#like Hero's relationship with her three parental figures are all strained

[llumimoon]

me pulling out a whiteboard: okay so here's how us sparrow apologists can still win-

[tiffany-smith]

You know, what's cool about Order of the Stick is that it dares to be a story where only half the major characters are in a romantic relationship. (Less, depending on who counts as 'major.' I'm counting just members of the Order here, not Team Evil or the various characters like the paladins, Hilgya, or Minrah they've picked up on the way.)

Haley and Elan are, like, the "token representation" characters. Roy gets tossed a girlfriend bc he's the hero ig? She's rarely around.

V had a spouse who was known about for a while offscreen, got three pages onscreen and promptly served divorce papers.

Durkon? Had an affair one (1) night which resulted in a kid 1000 strips and two irl decades later, the mom wants nothing to do with him. Otherwise probably completely celibate.

Belkar will sleep with anyone and romance nobody.

None of the paladins have relationships. Not even O-Chul and Lien, or Hinjo and Lien.

None of the long-lost parent figures are still in a relationship. Elan's parents are divorced and Tarquin had like nine wives (none onscreen, also he's Evil about it). Haley's mom and Durkon's pa are dead. Who KNOWS abt Belkars parents. Roy's are both dead and took 'till death do us part' with gusto.

None of the airship crew have any romances (except for the one throwaway gay couple who got one panel of screentime).

Team Evil does not do any of that. Not Xykon, not Redcloak, not the monster in the dark, not Jirix. Tsukiko was the only one with any relationship drive, and she got brutally murdered (unrelated reasons).

Straining to remember any other romantic relationships ever.

OH! Sabine and Nale! (But that also specifically parallels Haley and Elan, like they explicitly said 'evil opppsites.')

Therkla fell in love with Elan and it was not reciprocated (?) (he cared abt her but not like that. Not to cheat on Haley.)

The gods have their whole thing I suppose but that hardly counts.

Not even Julia, the high school hottie, is ever mentioned having a significant other.

There is one (1) actually married couple. Two soldiers who were nameless until they took offense to being called nameless soldiers and changed it. They got married and she's pregnant.

Order of the Scribble had one couple.

The cast is SO HUGE and there is SO LITTLE romance. Only half of the six-member main cast is in a relationship. Unheard-of. And of the huge cast of side characters, there are 3 only stable relationships. That's all! THATS ALL!

I love it.

Thats the real aspec rep: not just one character who doesn't care, but a whole world where that's Not The Focus.

Instead, OOTS focuses very strongly on familial relationships. Parent (singular) and child(ren). Siblings (twins). Aunts and uncles, even.

And in the midst of all that... the platonic bonds of deep friendship forged between the main cast.

[starsfic]

We've got Evil Red kidnapping MK and Mei and Evil MK kidnapping Red

but

what about Evil Mei and Evil MK agreeing to share Red? Besties do everything together, including kidnapping

Remembered a fic I wrote of Red leaving after the specials and decided to maybe write a different version for this...

“You’re leaving?”

Red Son looked up from his pack at the voice. At the doorway of Pigsy’s Noodles, Long Xiaojiao and Qi Xiaotian stared at him. Both of them looked surprised and a touch hurt, but he couldn’t let that get to him. 

“Yes,” he said, standing up. He turned his eyes away from the twin set of big teary eyes to instead brush some dust off his pants and ignore his own sinking heart. “The Lady Bone Demon has been defeated and my parents are most likely wondering where I am. I’ve gotten what I’ve came for.” Including the recipe to the pig’s noodles. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice that was gone until Red was home.

“But…” The Noodle Boy looked around as if an excuse would pop into thin air. “The grand opening is tomorrow! There’s gonna be a party and it’ll be super fun and-”

“We’ll miss you!” Dragon Girl grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight. Red’s heart fluttered and he shoved it down. She didn’t pause, grabbing his other hand to instead pass it to her best friend. “C’mon, Red Boy, your parents can wait one more day.”

He…wanted to stay. Red did. But his father was not in a good state when Red left him to look for the heroes and found Xiaojiao. He had to settle his own fears before dealing with the squirming in his chest. “You have my number,” he pointed out as he pulled away. “If you lose control or something and need the great Red Son-” Dragon Girl rolled her eyes, not bothering to hide her smile, while Noodle Boy giggled. “You know how to contact me.”

Dragon Girl sighed. “Fine, I guess. I'm just..." She glanced at the Noodle Boy. "We're just worried about you."

Red raised a brow. "The road is safe-"

"Not that!" Noodle Boy said, reaching out and grabbing his hand again. It was tight, like he was worried that if he let go of Red he would disappear. "I don't think you have a healthy relationship with your parents. Some people are better loved from a distance and all. Right Xiaojiao?"

Ah. Someone else had noticed.

She nodded. "I and my parents are like that." She took a deep breath through her teeth. "But I think you guys are worse than us."

Red knew this. Jade Face Princess had explained this. It was agreed that his mother had three chances with his custody. His uncle had convinced his adopted aunt, who ruled over the clan so he and his mother could figure out how to free Father, to give her fourteen chances.

Maybe it was more than that.

But he couldn't just leave them. Right?

...he could test it. See if he did breathe a little better without his parents looming over his shoulder. Jade Face would be pleased, at least, to see he was trying.

"You can stay with us," Xiaojiao offered. "Xiaotian and I decided to move into an apartment together." Red opened his mouth to protest, and she held up a hand. "Don't say that you can't be a strain on us. You're welcome to stay with us however long you need."

Red weighed this, considering and mulling. He didn't notice the flash of impatience across Xiaotian's face or how Xiaojiao grabbed his hand, whispering a near-silent "Wait."

It would be easier to do this without force.

"...Alright. You've convinced me."

"YAY!" The two wrapped him in a group hug. "This is gonna be great! I can't wait..." Red sank into the warmth and chatter.

He didn't notice the possessive squeeze both of them gave him or their mutual smirks.

[mochegato]

Even the Losers

Chapter 13

Chapter 1     Chapter 12

“You ready for this?” Dick asked flashing a charming, boyish grin that Marinette imagined many people had trouble saying no to.  She was not one of those people.  If she could say no to Adrien’s most charming, sappy, kitten eyes trained on her and Tikki’s most wide eyed, imploring, big blue eyes begging for cookies after a ‘grueling’ day wrangling the other kwami, she could say no to Dick’s blue eyes.  It wasn’t even a contest.

However, she currently had no interest in saying no. She was actually really excited to swing on the trapeze with him… or alone, really at all.  A bright smile spread across her face as she took in their trapeze rig.  She’d never been on a trapeze, but she was hoping it would be like swinging on her yoyo. She and Adrien had put their superhero days behind them.  They still wore their miraculous and of course she still had her guardian duties, but they didn’t transform anymore, preferring to move on from the painful memories and impossible balance.  They loved being heroes but the strain it put on relationships, the lies, the responsibility… they never regretted their decision.  

Wonder Woman knew how to get in touch with them should their services ever be absolutely necessary, but short of that, they were out.  So this was the closest she was going to get to that feeling ever again, short of a world ending event, in which case, she wouldn’t be able to enjoy it anyway.

But this, she looked at the rigging again, this was going to be great.  She turned to Dick, her bright smile spreading even wider and her eyes gleaming. “Absolutely!”  She gripped her bag tighter then actually took in what Dick was wearing, tight tank top and bike shorts, and looked down at her own street clothes in realization.  “Well, I mean not right now.  I need to change,” she motioned to herself, “but as soon as I change I will be.”

Dick nodded and opened his mouth to say something but Bruce stepped in before he could say anything.  “Good to see you again, Marinette.”  He leaned in to do a la bise.  He mentally congratulated himself for their first not awkward greeting. It was definite progress.  “Let me show you where you can change.”

Marinette nodded and walked in the direction he indicated.  She looked back over her shoulder to smile at Dick, but he was already turned around and focusing on checking the rigging.  “How was New York?” Bruce asked, bringing her attention back to the two of them.

“New York was good.  It was a good meeting.  Mrs. Bourgeois wanted to speak with me personally about styling the shoot. I was originally scheduled to speak with an associate editor.  I can’t imagine what changed in the last three weeks or so,” she joked with a smile at M. Wayne.

Bruce sighed and gave a resigned nod.  “Yeah, once people find out, they can change the way they treat you.”

Marinette nodded, looking away in thought.  “It was so strange.  I’ve known her for years and all of a sudden she was trying to be nice.”  She shuddered slightly.  “That woman has never been nice a day in her life.  Honestly, one of the creepiest feelings I’ve ever had.”

Bruce grimaced at Marinette’s first brush with being treated differently.  “Sorry about that.  I should warn you… we should sit down sometime and discuss security and social changes.  People are going to do that now, want to get close to you because of your name.  Not that you aren’t worth knowing without it!” he rushed to assure her once he realize what he said.  “I just mean…”

“I understand,” Marinette cut him off kindly. “I have quite a few famous friends or friends with famous parents.  I’ve seen how people try to get close to them because of that.  I’ve even had people try to get close to me in order to get closer to them.”  She rolled her eyes at the memories of the desperate people trying to flatter her and just dropping in mention of Adrien or Jagged.

Bruce looked at her sympathetically.  “Sorry you had to deal with that.”

Marinette laughed at his apology.  She laughed loud enough for it to echo off the walls of the hallway.  The absurdity of thinking that was something to apologize for.  That those experiences even registered on her hurt scale.  “Don’t be ridiculous.  None of that was your fault.  They weren’t even bad.  It was something for us to laugh about.”

Bruce gave her a small smile.  “Hopefully it stays that way.”  He stopped walking and motioned to a room.  “This is your room.”

Marinette waited for the ‘while you’re here’ or ‘while you’re changing’, but they never came.  And there was something off with the way he said it, a gravity that didn’t belong there.  She looked between Bruce and the room a few times and pushed the door open.  Like the rest of the house, the room was luxurious. Only the finest furniture and decorations.  The room was filled with pink, silver, grey, and white.  Everything coordinated and elegant.  She was almost afraid to walk into the room lest she damage any of it.

She walked into the room timidly and tried to take in all the details.  She scanned the room and gasped, her body going rigid, as her eyes rested on a crib against the far wall.  She walked slowly toward the crib, almost like she was in a trance.  Her eyes ran over the crib.  There were still stuffed animals in it.  It was almost like it hadn’t been touched in decades and except for the lack of dust in the room, she would believe it.

“I couldn’t…” Bruce started coming up behind her, “I could never bring myself to tear it down.”  Marinette looked up at him wide eyed.  She was too shocked to say anything.  Her eyes moved to the bookshelf next to the crib.  It was filled with children’s books and baby toys. “I can… I mean we can change it if you’d like.”  His face wrinkled as he forced the words out.  “I know it isn’t exactly,” he paused looking for the words. “I know it isn’t exactly an ideal room for a young woman.”

He sighed and looked around the room.  He made his way over to a nightstand and picked up the framed picture standing on it.  He sat on the bed still holding the frame.  The luxurious bed sagged under him as if it was accustomed to his weight there.  “For a while, it was the only part of you I still had.”

Marinette looked back at him, her lips parting in surprise at his admission.  “Did I spend time here?” she asked quietly, almost too quietly for him to hear.

Bruce nodded.  “You did.  The grey cat stuffie was your favorite, MaoMao.”  He looked up at her with a bittersweet smile.  “You loved chewing on his ears.”

Marinette slowly walked over and sat next to him on the bed.  She looked at the picture he was holding.  He noticed her interest and held it out for her to take.  Marinette took it, almost fearfully.  She didn’t know what exactly she was afraid of, more knowledge?  New knowledge?  Everything changing yet again.  Everything had been in constant flux for the past two weeks.  She wanted things to settle but she needed to know more.

She looked at the image and immediately brought her hand to her mouth, her eyes already tearing up.  The picture was of a much younger Bruce Wayne holding baby her. The look in his eyes was absolutely enamored.  She was looking up at him with much the same expression, a wide, toothless grin on her face as she reached out for his face with one hand and clutched the stuffed cat to her chest with the other.  It was the stereotypical image of a happy family.  She ran her fingers over the image, trying to force herself to remember any part of that day, or any day here or with Bruce.

“That was out in the gardens behind the house.  There’s a little creek back there that you loved. You kept trying to work your way over to it.  Before you could walk, you’d crawl to it.  Before you could crawl, you’d scooch.  Before you could scooch, you’d roll.”  He chuckled as a far off look overtook his eyes.  “You were always very determined.”

“How much time did I spend here?” she asked.

Bruce let out a heavy sigh.  “Your mother brought you once a week for a few hours.”  He frowned.  “Then when you were about ten months old, you spent an entire month here… while your mother was in the hospital.”  Marinette whipped back to him, her eyes wide in surprise.  Bruce gave a small, pained smile.  “You two were caught in an attack that affected your building.  Sabine took the brunt of the damage for you two, but there were other kids…”

He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.  Marinette didn’t blame him.  She’d seen similar scenes in Paris, bodies strewn about, children’s bodies littering the street after an akuma attack.  Bodies she hadn’t been fast enough or good enough to save.  She’d had the luxury of knowing it wasn’t permanent and she could save them.  M. Wayne wouldn’t have had that.  

“I still have nightmares about it,” he admitted hoarsely.  She frowned at him in sympathy and laid her head on his shoulder.  He froze for half a second before relaxing and laying his head against hers.  “It’s why you left.  Sabine and I were never going to get married.  We both knew that.  So I would never be able to keep you close enough to protect you.  And if I couldn’t protect you by keeping you close…”

Marinette took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  She pursed her lips.  “Then you thought you’d do it by keeping a distance.”

Bruce nodded.  Marinette nodded too, but didn’t say anything.  There wasn’t much to say.  She understood the reasoning.  She understood making decisions based on nightmares.  She had experience with it.  The nightmares can seem so real, they have just as much effect on you as reality, sometimes more.  They can mess with you in a way reality can’t.  She understood all of it.  And it helped.  It didn’t make it okay.  It didn’t make the hurt go away.  It didn’t excuse not contacting her even after he made sure they were safe.  But it helped.

Bruce suddenly stood up awkwardly.  “Right well, Dick will be wondering where you are. I’ll just… get out of your way.”  He shuffled stiffly for a few seconds trying to figure out if he should give a hug or just leave.  He settled for a wooden pat on the back before retreating out of the room.

Marinette stared after him for a few seconds even after the door was closed before finally moving and slowly changing her clothes. She frowned at the room.  Would it be better to change the room to exorcise the memories, or keep it the way it was?  She really wasn’t sure.  She’d have to get to know M. Wayne better before she could have a hint at the right answer.

She left her room and looked up and down the hallway, trying to remember the way back to the gymnasium.  She made it to the end of the hall before she was lucky enough to run into someone.  She quirked her head to the side.  “I thought you didn’t live here.”

“I don’t,” Jason answered gruffly.  She raised an eyebrow at him.  “I’m grabbing a book.”  He held up his book as evidence of his claim.  She raised the other eyebrow but kept silent.  “I’m not here to see you on the trapeze.”

“I didn’t say you were,” she grinned.

“Shut up,” he looked away and ruffled her hair. She squawked an objection, making him smile.  He motioned for her to follow him and guided her to the gym.  “Just make sure you listen to Dickhead.”

Marinette rolled her eyes.  “Not going to lie, doing what I’m told isn’t my forte.”

“Hey!”  He looked suddenly very serious.  He moved closer until he was almost towering over her.  Marinette looked up at him wide eyed, caught off guard by the sudden change of mood.  “I’m the rule breaker around here.  Ask anyone. That’s my role.  Get your own.”

Marinette held her serious look for a few seconds before her entire body started shaking from the giggles she was trying to suppress. She pushed through the doors to the gym still giggling.  Jason huffed in mock annoyance and leaned against the doorframe.  Dick perked up at seeing them and made his way over with an excited smile.

“Whatever.  Just don’t wear that,” Jason motioned vaguely to her sports bra, tight tank top, and boy shorts, “around Roy.”

“You know Roy?” Dick asked with a frown.

“Why?  He going to give me a workout?” she asked Jason with a smirk.

“No!  He is not,” Dick exclaimed, face scrunching in distaste.

Jason shuddered and wrinkled his nose, making a gagging noise.  “No,” he said definitively.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go throw up.”

Marinette gave him a mock concerned look, her eyes open wide in innocence.  “Oh no, Jason!  Are you not feeling well?  You really shouldn’t drive yourself home.  Should I call your partner to come get you?”

“Wait, how did you even meet Roy?” Dick tried again.

Jason narrowed his eyes at her.  “I hope you fall.”

“Jason!” Dick exclaimed, his expression suddenly serious.  “That’s not funny.”

Marinette cackled as Jason walked away.  Dick shook his head at her and moved them into the gym. “Okay, let’s warm up first.”  He got down on the padded floor and started stretching out encouraging Marinette to do the same.  He watched her in surprise as she was able to stretch incredibly well for a civilian.  She was better than most of his brothers.  “You’re really flexible.  Did you take classes?”

Marinette froze almost imperceptibly.  If Dick hadn’t spent the last twenty years analyzing body language in order to survive, he would have missed it.  She shrugged in an excellent imitation of nonchalance. “I sit behind a sewing machine for hours at a time so I make sure to stretch a lot.” She laughed lightly.  “Probably a lot more than I need to.”

Dick watched her for a few seconds before nodding.  “Right,” he said slowly.  He looked her over one more time.  “Well it’s working.”

Marinette gave him an overly wide smile.  “Thanks.”

Dick eyed her suspiciously again but got up and grabbed something off the wall.  “Now,” he held up a harness for her, “I’m going to hook up a harness.  It’ll keep you from falling too fast and help with the moves.”

Marinette frowned at the thought.  If she was hooked up, she wasn’t going to be able to fly like she wanted to.  It wouldn’t feel like she imagined, like she just now realized she needed.  She needed to feel the weight of gravity on her body pulling her down.  The harness was going to throw her weight off.  It was going to interfere with her movement.  “Can we try it without the harness?” she asked tentatively.

Dick frowned at the idea, clearly not comfortable with it.  She may have swung a few times with the heroes, but that wasn’t nearly enough to be safe on the trapeze.  Maybe he could convince her to wear the harness for the first few swings and she’d realize how helpful it was.  He looked back in her eyes and faltered.  She was looking at him with wide, hopeful, innocent eyes.  How was he supposed to say no to those eyes?  “I…” he sighed and looked down defeated.  “Do you know how to fall?”

