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inamindfarfaraway · 2 years ago

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Dark Oracle AU

Okay, I need to expand on this concept. I present my personal idea of a timeline from the canon state of affairs (or, well, my interpretation of them because comics are so inconsistent and full of crap, basically pre-New 52 with Duke) to Big Sister dictatorship!

The Batfamily is battling a really serious threat, like Ra’s al Ghul or the Court of Owls or a supervillain alliance or something. It’s a big deal. Very high stakes. The only reason they’re even attempting a mission this risky is because, thanks in large part to their resident information-finding specialist Barbara, they have a great deal of knowledge in advance and are sure they’ve planned for every possible outcome, as Bats tend to do. Except the villain has a secret advantage, another trick up their sleeve. There’s no way Babs could have found out about this, but of course she doesn’t believe that and blames herself, as Bats tend to do. The heroes aren’t prepared and in the chaos none of the contingency plans they’re able to execute work. By the time they defeat the threat… Black Bat and Batgirl are dead. Steph is killed first, heroically sacrificing herself, and Cass, the nearest to her, is caught off-guard in her shock.

I’m sorry! I am! But I truly think that Babs could not properly turn evil if she had Team Batgirl to remind her of her definition of heroism, of her own lingering inner Batgirl. She needs to just be Oracle. Cass is buried in the Wayne Manor cemetery; Steph in a public one the closest to the same distance from the Manor and Crystal’s house. They both get memorials in the Batcave.

Babs shuts down in depressed and self-hatred. She watched her daughter figures, her protégés, her Batgirls die because of (in her mind) her inadequacy. She feels like she’ll similarly fail at anything she tries to do now. She quits being Oracle and withdraws from the Batfam and her father. Remember, she has an eidetic memory, and watched and heard Steph and Cass’s deaths via the family’s mask cameras. They’re all she can see when she closes her eyes. Those screams are always ringing in her ears.

Meanwhile, Bruce takes this about as well as he took losing a child/young vigilante he inspired and mentored the last two times, but doubled. Although he and Alfred have enough experience that he doesn’t get quite as bad as fast as when Jason died, he’s still significantly more antisocial, aggressive, reckless and self-destructive and isolates himself more over the first months afterward. Jim notices the disappearance of Black Bat and Batgirl and the sadly familiar changes in Batman’s behaviour and puts the pieces together. He offers Batman what comfort he can, but is simultaneously worrying about Babs on top of his job. Crime rates go up whenever the Batfam’s numbers decrease.

The remaining Batkids are distraught. Other than Jason, they grow closer in their shared grief. Jason is off on his own turning his pain into violence even more savagely than normal. He recognizes that he’s falling back on his terrible coping mechanisms and doesn’t want to hurt his family this time, so he just doesn’t interact with them. Tim is hit especially hard due to being the closest to Cass and Steph - not to mention that he in particular so fucking sick and tired of his loved ones dying across his teenage years. He’s very unstable. Steph was one of the key people who taught Damian how to have fun and be a kid, and how important it was, so without her he’s more liable to forget that and backslide into acting cold, aloof, violently temperamental, etc.. Duke is made acutely aware of how short life is and that anyone he cares about could die at any time, so he actually strengthens his friendships with the We Are Robin kids. They can break down and be vulnerable with each other in private, but mostly push themselves harder because they each feel that it’s their duty to both keep Gotham safe and prevent Bruce and their siblings going off the rails. Dick is probably the least emotionally vulnerable because he has the most practice bottling up intense grief effectively and, with Bruce’s psychological decline and constant busyness, steps up more as the Responsible Adult alongside Alfred.

Bruce forbids Tim, Duke and Damian to go into the field and Dick agrees, because can they stop losing family for five minutes? A number of restrictions are implemented to uphold this. It’s Tim, Duke and Damian, though, of course they get out anyway. Helping people directly is one of the only sources of serotonin they have.

This is when things really start to go to hell: Bruce is killed. Because of his recklessness and accelerated by his poor health due to neglecting self-care. Because he charged into a dangerous fight alone, Alfred in the chair occupied with the Batkids. Because, Babs can’t convince herself otherwise, he didn’t have Oracle watching his back. The Batkids really could not stop losing family for five minutes. He’s buried right next to his daughter, the death dates just three months apart. Memorial in the cave, natch. But they don’t pretend he isn’t dead this time, so the whole city must mourn its Dark Knight. There are huge memorial services, statues made of him. Jim cries a lot. He already lost Harvey, now Bats?

Oh yeah, and - released a little later to throw people off and let them form a convincing cover story - Bruce Wayne is dead too. A massive blow to Gotham’s morale and even greater surges in crime follow. Their inspirational ray of sunshine and hope and belief in humanity is suddenly gone forever, and so soon after their original and most accomplished superhero. Who are they going to believe in now? Well… at least they still have the rest of the vigilantes.

Babs returns to work. Throws herself into it the way other people throw themselves off bridges. She stays on more formal terms with the Batfam at first, but does reconnect with them over time. She moves Cass and Steph’s memorials to the Clocktower “for motivation”, and this is evidently effective, seeing how she goes into overdrive and is soon leading and coordinating everyone alongside Dick. Gotham is floundering without Bruce and Batman and she refuses to let it fall into anarchy. She’ll be its Oracle, guiding it to a brighter future. She’ll never not know or foresee something ever again. She can’t. Jim is getting extremely worried.

If she’s doing badly, Bruce’s own children’s mental states can be summarised as deep shit. Everyone embraces the family’s classic coping mechanisms, workaholism and emotional repression, harder to try to cope with the chaos. Tim takes over more Wayne Enterprises responsibilities. You know, ‘cause he doesn’t have enough on his plate. Unlike last time, Bruce is definitely permanently dead and he doesn’t take that well. Alfred… is going through it. Sorry, Alfred. A small comfort is that Jason is inspired to treasure his remaining family and he and his siblings and grandad work on repairing their relationships.

Things don’t go Gotham meets Oceania overnight. Babs eroding her code of ethics to the point of evil dictatorship is a slow process, the kind you may not even register until it’s happened. One year after Bruce’s death she’s composed enough to run for mayor, still cripplingly afraid and resentful of Oracle’s limitations. She needs political control over Gotham to make it a better place in the long run. Who are the people going to believe in now? Barbara Gordon! Her loved ones are proud and supportive of her, having been reconnecting with her lately, if concerned that she isn’t processing her grief that much even compared to the rest of them. Her policies are focused on security and reforms to the police force and legal system that aim to reduce crime and corruption, which in the context of the soaring crime rates and spiralling despair of the Gotham public all seem wonderful to many. Surely, things at least can’t possibly get worse than they have been. She wins in a landslide.

The mayor’s power plus Oracle’s power soon goes to Babs’s head. Over the next year she slips from hero to antihero to a darker shade of grey. Her level of surveillance gradually moves out of the reasonable zone. Her patience for disagreement wears thin. When the Batfam or law enforcement take down a crime organization, she will siphon off their assets and information to consolidate her power rather than redistribute all of it to the people. For the greater good, obviously!

This culminates two years after Bruce’s death when Oracle defeats the Court of Owls with a cunning scheme (if they’re the ones who killed the Batgirls, this part hits extra hard): she fakes an alliance with them to set up a double cross, her ‘downpayment’ of information to gain their trust being false and luring their high command into a massive vigilante and police ambush. But Babs doesn’t dismantle the Court like the Bats expect her to. She takes control of it and integrates its vast, rich archives and information network into her own, now essentially omniscient regarding Gotham’s criminal underworld. She also uses the Court’s under-the-table connections to manipulate political and legal proceedings. It’s great for eliminating all corruption besides her own.

This move triggers the ideological conflict that’s been brewing amongst the Batfam to spill over into a devastating fight. Babs and Dick are at the forefront. Babs is accused of tyranny and selfish ambition, Dick and his allies of holding onto a naive, obsolete ideal of protection, both sides feeling betrayed and that the other is “becoming what they fought against”. It’s very emotionally charged. Very painful and bitter for everyone involved.

In the end Alfred, Dick, Jason, Duke and Damian leave in regret and disgust. To explain why them: Alfred is never turning evil. We all know that. The fabric of the universe would unravel if he did. Dick is likewise functionally incorruptible because he’s Dick Grayson, he’s the light of the DC universe. He is utterly heartbroken though. Him and Babs being enemies is the maximum angst option, I couldn’t not take it. Jason has already been through a ‘using villainous methods to protect Gotham how Batman won’t because a) I genuinely believe the ends justify the means and b) my mental health is a train wreck’ phase and basically come out the other side. He isn’t gonna do that again, but as a subordinate. Him and Duke’s backstories make them both more down-to-earth and grounded in the reality of the average and lower-class Gotham citizens’ everyday lives than anyone else in the Batfam, so they can see most clearly how Babs’s actions are harming their people. And Damian is closer to Dick and Duke than Babs, but also similarly to Jason did the edgy ‘morals hold you back, absolute punishment and terror will fight crime more efficiently’ thing and outgrew it. He learned to value human life and rights and swore his loyalty to the mentors who taught him this and their code. He learned how to reject the toxic bullshit the League of Assassins had been feeding him his entire life; it would insult his character growth in my opinion to have him accept Barbara’s toxic bullshit.

