#let's get this computer airborne

[et-u-motherfucker]

Reblog me when the poll ends so I remember to draw the abomination that we will create pls

reblog for the most chaos PC we can manage

[remxedmoon]

“the merciless cobra. its caustic venom can traverse any distance… as long as it stays out of danger.

…please, pay no mind to those ghastly stains. it must’ve been splashed with paint while my back was turned.”

reptile

1 power - 1 health - 3 blood

2 power - 3 health - 2 blood

sniper - you may choose which opposing space a card bearing this sigil strikes.

touch of death - when a card bearing this sigil damages another creature, that creature perishes.

hidden trait - gemmified

when a sigil is transferred to this card, it becomes gemmified. gemmified cards gain +1 power, +2 health, and -1 cost.

COBRADILE!! this was probably the most fun card to make out of all of them. also probably the prettiest card imo!!! writeup below!!

sniper and touch of death! pretty deadly combo. literally. you can just kill any card you please from any spot on the board. i was DEAD SET on giving her the sniper sigil. it just felt right.

GEMMIFICATION YIPEEE! this is a mechanic from act 3! but mox cards appear in act 2 as well. in base game inscryption, you need to have specific gem vessels on the field in order to activate the buffs (ruby for power, emerald for health, and sapphire for cost) but! mox cards and gem vessels aren’t really. in kaycee’s mod. and it would be super clunky to add them for a single card! so all you have to do is sacrifice a card’s sigils onto her. is this a little broken? maybe. but this is inscryption, literally everything is broken lol

^expanding on this, it still kinda fits lorewise? ka buans do compress their ashes into diamonds after all. let’s say that they compressed the creature into a diamond or something and that’s what’s powering her, idk

ok i’ll stop talking about the mox thing after this. both sif and odile were given mechanics from the other scrybes! siffrin requires bone tokens (grimmora) and odile has mox (magnificus). no sorry there’s nothing for p03. they don’t have computers in the isat world i think. i’m pretty sure.

initially i wanted to make her a stork or an ibis, but. all avian cards have the airborne sigil. which makes their attacks hit the opponent directly instead of their creatures. and that defeats the entire purpose of sniper. so she gets to be a spitting cobra! i think it’s more fun this way anyways. more fun shapes.

also this kinda spoils bonnie’s card a little but!! i put thought into the tribes too!!! the vaugardians (mirabelle, isabeau, and bonnie) are all from the hooved tribe! odile is a reptile and sif is tribeless because they’re outsiders. teehee.

ok patch time. she gets double strike, which makes her attack twice (as the name implies). i chose this in reference to memory of first strike (it just reminds me of it? idk) and also because it synergizes with sniper! you get to oneshot TWO cards in one turn! good god! odile really is merciless

that’s everything important about this card! i know this is long as hell but! that’s what happens when you introduce an entire new mechanic. i guess. anyways alt card art!!!

[ghostf1ux]

5 Times Jason Saved his the Flock and 1 Time they Saved Him: Your Mom (And Dad (Are Dead))

Day 6: Greatest Fear

Words: 1.8k

TW/CWs: Fear Toxin, Jumping off a building

Part 1 | Part 2 (here) | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

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

“Has anyone seen Nightwing?”

Tim's question sends a jolt of… something through Jason's chest. He fires off another shot at an approaching hireling of Scarecrow's, then takes a moment to actually look around.

From his place on a rooftop higher than most the others around, Jason can make out a few vague blurs of color on other buildings through the smog of fear gas practically dripping off them all. Robin and Batman fight side by side, or rather, back to back, against a horde of henchmen and Scarecrow himself. Spoiler is a spot of purple in the mix of heavy green fog and debris on the streets, helping evacuate the civilians still in the area and fighting what guns-for-hire may threaten them. Red Robin is barely a dot on a rooftop a sizable ways away, standing still while he's presumably checking the computer on his wrist. Black Bat is… well, she's somewhere. Jason can't actually see her, but based on the way some goons are kinda just falling over in some places, he guesses she's fine. Even Signal is out tonight, closer to Jason as far as rooftops go, and easy to spot even with it being nighttime. A mostly yellow suit did that for you.

But no Nightwing. No signature splash of blue flipping his way through fights and comforting those who needed it. No constant stream of chirped puns or quips.

“His tracker is pinging two blocks south of your position, Hood,” Oracle mentions. Jason sighs.

“I'll go check on Goldie, I'm finished with these guys anyways.” He kicks the foot of one of the goons he had knocked out for emphasis, despite the fact that he's the only one who can see it. Whatever, that's what's important anyways.

Within moments he's leaping off the building and soaring through the air, using his grapple to facilitate the airborne movement. He finds a smile pulling at his lips despite the potential situation, and the actual one. He would never get over the freedom of feeling like he's flying when he's traversing the city like this.

That smile falls when he hears a choked sound and sees a cloud of that thick, green gas gathered around a hunched black and blue form on the next building. Jason eases to a stop near the ledge in front of him, making sure his landing is able to be heard.

He falters when he registers the choked sound as Dick sobbing, practically tearing out his own hair with how hard he's pulling it. He doesn't have his rebreather on.

“Did you find him?” Tim asks impatiently.

“Yeah, I found him alright,” Jason responds quietly as not to startle the clearly high-on-fear-toxin Dick. 

“Do you need help?” Yes, he most certainly did because what the fuck is he supposed to do in this situation?

“I've got it, baby bird,” Jason replies tersely instead. Why? Who fucking knows. His inability to let people think he can't handle whatever is thrown his way despite the fact that he definitely doesn't know how to handle this? His internalized self-loathing that didn't allow him to just accept even an ounce of familial affection and love on a bad day? His ego?

Probably that last one. He doesn't see what the other two might have to do with it.

Jason switches off his comm so he can focus, setting his helmet off to the side before raising his hands placatingly as he approaches Dick much like he would a traumatized child tucked into a dank alleyway in Crime Alley.

“Hey, dickiebird,” Jason starts softly, tapping into his Robin days. Dick's tear-streaked face snaps up at the words, entire body tensing and shaking as he recoils back. He's ready to bolt.

“Easy, I'm just trying to help you out, yeah?” He telegraphs his careful movements as he steps closer. “I need you to try to breathe, Goldie. In four, hold four, out four. You know the drill.”

Dick shakes his head, fingers twitching with the need to– what, reach out? Whatever Dick was seeing, it had nearly made him frozen.

“No, no no no no please not again– leave- leave him alone–” Dick's words come out as a hushed plea, his hands clenching. “J- Jay please- please I- I can't lose you- not again, please not again–”

Again, Jason falters, because what the fuck is he supposed to say to that? His brother is hallucinating his death, and he's just standing there. 

Fuck Jason is bad at this. He should've taken Tim's offer. He should've done a lot of things.

Focus, fuck, okay. What would Dick do in this situation?

Does that question even apply since the situation is about Dick?

“I'm right here, Goldie. Not dead, pinkie promise.” Jason tried for a soft smile, but it probably came out more strained and uncomfortable than he was intending. What can he say, he's not used to doing this without his helmet on.

“No, no, you died and I wasn't there, I wasn't here, I wasn't- I couldn't- I–”

Dick breaks off into hysterical sobbing, curling up impossibly tighter into the little ball he seemed to be so comfortable in. Jason hovers just a few feet away– too close for him to be at all comfortable with this situation (let's be real, within city limits was far too close) and too far to do anything about it.

The fear toxin antidotes he keeps on hand sit heavy in his utility belt. He withdraws one and carefully starts approaching Dick again.

“Listen, you just got tagged with some fear gas, yeah? Nothing you're seeing is real. I'm right here, the family's all here, alive and well–” Well that's an overstatement but besides the point– “–I just need to give you the antidote.”

Dick looks up at that, seeming to finally register Jason's very alive presence before him. He's still hyperventilating, and tears are streaming down his face, but he's somewhat more present.

He thinks.

“But- I- No, you–”

“I'm right here,” Jason assures him. He's only a foot out of reach now.

Unfortunately, it seems Jason was a little optimistic about the whole ‘being present’ thing. 

This is shown when Dick flinches and his attention snaps to something behind him, like he hears something. Or sees it. Most likely watching the beginning of one of the many scenes that plague his nightmares. Jason opens his mouth to speak before Dick beats him to it.

“I can't- I can't watch it again, Jay- not again, please- I can- I can help them–”

“They're already gone, you can't save them, it's just a hallucination,” Jason cuts in softly. Fervently, Dick shakes his head.

“No, no, I can save them this time, they don't have to die, not again, not this time.”

And then Dick is scrambling away, away from Jason, away from safety, directly towards the edge of the roof–

“Dick don't–!”

He's reaching for Dick, lurching forward to stop him, but he's too slow and Dick is too far and he's hit the edge of the roof and he's reaching over like someone is falling and he's not close enough so he keeps going and his heart is racing and the blood is roaring in his ears and he's falling falling falling–

Without a thought Jason is diving over the ledge after his brother, arms outstretched, embracing his brother as he tackles him in mid air. Dick is clawing at Jason's leather-clad arms, trying to get away, but Jason can't help but realize they're still barreling towards the ground and that really doesn't sound like a good time so he tightens his grip and pulls out his grapple and shoots at the nearest point he can rely on for a good anchor spot.

A shriek is wrenched from his throat when the cable suddenly goes taut and both his and Dick's weights are wrenched to a violent and instant stop, practically tearing his shoulder out of the socket with the force.

“Why- why did you stop me- I could've saved- I could've saved them–!” Dick screams, uncaring of who hears them. He's still scrambling frantically in Jason's iron hold, intent on finishing his impromptu flight. Jason has half a mind to let him with every jostle that sends stabs up pain through his shoulder and down his spine. Unfortunately, he happens to like the chirpy, annoying big bird a little too much for that.

“They're not real, they're already dead!” Jason snaps back, only feeling mildly guilty about the flinch he receives for his poor delivery. “Just stop fucking moving, for fucks sake– where's your fucking comm–”

Through Dick's flailing Jason manages to lock his legs around the man's waist, hopefully keeping the man in place before he remembers the inhuman ways he can bend and twist his body in to get out.

Using one hand to get the comm unit out of Dick's ear is a hassle and a half and takes him biting his lip so hard it bleeds to accomplish, but he does manage it. As soon as he puts it in his ear he's nearly deafened by the cacophony of voices he can't even make out.

“Jay please, please let me- let me go, I need to–”

“Dick we are at least six stories off the ground I am not letting you go to chase the ghosts of you past that you can't save anymore!” Jason nearly shouts, rifling around in his belt for another antidote.

“Why the hell are you six stories off the ground?!”

“Is N okay?”

“Sounds like he was tagged.”

“Hood, report.”

The last voice is so painfully Batman it makes Jason flashback to his Robin days.

“Dickwing got fear gassed, jumped off a roof before I could administer the antidote. I caught him, dislocated my shoulder in the process, and can't get us down,” he lists out automatically, grinning when he finally finds the syringe. “Fucking finally. Goldie stop screaming I need to stab you.”

On second thought, that probably wasn't the best way to say that, and that notion is backed up by Dick's renewed efforts to get away from him, but no one ever accused him of being good at emotions.

“Language.”

“Hood, dear god please say that in a better way next time.”

“Nah, I think it was perfect.”

“Is this normal comms for you all?”

“Yes,” Everyone on the comm responds in unison, including Alfred and even Dick through his sobbing, which quiets down once Jason finally gets a dose of the antidote in him. He uses his free hand to support his brother's head, not wanting him to have a fucked neck on top of the wicked hangover their antidote gives.

“I'm almost finished up here, Hood, then I can come swing by,” Stephanie finally says once everyone is done with their laughing. Jason lets out a sharp breath, inhales, holds it, then exhales again.

“Yeah, sounds good, awesome. I'll just be. Yknow. Hangin’ out,” Jason responds flatly. “Not like I have a dislocated shoulder I'm hanging from or anything, nope.”

“You have gone through far worse before,” Damian tuts. Jason rolls his eyes.

“That's not the point, demon brat. Focus on your damn fight. And Spoiler, grab my helmet off the roof whenever you get here.”

“You got it.”

[loveundrwrld]

m yan business owner (owns a rage room) x f customer reader

f reader is a hyper independent eldest daughter who pays for the most expensive package m yan offers.

m yan is scared but also intrigued as f reader destroys the heck out of the room and caves in the selected weapon of choice (metallic base ball bat) while california here we go by the garden blares through the speakers

i have this scene in my mind where f reader looks at m yan through the security camera situated in one of the upper corners of the room, bat pointed at the camera, “turn that song up now” and proceeds to smash everything as the music plays loudly that it leaks into the other hired out rooms (idk how rage rooms work i want to go to one).

yes i am living vicariously through this request

ok ty

i love this request! ur valid, it's totally okay to be self-indulgent here.

i really like how detailed your request is- i did look up some stuff about rage rooms, which was interesting!

i'd never heard of them before. they do sound like they can be a little dangerous though, anon, so if you go to one in real life be careful- smashing electronics for instance is not recommended irl, there's a lot of stuff in computers and such that are not meant to be airborne. not trying to rain on your parade though, ofc, just do make sure to proceed with caution 👍

_____

burnt out female reader x rage room owner male yandere

(cw: dysfunctional family dynamic)

you were fed up with everything. exhausted, burnt out to the core. on the palms of your hands there were crescent marks from clenching your fist tightly all day, and your lip felt raw from biting them.

all day you had to do everything- go to your job, listen to your stupid boss's inane requests, drive your younger siblings to soccer or school, and run errands for your aging parents. and what thanks did you get? only a small acknowledgment if any. you were your parent's most "responsible" child, the eldest, so it was expected of you.

you got a job at an early age, and moved out when you were very young. you were hoping that being successful would make you feel better and would make you help you feel better about yourself. make your life feel more full. you tried your best to do everything by yourself, hoping that would make you look like a better daughter in your parents' eyes. and yet, you felt painfully empty. and you knew exactly why.

it was all criticism for you. no praise. even though you were great at your job and highly accomplished, it didn't matter. to your parents, all that mattered was that you could have done better. even though you were no longer living in their house, you could still feel the stress of their eyes on you weighing you down.

you decided that it was about time you have a little stress relief. punching your pillow could only get you so far. and by coincidence, you found an ad for something local that fit your interests- a "rage room." you could get all your anger out easily, and let your real self out. you could forget the mask of the "perfect daughter," if only for a little bit.

you thought for a second and realized that you couldn’t remember the last time you took a day off just for the sake of it. you could just take one vacation day for fun, and then you’d go back to work the next day feeling much better.

and, besides that, you were so busy being a careful, diligent daughter that you barely spent any money on yourself. you had plenty of money stored up, so why not use it?

you decided to just take a chance and do it. you dipped into your ample savings and reserved a room for yourself, and picked the most expensive option- a room reserved just for you, with someone coming in and giving you even more stuff to destroy so you can spend hours smashing as much stuff as you desire. it was the perfect idea.

when you got to the location, you were surprised at how small the place was. it looked a lot bigger on the website... and a lot cleaner, too.

the person that greeted you was a nervous, mousy-eyed teenager. he was wearing coveralls with a little name tag saying “max.” max spoke to you with a small, nervous voice, constantly darting his eyes.

"so, where's the owner? is it you?" you said with a smile, joking, but max only gave you a pained look in response. a sore subject, you guessed. it seemed you weren't the only person here with a terrible boss.

he silently passed you some forms to fill out, which you skim through and sign. it's just a standard liability form, you figured.

once he led you into your room, he handed you a face shield and some heavy-duty gloves, as well as some coveralls to put over what you were wearing. you put them on while he talked about the safety precautions.

you just nodded, your brain turned off. sure, you didn't catch all he said, but it couldn't be that important, right?

"... so, ma’am, make sure you don't get too distracted, or else you could get hurt, okay?" he said, giving you a nervous smile.

"hm. sure. okay. now, max, is there any way i can play some music here?"

---

"stupid parents, stupid fucking job, stupid fucking responsibilities-"

you yelled, smashing into the third television set with wild abandon with your bat. your favorite song was playing on the speakers too, so loudly you could nearly feel the bass through your feet.

this was a great choice! you were already feeling much better. your throat was a bit raw from yelling over the music that was playing over the speakers, and your arms were feeling the burn of swinging over and over again.

your body was pulsing with energy, and you felt absolutely unstoppable. what a great little vacation! who knew being consumed with rage could feel so good!