Marinette gave him a deadpan look.  “I’m the world’s foremost expert at falling.”

Dick blinked a few times and gave the deadpan look back at her.  “That’s not making me feel better about not using the harness.”

“Can we try it?” she asked hopefully.  “Just a few swings to get a feel for it and if I’m falling too much, we can try the harness.”

Dick sighed and looked down.  It was the same logic he had been planning on trying, but she was using it against him.  He ran his hand over his face in defeat.  Yeah, she’d fit in the family perfectly.  He glanced over to see Bruce peeking in and his eyes widened in realization.  If he let Bruce’s daughter, his newly brought into his life daughter, get hurt, he’d never forgive Dick.  “Okay, here’s the thing,” he started giving her his most pleading eyes.  “If we do this without the harness and you fall, Bruce is going to skin me alive.”

Marinette gave him an understanding smile.  She laid a reassuring hand on his arm and Dick breathed a sigh of relief and waited for her to agree to the harness.  “I’d protect you, but you won’t need it.  We start slow and build up.  Trust me?”  She turned her hopeful eyes back at him but they were somehow even wider and more pleading.

Dick groaned.  “Fine.”

Marinette grinned brilliantly and jumped up and down in excitement.  “Thank you! Thank you!” She jumped at Dick to give him a hug.  Dick almost startled in surprise.  A family member that wanted hugs and gave them freely?  He hugged her tightly.  Yes, please.  Hopefully, everything would be fine and she was as good as she thought she was and nothing would happen and Bruce wouldn’t kill him, so he would be able to get more hugs in the future.

They climbed up on opposite sides and stood on the platforms facing each other.  Dick got into position and showed Marinette so she could do the same.  When she was positioned, he nodded and pushed off from the platform.  “Okay, let’s start with getting the rhythm.  It’s kind of like getting a swing into rhythm,” he explained.  “When you’re ready to try, go ahead and let go.”

Before he even finished his sentence, Marinette had pushed off and started pushing the bar into a matching rhythm.  Dick blinked a few times at how quickly and smoothly she’d gotten into a matching rhythm.  It was a skill people worked at for days, sometimes weeks.  Getting into a rhythm wasn’t incredibly difficult, most people got that somewhat quickly.  

It was maintaining the same rhythm and matching your partner’s rhythm that took time and training.  Honestly, if learning how to get the trapeze to swing smoothly was all she learned out of this time, he would have been impressed.  But she was already far past that.  She was swinging like it was second nature, like the physics of swinging and gravity were inherent.

“Good job,” he said a bit breathlessly.  “Ready to try a simple move?”

Marinette grinned back and nodded in understanding before remembering he wouldn’t always be able to see her.  She had to be very vocal about everything so he could react properly.  “Yes,” she called out loudly.

“Okay, when I say go, let go of your bar and hold out your arms for me to grab.”

“Okay,” Marinette called out.  She focused on maintaining her momentum and enjoying the way the air pushed back against her as she glided through it, the resistance creating a familiar feeling of a breeze against her skin.  The baby hairs around her hairline, the only hair free of her tight bun, were blowing back and forth as she moved.

As soon as she heard Dick say ‘go’, she let go and arched her back, reaching for him.  She free fell for only a moment before Dick caught her forearms in a strong grip.  She grabbed his forearms too in a tight grip and looked up to meet his eyes.  Their eyes met, exhilarated smiles on both their lips.  

Dick grinned in surprise at the success.  He’d been expecting her to fall, to be honest. The first time doing a catch almost always resulted in falling unless the person was well trained or well prepared, which he admittedly hadn’t done for Marinette.  It was a fumble of arms reaching and tangling, grasping for each other, but moving at the same time, trying to anticipate but guessing wrong. But she understood how to do a catch. She understood to trust her partner to catch her.

He grinned wider at what that meant; she trusted him!  His face suddenly turned serious.  “Okay, here’s the tricky part.  I’m going to count to three.  When I say three, I’m going to let go.  You’ll need to twist around and grab the bar.”

Marinette’s expression turned serious as well, though her eyes still sparkled with delight.  “Understood.”

Dick nodded.  “One… two… three.”  He let go on three and Marinette twisted in time to grab the bar, both of them frozen for a moment in weightlessness while she waited for gravity to take over.

She swung away from Dick but quickly flipped on the bar so she was facing him again.  Dick chuckled and shook his head.  “Let’s get more complex, what do you think?”

Marinette’s grin got wider and her eyes impossibly brighter.  “Yes, please.”

Dick laughed loudly, his laughter echoing off the walls, her laughter quickly joining his.  They swung together for almost half an hour, trying increasingly difficult tricks until they finally got to one Marinette couldn’t do.  Dick’s eyes widened in surprise as she fell in front of his eyes.  He was so accustomed to her keeping up with him, it was a shock when she didn’t.  His heart started pounding and he scrambled to get back to the platform until he heard Marinette’s giggles.  He looked down and saw her bounding across the bouncy net toward the ladder.

When she got to the platform she looked over at him with a grin.  “Try it again?”

Dick grinned at her and flipped back over on his bar.  “Let’s go then.”

The trick ended in the same result, but Dick joined her in the net on purpose this time.  “Maybe try to build up to that?” Dick suggested.  

Marinette nodded as she tried to catch her breath. “Sounds fun.”

“Did you want to try it on your own?” Dick offered. “You seem like you’re comfortable up there.”

Marinette’s eyes widened in excited surprise.  “Really!”

Dick chuckled and nodded.  “Have at it.”

Marinette bounced back over to the ladder and quickly made her way to the bar.  She started swinging and twisting on it, using the zero gravity to do solo tricks. Dick was so engrossed in her performance he almost forgot to get out of the net.  She was so graceful and elegant, like she knew exactly what gravity was going to do down to the millimeter.  It wasn’t at his level, she clearly hadn’t been trained.  But she was also clearly not a novice.

After a while she fell down into the net again breathing heavily.  She grinned at Dick.  “That was amazing.  Thank you! I didn’t realize how much I needed that.”

Dick helped her down from the net, immediately returning the hug she gave him before he could set her down.  “I had fun too.  Anytime you want to use it, feel free.  Just come on over.”

Marinette gave him a small nod.  Her smile still hadn’t died down at all.  “Let’s cool down.” Dick motioned toward the padded mat again.  He and Marinette sat across from each other and started stretching again.  Dick watched her as she stretched, that spark never leaving her eyes.  He knew the feeling well, that felling you get from flying, the freedom, the release.

Images of her growing up with them, him being able to teach her trapeze from the time she was a baby ran through his head. Fantasies of being a big brother to her, keeping her safe, teaching her, sharing the feeling of flying together… all of it gone.  No chance to happen.  Because Bruce walked away from her and straight to him.

“I’m sorry.”  His voice was heavy, weighted down with guilt.

Marinette quirked her head to the side and blinked a few times.  Her mind raced trying to figure out what he could possibly be referring to.  “Did something happen?”

Dick shook his head, his eyes narrowed slightly as he tried to figure out how to say what he was feeling.  “I.. I’m… he… I was the one he took in after…”

Marinette’s eyes softened immediately.  She laid a hand on Dick’s arm.  “Dick,” she started softly.  “You don’t have to apologize for getting adopted, for finding a home where you felt safe and loved.  You didn’t do anything wrong,” she assured him.

Dick searched her eyes for any evidence she didn’t believe what she was saying, but there was only sincerity and a touch of bittersweetness.  “Neither did you.”  His voice was sure and supportive.  His eyes bored into her, pushing against her boundaries.

Marinette looked away quickly.  She hummed noncommittally.  “Except going to the gala,” she said wryly.  “I should have just let Adrien take care of it.  As soon as I found out I should have…” she trailed off, unsure how to end it.

Dick moved closer to her and threw his arm over her shoulder, pulling her against his side.  “But then we wouldn’t have met for who knows how long,” he offered with a bright smile.

Marinette let out a heavy breath and smiled at how hard he was trying.  She looked back up at him from the corner of her eye.  “And what a shame that would be.”

Dick’s grin got wider.  “Exactly!”  He hugged her closer for a few moments as the smile slowly faded from his face.  “I just want to let you know I’m here for you.  I'm sure this is really overwhelming and Bruce has never been good with conveying... or feeling... emotions.  But if you need anyone to talk to, I’m here.”

He moved away so he could see her more clearly. “I missed out on being your big brother growing up and we’ll never get that time back.  And to be honest, I’m extremely upset with Bruce about that. But I’d like to make up for that lost time now.  So if you need anything, I’m here.  You want anything, I’m here.  You want to talk, I’m here.  You want to yell or scream at somebody, I’m here.  If you have a problem you need help with, I’m here.  I’m not going anywhere.”

Marinette looked up at him in surprise.  She blinked a few times uncertain what to say.  “I…”  She closed her mouth quickly, still not sure how to finish the sentence.  After a few moments she smiled softly at him.  “Thank you, Dick.”

Dick pulled her in for another hug, enjoying the feeling of her reciprocating.  Maybe she could show their other siblings how to do that without it being a life threatening situation.  Dick grinned widely as he squeezed her tight and rested his head on hers.  “Or if you just want a hug.  To tell you a secret, I give the best hugs in the family.”

Marinette scoffed playfully as she pulled away from him.  “I don’t know, Jason gives good hugs.”

Dick snapped his eyes to hers.  “Jason gives hugs!”

They almost jumped with Bruce walked in with a wide smile.  “How was it?”  He watched them with a smile as they stood together and stayed close after rising.  It was absolutely no surprise that Dick was able to get so close to her so quickly, but it was still reassuring to see it.

“It was amazing!” Marinette enthused.  “I had so much fun!  I can’t wait to do it again.”

Bruce smiled.  “Any time you want,” he promised.  “Any time you want to come over, feel free.  No need to call first.”  He paused for a moment.  “Although maybe not in the middle of the night.  “It would wake Alfred up.  He’d be more than happy to let you in but we already put him through so much.”

Marinette smiled and chuckled.  “I understand.  I’ll keep the visits to the daytime.”  She looked up just in time to see Dick giving Bruce a significant look.  Dick played it off with a wide smile that Marinette pretended to buy.  She also pretended not to notice the look Bruce gave him back.  She shuffled a few times before looking quietly between them. “Um… I’ll just… I’m going to take a shower and change back.”

Bruce nodded with a soft smile.  The smile was so convincing, Marinette would never have thought anything suspicious was going on if she hadn’t seen the look they gave each other… immediately after Dick spent the afternoon with her.  “You know the way back to your room?”

Marinette nodded rapidly.  “Of course.  Thank you.” She turned to Dick again.  “And thank you.  This was a lot of fun.”

Dick shook his head with a smile.  “You don’t have to thank me, Marinette.  I wanted to spend time with you.  I look forward to doing it again.”

Marinette nodded to him and left the room as quickly as she could without drawing suspicion.  As soon as she was out of eyesight, she speed walked back to the room, closing the door quickly behind her.  She leaned against the door and banged her head against it lightly a few times. It was okay, she tried to reassure herself.  They didn’t know her yet, of course they would have secrets and want to talk about what they learned about her.  She knew that.  But it still hurt.

As soon as Marinette was out of ear shot, Bruce turned back to Dick.  “How did she do?”

“She’s done that before,” Dick reported to Bruce, keeping his voice low so Marinette couldn’t hear him.

“We knew that,” Bruce answered just as quietly. “She said the heroes took her around sometimes.”  He pursed his lips tightly at the thought.  Even knowing nothing happened, he wasn’t happy about it.  The only thing he could think of was all the things that could have happened to her if their villain would have found out.

“No,” Dick cut in before Bruce could brood too hard. “She’s done something similar enough to be comfortable with it, enough that she soared, she flew.  Enough that her body instantly fell into the rhythm, into trusting someone else to catch her.  Those things are learned, Bruce.  I think she had a closer relationship with the heroes than we think she did.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes at Dick, processing his words.  He nodded and looked back to the hallway Marinette had disappeared down.  “The heroes disappeared.  Diana said she can’t even contact them anymore.  Marinette’s the only one who can tell us more.”

Dick nodded.  “I’ll see what I can do when we get together on Monday for Duke’s reading.”

“Carefully,” Bruce cautioned.  He glanced over to catch Dick’s flat look.  “I don’t want to push her.  She’s your sister.  She’s family, not a source.  She’s not a suspect.  She’s not even a victim.  We don’t need this information.  It would be nice to know, but we can live without it.  She’s allowed her privacy.  Plus she’s smart.  You start asking questions, she’s going to get suspicious and may get upset we’re digging into things she doesn’t want to talk about.”

“I know how to talk to people, Bruce,” Dick scoffed. “I’m better at talking to your kids than you are, if you recall.”

“I’m well aware,” Bruce conceded.  “I just… I don’t want to upset her.  She’s allowed her privacy.”

“And I’ll respect that.  And her,” Dick assured him.  He paused for a few seconds before he broached the next subject.  It was going to be delicate, one that neither of them wanted to consider.  “So the question is, if she did have a closer relationship with the Parisian heroes, when did her relationship with Adrien start.  And why.”

Bruce furrowed his brow.  “You think he started it because he knew she was close to the heroes? You think he was working with his father?”  He stared intently at Dick trying to gauge how serious he was about this.  “It doesn’t make sense for him to still be with her if that’s all it was.  And Ladybug told Wonder Woman Adrien was not involved,” Bruce said quietly.  “She vouched for him.”

“And we trust her word?” Dick asked in the same tone.

Bruce paused as he thought about it.  They really didn’t know Ladybug at all.  She’d disappeared after the last fight and only Wonder Woman seemed to have had any contact with her, and limited contact at that.  The League had never gotten the chance to gauge her competence in areas outside of fighting.  “She said he helped give evidence to take his father down,” he started tentatively.

“But…” Dick prompted.

Bruce let out a deep sigh.  This was not going to go over well with Marinette, but if Adrien was using her, they needed to know.  “But it could be a cover.  We don’t know enough to completely excuse him and we don’t know enough about Ladybug or Marinette to know how good of a judge they are.”

Dick nodded.  “We proceed with caution.”

“Extreme caution,” Bruce stressed.  “You heard how she talked about him at dinner.  She’s very protective of him.  Questioning Adrien is going to take more delicacy and tact than questioning her, I think.”

Dick nodded and looked down the hallway toward her room.  He would have to spend the next few days doing research before they met up on Monday.

Chapter 14

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[soulmate-game]

Can you do a prompt of Marinette being the daughter of the Joker and Harley but Harley left him before Marinette was born and when Joker found out about his daughter He decided to kidnap Marinette so she can become like him (Ace chemicals) (Daminette)

Woot, my first ask in a while! Let’s see how I can do this oddly specific ask that reminds me of a fic that might actually exist but tbh I’ve read so many fanfics idk if my brain is remembering right

—*—*—*—*—*

Marinette knew Sabine and Tom weren’t her biological parents. She had known ever since she was eight, when her mother by blood visited her for the first time, sat her down, and explained everything. Including, but not limited to, her disastrously toxic past relationship, her new girlfriend, and her recent success with long term rehab (unofficial rehab that mostly consisted of illegal anti-hero actions, but hey if it worked it worked).

Marinette understood. Well no, she really didn’t since she was only eight, but she understood that her mom— that Harley— was genuine. She had always had a knack for emotions and telling when people were sincere or not. And Harley really was regretful about not being in her life beforehand, and was serious about wanting to be part of her life now that her own was mostly sorted out.

So Marinette was not surprised when Harley really did stick it out. When Harley cooed over Marinette copying her hairstyle to show her support of her biological mom, when Harley never failed to call at least once a week even if she was in jail for punching some asshole or another. Harley never stayed arrested long anymore, she was usually found to be on the right side of the moral scale more and more often so the police didn’t bother keeping her locked up anymore. Through the years, Marinette always looked forward to her mom’s calls. Looked forward to being lulled to sleep by one crazy story or another from her mother’s past. Everything was nice. Perfect, even, for a while.

A thump sounded from her balcony, one late night when Marinette was thirteen. Blinking, the dark haired girl furrowed her brows. Who would be on her balcony? Cautiously walking towards the trap door leading to it, grasping her metal pencil holder as a weapon (she remembered all of her Mom’s stories about break-ins and random attacks back in Gotham), the teen strained her ears. Akuma attacks were only a few months old now, but she had already become in high alert for any sign of Hawkmoth or his victims. As per usual, Marinette’s paranoia began to kick in. Did Hawkmoth already figure her out? Was he here for her earrings? Would she be able to fight him?

She gently pushed up the trap door, catching a glimpse of black leather. Huh? Marinette narrowed her eyes, confused. Was it Chat? He should have been on patrol, on the other side of the city. What was he doing visiting her?

Suddenly the trap door yanked the rest of the way open, making Marinette yelp as the handle for it rugged away from her fingers. And there, backlit by the pure blue-white moonlight, was Not Chat Noir. It was Catwoman, in all her skintight black leather glory, grinning at her before pushing her cat-eye goggles up to the top of her head and crouching down by the trap door’s entrance, balancing only on the pads of her feet.

“Well hello there~” the woman purred. “So you’re the cute little kitten Harley is so secretive about. Nice to finally meet you,” the woman held out a hand, sending Marinette a sweet, if mysterious, smile. For a while, the pigtailed girl only stared before a squeal of excitement left her throat, leaving very little room for any doubt as to her bloodline. A large smile curled over Marinette’s lips, leaving her beaming widely at the catlike woman on her balcony.

“Auntie Selina! Mom’s told me so much about you! Come in, come in, come in! I’ll sneak some macaroons up for you. Or do you prefer croissants? What’s your favorite flavor? Are you really dating Batman? Oh my goodness, that necklace is so lovely! Did you steal it?”

Selina could only chuckle fondly at the word vomit, letting the smaller girl drag her down the trap door and into her very… pink room. Looking around, Selina was once again slapped with just how similar this kid was to her outgoing friend. Marinette clearly had no shame in indulging in the things she liked, such as the color pink and anything regarding fashion. But there were other things amongst the girliness of the room, like the posters of Jagged Stone and the training dummy half-sticking out of her closet door. There were a few ornamental knives hung up behind her computer, seemingly just for decoration although Selina could see that they were definitely battle ready and sharpened. A small mallet, clearly a miniature replica of her mother’s own signature weapon, leaned up against the side of the girl’s laundry basket. But then there was Marinette’s mannequin, which was surrounded by meticulously cut pieces of cloth and had other pieces pinned to it strategically. Marinette clearly had the same professionalism and love for her chosen career that had so completely defined Harley in the Time Before Joker. The same genius intellect hiding in those deceptively cheerful bluebell eyes. And for the first time, though not for the last to be sure, Selina found herself thoroughly relieved that it seemed Marinette had inherited very little from her father.