That leaves Tim to be Babs’s primary enforcer. Sorry, Tim. Someone had to do it. Between his severe psychological vulnerability and lack of his brothers’ personal experiences with immorality and insights into the average Gothamite’s life, I think it should be him. He’s also the CEO of Wayne Enterprises and involved in the Wayne Foundation and that pairs nicely with Babs’s data collection. Any Wayne Technologies device can covertly monitor people. To sever himself from the bat and bird motifs of the lost and unenlightened and show his allegiance to Oracle, he creates a new vigilante identity called Python. This is a reference to the Greek myth of a giant serpent called Python (from the original name of Delphi, Pytho, and the namesake of the snake classification) who resided in and guarded the site of Delphi, before Apollo killed it and installed his own prophetess Pythia in his place. He’s got a green scaly jumpsuit with armour plating. Two curved swords imitating fangs. Scale throwing blades. A penchant for nonlethal gas and aerosol tools like knockout gas, tear gas and smokescreens, in allusion to the natural hallucinogenic fumes at Delphi that led to its holy reputation. It’s cool. Sinister, but cool. Snakes don’t have eyelids, matching the relentless surveillance theme. Fun fact: pythons eat bats and small birds.

Shock of the century, Babara “Heaps of Recent, Untreated PTSD From Losing Loved Ones and Compulsive Need to Always be Aware and On Top of Everything” Gordon doesn’t take being ditched by all but one of her found family in stride. She has a total breakdown, blames herself for not being able to make them see things her way and lashes out by cracking down even harder on the populace. She’s accordingly immensely grateful for Tim staying and very protective of him. Were he to leave her too, it could be enough to shatter her.

The five rebels join the Birds of Prey, who leave Barbara after hearing how she turned on them, the Gotham City Sirens, Holly Robinson, Slam Bradley, Duke’s We Are Robin friends and a number of other malcontents, including Crystal Brown, to form a resistance. This alliance is called the Shadow Guard - ‘shadow’ because they literally are largely nocturnal, but furthermore it’s a contrast and opposition to Oracle’s prying and shining a light onto things; a declaration both that they are her blind spot and that privacy, the unseen, the ability to keep people ‘in the dark’ deserves to be protected. They’re guardians in the real shadows and of the figurative ones. There’s the angle that they’re only shadows of the Batfamily at its peak and the people they were then too. The rebellion uses pre-internet technology to be safe, with the occasional exception of scavenged tech cut off from Babs’s network.

Mayor Gordon declares Nightwing, Red Hood, Robin and the Signal to be dangerous, untrustworthy public enemies, even suggesting that they’re responsible for the mysterious disappearances of Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne and Duke Thomas. This forces Jim, who’s been putting off realizing that his beloved daughter and the only family he has left is having a moral degradation arc in favour of softer appeals to her compassion, to confront that Babs is now pretty damn totalitarian and he cannot stand by any longer. He joins the Shadow Guard as a spy, and supplies resources, equipment and other employees with consciences to their ranks. His hope is that once her power is removed, Babs will have to face the consequences of her actions and come to her senses. The three year mark is when her directing of the police cycles around to be so militarized and oppressive that her initial real ethical reforms are trampled, vindicating Jim’s decision.

Why don’t external superheroes and the government officials intervene? Because Babs is still their information broker. She provides them with vital intel and has truckloads of dirt on all of them. She isn’t above passive-aggressively reminding people of her ability to ruin them to get them off her back, even demonstrating it by leaking sensitive information, causing a scandal, giving an advantage to a rival, etc. every now and then. The rest of the US is watching the events in Gotham thinking, as people so often do, “Someone should do something! …But it’s not gonna be me!” (For the sake of the plot just quietly ignore the Superfam and Wonderfam and Flashfam and so on, okay?). Besides, Gotham’s crime rates are the lowest they’ve ever been. Oracle is untouchable and none of the illicit activity can be traced back to Babs, or even proven at all most of the time.

Keep in mind, Babs still doesn’t technically directly kill anyone. Tim doesn’t either. He just arrests criminals and disturbers of the peace and hands them over to the justice system. Business as usual. When they and all records of them disappear overnight, and when nobody ever gets out of Blackgate or Arkham… well, questioning that isn’t in his job description, and Babs and his job are all he has left. He’s come too far to give them up.

Four years into Babs’s mayorship, Gotham’s settled into its continually worsening dystopian status quo under a utopian facade. The roll down the slope accelerates when Jim’s spying is discovered. Babs is horrified, furious and deeply hurt. She almost, almost backs down, but falls victim to the sunk cost fallacy and desperately reaffirms her self-righteousness. He has frustratingly durable moral integrity, so she orders him arrested to get him out of sight and out of mind because again, she cannot handle another loss. The rebel Batboys break him out, they fight Python and the police, it’s sad and dramatic. The rebels get away by the skin of their teeth, but they’re followed. A raid on their base deals harsh blows and gets a sizeable proportion of them arrested, killed or traumatized into submission. They regroup and try to find a way to take Oracle by surprise. Jim is now the Shadow Guard’s co-leader with Dick.

Gotham is peaceful. It’s orderly. Supervillains are a thing of the past. Barbara is like the oracles of legend: whatever she says will be, will be. Needless to say, she won’t have much competition in the upcoming mayoral election. From there, she plans to expand beyond Gotham. The only problem that remains is how to stop her treacherous family and lay the past to rest once and for all…

That’s the catch with oracle stories, isn’t it? In the end, you find you’ve become exactly what you most strived to avoid being. Think of King Oedipus, the archetypal Greek tragedy and ironic prophecy story: a just, wise and noble leader stubbornly seeking knowledge to protect their people from ruin in a time of great suffering, only for they themselves to be the criminal they were looking for and the cause of their city’s corruption.

I’m ending it here with a five year time difference and pretty much in the heroes’ darkest hour, because this is where I would have (my) canon Babs, Steph and Cass transported to this world to help bring dark Oracle down.

#babs: i’ve made a gotham where none of the entire batfamily’s tragic pasts could ever happen #dick: what about the kids whose parents don’t agree with everything you say?#babs:#dark oracle has the anime menacing reflective glasses effect a lot because a) scary and b) she is just emotional repression central #i just want to see black bat and batgirl fight and ethically debate a dictator version of their mentor #in the process deactivating and cracking the wall of giant surveillance screens in the clocktower #so that barbara is forced to finally confront her reflection fractured in darkness #is that too much to ask?#dark oracle au #barbara gordon #babs gordon #oracle #batfamily #batfam #stephanie brown #batgirl #cassandra cain #black bat #team batgirl #bruce wayne #batman #dick grayson #nightwing #tim drake #red robin #damian wayne #robin #duke thomas #the signal #alfred pennyworth

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styxtrixmix · 2 years ago

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All The Way To State

A Young Justice volleyball AU short story

Thad had never felt actually part of a team before.

Kon and Tim struggled to work with others, both being too stubborn to actually listen most of the time

Jaime had a voice in his head telling him to commit violent acts against people, and found that isolated him.

Bart kept too many secrets to really feel close to anyone. Sure he'd been part of a team, but he'd never really been PART of a team.

Cassie and Cissie always had their favorites and weren't very close to others.

Ed, Tye, Asami, and Virgil all had their own issues and friend groups. None of them really related well to the team.

Anita, Greta, and Jinny never really felt part of the team, either. They were always just outside.

But they made it this far together. Working together, growing trust and improving side by side. They'd just played their last regionals game.

It was nerve-wracking for all of them. Kon could hear everyone's hearts racing, including his own. Him and Thad had stepped out multiple times in order to cope with the sheer amount of noise.

It was rough. They'd had fights and gotten ill and injured, and of course the majority of them still had their vigilante lives to manage.

But they did it. The first set was a breeze, having won 25-9. The second set wasn't far off with a 25-11 victory.

But the third set was by far the worst. Kon kept hitting directly into the net, Thad's serves were off and kept flying out, Bart kept just /barely/ missing. Everyone hit the ball everywhere except where they wanted it to go.

But they did it. It was close, 25-23, but they won. They made it to state.

