#immigration interrogation

[soulmvtes]

came to the art gallery cafe + got an orange pistachio and carrot cake and the sun has been appearing in and out of the clouds and i've just finished my book, my heart feels so full 💌💌💌💌

[cator99]

I always get detained at da border because PROFUNC never ended but basically I'm like if a targeted individual didn't even care

[itsanotheridiot]

The way Jayce and Caitlyn privilege life is apart of the reason their relationships with viktor and vi broke is soooo RAHHHHH

Jayce the golden boy himself even tho he did immigrant to piltover and work his way to his position he still grew up in piltover unlike viktor who grew up in the undercity the reason why he is chronically ill he came from nothing and isn’t recognized for it his true goal too help his home where he came from

So when Jayce uses the hex core on viktor completely taking away his autonomy but he doesn’t care because viktor is alive while viktor is completely apathetic to it because the hex core kill sky his creation hurt a fellow zauntie who came from the bottom and while Jayce didn’t know about sky’s demise he can’t understand why viktor is so upset for overshadowing him again and using the creations in a way he didn’t want

Then we have Caitlyn who grew up from a rich family and powerful parents who decides to be a cop for a chance to see the world but is constantly blocked so she breaks the rules and gets away with it why because she a kiramman and then we have vi a zaunite who also been fucked over by the system from her parents being murdered to being in prison for years without trial where she was constantly abused

And it’s interesting in season 1 when Jayce actually kills a child vi isn’t unfazed but the difference compare to season 2 is Jayce shows remorse and still acts like himself and vi wasn’t throwing away her morals by wearing the enforcer uniform and using the ventilations system against her own people 

Caitlyn is grieving hard it’s sallowing her leaving nothing but rage so much that Caitlyn is throwing her morals away and we see it using the grey against zaunties calling the undercity people animals and showing them no remorse while vi who also threw away her morals by daunting the enforcer uniform run around the Zaun and interrogating citizens watching as they get threaten then throw in jail so when it comes to that child protecting jinx a zauntie protecting a another zauntie from a enforcer a life caitlyn can never understand but vi does

Vi shows sympathy while Caitlyn doesn’t and their final arguments shows how Caitlyn privilege is also connected to her grief she is dehumanizing zaunties by calling them animals detaching from vi by claiming she stopped her because she is related to jinx so she as bad as her now also showing she saw vi as a exception a “You’re one of the good ones” you have good in your heart I can tell right like she told Vi and Caitlyn finally last action to cut ties with vi is to treat her like the other enforcers have

Conclusion THE WRITING IS SO FUCKING GOOD

[txttletale]

I am the mythical white latina. Right before the pandemic hit, I went to the usa to visit my girlfriend... and promptly got held up by usa airport cops who confiscated my passport and interrogated me to make sure I was not an illegal immigrant.

Whenever I bring this up, I get the classic "oh, but you didn't have it as bad as latine who are visibly poc" response, which sure is a way to ignore the actual point of the "latines are oppressed" conversation.

it's almost like race is contextual and yanks only care about latino racial politics inasmuch as they can tell latinoamericans to shut the fuck up about imperialism

[psychoticallytrans]

I believe very strongly that if you want to be an ally to marginalized groups, you should absolutely read and watch material bigoted against them.

This is because one of the big things that radicalization pipelines benefit from is the principle I've seen framed as "milk before meat", where they feed you palatable, easily digestible ideas, often with a kernel of truth, in order to work you up to the core of the bigoted ideology. If you go to the meat first, you will choke on it. This will make you more easily able to spot it when they try to feed you the milk, and more resistant because you know the meat it's building up to.

There are two keys. First, you need to start with the meat, and second, you need to read it with a sharply critical eye.

If you're looking to read something fatphobic, for example, Harry Potter may be a great mainstream example, but it's in a way that is so culturally acceptable that it can slip by if you aren't looking for it. "None For You: How Fat People Are Ruining America and the Planet and What You Can Do About It", on the other hand, is rather obvious in its biases, allowing an amateur to see them clearly for easier interrogation of the premise. Most bigoted material can be acquired by piracy or through your local library. This is one of the big reasons that libraries stock bigoted material.

Then, start noting down all of the things that the material says that seem to make sense, or that you are sure are true. There's no shame in this. Bigoted ideas are ingrained in your upbringing, and on top of this, a lot of bigots will take real problems and build on them in ways that are bigoted.

For instance, anti-immigrant sentiment in the USA is often bolstered by the fact that wages in the USA are effectively decreasing, along with job security. They say that this is because immigrants are taking the jobs, decreasing the amount of value that is available to USAmericans. To a USAmerican who does not know much about immigrants, but does know that their paycheck buys less and less, this sounds like a plausible explanation.

Then, later, look up exactly what they are saying. What are the real issues? (Racism and unchecked capitalism.) Why are they being used to bolster this argument? (Because it takes the heat off of powerful people and puts it on powerless ones, redirecting the hate to people it can more easily hurt, which satisfies the rage of the USAmerican, drives a wedge between them and immigrants, and takes heat off of the powerful.) What are real ways to tackle the real issue? (Solidarity with immigrant workers, especially undocumented ones, unions, and working for better social safety nets.) Why did I fall for that? (You did not have enough information.) Can I notice this rhetoric in the future and avoid falling for it? (Yes.)

Know that many of the ideas you encounter will be normal. Much bigotry is normal. Normal is not automatically good or right.

Know that there will be useful ideas interspersed with some bigotry. A lot of people with useful ideas have been bigots. This does not mean we must discard their ideas, nor that we must accept the bigotry. It does mean that we need to critically examine the ideas to see if they are rooted in and/or affected by the bigotry, and if it is possible to effectively remove them from their bigoted origins, or if the bigotry is so wound into the ideas that they is no longer useful if you wish to avoid harming the group the thinker was bigoted against.

This is difficult work to do. It is intellectually intensive, and emotionally exhausting. You will start seeing bigotry in all kinds of places, including media you thought of as "good" and "progressive", and that will also be emotionally exhausting and dispiriting. It will also mean that you are no longer passively absorbing those bigoted ideas because you settled on the idea that this media is "good" and that as long as you only consume "good" media, you will be free of bigoted ideas- a premise that is disturbingly popular for how incorrect it is. Knowing how to recognize and discard bigotry in works is far, far more useful than flatly refusing to consume more overtly bigoted works.

One way to make it easier is to form reading groups, so that you can lean on each other when reading something that's affecting you badly. It also means that there's more than one person processing the bigotry, so other people might notice more subtle parts of the bigotry that slipped past you in your own reading, allowing you to have a fuller picture of the book. If you can't form a reading group, more famous bigoted works often have criticism available online for you to read through. Remember to do your own research. What makes doing this so valuable is increasing your own ability to detect bigotry and to think critically about material you are consuming.

You do not have to limit yourself to traditional media, either. There are forums and social media bubbles that are hotbeds of bubbling, seething bigotry that is more extreme and repugnant than the vast majority of published work. Reading these conversations can be useful for the exact same reasons that reading overtly bigoted books, articles, letters, and essays can be, and they often contain more up to date dogwhistles. However, this is a riskier move. Social media is built to make you keep scrolling, and you can easily find yourself at your wits end and vulnerable to a bigot whose rhetoric is slightly less obvious than the others. In addition, it can be tempting to interact- at which point the bigots will either attack you or try to recruit you, both of which are damaging to you. Only read the conversations of bigots if you are well supported and have strong impulse control, and read them in small doses.

You are not immune to propaganda, but you can partially inoculate yourself into being less vulnerable by consuming it in controlled circumstances that match your ability to recognize it as such and reject it.

[estinininininen]

FFXIV fans this is your daily reminder that if Estinien has even a tiny fraction of Nidhogg's memories he knows a hell of a lot more than he's letting on.

Nidhogg remembers at least three Umbral Calamities, and probably four or five. Safe to assume he defended Coerthas from Allag, and that he heard Vrtra looking for Azdaja and the primal-ification of Bahamut through dragon song. The DRG 80 quest states Nidhogg considered himself guardian of the star after Midgardsormr. At his prime, Nidhogg may have even known or been trying to learn his father's abilities - the changing form, the crystals, possibly even the ability to speak with Hydaelyn. Theory time: Hydaelyn may have even rejected him for being a dragon supremacist.

Estinien's shortcomings (if you don't have another silly explanation for them) have to do with mortal knowledge and interactions, like niceties, coin, and bluffing immigration officers. He asks for the Scions to explains things because they have discovered stuff nobody knew before this, or they were using vocabulary he doesn't know.

In Shadowbringers the idea of Ascians doesn't phase him, but the different shards and time travel nonsense throw him for a bit of a loop, coincidentally things Nidhogg wouldn't know. He is very tense at the idea of the WOL seeing his memories, and leaves immediately, but after telling you he shares Nidhogg's memories in 5.5 he chills out and hangs around more. Like he saw the writing on the wall about joining the Scions and covered his own ass in case of an Echo vision.

In Endwalker the reason I think he said "At least I will not pretend to understand this talk of ancient primals or the Final Days" and the like is because he has to constantly sort out if what Nidhogg knew was correct. He is remarkably chill staring up at Hydaelyn like "ya bitch let's go let's fight God." What Hydaelyn said to Estinien about hate becoming love is ambiguous enough it could also apply to Nidhogg.

And you are still the only person he has directly told he shares some memories with Nidhogg. He is deliberately not sharing this with people. He doesn't want to be Nidhogg. Most of the information is pointless outside of Coerthas in the 7th astral era. He makes an exception when he is the only one who knows something important - there's a Great Wyrm behind the curtain, how to motivate depressed dragons, the Eyes of Nidhogg are active again better find them, Omega? wait the thing that chased Midgardsormr? if not me better make sure someone handles it, oh shit Zenos is standing back up that's not Zenos anymore-

Then he just wants to have a drink and some dried squid and chill out. Not get interrogated about past kingdoms, or have his brain and eyes poked at when he dies ( . . . if he's even mortal anymore.)

[dueheiwbdnwkbsb]

Chinese interrogation

Officer Josie was asked to go to a Chinese immigrant’s house to interrogate them because they were suspected of stealing jewels. However, she was outnumbered, stripped of her clothes, and taken to a torture chamber. It turns out the Chinese have a very different method of torture… tickle torture

[cryptid-catnip]

I haven't seen anyone talk about this aspect of Sc/Zion, so here goes:

I think that Scion is supposed to be an intentional inversion of the idea that Superman is supposed to be an allegory for Jesus, which is a surprisingly common take, even among people I respect or used to respect like Innuendo Studios, Jack Saint, or Lindsay Ellis.

For those who don't know, Superman is not, and should never be, a Jesus parallel. He was created by two Jewish teenagers. He's more of a metaphor for immigrants than Jesus.

However, Worm goes out of its way to interrogate that idea, much like other comic tropes, and gives the idea that if Superman was supposed to be the second coming of Christ, that would be a very bad thing.

Because if they were the second coming, that would mean that they were the harbinger, the Scion (ha) of the end of the world.

And that's exactly what Scion is. An avatar of a Lovecraftian alien that initiates the apocalypse with just a little push.

[clairifys]

Prolonged love - Joseph Liebgott x Fem!Reader

Summary: Sometimes the best things in life take a long time, and sometimes life throws you for a loop. It sure threw (Y/n) for a loop when grabbing German POWs in Hagenau turns into her having to babysit a young Dutch girl.

Tw: Swearing, death, reader being trilingual, mentions of war, mentions of concentration camps, mentions of abuse, killing, slightly dirty? not full on smut, reader is female, slight misogyny due to the time period, she/her pronouns

Word count: 6.5k

I do not own Band of Brothers, nor do I own any of the characters. I am not intending to be disrespectful towards any of the people on this show

The Dutch name is pronounced like (Tina-ka) Tineke, and the nickname Tine is pronounced as (Teeny)

I was born in Chicago. My mother was born in Groningen, Netherlands, and my father in Antwerp, Belgium. I was the oldest child, and after me, my parents had five others. Despite having six kids, we were all taught Dutch and German from a young age. The sole reason I was accepted into the military was because of me being trilingual, I’ll forever be grateful to my parents for teaching me their languages. 

February 9, 1945 

Easy Company was on its way to France. We were stationed in Haguenau, which had been taken by the Allies in December. Honestly speaking, I didn’t really know what to expect when we got there. I was sitting in the back of a truck, squished between Babe and Liebgott. Joe had become a close friend way back in Toccoa when he’d fallen running up Currahee, and I stopped and helped him up. We both had our 48-hour weekend passes revoked, but we made the most of it that weekend together. After that, we’d spend our weekend passes together and hang out.