---

at that moment, unbeknownst to you, someone was watching you from the security room. rhys, the owner of the place, was settled in his security control room, watching around the feeds idly to make sure that everyone was following the rules as expected.

he was half paying attention while he was scrolling on his phone, bored out of his mind, when one feed happened to catch his attention. it was you.

when you first came in, he thought you looked like a typical prim, proper, well-mannered girl. dressed nicely with a tidy appearance, you paid him in advance for a specialty reservation. he thought you were a typical rich girl having fun with her parent's money. nothing too special.

but now, to his surprise… you were smashing everything in sight like there was no tomorrow. you were becoming almost manic in your efforts, forgetting even that someone was in the room with you. glass and metal shards were flying everywhere, and your metal bat was becoming dented as you kept using it with all your might.

a shiver went down him. part of it was fear, of course. he wouldn't want to get on your bad side. but, another part of him was feeling something else as he watched your sweet little face become almost demented as you swung your bat over and over again.

right now, he was beginning to be grateful that he put down cell phone numbers on the forms he made his customers sign. maybe he could give you a little call and ask if you'd like to become a "loyal customer"... or, better yet, he could give you a job offer for a little side hustle…

the door opened, and max came in, interrupting his precious viewing session. he turned to glare at the young employee.

he was always babbling on about the customers, coming in and complaining about them being rude or scary. it was one of the annoying parts of owning your own business- you had to hire other people to help, and with a minimum wage job like this, only squirrelly little teens looking for extra money were applying for the position.

"s-sir, the lady in our specialty room isn't following proper safety precautions, and the music is already way too loud and it's bothering the other customers but she wants it even louder, but when i tried to talk to her she couldn't even hear me-"

rhys waved his hand dismissively, turning his head back around to continue watching the feed of your security camera. his large fingers tapped quickly on his desk, impatiently.

"yeah yeah, so be it. anyways, see that?" he pointed to you swinging the bat on the monitor. "it looks like her bat is almost done, it's so dented it's nearly caved in. you gotta get her a brand new one."

"... s-sir? you want me to go back in there?"

"yeah. what's the big deal? a little broken glass?" he scoffed. "i don't pay you to just sit around."

on the feed, he could see you stopping for a bit, heaving in large breaths. you turned your head, looking around. your eyes widened.

"see, kid? she needs you in there."

you stepped forward to where the security camera was, staring up at it with fiery eyes. your arm came up and pointed towards it.

for a second, he felt like the two of you had a connection. like you knew exactly who was watching you, and was pointing and staring directly at him.

then, your lips moved, mouthing words. you were saying "music... louder..."

he couldn't help but to smile, amused by your antics. you really were something, weren't you?

and now, he realized he didn't want to send max in there. he had a chance to get even closer to you, be around you physically. he didn't want him to be the one doing tasks for you, getting your attention. he wanted all your fiery passionate anger, all for himself.

the fear and excitement just thinking about it ran shivers through his spine, and a coil of heat down his stomach.

"actually, on second thought. i'll be the one to help her out, 'kay?"

[day-at-rhodes-island]

Everybody ready for another theory?

I've talked about how originium seems to be a form of grey goo, crystalline collections of nanomachines consuming carbon and heat to build more originium, but I don't think that's what it was intended to be.

I mean think about it, it's a pretty bad world-destroying weapon all things considered. It might get there eventually, but anything that has trouble digesting living tissues wasn't built to be an ecosystem devouring apocalypse.

No, I think originium was an attempt to create a different theoretical material. I think originum was meant to be computronium.

Imagine a computer of such monstrously vast processing power that anything could be calculated, and to build it all you have to do is feed it carbon and energy. Just stick that bad boy in orbit and keep tossing it material, let it power itself with solar energy and in a decade or so you could be well on your way to making a jupiter brain.

Then something went wrong. Anything that replicates can make a mistake and pass that mistake along, it mutates, becomes something you weren't expecting. One day a single particle made a mistake, made a single nanomachine in a crystalline lattice of millions incorrectly, and it started to replicate. It began to consume the structure around it, not recognizing it as more of itself. The imperfect crystal spread and fractured the once perfect whole, and pieces fell to the world below.

It burrowed into coal veins, blossomed in the heat of volcanoes, and airborne dust seeded catastrophic storms. Over millennia the originium spread further, changed further, developing varied properties and structures, imprinting information into malfunctioning processing lattices, and the people forgot what was once possible, forgot a time before they lived in a poisoned world.

[moyvv6cymi6hun]

*A therapy session between Stanley and Cyrus*

Cyrus: you seem to be conflicted about your sister's upcoming wedding mind if I look at your history all I really know is that you and Rodger are both from shadowood Alabama

Stanley: thank you doctor you see Cassie is my twin sister we where close until the day I got my powers when the underlying tensions related to things like my sexuality and beliefs that differ from my family hit the breaking points so to speak

Cyrus: well let's take a look in your mind Palace then and at that memory if you don't mind

*the two begin to watch the memory*

Wicked Wiki

Wicked Wiki

Defying Gravity



Defying Gravity is the finale for the musical's first act, when Elphaba, who until now has seen the Wizard of Oz as a heroic figure who can give her life some noble direction, discovers that he is not at all what he seems. The Wizard's regime, in fact, is waging a propaganda campaign against the Animals of Oz (including Dr. Dillamond), who have been oppressed to such a degree that they lose their powers of speech or worse, never learn to speak at all. (Dr. Dillamond, for instance, initially starts to lose his speech in "Something Bad" when he pronounces bad as 'baaaad,' bleating like an actual goat). Realizing this, and despite Glinda's attempts to dissuade her, Elphaba vows to do everything in her power to fight the Wizard and his sinister plans. She sings of how she wants to live without limits, going against the rules that others have set for her. During the song, Elphaba, apparently cornered by those who are hunting her, enchants a broomstick to levitate and, in the last verse, rises from the stage and levitates above the angered Citizens of Oz, who try in vain to "bring her down." The song is heavily cinematic and comes to a climax for the final verse.

The famous climax of the song features Elphaba flying high above the stage. The staging of the song's in the original production relied heavily on special effects. The actress playing Elphaba was lifted up into the air by a hydraulic launch system, standing on a small platform with a safety restraint around their waist. Both the platform and restraints were concealed by a long false dress made of the same material as the actress's costume, which gave the illusion that she wasn't standing on anything. Black curtains (designed to look like Elphaba's cape billowing in the wind) and carefully designed lighting concealed the hydraulic arm lifting the platform. The sequence relied heavily on around 60 moving lights, smoke, and wind effects to give the illusion Elphaba was flying.

If a computer system for the hydraulic platform did not sense that the restraints were safely closed, the platform would not lift. If this happened, or in case of a lift malfunction, cast members were taught a "Plan B" or "no-fly" sequence where Elphaba runs downstage and cast playing the guards and townspeople lie down onstage to simulate looking up to a now airborne Elphaba.

The Act One finale is "calibrated to get everyone to stick around for Act Two".

The song is widely regarded as being the musical's signature song, although the songs "Popular" and For Good have lived up to its name as well. The musical has generally received thunderous applause after this song due to the song's status as a showstopper.

The song touches on elements from some earlier themes, with Elphaba singing "Unlimited!" as sung in "The Wizard and I" and the Citizens of Oz again singing that "No One Mourns The Wicked."

Alternate  Recordings



Idina Menzel, having reprised her role as Elphaba in the West End production in 2006, released a remixed "pop mainstream" version of the song as a single. It can be heard on her official website and purchased on the iTunes Music Store. The remix of "Defying Gravity" was also the anthem at the 2007 Gay Pride Parade and Festival in Los Angeles; it appears on the official CD from the event.

A German-language version of "Defying Gravity" (called "Frei und schwerelos") was recorded on 21 November 2007 by the Stuttgart, Germany cast of Wicked featuring Willemijn Verkaik as Elphaba and Lucy Scherer as Glinda.

There also was a Dutch version of this song, its never officialy recorded but there are numerous Youtube video's. This song is sung by Willemijn Verkaik.

Kerry Ellis, who replaced Menzel as Elphaba in the West End production of Wicked, recorded a rock version of the song in 2008 as part of a single, Wicked in Rock, designed as a teaser for her debut album. Wicked in Rock is available at the Gershwin Theatre in New York City and on iTunes (Defying Gravity only). It also appears on her debut album, Anthem. 

International Recordings



Cassie:"Stanley, why couldn't you've stayed calm, for once! Instead of flying off the handle!"

I hope you're happy

I hope you're happy now

I hope you're happy how you hurt your cause forever

I hope you think you're clever!

Stanley:

I hope you're happy!

I hope you're happy too!

I hope you're proud how you would grovel in submission

To feed your own ambition

Both:

So though I can't imagine how

I hope you're happy right now!

Cassie:

(Spoken) "Stan, listen to me. Just say you're sorry."

(Sung) You can still be with father

What you've worked and waited for

You can have all you ever wanted

Stanley:

"I know."

But I don't want it

( "No."

I can't want it anymore

Something has changed within me

Something is not the same

I'm through with playing by

The rules of someone else's game

Too late for second guessing

Too late to go back to sleep

It's time to trust my instincts

Close my eyes and leap

It's time to try

Defying gravity

I think I'll try

Defying gravity

And you can't pull me down!

Cassie:

Can't I make you understand

You're having delusions of grandeur?!

Stanley:

I'm through accepting limits!

'Cause someone says they're so

Some things I cannot change

But till I try I'll never know

Too long I've been afraid of losing love

I guess I've lost

Well if that's love

It comes at much too high a cost!

I'd sooner buy

Defying gravity

Kiss me goodbye I'm

Defying gravity

And you can't pull me down!

"Cassie! Come with me! Think of what we could do! Together!"

(Sung) Unlimited

Together we're unlimited

Together we'll be the greatest team there's ever been

Cassie

Dreams the way we've planned 'em.

Cassie:

If we work in tandem

Both:

There's no fight we cannot win

Just you and I

Defying gravity

With you and I

Defying gravity

Stanley:

They'll never bring us down

"Well, are you coming?"

Cassie:

I hope you're happy

Now that you're choosing this

Stanley:

"You too."

I hope it brings you bliss.

Both:

I really hope you get it

And you don't live to regret it

I hope you're happy in the end

I hope you're happy my friend

Stanley:

So if you care to find me

Look to the Western Sky!

As someone told me lately

"Everyone deserves the chance to fly!"

And if I'm flying solo

At least I'm flying free!

To those who'd ground me

Take a message back from me!

Tell them how I

Am defying gravity

I'm flying high

Defying gravity

And soon I'll match them in renown!

And nobody in all of shadowood

No mayor that there is or was

Is ever gonna bring me down!

Cassie:

I hope you're happy!

Shadowood PD:

Look at him he's Wicked!

Get him!

Stanley:

Bring me down!!

Shadowood PD:

No one mourns the wicked

So we've got to bring him

Stanley:

Ahhh!

Shadowood PD:

Down!

.

[eunhathes]

Day 2 - No Time to Explain

Ashkey Breaker looked over to Adela. "Its like I said, Commander. The gate's got enough juice for one last calculated jump. Anything after that needs to be manually mathed.

The blast door behind them shuddered. That massive Hydra and its Minotaur minions were still keen on getting to the Fireteam. And it was bringing the rest of the Martian Vex with it. Adela grimaced, "Then just tell me the computations and I'll do it." She held her hand out like they were a notebook to be handed off.

"Erde," Breaker chided, "you don't have time for me to explain the kinds of math you'll need to manually calculate teleportation trajectory along paracausal leylines, let alone how wide the number crunch gets to solve for translocation via vex network transmat."

"You were always too smart for a Titan, you know?"

"Yeah? And you were always too clever to see through my bullshit. I don't know how to crunch those numbers, either, darling." Breaker loaded the last of her shells into her shotgun. Erde had counted five.

"I can't just leave you here, Ash. To die? Alone?!"

Breaker raised her clenched fist upright and Erde reflexively pressed her forearm against her old friend's. "Titan to Titan; promise me you will make them pay for this." The Awoken woman nodded. As her helmet glimmered back into existence, Ashkey grinned wide and stupid, "Good. Then I promise to make my death worth retelling."

And with that, Adela Erde was airborne and flying through the chamber to the vex gate. Thrown by Ashkey, the move was smooth and sudden. Erde manage to wring herself around in time to watch Ashkey Breaker fling the doors open wide. She could almost swear she saw her grinning maliciously as she drew her shotgun up.

When she landed, it was roughly, against a bulkhead. She scrambled to her knees as the vex gate collapsed with the eruption of roaring laughter. Plunged into dim light, Adela could feel hands against her breastplate. 

Irisi Erde touched her forehead lovingly to her sister's. "I'm sorry, Adela. I heard it all. I…" She stammered, throat aching in the anguish of losing Ashkey. "I didn't realize the core didn't have the charge for all of us."

Adela gasped silently, futilely digging through words to find her thoughts. In the end, she could only hold her sister and sob in sorrow. 

[fixtionvixen]

Sweat rolls slowly down your neck and into the frayed edges of your tshirt as you sit at the desk, trying not to look like a melted popsicle while the tiny elderly woman in front of you bemoans her hectic day. You furtively glance down at the clock on the computer screen, holding back a sigh as you see it's only been a minute since you last checked and 15 since she started talking. Most days, these customers are your favorite. Knowing that these women got dressed up in their nicest outfit, put on their shiny brooch, just to come see you made the long days worthwhile at times. But today, today it seemed as if the universe was pulling a prank on your patience level and how much you could take.

A summer storm had rolled through the previous evening, knocking out half the power in town and leaving the other half to hook up extention cords for their neighbors to use while they waited for the power companies to straighten them out. The streets were lined with bright orange cords and small gatherings in the businesses lucky enough to maintain their electricity. The bookstore however, was not one of them.

Smiling at the woman in front of you while circling around the desk, you grab the books she bought on small town romances and sexy bakers and insist you help her to the car, using the brief moment outside to breathe in the rain air and let the breeze, however warm it is, cool the sweat on your skin. You glance back inside the heated store, hearing your coworker and one of your best friends low tone describing to the electric company on the phone why a bookstore is one of the most important places for the power to be turned back on quicker, her reasons getting more outrageous the longer she's on the phone, just to frustrate the man on the other line. Waving goodbye, you make your way back onto the porch, thinking you'll just close the store to avoid starting a war with an angry electritian, before you notice your business neighbor walking towards you. Had you not been madly in love with your husband, you'd set the town gossip line on fire with this man as every romantic at heart craves a good trope like the baker and the bookstore owner.

Simultaneously thick and lanky, scruffy face that offsets their tamed hair, ripped jeans over black chucks but a white tshirt with pink frosting smeared on it, the next door neighbor was a constant contradiction that looked mean but was sweeter than his blueberry scones. He stops and hands you an orange cord you hadn't previously seen in his hands, explaining his generator allows for extra power if necessary, and he'd hate to see those books get ruined from the heat, casting a glance and smile into the store as raised voices pick back up behind you. Grateful for the offer, you immediately run into the store, past your friend who's head is now fully on the counter, no phone in side, to pull out your biggest fan and placing it near the doorway to pull in the fresh air. He stands near it, causing a cloud of flour or powdered sugar to float into the air off of him and onto the floor when the fan kicks on. He stumbles out an apology while you simply brush his words away, opening your mouth to make a horrible baker joke, only for you to watch in slow motion as your other best friend, in a hurry to make it to the store and not paying attention to the cord dropped outside, rushes up and into it, on her two feet one second and airborne the next.

Before you could make a sound, the baker with his flour dusted hands reaches out and easily catches her, wrapping long fingers around her arm and using his body to break her fall. He adjusts his grip on her, brushing back her hair from her face to look for himself that she was uninjured, knowing full well there would noy be any wounds. They both looked curiously at one another for a moment longer than necessary before they both simultaneously began awkward rambling, him asking if she was okay and apologizing for not moving the cord while she tries cutting him off to thank him for catching her and shooting you a glance that could have said anything from "did you accidentally curse me again to fall" to "when did the baker from next door become a smokeshow." Nudging your friend so she also witnesses this meet cute, you rest your chin on your hand and smirk at the scene in front of you, waving the neighbor away as he strolls back to his store, casting glances behind him only a few times to find her still shocked and staring at his ass appreciatively.

She turns to you in the doorway, mouth still hanging open slightly as her brain catches up to the last minute of her life, before she starts laughing and asking where the margaritas are. The three of you share a look of understanding, a summer day in the heat naturally calls for lime and tequila, and the store that was so unbearably warm becomes more tolerable with your two favorite humans crowding the desk and avoiding asking any questions about the interaction that just happened, waiting to see who would break first while you discuss who's place has power to host margarita Thursdays. You offer to invite the neighbor as a thanks for the power cord, earning you a snort of laughter from one and a gasp and slap to the arm in dismay from the other. Grateful you have such a wonderful set of friends, you laugh off your joke, but still notice how her gaze lingers past your shoulder and out the window that looks directly into the bakery window, perfectly highlighting the man in question. He looks up, catching her eye, and in true contradiction fashion, his face turns red as his mouth ticks up in a grin, shooting her a wink before moving out of her vision. Oh how interesting this will be!