The moment the referee blew the whistle signaling the point was theirs, cheers erupted. From the audience, from their team, from everyone there to support them. Those on the court- Bart, Cassie, Cissie, Kon, Tim, and Ed- huddled up in a circle, cheering and shouting. Those not on the court jumped to their feet, running over and embracing their teammates. Fistbumps, high fives, and hugs were shared. There was a kiss between Cassie and Cissie. Thad even tolerated a hair ruffle from Jaime and a warm punch in the shoulder from Bart.

To make it all the more sweet, they knew that they had saved their sport. Rumors spread earlier in the year that volleyball might get removed in favor of tackle football if the team didn't make state. No one was sure of the validity. They'd even asked the principal and he hadn't heard of that rumor.

But if the rumor was true, then that made their victory all the sweeter. They were heroes. Not just at night, as Red Robin or Superboy or Impulse or Wonderful or Arrowette. They were heroes of their sport.

At least, at their school they were.

In the end, they couldn't wait for their next game. Win or lose, they were a team.

[ID] An IRL image of my volleyball team. The focus is on 3 people in white uniforms, facing away from the camera. The one on the far left is holding up a trophy, while others cheer in the background.

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dcuniverse-fanatic · 3 years ago

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What they’re like when they’re sleeping II.

A/n: hello!!!! it’s been so long :) here’s the little something i said i would post two weeks ago akshakagfs. i am not a head cannon writer!!!!! (despite it being the majority of my master list lmfaoo) but i currently hate everything i write!!! however comma!! these are fun and easy to write and i am sick and i need comfort and what do i do when i need comfort????? i read head cannons!!!! so let’s hyper analyze the batboys’ psyche (kinda) through their sleep!!!!!! enjoy!!!!

Dick Grayson

Fetal poison! I like to think that despite his very very big exterior and personality that he so overcompensates with, he has a very very mushy interior! I think that he hates being vulnerable and open and weak and that he puts up a wall, so to speak. (But not shutting people out, he likes to include people and make them trust him) But when he sleeps he subconsciously, still, has this, unprincipled need to keep protecting himself from being open. He clutches his arms tight and holds his legs together and up toward his rib cage. I don’t think that all of this is the reason why he chooses to cocoon himself, however. He also sleeps in an alarmingly cold temperature setting. But if we can pie chart it, it’d be 86% isolation coping mechanism and 14% ungodly, outrageous, barbaric room temp!!!!

Jason Todd

I honestly think he sleeps in any poison given that he can get himself to bed in the first place. But if he had the liberty of choosing, i think he’d go with starfish, and on his stomach. It’s why he has terrible posture and does nothing but complain about his back and neck problems (of which he should have none to begin with he’s quite limber but..) All his vital organs are also in his belly which for safety reasons, sleeping on your stomach is quite strategic and thought out but i wouldn’t give him the credit of thinking all that out . He’s just slept on his stomach since childhood, when bruce took him in. The big bed space and quite, safe atmosphere made for a quite sloppy, carefree sleeping position. Now as an adult he takes up so much space!!!!!. He is very tall and his wing span is pretty sizable, considering. I also think that because of the Lazarus, he runs pretty warm so sleeping in a starfish position makes it easier for him to ‘air himself out’ so to speak. However hot he may be, he still won’t sleep with a fan on, because he doesn’t like the white noise. BUT, coincidentally, if a fan is on somewhere, he would still sleep there. Either because he is too tired to care, or he just,,,, lacks the spatial awareness at that moment.

Tim Drake

He’s a side sleeper!!!!!! His shoulders do NOT thank him for it. However, it has absolutely nothing to do with comfort, and apparently everything to do with practicality (in his mind anyway)he sleeps like that to save space.... For his various files and papers and electronics and whatever else he had for dinner there as well. So in essence, he’s sleeping on his side because he’s too lazy or tired or busy (or all the above, ding ding ding) to move everything he’s strewn all over his bed. He can wake up, work, and fall asleep in the same exact spot if he had to. He also sleeps in a twin bed!!!! god knows why but he’s so anal about saving space in his room for anything, anything except some nice furniture. not even a plant. And even then, his room is absolutely impossible to navigate through to anyone except for him. Need a pencil? He has one under his nightstand, to the right.

Damian Wayne

As far as his memory can go back, he’s always slept on his back. Something about being able to protect oneself from any direction if attacked. He can sleep and wake up in the exact same position without even flinching. (also he isn’t asleep the whole night though, there’s some level of awareness he’d been trained to keep) He sleeps with his arms to his side, with minimal pillows and sheets, since he finds them suffocating. But i think beyond that, beyond the training and self preservation and the forever ingrained childhood habits, he’s scared of... bad posture. Out of all the bad habits you can imagine, i think bad posture is one he can’t mentally let go of. He sits in a proper 90° on a chair, even STOOLS. Stretches before going to sleep AND after waking up. He sleeps so still and so quietly that you’d think he’s practicing for his coffin.

#dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #dick grayson imagine #jason todd imagine #tim drake imagine #damian wayne imagine #batfam #saraspeaks #works

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soulmate-game · 4 years ago

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Bio Dad Bruce Wayne Month 2020

Day 5: Overprotection

Disclaimer: Dick was adopted when he was 12 in this fic. Just for math’s sake.

—*—*—*—*—*

“What.”

Damian stared at his father, face carefully blank. Bruce grimaced, shifting.

“I said, you have a half sister. Biological.”

Four sets of eyes bored into him, from all of his sons. They were gathered not in the Batcave for once, but just one of the sitting rooms in the Manor.

“... and what, Father, does that have to do with the French class visiting Gotham?” Damian asked again, posture steadily growing stiffer and more and more stone like. He was trying hard to suppress emotions, but not even he was quite sure what those emotions were yet. Anger? Fear? Resentment? Probably. He might have detected some excitement there too, deep, deep down. Bruce took a deep breath, trying to prepare himself for this.

“Well. I’ve kept up with her life, but last time I checked she had no idea that she was adopted. When her birth mother died, it was right around the time I adopted Dick. She was still an infant, and I knew I was not equipped to handle taking care of a baby—“

“Father,” Damian interrupted again. “You sent her off. Have her up for adoption,” he said slowly, as if realizing that that would have been his fate had his father known about his existence earlier, as well. It was almost ironic, considering how Bruce seemed to have a problem with adopting other children nowadays. Bruce nodded.

“She was adopted by a couple in France. Paris, to be exact. I’ve kept up to date, asking them to just send me a letter or email once or twice a year about the general stuff she’s been up to. Nothing too invasive. A few pictures. And last time I asked them, they said that she had no idea about being adopted or that I was her father,” Bruce sighed again, running a hand over his face. “But I think she does.”

“Why?” Jason asked, confused as everyone else to the change in subject. Except Tim and Damian, who seemed to be quickly connecting the dots.

“Oh boy,” Tim breathed. Bruce just nodded.

“Her name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She is the one who organized the trip for her class to come here, to Gotham. She is the one who entered and won our international internship competition, and turned that into an excuse to get her entire class to come here for two weeks. To get to know the place she will be living for her internship next year, after she graduates Lycee, France’s version of highschool essentially.”

Tim winced. He had been in charge of the internship competition, and Bruce had given him free reign. He had chosen the winner without even thinking to run it by his adoptive father.

“Bruce—“ Tim tried, but the man just held up a hand.

“I don’t blame you. I haven’t been paying too much attention to her life, and I didn’t expect her to do something like this. But we know now that, if she does know and this isn’t a giant coincidence,”

“Unlikely,” Dick agreed, wincing. “Possible, but unlikely.”

Bruce huffed in agreement. “Then, we know she is very resourceful, determined, and has skills that impressed Tim enough to choose her out of tens of thousands of contest participants worldwide.”

“The minimum requirement for a Wayne,” Damian finally managed to bite out, still coping with this proverbial slap in the face but doing his best to handle it. He was seventeen damn it, and had come a long way from who he used to be. He could handle this. He could. He would.

Bruce rolled his eyes, and then leaned forward with his hands braced on the table. “Okay. So now we need to make plans.”

“Plans?” Jason asked, frowning. “For how you’re gonna tell her without getting your faces plastered over every tabloid in the city right?”

“No,” the older man shook his head. “Plans to keep her alive, unharmed, and unaffiliated with us until she leaves. I will not be making any public appearances unless absolutely necessary, so trips to the Tower are out of the question—“

“Are you…” Jason’s eyes were wide. “Trying to keep her out of our Shitshow? Because yeah, kudos to you even if it took you way too long to learn, but if she went through all this trouble to come here then it's probably too late.”

Dick nodded. “If she’s anything like you and Damian, there’s no way she’ll back off easy. Avoiding her will only make it worse on you, and probably the rest of us too.”