I was leaning against Joe as I’d been almost the whole ride, his arm slung around my shoulders as I read a book that I had found when we invaded Foy. It seemed the Krauts enjoyed good literature as I was reading For Whom the Bell Tolls in German. I was a translator for Easy Company, being able to speak English, German and Dutch, I was a heavy asset to the team. It was a beautifully told story about the Civil War that had some romance aspects while also being brutal. I finished the book twice, and now I was reading it a third time.

“Jesus doll, I think I’ve seen you read that damn book about forty times now. How good can it be?” Joe said when he noticed my attention had strayed.

“Oh it’s a beautifully told story, Joe. Although, I don’t think you could read anything that didn’t have pictures.” I replied jokingly to him, looking up at him from where I was leaning against him. I could hear Babe and Malarkey laughing, and a young soldier, Jackson watching intently. 

“How can you read that, (L/n)?” A quiet voice asked in front of me. It’d been from Jackson. He lied on his documents so that made him 20 right now while I, at 23, was considered young. 

“I can speak and read German. Although my mother is a Dutch immigrant, my father was a Belgium immigrant.” I spoke honestly. Picking up languages was a bit of a gift for me. I’d always been good at remembering and learning languages, probably since I was taught three languages at once from a young age.

“(Y/n)! I’ve read that book! It’s so beautifully written.” A new voice spoke from the opening in the back of the truck, I quickly jolted from Joe’s shoulder, as he groaned from lack of contact, to see who the familiar voice belonged to.

“David Webster? Where the hell have you been?” I interrogated, while simultaneously giving him a toothy smile. He blushed slightly while asking Jackson for a hand to get up on the truck and suddenly Joe spoke up sharply, 

“The hospital. Must’ve liked that hospital Webster, cause uh, we left Holland four months ago.” After saying that he gave Web a dismissive look while tightening his hold on my shoulders. Suddenly, I felt very awkward, and slightly bad for Web - the war was tough and it was understandable to be afraid, it just wasn’t fair that some men snuck out only to get killed or injured more severely than the first time. They started going back and forth, jabbing at Webster passively, although it didn’t seem to be because they didn’t like him, they were just tired and upset. I gave Web a smile before getting off the truck, following Joe close behind.

“Y’know, you didn’t have to be so mean to Web.” I said calmly, making sure to not seem mad at Joe as to not have him get defensive.

“I guess, but it’s bullshit that we had men come back just to get killed.” He said quickly. When he said that, I saw Lieutenant Lipton sluggishly walking towards a building. The poor man had a bad case of Pneumonia, so I ran over and put his arm under my shoulders to help him. As I did that, explosions rang over our head and fell a little farther than we were. He gave me a smile and I helped him into the building he was walking towards. It was pretty on the inside, Luz and Captain Speirs were in the room along with Webster walking in. 

“Hey look who it is. Nice digs, huh, Lip? (Y/n)?” Luz said to me and Lipton as I helped Lipton situate himself on the couch.

“Yeah.” Lipton called back, unenthusiastically and coughed slightly after.

George came over with a blanket and put it on Lipton. He had a lit cigarette in his mouth, so I took it out and took a long drag from it.

“Hey what gives (Y/n). Just ‘cause you’re a pretty dame with a nice rack doesn’t mean you can steal my cigs.” He said while laughing, only partly joking. I gave him a look and replied,

“You’re just mad, this is all you get to see of my ‘nice’ rack.” 

He laughed and replied with a ‘you bet’. As he said that, a new voice spoke up, mock confident.

“Ahem. Is this the company CP for Easy?” He asked, looking at me and Luz weirdly before I went to get Lip a cup of hot coffee. 

From the kitchen, I could vaguely hear that he called himself Lieutenant Jones and that he was asking for Captain Speirs. I came out with a coffee for Lipton as Speirs was drilling him about going to the back to sack out and rest. I noticed Jones had stood up when Speirs walked in.

“Christ Captain, give him a break. He’s got Pneumonia!” I told Speirs as I handed Lipton his coffee and gave him a squeeze on his shoulder. Lipton thanked me with a small smile as the new guy looked at me with an expression I couldn’t decipher.

“Hello to you Ms. (L/n). If he doesn’t rest up though, that Pneumonia won’t go away.” He said pointedly at Lipton.

“I’m sorry, are you a field nurse? I didn’t think they let field nurses come this close to action.” Jones asked me, even though he wasn’t asking with any malicious intent, and it was all curiosity, I still got upset.

“Why d’ya think I’m a field nurse? I’m literally in uniform.” I deadpanned at him while giving him a little attitude for automatically assuming I’d be a field nurse just because I was a woman.

“Oh. I’m sorry, truly I was just curious. I didn't mean any offense, I just didn’t know they let women become paratroopers.” He said quickly, face turning slightly red.

“They don’t. (Y/n) here has some insane stamina, and she’s a helluva shot!” Webster spoke up for me, and I threw him a smile.

“Oh gee, Shifty’s got a better shot than I’d ever dream of having.” I replied, giving credit to Shifty, as he did have a better shot and he was just the sweetest man alive. At that, Winters walked in and told us he’d need fifteen of us on a patrol tonight to capture prisoners. When he said he’d need a translator, I instantly knew it’d be me or Joe as we were the only two in Second Platoon who could speak German. Webster could as well, but we didn’t know which Platoon he’d be in. 

After Nixon and Winters left, Speirs began talking to Lipton about who should lead, and who he could take for the patrol. During this, Jones asked to be on the patrol, which Speirs answered quickly and easily with a no, that he hadn’t any experience. 

“Lipton, how many prisoners do you think there’ll be?” Speirs asked the man in question.

“Honestly, sir, I’m not quite sure, anywhere between three to forty it seems.” He said in reply.

“(L/n).” Speirs called for me as I was sitting in a chair reading.

“Ya want me to be a translator, that it?” I asked, knowing that’s what he was about to ask me.

“Yes ma’am.” 

“Alright.”

When Webster and Lieutenant Jones left for OP two, I decided to get going as well. I knew Liebgott would be there so that was a good enough reason for me.

“Web, I’m comin’ with. Joe’s probably there right now.” I said to David, although slightly talking to Jones as well, to let him know I’d be going to.

“Yeah, no problem. Say when you’re finished with that book, d’ya mind if I reread it?” He asked me as all three of us walked down the street.

“Awh hell Web, I’ve read this thing three times now, you can go ahead and read it now.” I said while throwing him the book, silently noting how quiet Lieutenant Jones was behind us. The two men were running around crouching behind a little garden wall as I stood up, not seeing why they were doing that. When I heard the door open, Sergeant Kiehn came out, greeting me and Web and telling us where OP two was at. Before anymore words could get exchanged, bombs and mortars started raining down on us and we started running and ducking to take cover. We sat against the wall of a building before a man shouted out that it was all clear. After that, we quickly got to the building where OP two was located. Once inside, I immediately went upstairs and sat down on Joe’s bunk and plopped my stuff down.

“Hey doll, where’d you run off to?” Joe asked while wrapping his arms around me as a way to annoy me.

“Went to help Lip, where’d you go?” I asked while laughing at him.

“Came here.” He replied while digging his face into my stomach and faking sleep. Web and Lieutenant Jones came up not too long after I had, and when Jones saw me and Liebgott he immediately stiffened and gave me and Joe a weird look.

“This spot taken?” Webster asked.

“Nah it’s all yours.” Joe said to him while turning his face away from my stomach, my hands went down to card through his hair and he took notice of Jones’ look.

“Fuck are you staring at?” Joe asked him while sitting up and giving him his own glare.

“I’m sorry?” The Lieutenant asked, offended.

“You got a starin’ problem? Why you lookin’ at me and (Y/n) like that?” He challenged him.

“Alright, alright. Quit fighting, we’ve got news.” Webster said, breaking up the fight.

“Dummer, zimperlicher Junge, der dich so ansieht. (Stupid, prissy boy, lookin at you like that)” Joe mumbled to me in German, only loud enough for only me to hear.

“Er ist einfach sauer, weil du mich berührst und nicht er. (He's just mad because you're touching me and not him)” I said back laughing.

Me and Joe got up to go talk to a bunch of men in the corner laughing and smoking, while Webster and Jones went to talk to Malark. When Joe heard them talk about the patrol he pulled Web aside and I went and sat next to Babe to listen to what he was going to say.

“What do you know about this patrol thing?” Joe asked Web quietly.

“Uh, nothing.” Web said while nodding his head.

“Oh, come on, Web. You gotta know something.” Ramirez interrogated.

“I don’t” He replied adamantly 

` “Bullshit.” 

Web and everyone went back and forth and soon more people sat down to listen. I knew Web wouldn’t give anything up, so I decided to. My head was starting to hurt and I wanted to lay down before the patrol knowing I’d be on it at 0100.

“Speirs is picking fifteen men, Jonesy boy wants to be one of ‘em.” I said while yawning. Joe looked down at me and said,

“I say let the kid go, he could use the experience.” He smiled then Ramirez perked up,

“And I bet they could find fourteen other replacements to help him out.” while smirking.

“Nope.” I said, popping the p. “Babe, McClung, Ramirez and I are going out there.” I said dismissively.

“(Y/n)!” Web hissed at me.

“What?” I asked, confused. Then proceeded with,

“Pssh, I’ll just say it was you who said it, Joe and Babe’ll back me up, won’t you boys.” I asked, smiling up at Joe then at Babe.

“Course we will, doll.” Joe replied and Babe grunted. Webster deadpanned me and sat down when Malarkey started telling us about the patrol. 

When the phone rang, and the PX supplies came in, I was ecstatic. New shoes and a shower? Felt like late Christmas. On our way out, the Krauts started to bomb us. We ran down the stairs and I threw myself under a table with Joe. When we had made it outside, we heard there was a casualty, Bill Kiehn. He was a Toccoa man. It was upsetting and it was unfair that he’d gotten through Bastogne only to die like this. I hadn’t known him too well, but the fact that I’d been talking to him 30 minutes prior made me feel like throwing up. Instead of staying to watch, me and the rest of the second platoon went over to the showers to pick up our new ODs. 

Arriving at the showers, we went to go pick up our new ODs, and anything else they’d dropped for us. Nixon was standing by the depot and was holding a box with my name on it. Being the only woman paratrooper here meant I’d need a different size uniform and boots. I thanked Nixon and grabbed the box, opening it. Inside there was a uniform my size, boots, and women’s sanitary needs, a new bra set, and a few new pairs of panties.

“Well ain’t you a lucky gal, getting new undergarments while we’re stuck with the same briefs.” A voice came from behind me. Getting ready to yell at whoever was looking over my shoulder, I turned and realized it was Joe.

“Aww, poor baby has to wear the same briefs.” I replied, feigning upset and then laughing when I saw his disgruntled expression.

 Before I could run off to take a much needed shower, Malarkey called for us to let us know who’d be going on the patrol.

Heffron, McClung, Ramirez, me, Liebgott, Grant, Wynn, Jackson, Shifty and Webster. When we heard how many second platoon men were going, you could practically feel the rage flowing from us. 

We’d all been pissed, wanting to complain but knowing it’d do us no good. Malarkey went off towards the showers and told us to as well. There were men standing at the entrance, undressing and some coming out wet. I didn’t want to undress, even if it was only down to my bra and panties. I’d been behind Joe when I took my first few layers of my tops off. Down to my black bra and army-issued pants was when Webster came up to talk to Joe, effectively, scaring the shit out of me.

“Jesus, Web, you came outta nowhere.” I said, holding my hand to my chest to calm down.

“Oops, sorry (Y/n).” He said while rubbing the back of his neck nervously. I’d noticed his face had turned a bright shade of red, but I thought it was because he was embarrassed that he’d scared me. A hand shot out to grab my arm and turn me around when I noticed it was Joe. 

“What’s the matter?” I asked curiously.

“Do you not see everyone lookin’ at you like they’re starving men looking at their last meal?” He asked bewildered. Suddenly, I became hyper aware of most of the men's eyes on me, waiting for me to finish undressing. Before I could respond Joe spoke up again.