[mercurial--supernovae]

Fuckin' PERFECT code names! XD -☀️

I can absolutely help with the assassination. Since you have wings, it might honestly be easier to get in from above. Keep tabs on if and when any airborne security is thinnest.

This route is even more tempting if the penthouse has a balcony or rooftop yard. You've likely used them in similar contexts before, but to cover all our bases, if your smoke bombs double as EMPs then they're the perfect catch-all tool for disabling cameras and spotting laser wires. Just make sure you send them into a room before you.

Also, luring the prey to where you want them to be is perfect for planning a getaway or ambush. Get in while they're away, and make things juuust off-kilter enough that they'll feel a need to investigate. Ideally done without touching anything directly. Wear gloves when interacting with anything in the victim's home to keep evidence tying back to you to a minimum.

If their back is turned, a hallway or other corridor is a tried-and-true fish-in-a-barrel method for rushing down your quarry, especially if they aren't expecting company. If you're hoping for a more straightforward brawl, infiltrating ahead of time can still allow you to plan for best and worst case scenarios. It's more dangerous and can lead to more evidence against you, but it seems like the sort of option you might be into. Nothing like turning their home turf into your own advantage to get them worked up and fighting sloppy. -🌙

As for the files, it's really handy to have a drive that's coded to download and wipe the computer by default. Trying to do that sorta thing manually can open ya up to an ambush if you're caught with your proverbial pants down. That's me speakin' from experience.

If ya know how to code or know someone who does, it goes a long way to snag yourself one. Offering a cut of the reward money may do ya good to sweeten the pot for any code jockey friends hesitant to mess with this sorta job. Oh, and a friend of mine is insisting I let ya know not to trust any sorta coded drive from someone ya don't trust, 'cause it could be coded for anything from viruses that fuck ya over, to literal ransomware.

ALSO! I almost didn't mention... They may also have passwords or other firewalls on their pc. Your swiss-army drive should ideally have measures coded in for that. -☀️

Good luck. And thank you for the code names. They are pretty fucking fantastic, I gotta say >w< -🌙

"Right, right. Good point Lunar Eclipse. Coming in from above would definitely be my best route. I can straight up avoid most of the security measures that way long as I'm careful playing my cards right.."

Bibi mutters thoughtfully, bringing up a screen in front of them with some building blueprints on it. All six of their hands seem to be focused on a screen, keyboard, or other such task. Their eyes flitting around from thing to thing.

"I think I know a good place for a stake out to monitor the airborne security. Oh or actually Killabyte might be better. Maybe could get me an idea of where everything in the penthouse is located ahead of time too.."

"Oh this is going to be fun."

A small spider esque robot skitters up onto his palm from where it'd been on standby. Kind of bouncing up and down slightly on it's legs in an eager manner.

"Hehe, ya you're excited to be in on the action again too aren't you?"

"As far as a drive goes Solar Flare.. I have a feeling Glimmer won't be too willing to code up anything for me at the moment.. I might know someone else but it may take some convincing. I'll have to look into it. Would be a hell of a lot more convenient than trying to do it all manually. I do have an old kill drive laying around but that sure won't help in the whole back up process..."

"Sure won't get me past any firewall or passwords either. Hacking's her specialty not mine. Hm. Whatever it'll take a few days for everything else to fall into place anyways I'll figure something out."

She frowns for a moment looking pensive, eyeing down the hallway over her shoulder before shaking her head.

"Oh, and I'm glad you like the code names. I usually go with Kill Joy for mine, but you're free to come up with your own if you want to come up with cool contact names. Sure not going to complain there."

[takesuhigher]

Didn't I say please don't send me back there? See, this is what Bizarro World does. I know things will get better. Nah... That's not how this works. While this is ultimately a good thing, being in the middle of it has caused me to be in a constant state of anxiety, like a 24-hour panic attack which is something you'd think I could handle by now, but it's probably just best to accept this for what it is. Me. So, y'know, a powerful prayer would be nice... or a whole rosary. Like, the association is so big that it's hard to even be in my room, let alone on the computer and definitely not on my iPad because the alerts just kept coming in, so I'm having to stay out of my room and there's really only one thing to do out there. Clean. I'll also take a shower. My stomach's been in knots. Ropes. Ain't that right, Airborne Toxic Event guy? Do you think this means something big is gonna happen? That's usually what happens. I hope not. But it's been a pattern, so... It's big.

[dantasunt]

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[river-bottom-nightmare]

“i really don’t get why i have to keep doing this,” bruce complained—quite reasonably and collectedly, he was certain. he did not whine.

alfred hummed, flipping through a case file detective gordon had brought him earlier that day. single mugging, married couple dead, no possible suspects. not a shred of evidence connecting it to a crime four years prior. their leads were getting thinner and thinner, but bruce’s will was iron, was a buoy in the water, was was a centuries-old fortress that refused to crumble. he refused to crumble.

though, in a very physical sense, he was close to crumbling right about now. atop a platform, he aimed a grappling hook alfred had given him, (its origins unclear), and shot at a higher platform some yards away. with a click of the trigger it spiraled upwards, loosely catching onto the target, much sloppier than his earlier attempts. to be perfectly fair, his earlier attempts had been an hour and a half ago. catch, lock, leap, then land.

“you stumbled on your landing there,” alfred noted, the barest flicker of a glance upwards. 

“because i’ve been doing this forever,” bruce said. “there are other things i need to learn. other ways i can spend my time instead of wasting it on this—” he gestured, throwing the grapple to the ground. 

“you’re still determined in your idea of a vigilante for gotham, are you not?” alfred asked.

determined? at times, it was the only thing keeping him alive, stoking his soul like kindling, burning up, burning away, turning to ash just to sustain that starving flame. was he the kindling or was he the fire? bruce wasn’t quite sure. either way, “yes.”

“then you will pick up that grapple and train for another hour,” alfred stated simply, little room for argument in his tone. his posture softened a bit as he looked up, though, soft for a man of his demeanor. “have you considered,” he said, “that it’s not a lesson in grappling hooks i am trying to teach you.”

--

“i can do this better than you, you know,” dick said his voice was airy, amused, riding the backside of a giggle. he was careful to let it come out that way every time. still, the taps of his fingers and swinging of his legs betrayed his impatience.

“balance isn’t the point of this,” bruce said, looking up at him. he had a case file spread out on his lap, ever-fond of paper despite the slowly-developing computer the two of them are building in the cave, because secretly bruce savoured the sting of a papercut against the thumb, the reality of it, tangibility in the most piercing way. it kept him grounded.

dick, who had been doing his level best to never once be grounded in his life,  quickly leaped from one ledge in the batcave to another. the grappling hook in his hand had been an unfamiliar weight at first, as in the circus he’d been much more reliant in his own momentum, the push and pull of his own body. after hours upon hours of training with it, however, the grip fit into his hand as though it had been molded for that very purpose. (knowing bruce...)

the two front flips dick performed during the jump clearly hadn’t been missed by bruce. the older man’s lips were pursed disapprovingly, but he couldn’t hide the amusement in the crinkles of his eyes from dick, no matter how serious he seemed to appear. bruce had grown to know dick in the months they’d been partners. he knew how much dick cherished being airborne, how it made his blood pound against his wrists, at his throat. still, the monotony was starting to get to him.

“if there’s a bigger lesson here, i’m not really getting it,” dick said.

bruce hummed, looking thoughtful. “maybe it’s best we practice this outside tomorrow. or, at least, in the city. i think that will help.” dick wasn’t sure how exactly a change in scenery would change the one thing he’d been doing over and over and over for the past two hour, but he swung down to the ground anyway.

“just keep in mind,” bruce said, “the grapple isn’t just a tool to take you from building to building. and a building isn’t just a landing place.”

--

“i have been trained in picking things up remarkably quickly, grayson. that’s enough practice. i have this down.”

even with those words, damian used his new grappling hook to swing up two stories to the next building. dick followed him, choosing at the last minute to follow damian’s example with the grappling hook instead of his own momentum and daring, as he often did.

“that’s not why we’re doing this,” dick said, settling on the stone ledge. damian touched down next to him. “i mean, you could work on your flow from one leap to the next. they’re not as smooth as the could be—” a scowl on damian’s face, furious at being corrected, resolute in training himself until he fixed the issue, trying to hide his inadequacy altogether, “—but the lesson isn’t the grappling.”

“the lesson seems to be very obviously about grappling,” damian pointed out.

dick made an agreeing sort of noise, then seemed to stare at the stone ledge they were sitting on for a minute and a half. “to me, it’s always seemed as if all the buildings in this city are connected.” damian shot him an irritated look, but quelled when dick sent him a gesture in response: just go with it. trust me. “it’s all—it’s all gotham, it’s all the grit and bones that this city is built on. and the grappling hooks are a tool to take us from rooftop to rooftop, sure, but it’s a bit more than that. they connect us to the city, too.”

that, damian could see, the hooks of the grapple biting into the meat of the building, like a flechette striking through the heart of a bullseye, a puncture wound cutting right to the heart, a pinprick in width but hooking on to whatever it finds. it’s an ache he felt far too often, himself.

“yes, i know,” damian said rather belatedly, running his fingers over the scarred building. “so?”

“so,” dick said. “if all of these rooftops we run across like they’re our playground are gotham herself, and our grapples are what cut deep into her skin and bones, then what does that make us?”

and, well, when dick phrased it like that, scraped-raw skin and bruised flesh and and the ever-present thud of a heart, the answer fell to his lips easily. “we’re gotham’s lifeblood. we keep her trembling and shaking and fighting every night. we keep her alive.”

--

this is incomprehensible and far too bold a claim but i’m feeling far too metaphorical and overdramatic today

tag list: @thatsthewhump @xatanna-troy @red-hood-redemption @capricorn-stark @batshit-birds @buticaaba @comics-observer @newsical @queenofbooknerds @scattered-winter @amillionandonefandoms

[phykios]

Five Times Percy Jackson Cheated At School (And One Time Someone Cheated Him) [read on ao3]

thank you as always to @darkmagyk for inspo and beta-ing 💙💙💙 and thank you to @arosnowflake for the homer idea!

1)

Percy squints at the paper prompt again, tilting his head, as if the new angle will extract some hidden information. It doesn’t change. The font is the special dyslexia-friendly one used by most departments at NRU, so he isn’t misreading it, either.

Your final will be an 8-10pp (TNR, 12pt, double-spaced) research paper expanding on one of the topics discussed in our class so far, or an alternate idea of your choosing, to be submitted in writing by May 7 with footnotes and bibliography. By 10am on the Wednesday before the Thursday class you will submit online a 750-word essay (word count does not include footnotes) on the research thread you have pursued that week (no written assignments due Week 6 or Week 12). 

Percy might hate college.

“Your neck bothering you again?” Annabeth asks, coming up behind him, her hands already on his shoulders. She’s sweaty, dressed in workout clothes, having just come back in from a jog. 

“My neck is fine,” he says. “Just preemptively freaking out over my Roman history final.”

He tilts his head back over the top of his chair, staring into the upside down, prettily frowning face of his girlfriend, and it does nothing to improve his mood.

“How bad is it?”

“Eight to ten pages,” Percy says, “not including footnotes.”

“Ouch.”

“And,” he grimaces, “it’s a topic of our choosing.”

Her mouth twists in sympathy. “Sucks.”

“Yep.”

“Anything I can do to help?” She squeezes his shoulders lightly, an open invitation. 

He shakes his head, stretching his arms back to grab her waist. “Promise not to break up with me when you catch me crying at 4AM over it.”

“Promise.” And she seals it with a kiss, bending down to reach him. “Dad wants to know if you’re free on the 16th.” 

“The 16th?” He wracks his brain. He’s pretty sure it doesn’t conflict with sailing, or Greek Club, or the monthly intra-pantheon relations council meeting that Chiron and Clarisse both guilted him into joining. “Pretty sure. Why?”

“Dinner--Charlotte’s out of town that weekend.”

“Sounds good.”

“Great, I’ll let him know. Now,” and she grins, “are you going to stare at that computer all day, or do you want to come and take a shower with me?”

Percy slams the computer shut. 

He doesn’t think about his paper topic for a while after that.

***

To his great dismay, Percy gets to her dad’s house first on the 16th. Drama in writing group 🙄 she texts him as he gets to the door, be there asap.

Great. Alone in the house with his girlfriend’s dad. Taking a deep breath, he knocks on the door. 

Not a minute later, Dr. Chase opens it. Last time they went to visit, Percy and Annabeth had ended up waiting outside for almost a quarter of an hour. “Oh, Percy,” he says, fumbling his flight helmet off his head. “Goodness, I thought I’d lost track of time again. Come in, come in.”

“Thanks,” Percy says, stepping inside and shedding his jacket. “Annabeth’s running late, but she said she’d be here soon.”

He frowns, looking so much like Annabeth that it throws Percy for several loops. “Well, that’s alright,” he says. “I’m sure we can entertain ourselves well enough until she gets here.”

“Yeah,” Percy chuckles, uneasy.

Several seconds pass. 

“Oh!” starts Dr. Chase. “Right, yes. Come in. Would you like something to drink?”

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t get much better.

A few minutes of staggered conversation later, it becomes eminently clear why they need Annabeth between them. It’s not the awkward small talk that doesn’t go anywhere (“How’s school going for you?” “It’s okay.” “Good, that’s good to hear.”) or the fact that Dr. Chase doesn’t really grasp how to relate to younger kids (“Have you heard of this website called ‘Vine’?”), but more that it’s just painfully obvious that the two of them don’t really know where they stand with each other. 

Now, he knows that Frederick Chase doesn’t hate him. Objectively, he’s aware of the fact that, if it weren’t for him, Annabeth never would have reconnected with her father in the first place, and he kind of owes him for that. Also, Percy knows that he’s a pretty chill guy--a little scatterbrained, but chill. 

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to make a good impression, though. Or that Dr. Chase thinks that Percy is smart enough for his daughter. Because, like, Percy isn’t smart enough for Annabeth--that much is obvious. Dr. Chase was courted by Athena. Percy barely made it out of high school calculus.

“Would you…” Dr. Chase hedges, plucking off his glasses and giving them a quick wipe with his shirtsleeve. “Would you like to see some of my current research?”

“Uh… sure. I’d love to.” 

At the very least, hopefully Dr. Chase will talk enough for the both of them, eating up time until Annabeth gets here.

A new spring in his step, Dr. Chase leads Percy to his study, where he’s got a setup worthy of Cabin Six: on his desk is a massive map of the Mediterranean, littered with miniatures of tanks, planes, and ships. Ringing the room are wall-hangings, depicting different types of planes, half of their structure in x-rays like people in an anatomy textbook, sandwiching the giant viking sword which hangs directly behind his chair. Every inch of floor space is occupied with a pile of books, some serving as additional desk space for mugs, notepads, spare toy soldiers, and, in one case, what looks like the leftovers of a handful of celestial bronze spearheads, melted down into shiny, useless nuggets. 

“You know I primarily study aviation,” Dr. Chase is saying, tidying up as he walks around the room, “but my colleagues and I are collaborating on an interdisciplinary re-evaluation of the entire North African theatre in World War II. It’s fascinating stuff; until very recently, they used to call it the ‘war without hate,’ given the lack of partisan roundups and, ah, ethnic clashes that you see in Europe--absolute garbage, of course. As if there weren’t civilians caught up in the fighting, too!” He chuckles, pleased at his own joke. Percy forces a laugh out of himself. “Anyway, with my prior experience studying the invasion of Sicily, I was brought on to assist in piecing the timeline together, working backwards from 1943.”

“Cool,” says Percy, filling the natural gap of conversation.

“Extremely! Operation Husky was a terrific endeavor of airborne, amphibious, and land-based combat.”

Percy nods. Amphibious? “Uh-huh.”

“Though, I must admit, I am having a little trouble retracing some of the ships.” Peering over his map, he leans down, fiddling with one of the ships. “You see this one here? The Palmer?”

Stepping up to the desk, Percy crouches down so the little toy ship is at eye level.

“Well, based on official records, the Palmer was supposed to have arrived at the rendezvous point at the same time as all the other ships, but ended up delayed by two days, and I can’t… quite…” He moves the ship again, frowning. “Figure out… why…” 

“Where were they sailing through?” Percy asks. 

Dr. Chase points to the map. “From Alexandria to Malta.” 

“They probably just hit a bad couple of currents,” Percy says, standing up. 

Tilting his head, Dr. Chase peers at him. “How do you mean?”

“If you’re going through the Cretan Passage, you’re going to hit all kinds of West-East currents which will push you backwards.” Snatching up a pencil from a nearby book stack, Percy lightly sketches on top of the map, tracing along the North African coast. “There are tons of overlapping currents in this area that push boats around in circles, especially around Sicily. That’s one of the reasons why so many historians figure that Homer was referring to the Strait of Messina when Odysseus goes through Scylla and Charybdis, here.” And he circles the strait, with a confident flourish.