Damian stared straight into his father's eyes, glare sharp and searching. “What is this about, Father? You have not worried this much about any of us—“

“Because none of you were as naive!” He barked, quickly catching himself and taking a breath. “You all had a way you could benefit from this life. A way I could help you. But Marinette has both of the parents she has known her whole life, they treat her wonderfully. They care. She’s never had to worry about constantly moving, or fighting, or going hungry. The only deaths she has ever experienced have been from afar and due to natural causes. She designs as a hobby and has no problem with socializing or handling emotions in a healthy way— introducing her to our life holds no benefit for her. The only thing it can give her is unnecessary danger and risk and secrets.”

“Yeah, well. I guess Batman doesn’t know everything, does he?” A new voice startled them all from the doorway, making everyone's head whip over to see who had managed the near-impossible and snuck up on all of them.

Standing there, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed, was a short part-Asian woman in her late teens. Her midnight black hair was cascading down her back in one thick braid, tied off at the end with an indigo ribbon. Her eyes were a piercing cobalt blue, matching those of Bruce perfectly. Her jaw was clenched, and the infamous Bat-glare coming from her was directed right at the person who made the expression infamous in the first place.

“Marinette,” Bruce breathed, shoulders squaring. “Your plane isn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow.”

“It won’t,” she agreed. “I took a portal here. You see, my extensive research into Batman’s known habits and tactics, which I started after I figured out about your alter ego last year, informed me that you tend to go to the extremes to protect people you deem incapable of protecting themselves, and are also prone to idiotic self-sacrificing behavior in the form of purposely making yourself look like an ass.”

Jason chuckled. “She’s got you down to a T, B,” he quipped with a grin despite the caution still in his eyes. “But let’s back up a bit, little Spitfire. What’s this about a portal?”

Marinette pushed off the doorframe, walking closer to the scattered group. Tim and Jason were spread across one sofa, Damian on the other with Dick, and Bruce was occupying an armchair. Marinette just walked until she stood where she could easily be seen by everyone, but also had nobody at her back.

“The portal is part of a bigger story. Like, the fact that father dearest wanted to protect me so badly that he placed the JLE in Paris, but didn’t realize that relations with that branch were so bad that the JLE never informed him or the JLA about getting kicked out of France and reassigning themselves to Italy. Bruce never kept a close enough eye on the city, because he wanted to keep emotional distance, and therefore was completely blind to when a supervillain showed up and terrorized Paris for almost five years,” she continued, her glare never leaving Bruce’s face.

“I found out about being adopted when I was eight. I found out who my biological father was when I was thirteen. Last year, I finally put in the work to connect Bruce Wayne to Batman. And yeah, I never told Maman and Papan, because they have never completely understood me. They wouldn’t have understood that I was fine with having no contact with you, back then. That my snooping had nothing to do with being unhappy with them as my parents. They would have immediately assumed they were inadequate when I am merely curious by nature. But then I ended up being chosen to be one of the child heroes that fought said domestic terrorist that showed up five years ago. And I sure as hell couldn't tell them that a magical artifact showed up on my desk one day and that the god inhabiting it told me to fight the monsters the villain made and just, just go with it. I couldn’t tell them when I went from being one of two Parisian heroes to being the leader of a team. I couldn’t tell them when my elderly mentor, unable to fight by our side but who had at least provided emotional support and knowledge, passed away and gave me his title and responsibilities. I’m sick and tired of being protected, Monsieur Wayne,” Marinette didn’t seem to notice the tears that had begun to fall.

“I’m sick of it. I know you were trying to keep me safe, but I fought a war I wasn’t prepared for. I died, thousands of times. But my own powers and the powers I have my partners brought me back to life. Over and over. I don’t need protection, damn it. I don’t need you to distance yourself, because you're the only fucking person I can call a parent who might understand,” she held out a hand, her scowl turning into a gentle smile. “I have so much I need to talk about. Before I drown under all these secrets. Please. I’ll go back through another portal before my parents notice I’m gone, but I’ll be back in town tomorrow when my plane lands. Just. Please, don’t push me away. That’s all I ask. I want to get to know you, all of you. I… I need family who understands.”

“Thousands.” Bruce repeated, all of them still recovering from Marinette’s very sudden, info-dumping speech. “You died… thousands of times?”

Marinette laughed, but it was a sad sound. No mirth there. “I gave my friend a magical artifact that reverses time, and the artifact that gives me my own powers can reverse any damage from a fight I use it in. Even death. Sending untrained teenagers to fight a villain three times their age makes some kind of failsafe like that kind of necessary.”

“Fuck,” Jason cursed under his breath. “Well. You’re welcome to join the living Zombie club,” he offered. The girl snorted, giving him a watery grin in thanks.

“I’m sure you know about my stance on powers and metas,” Bruce decided to say, wincing immediately after. That wasn’t what he meant to say. At all. He earned another brief glare for it.

“I’m not a meta, and I only have powers when I use the artifact to transform, thereby borrowing powers from the miniature god that the artifact houses. Think of it like doctor fate, but my gods are actually not parasites and my powers are much more… specialized. I had to learn combat on my own, and I was able to train in my sleep with the past users of this artifact. That includes people like Fa Mulan, Joan of Arc, and someone you actually know— Hippolyta. I’ve mastered more fighting styles by now than I care to remember, and I’ve done gymnastics since I was three. I don’t know if my parents told you that in their letters. I even won the gold in the nationwide France gymnastics competition two years ago. I assure you, I don’t rely on my powers nearly as much as you might think.”

Bruce swallowed. “I can… greet you when your class arrives.”

Marinette grinned. “Well, that’s a start.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Idk what happened, I don’t know if I like this at all but oh well. I’m posting it anyway. Maybe one of you will like it. I… couldn’t really find any other way to do this so oh well. Also, I think Mulan was a past Dragon..? But I put her as a Ladybug because I Can.

@momothefemur @ladybug-182 @starlightshield @trippingovermyfeet @greatcatblaze @sam-i-am-0222 @bluesimani @ruelukas22 @acoolspacegirl @iamablinkmarvelarmy @meme991001

#maribat #ml x dc #mlb x dc #b!dbwm2020 #bio dad bruce wayne #platonic daminette #platonic brucinette #day 5 #not my fave at all

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mikiib · 3 years ago

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The Magnus Archives: ALIEN AU (Part 1)

So in short I had come up with an AU where the cast of TMA characters are set in the universe of ALIEN. They’re both my FAVORITE pieces of horror media I’ve consumed and so my brain figured- WHY NOT? So I have 13 pages and scenes in my brain that would take place in this AU. If this or the following posts that I’ll make inspire anyone I would LOVE to see what you come up with! In short this story has a mostly good ending.

Here’s a list of the things that ARE and AREN’T in this universe.

- 14 Fears aren’t in this world. It’s fully immersed in the universe of the movie ALIEN/ALIENS. - The xenomorphs however have more powers- they can shape shift into anyone they ‘kill’. So if the alien hatches from the host but somehow the host survives then that creature can pretend to be that person. If they kill someone they can pretend to be them. They still however take the main biological forms of the hosts they came from in regular form. - Queens are born when there is no other queen in near vicinity detected by the unhatched egg. - The hatching of an egg takes a lot longer after implantation rather than a few hours like the original movie. - The aliens acidic blood is still STRONG but not nearly as much. I nerfed that to a slower burn- if left on the surface for more than a few minutes it can still be JUST AS BAD as the movies version. - Cyborgs are a thing in this world- who is and isn’t a cyborg is up in the air- however you’ll find out if you follow the posts. - The aliens are weak to extreme heat and extreme cold. The younger they are the more vulnerable to both. Fire extinguishers and flamethrowers will be a big weapon in both firepower and as a melee weapons. - The technology is slightly more up to date compared to ALIEN’s 80′s tech, as there are in short video calls that can be held. -Mother (MU-TH-UR 4900) is the ships computer mainframe, and can connect directly to Elias with his acceptance of the transmission. Mother also monitors the crew and their vitals when they are under cyosleep. - They can quit. No bindings to ‘The Eye’ here.

ARTIFACT RETRIEVAL VEHICLE: THE COEUS CREW: SEVEN

Captain and Scrivener (Archivist): Jonathan Sims (Age: 31)

Executive Officer: Sasha James (Age: 35)

Warrant Officer: Georgie Barker (Age: 29)

Navigator: Melanie King (Age: 27)

Engineers: Tim Stocker (Age 33) & Martin Blackwood (Age: 27)

Science Officer: Nikola Orsinov (Age: 30)

CARGO: OTHER WORLDLY ARTIFACTS UNDER STUDY COURSE: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MOON BASE: THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES

-Everyone shares the role of being a Scribal (Archival) Assistants to Jon- no exceptions. -The Magnus Archives is a space station on the Moon orbiting Earth. -The cargo they carry is found from the ships that collect samples from uninhabited planets as well as statements from those who report to them their findings to investigate. -The Admiral is the ships designated therapy cat to help the crew cope with isolation brought on by Georgie. -Elias Bouchard is the head of The Magnus Archives.

