or light.

Tim was somewhere and it was dark.

He picked a direction and walked. The space he was in was hot, a dry stale heat pressing in on him from all sides. It was like that prickling heat from being too close to a campfire, where the heat should singe your leg hairs. It should have been painful. He should have been sweating. But he felt…good. Great, even. He felt alive and awake and ready.

He walked for what felt like hours in this dreamscape, not knowing where he was going. He had realized he was dreaming around the point where he noticed he was more floating than walking, being guided like a character in a low-res video game. There was something in the back of his mind nudging him forward, coaxing him along some predetermined route.

Suddenly, he stopped. There was something in front of him, maybe four meters away. He couldn’t see it, but he could sense it. This spot in space was the source of all the heat in this room, the warmth surrounding him that was more accosting than comforting. The feeling surrounding him was all-consuming and it made him feel…all sorts of things. Righteousness, anger, betrayal, pain. They were all the emotions he had been feeling at Great Yarmouth, built up upon each other, each idolized in their own way. They were the feelings he had chosen to worship when Jon had stopped being his friend and started being his enemy, when Sasha had been discovered to have never been, when he had looked Nikola in its eyeless face and pressed the detonator. It all felt good to feel.

All of a sudden Tim was struck with a sudden knowledge. If he accepted this heat, this painful destruction, he would never need to worry about being hurt again. He could protect himself, the loved ones he had left (if he still had any), and burn the hearts out of anyone who dared hurt him or his ilk. No one would ever leave him again except on his terms. He understood what the Lightless Flame meant, what it promised, what it could give him in return. He would be able to live on the destruction of those he deemed unworthy of the love of the pyre, those who had so much to lose. Like he had had, once. Like Danny had had. Like Sasha. They had had the world before them, and it was stripped away. The Stranger had the potential to take over the world and he had destroyed every last bit of success it had. And it felt good. He could chase that feeling again and again and again with a family that knew what it was like to love and lose and destroy.

All he had to do was take it in.

-

7 Days After Great Yarmouth

Tim woke up gasping for air. He could feel an icy hand on the back of his neck, colder than anything he knew, dragging him back into reality. He opened his eyes, wincing at the harsh light of his hospital room and yes, he was in his hospital room, not a great expanse of nothing nothing nothing, searching for answers. He reached a hand to the back of his head and felt a frozen rag, dripping icy water down the back of his neck, down his spine.

A nurse was at his bedside, a thin woman with dark blonde hair, checking his vitals with a delicate hand. “Welcome back, Mr. Stoker. You gave us a scare, there.”

“Wha-”

“Your monitor was beeping like mad last night. Said you had a fever of 42, but the machine was probably broken. Thermometer put you more at 40, but still, concerningly high. Gave you some fever reducers and a cool rag, kept an eye on you. Are you feeling any better?”

Tim rolled his neck, hearing his joints crack as he did so. “Uh-” He took stock of his faculties. He felt great, actually. No pain, no stiffness, just a tingling warmth spread throughout his body. Something about that felt...right. But he wasn’t sure why. “Yeah, fine.” He pulled the rag out from under his neck and noticed, for the first time, he was naked.

“Sorry,” she smiled apologetically at the flush that spread across his face and neck. “First rule of fevers: tight clothing comes off. It seemed to have done its job though. You were out for a whole day. According to our thermometers, your temperature’s gone back to normal, but we’d like to keep an eye on you a bit longer, especially with your injuries. They don't seem to be infected, so the fever might have been a latent trauma response to the explosion.” The woman shrugged, her smile light. “Our bodies do crazy things to keep us safe. Even when it hurts.”

“A-apparently so,” Tim nodded softly, squeezing his hands into fists, feeling the nails dig into his palms. At least this wasn’t a dream. He rested his head against the pillows propped behind him and sighed heavily.

The nurse left eventually, when there were no more monitors to check and Tim had promised eight ways to Sunday to press his call button if he needed anything. He settled back into his pillow, listening to the steady beep of his heart amplified on the monitor. The TV droned low in the background, newscasters revisiting today’s tragedies. Had they been on the news when it happened? Tim huffed and shook his head. Not if Elias had a say in it. Probably chalked it up to a gas main.

He grabbed the remote strapped to his bed, and flipped through the channels aimlessly, looking for something interesting…or at least to lull him back to sleep. Kids programming, soap operas, more news, interior design—wait. Tim flipped back to the news channel. Demolition of an old primary school. The reporter spoke to a heated young woman, round cheeks framed by wild curls, who spoke to the camera about the memories and traditions the school represented, how unfair it was to lose such an important monument to the history of her town.

“A shame, isn’t it?”

Tim started at the voice, whipping his head to the door, gripping the remote tight in his hand. The woman standing in the doorway of his room was short and wide, hair cropped close. She wore a grey tank top and black shorts, revealing tattoos of flames licking up the backs and sides of her calves. Something about her face was odd. A little too smooth? The grin on her face seemed wider than normal smiles were meant to be, drooping a little too low.

“Pardon?” Tim managed, grip on the call button tight, even if there was…something keeping him from pressing it.

“About the school.” She pointed to the television as she crossed the threshold, crossing her legs as she sat in the cushy visitor’s chair next to his bed. “So many childhood memories, so many job opportunities, so many opportunities for self-improvement-” She spat the word with malice. “Truly some of my favorite forms of destruction.”

Tim stared at her dumbly. “Do…am I supposed to know who you are?” Her returned chuckle burned him from the inside.

“Oh,” she crooned, more to herself than to Tim. “For keepers of the Eye, you are all so stupid. I am Jude Perry and I serve the Lightless Flame. And, if I’m right, you do too.”

[finleyjayne]

Living a Lie: Chapter 2

Thank you for everyone who helped with this fic, including the fantastic @2smittinkittin​, the wonderful beta for this chapter, and @kittykatlow​, who is still forever supportive.

Summary: Penelope Grace Darling: the name you live by, the only name the world remembers. That doesn’t keep the memories of Y/N out of your head. All you ever wanted to do was create a better world. You thought you were doing that until some unexpected visitors to your hometown turn your world upside down. Can you leave your past behind you in order to keep your loved ones safe? Or will your fragmented memories keep you from the truth?

Pairings: Past Winter Soldier/Reader, Plus sized!Reader. Slow burn Bucky Barnes/ Reader.

Warnings: Dub/Noncon, Rape, Kidnapping, human trafficking (referenced), Underage Rape, Swearing, PTSD, Anxiety attacks, Unhealthy coping mechanisms, Non-consenting drug use, underage Drug use, Violence, Domestic Violence, I’m trying to remember what else comes later in the series.

This is a Dark Fic if you don’t like it, Don’t Read It!

Chapter 1

Looking genuinely confused as you try to place the name with the context, your eyes flipping between the four people who were now staring at you. Three highly amused with your confusion and one completely flabbergasted. “Daisy calm down a bit? I am apparently missing something here, and you yelling is definitely not helping me piece it together.”

  At this, Clint bends over himself, clutching his sides as his laughter rips through his chest. What a sexy laugh? Even though it’s at my expense. Nat smirks a little longer than her usual quick flashes. Wanda, ever the peacekeeper, extends her hand, “Hello, My name is Wanda, but I’m usually more recognized by my superhero name: The Scarlet Witch. These are my teammates and friends, Natasha, or The Black Widow, and Clint, also known as Hawkeye. It’s very nice to meet you, Penelope. We definitely appreciate the help with the shoes.”

As her sentences click in your brain, your eyes grow as big as your glasses’ rims. Your jaw pops open, “Oh, well, it’s nice to meet you, too?” You say with a nervous laugh, well, this is embarrassing. “Thank you for coming into our store. Daisy, don’t do anything stupid. I’m going to go grab my purse, and then I’m going to lunch.” you face still plastered with saucer-sized eyes as you slip through the curtains.

How could I not know who they were? I know I use Daisy and Bruce as my source of current events, but I should at least know the Avengers’ faces. You grab your purse, slinging it across your body before proceeding out the front door toward the little corner bakery. At least I didn’t act like a complete fool. Daisy is probably freaking out. I shouldn’t have left her alone with them, she’s going to eat them alive. Who am I kidding? They’ll be fine, they are the Avengers, they can handle an over-excited almost adult. 

Thankfully, lunch and the rest of your shift flew by without any other famous guests. Your nerves were on the fritz, though; it felt as if someone was watching you. No matter what you did, You just couldn’t relax. Every movement drew your attention. Every sound made you flinch. As Bruce came through the door, you burst at the seams with the need to make your escape. You threw a passing goodbye to your boss as you jogged to your car, not even sparing a moment to change the radio back to a public station. You were out of the parking lot and on the road in seconds, causing Gertrude to complain loudly. Fighting off the sharp edges of the panic that blistered your mind. Within two blocks, you were pulled over, hand clawing at your chest, sight wavering as you throw Gertrude into park. Before you can even think about counting the rails in the fence, your vision is black. 

“Пожалуйста, прекратите! [Please stop!]” The high-pitched scream echoes through the small, dark room. “Вам не нужно этого делать [You don’t need to do this].” a shock of pain courses over your back as a second resounding crack follows. 

“Тишина [SILENCE],” comes the cold order. “Вы говорите, когда я хочу, чтобы вы говорите! [You speak when I want you to speak!]” two more cracks and, after a second, two more blazing paths are scorching your skin. Confusion is mixed into the muddled neurons of your brain as you hear the metal door sliding open. 

Cautiously you lift your eyes, peering over your shoulder, only to be met by another crack that catches you across the cheek. With another bloodcurdling scream, you fall onto your freshly whipped back. Holding a cuffed hand to your sliced cheek, you meet the coldest pair of steel-blue eyes you have ever seen. “Этого достаточно. Они готовы к этому. [That’s enough. They are ready for it]” came the icy baritone through the black mask. 

    Your assailant scowls at the man. “Пациент не готов. [The subject is not ready]”

    The empty-eyed man ignores him as he steps closer to you. “Они готовы [they are ready],” he repeats. He reaches for your arm mechanically. It was as if he was only going through the motions without knowing what he was doing.

     You flinch from his extended right hand, cowering away. “Вам не нужно этого делать [You don’t need to do this].” comes the pleading voice that you realize is coming from you. 

     He continues forward, dragging you out of the room to the scream of the man you left behind. “Она не твоя [She is not yours]!”

     Sobbing into the steering wheel of your beloved clunker, you hold onto your thick sides. The black-rimmed, ice-filled eyes continue to hover in your peripheral as you come out of the onslaught of memories. It’s not real, I am in Utah, they are not here, he is not here. I am safe. Coulson promised I am safe. After eight more deep breaths, your thoughts are cut off by a peppy, upbeat melody sung by a flowy lyric-soprano. “I know you can hear this Penny, so pick up, or I’ll sing it higher.” As the melody repeats for the third time, you scramble to pick your phone up. 

    “Delilah, I hope you realize that the ringtone you made me is, in fact, the cruelest practical joke anyone has ever succeeded in pulling.” You snip the need to portray normalcy coming through in your irritation at one of your best friends. 

    “I loooove you too, darling.” came the cloying giggle from the other end of the line. “Taylor and I were just talking about the Stark expo that is opening tonight. Also, we haven’t heard from you in a couple of days. Please save me from going to this thing without you. You can interpret Tay’s wild ramblings for me, and you can get out of that dungeon you call a bedroom for a night! It’ll be fun! Pleeeeeeeease~.” 

You can see the bright amber puppy-dog eyes she was giving you through the phone. There was no way she would let you off the hook if Taylor was dragging her to the Expo. Knowing Taylor, they had probably pre-ordered three VIP passes months ago and had been secretly geeking out since, waiting to haul us to their favorite displays and setting up the perfect itinerary. But also in their excitement, forgot to tell us about it until now.  

With a sigh, you throw your head back onto the headrest. “I’m going whether or not I want to, aren’t I?”

“You know us so well,” came Taylor’s dark-tenor chuckle through the speaker. 

“Well, I’m headed to my appointment up there right now. If you want to meet me at the east entrance of the Salt Palace afterward...” You resign, glancing at the radio clock in the dash. “I should be done by the time you get there, but I’ll text you when I’m on my way.” Delilah squeals, and Tay’s hums in contentment. 

“See you there,” they both reply. “Drive safe, Drive smart.”

“You too. I’d suggest taking Trax if you can. The parking is gonna be a nightmare. I can take y’all home when we’re done.”

“Sounds like a plan. See you there,” Tay calls through Lila’s squeals before hanging up.

Staring blankly through the window for a minute before turning on the radio and making your way back into heavy Utah traffic.  

An hour later, you pull into the large parking structure, running out of the car and into the blazing summer heat. Fucking Utah drivers. Unable to go a single day without causing some sort of preventable crash. Bursting into the large hospital, you clip your little identification tag before heading to the research lab where they run all their tests. Pulling your shoulders back as you scan your ID and pass the double doors that say: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

You follow the labyrinth of hallways to a small medical-exam room in the furthest corner of the buildings. X-rays, MRIs, and Photos were stuck to lightboards around the room. With a huff, you look away from the gruesome images, towards a devilishly-handsome blond clothed in SHIELD emblazoned shrubs and a University of Utah Hospital doctor’s coat. The modelesque picture on his ID not doing him justice. 

“Hello, Miss Darling, only ten minutes early. What happened, you get stuck in traffic?” His aggravatingly-nasal voice pierced through the sounds of him typing on his small laptop, reminding you just how much you dislike this man. 

“Yes, actually, Dr. Fenris. There were three crashes on I-15, and then there was a line of cars four miles long getting off for the Expo. I never realized that there was enough parking for that here.” I grit my teeth, plastering on my smile at his joke. 

“Well, I see no use dilly-dallying any further; if you’ll change into your gown and then sit on the exam table, we’ll start with that today, then we’ll head to the MRI and X-ray followed by your physical strength and endurance testing.” Dr. Fenris said as you grabbed the scratchy hospital gown off the end of the exam table and started changing. There is no use hiding your body, this man has seen every part of my it over the last four years since you’ve come back to the states. If you were honest with yourself, you would stop these useless exams. The longer they went, the worse you were being treated, and the more you get the feeling that something is wrong. It’s not like they were making any progress in making this “cure” that you are supposedly helping with. 

Gown on, you sit on the bed. Legs dangling off the floor slightly as you wait for Fenris to finish whatever he is typing. As he turns his attention to you with a smirk, a wicked glint enters his eye. “Look at that; just as predicted, your healing time has decreased since the last time you got an abrasion. This week we’re going to analyze how your platelets are going to react to different poisons.”

Looking at him cautiously, you move the slightest bit away from his seat.

“Oh silly, we are going to do it in the lab. Just a couple of vials of blood from you are needed. For now, at least.” He placates jovially, pulling out a tray of vials and a winged phlebotomy kit. 

You warily keep your eye on him as he comes around to the side of the table. Right as he’s about to stick you, a knock comes at the door. You look at the doctor surprised. He just gives a tight smile, showing a tight smile as he turns to the door, opening it. “Dr. Banner, I didn’t think you were going to come in today.” the jittery surprise made evident his cheerful mask. 

“I wasn’t planning on it. Then I noticed that the subject of your tests was going to be in today and couldn’t help but want to see her for myself.” responded the gentle-looking man with salt and pepper hair and black-rimmed, nerd glasses. “My name is Dr. Bruce Banner. I am here to check on the status of Dr. Fenris’ research.” 