Except, as she would learn from stories Harley told her later, an apparent affinity for chaos.

“I’m not that picky, kitten. But I’m not that hungry, so don’t go too out of your way,” Selina decided to just react the same way she did with Harley’s rambles, and answer one question at a time. “Also, I am actually dating Bruce Wayne. But, if you promise not to tell anyone—“ she waited for Marinette’s eager nod before continuing casually, “— the two are maybe not as mutually exclusive as many think,” Selina finished with a conspiratorial wink. “No, I actually did not steal this necklace. Bruce has been adamant in trying to curb me of my thieving habit by buying me almost everything I so much as glance at sideways. It’s sweet. Naive, because I like stealing for the fun of it, but sweet.”

Marinette giggled, bouncing in place happily. She loved a bit of innocent gossip like this. “Is Momma Ivy ever gonna visit? I don’t think Mom told her much about me yet, and I still gotta give her the shovel talk!” the fierce look that overcame Marinette’s face made Selina laugh again. Oh yes, definitely her mother’s daughter.

“Pam has been trying to sneak over, but the laws regarding Metahumans in Paris suddenly got much stricter a few months back and have caused some problems. You wouldn’t happen to know what happened, would you?” Selina did not miss when her seemingly innocent question caused her niece to close off almost instantly. Bluebell eyes took on a familiar guardedness, and scanned her with the same soul-searching intensity that Harley had when she was channeling her Psychiatrist side. Selina found herself in a slightly concerning spot though—

Because she couldn’t predict Marinette at all. She was left to simply stand there as Marinette searched for some unidentifiable thing in her eyes, completely unable to read the younger girl’s face and with no idea of what to expect. The side effect of having chaos so thoroughly entwined in both of her biological parents, she supposed.

“Nope, no idea.”

Selina knew that was a lie, but knew equally as well that she would not be getting a better answer anytime soon. So, she let it go and the two of them once again dipped into innocent chatter.

Later that night, when Selina left and the sun threatened to rise at any minute, Tikki flew up from her hiding spot under Marinette’s pillow to land on her holder’s shoulder. Marinette giggled and looked over at her little friend.

“Tikki?”

“Yes, Mari?”

“Why was I chosen to be your holder?” She asked suddenly, flopping back into her bed and staring at her ceiling. The little goddess hummed, smiling knowingly before flying down to cuddle in the crook of Marinette’s neck.

“Because you are born from luck itself. Even when bad things happen, you have the luck and determination to get out just fine, and stronger than before. And despite the destruction and anarchy in your blood, you have the willpower to reign it in and keep control of yourself. That’s all order really is, Marinette. The decision to take all the chaos and madness around us, and make it make sense. Make it do something good. And that’s a large part of who you are, I could feel it in your soul the moment we first met.”

Marinette closed her eyes, biting the inside of her cheek. “What if I lose control?”

“... You’ll just have to get it back. It’ll be hard, but as long as you have people to support you, you will be able to do it. You aren’t evil, Marinette,” the small God seemed to sense the true question her holder was asking, and did her best to soothe the doubt the girl felt. “Just remember the reasons you fight against chaos. Remember everyone you love, and you’ll be okay. And you have me, I’ll always help you.”

“... thank you, Tikki.”

—*—*—*—*—*

“He’s going to find out, Mom.”

“No he won’t, don’t be silly! I’ve been very careful about hiding you from him, Nettie-pie.”

“Mom… I just have a bad feeling. I don’t think we can hide who I am from him. If he sees me, I think he’ll know.”

The phone went silent.

“If he hurts you, I’ll kill him. If I was crazy about him, Sugar, then I’m head over heels for you. Not even he can stop me from caving his skull in if he tries his usual tricks with you.”

“... My plane leaves soon, I’ll talk to you when I land. And mom?”

“Yeah, honeycake?”

“I love you.”

—*—*—*—*—*

It was uncanny just how often Marinette’s hunches were right. Her intuition was something to behold, truly, because it only took three days in Gotham before Joker snatched her right out of her room at Harley and Ivy’s apartment. At least Marinette had sixteen by then, so she had had enough experience as a hero in Paris and with generally unpredictable situations and people who were absolutely nuts for her to not immediately panic. Too much, anyway.

Because there was definitely a little panic there.

See, Marinette knew herself inside out by then. After her own battle with her toxic feelings towards Adrien and doing her best to heal from those before she turned out like her mom, she knew she was by no means mentally indestructible. Mental illness ran the high risk of being inherited, and Marinette was well aware that her own personality was scarily similar to her mother’s at times. She got attached quickly, felt affection and love for others very strongly and, as she found with Adrien, could easily become obsessive if she didn’t watch herself. At least Harley was the perfect person to help with that, and Marinette was serious about helping herself too. She did everything she could to keep an eye on her mental health and keep her behavior in check so she didn’t do anything too unhealthy with her relationships again.

But she knew, she knew she had a soft spot for family. She got attached too easily. And being in the same room as her biological father, despite being tied up by her hands and feet and knowing just how many unforgivable things he had done in his life, Marinette felt vulnerable. She didn’t want to hurt him, despite everything. She still loved him, despite every reason not to, despite her first meeting with him being with him shoving chloroform over her face and hogtying her to a metal chain dangling over a vat of acid.

Geez, she’d need more than just her mom as a therapist after this for sure. Even if her mom had a PH.D, Marinette felt like she’d need several psychiatrists to sort through her emotional turmoil right then and make sense of any of it.

Marinette licked her lips, aware that the only kindness that Joker gave his daughter was sparing her from the discomfort of being gagged.

“Don’t,” Marinette said, surprising herself with the amount of steel she was able to put into her voice. Somehow, she managed to make the single word sound more like an order than a plead. “Joker, put me—“

“Ah-Ah-Ah!” The clown walked over, tutting and waving his finger in the air in almost playful admonishment. He gave her a dramatically fake pout. “Don’t you know it’s disrespectful to refer to your father by his first name?” Neither of them mentioned that Joker was definitely not his real name. They both knew the point was moot. “Say it with me now— ‘Daddy dearest, I am more than willing to be dunked in acid for you,’ go ahead, say it.”

Marinette’s jaw clenched. Familial love or not, she would not tolerate being ridiculed like that. She dealt with enough ridicule when she was fourteen and fifteen during school, before she put Liar Rossi in her place. She had spent the past three years as a hero in charge of the war against Hawkmoth, in charge of protecting all of Paris from an emotional terrorist.

And gee, wasn’t that what Joker was, too? Sure, he was a terrorist in the classic meaning of the word as well, but he was nothing if not a skilled manipulator. He knew the human mind just as well as Harley or any other psychiatrist did, he just used his knowledge for different means. He had emotionally abused Harley for years, he emotionally abused and manipulated people all across gotham on a daily basis. He was just another Hawkmoth, but with more physical violence in place of magic.

With these thoughts strengthening her resolve, Marinette narrowed her eyes at the man who donated half of her DNA. She let her anger boil into her irises, hitting him with one of the few traits she knew she inherited from him.

Her ability to intimidate others on the tip of a hat.

“No,” she growled back at him. She took a deep breath. It had taken her a while, but she refused to be ashamed of who she was regardless of her blood relation. She would have no problem using the very things she inherited from Joker against him. She might have gotten most of Harley’s personality, she might have inherited her mother’s habit of falling in love hard, fast, and obsessively, but she also had Joker’s defiance. His bone-deep inability to be stopped from doing exactly whatever the fuck he wanted.

And then, there were Marinette’s own traits. The ones that were completely her own, developed over her life organically. Like her refusal to bow down to bullies, her creativity, her ability to take even the most chaotic situation and see some sort of balance and sanity in it that she could use to her advantage.

That she WOULD use to her advantage. The shadows she saw move out of the corner of her eye gave her the chance to do exactly that, she just needed to buy a few more seconds. Just a few more seconds.

“Excuse me?” Joker growled right back, his own intimidation, honed over more years than Marinette had been alive and thus much more potent than her own, reading its ugly head as he stalked towards her. His face was pulled down into an ugly snarl, his shoulders tensed and back straight as he glared right at her. From his spot on the metal walkway, he was easily able to reach over the railing and grab her chin in one pale, viciously strong hand. “I think you’re misunderstanding something here, little Marionette. I’m your father. Half of your life came directly from ME. That makes you my puppet. You exist to follow my orders,” his right grip suddenly let go, leaving behind the beginnings of a bruise as his entire demeanor changed from angry to cheerful. He spread his arms as if gesturing to the whole chemical plant victoriously, and an unnaturally large smile curved over his lips and bared yellowing teeth at her. “But that’s okay. I’ll forgive you this time, you haven’t learned any better yet. That’s why we’re here. We need to cleanse you of all those icky bad habits you’ve learned up until now, all you need is a little,” he bounced in place with a wicked smirk to illustrate his next words— “jumpstart. A little acid goes a long way to enlightenment you know, you’ll see my side of things in no time. And with my blood in you, you’ll make a better sidekick than that idiot Harley ever did. I can sense it, you’ve got a real talent for Chaos in you, it’s exciting, Heheeeheheee! Now then, we should probably speed things along before our family reunion is cut short. Hang in there, my little Marionette,” the man actually had the gall to spin in place while humming a tune cheerfully before all but dancing over to the lever that held Marinette’s length of chain in the air over the vat of chemicals below her. “Everything will clear up in that little head of yours in just a second!”

There! Right as Joker pulled the switch to lower her into the bubbling vat underneath her, Marinette was able to finish untying her hands. She couldn’t contain a small yelp as gravity flung her body forward, leaving her upside down on the chain for a brief moment. That was when the chain started lowering rapidly, and Marinette was barely able to rip the rope off of her ankles in time to swing off of it and onto the metal walkway that came up right next to the giant metal container of liquid death and insanity. Joker had barely enough time to shout in rage before the windows near the ceiling shattered, admitting the city’s vigilantes themselves. Batman, Nightwing, Red Robin, Red Hood, Robin, and evening Black Bat all landed on the same metal platform above Marinette’s head that Joker was still on, buying the teen time to start running. But she didn’t go towards the exit right away, instead heading right up the stairs into the thick of the fight. Robin briefly separated from where Joker was managing to hold his own, goons flooding from side doors to inhibit the heroes in their attempt to bring their boss down.

The katana-using vigilante kept one eye on Marinette the whole time, suspicious of why the girl would come back up if not to help her father. But that wasn’t what she did, instead she flipped and kicked and punched her way through the quickly growing sea of Joker thugs until she reached a small pink purse that had been abandoned near the lever that had nearly sent her into liquid insanity. Three thugs surrounded her right as she snatched the purse up and slung it over her shoulder, but Robin barely had the chance to head over before she was heaving the men, who were all easily three times her size, over her shoulder and was slamming elbows into soft spots and the side of her hand into pressure points. By the time Robin got to her side, all three men were unconscious and bound to wake up in utter agony.

Marinette glanced up, getting ready to haul Robin over her shoulder as well before she realized who he was. She let her shoulders relax just a tick, sighing in relief before returning her eyes to scanning their surroundings. She shot him a brief grin.

“Good thing my adoptive mother, Mom, Momma Ivy, and Auntie Selina all made sure I knew how to take down a small army on my own, huh?” She asked rhetorically before they were both unceremoniously dragged back into the giant brawl.

—*—*—*—*—*

“Nettie-pie!”

“Marigold!”

Harley and Pamela Quinzel-Isley shoved down anyone and everyone who dared block their direct path to their daughter. The girl of the hour stood next to the bat clan, a shock blanket held tightly around her shoulders as she did her best to finish her statement to both the vigilantes and Commissioner Gordon.

“You untied yourself… from a ship-grade knot in high quality rope… with a phone charm?” They heard Gordon ask incredulously, to which Marinette could only give a lopsided smile. That was when her mom and stepmom crashed into her, enveloping her in a nearly suffocating hug.

“Gah— mom— momma Ivy—“ Marinette flailed in their arms for a bit before finally getting her head free and continuing her statement as if she didn’t have two of the most dangerous women in the city still giving her a bone crushing hug. “That’s better. Yes, Commissioner. You see, I realized when I was in the car with Joker, while I was pretending to still be unconscious, that one of the charms on my phone had pretty sharp corners that I could use like a serrated edge if I had enough time. So I carefully detached it from my phone, and held it in my palm. It took almost an hour, but once Joker noticed I was awake I kept him talking so that he didn’t notice what I was doing even as he tied me up to that chain. Really, it’s just lucky that I was able to get it worn down in time,” Marinette rubbed the back of her neck with a nervous chuckle. “But regardless, I think Batman and his partners,” she nodded to the listening vigilantes just to the side of her. “Were close enough that I would have been caught anyway, I just wanted to make sure they had less work to do. The sooner I freed myself, the sooner ‘Daddy Dearest,’” she grimaced as she mockingly used the same term Joker had tried to get her to say earlier that night. “Could go back behind bars where he belongs.”

“Oh my little Nettie-cake,” Harley cried, finally pulling back from the hug long enough to wipe her cheeks. It was clear that she had been crying for a while, and her colorful pigtails were mussed and tangled from where she must have been tugging on them in worry. “You were right. I’m so sorry, I never should have let you come to Gotham when I knew he was out of Arkham.”

Marinette was quick to shake her head frantically, pulling her arms out of Ivy’s hold so she could grasp Harley’s shoulders firmly. “No. No, Mom, I’m fine! And besides, we knew I couldn’t stay secret forever. I really like staying with you and Momma Ivy! Everything turned out fine though, and he’s headed back to Arkham. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay, Nettle,” Pam argued, distracting herself by running her hands through Marinette’s bangs. She had only known the girl for two years, but that was more than long enough for her to consider the teenager as her own. “He took you right out from under our noses. You were supposed to be safe in our home, and he still got to you. That’s not okay. We weren’t able to protect you like we should have been. Maybe you should go back to Paris early.”

“What?! No way!” Marinette argued, eyes wide. “This is the first time I’ve been able to ever visit you guys in Gotham, I’m not letting some psycho sperm donor keep me from enjoying time with my family! I came here knowing full well that it was dangerous. I’m not gonna just run away after one bad experience.”

Harley snorted, and then devolved into uncontrollable giggles. “Heh— psycho sperm donor. Good one, sugar!”

Marinette smiled and rolled her eyes good naturedly at her mom’s usual immature antics. Seeing as Gordon had walked away muttering to himself a short while ago, Marinette pulled herself the rest of the way away from her moms and turned to the vigilantes. Without a second’s pause, she bowed to them just like her Maman Sabine taught her.

“Thank you for helping save me. I know it’s probably a shock that I’ve been kept secret from you guys all this time, but I hope you don’t lump me in with the likes of the green-haired half of my DNA. I’m staying with my Moms in their apartment, if you guys decide to patrol by our place like I suspect, I’ll leave some baked goods and coffee out for you on our patio. It’s the least I can do for you all after tonight. And don’t be too hard on Auntie Selina. Me and Mom swore her to secrecy, even from you guys.”

Batman jerked a little at the mention of Catwoman’s real name, jaw twitching for a second. Behind his cowl, his eyes narrowed. Marinette laughed, easily reading his body language and expression.

“She never told me who you are, but she didn’t exactly hide it either. It was easy to put the last pieces together on my own. But don’t worry, SHE swore me to secrecy too. I won’t tell anyone.

“How the hell are you related to the Laughing Asswipe from Hell?” Red Hood blurted out, his confusion clear even from behind his hideous helmet. Marinette burst into giggles, and both Pamela and Harley smiled knowingly.

“Mom gave me up for adoption when I was born, so I spent my whole life in Paris up until now,” she admitted. “Mom didn’t visit me for the first time until I was eight, and she and my adoptive parents are so awesome that it must’ve suffocated the worst traits from his DNA before they had a chance to develop,” she guessed out loud with a good natured smile.

Batman grunted. Marinette knew that one run-in wasn’t enough for them to trust her. After all, she was still the biological daughter of their arch enemy. But she didn’t mind, she understood the caution even if she didn’t fully agree with it. They weren’t outright hostile, despite the fact that Robin had never stopped glaring at her since they fought back-to-back against the mob of thugs earlier. She could live with their suspicion, as long as they continued to not be outright rude or mean to her.

At least she could empathize with Adrien now, whenever she figured out how to break it to him that Hawkmoth was definitely Gabriel and couldn’t be anyone else. Hopefully she could help soften the blow for him a little.

Harley and Ivy were starting to herd Marinette towards their car and take her back home, where they could continue to smother her in care and make sure she didn’t have even a scratch on her, when Robin’s voice stopped them all in their tracks.

“You are a surprisingly capable combatant.”

Marinette froze, blinking in surprise for a second before turning to stare at Robin in shock. The rest of the Bat Clam was doing the same, nobody expecting Robin of all people to be the first to directly complement Marinette. He tutted, crossing his arms, but never moved his gaze away from Marinette’s eyes.

“But your form could use some work. Most of your style is incredibly improvised, which I can appreciate since you do it well, but you would benefit from more structure in your fighting. I will set up a time and place for us to spar. We start in two days, if you think you can handle it.”

It took a while for what Robin said to sink in, and another few seconds for Marinette to decipher what his semi-aggressive, order-phrased proposal really meant. And she smiled.

“It’s a date.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Woo! This started off a little rough, but I really like how it ended up! Thank you, Anon!

[creacherkeeper]

read ur pacific rim fh au and am LOSING it!! like the implications!! if you’re still doing the headcanon thing and okay w this, can i ask for more headcanons about that au? specifically are fig and kristen piloting together or doing other non combat roles? also jawbone piloting HELLO!! and god just. everything you said about the sisters.