STORYLINE:

The story starts after they’ve collected the last of the artifacts required on the list to retrieve. They’ve been in cryosleep for over 6 months and only need 3 more months of it till they’d arrive to their destination. Everyone wakes up on their own time, Georgie first, along with Melanie and Martin. Followed by Tim, Sasha, Jon, and Nikola, they gather at the dining table of the living quarters. Martin makes everyone their preferred meals, seemingly the most nervous. This has been Martins first time aboard THE COEUS, and his banter with Sasha and Tim prove while not the best at his job there, he makes a mean meal out of the ‘rubbish space food’ provided. Melanie comes back after taking a look at their current location frowning, letting the others know they aren’t even close to Earth yet- not even in their solar system anymore. In surprise they turn to Jon, who himself has only been Captain on ship for only just before this crew was assigned to him. He gets up to check out whats going on, many of the others follow him, much to his disgruntlement as they basically fill the small room. Mother has intercepted a transmission of unknown origins and under contract of their jobs they must check it out. Curious to know more about their new course Jon calls Elias, who informs them it will be a 2 week set back on their schedules course. Jons not exactly excited about this but Tim’s quite happy to be informed it does give them quite a large bonus since it does seem confirmed of unknown (non-human) origins.

Once they arrive to their destination, Melanie sets the ship into motion for landing. She reads off all planet signs to the crew on. It’s a nearly isolated dwarf planet of 600 kilometers in diameter (372.823 miles). The surface on landing will be 23 degrees celsius- much warmer than expected but it does seem to be orbiting a sun fairly closely. They prepare for landing and Martin and Tim are set to get the ship in position. Martin and Tim talk together as they prep and make sure the landing legs will be fine against the surface of the planet. While they do so Sasha pops in announcing she gets to go with Jon and Melanie to investigate the source of the spooky transmission on foot. Meaning also she gets a bigger cut in the bonus than them. Tim and Sasha razz at each other but stop when sparks are spat in Martins face for wiring something wrong. He curses and Sasha comes over to help see what's wrong, pulling on gloves. She laughs a bit and gently teases him to choose a different degree to lie about next time he wants a new job as she fixes the wiring for him. Martin shushes her, claiming he didn’t expect them not to do background checks, nor did he expect to be given a position on one of the biggest damned cargo retrieval ships known. While he worked originally as a simple warehouse organizer at The Magnus Archives sister base on earth he had needed cash to help support himself after his Mother had moved out. Tim wraps an arm around Martin, claiming he’ll shield Martin from Jons prying eyes if anything goes wrong on this detour. They laugh a bit before the radio goes off from Jons office room. He’s complaining about the lights not turning on in there and would be thrilled if someone did their job correctly when fixing it before he gets back on the ship. Tim radios him that they’re on it before they tease Martin more on his obvious crush on Jon before Sasha is then called up to suit up.

Georgie is helping the 3 suit up properly, making sure their heart monitors are secure and attached to their neck to get an accurate pulse. Jon seems to be struggling most with the suit up, this unlike the other two, being his first time in a suit outside of the initial training. Sasha after having her camera feed double checked helps Jon out. And while Jon doesn’t say anything about it, it’s obvious Sasha should’ve gotten the job as Captain. Melanie the entire time rattling on about how excited she is to document her findings of a foreign transmission.

They land with ease, nothing going wrong as the planet, while rocky with a constant rain, is also somewhat flat. They make their way to the source of the transmission. Tim and the others are now watching from the ship- cameras live feed and audio coming to them as Georgie talks with Melanie about all the kind of things they could find on the ship to study. Nikola reminds everyone that without the items and everyone following the procedures for quarantine, no one is touching the items that may be brought back. The conversation dies out into aww when they see the space ship the signal is coming from appear on camera. Melanie is excited as Sasha and Jon start to look for a way in. Jon reminds them to stay close to him at all times as they enter the ship- its obvious he’d rather none of them go in here due to how degraded the place looks. Everything seems to have been heavily melted in random patches, but the ship itself seems to be made of a biological element of some sort- comparing it to a ribcage almost as they walk through it.

As they traverse the ship they stumble across multiple dead alien bodies. They aren’t fresh but they also don’t look years old. Melanie goes to take a closer look at them but Jon quickly pulls her back from them, yelling about how obviously unsafe it is as well as the fact that she just broke formation rushing off into a different room. They both get into an argument about what should be done with the bodies, and how far their investigations should go. At this point the feed is hardly coming through via camera, but the audio makes it back to the the ship roughly. Sasha goes on without them as she’s getting closer to decode the transmission. it’s a warning of sorts is what she can gather. Looking at the bodies it may have been an illness of some type, each of them dead from some type of acid but she finds one with an open chest- like an explosion. she gets closer to one, that seems to shift out of the corner of her eye. She tries to let the others know but she realizes that they can’t hear her over their arguing, and she’s almost certain she’s lost on the foreign ship. So instead she brings herself closer to the alien body before something crashes behind her and she stumbles back, tripping over something, and screams as she bashes her head on the back of her helmet. She gets up and looks around and sees the shadow of the creature run off and she chases after it.

That got the attention of the others as not only with the scream but Tim tells them her heart rate is spiking drastically. Jon and Melanie cry out for Sasha and she stops after meeting a dead end. She sighs and tells them she’s fine, she just fell and admittedly was just chasing after shadows. She turns around however and suddenly her heart monitor on the ship starts to read dead. PART 2

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hopeshoodie · 4 years ago

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Literally no one asked, but I have a lot of ✨thoughts✨ about how Fusebox treated the best friend characters (specifically Nicky and Seb because I didn't see the same issues with Viv and Ella) and how the fandom reacted to them.

I think I said it before, but watching the dumpster fire of people simping for Seb and Nicky was so satisfying as a sapphic because like… It’s just Expected (TM) that the best woman in each game isn’t going to be endgame romancable. Most female LIs in choices/episode/interactive fiction aren’t written as compellingly as the side characters (if there are even female side characters at all), so lesbians and exclusively female-attracted people just accept that’ll be the case. So it’s funny to watch straighties cope with that (poorly) for once.

I wouldn’t be so cavalier about it, but if you were around when S3 was releasing it was insane. At least one out of every 4 posts was about wanting to romance Seb or Nicky, or lamenting their unavailability, or theorizing when they would become available.

And that general sense of entitlement kind of bothered me? The sentiment that Fusebox shouldn’t be allowed to put explicitly non-endgame people in, or that they should change their story because most of their audience wanted something. I even saw people on reddit demanding that every character be romancable? I’m begging that person to consider that maybe, just maybe, the writers have intentions for the characters and sacrificing those intentions for the sake of making literally everyone interested in MC isn’t the best way to the write a story.

And I get it, because Nicky and Seb both had super distinctive designs imo Nicky was the most attractive guy in the game. But like..... Noah/Rahim/Arjun were the most attractive in S2 and their routes sucked. It's honestly kind of boring that the most attractive character be the most available, because then you just get a fandom of people obsessed with one person (like Lovelink with the prison guy)

Making every character interested in MC also takes a lot away from their character, because despite having distinct personalities they’re all interested in MC regardless of player choices. I think this was true of the S3 character who were romancable- all of them were available from the first opportunity to couple with them, so their personalities all blended together. None of them had any agency. S1 did this so well with people like Jake and Rohan feeling obligated to their partner and unsure about MC, S2 did this well by including slowburn options like Marisol and Noah and kind of Gary.

I’m not going to argue that fiction games should reflect real life because… They’re not real life, they’re escapist fantasies. But there is realism in characters who just… Aren’t interested in other characters (including MC). It doesn’t have to be for a reason either, which is what I liked about Seb, it can just be that they’re not into MC. When that’s the case, it feels gross to insist that they have to change their mind or be won over, because isn’t that behavior gross irl?

And that's all about the fan reception. It doesn't help that FB handled Nicky and Seb's unavailability pretty poorly. Despite making it clear they weren’t romancable, Fusebox:

Teased with situations like Seb being naked or Nicky flirting with MC if she steals the money. I especially didn’t like that players had the option to sexualize Seb during the naked scene, and it wasn’t addressed/pointed out in fiction. Like if FB wanted to make the point that ‘being naked around a friend can be platonic, and you sexualizing it is a violation of trust’, then MAKE THAT POINT. Have Seb react really negatively, have a character explicitly say it. Don’t treat it as a cheeky little treat for Seb simps.

Said Seb and Nicky weren’t endgame but didn’t address if Viv/Ella were. Like???? What was the reason??!?!?!!! Got my hopes up for nothing. And also, if literally everyone except Seb, Nicky, Elladine, Genevivev, Iona, and Miki is endgame, why not just say that!? Wasted my time thinking Iona was going to be a slowburn. The way I would do it (and did it when writing episode stories) was to have an option at the beginning or menu where people could preview who was endgame. Then people could be informed when getting into romantic situations with side characters. But tldr the fact that FB announced Seb and Nicky as non-romantic but didn't stay consistent with other non-romantic characters cast doubt on their original statement.

