#it like. curses you with madness if you go a turn in combat without landing a hit on someone

[ghost-proofbaby]

astarion and eddie kneel before you. unfortunately, it's not for sexy reasons, it's because you have to kill one of them.

so who's getting the dagger to the heart?

(I'm not sorry 😌)

BLUEY. THE BETRAYAL I FEEL SEEING THIS AFTER GETTING OFF FROM WORK.

this is absolutely devastating. but also.... okay, just, just hear me out? okay? i love them both. i adore them both. i would happily lay my life down on the line for both astarion and eddie. i would sooner flip that dagger towards myself than ever consider sending it through one of their hearts. they are my beloveds. each one brings something so beautiful to the table, have taught me to love in such unique and charming ways-

im stabbing astarion because he stabbed me once when i gave him the one fucking flail and he lost his saving throw against it and decided to try and merk me with that extra fancy dagger i gave him in his second hand.

[robininthelabyrinth]

A-Yuan wasn’t the only child among the Wen Remnants, just the youngest.

Children's Day - ao3

Lan Wangji carefully scooped up the boy out of his hiding place, tucked beneath a pile of stones, sick with fever and fast asleep.

It was a good hiding place. If Lan Wangji hadn’t played Inquiry and demanded to know if there were any living beings around in this cursed place of death, he would never have found the small child.

He remembered him – this was little A-Yuan, who Wei Wuxian had taken down into town to play, the one Lan Wangji had bought all those toys for in his confusion, the one who called him rich-gege. Barely more than two years old, having never known anything but war.

He was all that was left, now. There was nothing else left in the battlefield.

No one else left.

Lan Wangji closed his eyes in pain.

I’ll care for him for you, he promised Wei Wuxian’s ghost, wherever it might be now. Now that you cannot.

I’ll take him back to Gusu to raise as my own – wishing you were by my side.

-

-Earlier-

“Sect Leader!” one of his aides cried out when he staggered back into camp. “What – who’s that?”

Jiang Cheng looked down at the girl in his arms. She was – four, maybe? Five? He had no idea.

She looked a bit like Wen Qing.

“I found her hiding in the corner of the battlefield when she made a noise,” he said hoarsely. “The Wen sect remnants…by the time I got there, they were almost all dead already, all her family. She’s – she’s young. It didn’t seem right.”

Wei Wuxian always liked children, he thought vaguely to himself as he looked down at her. It wasn’t so much of a surprise that he would keep one there…in fact, if he thought back to that horrible meeting they’d had that one time he’d come to the Burial Mounds to try to talk to Wei Wuxian, he thought he remembered there being a small child there. This must be her.

She was bigger than he remembered, but that was what happened with small children, wasn’t it?

“Her surname is Wen?”

“No,” Jiang Cheng snapped automatically, and his aide took a step back from his vehemence. “The Wen sect is dead, you understand? All of them. The cultivation world refused to allow them to live, that much is obvious enough. Her surname…”

He looked down at her.

I failed Wei Wuxian, he thought grimly. I won’t fail his legacy.

“Her surname will be Jiang.”

-

-Earlier-

“We found this child hiding in the Demon Subduing Cave,” one of the guards reported, looking nervous. “Lianfeng-zun – what do we do with them?”

Jin Guangyao frowned down at the child, judging the child’s age to be about five or six – maybe seven, considering the likelihood of malnutrition at the Burial Mounds. If they were any younger, he would’ve said that the child ought to just execute them as useless; any older, and he would’ve had no choice but to declare them an enemy combatant, and thereby order them executed.

At this age, though…they were still young enough to be taught to forget their current surname, and to learn new loyalties, and yet old enough to perhaps remember a little of what they had learned, living as they had for a few years with the inventor of demonic cultivation.

Jin Guangyao glanced at the papers in his hands, full of barely legible scribbles, laying out powerful new spells and interesting ideas. They would help Xue Yang with his work – but not as much as a helper would, and naturally they’d just brutally executed all the other ‘helpers’ that might have been available.

Not exactly Jin Guangyao’s personal preference, but he wasn’t the one leading the Jin sect army.

Still, his father, who had been the one leading, had retired to his tent, and now Jin Guangyao was the one with the power, left to be in charge of mopping up. That, in turn, gave him a little more leeway, which meant he could implement his own thoughts, rather than badly thought out instructions.

“Put the child in my tent,” he said, and smiled. “The poor thing must have gotten lost and entered the battlefield – after we arrived. You understand?”

The guard saluted deeply. “Lianfeng-zun is kind and beneficent,” he said, and his expression was worshipful. “I will tell the others that the child is from some distant Jin branch.”

Jin Guangyao hadn’t intended for him to do that, but – well, he couldn’t exactly refute it now, could he, and anyway there were worse things to happen. Everyone would know that he had kindly taken in some orphaned child of war, which would be good for his reputation.

He smiled and nodded, and thought of the future.

-

-Earlier-

“Well, shit,” Nie Mingjue said, staring at the trio of children: nine or ten years old, he thought, maybe a little older, two girls and a boy. They stared back at him, wide-eyed and terrified – they were very clearly trying to sneak off the Burial Mounds down the back way.

Nie Mingjue rubbed his face, glad that he’d insisted on doing the forward scout work before the attack tomorrow morning himself rather than let it go to someone else. He hadn’t wanted to come to this blasted place in the first place, being that he still wasn’t sure exactly what had gone down with Wei Wuxian, who’d been a good man once. But good Nie cultivators had died at Lanling City at Wen Ning’s hands, the Jin sect claiming that that brutal attack was at Wei Wuxian’s instigation, and at the Nightless City at Wei Wuxian’s hands directly, and he didn’t have any evidence to exculpate the man, either; he had no grounds to look the families of those Nie cultivators in the eye and tell them not to pursue vengeance against the man who had slaughtered their brothers and fathers and sons, sisters and mothers and daughters, like they meant nothing.

They deserved vengeance.

Just as he had, for his father.

But at the same time…

“You’re all surnamed Wen, I take it?” he asked, and they slowly nodded. “Dafan Wen?”

Another nod.

“Wrong answer,” he said, making a snap decision. This wasn’t like his father at all, not really; he had wanted to kill Wen Ruohan, who had done the deed himself, while these children clearly hadn’t done anything. “Swear to me here and now that you won’t seek revenge for your sect or family, and you can be surnamed Nie instead.”

They looked at each other.

“Your family didn’t send you to run away because they wanted you to take revenge,” he said. It was a guess, but he could tell from the way their shoulders sagged that he was right. “They wanted you to live. Well?”

They swore.

He took them home.

-

-Earlier-

She tripped and fell flat on her face.

“Hey, girl!”

She looked up, eyes wide with terror – she hadn’t expected to be caught so soon – but the cultivator in front of her didn’t strike her down. He was a young man, just a few years older than her, and he looked nice, kneeling to help her up.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Did you get lost?”

Lost? From where would she get lost, exactly?

Despite that, she nodded.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Here isn’t a good place, though – we’re going to have a battle tomorrow…can you tell me where you’re from?” He frowned. “Or – can’t you speak?”

An idea suddenly came to mind, and she shook her head, lifting up her hands to mime signs like the ones she’d seen Lady Wen and her brother use sometimes when they needed to talk without disturbing others.

“Doesn’t talk,” he murmured to himself. “Clothing of white, ripped all to ribbons –”

She’d torn out any trace of the red sun. White was a common color, but she was old enough to know that she couldn’t let anyone know she was surnamed Wen.

“Oh, I’ve read about this before! Are you a bird yao that’s cultivated to humanity?”

What?

She’d been thinking of trying to pass as a traumatized war veteran, but she was only fourteen, after all; it wasn’t very believable. Of course, it was a lot more believable that bird yao – who would leap to that conclusion?

“My surname is Ouyang,” the man said, smiling brightly at her. “You should come back with me – I can teach you to speak, and we can give you a name…how about ‘Luo’ as a surname? That has to do with birds. Or we could surname you Bai, instead, since your clothing is white! Or maybe -”

She smiled helplessly at his nonsense. What a silly, cheerful man! Maybe she’d overestimated his age, he couldn’t be more than two or three years older, at most, and his brain was clearly not in the right place, filled up to the brim with romantic stories and adventure tales instead of facts.

It was a nice change, actually.

She accepted his hand as she stood.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

-

-Earlier-

Lan Wangji had returned home and submitted to a dreadful punishment. The elders he had injured on Wei Wuxian’s behalf were either in treatment or recovering.

As for the rest that had been at the Nightless City…

Many were dead.

Lan Qiren landed in the Burial Mounds, lips pressed tightly together.

He knew he was taking a risk in coming here to Wei Wuxian’s lair – no matter what Lan Wangji thought, whatever good points he’d had in the past, the man was now little better than a mad dog. He’d caused the death of three thousand people just the day before, three thousand innocents that hadn’t had anything to do with anything; why would he hesitate to attack his old teacher?

There was already talk of a siege – Jiang Cheng himself had promised to lead it, to wipe off the stain on the Jiang sect’s record, and the Jin sect had been right behind him. Even Nie Mingjue had been dragged in against his will, suborned by his sect members’ need for vengeance. As for the Lan Sect…Lan Xichen had looked so stricken by the thought that Lan Qiren had volunteered for the grim duty, despite Lan Qiren having never been much of a fighter and even less of a general. He intended to take only the smallest possible contingent, and to limit their work as much as possible to cleansing the dead rather than killing those who remained there – that much, at least, he could do for his nephew.

Either way, though, no matter his powers, Wei Wuxian would not live out the week.

If Lan Qiren desired vengeance, he need only wait.

And yet, here he was.

Alone, practically unarmed – and here nonetheless.

An old woman came out from the cave and squinted at him.

“It’s over,” she said sadly. “Isn’t it?”

Lan Qiren looked at her. One of the Wen remnants that Wei Wuxian had surrounded himself with, he assumed; the ones he’d given up his comfortable life for, claiming he was only acting as a righteous man ought. Perhaps he even had thought he was, back then.

Perhaps he really had been, back then.

“Yes,” Lan Qiren said, and cleared his throat. “After what he did at the Nightless City – the verdict is unquestionably death. But the rest of you…there are armies coming, and armies are not known for their leniency, especially not on passerby with the wrong surname. But they’re not here yet. There’s still time to flee – if you go now, you could take on a new surname and find some quiet place to live on.”

Lan Wangji had said they were civilians. Civilian life was to be prioritized above all else.

Lan Qiren was only doing what he must.

Despite his well-meant warnings, however, the old lady shook her head.

“There’s nowhere to go, and we won’t give up our surname,” she said, polite but stubborn to the last. “But thank you for taking the time to come here to tell us.”

“Wangji said that there were children here,” Lan Qiren insisted, ignoring her refusal. “If you won’t flee with them, at least send those that are old enough out on their own, and hide the younger ones. Tell them to forget their surnames – most people won’t rampantly murder children, so there’s a chance they’ll make it through, and live. Can you deny them that, just for pride?”

That gave the old woman pause.

“We’ll do what we can,” she said, and then eyed him. “How good are you at medicine?”

Lan Qiren frowned. “I can’t provide care –”

“She’s already dead. Come help anyway.”

The woman in question was not already dead, but dying – she was in her late teens, seventeen or eighteen at most, and she was in labor. From the glassiness of her eyes, the redness of her cheeks, and the threadiness of her pulse, it was clear that infection had long ago set in. It was not an exaggeration to say she was dead, little better than a corpse.

She was little more than a child.

“I don’t want her to die alone,” the old woman said. “But if you stay with her, I can use the time to try to take care of the rest. You’re not wrong, I suppose – the children, at least, deserve a chance to live on, even if it means leaving our surname behind.”

Lan Qiren looked down at the woman, unconscious already and unlikely to ever wake, and yet still whimpering. “And her child?”

The old woman looked surprised. “Can a child born like this still live?”

Lan Qiren had almost no medical training beyond the most superficial basics that were the necessity for any battlefield or night-hunt, with one sole exception: he had supervised the births of both his nephews by himself with little aid – his brother’s wife hadn’t wanted anyone else to be present, possibly in an attempt to prematurely enter her grave, possibly just out of spite. He had studied very hard in the days leading up to those births, and knew far more on the subject than most men did.

“It’s possible,” he said. “Unlikely, but – possible.”

He hesitated for a long moment.

“I can take the baby,” he finally said. “Pass him off as some war-orphan child of distant Lan cousins, sent to me on account of their deaths. I could raise him, or else give him to my cousin to raise; he’s got a large enough family that no one would question it.”

“Why would you do that?”

Lan Qiren looked at the woman who was dying, little more than a child herself. “Because of the children I can’t help.”

The old woman was quiet for a little while.

“Very well,” she said, and leaned forward to whisper the name the young woman had thought about for her child into his ear. “That works with Lan as a surname, wouldn’t it? That’s not bad.”

“Not bad at all,” Lan Qiren agreed, and rolled up his sleeves, settling down beside the girl. “Not bad at all.”

[yesokaythatsfine69]

In Need of A Stable Relationship (Jean Kirstein x reader)

Description: y/n's having a shitty week- mainly because she's tired of loving Jean because he doesn't feel the same way.

Character(s): y/n, Jean, Connie, Sasha, Eren, Mikasa, Levi

POV: 3rd person

Warning(s): cursing, little bit of angst, fluff

A/n: JEAN IS SO HOT I LOVE HIM SO MUCH he's such an absolute cutie and probably the second most attractive character in the series. I'll let you guess who's number one.

Word Count:

Song: listen to Agni kai- epic version by Samuel Kim. It's just cool.

*none of the gifs used are mine, full credit goes to the maker.

Y/n bit into her bread harshly, swallowing the lump thickly. "y/n? Are you okay?" Taking another harsh bite, y/n nodded at Armin. "I don't think I've ever seen you eat like that." Eren laughed, but his eyes remained wearily trained on her. "I'm just hungry." She grumbled, taking a third bite.

"Hey, but not even Sasha eats like that." Connie pointed to the girl who sat next to him, who was stuffing bread into her mouth like it was candy. When she noticed everyone's eyes on her, she looked side to side. Quickly swallowing, she smiled sheepishly.

Y/n rolled her eyes, quickly losing interest in the conversation. "Didn't captain Levi say that if we didn't have this place spotless by the time he got back we'd be eating our own shit?" Y/n got up from the table, and her chair squeaked against the wood floor.

"You're already done, y/n?" Mikasa approached the table, a tray in her hands. Y/n only took the young woman in dejectedly, giving her a small shrug. "Yeah, you can have my seat." Y/n grabbed her empty tray and left the group, leaving them to watch her silhouette retreat out of the lunch room.

A few seconds later Jean arrived, coming in the same way Y/n had exited. He was sweating, obviously having just got done training. He grabbed a tray and made his way to the table, sitting down beside Connie.

"What's up with y/n? She barely spoke to me just now." The table was silent. "I think she ate too much." Sasha said, as she put a hand on her stomach, her own face scrunched up in pain. Jean raised an eyebrow at his friend, his gaze moving away from Sasha to Armin. "She's been off with all of us recently. Maybe the scouts are getting to her." Armin spoke, shaking his head slightly.

Eren folded his arms across his chest, a sign that something was obviously bothering him. Jean watched the action sharply, his eyes narrowing the slightest. "Yeah, maybe." The rest of the time it was mostly quiet, a few different topics arose. Noticibly, Jean remained silent, barely eating.

His mind focused on her, analyzing everything she said, did. He could barely eat he was so engrossed in worry for his friend.

He missed y/n.

--------------------------------------------------

Y/n sighed. The stables were always dirty, but when you're in a bad mood- they seem dirtier. She grabbed her broom, fixing to sweep when a door opened. She turned, surprised at first- but then her shoulders relaxed when she saw who entered.

"Did you need something, Jean?" Jean's eyes widened. He had such pretty eyes, a lovely warm brown. In the soft glow of the stable lights they were illuminated and they sparkled. He was beautiful, and even her misplaced anger couldn't diminish that. Y/n felt a sinking feeling as she realized just how captivated she was. This was going to be harder than she thought.

Jean, swallowed and shut the door behind him. "I came to check on you. You seem off." Y/n just shrugged and turned away from him, continuing to sweep. "It doesn't really matter."

In less than four steps, he caught up with her, grabbing onto her arm. "Hey, what's wrong with you? You're obviously mad- instead of just sulking maybe you should-" y/n spun around to face him.

"Shut up Jean! Just shut up!" She stabbed a finger at him. "Maybe I should just blow up like you do, without thinking or caring about the consequences of my actions. I'm sure that would just solve all my problems!" She huffed at him.

Jean straightened. "So this is about me?" Y/n's eyes widened. "No!" His eyes widened. "I never said I was perfect, y/n but..." He closed his eyes. "You...you're acting like a child!" She stared at him.

Before she could even acknowledge what she was doing her arm flew forward and she punched him square in the face. He grabbed his jaw, his doe eyes wide.

Y/n's own eyes widened and she clutched her hand. Pain erupted from her knuckles, but she ignored it, watching in fear as Jean clutched his face, staring at her in shock. "Oh God, Jean I'm so sorry...I- I..." He only winced, removing his hand. "Your right hook has gotten better."

Y/n stared at him. "But it still doesn't compare to mine!" Jean swung barely missing her as she ducked, side stepping him. The two fought, hand to hand combat style. Again Jean tried to swing but y/n was still to fast, ducking and landing a hit to his chest. He grunted but quickly regained his balance.

Jean swung again, but this time y/n caught his first, bring his face inches from her own. Then without warning he sideswiped her feet, bringing them both tumbling down.

Jean landed on his elbows above her, both out of breath. Finally, Jean caught his, looking down at y/n with sincere worry.

"What's wrong, y/n?" He asked again, his gaze gentle. She sniffed and looked away.

Silence.

"please, tell me. I want to help you." He spoke barely above a whisper, afraid he'd scare her off.

Finally, she spoke. She gave up.

"I-I love you."

Silence.

Tears streamed down her cheeks.

"And you...you don't love me."

She let out a sob then, more tears streaking down her face. Her hand wrapped around her mouth, a feeble attempt to subdue her cries.

She flinched when his hand reached over to her, gently cupping her cheek. He guided her to be directly in front of him.

But his face surprised her, he looked pissed. Jean was gritting his teeth in frustration, "How could you say that? Damnit! You can't just- You could've just asked."

"What?"

"Of course I love you! You're y/n y/l/n. You make life bearable, you make my day, my night. After Marco died- you were there for me. You've always been. I'd... I'd have to be an idiot to not...to not love you, y/n." Unshed tears shined in his eyes. "Of course, I love you."

Y/n frowned. "But Mikasa, I thought you-" "That was a year ago, y/n." they stared at each other, the truth finally sinking in.

Then, she smiled. Jean arched a brow as y/n wrapped her legs around his waist, a blush erupting on her cheeks.

Then suddenly she spun the two of them around, switching their positions. "Then why the hell didn't you say anything! You could've not wasted my time- the precious time I have." Again, Jean gritted his teeth. "Well, I thought you liked Yaegar! Considering the fact that you follow him around like a lost puppy!"

Y/n stared at Jean, who glared from under her. Then she bursted out laughing, a different type of tear streaming from her eyes. "You thought I liked Eren and I thought you liked Mikasa?" She laughed, slapping her thigh.

"We're both a pair of idiots!" Jean's scrowl slowly dropped, a smile slipping onto his face until he too began laughing hysterically with y/n.

Finally, She wiped her face, about to get up off of Jean but he grabbed her hand. His thumb gently ran through the knuckles, and he smiled.

"What's the rush, y/n? I like this view." Y/n flicked him, and got up, giving him a hand. He hopped up, but kept their hands intertwined.

Jean pulled their connected hands to his heart, and thus pulled her closer. Y/n closed the space between them, and Jean wrapped his free hand around her waist, settling his palm in the small of back.

The kiss was sweet, Jean's lips were soft and he dipped his head in deeper, catching her breathe. She snagged his bottom lip in her teeth, gently tugging. He tasted sweet, and it made her giggle, the thought of her hothead being anything but spicy- it was poetic.

"y/n..." He breathed, removing his lips from hers and peppering her face with sweet kisses, moving down to her neck. Her breathe caught at how soft he was.

"Oi, I didn't realize that the stables were suddenly designated for snogging." Y/n and Jean's eyes shot open, them freezing their minstrations. Captain Levi stood before them, his arms crossed.

In a flash they separated, putting a safe social distance between the two of them. Simultaneously giving him a salute, they spoke "Captain Levi!"

"Tch, save it you shits. You're both on horse shit duty. Separately." His eyes flickered dangerously between the two of them. "For how long?" Jean asked, his face pale. Jean hated getting in trouble, though it often found him because of his hotheaded nature.

"Until you start hating it, horse boy." Levi's eyes dangerously glittered at him. "Now, I expect you two dumbasses to have this place spotless by the morning." He leaned against the wall and Jean and y/n shared a look.

Sighing she picked up her broom and Jean grabbed the mop. Under the watchful eye of their captain they cleaned, but even under the burden of being in trouble the two could barely wipe away their smiles of delight.

"Will you two shitheads stop smiling, it sickens me."

--------------------------------------------------

A/n: hey guys this one isn't my favorite prolly because I psyched myself out with doing Jean. Anyways feel free to give critism and feedback. Thanks for reading + happy new year

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[just-my-fandom]

Voltron Headcannons

Date set to post; July 25th, 2020

Date posted; August 6th, 2020

Request; Basically Headcannons where the reader gets hurt and the paladins take care of her!

Style; Headcannons

Note; I went in dept with this. Stay home and stay safe, guys!

Masterlist

Shiro

You scared yourself awake

After the paladins and their lions were thrown into the ports to different areas of space, you, Shiro, and Keith landed on the same planet

Not that you knew that

You had passed out during the fall out of fear, and when you woke up, it hurt to move because of the purple marks on your side,

Your helmet glitched as you tried to look around, noting how your lion, the white lion, had shut down

You heard your name being called through your ear piece, but you couldn’t tell which paladin it is, or if it was Allura or Coran

The back door to your lion hissed open and it startled you enough to jump in your seat, which caused you to hiss when the wound pulled,

“Easy. Try not to move,”

You lifted your head, and behold, your knight in shining armor

Not really, but Shiro was close enough

His brows were pinched with worry as he squatted down in front of your chair, and tried to help you stand without touching your burning side,

After three attempts and a thousand “ows,” Shiro settled on keeping you in your seat and trying to get in contact with Keith

Cue the weird creature things that had spotted the lion and the door that Shiro left open (stupid fuck), and Shiro ended up having to defend you with his glowing hand,

Sure he got a few scratches, but what’s a few more scars to match the rest

Keith eventually found your lion, and Shiro had you laying down because the position you were sitting in made the wound ten times worse

Keith and Shiro tried to patch up your side with what you have in your lions, but eventually they decided that they have to wait for the others to find them so you can be put in a healing pod

That night even after you’re healed Shiro still wouldn’t let you get out of bed even for a cup of water-

Keith

You were just training when it happened

Swinging a few at the training bot with your sword, out of breath, before it got knocked out of your hand and you were left throwing punches

You didn’t catch the arm of the bot pulling back (it had somehow caught your sword), before it lunged forward,

The sudden problem you had to breathe caused your movements to stop, and you finally looked down at where the sword had pierced just under your left breast

A wheezed “oh my God” escaped your lips in horror, the bot pulling the blade out to step back, announcing you had lost before it vanished,

You mentally prepared yourself to scream, only getting out a, “Keith!!” before you dropped to the metal floor,

Keith and Lance were both making their way down the hall to the training deck when they heard your shout, so naturally they both took off towards your voice,

Keith saw you first, cursing out loud when Lance rammed into him due to not stopping fast enough,

They both saw you on your back, one arm sprawled to the side as the other held your workout shirt, that was once a light (favorite/color) and was then stained red,

Keith demanded Lance to go get Allura as he fully stepped into the deck, using the towel he was going to use for sweat to press it to your wound, squatting down to fully look at your face,

“The bot,” You wheezed, eyes wide in a panic, “It stabbed me. I didn’t know it could do that,”

“Don’t talk,” Keith’s voice came out tougher than he had liked. You had gotten stabbed, you didn’t need a lecture,

You instead tilted your head back and whined, and Keith racked his brain to figure out what he could do to stop the bleeding until the other teammates got there,

“Holy Quiznack!” Keith had rolled his eyes at Corans shout, then when he looked up three of the paladins- plus Coran- had surrounded you

When they got to the medic bay and you were put in a healing pod, Coran was able to bring up security cameras that revealed how you had gotten injured,

“What level did you have that thing on? Death?”

That earned Lance a punch in the shoulder.

Keith did scold you when you were healed and out of the pod,

Pidge, Hunk and Coran took time to tweak the training bots so they couldn’t go as far as causing fatal injuries like yours,

You were low key scared to use the training bot again

Keith will do.

Hunk

So you and Hunk were sent on your own mission.