OH I AM MORE THAN HAPPY TO OBLIGE

so jawbone was actually one of the original pilots, and the only one still in commission. he's definitely getting too old for it but he trusts in his abilities and overall wants to keep his niece, tracker, as safe as he can. also he doesn't want to leave the base because he thinks of all of the young pilots as his kids and they frequently come to him when they're having problems. the moonlit werewolf is the only mark-3 still fighting

among the other original pilots was sandra lynn. she and gorthalax piloted the demon ranger. fig was much closer to her (as she found out later) step father gilear (who acted as a government liaison for the jaeger program) than she was to sandra lynn growing up, due to her always being based elsewhere or out on missions. fig's world got shaken in her high school years when it came out that sandra lynn was having a long-time affair with her co-pilot, and she and gilear divorced. sandra lynn and gorthalax were benched. sandra lynn was kept on base as a consultant, but gorthalax ended up traveling to where fig was to try and explain himself and repair their relationship. while on a music tour several years later, mostly running away from her problems more than anything else, fig witnessed first hand a kaiju attack. she realized how important the job of pilot was, and applied to the program. aguefort accepted her right away

pok was one of the original minds behind the jaeger program. together with aguefort, he created the pons system that linked pilot's minds. people speculated that pok 'disappearing' was because of this. that either his research killed him, or someone else did because of it. riz only ever wanted to figure out his father's disappearance. becoming a pilot was just the easiest way to do it (at least in his eyes). he really didn't mean to start caring about all these people along the way

aguefort was the first jaeger pilot. it was said he had a partner, but no one knows who it could've been. there are rumors he piloted the chronophoenix all by himself. but those are just rumors. his daughter, ayda, won't speak on any of them. she doesn't really like talking about her father in general. though she certainly grew up with a knowledge of combat, knowledge of tactics, knowledge of jaegers and how to pilot them, she only ever meant to be a scholar. she studied kaiju and how they worked. she studied the oceans they came from. she studied the earth and how it changed. she was a scientist. she didn't count on meeting fig

fig's relationship with sandra lynn was incredibly strained when fig first got accepted as a pilot. sandra lynn never meant for fig to follow in her footsteps. the years of combat had gotten her fucked in the head enough, she didn't need to worry about her daughter too. when fig came back injured from her very first mission, her partner, penelope everpetal, dead before their medics could reach her, two things changed:

one: sandra lynn realized her daughter wouldn't be dissuaded, and that if she couldn't be a mom, she could be a teacher

two: ayda realized there were some things worth fighting for (fig was one of them. the biggest one she could think of)

fabian piloted like he had something to prove, because he did. his papa had made a name for himself. fabian would too. and if that meant killing kaiju for his father to harvest and sell on the black market, that's what he would do. he thought he'd be paired up with a guy like gorgug, maybe ragh, not some scrawny little nerd who knew more about the mechanics of the brain than how to throw a proper punch. the first time they drifted, he got it. he got why riz was there. and riz understood him, too. that was the thing about the drift. no secrets. they vowed to keep each others. when ragh threw riz into a trashcan their first day of practice, fabian broke his nose. the two of them were pretty close after that. and they eventually got chummy with ragh, too, after dayne was expelled from the program. ragh was moved to combat trainer. fabian and riz eventually came to pilot the gilded spyglass. it took time to master the balance between grace and force, strength and dexterity, damage and speed. but they found it. and they were unstoppable. almost.

gorgug never wanted to be a pilot. his parents were mechanics. that was the whole thing, really. you grow up around jaegers, you understand them, and you're good at it. even if you don't want to be. even if you wished you could have the brains and not the brawn. or be a medic, like kristen. kristen actually helped people. gorgug was big enough to throw a mean punch. some things changed when zelda came. she needed a co-pilot. the world needed heroes. gorgug never thought of himself as one, but he knew how to fight. and he knew he wanted to protect zelda. not that she needed it. but he wanted to. he wanted to if she would let him. the enormity of his decision didn't really hit him until they were facing their first kaiju. he understood jaegers. he didn't really want to understand monsters, too

kristen wasn't a pilot, and that was fine. she patched people up. when fabian and riz came back with electrical burns, she patched them up. when metal frenzy got a building to the face and gorgug and zelda both had concussions, she patched them up. when tracker came to the clinic with yet another random, minor, 'accidental' injury, kristen patched her up

when the storm oracle was pulled to the bottom of the ocean, and both adaine and aelwyn nearly drowned, kristen sat by their bedsides and did not leave for three days

it was what she did

and that was fine, for a while. but the kaiju kept coming. and people kept getting hurt. and kristen thought, for the first time, that maybe she was very tired of cleaning up messes. maybe she wanted to go out and make some of her own

the thing was that kristen was charismatic, in that awkward, foot-in-the-mouth, guard-down-around-them kind of a way. she talked to people. and she knew things. she got along with almost everyone, except for the people that she didn't. it was just ... no one expected her to be drift compatible

no one expected her to be drift compatible with ... literally everyone

she chose tracker, though. of course she chose tracker. who else? and jawbone deserved some rest, after all this time, even if he did refuse to leave the base. leave all his kids. they gave him a trauma counselor position, and he got ... close with sandra lynn. it was a little weird at first. it made sense, though. everyone admitted it made sense. and the de facto parents of the base didn't ruin everyone's fun too much. when there was fun to have, at least

and there wasn't always. there wasn't at the end. not with how many kaiju were coming through the breach

moonlit werewolf could close it. it was mark-3, after all. nuclear. no one thought kristen should be the one to do it. she was so new. she was a medic, for whoever the fuck's sake people were praying to now. but, it was kristen. she'd make the sacrifice play, if she had to. every time

gilded spyglass, metal frenzy, storm oracle, wizard's paramour, and moonlit werewolf touched down at the breach

and kristen, with a hole in her chest, was the last one to surface

they save her, though. of course they do. this is a happy story. and because it's a happy story, eventually there are no jaeger pilots. there are no jaegers. there are scientists and medics and teachers and musicians, and there are the bad kids, which they all say ironically, because they don't really feel like they ever got to be kids at all

there's time, after. there's a lot to rebuild. to fix. to figure out, in the aftermath. but they have time

for the first time in a long, good while, for most of their short and fragile lives, they feel like they have time

[grxmincvdescxnce]

( shin seyoung, she/her, cursed blood ) to RHEYLA RYU, the whole world looks like an open page. with a leap of faith, their ability of OBJECTIVE PRECOGNITION grows a little stronger. they are a MARTEN PINE FOX shade aligned to HOUSE of BELTRAN. for TWENTY-NINE years, they have survived a world of magic with both their PRAGMATISM and IMPUDENCE. they work as a FREELANCE JOURNALIST AND PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR, but if they could change their fate, they’d want to BRUSH ASIDE UNNECESSARY INFLUENCE AND LIVE HER HEART’S TRUTH.

inspo includes the likes of the following: tendou akane of ranma 1/2, kotobuki ran of super gals, karen page of daredevil series, kuwabara shizuru of yu yu hakusho, tsukiyono ruli of digimon ghost game, ella of frell of ella enchanted, lois lane of dc comics, hino rei of sailor moon, alice cullen of twilight, eliza maza of gargoyles.

&. ⸻ BASICS

name — gadriel. rheyla ryu, legally changed

aliases — rei

birthdate — march 23

zodiac — aries

birthplace — selphia

sexuality — biromantic pansexual 

alignment — chaotic good

temperament — choleric

element — fire

primary vice — wrath

primary virtue — diligence

house — beltran

occupation — freelance journalist and paranormal investigator

markings — curse mark on her inner thigh

&. ⸻ HEADCANONS

the birth daughter of lady silk, she is the youngest of three. her sister is seraphim, head of fraser, and her eldest brother is ulysses lebeau or gabriel, though this isn’t readily known. seraphim is the only sibling she is aware of at this time. their relationship is strained at best.

rei would have her name legally changed in an effort to distance herself from her mother and her practices. the surname would stem from her father, an action of further petty spitefulness. 

speaking of her father, rei is also a cousin of gabriella ryu and naksu, with her father serving as a direct relative of the ryu clan. he remains her only living parental figure at this stage, though he has been jailed in relation to the ryu crime organization, which he would never truly disclose. rei has only recently come to know of the family deeds, in part, and she is still mostly in the dark. her father would lead her to believe he acted separately from family wishes, protecting them further. 

she would spend time with her father’s side of the family quite often in her efforts to keep her mother’s influence at bay and stray from any ongoing abuse in her youth. a consequence of this time spent would have her watching over the ryu family brood, serving as gabriella’s keeper in particular. in time, her ‘nanny’ status would become something of an official title, though it’s become less of a necessity in the passing years given the ages of all involved.

having lady silk as a mother, one would imagine similar tendencies present in rei as her sister and one would be correct in this assessment in most ways. particularly in the level of stress endured, which has never quite left rei entirely. in fact, she seems to thrive in it, given the nature of her work. rei was wise enough to abandon her family ‘legacy’ when of proper age to know the difference between genuine love and what her mother spouted. and while she would prefer her sister wise up as well, rei has never directly spoken to sif on this concern in great depth.

for all her mother has done, however, rei is still conflicted enough on her relations to maintain cordialness with her stepmother especially, and occasionally, her sister.     

as a child, she was absolutely someone who snuck around the house to read comics and enjoyed wrestling in secret during her usual ‘sick’ days, her take-charge nature easily falling in line with aspirations to be heroes of their caliber. in her own right, at least. and while more disillusioned these days, that hero tendency still thrives heavily in her bones.

she is just as athletic as she’s always been, heavily involved in sports of all kinds without her mother’s immediate knowledge. these days, her boundless energy is expelled by running around town at all hours of the day, chasing leads or the ryu brood.

her investigative work is carried in tandem with tivan savio’s firm and while little more than a glorified secretary some days, she finds value and freedom in what she does. the stray dog strut investigative offices serve as a second home, with a majority of her day spent in service to others on mostly her own terms. 

naturally drawn to such phenomena, supernatural fiction is her favorite genre, followed by a good old fashioned thriller. 

she tends to follow plenty of outlets that specialize in paranormal work, especially, and blogs on similar subjects in her free time.

she owns an enchanted lighter that, once clicked, has the ability to transform her into literal smoke and travel freely in this form. it resembles a zippo, but thinner, rounder, and marble green in color.

enchantments aside, she is also a regular enough smoker.

her status as a cursed blood is recent, just shy of two weeks. she has absolutely no recollection of the incident in question, having blocked out the trauma of it all entirely.

&. ⸻ DREAMSHADE FORMS

pine marten fox ( base ) — essentially, an american pine marten weasel with a fox tail and fox ears. it is, frankly speaking, something of a go-to form despite the brief amount of time she’s come to be a cursed blood. — for reference: here

nine-tailed fox ( hollow ) — her ultimate form and one she has absolutely no clue about. — for reference: here

&. ⸻ ABILITY

objective precognition — the ability to perceive future events based on others intentions. even before her transformation, rei has always been attuned to the divine and spiritually inclined, her talents of perception incredibly keen. she’s found her ability dramatically enhanced since, resulting in her capacity for more diligent future sight.

&. ⸻ CURSE

ella enchanted — lady silk would go a step further in ensuring the life of rei was more to her standards by cursing the poor girl to absolute obedience and an inability to refuse her. how this was accomplished has never been known by rei directly. this curse, perhaps without silk’s knowledge, also extends to any command given by another. rei has done her best to hide this from anyone, so even sif is unaware. still, because of what it entails, rei is prone to being found doing plenty of odd favors even when she wishes she could refuse.

[tigerseye46]

Red Sand/Shark AU

So this is an au where Sha Wujing is the one who retired and Red is his successor.

I had a lot of amazing help from my anons and others for this au and I just want to thank them for that! You all made the au 100% more awesome! So here’s the au (re-uploaded cause it wouldn’t appear on my dash):

Sha Wujing: Sha Wujing takes Wukong’s place as the teacher and retired hero of this au and is the mentor of Red Son, albeit a reluctant mentor. Sha Wujing, unlike his canon counterpart, has not calmed down and is still rage-filled due to isolating himself for centuries. He has isolated himself due to Tripitaka’s death at the hands of a demon which he believes he, Bajie and Wukong could have prevented even though the other two were nowhere near at the time. He has a strained relationship with them because of this belief. Due to the monk’s death, he started picking fights in the mortal realm with any demon and sometimes human he could. The other three tried to stop him at multiple points but he wouldn’t listen and they had no choice but to give up. Eventually he came to the conclusion that this isn’t what Tripitaka would want and decided to pick one last fight to seal the Spider Queen before retiring.

He has rarely spoken to anyone else in centuries, he is extremely closed off to people. and has a lot of rage pent up. He lives on a mountain around the city that has a small house on his mountain and it has a river. He has the basics, oven, microwave, fridge, he also has a tv. Although he doesn’t use the television as much and considers it good background noise while he’s cooking or training. He absolutely despises it when any trace of his past adventures come onto the screen due to the events that have happened. He has a bunch of training equipment around that he uses to at least better manage his rage. He also builds inventions similar to his counterpart and it is something he and Red have in common. He does love tea and cats in this au but doesn’t own any cats in the beginning. He keeps a shrine of Tripitaka in his home and talks to it at certain points, he also has Tripitaka’s old staff.

Fun fact, he didn’t even want a successor and the only reason Red became his successor is because Guanyin appeared to him a couple years before the au and told him that trouble was brewing. She knows he gave up fighting so she proposes that he find a successor and she knows the perfect candidate, Red. After watching him for a bit, he agreed with her and waited for something to happen but wasn't exactly happy at the thought of having to train someone since it meant having prolonged social interaction, especially someone that almost killed his brother even if he isn’t Wukong’s biggest fan by that point. He is rather grumpy while training Red and they clash at certain points but they do have a respect for each other. He is more blunt and honest here.

Red: Red Son is the successor of Sha Wujing and formerly the disciple of Guanyin who after noticing how far he had come decided to let him go to the city to meet new people. He arrives at the city 2-5 years before the events of the au start and keeps a human form. While they still have somewhat of a temper, it is nowhere as bad as canon. They were initially confused by the city as due to being under Guanyin’s teaching, they weren’t as exposed to technology. It wasn’t until they met Mei who showed them the ropes that they finally got the hang of things. They build inventions like their counterpart but aren’t as skilled as canon Red since they’ve only been doing this for five years tops.

Mei actually gave her a place in the beginning since they didn’t have anywhere to go since they were still new. Red refused at first but gradually gave into Mei’s persistence. They were roommates for a while while the demon figured out where they could work. They noticed Mei’s struggle with her parents and encouraged her to be open about it, resulting in her becoming happier as a person and embracing her dragon heritage. Mei introduced them to Tang and got taken in by the human. Tang gave Red a place at his shop, although he works more at the cover business since he wants some sense of normalcy but he does do things like stock supplies for the magic side sometimes.

He hasn’t told anyone who his parents are nor has he found them again and prefers to keep a low profile. He also keeps the fact that he’s a demon a secret along with his fire powers. The fire powers only show up when he’s overcome with rage but since they aren’t as rage filled as their canon counterpart, that is rare. He isn’t exactly thrilled to be someone’s successor since it meant giving up his normal life but does it to further atone for his actions.

Mei/Long Xiaojiao: Xiaojiao remains here as the descendant of the Dragon of the West and is Red’s best friend. She found Red Son wandering the city one day and allowed him to stay with them until they found a place to work so Red has actually been inside her house before. Throughout his stay, she accidentally vented about her troubles with her parents which Red helped her with and because of that, she is less insecure about her place as descendant of the Dragon of the West. From that point forth, she was more open about her problems. She also obtained the dragon blade relatively early thanks to Red and her parents’ urging.

She, like Red, works for Tang but at his magic business and spends time being Tang’s assistant. Her job is to sometimes collect ingredients and deliver if the client asks. She is more reckless here due to having the dragon blade for years and because of the amount of demons she faced. She is slightly more protective here because of Red since she thinks he doesn’t know how to expertly fight as he hasn’t revealed who he is to her yet.

MK/Qi Xiaotian: Xiaotian is the biological son of Syntax and the only human of the Spider group. After the incident when he was around 12 that resulted in his dad becoming a spider, his life was completely changed and they were taken in by Huntsman and Goliath. Learning of their plan to free the Spider Queen, Syntax offered to help, knowing from Goliath that she would protect his son. They raised him where he turned into a mix of all of them. Since he is Syntax’s son, his father made sure he got the best education and taught him many things because of this, he knows a lot about tech and sometimes uses technology based insults like his dad, the other insults he uses are the more crass ones because of Huntsman. While he knows a lot about tech, he’s bad at practical applications and ends up setting things on fire.

They know how to hunt because of Huntsman and spar with him regularly in an effort to get strong to protect their family. Since they’re the only human, they feel the need to prove themself to the Spider Queen who doesn’t really give them a thought in the beginning as she’s more concerned with returning the spider demons to their former glory. The issue of him as the only human has caused somewhat of a disconnect between him and his father.

He is rather cocky and reckless here because of Huntsman and Syntax who both have massive egos, something that was passed down to him. Although deep down he is a sweetheart thanks to Goliath. He uses the tech insults to insult his rival, Red Son and makes fun of him on a daily basis which is great because Red only slightly knows what those mean. He is still an artist here and was encouraged by his father to pursue his passion, he is also still a slight Monkey King fan because of stories he heard when he was little. While he makes fun of Huntsman for wanting to date his dad, he does want to be able to call him his stepdad one day. He has a staff given to him by his dad when he was around 15 that contains some cool things.

Sun Wukong: takes Tang’s place kinda. Actor and scholar. Sun Wukong in this au is the owner of a theatre that for the most part does JTTW plays, he is also an actor and scholar. He spent about 300-400 years in retirement before finally deciding to enter the world again and do something. He has a rivalry with Macaque since both are scholars and always have academic arguments. He remains king of Flower Fruit Mountain but mainly lives in the city now. He maintains a human form to not attract attention from demons.

Before owning the theatre, he was a big name actor (well still is) that did mostly Monkey King related stuff to honor his past adventures and family. He even directed, starred and wrote stuff for his own movies and tv shows, something he does for the theatre now. He also produced some video games. He used to bring his monkeys on the set sometimes and does that now for his theatre, people have no idea where the monkeys come from. Some joke that he’s gotten really into his role and there are those that call him the “Monkey Actor.”

He carries a good amount of guilt over Tripitaka’s death especially after what Wujing said to him and believes he doesn’t really deserve to be called a hero. He also feels bad that he couldn’t help Wujing and that the incident resulted in the demon closing off. He hides all of this under a confident attitude. He hardly uses his staff anymore but still has it. He’s had off/on contact with Zhu Bajie over the years and misses him and the rest of his family deeply. When they meet up around the time the series starts, the pig informs him that he’s found Wujing but they don’t go talk to him since they know the other doesn’t want them around. Instead, the two hang out again with Wukong absolutely dreading the idea that they’ll lose contact again. Bajie actually introduces him to the kids he sometimes babysits and they eventually begin calling Wukong “yéyé.” He met Tang when he heard a rumor about his magic business and decided to check it out, he stuck around even after finding out the human was harmless because he met Red again, he hasn’t told Red or Tang who he is.