“Hey,” you say with an awkward little wave, “I’m Penelope, but I guess you knew that already since I am his research,” you can’t help the self-deprecating chuckle and tight smile that follow Dr. Banner’s staring. “You just got to his favorite part. Fenris here was just about to stab me like Vlad the Impaler.” Your anxiety at Fenris’ obvious joy from your pain showing slightly.

Dr. Banner looked at you with complete horror. Turning to Dr. Fenris with a look of disgust. “I should hope not. It would be disappointing if this project were to stop. There is great potential for new knowledge and understanding here.”

Giggling slightly at the furious look Fenris throws you, your chest releases. “It was one time, Ms. Darling. And you healed before you even left the hospital.”

“Doesn’t mean you won’t do it again, Dr. we-are-testing-your-platelets’-reaction-to-poisons-this-week. I feel like my cautiousness is well deserved, and I still hate needles,” you pout. “Now, if you’ll hurry up and stick me so we can get this over with. I’m supposed to be going to the Stark expo thingy. Gotta play the interpreter between my friends. Though, I’m pretty sure they are just using that excuse to get me to go with them.” 

Dr. Banner chuckled awkwardly as you turn to him, trying to ignore the deplorable doctor to your right. “Anyway, how hopeful are you for this research Dr. Banner? Are you going to the Expo? I hear that they will be talking about the new renewable resource cells Stark Industries is working on. I hope that they are planning on making them powerful enough to bring about an electric car. There are just too many oil refineries around here to be healthy. I personally would hop on that electric car bandwagon if there was one affordable and efficient.”

As you rambled, two large sterile culture bottles and six smaller tubes are filled with your blood. Dr. Banner keeps out of the way as Fenris goes about testing your reflexes and taking measurements of your leg, inspecting the other doctor’s work before Looking at the pictures, and medical imaging on the wall. “How long ago were these pictures taken?” He finally asks, pointing to the first set of photographs. Your leg was utterly ravaged, exposing the metal skeleton while the flesh looked like it was used as a cougar’s chew toy. 

“Four years.” I wince, remembering the carnage that Fury and Coulson had found me in. “Almost to the day.” 

“And this one?” gesturing to the next picture; muscle and tendon now in some sense of a sinewy leg. The skin overlying the fragile tissues without much scar tissue. 

“Two weeks later. The next is two weeks after that. I can tell you that growing pains are indeed worth all the crying that children do over them.” You joke, looking at the almost normal looking appendage in the picture, then at the more tone,d version currently attached to your body. 

“Can you feel it? When did it start?” You could tell that Banner’s questions were from a scientific fascination that made you smirk. He looked kind of like a little boy set loose in a candy store; intrigued, and full of genuine curiosity.

“I can’t really feel it, but my brain started to connect to it a few months after the initial accident. I am kinda glad I can’t feel it though. Getting back feeling all at once makes ‘pins and needles’ look like child’s play. Though according to Dr. Fenris, my body is apparently fully healed, and I could get the feeling back any second.” 

“Have you had today’s scans? Can I see them?”

“Not yet. That comes after the blood draw today, Then it’s time for some superhero training. Apparently, it’s not enough to take all my healing into account. I’m also being studied as a Superhuman… Fenris here likes to refer to me as a Supersoldier. I don’t really see how that fits since I never was technically a soldier-” 

“Well, if you wouldn’t mind me accompanying you, we can see what you can do. Who knows maybe by the end of today you’ll be vetted into the Avengers.”

“I don’t think that will be a possibility, Dr. Banner. I don’t think SHIELD is a big fan of my existence. I am only useful as a lab rat.”

The man looks to Fenris through the corner of his eye. “Is that right? I have a feeling many things about this research are going to be changing,” a deep undertone of discontent laced through the Dr.’s words. 

Throughout the next hour, more medical tests are done. By the time we are back into the little exam room, you are full of pent up energy. Now was your favorite part of these appointments. You get to actually use some of the ‘powers’ that You were given. You could set yourself free.

If you want more Winter Soldier fics, check out @darkficsyouneveraskedfor​. They have a great one called Breach.

Thank you all for reading.

Tags are open for this fic; I am also curious to see what you all think. Share your truth with me.

People I think will enjoy reading this: @star-spangled-beard-burn@angrythingstarlight​ @tossacoin2yourwitcher​ @navybrat817​ @nekoannie-chan​ @donutloverxo​ @stargazingfangirl18​ @nsfwsebbie​ @jtargaryen18 @buckys-broody-muffin​ @nacho-bucky​ @giorno-plays-piano​ @buckybarney

[graciebirdie]

*slides onto your dash like i didn’t completely disappear for a week* good evening. please enjoy the first chapter of another fic in my personal series titled “how many different ways can i rewrite teen wolf seasons 1/2/3?“ (hint: it’s a lot)

***

"Yes or no?" Peter asked, staring Stiles down intently, leaning closer and closer to Stiles' wrist.

Peter's little speech about how Stiles could be just like Scott, or even better than Scott just showed Stiles that as smart as Peter seems to think he was Peter also doesn't understand Stiles at all.

Stiles has never wanted to be like Scott. Scott might be Stiles' best friend but Stiles wasn't blind. Most of the time the only thing Scott has going for him was his perpetually confused face and innocent crooked smile.

Stiles knew that since Scott had been bitten all of his high school outcast dreams had come true but his odds of dying before he turned eighteen had risen exponentially.

For Stiles, an entire new world had opened up. Suddenly humans weren't the scariest things out there. There were literal monsters. And Stiles was woefully underprepared for it. He needed to know everything about everything but he knew that he needed a foot in the door first.

No self respecting creature of the night would go around telling a rando human all their secrets but… they might be more willing to tell another creature.

So Stiles carefully shrugged so as not to pull his hand away and said "Sure, why not?"

Peter blinked at him, looking startled. For a long moment nothing happened and Stiles started to think Peter had only been fucking with him when suddenly Peter grinned at him, showing off his huge mouthful of fangs.

"Why not indeed." he slurred and ripped the cuff of Stiles' shirt open to bite into Stiles' skin.

It stung but Peter pulled away after barely a moment, not even a hint of blood on his mouth. He let go of Stiles with a pleased looking smirk.

Stiles pulled his arm back to inspect his wrist. There were tiny little pinpricks of blood in crescent shapes on both sides of his wrist. It was like Peter had barely applied any pressure at all. After the horror story Stiles had heard from Scott about what his bite had looked like the differences were stark.

Stiles glanced up at Peter and found him staring very intently at him. It was actually a little creepy. "I have to go check up on Lydia." Stiles said wanting to get away from Peter as quickly as possible as the full extent of his decision hit him.

Peter smirked at him. "You do that." he said it like he thought Stiles was pulling a Scott or something.

Stiles refused to actually run away and give Peter the satisfaction of having scared Stiles.

Once he was safely inside the hospital he allowed himself a moment to panic that Peter might be able to pull that alpha mind trick bullshit he'd tried on Scott before he suddenly remembered that Scott was a goddamn idiot sometimes and he hadn't listened when Stiles tried to explain werewolves to him and he'd had no idea that Peter was messing with his head. Stiles hoped his foreknowledge would help him where it didn't help Scott.

Well, if Peter did try to mess with Stiles he would... figure something out.

***

Stiles made Jackson drive his own car to the Hale house because it didn't actually matter if Jackson showed but if he did Stiles didn't want to have to drive him back to his car or have to rely on him to get out of the woods. Jackson was a big enough asshole that if he got the chance he'd leave Stiles on his own.

Stiles had debated making some more molotov cocktails but he'd quickly dismissed the idea. Peter might be a murderer but he'd already been set on fire once and Stiles was positive that that was most of the reason he was so crazy. So Stiles wasn't going to be setting Peter on fire again anytime soon. Or possibly ever.

Stiles watched Peter rip Kate Argent's throat out. After her pathetic attempt at an apology he didn't really feel all that bad about it. He was probably going to freak out about it later but in the moment all he really cared about was that a mass murderer was dead.

Peter didn't seem very satisfied with the last part of his revenge but Stiles wasn't surprised. Everyone who had been responsible for the fire was dead but Peter's family didn't suddenly come back to life and now Peter was going to have to think about what else he could do with his life.

He started to advance on Allison and Stiles knew he should step in and do...something. Maybe try to appeal to Peter's human side by pointing out when the fire happened Allison had been like ten and if she had been involved she hadn't known what she was doing. Not that Stiles thought she was involved because he was one hundred percent sure she hadn't been. But Peter wasn't done with being angry yet and Stiles hadn't turned into a werewolf in the last two hours so he just let Chris Argent shot Peter with enough bullets to get him to his knees.

He didn't try to stop Derek when he stepped up to finish Peter off. Peter had sort of brought that onto himself by killing Derek's sister.

Stiles stayed long enough to watch Peter fall down dead and then he climbed back into his jeep and drove home.

~~~

Peter had asked Stiles if he wanted the bite on a whim. He would have left him there in the parking garage but Stiles had to go and poke at him and Peter hadn't been able to resist.

He'd thought rubbing how much Scott's life had changed with the bite in Stiles' face would make him back down, really Peter just wanted to see how Stiles would react to that.

Stiles had just seemed calculating.

Weighing the pros and cons in his head before he'd agreed.

Peter had paused for a moment to see if Stiles would suddenly change his mind but Stiles had just stared him down.

So Peter had bitten him on the wrist.

No doubt if Peter had bitten him in the traditional place on the side Stiles would have run but he'd made his choice and having a third tie to the mortal plane was better than two.

Peter had bitten him quickly but carefully. the other two times he'd bitten someone had been bloody and messy but neither of them had agreed to the bite. Stiles had so he deserved a bit more care.

Only moment's after Peter had let Stiles go he was obviously second guessing himself so Peter let him go. Stiles had already told him where Derek was, which would lead him to Kate and really that had been all that he wanted.

If the night ended as badly as he thought it would Stiles would have some time to come to terms with his choices and hopefully be ready to face Peter again.

And if the night went well than Peter would let him have some time to deal with it. He'd handled Scott so well that Peter had no doubt he'd be able to handle himself too.

~~~

The night had gone exactly as badly as Peter had been expecting.

The only thing that surprised him was Stiles' lack of reaction.

He had just watched.

Obviously he was going to let Peter dig his own grave. But his complete lack of reaction to anyone else there was facitinating.

Not that Peter had much time to think about it.

***

A week after Peter had bitten him and Stiles was still human. The little pinpricks had healed and turned into teeny tiny white scars most people won't notice.

Stiles thought that they'd scared over too fast for something not to have happened but he had no idea what. Peter had only said that if the bite didn't turn him it would kill him and Stiles felt totally fine.

Better than fine really. He felt pretty great for having experienced a lot of horrible shit and having his entire world view up ended.

But he was pretty sure he didn't feel werewolf great. He didn't suddenly have enhanced senses or strength. He didn't feel the urge to run in the woods naked and howl at the full moon.

He suspected he was going to have to ask Derek for help. Not that he wanted to. If Stiles was going to turn into a werewolf and he was just being a late bloomer than Derek would probably try to convince him to join his pack and Stiles wasn't all that interested.

If Scott could handle himself without an alpha while Peter activly tried to fuck him up than Stiles was pretty sure he could handle himself without an alpha too.

He decided to try a little experiment first. At school, before first period started he leaned close to Scott and asked "Yo, do I smell different to you?"

Scott looked at him like he was crazy. "No?" he said hesitantly.

Stiles nodded seriously. "Cool. Just checking I didn't get bitten by a were-mosquito in my sleep or something."

Scott rolled his eyes and turn away from him in exasperation.

Stiles fought back a sigh. Looked like he would have to go find Derek after all.

***

Derek was a weirdo that either didn't have a job, savings, or any valid ID because he was living in an abandoned train station.

"So how many homeless people did you have to kick out to get these digs?" Stiles asked with a sneer.

Derek sneered right back. "What the hell do you want? Scott already told me I wasn't his alpha so I don't have to deal with you or him."

Great, that was definitely not something Stiles wanted to deal with. Sure, he didn't want Derek to be his alpha but he didn't want to cut ties with him completely.

"I'm having a little problem and I was hoping you could give me a bit of advice." That should work. If Derek didn't think Stiles needed him to actually do anything he'd probably help.

"I have enough problems of my own, I don't have time to deal with yours too." Derek growled.

This was ridiculous and Stiles was surrounded by incompetence. "You really think I'd come to you with a normal problem?"

Derek didn't even blink, just continued to glare at him, not seeming to notice something off about Stiles at all.

Stiles threw his hands up in exasperation. "Fine! Fuck you too than!"

Derek was obviously not going to be any help. Stiles was going to have to go find someone actually smart to help him. And it would help if that someone also happened to have the same problem that Stiles was having.

***

On Lydia's first day back at school after being released from the hospital she and Allison sat apart from the rest of the student body and Stiles jumped at the opportunity.

Allison and Lydia were sitting across from each other at a table in the back of the cafeteria so Stiles sat down next to Allison so that Lydia didn't feel like he was trying to be creepy or crowd her.

She and Allison both stared at him like he was insane but he just smiled.

He knew Lydia liked to play her mind games but he decided he didn't want her to think he was messing with her so he just jumped right in. "So Lydia, you know how you got attacked on the lacrosse field? Will I saw what happened and I was wondering if you wanted to know what I saw."

She looked furious. From next to him Allison made a strangeled sound and when he glanced over she looked like she wanted to murder him.

He turned back to Lydia in time to watch her look between Stiles and Allison and for her expression to become thoughtful. And deadly. "Okay Stiles, you tell me your version of events."

"A werewolf attacked and bit you."

Lydia's smile instantly fell and she sat back in her chair to look at Stiles in disgust.

"Stiles what the fuck!" Allison hissed and Stiles turned to glare at her.

"She has a right to know what happened, don't you think?" he challenged Allison.

"Leave her alone!" Allison growled, obviously furious at him.

He pointedly turned back to Lydia to look at her seriously. "Lydia, if you want proof Scott can show you. He's a werewolf, but not the one who bit you." he added hastily.

Lydia was looking a little blank. "Scott... McCall... a.... werewolf?"

"No!" Allison yelled. She looked around quickly and lowered her voice. "No, Stiles is just being an asshole."

Lydia started to frown at Allison. "The movie rental place...." she said slowly.

Stiles winced and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Ah, yeah I deleted the video of it off your phone, sorry."

Lydia instantly whipped her phone out of her purse and started to scroll through it.

Stiles and Allison both watched her in confusion.

"Holy shit." Lydia whispered. "I thought I'd had a bad trip."

Allison shot up and tried to pull Lydia's phone out of her hand but Lydia was faster than her. "What the hell are you doing Allison?"

Allison looked a little panicked. "Lydia that's not-"

Lydia went completely still. "Scott McCall is your boyfriend, Allison."

Allison looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "We broke up..." she said faintly.

Lydia turned to look at Stiles. "You said Scott could prove it?"

Stiles swallowed. This was going very well. He hoped Scott would actually help him. He quickly pulled out his phone to check his copy of Scott's work schedule. He grinned and said "Yep! He's closing the vet clinic tonight, if you come by around six I can let you in."