You had to sneak into a part of a Galra ship and steal a piece of tech that Pidge needed for an important part of the castle

Everything was fine and dandy until an alarm was set of- a Galra soldier had spotted you

Galra soldiers ended up raiding the halls that you and Hunk were in

While Hunk was able to to defend himself your bay yard had been shot from your hands so you were only given hand-to-hand combat

You were fine holding your end of the grudge until a Galra Solider had snuck up behind you and Hunk

He must have knew you would be more effected if you were shot, so just as you were about to pin another soldier, a hot wave of pain had hit your shoulder and caused you to release the soldier

You didn’t realize that it actually hurt until you turned to face the soldier who shot you, then black began to spot your vision and you were unable to keep yourself up

Hunk noticed that you’d suddenly just stopped fighting and that’s when he saw the blood on your uniform

Hunk was able to shoot down the remaining guards, then he was left to catch you, but he was freaking out so much he couldn’t bring himself to run, instead he just sunk to his knees and began yelling into his mic,

This led you to laughing despite literally fading in and out of consciousness and telling Hunk he needed to get you to the ship

Which he did, but running back to the ship even with more Galra soldiers chasing him wasn’t easy because he couldn’t just pull out his weapon and shoot with you in his arms

You may or may not had done a badass thing of pulling your gun from your thigh pocket and hazily shooting at the soldiers,

You luckily shot all of them so when you patted the back of Hunks head and dropped your gun, he stopped running to look back and realize he didn’t have to run anymore,

“Babe, I love you more than usual sometimes,”

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not so I’m gonna take it as one,”

Hunk then reminds himself that you’re barely there with them so he starts sprinting again and yelling for Coran to power a healing pod

You healed pretty quickly but Hunk had to give you a run down and scolded you as to why you didn’t use your thigh gun during battle instead of just using your fists,

All is good tho dw

Pidge (Short)

Believe it or not, it was Matt who had hurt you

You and Pidge had found a room with a map and locations and realized it was a spy facility

A figure suddenly snuck up on you and Pidge, and while Pidge was able to duck and roll to the side, you were hit upside the head with the strangers staff

And since you had taken your helmet off, it caused more damage to where you had to lay on the floor just to gain your vision back

Pidge is pissed, running at the figure with her weapon and they ended up fighting, and sure enough, low and behold, Matt’s identity was revealed

Pidge almost forgot about you when she hugged Matt, and she turned and called out for you in a panic, having not seen you move to show you were okay,

Which you were, just in pain from the force your head and face took and your head had began to throb,

“I did not mean to hit you that hard,” Matt said, when Pidge ran to your side and helped you sit up, her hand at your jaw giving Matt the go that you weren’t just a friend,

It ended up bruising, so there was just this big line going across your cheek and jaw that was an ugly purple and green color

Matt still apologizes to this day even tho it’s been weeks since it happened

You and Pidge sometimes laugh at him for it

Lance

So what had happened was-

You and Keith had to sneak on Zarkons ship

Yes, you and Keith

Lance wasn’t happy about that but

And right before you reached the area you had to get to, Keith was jumped and you were pulled into a side room, pinned to a wall with a hand at your throat

You easily passed out and when Keith turned around, you were no longer in his sight

Lance was livid

You woke up like three hours later in a cell

It was dark, clammy, and your throat was hurting from the pressure your capturer had put on it

Zarkon had his men chain you up and started electrocuting you for answers on Voltron

Of course as a valid member of the team you weren’t telling him shit

Which ended with you having a broken nose cause you had spit in Zarkons face and told him to “go to hell”

The one time Zarkon left you alone Lance and Keith rescued you, and the whole time Lance was reminding Keith that he should have gone on the mission with you instead of him

You ended up collapsing halfway through Zarkons ship, and it only freaked Lance out more because an alarm had gone off to alert that you had escaped

Cue Lance swooping you up and shooing Keith to run

Again you woke up a couple hours later in your bed at the castle and Lance was all sobby about it because “You could’ve died”

“But I didn’t,”

“Let me have my emotional moment, dammit. I could have left you behind,”

“Keith would’ve rescued me,”

Great, you made Lance mad and pout.

“I’m your knight in shining armor, not Keith,”

“Yes you are. Thank you, Lance,”

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

more thoughts about the homecoming au, the au where maedhros and maglor get brought back to tirion after the war of wrath to be prettied-up trinkets on finarfin’s shelf, with painted-over scars and muffled screams. it is dark, it’s full of all kinds of emotional and caretaker abuse, and the brothers weren’t exactly in a good state of mind before any of this happened. @sunflowersupremes wrote the initial au that wasn’t even meant as horror, @outofangband - this au is as much theirs as mine, several of the concepts here were originally theirs, and a lot of this originally came out in dms with them. part 1 is here. this part contains gaslighting, loss of autonomy right at the end, more suicide mentions (thanks mae) and just general abuse from people who care more about their own comfort than the people they’re supposed to be caring for. it’s worse than the first part, honestly

most of the stuff the fëanorians had on them when they surrendered got taken away pretty fast. which is honestly understandable; some of it was cursed, a lot of it was weaponry, all of it stank to the high vault of the stars

but they both managed to hold onto some personal effects, or get them back before they went in the incinerator. a broken locket, a torn-up book, nothing fancy, nothing large, but things that still mean a lot to them

the valinoreans aren’t entirely comfortable with this. they find a lot of the brothers’ comfort items mildly disturbing, stained with darkness and (occasionally literal) blood as they are. maedhros had this dessicated finger he refuses to explain anything about that got disposed of very quickly

maglor has a few strands of brightly coloured thread, spun around each other somewhat inexpertly. he tends to pull it out when he’s feeling depressed, working it between his fingers until he feels like he can face the world again

one day, one of his minders who gets along better with him asks where he got it. from the twins, maglor admits. it’s part of some embroidery elrond abandoned when they left -

and it’s snatched out of his hands. his minder looks down at him compassionately. ‘i know you miss them, but you caused those boys a lot of pain, you know? you shouldn’t romanticise your relationship with them’

which - maglor’s relationship with the twins was complicated, and while it wasn’t nearly as hellish as elwing fears, it wasn’t entirely healthy. maglor was dependent emotionally on the kids a lot more than any adult should be to children, and vice versa

because the twins were the last people he had left. when maedhros executed celegorm’s servants with no warning at all, this rift began to grow between the sons of fëanor and their followers. they’d always been terrifying, but they’d also been comradely and inspiring, the white-hot stars around which their people orbited. but when they turned their fangs on their own host, all that started to fall away, leaving only the fear behind

it got worse after sirion. by the time vingilot rose in the sky, maglor’s only real remaining relationships were with maedhros, who he hated as much as he loved, and the twins. watching over them, talking to them, not hurting them - it kept him grounded in reality, kept him sane

he knows, he knows, he knows, they’re better off without him. but his time with them is the only happiness in his memories that still feels real

but the valinoreans can’t accept that. the exile was an awful time with nothing in it worth keeping, and the sooner he can recognise that the faster he’ll be back to his old self

besides. their caretakers don’t like being reminded of their more... unpleasant deeds

(elwing sidebar: elwing and eärendil are having an easier time, because the teleri have experience dealing with trauma and are also just more accepting of the right to have your own take on your own experiences. still, though, elwing occasionally hears that a proper telerin mother would have stayed with her children, even if she had to give up the treasure her people died for to the monsters of her childhood nightmares)

(elwing was a young adult in a horrendous situation with no obvious way out, elwing is dealing with her own damage as best she can, elwing is valid, we stan elwing. she’s also one of the few direct-ish sources the noldor have for beleriand and what the fëanorians did there, and her (perfectly reasonable!) perspective colours a lot of their treatment)

in general the valinorean noldor are quite sure they know what beleriand was like and how it felt to be there, and aren’t particularly interested in being proven wrong

it was miserable, it was harrowing, it was nothing anyone should want to think about. it was a long nightmare maedhros and maglor are so fortunate to have finally woken up from

and you can kind of see why they think like that? the ones who have seen the hither shores saw them when ash rained from a void-black sky and almost everything was dead, and the survivors told stories of a long hopeless defeat and cruelties beyond imagining

but that deep black image blots out the genuine joy they felt in those five hundred years, the chance to prove their own greatness, the knowledge they were doing something good, nights when music echoed across the gap, warm hands in a cold fortress. there were things in beleriand worth remembering, aspects of the people they became there legitimately worth keeping

and even if there wasn’t - five hundred years. the scars on their bodies make it plain to see, every little piece of who they are was shaped by beleriand, for worse and for better. they just can’t leave it behind

their valinorean caretakers find this horrifying

maedhros likes to exercise. it keeps him calm, gives him something to do. it’s not something nelyafinwë was super into - he was more the peripatetic type - but it’s a feasible hobby for a noldorin prince to have, so he’s allowed to do it

sometimes, though, he’ll unconsciously shift into the old combat forms, precisely timed drills ingrained into his bodies. the first few times he does this, his minders are bemused more than anything, but then one day he happens to have a stick in hand to use as a mock-sword

then every time he starts to slip away into that meditative trance, hands reach out to stop him and hold him in place. ‘there’s no need to fight here, maitimo,’ an elf he knew before the unchaining tells him ever so gently. ‘you’re safe now’

... they say that, but maedhros’ nightmares keep getting worse

it’s like that with everything that makes the valinoreans uncomfortable. whenever they try to speak of their time in beleriand, no matter what they say, they’re told that oh, they know it was hard, but it’s all over now and they don’t have to dwell on it

but even after they’ve spent years in paradise, maedhros and maglor still won’t let go and allow themselves to heal

they just can’t come to terms with the truth of their ordeal

the narrative the valinoreans have constructed erases all of the bright spots, but it also bleaches out the true darkness

certainly they did horrible things, but did they really have a choice? in such a harsh world, they always had to be on guard, lest they themselves be killed. these poor boys never meant to harm anyone, but their father’s cruel madness and the painful chains of their oath and the vileness of beleriand forced them into atrocities they never wanted to commit

(surely the monsters the sindar spoke of wouldn’t cry. they wouldn’t lose themselves in waking nightmares or curl up shivering in well-hidden closets, they wouldn’t jump away from a casual touch or watch every new person like they might be a threat. they wouldn’t convince themselves the children they stole were happy, or talk to the shade of a dead kinsman they abandoned. surely they wouldn’t. surely)

(because if they are, and they’ve let a couple of orcs loose into the royal palace...)

(maglor and maedhros’ movements are pretty restricted. this is mostly for their own protection, but it’s partially - well, just in case. just in case)

this rankles at maedhros, though he tries not to show it. terrible they might have been, but his choices were his own

he was a warlord, he was a king. he expected to be hated for the things he had done. he didn’t expect to be pitied. he didn’t expect to be dismissed

sometimes, when he’s surrounded by people earnestly telling him that he’s not a bad person, he never was, it was all pressure from his father and the oath, he wants to scream that he chose to attack sirion because he was so, so tired of diplomatically dancing around problems he knew he could solve with his blade

but he stops himself, always. he knows how much what little freedom they do have is based on them not being a threat

and he will not wash this peaceful, innocent land in blood. he’ll kill himself first

maglor has lost all such scruples

it’s not often, but when they’re behaving themselves and no one who’s likely to take offense is in town, the brothers get taken out to court events

they paint makeup over their scars (which still won’t heal, everyone is concerned by the implications of this) dress them up in finery, string them with jewels, and show off how well they’re doing

(even if maedhros rarely says anything, and they never leave each other’s side)

tonight, it’s a feast. a minor celebration, nothing too crowded, nothing too loud. there’s revels and merrymaking and all kinds of fun

and after the food has been cleared away, there’s music

would his nephew like to play something, finarfin asks. it’s hard to tell if it’s a request or a politely phrased order

maglor decides he doesn’t have the patience to be taken aside and tell how much everyone wanted to hear his music, and accepts

finarfin smiles kindly. he’s thinking about how maglor’s minders have been talking about how he’s finally stopped trying to sing depressing or horrifying songs and how his voice grows more melodious by the day

maglor is thinking about how they won’t even let him sing about his wife. he wrote no odes to her beauty or her skill in the forge, but he sang ballads about the swiftness of her spear and her laughter after a battle

none of which the valinoreans want to hear. they want to pretend that love never existed, that there could be any joy found in darkness, that she’s at all worth remembering -

he gets up to play, and launches into the most vicious, most hopeless, most painful part of the noldolantë

they try to stop him, but he’s the greatest warsinger the world has ever seen, he’s sung with blood in his lungs over the roaring of dragons, there’s little they can do to block out everything they’re trying to ignore. he wails defeat and death and grief and death and despair and death

when they finally manage to knock him out, their whole petty festival in tatters, shock on their faces, tears streaming from their eyes, all he can think is that if they understand now, even a little, it’ll have been worth it

for the first time, but not the last, he wakes up in a cell

finarfin comes to visit, and starts giving a very disappointed lecture maglor is in no mood to hear. instead he just snarls that nothing they’ve been doing is helping him at all, and he’s so sick of false sympathy and no one listening to what his actual problems are

finarfin shuts his eyes, says ‘i’m sorry to hear you feel that way’ and leaves

a few days later he wakes up with a collar around his neck

it’s demeaning, but he gets released that morning, so he rolls with it. he gets told to never do that ever again, first by his minders and then by maedhros

his minders he nods at until they leave him alone. maedhros he snarks back at that it’s not like he’s doing anything to improve their condition

only he can’t

the words don’t just freeze in his throat, they can’t even form in his mind. what’s happening, he can’t say. what did you do to me, he can’t say. he can’t even scream

as maglor is clutching at his neck (he can’t get it off he can’t get it off) and all the colour is draining out of maedhros’ face, the minder in the room smiles

‘see? this way you’ll stop making yourself and everyone around you miserable. you can still talk about happy things -’

‘they did this in angband!’ maedhros roars, a statement that provokes his first actual fight with their minders. he’s harder to pin down than maglor. bigger

but their caretakers are becoming annoyed with the brothers’ obstinate refusal to let themselves get better. they may be content to wallow in the misery of their past, but inflicting it on others is a step too far

they clearly aren’t going to move any further down the road to recovery on their own volition, so it’s become clear they need a gentle push. is it a little distasteful? yes, but such things are sometimes necessary in medicine

the bright cheerful princes they will be again will thank them for it

oh god how did this end up so long. the last one should be shorter, it’s mostly clearing up some loose ends. why did i write this

[listentothelittlebird]

This was a first draft to Protect Our Own, from my Code Bat series on Ao3! It’s a reimagining of Jason Todd breaking into Titans tower, in a world where Robin is a myth and Tim Drake goes by Alvin, unnamed vigilante, with the Titans. Enjoy!

Shit. Jason was screwed.

Even as he held the tablet in his hands, watching the very concerning stalker-level footage that the League had gathered, he knew. He knew without a doubt that he was watching the new Robin. The target chosen for him was, of all the options the world could give him, Robin.

“This boy is a member of a group of young superheroes known as Young Justice. They recently went under the mentorship of older superheroes, to become the newest team of Teen Titans,” Talia Al Ghul explained passively, and Jason did not like the gleam in her eyes as she watched the young boy fight, “Lady Shiva met the boy, once, and agreed to train him. Even she is unaware of who his previous mentors were.”

Thank goodness for small mercies.

Then Talia turned to Jason. “You have done an admirable job of controlling your Pit Madness,” she smiled sharply, and Jason was reminded of all the deaths he had caused, all the people who had taught him and were murdered by him, using their own tactics, “And you have learnt fast. As promised, you will complete one contracted kill, and you will be released to exact your own revenge.”

Jason gave himself a mental pat on the shoulder, because even in the early days of crazed anger, not once had he given proper clues towards the fact that his killer - the one he wanted to exact his revenge upon - was the Joker himself. “White-faced asshole” could just be a white man, and “fucking green-haired piece of shit” could still just apply to anyone with green hair.

The Robin secret was still safe, surprisingly. Code Bat was still safe.

The assassin base was in the middle of nowhere, but there was still a little town nearby, with enough reception to surf the internet on a phone he had nicked from a particularly rich-looking traveller. 

Talia did not control what he knew, the League did not control what he knew, so even while he learnt of the Joker still being alive, he also learnt about the helicopter crash, how Batman had purposefully fled empty-handed. Truthfully, he still wanted the Joker dead - but he recognised that there was a chance that no matter how many times they tried, the bastard would come back. He would rather not try than to get stuck in a never-ending loop, something that B- that Bruce must have realised.

There were other stories he found. Jason could not deny destroying several rooms in the base when he read the kid’s story. All the money in the world, and his very-much-alive parents could care less than Jason’s own barely-there mother had. 

He had not known if the boy had taken up the mantle after him, but he was unsurprised at the confirmation in front of him. Robin was as much a part of the Wayne family as champagne, fancy suits and camera smiles.

“The boy is young, and already he is excelling in combat, research, and investigation. In a few years, he will be a real threat to the League. This is your final assignment. Kill the boy, and we will let you go.”

Well, fuck. 

Jason carefully controlled his reaction, turning to meet Talia’s eye with his blue-green eyes. “You want me to kill a minor,” Jason spoke slowly, allowing his incredulity and a tinge of anger to slip into his voice.

“Either you take the job, or you will continue training, until another opportunity arises,” Talia replied evenly. Which meant anything from a week later to never. 

Jason gritted his teeth, sucked in a deep breath, and pushed it all out at once. “When are we leaving?” he questioned. Talia’s grin was sharp, like a predator before their strike.

-

Double shit. This just got way more complicated.

Jason had bargained with Talia for a week of preparation work - a week to scout out the Titans tower, as if he had not memorised the layout of the old one. As if they had not built the new tower in the exact way as the old one had been.

“We will have League members surrounding the building,” Talia announced, a day after they had landed in the city. Jason raised an eyebrow at her. 

“We are curious as to who has trained this boy,” Talia explained, “Subdue the boy’s teammates, and make him vulnerable. Don’t block radio transmissions. If the boy has maintained contact with his mentor, they would come running at their call.”

Jason cursed inwardly, keeping his face carefully blank as he nodded his assent.

He had to play this right. 

-

“I don’t trust this,” Bruce rumbled for the fourth time, in full Batman mode despite being in a casual sweater and sweatpants.

Dick hummed along, casting a concerned glance Tim’s way.

On the table was a note, delivered through an unassuming envelope. 

It stated a date and specific hour, and, Don’t call the Code. 

“The code,” Tim mumbled, “Like, Code Bat? There’s no way they’d know that, though, right?”

The note was written on red paper, flecked with green and yellow. Tim’s tone was wavering, lacking its usual confidence. He was always so sure when it came to cases, but this? 

“What’s happening at this time?” Dick wondered. Bruce pulled up his own schedule for the following week, and Tim mentally went through his own plans. Nothing of note, but-

“I’ll be in Titans tower,” Tim stated aloud, and there were gears turning in his brain. Wild gears that were nearly off their hinges, but they were the same gears that had made the Batman-is-Bruce-Wayne connection, and he had learnt to trust them.

“Is someone trying to warn us?” Tim voiced, “I get a lot of speculation from the public, about what my official superhero name is, but also where I came from, who I trained with. What if it’s not just the internet wondering?”

Bruce pursed his lips in thought. He turned to Tim, his eyes hard and determined in that certain manner that meant he was being overprotective.

“No,” Tim blurted, “I’m not staying at the Manor during that specific timeframe.” Bruce shut his mouth and blinked down at his adopted son.

“Whoever this is, they risk being found out if I don’t show up,” Tim gestured to the note, “It might just escalate from there, anyway, if we prolong whatever is supposed to happen.”

“It could be a trap,” Dick pointed out, and now he too had taken up the overprotective undertones of discomfort. Tim squared his shoulders and smiled reassuringly. “I’ll be fine,” he promised, “I’ll stay in the tower. Besides, all my teammates will be there. If anything happens, they’re right there.”

Bruce and Dick exchanged worried glances, but eventually Bruce sighed and clasped a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “Code Bat has always been for your safety,” Bruce stated firmly, “I don’t care if our enemies find out about us - if it gets out of hand, if it looks like a trap, call us.”

-

The morning of the date stated on the note, Tim found another one in his Teen Titans bedroom.

They want you dead. Play along.

What jolted Tim was the symbol at the bottom right corner of the note - it was one of the made-up symbols that Dick had taught him. The symbol on the note meant “burn after reading”.

The handwriting was not Dick’s, nor was it Bruce’s. It was cursive, almost like Alfred’s, but it was also much more scrawled and uneven, like someone still unpractised in writing. 

The gears in Tim’s brain must have really come unhinged this time, because the only name it could conjure was Jason. Jason was dead.

Tim was quietly uptight right until the hour came. He almost did not realise his teammates were being picked off, meticulously, skillfully, one by one. Almost.

Tim still had yet to press his emergency beacon. He had not activated Code Bat. He wanted to see where this went, before anything else.

Then the mysterious attacker descended on him, a blur of black and the smallest glimpse of white, and Tim was fighting for his life.

The man moved like an assassin - Tim had met some League of Assassins members, back when he had trained with Lady Shiva. He moved like them, but there was also something else to his movements.

Tim dodged a hit, and that was too short to be aiming for his throat, that would have been a non-lethal hit-

The man was not aiming to kill. He fought like Batman. He fought like one of them.

Tim opened his mouth, made to say something, although he was unsure what. He was swept off his feet before he got the chance.

“Who trained you, kid?” the voice growled, and it was a deep voice that should have unnerved him, but something struck him as familiar. The drawl, the barely-there accent.

Jason, his brain screamed.

Real answers, please, Tim pleaded.

The man pulled him by his tunic collar, and he shifted to pull him towards his face. There was a glint of metal on the man’s uniform - a recording device. 

“Who are you?” he growled again, with Tim pulled close. 

Tim got a good look at the man’s face, and while he instinctively bantered back, he was internally reeling. Looks like his gears were working, after all.

“Just a kid with a dream,” Tim smirked, a crooked smile already leaking some blood. 

Jason - because this man was Jason, somehow, how was Jason alive - interrogated Tim while punching him out. His blows hurt for sure, but Tim swore that he was aiming for the areas that would cause the least injuries. He swore that when he grunted as a rib was broken, Jason had paused minutely, cringing slightly, before he barreled on.

Something was placed on his chest. 

“Say goodnight, kid,” Jason sing-songed, and there was the sound of a gun cocking. Tim barely registered that when the gun shot, it had shot at him. There was the hard thump of something near his chest, just above his chest, but it had barely touched his tunic.

Jason tapped a finger-signal, a “stay low and don’t move”, and Tim remained where he was. He waited as footsteps receded, waited for several minutes, with a bag of fake blood leaking from his chest, bruises and other injuries blooming in pain underneath his uniform.

He felt rather than heard the presence appear beside him. The looming figure crouched down and gingerly maneuvered Tim into a firm grasp. 

His “assassin” stared down at him. He had switched out his black assassin get-up for casual clothing. He was… tall. Built like Bruce. His eyes were different, too, and he had a white lock of hair curling just above his eyebrows. Yet…

“Jason?” Tim croaked out, and Jason Todd smirked. Tim knew that smirk - Robin wore it a lot, when he watched him. “You better be damn glad no one can hear you, anymore,” Jason gruffed, and started moving with Tim in his grasp, “Let’s go somewhere else, though, for good measure.”

They ended up in Tim’s room - sound-proofed, and therefore the safest location in the tower for this conversation.

“You’re alive,” Tim blurted out, as Jason dressed his wounds. His hands stuttered before resuming their work. “I died,” Jason stated flatly, “And I dug myself out of my own grave. Talia found me, and threw me into a Lazarus Pit.”

Jason raised his eyes to meet Tim’s, and Tim could see the eerie green glow in his eyes. 

“Don’t tell Bruce about me,” Jason rushed out, and Tim immediately jumped to object, but Jason was faster, “Don’t. Listen, I-” Jason breathed deeply, “I’ve killed, alright? I’ve broken his big rule and all that jazz. I might still find myself going back to the streets of Gotham, but to the Manor? I’m not ready to face that shit.”

Jason paused for real this time, having finished taking care of Tim’s more visible injuries. He cringed. 

“You should get Alfie to check you out, just in case you have internal bleeding or whatever the fuck I gave you,” Jason waved his hand around uselessly, “Lie low for a few days, alright? I need to make myself scarce. They’ll find out I didn’t follow through with the deal, and I’ll need to have disappeared, by then.”

Tim was silent for a few long moments. “Will I see you again?” Tim finally asked, his eyes wide and hopeful, “They miss you, you know? We miss you. We all do.”

Jason swallowed, and blinked back the water gathering in his eyes. “How can you miss me?” he chose to ask, “S’not like you knew me very well, before… well, before.”

Tim grinned, bright and eager. 

“You once snuck out for patrol on your own,” Tim informed him, “And got stuck on a rooftop that you flipped onto with your grappling hook, because the other buildings around you were all too far away to grapple towards. You had to slide down the water pipes and run across an empty street to make your way back home.”

Jason sputtered, because that had happened, he did remember that, but when the heck did he hear about it?

“How the hell do you know that?” Jason asked, unable to keep his dismay from leaking into his voice. 

“I’ll tell you when I next see you,” Tim smiled cheekily. Smartass.

Jason checked the time. “Your Superboy buddy will be waking up soon,” Jason reported, “Don’t come looking for me, alright? I’ll… I’ll return to Gotham soon. I just have to make sure the League’s off my back.”

Jason got up and hesitated. “When I return to Gotham,” he warned, “I’ll come in guns blazing. There’ll be deaths. It won’t be pretty. Just- just stay out of my way.”

It would have been more convincing, if Jason had not spent the last thirty minutes treating Tim’s wounds.

“Who are you?” Tim called abruptly, Jason hovering at the door, “You come in and take us all out, one by one. They’d want a name. Who are you?”

Jason smirked sharply. 

“Red Hood,” he droned, “Call me Red Hood.”

He slinked away, and like a true Bat, was out of the tower in seconds.

[fvrxdrm]

Ｆ Ｅ Ｖ  Ǝ Ｒ

|| 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚞𝚎 ||

October, 2000 Republic of Penamstan - 70 miles from U.S. Military Base

"Command, this is Coyote Six. We're 70 miles northwest of the base. Altitude, 1,500 feet. Requesting clearance for landing."

"Coyote Six, this is command. You're cleared to land on Runway Three. Wind, 50 at 14 knots, maximum two-niner-seven-four inches, watch for chop."

Everything looked rusty from afar: the atmosphere, the dry land, hell, even the odor of the air smelled like a mix of everything rotten; floating and teasing the noses of those who were more than a thousand feet from the ground.

The civil war in Penamstan was still going on and nobody knew how long this was going to last. But it seemed like it was dying down, bit by bit.

It was a massacre. Everyone was blazing away their guns, bombing away their bombs, extricating things that weren't meant to be there, creating another Raccoon City but with more living people brawling against their own. The U.S. government knew the war wouldn't end without anybody intervening, and so, they volunteered to send a group of soldiers - the Mad Dogs - to help in ceasing what was going on in Penamstan. But no matter their efforts, the body count just seemed to incessantly grow. It was horrible. When they weren't blowing their firearms they were turning people into mindless zombies, infecting them with a bite on their flesh and spreading disease, even those who weren't involved and were not meant to do so. The land was filled with macabre deaths, another cog in the gut-churning machine and another title in the list of horrible history.

A loud bang boomed somewhere near the captain's chopper before an agitated voice sounded from Jason's radio. "Mayday! Mayday! We're hit! Losing altitude," the voice said. Jason cursed with a light growl as he got up from his seat and looked out of the entrance. There he saw one of the helicopters swirling in a slow circle as it went down to a crash, a fog of black and grey trailing behind.

"Command, this is Mad Dogs. We have visual on Alpha Two, and it's going down," Jason began. "Coordinates 4-2 Sierra Whiskey Alpha-niner-4-6-5-0-6-7-niner-2-niner."

"Team Three, Team Six, this is Command. Stand by," the woman on the radio directed. The captain furrowed his brows in bewilderment at the order and immediately responded with question.

"Wait, what?"

"I repeat, Team Three and Team Six, stand by and wait for orders."

Jason couldn't just hold back and wait for orders. He had to do something. His men were going down and no doubt were those people down there going to finish all of them one by one if they just waited and didn't do anything. And besides, they have a chance at saving those survivors. He wasn't going to just leave them down there to die, that's not their job. Their job is to save and protect people.