Tang: Tang is surprise, surprise, Tripitaka’s reincarnation. He does get dreams sometimes but he writes them off as fantasies. Compared to his counterpart, he is a lot tougher than his normal counterpart and actually fights. He runs two shops with one that is a secret magic shop (mostly temporary enhancements and minor spells), he’s proficient in both hand to hand combat and magic.

He is slightly more serious in this due to running a business now but not as serious as Pigsy would be. His nerdiness is toned down here but still present. In fact when Red is working, Tang likes to bring up different stories from the past despite the fact that Red knows them already. He gave Red the apartment above the shop and has no idea that the kid he adopted is actually a demon. He is rather annoyed and angry at the fact that Red was chosen by Sha Wujing to be his successor even though he is partially a fan of the demon and totally doesn’t have a celebrity crush on him. While he isn’t aware of everything Red has gone through, he is aware that the kid has had a rough life and wants to protect him.

Zhu Bajie/Pigsy: Zhu Bajie, after years of loneliness, came out of hiding and wandered the mortal world as he needed something to occupy his time. He’s had off/on contact with Wukong throughout the years. Eventually he settled into the city where he’s known as a beloved and involved member of a small part of it. He is seen as an ‘uncle/grandpa figure’ there and is sometimes asked to watch over the kids. The kids absolutely adore him and he in turn adores them. He takes them out a lot to places and spoils the heck out of them. He actually met Wukong again when he took the kids out to see the plays at Wukong’s theatre and enjoys taking them there because he gets to see the king, he’s become a huge fan. He memorized the surrounding mountain range there and partially chose the city as there is a path that leads to Wujing, he hasn’t told Wujing he’s tracked him down. He’s just kept tabs on him, mildly happy with that since he knows his brother doesn’t want to see him.

While he retains his snarkiness here, his temper isn’t as bad here due to not being business focused since he doesn’t own one. He retains his parental instincts here since he’s a grandpa now. He has grown a lot since the JTTW days and is proud of this fact. He is on the more reasonable side of things between Wujing who is unnecessarily angry and Wukong who believes he doesn’t have the right to be considered a hero.

Macaque: Macaque in this au is retired from fighting and does not have much of a grudge against Wukong as he does in canon. Although they do have a rivalry as fellow scholars and constantly complain about each other’s theses suck. They are usually one debate away from fighting each other in the parking lot of Wukong’s theatre.

Demon Bull King: Demon Bull King takes Macaque’s spot as the one who trains and plans to take Red’s powers. After their son became Guanyin’s disciple, the two were extremely worried about their child and held resentment for Sun Wukong and his gang that continued long after the gang defeated him. Princess Iron Fan and him had a falling out that resulted in them parting ways (although still married) but they still love each other very much. DBK heard rumors floating around about someone that had become Sha Wujing’s successor and that someone matched his son’s description. Angered over the fact that his son was forced to become someone’s successor, he found a spell that would take his powers. He crafted a plan to lure his son out to do so so his son could be relieved of that pressure along with protecting him and so he could use that power to take revenge on those around them.

Princess Iron Fan: Princess Iron Fan is the main villain of the Red Sand/Shark au. Due to the loss of her son and the fall out with her husband, Princess Iron Fan has become rather desperate to get her family back and she’ll do it by any means necessary. She has kept herself hidden for years, plotting ways to bring her family together. Once she found out that Red Son became Sha Wujing’s successor, it caused her to lash out as her son was within reach but forced to be what she considered a weapon, a pawn. She took advantage of the blood oath she made, promising the twins that if they joined her, she would make people cower before them. She used them to attack on New Years in the hopes of grabbing her son and taking over the world. While that might have failed, she has other tricks up her sleeve and will make Red join her, no matter what.

Spider Queen: Spider Queen once led a powerful army that threatened to disrupt the mortal realm. She was feared by mortals and respected and loved by her subjects. This ended when she faced Sha Wujing and was actually the last demon Sha Wujing fought before he retired. He decided to seal her, citing her as a danger. Due to her containment, the various spider clans started declining as their royal line had been deposed of. Things have become desperate and it is believed that the Spider Boys are part of the last generation before they are wiped out entirely, although there may be more out there. They have decided to free the Spider Queen as her era was the last time the spiders were prosperous and believe she is the key to saving their future.

Goliath (Strong Spider): Goliath remains a total sweetheart in this au and is one of the reasons Xiaotian contains sweet qualities. He is completely supportive and encouraging of Syntax and Huntsman’s feelings for each other and wishes they would just admit it. He bakes in his spare time and gets help from Xiaotian. He is also the other’s confidant and manages to keep secrets relatively well. He does suggest that they speak about these issues but doesn’t push them.

Huntsman: Huntsman is the same here but has a more fatherly side to him as he’s helped Syntax raise MK and has actually developed feelings for the nerd spider. He taught Xiaotian to be an excellent hunter and spars with him on a regular basis. He cheers the kid on during fights unless he has to do something like go save him for a reckless endeavor. He doesn’t admit how much the kid and the others mean to him often but will slip up and admit it. He and Syntax have snarky banter with each other and have a trusting relationship that neither acknowledges.

Syntax: Syntax is the biological and single father of Xiaotian. He was a relatively hardworking and great father that taught Xiaotian to make different things, gave him the best education he could and encouraged him in art endeavors. He was turned into a spider by a horrific lab accident when his son was around twelve. Resentment, horror and terror piled up in him because of that incident. He had absolutely no idea what to do, he was a human turned spider all because of what happened, there is a possibility that no one was going to treat him the same after this, people would assume he had malicious intent and might try to separate him from his son. After that, he spent a good portion trying to return himself back to normal but no matter what he did he could not. Afraid for the safety of him and his son, Syntax began to research the spiders, learning they were almost gone but there may be some out there. He took Xiaotian with him where they bumped into Huntsman and Goliath who were trying to find ways to bring the Spider Queen back. He joined them as Goliath had assured the queen would offer them protection. Along the way, he had come to see them less as allies and more as family, not that he would admit it. He began falling in love with Huntsman after getting to know him for years and seeing deeper sides of him. When Xiaotian was around 15, he crafted a sci fi tech staff for his son which contains some tricks and traps, including a GPS that can be used for when his son is in trouble.

Yin and Jin: Yin and Jin take Spider Queen’s place here. They trapped Red in the calabash just like they did with canon MK and after that incident, they continued popping up with a variety of plans, most that have failed. Red eventually stopped taking them seriously and treated them more as nuisances than real threats. In an effort to be taken more seriously they created a partnership between them and PIF. They shook with excitement at New Years when they began to topple people around them, this died down when the plan didn’t work but they continued to listen to PIF’s instructions, little do they know she’s just using them to get her son back.

White Bone Spirit and Mayor: These two are nowhere near as dangerous as they are in canon and actually replace Yin and Jin as the comic relief although the Mayor is still slightly creepy. WBS probably has a much older host or has shapeshifted to give herself a human form. She tries to get revenge for her defeat at the hands of Sun Wukong and since Red is the closest thing she messes with him instead. She believes she is a powerful antagonist but is more of the average shape-shifting demon and the Mayor serves as her minion. They come up with schemes similar to Yin and Jin but unlike Yin and Jin don’t ever come up with a way to be taken more seriously.

[consumeconstantly]

Not a Saint or a Hero

Summary: To civilians, Ladybug is a hero. In the eyes of the law, Ladybug is a vigilante at best, and a villain at worst. 

______________________________________________________

Conquering the Parisian underworld is child’s play for Ladybug and her partner, Chat Noir. The ex-boss of the Parisian underworld, code name Hawkmoth, may have been good at pushing drugs and ruining people’s lives, but he was woefully incompetent at... basically everything else. Which meant that other than Hawkmoth and his direct underlings, there really wasn’t much of a structure at all that Ladybug had to be worried about. No cohesive unit, fighting as one, just easy pickings and an even easier way to convince the drug dealers, homeless, illegal fight rings, and various other under the radar activities to band together to topple Hawkmoth’s empire. 

Ladybug, after all, had experience with overthrowing established mafiosos. She did it once in Wenzhou at her mother’s side, another time in Beijing because somebody made the mistake of trying to push her into prostitution, and twice in Italy with her grandmother, code name Befana.

“Do you really have to leave, m’lady?”

Ladybug shrugs. “I trust you and the team to keep things up and running. We had a good run, but there’s a good structure in place now and Befana wants me to go with her to another country.”

Nobody says no to Befana, not unless they’re bullet proof. Ladybug may have high quality Kevlar sewn into every outfit she wears, but even she isn’t the biggest fan of the impact of a bullet. Depending on the gun, broken ribs are a kindness.

“I know you don’t get along with Queen Bee, and almost everyone else is out of the country, but you’re not going to say goodbye to Rena or Carapace?”

“It’s not like I’m going to be gone forever. Just a few months. A year at most.”

“Promise me you’ll come back, m’lady?”

Ladybug puts a hand on her partner's shoulder. “You know I can’t make promises like that.”

Chat pauses, dull thud of the rave music filling in their silence. 

He swirls the whiskey in his glass. “Stay safe, Bug. Play it smart.”

“I always do.”

#

It comes as no surprise that Befana dumps her in the middle of one of the most crime infested cities world wide without a backwards glance. Her granddaughter is grown up now, after all. 

“Have fun, darling. Black Mask is particularly nasty, make sure to watch out for his assistant, she’s very sharp.” Befana pulls away from the nonexistent curb— nonexistent because there’s no sidewalks in the slums of Gotham, at least, not many of them in good enough conditions to have curbs or whole piece of cement to walk on— and leaves Marinette all on her lonesome with a backpack, a key to a cheap apartment.

Marinette eyes the broken bottles leading to the entryway of her new building and the boarded up windows. Across the street, there’s two women smoking and conversing in hushed tones.

“Well,” Marinette mutters underneath her breath, shifting the straps of her only worldly possessions. “It’s definitely quieter than I expected.”

“Hey, new girl,” one of the women in the group calls out to her. “What’re you in for?”

“School. This is the cheapest apartment I could find.”

The woman exchanges a glance with one of her friends. 

“You’re better off finding a more expensive apartment elsewhere. This isn’t a place for someone like you.”

An excellent line for Marinette to begin to fish for information. “What do you mean by that?”

“This is disputed territory, now. If you can’t afford to stay somewhere else, you better stay with whoever just dropped you off.”

Marinette fidgets. Gina is long gone. Grandmother or not, even though Gina is undoubtedly loyal and will never hurt her, she believes that the best way to inspire growth is through adversity. Like now. The only information she got out of Befana was that she had to figure out a way to keep Gotham in line… whatever that meant. “She’s not going to come back. I guess I’ll just have to try my luck.”

“You really got nowhere else to go?”

“No. I’m from abroad.”

“That explains the accent,” says the one holding a beer bottle. “Then listen up, girlie. If you wanna survive, there’s three rules you’ve gotta learn. One. Don’t cross the Black Mask. Two. Don’t cross Red Hood. Three. Don’t sell to children.”

“Sell to children?”

“Well, I don’t suppose you’d be doing it anyways, given the whole,” she motions to Marinette’s body with a cigarette, “but Hood goes after anyone who sells drugs to kids real bad. Worse than if you fuck him over with anything the Black Mask’s doing, anyways.”

“Red Hood doesn’t sound like that bad of a guy, then.” Maybe she’ll look into a collaboration with him.

The woman with the beer bottle laughed. “Oh honey, you’re a saint. Don’t go fostering any dreams. You just stay away, hear?”

“I hear you,” Marinette says.

But they got something wrong. 

Marinette isn’t a saint, and never has been.

#

The walls of her crappy one bedroom apartment are thin enough to hear the baby upstairs scream at ungodly hours. If it’s not the baby waking her up, her neighbors in the apartment to her right are fucking very, very loudly. The apartment below her blasts rock music at all hours, the apartment to her right is likely selling drugs, given that she sees at least fifteen different people come in and out each day, and they always have a vaguely dazed look in their eye. She hasn’t heard anything from the apartment across, but she’s sure they’ll start up some noisy activity that Marinette doesn’t particularly want to hear soon enough.

She really got pampered in Paris, didn’t she?

Marinette lived a life of relative luxury whenever she stayed with her parents, instead of Gina. While in Beijing and Chongqing with Tom and Sabine, Maman did all of the heavy lifting for her. Well, Beijing had ended rather disastrously, and they had to make a quick getaway, but at least in Chongqing, Sabine managed to get rid of the prostitution ring. 

Back in Wenzhou, Catania, and Bologna, Gina took the reins, and it always turned out to be a sink or swim sort of situation. First off was her mother’s birth place, which had an astonishingly high crime rate and definitely explained why Sabine Cheng was so adept at self defense, and once they were there, of course they had to reform the fight rings. In Catania and Bologna, Gina practically threw her at two of the lowest rank mafia groups and told her to use them to bring order to the warring mafias. During those years, Gina didn’t make a front like Sabine and Tom did, purchasing a bakery and running a business to aid their more behind the scenes work. No, with Gina, it was either war of peace, and there was nowhere in between.

Which, of course, meant that Marinette rarely got to stay in nice rooms or pursue hobbies like sewing or drawing or anything, really.

Now that she is of age, Marinette could potentially try to wrest herself out of Befana’s influence, but that’s almost a laughable thought. Befana has eyes and ears everywhere. If she wants to escape the rat race of reformation, Marinette needs to gather power. 

The best thing she can do for now is try to figure out the situation in Gotham. If it’s not particularly bad, maybe she’ll have an easy time of it, and figure out how to disappear herself. She’s not totally opposed to the whole making-criminals-act-within-the-bounds-of-morality thing, but it’s gotten pretty tiring. Not repetitive, necessarily, but after experiencing an almost normal life in Paris, Marinette does want to have the privilege of not having to worry about her life every hour. Maybe she can even start up a little boutique. 

Marinette dumps most of the contents out of her bag, only leaving her wallet, a knife, and her trademark yo-yos. 

“Maybe I can go back to Paris, eventually.” She has become very fond of the city; the first place where she took fate into her own hands, where her mother and grandmother didn’t push her to reform the underworld. The first place where she chose to change the world around her. The first place where she saw things through from start to finish. The first place she formed her own team. 

The power of change is both incredibly addicting and terrifying. She sort of gets why Befana roams the world, looking for the next place she wants to shake things up in. But Marinette can’t get addicted. This is going to be her last city, then she’s going to return to Paris and settle down. She’ll leave city beautification to the so-called vigilantes that almost every city has acquired, save Paris.

Oh wait, she supposes that Ladybug and Chat Noir were-- and Chat still is-- a type of vigilante back home. But as it stands now, it will be more correct to refer to them as heads of the Parisian underworld; they definitely don’t work on the side of the law, but she and Chat made sure that drug deals were more… regulated. That deaths and the induction of children into such a dark world were curbed. That if people really wanted to get out, they could.

All of that doesn’t matter. Not in the eyes of the law at least. Parisian citizens love the duo for helping keep crimes off the streets and for banning the particularly strong strain of drug that Gabriel called AKUMA off the market, but the Parisian police? She and Chat both have targets on their head. Their whole team does.

She eyes the apartment across from her. There’s blood on the door handle. It’s a good thing that Sabine and Tom never tried to instill those odd customs of ‘house warming’ and ‘getting to know her neighbors’ that most other people teach their children. In good neighborhoods, it’s important to have a cordial relationship with whoever’s living next door. In neighborhoods like these? It’s even more important.

But rule number one of pissing people off? 

Coming over uninvited.

Marinette doesn’t bother locking the door behind her. 

#

“New to the neighborhood?”

Apparently, it really is bizarre for her to have moved into this apartment complex. She’s come across a grand total of five people during her week here, and every single one of them stopped whatever they were doing in order to take a closer look. 

Marinette knows that this is a disputed area. She looked into the two women’s words the day she arrived. But, for a disputed area, everything is remarkably quiet. No fights, nobody on the streets, most people keep indoors, unless they’re out for a smoke, to throw out the trash, or are going to or coming back from various activities outside of the block.

What’s even more odd is that all of her neighbors seem to know each other intimately. Or at least, intimately enough to know that she doesn’t belong there.

“Yeah,” Marinette says, ready to leave this conversation behind. She doesn’t bother getting information out of the people who are in her apartment complex or on this block. To be more accurate, she tried with one of the first people she came across, but it was apparent that someone encouraged them to be tight lipped with information. 

Given the current information she has, she thinks it’s more likely that the one who gave that order is Red Hood, rather than Black Mask.

“Been here a week.” The guy lights his joint and breathes out. “Not so new anymore.”

Over the years, she’s gotten used to the smell of marijuana, though she can’t say she likes the scent. She’ll take cigarettes over weed any day.

“You could say that.”

“Don’t suppose anybody’s laid out the rules for you yet, have they?”

Maybe this will make things easier for her. Mostly, she’s just settled into her apartment over the past seven days. There's no need for her to immediately get to work, and she does enjoy comfort. Taking down criminals is hard work. She wants to come back to an apartment that doesn’t look awful and lets her relax. So what if she spent most of her money on an expensive mattress and a coffee machine? She’s an adult now. Nobody can tell her what to do. (Except for Befana.) “No, not really.”

“Tina and Audrey give you a crash course?”

“Mostly just warned me not to sell to children.”

The man barks, smoke spitting into the stale air. “Some of the best advice around. Let me tell you, Black Mask might have more manpower, but Red Hood has rage. Cross Black Mask by gypping him, he’ll send a lackey after you. Fuck with children, Red Hood himself will come for you.”

He pauses, evaluating her appearance. 

“Though you look like a child yourself. Mighty pretty too. lucky girl. Hood will protect you if you stay around these parts, but if you go south on the diagonal, you’ll be in bad territory. Plenty of prostitution rings around there.”

“Thought this was disputed territory.”

“Not really. Anywhere Hood has claimed is said to be disputed because Mask hates his guts and keeps sending goons to these areas. But anyone who’s dealing under Mask aint gonna take the risk of their lives just to branch out to these spots.”

“Sounds like Red Hood is pretty well liked around these parts, then.”

Perhaps she’ll look into working with him. From what she’s heard of the guy and what she’s found trawling the dark web, his morals seem to align with her own. A little bit more temperamental than she’d like, a little too quick to kill, rather than apprehend, but Gotham prisons seem to have jailbreaks every other week, so she can understand why it may be easier just to make every encounter a one and done.