Allison made a strangled sound but Lydia and Stiles both ignored her.

Lydia nodded decisively. "Okay, I'll be there." she paused and looked at Allison. "Sit down Allison. Stiles you can leave now."

Stiles didn't have to be told twice. He grabbed his stuff and booked it for where Scott was staring at Allison dejectedly.

He flopped down next to Scott and said "Woah boy I do not want to be there for that dressing down. I think Lydia can murder people with just her eyes."

Scott frowned at him in confusion. "What did you guys talk about?"

Stiles shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh you know, just about what happened to Lydia and how she's coming over to the clinic tonight so you can prove werewolves are real. The usual."

Scott opened and closed his mouth several times before he squeaked out a strangled "What?"

Stiles grinned at him threateningly. "And if you don't do it I'm damn sure not going to help you with whatever it is you're planning on doing to win Allison back from her crazy dad."

Scott tried to pull out the sad puppy dog eyes but Stiles ignored him. He'd been immune to those for years.

***

"I don't get why you want to tell Lydia." Scott whined for the third time. Stiles was tired of it.

"I don't get why you don't want to tell her." he shot back in annoyance.

"She's not a werewolf so she shouldn't have to deal with them." Scott said with a stubborn look on his face.

Stiles stared at him in bafflement. "What part of her knowing what happened to her would mean she'll have to deal with werewolves now? Maybe she'll find out and want absolutely nothing to do with werewolves." Stiles said, even though he wanted the exact opposite of that to happen.

Scott didn't look convinced but before he could protest again his head did the tilt thing it did when he was listening for something. His expression instantly got sappy and he said "Allison's here."

Stiles rolled his eyes but let Scott go open the front door for Allison and Lydia.

Lydia swaned in looking beautiful and furious. She eyed him and glanced over her shoulder into the lobby, probably saw Scott and Allison making out, and stepped right up into Stiles' space.

In a whisper she said "Allison seems to think that the only reason you told me is because you want to get into my pants but I have a feeling you want something else."

Stiles fought back a swoon. In an equally quiet whisper he said "It was entirely selfish on my part to tell you. But we'll have to talk about it somewhere else."

Lydia leaned back with a satisfied look on her face and Stiles was realized to see he was still handing her the right way.

In a normal volume of voice he asked "So how'd you get that video back?"

Lydia sneered at him as if he was an idiot and rolled her eyes. "Who doesn't have their phones set to automatically back up to the cloud?"

Stiles actually felt a little impressed that he hadn't thought to delete any copies but he could admit to himself that he had been a little distracted at the time. "My mistake." he said trying to look chagringed but probably failing.

Lydia turned to look back out into the lobby and yelled "If either of you two are missing clothing when I come out there I'm going to murder you both and then Stiles for good mesure."

Stiles grimaced at the thought. He fought back a laugh when he heard something crash and Scott and Allison both swearing.

Lydia smirked at him and he didn't even try to stop himself from smirking back.

***

A few days after they'd given Lydia a crash course on the werewolf bullshit she cornered Stiles at his jeep after school.

"Okay I've processed some stuff so we can talk about your ulterior motives now." She said, pointedly tapping her fingers against the passenger door, no doubt waiting for Stiles to unlock it and let her in.

Stiles grinned at her and eagerly unlocked the door. She hopped in and primmly smoothed her skirt out.

"So." he said as he started up the jeep. "You pick where you want to talk."

She sent him a look that said she knew exactly what he was doing but he pointedly ignored her.

She hummed in thought for a moment before she said "If your dad's not home we can go to your house."

Stiles was surprised but he wasn't about question her choices when he didn't have a problem with going to his house.

"Coffee first?" he asked, since he figured she deserved something for even being willing to listen to him.

She smiled. "Of course."

***

They sprawled out on the couch in the front room with coffee and tacos because Lydia had been hungry and Stiles never said no to tacos.

She waved her hand at him and said, with her mouthful because apparently Stiles didn't deserve her good manors "Spit out what it is you want to ask me already. The suspense is killing me."

Stiles snorted but pulled down his shirt sleeve to show her the little tiny scars on his wrist.

She leaned forward to look, eyes narrowing in thought before they widened in surprise.

"Did he-?" she pointed excitedly at his wrist.

"Yep." Stiles said with a nod.

"But you're not-?" she curled her fingers to look like claws.

"Nope."

"Huh." she said, leaning back against the couch and eating more of her taco thoughtfully.

Stiles left her to it and ate his own food. This was why he'd told her after all.

After a few minutes she asked "Have you talked to Derek?"

Stiles grimaced. "I tried. He kicked me out before I could tell him the whole story because since Scott doesn't want him as his alpha that means Derek's not going to help me."

Lydia looked furious. "That's bullshit."

"Sure is." Stiles said in agreement.

She turned to look at him curiously. "So how'd it happen?"

Stiles cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well that's the reason I haven't talked to Scott about it yet."

Lydia looked smug again. "Did you ask for it?"

"No." he paused and watched her pout at having been wrong. "But he offered and I said yes."

Her eyebrows shot up. "He... offered?"

Stiles sighed and told her the unedited story of what happened between him and Peter.

At the end she just said "Huh." again.

"So we're in the same boat." he said.

She frowned but nodded slowly. "Not really. But now I get why you wanted to talk to me."

Stiles was relieved she understood and he agreed that their situations were different.

"Let's compare notes." she finally said.

So they did and afterwords Stiles felt better than he had since he'd agreed to let Peter bite him.

***

The next day at lunch Stiles was outside on the bleachers hiding from Scott because he wanted Stiles to play messenger instead of just getting a pay by the minute burner phone like Stiles had suggested.

Lydia appeared out of nowhere and sat down next to him. "Hiding from Scott?" she asked, the look on her face half amused half fake sympathetic.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" he asked morrosly.

"Allison tried to rope me into passing notes between her and Scott. So I'm hiding from her." she said primly.

"I told him to just get a burner phone."

Lydia cocked her head in thought for a moment before she pulled her phone out and texted someone, hopefully Allison. She's probably listen to reason.

Very casually Lydia said "So have noticed that Isaac Lahey has been acting super weird?"

"Who?" Stiles asked, frowning as he tried to think of anyone that would being acting strange enough for Lydia to not only notice but also bring it up to Stiles.

"He's second string on the lacrosse team." she sent him a judgement look. "You sit next to him at most games."

"Oh." Stiles said shamidly. “That Isaac Lahey."

Lydia rolled her eyes at him. "He's been acting a lot like Scott did after he got bitten. Up to and including getting good at lacrosse overnight and hitting on me."

Stiles frowned. "Why didn't I notice?" he asked, more to himself than Lydia.

She rolled her eyes at him. "When was the last time you went to practice?"

Stiles frowned harder in thought. There hadn't been any practice during spring break but he'd somehow completely missed the practices he should have been to on Monday and Wednesday.

He had no idea how he'd forgotten about them or why no one had called him on it. Coatch and Scott would murder him if he missed practice.

Lydia saw the look on his face and very casually said "I guess you haven't noticed the way you've been kind of mopey lately."

He blinked at her. "Mopey?"

She nodded. "I know you're worried about what's going to happen with our bites but no one else does so to them you just don't look very good."

He made a mental note to tell Coach next time he saw him that he'd been feeling sick and stressed out and that was why he'd missed practice.

Or, maybe, if he did suddenly turn into a werewolf he should just quit the lacrosse team. If Scott and maybe Isaac were on the team that was more than enough werewolves to draw attention to themselves. Stiles didn't want any hunters that might be smart enough to look at small town sport news to get any ideas about him.

Lydia smirked at him. "I can see the wheels turning."

Stiles smirked right back at her. "You know full well how much of an advantage it is to be underestimated. If I do end up being a werewolf than I don't want to be showing that off to the whole school and anyone else that might be watching."

She nodded thoughtfully.

Deciding to change the subject to something a little more pressing he asked "You wanna go on a field trip with me to ask Derek if he's running around turning teenagers into werewolves?"

Lydia grinned at him. "I would absolutely love to ask him why the hell he hadn't come to check up on me."

Stiles grinned right back. Lydia was going destroy Derek and it was going to be beautiful.

***

Stiles and Lydia walked right into Derek's train car of depression and caught him in the middle of giving what looked like a Werewolf 101 class to Isaac and a girl and a guy Stiles was sure they went to school with.

Derek look furious and stalked over to Stiles and Lydia. "What the hell are you two doing here?" he snarled.

Stiles smiled sweetly at him. "We wanted to know if you were running around biting teenagers but I think this answers that question."

Isaac and the other two would be or maybe already werewolves frowned at them in confusion while Derek narrowed his eyes. "It's not any of your concern or hers." he leaned closer to Stiles to hiss "What the hell is she even doing here?"

Lydia leaned closer to Derek and made one of her patented airhead confused looks. "Geeze I have no idea why I should be here." she cocked her head to the side and put her finger to her chin thoughtfully. "I mean it's not as though I was bitten by a werewolf or anything."

Derek had the decency to blanch at the reminder. He pulled himself up and crossed his arms over his chest. "I checked on you in the hospital, you didn't change."

It was Stiles' turn to cock his head to the side, and said thoughtfully, "What the hell does that even mean. If she didn't change what happened?"

Derek glanced back at his would be betas for a moment, looking lost. And Stiles fought back a groan at the realization Derek had no idea what he was doing.

Derek cleared his throat awkwardly and said, "Well, the bite didn't kill you so that means you're immune."

Lydia and Stiles stared at him in confusion.

"That means nothing to me." Lydia said with a frustrated shake of her head.

Derek looked equally frustrated. "It means you're not going to turn."

Stiles rubbed his hand across his face. "That's it?"

Derek was starting to look dangriously close to wanting to murder them so Stiles gently put his hand on Lydia's arm and said pointly "Come on Lydia, he's obviously usesless."

She huffed but let Stiles turn her back towards the door.

"Wait, hang on." the guy that Stiles couldn't remember the name of said, coming up to them, looking between them and Derek. "You didn't tell us that other people knew about this other than Scott McCall."

Stiles stared at him in horror. "Oh my god please tell me he told you guys about hunters."

The guy, Boyd, his name was Boyd, frowned some more but nodded. "Yeah he told us about hunters but not about you two." he gestured at Lydia and asked "Did he bite you?"

Stiles groaned deeply. "You don't even know about Peter?"

The girl and Isaac came over to Boyd and gave Derek mildly distrustful looks. Obviously Derek had been counting on them not asking very many questions and he'd definitely not factored Stiles and Lydia into his plans. A real dumb move on his part.

It looked like the lure of becoming a werewolf had been strong enough for them to trust Derek enough to let him bite them, the second he proved to have mislead them they were going to jump ship.

"Who's Peter?" the girl asked, staring Derek down intently.

Derek glowered at all of them. "My uncle. He killed my sister, took the alpha power from her and bit Scott and Lydia. I killed him after he killed several people."

The three betas turned to Stiles and Lydia for confirmation.

Stiles and Lydia looked at each other and then nodded.

"Yeah, that's basically what happened." Stiles said with a shrug.

Boyd was still frowning. "You said the bite would either kill you or turn you, you didn't say anything about a third option."

Derek's jaw clenched even harder. "It's very rare, usually only one in a thousand are immune to the bite."

Stiles and Lydia glanced at each other and when Stiles turned back to look at Derek he noticed that Boyd was watching them.

Finally Boyd said "I have to think about this some more before I agree."

That was interesting.

Lydia curled her hand around Stiles' arm and said "Well, if that's all you have to say Derek than Stiles and I will be on our way."

"Do you think you could give me a ride?" Boyd asked with a very slightly pleading look on his face.

Stiles and Lydia looked at each other again. Lydia shrugged so Stiles said "Yeah sure, no problem."

Boyd smiled before he looked at Isaac and the girl. He raised his eyebrows questioningly and the girl said "Uh, would you mind-"

Stiles waved his hand. "Anyone that wants a ride can have a ride."

He and Lydia turned away from them and walked out the door but not before Stiles caught the look of pure fury on Derek's face. Stiles would not be at all surprised if he showed up at Stiles' house and murdered him.

Stiles really had to look into getting himself some wolfsbane for protection.

Lydia opened the passenger door and pulled the seat forward so that Boyd, the girl, and Isaac could all climb into the back seat.

Once they were settled she hopped in and Stiles took off.

"Ugh." he said with a sigh. "He was so useless."

Lydia hummed. "Yes, but I don't think we were useless." she glanced pointedly over her shoulder.

He heard Boyd sigh and he said "Yeah, I was just about to say yes without even really thinking about it."

Stiles laughed and even to him it sounded a little hysterical. Lydia soothingly touched his arm.

"So..." the girl said "This is already not what I was expecting."

Stiles suddenly took pity on the three of them. After having to watch what Scott had gone through he figured he was in a good enough position to help them the same way he'd helped Scott.

"Do you three want to head to my place and we can go over what happened more in-depth?" he asked, glancing in the rearview mirror to watch their faces.

All three of them looked relieved and Boyd said "That would be great, thank you."

He looked at Lydia and asked "You in or do you want me to take you home?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Buy me coffee."

Stiles took that as her agreeing to come back to his place.

***

After Stiles had explained everything that had happened over the last two months Boyd, Isaac, and Erica were all visibly calmer.

Obviously the worry they'd felt over finding out that Derek was a murderer had lessened at hearing the whole story.

They were in the middle of eating pizza when Boyd suddenly leaned closer to Stiles and asked "I feel like you left out something."

Stiles raised his eyebrows questingly. "Oh? Like what?"

"Like how Peter bit you and you didn't turn." Boyd said, staring at him intently.

Lydia snorted in amusement and said "Oh, I like this one."

Boyd actually blushed while Erica and Isaac snickered.

Stiles sighed deeply. "We're trying to keep that on the DL guys." he said weakly.

Erica raised her hands in a do no harm gesture. "Hey, your secret's safe with me."

Isaac frowned. "But why is it a secret?"

Stiles chewed on his lip and glanced at Lydia. She looked empassive so he finally said "Scott didn't ask to get bitten and he kind of hates being a werewolf."

Boyd and Erica made matching noses of disgust.

"He sure doesn't act like he hates it." Boyd said.

Stiles shrugged. "Well since I agreed to it he'll... be very mad."

It was Isaac's turn to look disgusted. "If it was your choice, what he wants doesn't matter."

Stiles looked at him in surprise and was even more surprised at the nodes of agreement that Boyd, Erica, and Lydia were giving him.

He just shrugged again and focused on his pizza.

Erica and Issac's heads suddenly snapped up and the front door opened. His dad walked in and then instantly went still at the sight of five teenagers in his living room.

"Uh, what's going on?" he asked hesitantly.

"Uh..." Stiles said eloquently. He hadn't thought about what he would say if his dad got home before everyone left.

Luckily Lydia jumped to his rescue. "We have a history project and decided it would be best to meet here instead of the library, Sir."

His dad blinked at them for a few more seconds before he finally shrugged and came over to get a slice of pizza.

"Hey!" Stiles said half heartedly.

His dad didn't even have the decency to look ashamed of himself. "I am beat so I'm off to bed. You kids try to keep it down okay?" he took off after a course of "Of course, Sir." and only glanced back a couple of times as he left the room.

"Is that normal?" Lydia asked, eyes wide.