When he pulls back, Dr. Chase is staring at him.

Percy blinks. “Um… sorry I drew on your map.”

“You--I have been trying to figure that out for weeks.”

He coughs, shrugging his shoulders. “Sorry.”

But Dr. Chase just laughs. “You can make it up to me by helping me with these next.” Clearing crumbs off of southern France, he bends over, pencil in hand. “So, say you were trying to get from Marseilles to Tunis…” 

Forty-five minutes later, still embroiled in battle recreations of the Mediterranean theatre, they don’t hear Annabeth letting herself in with her key, not even registering her presence until Dr. Chase, grasping for a notebook, spots her leaning against the doorway. “Don’t stop on my account.”

“Oh, Annabeth, dear! I’m sorry,” says Dr. Chase, going over to give her a hug. “We didn’t hear you come in.”

“I can see that,” she says. “What are you guys doing?”

“Percy here has been assisting me with naval movements,” he says, proudly.

Lacing her fingers with his, Annabeth steps over to Percy, studying their battle map. “Really?”

“Oh yes, he’s been phenomenally helpful.”

She kisses his cheek, pleased. “Look at you, Mr. ‘Phenomenally Helpful.’”

“It was pretty fun,” he admits, warm all over.

“I’d bet. Although, I guess this means we should probably order in for dinner…?”

Rubbing at the back of his neck, Dr. Chase smiles. “Yes, I suppose we should. Does pizza sound all right to you two?”

“Let me take care of it,” she says, slipping from Percy’s side. “You guys looked like you were in the middle of something. Extra olives, dad?”

“Don’t forget--”

“And anchovies, Percy, I know.” She rolls her eyes, taking out her phone.

Rather than the three of them move into the kitchen, Annabeth ends up bringing the pizza in with her, because of course she has opinions she’d like to share about the Allies’ naval movements. 

“You know, Percy,” says Dr. Chase, “I must say, you have a real knack for this kind of thing. Have you thought about what you might major in yet?”

Ah, the million drachmae question. “Not yet,” he says, fiddling with a pencil. “I figured I’d get through my gen eds first and then see which one I hated the least.” 

“I think you should consider majoring in history.”

Percy’s head snaps up. “History?”

“Specifically maritime history, I suppose. Your predisposition to sailing and ocean currents would be a huge asset to your research.”

“But--wouldn’t history have, like, a metric ton of required reading? I’m not really sure that’s my area.” He has a daughter with dyslexia and ADHD; surely he’d understand Percy’s hesitation.

But he just shakes his head. “Graduate programs these days are very favorable towards interdisciplinary methodology, I sincerely doubt you’d have to barricade yourself in the library. And recently there’s been a significant push to make the field more accessible to students with disabilities, including things like digitization, screen reading for people with vision impairments, and even restructuring programs all together so that students no longer have to memorize the Encyclopedia Britannica in order to pass their general exams.”

“That’s really nice of you to say, Dr. Chase,” Percy says, “But history class isn’t like talking over naval movements with you.” He thought back to the paper that had lowkey been haunting his dreams. “Like, in my classical history survey, I can’t just… talk about currents and battle plans. I have to come up with a topic on my own, and then write about that.” 

“Surely something involving Roman naval movements would be well within your skill set. You have a second sense about these things,” he chuckles, “clearly.”

Percy glances towards Annabeth, hoping she’ll back him up, but she looks thoughtful. Considering. Like she’s actually thinking about her dad’s proposal. “I can’t just choose something in naval history.”

“Why not?”

“Because… it's too easy?” 

If it was anything like his afternoon with Dr. Chase, it might even be fun. And school isn’t supposed to be fun. 

He repeats that thought to Annabeth as they drive home. “School isn’t supposed to be fun.” 

“No,” Annabeth agrees, “but I don’t know… I like my intro art history class way better than anything we ever did in high school because I actually care about it. Maybe if you write about stuff you’re good at, like my dad suggested, you’ll like it more.” 

The idea follows him all the way to bed, where he’s still mulling it over at 2 in the morning. Before he can chicken out, he grabs his phone, shooting off a quick email to his professor with his potential paper topic, then rolls over, eventually falling asleep.

By morning, he has a response. 

Sounds good! Looking forward to it.

***

With shaking hands, Percy calls his mom. “Yes?” 

“Hey mom.”

“Percy?” He hears her perk up, almost visualizing her sitting up in her chair. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

Mom instincts. They can always tell when something is different. His heart throbs in his chest. “Nothing’s wrong,” he says, smiling stretching across his face. “It’s just--I got my paper back.” 

Percy had ended up writing his paper about the Roman navy movements in the Battle of the Aegates in 241 BC. It was probably the most fun he’s ever had on a school assignment, or at least the most fun he’d ever had writing a paper. 

“And?” She sounds expectant, hopeful. His mom has always had such faith in him, even with thirteen years of schooling to prove her otherwise. 

He looks back at his email, just to make sure he’s reading it right. “I got an A.”

She gasps. He can hear the scrape of the chair as she stands up. “Percy, that’s wonderful!” 

“Thank you.”

“An A!”

He smiles into his fist, inordinately pleased. “Thank you.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I am so happy for you!”

“Thanks, mom.”

“I’m so proud of you, Percy.” Her voice is soft now, like twilights on the beach with blue marshmallows. “I know how hard you’ve worked for this. You should be very proud, too.”

“I am.” And he is, weirdly enough. “I just can’t believe it.”

“I can.” His mom must be grinning, her eyes sparkling. “I always knew you could do it.”

“Sally?” He hears in the background, muffled. “Is that Percy?”

“Paul, Percy got an A on his Roman history paper!”

A second voice crowds its way in, equally excited. “An A? That’s great, kiddo! Congratulations.”

Why can’t he stop smiling? “Thanks.”

“I bet that feels pretty good, doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

“Well, it is very well-deserved,” says Paul. “That was some great work you did. I could tell how passionate you were about your topic just from your first sentence.”

“Thank you.” Maybe he should be worried about all this praise going to his head, but damn, is it nice. “Listen, I have to go get started on dinner, but I just wanted to give you a call.”

“Of course,” says his mom. “I want to hear from you more, okay? Tell me more good news! Like when are you and Annabeth going to--”

“I’m working on it, okay?” says Percy, smiling even more broadly. “I’ll keep you posted, promise.”

She laughs, tinny and happy. “You’d better. Congratulations again, sweetheart.”

“Thanks mom. Love you.”

“Love you, too.” 

And he hangs up, puts his phone down on the table, tilts his head back, and sighs, full, happy, a release. 

Maybe college won’t be so bad after all. 

2)

“You don’t have to do this,” Frank says, hushed. “All you have to do is walk away.”

Five Greek Fire bombs, cloudy yellow, are lined up on the table in front of him, neatly laid out in front of five twenties. From the side, Frank stares him down, surrounded by an army of morbidly curious Romans. Someone turned off the music and turned on the lights a while ago, stopping the party in its tracks, every eye on Percy and his opponent. Figures, his first college party all year and he causes a scene. 

Percy grips the edge of the table. “He insulted the Mets,” he says for the millionth time. “I can’t let that shit stand.”

Frank sighs. “Annabeth?” he asks, hoping to stop this nonsense.

Turning to his side, Percy sees his girlfriend, two drinks in, her cheeks lightly flushed, but solid as she stands beside him, supporting him. Her eyes are hard, fierce, the warrior gaze of Athena all but leaping out of her. “Do it,” she says. 

William, the sour-faced Roman legacy of Juventus, scowls. “A hundred bucks on the table. Sixty seconds. No throwing them back up.”

“Deal.”

“Frank,” Annabeth calls. “Start the clock.”

He sighs. “You guys are idiots.”

“Frank!”

“Okay, okay.” He holds out his phone, thumb primed, hovering over the screen. “On your marks, in three… two… one…” 

He hits zero, and Percy grabs a shot glass. Squeezing his eyes shut, he brings it to his lips, and throws it back.

It’s… not what he expected.

The tequila is awful--no getting around that. Even to Percy’s untrained taste buds, having really only ever had some of Gabe’s sour beer (under duress) and some of the Demeter cabin’s strawberry wine (on his eighteenth birthday, a celebration for actually getting to graduate high school), he can tell it’s cheap, rank, unrefined shit, like he’s drinking straight toilet cleaner. But the garum, the weird Roman condiment that the shot is mixed with, the one that Percy had never heard of before, it’s… it almost tastes like the fish sauce that comes with the pork and rice noodles from the Vietnamese place down the corner of his mom’s apartment, only less… fishy? Yeah. Less fishy.

It’s a weird taste. It’s not bad, by any means, it just--straight up, it just tastes like saltwater. Like the sea. 

And, well. Percy can handle the sea.

He looks at William, and grins. “You are so fucked.”

The assembled Romans cheer, spectators at a gladiator show, as Percy knocks back the rest of the Greek Fire bombs, one after another, clearing them all in under thirty seconds. Annabeth swipes up the cash, shrieking as she throws her arms around Percy. William wanders off, red-faced and glaring, as whoever turned the music off before flips it back on, the night, and the party, saved.

Silly Percy. He should have known what was coming next.

Thirty minutes later, he is well and truly wasted.

“You’re, like, really pretty,” he shouts at Annabeth over the loud music.

She snorts, grinning at him. “Thanks.”

“Seriously,” he slurs, tipping forward on his feet. “You could be a model.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Remember when we were fourteen,” he yells, bracing himself against the wall, “and you got kidnapped by that monster?” Slightly soberer but still a little flushed, she bites her lip, nodding. “Well, I followed the rescue party--I told you that, that I snuck out of camp to follow the rescue party? Right?” 

“You did.”

He takes a sip of water, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth. Feels goofy as fuck. “We got hijacked by Aphrodite halfway through, and when I saw her, I thought--I thought, ‘Holy shit, she looks a little like Annabeth.’”

Her brows shoot up, smile pulling at her lips. “Really?”

He nods. “Totally! But you’re way, way p--” 

Still smiling, she silences him with a kiss, the lingering taste of hard cider on her tongue. “I appreciate it,” she murmurs, grinning, “but you probably shouldn’t say that out loud.”

“Gross.”

From out of nowhere, like he always does, the weasley little shit, Nico di Angelo is suddenly in their space, looking surly and emo as ever, red solo cup in his left hand. “Nico!” Percy crows, grabbing for him and missing. “How’s my favorite cousin?!”

Ducking his wildly swinging limbs, Nico grimaces in the way that Percy has to come to recognize as his attempt at a smile. “Better’n you,” he says, a little wobbly. “What’s up with him?” he directs towards Annabeth.

“Greek Fire bombs. Five.”

“You’re a psychopath.”

“What!” Percy pouts. “He insulted the Mets.”

“Aren’t you s’posed to be, like…” Nico snaps his fingers, words momentarily escaping him. “A--representation… person? For the Greeks?”

Percy waves his hand, hitting the wall. “Fuck that. The Greeks can handle themselves. The Mets are sacred!”

“Are you with anyone?” Annabeth asks, momentarily taking up Percy’s usual role of concerned parent friend while he is drunk off his ass. Theoi, he loves this girl so much. 

Nico shakes his head. “No, but Will and I are staying with--”

A thought suddenly blooms in Percy’s tequila-soaked brain. “Nico!” He shouts.

“What?” he hisses, glaring.

Percy pushes himself off of the wall, outstretched arms managing to box Nico in, falling on his shoulders and trapping him. He’s still a short, skinny little shit, the fuck, when are his Big Three genes going to kick in? “I need to talk to you about the thing.”

“The what?”

“The thing! The--the,” then he leans in, scream-whispering over the pounding bassline. “The thing.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“You know, it’s…” Percy licks his lips, language escaping him for a hot second. “Round. Metal. Jewelry thing.”

A beat, then Nico’s eyes widen. “Oh, that thing.”

“Yes, that thing!” Pulling back, he pulls Nico towards him, slinging an arm over his shoulders in a half-headlock. Annabeth watches, bemused, lips pursed as she tries not to smile. “I need to borrow Nico for a sec,” he says, words spilling out of him. “Back soon. Later. Soon.”

Her eyes crinkle, grey sparkling. She’s so fucking pretty. “Drink your water.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Then together, like some three-legged beast, the two boys lurch away deeper into the party, Nico leading them towards the kitchen. “Where’re you taking me?” Percy slurs. “‘M I being kidnapped again?”

“If I’m helping you plan out this stupid proposal,” he grumbles, pouring himself more vodka, “then I need to be less sober.”

***

Some mistakes may have been made.

“Where’s Annabeth?” Percy mumbles, looking back towards the house. The party is still raging, someone’s muffled Spotify playlist making a real racket, the greatest hits of ABBA still bouncing around his skull.

“Simp.” Nico, swaying a little, tries to stand up from his kneeling position, only to fall heavily back down on his knees. “She’s right where you left her.”

Discussing Percy's proposal plan had led to more drinking. More drinking had led to the two of them discussing their shared preference for blondes. (“Malcolm is pretty cute,” Nico admitted, flushing, and Percy almost screamed, “Isn’t he?! Sometimes I think about Annabeth with short hair looking like Malcolm and I almost start crying because she’d be so cute!”) Which then led to even more drinking. Which then led to general bitching about their lives, about Percy's hard-ass classics professor Dr. Bauer who he actually really liked but just pushed him so hard and expected so much of him, and Nico's half-brother Zagreus who was causing some family drama by picking fights with Hades all the time and also hooking up with both Thanatos AND the fury Megaera, which, ew, which then led to Percy inhaling his drink, nearly choking to death on unspecified college punch, Nico laughing at him all the while, as he had the most incredible idea.

"Nico!" He shouted, crushing the red solo cup. "Can you resurrect Homer for me?"

Nico gaped, staring. "What."

"Seriously! I need to ask him something for my paper."

"Percy." Nico gazed at him, all the power of the Ghost King boring into his soul, deep and haunting. Percy stifled a burp. "You're a fucking genius."

Which is how they found themselves around a shallow hole they had dug in the backyard, a large bottle of Pepsi originally intended as a mixer pilfered from the kitchen along with two slices of pepperoni pizza dumped on the grass beside them.

"Maybe we shouldn't do this," he says, uneasy even through his drunken haze.

"It was your idea!"

"I don't have good ideas."

“Fuck you, I’m doing it.” With all the force of a tiny, angry kitten, he snatches up the Pepsi bottle, wrestling with the twist cap for a good ten seconds. “I wanna give that bitch a piece of my mind for making me cry in school.”

Percy looks at him sideways. “Hector killing Patroclus got you, too?”

He snorts. “Fuck no. Achilles didn’t pay his dues to the dead.”

“Seriously?”

The cap pops off, and Nico tips the bottle over, dumping flat, lukewarm soda into the shallow hole. “It’s the ultimate dishonor!”

Freak. Percy would die for the kid.

“Let the dead taste again,” Nico mutters. “Let them rise and take this offering. Let them remember.”

“You’re so weird.”

“Says the guy who’s related to both horses and water.”

“I’m not related to water, I just control it.” 

The dirt turns black, dead soil mixed with sticky sugar water. Nico drops in the pizza, and begins to chant, that same ancient Greek that Percy heard in a dream once, talking of death and memories and returning from the grave or whatever. It’s still creepy as shit. 

Despite the warm California night, the air thickens with chilly fog. Silence, impenetrable, surrounds them, blocking out the noises of the party. From the earth, blueish, vaguely person-shaped figures begin to form, like thunderous clouds before a storm. “Which one is Homer?” he asks, hushed.

“Shh!” Nico hisses. 

Like little wells of gravity, the fog begins to coalesce. On one of them, Percy can almost make out, like, fingers. “Um, Mr. Homer? Sir?”

The figure doesn’t say anything. It lowers its mouth, drinking the soda out of the dirt. When it raises its head, Percy can see it more clearly, curly hair and milky white eyes and a straight nose. It--he?--seems a little more solid than your average run-of-the-mill ghost.

Nico frowns, eyes closed, concentrating. “What’s your name?” he mumbles. 

That mouth opens, soundlessly, jaw working on nothing.

“Speak.”

It--there’s a sound, like hissing, only it’s not coming from the mouth, Percy thinks. It sounds like it’s coming from the earth. “Nico?” he asks. “You good?”

The ghost opens its mouth again, moaning, raising its hands. Weakly, unsteadily, it stumbles forward on feeble legs, tripping over the shallow hole in the dirt.

“Nico?” he asks again, a little more forcefully. “What’s going on, dude?”

Nico blinks, slowly, mouth hanging open a little. “Uh.”

The… thing… raises itself up on its hands? He guesses, and knees, crawling its way over towards them.

Now, Percy may be drunk off his ass, but he has seen enough movies to know exactly what the fuck is up.