“Nevermind that, just finish and we can go in together.” Quickly I went to undo my belt, and I realized Joe was already down to his briefs, waiting on me. I felt bad to make him wait, but he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to. I took this time to really look at Joe. Sure he was cute, and I’d definitely thought about him like this before, but would he really want me? I tried not to let my hopes get up, and as I slipped my pants down my legs, I forced myself to look away from his bare chest.

Having a hot shower was probably the best thing I’d had in a long time. Quickly scrubbing my body and hair down and then rinsing off, I stepped outside in a towel and grabbed my new uniform, and new undergarments.

Joe had finished showering, so I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to a random building to change, and do my hair. When we got in, there was nobody there, probably all in the showers, so I took Joe to the first mirror I found in a bedroom and made him sit down. He had no obligations and I told him I’d be back after changing. Once I finished, I brought out my old undergarments and towel and hung them out to dry.

There was a vanity on the opposite side of a bed, with a little cushion seat, and some old, dusty hair products. I quickly got to work using them and braiding up my hair.

“Why’d you pull me away doll? Want me that bad huh?” He questioned while smirking at me and drawing a cigarette from his front pocket.

“Yeah, you wish. I wanted someone to talk to.” I joked back before replying honestly and looking at him through the mirror. I finished doing my last braid as Joe was telling me about one of his comics he found that he enjoyed. Standing up, I walked over to stand in front of him, looking down on him as he was sitting on the bed. He stopped talking and we made eye contact. He looked as handsome as ever sitting in his new ODs, with a fresh shower.

“Well don’t you look handsome in your new uniform with your hair combed.” I said to him in a sweet voice running my hands through his wet hair. His eyes darkened as his hands went to hold onto my hips.

“Jesus, (Y/n). We’ve been through hell and back and you’re still the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen.” He said confidently. I could feel my face getting hot, he’d said things like this before, but this time, it felt different. Stronger almost. 

“Oh, Joe. You’re the most handsome man I’ve ever met.” I whispered to him, and he looked up at my lips, silently asking me. I slowly closed my eyes and let my hands fall from his hair down to his face, I slowly leaned down as he looked up and closed my eyes. As our lips were less than a centimeter apart, someone awkwardly coughed.

We sprung away from each other, embarrassed that we got caught. Looking at who it was, some random replacement apologized and said he left something in here and it was his room.

When he left, I started laughing and grabbed Joe by the arm to pull him up.

“Come on, I bet everyone is wondering where we went.”

“Goddammit Johnny, you’re breaking my heart.” Luz said.

“Come on, George, just give me, I don’t know, ten, fifteen bars?” Martin pressured him

“Juicy fruit, happy?”

Johnny and Cobb had been pestering George to give them Hershey bars. I knew there wasn’t enough, and that it wasn’t fair so I just stayed quiet the whole time. Cobb began badgering George again and when George went to defend himself, a whole group of men walked in.

“Whoa, Hershey bars!” Joe exclaimed, coming up behind me to rest his hands on my shoulders from where I was sitting in front of the table of candy and treats.

“Jesus Christ.” Poor George just couldn’t catch a break.

“Wait your turn, Liebgott.” Cobb said, pissing me off. I never really liked Cobb and he didn’t like me.

“Yeah, who they for?” Liebgott asked George.

“Not you, Lieb.”

“Oh come on George, one bar!” Joe pestered, wanting to get that bar.

“Y’know who they’re for? People who don’t interrogate me. Here, (Y/n), have a bar!” George replied while looking Joe in the eye.

“Oh George! Thank you!” I exclaimed excitedly. I hadn’t known the last time I’d gotten chocolate.

“Christ, you’re only giving it to her because she’s a woman and you wanna get on her good side in case the opportunity arises to fuck her!” Cobb said angrily as I turned around, glaring, ready to hit him.

“That sounds more like something you’d do, knowing you couldn’t get a woman to sleep with you willingly if your life depended on it!” I yelled back at him which caused him to call me a slur of colorful words. After that, Joe yelled at him and I ignored him.

“Hey big mouth! Give Lieb a Hershey bar, huh?” Perconte asked.

When I heard his voice, I jumped up, running up to him to give him a hug.

“Perco! Your back!” I exclaimed as he hugged me back.

“You gotta be shittin’ me! Look who it is!” George laughed and said.

“How ya feeling?” Joe then asked him, smiling.

“As long as you keep your hands off my ass, I’ll be fine.” Perconte replied, laughing.

“Have a Hershey’s!” Luz threw one at Perconte.

“Hey he gets a fuckin Hershey bar?” Joe asked, offended as I came to sit down next to him, opening up my Hershey’s.

“Ask ya girlfriend to french ya when she’s done eating it.” George joked as I took a bite into my bar and broke it in half.

“I’ll do you one better, Joe.” I said after I swallowed and handed him the half I didn’t bite into. He took it with thanks.

“That’s not one better, he’d rather you kiss him (L/n)!” Luz said while laughing right after. Joe pushed him backwards while also laughing

At 1700, there was a briefing about the house we’d be going into. I was next to Shifty, talking with him. Every now and again me and Joe would make eye contact, until the other looked away. Winters, and Martin walked in which caused Joe to look away first. Winters explained Johnny would be going in Malarkey's place, and that made everyone slightly more comfortable. I was on Johnny’s team, along with Webster. I walked out and Liebgott was waiting for me, he left with me and as we passed Speirs, he told Joe he didn’t have to go on the patrol.

We’d been all stationed in the basement for now before the patrol. Having to eat slop and we couldn’t have our helmets. I sat with Shifty as I ate.

“Youse gonna be out there with a gun?” Shifty asked me in a sweet voice, I knew what he was talking about. He was asking if I’d be helping shoot.

“Nah, well obviously I’ll have a gun, but I’m mainly a translator.” I smiled at him and he smiled back.

“I don’ understand why they never let you shoot with me. You’re a helluva sniper.” Shifty told me, making me giggle at him.

“Oh Shift, you know how to make a woman feel good about herself.” I replied, happy that I got to talk to him before the patrol. He always knew how to make someone happy, even during nerve-wracking times.

At 0100, we were getting into those rubber boats, and setting sail on a short trip across the river. Before the fourth boat could even get far, it flipped and we were down three men. I wasn’t too nervous, knowing that I’d been through worse. When we got to the other side, Martin had someone cut the fence and me and Web, being translators, meant that we had to be up front in case we found any Germans. 

So far, we’d gotten up to the steps of the house we’d need to get prisoners from. Johnny had shot into the window, and Jackson went up to throw his grenade, except, instead of waiting for it to finish detonating, Jackson didn’t stop and immediately went into the house, getting hit straight in the face with his grenade. As we ran in, me and Web were yelling at the men in German. We started to split the three men up when I heard a small cry in the corner of the room. I stopped to turn to go towards the sound.

“(L/n)! What are you doing?” Johnny yelled at me.

“Sir! There’s a child!” I shouted, confused. When I got down eye level with the little girl, I noticed she was only in a thin, white nightgown, with no shoes. She looked malnourished, hurt and mostly scared. 

“Alsjeblieft! Alsjeblieft! (Please! Please!)” The little girl cried in Dutch, shrinking away from me when I went to get her.

“Het is goed schat! Rustig maar, ik ben hier om te helpen! (Its okay dear! Relax, I'm here to help!)” I replied to her in Dutch. What had a little Dutch girl been doing here? I didn’t have time to continue to calm the little girl before Johnny started yelling about getting on the boats and leaving.

“Klein meisje, ik ga je ophalen. (Little girl, I'm going to pick you up.)” I warned her before grabbing her bridal style and running with her out of the house and covering her eyes to make sure she didn’t see what was happening around her with Jackson. Pushing everyone into the boats, the girl I was holding onto kept crying and crying. The poor little girl couldn’t have been more than four years old. 

“Het is goed schat. Het is goed schat. (It’s alright baby. It’s alright baby.)” I kept repeating to the small frightened girl. When Webster jumped into the boat behind me, we started going back to our side. He had his head ducked, as the Krauts kept shooting at the back boat. He had his arms around me when he realized I was shielding a child.

“(Y/n)! What the hell? Why do you have a child?” He yelled out over the gun fire.

“I don’t know! She was in the corner, she’s Dutch!” I replied, still confused as to how she got here and why she wasn’t in the Netherlands. We all ran downstairs, I was still holding onto the little girl, she had come from the Germans territory so I had to stay with her by the other prisoners. Nobody had come up to me about the girl yet so I took this as a time to try to get information so she wasn’t bombarded when adrenaline wore off.

“Wat is je naam? (What’s your name?)” I asked her calmly. She looked up at me with teary dark blue eyes. “Tineke.” She responded in a quiet voice. I was sitting on the floor and I held her so she was only facing me. I could feel someone watching me, but for now I didn’t care.

“Mooie naam! De mijne is (Y/n)! (Beautiful name! Mine is (Y/n)!)” I replied while smiling at her and gently carding my hand through her dark brown strands. Her skin was deathly pale and it was obvious she hadn’t drank or eaten anything in a long time. I gave her my canteen and she took it wearily. She wouldn’t drink it because she was scared of what could be in it. I took it back and took a small sip and gave it back. When she noticed I was okay, she started drinking out of it rapidly. 

When she finished drinking, I asked her more questions. 

“Spreek je Engels? (Can you speak English?)” I asked her. “Little bit.” She replied hesitantly.

“Very good, mijn liefje! (My love!)” She seemed to smile a little at the name I’d given her.

“Where is your mommy?” I asked slowly. She started to get upset at the mention of her mother but she replied anyway.

“She die. The Duits kill her. I am Joods. They take her and kill my mammie in de camps for Jodens. Then they keep me. (The Germans kill her. I am Jewish. My mommy. Camps for Jews.)” She told me in a somber tone. When she couldn’t think of the right word, she’d just say it in Dutch. I thought about bringing her to Joe later knowing he was Jewish, she might feel comfortable with him. 

“You’re safe now, liefje.” I told her while bringing her close to my chest. She ended up falling asleep not even ten minutes later. It gave me time to think about what she had said. She never mentioned a last name which made me believe she didn’t know it. The camp she was talking about was also weird. What did she mean by a camp for Jewish people?

Jackson had died. That boy who’d just turned twenty, had died. He had his whole life ahead and he died in a stupid war. I hadn’t even known him too well, but he just died in front of me, in front of everyone. I was thankful Tineke was asleep as she’d already seen enough. 

A day had passed since the patrol. The Germans were taken away and Tineke wouldn’t talk to anyone except me, and occasionally Joe. When Winters had found out about her, he had to ask her questions. I had come with because she couldn’t speak English very well and she refused to go anywhere if I wasn’t with her. The poor girl had been traumatized and it seemed like she’d been like that for a while.

While asking her questions, we found out her family was Jewish, and when the Germans found out, they took her and her family out of their homes to be sent to a camp. She didn’t know much, just that her mother and her got away and when they were found by the two Germans, her mother tried to fight against them resulting in her getting shot. Tineke was then taken as a hostage. 

Doc Roe came in to see how she was and it turned out she had been malnourished, and if I hadn’t found her when I did she would’ve been dead. Later that day I took her to the building where the second platoon was located to introduce her. 

I walked in and held onto Tine and went upstairs.

“Guys, this is Tineke. She was found in the house with the other POWs and she’s Dutch. She can speak some English, but don’t bombard her.” I spoke when I went upstairs and saw everyone. They all looked at us, and one by one I walked around with her and had her say hi to everyone. When I got to the last person, Joe, I sat down on the bunk with him and had her greet him.

“Tine, why don’t you tell Joe what you are.” I reminded her. I had told her to tell him she was Jewish before we went upstairs.

“Jewish.” Was all she said, nervous and not knowing too much English, she turned her face away into my chest. I rubbed my hand down her knotted, dirty hair realizing she needed a bath.

“Ain’t that cool! I’m Jewish too!” Joe responded in a sweet voice, smiling down at her when she slightly turned her head towards him. Before any more words could get exchanged, Webster came in to break the news that we were to go on another patrol that night and there would be another meeting at 1800. It was currently 1530 so I decided to bring Tineke down to the kitchen sink where I could give her a makeshift bath. I remembered how my mom would do that for me and my siblings when we were little and there were no baths in any of the houses.

I grabbed some soap and put it in her hair while I’d tell her stories to pass the time. 

“A long time ago, there were two moons. It was said one of them, named houden got too close to the sun, and out came thousands of dragons.” I told her a story my mother used to tell me all the time.