Stiles shrugged helplessly. "Maybe he recognized you and didn't wanna like, scare you off or something?"

Lydia rolled her eyes hard while everyone else sniggered.

"Please, if you were going to hit on me you would have done it when we were alone."

Stiles just shrugged awkwardly. He'd been so caught up with what had been going on with their bites that he'd sort of forgotten he was supposed to have a crush on her.

Erica sighed and said, "I should probably get home before my parents call the police." she winced and glanced upstairs. "That would be really awkward."

Everyone gathered up their things and threw away their trash and then piled into the jeep.

After Stiles had pulled away from Boyd's house and Lydia was the last person in the car with him he said "So, that went well."

She hummed and said "I do believe we accidently adopted two stray werewolves and a very curious human."

"Uh, we?" Stiles asked, sounding strangled.

She turned to smirk at him. "Were you planning on handling handling two new werewolves on your own?"

Stiles shrugged helplessly. "I was going to make Scott help?"

She rolled her eyes. "If the way he's been ignoring you the last few days are anything to go by you'd probably have a hard time with that."

Stiles winced at the painful reminder that Scott was still mad at him for not listening to Allison when she said she didn't want Lydia involved.

"I guess in the end it'll depend on if they decided to trust Derek or not." he finally said.

Lydia flipped her hair over her shoulder and smirked at him. "After they saw us willing to share information and having an actual house to spend time in? There's no way they're going back to that walking disaster."

"They might not have a choice." Stiles said quietly, thinking of Peter’s alpha yelling trick.

Lydia shook her head. "If Derek tries anything like that they'll never go back to him and I'm sure he knows at least that much."

Stiles sighed as he pulled up to her house. "Well, I guess we'll just see what happens."

Lydia just smiled at him and hopped out of the car with a wave.

***

At school the next day Boyd, Erica, and Isaac didn't hesitate to talk to either Stiles or Lydia and Stiles figured if they hadn't have ended up with two baby werewolves they at least ended up with three new friends.

It was a strange thought for him to have, not only because it implied that he and Lydia were friends.

Werewolves sure had turned his life on it's head.

All morning Scott sent Stiles confused puppy dog looks and at lunch when Lydia grabbed Stiles and pulled him over to the table were Boyd, Erica, and Isaac were already sitting at Scott wandered after them and awkwardly sat next to Stiles.

"So Scott." Boyd said, giving Scott an obviously fake smile. "Do you notice anything... different about Erica and Isaac here?" he asked, gesturing at the betas.

They both smiled and waved at Scott who frowned at them.

"No?" he said hesitantly.

Boyd, Lydia, and Stiles all sighed while Erica and Isaac sneered at him.

"Wow, you're a shitty werewolf." Erica said.

Scott reared back away from the table in shock. "What the hell is going on?" he whispered at Stiles.

Stiles shrugged. "Derek decided to make some betas."

Scott gasped in horror. "We have to stop him." he said.

All five of them sent Scott identical looks of bafflement.

"Uh, it's a little late for that?" Isaac said hesitantly.

Scott looked stricken. "He can't just around turning people like that! It's wrong!"

Boyd, Erica, and Isaac all looked mildly furious.

"Listen buddy." Erica said, leaning towards Scott. "It's none of your business if we gave consent."

Scott that mulish look on his face and Stiles sighed deeply already knowing what was coming.

"Someone needs to stop him." Scott said.

Stiles waved his hand to stop any protests the others might have. "Okay Scottie. You go right ahead and give Derek a big old lecture on what he can and cannot do without your say so."

Scott nodded decisively while everyone else just looked annoyed.

It was one thing for them to be mad at Derek for not telling them the whole story before they agreed to be turned but it was completely different for someone else to show up and claim that it didn't matter if they had agreed to it, their choice was the wrong choice.

Stiles could sympathize considering that was the exact reason he hadn't told Scott about his own bite yet.

Boyd, Erica, and Isaac all turned to look at him with matching looks of understanding on their face. He was pretty sure none of them would be telling Scott about him behind his back.

***

Later that night when his dad got him he wiggled his eyebrows at Stiles and asked "So how'd it go with Miss Lydia Martin yesterday?"

Stiles shrugged. "Nothing exciting happened."

His dad frowned. "You feeling okay kid?"

Stiles smiled at him. "Yeah, I'm okay."

His dad didn't look at all convinced.

"Actually I wanted to talk to you about something." Stiles said.

"Go for it."

"I'm going to quite lacrosse." he said in a rush.

His dad looked surprised. "Quite lacrosse? How come?"

Stiles shrugged again. "I just realized I'm never going to get off of second string and I've been thinking that there might be something better I can do with my time."

"Like what?" he asked, frown on his face. Stiles was sure he wasn't dissuading his fears at all.

Stiles floundered for a few seconds as he tried to think up something believable he could say.

Luckily his dad took pity on him and asked "Is this really about Jackson and Scott?"

Stiles grabbed the convenient excuse. He gave a deep sigh and said "It's just that it's been made very clear to me that I'm not going to making first line ever and I'd just...reather not deal with any of it at all anymore."

His dad looked a little murderous but finally said, "It's your choice kid. I'm not going to make you do a sport you don't want to do anymore." he paused and frowned before suddenly grabbing Stiles in a hug. "Just remember not to let assholes like Jackson Whittemore force you to stop doing things you like."

Stiles flailed a little in surprise at the hug but he didn't try to pull away. He patted his dad's back. "Yeah, good advice. I'll try not to."

His dad sighed and pulled back. "That's as good as I'm going to get isn't it?"

Stiles grinned at him in answer.

***

It had been a couple of days since Lydia and Stiles had accidently adopted three new friends and Scott had finally taken Stiles' advice on getting a burner phone because, according to Lydia, Allison had told him to. Stiles tried not to feel too annoyed by that.

The only other interesting thing that happened was that Allison's creepy hunter grandfather had come to town and had apparently decided to become the school principal.

Stiles was pretty baffled. He had no idea why the guy would want to be a school principal of all things.

"Allison keeps talking about how creepy bad-touch his is and it's kind of worrying me." Lydia said with a frown.

"And her dad is putting up with that? After the way he kicked Scott's ass when he thought Scott was human?" Stiles asked, shocked.

"She said he seems kind of scared of him and that's freaking her out even more."

"Did you see how her mom's his new secretary?" Boyd asked. "Honestly she scares me a whole hell of a lot more than sad crusty old grandpa Argent."

Lydia smiled at him. "That's because you're smart enough to recognize a dangerous woman and give her the respect she deserves."

Boyd looked pleased about that.

"Why don't you tell Allison to talk to her mom?" Stiles asked. "Or..." he paused and frowned at Lydia. "Or, if worse comes to worse maybe you could tell her mom that he was being creepy with you too?"

Lydia hummed and nodded. "Only as a last resort though."

"You'd need back up with that." Erica said thoughtfully. She and Lydia had a kind of strange relationship. They seemed to get along okay and didn't try to out bitch each other or anything but they also didn't seem to be friends.

Stiles just choaked it up to girls being weird and left them alone to do what they wanted. Which, according to Lydia, was the smart thing to do.

Isaac was still obviously a little uncomfortable and Stiles suspected that there was a lot going on with him beside the werewolf stuff. At least Isaac and Erica had become fast friends.

Boyd was by far the most laid back and easy going of all five of them. He seemed sort of blown over by Lydia half of the time but went along with most of what she wanted. When he didn't agree with her, he argued. It was amazing to watch tiny Lydia go tow to tow with him but it was obvious from watching them that they both really enjoyed the verbal fights they had.

Stiles wasn't sure exactly how he fit in with all of them but he felt... good around them. He felt strangely content. He had no idea why but he eventually liked all of them and liked spending time with them.

Maybe it was all that time he had spent with Scott one on one and then having that suddenly ripped away by werewolves and Allison Argent that had made him be happy with just hanging out doing basically nothing with other people.

***

Stiles was home alone when he heard Lydia knocking on the front door. He wondered when he'd gotten so used to her coming over that he knew what her knock sounded like.

He opened the door for her and took in her slightly smudged make-up, red eyes, and grocery bag in her hand.

"Come on in." he said without even asking what was going on.

She went into the kitchen and pulled out some spoons and then went back into the living room to flop out onto the couch. She pulled out a gallon of Death by Chocolate ice cream and Stiles sat down next to her on the couch.

She handed him a spoon and said "Allison’s being a shit friend and I think I'm being haunted."

Stiles  stared at her as he tried to figure out which one he should tackle first. "Uhh...?" he asked awkwardly.

She glared at him and he gulped. "How articulate of you."

Stiles laughed awkwardly. "Yeah I know. I just have no idea what I should be saying right now."

Lydia gave him a slightly watery smile. "You don't have to say anything, just listen to me."

"I can do that!" Stiles said in relief.

Stiles listened as she told him about Allison not believing her about her haunting idea while Stiles spent a lot of time wincing in sympathy.

Once she was finished talking about Allison she said "As for the being haunted thing."

Stiles sat up more fully to listen because ghosts sounded like something he might be able to help with, girl friends problems.

"I keep seeing this guy around, he said his name is Peter and I didn't really think much about it until I blacked out and woke up without remembering what happened."

"Well shit!" Stiles said in surprise. "Blacking out and not knowing what happened to Scott when Peter was trying to get him to play murder sidekick."

Lydia nodded, because of course she already knew that, Stiles had told her about it.

"I think we should give Derek one more chance to be helpful and if he isn't we'll go off and find the kitchest new-age hippy bookstore we can and buy a bunch of crystals and books on how to expel ghosts."

She chuckled. "Obviously." Relieved that they had at least a tiny plan she picked up the remote for the tv and turn on HGTV reruns while Stiles went to grab his laptop to do research.

***

Derek had rolled his eyes the second the word ghost came out of Lydia’s mouth and had thrown them out of the train car with a quip about them needing to stop wasting his time. Considering the way they’d practically stolen his betas out from under him neither Stiles or Lydia could blame him all that much for not wanting to listen to them, but they were both still annoyed by it.

***

"So we're going on a little road trip this weekend to a bunch of book shops to see if we can find some real books on the supernatural." Lydia said to the cafeteria table at large.

Boyd, Erica, and Isaac all looked interested.

"Is that the royal we?" Boyd asked.

"It depends on if any of you want to go with me." Lydia said, flipping her hair over her shoulder imperiously.

"I'm going." Stiles said, unnecessarily.

"It sounds... fun, I guess." Erica said, probably trying to sound uninterested but she was smiling.

"I'd love to go." Boyd said with a grin.

Isaac looked hesitant. "When you say weekend road trip you don't mean staying at a motel or anything do you?" he asked awkwardly.

"I do not." Lydia said. "I meant we'll be going like three hours away but we'll be back before midnight. Probably."

Isaac relaxed and smiled awkwardly. "Okay, yeah I'd like to go too."

"Great!" Lydia said, even though they'd already expected them to agree. "We're taking my car because I don't trust Stiles' jeep on a good day."

"Hey!" Stiles said, putting his hand over his heart.

"That thing needs an overhaul." Erica said in agreement.

Stiles pouted at her and then stuck his tongue out when Boyd and Isaac nodded along. "You all suck."

"The only one that sucks is you Stilinski." Jackson said, walking behind him and letting his hip hit Stiles' chair hard enough to push it forward.

Stiles rolled his eyes. "If you're implying that I give blow-jobs that's really not a great insult."

Jackson sneered at him. "No I mean that you're just awful."

Stiles stared blankly at him. "I think that might be the worst attempt at giving an insult I've ever heard."

"Why don't you fuck off Jackson." Lydia hissed, annoyance on her face.

Jackson reared back from her in surprise. "Lydia..."

She pointedly turned away from him and when he realized no one at the table cared about his presence he stomped off with a growl that Stiles thought sounded a little.... not human.

He turned to frown at the others. "Derek didn't say anything about biting Jackson did he?" he asked, suddenly remembering how much Scott said Jackson wanted to be a werewolf.

Erica, Boyd, and Isaac all frowned and looked at each other in worry.

"He didn't, but he also didn't tell us about Lydia so who knows." Boyd said, frowning hard at where Jackson had sat down next to Danny.

"I hope he didn't because that would not be good." Stiles said with a shutter.

Everyone else nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

***

Lydia was driving her car and everyone else had played rock paper scissors to see who got to sit in the front seat. Boyd won and grinned smugly while Lydia judged everyone over the top of her sunglasses.

Once they were all settled in, Isaac and Erica in the backseat with Stiles squished in between them, junk food passed around, and drinks squared away Boyd asked "So are we looking for something specific?"

"Ghosts." Lydia said decisively.

"Ghosts?" Isaac splottered.

"Are ghosts a thing?" Erica asked.

"If they're not I'm losing my mind and I know which one I would prefer." Lydia said flippantly.

Everyone was shocked into silence for a few seconds before Boyd finally said "Could you explain that please?"

So Lydia explained her haunting experiences again and Stiles found he was relieved to not be the only other person to know what was going on.

Stiles didn't really believe in that whole adage about two heads being better than one but he did think having someone with fresh eyes look over a problem definitely helped so he was happy to listen to the others throw ideas around.

After a few minutes he said "What I want to know is why he's haunting Lydia and not me."

Lydia looked at him in the rearview mirror. "Hey, if you want him you can have him."

Stiles huffed. "I mean, what's the difference between us that he's haunting you?"

"Huh." Boyd said thoughtfully. "That's a good question."

Lydia frowned in thought. "Hm, you're right. There must be some difference. He bite you last, you'd think you'd be the one seeing his spirit running around."

"Derek said it was rare that you didn't turn so maybe you did turn, just... not into a werewolf?" Isaac suggested tentatively.

Everyone turned to stare at him.

He shifted uncomfortably and said "Well if werewolves exist who's to say other things don't exist too?"

Stiles' and Lydia's eyes meet through the rearview mirror, shocked that that hadn't thought of that.

Erica bumped her shoulder against Stiles’ and huffed "God, I wish Derek was more helpful."

Everyone sighed deeply in agreement.

***

The first three bookstores they went to were complete busts. They didn't even have any books that couldn't be bought online.

The fourth had some old books that looked like they'd seen better days but when Stiles picked them up they made his fingertips tingle strangely.

The woman behind the counter tried to sell Lydia a rose quartz pendant in the shape of an actual rose but the woman said it had to do with good health not ghosts so Lydia refused to buy it on principle. Stiles bought the books and Erica bought the pendent because “Better to be safe than sorry!”

The fifth book store, the one that was farthest away from Beacon Hills had a backroom with a beaded curtain over the doorway and a woman at a shawl covered table inside. She had a crystal ball. She looked up and smiled when Lydia pushed the curtain back, but the smile fell off her face instantly at the sight of her. She pointed over Lydia's shoulder and screamed.

"What are you looking at?" Lydia asked her, eyes wide.

"It's a monster!" the woman yelped.

"Okay..." Lydia said slowly, hiding her excitement in case this woman was messing with them. "What does it look like?"

"Like..." the woman stuttered. "Like.... a bad horror movie werewolf."

Lydia and Stiles looked at each other, eyes wide.

"So do you see ghosts or what?" Erica asked bluntly and the woman flinched.

"What kind of question is that?" she spat.

"A...reasonable one?" Isaac said hesitantly.