"Take us down. We're gonna check it out," he commanded. The pilot of the chopper followed as said and safely lowered them to where they can engage the enemy. Through the radio, those who were monitoring the whole squad persistently sent orders along their way, irked by the Mad Dogs' captain's stubbornness, but Jason ignored them and commanded directives of his own. "All right, when we hit the deck, we light 'em up with the SAWs first, then we go for survivors. Got it?" All soldiers with him huffed in agreement and raised their thumbs up.

"Command to Mad Dogs, stand down and return to formation!" One of the monitors said again with more pressure. The squad paid no heed to the command and slid down the ropes before landing properly. They split up into groups afterwards, finding cover behind cracked walls and firing their guns at those who dared attack them. Dust flew from the ground as heavy boots thudded along the dryness. Those who were at the back of each separated troop turned left and right, making sure no one would be cunning enough to sneak a bullet in them, and those civilians who held up their guns at the soldiers were not lucky enough to dodge even a single bullet.

"Clear!" One of the Mad Dogs yelled. "Bastards took our guys!" Another one said. One of the groups rushed behind the chopper that previously got hit and crashed, finding a soldier pinned beneath the heavy metal, bloodied and unconscious.

"US Army Mad Dogs, can you move?" One of them tried to ask in hopes of hearing the injured talk and in between the line of conscious and unconscious at least. Unfortunately, he didn't get a response and so, two men pulled him out from underneath the helicopter before checking his pulse and cursing under his breath. He was alive, thank God. None of them noticed, but a sneaky combatant rose up on a random truck with an RPG being placed on his shoulder, and in a matter of seconds, Jason and some of his squad were knocked away by the strong force of the weapon.

*****

Somewhere in the cold, dark night, folks of Penamstan circled and danced around in front of a large hand where a few of the dead soldiers were hung. One of them had their legs torn off from their torso, while some of them were still in full shape but ripped up underneath the skin and surely gone and slaughtered. The people threw things at them, smothered them with gasoline, and laughed with such menacing and twisted joy that it looked more brutal than how it should've been.

How sick they were!

How cruel they were!

They were a bunch of atrocious and uncivilized men and women who got no remorse for those who have died in their hands. They never saw the others as human beings, they saw them as ken dolls they were willing to burn down once they saw no fun in them. They had a sick, twisted lust for blood nobody's ever seen unless they've encountered Raccoon City themselves. But even that incident was mediocre compared to Penamstan. In Penamstan, the living ones were zombies themselves, not physically but mentally. Not for long, though. Once the soldiers were wide awake, there was no escaping and all of these were going to be seen and heard by the eyes and ears of a child.

[mostly-marvel-musings]

Guilty Pleasure

A/N: No real plot here, just a platonic imagine with the Asgardian Gods! Feedback’s appreciated as always! :))

Pairing: Platonic Loki x Platonic Thor x Reader

Warning: Strong language.

Word count: 1718

"Alright (Y/N), time to get out of there." Steve’s stern voice came in through your comms.

You looked around briefly before returning your gaze to the computer screen in front of you which was currently transferring all of it’s hidden files to your connected external drive.

"Nearly done Captain. I need two minutes." you replied, pleading that the security camera’s would stay deactivated for just a few more minutes.

"Your cover’s about to be blown up (Y/L/N). Get out. Now." Steve sounded worried, authoritative and gentle all at once.

"Look I’m almost done, it’ll be done in the next two min-"

"It’s an order (Y/N). If you’re not out in thirty seconds, we leave without you."

Steve concluded before cutting the line. There was no bargaining after that.

You grumbled a few curse words as the Captain was no longer on line, before pulling the drive out abruptly halting its file transfer midway, and made your way outside where the quinjet stood waiting.

As you made it inside, Clint took off immediately and Nat approached you, knowing you’d be pissed off.

"You were good (Y/N), don't beat yourself up. We’ll get the info by some other means." She reassured.

"Yeah well that wasn't the mission Nat. Couldn’t have just two fucking minutes could I? I swear I would’ve got it. Just-"

Your rant was interrupted by Steve walking in.

"You did what you could (Y/N). Not worth getting caught in the process. There’s always a next time." Steve said offering you a pat on the back and a smile. The eternal optimist.

"I’m sorry Cap." was all you managed to say as you walked past them, disappointed in yourself, and sat on the chair next to Clint, pulling the seat belt on while keeping your eyes out the window.

The rest of the journey back home was pretty silent. You tried your best not to punch something out of frustration and Nat tried her best to distract you.

It would’ve been so much easier if Cap would’ve allowed Loki to accompany you. His illusions would have made the job so much easier. But Captain being Captain, thought he was better off handling other worldly things with his brother.

Contrary to popular belief, you and Loki had always worked well together. He was starting to gel well with the team. You had a special connection with both the brothers.

The initial intimidation had worn off quickly when you found out how thoughtful and considerate they really were. They were super protective of you, but also knew you could hold your own.

Maybe the reason y’all were such great friends was the sheer dissimilarities of your lives that made for endless conversations.

You were supposed to hang out together tonight for your weekly “Midgard movie nights” as Thor called it, but they had Asgardian business to take care of.

Which meant you were free to do whatever the hell you wanted, however the hell you wanted. You didn't get days like these often, and when you did you’d either spend time with Loki, or Nat - your best mate in the team, or sparring with Steve in the gym, working on your combat skills. You figured you’d make the most of your alone time.

...

The brothers had made it back earlier than they thought, which gave Loki some time to prep for your designated movie night. He had dragged his brother along to help, who agreed immediately when Loki mentioned “movie treats”. They really wanted to do something special considering you were always the one hosting these nights, complete with delicious food and drinks.

“How about pop tarts?” Thor asked pointing to the box of strawberry pop tarts lying in your top shelf, you weren't much of a sweet tooth but you kept those for Thor as he loved them too much.

“We cannot eat those ridiculous sweets as a meal brother. We need something more substantial.” Loki was mildly irritated at this point as his brother wasn't being of any help.

“What if we cook something?”

“And light (Y/N)’s kitchen on fire in the process? Never. I would very much still like to be her friend Thor.”

Loki thought for a minute before he remembered you mentioning something about Italian cuisine being your favorite.

“What are those round breads with cheese and what not that your precious team keeps ordering? (Y/N) seems to love them right?” he asked; he wasn't always around to eat dinners with the team and do the whole bonding thing, but Thor was. And he had comparatively spent more time here.

“Pizzas!! Good thinking brother! We can get Friday to order them.”Thor bellowed patting Loki on his back enthusiastically.

...

The quinjet landed in the compound and you made your way out.

“Don't be too hard on yourself kid. Relax.” Clint said as he walked beside you before sprinting inside.

You were looking forward to unwinding and spending the night treating yourself.

As you stepped into the elevator, Loki heard Friday’s voice announcing your arrival.

“She’s here early. We need more time!”

Thor had opened the box of pop tarts and had already begun munching on it.

The pizza was on its way but it wouldn't be here for another twenty five minutes. Loki figured it was a good idea if he kept all of this as a surprise, so he worked his magic to hide both him and Thor from your view as you arrived on your floor and walked in.

You closed the bedroom door with a loud bang and began stripping as you made your way into the bathroom.

A long bubble bath was what you needed so you began filling the tub with hot water and picked out your favorite bath bomb that you kept away for special occasions.

Self pampering was a valid occasion right!

When the bath was ready, you instructed Friday to put on your ‘Guilty Pleasure’ playlist and to make sure no one would barge into your apartment.

...

Out in the kitchen, Loki and Thor hadn’t the faintest idea what to do next. You clearly looked like you needed to be with yourself tonight.

“Maybe we should just leave.” Thor suggested.

“And who’s to explain the four large pizzas that will get here any minute?” Loki said jeeringly, rolling his eyes.

“So we just stay hidden?”

“For now.”

…

The songs along with the bath water were working its magic and you were in a much better mood.

Your skin started to prune so you hopped out of the bath, wrapped a fluffy towel around you and walked out into your bedroom to find some comfortable clothes to slip into. You opened the packet of your foot exfoliating socks to put them on - you had been saving those for some other time as well.

By the time you made it outside, you were jamming out to Backstreet Boys. Now a few beers, junk food, trashy TV and you’d be set for the night.

Deciding on a big bowl of popcorn you put the bag in the microwave still sashaying to the music, you realized it had been forever since you let your hair down.

By the time the popcorn was done you were attempting to moonwalk towards the microwave while singing This is how we do it a bit off key but who the hell cares?

The Asgardian Gods were finding this too amusing and were enjoying seeing this carefree side of you way too much.

By the time Eminem’s Real Slim Shady came on, Loki was horrified at your choice of songs.

“This is barbaric! What sane person finds this music worthy of listening?” He hissed loudly knowing you couldn’t hear them even though they were just a few feet away.

You took the big bowl of butter popcorn and a couple of beers to the living area and plopped down on your sofa putting your socks covered feet up on the coffee table. With the bowl in your lap, you asked Friday to turn the music off as you surfed Netflix for a while but decided on Friends because that never disappointed and settled in.

You were singing the title track loudly when Friday’s voice came through.

“Your pizzas have arrived Mr Point Break.”

Thor looked visibly pissed off at the name which Tony had made the AI regard him with.

“It’s Thor. I’m gonna punch you Stark.” Thor's voice boomed loudly as he suddenly came into view, making you jump from your seat.

“What the fuck are you doing here Thor?” You shouted straightening up and sending the popcorn flying across the floor.

“In our defense- Loki started as he stepped out too, making your eyes widen further.

You were sure you were red with embarrassment at the point. How long have they been here?

“How..what the he..what are you guys doing here?” You were fumbling with words as you looked at them.

“Okay before you get mad, we wanted to do something nice for our movie night, so we thought we’d surprise you. But clearly we are the ones getting the surprise.” Loki tried to hide his smirk but failed as he spoke.

You covered your face with both your hands and uttered a muffled, “I am mortified.”

You figured there were two ways that this would go down, you could ask them to leave you alone and get mad at the two, or you could face the situation like a grown up. They did want to do a nice thing, and their intentions were innocent after all.

Deciding on the latter, you sat up and said, “Someone wanna get the door.”

“Are you not going to kick us out?” Loki asked, his eyebrows raised.

You stood up and walked into the kitchen nonchalantly, careful not to step over the fallen popcorn.

“You got pizza right? I’m famished, let's eat.”

Thor brought the boxes and you settled on the sofa once again. The events of the night hopefully forgotten at this point. You took a slice of the pepperoni pizza and sat back on the couch to resume the show when Thor spoke up.

“Lady (Y/N) you have exceptional dance moves. Maybe not the best voice though.” Thor said and soon was met with a flying pillow hitting his face.

...

[inkweaver22-blr]

HEY REDWALL FANDOM

It’s 4AM and I can’t sleep so I’m going to rant for a little bit about something my brain won’t shut up about.

There’s this fic I read some years ago that aggravates me to no end. Not because it wasn’t well written, oh no. Quite the opposite in fact. It was a more mature story than the books with the main themes being that what creature you are born as doesn’t affect your “goodness” or “evilness” and that everyone has the rights and freedoms to make choices for themselves.

The main player in this story was a badger lord seer (whom we will refer to Seer from here on) who had seen a prophecy of a great evil/era of upheaval and uncertainty (which he implies will be caused by the corsair sea-rats) and set about gathering a force to combat it. He however didn’t really care what species you were and accepted even groups of vermin bandits into his army so long as they vowed to adhere to his code of conduct. Which was really simple in “do no harm and let no harm come to the innocent” type of stuff.

So while Seer himself seemed grim and unapproachable, his army revered him for he had given them a sense of purpose, brotherhood, and honor. He united many races that were once enemies and trained them all into fierce yet honorable warriors. So while we as an audience may find him unnerving, he’s set up as the protagonist whom we are meant to support.

Now is where things start to go off the rails a bit.

His younger brother, whom we’ll call Rage, apparently doesn’t like the fact that Seer is allowing “vermin” into his army. Specifically because Rage hates rats because of the corsair. Rage, unfortunately was cursed with an extra hard dose of the typical badger lord berserk rage and isn’t as good with tactics as Seer is. But because Seer needs Salamandastron for some reason, he tricks Rage and the Long Patrol out of the mountain and takes it for himself.

Okay so it’s just a spat between two brothers, one of which is obviously a bigot so we root for Seer here right?

Well when Rage returns he notices that Seer has given sacred armor crafted by previous badger lords to his troops of rats who also happen to be right at the front of the army. Not his squirrels, not his foxes, only the rats. Rage, obviously, goes into a rage and decimates the rat soldiers and is eventually killed due to his blindness. The Long Patrol is permanently ousted and retreat to Redwall. When questioned by the Abbot later, Seer absolutely avoids the question of “did you intentionally bait your brother instead of trying to talk to him”.

Here’s where my suspension of disbelief starts to fail.

Earlier in the story it’s made clear that any creature in Seer’s army may leave at any point due to the fact that every beast is free and can exercise that freedom (so long as they don’t harm others). We actually see this happen when his force of otters and shrews leave after he uses MUSTARD GAS on a fort of villains, brutally killing them in what the otters believed was an dishonorable way. (Oh did I mention Seer is super intelligent and understands science and math that allows him to create amazing things like submarines and a tower near Redwall with a giant mirror that lets them get messages to Salamandastron quickly?) Anyway, Seer tries to refuse their resignation which the otters throw back in his face due to the aforementioned policy of freedom of choice.

This is where I get angry.

After winning the mountain, Seer parlays with the corsair king. You know, the leader of the slaver pirates that Seer hinted might be the cause of the great approaching upheaval? So what does Seer offer him? If Corsair will give up all the woodland slaves (mice, otters, shrews, squirrels, moles, ect.) Seer will replace them with all of the rats of Mossflower and beyond. All of his rat troops who served him loyally as well as any free rats in the country, evil or not, were just sold into slavery without their say in the matter. Because it is very much known by everyone that the rats replacing the slaves will not be treated like new crew members but as slaves themselves.

What absolutely infuriates me is that Seer’s army just goes with it. They don’t put up a fight, even if the rats are confused and a little hurt by this choice, they go along with it because Seer hasn’t steered them wrong yet. Which makes absolutely no sense when you think about how Seer has been preaching freedom up to this point. Heck, when Redwall begins offering sanctuary to any rat that can make it into their walls, (because absolutely screw any and all forms of slavery), Seer sends his squirrels to patrol the woods and capture any that try to make it to the Abbey.

Why would Seer’s army, who have been proven to be smart, kind, and honorable by this point, ever agree to this? Many of them most likely have at least one friend in the rats. Even if they accepted their comrades willingly chaining themselves to the oar benches, they would most certainly not agree to kidnapping free beasts who never joined Seer’s army. I just does not make any sense and is literally the only problem I had with this story.

Finally we get to the twist that shakes everything and cements this fic as one of the best pieces of Redwall fiction I’ve read.

We have a scene towards the end with Seer in the Prophecy Room of Salamandastron. He gazes upon the original prophecy of evil and upheaval, and then moves on to the next one which he never mentioned. One that states that the badger lord seer could only be defeated by another seer. A rat seer.

Everything he’s done; creating an army of mixed races, building a huge tower in the fields near Redwall, killing his brother to take the mountain; ALL OF IT, was for the single purpose of eliminating rats from the land. Seer was the antagonist all along.

It almost worked too.

In the Redwall world, it’s well established seers can have visions of almost everything, except other seers.

The rat seer, we learn, foresaw that she would need to go to Redwall to retain her freedom, but not why. So she and her family got to Redwall before Seer sent his squirrels to patrol the woods and he can’t do anything because if he attacked the Abbey he would lose any remaining support he had.

So all of this change he made, this era upheaval and uncertainty he caused, was for nothing.

I can’t remember if the story continued on after this point and had the rest of his men realize they’re following a mad prophet but I was tossing and turning all night at their blind faith in following him into becoming genocidal slavers.

So anyway if anyone can find this story I HIGHLY recommend it but be prepared to get irritated towards the end.

UPDATE!!!

The fic in question is The Crimson Badger by Highwing and the more I remember about it the less appealing it is. Lots of grimdark deaths, out of place sexism, and strange prudishness concerning premarital sex abound in this so I change my stance from “highly recommend” to “read at your own risk”.

[fanfalc-616]

(Master of Emotion) Can you write the ninja, Garmadon and other EMs meet Chen on his island {Garm is mad that his son has been kidnapped} (You don't need to go detail in season 4 , you can add or change as you like} and Kai's first match with his powers

Ok so I worked on this and failed and eventually gave up on it but I think I can write at least the last part now- even though this ask is from November-

Also oh my god I wrote something with writer’s block something that wasn’t even RoaN I should not be this impressed with myself but I am anyway-

Jay and Cole are still fighting. The annoying emotions coming off of them is damn near giving Kai a headache, but he ignores them in favor of starting to eat.

Thankfully, Chen speaks up over the speakers, giving him a break from the bickering.

“The tournament of Elements continues. Fun time!” He begins, and Kai almost scoffs at it. Fun? Yeah, okay. They’re here to rescue Lloyd, not play in fighting rings.

“Would the following Masters please make their way to their assigned arena? Speed, Gravity, Smoke, Nature, Mind, oh, and last and hopefully not least…”

He pauses a moment, and Jay takes the chance to speak up.

“Huh, maybe we all got the day off!”

“Emotion!” Chen finishes cheerfully, before the intercom abruptly shuts off.

Kai flashes Jay a glare. “Way to jinx it.” He grumbles.

The other winces, and as Cole seems to be about to insult him about it, Kai can hear opponent- Ash, his name was?- scoff as he looks over him.

“The Master of Emotion? Really? That’s a thing?” He shakes his head. “That much easier for me, I guess.”

A mix of anger and frustration builds up inside of him. This again? Sure, he knows that it’s not a classic element, but he had assumed that at least other elemental masters would understand it!

His clothes shift to a dark, orangey-red as he speaks. “That much more embarrassing when I kick your ass without even touching my fire!” He shoots back, crossing his arms.

Zane tenses up beside him, and so do the others. He knows that he’ll probably get a lecture over this later, but at the moment, he couldn’t care less.

The other elementals have started to watch around, seeming interested in the argument.

“Fire?” Ash frowns. “Now you’re claiming to have two elements? Everyone knows that’s not a…”

Kai takes in some smug satisfaction at the way his eyes widen when he stares at the flame that he lit in his hand.

The emotion bleeds over into his clothes, the red fading as the orange turns slightly yellow. “You were saying?” He mocks, staring the other down.

Ash seems startled, and there’s murmurs breaking out among the other masters- probably because they’re not sure what to do with him now.

The Master of Smoke opens his mouth to speak, but Zane steps between them, a tired expression on his face.

“Perhaps the two of you should save this for your battle.” He recommends, giving Kai a disapproving look.

Alright, alright, he’ll stop. Not because Zane wants him to, though. It’s because he wants to. Yeah. That’s totally it.

He shakes his head. “Whatever you say, Frosty.” He adds a casual shrug to his words, noticing the orange fade completely into a mirage of red and yellow- a difference in color that only people who actually know him can really see.

Turning around, Kai goes back to his food, ignoring the harsh whispers echoing around them.

“You need to be careful, Kai.” Sensei Garmadon warns. “Your elements are powerful, and the combination of them even more. But letting your anger get the better of you will-“

Kai takes a deep breath, tuning out the rest of what he’s saying. Lloyd is captured, Jay and Cole won’t stop bickering over his sister, Zane’s already exhausted, and he’s gonna be all cryptic? Yeah, sorry, Kai’s got enough on his plate.

As they finish eating, he takes a deep breath. Impulsive words or not, he’s gonna stick to them.

No fire. Just feelings.

How hard can it be?

——————————-

Kai stands on his end of the wooden bridge, glaring at Ash on the opposite side. The Jade Blade is in the middle of it, and oh, yeah, they’re on top of a volcano, so there’s kinda lava everywhere.

Even with his resistance to heat, Kai would really rather not test if he could survive molten rock.

“Kai, Master of Emotion…” Chen begins, and Kai takes that as his chance to pull his mask up over his nose. It’s about to get serious.

“Versus Ash, Master of Smoke!” As he speaks, Kai once again braces his feet, preparing to move the moment he’s given his cue.

“FIGHT!”

With the word, Kai takes off running, hand reaching out for the green weapon.

But before he even gets close, Ash throws himself at the rope on one side and flips the entire bridge upside down, dropping the blade onto a rock below and making Kai desperately grasp for purchase as the bridge rights itself while he’s still beneath it.

He manages to grab onto the bottom, but a quiet curse escapes him as he realizes that the fight is definitely not in his favor here. Ash has the high ground, and-

Except Kai’s beneath the bridge! He could use the wood panels as a horizontal ladder and get in close!

And that’s exactly what he does, and once he’s close enough, he bursts through the bottom of the bridge, throwing a kick midair.

But much to his dismay, Ash turns into smoke, making Kai stumble as he lands.

He quickly regains his footing and makes another attack, and another, and another, and another, but annoyingly enough, Ash just keeps turning into smoke whenever he tries to land a hit!

Another brief stumble gives the Master of Smoke the chance to fully solidify and kick Kai in the stomach, hard enough to send him flying backwards and even breaking part of the bridge.

A quiet curse escapes him as he finds himself once again hanging above the lava, this time suspended only by one hand holding onto a broken piece of wood.

A spark of fear hits him, only for a moment, but it’s enough for him to create a force field below him, and use that as a springboard to push himself back up onto the bridge.

The fear fades, replaced by anger. Clothes a bright orange, he dives into spinjitzu- but even then, he can’t land a single hit!

As he steadies himself again, Kai taps into his rage, letting the emotion support him.

Super strength isn’t really the best power to have here, but hey, he’ll take what he can get.

Fists clenched tight, Kai runs back to where he started on the bridge, a smirk crossing his face. “Let’s see you phase through this!”

He uproots the bridge from where it’s held, yanking it upwards. The unsteadiness makes Ash stumble, and as he stares in what looks like shock, Kai pulls up the other side.

The bridge starts to fall to the side where it’s still held down, and Kai uses the momentum it gives him to swing forwards and land on a rock near the Jade Blade.

Much to his annoyance, Ash manages to land on one too.

Well. That’s actually a good thing. If he landed in the lava he probably would’ve died, and as annoying as the guy is, Kai doesn’t want to murder him- or anyone, actually.

He shakes his head, trying to redirect his focus. No, annoyance isn’t helpful, he said he wouldn’t use his fire powers, so having them enhanced isn’t gonna help.

They both jump for the blade at the same time, causing them to collide midair. They grapple at each other, landing on another rock. Kai throws a punch, and seeing as the little space they have and midair combat, he actually manages to land a few hits!

But Ash manages to wrestle free from his grasp, and Kai feels his eyes widen as he jumps for the blade.

Kai jumps after him, but he knows then and there that the second it took for him to process it will be the second it takes for him to lose.

Fear takes a hold in his gut as everything seems to move in slow motion. Midair, he watches as Ash starts to grab the Jade Blade-

But then a purple bubble forms around it, throwing him off.

His hand smacks on the force field, and the sudden loss of grip makes his jump go wonky.

Kai lands on the rock and snags the blade, a triumphant grin starting to form, his clothes a bright yellow. He did it! He won! He-

Then he looks down, and he sees that Ash’s jump being thrown off sent him falling not onto another rock-

But towards the lava below.

Fear grips him once again, but this time, the force field isn’t formed subconsciously.

Still with the Jade Blade in his grasp, he uses his power to create a plate large enough for Ash to land on, the field almost touching the lava below.

Thankfully, Ash takes his chance to jump off it and onto another rock. He stares at Kai for a moment as the field vanishes, his fear fading and replaced with confidence.

The Master of Smoke opens his mouth to speak, seeming stunned by Kai’s actions- but before he gets the chance, Chen’s voice rings out from above.

“Winner!” He proclaims, and Kai can feel his grin widen and clothes turn a bright yellow as he sees his teammates and even the others in the crowd cheering.

“Loser!” Chen continues, seeming pretty happy with himself. “Master of Emotion moves on.”

Holding the Jade Blade up, Kai almost doesn’t feel bad about the way his opponent is dropped into a trapdoor below.

Kai just needs to stay in this tournament long enough to find and rescue Lloyd- not to mention stop whatever plans Chen has with their powers.

But for now, he’s going to feel good about himself. He worked hard for this victory, damn it, so he’s going to have good emotions for a little bit.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

Probably not.

… ugh. Why did he get stuck with the magical mood swings?

[asmileyoucouldbottle]

Pink in the Night- Catradora

Word Count: 4491

Catradora high school AU. Best friends to lovers. Adora is the ever oblivious captain of the school's football team, The Horde, and Catra is just a gay panic crushing mess who's in love with her best friend.

***

“Hey Adora.”

Adora spun around, her hand still on the towel she’d just slung around her neck.

“Catra!” She beamed, and Catra felt a little stir in her chest. Adora was decked in her football attire, exposed arms accentuating her muscle definition. Refusing to get caught staring, Catra twisted her lips into a smirk, shifting her gaze up to Adora’s eyes as a blush began to blossom.

“How was practice?” She asked, shifting her weight and placing one hand on her hip. A defensive pose. Though the only enemy is my traitorous heart. Catra thought with poetic annoyance.

“Great! Though I might have a little bruise forming from a ball Lonnie didn’t aim too well, but it’ll be fine.”

“Let me see.” Catra stepped forward, and Adora brushed her off.

“I’ll get some ice if it swells anymore.” She promised, and Catra rolled her eyes.

“Any more? ” She repeated dryly, eyes roving for a raised spot.

“Catra I swear I’m fine!” Adora’s words were exasperated, but her eyes were fond when she met her friend’s gaze. Catra felt herself begin to soften as well, and an unbidden smile rising.

A heartsick pang only Catra could feel ruptured the peace, and she leaned back against the locker beside her, faking relaxation. “If you say so.” She lifted one corner of her mouth to prove she wasn’t actually mad, and Adora moved to take off her jersey.

Catra whipped out her phone to give her somewhere else to look, but she couldn’t help but peer over the edge as Adora stripped down to her sports bra and threw on a tshirt with the lettering “Etherian Horde.” The cheesy design wasn’t flattering on anyone, so why couldn’t Catra tear her eyes away?

Face practically on fire, Catra ducked her head, hoping to at least somewhat hide her cheeks.

Catra cursed Adora for having this effect on her, scrolling aimlessly through her instagram with her thoughts only on the girl in front of her. The stupid blonde with stupid mucles and a stupid adorable smile.

Actually, Catra had to admit that her own hormones were probably partially at fault too. They were also stupid.  