“Houden? To hold?” She asked as I began rinsing out her hair.

“That’s right. That’s how dragons were born.” I told her. As I finished saying that, another voice piped up from behind me.

“I didn’t know dragons were born from the moon.” Joe came up behind me and waved at Tineke, who brought her hand up slightly.

“That’s because I never told you that.” I said while smiling up at him. He moved to have his arms around my waist and laid his head on my shoulder. I finished rinsing Tine off then I grabbed a towel and wrapped her in it. Nixon had got clothes small enough to fit her from one of his sources. It was a small, black dress with a dark brown fluffy shawl. She also had stockings and tiny boots. When I finished dressing her, I braided up her hair and put on a hat.

At 1800 we all went down to the basement to await Winter’s meeting he called.

“Whatcha lookin’ at Webster.” A drunk Cobb said. I put one of my hands on Web’s shoulder, holding Tineke to my chest as she slept on me, and he turned to give me a smile.

“That’s what I thought, college boy.” Cobb said while swaying lightly on his feet. I gave Cobb a glare and squeezed the hand I had on Web’s shoulder.

“Are you drunk, trooper?” Lieutenant Jones asked him, angrily.

“Leave me alone.” Cobb replied, looking away.

“Answer the question.” Jones said firmly.

“Yes, sir, I am drunk, sir.” Cobb said sassily before adding, “Drunk, and sick and tired of fucking patrols. Taking orders-”

“Hey Cobb, shut up. It’s boring, okay.” Martin cut him off before he could finish what he was saying.

“Taking his side, Johnny?” “Yeah, I am.”

After that shit show I went and sat by Joe, wanting to make sure I wouldn’t be in Cobb’s line of fire in case he decided to throw something.

Winters came in to not only tell us that we didn’t have to go on that patrol, but that we’d also be off the line tomorrow. After he left, everyone started talking, which woke up Tine, who had no idea what was going on, but was happy because everyone else was. 

When I went upstairs, Winters was waiting for me.

“Hey, (Y/n).” He said, a bittersweet tone to his voice.

“Hello, sir. Anything I can help you with?” I asked, slightly nervous that he had waited for me.

“It turns out, we found one of Tineke’s family members. Her aunt and uncle. They’re set to come tonight.” He said quietly.

“Oh. Well that’s great!” I smiled slightly, feeling my heart get heavy at the fact that the young girl would be leaving.

“Tine, you hear that? Your aunt and uncle are coming to pick you up.” I told her, looking down at her. She perked up, looking between me and Winters and then she smiled. She smiled bigger than I’d ever seen her smile.

When her aunt and uncle arrived at 2100, Tineke ran up to them and they picked her up. They repeatedly thanked me and Winters and before they left, I gave Tineke a hug and kiss and turned around to walk away. As I did that, I noticed Joe was standing there waiting for me, smiling sweetly at me. We walked away, arm in arm to go back to the house together. The next day, we’d all been sent to the trucks to move to our new location. I was sitting next to Joe, my head on his shoulder as I slept. 

We had made it to Germany. The Krauts surrendered and Hitler shot himself. We were finally able to stay in an actual house, with actual baths and actual beds. To us, life couldn’t get any better. 

Me and Joe had been sharing a house with Perco and Luz. Frank and George went out to get eggs from a farmhouse a few blocks down so right now it was just me and Joe.

“You excited, doll?” He asked me from the table. I put down one of the wet dishes I was washing, and replied,

“For what Lieb?” “We got through the hard part!” Oh. I hadn’t really thought about that yet.

“Well, yeah, I guess. I’m just scared that I’ll have to go to the Pacific if this war finishes soon.” I replied genuinely.

“Oh don’t worry about that right now.” He said while standing up and coming behind me. I put down the last dish and pulled off the wet, yellow gloves I had on to wash the dishes in.

“Y’know, Perco and Luz just left.” 

“I know Liebgott, I’ve got eyes.” I replied, smiling up at him while turning around to face him. He put his hands on the sink behind me and smiled down on me.

“Well if your eyes are any good, then you’ll be able to see how much of a hold ya got on me.” He spoke before closing the distance between us and closing the gap.

I immediately closed my eyes and kissed him back. We slowly pulled apart, and without another word he slammed his mouth into mine. This time, he was much more passionate. His hands wandered down to my waist, and mine went up to his neck and hair. I gasped as he bit my bottom lip, and he snuck his tongue into my mouth. I kissed him back with as much fervor as I could, slightly pulling on his hair without realizing. He moaned into my mouth and the vibrations caused heat to pool in my stomach.

His hands started to roam down my body, causing me to moan as well. He pulled me flush against him and then pulled me up the stairs into one of the rooms I was occupying. I gently sat down on the bed and his fingers went to my uniform top, unbuttoning my shirt. 

Perconte and Luz were walking down the trail to the house they were sharing with (Y/n) and Joe, they had eggs to cook up for everyone. When they got inside, they expected to see (Y/n) and Joe downstairs, waiting for them like they had been before.

“Hey, where’d they go-”

“D’you hear that?” George cut Frank off when he heard what sounded like muffled banging from upstairs. The two men immediately smirked at each other, and Luz ran upstairs.

They stopped outside of the door getting ready to knock, when they heard moaning from the other side.

Before Frank could hold George back, he knocked on the door yelling, 

“You two better hurry up before me and Perco eat all the eggs!” It was quiet for a moment before Joe shouted out towards the two men,

“Go ahead! I’m eating something way better!”

IM SO SORRY THIS IS SO LONG! If I missed any TWs lmk and I'll add them!

[mads-nixon]

Meine Liebe

Dick Winters x Translator!Reader

Masterlist

Request: @flowers-and-fichte Hey! Thanks for the Chuckler headcanons! They're so cute! I've got another request :) it's BoB-related this time. Winters with a reader who is fluent in German and teaches him to speak it. And then one day he surprises her by speaking it (wedding proposal, just starts talking in it out of nowhere, whatever) to her and it's so freaking cute. Thanks! Take your time :)

A/N: i loved this concept!! thanks for the request! hbo owns the rights, and this is about the fictional portrayal of easy company on the show. nothing but love and respect for veterans on this blog!

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: none!

When (y/n) first signed up to be an intelligence translator for the Airborne, she had no idea what was in store for her. Jumping out of planes was expected, but what she couldn’t have expected was a red-headed man named Dick Winters. Nix introduced them in Aldbourne when she joined the company, and something about the Pennsylvanian struck her differently than the other men she’d met. Most eyed her warily, but the man she met that day flashed her a kind smile and a firm handshake, sending an unexpected warmth through her. 

“So you’re our new interpreter,” he stated, his polite eyes never leaving hers as he shook her hand.

(Y/n) nodded, her lips quirking into a grin. “Yes, sir. (Y/n) (y/l/n).

“Dick Winters,” he replied, releasing her hand after a few moments. “Welcome to Easy. Please let me know if you need anything.”

Before she could respond, Nix called out to her. “We’ve gotta get to battalion, come on.”

With a final nod to Winters, she saluted and turned on her heel, walking over to Lew who was sitting in the driver's seat of a jeep. “So, you met Dick,” he announced, shifting the jeep into drive. “Whatcha think?”

(Y/n) scoffed lightly as she gazed at the rows and rows of tents that lined the airfield. “I only spoke like two sentences to him, Lew.”

Luckily, Lew and (y/n) grew up in neighboring towns in New Jersey and knew each other through mutual friends. Everyone knew the Nixons for their nitration plant that was in Edison, but (y/n) knew the Nixon boy as the teenager who took her best friend to the prom and got so drunk that he threw up on her beautiful blue dress. Betty still hadn’t gotten over it by the time (y/n) left for basic. 

“No sparks flying yet?” he grinned, elbowing her shoulder playfully as he drove. “Give it time. I know it will.”

“What is wrong with you, Lewis?” she asked, her voice tinged with frustration. “I just met the guy! And we’re going off to war for Pete's sake, not some low-crawling pub where men are lined up to dance with me.”

Her job was to decode and translate intercepted German communications, as well as translate in the field and interrogate prisoners if need be. There were times when being the daughter of Austrian immigrants was awful, but other times, it came in handy. Without her parents teaching her their language, she wouldn’t be in her position in the Army. 

As the months passed in Aldbourne, (y/n) was swamped with intercepted communications, paperwork, and various intelligence reports. She rarely did anything other than work in her office, growing tiresome of the monotonous click-clack of the typewriter. What little time she did have outside the office was spent either visiting the Blue Boar with the other officers or quietly reading in the fields of wildflowers near her billet. 

The sun set perfectly on the lilies and colorful harebells, orchids, and cornflowers that were scattered among the grass. Any chance she got, she’d go lay out a blanket and get lost in the pages of “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” escaping the war as the words came to life in her mind. Time seemed to blur as the months stretched on in Aldbourne. 

With the follies of the Italian campaign, the Allies knew they had to try a different approach. Nixon and (y/n) had talked about the possible landing locations and tactics, but no plan was in motion quite yet. This did not stop them from preparing for the possibility. Easy’s training got increasingly realistic the further they got into 1944. By early February, Dick, Harry, and the other platoon leaders were brought in on the intelligence officers’ speculations. A few weeks later, (y/n) was working in her office when she heard a knock on the door.

“Come in,” she called, not looking up from her typewriter as she finished a translation.

The door creaked open, and in walked Dick who was wringing his hat between his hands, almost as if he was nervous. “Hi, (y/n). Sorry to disturb you.”

Hearing his voice, (y/n) looked up from the paper, a small smile forming as she took in his timid expression. “Hi, Dick. You’re not disturbing me,” she said, pointing to the large stack of papers on the corner of her desk. “These aren’t going anywhere.”

Dick clasped his hands behind his back and walked closer to the desk. “I wanted to ask you a favor.”

(Y/n) nodded, gesturing for him to sit in the extra chair beside her desk.

Dick sat down and continued. “Would you be able to teach me some basic German? I know that you are fluent in it, so-”

“Of course!” She interrupted, excitement lighting up her features. “I’d love to!”

Dick seemed surprised as he sheepishly smiled at her from across the desk. “It would be useful to know some phrases when we finally get into combat.”

“I think it’s a great idea.”

From that cold February day on, the pair met every Saturday night in (y/n)’s billet. Her host family, the Bennets, insisted on making a big family dinner every time (as large as they could with rationing), treating Dick as one of their own. (Y/n) watched from across the dining room table as he spoke to Mr. Bennet with a polite smile. The golden light from the setting sun filtered through the open blinds, highlighting the soft brown freckles that adorned his face. (Y/n) couldn’t help but admire his handsome features, a thought that she’d kept hidden mainly to keep Nix off her trail about the supposed ‘sparks’ that were supposed to fly between them at some point. 

“I was worried about you Yanks, but if they’re all like you lot, I think we’re in good shape,” Mr. Bennet laughed, scooping a forkful of roast into his mouth. 

Dick chuckled breathily, his eyes flitting to the (y/h/c) across from him, catching her staring red-handed. “Thank you, sir,” he replied, his face warming under her gaze. 

After the dinner table was cleared, they continued their weekly tradition, sitting across from each other once again. “These are pretty basic, but they’re important,” she began, her eyes locking with his. Repeat after me. ‘Guten Abend.’”

Dick listened carefully, his eyes drifting down to her lips before echoing her pronunciation. “Guten Abend.”

“Very good,” (y/n) praised, her smile growing. “Now how about ‘Bitte’ which means ‘please,’ and ‘Danke,’ which means ‘thank you.’   

“Next, let’s learn ‘Wie geht es Ihnen?” (y/n) said, her voice taking on a reassuring tone. “It means ‘How are you?’

As they repeated the words together, her beloved language created a unique connection between them that she never thought possible. It felt good to speak the language in situations other than wartime intelligence. As she taught Dick, she fell in love with her family’s native tongue all over again, but that love wasn’t the only thing blossoming in the cozy dining room.

Under the shade of a sturdy tree in the Bennet’s backyard, the late afternoon sun cast a glow over the yard. (Y/n) and Dick sat side by side, leaning against the trunk as they took a short break from their lesson.

(Y/n’s eyes began to droop, fatigue creeping in like a silent intruder. The lines of exhaustion were etched beneath her eyes, and Dick couldn’t help but notice her weariness. 

“Are you alright?” he asked gently, leaning closer to her, his brow furrowed in concern.

She sat up straighter, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. “Yeah, I’m just tired,” she admitted, her voice a soft murmur.

