#it's hard tbqh

[rubythecrimsonwriter]

Flipping Legacies, middle/end part of Chapter 8, yes this is out of order shush

Snacks are churros grabbed from a street vendor, mostly because they smelled divine while passing by. Natasha grabs enough for six, plus a few extra. Between the super soldiers, the immortals, and the growing children, someone will eat them, she’s sure.

Arms full of churros, she lets herself into the apartment and holds the door open for Nightwing. Drakov’s head pops up from the breakfast nook at the second set of footsteps.

“Drakov, Nightwing,” Natasha introduces shortly. “Nightwing, one of my first trainers and the only one left alive, Drakov, also known as the Winter Soldier or Bucky Barnes.”

Nightwing slows for a second and visibly winces. “...how is Captain America taking that?”

“Mm,” Natasha hums with a mouthful of churro, passing a bag to Drakov.

“Badly,” Drakov says dryly.

“He doesn’t know Drakov is here right now,” Natasha says.

Clint exits the bathroom and works his way down the hall. About halfway down the hall, he registers the vigilante that doesn’t live there and starts grinning.

Natasha raises an eyebrow.

Nightwing catches the look and turns around. Natasha edges her way around because she desperately wants to catch this entire interaction.

Sue her. She’s a spy. Nosy is literally her job description.

Nightwing beams. It’s the only proper word for it.

Clint launches himself at the vigilante, and what follows can only be described as a casual roughhouse. It’d be deadly for most anyone else facing either of them. It’s fast, full strength, and utterly silent.

They break apart as fast as they started, grinning, neither out of breath. They’re both grinning like loons.

“Churro?” Nightwing offers.

“Fuck yes,” Clint says.

This is a normal interaction. Alright. Natasha is not asking.

“I gotta know,” Drakov says, amused. “How long have you two known each other?”

Clint smirks, a bit. Oh. Oh no. Bozhe moy.

“Your call, my dude,” Clint says. “I’m not the one with a secret identity.”

Natasha honestly forgot that no one but her and JARVIS had put everything together to then threaten Batman in the daytime.

“I’ve known him,” Nightwing says, with a deliberateness that speaks volumes, “for longer than Batman’s had Robin.”

Natasha very carefully does not choke. Clint does.

She pounds him on the back while watching Drakov, whose eyebrows have nearly hit his hairline.

“You do realize that you can’t be saying that to just anyone, right?” Drakov says.

“He was trained by Batman,” Natasha says dryly. “I’m pretty sure that’s a challenge to say, come discover my secret identity, I dare you.”

Nightwing laughs. “If Clint reported my involvement with his mission, I’ll eat Batman’s cowl after a bad night.”

“Of course I fucking didn’t,” Clint coughed out. “I would have been laughed right back into jail if I reported a fucking nine year old doing anything but flips on a trampoline.”

Natasha exchanges a look of resigned horror with Drakov. Her own words from the previous morning haunt her: Imagine if Clint couldn’t turn off the assassin like us. So lethal, so graceful, so talented, so obvious. So ripe for HYDRA’s picking, way back in 1996. Imagine if Clint didn’t have Coulson as a handler, who was notorious for going back for his agents no matter what and had the Director of SHIELD’s ear.

Coulson would have believed Clint. Which meant Coulson was not his handler.

Oops. Agent Barton had a tragic accident on a mission. We have to bury an empty casket, her own words echo back at her again.

“Where was your handler.” The words basically fall out of her mouth without permission.

Clint does a double take at her. She doesn’t know what she looks like, but based on the fact that she’s swiftly relieved of everything she might drop, she must look like she’s about to pass out.

“I ditched him,” Clint admits, grabbing her by the shoulders and shoving her into a chair. “Considering I later wound up killing the guy they sent me to protect, I’m okay with that mark on my record. Unfortunate failure is better than intentional sabotage.”

That old Winter Soldier has had his fun, but he’s a little too feisty.

Nightwing quirks a smile at her. It looks rueful. “However bad you think it is, I can guarantee it was worse.”

“Dick,” Clint hisses. Natasha knows it’s his name. It’s said as an insult.

Natasha buries her head in her arms. “How close did you come to being serumed up and brainwashed into doing some shadowy underground totalitarian government’s bidding?”

Nightwing rocks back on his heels. “Actually, you’re right on the money. How did you do that?”

Natasha pops her head up so fast her eyesight can’t compensate. “You. Don’t talk.”