She didn't look impressed. She got up and brushed past them all, out into the main part of the store. The man behind the counter didn't even look up from the book he was reading so Stiles suspected stuff like what had just happened happened regularly.

The woman disappeared into the stacks for a few seconds before coming back with a box in her hands. She held the box out to Lydia.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me." Lydia said flatly.

"Ooh boy Lyds." Erica said sounding gleeful. "We're about to enter next level horror movie shit."

Everyone groaned but Lydia took the Ouija board box from the woman.

"If this summons the devil I'm siccing him on you." Lydia threatened.

The woman rolled her eyes. "As if I haven't heard that before.”

***

They took the ouija board back to Stiles' house and set it up on the kitchen table. They decided to leave the overhead lights on and forgo any candles, just in case it actually worked they didn't want to offend Peter by bringing fire where he might be able to see it and get offended.

They sat down around the table with Stiles and Lydia across from each other and Boyd with a pen and paper ready to write down anything the board might spell out.

Everyone reached out to put their pointer fingers on the planchette and Stiles suddenly realized he had no idea what to say.

Everyone just sat there for a few seconds before Boyd huffed and said "Guess none of you have younger siblings. Move the pointer around a little and then Lydia should call the name of the person we want to talk to."

The planchette slid around the board for a few seconds before it stopped and Lydia took a deep breath. In a slow and steady voice she said "I'd like to talk to Peter Hale please."

For a long moment nothing happened.

And then Stiles felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and a cold chill go up his spine. He felt someone's breath against his ear and Lydia's eyes went huge and her mouth dropped open in shock as she stared over his shoulder.

He heard a familiar voice loudly whisper in his ear, "I can't believe you just tried to talk to me on a Ouija board."

Stiles swallowed hard but refused to turn around. He didn't even twitch.

Lydia's eyes met his and he nodded at her. She visibly pulled herself together and said "I'd like to know why the hell you're haunting me."

Boyd, Isaac, and Erica were looking back and forth between Lydia and Stiles. They looked confused but none of them said anything, waiting for the planchette to move.

Peter chuckled in Stiles' ear and whispered "I see why you like her so much. She has moxy."

Stiles rolled his eyes and relaxed a little. He was pretty sure now that this was actually Peter and not some rando ghost and Stiles knew how to deal with Peter Hale.

"Just answer the question Peter." he said in exasperation.

He heard Peter's breath catch, and how a ghost could breathe wasn't really something Stiles wanted to think about.

"Aren't you full of surprises." the words barely any sound at all, and for a moment it felt like he was touching Stiles' wrist where the bite scar was, which just happened to be the hand Stiles had on the planchette. Stiles jumped at the phantom touch but he refused to let go, having seen one too many horror movies about what happens when you broke the summoning circle.

Peter chuckled. Stiles felt Peter’s hand slid from his wrist up to lay across Stiles’ hand and he suddenly felt his mouth moving  "I need a little help getting back on my feet and I was hoping Lydia would do something for me."

Lydia's eyes narrowed. "Why would I do anything for you? You attacked me, remember?"

"And that's why I didn't just ask." Peter, or was it Stiles, staid in exasperation.

"If I do this favor for you and you 'get back on your feet' will you be leaving me alone?" Lydia asked shrudly.

"Sure, if you help me I'll leave you alone. But I could also explain to you why the bite didn't turn you." he said, obviously hoping that Lydia would be tempted into helping him.

Lydia pretended to think about it but Stiles already knew she'd accept. And if she decided she didn't want to help him than Stiles would. He almost desperately wanted to know what the hell was going on.

"Alright, fine, I'll help you." Lydia said finally, trying to sound put upon.

"You really won't have to do much. There's really one one hard part." Peter said teasingly.

***

They were all spread out on the pullout couch and watching a very dumb horror movie about ouiji boards.

Boyd and Stiles were sitting shoulder to shoulder while Lydia sat in Stiles’ lap and laid with her head on Boyds thigh. Her legs were across Erica’s stomach where she was laying next to Stiles, pressing her knees against Stiles’ other shoulder, her head pressed against Isaac’s, who was laying spread out across the bottom of the pullout, ridiculous long legs hanging off the edge.

"It was so creepy." Boyd said. "It was like someone was using you like a puppet."

"It kind of made me want to throw up." Erica said casually.

Isaac still looked a little sick and had his arms over his eyes. "I'm never touching one of those things again." he groaned.

"I just don't get it." Stiles said absently. "Why could Lydia and I hear him but no one else could..."

"Maybe because he bit both of you but not any of us." Boyd suggested.

"That has to be it." Lydia said. “No, the weird part is him talking through you and not me.”

“Actually I think that was because you wanted to talk to him in the first place.” Stiles said, as confident in his answer as he could be, all things considered.

Lydia hummed thoughtfully.

"How the hell are we going to convince Derek to help?" Isaac asked. "That's going to be the real hard part."

Everyone groaned in agreement.

"Well, at least we have about a month to figure it out." Stiles said hopefully.

"But why does it have to happen on my birthday?" Lydia whined and everyone chuckled a little.

"We could celebrate the day before or after?" Erica suggested, sounding a little hesitant.

Lydia gave a huge put upon sigh but Stiles knew she was a little pleased by what Erica had said.

Stiles looked around at these people he accidentally became so comfortable with as to have, dare he say it, a puppy pile with.

He poked Lydia in the leg and asked her "How'd this happen?" arm waving around at the others.

She rolled her head to frown at him. She shrugged and said "Werewolves I guess."

"Huh." Stiles said.

***

All five of them were mostly asleep, and it was well past midnight but everyone except Isaac and Stiles had called their guardians to ask to spend the night so it didn't really matter.

Everyone had raided Stiles' closet except for Boyd, who had wisely brought spare clothes because he'd apparently used to be a boy scout.

They were all still sprawled out on the pullout couch but they were watching classic monster movies instead of awful B ones.

"You're dad's home." he heard Erica mutter from where she was painting Stiles’ toe nails. She'd found the nail pollish in Lydia’s purse and had painted everyone's nails to match, much to everyone's amusement.

He hummed in acknowledgement and when he dad walked through the front door, he sent him a lazy wave.

His dad went still the same way he had the last time he found them all in the living room and asked "History project going well?"

There were a lot of sleepy murmurs of agreement.

He nodded awkwardly and stepped closer to the couch. "Ah, Isaac right?" he asked and Isaac's head shot up in surprise.

"Yes, sir?" he asked, eyes slightly terrified.

"Will you come with me into the kitchen? I need to talk with you."

Isaac looked horrified. Everyone quickly shook off their sleepiness and sat up to look at his dad.

"What's going on?" Stiles asked, suspicious at his dad's 'talking to a witness' tone.

His dad winced. "I'm afraid it's bad news, Isaac."

Isaac made a soft wounded sound and grabbed at Erica. "Just tell me here please." he whispered but he obviously already knew what had probably happened.

He only had one family member after all.

His dad didn't look too happy but he said gently "Your father was murdered a few hours ago."

Isaac gasped in shock. "Murdered?"

His dad nodded sadly. "I'm afraid so. Unfortunately we're still trying to figure out what happened so I can't tell you much." he paused and looked over all them with a frown. "I do have to ask you a question though."

Stiles knew what he was going to ask and jumped in before Isaac could get even more upset. "All of us have been together since seven this morning."

His dad's eyebrows went up. "Why so early?"

Lydia answered him. "For the history project, we had to go find some old books and one of the book stores we went to was several hours away."

His dad didn't really look very convinced but he nodded. "And none of you've left here alone after you got here?"

This time Boyd answered. "No sir, we got here and worked on our project and never left."

His dad sighed and gave Isaac an awkward pat on the shoulder that Isaac flinched away from.

His dad cleared his throat and gave Isaac a knowing, if sad, look. "Well, I'm glad you're all together. I have to go back to the station but Isaac you can stay here tonight, okay?"

Isaac nodded and Stiles started planning before his dad was even out the front door.

"Are you okay?" Erica asked quietly.

Isaac sniffled and said "The only thing I can think about is what's going to happen tomorrow."

Lydia gently reached out and touched his shoulder. "That's completely normal."

Boyd nodded. "It's the shock."

Isaac looked a little relieved and laid back down on the mattress, curling up and pressing up against as many of them as he could. No one pulled away, not even Lydia.

"There was a situation with the McCalls a few years ago." Stiles said quietly. "My dad got all the foster care paperwork and home vestest all done just in case we had to take care of Scott. He's kept it all up to date, just in case."

Isaac tipped his head back to look up at Stiles in surprise. Tears welled up in his eyes and he quickly hid his face in his arms. "I can't go live with strangers. What if I hurt them on the full moon or something?"

Stiles gently pet through Isaac's hair. "My dad's never seen your puppy dog eyes. They're way better than Scott's and he caved under the combination of them and my flawless logic."

Isaac sniffled again but nodded which was good enough for Stiles.

Everyone curled up and squished together with Isaac in the middle.

They slept off and on and all took turns soothing away Isaac nightmares.

~~~

Peter was... somewhere. He didn't know where exactly but he had the suspicion he was in between places.

Strangely enough he’d always believed in reincarnation, no heaven, no hell, just a never ending cycle of birth, life, and death.

It was comforting to think that no one really died, they just ended up...somewhere else.

Of course, Peter had gone that extra step to make sure that he didn’t end up somewhere else so he shouldn’t have been surprised over the darkness.

It was entirely possible he’d been buried alive.

What a disturbing thought.

Peter would have been more worried if he couldn’t freely move his limbs.

There was nothing blocking his way, nothing above him, nothing below him, he felt like he was floating in water… Only there was no water and he could feel himself breathing in air.

If he was dead why would he need to breath?

He doubted he’d ever get an answer to any questions he had.

If time passed while he was… wherever it was, he didn’t feel it. One moment he was in nothing and the next he was standing in Lydia Martin’s bedroom.

It was a shock to the system.

He swayed on his feet and stumbled to the ground. He lay there for some time, struggling to get himself under control.

At least he now had concrete proof that his plan had worked.

And Lydia was fast asleep in bed had hadn’t realized he was in the room with her, hadn’t seen him struggling.

He could see sunlight come in from an uncovered window, watched it slid slowly across the carpet to cover his hand.

He couldn’t feel the warmth of it.

Suddenly Lydia was sitting up in bed, stretching out her arms and yawning wide.

She slid out of bed and...walked right through Peter.

Apparently ghosts were real.

All things considered for some reason Peter hadn’t considered he’d become a ghost.

~~~

Peter decided being a ghost was incredibly boring.

He couldn’t really...do much.

Sometimes he could follow Lydia around but he could never hear anything, never smell anything.

As a werewolf he’d known he relied heavily on his senses and to have them suddenly… just gone was terrible.

It was like he was consistently in a hazy cloud. Only worse because he could see everything around Lydia clearly, he just couldn’t interact with it in any way.

The times when he was with Lydia seemed random, and when he wasn’t with her he was back in the nothing ocean.

He wasn’t really sure which one was worse.

Finally, after time had seemed to pass for her but not at all for him he realized he could say words to her.

Sometimes.

That seemed to happen at random too.

The whole thing was enough to drive him crazy.

Again.

At least he’d decided it was more interesting than being trapped in his own motionless body.

At least as a ghost he could walk around a little bit.

And sometimes Lydia was interesting.

Or rather, sometimes she did interesting things.

Peter could not care any less about what a teenage girl did in her spare time or what she did in school but she seemed to have somehow become friends with Stiles and that...that caught Peter’s attention.

He couldn’t hear what they talked about, couldn’t even read their lips, no matter how hard he tried, but he could watch their body language.

Stiles didn’t seem to be doing very well.

He looked tired and stressed out.

It wasn’t what Peter had been expecting.

He’d thought that Stiles would relish being a werewolf, that he would take to it like a duck to water.

But he seemed to be struggling.

Peter found himself strangely annoyed that he couldn’t do anything to help him.

Peter certainly hadn’t wanted to help Stiles before he’d died. And while he’d had some vague ideas about what he would do if he didn’t die, he’d been fairly confident he would so he hadn’t felt the need to help Stiles even after he’d bitten him.

Maybe it was because he’d died before the bite could fully take, before a bond could form between them.

But then Lydia and Stiles did something interesting.

Peter found himself standing behind Stiles.

Stiles, Lydia, and their three new little friends that seemed to have come out of nowhere but were obviously in the know, although how they knew he had no idea, were sitting around the table in Stiles’ kitchen.

With a Ouija board.

Of all the ridiculous ideas.

Peter could feel the nothingness and something else creeping around them, the fluorescent overhead lights not nearly enough to keep it back.

He curled possessively around Stiles’ shoulders, staring down the room in general. He’d bitten Stiles, and whatever it was that was hovering around, drawn out by the summoning circle, half assed as it was, couldn’t have him while Peter was still interested.

He watched shadows roll and writhe around Lydia and the others at the table, slip underneath it and pool there, waiting.

Peter didn’t know shit about Ouija boards, outside of terrible teen horror movies, but he knew about summoning circles and he knew they should never be broken without taking proper precautions.

He murmured in Stiles’ ear, hoping that maybe, because Stiles had had a hand in calling him out he would be able to hear him.

And he could. He could feel him shivering under his hands, could suddenly feel warmth, could feel something, and it was amazing.

He wanted to bask forever in this break from the never ending nothingness.

Peter whispered in Stiles’ ear and his words fell from Stiles’ lips and floated to Lydia.

When Peter had bitten Stiles he had never expected that they would share such a connection.

Never thought that Peter’s...sprite? Consciousness? His very self could touch Stiles and use him as a conduite.

Just being able to physically feel anything, to hear Stiles’ voice, his heartbeat, to be able to breath in his scent.

It should have sent Peter spiraling.

Instead being able to so fully focus on one person in a way he’d never, ever done before grounded him.

He watched the shadows and the nothingness and the presence in the room slide away and for one moment he felt alive again.

And he knew when he was back, when was really truly alive, he wouldn’t forget how he had felt in that moment.

He tightened his grip on Stiles’ hand.

[viltrumitesuperboy]

Trains Part 2 (Peter Parker x Male Reader)

I feel like I was originally taking this a different direction but somehow I come up with this garbage. Got a few ideas and a few requests, so prepare yourself for some fics.

Part 1 here

Word count: 2128

At some point, you were talking to Peter almost every day, and the same day you had to go into the city for an internship was the same day he had to go. He usually helped with losing track of time, and it got you off your phone for a portion of the day. You learned a lot about each other: he went to Midtown Tech, you went to Stuyvesant. (He'd always ask you about the escalators and you told him about how people get hurt on them. Yikes.) He worked with Tony Stark (who he would call "Mr. Stark"), you worked... not with Tony Stark.

You'd always ask him about Stark Industries, and he would tell you only a little bit every time. He said he only met a few of the Avengers, but he had more stories about Spider-Man. He said that he wanted to bring you to the Avengers Tower someday, and you freaked out to no end.

And he did. You were both on your way to the city, and you were nerding out the whole way there.

"Am I gonna get to meet Mr. Stark?"

"I think so."

"Do you know if I can visit the labs?"

"Maybe."

"What do you do as an intern?"

"Mostly paperwork. I check the levels I have access to for progress in the fields sometimes. And then I work on my own stuff."