Dick turned to her with eyes filled with worry. “Up late doing translations?”

(Y/n) nodded, her shoulders sliming slightly. “Yes,” she sighed, leaning her head back against the hard tree bark. “We’re getting more and more communications every day. It’s hard to keep up.”

Seeing her struggle, Dick scooted closer to her and paused before gesturing to his lap. “Here,” he suggested, his tone gentle. “It’s more comfortable than a tree,”

A small, tired smile crossed (y/n)’s face as she responded with a weary, “Yes, sir,” She laid her head on his lap, peering up at him through heavy-lidded eyes. 

Dick felt a warm, protective swell of emotion as she nestled into his lap. Her presence, despite her exhaustion, brought a sense of peace and contentment he hadn’t realized he was missing. He could always show up at her door and have dinner like there wasn’t a war going on. Their routine had developed into what he looked forward to the most as the week went on. Any conversations they managed to have during their daily regimens and workload were filled with smiles and talks of the upcoming weekend, Saturday’s dinner menu, and other little things that reminded him of home. 

A soft pink tinge rose from Dick’s neck to his cheeks as he brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “Better?” he inquired, his voice a soothing, gentle rumble.

(Y/n) let out a contented sigh, her eyes fluttering closed as she whispered, “Yes, thank you, Dick. I needed this.”

He watched over her with a mix of concern and affection, his fingers absentmindedly tracing circles on her shoulder. “You’ll work yourself to death in that office, (y/n).”

She squinted one eye open, her gaze focused on him. “I know,” she replied quietly, her voice tinged with desperation, “I can’t rest knowing my family is still stuck there, Dick.”

The lieutenant’s eyes saddened, his heart aching at the raw pain in her voice. He moved his hand from her shoulder to rub her hair back gently. “In Austria?”

(Y/n) nodded, her voice hushed and heavy with emotion. “Yeah,” she murmured, blinking to combat the tears that were filling her eyes. “My grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins…they all stayed. They’re still there, and we haven’t heard from them in almost a year.”

“So you’re doing this for them.”

“For them and all the other innocent people whose lives have been torn apart by Hitler,” she confessed, her voice wavering.

A tear trickled down the side of her cheek, and she felt a warm hand wipe it away gently. “I’m sure they wouldn’t want you to run yourself into the ground, sweetheart,” Dick murmured softly, the term of endearment slipping out before he could stop it. “When we finally do see action, you won’t be a hundred percent if you’re constantly running on fumes.”

She let out a shuddering breath, her emotions overwhelming her. (Y/n) sat up, shifting to bury her face into Dick’s shoulder, finding comfort in his embrace. His arms encircled her, pulling her into his side as he rubbed his hand soothingly along her back.

“Please take care of yourself. If not for them, do it for me. Please,” he whispered into her hair.

As the evening sun bathed them in a warm light, (y/n) pulled back from their embrace, her tear-filled eyes glistening with gratitude and adoration. She gazed into Dick’s calming, emerald-green eyes, vulnerability seeping from her. His eyes mirrored her intensity, and a soft, affectionate smile played on his lips. With her heart pounding in her chest, (y/n) brought her hand up to his cheek, her fingers tracing the contours of his skin with a gentle, trembling touch.

Their eyes met, and in that silent exchange, a powerful connection was forged. Slowly and with a sense of natural ease, she pulled him closer, guiding him toward her. Dick, momentarily taken aback by the unexpected tenderness of her actions, felt the soft, deliberate pressure of (y/n)’s lips against his. Their lips met, and their connection deepened as their mouths moved together, a tender and affectionate expression of their feelings. Their kiss was a gentle exchange of affection, an unspoken testament to the emotions that had quietly grown between them.

As (y/n) and Dick pulled back from their tender kiss, their actions spoke volumes in the quiet of that moment. Their lips slowly parted, the sensation of their kiss still lingering in the air like a sweet, unspoken promise. They looked into each other’s eyes, their gazes locked in a lingering connection that was filled with understanding. (Y/n) inched back slightly, her touch soft and tender as her fingers gently brushed over the freckles on Dick’s cheek as she withdrew from their intimate embrace. 

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice a gentle murmur, sniffling slightly as she rested her forehead against his. Dick’s heart raced, and he could feel her warm breath on his face. 

“They’ll be proud of you. I’m sure of it.”

MAY 7, 1944: BERCHTESGADEN, AUSTRIA

(Y/n) reclined on a wooden, sun-soaked deck chair, gazing out at the breathtaking landscape of the Bavarian Alps that stretched before her. The mountains stood tall and majestic, their peaks kissing the cloudless sky. She felt a sense of awe at the natural wonder surrounding her.

Harry sat at the end of her chair, and Ron and Nix were sitting on the one beside them, all three drunk as a skunk. Their voices filled the air with drunken excitement, and their ramblings brought a wide smile to (y/n)’s face.

Nix groaned in good-humored frustration, raising his fingers in a futile attempt to count off the main leaders of the Nazi party. “Hitler, Hitler…no.”

Rolling his eyes, Ron chimed in, his voice louder as they spoke over each other, creating a chaotic atmosphere. “Hitler, Himmler, Goering-”

“And Goebbels,” Harry finished, his grin infectious as he completed the list.

(Y/n) couldn’t help but laugh heartily, tears gathering in her eyes as she watched her friends stumble through their banter. The joy of the moment, the beauty of the scenery, and the relief from no constant action and danger all combined to create a warmth in her heart that was impossible to contain.

“I’m so glad I get to see this,” she wheezed between fits of laughter, her hand clutching her stomach as another wave of cackles escaped her. 

The sound of footsteps made her turn, and she saw Dick approaching with Lip. She smiled at him, her heart beating slightly faster when he returned a wink. 

“Hey, Adolf! Love your Eagle’s Nest,” Harry yelled, standing up wobbly and grabbing Dick’s shoulders. “I hope you don’t mind. We made ourselves at home. Love what you’ve done with the place here.”

(Y/n) chortled again, earning an amused look from Dick, who found the whole situation hilarious. But he had more important news to share.

Welsh grabbed a bottle of champagne and held it out for the major. “Hey, have a drink. Come on. Just so we can say we saw you do it,” he implored, staring for a moment as Dick didn’t respond. 

Smirking, (y/n) rose from her chair and gracefully pushed the bottle back toward Harry as she moved to stand between him and Dick. “You drink it, Welshy.”

Welsh retracted his hand, standing there for a moment like a pouting child, while Dick, who had patiently waited, pulled out a sheet of paper. He cleared his throat and started to speak, his gaze warm as he looked down at (y/n) beside him. “Listen up. From Corps, it just came in. Effective immediately, all troops standing fast on present positions.”

Nix rested his hands behind his head as he lay on the chair with a smirk. “Standing fast.”

Ron, his usually sharp eyes now glazed over from the alcohol, looked up and asked. “What does that mean?”

(Y/n) ran a hand down her face with a giggle. Her laughter was infectious, and the group chuckled, with Dick’s laughter being the loudest. His smile was the widest she’d seen in months, and the sight stirred something within her. 

“Do you want to hear it?” he asked the group as he wrapped an arm around (y/n)’s shoulder. 

Harry nodded, grunting in reply, and Dick repeated the sound, raising an eyebrow at the man. “Are you ready for it? Listen up, the German Army surrendered.”

The news sent a sudden hush through the group, and the jovial atmosphere vanished, replaced by a solemn and reverent feeling that settled inside each of them. (Y/n) looked up at Dick, her eyes widened in disbelief.

“Really?” she whispered, her voice filled with hope.

Dick nodded and squeezed her shoulder softly. “Yeah, sweetheart. They did.”

In that instant, she couldn’t contain her joy. She flung her arms around his shoulders, squealing happily, and he snaked his arms around her waist, hugging her tightly. The weight of the past years seemed to lift, replaced by a hope of peace in Europe for people like her family who were caught in the crossfire of war. As they pulled back from their hug, the sheer happiness of the moment made (y/n)’s eyes glisten with tears. Around them, the other officers were clapping each other on the back and expressing their own gratitude that victory in Europe had been achieved.

With a soft smile, Dick placed a hand on her lower back and led her to a farther part of the balcony, giving them privacy from prying eyes. He could see the curiosity in her eyes and as they found a quiet corner, he spoke in a hushed tone. “I got word today, (y/n). About your family.”

Her eyes widened in anticipation, and her heart raced. “My family? Where are they? She asked, her voice trembling with a mix of hope and fear. 

Dick placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, offering her the support she needed to hear the news. “They’re alive, (y/n). They’re living in Salzburg.”

The emotion she’d swallowed down came flying back, and tears welled up in her eyes again as her voice trembled with relief. “Salzburg? Oh, thank God,” she croaked.

(Y/n) couldn’t hold back her emotions any longer, and the tears streamed down her face as she wrapped her arms around Dick, hugging him tightly once again. It was a cry of pure relief, a release of tension that had gripped her heart for so long. 

Dick held her close, his own emotions stirred by the moment. He could feel her relief, his arms wrapped around her as he gently stroked her back. The news also meant that they were one step closer to going home. One step closer to spending the rest of their lives together.  

In the midst of the moment, (y/n) looked up at Dick, a radiant smile breaking through her tears. Her soft voice was barely more than a whisper as she spoke. “I love you, Dick.”

Their eyes locked in a tender, unspoken understanding as Dick leaned down to cup her cheek, his thumb gently brushing away a tear. “I love you, too, (y/n).”

The mountains of Berchtesgaden stood as silent witnesses to what was about to transpire. It was the perfect setting for a moment they would cherish forever. As they stood there, Dick took (y/n)’s hand in his, his gaze unwavering as he looked deep into her eyes. With a smile, he began to speak…but it wasn’t English.

“Meine Liebe, du weißt, ich bin nicht der Beste im Umgang mit Worten, aber ich liebe dich mehr als das Leben selbst. Ohne dich hätte ich das nicht überstanden und ich möchte nie wieder ohne dich sein,” he began, his heart pounding in his ribcage.

My love, you know I'm not the best with words, but I love you more than I love life itself. I wouldn't have gotten through this without you, and I don’t want to be without you ever again.

(Y/n) looked at him, her eyes widening in surprise and joy. She blinked in disbelief, her heart skipping a beat.

“Willst du meine Frau werden?” Dick continued.

Will you marry me?

A gasp escaped (y/n)’s lips as tears continued to trickle down her cheeks. She couldn’t believe what was happening, and her heart swelled. Dick got down on one knee, his eyes filled with a softer determination than the one she saw in his eyes on the battlefield. He reached into his OD pocket and pulled out a small, elegant ring.

In a voice filled with emotion, he asked, “Möchtest du mein leben mit mir teilen?”

Will you share your life with me?

Tears streamed down (y/n)’s face as she nodded vigorously, unable to speak through her overwhelming joy. She held out her hand, and Dick slid the ring over her finger. It fit perfectly, just as they did in each other's lives.

With a smile that held all the love in the world, he whispered, “Ich liebe dich.”

I love you.

With the golden rays of the setting sun casting a warm, enchanting glow on the balcony, Dick stood up from one knee and pulled (y/n) into a gentle, affectionate embrace. The light from the setting sun illuminated their features, turning their silhouettes into a work of art against the breathtaking backdrop. Their kiss was tender and sweet, filled with the promise of a future together.

Their actions were delicate and filled with longing. Dick’s arms enveloped (y/n) as he kissed her, his fingers brushing softly against her cheek, and (y/n) responded with more fervor, deepening the kiss. Her hands found their way to his shoulders, fingers clutching his uniform as if grounding herself in the reality of the moment. The hand on her cheek threaded into her hair and pulled her impossibly closer. 

With huge smiles on their faces, (y/n) and Dick pulled back from their kiss. The moment was perfect. However, their intimate moment was suddenly interrupted by a chorus of whistles and cheers coming from the adjacent balcony. Ron, Harry, Lip, and Nix watched on as the couple got engaged. They exchanged glances and held hands as they made their way toward the cheering men.

Nix hugged Dick and slapped him on the back, his expression a mix of humor and satisfaction. “Now if I remember correctly, some wise guy called this the first time you two met…oh wait, that was me.”

Dick’s brows furrowed in confusion, and he turned to his fiance for clarification. “What?”

Rolling her eyes playfully, (y/n) leaned into his side, patting his chest lightly. “Back in Aldbourne, Lew just thought that, and I quote, ‘sparks would fly’ between the two of us.