“Liked?” Blunt finished, he flicks the stub into the dirt, crushing the embers under foot. He wipes his mouth with the scarf around his neck. “Like isn't the question in Gotham, Frenchie.”

Marinette inwardly cringes. She’s tried to minimize her accent because it makes natives distrust her, or think they can take her for a loop. Most people she’s come across accept her as one of their own, but apparently she hasn’t been doing as well as she thought she was. Maybe this is why people seemed a little more reluctant with any information.

“When it comes down to it, liking means nothing. It’s who you trust to watch your back.” He fumbles in his pockets, pulling out another blunt. Marinette notices that his fingers are fairly heavily bandaged and that the man is shaking slightly. Medicinal marijuana, maybe. “Wouldn’t trust that Mask farther than I can throw him. And he used to be a wrestler, so he’s a fat bastard. At least you can trust Hood not to cross you as long as you don’t cross him first.”

Lighting the tip, his eyes sharpen. “You seem like the trustworthy sort. Active, too. I’ll leave you with one more piece of advice. If you ever run into Hood? Don’t mention two things: the Joker, and Batman.”

“I doubt I’ll ever run into him,” Marinette lies. 

The man laughs. “I’m a Gotham native, Frenchie. I can tell what kind of person you are. You’ll be meeting him soon, I know. Hood needs someone to watch his back, and you? You need someone to keep your head above water.”

He flicks the ash off the blunt and turns his back on her, and Marinette can’t tell whether he’s showing her respect or belittling her.

#

 Two weeks into her stay in Gotham and Marinette has finally collected enough information about her surroundings to feel confident about going out as Ladybug.

Guns are infinitely more available here in America than they were back in France, which means she needed more than one costume, and an upgrade to her current one. High quality kevlar is good and all, but it’s heavy, and not everyone in Gotham is high off their minds using AKUMA. Replacing kevlar with polythene, now that it’s available to her, is only a natural decision. She has to be more careful here in Gotham. Not only does she have no support network, she’s also highly inexperienced with the terrain. She’s at a disadvantage here.

With a combo polythene and kevlar bodysuit, a crop top with her signature ladybug embroidery on the backside, an all black domino mask, and a utility belt with two yo-yos , knife, and emergency medical supplies, she’s as ready as she ever will be to witness the nightlife first hand.

And just like in Paris, Wenzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Catania and Bologna, she doesn’t have to go far to find the trouble.

Befana has told her multiple times that Marinette is like a lucky charm for problems. Judging by the amount of time she’s gotten herself into sticky situations unintentionally, she’s inclined to agree, though she’d call herself more of an unlucky charm.

She doesn’t bother speaking, instead hurling one yo-yo at the guy who’s trying to tie up a girl half her age and the other yo-yo at the wheels of his car, to make sure he can’t make a quick getaway.

Ladybug may not use guns, but she never said that her weaponry wasn’t tricked out; yo-yo knocks the guy up the head, sending him down for the count, and yo-yo two slashes through the rubber tire. The man waiting in the car rolls down the window to shoot. Ladybug rolls her eyes. Dumb and dumber. She’s not sure whether he’s trying to preserve his windows or doesn’t realize that rolling down his window leaves him open for her own attacks.

Reeling back in yo-yo one. She hurtles it through the window, presses a button, then ducks. The head of the yo-yo detached and shocks the driver.

“Need help getting home?” Ladybug asks the girl who’s currently edging away from her. 

“Who are you? Why did you help me?”

Ladybug shrugs. She’s never been particularly good at explaining herself; Chat took care of most of the conversions within Hawkmoths retinue. She’s good at making the occasionally public statement and making sure people she’s close to don’t stray, but strangers? Most people back in Paris just trusted her blindly, and she never had to think about how to present her reasoning.

She takes two sets of zip ties out of her pack, then restrains her first victim. After she slaps a patch on the tire-- if she is going to take this girl home, she certainly doesn’t want to walk her back in this neighborhood, and judging by the size of the van, there are probably a few people in the back she’ll need to free as well. Ladybug moves on to tie up the guy in the car, back towards the girl. “If you don’t want my help, that’s fine too.”

As soon as she turns, there’s a sharp intake of breath. “You’re with Hood, then.”

Not yet. “M not, actually. Never met the guy. What makes you say that?”

A bout of nervous, high pitched laughter. “The red, maybe. Or, I don’t know, the fact that he’s here and not knocking you out?”

Ladybug whirls, trying to see where the infamous vigilante is. True to the girls word, he is just a little ways down the alleyway they’re currently in, looking, for all intents and purposes, not about to kill her. How pleasant. Better than she was expecting; his temper precedes him, and she was expecting to have to fight with the guy before even dreaming about having a civil discussion with him.

He doesn’t have his hands on his guns, which she takes as a good sign. Taking a good look at him she’s almost surprised that he’s calming himself the Red Hood instead of the Red Helmet, but she supposes the former sounds better.

“Let me finish tying that one up,” Ladybug says.

Red Hood grunts in response.

“So you are working together,” the girl concludes.

Ladybug shrugs again, tapping another button to reattach the head of her yo-yo and grabbing the keys and phone from the driver’s pocket. She pops the back of the van. There are three girls tied up in the back. 

Her knife makes quick work of the bonds that restrain them. The girls take the duct tape off their mouths themselves; she feels a deep disgust of the men that are currently knocked unconscious. Not only are they traffickers, but they’re new traffickers. Inexperienced. Duct tape isn’t used most times because it damages the goods. Either that, or they’re organ dealers, because people don’t need the bodies to look pretty when they just want the innards. Judging by the fact that all of the people in the back are girls, she’ll put money on the first one.

“You going to let me drive these girls back before we have our talk?”

“Fine,” Red Hood bites out, moving to sit shotgun. “You move one finger out of line, and I’ll shoot.”

Ladybug tosses the unconscious body out of the driver’s seat.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

@jasonette-july-2k20

[revivaiist]

SO! this post will Not be spoiler free for the anime OR manga of erased. in fact, it's literally just spoilers. just due to how important (satoru's and other's) parents are to the story of erased. i'll keep it under a cut so, in case you don't want to see it you don't have to!

satoru grows up in the original timeline with his (kickass) mom, sachiko fujinuma. his mom and dad divorced when he was VERY little, so sachiko is a very hard working single parent who does her best to fill in both the roles. satoru, in the original timeline growing up, fails to realize this and grows to crave a father figure. creating one wherever he goes and quite unintentionally at times

because of his craving for a father figure and original childhood interest of a manga/anime hero called wonderguy, in a way wonderguy filled part of this gap for satoru. showing what a happy family and a life with reliable friends is like, something he was 'lacking' and therefore desired. his desire for a father figure growing so much over the years, that his moms attempts to fill the gap only widening it. thinking of the decision to divorce as selfish, though he did love her- there was always this underlying "why couldn't dad stay"

satoru and sachiko have had a strained relationship for many reasons. some growing pains from satoru growing up, and his inability to believe that he can fully depend on her as a mom. but he was a Great mom who worked tirelessly to support the two of them, despite him not being really able to see this in the original timeline

going further in time, as he grows up he develops three more father figures in his life. someone he can look up to, depend on and learn from. the following being his childhood friend who he called yuuki, his teacher (yashiro gaku), and his mothers friend and coworker sawada. all for very Different values of his life, he takes bits and pieces from each of them. until he reaches 28 and he ends up in the revival (time travel)

during the revival, his admiration for his so called father figures deepens, but so does his love for his mom. he appreciates what she does more, noticing all the little things that he wouldn't have been able to notice growing up. satoru gets to build a meaningful relationship with his mom while still keeping up a sense of having father figure(s) around him to support and teach him.

sachiko, is INCREDIBLY attentive, being able to quite literally know what satoru is thinking before he would say it. she's watched him grow up, that was her baby and despite the previously standoffish or 'rough' behavior satoru had towards her- her first thought was always him. seeing satoru suffer or struggle with things caused a great deal of inner turmoil for her. with satoru being able to appreciate his mom during the revival their relationship is much more stable and healthy. full of trust towards one another. yet- there was always something there that satoru was obviously still exhibiting, a desire for a dad

during the revival he puts his teacher on a pedistal, denying any form of red flags that showed up because yashiro was his father figure. he Would NOT do those types of things (kidnapping/murder/etc), no matter how blaringly obvious it may have been. he would have defended yashiro with his life before suspecting him for anything, well until yashiro confessed to it himself. and even then, he still thought of yashiro as a father figure- or a kindred spirit.

i think thats all i can write for now, bc i can go On forever about it. but satoru can and will find a father figure if given a reason to trust someone enough, is loved enough. etc. his desire for a dad is deeply ingrained in him

[greyias]

@shanfamilydrama​​ asked:

Also I'm 👀👀 for more Grey Dantooine backstory/headcanons, pretty please!

Ask and ye shall receive! So I have this document in my sprawling, semi-organized SWTOR Scrivener file titled “Highwind Family History” that I apparently created *checks date* in May of 2017. And it is somehow over 4400 words long. (I will spare everyone and not copy pasta the thing). But it is interesting how pieces of 6.3 do dovetail into many aspects of it!

So, in fic form, I’ve hinted at Grey’s backstory, and talked about aspects of it here and there, but the entire story hasn’t come out yet -- mostly because it comes as a reveal in the story introducing her brother Draike, as part of an explanation on why their relationship is so strained and antagonistic.

But the TL;DR version of it is:

Grey was born on Dantooine, the second of Davin Onasi and Vainas Highwind’s three children. She grew up in the small farming community of the Khoonda Plains, in the wide countryside where an abandoned Jedi Enclave always loomed on the horizon. In some ways, the ruins always called to her, tantalizing and mysterious, promising adventure.

From the moment Vainas told little Grey of the Force and her adventures as a Jedi during the Great Galactic War, the little girl decided she would become a Jedi. In the way that some children want to grow up to be firefighters, Grey dreamed of being a hero just like her mother, of venturing out into the galaxy and saving the day. Lightsabers sounded so cool, the Force so amazing, it had to be her destiny. Why be a farmer when you could wield a laser sword? 

Her mother taught her the basics of the Force, mostly boring meditation. She dutifully attended those lessons, in the hopes that one day her mother would teach her the more advanced things. And maybe she’d have her own lightsaber and go on adventures too!

And then one fateful day, she got her wish.

(or, as a small snippet from an extensively reworked piece I wrote a few years put it:)

Grey took another deep breath in, feeling the warmth and surety of the Force as she followed its pull towards the old ruins of the abandoned Jedi Enclave. It was technically against the rules to be here, she’d been told time and time again that the area was off limits — too ancient and dangerous to be explored unescorted. But just as many times that her mother had warned her away from the ruins, she’d also talked about the importance of listening to and obeying the will of the Force. And so if the Force knew everything, then maybe it knew when there was an exception to her mother’s rules. And today the Force was practically singing from the ruins, telling her to follow her mother’s impossibly tall Togruta Jedi friend. Every step she took, she could feel the deep voice of the universe beckoning her further. Humming on some inaudible frequency that today was finally the day.

Her adventure as a Jedi was about to begin.

The Togruta Jedi mentioned here is Thyos Dae, and Vainas’s former Padawan. You see, Thyos came to Dantooine because of an Ancient Artifact McGuffin I hadn’t quite figured out, and had meant to beat a Sith and his followers there to remove said McGuffin from the Enclave. However, he gets sidetracked almost as soon as he lands, meeting up with his old Master (whom he thinks of like an older sister) in the marketplace. Vainas invites Thyos to stay with them since they live close enough to the ruins to give him a home base of sorts.

And so over the next few days, he divides his time between the ruins, and catching up with Vainas and bonding with her family. Until one of those days at the ruins, he finds he’s been followed by a curious little girl who is not as good at hiding as she thinks she is. Being a responsible adult, he resigns himself to escorting little Grey back, but on the way, something... feels wrong. So wrong, at one point, Grey stops heeding his advice and starts running.

And by the time they get back to the Highwind homestead, the house is ablaze--and the yard is littered with bodies. Of Davin. Of Vainas. And several felled attackers.

While he was away, that (currently unnamed) Sith had finally tracked down where the mysterious Togruta from the marketplace was staying, thinking that said McGuffin Artifact might be there. There were individuals strong in the Force inside, so to them it made sense to attack first, and ask questions later.

Curiously, the two Highwind boys are nowhere to be found -- and the search for them becomes Thyos’s personal mission. As well as taking care of the now orphaned Force sensitive child who is desperately shaking her mother’s body in an attempt to wake her.

Thyos, of course, feels responsible for all of the children. He feels that this is his fault, that he led his adversary here -- and he spends the rest of his life trying to do his best to parent all three of them in Vainas’s stead. 

Grey takes away a different lesson, though. She’d disobeyed her mother -- and in doing so was robbed of seeing her again, of ever getting to say goodbye. She had ignored the rules, and somehow, this is what happened when someone broke the rules. If she never disobeyed again, if she followed every single rule, then maybe no one she loved would ever die again. If she became the perfect Jedi, if she focused every bit of herself on that, then she could make it up to her mother.

And maybe if she was good enough... one day the Force would bring them back together. Because there is no death, there only is the Force. Or so she was told. And so she would tell herself every time she recited the Jedi Code.

This is of course, just the rationalizations of a traumatized child who has just lost her entire world. Trying to make sense of what is ultimately a senseless act. Outside of herself, no one would begin to blame her for something that is obviously completely out of her control. And so she creates this perfect ideal of a Jedi in her mind, a child’s idea of a hero that she never really shakes, even as an adult. It may not be who the Jedi really are--and she may rationalize anything to the contrary of this fragile world view. 

(Granted, the events at the end of Chapter 2 do a pretty good job of shattering that on their own. But I mean, at that point she’s COMMITTED.)

WHICH... brings us to 6.3! And with all of the above in mind, why this dialogue exchange unexpectedly punched me right in the feels.

Like I know it’s not the exact same, but as I was going through that scene, all I could think of was that Grey was not thinking about the events of KOTOR 1 or 2, but her first attempted, ill-fated trip to the ruins. (Something that she might have been thinking about the entire time, but trying to push to the back of her mind.) She thinks of the strange pull the Enclave had on her as a child, she thinks of the pain and suffering, the senseless deaths that were connected to this place.

Not the lives ended by an orbital bombardment, but the lives of two people she misses very much, even to this day.

And yet... she continues to walk further into the ruins, and closer to the darkness that Malgus has unleashed inside. Because she’s still not convinced she’s done enough, still hasn’t measured up against that childish ideal quite enough to make her mother proud.

[hopeswriting]

KHR x The Umbrella Academy AU

I need to get this out of my system before I think too much about it and want to write an actual story about it lol. With the Arco as MCs because I’m very predictable. TUA spoilers.

Words: 2579

Kawahira is Reginald because who else he’d be.

Every generation he gathers the most powerful extraordinary kids to make sure there will still be a world come next generation for him to do it again.

The current Arcobaleno he gathered are, well, the Arcobaleno lol.

Maybe there are the ones who’ll be smart enough to find another way around the Tri-ni-sette that doesn’t involve human sacrifices too, or strong enough to fight back against him and not let him kill them even if it means the world burns, or even strong enough to straight up kill him and put him out of his misery.

A dead man can’t be blamed to not give a shit about the end of the world after all or make it his problem.

(Well, this went dark real quick lmao.)

But why does he give a shit while he lives you ask?

He met this one human that one time and love sure has a way to make you care like the dumbest of humans.

(Yes I’m talking about Sepira.)

------

An Anti Tri-ni-sette Movement is born in this generation only, but not so much because of the whole human sacrifices thing mind you.

By design they just so happen to actively trying to prevent it, but they don’t care enough to come up with an alternative to stop the apocalypse.

Not that stopping the apocalypse was ever their end goal because yeah, it’s Byakuran and his Guardians that lead the movement, and Byakuran would just like to say if Kawahira wanted the most powerful extraordinary kids, he was right there.

Also playing the anti-hero (when he’s actually a chaotic neutral bad guy lol) sounded like a lot of fun.

------

The Commission is also still a thing because, well, someone still has to keep track and protect the timelines, right?

And as I’m writing this I realize it would have make more sense to have Kawahira leading it, or even Byakuran, but whatever.

Among their many assassins there’s this one elite squad the Commission tries very hard to keep them out of the field as much as possible (and fails), because they always need to send others agents after them to sort through their collateral damage and actually keep the timelines as they should be.

Yes I’m talking about the Varia.

Byakuran is very acquainted with them (both the Varia and the Commission), because they keep trying (and failing) to kill him.

Because Byakuran keeps using his power whatever the way he fucking wants, even while being very much aware of how timelines work.

Because of course he is lol.

------

Reborn and Verde are number one and two respectively, and always butt heads.

Not because of jealousy or because Kawahira trying to pit them against each other works on them or anything like that, they just infuriate each other at a very deep level lol.

Especially because they recognize (and begrudgingly admire/respect/trust) each other’s respective strengths.

They just don’t agree/approve on how the other uses them.

(Does Reborn need to be such a huge show off all the time? Being confident in his strengths enough to play with his enemies before winning against them is one thing, showing all his cards for the world to see just so he can win against them after they tried their hardest to defeat him is just incredibly stupid.)

(Does Verde have to be so straightforward and play by the book every time? Being the smartest in the room is one thing, walking out of the room alive because of it is another one entirely.)

------

A mission goes wrong and Reborn is dying, so Kawahira injects him with the Deus Ex Machina whatever-it- is, and he gains super healing.

And the super villains and every day villains are in for an entirely new level of Reborn wiping the floor with them lol.

(And yesI know, I’m shallow, but come on Reborn is too pretty to become half-ape, half-human.)

Reborn doesn’t go on the moon.

(They all turn eighteen and Kawahira isn’t even allowed to breathe in their direction anymore, let alone send them on the fucking moon.)

------

Fon is number three.

I have this headcanon he’s a bit of a manipulator, and uses his nice guy persona to wrap people around his finger.

Or he can be anyway, but it isn’t nowhere near in the first options he considers, because I also headcanon he’s genuinely a nice guy.

Anyway he doesn’t exactly hate his power, but he doesn’t trust it himself for shit, and wants to rely on it as little as possible.

So he also ends up a martial artist in this universe, and a very quiet guy.

(He remembers all too clearly what kind of words he can speak while under emotional stress.)

(The awful, horrible, haunting feeling of realizing even he can’t take them back.)

(Lal remembers it too.)

(Then Kawahira makes it so everyone forgets.)

(And Fon makes himself forget.)