“Ready to go?” Adora called her attention, helmet under one arm and gym bag in the other hand. Catra shrugged her own backpack, and reached forward to grab the water bottle from the blonde’s hands. Their fingers bumped, and Catra jerked back like shocked. After her mini gay panic attack at the lockers, physical contact was not optimal for recovery. And she was nothing if not dramatic.

“Catra? Are you okay?”

Fuck fuck fuck fuck- “Yeah of course I am, I just uh… muscle spasm.”

Adora gave her a funny look, and Catra shoved her shoulder. “Oh cut it out.” She scowled, and Adora burst out laughing.

“Muscle spasm?” She repeated in between giggles, and Catra felt her ears heating as she forced down a small giggle of her own with a frown.

“Yes! Now stop that.” Her voice bordered on whining, but Adora was merely set off again.

Groaning, Catra slid a hand down her face, peering at Adora through the space between her fingers. The slightly annoyed girl cleared her throat, and Adora gathered herself.

“If you’ve finished,” Catra started with emphasis, “want to go get a shake or something? I just got my paycheck yesterday, so I have money for the first time in two weeks.” Despite the fact that she hadn’t had spending money in two weeks, Catra didn’t regret anything. She had spent her last paycheck getting them both matching rune tattoos that read “Promise.”

To Adora it was probably some sweet nod to their promise of friendship as kids, but Catra held the vow close to her chest with an iron grip. Maybe she’d never be able to have this girl the way she dreamt of, but the word reassured her that Adora still wanted her… even if it wasn’t the same way that Catra wanted her .

No one except an obsessive linguistics nerd would be able to tell what they said, so Catra was safe from rumors as well. It was bad enough she’d had to survive them all throughout middle school, after one time a kid saw them holding hands. It hadn’t, and didn’t, stop Adora and Catra from holding each other close whenever they needed the other. With or without a crowd.

Even so, that was middle school. Middle schoolers were nasty little toes and always looking for someone to throw under the bus. Most of the highschool students were mature enough not to care, and if they were homophobic pricks, they knew not to mess with Adora. Not because she was threatening, rather, she was liked by everyone. But as the best athlete in this school, between both the boy’s and girl’s team, she practically had celebrity status.

That said, she also did have very big muscles.

Before she would do something stupid like loose all sense and stare at said muscles, Catra turned and stalked out the door, combat boots smacking the wooden floor. “Come on!” She called, and Adora hurried after her. It only took a moment for the blonde’s track shoes to line up with Catra’s own footsteps, so they were walking in sync. A smile came to Catra’s lips as she recalled memories of skipping together down the sidewalks, arm around each other’s shoulders while they struggled to match each jump exactly to the other’s.

As if on queue, Adora brought her arm to rest on Catra’s shoulder. The brunette scowled, as she did whenever Adora flexed the inches she had on Catra. Instead of shrugging it off, she saw her opportunity and jabbed her elbow, half playfully, into Adora’s side instead. Caught off guard, Adora yelped and stumbled before tripping and going heads over heels over a bench.

Catra peeped over to see her sprawled on the ground, head having landed on her backpack and feet sticking up in the air. Adora glared at her, disheveled but eyes bright. Laughing freely, Catra had to lean on the bench to support herself.

“Don’t just stand there, help me up!” Adora reached her hand up, a lock of hair hanging in front of her eyes that escaped her ponytail.

“Just give me a minute.” The sight of her messy hair unreasonably set her off again, and Catra held up a hand as she continued struggling to catch her breath.

Through her laughter, Catra hadn’t noticed the sound of footsteps before they were too late.

“Adora, what on Earth are you doing down there?”

“Shadow Weaver!” Adora sputtered and attempted to straighten, instead managing to hit her head again on the locker. “I was just uh, I tripped.”  Catra muffled another laugh with a cough.

“You tripped.” The coach repeated, disdain filling her voice as she looked over at Catra. Despite herself, Catra felt herself stand a bit taller. Eyes narrowing, she continued, “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself just as the season is starting to peak.”

It was clear Shadow Weaver knew Catra was to blame, and also that she had no sense of jest. That, plus Catra had the strange sense that Shadow Weaver just hated her. She suspected it had something to do with the lesbian flag in her locker.

“Of course not!” Adora’s breathy response drew both of their gazes to her, and Catra took pity, snorting again. Extending a hand, she ignored her jumping heartbeat and clasped the blonde’s grip in hers. She had a nice view of Adora flexing her arm to pull herself up, and despite struggling with the physical contact, Catra couldn’t complain.

Shadow Weaver glowered at Catra as if she could read her thoughts. It was all she could do not to stick her tongue out at the Head Coach.

“We’re going to be on our way.” Not relinquishing her hold on Adora’s hand, Catra pulled the football player behind her and away.

“Bye Shadow Weaver!” Adora managed to call before Catra made a sharp turn out of her sight.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Adora hissed, “Catra, what was that all about?”

“She was rubbing me the wrong way.” Catra huffed, continuing to march on.

“You were rubbed the wrong way? I was literally on my back the entire conversation!” Adora exclaimed, and Catra cackled.

“Oh how I wish I got a picture.” She paused to laugh, “and then when Shadow Weaver came and I didn’t help you up you should have seen your face. It was all like “ah no! Betrayal. ” Catra lifted her free hand up and dramatically twisted her face.

Adora sighed, her face melting from annoyance to a bemused smile at Catra’s reenactment. Her curved lips kicked off something in Catra’s chest, and she thought she would do anything to keep Adora smiling.

This time Adora tugged her hand as she continued her walk, and Catra looked down at their pressed palms with slight shock. She’d forgotten about taking Adora’s hand, they had fit together so naturally. Now it came rushing back, and she was frozen with not knowing if she should tear it away or let it be.

Settling for not doing anything and letting Adora take the lead, Catra knew she looked like an overenthusiastic kindergartener had taken a red stamp to her face. That is to say, a red flustered mess.  

Taking an extra large step, Catra came up along Adora’s side. Adora fished around in her pocket for a moment, before retrieving her phone. Before Catra realized what she was doing, Adora had angled the camera at their joined hands and snapped a picture.

Ripping her hand away, Catra jumped back, cheeks burning. “What are you doing?!” She spat, and Adora looked at her with slight reproach, though if Catra wasn’t mistaking, she looked a bit flustered herself.

“I was trying to take a picture of our tattoos!” She stuttered out. Catra felt a pang of guilt. I must’ve freaked her out. Again.

“Well we don’t need to be holding hands to do it.” She grumbled, secretly wondering how she could get that picture. Hand feeling cold suddenly, she shoved them both in her pocket with a glower at the traitorous limb.

Catra looked up at Adora, an awkward silence stretching. Adora’s ears were pink as she looked at her phone, and Catra tapped her shoulder.“Sorry, I just…” There were a million ways to finish the sentence, but none that wouldn’t make this any more awkward. Opting to leave it open ended, Catra didn’t finish, instead stepping forward to push open the door with her shoulder.

“Ummm… did I tell you about how Kyle let the frogs loose in the science lab yesterday?”

The momentary tension dissipated as Catra continued her story, animated with grand gestures and facial expressions. She warmed as Adora laughed, the late afternoon sun making her face glow.

***

Catra kicked open the door of Mystacor Cafe, and made her way to their typical table in the window.

“Adora,” Catra turned her head, and frowned when her blonde wasn’t beside her.

“Adora?” She turned completely around, and wasn’t entirely surprised to see the athlete exchanging high fives and greetings with groups at other tables as she passed.

Glimmer waved in her direction. “Adora! I saw the pictures you sent me, I take it Operation Get the Cat-” Her face went stricken when she caught Catra’s eye, and the rest of the sentence was finished also as a mumble, “is going well.”

Completely confused, Catra looked over to see Adora glaring at Glimmer, cheeks flaming red. She was refusing to look back at Catra.

Operation get the Cat?

Adora still wouldn’t look at her, and went back to talking to the cheerleaders, who were beginning to look a little too flirty for comfort. Trying to shake off any tangles of jealousy, Catra sighed, dropping her bag as she slid into her chair. Propping her feet up on the table, she considered the rips in her jeans, deciding that they would look even better with another a little further up her thigh.

Tilting her head, Catra studied Adora. She would look good with a few rips in the sleeves of her jacket… just to spice things up.

“Hey, Brain-Damaged!” Adora turned her head, and Catra burst out in laughter, almost falling out of her chair.

“Did you actually  just respond to ‘brain-damaged?” Catra wheezed. The group of cheerleaders who Adora had been talking with looked over at her with curiosity, and Adora crossed her arms, pink tinging her cheeks. “Well, you were talking to me weren’t you?”

“Yes, but still. ” Catra hopped up onto the table as Adora rolled her eyes. “It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve called me that.” She grumbled, and the brunette smirked.

“I think it suits you.” She announced, her voice taking on a teasing lilt. Adora seemed to be seriously considering marching over and pushing her off the table. Both to aggravate her further, and make sure Adora couldn’t literally shove her over, Catra stretched out so she was lying on her stomach. Head propped in her elbows and feet kicking, she concluded “along with idiot” with a wink.

“HEY CATRA!”

Catra started, making a noise akin to a hiss.

“GET OFF THE TABLES!” Glimmer called from behind the counter, where she was working.

“Oh, can it Sparkles!” Hopping off the table, Catra turned to acknowledge her friend with a stuck out tongue. She returned it before turning back to the coffee machine.

“Are you done tormenting Glimmer?” Adora sat down across from her, and Catra looked up at her. Bits of hair were falling out of her ponytail and sticking to her forehead, and there were a halo of flyaways. It looked damnably attractive.

“I wasn’t tormenting her.” Catra emphasized. “Actually, I was trying to bother you. She just had to spoil my fun.”

“I think she was more concerned about doing her job than ‘spoiling your fun.’”

“Whatever. By the way, I was thinking about customizing your sports jacket…”

Adora gave her a wary look, ““What exactly did you have in mind?”  In response, Catra held up her long black painted nails with a wicked grin.

“Absolutely not.”

“ Ughh fine, you’re so boring.” She squinted, tilting her head. “It would look good with two little rips on each arm…” Leaning forward suddenly, she was about to slice, but Adora grabbed her wrist.

“ Catra.”  Adora looked down at her sternly. “We are not ripping up my team jacket.”

Catra held her gaze defiantly for a few moments, and there was a shift in the air between them. She couldn’t say what it was, but suddenly she wasn’t looking at Adora’s eyes, but rather…  in them. Her heart fluttered and her wrist went weak. The moment stretched, and they were only inches apart…

Adora blinked, and the spell was broken. She dropped Catra’s wrist in a rush, her eyes darting away as color bloomed across her cheeks. Catra felt her mouth fall open slightly in shock, though she didn’t know if it was belated shock from the moment or the fact that it had ended. Blood rushed to her cheeks as sat back, still in temporary mental paralysis.

Adora had just looked into her eyes, and then blushed.

But… she had also pulled away.

The mixed signals made Catra want to scream, but was there a possibility?

Adora stood up suddenly and gestured with her arm, turning her face away. “Come on, let’s go order.”

They went to the counter, ordering their usual milkshakes, chocolate for Catra and strawberry for Adora. Mere seconds after they’d sat down, Catra reached over and snatched Adora’s shake, holding it out of her reach as she “taste tested.”

Catra held it up and behind her head, leaning as far back as she dared while Adora reached over the table. “You- you pest!” Adora shrieked, and Catra laughed two times harder.

“ Pest?” She repeated, teasingly mocking. “Who says pest?!”

“Glimmer said it yesterday.” Adora huffed, continuing to reach.

“Actually, that is a very Glimmer thing to say, but not something I’d expect you to repeat.”

In a last ditch effort, Adora jumped out of her seat and lunged. Catra’s chair tipped back, and suddenly she was falling as the blonde reached forward to try and stop it.

It was like slow motion. Adora, moving in an attempt to stop Catra from tipped completely backward, stepped forward and onto a forgotten gatorade. The bottle rolled and her foot slipped out from under her, and then she was going down as well. Falling forward towards Catra while she backwards, Adora threw out her arms to stop herself from face planting into the other girl. Catra landed on her back with a shock, but whatever breath was left in her body left her lungs when she opened her eyes to see Adora’s face millimeters from her own.

A deep blush spread across Adora’s face, starting at her nose and working its way until the entirety of her cheeks and forehead were reminiscent of a cherry.

Neither of them made a move, and Catra’s heartbeat was beating so erratically she was certain she was seconds from a heart attack.

That would be a fun gravestone. “Cause of death: Gay panic induced heart failure.”

Her eyes traced Adora’s eyelashes, dark and full despite her blonde hair. The grey-blue of her eyes locked into hers, and Catra inhaled sharply.

Was there a heterosexual explanation for the way she was looking at her?

Blood rushing through her head, Catra froze as Adora’s face moved minimally closer to hers, lips tingling with anticipation, and thoughts whirring into white noise-

“Hey! Catra, Adora!”

Like a shaken soda pop, Catra jolted backwards, and Adora stood up so fast it seemed impossible. Breathing heavily, Catra tried to make up for the lack of oxygen intake from the last, what- minute? Five minutes? Ten? How long had Adora been there, face in front of hers, inching closer….

“Uh…. sorry.” Adora gave her a hand, and Catra pulled herself up. They were inches away again, and the brunette took a jittery step back. Her hand tingled from the contact, and she shoved them in her pockets, unable to look Adora in the eye.

Bow was looking between them, an unreadable look on his face.

“We fell.” Adora explained, breathless. Catra sneaked a look at her, and saw the pink was refusing to fade.

The possibility that Adora could ever like her back seemed so absurd mere week ago, even an hour, but now… Catra didn’t know.

Ridiculous.

But… was it?

Overwhelmed with thoughts and shaky nerves, she crouched to pick up the strawberry smoothie. It’s contents were all over the floor, and Catra was about to stand up again to get napkins when Adora crouched down.

“I’ve got it.” She started to clean up, paper napkins in hand. Their shoulders were touching, the blonde’s ponytail brushing her cheek.

“Uh, thanks.” Adora turned to Catra, and once again their faces were far too close.

Knees weak, Catra stood up and stumbled into her seat. Bow had turned it upright, and he was now leaning against the table.

“Sooooo…” He looked at her again, one eyebrow raised. Catra gave him a glare, and he raised his hands.

“So.” Adora plopped in her chair, her cheeks still stained slightly pink. Catra thought of the pink contents of the strawberry milkshake spilled on the floor, and Adora’s eyes meeting her own…

It was all too much to take in.

“I just remembered I have… uh… extra, er, calc homework. But I will catch up with you later!” Not even waiting to see their reactions, Catra slung her backpack over her shoulder and tried not to run out the door.

***

Scaling the tree alongside the house with ease, Catra came level with the second floor window and knocked.

She didn’t even have to wait a full two seconds before the curtain was pushed aside. Adora was wearing a black tank top and sweatpants, her hair up in it’s classic ponytail, though it was messy, as if she hadn’t bothered to redo it since this morning. Catra tried to ignore how the tips of her ears felt slightly warmer.

The window opened with barely any complaint, and Adora poked her head out. “What’s up?”

“I’m heading up to the roof if you want to join me.” Catra let go of the branch with one hand, so she was leaning out precariously.

“Show-off.” Adora mumbled, and Catra winked. The blond’s gaze immediately flicked away, and Catra felt a little jump in her chest. Adora turned to grab a blanket before starting to crawl out of the window with some difficulty, despite having done this regularly since they were kids. Catra leapt up the branches until the top of the house, where she transferred to the roof with ease. Adora came in her own time, and settled beside the brunette, shoulders touching as their legs dangled over the edge. The sun had just set, and a hazy dusk was settling over the town as they looked out.

They didn’t speak for a while, just sat with each other. For years they’d been doing this, and they had gotten to the point where silence spoke just as much as words.

But now, the silence was charged, and Catra’s mind was full. Full of Adora. The girl beside her, who had always been beside her. She who had bangaded scraped knees, laughed off mean spirited teasing, taught her how to ride a bike, sat with her when no one else would… all the way up until their relationship now. The person who was always there for her, whether it was to do something small like make fun of Shadow Weaver’s pretentious dresses, or provide a place to stay when her parent’s fighting got too loud.

Fueled by these emotions, Catra moved her hand to settle on top of Adora’s.

Adora started. Catra kept her hand there, frozen as she waited for Adora to make a move, waiting for rejection. Though the action itself was miniscule, Catra could feel how everything shifted.

Her hesitation was brief, but the time it took almost killed Catra. Instead of moving away, she flipped her own hand palm up and intertwined their fingers.

She felt a flutter as her breath caught. Feeling almost above her body, Catra turned to look at Adora. A moment later, the blonde turned her face as well.

The space between them was practically nothing, and the rest of the twilight fell away as she caught Adora’s eyes. There was something there, a wanting, as they searched Catra’s own.

Adora leaned forward, and Catra did the same.

The twilight fell away, as did her stomach. The kiss was tentative, and lasted only a moment, as if they were both uncertain. When they met each other’s eyes again, Catra moved back the tiniest amount.

“Do you really want this?” She asked, her heart and voice trembling with anxiety. This was the chance for Adora to back out and pretend it hadn’t happened, or admit that it was spur of the moment and unwarranted. She could end all of this with a single word. Dread slithered through Catra, but she remained firm. She wouldn’t take advantage of this if it wasn’t okay with both of them.

Adora took both of Catra’s hands in hers, and gave her a wide smile, one that sent Catra’s stomach whooshing and her heart floating. “Absolutely.”

Catra beamed back, full of light. This time, there was no hesitation.  She brought her lips to meet Adora’s again, and put all that she had, years of yearning and wishing, into it. Though her emotions hit her with all the power of a comet, the kiss was tender. Sweet. Loving.

When they parted, Adora grinned, looking practically starstruck.

“Wow.” Her voice had taken on this sort of… dorky… quality, and Catra couldn’t help but giggle.

“You dummy.” She rested her forehead against Adora’s. “I love you.”

The words, spoken with sudden bravery, seemed maybe a little too heavy for someone who she had only kissed twice. Or was it once? Did it count as two?

Either way, Catra knew it was true. She’d known it was true for years, but she had no idea if they would ruin this beautiful thing they’d just created. So she tensed, waiting for the fall.

“You love me?” Adora repeated with slight disbelief, but not repulsed.

Catra laughed lightly. “You are such an idiot.”

“I love you too.” Catra turned to look up at Adora, her turn to be shocked. After the kissing, she was expecting her to like her at least, maybe a lot, but…

Love?

Adora’s eyes said it all, and feeling close to bursting, Catra responded by closing the gap once more.

With the knowledge that this actually meant something, it was even better. Catra brought her other hand around Adora’s waist, and they leaned into each other fully. A warm feeling spread throughout her, and Catra thought about how long she’d wanted this. To love Adora, and be loved back.

Adora leaned forward a little more, and every thought left her head besides Adora’s lips.

It was messy and warm, just like the two of them. Darkness was coming in on them rapidly, but Catra never wanted to leave this roof. Not if it meant she got to have Adora.

Breaking apart, Catra remembered that Adora was wearing a tank top, and she wasn’t too warm either with her fishnet sleeves. With slight disappointment, she reached over and grabbed the blanket that Adora had carried up. Adora took one side, and threw her arm over Catra’s shoulder, bringing her in close. Catra tucked herself into Adora’s side, contentment washing over her.

The sky was a shade of blue that couldn’t be described as light nor dark. It was dusky, and Catra noticed the first star. Nudging Adora slightly, she pointed. “Look.”

There was a moment of silence, before Adora asked, “What did you wish for?”

Since they were kids, they’d always come up here to watch for the first star and make wishes. And of course they’d always share their wish with each other, because the “bestest of friends” bypassed the rule about your wish not coming true. Instead, they had declared, if we told each other, the wish would be twice as strong. Because if Catra wanted something, Adora wanted her to have it, and visa versa.

Catra didn’t have to think too hard before finding a simple truth. “More nights like this.” She decided, looking up at Adora.

Her face melted into another smile. “Wish granted.” She declared, resting her head on top of Catra’s.

“What about you?”

Adora considered. “I actually think I have everything I want right now.”

“You sap.” Catra whined, but her words had no effect once she started kissing Adora again.

[howlingday]

THE DRAGON-SLAYER

"Aaaaaaah~! Another boring mission complete!" Yang Xiao Long yawned as she walked down the road through the forest. It was still about a day's trip until she returned to the guild hall. She was hoping for some more action, but eh, what could you do? "Least I got to try out that new move I was working on."

Yang couldn't wait to get back and rub it in her sister's face that she completed an B Ranked mission by herself without any help, something Ruby had yet to accomplish. B Ranked or not, though, it was still boring.

She slung her bag forward and fished around until she pulled out the poster to look over it again. It featured a terrifying looking bear on the illustration, with the words "TERROR BEAR" emboldened on the bottom. Yang scoffed as she crumpled the poster and shoved it back into her bag.

"Terror wuss is more like it." She looked to the sky and noticed the sun was blazing overhead through the trees, and she was grateful for the protection it offered. Tanning was fine, but a sunburn was the last thing she wanted. Well, a sunburn and another awful mission.

A rustle in the bushes caught her attention, causing her to stop and step into a combative stance. After that last dud of a fight, she was itching for a real fight.

If she wanted to fight a bunny, that is. A small, brown bunny hopped out, sniffing the dirt in the road, hoping to find roots or whatever rabbits ate out here.

"Aw!" Yang cooed as she squatted. "Well, aren't you just the cutest? I wish I had a carrot for ya, but I'm all out. I hope you're not- HOPPING mad about that!" Yang fell on her back and rolled around laughing, kicking her feet at her own joke. The rabbit gave a deadpan expression and jumped back into the bush. "What? Was it not a good pun? C'mon, be honest! No need to- beat around the BUSH!" Yang fell into another fit of laughter.

She sighed, then poked her head into the bush to look for the rabbit. It must have ran through it because the bush was empty. Yang stood up to see where her furriest critic ran off to.

The forest was dense with trees, tall grass, and bushes. It was alive with deer, butterflies, and songbirds. Yang smiled at the view. She wished she could see something as beautiful as this every day.

Looking closer, she spotted a waterfall crashing in the distance. She reached for her flask and gave it a shake. Not empty, but also not full. No harm in a refill.

Another thought came as she lifted her arm higher and took a quick whiff of herself. "Urp! Yeah, a shower wouldn't hurt, either!"

Yang stepped over the bush and deeper into the treeline. She stepped carefully around the barbed vines growing in the tall grass, and waved away at the biting insects that also called this forest home. In a few moments, she reached her destination at the beautiful, glistening blue pond, complete with a crashing waterfall.

"Any perverts out there?" Yang dropped her bag and looked behind her; then to her left; then to the right. "Alright then. Either you're quiet, or you're not there. Either way," Yang took off her yellow jacket, "don't bother me."

"Aaaaaah! I'm so lost!" Jaune Arc was lost. Scratch that; lost implied he had no idea where he was, and he did know. He was in a forest. What he didn't know was where the nearest town was.

He had been wandering through this forest for days, but he always makes a wrong turn every time he reaches a split path. Right now, though, he was out of the treeline and following creekbed. He really wished his mom was here; she knew all about directions.

'No! Stop it! You're a big boy now, Jaune. Big boys don't need their moms!' Jaune's stomach growled. 'But what I wouldn't give for a hot meal right about now.'

Jaune looked to the sky. No clouds, which meant no rain, which meant only Sun for another few days, which meant more wandering around in the blistering heat. Jaune wasn't normally one for cursing things, but for the Sun, he was willing to make an exception.

The creekbed flowed with water, about ankle-deep, and Jaune was banking on this crystal-clear cascade flowed to a town water-wheel. Hopefully the water-wheel was attached to a house with food, like grilled fish, or a tasty pie. He could almost smell it now! He sniffed the air and it smelled like...

Coconut?

What were coconuts doing in the forest? Did coconuts grow in forests? No, that's not what his mom taught him. Coconuts grow on islands in the middle of the ocean. But weren't continents technically giant islands? He'd have to ask his mom later, but for now, he followed the scent.

Jaune almost walked off a cliff, and found the creek led to a glistening waterfall. At the bottom, where the waterfall pooled, Jaune saw a girl scrubbing her hair. Maybe she knew the way to town!

"Excuse me!" Jaune caught her attention. "Do you know the way to town?" Oh, neat! She was a wizard, too; and a pretty strong one at that, if the incantation circle told him anything.

"FIRE MAGIC: FIRECRACKER!" Yang blasted a set of five fireballs at her peeping tom. What was this guy's deal?! Didn't he know better than to sneak up on a girl in the shower?! Once her spell was cast, she bolted from the water, it's cool temptations dragging her in more than the actual water resistance. She toweled off and quickly put her clothes on. Once her jacket was on, however, the pervert was already halfway towards her! How does a creep like that move so fast?! And without so much as a scorch mark on him?!

He was clearly a powerful wizard, probably as strong as Uncle Qrow! She got into a combative stance as he stopped. He reached his hand out, probably in an attempt to grab her.

"Hi, I'm-"

"FIRE MAGIC: BOTTLE-ROCKET!" Yang launched herself away while simultaneously hurling three fireballs at her pursuer; much larger ones than her previous attack. Yet again, however, he shrugged it off like it was nothing! She might have to resort to punching the creep, but she wasn't going to rush in without thinking before doing that. "Okay; who are you, creep? You from a dark guild, or something?"

"A dark guild?" He gave her a confused look. Clearly, he was playing the ignorant and innocent card. It wasn't going to work on her. "No, I'm not from any guild. I'm Jaune Arc, from Argus."

"Argus? Across the water of the other side of the continent?"

"Yeah, have you heard of it?"

"Uh, only from what one of the other guild members told me. She said she grew up there."

"Oh, really? What's her name?" His smile did little to ease her fears. This guy was dangerous, and that was the only thing she knew about him besides his name and hometown.

"I'll answer you if you answer me, deal?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, sure."

"Okay, then, first question: why were you spying on me?"

"Uh, I wasn't spying on you."

"Then why were you on top of the waterfall?" Yang cracked her fingers, ready to launch another fire attack.

"I got lost, so I was just following the stream." He looked behind him towards the waterfall. "I was kind of hoping to find a water-wheel."

"A water-wheel? In the middle of the forest?"

"Yeah, I mean, it isn't the craziest thing I've heard of."

Yang looked him up and down. He definitely looked like an adventurer. He was wearing a plate mail cover on his chest and shoulder; a belt with a canteen and a pouch attached; and he was wearing a leather backpack over both shoulders. "Uh, can I ask you something?"

Yang blinked. "Uh, I guess."

"Am I in trouble?" Yang deadpanned. What was his first clue, the first attack, the follow-up, or that she was glaring daggers at him while in a combat stance? "Because if I am, I'd like to apologize for anything wrong I did."