Moving with a speed he didn’t quite think was possible right about now, he grabs Nico’s wrist, and pulls him up, dragging him along as he lurches towards the house. “Percy…” Nico moans, stumbling over a rock. “I think I fucked up.”

“You think?” Percy wrenches the door open, tossing Nico inside, before following in after, throwing himself against the door. 

Nico groans, throwing his arms over his face. “Dio santo, my head.”

“Forget your head,” he says, “did we just raise a Homer zombie?!”

Panting, Nico stares up at him, sprawled on the floor of the house. “Oops.”

Percy thunks his head against the door. He does not have nearly enough mental capacity to deal with this right now.

But, he thinks ruefully, at least it’s just one. Even drunk, he’s pretty sure he can handle one zombie.

Nico’s eyes widen. 

Percy stares. “What.”

“I didn’t stop the ritual.”

His stomach goes cold.

Turning around slowly, he pulls aside the little curtain on the window. “What?” Nico asks. “What do you see?”

Percy can’t speak, mouth dry.

Slithering up behind, Nico peers over his shoulder. “That’s… not great.”

“Nico,” Percy says, eyeing the horde which slowly shambles closer, half-decayed bodies in togas bumping into each other, almost identical to the drunk college students inside, as the song changes, once again, to ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight).’ “Please go get Frank and Annabeth.”

The following Monday, an announcement is sent out to the entire campus: Per new department guidelines, students may not utilize the ambassador of Pluto to interview the dead for academic purposes.

3)

Percy attempts to flatten his hair. He readjusts his shirt. He almost wipes his sweaty palms on his pants, before he realizes what he’s doing, and clenches them instead, nails digging into his palms. He turns to Annabeth. “Do I look okay?”

“Ooh, ‘Mapping Funerary Monuments in the Periphery of Imperial Rome.’”

“Annabeth.”

She looks up from her brochure. “Relax, seaweed brain, you look fine. You look better than most people here.”

“That’s because I bring down the average age of presenters by about thirty years,” he hisses, eyes darting about at the milling mass of attendees, all packed into the hotel ballroom. 

Dr. Bauer had alternately convinced/pressured/guilttripped him into attending this year’s annual conference for the Society of Classical Studies to talk about the research he’d been doing with her. This year, the conference was held in San Francisco, so at the very least Percy didn’t have to spend five hours stressing about his poster presentation while simultaneously up in the air. But now that he’s here, in the ballroom, surrounded by strangers who know way more about this subject than he does, who are actually smart and probably never nearly flunked out of school or got kicked out or--

“Hey.” Annabeth takes his hand. “I know that look. You deserve to be here just as much as any of them.”

“Do I? I feel like any moment someone is going to come over and throw me out for trespassing.” He vaguely recalls something similar happening to him as a kid after he had ducked into the lobby of a semi-nice hotel to dodge what he had thought, at the time, was just a weird stalker, but had later realized had only had one eye. In any case, the hotel security guard had practically picked him up by the scruff of his neck, tossing him back out into the street. 

“That’s just your imposter syndrome talking,” she reassures him. “No one is going to throw you out.”

He sure as shit hopes so. It would be a shame to have done all this work for nothing. 

Glancing back at his poster, Percy can’t help but feel… good. Accomplished. Proud. About a school assignment, of all things. 

His poster traces the development of the prow from the Greek penteconter, to the Roman liburna, and finally to the Byzantine dromon, looking at artistic depictions in history. Percy had picked the topic himself, spending hours in the library reading, writing, and hand-drawing cross-sections of the ships on the poster board when the images he had gotten from the Cambridge University library had been too small. It had been grueling, frustrating work, but fun, too. And not nearly as much reading as he had feared.

Dr. Chase proofread it for him. Dr. Bauer signed off on it. And Annabeth had taken one look at it, smiled, then kissed his cheek.

That was the best compliment he had gotten.

Though now he’s kind of torn between showing it off and hiding it away before one of these attendees figures out that he doesn’t belong.

He rocks back and forth and his feet, pursing his lips, randomly clicking his tongue. Annabeth nudges him. “Your ADHD is showing.”

That’s when, finally, one of the attendees steps up to his poster. He certainly has the look of a professor, in a black cable knit sweater with grey, curly hair and a receding hairline, thin, rimless glasses perched on his nose. He squints at Percy’s poster, rubbing his chin with one hand. “Interesting,” he murmurs, in a thick German accent. “Very interesting. This is yours?”

“Um.” He glances at Annabeth, who is frowning at the brochure, silently sounding out words that she can’t read. “Yep. All mine.”

“Very interesting.” He leans in closer, tilting his head. “So you agree with Pryor and Jeffreys about the skeleton-first construction, then?”

Percy blinks. Pryor and Jeffreys had written The Age of the Dromon, arguing that the ram, which had been a key feature of Roman liburnians, had gone away in ancient ship construction because of developments in how they built the hull. Right. “Yes,” he says. “The skeleton-first construction is a lot stronger than the, um,” shit, what was the name for this, Leo had only told him about a million times--oh! “Mortise-and-tenon!” He nearly shrieks. “The mortise-and-tenon method. It, um, it wears out a lot more quickly than the frame, so… yeah.” He clears his throat.

He nods. “Very interesting.” 

Percy stares. Can this guy say anything else? 

“This is very well done, young man.”

Oh. “Thank you,” he says. 

“Who are you working with?” 

“Um, June Bauer?” He winces at the accidental question. 

He frowns. “I’m not familiar with her work. Where does she teach?” 

What a loaded question. “Uh… New Rome University.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s--she used to teach at Northwestern, if that helps. Um, retired,” Percy says.

The frown stays, but at least he doesn’t ask any more questions. “Hmm. Well, this is excellent research, nonetheless. I look forward to reading your dissertation.” Then, distracted by something else, he wanders off, chin still attached to his hand. 

“Who was that?” Annabeth asks. 

Percy shrugs. “Beats me. Also, what’s a dissertation?”

“It’s like a senior thesis, but, like, five hundred pages long.”

Five hundred?! “Fuck me.” 

“Maybe later,” Annabeth smirks. “It looks like you’ve got company.”

Sure enough, a smallish group of four people are approaching, led by Dr. Chase, making a beeline straight for them. “Here we are,” Dr. Chase says, gesturing. “This is the project I was telling you about. Percy, would you mind going over your poster for us?”

“No problem, Dr. C,” says Percy, smiling his least-grimace-y smile. 

As one, the adults all turn to look at him, faces politely blank, expectant.

Percy swallows. “So,” he begins, “um, this research is about the development of ship construction in the Roman empire…”

He trips up on some of the words, and at one point, he sees Dr. Chase squint in the way that usually means that Percy is speaking too fast, but all in all, he doesn’t totally fall flat on his face. His audience looks engaged, nodding along as Percy moves from point to point, and no one accuses him of being a giant fraud, which is pretty nice. 

At one point, Percy turns to the poster to indicate a specific point on his ship diagrams. When he turns back, his audience has suddenly multiplied, four people turning into a whole goddamn crowd. Each person gives him their undivided attention almost unblinking.

His mouth goes dry. “Um…” 

Dr. Chase, bless him, saves his ass once again. “Would mind starting again from the beginning, Percy?” he asks, a little bemused himself at the amount of people that had suddenly appeared. 

Silence stretches on for a moment, the muffled noise of the rest of the conference like a dull roar in his ear. 

Annabeth, behind him, coughs. 

“S-sure. No problem.” 

Swallowing, he closes his eyes, breathing in through his nose. Why, oh why did he let Dr. Bauer talk him into doing this again?

He pictures the tides of Long Island Sound, gentle and rocking, unhurried and unbothered, tries to match his breathing to them. When he opens his eyes, unfortunately, the crowd hasn’t disappeared. Everyone is still staring at him. 

But Annabeth stands next to her dad, flashing him a big smile and two huge thumbs up.

Percy relaxes. He’s got this.

“Okay,” he says. “So, about the middle of the first millennium CE, ship construction went through a couple of major developments…”

This time goes much, much more smoothly. He’s not sure what it is--though it’s probably Annabeth, her face fixed in a gentle smile as she watches him speak. Gods, what did he do in a past life to deserve someone as amazing as his girlfriend? 

That’s the only reason he can do this. Hell, that’s the only reason he even thought to do this. If he didn’t have Annabeth there, encouraging him, cheering him on, he never would have had the confidence to put himself out there like this. She’s there to pick him up when he doubts himself, there to listen when he can’t explain himself, there to give him feedback when he needs to practice. 

She makes him feel so strong. She makes him feel like he can take on the world--or at the very least, that he can impress a handful of academics.

And they certainly seem impressed with his talk so far. 

“Excuse me,” says a nasally, pinched looking older British guy, face lined as though he lived his life in a state of perpetual squinting. “I find your conclusions to be suspect--wouldn’t the frame method be more susceptible to breaking than the mortise-and-tenon?”

Well, most of them, anyway.

Percy shakes his head. “You’d think, but no. If you look at the study by Steffy, you’ll see that the three-finned ram from the Athlit wreck was designed specifically to break the mortise-and-tenon hull by causing the planks to flex, so that they’d dislodge the joinerys right next to them. A blow like that can cause the wood to split right down the middle.” A blow like that had sunk Sherman Yang’s ship when they tested it out on the lake at camp last summer, the naiads practically hurling him out of the water so quickly Percy didn’t even have to dive in to save him.

“How were you able to do these strength tests?” asks another listener, an older woman with a thick Hungarian accent.

“Hands-on battle simulations,” Percy replies, easily. “We took our models and tested them in as accurate a simulation as we could make.”

“And how big were these models?” 

Percy holds his hands apart, a vague, entirely inaccurate estimate. “About thirty meters, give or take.”

Her eyes widen. “How on earth did you get your hands on such a large ship?”

Percy freezes. “Uh.”

Oh, shit.

He had forgotten--most people didn’t have dads who could summon shipwrecks from the bottom of the sea, dropping them off at Camp Half-Blood with nothing but a sand dollar and one or two exhausted, pissed off hippocampi who had had to drag them all the way there.

“Um,” he stammers, licking his lips, thinking fast--c’mon, Percy, think! “I…” He swallows, panicking. “I… b… built one.”

In the corner of his eye, Annabeth facepalms.

Simultaneously, every mouth in the crowd drops--in shock, outrage, and even excitement. “You built one?!” the woman yelps. 

Oops. “I had help,” Percy says, quickly. 

Annabeth adds a second hand to her facepalm.

“Where?” The first man asks, his bushy brows flying above the rim of his glasses.

“At my… summer camp…” 

Dr. Chase sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I mean,” Percy chuckles, shrugging his shoulders, trying not to sweat too obviously, “it was either that or lanyards, am I right?”

Dr. Chase, thank Athena, raises his hand, ready to step in. “What Percy means to say, I believe,” he says, attempting to draw their attention, “is that--”

“That’s amazing!” says another woman, probably a grad student attendee based on the fact that she’s wearing jeans. “Do you have pictures?”

Oh this is not good. “Um, not--not on me, but--”

“I do.” Annabeth takes out her phone, holding it up to the person next to her.

Percy blinks. “You do?” He doesn’t remember her taking any pictures.

She shoots him a look, two parts exasperated and one part “shut up and let me handle this,” with just a dash of fondness in the mix. Pointedly, she looks at him, eyebrows raised, indicating that he should continue.

Oh. She’s using Mist. And he needs to keep their attention on him so that they buy it. “Right,” he says, clearing his throat. “Any more questions?” 

His audience placated for now, passing around Annabeth’s phone, he manages to finish up his presentation. After fielding a few more questions, people start to peel off, distracted by other posters and presenters in the ballroom. When everyone has finally wandered away, Dr. Chase comes up and pats Percy’s shoulder awkwardly. “Nice work,” he says, and he seems like he means it. “A little touch-and-go there for a while, hm?”

“A little.”

He chuckles. “Still, you should be proud. I don’t know how many undergraduates would be able to handle that kind of pressure.”

“I mean,” Percy says, shrugging a shoulder, “it’s about on par with leading an army. Maybe a little less.” Honestly, maybe even a little more stressful. If a monster had decided to attack the convention center and interrupt his presentation, he probably would have been relieved.

He’d been worried for a moment that he’d undone all those years of work in making Annabeth’s dad like him. And that he’d be charged with some sort of academic fraud, for the whole “I have a boat” thing without proof. Thank the gods for Annabeth, as always.

She’s looking at him now through narrowed eyes. She at least can’t be surprised--that was far from the dumbest thing she’s ever seen him do. At least his “I spent most of my time at magic greek mythology summer camp” covers are normally better than hers. As someone who spent his formative years in the real world, he’s usually pretty good at keeping the demigod thing under wraps. 

“Come on,” she says, grabbing his hand. She pulls him off, through the dispersing crowd, lacing their fingers together, sweet and intimate, out of the hall and then down another one, and through a smaller corridor. Bringing them up to a little door, with a shake of her wrist, she pulls out her Estruscan keyring bracelet. About several of the keys have found themselves used in various misadventures, vanishing once their purpose is fulfilled, but her favorite key is still there. And, just like a clever child of Hermes, it can pick just about any lock. 

Inside is just an empty room, a little staging area surrounded by tiered desks going up, no more or less remarkable than any of the other conference rooms they’d visited before. 

“What--?” His question is cut off by Annabeth’s mouth on his. 

Surprising, but definitely not unwelcome.

It's a while before they separate again. “You’re so good at this,” she tells him, unbuttoning his shirt.

He runs his hands along the lines of her flanks. “I’ve had a lot of practice,” he grins. He’d practice kissing her all day long if he could. 

She smiles, shaking her head. “No, not this,” though she does lean in for another kiss, pulling at his lower lip with her teeth. “I know you’re good at this.” They break away, Percy pulling her shirt over her head, Annabeth shucking off his. “But history. Presenting.” She runs a finger over his chest, kissing his cheek, headed towards the sensitive spot on his jaw. “Gods, you’re so smart.” 

Something about the praise vibrates through his chest. She doesn’t sound surprised, or anything, just--turned on.

“You had all those crusty academics eating out of your hand. Just, so impressed by you, knowing you know way more than they do about naval history. When you were explaining the--” Her compliment is cut off with a moan, as he leans down and starts sucking on her throat. Her blouse has a high neck, so he feels no guilt for using his teeth.  

“Watching you today, gods.” Her breath is labored as his fingers play at the waistline of her skirt. “And then thinking of you defending your dissertation.” He bites at her jugular, and she lets out a long, deep moan. 

“I don’t know what that means.” Do academics fight each other? Like, with weapons? He’s pretty sure he can take most of the people he met today. 

“It means you get to show off how smart you are,” Annabeth says, grasping his shoulders, pulling him in for another kiss. “I was born the day my dad defended his. Gods, it's going to be amazing to watch you go.” She yanks his belt out of his pants, tossing it to the floor. 

They miss the panel on recent translation efforts. But Percy can’t say he minds one bit. 

And when Annabeth presents him with a positive pregnancy test two months later, Percy definitely knows he made the right decision. 

4) 

He almost doesn’t realize he’s having a dream-vision at first.

It has been literal years since he’s had a demigod dream. Hell, it’s been a long while since he’s had a dream, period--being a new dad to a one-and-a-half-year-old saps too much of his energy to even think about dreaming. Once Junie is put to bed, when he’s out, he is fucking out, and he does not have the brainpower to spare to manifest any messed up subconscious fears.

Which is why when he blinks open his eyes, taking in the too-bright colors of the Parthenon and the gleaming shine of the bronze statues which are somehow all looking at him--also, you know, how the Parthenon is complete, standing as it did thousands of years ago, and not crumbled into ruins--he knows, immediately, he is being contacted by a god.

And only one god in particular would bring him to Athens.

Without even checking, he heaves himself up off the ground, folding into a kneel. “My lady Athena,” he says, “can I ask for what quest you’ve brought me here?”

“Impertinent as ever, Percy Jackson,” rumbles the goddess, but Percy doesn’t think he can sense any ill will towards him. He hopes, anyway. “Perhaps I have summoned you here for a social visit.”

“Perhaps,” he says, choosing his next words as carefully as possible. “But I assume you have too much to worry about to randomly check up on your daughter’s boyfriend.”

He lifts his head, catching her expression--stoic as always, but maybe with just the barest hint of a smile. “You assume correctly. You have become, contrary to my initial expectations, very wise in the time that I have known you.”

“Thank you.” He knows better than to do anything but accept the compliment for what it is.

“I have observed your work as a scholar in recent years, and I must say that I am surprised, yet pleased, that you have chosen to pursue such a path. I had not thought you to be suited for a world of old men and dusty papers.”

He grits his teeth. Don’t rise to the bait, don’t rise to the bait, don’t rise to the bait--

“I understand, as well, that though you and my daughter have,” and here her careful composition cracks, just the slightest, the tiny lift of her lips falling, “made a child together.”