She grabs Clint. “Where the fuck was Coulson, and why didn’t you refuse a handler that would deliberately fail to catch you?”

Clint looks like he’s doing complicated math in his head and he’s losing track of the numbers. “I’m definitely missing something,” he finally says.

“She’s talking about the fact that if the Black Widow was willing to run with a normal human, and have the normal human not be dead weight, then the normal human would be utterly spectacular as a super soldier,” Drakov says levelly.

He’s just. Like. Us. But he’d be better if he was serumed up and had all five senses fully working.

Clint and Nightwing exchange a glance. She knows that glance. That’s a, wow, shit was even more fucked than I originally thought it was glance.

“Oh my god,” she says faintly.

“It’s a long story,” Clint admits. “And not one we really have time for, or, uh. Patience. On the plus side, we killed them, their undead serumed monsters, their bosses, and like ninety-five percent of the underlings, too, so unless they reinvent the wheel--”

“They did,” Nightwing says.

“—we’ll be—I’m sorry, what was that?”

“They did.”

“What?”

“They revived the Court of Owls,” Nightwing says patiently. “And Batman and I took care of them. Again.”

“Oh, well--”

“And so did Robin, again.”

Natasha looks at Drakov despairingly.

Clint opens his mouth and shuts it. He looks at the ceiling and mutters something Natasha doesn’t quite catch, but makes Drakov snort.

Nightwing has a smile on his face that’s a threat. It lingers in the corners of his mouth, around the edges of his domino. It’s a smile that Coulson would be envious of. “Gotham���s a little...much for the Mainlanders. But Clint’s welcome to run with the Bats anytime. Birds of a feather flock together, right? Especially the ones that get stalked to be brainwashed assassins.”

Natasha puts her head back onto the table and gives quiet thanks that even Hydra wasn’t willing to fuck around with Gotham’s brand of crazy.

She pushes back from the table and stands up. “You crazy kids have fun. Drakov, don’t enable them. I’m going for a run.”

“Bye!” Nightwing calls after her. “Don’t forget a rebreather!”

She shakes one as she escapes out the door in response. Get her out of here. Now.

[chipchopclipclop]

ejecting od mania from my body before a great evil takes me

[theonewhowails]

Golden Fleece

[gammija]

Still can't tell if this is going to become a new obsession or not, but just in case i have to get a (podcast) sherlock design ready

[paimonial-rage]

zenith - freminet

[another random writing event] | requested by @milkstore

Since you were a child, you always had been fascinated by the people around you. To you, everyone shined brightly like a star. They were just so talented and wonderful—they stood out in stark contrast to you. You didn’t have much going for you. You were clumsy and gloomy. You had no talents to speak of. You were many things, but the last thing was a star.

Upon entering the House, you couldn’t help but feel Freminet was the same. He never thought much of himself. It was a fact you knew well. It always showed in the way he spoke, constantly acting as if he had to ask permission solely for existing. With his voice quiet and shoulders drawn in, he didn’t prefer to stand out within a crowd. “Mother,” the director, loved that about him. How she enjoyed bullying him to make him sink even more into himself.

But after “Mother” was dethroned and Father began to take charge, Freminet began to change. It became especially clear when the twins entered as well. Slowly but surely, he began reaching outside of himself. He started interacting with vendors interested in his clockwork creations. He participated in the twins’ magic shows. He even argued with Lyney, something you never thought he was capable of.

Like others, he began to shine. Not only was he smart, but he was gentle and kind. And as timid as he was, he always stood up for what he believed to be right. He was worth something, irreplaceable to the House.

But what of you?

Though you tried your best to become a soldier Father could be proud of, you still failed many times. As much as you tried to be a positive influence on the other orphans, they still saw your mistakes. As strong of a person you aimed to become, there were still times you found yourself caught in the throes of depression. Unlike Freminet, you were not worth much.

“Freminet,” you began one day as you laid beside him underneath the night sky. “They say that the luckiest stars are found in the zenith, meaning the ones directly above you. To me, that’s where I feel you are, and Lyney and Lynette. Father and the rest of the House. If you all were stars, you’d be in the zenith.”

It was a random thing to talk about, you knew, but you really couldn’t help yourself after seeing how down he looked today. Perhaps he got into another disagreement with Lyney or maybe there was a mission failed, who knew. Regardless, knowing how insecure Freminet was, you wanted to cheer him up, if not just a little bit.

“Really? You think that of me?” He asked slowly, as if questioning the validity of your words. “But I… I’m not really anything special.” But you shook your head.