As soon as the train doors opened, you and Peter rushed out with a crowd into the busy subway station, and you grabbed his hand to not get lost as you both began to make your way to an exit. You honestly wouldn't mind holding his hand more. You both got out and were walking to the famous tower that you would be entering for the first time.

"Oh my god. This is it. I get to go inside with Peter Parker himself, Tony Stark's intern. If I get to meet Dr. Bruce Banner, that's it. I'm gonna jump out the window," you said.

"No! No jumping out any windows. Come on, you should be in the clear if you stick with me."

Peter pulled you into a lobby you could only ever see from the outside when you passed by the windows. The fact that you were in one of the most famous buildings in the STEM field and in the world left you in awe. Peter tugged at your hand when you slowed down your pace.

"(Y/N), if you cooperate, I'll try to get you a souvenir or something to bring back."

You snapped back into reality and bounded forward to match Peter's quickening strides. As he walked with you past the lobby, he flashed an ID card to the security at the front. His hand squeezed yours when he turned quickly to reach an elevator.

"We're going up to see some of the labs first," he informed you.

"Oh my god, yes!" you whispered. "Can I see your ID card?"

"No."

You took in the entire elevator, looking at every detail of the tiles until the doors opened. Peter's hand awkwardly left yours as he put his ID away in his pocket and pulled out his phone to send a text.

"Dude, I don't think I thanked you enough for doing this. This is by far the coolest thing to ever happen to me. And I've met Spider-Man once!"

Peter laughed at your excitement. The elevator stopped, and he motioned for you to follow as he opened two doors next to each other to show you two of the labs.

"I probably shouldn't show you anything too serious because some of this stuff is really secret. These are just a few things that people are working on," he explained.

You both got closer to the blueprint hologram in the first room, and you stated in awe at the detail and the object in front of you. It was a prototype of a very small display screen that was essentially a computer, and it seemed to be fitted into a pair of glasses.

"I bet Mr. Stark is updating his own so he's testing out something new. Next room!"

After viewing both labs, he brought you to a few more where people were actually working. You got to meet a few scientists who were excited to explain to you what was happening. Peter scanned his card to one with no distinguishing characteristics, not even a plaque. He looked at you and turned the handle.

"This is probably the most important room I have access to, and this is the only one where you can actually touch anything. Don't break anything," Peter said to you with a hint of a smile on his face.

"I swear on my life," you promised.

"Okay, maybe not that severe."

He pushed the door open and gestured you in, closing the door once you were both inside. He scanned his card once more on the empty table, and suddenly hologram screens showed up all over and a door in the wall opened to reveal the one and only Spider-Man suit.

"No. Fucking. Way," you blurted out. "I literally met him on the train and now I'm in the lab for his suit?! This is awesome!"

You stared at the holograms, reading all the information you could about it.

"'Baby Monitor Protocol'? What's that?" you asked, turning to face Peter.

"It's a program to control Spider-Man's full use of the suit's powers. Then he managed to hack it and get it deactivated. Mr. Stark isn't bothering to reactivate it but he reminds Spider-Man to be responsible," he explained.

"Oh my god, are those his web shooters?!"

You walked over to the objects perched on a pedestal next to the suit. You carefully picked them up and gaped at them. You snapped your head up to him, catching a hint of a smile on his face before it was gone.

"Peter. Can I use this?" you asked, begging him with your eyes.

"I'll show you how, but don't tell anyone."

He picked it up and placed it on his wrist, aiming at a wall and pressing the button like Spider-Man would, hitting the wall in a web. He took it off and placed it on yours, standing right next to you as he lifted your wrist to aim at the wall.

"Your middle and index finger press that," he instructed, taking a step back.

You pressed the button and the shooter released a web on the wall right on top of Peter's shot. You spun to face Peter with an excited expression, to which he laughed then took it off your wrist.

"This is pretty much all I can show you for the labs. I'll see if we can talk to Mr. Stark."

You both left Spider-Man's lab and went back to the elevator. He pressed a button for a higher floor.

"That was so cool. Oh my god. How do you guys make the webs?"

"Spider-Man makes the web fluid himself. He keeps it to himself but I think he has his own notes for that."

The elevator was fast, and the doors were open as soon as Peter finished speaking. He motioned you to follow him, which you did with wandering eyes. Then Tony Stark himself walked out of a hallway, and your jaw dropped as Peter waved to him.

"Mr. Stark! This is my friend, (Y/N). He's the one I met on the train a while ago," said Peter excitedly. "I took him to see some of the labs. (Y/N), this is Mr. Stark."

You had no time to become starstruck because Tony Stark himself started to bombard you with questions.

"You go to Stuyvesant?"

"Uh, yeah."

"I have a friend there. You know the AP physics teacher on the 4th floor?"

"I don't have him but I think I know who you're talking about."

"Great. I'm busy, so I want you to take this to him. He's a little crazy. It's just a few problems in some things we're doing in the labs and I wanted him to take a look."

He handed you a folder held with a binder clip and gave you the firmest handshake you ever received in your life. He pat Peter on the shoulder as he left. You turned to Peter with eyes comically wide and your jaw dropped.

"Peter. What the fuck. Tony Stark just gave me something to deliver," you gasped. "This is the best day of my life!"

"I thought that was when you got to talk to Spider-Man," he chuckled. "And trust me, I still freak out a bit when I see Mr. Stark.

"Well, sorry, dude. If I got to meet Dr. Bruce Banner today, that's it. I'm jumping out that window."

Peter laughed and let you put the folder in your bag. You headed back towards the elevators and you clutched the straps of your bag like it was your life.

That Friday afternoon, you ended up helping that "crazy teacher" with the science stuff, and a few pictures sent to Peter got half of them done in an hour. He was definitely an interesting teacher but, as smart as he was, you couldn't understand a lot of his mumbling. You told him you'd come back tomorrow because you had to meet a friend today. He agreed and let you keep the folders with him.

You reached Peter's apartment to hang out with him before dinner at his place, and he opened the door for you with a smile.

"I have to show you something," he said excitedly.

He let you in and you shut the door, barely having time to take your shoes off before he pulled you towards his room.

"Okay, look at my computer."

You looked at him, confused, and slowly walked over to his computer.

"Why are you showing me Club Penguin?" you laughed. "I mean we play together anyway. Is that Ned?"

He quickly switched to an opened email, moving to show you the screen with a blush on his face. You leaned in to see tickets for Comic-Con later in the year, courtesy of Tony Stark. Happy emailed him, explaining that he told Tony everything that Peter texted him about. Tony said that he wanted to buy tickets for Peter and his friends because of Peter's claimed money issues. You let out a laugh in disbelief and turned to hug Peter tightly.

"This is amazing, Peter!" you exclaimed. "I've wanted to go for so long. Can we dress up or something?"

"Actually, I've been planning to do Star War Characters? I've been saving up," Peter suggested.

"Or... we can be Star Wars characters and you can be Spider-Man," you smirked.

"I- uh- what?" Peter stuttered. "I don't even have-"

"You know, I wasn't too sure if you were Spider-Man or not. I mean, Spider-Man talking to me and then a teenager who suddenly talks to me on the train? But the internship, having access to Spider-Man's lab, and the ID card that clearly showed you were Spider-Man... I think Tony Stark should fix that."

"I'm not Spider-Man!" Peter exclaimed.

"I'm sure you have a lot of good proof and your alibis are great, but your closet is wide open."

You both turned to look at his Spider-Man suit hanging on top of the rod in his closet.

"It would make the people there happy," you said. "And the kids would love it."

"I just wanted to spend time with you there. I kind of really like you and I wanted us to have a first date there," he sheepishly mumbled.

"What, we didn't already have a first date at the Avengers Tower?" you joked.

He smiled and pulled his ID out of his bag, turning it over a few times.

"I should get this changed with Mr. Stark. I guess putting 'Spider-Man' right on an ID card isn't the best idea," he chuckled.

A few months later, he went to Comic-Con as Spider-Man. His Luke Skywalker outfit was in your bag when he was done parading around as the friendly neighbourhood hero. The kids definitely loved it. Comic-Con was probably the coolest second date you've ever been on. You and Peter ended up sharing a first kiss with him hanging upside down from the ceiling and hidden from the public eye.

And he ended up showing you his new ID card: the same photo with his name and not the superhero one, his title (intern) and mini googly eyes attached to the front, courtesy of Mr. Stark as punishment for "lack of appreciation."

[bluepluto03]

mcu spiderman rewrite/au i may or may not do

ok so first quick disclaimer! i do not hate the mcu spider man movies in any way!! i actually enjoy them quite a bit and have seen homecoming like 4 times! and i absolutely adore all the actors in the movies, especially tom, zendaya, and jacob 

but the problem w/ the mcu spiderman movies is,,, they’re just not spiderman. at least from a writing/thematic perspective, which sucks bc so much other stuff about them is great! like tom holland is the perfect peter parker, which is why it seems so close to being right, but with the way the script is actually written... it’s just. not spider-man. 

i feel the need to explain all this/my problems w/ the movies b4 i get into the actuall au idea/plot, so please bear with me for a sec

for context, I’ve loved spiderman my whole life. i’d watch the cartoons when i was younger, and then went back and watched them all again when i was a bit older and figured out how to pirate stuff lol. i didn’t really know how to get into the comics, so i just kinda read wikis and got second-hand info from fanfics and the other movies

to me, spiderman, (at least, peter parker spiderman,) was always about like... a kid, who saw the world was broken and fixed it because he could. he had the power to fix stuff, so he did. 

as a kid w/ mental illness and a not so great home life... that was something really really important to me. to see another kid out there, who’s been through some shit, but finally has the power to make stuff better, so he is! and it would make me think, maybe i can change stuff for the better, someday, if i just get my chance

but,,,,, the problem is mcu peter parker isn’t that. 

instead of becoming spiderman bc he knows there’s bad in the world and wants to fix it, suddenly his motivation is impressing tony stark?? and don’t get me wrong i don’t hate tony, but the way they wrote his and peter’s relationship basically trapped peter. he could no longer be his own hero, bc he was tony’s successor. and that's never who peter parker’s spiderman was?? he was never a follower, he was a trendsetter. he didn’t become spiderman for approval, hell he had dozens of newspapers constantly slandering him. 

honestly the following in someone else’s footsteps thing was always a miles morales thing. he had to step up to the plate and fill the shoes of a spiderman who had already existed for years and was beloved by the whole city. obviously thats not all he is and simplifying his character to that is incredibly obtuse, but i bring it up bc tbh alot of stuff w/ mcu peter parker is just straight-up ripped off from miles morales. like how peter now goes to a fancy private school, is no longer poor (which is a huge thing w/ peter parker’s character in like every other incarnation), has a living father figure, and is bffs w/ ned, who is a straight-up rip off of miles’s best friend ganke. (for the record tho i adore ned and jacob i’m def keeping him in my rewrite,,,, also i’m glad he’s in the movie bc having a plus sized poc protagonist thats not constantly mocked is incredible) 

so, i’m complaining about all this stuff lol but ur probably wondering how exactly how i wanna fix it lol,,,, 

first, give peter an arc thats more than just..... i want tony to believe in me. my idea for that is basically a type of thing where he learns to rely on others! bc like... peter isn’t good at working w/ others lol, he’d much rather do it all himself so no one else gets hurt. (like in the andrew garfield movies where he just,,,, webs his gf to a car so she can’t run into danger lmao) 

the plot would start at a similar ish position to homecoming, though tony never recruits peter for civil war. tbh not sure if it even happened but we’ll disscuss that later

peter’s been spiderman for a few months, after a trip to oscorp left him w/ a radioactive spider bite. currently no one knows about it, and he’s doing a pretty ok job of dealing w/ everything on his own. until he takes down a big bad, lets say rhino for now, and gains a ton of publicity. after stooping a hudge disaster he’s suddenly in the limelight, and catches the attention of one norman osborn, aka the green goblin 

now, quick sidenote. green goblin is genreally seen as pretty goofy, but there are comic versions of him that are legit terrifying. if im being honest i didn’t even know about that version until i read aloneintherains fic birds eating other birds so ig thats kinda ish how i’m imagining this version of norman? though alot more composed, like the man who could someday turn into that 

so norman becomes intrested in my boy peter, and starts sending ppl after him. possibly the sinister 6, but uhh maybe not bc tbh i think this “rewrite” needs to be split into 2 “movies”/works and i might wanna save that for the hypothetical pt2 (btw if i write this it won’t b for a while cause i got other stuff going on but ig if ppl are intrested i might write some snippits/make more content for it) 

so basically the main plot is peter dealing w/ all these big bads on his own, doing ok at first but later getting really fucked up, and eventually revealing himself to ned and mj which ends up being the only way he can save the day in the end. by relying on others! yay!! 

thats it for the main plot, but don’t worry y’all we got other stuff going on too lmao 

so, for one. my boy peter is realizing he has a crush and just,,,, freaking tf out. (i have yet to decide if it’s on ned or mj. or both. sue me) the crush isn’t definitely resolved in p1, but i imagine there’d be some cute thing of him suddenly realizing and freaking out and almost revealing his powers. 

thing 2! tony stark! he is still in here, and still a mentor to peter, but in a pretty drastically different way. one, he doesn't know about peter being spiderman. he doesn't even suspect it lmao. he just gets involved bc of.... some sort of reason bc peter is so smart. do i know why just yet? no. does it matter? probably but i’m writing this pretty late after i had school all day so i’m too tired to care 

bc tony basically gives peter a real internship/mentorship type thing, peter now has access to all this tech!! and all these funds!! fucking lit!! so he changes from his pajama suit to the fancy one, tho he actually built it!! which i feel like him making his suit is a really big really important part of his character. so it doesn't really have all those random things tony added, tho peter might add stuff himself. he gets Karan as a like assistant ai as part of his internship but she never gets put into the suit

for the fist part tony plays a super minor role but like,,,, the first part is about osborn taking an intrest in him, and him confiding in ned and mj. the second part norman is become progressively more dangorus and peter has to fight him and stuff, kinda proving he is strong enough to be spiderman/be trusted to the whole world, beyond just ned and mj. also him actually getting together w/ either one or both of them bc...... bc i want that. 

oh btw idk if tony finds out or not in p2? if he does it’s either at the end or in a scene like the one w/ may bc like. please imagine the shenanigans of peter and ned (who both have high intellegence but low wisdom) in tony’s lab, obviously trying to hide the fact that peter’s spiderman. like he walks in on them and peter looks all frumpy bc he’s been trying to change real fast, and ned’s shirt is messed up bc he just stuffed the mask down the front of it, and mj is just. chilling behing them. so tony just like assumes stuff and is like....aight.... have fun.... 

oh btw the last big change that i didn’t really have anyway to insert natrually into this,,,, so remember how i said ned was kinda a ripoff of ganke? well, the writers claim he’s a “composite character” so i figured, why not give him traits from other famous spiderman side character so he actually is a composite character! 

so like,,,, throughout p1 it’s referenced that ned has a kinda dickish estranged ish dad that he hates and his mom doesn't really like but kinda forces him too... theres some mentions of his dad wanting him to transfer to a private school and being kinda rich, bur he dosen’t want to bc he knows his dad is a total dickead,,,, anyway end of the movie we find out norman osborn is ned’s dad, and ned hates him even fucking more bc it’s like bitch?? u tried to get my (maybe) bf murdered?? tf?? and its lowkey bc he can’t reveal peter’s id, but then in p2 after norman takes matters into his own hands and tries to kill peter on his own ned just fucking yells at him while the man is in jail and is like fuck u lmao 

soooo thats my really messy au idea!! i’m really tired sorry if this is hard to understand or rude! for the record i have nothing against the ppl who adore these movie’s, i just think they could be better! 