Percy swallows. He figured, you know, in the abstract, that Athena would know about Junie, but hearing her say it out loud is… well, he’s just glad that Dr. Chase has always liked him. “Yes, my lady.”

“It is customary in your time to marry prior to childbirth, is it not?”

“It is.” Oh, fuck, is she going to smite him for that? “I--that is to say, we, Annabeth and I, we, um, we definitely want to get married, but, Annabeth kind of…” 

He trails off. He can’t tell Athena, goddess of war, that his daughter pissed off the queen of heaven! And if he does, he definitely can’t imply that it was because she was being too stubborn!

“I know well of my daughter’s history with my father’s wife,” Athena says, smoothly. “I come to you now with an offer of peace.”

Percy straightens his back. Peace?

Raising one graceful arm, Athena turns, indicating the structure behind her. “Look upon my temple,” she intones. The white marble shines even more powerfully against the blue and red paint, intricate scenes and figures ringing the top of the columns. “In the time of Pericles, it was built to commemorate the victory of Hellas over the armies of Xerxes the Great. It was to be the shining beacon of our world, a triumph of our power and influence over the race of men.”

The race of men might have had something to say about that, he thinks to himself.

“But it was not to be,” Athena says, mournfully. “As our influence waned, so too did our temple, until its might was all but forgotten.” 

Before his eyes, the paint fades away, ceilings and columns collapsing, the destruction of the Parthenon playing out in front of him. 

“Some two hundred years ago,” she says, her voice taking on a darker, more dangerous tone, “a grave insult was paid to the ruins of my ancient sanctuary.” Like curtains falling on a stage, darkness swallowed up the structure, swift and impenetrable. “Many treasures were taken from my temple, stolen, by foolish, greedy men, spirited away far to the north, where they have languished in unworthy hands.”

He narrows his eyes. She can’t possibly be talking about--

Athena turns back to him, her eyes blazing, somehow twice as tall. “Retrieve my treasures,” she commands, war personified, “return the prizes of Athens to their rightful place, and I shall give you my support against my father’s wife.”

“You…” Percy leans back on his haunches, staring dumbfounded up at the goddess. “You don’t happen to mean the Parthenon Marbles, do you?”

“Yes.”

“The ones in the British Museum.”

“The same,” she says, imperious as ever.

Fantastic. “Welp,” Percy says, slapping his thighs, scrambling up. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll have to decline. Nice seeing you, by the way. I’ll tell Annabeth you stopped by.”

Her sharp gazes pierces him, full of fury. “You dare to refuse my support?”

He snorts. “When it means trying to get the UK to give the marbles back, absolutely. Do you know how stubborn they are about this?”

Lightning flashes behind her, nearly blinding him. “You will regret this,” Athena says, dark and foreboding. “You may have your father’s goodwill, but the queen of Olympus is clever and cunning, her displeasure swift and merciless.”

But Percy still shakes his head. “When Annabeth and I get married,” and it’s definitely a ‘when,’ it’s just a matter of when precisely, like after Junie can sleep through the night maybe, “I’d rather take my chances with Hera than try and untangle that particular can of olives.”

A growl, and a snap of her fingers, and Athena disappears.

With a start, Percy wakes up. Junie had gotten her chubby little hands around his nose, and had decided to pull.

“Ow, ow, Junie, hey,” he squawks, attempting to dislodge her grip from his face. “Hey, I’m awake, it’s okay.”

She laughs, illegally adorable, her grey eyes sparkling, squeezing harder. 

“Okay, okay,” he laughs along with her. “You got my nose, you win.”

As if she were waiting for him to admit defeat, she lets go, clapping her pudgy toddler hands together. 

“That’s right,” he picks her up, raising her above his head. “Barely sixteen months old and you already know how to take me down, don’t you? Just like your mommy.”

She smiles, waving her little fists.

Gods he loves this little monster.

Junie really is the best parts of both of them. She’s got her daddy’s hair but her mommy’s brain, quick and sharp and painfully adorable. She’s already learning to read Greek, Annabeth sitting her in her lap and sounding out vowels together, Annabeth taking her finger and tracing it over the letter shapes. This kid absorbs information like a sponge, which Percy can only assume is the natural conclusion of taking a son of Poseidon and a daughter of Athena and mixing their DNA together. 

Thinking about his dream, he frowns. “What do you think, Junie,” he asks his toddler. “Should I take her up on her offer?”

The baby says nothing.

“I mean,” he tilts his head, “Greece has been trying to get the marbles back for two hundred years. UNESCO has top lawyers on this. What does Athena think I can do?”

Junie blinks at him.

“On the other hand, I do really love your mom,” he admits, “and I really want to marry her. You’d like that, right? To have your parents be married?”

There’s no way she can understand what he’s saying, but she moves her head like she’s nodding. Or maybe she does understand. She is Annabeth’s daughter after all. 

Percy sighs. Dammit.

Time for a new project, he guesses.

***

Several months, a college graduation, and one relocation to Boston later, Percy growls, hurling his pencil at the wall. Mother fucker. Fuck the British Museum, fuck his tiny laptop screen, and fuck the Italian prick who decided to have the least ADHD-friendly handwriting of all time. 

Why the hell is he doing this again? Like, seriously. Why in all of Hades is he, an inexperienced, snot-nosed, first year master’s student deciding to tackle the return of the fucking Parthenon marbles of all things. Like, what is wrong with him? 

Roughly scrubbing his fingers through his hair, Percy stands up. He has to go for a walk, clear his head, or he might actually explode. 

Then he catches a glimpse of the photo pinned to the fridge.

Percy’s mom had taken it, a candid of Percy and Annabeth and Junie on a sunny day in Central Park. There, in perfect 1080p, Junie is laughing, at what he can’t even remember, her pudgy fists yanking on Percy’s hair, while her mother and the love of his life does nothing to extricate Percy from her grip, her face screwed up so hard she had tears in her eyes. 

Percy had talked a lot of shit to the goddess of war’s face, but truth be told… Hera still terrifies him a little. Which, he assumes, was her goal all along, but it would be nice to marry Annabeth without fear of something going terribly wrong--or, gods forbid, something happening to Junie. That simply was not a risk he was willing to take. Percy is content to spend the rest of his days as Annabeth’s life-partner and roommate, if it means that the queen of the heavens won’t have a reason to take out her issues on his children.

Even if the engagement ring in the back of the pantry is gathering dust. 

Sunlight, wan but warm, falls in from the window, landing perfectly on his pile of open books. “I know, I know,” he growls, speaking to the air, rubbing his face so it doesn’t get stuck in a permanent glare. “I just--I just need a few minutes, okay? Let me go down the block and get a coffee or something. Two minutes, Lady Athena.”

The light fades. Percy takes that as an acquiescence, angrily scribbling a note. He’s not sure when Annabeth and Junie will be back, but even angry as he is, he doesn’t want to worry them.

Snatching up his jacket, he slams the door shut, stomping out of his apartment building and down the streets of Boston. He must be accidentally doing his wolf stare, because people are practically flinging themselves out of his path as he hurtles down the sidewalk. Literally--some girl is walking her husky, and the poor dog actually whimpers, cowering as Percy rounds the corner. 

Coming to a stop, Percy slaps his hands over his face, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath. 

He might be in over his head a little.

Sighing, he looks to his right. He’s standing outside of a Starbucks. 

Percy doesn’t drink coffee, Annabeth does. And he knows exactly how much of a coffee snob his girlfriend is. Starbucks? Overpriced, overrated, over-sweetened garbage.

He pushes the door open, sliding up to the counter. “I’ll take a… iced mocha, I guess,” he says. “Large.”

“No problem,” chirps the barista. “I’ll have that out for you in a minute.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

One thing Starbucks does have going for it, though, are really good napkins for doodling.

Slumping down in his uncomfortable metal chair, elbows resting on the hard, faux-wood table, Percy takes out his pen, and doodles aimlessly on the brown napkins. No, not that pen. Just because it can write doesn’t mean that Percy wants to risk slicing his face open every time he has a stray idea. Completely out of the blue, Annabeth had gotten him a nice set of pens, and ever since then, Percy always keeps one on him. Now, if he could just remember to use the little notebook she had gotten him, too.

Percy is not an artist by any stretch of the imagination. He doesn’t have an image in mind, just lets his pen move, drawing endless chains of triangles and stars, nebulous shapes which form themselves into Greek letters. After he catches himself writing γλαυκῶπις for the eighth time in a row, he sighs, dropping his pen, and picks up the cup, taking a sip.

Yuck. At least the chocolate outweighs the coffee taste a little.

Gods, and their cups are always, like, drenched from condensation--not that Percy can feel it, but there’s practically a whole other drink on the outside of the plastic, dripping all over Percy’s pile of doodle napkins. That must be why they give out so many.

Grumbling, he mops up the mess, ink smudged into a blue-brown slurry.

He stops. 

He squints at one of his doodles. 

Not that anyone else could tell, but Percy had apparently been trying to recreate the signature of Ottoman sultan Selim III, the guy who had supposedly authorized the Earl of Elgin to take the Parthenon Marbles. Percy had been staring at copies of his signature all damn day, trying to tell if it had been forged or copied, but classical Arabic was just so far beyond anything he could even begin to wrap his head around. It was gorgeous work, but even looking at it made Percy’s eyes swim.

This particular doodle is not his best attempt. It looks nothing like the signature. It’s smudged, blotchy, but in a way that’s… weirdly familiar. 

Snatching the napkin up, Percy bolts from the Starbucks, leaving his mocha behind.

Taking the steps of his apartment building two at a time, he bursts into his kitchen. His set up is exactly how he left it, books spread out all over the table, laptop shut and laid askew, the dry, half-eaten remains of his morning muffin on a plate on top of his encyclopedia of illuminated manuscripts--except for one book, the one on Ottoman history of the nineteenth century. It’s been opened, its pages facing the door, in the exact opposite direction of all the other books. 

“Hello?” he calls into the apartment. “Anyone home?”

No response. 

Percy approaches the table. 

From the pages, Selim III stares at him, his portrait rendered in black and white, sitting just above a figure of his signature, his tughra. 

Percy picks up the book, squinting. 

The signature is crisp, clean, a work of art all by itself. 

He looks at his napkin drawing. Blurry and smudged.

Opening his laptop, he pulls up the scans of the documents in the British museum, zooms in on the letter’s seal.

Blurry and smudged.

Percy stares. 

It… can’t be that simple, can it?

In a daze, he fires an email off to his new grad advisor. Hopefully he won’t mind Percy sticking his nose in where he doesn’t belong. Hey Dr. T--was looking at the Parthenon marbles docs in the BM (don’t ask) and I noticed this weird smudge on the tughra. Lazy scribe, maybe?

And he closes his computer.

Later that night, while he puts Junie to bed, he gets a response. not sure. sent it to a colleague for a closer look. 

He can’t even be bothered to really think about it though, not with Junie looking up at him with Annabeth’s eyes, and asking for another book. “Alright, kiddo,” he acquiesces, settling in beside her. All her story books are in ancient Greek, and at age two, she’s starting to recognize the letters. “Which one are you thinking?” 

“Daw-fins, daddy,” she says, smiling.

“Dolphins, eh? Getting Mr. D on your side early, I see. As smart as mommy.” He leans down and kisses her forehead before he starts to read her the story of the sailors and their sudden dolphin madness. 

***

“Huh,” Percy says to himself a few weeks later, as he and Annabeth are chilling on the couch, watching some Netflix.

His advisor has forwarded him an article from the BBC (New evidence suggests Elgin documents to be forgeries) with an accompanying note: Amazing catch! 

“What is it?” Annabeth asks, nudging him with her elbow--a feat, since she also has an armful of a squirmy Junie to deal with.

“Update in the Parthenon marbles thing.”

That gets her attention. Anything Parthenon-related does. “Really?”

He shows her his phone.

Her eyes go wide as saucers. “Damn.”

“Yep.” He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until he feels his lips pulling at the sides of his mouth. 

“My mom is probably your biggest fan right now.”

He starts. “What did you say?”

Turning back to the TV, she still manages to cast him a weird look. “I said, my mom will probably love you for this.”

A beat, then Percy practically somersaults over the couch, darting into the kitchen. Wrenching open the pantry door, he shoves his hand behind their collection of flours, fingers grasping for--

“If you’re looking for any more sacrificial cookies,” Annabeth calls after him, “we burned them all when Junie got a cold.”

“Remind me to make some more,” says Percy, pulling out his prize. It’s a little dusty, streaks of flour clinging to the blue velvet. “I have a feeling we’ll need them.”

“Oh yeah?” She chuckles. “What, did Olympus put in a special order?” 

Percy slides back down next to her, ring hidden in his closed fist. “Can I have the baby for a sec?”

Eyes fixed to the screen, Annabeth passes her over. Junie’s hands automatically reach for his nose, ready to grab, but Percy places the ring in her grasp instead, kissing her forehead. “Hey, babe?” he asks Annabeth, handing her back. “I think our daughter has something for you.”

Annabeth takes her without a second glance. 

Then she does take a second glance.

Ring closed in her pudgy toddler fist, Junie holds it out to her.

Annabeth gapes. 

“So,” Percy says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, “quick confession: I wasn’t just working on the marbles for fun.”

Annabeth just stares. Junie babbles.

“Your mom told me that if I helped get the marbles back, she’d back us against Hera if we ever got married. So…” He trails off, waiting for her response. As close as he is, he can see the tears start to well up in her eyes--a good sign. “Shall we?” he prompts.

“Oh thank all the gods.” Annabeth is crying, because she's Annabeth. And because she's Annabeth, she also wastes no time in transferring Junie to her other side, and holding out her hand so Percy can slide the ring on her finger. “I was so worried I'd have to have Chase on my Masters’ diploma, too.”

5)

Percy is making sauce when his phone lights up. He hits speaker. “Hey.”

“Hey man,” comes the tinny voice of Magnus. “Sorry I missed your call earlier.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Percy says, “I figured you were dying or something.”

Magnus’ eye roll is almost palpable. “Very funny. What’s up?”

Bringing the spoon to his lips, he blows on it, taking a taste, before reaching for the salt. Needs way more. “Do you happen to have any Varangian guards in Hotel Valhalla?”

“Varangian guards? Uh, maybe. Probably. Why?”

“I’m doing a thing on the attempted reconquest of Sicily,” he says, lowering the heat a little to a simmer, “and I’m having some trouble piecing together the Battle of Montemaggiore. Know anyone who was in it?” 

Magnus hums. “I’ll ask around. Anyone in particular you’re looking for?”

Rifling through their little spice cabinet, he makes a mental note to get a new thing of hot sauce, tipping the rest of it into the pot. “If you have anyone who fought under Harald Hardrada, that would be great.”

“Hardrada? I’m pretty sure he lives on the fifth floor.”

Percy nearly drops the bottle. “No shit?”

“Big dude, long mustache, writes poetry?”

“Yes!” He picks up the phone, grinning from ear to ear. “Do you think I could come up and talk to him sometime?”

“Sure, but I thought you were doing something on Homer’s identity?”

He groans. “Backburnered for now until she stops driving me crazy.” No matter how many times Percy tells her, he can’t just drop the “Homer was actually an Egyptian woman” bomb without some serious evidence backing that up. And forgery is not one of his strong suits. Hence the need for a different topic for the time being.

“Has everyone ever told you your life is weird?”

“No, why do you ask?”

His phone suddenly vibrates, shocking him so badly he nearly drops it into the saucepan. Almost home, texts the love of his life, a shot of serotonin directly into his bloodstream. V hungry

“Sorry, Magnus, but I gotta run. Thanks for your help.”

“No problem. Say hi to my cousin for me.”

“Can do.”

“And make sure you pick a date soon! Sam needs to know so she can schedule her flight home.”

“Soon as I can.” You know, when his brain isn’t melting from grading undergrad papers. And making sure Annabeth and Junie are fed. And that Annabeth doesn’t lose herself in graduate school. And finding Junie a new preschool after she destroyed a classroom last month because of a monster. His toddler is a badass. But he’s a little worried she’s gonna follow Mommy and Daddy’s example as far as school goes. 

Sometimes, he thinks that their wedding just won’t ever happen. With Athena on board, he figured it would happen sooner or later, but time just… keeps getting away from them. Which isn’t the end of the world. A lifetime at Annabeth’s side is all he really needs, Mrs. Jackson or no. But he’s seen the silver fabric she weaved for her wedding dress. It would be a shame for all that hard work to go to waste.

And, yeah, he wants to see his little Junie dancing down the aisle flinging seaweed before her mother. He wants his mom to cry a little and he wants all his friends to be there to celebrate with them. Is that so much to ask? 

Speaking of his two favorite girls--”We’re home!” Annabeth calls from the hallway. “Junie, go say hi to daddy!”