"Yeah, no, pal. I don't let peeping toms get away scot-free, y'know?" Her muscles tensed like a coiled spring, ready to burst forward. Nothing was going to stop her from stomping this creep."

"Peeping tom? Were you naked?"

Yang suddenly felt the ground give beneath her, landing on her face. She stood up and nearly breathed fire on him. "Yes, you moron! How else would a girl be under a waterfall?!"

"I don't know. I thought you were doing some kind of monk training."

"Do I look like a monk to you?!" Yang growled, but then sighed. She gave up on this. There was no point. He's not a threat, not while being this stupid. "Look, I need to get back my guild. If I bring you to town, will that be enough for you to leave me alone?"

"Oh, uh, sure, but I didn't know I was bothering you. I'm sorry!"

Yang sighed. "This is going to be a long trip."

"So, you're from Argus?" Yang asked, trying to make small talk.

"Not originally, but I lived there for a while with my sister and her wife and son." Jaune was going to miss Adrien, but he could leech off his family for too long. He had to go out and make something of himself, like that girl who left before he showed up. What was her name Pina Nolada, or something? "I'm trying to find a guild to join."

"Where'd you live before that?"

"I was kind of wandering around for a little while."

"You didn't live anywhere?"

"Not since my mom left." Yang made a pained face. "What?"

"Nothing, it's just..." Yang sighed. "My mom left when I was young, too. My dad raised me and my sister all on his own."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." Jaune felt a sympathetic sadness from hearing this; or maybe it was empathetic? In either case, Jaune made her feel sad, so he should cheer her up. "Hey, uh, check this out!"

Yang looked over to see Jaune pull the large sheath from his side. With the click of a button, the sheath expanded into a shield. Yang's eyes were wide with surprise.

"Wow," she said, "that's gotta be heavy!"

"Uh, yeah, it kind of is," Jaune groaned, "but it's a handy tool! I can block just about anything with it!"

"What about my fireballs?"

"Your what?"

"My fireballs. The magic I was shooting at you?"

Jaune's eyes went wide this time. "You were shooting magic at me?!"

"Uh, yeah, why?"

"Oh, um, don't take this the wrong way, but-" Luckily, Jaune's comment was cut off by a cry of terror. Yang must have heard it, too, since she sprinted towards the scream. Jaune returned to the shield to it's sheath form. "Yup, still just as heavy."

"Come on, sweetie; just one little kiss?" The petite girl was overshadowed by the taller, scruffy-faced man towering over her. The tanned skin of his arms were covered in scars, his long, greasy, black hair poured like thick oil from his white bandana on his head. The cackling demon image on the cloth seemed to sneer from it's perch above his brow.

"No! I already told I'm not interested!" The girl's rejection was met with a snapping finger, which signalled the three individuals behind him to continue their work.

The shortest of the trio had pale skin, and long white moustache. He stood no higher than the girl's knees, and seemed to delight in the fact as he passed by her to enter the back room. He began throwing supplies into the lobby, smashing containers and ripping bags while doing so.

The windows were worked over by a flat-nosed woman with round body. She took a deep breath and blew onto the window, melting the glass and the wood in the frame around it. She laughed, causing her belly to jiggle.

The third member, a tall man with dark skin and wearing black shades, placed his hands on the ceiling. He then grunted, flexing as he pushed on the ceiling, tearing it from the walls.

"So..." The scarred man said, grabbing the girl's chin and forcing her to look at him again. "About that kiss?"

The girl trembled. She wanted to look away, but her captor kept an iron grip on her head. She shut her eyes and clenched her jaw, wishing this nightmare would be over. That someone would save her!

"Hello?" Everyone in the room turned to see the blonde woman in the doorway. "Hi! Can I get some snacks for the road? Got a long trip ahead." The woman was followed a more blonde man, who seemed to actually take note of the carnage inside, if his shocked face was any indication. "Is the manager here?"

"Beeeeeeeeeat iiiiiiiiiit, blooooooondiiiiiiiie." the tall man said slowly, drawing the syllables out of every word as he spoke. As he turned to face her, the ceiling and roof over the store spun with him. "Stooooooorrrrrre's clooooooossssssssed."

"Really? Looks open to me." She cocked a smirked. "In fact, I'd say sales are "through the roof!" Eh? Eh?" She finger-gunned at her audience. No one was laughing. "Nothing? Eh, you must be more of a slapstick crowd, huh?"

The large, round woman waddled her way over to would-be comedienne, sneering at her. "Hmph! Such an ugly sense of humor befits a woman such as yourself."

"Huh?" The blonde woman looked up at her critic. "If you don't like it, that's fine, but there's no need to insult my looks."

"Hmph! With ratty locks, and a twig of a shape your form retains, you are hardly fit to be considered a full-figured maiden like moi!"

"Hang on," the blonde man stepped forward now, "Yang's right. You shouldn't be making fun of somebody's looks. Don't you know how rude that is, sir?"

The larger woman flinched, clenching her jaw in anger and grinding her teeth so intensely, you'd think sparks would start flying.

"Jaune," the blonde woman tapped his shoulder, "she's not a man." She whispered.

"Who isn't a man?"

"Hmph! Me!" The rotund madame barked. "I shall gift upon you such a mercy as to repent on your transgressions!"

"Huh?"

"She's telling you to say you're sorry."

"Oh! Uh, I'm sorry I mistook you for a man." Jaune apologized.

"Hmph! As you should be!"

"It's just, you don't look like any woman I've ever seen. To be honest, I thought you were some kind of weird, two-legged boar."

Everyone's jaw dropped. There was dense, and then there was stupid, but this was just downright brainless! Whoever told this guy that "honesty is the best policy" didn't bother to explain little white lies. And from the looks of it, he was going to live to regret it.

The portly woman ground her teeth violently and inhaled so deeply with her nose, she reeled her head back. She then swung forward as an incantation circle appeared behind. "MAIDEN'S KISS!"

A jet of white smoke escaped her mouth as she opened it. The blonde woman jumped out of the way, but the blonde man didn't, choosing instead to lift a white bar up and extend it into a shield. The attack was blocked by the shield, but the white smoke enveloped the man. As it dissipated, the round woman laughed.

"Hmph! Such is the tax of fools who dare question the virtues of a full-figured maiden such as myself!"

The gang of cronies laughed as well, with their leader grinning. These villains weren't going to stop at destroying property, and that suited them just fine. The girl trembled once again as she watched the cloud dissipate into nothing, leaving only a pool of brown sludge where the man stood.

"Phew! That was a close!" A voice said from above. Everyone looked up and saw the man hovering above them and slowly descending. "Good thing you lifted the ceiling, huh, big guy? A foot lower, and I could have been in some real trouble!"

"Hoooooooooooow aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrre yooooooooooou stiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllll aaaaaaaaaaaliiiiiiivvvvvvvvvve?"

"Well," the man said, finally touching ground in the goop, "I saw the melted window, but I didn't smell anything like wood burning, so your ability melts, but it doesn't burn. That requires a lot of heat, and heat rises. Decided to hitch a ride with my glide shield."

"Nice one, Jaune!"

"Thanks, Yang!"

"Yang?" The man in the bandana stepped away from the girl. "As in Yang Xiao Long, the Blonde Bombshell Brawler of Dryad's Tears?!"

Yang chuckled as she scratched an itch on her upper lip with her finger. "Oh, so you've heard of me? Well, glad to know I'm famous around here! Now, since you know who I am, why don't you tell me who you are?"

"Gladly." The man tightened the bandana on his head, making the demon image look more impressive. "The name is Zed, "Sin-Eater" Zed of Imp's Delight. And these are my Sons of Sin; "Luster-Loss" Asma; "Star-Grabber" Cin; and "Hoard-Stealer" Nom. We were just passing by when I decided to do some shopping here. Found me a pretty, little doll I like, so I tried to buy her. Unfortunately, the doll's owner didn't like the look of me, so I decided to take it for myself."

"What doll?" The blonde man asked.

"Excuse me?"

"What doll? This looks more like a farm supply store. I don't think they sell dolls here."

"Not normally, hehehehe, but this little peach right here is just ripe for the taking, hehehehe!" The short man said through giggling, grabbing for the girl with his prehensile moustache. She jumped away, only to end up in a corner. "Now, now, dear! No need to be fussy!"

"No! Stay away! No! No!" The girl cried as the hairs of his moustache wrapped around her legs. Nom cackled as he stepped closer.

"There's no point trying to break free, my dear! My hairs are so full, not even a charging rhino could break through! So just let me have some-"

SWISH!

Nom looked down from the girl's terrified face to her legs where his hairs fell limp. He continued down until he found a break in the line between his facial hairs and their end point.

"I don't know what you people think you're doing," Jaune spoke through gritted teeth, "but a person is a person, not some toy or a piece of fruit." He turned his head and faced Nom, his eyes burning with a blue flame. "Now get the hell out of this store!" Jaune kicked Nom in the face, knocking him out and sending him flying into the wall.

Jaune turned towards the girl and knelt down. "Are you okay, miss? Can you walk?" The girl shook her head to recover, then nodded. "Good. I need you to leave. Go find a friend and stay with them for a while. We'll take care of the guys here. Okay?" The girl nodded again, then ran for the exit. The ceiling shifted overhead.

"Whoooooooooo saaaaaaaaaid yoooooooou coooooould leeeeeeeeavvvvve?" Cin drawled as he shifted his weight to throw the ceiling down.

"I did, bub" Yang shouted as she leapt into his face, "because this party hasn't even started yet, so I need you to keep raising the roof for now!" Yang punched Cin so hard, he staggered, but never fell. "Heh, tough guy, huh?"

"Hmph!" Asma grabbed Yang in a bear hug. "Such a fragile harlot need not concern herself with the whims and wishes of much more fragile harlots! MAIDEN'S KI-!"

"Oh, no you don't! FIRE MAGIC: STRAWBERRY SUNRISE" Yang's entire body glowed in a brilliant golden light as her hair shone like the Sun and her eyes became a flawless ruby red. Not only bright, but hot, too! So hot that Asma stopped her initial attack to let go of Yang, who took advantage of this recoil and launched another attack. "FIRE MAGIC: EMBER BURST!" Yang used both hands to launch a massive fireball twice her size to engulf Asma, sending her flying across the road as the rescued girl escaped.

"Cin! Drop the damn roof on her already!" The giant responded by doing so, a rain of splinters and wood shavings fluttering down as it comes crashing down.

"Hey, Jaune!" Jaune looked to Yang. "Keep your eyes on me!" Yang took a deep breath. "FIRE MAGIC: I BURN!" Yang's entire body, once a shining light, erupted into a now veritable burning star. She stood her ground as she caught it, the wood between her fingers scorching into cinders as she lifted it high above her head, then slammed it back down onto the now crumbling tower. Yang smirked as her flames died, having only one thought as the dust slowly settled. 'I never could stop myself from showing off in front of the boys, huh, Rubes?'

Jaune coughed and blinked as the scent of burning wood and sawdust invaded his senses. It gave him mixed feelings; a combination of warmth and happiness from bonfires with his mother, and dread as it was a bonfire that led to her disappearance.

Jaune waved away the smoke and coughed when a cloud chose his mouth as a suitable home. The coughing led to hacking, and the sawdust decided to invite friends over for a housewarming party. "Water," he cried with a dry voice, "I need water!"

Suddenly a vortex formed a few yards away from him, drawing all the dust and small debris away. Jaune felt the vacuum draw on his clothes, but luckily he was too heavy to be swept away. As he looked closer, he saw a green magic incantation circle rotate at the point where the vortex drew everything in. The wind died, and sunlight returned to blind Jaune.

In front of him, stood Zed, a cocky grin on his face. "I don't know who you are, kid, but I suggest you run. Nobody's ever survived against "Sin-Eater" Zed and lived to tell the tale!"

"Probably because they died when you fought them, right?"

The thug tapped the side of his nose. "You know, I've heard of Dryad's Tears and Yang Xiao Long, but I've never heard of you before. What guild are you from?"

Jaune laxed at the conversation. "Oh, I'm not from a guild."

"That so? A shame you gotta waste it helping out the sleeping dragon there." He nodded his head towards Yang. "Why don't you join up with Imp's Delight? We could use a man like you in our guild. Raiding villages'll be a breeze!"

"And if I say no?" Jaune tightened his grip on his sword and widened his stance.

"Then you won't say anything ever again." Jaune held up his shield. Zed sighed. "Shame. You could have been a real pal." A green incantation circle manifested behind Zed. "WINDS OF OMEN!"

The vortex reappeared, but spun in reverse this time, launching small debris everywhere. Jaune kept his shield close to his face as the wall of wind, debris, and sawdust blinded him. He raised a foot to step forward.

"STARVING GIANT!" Zed cried over the howling wind, and the vortex spun once again in reverse, sucking the sawdust and debris in, as well as the now off-balance Jaune, forcing him to fall forward. Zed cancelled his vortex and rushed towards him. Jaune struggled to regain his balance, only to lose it once again as Zed unleashed an onslaught of punches into Jaune, his unbalanced flailing of his sword and shield to his sides left him wide open. Jaune fell to the ground in pain.

"That's all you going for you, huh? Brains and a blonde girlfriend? It takes more than that to beat me, kid." He crouched down next to his floored opponent. "Tell you what I'll do: you and your friend come back to the guild, you swear your allegiance, and I'll forgive you both for this little interruption we had. What do you say?"

"I say you can take that offer and shove it up your ass." Jaune and Zed looked in surprise as the panting Yang stood up from the rubble. She removed a bandana from her leg, revealing a tattoo of yellow tree with yellow teardrops falling from the canopy. "I don't care how tough you Imp cowards think you are. My guild is the strongest Wizard Guild this side of Fiore. Your little street gang clubhouse has got nothing on us!"

Zed stood up and walked over to Yang, who struggled to get into a fighter's stance. "STARVING GIANT." Yang was pulled into the vortex, her face caught by Zed's hand. He lifted her up, then slammed her into the ground. "WINDS OF OMEN."

Yang screamed as winds with the force of a hurricane blasted her into the ground, but Zed kept his grip on her face as his volley of winds continued, each gale more intense than the last. "This is what happens to those who fight against Imp's Delight! No one is greater than our guild; not while Guildmaster Amon Ripper, the Red Dragonslayer, still breathes! And now, I'm going to drag your sorry hide to his feet, and you'll be his toy for as long as he likes! Because we are-

"GAH!" Jaune crashed into Zed, forcing him to let go of Yang and sending him flying a few yards away. Yang looked up and saw Jaune standing over, his shield in front of him. Zed stood up, growling. "Cheap shot, kid, and the last one, too!" Zed placed both hands in front of him, incantation circles manifesting behind him. Jaune sheathed his sword and took a deep breath. "WINDS OF OMEN!"

A cylinder of wind charged towards Jaune, the young man stepping forward, over Yang. He widened his stance and squatted in place, bringing his fists up to his mouth, one in front of the other.

Yang and Zed both widened their eyes. "You're a-?!" was all Yang could get out before a yellow incantation circle with the head of a dragon in the center appeared.

"YELLOW DRAGON ROAR!" Jaune bellowed as a shining yellow vortex of his own crashed into Zed's, then enveloped and swallowed his gusts of wind, overpowering and launching Zed.

Zed crashed far away. Far from the village and his team of thugs. Said team gathered at the ruined shop, each gawking at the powerful wizard who literally blew their leader away. Jaune turned towards Yang and saw them. They flinched at his gaze. "Your boss flew that way." Jaune pointed in the direction of his blast. The team nodded, then ran off to collect their benefactor. Jaune looked down at Yang. "Do you need help?"

"Just a little." Jaune grabbed her arm by the bicep and helped her stand. "Thanks, but I should be fi- Shit!" Yang stumbled into Jaune's chest. She must have been tired. Jaune could tell by how red her face was getting. "So, uh, a dragonslayer, huh?"

"Yeah." Jaune answered simply.

"So your "mom" is-" Jaune answered the same as before. "Huh. Never would have guest, since you have that sword and shield. Figured you'd be a Requip wizard."

Jaune shook his head. "Nope."

Yang grabbed Jaune by the shoulders and steadied herself. Jaune gave her a worried look. "I'll be fine. I just need a nap."

"Maybe there's an inn nearby."

"Nah! What I really need is grub! Is there a tavern around here?"

Jaune and Yang sat down in the tavern that was only a few buildings away. Yang was scarfing down beef burgers and fries by the handful, while Jaune ate his chicken sandwich in silence. "Sho yur muh effed I yu ur yah?"

"Could you maybe say that again without an entire cow in your face?" Yang chewed and swallowed her sixth helping of burger, then washed it with her stein of cider, finishing with the most ladylike belch in the history of ever.

"BRAAAAAAAAP!!! Ah! So, like I was saying, your mom just up and left while you were young?" Jaune nodded, which Yang replied to with a scoff. "Your mom sounds just like mine, except somehow worse. I had my dad. You didn't have anybody."

"I'm sure she had a reason. That's why I'm looking for her."

"To learn why?" Jaune nodded again. "Be careful, Jaune. You might not like the answer. I sure as hell didn't like mine." Yang reached for her fries. "There's a lot people in this world, Jaune, and the worst ones are always the ones closest to you." Jaune frowned at that. She expected him to. "But enough about that. Let's get back to you joining me."

"What?"

"You and me hooking up! I need you by my side in case what happened back there happens again." Yang extended her hand. "What do you say?"

Jaune blushed and looked away. "My mother warned me about this!"

"Huh?"

"She said she wanted grandkids, but only when I met the right woman. But how will I know if you are the right woman for me? I mean, we've only just met, but maybe this is love at first sight?" Yang was blushing now. "You are strong, but strength isn't what's important in a relationship. What matters is that we love each other, and-"

Yang slammed her hands on the table. "HOLD ON A MINUTE!"

"Um, excuse me?" Yang and Jaune looked to their side, seeing the young girl they saved earlier. "Um, thank you again for saving me. I owe you both so much."

"We were just happy to help." Jaune said with a smile.

"Yeah, so how much are you willing to pay back?" Jaune snapped his head towards Yang, glaring at her. "Relax, shield boy! I'm just messing with her." Yang turned her attention back to the girl. "But really, if you need any help, don't be afraid to ask Dryad's Tears for help. We'll be here as fast as we can, and kick butt as hard as we can."

The poor girl seemed on the verge of tears. "Thank you! Thank you so much!"

Yang smiled at the girl's tears. Her smile of gratitude warmed her heart. It almost reminded her of Ruby. "Well, time we get going."

"Already?" Jaune asked.

"Yeah." Yang pulled out a piece of paper, and wrote something down. "My offer still stands, if you're interested. Just swing by the guild if you wanna join."

"Can't I go with you?" Yang gave him a curious look. "I mean, it's like you said earlier, you need me by your side. Besides, if it means I'm closer to finding my mom, then I should join, right?

Yang set her paper face-down on the table, and closed her eyes in thought. She couldn't guarantee that she'd be able to help him find his mom, or any dragons for that matter. Still, he saved her life, so she owed him at least that much. "Okay, you got yourself a deal!"

"Oh, my! It's so big" Yang opened her eyes to see the girl marvel at Jaune's sword, which he was showing off for her.

"Thanks! It was a gift from my mom."

"She must have been quite the craftsman!"

"No, she was a dragon."

"Oh, my! Really? Does that mean you're a dragonslayer?"

"Yup! I'm the son of Bellisa, the Yellow Dragon."

Yang quickly stood up. "All right, Jaune, time to go!" The last thing they needed right now was unwanted attention. "Time to head back to the guild!"

"Okay!" Jaune stood up, and stepped out. "It was nice meeting you-" Jaune tripped over himself and landed on his face. Not hard, though, which was odd when you considered the floor was made of wood. Jaune pushed himself off the floor, into the ruby red eyes of the blushing girl.

"Wow!" someone said.

Jaune immediately leapt up. "Ah! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-!" He felt a tug on his arm. He looked in that direction and saw Yang red in the face and looking away.

"Come on, Lady Killer, we have to go!"

"What about the bill?"

"I left a check, don't worry about it!" As soon as they made it out, Jaune heard shouting behind him. He looked back and saw an elderly man chasing them with a broom, mumbling something loudly that he couldn't understand. He saw the girl following suit, stopping the man and talking to him. Whatever she said seemed to calm him down. As the man turned away, she looked in his direction. She was far away, but he could have sworn she was winking. "C'mon! Pick up the pace, Romeo! We gotta get there before nightfall!"

"To where?"

Yang smiled. "Where else? Beacon, the home of Dryad's Tears!"

The girl went back to her house, and collapsed into a chair. What a day! First some rookie thugs from some no name dark guild try to hustle her, then her cover gets blown, LITERALLY, by a dragonslayer.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a buzz in her dresser drawer. She opened it to find her communications Lacrima vibrating. With a touch, she was answered with the image of a woman with black hair and amber eyes watching her, taking into account her every move. She lifted the Lacrima to the dresser.

The woman spoke first. "Do you have anything to report?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Proceed." The girl took a deep breath and began explaining her encounter today. The slow, early morning, the annoying later morning, the interesting midday, and the unfortunate afternoon. "So your cover is compromised."

"Not completely. However, it doesn't seem there's anything left for me here. If you'd like, ma'am, I can continue my role-"

"That won't be necessary." The woman was silent for a moment. "Return to the guild. Our guildmaster will have another assignment for you ready by that time."

"Yes, Cinder."

"Good." Cinder Fall leaned forward, her bangs parting to show off her web tattoo over her eyes. "Besides, I also would like to hear more about this "dragonslayer" you told me about, Emerald."

[ladyanput]

Seeing Green Ch. 13

The figure that rose once the purple cleared away. He looked about two feet above the tallest man there, his muscular body wrapped in bandages, reminding Marinette of a mummy. Chains hung from him, and his eyes glowed a sickly green.

"Jason.. Oh no.." Eva whispered, tears welling up in her eyes.

" I am not Jason." Those vile green eyes turned towards Eva, and he grinned to show off his mouth full of sharp teeth. "I am Lazarus, and I am here to destroy those who aren't worth redeeming."

Lazarus gripped one of his chains tightly in one hand, the rusted metal beginning to glow green. He trained his eyes on Lila and he grinned. He back and struck, lashing out with the chain.

"Lila, look out!" Sabrina screamed. Lila let out her own scream and grabbed Sabrina's arm, shoving her in front of her. Sabrina was then wrapped up in the chain, and let out a howl of pain as her eyes glowed green. Everyone watching could see the veins in her body light up the same sickly green colour and her howls turned into screams of rage.

"Everyone, you need to get out, now!" Marinette stood firm and shouted. That seemed to shake the dumbstruck crowd and a mass panic ensured. Marinette reached out and grabbed Eva's hand, gripping it tightly and the two began running, looking to hide and transform. But those ideas were quickly dashed when Kim grabbed the both of them and dragged them off.

So here they were, locked in a room with their class and Miss Bustier. All the meanwhile, Lila was seated in a chair, sobbing while her entourage tried to soothe her.

"P- poor Sabrina sacrificed herself for me, she was such a good friend!" Lila whimpered, while Mylène patted her arm and Ivan tried her best to cheer her up.

"Are you all fucking serious?" Marinette snapped. Everyone turned and stared at the girl in shock, as her cursing was… Impossible. Marinette stormed right up to Lila, fury blazing in her eyes. "This is all your fault, yours and Alya's. Why, why can't you just leave things alone, Lila? Now Jason is akumatized, and he's not just some civilian, Lila, he knows military combat, he's a fighter and now he's out for your blood."

"But how is an akuma here?" Rose whispered in horror, clinging tightly to Juleka, who looked equally as terrified. "Hawkmoth is in Paris, isn't he..?"

"Obviously not anymore." Max muttered, his own nerves wracked horribly at the sight of the akuma.

"None of this would have happened if you had kept your kids under control, Caline." Eva snapped, leaning against the locked door and trembling. When she heard Lazarus roar, she shut her eyes tightly, a few tears streaking down her cheeks  "Now Jason is akumatized because you let a liar and her rabid bitch run loose."

"Excuse me?! You're the one who's been fucking my boyfriend!" Alya snapped, taking a threatening step towards Eva, only to be cut off by Nino getting into her path.

"I broke up with you because you're not the same Alya I first started dating. You're selfish, self absorbed, and only think about yourself and Lila. I don't love you anymore, I hate you. Eva never touched me, Lila lied, just like she lied about everything else!" Nino got right in Alya's face, trying to get her to see reason. But it was like talking to a brick wall and Alya began screaming in his face.

Marinette looked around the room, dread curling in her gut as she saw no other doors, no windows. There was only one exit and there was no way to get out.

How could Damian and his family handle an akuma alone? They didn't have her powers of purification, or her Cure, or her Lucky Charm. She had to get out, but with her classmates here…

"Marinette, I need the necklace." Eva turned out, her body shivering and her voice strained with pain. This caught the class' attention. Eva strode up and grabbed the young heroine's shoulders. "Please, he's hurting! I can't just leave him out there, I have to save him!"

"B-but…!" Marinette stared into those tear filled eyes, her mouth going dry as she realized they didn't really have a choice.

"What the hell are you talking about, you don't have to do anything. Lila can just call Ladybug and she'll come and save us." Alya snapped, having returned to sit beside Lila, all the while everyone listened to the screams of horror and Lazarus roaring for Lila and Alya to face him. 

"They can't fight this alone, you know this! And Hawkmoth is in Gotham, Marinette, how else could there be an akuma here?! He's here, he's in unknown territory!" Eva's voice became more frantic.

Marinette was quiet for a heartbeat, before she grabbed her clutch she had set on a table and opened it. Tikki stared up at her in shock, then grim acceptance. When the Kwami flew up, the class went deathly silent.

"I'm sorry, Tikki, I wish I didn't have to." Marinette whispered, cupping her hands to let the Kwami sit. "I'm going to be exposed."

"... This may be your only chance to get Hawkmoth. We'll figure this all out later, I promise." Tikki smiled, and then it finally seemed to click.

"Marinette, you're… Ladybug?" Nino whispered as realization hit him. Marinette merely met his gaze and smiled.

"Tikki, spots on!"

And as Ladybug stood firm before them, she looked different. Gone was the spandex one-piece of spots. Her long dark hair was up in a ponytail, her body clad in a red suit with black armour on the shoulders, around her waist, arms, and legs. Her signature yoyo hung at her hip and her feet were clad in black combat boots.

The class erupted in a surprised frenzy, but Marinette ignored them, turning instead towards Eva, opening her yoyo and taking out a small box, setting it in her friend's hands.

Eva gratefully opened the box and Trixx appeared, going and nuzzling his Chosen as she out on the necklace.