Didn't reaffirm in boat party that they were still non-romantic. I don't blame players for thinking that they would become endgame in the reunion, because that's what has happened in all of the past reunion episodes. Maybe just reiterate who is romancable? Or write it so that if the MC tries to steal them she actually faces consequences like them not wanting to be her friend anymore (because she keeps violating their boundaries) and having Ella or Viv get upset.

But honestly, FB shouldn’t HAVE to disclose who’s endgame. They didn’t in S2 and S1, and it was fine. I honestly wonder how much of the hype around Seb/Nicky wouldn’t have been there if FB never confirmed one way or another. If people were quietly wondering ‘will they won’t they’. Or was the backlash because Fusebox had the audacity to say people were strictly off limits?

Didn't flesh out the Sebevieve and Nickadine ships. It seems like FB was trying to say that the reason Seb/Nicky were off limits was because they were so enamored in their pairings. But we didn’t… See that…. At all…….. I love the idea of non-MC ships, I want to ship characters. But they need to have… some kind of dynamic?? It’s fine, I can hyperfixate and make one up, it’s just… Not convincing.

This ended up being wayyyy longer than I expected it to be, but in summation: I love the idea of strictly platonic characters. I love Tim and Chelsea. I even like characters who are romancable but not endgame (Rocco and Rohan are the ones coming to mind). I think all the fuss over Seb/Nicky was a little Yikes, and it clearly demonstrates that FB either needs to not announce who is romanceable or be much more intentional with how they write and communicate about non-romanceable characters.

#litg #idk if this is a spicy take or not #but real talk when everyone was fussing over Seb I was just flaming elmo meme

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givelove-always · 5 years ago

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I Love Him Not, I Love Him

A/N: Hi! This is my extremely late entry for @bucky-smiles’ 2K Bollywood Writing Challenge (I’m so sorry for the delay aahhh!)! My prompt was one of my fave songs, Subhanallah from Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, so that’s what this fic is loosely based on! Also a big thank you to @parkerpetey for taking the time to edit this and leave hilarious comments throughout the Google doc, ilysm for that. I hope you enjoy!

Summary: The three times you didn’t accept that you were crushing on Peter, and the one time you did.

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Word Count: 7.3k words

Warnings: None, just tooth-rotting fluff and reader being frustrating :)

Something everyone talked about, yet nobody really talked about, was how being the new student in the school, especially given that it was your senior year, was ridiculously tough.

You had recently moved from Toronto to Queens, and you absolutely despised it. You’d spent three extremely long years at your old school creating a name for yourself, be it through your strong academic scores or your commitment to numerous extracurriculars. You weren’t exactly popular, but were definitely spoken of quite highly if you were brought up in conversation, regardless of whether it was teachers talking or your fellow students. You were on the perfect path to becoming valedictorian of your class.

… Until you were uprooted and brought here. Sure, your dad really pulled all the strings he could to help you secure a spot at Midtown, especially given that it was senior year - it’s hard enough as is to secure a spot in freshman year, what with it being insanely competitive and for genius students and all, and while your grades were stellar, it would’ve still been close to impossible securing a spot - and you really appreciated it, but that didn’t mean that you still didn’t miss your school and your friends back in Toronto.

It felt like everyone was talking about you - who was the new girl? how did she manage to get a spot three years after everyone else? was she genuinely smart, or was there some other way she got in? - but at the same time, it felt like you were invisible. People wanted to know more about the circumstances surrounding you than know more about you as a person.

With every day that you went to school and came back home after unsuccessful attempts at restarting your social life and making friends, your morale was deflating. As much as you tried to push it aside, the pang in your chest was becoming more and more undeniable when you constantly saw people surrounded by their friends, laughing and chatting, while you sat to the side all by yourself.

Even then, it was all bearable. Just one year here, and then you could go make friends in university, where life would practically be a clean slate - a fresh start for everyone. Who knows, maybe you could even go back to Canada to a university where some of your old high school friends would be attending. You kept telling yourself that everything would work itself out, and if it had to be after a year of loneliness, then so be it.

The only thing that still felt terrible were the daily walks to and from school all alone. Back in Toronto, you and your best friend would always text each other in the morning to try and coordinate the time that you’d leave so that you could walk together, chatting each other’s ears off the entire way there. If you had time in the morning, you’d often even stop by the Tim Hortons on the way and get yourselves a little breakfast.

Here in Queens, there were tons of cute little cafés and little convenience stores and such on your way to school, and while you would still often stop by to pick up a quick snack or drink (or even just to say a quick hello to Mr. Delmar, the kind man who owned the little sandwich shop around the corner, and pet his adorable little cat), it never was the same as going with a friend. That constant loneliness started to change though when one day, you left home and arrived at Mr. Delmar’s shop earlier than usual.

one

It had been a long night with very minimal sleep. You were up working on a Physics assignment until almost five in the morning and you knew that if you slept then, you wouldn’t wake up in time for your morning classes. The extremely prominent bags under your eyes stood as proof of your exhaustion and you had no energy to make yourself breakfast, hence your early arrival at Delmar’s.

You sat at a little table by the window observing the street outside. Most people look at the way others are dressed outside as an indication of the weather. You, on the other hand, liked to think of it as more of a personification of the weather. If the chilly November weather were to be a person, they would definitely be one of those speedy walkers roaming the streets in some fuzzy boots and a trench coat.

As you sipped on your hot chocolate and tried to assign a more rounded personality to the November weather for no reason other than trying to wake yourself up, the sound of the bells chiming as someone entered the store caught your attention.

Peter Parker.

He was that really smart kid in your Physics class - the one subject you were struggling in. You knew him from that one time you guys were paired up for a quick chemistry lab, but you didn’t know him know him. You remembered vividly and appreciated how nice he was the whole time - it was difficult to find that over the last few months. Either that, or you just somehow managed to keep getting paired up with the wrong people.

You realized you were staring at him when you saw him facing and waving in your direction.

That was unusual, nobody ever really seemed to acknowledge you.

You turned to see if there was someone behind you he might have been trying to talk to, but very quickly realized that you were seated in the corner when your eyes were met with nothing but the plain white wall. ‘Stupid move,’ you told yourself. ‘How do you just forget that you’re sitting next to a wall?’

Grimacing a little, you turned back to face him and waved at him. You gave him a small smile, which he very politely returned before he went up to place his order.

‘Great, you can’t even greet a person normally. What is wrong with you Y/n? This is why people aren’t trying to befriend you right now, if-’

“Hey, do you mind if I sit down here?” a slightly timid voice interrupted. Your eyes locked with Peter’s as your head shot up.

“Oh! Um, yeah- I mean, no! I mean, no, I don’t mind, go ahead!” you stuttered, feeling all the blood rush to your cheeks.

Peter let out the softest giggle you have ever heard as he sat down, and if you didn’t have such sharp hearing, you were sure you would have missed it.

“How are you? How are things going?” he asked as he set his sandwich onto the table.

“Oh, well, they’re going,” you smiled and shrugged. “This point in the semester’s always a little crazy, but it’s not the worst. How are you doing?”

“Yeah, it does get hectic around this time,” Peter sympathized, scrunching his nose slightly in an effort to show mutual distaste over the stress. “I’m not too bad, just really tired from working on that physics assignment. How’d you find that?”

“Oh my gosh, don’t ask,” you groaned, rolling your head before laying it smack against the table. “I literally cannot physics, it took me forever to complete it, and I’m still not confident about a solid chunk of it.”

Peter let out a laugh at your reaction, the sound falling like music onto your ears. You discreetly peeked up from your position on the table to look at his undoubtedly glowing face, and the image you were met with was nothing short of beautiful. His eyes were scrunched up and his perfect teeth were on full display, cheeks turning redder by the second. The sunlight falling on his brown curls gave them a softer hue and made them look even softer than you’d already imagined them to be. Nobody had ever looked this angelic.

It was a sight you wouldn’t mind getting used to.

‘Wait, what? Why did you just think that? Y/n you barely even know the guy, stop being creepy!’

You pulled yourself out of the trance and slowly sat back up, giggling lightly to avoid making it obvious that you had just been staring - that would be awkward to explain.

“I’m sure you did just fine,” Peter chuckled. “And if anything, physics isn’t my worst subject, so um, if you want, I’d be more than happy to help.”

“That’s very sweet, thank you Peter, I appreciate that more than you realize,” you smiled, picking up your backpack. “I hate to cut this conversation short, but we need to start heading to school soon if we want to get to class on time.”