Her bare feet slapping against the floor, his daughter comes toddling in, making a beeline for him. “Hey, kiddo,” Percy says, scooping her up. “How’s my best girl?”

“She’s just fine, thanks,” Annabeth says, setting her work bag down on the table. “Tell me I don’t have to wait for dinner--Margie kept me for the entirety of my lunch break, and I am starving.” 

“Just gotta make a salad and we should be good to go.” But he makes no move to finish chopping vegetables, entirely too enraptured with the way Junie smiles when Percy sticks his tongue out at her. “Let me guess,” he says. “Does my best girl want some olives?”

“Peas,” Junie says. 

“Oh, you want peas instead?”

She giggles, waving her arms. “Elaia, daddy!”

“Fine,” and he kisses her nose. “Extra olives for you.”

“Chip off the old block,” Annabeth says.

Handing her back to her mother, Percy sighs. “When am I going to get a kid who likes anchovies?”

“I’m doing my best here, okay?”

***

Hardrada is… not what he expected.

“Reputation isn’t that bad.” Hardrada is saying. “The production isn’t what it should be, but lots of her lyrics are still on point.” 

“The production ruins it,” Percy insists. “And as a follow up to 1989? It's just bad.” 

“And what about Lover?”

“What about Lover?”

“You can’t argue with the genius of that one.”

“It is terribly inconsistent,” Percy shoots back. “Yeah, ‘The Archer’ and ‘Daylight’ and ‘Miss Americana’ are sublime, but ‘ME!’? Come on!”

“Are you one of those people who thinks she peaked at Red?”

“Red is a bop from start to finish,” Percy fires back. “But she definitely peaked at folklore.”

“Thinking she peaked at folklore is just pedestrian when ‘tis the damn season’ exists!” Hardrada yells, drawing his axe, which is then promptly flung over Percy’s head. 

As the only mortal in a room full of armed, excitable, undead Taylor Swift stans, Percy beats a hasty exit, Magnus and Jason covering him as he flees, because they’re just so thoughtful like that. Percy’s pretty sure he saw Magnus take an arrow to the knee, going down in a heap, before he shuts the door to the hotel, finding himself in a Forever 21. 

Looking over his notes later as he gets back to his apartment in the North End, he frowns. They had spent… approximately twenty minutes talking about Sicily before getting solidly off track. Who knew an eleventh century viking would have such intense feelings about pop music? 

And now he’s singing “seven” to himself as he unlocks the apartment door, because it's a good song, and because it made him think of Annabeth. And he always wants to think of Annabeth. 

“Hey, babe,” he calls into the apartment, toeing off his shoes. “I’m back!”

He gets no response.

Percy looks up, confused. “Annabeth?”

“In the bathroom,” he hears, faintly. 

“Everything okay?”

“Yep! Totally fine!” she says, unconvincingly. 

“Alright,” he calls back. “Let me know if you need something.”

Moving Junie’s toys out of the way, he drops down onto the couch, grabbing his laptop. Hopefully he can make some sort of sense of the… notes… that he got from Hardrada. Though he’s probably going to have to trek out to Beacon Hill again, which, while not really out of his way, does mean he has to hike a bit from the Park Street station through the Commons, which makes him super sweaty and out of breath. It’s just embarrassing, walking into a hotel full of the greatest warriors of Valhalla, and Percy can barely handle a hill. 

However, he’s not so out of practice that he can’t sense Annabeth coming up behind him. “You good?”

“What do you think about getting married by the end of the month?”

“Sure,” he says, pecking at his computer. Damn autocorrect ruining all the Norse names. He keeps forgetting to download the right language package he needs. “But I thought you wanted to wait until after you turned in your portfolio?”

“Well… I might not be able to fit in my dress if we wait much longer.”

That gets his attention.

Percy turns around, slowly. Annabeth is grinning, holding a thin little piece of plastic with a circle on the end. She wiggles it. 

“Is that…?”

“Yep.”

“Oh.”

Her smile falls. “Are you mad?”

“What? No!” Percy slides his computer off his lap, twisting around to face her, up on his knees. “No, no, not at all. I’m not mad.” She slings her arms around his neck, pregnancy test warm against his skin. “I just…” 

Eyes warm, she looks into his, unafraid. “What is it?”

“It’s…” It’s silly, is what it is. But this is Annabeth. If he can’t tell her, who can he tell? “I just feel bad that I’ve gotten you pregnant twice before getting married.”

“Well, at least I’m not nineteen this time,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “But maybe we wouldn’t have this problem if you weren’t such a horndog.”

Percy snorts. “Me? What about you, Annabeth ‘3 AM anal before my first lecture’ Chase.”

“Jackson,” she corrects.

“Huh?”

“It’s Annabeth ‘3 AM anal before your first lecture’ Jackson.”

Grinning, he presses his mouth to hers. After all this time, she still smells like lemons, her lips soft and warm. “Not yet it’s not.”

“Then let’s make it happen.”

And, well, Percy can’t think of a better plan.

+1

Jamie hisses. “Fuuuuuck,” she whispers, the sound dropping like a stone in the dead lecture hall. “Goddamn shit fuck ass.”

And the worst part is, she’d actually spent a lot of time preparing for her Latin midterm. She’d made flashcards, she’d drilled noun endings, she’d even slept with the textbook under her pillow for fuck’s sake. 

Typical--the moment she sits down to take the test, it all goes out the window. 

“Legistne carmen longum de Troiano,” she reads under her breath, as though saying it out loud will unlock some hidden secrets of the cosmos. 

Nope. Nothing. The multiple choices remain as inscrutable as ever.

“Psst.” 

Jamie looks up. 

There’s a four year old staring at her. 

“Hi,” Jamie says. 

“Hi,” says the four year old. Junie, her name is, she thinks. 

Mr. Jackson, Jamie’s Latin TA, will bring his kids to class with him sometimes--his wife works full time, and Jamie guesses that they can’t afford a babysitter. She’s a cute kid, quiet, usually sitting in the corner of the lecture hall, drawing or even knitting, sometimes with her little sister playing with toy ships next to her. 

Now, she’s still staring at her. “What’s up?” Jamie asks.

“Bello,” says Junie.

Jamie blinks. “Sorry?”

“Legistne carmen longum de bello Troiano.” 

She squints down at her test sheet, attempting to visualize her flash cards. That’s… “Bello” is the right answer.

The fuck? The fucking four year old can speak Latin? “Thanks,” she whispers. 

Junie beams at her.

Darting her eyes to the front of the lecture hall, Jamie spies her professor, Buck, completely conked out at his desk, his chest rising and falling with his snores. Percy is nowhere to be seen, his laptop open at his chair. “What’s the next one?” Jamie turns her paper so that Junie can see better.

“Pluto Proserpinam infelicem cepit,” she announces, perfectly accented.

Jamie points to the one after that.

“Rex qui pontem fecit erat Ancus Martius.”

“Awesome.” 

The door to the lecture hall opens. Jamie whips around in her seat, startled, and sees her TA, walking down the steps. From the corner of her eye, Junie disappears, booking it to her dad, who scoops her up without missing a beat. “Hey kiddo,” he murmurs, smiling crookedly. “Were you bothering my students?” Then he glances at Jamie. “Sorry about that--hope she wasn’t too annoying.”

But Jamie shakes her head. “It’s fine.” Dammit. 

Still smiling, Percy makes his way back down to his seat. Junie grins at her over his shoulder, her arms wrapped tightly around her dad’s neck.

At the beginning of the semester, Professor Buck had droned on and on about Mr. Jackson, about how he was one of the best up-and-coming classics scholars in the world, how he could have had his pick of PhD programs, and how NYU was lucky to have him. He got first pick of assistantships this semester, apparently, but had volunteered to teach Latin 1001, and they should all be grateful, because he had done some beautiful new translation of Virgil for his Master’s thesis, and they were all going to learn a lot from him. 

Turning back to her exam, Jamie snorts. Of course a guy like that would have a kid who could speak perfect Latin. 

She really should have just stuck with German instead. 

[briannaswriter]

Tagged by @eva-writes ♥ I’ve missed you! It’s been ages so thank you for tagging me!!

1. How did you begin writing? I was bored in class one day when I was like ten. I scribbled an idea down in a notebook. It was like four pages long maybe, but I’ve been chasing the euphoria of writing for the first time since then.

2. What was your first writing project? Tell us a little about it. The story I scribbled in the notebook was about a girl who found a portal in the basement of her friend’s house (or her school?). She went into the portal out of confusion and ended up in a magical world. It was based off an MMORPG that I was playing at the time. My first *serious* work was probably Fragile Beginnings, a story about a superhero girl who was accused of murder and had to use her long hidden gift to find the real culprit before she was arrested.

3. What is your preferred medium for writing first drafts? I’ve used google docs and word in the past. I’m using scrivener now! Absolutely obsessed with using this for all of my creative writing projects because it has so many organizing options and it’s like a bunch of different files and folders saved into a single program. I use it for creative writing and writing related to dnd. I stress about not having a backup if my computer breaks because scrivener backs-up to your computer (I haven’t gotten the cloud to work yet, I’m dumb). I do manual email backups instead which works!

4. What rituals or habits do you have around writing? Once upon a time, I used the word ELEPHANT if I can’t think of what to type which allows me to go back and edit it. Now I just use < insert brief description of what I’m intending > because this method lets me know what I originally intended. The elephant method was useful for not getting knocked out of the flow, but it was so difficult later when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I also have a specific song I use to start off a story. For my current project, it’s Timeless by Airborne Toxic Event because I’m obsessed with it.

5. We all have a “type”– of character, plot, theme– what is yours? I have a running theme of messy family dynamics and elder siblings with trauma to handle. I come from a big family so I’ve always naturally gravitated to plots that involve the pains and joys of large families. I lean towards fantasy series because I love magic, but I don’t know if that’s a theme so much as an enjoyment.

I like to imagine each character has a facet of me in it, be it a wish or a want or a fear. Like Farrah Noble talks about what happens when you put yourself first. Poppy Vale talks about what happens when you put your family first at the expense of yourself. Kaia Seastone talks about what happens when you have a mix of bitterness and fondness for your family. Fabian de Cardosa talks about responsibility vs Santiago de Cardosa talks about abandoning responsibility. Liadan Sage is about not knowing where you’re going. So my running theme for characters is clearly finding yourself in the circumstances you were given haha!

6. Introduce us to one (or more!) of your OC’s. My absolute obsession is Poppy Vale. She’s one of my earliest OC’s whose story has gone through so many iterations though the core of her has stayed the same. She’s someone who has watched all of her siblings leave the nest and she’s left questioning where she fits into the world after sacrificing so much of herself for them. When I created her, this idea resonated with me. In many ways, it still does. I’ll always think of her with fondness because though our personalities aren’t alike at all, our circumstances are emotionally familiar. I don’t know if I’ll be able to let her go in the end!

My second favorite would be Farrah Noble. In her original story, she was an elder sister who ran away with her youngest sister to protect her. She has superpowers that she’s kept hidden and she’s trying to solve a murder where she’s the main suspect! I axed this story a while ago because I wasn’t feeling the story or side characters much, but Farrah has and will always exist. In this newest iteration, she’s an adventurer who is solving the mystery of an ever-changing forest while trying to protect her sister from danger. Like Poppy, she’s an elder sister responsible for her siblings. In many ways, I consider her a younger version of Poppy Vale! You can see my theme with characters now.

With my third (and final because I go on for ages) character, I wanted something different. I’ve always had protective elder sibling dynamics so I wanted to explore something slightly different. She was an only child whose mother couldn’t take care of her and a very loving but workaholic father. However, I eventually realized she had a younger half sister and half brother whom her mother raises and loves. Arguably, she’s the newest of my characters, but so fascinating because she’s so passionate about responsibility to the world. She doesn’t put family first and she wants to make things better. Like Poppy and Farrah, she’s very self-sacrificing! But I love her ability to take the punches and punch back. She has an emotional strength that’s different than my other two girls. Her story is a lot more about grief than the other two.

7. What’s your favorite genre to read? I mostly read fantasy! I’ve gotten into reading a lot of historical fictions with my classes right now so I’m slowly starting to love them. A lot of them deal with trauma, though, so it can be heavy. I like most books except grimdark ones or overly smutty ones.

8. Your favorite genre to write? Fantasy or science fiction. I love exploring these two possibilities and the very human emotions that accompany them. Romance almost always accompanies them because I’m a sucker for a fun romantic plot, but I’ll take a good plot over anything.

9. How do you conduct your authorial research? I start with wikipedia for a basis and then branch out from there. I try to use scholarly sources where I can or ones where I can verify the information of the author. Tumblr has some good blogs for it, too, which I think I have in a reference tag.

10. What does your editing (gasp) process look like? I haven’t gotten to an editing stage exactly. I finish first drafts and then never return haha! I have a couple just sitting around that I should polish up since they are literally just waiting for my attention. There’s only two stories I’ve technically written a second draft on: Patchwork Souls and The Light You Still Hold. For the former, I pulled up the document next to it and just.... rewrote all of it from scratch using that as a reference until I ran out of reference material. It was a nice way to fine tune things and find new structures to use.

For the second one, I switched fandoms and characters so I only copied some of the beginning portion and adapted it to fit what I wanted to do. I ran out of material for it around 50k but then I added another 60k-ish on top of that. Since it was a fanfiction, I finish writing it and then leave it for a day or two then come back with fresher eyes. This was back when I updated once a week so I wrote a lot in advance.

tl;dr: I pull the document up on half of my screen and then a new document on the other half. Then I just copy it with tweaks as I go. For fanfiction, I let it sit for a day or two then edit it with fresh eyes.

11. What are your favorite tropes? Too many to name, but so picky depending on how they are pulled off. I love enemies to lovers depending on how the enemy is written -- you really have to make sure you don’t pass a threshold on it. I like opposites attract only to discover they have more underlying things in common than they think and just happen to approach them a little different. Like Eva said, yin/yang dynamics are fun. Slow burns! I love seeing characters who slowly develop their feelings for someone else, when you can look back and see the transition from acquaintance to friend to lover. Hate love triangles, dark romances, age differences (depending on the age difference).

12. Show off your writing space. I used two desk to create a half-assed L shaped desk in the corner of my room. I have a pretty moon light on my side, some pinky kitty headphones, and a pink keyboard. Really going all out in girlish stuff because I definitely didn’t spend a lot my youth with the internalized misogyny of rejecting pink lmfao

13. What is the most useful piece of writing advice you’ve ever used? The one that said to use < stuff here > when you weren’t sure what to put. It helped so much with continuing the writing process.

I loved the one where you write 400 words a day. I bumped it up to about 600 because that fit me better, but it was so nice to teach myself to just have the habit of putting down words without stressing about how much I wrote. Baby steps!

14. What is the least useful piece of writing advice you’ve ever ignored? Show, don’t tell. I hate that writing advice because it’s such a simple description for a very complex process. It doesn’t teach someone how to do either. I hate the ones that say you have to use something other than said, too!

15. Your writing beverage/snack of choice? Usually nothing. If I’m feeling particularly difficult, I can use hot chocolate or apple cider.

16. How do you compile your ideas? The notes app on my phone has SO MANY unfinished thoughts and ideas. I use it to jot things down real quick. For longer pieces / thoughts / actual story, I use google docs because it’s something I can access or continue from my desktop. Recently, I started using a discord server with only myself in it to organize things / jot down ideas / share inspirational stuff because it was SO NICE to compile it into one place. I call it dumb bitxh farm so I don’t take it too seriously! Less stress!

17. What are your controversial opinions ™ on the craft of writing? No writing is inherently better than another one. It’s going to resonate with different people at different times. Just because it’s something *you* dislike doesn’t mean it’s something people *should* dislike -- people have different tastes! Take this with a grain of salt, though, because some authors don’t deserve an audience anymore. You know who.

Second, I don’t think an English degree makes you a better writer than someone else. I think people who try to say it makes them better or try to correct others are pretentious. No, I don’t care that you dislike long sentences. No, I don’t care if this breaks a traditional rule. No, I don’t care if it bothers you. No, I won’t accept criticism, I’m sorta done with some English major people. (Yes, I am an English major person, too, so I fall under the same category sometimes).

Third-- I don’t remember what it was. Probably something bitter sounding. Because I’m bitter.

Anyway!

Tagging: whoever wants to do it (no, seriously, please tag me, I want to meet more people? I don’t know many of them on writeblr anymore). @druidcore @writeblrfantasy @emdrabbles @thanhpls @northernrosewritings @enchanted-lightning-aes

[skellebonez]

Tumblr Messed Up Fill #5

Alright, I believe this is the FINAL accidentally posted fill! @winterpower98​ has such a great dynamic between Jin and Yin and the rest of the cast in the Cursed AU that I just love writing these two in any situation. I hope you enjoy this despite the wait!