“That’s not true. You’re kind. You’re good at making clockwork creations. You stand up to Lyney when he’s overworking himself. You fix everything Lynette breaks. You’re really amazing, you know that? I really look up to you. So cheer up. I don’t know what happened today, but don’t let it get you too down, okay?”

He took a few moments to respond, as if taking the time to soak in your words.

“Sorr– Um… Thank you,” he finally managed to get out, prompting a laugh from you. How long had you been trying to break his habit of apologizing?

Seeing as though curfew was approaching, you sat up and did your best to brush the spare blades of grass from your back. After standing up, you reached a hand out to him.

“Shall we head in?”

After nodding, he took your hand and stood. But after you began forward a few steps, you stopped upon realizing you weren’t being followed. Turning back, there Freminet stood, his eyes upon the stars above him.

“Freminet?” You asked curiously, before finally, he turned to you.

“Um, sorry,” he mumbled quietly. “I was just thinking that… just like you, if everyone were stars, they’d be in my zenith too. They’re lucky to me too. But… out of everyone, I think you’d be the highest.”

That gave you pause.

“The highest?”

He nodded.

“At least, that’s just what I think. Sorry if that sounds weird.”

You shook your head, ignoring the way your heart filled with a hesitant warmth.

“No, I… Thank you, Freminet.”

[chestnutisland]

♥♥♥

[kindahoping4forever]

Clips of Ashton performing Drive live @ The Belasco - 18 July 2024

[canisonicscrewyou]

my eye-spy sitcom best friendcore ass apartment. btw. just thought you should know. I kind of recommend zooming in if you want to.

Constant Visual Stimulation. No Escape.

bonus: the newest addition that we stole rescued from my place of work yesterday after taking these pics. a lovely lady.

[fearandhungies]

as a companion piece to my poll from last year asking your least favorite least streamed mitski song per album,

I FORGOT TO MAKE IT LAST A WEEK FUCKING WHOOPS

[waspgrave]

i'm never going to get over how cool the Butcher seemed to be only for him to die like 5 minutes after we finally meet him and then replaced by some nothing non-threatening little worm of a person as a villain instead. bioware when i get my hands on you

[apollos-olives]

I’m sorry your story got cancelled that SUCKS. Is there any way you will be able to share it otherwise?

yeah so basically they're refusing to air it because it was too controversial and dangerous, but my producer told me that to story was so well done and was so perfect that he told me i should submit it into video and journalism competitions that my local community does. like, he said it was PERFECT- he showed it to every single producer up the food chain and they said it was fantastic, but just too "controversial", so they refused to air it. they didn't like that i didn't have the perspective of "the other side", they didn't like that i wore arabic on my shirt, they didn't like that the protesters were using posters that condemned zionism, so they just told me it's not airing. despite that, it was genuinely so perfect that my producer told me i HAVE to put it on my portfolio and submit it to different events and competitions to make it get recognized. so i guess i'll be doing that instead. it's just not airing for my studio.

[yaboi8i]

"Amuro Ray could help Shinji Ikari"

Oh yeah? Well Char "four vagina" aznable would latch onto him like a son and project issues not previously thought possible onto him.

[optiwashere]

I was trying to get a quick screenshot of how adorable she looks while saying this line, and I think I found the handful of frames where she instead looks like the PC just said the dumbest shit imaginable.

This is now a PSA about the visual equivalent of manipulative soundbites or something

[morganpdf]

starting to get antsy abt interview tmo.................

[louismygf]

just recently watched this is us with my college friends

[arbitrarygreay]

More evidence that Alder would have done gangbusters focusing on espionage: Petra notes in 2x4 that "Intelligence does often have a hard time keeping track of the General's comings and goings." Literally the person in charge of keeping track of information and shit says that Alder and her Biddies were giving them the slip all of the time over the decades. It's like the inverse of the Marshal being able to hunt anyone down, Alder is able to slip the leash when she wants. Which kind of goes against the popular fanon of Alder being stuck in meetings and in the unavoidable public eye all of the time, and finding it a burden. It turns out, Alder not only made a habit of getting around surveillance, but the other side of that coin is that what publicity/propaganda/speeching/posters/etc. she did do was of her own desire. If she didn't want to be a public face, she could choose to avoid it all. (To where when Nicte forced her into the Warding Circle and Petra appeared to make announcements with Silver instead, it was notable by everyone, a duty that Alder relinquished reluctantly.)