“It doesn’t have to be cut short!” Peter said abruptly standing up, catching you off-guard a little. “I-I mean, we could walk together if you’d like? No pressure though, it’s totally cool if you don’t-”

“Of course, I’d love that,” you cut him off with a smile.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” you nodded. “Let’s head out?”

“Yeah, just hold on one quick second,” he said as he quickly rushed over to the front of the shop.

Eyebrows furrowed, you followed him, only for your expression to instantly morph into one of awe as you were met with Peter petting Murph, Mr. Delmar’s cat, before he jogged back to where you were standing, a goofy smile adorning his face. “I’m ready now.”

Saying a quick goodbye to Mr. Delmar, the two of you made your way out. You shivered a little as the icy wind hit you. Peter picked up on the way you tried to discreetly rub your hands together, your outfit not doing nearly enough to cope with the sudden sharpness of the atmosphere, but stayed quiet, not knowing if it was appropriate to say something or not.

“So you’re a cat person, eh?”

“I’d say so, yeah. I’m just as much of a dog person too, though. Murph trumps all other animals though - I’ve been seeing him since Mr. Delmar got him, and he’s so adorable,” Peter gushed. “What about you, a dog person or a cat person?”

“Oh, a hundred percent a dog person, though I would make an exception for Murph, he is pretty cute,” you chuckled. “My best friend back in Canada has the sweetest little puppy named Maple and I practically lived at her house for the sole purpose of playing with him. Her uncle would drop off his two poodles occasionally too when he was travelling, and there was no way to get me out of her house when all three puppies came together.”

“Maple? That’s the most Canadian thing I’ve ever heard, I love that!” Peter physically had to stop for a minute because he was bent over letting out what could only be described as a ‘hearty laugh’.

If it were anyone else, you would most certainly be offended - what was so funny about having a pet with a stereotypical Canadian name? - but Peter exuded an aura of kindness and innocence, and despite only having spoken to him for such a short period of time, you knew his intentions were nothing but pure. Also, you had to admit, it was a little comedic how stereotypical the name was.

“Anyway, speaking of Canada,” he spoke through light chuckles once he’d calmed down a little and you both continued walking, “I don’t mean to be intrusive, and you definitely don’t have to answer if you’d rather not, but um, how come you transferred here senior year? Was it hard to get in? How did that work?”

“No no don’t worry, you’re not being intrusive at all, I don’t mind! Basically…” you started your not-so-entertaining story of how you ended up at Midtown, and no matter how many times you stopped yourself to apologize for how “boring” you were being, Peter assured you that you were anything but.

The long walk to school couldn’t have been long enough, because you were at your locker way too quick for your liking. And judging by the way Peter stayed with you as you grabbed your stuff and offered to walk you to class, he felt the same way.

You found yourself beginning to set your alarm for just a little while earlier than usual that day onwards, and morning walks together became more common as the month went on. Sure, you adored your sleep, but having a potential chance to run into Peter and walk to school with him again? It was worth it.

Despite having only briefly known him, there was a sense of comfort that you felt in his presence. He made you feel like you could share anything with him. Everytime he smiled, forget full-fledged laughed, you felt like maybe, just maybe, things were going to be okay for you.

To top it all off, it didn’t hurt that he was more than easy on the eyes. Those gorgeous eyes and that cute button-nose, not to mention his beautiful brown curls? You wouldn’t mind signing up for that one bit.

‘Y/n, stop. No. He’s just your friend. He’s just being nice, and you’re just happy you have a friend. You do not see him in that way - there is no chance of anything along those lines happening. You just haven’t had much interaction with people and now you’re playing up a friendship because you have nothing better to do. You do not like him.’

You reminded yourself that every time you caught yourself looking at him for even a moment more than what would be acceptable when you conversed. Peter was a great guy, but you guys were just friends, and you intended on keeping your feelings about him that way.

Besides, the reason you were down to lose some sleep wasn’t just being able to walk into school with Peter. You always had a problem with getting to school just in time to catch the bell, and this gave you an excuse to be more timely.

That’s all it was. A friendship and a way to be more punctual. Not anything more than that.

***** two

“Peter,” you clutched your stomach, loud laughter escaping you, “I’m literally going to pee myself!”

“Y/n, stop entertaining him or he won’t stop making those terrible jokes,” Ned groaned.

Peter had introduced you to his best friends Ned and MJ about three days into your friendship, once you’d gotten the remainder of your paperwork after your transfer completed and could finally sit with the rest of your classmates for lunch, and you’d all instantly clicked.

Here you were, two months later. Colourful lights shining all around you, the sound of squeals and laughter from a multitude of people constantly surrounding you, and a game to play every few steps you took - not to mention the numerous prizes waiting to be won.

Ned has suggested that the four of you go down to the arcade nearby to destress after the exhaustion of your end-of-semester exams, and you all had instantly agreed.

As much fun as you were having playing the different games and winning all those tickets with the people who had grown to be your closest friends, what was absolutely making your day was the way in which Peter would just not stop making hilarious puns and jokes.

“You’re just jealous you’re not as cool or as hot as me,” Peter playfully scoffed and made exaggerated hair-flip movements, grabbing your hand as he dragged a giggling you to the next game. “Come on Y/n, they’ll never know what it’s like to be iconic.”

“Woah Peter, what’s gotten into you today?”

“I’m just happy. I’m a happy boy. A happy boy who’s happy about being at this arcade with his wonderful friends because it’s a happy environment,” he glanced at you over his shoulder as he put in the tokens to play basketball.

You chuckled as you reached out to playfully pull his cheeks. “Well, happy boy, let’s win this thing and win it together. In case you didn’t know, my basketball skills are somewhat impeccable.”

“Y/n, you literally can’t walk five steps without tripping, it’s pretty hard to imagine you being any good at a sport that involves a lot of running,” he sassed.

“Ah, well that right there is the thing - I’m incapable of walking. When it comes to running, I’m a whole other ball game. Basketball game, to be more specific,” you spoke slowly, nodding your head wisely to emphasize your wisdom.

Peter let out a wheeze neither of you had expected, and it sent you both into a fit of laughter. When Ned and MJ made their way over to you a few seconds later, all they saw was the two of you clutching your stomachs, faces red and laughter escaping your throats as though you’d just rewatched another one of those ridiculous ‘5-Minute Crafts’ life hacks.

In the midst of the hysteria, as Peter went to slap his knee, he accidentally slammed the Start button on the game. The ever-so-jolly-yet-ominous-sounding countdown of the machine finally pulling you guys out of your bubble.

“Oh my gosh Peter stand up, it’s starting!” you exclaimed through giggles, smacking his arm repeatedly with the back of your hand to get his attention.

“Oof okay okay, let’s do this thing!” Peter rubbed his palms and cracked his neck, getting in a serious stance and grabbing the first basketball that came through the machine before tossing it straight into the hoop.

“My turn, my turn!” You shoved him with your hip playfully to make room for yourself and get a better angle to shoot.

Ned and MJ, who had been standing close behind and observing this all go down, just looked at each other, heads cocked to the side. Claps and cheers when the other one scored and purposeful bumps into each other every single time you switched, given you guys’ speed and surprising accuracy, were all they could see and hear.

“The two idiots… they really don’t see it, do they?” MJ questioned, looking between the both of you, genuinely puzzled.

Ned groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. “Dude, I swear I can and will cry right now if they don’t stop playing this ‘you’re just my best friend’ game, I’m so tired of it.”

“Are we gonna say anything to them to make them ‘fess up though?”

“Nah, I kinda wanna watch it play out, as much as it exasperates me,” Ned shrugged.

“Alright Petey boy, you wanna take this jackpot shot or do you want me to?” you looked over at him and asked. “No pressure buddy, but it is an extra five hundred tickets.”

“All yours, m’lady,” he curtly bowed, drawing a laugh from you.

You took your stance, legs slightly spread apart and knees bent just a little, preparing for the big shoot. You grabbed the final basketball, dribbled it on the ground twice, and tossed it, aiming straight for the hoop.

“She shoots,” Peter commentated, watching the ball leave your hands, “and… she scores!”

You let out a squeal and jumped straight into Peter’s arms, giving him the biggest hug you could possibly render. Peter caught you and spun you around, cheering and laughing all the while as the machine spewed out your tickets.

“Okay kids,” MJ called out, pulling you both out of your little moment of euphoria. “Chill for a second and pick up your tickets because I will gladly take them if you don’t want them.”

You chuckled her comment and separated from Peter before quickly walking up to grab the tickets. “Hey, Peter and I worked hard for these, back off,” you playfully pouted, hearing Peter chuckle from beside you.

“Okay okay,” Ned laughed. “MJ and I are done with our tokens, are you guys ready to call it a day and get the prizes too or..?”

“I’m ready to go, Y/n?” Peter asked.

“Yup, I’m done too, let’s go.”