Lila and Alya stared at the familiar looking necklace as reality finally clicked in.

"That's mine!" Alya screeched, getting to her feet and racing over, only to halt abruptly when Trixx flew into her face, the Kwami looking furious.

"You, Alya Césaire, were unworthy to hold this Miraculous. I may be the being of tricks and illusions, yes, but I am also the being of truth. How can one expect to create convincing illusions if one cannot see the truth in all things? You and Lila Rossi are beings of lies, her weaving the tales and you drinking them down as if they were a fine wine. I never thought of you as my kit, Césaire, you are only a disgrace."

"You… You're wrong.." Alya whispered, taking a shaky step back. Eva merely stared at the reporter as she transformed, revealing Lady Vixen in all her glory. Said heroine then reached out and grabbed Alya's phone, throwing it against the floor to smash it, swiftly doing the same to Lila's phone before either girl could react.

"You breathe one word about our identities to anyone and I'll never forgive you." Ladybug announced, the look in her cold blue eyes scaring everyone in the room. "Now stay here and try not to make things worse."

The class watched wordlessly as Ladybug left them without taking a look back.

Gone was the loyalty and the trust. She'd never give any of them a Miraculous again, even to those who had asked for forgiveness.

If their loyalty was so frail, why would she bother?

…

Robin hated Lila with every inch of his being at that moment. He dodged another chain, causing it to wrap around a pillar and thus breaking it. He landed on one of the tables, only to be tackled by one of the brain washed drones of pure madness Lazarus had created.

Damian knew this madness, he had been affected by it once himself. He drew back and punched the man on top of him in the face, sending him flying backwards.

"Anyone seen Ladybug?" Nightwing spat out some blood, having taken a fist to the face, courtesy of Lazarus.

"No, Red Robin, did you see where the butterfly touched?" Batman called out as he tried to get in a clear shot to try and taze Lazarus, but there were too many of the goons in the way.

"Look out!" Queen Bee used her spinning top to pull Batman out of the way of oncoming chains, Ryuko and Viperion quickly joining after.

"We need to find the akumatized item and destroy it!" Ladybug called out, as Red Robin jumped onto Lazarus' back, tasering him  to try and weaken him. But it had little effect, with Lazarus grabbing the hero around the waist and tossing him through one of the glass windows.

Lazarus was brutal and bloodthirsty, in the simplest of terms. When he punched or grabbed, he sought to destroy. He grabbed onto Nightwing's leg and crushed it. Starfire, infuriated by the harm caused to him, began pelting the akuma with attacks.

"I need to find what was akumatized!" Ladybug called out, watching as Vixen kept calling out Jason's name, telling him to fight it. Ladybug glanced over at Robin, feeling her panic spike. "Then we need to break it, I can't purify the butterfly without it."

"What's the plan?" Ryuko landed beside her, watching as Queen Bee and Viperion tried to distract Lazarus, attempting to give them more time.

"I…" Ladybug stared at Lazarus, an icy feeling growing in her belly. She watched as Queen Bee was knocked to the ground, then brutally stomped on by Lazarus, the sound of cracking bone and Queen Bee's scream rattling Ladybug to her very bones.

Ryuko and Viperion cried out Queen Bee's name,  rage filling them as they rushed forward. Robin avoided a swipe, then saw Ladybug standing there, frozen in place and looking terrified.

"Angel? Ladybug, what's wrong?" He ran over, pulling her out of the way of an oncoming chain and both of them rolling under a table. He held the trembling heroine close. "Mari?"

Blood rushed in her head, the roaring sound filling her ears. She couldn't do this, she couldn't think of a plan… Chat had usually helped and now she didn't have him anymore…

She was useless without him…

"Angel, snap out of it!" Robin gave her a rough shake, snapping her out of her stupor. He stared at her, then cupped her face in her hands. "Don't listen to anything he's told you, understand? You are amazing, smart, and you handled Hawkmoth and his minions all by yourself. You've done it and I know you can do it, we're all behind you."

Ladybug's eyes seemed to focus and a determined look took over her expression. She rolled out from under the table and grabbed her yo-yo.

"Lucky Charm!" She shouted, tossing it in the air as Batman was sent flying by Lazarus hitting him. 

When a spotted crowbar landed in her hands, Nightwing saw it and let out a slew of curses.

"Is this some sort of sick joke?" He snapped, while Ladybug stared up at him before shaking her head, dumbfounded. "Well this isn't funny! You don't take that think anywhere near him, you understa-"

Nightwing was cut off by being promptly grabbed and slammed into the floor, the marble cracking beneath them.

"Give me your Miraculous, Ladybug!" Lazarus snarled as he grabbed a different chain, and it shot out at her. She screamed as she was ensnared in the chain and sharply dragged over to the akuma, dropping the crowbar in the process. As she was dragged, she struggled to get the chains loose, but they were bound so tightly that she could feel even her bones straining.

 Lazarus quickly grabbed her by the throat, his other hand going for her ear. A purple mask appeared over Lazarus' enraged face, and a sickly grin spread. He firmly grasped one of the earrings, and began to pull. Ladybug gazed deep into those madness ridden eyes, and frowned.

"Bruce wouldn't want you to do this. Neither would Dick, or Tim, or Damian. Fight it, Jason, please. We can get Lila without you doing this." She urged him, her hand managing to find her yo-yo and she began to fiddle with it. As she distracted the akuma with her speech, as he halted his movements, she kicked the Black Cat ring in Robin's direction. And she knew deep in her heart that she was making the right choice.

"That's the thing, I know people like Lila… They never get punished. They only care about themselves and feed off the weak, and it seems nobody is doing anything about it.." Lazarus snarled, his grip tightening on her throat, making her squeak in pain. "I will give her an experience that she'll never forget."

"My, my, this is quite a surprise." The voice snapped both Lazarus and Ladybug out of their stupor, and they looked over and saw the Joker standing not too far from them, firmly grasping the spotted crowbar. "I must say, hot shot, you certainly do know how to clear a room."

"You…" Lazarus snarled, dropping Ladybug to the ground as he suddenly began his advance towards the Joker. "You bastard!"

Ladybug watched in horror as Lazarus charged at Joker, who drew back the crowbar and hit him in his thigh. Before she could call out, a figure landed by her side.

She stared at the new Black Cat, his outfit reminding her of one of the pictures Alfred had once shown her on young Damian, when he first came to Gotham. It was all black, with accents of the acidic green, the emblem of the Black Cat shown firmly on his chest. His hood was drawn up, having the faint outline of cat ears, and his face was adorned with a black domino mask, the eyes only a glowing, constant green.

"Hello Angel." He held up a powered up and pressed it against the chains. They crumbled into dust, finally freeing the heroine. He stumbled back a step when Marinette suddenly hugged him, but he quickly hugged her back, holding her close. "It's okay, we can do this."

Ladybug nodded firmly and turned towards Lazarus, where he had Joker pinned to the floor, his hands wrapped around his neck and squeezing tightly.

"I'll kill you, finally doing something Batman was too cowardly to do." Lazarus snarled, completely immersed in strangling the clown, even when a purple mask appeared over his face and Hawkmoth screamed in his head.

That was when Ladybug noticed something. Bound to Lazarus' chest by the yellowed bandages was a single rose. Her eyes narrowed in confusion, before realization kicked in. She rushed forward and shoved Lazarus, knocking him off balance and away from Joker, who quickly turned back into a gasping Lady Vixen. Eyes focused, she quickly ducked under Lazarus' swinging arms, before grabbing the flower and promptly crushing it.

Jason collapsed to the floor with a groan as the black butterfly left the destroyed flower. Ladybug grinned and quickly shot out her yoyo. Batman watched as she let the small creature go, then tossed the discarded crowbar in the air.

"Miraculous Ladybug!" 

And suddenly the destroyed room was back to its immaculate form. There were a series of beeps and everyone except Ryuko and Queen Bee transformed back.

"I suppose you want this back." Damian smiled as he strode towards the exhausted Marinette, beginning to take off the ring. But Marinette set a hand over his to stop him.

"Damian Wayne, I, the Guardian of the Miraculous, hereby grant you the Miraculous of the Black Cat. May you serve it well." She smiled up at him, taking his hand and lacing their fingers.

Damian stared down at her. He had known he had outgrown the mantle of Robin for quite some time, but he had never expected this. A grin spread across his face and he scooped her up for a fierce kiss.

"I promise I'll be much better than that mangy alley cat. Tadmir, the new Black Cat, vows this to you." He promised, resting his forehead against hers. They heard the giggles from Tikki and Plagg, but chose to ignore them. But it was when they noticed everyone rushing over to where Jason was struggling to stand, that they pulled apart and ran over.

"Well.." Jason gave a shaky smile, being supported by Dick and Tim. "That was one hell of a party, huh?"

…

The Miraculous team stared at the city skyline, seeming deep in thought, as Batman and his team approached.

"Are you certain he's in the city?" Batman spoke as Ladybug turned towards him, her arms crossed.

"Yes, Tikki told me she could sense the Butterfly Miraculous as well as the Peacock. They're here, and things will get worse if we don't stop them."

"We'll find them, and then we'll finish this once and for all." Tadmir set a supportive hand on Ladybug's shoulder, earning himself a smile from her.

But then a flicker of bright blue caught everyone's attention. 

Ladybug watched, slack jawed, as Mayura ran across the rooftop adjacent to them, carrying something in her arms. No, not something, someone.

Adrien.

"No…" Ladybug whispered, her voice shaky with rage. Something in her snapped and she immediately took after the villian.

"Ladybug!" Queen Bee called out, the others quickly following.

But Ladybug didn't pay attention, her heart pounding, the blood roaring in her ears as she focused in on Mayura.

Follow Mayura, find Hawkmoth.

And he wasn't going to escape, he wasn't going to hole up in some liar and sent out minions. 

Ladybug was going to finish this once and for all.

Taglist: @realrandomposts @interobanginyourmom @ladybug-182 @ladylb @zalladane @mochinek0 @persephonebutkore @urbanpineapplefarmer @vixen-uchiha @angelofmusickaterinapetrova @thewheezingbubbledragon @northernbluetongue @violatiger8 @thequestionablyhuman @ginamarie1512 @maude-zarella @2sunchild2 @saphiraazure2708 @ayuchan07 @virgil-is-a-cutie @thepeacetea @miraculous786 @enchanted-nerd @ficsforthestars @emo-elaine13

[harringtonheartache]

Daybreak | Part Sixteen

Part Seventeen

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Lab Escapee! Reader?

Summary: Part sixteen of this fic. What’s to happen and whose to blame?

Word Count: 2,800 +

Warning(s): Cussing, mild injury description

A/N: Just a thank-you to everyone who is reading & enjoying 🥺

Hopper paced in the kitchen of the Harrington home, his shoes squeaking against the hardwood every time he turned too quickly. A notepad, one-fourth used, sat turned over in his hands, and he stopped his marching to scratch words across a new page. He wrote it all out, hoping that seeing the story in the form of a list may provide him with a simplified perspective; a math problem to be solved on paper. With every bullet point he felt more like ripping the page from his notebook entirely, convinced that if anyone saw it, it would look like he had scribbled down an idea for a bad sci-fi movie. He finished the list anyway, and the last point written in all capital letters read: SHE SAYS WILL IS IN THE ‘UPSIDE-DOWN’. Big cartoonish quotes around the last word. 

The only person in the house who could claim it as his own residence entered the kitchen alone, joining Hopper who leaned over his notepad like a kid cramming for a test that he forgot to study for. Steve put one hand down on the counter and leaned against it, agitated. He asked a question simply: “what happens next,” and Hopper slowly raised his head from his notes. His face was dismayed, and it took him a second to think up a response. “Wh- what happens next? I don’t know what happens next, Harrington.” He spoke down to the teenager as he stood up to his full height. 

Steve gave him a defeated look, then hardened his expression to mirror Hopper’s own irritance. He wasn’t able to speak before Hopper continued. “If I am being honest, everything she told me today is…” he looked away from Steve, eyes still wide as his hand wavered in the air, beckoning the words to come to him. “... pretty much unusable,” he finished. 

“Unuse-” the word wasn’t even complete from Steve’s mouth, and he looked at Hopper wildly. “What do you mean? She just answered all of your questions, willingly, and you can’t use any of it? She just gave you so much on-” 

“Look, kid. What she told me sounds like delusion. Maybe the effects of trauma — I understand that the lab wasn’t good to her-”

“Good to her?” Steve’s second hand hit the countertop with a smack. “They fucking tortured her. But what she’s told you aren’t lies. I've seen this shit first-hand.” The curses came out clean, fear of authority gone.

Hopper sighed, picking up his notepad and backing up to lean back against the neighboring counter. He looked at Steve with a tight mouth, flipping closed his notes with a swing of his hand. “If I go into the station with the information she told me, nothing will happen. Even worse, CPS will come for the girl. Unidentifiable and without residence, she’ll be taken.”

Steve butted in again, eager to combat anything coming from the sheriff’s mouth. “No. If you call Child Protective Services, the lab will find out somehow and they’ll come get her.” He would admit that his voice sounded weak, like begging from a small child. His words were true though, and this fear that action he was without control over would be taken made his raging heartbeat audible to him in his ears. “She- she does have residence,”  he added breathily, one hand lifting from the counter as he looked down to himself. 

“You are not residence. She may be staying here, but this is not her legal home,” Hopper jabbed.

Steve sighed, a mixture of aggravation and defeat, head rolling back as he did so. 

“I know you want to protect her,” Hopper’s voice was low yet strong, careful to enunciate. It sounded like the voice of bad news, a tone that was rehearsed, and Steve wished he would turn this speech filter off. “But the things she is telling me are crazy,” Hop cursed himself for his inability to think of a better word to use, but crazy was just so fitting.

 “It’s all true, though. Ask me. Ask Dustin. We’ve witnessed it. You- you’ve witnessed it. I mean, you’ve seen the lab. Does that look like an innocent place?” Desperate was a fitting word for Steve’s tone, but it didn’t come off as artificial. 

Hopper didn’t say anything quite yet, a look of incapability flashing across his face as he hoped Steve would just continue. And he did, picking up momentum as he spoke. “We can show you. She can prove to you that she has powers, I swear, just not yet. You saw what she looked like when we pulled her out of that place, she needs to rest. But- but,” his eyes were wide now, and stared down Hopper frantically. “She can show you, okay? You need to believe us. She can’t fu-” he stuttered over his cursing this time, like he had realized it would be of no help. His facial expression softened as he finished the word anyway. “-fucking go back there again. I broke that promise once, I won’t do it again.”   

-

Hopper stepped down from Steve’s front porch, his legs tired despite the lack of work they had done, off to his car still decorated with fresh scratches across the hood. The argument had ushered him out after it’s conclusion, a lazy (yet genuinely unsure) ‘For now just rest up, we’ll figure this out’ acting as his last words and only instruction. He sat in his car for a few minutes before driving off, finally sliding a hand into the tight restraint of his front pocket and slipping from it his carton of cigarettes. He didn’t even bother to roll a window down before lighting one up. 

Steve stood in his doorway for a minute after the door had shut, a closing hand against it as he looked down at his shoes. The creak of unsure footsteps against the hardwood floor drew his head back up, and Nine stood before him: her presence small, her face apologetic. 

“Hey!” Steve said, the word a shocked reaction more than a greeting. ��Do…” he trailed off as he took his hand from against the door, suddenly feeling the need to entertain, as if Nine were a house guest he was disappointing. “Want lunch? ...Maybe a late lunch, I guess.” His dire attempt to recover the easygoing atmosphere of their earlier morning came off unsettling, like a cover-up. He was desperate for both of them to forget Hopper’s visit, ignore the inevitable while they still had time to. He tried to lead the way with his proposition of a meal, but Nine’s gaze only wavered confusedly from down the hall. Sunlight poured in through the windows, the only source of light in the house as of right now, light switches left untouched for movie-viewing. It illuminated the corridor, painting it a warm color despite the feeling of cold in the space between them. She wanted to advance, perhaps shake the air of the stale feeling, but stayed where she was. “What’s happening?” she said, her voice quiet enough to be lost if it hadn’t been for the harsh silence. 

Steve shook his head as if he didn’t know what she was talking about, but could only bring himself to do so moderately. He warmed his expression and tied his voice in ribbons. “What do you mean?” 

“Don’t…” Nine stopped, one foot shifting her stance as she bounced uncomfortably. “Don’t pretend.” Her words were solid the second time, and her demeanor circled from worry to intolerance. She bit at her tongue, rethinking her delivery and considering backpedaling to relay it a little softer. She didn’t though, and Steve broke the extended silence with a sigh. He had been caught, and his arms hung at his sides as he took a few steps towards Nine. She breathed out too, a release of anxiety, and felt thankful for this break in what felt like a performance from both of them. 

“I don’t really know what’s happening,” Steve said, now landed fully in front of Nine as he looked down upon her grievingly. He wanted to place his hands on either one of her arms, rubbing them up and down lightly in a cheesy ‘we’ll get through this, honey!’ manner that you’d expect from a married couple. He stopped himself, figuring it was in bad taste. Patronizing, maybe, and he didn’t want her to feel like she deserved to be addressed that way. Like she was separate from the solution; like she was the problem, in fact. “Hopper doesn’t really know what to think, but you’re safe. He isn’t going to do anything that will put you in danger,” he told her instead. 

“He doesn’t believe me,” she said, looking up and drawing her eyebrows downward as she retreated back to her cold tone. “I have to show him, Steve,” his name came out softer, and she realized it was because she didn’t want to be mad at him. She wasn’t mad at him, and she wanted him to know this. 

His eyes turned bigger, but with sorrow, not shock. He tilted his head and tucked his bottom lip in his mouth to bite. 

He looked pained, and Nine considered his ask. ‘You can’t use your powers’ he had told her. It was a strange sentence to repeat in her head, as her body usually rattled with demands to do the exact opposite. It felt warm, the foreign request for self-preservation above all else, and she felt bad for not being able to enjoy it. Or feeling able to comply, either.

“I don’t want you to feel pressured,” Steve said, voice quieted like Nine had started out. “I know that it feels urgent, but you’re hurt, and you need to recover. That is what’s most important”. 

She looked at him, and they both had a sorrowful gloss over their eyes. 

“What about Will?” she asked, voice hushed again. 

“I know you want to help, but you have to take care of yourself first. We will find him,” Steve said, voice steady with a confidence he hoped would convince. His eyes peaked to her arm, still wrapped tightly in white, and contemplated how long he should wait to change the bandaging. ‘You have to take care of yourself first’ more accurately meant you have to let me take care of you first. 

Nine inhaled, tried to still her breath from shuttering. Her head felt heavy, and she looked away from him as if it would clear her mind, make her train of thought run smoother. 

“What if it’s my fault he’s gone?”

She phrased her words like a question, but it felt more like a confession the way it creeped from her mouth, slow and whispered like they were sharing secrets in a public setting. Will stood as a picture in her mind, the background a black void he threatened to fall into. Steve pulled his head back, questioning if he had heard her right and hoping that he hadn’t. He almost stammered out his own question, but stilled his tongue. He now did reach out, one hand cupping her shoulder, his grip strong. A little bit of tension she had been holding in her arm dropped intrinsically. 

“Nothing that has happened is your fault,” he said, whispering it like his own secret, voice sweet like syrup. He was careful to enunciate, wanting her to soak up every word. If he sharpened his words maybe he’d penetrate her doubt. 

Nine pictured Steve sitting in a small room, the man she could now attach a visual to — Hopper — standing in front of him. She thought of him stuttering over his answers, Hopper’s face glowing with a red rage as he snapped at him to spit it out. Consequences for Steve worse than a wounded ankle had begun emerging from the dark of her mind, the wordless arguing she heard from a room over looping in the background of the ugly scenario she couldn’t help her thoughts from drifting to. 

“Nine? Nothing is your fault,” Steve repeated. Nine looked up this time and stared at his black eye, still swollen. Purple skin that held a shine to it to remind her of a contradictory repercussion; an ulterior consequence that she had a better idea about. A situation that her mind could run with — she knew the people at Hawkins’ Lab. Go ahead, picture him bloodied and broken by the familiar faces in white coats, it would be so easy to do! 

“Nine…”

That black eye is just the beginning… 

Her mind was making her promises. 

“You’re not safe,” she barked, and Steve almost flinched. His widened eyes blinked once, twice before he spoke again. His voice was still gentle despite her increased volume. He couldn’t help it. “What are you talking about? I’m fine,” he told her, shaking his head. The shine of his bruised skin caught the light. 

“No you’re not, and neither is Will.”

“Will is going to be fine too. He’s stuck — in that place — but that’s not something to blame yourself for,” he said, his heart burning with the need for her understanding. He wanted to place his second hand on her other shoulder to parallel the first, shake some sense into her like the message would stick if he just tried harder. 

“He’s stuck there because of me!” Her voice faltered, cracked for the first time that Steve had heard. It shocked him; he was used to her steady speaking. “The thing that took him there, the monster that we saw in the woods, it got out because of me,” she said, retreating to a calmer volume, tone still unable to match. 

He stood in front of her, unsure and therefore silent. His hand dropped from her shoulder, and brushed her arm on the way down to reach for her hand instead. Nine twitched, pulled away from his grasp as tears she tried to blink away formed in her vision. She kept blinking as she opened her mouth to speak again, voice decreasing in strength between each pause. “I’m the one they used to reach it, and it followed me out when I escaped. It got Will and it hurt you and so will they.” Her certainties rushed from her mouth in a list, and little Will returned as a mental image; a supervisor of her words. 

Steve watched, mouth opening but ill-prepared. A single tear escaped from Nine’s bitter eyes, but she swiped it away like a drop of blood from her nose. “What they did to you, what they made you do, isn’t your fault. Nine, you can’t carry that guilt.” A second tear fell, but she didn’t bother with wiping it from her cheek this time. It ran hot down her face, then disappeared down the length of her neck. 

“You’re not safe helping me,” she said, words teetering on the verge of a whisper, admission leaving her throat like a broken realization that she just couldn’t help but say out loud. 

And Steve still stood, arms now drooped at his sides, heartbeat heard in his ears again. In his mind, ideas bounced around detailing what she meant — what would happen to him, how it would end. Theories spun around, himself a human target on a wooden board being struck by knives. He stilled his thoughts, latching onto only one.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t care that I’m not safe, because you aren’t either, and that’s more important to me.” He looked into her eyes, and this time she believed that his words were true. She breathed out, a gentle shutter that looked like it should be accompanied by heavy tears; a dry sob that folded her shoulders, pain too tired for crying. She held out, begging Steve with silence to take back his proclamation, but he didn’t. 

“You are my priority, and I’m helping you no matter what.”

Nine didn’t speak back, just watched him as he slowly returned his hand to where it was on her arm. This time she let him, her body swaying slightly with her heartache. Steve bent down marginally, peering into her eyes as a determined tear finally dropped to her face. He raised his other hand, quickly placing his palm against her cheek, three fingers folded underneath her chin, and brushed it away with his thumb. He took his hand away immediately — like he hadn’t thought through the action and didn’t want to linger. Like it was purely instinctual. Then, he wrapped his arm around to place a gentle hand on her back, guiding her to his chest in a tight embrace. He rested his chin on her head as he held her to him, and his warm body slowed her raging heart. “We’re going to be okay,” he breathed as they rocked back and forth in the empty house.

---

Tag List: @ggclarissa @gurl-ly @hyp-oh-critical @alewifex @we-are-band-sexuals @cpt-lamby @l0ve-0f-my-life @easvtohate @used-avocado @kwyloz @itzpikapie @samwise-babeyy @rapsfryingpan @kaelyn-lobrutto24 @mochminnie @peterwandaparker @ayamecrevan @lilyhw1 @seninjakitey @lulurose17 @write-from-the-heart @harringtonlr @sledgy14​ @stranger-names​

[mochideleche]

You can’t keep away from fate CH7

Pairing : Percy jackson x demigod!reader

summary : The daughter of destiny- literally, along with inevitability, compulsion and necessity. Being the child of a primordial goddess doesn’t really assure you a quiet calm life but when you return to new york after five years of being shipped off to boarding school, your once mundane life says goodbye.

A/N I would like to start off by thanking everyone who has read this fanfic and thank you all for the notes, reblogs and follows, it really makes my day! please do comment what you think and here is the second half of BOTL. I know i said i would put it in two halves but it got a bit too long so it’s going to have to be 3.  enjoy!

contents page

“You couldn’t perhaps, I don’t know, put some goggles on, open a window or something?” you began, wafting the air in front of you in order to not get a lung full of smoke.

Beckendorf, although you did prefer to call him charles, turned to you and pulled down the bandanna covering his mouth down, “nah, it’s all right Y/N, us children of Hephaestus are born to able to withstand such harsh conditions” and he went back to hammering the almost formed celestial bronze sword in his hand.

You supposed that he was correct, although being very much not a direct child of hephaestus, you didn’t really inherit the immunity to poison by carbon monoxide.

The reason why you were in the forges was because you helping out with the making of new weapons. A war was coming and you needed to be prepared. So you had teamed up with you so called uncles and aunties to do so. When you were on the island of circe you had found you had an extreme hand at magic. Enchantments and charms were your specialty- things like curses, not so much.

You shivered at the thought of all those pirates who had been rotting away with hatred for the goddess, you couldn’t imagine what they had done when percy had freed them. At the time you didn’t know that circe was keeping men visitors as hostage, you just thought they didn’t allow any on the island. If you had knew then, maybe you wouldn’t have stayed for so long, or gone at all.

“Y/N it’s nearly done, you ready?” Beckendorf called over his shoulder and you snapped back to reality, making your way to his side.

You were defiantly not the best at forging ( hey, you can’t have everything) so you were tasked with reinforcing the weapons with magical properties such as, unbreaking, knock back and perhaps a few fire enchantments- which conner and travis were very fond of, you had to put out at least 7 fires that week, conner himself at one point.

Beckendorf, took the sword, a long double-edged blade, with a wide hilt and shaped like a leaf, very greek- you thought, as he dunked it in water to cool it down.

When it came out, steaming, you placed your hands over it’s centre. It had taken you quite a while to get back into the swing of things - having been about 5 years since you had last done the magic trick, but now you did it without problem. You chanted a spell in ancient greek and began to spread your hands over it, taking one towards the hilt and the other to the point. A dim blue light shone over it, encasing the blade almost like a second skin. Out of the corner of your eye you saw the awe in beckondorfs face and it made you smile- to think that such a big buff boy could be amused by a little magic...

You finished your spell and the dim blue light shone intently for a second then disappeared, the sword gleaming as if it had been given a new life.