When MK has been dragged out on an "emergency supply trip" with Jin and Yin he had almost expected he would need to step in to prevent them from doing anything illegal. They may technically be on their side now, but much like Macaque they weren't entirely removed from their villainous past.

What he had not expected was for the two of them announce that they not only intended to pay in cash, something most people didn't do not a days in favor of a single card or paying through their phone, but for them to attempt to give him a crash course in electronics every time he looked at a computer part with vague confusion.

On the bright side, he at least had didn't have to worry about them getting him banned from any of the local stores.

On the down side...

He looked at the massive pile of electronic bits the poor cashier was attempting to scan and bag for them in a timely manner. They had to, somehow, get all this stuff back to wherever they stored all of their equipment. MK was strong but the sheer amount of stuff would prove a problem simply by how much he would have to help carry. No wonder he'd been invited.

"Yin, toss me the wallet will ya?" Jin yelled once the cashier finally announced their total with a relieved sigh. A excessive amount that MK doubted could ever be paid for in cash alone.

Until Yin launched the wallet at Jin's head and it bounced off him and set a few bills flying in the process.

"OUCH, watch it! That's our profits you're throwing around!" Jin complained, grabbing a few bills that were still airborne with a sigh. "Just. I'll ask ya to hand it to me next time."

"Sorry..." Yin said, not really sounding all that sorry. The smirk and the fact he stuck out his tongue did not help.

Granted, Jin didn’t exactly seem genuinely upset at what happened either, judging by the smile on his face.

He probably wasn’t supposed to see it. That was probably why MK didn’t even know they had a wallet, they didn’t want anyone to see what they had in it.

But he was MK. The Monkie Kid. And his first instinct was to kneel down and pick up the wallet to give it back to Jin. The wallet that was sitting open with the inside facing up and bulging with bills and...

One of those folding picture things you would only see parents have of all their kids in comedy movies. It was folded up backwards, tucked into the wallet itself to keep it from unfolding and falling down, and only one picture was visible at the moment. One with a face he recognized very quickly. How could he not?

It was his face after all.

He recognized when it was taken too, pretty soon after the two had joined up with the group as Macaque’s... whatever they were to the reformed monkey demon. They’d been teasing him about if he had anyone he liked and Jin had just managed to make him laugh with some kind of joke.

He didn’t remember a picture being taken but one of them just have had a phone or camera to do so. He remembered their little conspiracy board from the first time they met, they were good at sneaking pictures of people... which, considering what he was holding in his hand right now, was kind of creepy when he thought about it for long enough.

He didn’t have the time to think about it for much longer though, as the wallet was yoinked out of his hand by an excited Jin, shouting a “thanks MK!” back at him when he pulled out the large bills to hand to the cashier.

He didn’t seem embarrassed or upset, in fact the only one who seemed to be out of the four of them was the cashier who had to check that they had enough chance before realizing they would only be getting a handful yuan back.

And then they were outside and making their way back to their workshop, presumably, MK with the bulk of the items but Jin and Yin taking their fair share of the electronic bits.

“Well that evened out nicer than expected,” Jin laughed, tucking their change into the wallet before snapping it closed with a victorious look on his face. “Just enough to grab us all one cheese tea each, if we all want some.”

“Could, uh... I ask you something first?” MK interrupted as they walked, the prospect of being treated to a drink for his work sounding pretty good actually.

“Yeah, go for it.”

“... why do you have a picture of me?” He asked wearily, just…still trying to take in the fact that apparently Jin and Yin shared a single wallet and they apparently just had pictures of everyone he knew in it.

Jin paused for a moment, looking at the wallet and then back to MK a few times before shrugging and shoving it back into his shirt, presumably the same kind of hidden pocket Yin had when he pulled it out. “I dunno? Guess I thought it was important or something, like if we needed to find you. Easy picture to show off if you go missing."

“Right…”

The trio didn’t even get to lapse into silence as they walked, the twins quickly finding some topic of conversation that completely flew over MK’s head regarding computing power and ram drives.

The cheese tea was good though.

~

Jin looked between his younger twin and the wallet. Though he hadn’t really thought about it all that much when MK had asked, something about his question was starting to bother the elder Gold Demon.

It was a simple thing. Small. Kinda bulky despite the size due to the sheer amount of unnecessary things inside it. Receipts for the tech they had actually bothered to pay for, they felt bad stealing from that store in the past when they learned that it was in danger of being shut down due to lost profits, coupons that would eventually be used at the last second… pictures.

So many pictures.

And yet none of them were of either twin. At least none of them alone. There's was a single picture of the two of them together, just one, after building their first successful Calabash prototype. They thought that would be picture enough whenever the off chance they were separated for a... while...

“Oh…”

"What, Jin?" Yin asked, looking up from his soldering work at the loud exclamation.

"I'm starting to think we might be a little dense," Jin replied, opening up the wallet and letting the folded pictures fall out in a line. “Remember how MK asked why we had a picture of him?”

One picture was of MK, the one the young man had seen since it was the one sitting in the only visible stop of the holder when it was folded at the moment. One of Mei working on her bike. One of Macaque they had snuck while he slept. A slightly blurry one of Sun Wukong alone they barely managed to snatch in secret.

Mei and Yin playing some sort of game together, Jin leaning on Red Son and teasing him while MK watched, a proper one of Macaque and MK and Mei together. MK and Wukong, Mei and Wukong, Mei and Macaque, a trio of training pictures. Red Son flaming up at the camera in anger.

A lone one of Tang and Pigsy in the noodle shop that Jin could not explain the reason for taking, as well as one of Sandy on his boat with his cat.

And a few more of Mei and MK and Red and Macaque with either if them in particular for good measure.

Yin looked up and down at the line of photos and then to his brother, brow raised in confusion before his eyes widened in shock and dismay as he came to the same conclusion.

“Oh bloody hell... we’ve started to CARE.”

The twins looked at each other in resignation.

Nothing they could do about it now.

[late-to-the-party-81]

Ojos Asi - Part 2 - The Mission

AN: Hi all - I hope you all enjoyed part one! I realised I forgot to say that this fic was inspired by the Shakira song Ojos Asi (Eyes like yours). It describes how reader feels about Joaquin.

DISCLAIMER - I know nothing about any Air Force, US or otherwise, or special ops or high-tech tracking systems.

Beta’d by the wonderful @yarnforbrains, dividers by @firefly-graphics and mood board by me (credits to those who took the photos)

Series Master list | Part 1

Find my master list here

Pairing: Joaquin Torres x Fem SWORD Agent! Reader

Chapter Word count: 2.2k

CW: Canon Typical violence, Lots of exposition, Grumpy Bucky (he's a warning)

You were thankful it wasn’t too warm as you and Bucky tried to get set up in your overwatch position. It always made things easier if you weren’t trying to work around bulky coats and gloves, especially when the space wasn’t very big.

“Will you quit wiggling around? I’m trying to get in the zone here.”

Bucky was in a grumpy mood as he settled on his stomach, high-powered binoculars in hand. He was trying to get an eye on the target area and you were setting up the small computer that would track Sam and Joaquin’s position. Hopefully, between old school tech and new school tech, you could provide adequate ground support for the airborne pair.

“I’ve got more equipment than you, Grandpa. Quiet down or I’m sticking you in a care home when we get back.”

“Stop flirting with my man, Sparky!”

“Fuck you, Sam. Stop eavesdropping.”

“It ain’t eavesdropping if you got the comms turned on. You two set up yet? If Torres has to do any more circling up here I think he’s gonna chuck.”

“Awww, poor baby Falcon… although if grumpy gills Barnes would stop bitching I’d be done faster…now, quiet!”

You drowned out the chatter for a moment, your tongue poking out in concentration as you went through the last of your set up.

“…and coming on-line...now.”

Two dots, one red, one blue, overlay your topographical map of the area. On the other side of the screen a number of white dots were grouped together.

“I see you, the satellite link is working and I can track your proximity to the targets. I currently have twelve showing but it may not be entirely accurate. You can go when you’re ready, Cap.”

“Okay. Come on, Falcon. Let’s fly!”

“Race you, Cap!”

You watched the dots on your screen, and as they reached the area where you and Bucky were secluded you looked up to watch them fly past. They were only pin-pricks against the blue, but it made your heart thump in your chest to think that it was Joaquin up there.

“How you doing, Fly-Boy?”

“Woooooo! This is amazing, Sparky!”

“Calm down kid, get your game face on.”

“Sam, you should be able to see the target area coming up. Begin your descent and prepare to engage. We need it fast and clean guys. Most of the targets are outside, but there will be a few who are inside. Be careful.”

You all stopped joking around at that point. Sam was telling Joaquin to get into the right position while you confirmed it, and Bucky prepared to get actual eyes on the scene when the two landed.

“Preparing to engage.”

You held your breath as the two coloured dots reached the target area, and you could hear the sounds of fighting and gun fire over the comms.

“I’ve got eyes on them, they’re doing okay.”

You returned your concentration to the screen and let out a curse at what you saw.

“Shit, Bucky, they’ve got reinforcements coming from the west ridge. We need to move to the secondary position.”

You slammed your computer shut and the pair of you scrambled up and started to make your way down the escarpment. Bucky got down before you, and pushed the brush cover off of your bikes. In less than a minute the pair of you were tearing down the path through the trees.

“C’mon, c’mon!”

You were urging your bike faster as branches whipped past your face. It felt like it took far too long to get to your next position. Bucky clambered up to make good in his sniper’s position, whilst you got your computer back on line and removed your gun from its holster, just in case.

“Sam, Joaquin, we’re at secondary, you’ve got incoming on your nine. I’m taking action.”

“We hear you, Buck. You and Sparky be careful. We’ve got more here than we thought.”

“Yeah, Barnes, Sparky’s likely to get herself into trouble.”

“We’ve got 5 coming up on our position, Buck.”

“I see ‘em doll.”

Even though you knew he was going to shoot, the cracks from his rifle still made you jump.

“Four down, but I lost the fifth in the trees. We’d best get out of here in case he made our position.”

“Lemme just get an update…”

You looked at the screen. Something wasn’t right.

“’Quin, Sam, you still moving out there?”

“Yeah, Sparky, we are. Some of these guys just…don’t…want…to… go…down!”

You were relieved to hear Joaquin’s voice, even if it was partially drowned out by the sound of gunfire and metal crunching down on bone.

“I’m just having an issue with the uplink…”

You tapped at a few more keys, your heart pounding in your chest.

“No, no, no, no.” You muttered under your breath and tried to tamp down the rising panic.

“What’s wrong, doll?” Bucky’s brow furrowed as he took in the concerned look on your face.

“Feed’s gone down. Fuck! It was working fine and now, nothing. I’m not getting any updates at all. We need to abort, we’re blind.”

Bucky looked over your shoulder, as if his glare could make the computer work as it was supposed to be doing.

“Sam, Overwatch is down, we’re moving out. Gonna head towards the ex-fil point. Mission is aborted. Repeat, mission is aborted.”

“Roger that Buck. There were way more than 12 here. More like double that.”

You nodded at Bucky in agreement as you slipped your computer in your backpack and started to follow him down the trail to where you’d abandoned your bikes. You held your gun at the ready; something was definitely up with this op.

As you reached your transportation Bucky held up a hand and you stopped in your tracks. He tilted his head, listening intently.

“There’s a group of hostiles headed this way.” He started to throw leaves and branches over your bike. “I want you to hide here. I’m gonna lead ‘em off. You head to ex-fil and I’ll meet you there. And no fucking arguments. We both know you’re a lot more breakable than me.”

You opened your mouth and shut it again. He was right. There was no point arguing. There wasn’t the time and the fact remained that he was correct. You turned and made your way back up the path and secluded yourself behind a small outcrop of rocks. You peeked out and saw Bucky mount his bike and start to over-rev it loudly. Suddenly he took off, followed closely by six other bikes that sprang out of the brush.

You counted to sixty slowly before making your way back down and heading off on your own bike. You couldn’t hear anything except the sounds of your own engine. Nothing. No snark. No comments. No sounds of gunfire.

The comms. It wasn’t working. Before you could even comprehend how that had happened your bike came to a sudden stop and you were flying through the air. You landed heavily, right on your backpack, the now broken computer digging painfully into your spine.

“Fuck!”

You rolled over and pushed yourself to your feet. Your bike was lying on its side a few yards away, wheels spinning and engine cut out. It didn’t look as though the wire that had been stung between two low-hanging branches had damaged it too badly, but unfortunately, some goons were coming out of the trees between it and you. You started to back up, counting five guys coming towards you, when you heard the crack of a branch behind you. Whipping around and un-holstering your gun, you saw another three advancing on you. Not the odds you’d hoped for.

“’Quin, Sam, Bucky? Anyone there?”

“No-one can hear you sweetheart…made sure o’ that.”

A man with a buzz cut, four days worth of stubble and a toothpick between his teeth stepped slightly forward from the others. You really didn’t like the way he was looking at you, like you were his next meal. You had to stay calm and try to control the situation.

“You got this welcoming committee all ready for me, boys? I’m flattered, you shouldn’t have.”

You slid your free hand into your pocket and wrapped it around your emergency flare. You angled your body away from the men as best you could, to try and keep as many in your eye line as possible, but you kept your gun trained on the one who’d spoken.

“But, as lovely as this has been, I gotta cut and run…”

You pulled the flare from your pocket, igniting it and throwing towards the densest part of the group. The flame shot red, followed by smoke of the same hue. You turned, shoulder barging the nearest man to you out of the way, before dashing head long into the trees.

Your escape was followed by incoherent shouting and the crack of gunfire as they tried desperately to hit you. You kept running, hoping that you hadn’t got too turned around and were still heading in the right direction for the ex-fil point. The pounding of feet and the sound of shouting behind you got louder and you pushed yourself, lungs burning. There was the sound of a shot, loud and close, and a moment later pain bloomed in your shoulder, the force of the impact sending you spinning to the ground. You could tell it was a through-and-through by the way the blood was pouring out the front of your shoulder, but it hurt like a bitch.

You struggled to your feet, but froze as you felt the still warm barrel of a gun press against your temple.

“Get up slowly, princess, and drop your gun.”

You did as told with your hand pressed against your wound, trying to stem the flow of blood. One of the goons grabbed roughly at your backpack, cutting the straps to remove it from you as you hissed back a cry of pain.

“It’s broken, asshole”, you spat out, but the guy holding you at gunpoint just smirked.

They all started talking amongst themselves, and normally you would’ve been listening, but as you looked around you, trying to work out if there was any way you could escape, you felt, and then saw, something strange.

You felt a breeze on your face, but coming from a different direction to the others you’d felt today. And you saw some dry leaves on the ground swirling around in a little funnel shape, indicating that wind was whipping around in a spiral. Tilting your head slightly, you looked up, and saw a shadow above you getting closer.

With your empty hand against your thigh, you signed a silent count-down from five, hoping that whichever one of the boys was circling above could see it. When you reached one you threw yourself to the side, biting back a curse when you jarred your shoulder. A pair of feet landed behind you and the world went dark as you were covered by a set of metallic wings, bullets rebounding off them.

“You alright Sparky?”

Happiness zipped through you when you realised it was Joaquin who’d come to your aid, but you pushed the euphoria down. You had to get to safety first.

“Just fucking deal with them ‘Quin. I wanna get outta here.”

“If you’re swearing like that you can’t be hurt too bad.”

“Jack-ass!”

You could almost hear him smile, and your brain supplied the image of the skin crinkling around his eyes.

“Give me a moment then.”

He leapt up into the air, wings unfurling and knocking the nearest men to the ground. It was one thing to have watched him in training, but a different one entirely to watching him in a real life situation. He’d always been graceful, but this was like some complex ballet, as he effortlessly moved between fighting on his feet and fighting in the air. He retracted and extended the wings as though they were extensions of his own arms, and it wasn’t long before your assailants were all unconscious on the ground.

Joaquin turned to you, his signature smile on his face, but it fell away when he saw the blood still leaking from your shoulder. You flashed your own weak smile, but your adrenaline was wearing off now. You tried to push back to your feet, but wobbled and fell against a tree.

“I think I need a lie down. Help a girl out, Fly-Boy?”

Three strides from his long legs brought him back to your side. One arm slipped under your legs and the other around your back.

“Told you I’d sweep you off your feet.”

You tried to roll your eyes, but your lids were too heavy.

“You’re gonna want to keep those closed, don’t want you getting a bug in them.”

“Not a problem. I think I’m gonna pass out to be honest.”

“I got you, Sparky. I got you.”

You were drowsy and hurt, which would be your excuse later on. You wriggled to get deeper into his grip before mumbling, “You’ve always got me ‘Quin.”

The next moment you were both airborne, and you let yourself sink into the feeling of his arms around you keeping you safe. Before you lost consciousness you let yourself pretend, just for a moment, that you were also loved.

Part 3

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