[shirtlesssammy]

7x08: Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!

Then:

Sam Winchester deserves better

Now:

Las Vegas, Nevada

Dean’s enjoying the company of a grad student just trying to pay her bills. (Dean, what are you, 10 years her senior? Plz stop, your wrinkles are showing.) (And you’re a big fucking liar. You more than likely dropped out of school because it was too boring for your smart brain and your dad made you skip school for hunting trips so it became a two fold problem of you not keeping up with the school work load and you not seeing a reason to care to keep up with the school work load --only!! You got your GED so you must care on some level. Please enlighten us, Dean. #endrant) Dean unloads a ton of Winchester angst on the woman and then gets a text from Sam. He’s four blocks away and he wants Dean to meet him wearing his fed suit.

Dean heads to the Little White Chapel (it has a “24 hour drive up wedding window!” lol) Dean’s suspicious enough of the place to pull his gun. He finds Sam. Yay! Sam’s in LOVE y’all and he’s getting MARRIED! (Listen, we know the problems with this episode, but I’m going to lean real hard into the absurdity of the whole thing. My personal belief is to read this episode just like Red Meat. BECKY IS PROBLEMATIC AND WE’RE SUPPOSED TO SEE HER THAT WAY. It’s kinda curious that we’ve never seen her again...kinda like this episode closed the door on how this show views those types of fans. Ahem.)

Just then Sam’s bride starts walking down the aisle. It’s Becky!

Dean is VERKLEMPT. He wants to know how this happened. “We met, we ate and then talked and fell in love.” Dean points out to Sam that it’s no coincidence that Becky showed up during their annual Vegas week. (Sidenote: Where are all the fics on Dean and Sam’s Las Vegas week? You know, the one where Dean meets a fellow craps player and there’s a friendly competition and a warm banter and somehow they end up back at Dean’s hotel room and maybe there’s a real marriage that they both forgot about and they go their separate ways and 5 years later Dean’s gonna marry his good friend Lisa to help her out for something and discovers he’s already married so he has to track down this mysterious guy Cas and whoops, they’ve got so much in common and well ---I mean, the story just writes itself.) She’s read all the books. She knows them inside and out. Sam tells Dean to take a moment to realize that this is real. They’re heading back to Becky’s place in Delaware.

Dean alerts Bobby to the situation as he’s heading out of town.

Becky and her new (and very attractive hubby) arrive at the Montgomery High School 10 year Class Reunion. Becky runs inside to buy tickets for the event. Also, she’s live tweeting her revenge plan it seems. She runs into Aaron Burr Guy (I mean, I’m not going to just breeze right past the fact that pre-Hamilton Leslie Odom Jr. was on Supernatural. WTF???). Becky introduces her good friend to her new husband (and Jared Padalecki is SO tall). He takes off to go inside and she runs to give him a hug and they exchange a mysterious vial.

Away from Sam, she reveals that he’s a witch.

Dean rolls up to the reunion just as Sam and Becky are pulling away. He heads to a bar. He sees a paper with the headline “Truck Kills Pedestrian in Freak Accident”.

At Becky’s place, Sam starts to break out of the trance she has him in, so Becky adds more mysterious juice to his champagne and forces him to drink. All is CRaZy iN BeCKy LAnD.

Cut to a baseball diamond where a dude is practicing hitting the ball. Another dude (that I KNOW has been in another episode of SPN) makes the ball machine go faster and then moves the ball machine over to hit the other guy in the head, breaking the fourth wall with blood. Lovely. #sportsball.

Dean brings his newly married brother a waffle iron (#bestgiftever).

Dean’s got a case. It seems the baseball guy is part of it. Turns out, Sam and Becky are already working the case. Dean points out that people are having their dreams come true in this town, and then he looks to Becky. Dean can’t get through to his brother so he leaves.

Cut to Dean wanting to work with Bobby, but Bobby has other plans.

Cut to Becky Rosen being a 28 year old teenager creeper. Ugh. Sam’s made them fake ID’s (twu luv) and says “check this out” to her. UGH. He points out another potential victim. He also notices her notebook of hearts and weirdness. But he likes it! Yay!

Dean heads to meet the hunter Bobby assigned to help him. No spoilers or anything, but IT’S GARTH!

Dean points out the case in the paper, but Garth needs to read Marmaduke first. OH GARTH.

They head to interview someone that just got a big promotion. Becky and Sam beat them to it. Becky and Dean exchange scowls. Sam and Garth exchange confused looks. Once in the interview, the guy doesn’t reveal much to Dean. Garth cuts right to the chase and asks if the guy made it to the top through “black magic or hoodoo.” Dean’s fake laugh GIVES ME LIFE. The guy admits that this isn’t his dream. Enter his wife: Hmmm. Dean and Garth catch up to the wife and Dean threatens her. “Why do people keep thinking I’m threatening them?” Oh, Dean Bean. The woman denies everything and takes off.

Back at Becky’s place (their place now?) Sam mulls over the evidence. Becky delightedly plots a romantic getaway when Sam suddenly crumples. Oops, better put that lovey-dovey vacation on hold until you can drug your husband again! She’s dismayed to see that she can’t give him a fix because the potion has leaked out into her purse lining. Wherps.

Dean saves the CEO’s wife from getting crushed by a falling light fixture at the company headquarters. Garth and Dean interrogate her and learn that she bargained with someone for her soul but lololol there’s no such thing as a soul so she got a great deal. Right? RIGHT?!! Garth makes plans to move her into witness protection - Garth style.

Sam’s doing increasingly poorly and Becky, desperate, beans him over the head with the waffle iron. Thanks for the gift, Dean! They used it already.

He wakes up in a Misery situation, bound to the bed. (note to self: watch/read Misery someday instead of just casually referencing it.) (Boris: Uh, yeah!) Becky fawns over him while simultaneously not freeing him. She then flits off to chat with Guy, panicking about the potion. “This isn’t the honeymoon I had in mind,” she says before amending, “Well, some of it is.” UGH. She frets about them not consummating their marriage yet and...at least there’s that.

Becky heads in to talk to Sam, once again cloaked in denial. Sam tells her that she roofied him (no I didn’t) and that her witch friend is the one killing all their victims (no, he’s just a wiccan). She insists that the killer is something or someone else. Becky PLEASE.

Sam tells her to wake up. “It's never something else. When are there ever two crazy things in town at the same time? Guy's the creep, and you're on his list.” Guy also fed her the line that the potion only works if Sam loves her “deep down,” to which Sam is incredulous. He tells her to untie him then, and in response she shoves a rag into his mouth. Yeah.

At the reunion restaurant, Becky meets up with Guy who starts to hand over the potion.

Guy pulls the potion back at the last minute. “Let’s talk price.” Becky learns that they are NOT in fact, besties. Guy’s price for Sam’s devotion is her soul. She recognizes him as a crossroads demon and, inoculated by her fan consumption of Supernatural, Becky sits tight and listens even after his eyes flash red. Guy LOVES reunions. They’re perfect for trapping people who are desperate to impress their old classmates or improve their lives. Speaking of desperate, Guy gives Becky a special bargain: 25 years before her soul’s collected if she promises to never breathe a word to the Winchesters about her bargain.

Dean and Garth bust into Becky’s apartment. It’s empty, but Garth finds a webpage open to Twitter on her laptop, and her feed indicates that she’s going on a trip with her “hubster.” Dean finds a picture of Becky holding a fish in front of a cabin, Garth makes a nonsequitur on the creepy nature of fish eyes (I love you, Garth), and they’re ready to track them to the cabin.

Becky returns to find Sam still tied to the bed. (Damn girl, who taught you how to tie a knot?) Becky mournfully reflects on her situation. She really wanted to prance Sam Winchester around to her ex-classmates. She calls herself a loser. Sure, Becky. That’s spelled F E L O N. She loved the message board communities and dating Chuck....life was good as a fan. She just wants love! Sam mumbles something at her through the handkerchief and she pulls it out. “If you want somebody to love you for you, maybe don’t drug them.” Decent Human 101, right? She pulls out the vial of potion and contemplates using it, to Sam’s horror.

Later, Becky nurses a drink at the reunion restaurant when Guy walks in. Becky missed the party, but she’s there to talk to Guy. She tells him she’ll agree to the bargain. Guy approaches for a kiss to seal the deal when Becky flicks a lighter and drops it to the floor. A flare shoots up and burns a quick devil’s trap on the floor, trapping Guy.

Becky tries to celebrate with Sam. Becky just….NO.

Dean confronts Guy, asking him how he’s managing to kill off all his soul acquisitions before their 10 years are up. Guy laughs and tells them that accidents happen - HE doesn’t kill them. His demon intern does. Cue the intern - the scraggly, hairy guy from earlier. Intern blasts them all across the room. The demon knife gets knocked aside but before Dean can grab it, Guy’s out of the trap. It’s looking bad for our heroes when Becky grabs the demon-killing knife and stabs Intern in the back. She passes it to Dean who holds the knife to Guy’s throat and tells him to release his last 15 deals.

“Oh crap,” Guy says, but it’s not because of Dean.

“Hello, boys,” Crowley says from behind them. Dean and Sam look worried but Becky practically has hearts and stars in her eyes. It turns out that Guy’s intern couldn’t keep his mouth shut and bragged about the scheme to Crowley. Crowley tears into Guy. “This isn’t Wall Street, this is Hell!” In Hell, they have INTEGRITY, and need to uphold their bargains or nobody will sell their souls to them anymore.

The Winchesters and Crowley size each other up. Crowley has nothing but the BEST intentions for the Winchesters. They haven’t encountered a demon in months, right? It turns out that it’s because Crowley’s been keeping them on a tight leash. Crowley is pro-Winchester when it comes to killing leviathans. “I hate the bastards. Squash ‘em all, please.” Dean tells Crowley to rip up Guy’s remaining contracts, and when he does so, Dean shoves Guy at Crowley. They zap out.

In Becky’s apartment, Sam signs the annulment paperwork and tells Becky that he won’t see her again. Sam’s a nice guy, though, so he tells Becky that she’s a “good person” and that someday she’ll find the right guy. I mean...I wouldn’t go THAT far but okay. We’re striving for rehabilitation here. Garth lights up and starts to smooth his hair. “No,” Dean tells him while I am yelling NO GARTH BBY DON’T.

Outside, the Winchesters say goodbye to Garth. “You don’t suck,” Dean tells him. Dean. Bean. He gets a HUGE hug for it and then Garth takes off.

Sam tells Dean that he didn’t mean what he said when he was roofied - he does need Dean to watch his back. Dean accepts the sentiment with grace. “For a whack job you really pulled it together.” Dean. BEAN.

Sam also tells Dean that since he doesn’t have to watch out for him, Dean can start looking out for himself for the first time in his life. Dean is THRILLED at this revelation and by thrilled, I mean sent into a self-pitying tailspin. Sigh.

_____________________________________________

These Quotes have been Garthed:

We all need to face ourselves sometime.

Shouldn’t she ask for my permission or something?

I’m gonna be sick.

Oh, Marmaduke, you’re crazy!

Why do people keep thinking I'm threatening them?

You're so pathetic, it actually loops back around again to cute.

Blueberry vodka. The answer to all of life's problems.

_______________________________________

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[thecloserkin]

fic rec: in fire, in ice by moirariordan

fandom: Wizards of Waverly Palace

pairing: Justin Russo/Alex Russo

word count: 25k

Is it canon: Yes

Is it explicit: No

Is it endgame: Yes

Is it shippable: Like fire

It’s an on-the-run story! Where they get fake married! For real this fic is #sibcestgoals. It’s justifiably the most widely read and influential fic in the fandom, whose influence transcends the fandom itself: the tagline ought to be “come to the dark side, we have incest-flavored cookies.” Say you had a friend who had never read a word of fanfiction in their life. For a starter pack you would hand them something like The Shoebox Project, right? Something accessible, for a pairing that’s ludicrously shippable, something that would rip their heart out and leave them aching for more. That’s what this story is. I would have no qualms recc’ing it to anyone on the street. Just look at the testimonials on Fanlore or on the TVTropes rec page —these people can’t all be incest shippers right?

Wizards of Waverly Place was a teen sitcom that aired from 2007-2012 on the Disney Channel, starring Selena Gomez and David Henrie as the titular brother-and-sister wizards. They have parents and a younger brother too but for shipping purposes Justin/Alex is the six-ton orca whale in the room. Justin is two years older, boring and responsible; Alex is the wild child. There’s a lot of banter and a lot of snark and it’s that dynamic where the older male does everything by the book and the younger female character categorically refuses to even crack open the spine of a book. There was a made-for-TV movie in 2009, and 87% of people who caught it while channel-surfing came away under the impression that the male lead was Selena Gomez’s boyfriend. I know this because I conducted a highly scientific poll, obviously.

Let me say upfront that I love this story but every time I read it it’s like I just watched Schindler’s List. It’s literally a story about a wizard Holocaust.

It starts with an old man who accidentally torpedoes the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy (or the in-universe equilavent). It’s important to emphasize how he gives the game away, which is by conjuring a specter of his dead wife, one that unfortunately winds up outliving him; when the police broke his door down they found her weeping over his corpse. He loved her so much he preferred a flimsy facsimile over the lack of her. Or is it that he loved her so little he would settle for a cheap echo? Either way, love is the downfall of the wizarding community. The tension between love and magic is at the heart of this fic, for love is about sacrifice and at its root, so is magic.

The muggles’ initial reaction is consternation. The dead old man was unfortunately in possession of an extensive and illegal magical library, and pretty soon “every New Age hippie who ever read a deck of tarot cards” descends on New York City to pore over it. Consternation turns to fear turns to anger/mistrust turns to outright persecution of wizardkind.

Alex keeps waiting and waiting for someone to do something, to stop it, to make it go away, but nothing happens.

Alex is still in high school. There are people out there every day braying for her blood and calling for her family’s heads on spikes. Plot happens.

“Is this a good thing?” she asks, because Justin always knows what’s good and right and what’s not, and she really needs to know. He’s silent for a very long moment. “I don’t know,” he says, and for some reason this is more terrifying than anything.

She’s relied on Justin all these years to be her moral compass and when he admits he’s at a loss her whole world crumbles. They’re not canonically codependent, I think, but Alex does a lot of shit she wouldn’t otherwise if she wasn’t relying on Justin to bail her out. Likewise Justin resents how Alex’s raw gumption allows her to brazenly bluff her way through stuff he has to work his tail off for. I think Justin gives himself less credit than he deserves because Alex is right, he is insanely smart and talented. There’s an actual no-word-of-a-lie witchhunt going on and Justin still manages to graduate valedictorian.

There’s an underground railroad of sorts that smuggles wizards out, endowing them with new identities and new memories. The Russos grow desperate after Justin and Alex’s mom falls pregnant, but for plot reasons they can’t all be relocated so Justin and Alex stay behind. There are tearful farewells. The plan is to wait until Alex finishes high school, then rejoin the rest of the family. Things get even darker, but Justin “makes her smile like it’s his job.” LIKE IT’S HIS JOB. My friends, this is the good shit right here.