“What’s this one do then?” beckendorf asked, sounding like a 5 year old who had just been given a new toy.

“Knockback, this ones a bit more powerful, I think” You said, remembering the brightness of the final glow the sword had given.

“You think? how can you tell?”

You shrugged and the opened your arms, “Only one way to find out”

Beckendorf looked at you as if you were mad, “I don’t think that’s a good idea-”

“No, I want to see how powerful these things are” You said, readjusting you stance, “If it’ll make you feel better we can fight before it then you won’t feel like you hit me unguarded”

And you released your right sword and charged.

Beckendorfs eyes widened and he shook his head viciously as you came towards him. But you didn’t stop and neither did beckendorf.

It was almost as if his body went into autopilot because you brought the sword down and he lifted up his hand to block it. He hadn’t even put any effort to push you back but as soon as your sword clashed against his, you were thrown back, your feet lifting off the floor and you soared half way across the forge.

If you hadn’t been expecting this, you would’ve crashed straight into the wall and created a Y/N sized crater. Fortunately you were expecting this and was able to control the air to slow you down and allow you to gracefully skid to a halt, avoiding you crashing into the wall.

“Woah, that was awesome” Beckendorf said as if in a trance, “Whatever gets hit with this is going to wish they never attacked in the first place”

A smile come on your face, “yeah I guess-”

The door to the forges swung open, you thought at first it was a group of campers coming for their ‘making weapons’ workshop but it was too early for that.

“Y/N there’s a group of dracnae near the boarder!” Will said, he was out of breath, he probably had just ran there from the forest.

You spun around and ran towards the door.

To save Will the expense of running again, you grabbed his arm in one hand and with the other you pushed yourself against the air.

And the two of you were carried away with the wind, literally.

You zoomed past the cabins and were into the forest in no time- the whole time will was shouting, from fear or excitement- you couldn't tell, but when you finally landed he stumbled around with a maniac smile on his face, “that was fun”

You left him trying to reorient himself and rushed to the lines of campers who were firing arrows from behind trees and with Lee Fletcher shouting over their heads.

“Don’t let them get past!” For a guy so warm hearted and who you’d often see singing songs at camp fires every night, you were shocked by his fierce shouts.

“Aim, and fire! Again! Don’t fall back! go forward- Y/N!”

You rushed towards them after seeing through a gap between the trees.

There were about two dozen dracnae- half snake women who had the top half of a human and the bottom of a snake. They stood out against the dull brown of the forest, their green thick tails slithering against the ground as they inched closer to where you stood. how they had got near the camp without being detected? you couldn’t tell, but you wanted them away as soon as possible.

Ignoring Lee’s calls, you rushed towards the line of snake women and lifted yourself on the winds, landing a few feet in front of the dracnae ladies.

“What have we got here?” a dracnae who you guessed was leader hissed, “Hmmmm, ssssmellssss like a goddessss”

You scrunched your nose, you preferred it when people said you smelled like magnolias.

You flicked you wrist, revealing your drakon blades and causing the dracnae to hiss in distaste. Then you bounded after them.

Unlike percy, you tended just to get on with it, you felt like taunting was a waste of time and you weren’t much of a talker either. You advanced at the first dracnae, she bared her fangs and raised her long spear ready to attack.

others were ready to pounce on you too, but you took care of them. With a tug of your mind you caused one of the older trees to uproot, and it came falling down, crashing about 7 of the ugly things leaving a fine cloud of yellow dust.

The others came to their senses and instead of targeting the apollo cabin, they attacked you. about 15 to 1, that seemed fair. But at least that had taken their attention off your friends.

“You’ll pay for that!” the centre dracnae hissed and her forked tongue licked her lips restless as if she was excited to have another demigod meal.

You fell into combat with the leader, your swords were shorter which meant you had to come into close contact with her, and the fact she smelt like wet mouldy leather, you didn’t exactly want that.

She was rather good with a spear but she was no match with your two blades. You were able to semi-disarm her, sending her shield flying into a nearby tree and you swung your left sword to slice her torso in half but it never made contact with it.

The ugly dracnae smiled at you

She had moved so fast that she was able to block the attack with the but of her spear, pushing up against your left as she pushed down against you right. She inched loser towards yo, the tip of her spear rather close to cutting into your hand.

You were stuck, but you gave her what she wanted. You retracted you left sword so it wrapped neatly around your wrist as a diamond and pearl encrusted bracelet and the dracnae’s spear smashed into her face, “OW!”

she swiped at you blindly but you sliced off her hand with almost no effort at all. That was far too easy.

She wailed out in pain and she let down her guard to now look at her newly decapitated arm, “AHHHHH”

The sound was horrible, like a thousand metal keys scratching on a chalkboard, you shut her up by driving a sword through her gut.

She exploded in a yellow dust cloud, you blew some wind to prevent it falling into your eyes.

You spun around, facing the other 14. You raised your eyebrow- this will be fun.

They slithered restless, their slimy green tails moving bak and forth against the ground, as if ready to charge at you. But that gave you an idea, and you began to make the ground swallow them up.

“What is this?!” one of the exclaimed, as she uselessly tried to pull her tails from the ground, “What have you done?”

The others began to brandish their spears, holding them out to you, trying to catch you from that length.

“Releasssse ussss thisss inssstant” One from your right hissed, causing you to smile.

It was absolutely ridiculous how monsters thought they could tell you what to do, are they stupid?

“All yours Lee” You said sweetly.

Lee popped out from behind the tree, blush tinting his cheeks and eyes wide, “uhm- me?” he pointed to himself but then he recollected isn stood up straight, “You heard her, aim and fire!”

About a dozen arrows were knocked at once and you barely had time to dodge out of the way as they rained down on the dracnae army, creating a little mushroom cloud of yellow dust.

You gagged, the smell was horrible.

“Y/N are you okay?” Will sprinted towards you, his bow slung over his shoulder.

You nodded your head and he looked surprised, “Wow, not even a scratch” he said almost to himself as the other made their way towards you, congratulating you on your attack.

You always felt bad when this happened. You felt as if you had a rather large advantage to the rest of the campers but you believed that they should have their own chances at winning their own battle and not always have you to save the day. The whole camp knew of your power and thought that they would have the upper hand with you on their side, a daughter of a primordial goddess, but you didn’t want to steal their spotlight. So you did the best you can to make sure they took on the majority of the fight, only helping when you needed to.

You waved them off, “all I did was set a trap, you guys killed them and stopped them from getting to the camp, you should be proud of yourselves” you gave them a sweet smile and a assuring nod, that seemed to do the trick.

“Thanks Y/N” Lee said, patting your shoulder, “Is it alight if I ask you to inform chiron about this? Take will with you, we’ll scout the rest of the perimeter just in case there’s anymore monsters”  

You nodded your head and the rest of the apollo cabin followed Leeand left you and will at the sight of the fight.

“Are we going to do the wind thing again? that was fun” Will jumped up and down beside you and you didn’t realise how tired you were until you saw how full of energy will was. Or maybe that was just his personality, either way half way through talking to Lee you felt like falling just like the tree you uprooted did.

The world began to tilt side ways and you head felt as if it was no longer on your neck.

“Woah” Will exclaimed, catching your arm and holding you up, “ Y/N are you alright?”

You manage to roll your eyes to his face, Concern evident on his face, “ I’m fine thank you for asking, how are you?”

He scrunched his eyebrows, “that fight must have taken a bigger toll than I thought”

You knew that will had seen that you were left unscratched but being the son of apollo, and a talented healer, he could tell your wounds were somewhere deeper.

“Y/N you used your powers a lot today, and you were doing magic at the forges, you need to be careful, using too much of your powers might burn you out, literally”

You brought a hand up to pat will on the arm as he helped you stand up, “As long as the job gets done-”

“Y/N...” Will said warningly and you gave the younger boy a tired smile.

“Will i’ve got it under control, have a little faith in me”

You remember the first time will had brought up your overuse of your powers, you had fainted after going one to 5 with a vicious group of empousa and you were knocked out for about 3 days, will was the one who nursed you back to health.

“Y/N it doesn’t make sense” he said perplexed, staring at you as if you had just returned from the dead, which was rather similar, “Chiron said the powers you used were of an immortal, any power like that would’ve disintegrate any demigod”

Will was right, you should have disintegrated, you knew that but you had to protect the camp. you hadn’t felt tired at all during the fight, only after did the effects hit you.

You shrugged your shoulders, “I haven’t combusted so I guess i’m fine to continue”

“But what if you did?” Will said, “I know your one of our strongest fighters but we can’t have you risking your life every time monsters attack”

“But will,” you smiled softly, “That’s kind of the whole point”

He paused for a second the turned away, “You know what I mean”

You stared at will, you must thought he had healed plenty of campers, there was a heavy weight on his shoulders. Their lives had depended on him to save them.

“Chiron says, it’s-” He stuttered, as if the words were too hard to say, “he says it’s taking a toll on you on the inside, it’s breaking your soul”

The words hit you like a truck you saw from a mile away yet you still stayed perfectly still in the middle of the road, “I know”

He snapped his head towards you, “You know? Then why-”

“Why anyone does anything they do?” You interrupted, your voice tired, “Why do we all train? Why do we all go on dangerous quests? Why do we all fight back against an army of immortal titans?”

That shut him up.

You pursed your lips, “As long as there’s something worth fighting for, then I don’t mind risking my life, and so does everyone else”

"When did you start feeling it?” Will asked, still keeping a hand firm on your arm.

“When talking to Lee, but I didn’t-”

“Want them to see?” Will finished, and he scoffed, “I know”

You let your head hang at the disappointment in his voice but there was something else there too, admiration? concern?

“Y/N please don’t feel you need to seem strong all the time, you’re only just a demigod, nobody expects you to be indestructible”  Will said kindly as the two of you approached the boarders of camp, a few satyrs who were sitting under the shade of the trees saw the two of you and rushed to your aid.

You and Will made your way to the big house, Will still felt the need to keep his hand on your shoulder just in case you decided to faint but you tried to make it seem you were fully capable of walking yourself.

But as soon as you were in the living room you didn't think you could.

There was annabeth, tears running down her face, washing away a track through the grime and soot that caked her whole body. She had a nasty gash running down her arm and her clothes looked as if she had gone for a bath in the hudson river.

“Annabeth! are you alright, where’s percy, grover and tyson...” But as soo as the words left your mouth, you felt the dread fall upon you.

Annabeth continued to sob harder as will left your side to help with the bleeding cut on her arm.

Chiron stood in the centre of the room a grim expression on his face.

“We got separated,” Annabeth started, explaining all that had happened in the maze. You tried to keep your attention on her but the words just flowed through one ear and out the other, leaving nothing but the anxiousness that came with them.

“And Hephaestus showed me what happened to mount saint helens-”

Chiron and you had seen what had happened as you watched an iris message from a satyr near the mountain- The place had erupted, you were scared that typhoon was rising, but you’d rather have that than known percy was in there and he had never came out.

You heart dropped, and so did your knees.

You felt them hitting the floor before you knew you were falling, will rushed to your side, “Y/N?”

Percy... was gone?

He couldn’t be, he can’t be- he has a prophecy to fulfil he surely can’t be-

You didn’t realise you were saying it out loud until the words you didn’t want to utter got stuck in your throat.

You and annabeth made eye contact, both of you with tears streaming down your face. A silent exchange was made, there’s still nico.

You shook your head, that just gave a reason as to why percy could be dead.

“No, we would know right? if he was dead, if he’d been killed, he was definitely the one to cause the eruption right? He surely would have been able to save himself...? Right?!”

You were pleading at this point, you wanted someone to tell you that was exactly what had happened and percy would come back right away.

“I’m afraid, that all we can do now,” Chiron interrupted, his voice tight, a sad gaze directed to you, “is pray that he returns”

Your head snapped towards chiron, you were filled with shock- why wasn’t he jumping straight at the opportunity for a search party? Calling allies if they’ve seen anything? Sending campers out to look for him?

But then it dawned on you, how would you even begin to search for percy?

Looking at chiron made you wonder, how many heroes did he wait on to return but never did?

“What if it was just the mist,” you continued, not wanting to accept what you knew was well likely the truth, “ the mist could’ve been too strong that even we couldn’t see though it-”

“Y/N” will said, placing a hand on your arm.

You turned to him, surprised to see that there were tears brimming his eyes too. He sent you a look, please stop.

You let your sobs release and you flung your face into your hands, not wanting anyone to see. A second later you found yourself in annabeth’s arms and saw how lucky your were that she was still alive, “I’m so glad you’re okay” You muttered into her shoulder, “You’re alive thank the gods”

Chiron had left the room, you didn’t even realise, probably to call a counsellor meeting, if there was one, you didn't want to be there for it.

....

You left the camp the day after, you were upset and didn’t want to see anyone. You just wanted to mope in your sorrow and everyone let you do it -they were far too scared of what you’d do if they didn’t.

The only person who could approach at these times was annabeth but she was smart enough to let you wander on your own- Finding monsters before they found camp and killing them on the spot.

You were never one to be reckless, you were praised on that - able to keep level headed in the face of even the darkest moments. But nothing had ever flamed you like this.

The first day you left camp you couldn’t remember much but you returned, sweaty, covered in blood and monster dust and feeling like you would drop dead with exhaustion. But that still wasn’t enough to cover the pain in your heart.

It ate you up inside, percy couldn’t have- the percy jackson couldn’t-

You remember the first few nights, crying to yourself, head tucked under the sheets in your bed at the big house. Waking up at the crack of dawn and heading off from camp before anyone could see your red eyes and puffy face.

Then as the days went by you found yourself not being able to cry anymore, just lying with emptiness and shock.

The only time you stayed at camp was the day of percy’s shroud burning.

You had all been hoping for a miraculous return, but two weeks seemed long enough. You had prepared yourself for the worst and here you were finally coming to terms with it yet there was no feeling of satisfaction, no feeling of closure. You just wanted percy back.

You didn’t even get to tell him how you felt, how you had a crush on him the first time you laid eyes on him, how you’ve been in love with him ever since you’re first night by the lake.

You sat near the front, next to annabeth as she held percy’s shroud. It was right that she was the one to do it, after all, she was the last person to see him and her and percy had been through so much together.

Even at this time you couldn’t help but feel envious of your best friend. Her and percy had been on countless adventures together, practically grown up together and yet you were only fortunate to come into his life just a year ago. Some times you managed to get yourself upset with the fact that maybe annabeth was more suited for percy- deserved percy more than you.

You shook your thoughts out of your head, how can you be thinking about such selfish things at a time like this?

It didn’t matter now did it, there was no percy to get jealous over.

You sat silently, not watching as annabeth gave her speech. The whole camp seemed dampened by the news. The whole week campers lost their morale, no more laughs or even much chatter during dinner. Percy had been everyone’s favourite, the camp’s hero, their saviour, now-

“And he’s standing right there!”

You thought it was a cruel joke, but annabeth wouldn’t joke like this. Perhaps it was a trick of the mist, or maybe annabeth had lost it.

Never the less, you lifted up your head, not expecting much, just to glare angrily at the disturbance and you heart found it’s way to your throat.

There, standing at the back of the crowd was percy, no it couldn’t be.

he looked- perfectly fine, like he didn’t just die two weeks ago and had been on a short vacation in the bahamas.

His skin was slightly tanned and he was wearing new clothes that didn’t look like they’d been through the labyrinth at all. but you couldn’t believe it, you had to get a closer look, which was difficult because he was soon crowded with campers, hugging him, clapping him on the back, and your legs had stopped working.

It was only when annabeth ran up to hug him and he spun around, facing you, your eyes making contact- were you hit with the realisation that percy wasn’t dead.

The small smile on his lips broke into a wide one as he made his way towards you.

Your heart leaped, then it stopped, then you felt yourself shaking, eyes filling with tears. Percy’s form turning into a blurry blob as he rushed towards you.

You stood up and flung yourself off your seat and wrapped your arms around percy’s torso, your sobs immediately breaking out of your mouth as your chest heaved with the breaths you were holding.

The way you never wanted to let go. You clung onto him as if making up for all the times in the past two weeks you had nearly died just wanting to. You coiled your arms around him so tightly that your hands came back round to brush your elbows. It was like he was a dream and the closer you held him, the more real he would become.

But it really was him, wasn’t it?  

The feeling of his arms engulfing you was the most comforting thing in the world, it felt like only he existed and that was all you needed. They felt like the reassurance you needed to let you know he really was there.

He smelt nice, of freshly washed laundry and salt water, but he always smelt like salt water. The familiar scent just caused your heart to ache more, he really was here.

He brought his hand up to brush your hair, “Hey, it’s alright i’m here now, please don’t cry”

“I thought you were dead!” you choked out, “We all did!”

“I’m sorry princess,” percy whispered so that only you could hear, “i’m sorry if i pushed our reunion back too long”

You pushed yourself back and punched him square in the chest.

“Ow” he said, although a large smile was plastered on his face as he rubbed his chest where you had hit him.

“Why are you joking at a time like this!” you exclaimed, taking both your fists and pounding against his chest, “You-made-us-all-so-worried-”

“Hey hey hey,” Percy said, taking your fists in his hands and bending down to your height to see your face, “I’m sorry”

“You better be,” you bit out and turned away from percy so that he wouldn’t see the blush on your face, or the puffiness of your eyes, but it was rather difficult when he still had your wrists in his grasp.

You heard him let out a small chuckle, “gods i missed you”

You felt yourself heat up at the comment and you shyly turned your head up towards him- now he could really see the blush.

And then you were suddenly snapped back to reality, which was commendable since your crush had just returned form the dead and had immediately started flirting with you. And you were very aware of the whole camp who were now watching the both of you with all their attention.

But the smile of percy’s face washed some of that sudden anxiousness away. It was relaxed and matched the warmness of the look in his eyes, gods you could get lost in those sea green eyes all day.  he didn’t seem to care that the two of you had suddenly become the main stars of attraction in the amphitheatre, but the fact you could see the staring faces of your friends out of the corners of your eyes kept you glued to reality.

“Ahem,” Chiron interrupted, you wanted to snap your head towards him but you didn’t think you could handle the embarrassment, “I think we should all try to give percy some space, all of you back to your normal activities, head counsellors to the big house for a meeting”  

There was an outbreak of discontent murmur, campers wanted to hear percy’s story and were unhappy with the fact they were now expected to resume  normal activities after percy had just returned from the dead.

In the crowd you heard a snicker, “give him space applies to you too Y/N!”

If you weren’t red before, you sure were now.

You made to yank your hands away from percy, but he still held on tightly, “Oh no you don’t” he said under his breath and pulled you closer so that you stood next to his side, “I just got here, you’re not about to leave me just yet”

And with that, he dragged you along with the other head counsellors to the big house as you prayed silently in your head, thanking the gods that percy was alive and safely returned back home.

...

“That’s your plan?” Annabeth exasperated, throwing her hands up in the air, “It’s a stupid plan!”

You looked over to percy and he had a hard look on his face.

Chiron had called a meeting to discuss what to do and to make of annabeth’s and percy’s information about luke’s uprising army who were planning to attack camp.

Percy had explained his disappearance- marooned on an island and Hephaestus had saved him, you knew better.

As soon as he mention ‘island’ your heart dropped.

You suddenly found yourself thinking of calypso, the beautiful goddess who was exiled on ogygia and cursed to fall in love with boys she can never have.

Your heart was torn between feeling angry that she had kept percy away from you all and distraught that your friend had to go through another heartbreak.

Yes, calypso was your friend.

When you still lived with your mother, she had sent you to stay with calypso. She said that calypso was a kind girl and she felt pity towards her, so she often sent you to her for company.

Of course other gods would have argued against the notion but none ever did, they were far too scared of what your mother was capable of.

Whilst at the island you spent the days helping calypso in her beautiful garden, learning different things such as how to plant tubers to how to weave to how to create magic dishes that washed themselves.

And there, your distaste for the gods started.

You had always been on guard with the gods, from the way you saw it your mother was the only unselfish immortal you knew.

They always only seemed to do things that would benefit them in the long run, maybe they had their moments of generosity towards certain mortals but they still wouldn’t hesitate to destroy them the moment they pleased.

Just seeing how calypso was suffering reinforced that idea.

Of course you hadn’t been back since your mother’s disappearance, and so, you had asked Hephaestus, your grandfather,  if he could perhaps let you see her.

You were surprised that he even replied.

You had sent up an offering during dinner the last time you were at camp. You had a bowl of stew which you found taste shockingly like the stew calypso had made you every time you visited.

Your heart longed to see her again and in a desperate try, you called out to hephaestus along with the remains of your dinner.

You didn’t expect much, but the next day you found a note by your bedside table in your room in the big house.

“Dear Y/N, I have heard your request but i am afraid i can not fulfil this for you as there are too many, let’s say- associates i have that would be against the idea. I can however, pass on a message...”

And that night you burnt up a neatly enveloped letter addressed to calypso along with a piece of the cake you had for desert.

You tried to shake the malicious thoughts from your head, but how could percy not fall in love with calypso?

Annabeth caught your eyes and a sudden look of anger washed over her face, she must have seen the sadness in your eyes and you were afraid that just fuelled up her hate towards percy even more, “It’s too ridiculous, you are such are coward!” and she stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

“So much for being the bravest friend she’s ever had” percy muttered and he slumped back in his seat.

He looked over at you but you couldn’t look him in the eyes without thinking about how he had probably looked at calypso with the same love and affection.

“I’ll go check if she’s alright” you announced, standing up and making your way to the door without evening checking if anyone disagreed.

You tried to make it seem like you weren’t glad to leave that room. Under different circumstances , you didn't eat to leave percy, but after the thought of him falling for calypso, it kind of made you want to get as far away from him as possible. To add to that, you had just broke down crying in front of half the camp and the fact that you were still slightly sniffingly in front of the head counsellors made you embarrassed. You hated people seeing you cry, and you had a reputation to uphold- a unbothered, elegant and level headed warrior.

But you pretty much just destroyed that by crying ugly and clinging onto percy like it was the only thing you knew.

You needed time to think, to calm down and was more than happy to go after annabeth.

As you left the room you heard the in-contented sound of objection from percy but you had already closed the door behind you.

You found annabeth pacing in front of the porch, angrily muttering to herself. You decided it was best to let her vent as you sat down on the porch steps and watched her.

She didn't acknowledge your presence but carried on with her one on one debate with herself, “How dare he suggest such an idea! it’s my quest! I should be the one suggesting ideas, and a mortal! how embarrassing...”

You couldn’t help a smile appear on your face, oh how prideful your best friend was but you did think she would never let herself live this one down.

“How does he even know it’ll work!” and she suddenly turned to you, eyes piercing through your body, “He barely knows the girl how does he know she can do it?”

You shrugged, you really had no clue, but it was the best thing you guys got.

Annabeth paused, then she let her shoulders deflate and she rubbed her forehead, “I’m sorry, I’m just angry. All the time people have been referring to me as percy’s ‘sidekick’ then i finally get my own quest and yet i complete have no idea what to do, fail and now i have percy saying he knows how to fix everything?!”

You looked sympathetically at annabeth. She hadn’t exactly explained her feeling like this before but you knew how she felt about being in percy’s shadow. You and grover had talked about it once, you both knew it would only be a little while before annabeth finally broke. And here she was, exploding.

“I know,” you said softly, as you made your way up to hug her, “but you haven’t failed yet, you’ve come this far and i’m not going to let you give up just yet”

You were worried that this did nothing to calm her down, but then you finally felt her hands come up and hug you back tightly, “You’re the best, you know that?”

you laughed, “and you know i’m right don’t you?”  and you stepped back to see the defeated look in annabeths eyes, “Percy’s merely suggesting an idea, it’s still your quest, it’s your decision”

Annabeth’s eyes focused on the horizon, “Yeah, i guess” she said quietly, but you knew it was okay. you saw the determined look in her eyes and was glad that the daughter of athena had got her spirit back.

....

That night you had agreed to sit meet with percy since you spent the majority of the day with annabeth, sitting around in your room and talking more about the labyrinth. Although halfway through you wanted to stir her away form the subject as it seemed to give her horrible flashbacks- you could imagine. 

You would hate to be stuck in the ground, claustrophobic and not seeing the outside world for so long. Not to mention the dangerous monsters and traps that lurked in the tunnels. 

So you brought up the conversation of what annabeth wanted to take when she went to college, that always seemed to get her excited no matter what. 

She had gone off on a tangent on her love for architecture, then somehow the conversation led to the idea of the two of you going on a trip to paris and how you’d show annabeth around all your favourite places and the old school you used to go to when you were younger. 

Then annabeth had fallen asleep on your bed. You decided to let her, it must’ve been a long time since she was able to relax, now knowing percy was alive, you related to the feeling. 

The two of you sat by the deck, your usual place. 

Now it was percy’s turn to talk about the labyrinth, he seemed more relaxed than annabeth though, his arms resting behind him as he leaned back, one situated by the small of your back causing his arm to brush against you if you shifted slightly. 

He stared across the lake a sombre look in his eyes as he recited yet another adventure to you. 

He told you about how he’s fought off the telkhines, it was fascinating how he had saved himself, conjuring water from his own body, you were amazed. But after that he stopped himself from talking anymore. 

Because after that he’d met calypso. 

You were used to sitting in comfortable silence with percy, but this, was not one of them. 

“She’s lovely isn’t she?” you finally spoke up, sick of the tension that was created between you. Screw it, you thought, we both know so why don’t we just make it obvious. 

You stole a glance at percy form the corner of your eyes, he was bushing.

“Chiron told me you’d figured it out” percy said quietly, “i’m sorry”

“What are you sorry for?” you asked confused, but you had a feeling where this was going. 

Percy was silent for a while, his feet were now swinging violently back and forth and you could tell he was trying to calculate his words carefully.

“I- I could’ve gone back earlier, I made you all worry-”

“Percy,” You interrupted, as you turned towards him, tucking a leg underneath you, “It wasn’t your fault you ended up on ogygia, all that matters now is that you’re here and you’re alive” 

You knew what percy had said was true, but you didn’t want him beating himself up over it. 

“Yeah, i-i chose to come back” he said trying to avoid looking at you and staring at the lake, “i couldn’t just- leave you all behind” 

Your heart clenched at his words, he had made his decision and suddenly you felt guilty for even feeling angry towards percy for even laying eyes on calypso. Now you wanted to apologise. 

“Percy, I-”

“Nope, I wasn't finished,” Percy said, holding up a hand and finally facing you, his eyes looked stormy, like he was angry, but from the tone in his voice he wasn’t angry at you, but more like himself.