------

Colonnello is number four.

Yeah I know, it could be Skull, but let’s go with him.

Reborn is number one but it’s Colonnello who’s daddy’s good little soldier boy.

For a very simple logic that goes like this: the more he behaves, the better he is at being and doing whatever Kawahira wants, the less traumatic encounters with his power he’s forced to have.

(Colonnello was never afraid of the dark, but then he’s thrown into the mausoleum again and again, and he never stops being afraid of the dark.)

So he doesn’t turn to drugs because he can’t afford to not be at the top of his game, but he does turn to Lal and her music.

If he closes his eyes and listens hard enough and it’s loud enough, he forgets the ghosts for as long as the music goes on.

------

On the other hand he can’t help having a bit of one-sided strained relationship with Reborn, with a lot more resentment than he’d want.

(Meaning zero because in an ideal world they’re best friends, and it’s really easy to tell the rare times when Kawahira isn’t looming above their relationship.)

It’s not even like he can’t see where Reborn is coming from, taking a stand against Kawahira and defying them and crossing the line further and further each time (of course he does), but he really could do without the collective punishment.

All in all, number four is doing very good, while Colonnello is doing very bad, and maybe does become an addict as soon as he doesn’t have to play superhero anymore.

------

Viper is number five.

They’re very happy with their teleportation power, and is right there with Colonnello in being daddy’s obedient child until they can hightail it the hell out of there.

Kawahira is very invested in their training and making them take the next big step with their powers.

Viper is smart so they know of the possibility of them being able to time-travel, but no surrogate A+ parenting dad is getting them in no time-travel shenanigans, nu-uh, they don’t think so.

 But then a mission goes wrong, and instead of the little jump back a few minutes in time they wanted to do, they jump in the future.

They keep jumping in the future as they try to go back, and oh, look at this, the end of the fucking world.

And his siblings’ dead bodies.

And a very alive, adult Skull??

(This is such a relief.)

(Skull is so happy to see them again.)

------

Something goes wrong when they try to jump back to the present, and only Viper makes it back.

In their thirteen year old body, because stopping a goddamned apocalypse isn’t enough to deal with already.

Their siblings are useless and no help and broken and very traumatized dysfunctional adults and alive, and they’re so, so happy to see them again.

(If they tear up and cry a bit later when they’re alone, that’s no one business.)

They hug (only) Skull, to no one surprise, and keep hugging, which does surprise everyone, and Skull may have written that book but he’s no monster and it’s Viper, so he hugs back.

(Of course he does.)

Viper still doesn’t know he’s immortal.

(Because Skull is a dumbass and kept waiting for the right moment, and what do you know, it never showed up, but to be fair with him they had a lot to deal with.)

------

No number six even though I do like the Ben, and dead!Ben, and ghost!Ben storylines.

But it there was a number six, I guess it could be either Skull or Viper maybe?

------

Luce is number seven as in she’s the most OP of them all. Not in a “raw strength” sense of course, but seeing the future?

I think Byakuran demonstrated perfectly how OP a power it is if you’re willing to weaponized it.

She doesn’t see the end of the world coming (where would be the fun if she did?), or at least doesn’t understand it’s the end of the world she’s seeing, and not just some big scale catastrophe.

She is not daddy’s good girl even though he shows a particular interest in her power, but he can go fuck himself actually.

She’s a bit of a number four too as in she hates her power, and it certainly gives her her fair share of nightmares.

It’s a special kind of gut wrenching feeling to see when and how people will die, and not always being able to save them even if she wants to.

(Nothing terrifies Luce more than when she sees her siblings in her visions.)

------

Skull is also number seven as in he’s the ordinary one who’s actually the most extraordinary of them all.

They just never figure out he’s immortal because Kawahira doesn’t push them that far in training, and he doesn’t go on missions.

He’s shunned and isolated by everyone, except for Viper and, hear me out, Luce.

Viper is afraid of heights, and maybe it shouldn’t matter because of the “jump” way their teleportation works, but sue them it does and they can’t help it.

Skull is the only one who takes the time to help them with that in another way that isn’t telling them to get over it, or making them dangling over edges.

Their friendship starts from there.

------

Luce on the other hand approaches him for selfish reasons.

Skull is the safe sibling, the one if she were ever to see his death, she can only hope it won’t be a too brutal one (or a brutal one at all).

But then, well. Skull is Skull, and he’s fun to be around with and funny, and he’s so good at keeping you out of your own head and thoughts, and he is such a breath of fresh air from her usual, unbearable routine, and—

He’s better than her at keeping his resentment and envy of her extraordinariness at bay than she is at doing the same with his ordinariness, and she’s so grateful he doesn’t push her away for it.

------

Skull is still very much treated like dirt, and he rolls with it as best he can.

Mostly because being left out of this whole extraordinary superheroes stuff lets him see how truly fucked up it is.

Skull is the one who wakes up at night not because he can’t sleep, but because the others can’t, and they don’t always manage to be silent about it.

He’s the one who sees them coming back from missions injured like no children should ever be, who assists Kawahira during their training and has to help them up at the end of it because they can’t move anymore.

He’s the one who watches them never really growing close with each other as much as he is the only one shunned, because Kawahira only has enough favors in him for only one of them.

Except he doesn’t even have that of course.

Skull is the only one who hasn’t blood on his hands, and he always feels guilty and awful at how relieved and lucky he feels whenever he sees that look in their eyes.

So he rolls with it, but not quietly, and forcefully makes himself a place among them even if it’s only to be their Lackey, because these guys are in dire need of ordinariness, no matter what Kawahira made them believe.

No matter what Kawahira made him believe.

It doesn’t work a lot of times, and only work a little when it does, but it’ll have to do.

Skull of course still hurts and is forced into his own traumatic childhood, so he still writes the book.

------

Skull figures out he’s immortal as soon as he’s left alone into adulthood because he is a dumbass.

The others learn about it because Luce saw the vision of his first death, and they were quite literally there to stop it from happening.

But instead they saw him coming back to life.

They don’t talk about it.

(None of them are in the right head space to talk about it).

And then they’re back at having no contact between them until the next time Luce has a vision of his death.

(Because he’s immortal now, but what if he’s not anymore?)

(Skull is so sorry of this new layer of fucked up he added to Luce’s visions.)

It’s very awkward when Viper comes back and tells them Skull is the only one who survived the apocalypse though they don’t know how, and they have to break the news to them.

------

Lal is also number seven as in she’s the one being medicated to keep her powers at bay.

She’s The White Violin, if only because one of them needs the raw strength and ability in their power to blow up the moon lol.

Lal is extraordinary until she isn’t.

She’s thirteen, and the mission goes wrong, and she’s losing control of her powers, and Fon says some unfortunate words.

Then Kawahira makes him say other unfortunate words, and Lal never has been extraordinary.

(Because she’s too powerful, and he’s trying to keep the world turning, not end it whenever she’ll feel too strongly too much.)

Her relationships with the others kind of fall short because it kind of feels hollow/shallow now, and she ends up isolated too.

But because of their respective unique circumstances, Skull and her unfortunately never bond.

Colonnello and her stays close, because if Lal can be useful with her music that way, she’s more than happy to do it.

And on an entirely unrelated note, I really like the idea of musician!Lal actually.

------

Sepira is Mom.

Yeah I know, the similarities with Luce would be very obvious, but let’s pretend it wouldn’t be.

And they don’t have a chimpanzee uncle, but they do have pets from that one time they gang together against Kawahira.

But they never said what kind of pets they wanted to have lol.

------

So it goes something like this:

Number One: Reborn – Super Strength and Super Healing

Number Two: Verde – Either The Smartest Man In The World or controlling the trajectory of weapons (while still being the smartest man in the world even if it isn’t in the “super” way), or both

Number Three: Fon – The Rumor

Number Four: Colonnello – The Seance

Number Five: Viper – The Child

Number Six: Luce – The Prophetess

Number Seven: Lal – The White Violin The (Extra)Ordinary One

Number Eight: Skull – The Immortal The Ordinary One

*

I actually have AUs of this AU, but let’s not make myself too comfortable in this hole lol. Hope you enjoyed it, and feel free to add!

[pricetagofficial]

The Archer -T.D.

So decided to post the first bit of my Tim Drake fic on here to see what you all think, this is not a reader insert sorry but I hold Rory Queen very close to my heart. I hope you all will love her as much as I do.

Part Two

Warnings: Language, blood, sexual content and probably more. These warnings are for the entire fic, not just this part.

Word count: 1.9k

Tags: @catxsnow​ (Just let me know if you want to be put in the tags)

Preface

All Aurora could see was gray. Grey ash, grey concrete amongst the dead bodies covered in the grey. Glancing down, she caught sight of two familiar figures. Getting to her feet, Rory ran as fast as her 11-year-old legs could carry her. Falling to her knees, her tiny hands tried to lift the slabs of concrete off the people buried underneath.

"Help!" she screamed. "Somebody help me!"

Rory's arms were seconds away from giving out when two large, muscular arms arrived and began to lift the concrete with her. What she saw underneath only confirmed her worst fears. Letting out a scream of anguish, Rory's eyes met with the lifeless gaze of her parents.

Desperate for any form of comfort, Rory collapsed into the green-clad hero who helped uncover her parents. She felt his strong arms wrap around her in a comforting embrace.

"Hey Green, we need yo-"  The voice of a woman was cut off, the sight broke her heart. The Green Arrow was sat on his knees, holding a little girl who was grieving over the sight of her dead parents.

Green Arrow looked up at his wife and partner. "Canary, help me get her back to base." he said, his own voice strained from holding back sobs. Black Canary gave him a nod, walking over and taking the young girl into her arms.

Green Arrow rose to his feet. "I'll help Red finish up here. Get her out." he ordered.

Black Canary gave him yet another nod and began to walk to her bike. "Can you tell me your name sweetheart?" she asked the sobbing child.

"A-Aurora. But I like Rory more." she responded, hiccuping at the end.

"Aurora? That's a beautiful name." Rory looked up at the beautiful woman carrying her.

"Really?" she asked. "My best friend used to say the same thing."

"Well, your best friend is very smart." The two of them arrived to Black Canary's bike and she gently set the girl down. "I'm going to need you to hold on, can you do that for me?"

Aurora gave her a nod and let the woman place a slightly larger helmut on her head, fastening it tight. Once Rory was ready, Canary set her on the bike and climbed on behind her, keeping the girl close to her chest. Revving up her bike, the two of them took off for the Arrow Cave.

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

Chapter One

9 Years Later

"Was that supposed to hurt?" The Grey Arrow pulled the mugger's knife out of her shoulder and flipped it around in her hand with a wide grin on her face. Stumbling, the mugger dropped the girl and began to back away. Grey Arrow, knelt to help up the poor girl and the man took this as his chance to escape.

"Where do you think you're off to?" she asked, throwing the already bloody knife into his thigh making him fall to the floor with a cry of pain. Before he could even get the chance to stand up, Grey Arrow put her foot on his chest pinning him to the floor.

"Alright! I give up! Take me in!" he cried.

The grin didn't leave her face as she gripped the knife hanging from his thigh. "I want you to apologize to the lady first," she demanded, the man groaning in pain.

"The hell I will!" he countered. Grey Arrow only turned the knife in his thigh, making him scream in pain.

"I said, apologize." She demanded once again, her voice dropping to a dangerous tone that the criminals of Star City knew all to well.

"Arrow, I don't nee-" the girl started.

"He will apologize, it's considered good manners." Grey Arrow seethed, twisting the knife further.

The man let out a blood curdling scream, "Alright! Fine, I'll apologize!" he cried. At this, Grey Arrow stilled her hand.

"We're waiting."

"I'm sorry! God, I'm sorry! Now let me go!"

Grey Arrow released her grip on the knife, and got to her feet. "That wasn't so hard, now was it?" she asked.

"Fuck you." he spat, gripping his bleeding thigh.

Grey Arrow punched him, knocking the man out. "In your dreams." Then she turned to the girl behind her, staring at her in bewilderment.

"Call the police." She ordered, the girl picked up her phone and began dialing quickly. "Also, don't mention me if you don't mind." and with that, Grey Arrow took off for her bike, hidden a few blocks down.

Dropping down from the fire escape, she landed on her bike gracefully and revved it to life the sleek, black vehicle humming underneath her. Blowing some stray hair out of her face, she took off for Queen Manor.

Pulling into the underside, Aurora Sonnet-Queen removed her domino mask, her brown eyes scanning across the Arrow Cave. Swinging her leg up and off the bike, Rory made her way to her case and out her mask and weapons away safely.

The Arrow Cave had been quiet ever since Roy left to join the Outlaws with his other best friend; Jackson Rod or whatever along with a few of their other mutual friends and old flames of Rory's. If her memory served her right, and she was always right, there was only one person on the team that she hadn't met and it was Jackson.

Grabbing some gauze, Rory untied her chest piece and let it fall to her waist still wearing a black razor top underneath. The stab wound on her shoulder wasn't bad, but it did need to be doctored. Lucky for her, Oliver and Dinah taught her how to apply first aid.

Dressing the wound was not a painful as she thought it would be, it just required cleaning and a couple of homemade stitches. Once she finished, Rory slid the rest of her suit off and hung it up in her display case. Taking her glance to the left, she saw not only her Arrowette suit, but her White Arrow suit.

Every time she laid her eyes on this suit, Rory felt a pang in her chest longing for the girl she used to be. But she could never be that girl again. Turning away, she made her way to the stairs that led up to the mansion. The second she entered the main lobby, there was a yell across the mansion.

"Aurora James Queen! My study now!"

Something told Rory that Oliver found out about something she did and that was never good news.

Normally, Oliver and Rory had a great relationship, but this last year was hard on her. Aurora used to be the White Arrow; the symbol of hope and pure goodness in Star City. But everything was different now.

Rory was now the Grey Arrow and preferred to work alone. Oliver, Dinah and especially Roy hated that she pushed them all away. Roy had been her best friend for years now and she trusted him more than anyone, except for the fact that she refused to work with him now and it was for his own safety.

What could Oliver had found out this time? Truth be told Rory didn't hold many secrets from Oliver, just the ones she knew that he would not agree or approve of. Slowly creaking the door open, Rory saw both Oliver and Dinah waiting her. Now she knew that whatever this was about, it was bad.

Hey Oli, what's up?" she asked, her signature smile gracing her face.

"What's up? Why don't you ask the three comatose thugs you put in the hospital last night?" he frowned, crossing his arms.

Well, there could be worse he found out about. Rory moved and sat in the chair across from him. "They were rapists Oli, they're lucky that I didn't castrate and leave them for dead." she said sternly, her gaze not breaking from Oliver's.

Oliver's eyes didn't break their gaze either. It seemed that her was searching for any sense of remorse let alone any emotion but all he saw was nothing. That's what worried him and Dinah the most. Rory seemed to have no form of emotion any more other than rage and her usual sarcasm.

"Aurora, you can't keep going on like this. One day you're going to take it too far and you won't be able to come back from it." Dinah said, moving to kneel next her seat.

Rory avoided Dinah's gaze, knowing full well that she could convince her to do anything with just one look.

"In case you both forgot, I did cross that line. Looks like I am just fine." she snapped, not taking her gaze off Oliver.

"That's the thing, you aren't fine. We adopted you, raised you  and brought you into this world of crime fighting. Of course we can tell when you are not fine and you haven't been fine since out last encounter with Slade."

Hearing that name set Rory's heart on fire. Memories flooded her mind of all the dead bodies, including her parents. Absentmindedly, her hand traced the thin golden brand on her wrist. The last gift her father had given her mother for their last anniversary.

"This is why you can't stay here."

Rory's eyes narrowed. "What, so you're going to kick out your daughter out?"

"No, you are going to be staying with a friend from the league for a while."

Rory let out a groan. "Oh please tell me that it's not the golden boy, Superman." she threw her head back. "I can't do his boy scout attitude."

Dinah tried to hide her laugh, "No, Clark is not who you are staying with dear."

"Then where would I be staying?" Rory asked, looking at her adoptive mother.

"You are going to Gotham City to stay with Bruce Wayne. Dinah and I think that if anyone can help you overcome the darkness in your heart, it would be the Dark Knight himself." Oliver explained. "Even Roy agrees with us. He is just as worried about you."

"You're sending me to Gotham? Oli, did Merlyn hit you too hard last week? The crime rate in Gotham is worse. You really think that this will help?" she countered. "Besides, do you not remember the last time I saw Bruce? I kicked his ass and bleached his cape."

"Yes, I remember. It still baffles me that you managed to bleach his bat cape. But Bruce agrees, he thinks you might be able to learn something from him and his family. All of them have been trained since a young age too." Oliver said, his gaze not faltering.

Letting out a sigh, Rory nodded. "All right fine, when do I leave?"

Both Oliver and Dinah decided that it was best if only one of them flew Rory down to Gotham, Star City still needed a hero and they were not stupid enough to let her go on her own either. The good news was that the flight was only 8 hours long, even though Rory hated flying. The last time she flew, it was not in a plane.

The Justice League's resident golden boy decided that it was a good idea to fly her across Star City. Supes was in town to help Oliver on a case when Count Vertigo attacked the hospitals. Just remembering that day sent shivers down her spine, making Oliver take notice.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

Rory nodded, "Yeah, just glad that there is no one in Gotham can fly. Right?" she asked. Oliver laughed at her question.

"No one I know of can fly in Gotham." His statement set Rory at east as she finally relaxed into her seat.

[toushindai]

Presentable

Megaera and Thanatos have come to help Zagreus get ready for the most important feast of his life.

[Post-credits, epilogue-adjacent. Established relationships, but could easily be read as friendship fic as well.]

[ Read on AO3 ]

*

“Zag.”

He turns at the sound of his name and finds that not only Meg but also Than are standing in his doorway. They pick their way around the half-dozen chitons he’s thrown aside to come to him.

“Hi, you two,” he says, trying to calm his nerves by sending them a crooked grin. “What’s the occasion?”

Two matching exasperated looks at that. That’s fair. It’s pretty clear what the occasion is. Zagreus turns back to the mirror, still trying to decide whether he likes this royal purple overtunic better than the scarlet one he’s left draped over the chaise lounge or the viridian one at his feet, trying to ignore the anxiety obvious in his face. Megaera comes up behind him and puts her hands on his shoulders, turning him inexorably to face her.

“We’re here to make sure you’re presentable for the feast,” she says.