“Well, I’m so glad they did,” Harry laughed, holding up a wad of cash in front of him. “I’m a rich man now.”

The major blinked at Harry, his amusement evident. “How am I not surprised you bet on us?” 

“You think that’s all we bet on?” Ron slurred, sprawled out on a chair with his eyes closed. “We also bet on when-”

Thankfully, Lip stepped in to stop the Captain, who appeared to be thoroughly drunk. “Alright. Let’s get you to bed, sir.”

(Y/n) grinned, admiring Dick’s features above her. “Where did you learn all of that?” she asked. “Because I’ve never taught you anything that complex.”

“A man never tells his secrets,” he replied, kissing her temple lovingly.

“It was Liebgott, wasn’t it,” she chuckled, raising an eyebrow at him. “Cause only Joe knows that much German other than me.”

“Well,” Dick began, “There’s a lot more where that came from.”

“Oh really, Major Winters. Care to enlighten me?”

He sighed, “Nope. I’ve been practicing that for months. It’s all I’ve got.” 

“Then it’s a good thing you’ve got the best teacher by your side for the rest of your life, huh?”

Tag List: @liptonsbabe @footprintsinthesxnd @bucky32557038ww2 @flowers-and-fichte @merriell-allesandro-shelton @ronsparky

message or comment if you want to be added to the tag!

[mybeingthere]

In 2006, the artist Hayv Kahraman moved to the US, then occupying her homeland, Iraq, and began painting a woman who has been a fixture of her work ever since. With parchment-pale skin, a swoosh of raven hair, scarlet lips and strong brows, this figure recalls the characters set against unadorned backgrounds in 12th-century Baghdad’s miniature painting, while her apple-round breasts and cool, heavy-lidded gaze suggest a quattrocento nude, rendered with the clean lines of Japanese prints.

It is a composite identity its maker understands well. Kahraman was 11 when she was smuggled out of Iraq during the first Gulf war. Her family settled in Sweden, where she spent her teens; she now lives in Los Angeles. “As an immigrant, I’ve always felt on the periphery of society,” she says.

Watching her mother work as a translator for government agencies, Kahraman saw the demand for refugees to repeat their trauma. “It creates an economy of pain where suffering becomes a currency,” she says. “So how do we get unstuck? How do we not only survive but thrive?”

In the past 15 years she has used her painted women to investigate the refugee condition from often surprising angles. The figures have become contortionists; canvases have been sliced up and rewoven into abstract patterns, in an allegory of the fragmented nature of memory, culture and trauma. A recent Covid-centric series interrogated the martial language of immunology, in which the human fortress is seen to be “invaded” or “colonised” by foreign bodies.

https://www.theguardian.com/.../hayv-kahraman-i-was...

[homonationalist]

Afropessimism, then, is less of a theory of more of a metatheory: a critical project that, by deploying Blackness as a lens of interpretation, interrogates the unspoken, assumptive logic of Marxism, postcolonialism, psychoanalysis, and feminism through rigorous theoretical consideration of their properties and assumptive logic, such as their foundations, methods, form, and utility; and it does so, again, on a higher level of abstraction than the discourse and methods of the theories it interrogates. Again, Afropessimism is, in the main, more of a metatheory than a theory. It is pessimistic about the claims theories of liberation make when these theories try to explain Black suffering or when they analogize Black suffering with the suffering of other oppressed beings. It does this by unearthing and exposing the meta-aporias, strewn like land mines in what these theories of so-called universal liberation hold to be true. If, as Afropessimism argues, Blacks are not Human subjects, but are instead structural inert props, implements for the execution of White and non-Black fantasies and sadomasochistic pleasures, then this also means that, at a higher level of abstraction, the claims of universal humanity that the above theories all subscribe to are hobbled by a meta-aporia: a contradition that manifests whenever one looks seriously at the structure of Black suffering in comparison to the presumed universal structure of all sentient beings. Again, Black people embody a meta-aporia for political thought and action—Black people are the wrench in the works. Blacks do not function as political subjects; instead, our flesh and energies are instrumentalized for postcolonial, immigrant, feminist, LGBTQ, transgender, and workers' agendas. These so-called allies are never authorized by Black agendas predicated on Black ethical dilemmas. A Black radical agenda is terrifying to most people on the Left—think Bernie Sanders—because it emanates from a condition of suffering for which there is no imaginable strategy for redress—no narrative of social, political, or national redemption. This crisis, no, this catastrophe, this realization that I am a sentient being who can't use words like "being" or "person" to describe myself without the scare quotes and the threat of raised eyebrows from anyone within earshot, was crippling.

Frank B. Wilderson III from "For Halloween I Washed My Face" in Afropessimism (2020)

[astirysk2electricboogaloo]

p'nut (peanut) the squirrel and fred the raccoon were murdered by the new york state department of environmental conservation. these animals were not wild or rabid.

as if coming to kidnap someone's pets wasn't bad enough, the way they went about it was fucking ridiculous. they raided and ransacked mr. longo's house for 5 hours. in that time, the nysdec escorted mr. longo to the bathroom and back, checked the back of the toilet to see if he was hiding anything and wouldn't let him feed or give the other animals in the their care water. the longos were treated like drug traffickers because they had a squirrel and a raccoon.

supposedly when the agents took p'nut he bit one of them. i understand the concern after a bite, HOWEVER:

both of these animals lived with humans. when they weren't in the house in their own separate rooms they were in an enclosure. they were not running through the woods unsupervised. these animals were not coming into contact with animals that were actually wild. an outside farm cat would encounter more wild animals than these two would have.

no one, animal or human, were showing symptoms of any illness.

neither fred nor p'nut were showing symptoms of rabies.

they could have been quarantined and observed for a set amount of time to determine if they had rabies. the person who was supposedly bitten would have been vaccinated after a "wild animal" bite immediately anyway. if they had rabies the treatment would have already started, if they didn't then they would have just been vaccinated against rabies. it would not have killed anyone to wait till quarantine was over before making the decision to end their lives. killing p'nut and fred was not necessary.

fred was a high risk animal, but he wasn't the one that supposedly bit. p'nut wasn't even high risk.

(https://sciencing.com/signs-symptoms-rabies-squirrels-5578992.html)

and it was bullshit anyway because the agents raiding the house were in thick protective gloves and the longos never witnessed a bite happen.

some jackasses had reported mr. longo to the dec before about p'nut before fred came to live with them and then reported them about fred. some piece of shit targeted p'nut deliberately, and the authorities used it to raid and ransack the longos' house while:

not wearing their body cameras. (wonder why that is)

asking the longo's if they had security cameras and where they were. (why?)

interrogating mrs. longo over her immigration status. (also, WHY?)

below are links to news articles and a gofundme. the longos are pursuing legal action.

[nuvolisa]

Land where I land

It’s unusual for Jim to call him at the Police Station for anything. Even during the worst of cases, the officer has always tried to not get him involved or to come to him once everything was settled.

So, when he calls late at night, Bruce knows that something isn’t right. No villain attacks, no escapee from Arkham, no robberies, and no bomb threats: does Jason need to get bailed out of jail again?

Jim Gordon’s voice is somewhat sarcastic as he speaks over his desk’s phone. “You’ll find out when you see it.”

Bruce is not looking forward to it.

It’s late, too late for any sane and law-abiding citizen to be out at such an hour. What could’ve possibly happened to cause such a mess that he needed to get involved? Couldn’t Jim just have used the Batsignal if things were that bad?

Instead, when he enters the building, the old commissioner is snickering. Bruce is definitely not good with emotions, but he thinks he’s making fun of him. He doesn’t find it funny.

“What's going on?”

Bruce Wayne is confused, confused as to why the officer is so cheerful, confused about why he would call him here in the first place. Did he find his job that amusing?

“We’ve found this girl… well, let’s just say that she basically landed right on the back of an officer, and seemed to be confused, likely she’s an immigrant.”

Bruce was stunned.

“You called me here… for a kid who’s lost?”

James Gordon places a hand on top of his shoulder. “Do you know any French?”

This was going to be a long night.

There is a woman in the interrogation room, talking to what looks like a girl not older than fifteen, at least from her height. From behind the glass, he can’t see very well.

“Sophie, come out for now,” says Jim on the interphone, and the CPS worker obliges, waving tenderly at the girl she’s been interrogating.

Sophie Dallway comes to the other side of the interrogation room and fixes her skirt. Bruce notices that she must’ve dressed up in a hurry, but he understands: it’s quite late in the night.

“Did she tell us something?” asks Jim with a small amused smile under his mustache. Bruce’s on the verge of exploding.

“Not much, to be honest. She keeps telling the same story, she has no idea how she got here and what happened. She insists on letting her go, that she’ll find a way.”

“We can’t do that,”

“I told her that, she just started shaking.”

Jim looks down. “Good,” he says, sarcastically. Then he turns around to face Bruce, “Your turn now.”

“What?”

“Go in there and talk to her, Wayne.”

“But why?”

Jim shoves him out of the room with a half-hearted pat on the back. “You’ll guess soon enough.”

The interrogation room is surprisingly dark. The small yellow lamp hasn’t been changed since probably the 1960s and the empty metal chair doesn’t help to give a welcoming environment to a child. He can barely make out her silhouette, but he trusts Jim, he has to.

He opens up the folder on the metal, icy-cold table, and starts reading. “So, your name is…”

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” she completes the sentence for him, hesitantly.

Bruce is already lost, he doesn’t know what to say anymore. “You’re from Paris, is that correct?”

"Yes," she replies softly, "but I don't know how I ended up here in... Gotham, is it?" Her voice is tinged with confusion and a hint of fear, well hidden behind her thick, native French accent. He doesn’t fail to notice the urgency in her hand movements.

He scans the document one more time. Everything she has said to the CPS worker seems rather unfamiliar, he can’t for the life of him understand why he’s been involved in this case. He closes the folder and looks up sternly.

At that moment, it finally clicks. The teen is here, sitting in front of him, and she has two dark black pigtails that look almost blue under the light. Her eyes are two perfect sapphires with the tint of a calm sea. Her lips are in the shape of his mother’s, small and heart-shaped, and don’t hide the small pointy canines that Damian has. Despite the dark and gloomy atmosphere, the girl brightens the room, even with the terror easily readable in her pupils.

Bruce feels like fainting.

Marinette is rambling about needing to go back to Paris, but her words don’t fully reach his ears, it’s all rumbling background noise. The only thing he can hear is his racing heart, threatening to dig a hole and come out of his chest.

“Who are your parents?” he asks, with a stoic face, interrupting her quite abruptly. Bruce immediately notices his faux pas: he can’t let this overwhelm him, he can’t afford to be emotional anymore.

“Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng,” she answers, her eyes low on the ground. “They’re bakers…” she whispers. Bruce manages to catch it. The names are unknown to him.

“Do you have a number we can call?” he asks, but she shakes her head.

“No, I have their numbers saved on my phone, which is… back in Paris.”

This feels like a joke. He wants to turn around and ask Jim if it was Clark’s idea, but he realizes that whatever this ordeal is about, this poor girl, who looks so much like a carbon copy of himself, is disoriented and scared.

Bruce has a sympathetic look in his eyes. “Do you remember what happened right before you got here?”

Her voice is soft, it reminds him of someone.“I was in my room, getting up for school when I just… there was a blue light and I was here.”

He notices immediately that she is lying: her eyes look at her right, and she instinctively starts touching her face, her earrings, her neck. But why would she? Wouldn’t it be better for her to give the entire truth so that they can just send her home?

“That’s… peculiar,” he comments, trying to indicate that he doesn’t believe her. Not that he doesn’t believe she has just popped out of nowhere, which would be nothing compared to the sheer amount of strange things that happen in Gotham, but that she’s not telling the whole truth.

Her smile contorts into an embarrassed expression. “I know but… I can’t tell you much more.”

“Why?”

Marinette awkwardly fixes her posture. He can’t believe that such a petite girl, who wears pink ribbons and a pastel t-shirt for school, looks actually so much like him. “We… can’t really talk about what’s happening in Paris. Mayor’s decree. Technically, it’s the former mayor’s decree, but it’s still valid.”

That’s concerning, to say the least. He turns around to gesture to Jim that this is something they have to discuss. But what could possibly be happening in Paris that needs to be hidden from the rest of the world?

“I understand your fear, Marinette. But why is there an information block in there in the first place?”