“ I’m to going to lie, when i was on the island i enjoyed the time i spent there; no responsibilities, no monsters, no nightmares. It was always sunny, i never had to do any chores and well, calypso was nice to me,” his voice quieted towards the end and you had to fight down the urge to feel jealous, “ but i felt guilty for enjoying it, i still do. I didn’t know why but i realised it’s because it made me feel like i was forgetting about everything i cared about back home. The camp, my parents, my friends, you” 

Your heart began to beat erratically and you noticed how percy tensed up and stopped swinging his legs so that they hung still over the deck, “I uh- new york, long island, the pizza they sell at the diner near school...” 

You couldn’t help but smile at his lame attempt to cover up his indirect confession for you, but to save him the embarrassment you decided not to mention it. 

In that moment, you were so full of adrenaline, percy liked you, and you were certain of it. 

Screw it, you thought, and began to speak. how you rashly decided you were going to confess your undying love for percy on a whim was fuelled by the feeling of regret you had about not saying anything when you thought he was dead. It’s now or never, you said to yourself but percy still wasn’t finished.

“But then i realised there were bigger things for me to worry about,” He continued, a hard look appearing on his face, “I still have a prophecy to fulfil, if i wasn’t there to help fight luke- kronos, that would be selfish of me, what would happen to all of you?” 

The hard look on his face began to melt away and he turned his head towards you, eyes creased in a ghost of a smile, “I can’t let that happen, no way am i letting kronos beat the son of freaking poseidon that easily” 

You let a soft laughter out, you could always count on percy’s sarcastic ass to make you smile, “no, you can’t” 

Percy leaned back, looking over the lake again and allowing his legs to swing back and forth. You took this moment to look at him, taking in all the details. From the curve of his lips to the lingering streak of grey hair, you loved all of it. 

And percy was right, he did have greater things to worry about, perhaps burdening him with you love confession wasn’t something to bring up at this given time. 

But for now, you were just content to be in his presence. 

[browneyedhimbo]

Like Father Like Daughter

Pairing: FirstOrder!Dad!Poe X daughter!Reader 

Summary: [Y/N] Dameron is easily one of the best TIE pilots the First Order has. But fighting all day long brings back horrible memories; for both her and her father. One mission hits a little too close to home.

Warnings: Fighting, mentions of blood, dead mom, flashbacks, mentions of death, nightmares, explosions, angst with a fluffy ending

Word Count: 5k 

A/N: First Poe fic y’all! This was co-written with the amazing @writingforhoursonend​! This was honestly so much fun and I really hope you all enjoy it! Also, check out her blog, she’s an angel!  《Masterlist 》

Bright orange and blue flames erupt around you as you chase after the X-Wings in front of you. You smirk as you hit yet another one, sending the metal scraps to float over the galaxy.

“Good job, Dameron. One more left,” Kylo’s voice could be heard over comms. 

“Got it,” you chased after the last X-Wing, locking in on it. Bright red blasts light up the dark sky, the aircraft exploding. “That’s how it’s done!” You cheer, cockiness clearly showing. It was no surprise that you got it straight from your father, Captain Poe Dameron. 

“Nice job. Head back to base,” Hux instructs. You roll your eyes, distaste for the man equal to your fathers.

“Kiddo,” Your dad voice echoed in your ears, “We’re picking up multiple heat signatures jumping into the—”

“Shit!” You yell, hearing shots being fired and seeing blasts narrowly miss you. “How many?!” You swerve, barely dodging the beams.

“I’m looking at five. Pull back, we'll send in more TIE’s for back up.” 

“No, I got this!” You start pressing various buttons on the control panel, trying to shift the TIE into an even higher combat level. Looking around, you spot an old, dark abandoned warship. As you keep dodging blasts, you scan the ship and conclude it is in fact, abandoned. An idea pops into your head and you change your course of direction, heading towards the ship.

“[Y/N], I know what you’re thinking. Don’t do it. Just wait for backup,” Poe tries to reason with you, but you’re just as hard-headed as he is.

“I can do it!” you yell, getting closer to the ship.

“Sergeant Dameron, if you think you can get a clear shot, take it.” Kylo states, interrupting your father. That was the only go ahead you needed.

You shift in your seat, ready to take on whatever those resistance scums have left. Maneuvering your TIE fighter to duck under the abandoned ship at the last second, you spin to face the X-Wings that followed. You’re able to get one, blowing it up, and using the explosion as a cover to fly backwards and spin up.

“Come on!” You yell, looking behind you at the other four. Spinning around, you’re able to keep dodging the green blasts. There was an opening on the side of the ship and with quick calculations you decided the fighter would fit. 

“No kid, it’s too tight,” your dad tells you over comms. You groan as you frantically start pressing some buttons, getting ready to go through.

“You gotta trust me on this pops,” you smirk. Looking back again, you make sure the X-Wings are still in pursuit. A small chuckle escapes past your lips as you gun it towards the opening at an alarmingly fast speed. You span as you enter through it, shooting the top of the opening so the debris would fall onto the X-Wings.

“Yeah! Three down, two to go!” You whoop, spinning inside the abandoned ship while making sure not to hit the walls. Laughing as the X-Wings follow you, you three play chase through the ship. There was another opening at the far end with a bridge over. A smirk lands its way onto your lips as you plan for your next move.

You didn’t bother to look back this time to see if they were following, speeding towards the other end of the opening. You lock your canons on the bridge and as soon as you pass under you spin the fighter and shoot it, making it fall on another X-Wing.

“Hell yeah!” You pump your fist, slowing down the TIE and facing it towards the ship. “Wait, that was—”

“Kid, look out!” Your dad cuts you off as blasters start firing at you. 

“Oh shit,” you mumble, grabbing the joystick to dodge them. You speed around the side ship trying to get rid of the last X-Wing, but the damn bastard is good. Looking at the warship again, you notice the destroyed top with pieces of metal sticking up and about. 

Racing to the top, you dodge the blasts being fired at you and maneuver the TIE around the occasional piece of debris. Green blasts hit rusted grey steel, turning it into orange and black smoke. Mumbling curses as you realize the smoke would cloud your vision, you try to look around for a distraction. Another explosion goes off but this time, some of the debris crashes into the side of your fighter. 

“Oh fuck!” You scream as red lights go off accompanied by loud beeping. Frantically pressing some buttons, you’re able to stabilize the TIE for time being and keep going. “Dammit,” you pant, trying to get some air into your now burning lungs. 

Looking back, the X-Wing is still hot on your tail. Grunting, you start blasting an old cannon that was in front of you, causing it to blow up. Using the smoke from the explosion to your advantage, you fly up and spin back, doing a backflip with the fighter which landed you behind it.

“Bye bitch!” You yell as you get a target lock and fire. Speeding your fighter through the explosion, you breathe a long sigh of relief.

“Top job Sergeant, head back to base.” Kylo tells you.

“Don’t plan on goin’ anywhere else, sir,” you chuckle before speeding towards the direction of the Finalizer.

------

You jump out of your TIE, body aching as your feet hit the silver metal. Nodding to some stormtroopers that were there to check on your ship, you take off your helmet while detaching the oxygen tubes and squint, eyes trying to adjust to the harsh lighting of the hangar. Casting a look around, you thankfully don’t see your father anywhere. Maybe he wasn’t going to be mad at you this time. 

Starting your way towards the tunnels, you immediately spot your dad exiting out into the hanger. Gulping, you turn around and jog towards the confused stormtroopers, yelling at them to give you your TIE back. You were not going to be yelled at today.

“[Y/N] Dameron!” You hear from behind you in a booming voice. Kriff. Seems like you were. Sighing, you turned around to face your father’s fast-approaching figure, forcing a smile.

“Hey, dad—”

“What was that back there?” He inquires, voice cold and void of emotion.

“Come on pops, I’m tired—”

“Answer me, Sergeant.” You clench your jaw.

“Supreme Leader Ren gave me the go-ahead to get rid of the five X-Wings, and I did so successfully. Case closed, Captain.” You walk past him and start heading towards the tunnels once again, feeling half the hangar’s gaze on you two. He senses it too and follows you into the halls, waiting until he knows nobody can see or hear you two.

“You could’ve died,” he starts in a low voice and you roll your eyes, just wanting to get back to your quarters.

“Sergeant Dameron,” you hear Kylo’s voice from behind you. You turn to face him, forcing a smile.

“Supreme Leader Ren,” you nod in response.

“Good job on getting rid of the X-Wings. You may be more capable than what I previously thought, which is impressive.” You can’t help but grin at his words, knowing your dad was seeing red.

“Thank you, sir.” You gave a curt nod. The last thing you expected was your dad stepping up to Ren.

“She almost died and you’re congratulating her?” You have to bite your lip to keep your jaw from dropping, realizing your dad had lost all sense of control.

“The mission was a success.” Ren cocks an eyebrow, controlling himself.

“She almost died,” he reiterates, motioning to you. “Do you want to get rid of your best pilot?”

“Don’t you dare speak to me in that way, Captain Dameron,” Kylo warns, starting towards him. His hand moving to his lightsaber alarms you and without thinking, you step in between both of them and hold up your hands.

“That’s enough. Everyone’s had a long day. You two can kill each other in the morning, but I want to take my shower first.” You may just be a sergeant, but coupled with your lineage, impressive combat skills, and stubbornness, nobody wanted to mess with you. Even Kylo Ren knew better than to go against you when you were mad. 

Kylo looks from you to your father, giving him a snarky look before turning around and heading off. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding and turn to face your dad. Now you were seeing red.

“Are you trying to get yourself kicked off of the Finalizer?” You nearly scream at him, still shocked by his actions.

“Are you trying to die?” He retorts.

“Me? He can kill you without even touching you and everyone knows it!”

“A correctly aimed blast from an X-Wing can kill you and everyone knows it!” He mocks.

“You’re impossible,” you dismiss, heading towards the elevator. He could lecture you all he wanted in the morning, but right now, all you wanted to do was take a long, hot shower and go to bed.

“Don’t you dare ignore me!” He yells at your back.

“I’m not ignoring you!” You call out, shrugging. Pressing the button to summon a turbolift, your ears pick up the sound of his footsteps and you become even more annoyed. Maker, why wouldn’t he just leave you alone? 

The turbolift arrives and you step inside; to your dismay, your dad steps inside as well but doesn’t say a word, standing opposite you. 

“What do you want?” You groan, crossing your arms. You can see the hint of a smirk at his lips. You weren’t the only one who took pleasure in annoying people. Like father, like daughter.

“What I want to know is why you pulled that stunt back there. You knew you could hold them off long enough for backup to arrive.” He presses the button for your floor and the turbolift starts to drop.

“Because I knew I could do it.”

“But you also could’ve died doing it.”

“But I didn’t,” you motion to yourself, trying to point out that you were perfectly fine, exempt from a concussion and the occasional bruise.

“But you could’ve.” You sigh in frustration, taking notice of how long was left until you’d reach your floor. The engineers need to make these things faster. 

“Why is it that you can put your life at risk and I’m not allowed to oppose that, but when I put my life at risk you lose it?” You snap, glaring at him.

“Because you’re a child!” You just chuckle quite hysterically, shaking your head.

“You should’ve thought about that before teaching me how to fly at eight years old!” He stops and you bite your lip, running a hand through your hair.

“Are you saying you only fly because of me?” You shake your head vigorously, irked by the fact that he wouldn’t try to understand you.

“No, I’m saying…” You sigh, unaware of how to put it into words. “You can’t treat me like a kid anymore. That’s what I’m saying.”

“But you’re my daughter.” You give him a sad smile.

“Not on a mission. On a mission I’m Sergeant Dameron. It’s like mom always used to say, right?” You don’t mean for your voice to choke, seeing him freeze up. “Mission before the man.” You eye her black helmet in your hands, tracing over the silver phrase DN-1574 on the side. 

Your code was DN-2187, but you used her helmet after she died. Every time you saw the helmet, it reminded you of your mom. You weren’t sure why you tortured yourself that way. Every single day, it would hit you as hard as it had when you first witnessed it.

-----

“DN-1574, what’s your status?” Kylo speaks into his comm, eager for any sign of what modifications had been made to the X-Wings. Intel had revealed that there were major upgrades being made to the Resistance’s aircrafts, but nobody knew what those upgrades were.

“Just taking out rebel trash, as usual. No sign of anything new, though.” You purse your lips, already starting to have a bad feeling about this. “I’m already running photos I have against their old blueprints. Does anything seem off about the energy blasts? Are they more powerful? What about their targeting? Are the aircrafts gliding better?” It seems that you were equally as eager as Ren to find out what the Resistance had in store for you all and shoot it down as soon as possible.

“Already checked for all that, darling. Either the intel is wrong or they’re saving the best for last.” Goddamnit, what were they doing?

“Copy.” 

“I count two squadrons of at least sixty each. Could that be it?” Your dad’s voice crackles in your ear. You zoom out on your datapad, checking for foreign heat signatures in the galaxy Eral where they were fighting. “117” pops up on the bottom right side of your screen.

“Dad, they have one hundred and seventeen units out there right now. We have…three hundred nineteen. And no, that can’t be it. Intel said modifications, not an increase in quantity. There’s something that we’re not seeing,” your voice strains. 

You glance back at your datapad, quickly tracking your parents then turning your attention to the cross-checking of blueprints and new photos from the battle. Nothing. You let out a disappointed sigh, stood up, and starting to pace, staring intently at your datapad as if your cold stare could make something pop up.

“Why are you pacing?” Hux’s shrill voice causes you to roll your eyes.

“Why are you questioning me?” You retort, eyes turning to daggers. To your satisfaction, he just sinks lower in his seat and doesn’t say anything. Thirteen year olds weren’t allowed in the control room, but your lineage made you an exception. Needless to say, you were a diamond in the rough even without your last name, but it had given you a nice head start.

“There’s another squadron approaching. Maker, where are they getting all these people?” You scrunch your eyebrows, checking for more foreign heat signatures in the galaxy. Nothing. Glancing back up at the main screen in front of the control room, you find the contents identical to what was on your datapad.

“DN-1364, what are you talking about? We’re not seeing anything.” The confusion is evident in Ren’s voice. You furiously tap on your screen, pulling up the live footage from your dad’s TIE.

“Holy shit.” He was right. X-Wings were practically swarming your units, taking one out every five seconds.

“Why can’t we see them?!” The control room remains silent, nobody daring to answer Kylo. “Does anyone know why or am I sitting in a room full of imbeciles?” You bite your lip, not knowing whether to tell him or not.

“They’ve upgraded their heat shields. So much so that our satellites and ships can’t pick up their signatures. It was just a rumor, but it seems it’s true.” 

“And how exactly do you know this?” You resist the urge to break Hux’s nose, clenching your fists. 

“I have informants; do you not?” You quip, silently hoping he’d bite back so you could have an excuse to punch his lights out.

“DN-1574 to all available units. I have at least seven on me. I repeat, I have at least seven on me. Someone cover me.” Your head snaps from Hux to your datapad, quickly removing the footage from your father’s TIE and putting up your mom’s. Holy— 

“Are there any available units?” You practically scream into your comm, trying to stay calm.

“Control Room, this is FN-8691. I’m leading my fleet towards DN-1574.”

“Copy.” You try to keep your voice steady, but there’s this horrible feeling that you just can’t shake. “Mom, are you doing okay?”

“I’m doing fine, darling. Focus on getting us numbers.” You let out a shaky breath you didn’t know you were holding, increasing the intensity of your tracking devices. What really bothered you now was that the map was of no use; the only thing you guys could go off of was live footage. 

“Honey, I’m on my way. Keep leading them on and I’ll shoot them up from behind.” Your dad advised through the comms. You split the main screen into three parts: the footage from your mom’s TIE, your dad’s TIE, and the leader of the squadron that was going to cover. Your eyes don’t waver from the screen, forcing your brain to process all the videos at once. 

“I see an abandoned ship; I’m heading towards it. I’ll fit, but hopefully the X-Wings won’t.” No. No, no, no, that wouldn’t work. 

“Mom, it’s too tight. You won’t be able to fit. It’ll tear off a wing.” Your eyes were wide as your heart pumped faster, staring at her live footage on the screen.

“Sweetheart, if [Y/N]’s saying it’s too tight, then it’s too tight. She has the satellite images.” Your dad agreed with you. 

“I’ve been doing this longer than both of you have. Watch.” You gasp as she tilts at a ninety degree angle, somehow making it through the opening. “What did I tell you?” You smile, knowing exactly where your cockiness came from.

“Alright, I’m running them off. [Y/N], any progress on the trackers?” Oh crap, the trackers. Reviewing your datapad, you nearly throw it onto the table.

“Nothing. Zip, zero, nada. I’m going to turn the intensity all the way up. Also, FN-8691, DN-1574 is secure. You’re clear to go back to your assigned sector.”

“Copy.” 

You slide the intensity bar all the way up, hoping that you’d get something. Nothing. Again. Groaning in annoyance, you start pacing once again, racking your brain to try to figure out something, anything.

“Little one, don’t pace. It shows weakness.” You give Kylo a curt nod, knowing you can’t say anything to him but wanting to punch him nonetheless. Fuck [Y/N], he can read thoughts. Stop it. Pulling yourself together, you glance back up at the main screen, taking a second to process what you were seeing on your mom’s monitor.

“Mom, there’s a—” you’re cut short by the overwhelming metal screeching in your ear and a third of the main screen going black. “Mom? Mom! Can you hear me?”

“Shit, she just crashed!” Your dad yells, stating the obvious. “Someone get these X-Wings off of me! I’m going to check her status!” The panic in his voice only worries you even more.

“Mom, can you hear me?” You try again, praying that you’d get an answer. Static is all that you receive. You can practically feel the entire room’s gaze on you, waiting for a reaction. You have to go. You have to find her. Reaction they wanted, and reaction they were going to get. 

You throw your datapad on the table, grabbing your helmet and take off towards the exit of the room. Running through the halls towards the nearest turbolift, you try your best to breathe steadily. Don’t pass out. Just keep breathing. She’ll be okay. She always is. Always.

“Come on!” You scream at the lift, repeatedly smashing the button to call it. “Worthless piece of junk!” 

“Her TIE is in flames. I’m getting out.” Oh shit. Shit, shit shit. You run into the lift, almost breaking the button for the hangar. You don’t know how much time passes, but eventually the doors open and you burst into the hangar, fastening your helmet onto your suit and looking around for a TIE. 

“Hey!” You yell at a stormtrooper, who turns around, confused. “Give me that TIE!” Pushing him to the ground when he tries to protest, you jump inside and close the hatch, locking it.

“We have an unauthorized takeoff in Bay 4. I repeat, unauthorized takeoff in Bay 4.” You roll your eyes as you sit down, starting the TIE up. 

“Ren, tell these stormtroopers to stand down!” You scream into your helmet, looking at the fast-approaching white and red suits.

“What is she talking about? Oh maker, is she leaving? Ren, you can’t let her leave!” You can hear the agitation in your dad’s voice. Flipping a switch on the dashboard, you push the speed lever up all the way. Flying out of the hangar at full speed had serious consequences, but you couldn’t care less. The gate closing catches your attention, alarming you.

“I don’t think I can stop her now, Dameron. She’s practically out of the hangar.” 

“Someone tell these kriffing idiots to keep the gate open!” You could feel the TIE vibrating and you grip the joystick, getting ready to speed through however big the opening would be. The TIE shoots forward, causing you to be thrusted against the back of your seat. You were going to make it. It was narrow, but you’d make it through. You had to. The irony of the situation nearly makes you laugh, but you’re too focused on getting out. You were almost there. Fifty meters. Twenty-five. Ten. 

“Fuck yes!” You scream, barely making it out of the opening. 

“Poe?” You can hear your mom’s raspy voice in your helmet and your eyes start to tear up, blurring your view of various bright stars against the pitch black landscape of the galaxy. You were in the battle zone now.

“I’m here, love. I’m here,” his voice cracks and you slam the speed lever once again, but you know this is as fast as the TIE can go. It isn’t fast enough. Speeding past different X-Wings, you don’t even try to shoot any down. The only thing you’re concerned about is getting there in time.

“Where’s [Y/N]?” A sob escapes you and you throw your head against the seat.

“I’m coming, mom. I’m on my way.” Your voice cracks, hot tears streaming down your cheeks. The ship is in your sights and even from how far you are, you can see the red orange flames of the explosion. Oxygen pocket, you think to yourself.

“I’m not going to make it, Poe.” Your heart stops but you keep piloting, pushing the joystick as far forward as it can go without breaking. You were almost there.

“Don’t talk like that. It’s all going to be okay. We’re going to get you to the medical wing and you’re going to be just fine.” Hearing the crack in your dad’s voice makes your heart clench as more tears start cascading down. 

You land about fifty meters away from the explosion, unlocking the hatch and taking a second to get used to the different level of gravity. Where were they? Your eyes catch movement just behind the crash, someone in a black suit. Dad. Sprinting towards your parents, you rip off your helmet once you’re past the crash and skid to a stop next to your mom.

“Hey, she’s here,” you hear your mom say in a faint voice. Her state was desolate. The blood splatters on her face and her scratched up flight suit made you start crying harder. “Don’t cry. It’ll be okay.”

“You’re going to make it out. You’re going to live.” You repeat it like a mantra, as if saying it enough times could make it come true. “Right?” Looking up at your dad, you realize he’s as heartbroken as you are. No. She wasn’t. He pulls her closer, stroking a hand through her hair as his whole body trembles.

“Look after our baby girl, okay?” She looks up at him with tears in her eyes and he breaks, nodding his head as a sob escapes past his lips. 

She turns to you and you grab her hand, not able to say anything. It was all too much for your mind to process. “I love you more than anything else in the world. Don’t forget that.” You nod, letting out a soft whimper.

“I love you too. And I’ll never forget you,” you barely manage to whisper, watching her close her eyes. 

“She’s gone.” You had no idea those words would haunt you for years.

------

“You still blame me, don’t you?” Your father’s words shock you out of your thoughts.

“I don’t blame you. I never did.” He arches an eyebrow and you shake your head. “I only ever blamed the Resistance. It’s the Resistance’s fault. Why do you think I didn’t stop flying? Didn’t stop fighting? I want them to pay for what they did to Mom.”

“I know you do, but I can’t lose you too.” The turbolift comes to a stop at your floor, and you give him a sad smile before stepping out.

“You won’t.” He sighs at your words, watching you walk away. 

“One can only hope,” he whispers to himself as he steps out, walking in the opposite direction towards his own quarters. 

------

Later that night, Poe kept tossing and turning in bed, his mind buzzing with ‘what ifs’ as he kept playing out the mission you were just on. It was too similar, too close. The entire time you were weaving your way through the abandoned warship, the memories played out like a movie. His heart was hammering in his chest and all he wanted to do was drag you back to the Finalizer and hold you.

Ever since that day, sleep came rarely to him. His mind would play tricks on him as his heart would ache, the big king sized bed swallowing him whole. When he did sleep though, nightmares would plague his dreams. And tonight, he dreamt of the crash. Only this time, when he went to pull the body out of the TIE, it was you. 

Panic set in his chest as he stared down at your lifeless body. Shaking his head he started checking for a pulse, but couldn’t find one. Hot tears started streaming down his face as the lump in his throat grew. 

“No,” he smoothed out your blood soaked hair. His voice cracked as the heat of the flames from the leftover explosion did nothing to calm his trembling body. “Not my little girl.” Loud sobs bounced off of cold rusted metal. 

“Not my baby,” he pressed his forehead to your now cold one. The burning in his chest intensified as well as the ringing in his ears. Hiccups turned into whimpers. He pulled back taking in your state, cuts and bruises littered your face, a face of pure innocence. A gut wrenching sob left him, screams and pleas of hurt and regret filling in the sound of silence. 

Poe bolted up in a cold sweat, looking around the room frantically. He squeezed his eyes shut, hands wracking in his hair, as he curled into himself. Trying to control his breathing, he tugged at the soft curls, needing a sense of grounding. Closing his eyes he was met with the image from his nightmare. Digging the heels of his hands in his eyes, he tried to get rid of it, but it was already burnt into his mind. Cries sounded in the room. His throat hurt, his mind was racing a million miles a minute, and he felt dizzy. He needed to check on you. He needed to know you were okay.

Tossing the covers to the ground, he bolted out his quarters and ran straight to yours. The moment he stood in front of your door he froze. You’ve never seen him in this state; he made sure of that. But he needed to see you in one piece, so before he knew it he was knocking on your door. 

When you opened it, the sight broke your heart. His eyes were puffy and red, tears stained his cheeks, his hair was a complete mess, and what made it worse was the quiver in his lower lip. 

“Dad, what—” He cut you off, engulfing you in a tight hug. Instinctively you wrapped your arms around him, worry bubbling inside you.

“I’m sorry,” he cried into your shoulder. “I’m so sorry.” He kept repeating it, over and over again. You felt your heart shatter into a million pieces. 

“Sorry for what, pops?” You tentatively asked. He slowly pulled away, wiping away at his tears as he walked into your room and sat on the edge of your bed. 

“Everything. I couldn’t make it on time to your mom,” he sniffed, “Then I didn’t make it on time to you.” Fresh tears started rolling down his already soaked cheeks, landing on his shirt and dampening the material.

“What do you mean? I’m right here.” He averted his eyes from your gaze, hands wringing together nervously. Your worry grew immensely, never had you thought your dad could get like this. Tears started pooling in your eyes. 

“I uh,” he cleared his throat, “Ever since t-the crash I’ve been… I’ve been having nightmares.” He still didn’t meet your eyes. You sat down next to him, a hand gently rubbing his back, a silent encouragement. 

“It varies from it being about that day to,” he took a sharp inhale, his hands trembling,”...to you. Seeing you out there earlier and these nightmares,” one of his hands reached out to yours, “You’re the only thing I have left.” He said, finally looking at you. 

Nodding slightly, you retract your hand from his back, setting it atop his. You swallow thickly, all your emotions coming up at once.

"That's why I'm such a hardass with you." He sighs. "Kiddo, when I say I can't lose you, I mean it. I don't know what I'd do with myself." He choked up. 

"I'm sorry." Your whisper is just barely audible. Poe's face fills with confusion at your words. "For not listening. For always trying to act like I have something to prove. Being reckless," you mumbled the last part. 

"Yeah, well, like father like daughter, huh?" he gives you a small wink, earning a heartfelt chuckle from you.

"You could say that." He looks at you, scanning your face. A small smile cracking on his lips as he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. All he sees is his little girl, his flesh and blood.

"I love you," he says with such strong emotion, bringing you into another hug, cradling you to his chest as he did when you were younger. 

"I love you too dad," you cried, airing out your emotions. And it felt good.

Damerons were known to be tough, cocky, badasses who flew and fought. But to you, your dad was your best friend, your rock, your guide. And you wouldn't trade him for the world.

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