He winces. “Did Father…”

“No, we came on our own.” That’s Than, who’s folding the red overtunic to take a seat on the lounge. “We wanted to make sure you were feeling all right. Are you?”

Oh. A wave of shaky relief passes through Zagreus as he understands. With a deep breath, he closes his eyes and lets Megaera adjust the placement of his laurels.

“I’m… a little nervous, I think,” he confesses. “I’m sure everything will be fine, but when I started smelling what the head chef was cooking, it occurred to me that I’m going to be really meeting that side of the family for the first time. What if they don’t like me? What if they’re furious that I’ve been deceiving them, and that’s the reason this doesn’t go well, and then someone starts a—”

“Purple isn’t your color,” Megaera breaks in then, annoyed. She’s loosening his belt and pulling the overtunic free. “Don’t try to be someone else. Than, hand me that one.”

Thanatos hands over the scarlet fabric he’d folded into a neat square and Megaera drapes it into place. Than says, “Your Olympian relatives aren’t exactly known for having discerning tastes. I wouldn’t worry about whether they’ll like you.”

“Besides, you’re the hero of the little story your mother concocted,” Meg reminds him brusquely. “If they’re going to be angry with anyone, it’ll be your father.”

“And Mother,” Zagreus says, his voice tight.

“She’s been missing all this time, as far as the Olympians are concerned. They probably thought she was dead. They’ll be overjoyed just to see her.”

Zagreus searches Megaera’s face as she adjusts his belt over his tunic. “Do you think that’ll be enough?”

“That’s what your parents are hoping, at least,” Thanatos says. “According to Mother Nyx.”

“You were talking to Nyx about it?” Zagreus looks his way. Thanatos stares back, his face blank, and Zagreus realizes something. “You’re nervous about this too, aren’t you. Both of you?” He glances towards Meg, and the way she rolls her eyes confirms his guess.

“Everyone’s nervous, Zagreus.” Thanatos lifts himself out of the lounge chair and drifts towards the mirror. Catching Zagreus’s sleeve between his fingers, he hovers there, his eyes intent. “Even Mother. I’d say I’ve never seen her so on-edge before, but that wouldn’t quite be true.”

“When…?”

“Before she left to go see Primordial Chaos,” Than says flatly.

“Ah…”

“So that was your fault, too,” Megaera says, irony in her voice. Zagreus winces at her words, but her eyes show no accusation as she continues, “You’ve really spent your time making a mess of everything, haven’t you, Zagreus? Taking people who haven’t talked to each other in aeons and hounding them until they reconcile. No wonder the Queen thinks this is a good idea.”

“It does make sense,” Than agrees with a dry twist of his mouth. “Her son has proven to be quite the miracle worker.”

“Oh, come on, Meg, Than, I just…” Zagreus feels like he’s being praised and made fun of in equal measure. “I haven’t done any miracles. All I did was talk to people. I just couldn’t stand to see everyone so unhappy.”

The both of them sigh. Fondly? Maybe? But Zagreus can’t tell what it’s supposed to mean. Megaera turns him to face the mirror and he obediently assesses his appearance, and—she’s right, the red is much better for him. He feels much more like himself. He only hopes himself is enough for the situation.

She takes his hand then, and Than takes the other, letting his feet touch the floor. All three of them are reflected in the Mirror of Night, together, and Zagreus squeezes their hands and they squeeze back.

“You’ve given your father and mother reason to believe that just talking to people is a better solution than aeons of lies and secrets,” Than says evenly. “Whether that proves true with the Olympians or not, you’ve your own actions to thank for it.”

Zagreus’s stomach flops over, but Megaera eyes him seriously.

“Are you happy with the results of your actions so far?”

Zagreus’s brow furrows as he thinks. Nyx and Chaos. Achilles and Patroclus, Orpheus and Eurydice, even his parents—and his two partners, as anxious as he is but standing here with him so that he’s not alone.

“Yes,” he answers honestly.

“Then keep up that stupid optimistic faith of yours,” Meg says with a warm smirk. “It’s worked so far, even when everyone around you has doubted.”

Zagreus exhales. “Mother said to have faith, too,” he muses. “I just hope—”

Thanatos pulls him into a sudden tight hug before he can keep speaking, and after a startled moment, Zagreus lets the embrace cut his worries short. Another moment passes, and then even Megaera joins in, her arms tight around both of them. They stay like that until a group of shades hurry past the room, chattering about the feast. Then Meg steps back.

“If your relatives try to hurt the Queen, Nyx will slaughter them all,” she says decisively. “And I’ll help.”

“Me too,” Than adds.

Zagreus gives a strained laugh, looking between Death Incarnate and the eldest Fury and remembering exactly what they are beyond two people that he loves with his entire heart. “I… really hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Meg scoffs. “It won’t. You really need to learn to figure out when I’m joking, Zag.” She adjusts his laurels again, combing his hair with her fingers, and Than takes his hand one more time. Truthfully, Zagreus isn’t convinced that either of them was joking. But it’s not like they’re outfitting themselves for battle, or psyching themselves up. Instead, they’re here. With him.

He gazes seriously at Megaera. “Thank you, Meg,” he says, and she rolls her eyes because he’s skipped over the superficial bickering to get to the heart of things again, but she doesn’t refuse his gratitude. He looks at Than next. “You too, Than. I feel… nervous, still, but less so now.”

“That’s the best any of us can hope for here,” Than acknowledges. “Meet you in the great hall?”

And without waiting for an answer, he shifts away.

“Show-off,” Megaera snorts. Then she, herself, starts for the door. “Come on, Zag.”

Zag steals one last glance into the mirror. He looks like himself. The Prince of Hell, sure, when he’s all done up like this, but also just… himself. Kindness, concern, optimism. He used to think he’d never be worthy of others’ love. But recently, people have been proving him wrong about that, one after the other, and thanking him for it all for some reason.

So, with a deep breath, he follows Meg out into the hall, towards the smells of the feast.

[sammansonn]

My Thoughts on the 100 7x07

alright lets start with the sanctum plot

still not Super obsessed with the sanctum plot but i do love murphy and emori also am glad that indra finally went to figure out where the others are and hopefully she’ll find gaia because we Still don’t know if she’s okay

i love emori so much and she was really trying so hard this episode to help people and things just went to shit and im So Upset

i’m also Very scared that john is gonna die this season idk if its all the talk of him being a hero or of being a survivor but i have Fear and if he dies me and emori are gonna Cri and its not gonna be good

i am So Glad madi finally got some fucking Therapy and has some fucking Friends its what she Deserves

listening to emori talk about her family and being kicked out just upset me because they Were wrong about her she is Amazing and Lovely and i Love her

sheidheda is actually real scary and i Knew he was just messing around with murphy and just baiting him it was Rough

watching emori so happy at the ceremony as families reunited genuinely warmed my heart but also i Knew bad shit was gonna happen

i also fully cried when Nelson met his mom it was so sweet and you could see nelson just felt like a little kid again who just wanted his mom (which was also mirrored nicely in hope and dioyza but we’ll get to that)

i also Continued to cry when he killed his dad the pain on nelson’s face as he watched both his parents hate him was Too Much

shit really hit the fan and i am just very concerned about nikki and nelson because they are Both very unstable and i also feel like this is gonna but a strain on emori and murphy’s relationship (which i know isn’t As big as the general murder and crime of nikki but still

okay bardo time

first off when we saw bellamy in the flashback i was so emotional i literally started tearing up just hearing his voice and even though i don’t like echo i still thought the scene was kinda cute but also i think it kinda showed that he never really knew much about her and that she really just switched her loyalty from azgeda to bellamy/spacekru and that is definitely reflected in her romantic feelings for him

but seeing bellamy even a little bit was the highlight of my day i love that man and miss him so much

so that scene with echo and octavia was genuinely sweet and also just shows how beautiful of a person octavia is and just how much she’s grown and how she genuinely is remorseful for what she’s done o that was just *chef’s kiss* but i also just thought it was a bit weird with echo just Really Resisting and octavia refusing to let go, i guess its just O’s motherly instinct after raising hope for 10 years but it just felt a bit odd but still a nice emotional scene

the scenes with hope and diyoza were all very upsetting and made me sad but we also love a mother daughter sparring bonding session

also hope’s face when she finds out about her bio dad was so painful that poor baby girl i just want to give her a hug

when hope just broke down it really Got me all the kids in the 100 just Deserve Better (also love that hope calls dev her dad its what he Deserves)

echo is just fully losing it which i guess makes sense but Jeez

not sure how i feel about the whole gang joining anders but gabriel said its been months since he joined so im nervous to see the girls after three months of being disciples??? we shall see i guess

as soon as i saw clarke i was happy again because i love that bitch more than anyone but Gabriel told her about bellamy???? her face??? the Devastation???

also raven looked Directly at clarke when she heard because she Knew clarke was gonna be devastated that girl ships bellarke Confirmed

im just Waiting to learn more about clarke being this fucking key also just want to see clarke more in general also would still Love to know where bellamy is (although im guessing they’re gonna have a whole episode following him and wherever the heck he be and then maybe at the end of that episode he’ll see clarke again we love a bellarke “one of them thought the other was dead” reunion)

[reluctantly-plus-ultra]

Rei

Totally random thought here, but can we consider how absolutely crazy the LOV plot could’ve been if they’d taken in Rei? Like, total crack theory, but there are so many fun ways that could’ve been spun.

-It all just starts off with them trying to take out the new number one hero, and nobody’s really sure who mentioned that Endeavor’s wife had been hospitalized (not exactly common knowledge), but it seems like a pretty easy way to take a hostage and lure him in

-Dabi’s kinda pushing against it, but that’s not super shocking as he’s always been a pretty grey-area villain, and if any one of them are likely to have doubts about kidnapping mentally unstable women and putting them in potentially life-threatening situations, of course it’s this crispy dude

-So they take some time planning this whole thing out, and when the time comes around to actually pull it off, it works without a hitch. In and out, nobody notices a thing- particularly not Rei’s caretakers who can’t tell the difference between the real Rei Todoroki and one of Twice’s clones (which is saddening in and of itself)

-They all get back to the base and are putting on this whole evil production, trying to really play up their front and frighten their captive a little bit, but part-way through Shigaraki’s speech about how she’s going to be the bait that helps bring down Endeavor, Rei just...Cuts him off?

-Everyone’s kind of a little taken aback, because nobody does that unless they have a death wish, but here’s this frail wraith of a woman looking completely undaunted while literally tied to a chair, helpless and surrounded by villains

- And she looks their leader dead in the eye and tells him that if they’re looking to take down Enji, there are better ways of doing it 

-LITTLE DID THEY KNOW they kidnapped a literal powerbank of info on their number one target, yes, but they also kidnapped a broken woman who has a story to tell, an army of skeletons in her closet, and more than a few grudges to settle.

-And so, this is how the League of Villains become the first group to hear the truth of what went on behind closed doors in the prestigious Todoroki household, and the facts churn more than one stomach. After all, they might be villains, but for the most part they’re not total monsters, and not a single one of them present can deny that the whole situation is ten variants of fucked up.

-If Dabi had to leave for a cigarette or two when Rei started talking about her children, well, that was his own business.

-When the whole tale is said and done, it doesn’t take long for the league to come to the consensus that hell, if Rei wants to join their cause and crush her husband’s career, they’re not in any position to stop her. They were on the hunt for new recruits anyway, this is really just a win-win situation.

-Things are different with her around; Rei might be part of the cause, but she’s not a true villain like the rest of them. She sets the ground-rules pretty early on; what she doesn’t and doesn’t agree with, what she will and won’t help accomplish. None of them really argue it, because it’s not like they can truly force her to become an evil-doer, and in some ways, it’s nice having a motherly figure around and knowing she wasn’t cleaning blood off the knives in the kitchen earlier.

-And with time, she does gradually become the den mother of sorts, in an odd, peculiar way. It was to be expected, as many of the LOV lacked parental figures, and Rei had a hole in her heart where her children had been stripped. That doesn’t make it any less strange to walk in on Rei patiently braiding Toga’s hair while the teen chatters on about boys and blood like the two subjects were interchangeable, but Rei missed the opportunity to have bonding time like this with Fuyumi, and she’ll be damned if she passes it up again.

-Eventually, this compassion spreads throughout the other members of the league, though, and it’s evident in all kinds of little ways. Compress is meticulous about finding her pretty objects and flowers every time they go out, something to brighten the woman’s day, especially after years of staring at the same four walls. Twice is particularly good at finding new rom-coms for him and Rei to binge when time allows for it. She and Kurogiri know how to make everyone’s individual favourite kinds of tea (and stronger drinks as well, with the exception of Toga)

-She sews Shigaraki a pair of gauntlets that cover one finger and leave the rest of his hand exposed so he can touch things and not have to worry about destroying them, and ooh boy, emotions are high that day.

-They often give her “progress reports” about how Shouto’s doing too, tell her about how strong he’s getting and what new tricks he’s learned from whenever they encounter her son in combat situations. Nothing will ever top the time that Twice came back with three missing teeth and a broken nose, and proudly told Rei Todoroki about how well Shouto could roundhouse kick

-Is it weird to be keeping a special eye on up-and-coming heroes, and be proud when they kick your ass? Probably. Most of them don’t care though, because that’s Rei’s son, look at the little squirt go-

-Poor Todoroki becomes doubly confused when a few of the LOV visibly perk up whenever he uses his ice, which makes no fucking sense, and you can guarantee that he and Midoriya theorize the hell out of it like the true conspiracy theorists they are.

-Dabi’s relationship with Rei is oddly strained, and nobody seems to understand how the typically mild woman manages to put their sarcastic edgelord into extreme defense mode. It’s remarkable to him that none of them have made the connections between Rei’s son Touya and the fire-wielder who they see every damned day, but he can’t tell if it’s worse or better that Rei herself hasn’t seemed to pick up on it either.

-and hAWKS, DEAR LORD HAVE MERCY HAWKS

-Of course, upon doing his undercover work in the league, he’d expected to come across a few surprises, but finally convincing Dabi to let him meet the league and immediately running straight into Endeavor’s wife was not anywhere on the list. It’s something he knows he should be reporting to the Commission as soon as he’s clear, but there’s just... Something not right about how this is sitting, and it causes him to wait things out a little bit.

-And then, upon getting to know her, and finding Rei to be surprisingly sweet and kind for the people she was affiliated with, some red flags were bound to go up. Like, he was confused as hell to begin with even seeing her in the League, but seeing her there and knowing that she’s helping take down Endeavor without being a complete nutcase? Not a good sign.

-So when he too finally gets the whole story, it completely rattles the entire world he stands on. Everything he’s thought of this man he’s looked up to his whole life, everything he thought he was surefooted in putting his faith in, has been completely shattered. It’s devastating and horrible, and a really hard pill to swallow.

-But beyond that, and despite whatever airs he puts on, Hawks is one smart chickadee and it takes him all of 2.36 seconds to figure out that the brooding 20-something-year-old with a vendetta against this same man and a fire quirk too powerful for his own good is none other than Rei’s son Touya without a doubt. He doesn’t blame himself for missing it before, but knowing Dabi and knowing the whole story of what went down suddenly brings things into a whole new perspective, and it unfortunately makes a lot of sense.

-Eventually, after about a month or so and neither Dabi nor Rei seeming to make any move to reconnect, Hawks intervenes a little, pulling Rei aside to nudge her towards the struggling young man. It’s a surprise to find out that she’s known all along, has known since the day they took her from the hospital, and she first laid eyes on him. “He’s different, older,” She says with a small smile, patting the winged hero’s arm, “But I’d recognize my son anywhere.”

-Hawks chooses not to mention how Endeavor had faced Touya in person and not even come close to the same conclusion, but the knowledge of the thing still simmers in his gut.

-She says she’s waiting for him to come to her and tell her himself, but Dabi’s a stubborn little shit, so when things get a bit too overwhelming for the fire-user one night and Hawks has to bring an absolutely drunk-off-his-rocker Touya Todoroki back to the league or risk him passing out in a gutter somewhere, he takes him straight to Rei. He’s a mess, has been for the last three hours since he first broke into Hawks’ apartment just after midnight and began info-dumping his story to him then and there, scuffed knuckles and bleeding scars indicating that he’s already had some trouble earlier in the night.

-Of course, Dabi isn’t in the mood to chat and takes one look at Rei before trying to walk right back out the door. But the strain is becoming too much for Hawks too, and it’s time to lay some old demons to rest.

-It’s a little uncomfortable, being a bystander to their reunion, but Hawks can’t honestly trust that Dabi won’t flee if he’s not blocking the way and tracking him down again would be an absolute pain in the ass. So instead, he tries his best to be a mute fly on the wall as Rei approaches her rigid prodigal son, and gently raises one hand up to his cheek, using the sleeve of her sweater to carefully wipe away the blood trails.

-”I knew a boy just like you once.”

-Hawks can’t deny that his heart breaks a little as Rei tells this unmoving statue of a man about her Touya, how kind and gentle and loving he was, how he played so well with his younger siblings, and always put them first. How much she loved him, how much they all did, how she’d treasured his crayon drawings and cried in secret when he burned, and the slowly crumbling look on Dabi’s face is something he never wants to see again.

-”What happened to him?” Dabi asks, voice wavering, and it’s devastating that he’s still trying so hard to keep that mask on, to hide behind a scarred face and dyed hair like he doesn’t already know who he is, like he wasn’t admitting it all in Hawk’s living room an hour beforehand, pacing a hole through the carpet.

-“Nothing that was his fault,” Rei answers quietly, finally letting the unshed tears roll down her cheeks, even as she smiles, “I’m just glad to see he’s still alive.”

-It takes half a second for both of them to be embracing in a crumpled heap on the floor of the warehouse, and damn it, even Hawks is crying when he hears Dabi call Rei “Mom” for the first time in twelve fucking years, both of them sobbing, though the tears aren’t all sad. There’s a relieved look on Rei’s face as she combs through Dabi’s hair soothingly, saying his name over and over again until it finally doesn’t feel strange to associate it with the broken man Hawks has come to know.

-Things are better from then on. Explaining this revelation to the rest of the league the next morning was… Something, but Dabi’s smiles come easier after that night, and Hawks is learning to appreciate how simple it can be to make him laugh. There’s a light in his eyes that wasn’t there before, and while Hawks knows he shouldn’t be making these kinds of promises, not with the orders he’s under, he swears he won’t let it flicker out again. Damned hero instincts and all that.

Honestly, I have a lot more ideas to run with this prompt, but I don’t want to make this unbearably long- let me know if y’all are interested in a part two!