The girl freezes. “I can… I can’t tell you,” she murmurs. His heart contorts at seeing the expression on her face, the same of a small puppy who has been abandoned. The irony of it doesn’t go unnoticed.

“You can. You’re not in Paris right now, so any decree doesn’t affect you. I’ll make sure to protect you, don’t worry,” he says, trying his best to reassure her. Bruce is very good at faking confidence and charisma; but at real compassion and genuine affection? He’s hopeless.

Marinette still looks like she is being tortured, like she has seen a ghost. Yet, she starts explaining what exactly happened in the last two years. He understands her hesitance: magical jewelry, possessed people, domestic terrorism. This city is in dire need of help, and he knows what he will be talking about at the next Justice League meeting.

As he hears the girl explain and analyze the villain in detail, every doubt clears from his mind. That is certainly his daughter. If her overall look wasn’t enough, the way she describes accurately every move and every action taken by the villains to terrorize her city would convince anyone that this is his long-lost kid. From the way Hawkmoth lured in citizens using complex schemes, to the way Mariposa’s attacks are far more well-organized and diligently planned.

His mind starts wandering as the girl keeps on telling Paris’s story. Her skin is pale and reveals on her arms burn marks, old cuts, and bruises. She’s incredibly small and thin despite being the daughter of a baker, and it makes a lot of questions pop up in his head. She doesn’t have the body of a hero, but she sure has the mind of one.

The papers that the CPS worker gave him tell him that she’s fifteen. He tries to think who the mother of this girl could be. It was too early for both Talia and Selina, and the timeline doesn’t match with Vicky Vale either. He looks at her once more, and it hits him like a brick.

It couldn’t be. But also, it is the only possibility. He doesn’t want to believe his own mind, but logically he already knows who it is. Zatanna Zatara. It is impossible to ignore now: she looks exactly like her. A drop of sweat runs down his spine. Why didn’t she ever tell him?

Come to think of it, he hasn’t heard from the woman for fifteen years. His head hurt. Does that mean that Marinette has… No, it’s best to think about this later.

“Sir, are you okay?” she asks, seeing that he doesn’t seem responsive to her story. The sweet tone of her voice makes him feel another gut of pain in his chest.

He shakes his head. At that moment he realizes he hasn’t even told her his name. He wants nothing more than to dig a hole, crawl in it and die. He thankfully can’t hear Jim Gordon laughing his ass off in the other room, or else he would try to jump out of a window, no gear on.

“Yes, sorry. Call me Bruce, by the way. There’s no need for such formalities, I’m here to help.” He offers her a smile that looks so forced it could make her vomit.

She doesn’t look any better. “Can you help me go home, Bruce?” she pleads, eyes filled with tears and determination. Her voice, however, betrays her.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he replies. He needs to get out of here and fast. Bruce doesn’t know whether to strangle Jim Gordon or kiss him.

The contents of his stomach threaten to come out, and he quickly comes out of the room, trying to keep up his usual stoic demeanor. As he reaches Jim’s office, his eyes look bloodshot, and he has to consciously stop himself from trembling.

The old man is smiling smugly from his desk, and as he looks up from the paperwork he’s throwing around, he says: “So?”

Bruce tries his best to not scream, not yell at him ‘What the actual fuck, Jim?’, not throw the entire paper bin on the ground. His voice isn’t as cold as usual.

“Can we get a DNA test done?”

Jim’s laugh echoes in his ears, and it feels like mockery. Bruce desperately wishes he slept that night.

Sophie Dallway downs her coffee and makes her way to the room, a tad bit more awake than she was before. She looks at the necessary paperwork, and this looks like a complicated case, judging by how much she has to sign.

But as she pushes open the door, she’s met with silence. No one is there, Marinette Dupain-Cheng is gone. Bruce has already lost any trace of his daughter, mere minutes after meeting her.

Whole series here!

[papaver-decervicatus]

Cat/Mouse/Den: Pt. 4, Mus Urbanus

Fatal attraction is one thing but stuck on a stakeout, a certain little mouse decides to push her luck with the cat who's been chasing her... just how far is too far, and how much more can they take?

CW: Obsession, stalking, canon typical violence, intrusive thoughts, unsanitary wound care

Authors Note: Hahaha, remember how I said I was going to do shorter updates? Yeah well, I felt really bad for missing the previous week but I did have a lot of terrible IRL shit happen, so working through that was a priority. That being said, going back through all the amazing comments and everything everyone has written has been absolutely keeping me afloat! Thank you all so so so so so much, you will never know how much it all means to me.

There are a couple of Hannibal references in this part that, hopefully, will start to make sense by the last part of the story (which was, coincidentally, the first part written!) Not going to lie, I am just glad to publish this so I never have to think about this damned part again as I have been stuck on in for literal months. Also sorry if Soap's accent sucks, the only experience I have with anything remotely Scottish in the way of language tendency is my grandmother whose father was a Scottish immigrant and that's it.

Anyways, I hope you like agnst and interrogation scenes, because next week, König loses his faith in god and in mouse while tied to a chair! See you there!

❣️Cura ut Veleas ~ Caedis 🥀

PREV | Pt. 4 Mus Urbanus | 4.2k words | Mouse POV | NEXT

“Mouse?” A voice from in front of her calls out, but only after she deliberately drags her feet into the threshold of the neutral ground, alerting him of her presence. 

“Quiet as a.” She utters her usual response, stepping into the little flat in Buenos Aries, Argentina. She hears the smile as Soap sucks in a breath at her little joke. Her callback should be old by now, shouldn’t make him smile anymore, but he does anyway. He’s easy to get along with, something hard to come by in war. She crosses the minimal space between the two and takes stock of his little setup. 

For a mission, it’s luxurious. He’s sitting, in a chair might she add, with a scope poking barely out of an antique window on the 7th floor of an apartment building, looking into a busy market square. His arms rest on a table littered with little signs of life, a map of the area adorned with notes and coordinates in inexpensive ink, no less than 7 pens whose caps are chewed through (everyone’s got bad habits but this little sin of his drives poor Price up and down the goddamn wall), two disposable cups with sediment rings denoting how much instant coffee was drunk from them at a time before they returned to their places besides their drinker. Most notably, however, are two radios in a strange moment of near fornication– backs ripped open and wires crossed in an almost pornographic display of field ingenuity. 

Damn demolition specialists, she hears the echo of Gaz say in her head and she absentmindedly rubs the scabbed over cut on her left hand where the shrapnel of a certain someone’s frag grenade got her two weeks ago. She wants to be mad but-

“Hear any good ones, lately?” Soap turns to her, he’s disengaging from his post, changing his guard for her to take his spot, just as command ordered. He’s been in this little nest for about 6 hours and she can feel his desire to scuttle and tinker about radiating off of him. As he takes apart his gun, already aware and familiar that she refuses to use anyone’s but her own, his eyes shine to life. The color of sky blue permafrost, yet they radiate a certain lived-in warmth impossible to distance yourself from. Eyes almost like-

She bites her tongue at the thought. Bad time to be thinking about König… she mourns. But, speaking of the man.

“Yes, but it’s bad,” she offers, in fake warning as she sheds her outer jacket before moving to unhook the case that stands between her and the assembly of her gun. She knows the warning will only intrigue the poor pyrotechnic more. 

His smile is nothing short of sadistic as he raises an eyebrow.

“No, like, really bad,” she emphasizes, throwing a pleading look his way. His grin gets even more shit-eating-er if that sort of thing were even possible. “I mean it, MacTavish. Pass it along to your long-suffering Lieutenant, and you will be picking teeth out of your shit.” “I’m sure I’ve done worse to Ghost,” he supplies, rolling his shoulders. Yeah, I’m sure you have, she thinks but is much too self-preserving to say, especially aware that the Frankenstien’s monster of a radio he’s resurrected from two dead circuit boards is likely not secure enough to promise any real privacy. She would rather not alert Simon Riley that she’s become a dealer in his and Soap’s arm’s race of terrible jokes. He does not take prisoners, after all… 

“Alright, alright, just don’t tell him it’s from me,” she smiles, putting her hands up defensively in a quick jest. “Okay, play along with me now,” he nods along as he steps away from the perch and lets her take his spot at the table. 

“So, what's the difference between a piano, a fish, and a gluestick?”

“I know about two-thirds o’ this one.” 

Mouse trap baited. She smiles.

“Give it a go, then.” She wiggles in the chair, pressing her cheek to the crux of the sight and its metal holder. She sighs into the familiar feeling of control that settles into her bones as she hunches over.

“Can tuna piano but’cha can’t tuna fish?” He supplies, half teasing her already.

“Yep, but you’re forgetting something.” She sighs and goes to fiddle with the red-light optics extension, Command is confident enough in her abilities that she was specifically told to take it off for this one. She hears Soap whisper a quiet ‘oh shite’ behind her when he realizes he probably forgot to himself and she laughs a little. 

“What about the glue?”

Mouse trap set. Poor Soap, always getting himself into ambushes…

She smiles wide and hums remembering how excited her kitty-cat was to tell her this part. 

“See, I knew you’d get stuck on that one.” 

Mouse trap sprung. A moment of silence.

“Oh fuck me, that one is bad.” Soap chokes out a hearty laugh as he collects his discarded coffee cups from her side.

“No thanks,” she purrs as she finally sets herself into position. “Use it at your discretion, soldier.”

“Aye, that I will.” 

Soap goes to rummage through the kitchenette to her right and she takes the moment she lacks supervision to indulge herself. She does not move her sights to alert the man with her of the wandering of her eyes, instead, she scans windows and alleys without visual aid. The stale air threatens to choke her as she rakes over the golden-hued morning scene with desperate efficiency. 

After what feels like an eternity of stolen glances switching between her targeted area and anywhere he may be, she sees him. 

Technically, she has no way to know for certain that it’s König, she doesn’t have his usual wave or cheeky grin (affectionately referred to as a Cheshire Cat Smile in her own belabored heart) to alert her to his presence. That being considered, there is a masculine figure barely peeking out of a window into an alleyway who is just shy of 7 feet tall and his face is covered. Yeah, probably König. She smiles despite herself and her company. She wonders if he has radio access to her little hideout. 

(She remembers the seemingly endless weeks of his arrival to her perch. The early morning light hits the streets the same way it had hit the forest ground that day. Like a fairy tale prince, beseeching a princess on hand and knee, he would always somehow appear in her sights, nearly as though it was just meant to be! 

His form stands out tall and proud from its surroundings and she recounts every single reason he should not be here. By the third time their eyes caught she’d decided he was doing it on purpose, but she never let him get away with it without some acknowledgment on her side. She can only imagine that if she’s getting hunted for sport, her calling out his position will, at least temporarily, halt his advance. 

But by this rate, she’ll be in his mouth by the end of the year. 

His eyes are cold and bloodshot red. Painted tears lick their way down the hood she’s never seen him without, possibly a feeble attempt at impersonality? Maybe if he looks enough like a monster people will just trust their first assumption and leave him alone. But she’s never been one to judge a book by its cover…

“I see you, König.” She warns out to him. He stills among the foliage, bathed in sweet-honey-like warmth from the rising sun. He does not shy away from his imminent death on the business end of her rifle, of course not! Instead, he raises his chest proudly, seemingly aware that the loneliness in her yields to whatever greater magnetism the loneliness in him commands. He’s an enigma, it bothers her that of all the people to put the effort into finding her, it has to be him. Mostly she curses herself for promising him a next time all those encounters ago, if she’d known what sort of a game it would inspire in the predator stalking her like prey despite her flipping sniper rifle, she never would have said a thing. 

He may be in her scope, but he’s got her under a finer microscope to seek her out so faithfully. She wishes she got this sort of dizzying devotion from someone, anyone else. It is the third day this week he has found her.

What she expects to happen is what has happened for weeks now, 1) he hears her transmission, 2) he smiles at her as a predator smiles at pray, his eyes find hers and her hackles rise in utter terror, and 3) he hums to himself and turns away, self-satisfied enough to have won hide-and-seek for the time being.

That does not happen. 

Instead, König sits down, right where he is, and pulls out that monster of a knife he keeps strapped to himself. He throws it up and catches it without looking at it, instead his eyes are laser-focused on Mouse. This is, of course, despite the fact he should have no earthly idea where she is. He plays with his knife idly for what must be an hour, but she does not- no, can not- look away from him.

She remembers her trigger finger twitching with sinful power, she remembers choking back the insistence at killing another lonely person, devoid of their autonomy on a basic level when they signed up for a mercenary-issued ticket to hell.