They eat in his room, most of the time, and do homework. Alex knows that he finds it soothing.

It’s a ritual, don’t you see? Other people meditate; Justin does homework. Alex does it too to keep him company. In fact Alex spends a lot of time in Justin’s bed. She’s always falling asleep there or waking up there and it’s not sexual but it gives you an idea of where her head’s at. Once, she slams out of the living room during an argument, and after a disorienting moment realizes it’s not her room she’s retreated into, it’s Justin’s. Her subconscious has obviously decided Justin’s room is the safest sanctuary there is.

Justin takes her out to dinner to celebrate her grades

IT’S A DAAAAATE only neither of them know it yet haha!

When Alex’s lifelong BFF announces she’s joining the Youth Nazi and invites Alex to join up with her, Alex runs away to a bench in Central Park. Justin shows up in short order:

“How’d you find me?”

“Are you kidding? You always come here when you’re upset.” He sits next to her. “Remember the time you ran away when Mom and Dad wouldn’t let you get a ferret?”

Nobody is conflating the pain of being denied a potential pet ferret to the pain of being deemed subhuman by one’s best friend, but the point of this scene is (1) that Justin gets her, in all her melodramatic over-the-top pettiness, and (2) Justin notices and remembers which bench she prefers — it’s a big gorram park after all. Eventually the political situation comes to a head and Justin and Alex decide it’s not safe to stay in New York City any longer, and they gather up their cash and bounce. Once they leave they have no way of getting back in touch with their parents but they have no choice; it’s too dangerous to stay:

They sleep in cheap motels and pay in cash under fake names, staying under the radar as much as possible because they’re not sure what else to do. They run out of cash in Maryland and get a decent hotel room under the fake account name.

They stop in Indianapolis to celebrate Justin’s twentieth birthday. Alex scores some champagne with one of the fake IDs she’d snagged before leaving New York and they drink it in a hotel room, the TV off and knees touching on the bed

They make it to Denver and get a small apartment and tell everyone they’re newlyweds and Alex dyes her hair red

OMG THEY’RE FAKE MARRIED I AM DECEASED

p sure there was also blink-and-you’ll-miss-it bedsharing in the hotel room

Alex’s hair color is a solid proxy for her state of mind

They save half their money each month in case they have to run again, and for a little bit, things are kind of nice. After her shifts, Alex will walk to the library where Justin works and sit at a table behind the corner with him, reading history books and novels.

Ladies and gentlemen I give you Alex Russo, the girl who a few months ago wouldn’t know which end of a book was up. She learns to love BOOKS and LIBRARIES on JUSTIN’S account and that is everything. Well, this is a nice respite but it doesn’t last and they have to keep running because Alex is assaulted at her waitressing job by a creepy customer who won’t take no for an answer. It’s a highly unrealistic stranger-in-a-dark-alley attempted assault situation but I will let that slide because the point is she instinctively spews magic in self-defense, which of course will bring the authorities down on them in no time. She’s scared shitless and she runs straight into Justin’s arms, the only place she feels safe:

Justin nearly freaks when he sees her, dragging her into the back office and touching her face, her arms, over and over as if to reassure himself that she’s okay. He sees the scrapes on her back and frowns, pulling off his soft cotton jacket and wrapping it around her as she explains what happened in a monotone voice. “We have to go,” she says, “tonight.” He nods and kisses her nose. “You did what you had to do,” he says, and something tight unravels because he’s not mad.

There is so much tenderness in that nose kiss. I feel like they’ve been partners for a long time but this is where it really clicks that Justin’s not “in charge” anymore, he’s not the older brother who knows best, they’re just two teenagers clinging to each other on a life raft because they are everything the other has left.

“The baby must be three years old now,” Alex muses. The champagne they’re drinking isn’t nearly enough to get them wasted, and she suddenly wishes that they were the type of people who get drunk. “Max is fifteen. In high school.”

This made me so sad, how they used to be a five-person family unit and now Alex and Justin are cut adrift and they’ve formed a unit of their own but they’ll never stop missing the others.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you with straight hair since New York,” he says when she emerges from the bathroom. He flicks her bangs away from her face. “You usually look like a street urchin.”

All the hairstyle changes for disguise purposes but she’s still his sister underneath. He’d know her anywhere. Here’s the scene where they first kiss — they’re standing on their own doorstep, having gone out to celebrate his birthday, and Alex (as you would expect) initiates it:

He narrows his eyes at her and she looks, looks, because she can’t have read this wrong – no, she didn’t. There is nothing in the world that she knows better than Justin – his face, his body, his head, his mind, his heart.

Yesssss I need it like air. Later:

(They don’t talk about what happened on his birthday, but they’ve started asking for single rooms.)

Eventually they settle in rural Italy, which I guess doesn’t have the same 24-hour surveillance panopticon that we have here in the USA so it’s easier for wizards to slip through the cracks. I like to imagine them in in the Tuscan hills. Justin is a schoolteacher and Alex a graphic designer. They remain for many years below the radar, until Alex is recruited into the Resistance to help smuggle other wizards out through the Underground Railroad the same way she and Justin were smuggled out. She feels a moral obligation to do it, even if it kills Justin to watch her diving repeatedly into danger and him unable to follow.

She’s never been that great at protecting people, she knows. When she was seven and Justin was nine, there’d been a bully that lived in the apartment  building across the street who used to try and steal her lunch money every day, and every day she would offer Justin’s in return for her own relief. When she was twelve and he was fourteen, they broke Theresa’s glass statuette from Barcelona during a fight and she blamed him without a second thought, and when she was seventeen and he was nineteen, she let him pass up freedom in order to protect her and she will never forget all that he gave up the day he made that decision.

Alex’s great grief is that Justin has given up an assuredly brilliant future, in which he would have shone as a superstar and had his pick of careers, in exchange for being hers.

“You’re so smart, and grown up and good and – and handsome, and I’m irresponsible and immature and –“

She sees his being with her as a sacrifice. She doesn’t know anything about sacrifice yet. She finds her parents living in the same apartment in New York they fled so many lives ago. They’re waiting for Justin and Alex to come back, or send word, or something. It exposes them to an acute degree of risk, of course. Alex orchestrates the Resistance mission to evacuate/relocate her parents, but she does not reveal herself nor reconnect with them. She lets them go. It’s unclear why, although I suspect it would be tough to have a relationship with them without dealing with the elephant in the room, the fact that she and Justin are now together. Yet I think it was important for her to see her parents one last time, because it gave her closure. After she returns to Italy she and Justin welcome their first child. The baby is a mini-dynamo and a nexus of magical potential, sending up trails of rainbow sparks even in utero, so Alex makes the painful decision to give up her powers for good. This means she will be mortal, and so will the child, and any future children or grandchildren. It also means she and Justin will be allowed to stay under the radar and hang onto the life they have painstakingly built. Remember how I said that the root of both love and magic is sacrifice? This is the sacrifice that defines Alex Russo, that she was willing to give up magic -- the thing that has shaped her identity for twenty-odd years -- in order to be with Justin.

[justdrifting]

your m'gann/maggie fic is SO GOOD. your AN said throw prompts at you so what are your headcanons for how M'gann even ended up in National City? And when did she first meet Maggie? =D (I mean id love a whole fic but only if you're interested/have time & energy :)

​thank you ok so i’ve been thinking about it, and you know i have no idea why m'gannwould choose national city. what do you think? does she like to stay in oneplace for a long time or does she prefer to move from place to place? i wonderif, with the reveal of superman and then supergirl – aliens that humans likeand trust – good aliens kind of flock to those cities, in the hopes of maybemore acceptance, protection, and community. so metropolis and then nationalcity become kind of hubs of alien populations. but i don’t know if m'gann wouldfeel the same way? also i think she’s been in national city longer thansupergirl’s been around so. i’m not sure?

but m'gann and maggie. oh boy. i’m determined to write this fic, at some point. but for now, here’s some ridiculously long headcanons.

1. m'gann has learnt that a bar/pub is kind of a perfect place to be. youcan talk and connect and socialise with people, without having to get tooclose. which is exactly what she wants, because she craves connection but shealso like, doesn’t think she deserves it. [until maggie freaking sawyer. maggie’s pretty damn good at turningpeople’s lives upside down, as we know. sometimes m'gann wishes she’d nevermaggie, because genuinely caring about someone, someone genuinely caring aboutyou – it’s hard, it’s scary, it’ssomething m'gann has had only a handful of times in her hundreds of years andsometimes it all feels too much and like things were simpler before. but thenmaggie will smile, or hug her, or just bethere, and m'gann is so goddamn grateful.] er, anyway…

2. maggie stumbles across the bar by accident. she’s tailing a suspectand they lead her there. she sits in a booth in the back, nursing a beer,watching them, thinking she’s being subtle. and probably she is – though this’dbe a few years back when she’s still a rookie so she wouldn’t be as good as sheis now – but while m'gann isn’t a detective, she pays attention and she’sperceptive, so she notices. after like an hour of maggie just sitting there,letting her beer get warm because she’s not going to drink on the job, m'ganntakes pity on her and brings over a bowl of fries. “if you’re going to sithere all night you should at least eat something.” before maggie canreply, m'gann’s like, “so what’s your deal? cop? angry ex? stalker?”maggie chokes. “god no.the first one. the first one.”“i see.”“you know anything about that alien?”and because m'gann is so nice and always trying to be good, to help, shesays yes.“well then, please.” maggie motions to the seat opposite her.they end up sharing the fries m'gann brought over.

3. days later, after maggie finishes her case, in part thanks to theinvaluable information m'gann provided, she goes back to the bar to share thegood news with her and thank her. maybe m'gann is just getting off her shiftwhen maggie arrives, and maggie insists on buying her a beer in thanks (sidenote: i wonder what/if m'gann drinks). so i imagine it would start somethinglike that. maggie keeps coming by, sitting up at the counter if m'gann isworking or waiting till she finishes. m'gann likes maggie a lot, she seems so effortlessly good and righteous and justwants to help people- m'gann likes being around her. maggie finds m'gannfascinating – she’s so quiet and reticent but tough at the same time, andalways so ready and willing to help.

4. [maggie finds out m'gann is not human when she’s coming to the bar onenight and stumbles across a fight in the alley outside. a weedy looking alienis being attacked by three much bigger, much scarier aliens. maggie’s about tostep in, though how the hell she’s going to take down three guys by herselfshe’s not sure, when another alien – female this time, green skin, black form fittingsuit with red stripes – joins the fray, knocking down one of the attackers andimmediately going for another. maggie doesn’t think twice after that, justjumps into the fight. she and the alien woman manage to fight off the attackersfairly quickly, but they run away when they realise they’re not going to win somaggie can’t arrest them. after, she turns to her crime fighting partner andstudies her. it’s dim in the alley but…“do i know you?” maggieasks.

m'gann doesn’t respond for a minute, but then she sighs, and shifts backto her human form. maggie is smart and she’ll figure it out eventually, shefigures. might as well get it over with.

maggie is shocked, but only for a second, then she laughs. “why ami not surprised?” sensing that m'gann might need some reassurance, sheputs her hand on her shoulder and directs her towards the bar. “come on,we both deserve a drink after that. and you can tell me all aboutyourself.”

over the years, m'gann has revealed herself as a green martian to acouple of people, some of them even friends, so maggie isn’t the first, but sheis the first in a long time.

this is also the night she tells maggie her name is m'gann, not megan,and when maggie softly asks if she would prefer maggie call her that, m'ganndecides yes, yes, she would. it feels good to be m’gann again, even with just one other person.]

5. maggie flirts a lot. as ifshe wouldn’t. m'gann is hot and she’s a good, interesting person, maggie is alittle bit enamoured. m'gann is kind of confused [i have so many feelings about “i feel it too, i just didn’t knowwhat it was”, my sweet sweet girl] but she likes maggie, more than shehas anyone in a long time, she likes having a friend or at least someone shefeels a connection with. i can’t decide if she knows maggie is flirting and isadorable and awkward and blushing all the time (making maggie just redouble herefforts), or if she is completely oblivious until maggie just outright asks ifshe can kiss her and m'gann is like ‘what????’ but also ‘ok, go ahead’

6. anyway, so they date for awhile. maggie has recently ended a prettyserious relationship (maybe kate kane in gotham, and the breakup the reason shemoved to national city) and m'gann has probably not had many, if any,relationships [this probably isn’t the time to go into my headcanons aboutmartian sexuality lol but i have them.]so it’s fairly…low-key? it’s not casual or a fling, and they care about eachother a whole hell of a lot and they like being together but it’s not thisintense, whirlwind, emotionally charged relationship. which is exactly whatthey both need. maggie feels like she can finally breathe easy again and m'gannhas the space and support to explore what relationships and feelings – caringand being cared for – might mean to her. m’gann never asks for anything maggieisn’t willing or able to give, and vice versa.

7. in this universe maggie also knows m'gann is a white martian. she isone of, if not the only person who has ever known this, and m'gann doesn’treveal it by choice. something with a fire happens. maybe they’re cooking and aflame gets out of control and too close to m'gann and her white skin showsthrough, or maybe there’s like a serious fire somewhere, in one of theirapartments or the bar or something, and maggie is maggie and rushes in to savepeople, and m'gann is terrified butshe’s not about to let her die so she runs in after her, and through the flamesmaggie turns and sees her girlfriend – not morphing, melting almost? and it doesn’tlook intentional either –  into somethingshe’s never seen before, definitely not her usual form.

after, m'gann won’t look at maggie. she’s convinced maggie’s going tonever want to see her again. but maggie is so soft, so kind. “you don’thave to tell me anything you don’t want to, i respect that. but if you do, iwant to know. whatever you think i’m going to hate you for, i won’t. i justwant to know you.” she’s sincere and open and m'gann can’t help butbelieve her, so she tells her. maybe not the whole story, but enough of it tobe fucking terrifying opening up about something she tries so hard to lockaway. maggie doesn’t look at her differently, doesn’t hate her, and it’s soincredibly necessary and incredibly healing from m'gann.

8. i feel like they probably date for a…not insignificant amount oftime. but as they both start healing a little –  as their relationship allows them that – theyboth independently come to the understanding that it’s love, yes,but…probably more platonic than romantic? m'gann still doesn’t really get it but she thinks that what shefeels for maggie isn’t that ‘in love’thing people talk about. and maggie’s kind of itching for that heady, rollercoaster kind of love again. they were never particularly overtly coupleyanyway, but they slowly become even less so. they’re both super awkward andtrying to hide it around each other at first, because they don’t want to hurtthe other, but eventually it comes out.

it’s pretty much the healthiest breakup of all time. they’re maggie andm’gann, they’re both such rational (ok mostly), conscientious people. they talkit out. mutually, they decide to break it off. they’ll take some time, maybe,but then they’ll give this friend thing a go. they’re kind of all each otherhas, they’re not going to lose that.

oh god i have to have to stop there, who knew i had this manyfeelings??? we haven’t even gotten to part 2: the friendship years. butbasically from then on they’re each other’s biggest cheerleaders througheverything. and they still hug a lot, because are there any characters who needa cuddle more than m’gann and maggie?! so they can cuddle each other. ok? ok.