She remembers hopelessness. She remembers refusal. She remembers the smile reaching his eyes when she played along with his joke. 

“Why don’t rats like cats?” Her radio labors out. 

She half forgot what his voice sounded like, surprisingly excitable and shrill for a man of his stature. Her brain stutters around the implication of the only words she’s heard him say to her since the fateful ravine that gained Mouse her own personal 6’10” shadow. 

She blinks a few times in surprise, genuinely pondering if her long hours hiking through the woods have made her susceptible to hallucination and general hysteria. She is not thinking when she timidly responds-

“Why?” 

“Because they are weapons of maus-destruction.” Konig replies like it’s not the stupidest thing she’s ever heard in her goddamn life. Perhaps it's pity at the memory of his discomfort around his comrades. Of the thought of the way he tries to make his body so small when around others (truly an impossible task he routinely fails.) Maybe it’s irrational fear, twofold and buried in her instinct to shoot despite the clear disadvantage on his behalf and her insistence that she does not do her damn job, or fear of the inhuman man in front of her stalking her through the woods. Or it could be discomfort, no one ever prepared her for dealing with whatever the fuck this is in basic training or field school. In the end, it doesn’t really matter what it is.

In the sparkling, decadent light of a sunrise, her heart hammers in her throat at the first joke he’d told her, in some strange and desperate attempt to fill the meters of silence between them.

She laughs. 

And he hears it.

And with his wide stance, his ghastly executioner’s hood in the place of a crown, and his knife back in its holster- his beautiful eyes seem to smile. Suddenly, his eyes look lived in, like someone has just put up new curtains in an abandoned house. His whole affect changes hinging on what was an irresponsible outburst on her behalf at best.

And for the first time, she does not fear a monster hunting her through the woods, silent and purposeful in his pursuit of prey. Instead, she wants to understand a man, whose eyes have lit up like a princess has just laughed when he kissed her hand.) 

Soap wanders back into her small perch with two cups of coffee and sets one down next to her. She takes a quick glance and hums with appreciation. He takes another sip out of his and she remembers that they’re supposed to share shift for about an hour before his rotation ends.

“You treat all your girls to coffee in the morning?” She quips.

“Only the pretty ones,” he returns with an effortless charisma and her breath catches.

Not because of Soap, but because in that alleyway, where she really shouldn’t be looking, she sees the uneasy rise of two massive shoulders and-

Oh my god, did König just… get jealous? 

The next idea she has is downright evil, really this is not the place or the time or any of that but-

Fuck it. She’s already flirting with the enemy, what more could this do? She’s already told the poor mountain of a man something dangerously adjacent to “God I really missed you when we didn’t talk to each other for three weeks like a horny teenager and by the way I love you desperately and think about you when I’ve got my hands down my pants,” and she probably imagined him tensing up, anyways. No harm, no foul. 

Maybe, it's dangerous, to wave a steak in front of a mountain lion, but what if she wants to get mauled?

“Hey Soap, what page are you on?” She says, putting her terrible plan into action. She sees him look up from his report, or more likely an idle sketch, on her periphery. 

“Ah, only the second chapter, did'ya move my bookmark?”

“Nope, the book’s in the leftmost pocket in my duffle.”

“Thank ya,” He says and moves from his spot to go fetch the book from it. She takes a quick sip of her coffee, delighted to realize he’s made it to her specifications as far as milk and sugar go, as he rummages around in her bag.

The impromptu book club started nearly eight months ago when Nova passed her copy of Emma by Jane Austen off to Gromsko to help him with his English. That turned into Mouse recommending the book Jane Eyre to Nova on the pure suspicion that she would hate it, which she did. Gromsko still needed to practice and enjoyed the spirited discussions so he joined the blossoming group with an English copy of The Doll by Aleksander Głowacki after he finished Jane Eyre. Never one to be left out, and surprisingly well-read when he wanted to be, Soap had pitched the idea of The Lord of the Flies (because to quote “Fucking Brits,” and he wanted to subject others to his high-school reading list.) If she remembered correctly, Farah and Reyes had also started sharing copies of books they enjoyed occasionally.

“Can’t believe it was Gromsko that put it in rotation.” Soap says, pulling out a well-worn copy of The Silence of the Lambs from the bag.

“He said he picked it up years ago in Polish thinking it was a cooking field guide.” She offers, as the man next to her idly thumbs through pages.

“Yer shitting me, yeah?”

She just shakes her head and smiles into her scope. Soap laughs and removes his homemade bookmark, a pencil sketch of a stake-out view somewhere in Mexico scribbled onto scrap paper. He keeps his thumb on the page and flips through to where hers is, much further along.

“Yer a right romantic, ain’cha Bonnie?” Soap laughs somewhere between the pages and somewhere behind her. “Hmm?” 

“This part, that’ya highlighted,” she hears a well-meaning sneer in his words. “The one you put the hearts by and everything…”

Mouse’s mouth tethers itself into a terse line and she attempts her best noncommittal shrug. 

Somewhere in her line of sight, a mountain shrugs himself chuckling lightly. She wonders what it would feel like, to lay on his broad, muscled chest as he laughs, how closely he would hold her, how she could rest entirely on top of his chest and not touch the ground beneath them and-

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” She lies through her teeth. Soap’s laugh behind her is loud and proud. Suddenly, his casual sadism isn’t so amusing when turned around on her. 

“Do you think it's because I like to look at you and think about eating you up—“ he reads from the book, voice dripping in mock chivalry and breathless romanticism. “About how you would taste?"

She feels her cheeks and ears heat up as Soap loudly proclaims her funeral to all those who may care, and she doesn’t miss the way König leans a little too close to his radio as he goes about mocking her. His stance shifts as if he hangs on the very words like he’s found a secret buried deep in her subconscious. Technically, she has no way of knowing, but Mouse knows in her heart that König is smiling. At least someone is having fun. 

Once Soap comes down from his laughing fit he puts her bookmark back to its spot and talks at the back of her head. 

“With your pressed flower bookmark and everything. Oh, it would be sweet if he wasn’t Hannibal the Cannibal.” Soap hisses out. “I always figured you were…” he pauses searching for the right word, “adventurous from how Gromsko talks bout ya, but seriously cannibalism?”

If she’s not mistaken, König’s hand grips ever so slightly tighter on the radio attached to the best. Maybe the battle plan has to change, but she’s still got some ideas. 

Soap is completely oblivious to the electricity licking up the air between her perch and one man on the ground. He looks around frantically, seemingly desperate to find her, and look in her eyes. Mouse is a sniper, she really should hate the attention, but something fatalistic descends into her smile as she lets Soap continue his little outburst. 

“I swear. You and him, yer sure there’s nothing there? He’s even given you special field medicine lessons, no one gets treatment like that from Gromsko.”

“His name is Sobieslaw.” Notably, it is not a denial. Technically, everything that’s just been said is the truth. 

König’s shoulders rise. 

He looks right down her site. 

She smiles. 

Come and get me, kitty-cat. 

“See! That’s what I’m talking about. You’re the only person who calls him by his first name.”

“Because you never put in the effort to learn it.”

“That don’t mean a thing since I don’t have tits.” 

“You do, just not as good as mine.”

“Aye, off it. Gromsko is into you.” She can hear from the way Soap’s voice carries haphazardly around the room that he is pacing and talking with his hands. She doesn’t turn her back, gaze still fixated on the looming shadow in her sights. Soap continues, entirely unaware of the exact type of beast he is tempting. “He swaggers around you, never even bothers to fucking ask to pick up your boxes, he just does it. His voice gets all soft around ya, too, like he’s cooing at a goddamn pet animal or something. He nearly got into an actual pissing contest with Ghost the other day when he bitched about you beating him in poker. Face the facts, Bonnie, he wants you.” 

König’s eyes have focused with the ferocity of an apex predator and his chest labors out concentrated and sharp inhales and exhales. He resembles a recently sharpened knife, desperate for some carnage after a particular kind of attention. His body is crumpled in on itself not unlike a cat getting ready to pounce. His heels dig desperately into the cobblestones beneath his feet. His hand flicks out his beloved Glock field knife with all the reverence of a praying man.

In short, he looks every part like he does in immediate battle. He looks like he did the split second before he started sprinting for her in the snowy woods, the scene that occupies her lonely nights when she tries in complete vanity to recreate the feel of his hands cradling her sides.

Mouse should be scared of König.

Instead, she sees before her a scene of complete and hopeless adoration focused so intently on her alone that she should be afraid of. Realistically, she recognizes the clear and present danger of the moment. Is König upset at her? At Soap? At a potential adversarial suitor by way of Gromsko? She doesn’t quite know, but after a career of intentionally hiding like a coward, she basks infatuated by the calamitous captivation he exhibits.

He looks like he wants to maul something to death.

As keen as she is on getting him close enough to try to get over to her (and ideally, throw her under him,) in her infinite mercy, Mouse decides the teasing has gone on long enough.

“I like Gromsko just fine, but not like that.” Soap audibly scoffs and König’s entire form relaxes. Both men mutter something to themselves before an encore of gunfire breaks out. Mouse’s heart stutters to a stop when her radio comes in.

“Visual on Gaz, he’s hit!” Nova calls out, clearly alarmed. Soap grabs for the radio right next to Mouse and brings it to his face, holding onto a few loose wires as he does to ensure the amalgamation does not fall apart in his fingers.

“Where is he?”

“Two blocks from south from you, Gromsko is a click out.”

Soap looks at Mouse with his heart bobbing in his throat. The pain and worry on his face is palpable.

“Go.” She says. Soap looks around frantically at their supplies, seemingly taking a split second worth of inventory, making as many life-or-death decisions as he can in such little time.

“Soap, listen to me,” Mouse soothes. “I keep overwatch, you take my TAC vest and stabilize him until he can get a medic.”

“Mouse, I can’t just leave you-” “You can, and you will. Go.” She says with all the finality of a door slamming shut. Soap doesn’t look at her again as he gathers her supplies and nearly sprints downstairs. 

Soap leaves. Quickly. Quietly. He never looks back.

Her stomach settles into discomfort and she looks through the door he closed with the same sad nostalgia she looked through falling snow and monumentous trees. She can’t help but think she would not get the same priority in Gaz’s situation. Like some terrible premonition, she imagines bleeding out on the ground as Soap turns away, never once looking back.

Would König come for me? She ponders, before she smothers the paranoia-induced delusion with the memory of his large hands on her sides. She looks down at her shoelace, where she carved a cylindrical hole through his effigy to attach it. The birchwood mouse carving that sleeps at her right toe gives a silent reassurance: he never really left you, did he?

By the time she looks back into her scope, in between the all-too-familiar white noise of war that’s broken out around her, she sees a shadow dart out from the alleyway one down from where König is. The figure is cloaked in the specific type of military fatigue denoting his affiliation, one that is unluckily for him, kill on sight. It ducks behind the building to the right, where König is. It stalks out, lining itself up behind the hooded man, brandishing a drawn pistol.

König doesn’t have the time to react to the blood spray that litters across his back from the other man’s head once Mouse pulls the trigger on her gun, silently thankful (as awful as it is,) that Gaz getting hurt allowed her to take the shot without Soap inquiring into her actions. (But maybe it’s her fault in the first place that König was distracted enough to allow someone to get the drop on him…)

König looks back towards her and his head lulls to the side like a heavy flower bloom weighed down by morning dew. His eyes, somehow the softest she’s ever seen, are also carving a large chunk of her soul like a knife cuts through soft wood. When he lifts his hood to blow a kiss to her, she knows she will never get her traitorous heart back.

“Danke, mein Engel,” the radio on her table whispers in his voice.

“It’s only fair. I did owe you, after all.” She responds, all together unconcerned with whether or not he can hear her. She smiles, thankful she can see those bright eyes another day. 

When he turns away, she feels her entire heart walk away with him. With every step of his fleeting form, she feels less and less herself, as though someone had separated her shadow from where it meets her feet. Something has changed in the air between them, a sad resignation settles into her trigger finger when she releases it.

For the first time, she does not feel as though she wouldn’t run if he took her, but rather that some integral part of her is with him as he leaves. 

All is fair in love and war, but she’s not sure just how much longer she can stand to play cat and mouse.

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And special thanks to @bucca2 and @ivymarquis for finally kicking my ass into gear to write this. Can't wait to read yall's WIPs!