You all made your way over to the corner of the arcade where you could total up your tickets and redeem them for prizes. Despite your constant refusal, Peter not only let you take the entirety of the tickets you both won from the basketball game instead of splitting them, but also gave you all the tickets he’d earned that day so that when combined with yours, you’d be able to get the adorable person-sized teddy bear you were planning on saving up for.

Ned decided to splurge on a number of small prizes, like the classic ginormous plastic sunglasses and little notepads, while MJ got herself a Rubik’s cube and a sticker that said “Caution: Falling Rocks”. Nobody knows why she picked that one in particular - she’d simply shrugged when Peter had asked her about it.

You felt bad that Peter didn’t end up getting anything, but he insisted he was totally cool with it. Something about “not having any more space for obscure things to stuff in my cupboards anyway.”

“Guys, I’m hungry,” you said, bringing the attention to you while you all headed out of the noisy arcade. “Let’s go grab a bite somewhere?”

“Ooh yes, I know this place that’s only like five minutes from here - Ned and I went there like last week. It’s-”

Thud.

Peter never really got to finish that sentence. He was walking backwards, trying to make eye contact with the three of you while relaying his expertise on the restaurants in the area, but the man-child had tripped over his own two feet and landed flat on the ground.

“Oh my gosh, are you okay?” you all rushed over to him.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he assured you guys as he grabbed Ned’s hand and pulled himself up, dusting off his jeans.

You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped you right then. “Hey Pete, what was that you said earlier about me not being able to walk five steps without tripping?”

“Hey, cut me some slack, okay. MJ’s sticker said ‘falling rocks’ and I was just testing the validity of that statement. Now, with experiential evidence, I can confirm that it is, in fact, false.”

You and Ned burst out laughing at what was probably Peter’s only good joke all afternoon. MJ rolled her eyes, but even she couldn’t stop the smile that took over her face.

You all started to head towards the restaurant Peter suggested, Ned leading the way.

“Hey Y/n?” Peter leaned over.

“Yes?”

“Did you lose an electron? Because you’re positively glowing.”

“Oy smarty-pants, make your own puns, don’t steal them from your t-shirt,” you chuckled, shaking your head. You increased your speed and walked up ahead to where Ned was walking to join him and, hopefully, prevent Peter from the bright red that overtook your features from that one little out-of-nowhere compliment.

You and Ned were joking around about the events of the day and how much fun everything was, and as much as you enjoyed Ned’s company, you couldn’t help but let your mind wander a little.

Why did Peter have such an effect on you? How was he able to make you feel so giddy - all he did was give you one punny compliment and you were blushing? How come this never happens with anybody else?

‘It’s because sometimes you just click with some people more than you do with others. Yeah, that’s what this is. That’s all it is. You just click with him slightly more than you do with the others, and so his compliment is just a little bit more meaningful in that sense,’ you rationalized.

That’s definitely all it was. A strong friendship. Not a crush - definitely not a crush.

***** three

It was the end of senior year, and you were finally in Europe for your long-awaited senior trip that the Midtown teachers had organized for your graduating class.

You’d managed to fall sick on the second day of the trip, but despite the absolute nightmare that all the nausea and headaches had been, it had luckily turned out to only be a 24-hour bug, and you’d been up and running, ready to explore the place by the next morning.

Ned and Peter shared a room while you and MJ shared another, and while the four of you would occasionally hang out in each other’s rooms when you weren’t already out and about, Peter had insisted on practically staying in your room when you were sick so he could take care of you.

You’d pushed them all out of the room to go out and have fun, or even just go sit in the other room so they wouldn’t accidentally contract whatever it was you had.

Peter, though, just would not listen - he kept taking MJ’s keycard and coming in to check up on you, making sure you were hydrated and had everything you needed. You’d woken up the morning after to a number of texts from Peter, scattered at different times throughout the night, telling you that he hoped you were feeling better and reminding you that you could call him if you needed anything, no matter how late or early it was.

You’d made it known to him the next time you saw him how much you appreciated him doing that, but also how you wished he’d have slept without worrying about you so much.

He’d only smiled in response.

Once you’d gotten better - which luckily was by the next afternoon - the four of you would spend time in one hotel room all evening. Watching movies together, having popcorn fights, or just talking, laughing and reminiscing about the year that had flown right by you.

During the day, you would all go out and explore whatever city you were in, making sure to cover all the general tourist attractions and getting tons and tons of pictures with and of each other. MJ had become your unspoken designated photographer, capturing breathtaking candids of you all whenever she got the chance.

Mr. Harrington had mandated that anybody who went out to explore or do something that wasn’t on the itinerary report back to the hotel by sunset so he could keep track of everyone, so you would always make it a point to be in your rooms by then.

Most people stayed out anyway, but not the four of you - you didn’t want to worry the poor man. He worked hard all year too, and he was kind enough to supervise this trip - the least you could all do was ensure that you weren’t burdening him with any added stress.

Occasionally, you would end up getting back to the hotel earlier than others in your group. Sometimes, MJ would want to wander by herself, and Ned would try to approach and converse with Betty, who he found really cute.

Times like that, you and Peter would be the only ones in your respective rooms. The very first time that happened, you both very quickly realized that if you were in that situation, boredom would usually follow very soon.

So the next time onwards, even if none of the others were there, you and Peter would just hang out together in one of your rooms. It didn’t really matter what you were doing - just being in each other’s presence made things fun.

It was guaranteed, though, that obscure things would always happen when it was just the two of you left unsupervised. One time, Ned walked into his and Peter’s shared room only to find you and Peter in the midst of a very soulful rendition of A Whole New World from Aladdin - complete with exaggerated dance moves and hairbrush-microphones. Another time, MJ returned from her walk to a nearby park to you and Peter indulged in a heated discussion about whether pop tarts should be considered a sandwich or ravioli.

The four of you would often stay up until odd hours talking about anything and everything. The later it got, the deeper your topics of conversation would get. They would go from sharing nostalgic memories from your childhoods to passionate conversations about how many pets one could get before they’d be considered too many.

One of those days, when you had a one hundred percent free day because the event on your itinerary got cancelled, MJ and Peter decided they wanted to go visit a museum. Ned brought up that he wanted to go shopping around the city instead, and since you were planning the same, the two of you went out together.

You and Ned decided to hop onto one of those red double-decker buses, because if you’re a tourist in London and don’t get on one of those buses even once, are you really a tourist in London? Since neither of you had anything specific you wanted to shop for or any specific place in mind, you decided to take a random bus and get off wherever you felt would be worth it.

After about fifteen minutes of looking around at the hustling streets, you finally passed through an area that seemed to be filled with a variety of stores, making it the perfect place for some obscure shopping.

You both walked around, entering random stores whenever something in the display caught your eyes and buying random articles of clothing. At one point, you found a really cool thrift store and decided to style each other - the results being surprisingly more wonderful than either of you had expected. You both did an impromptu ramp walk for each other, filling the trial rooms with the sounds of laughter and giggles.

As the evening started to set in and the gorgeous colours started to take over the blue sky, you decided that you should start heading back to the hotel soon. It wasn’t too far from where you were though, considering the fact that a quick fifteen-minute ride would get you back, so you two did have time to stop by one or two more stores quickly if you wanted to.

As you strolled around, looking at the displays to see if there was something you might like, a pretty off-white floral sundress caught your attention. “Ned, can we go in here? I want to try this dress on!” you said as you tapped him excitedly on his shoulder.

He agreed, and as soon as you found the dress and tried it on, you absolutely fell in love with it. It was just the right length for your preference, and fit your body just right. In fact, it would even go perfectly with the adorable cross-body bag you’d picked up earlier in the day. You didn’t have to think twice before heading to the cash register to buy it and officially make it yours.

“Today burned a hole in my pockets, but it was so much fun Y/n, thanks for coming with me,” Ned said as you both got seated on the bus.

“Hey, of course! I had so much fun too! It was so refreshing to, thank you for letting me try on eight thousand different things,” you grinned.

The two of you continued conversing and joking around as the bus slowed down at a stop to let passengers on and off.

“Man, as great as museums are, nothing beats the joy one gets from mindlessly shopping - those two definitely missed out on some hilarious jokes and the best fashion show of the century,” you chuckled, making a reference to your antics back at the thrift store.

Ned laughed, shaking his head.

You relaxed in your seats, just letting the feeling of the wind flowing through your hair encompass you. The slight coolness of the evening breeze was euphoric yet also grounding in a sense, and you wanted to let it consume you for as long as possible.

“Y/n, can I ask you a question?” Ned softly broke the silence.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“You like him, don’t you?” he smirked.

You turned to look at him, eyebrows furrowed. “Like who?”

“Come on, don’t act so oblivious,” Ned laughed. “Peter - you like him, right?”

“Uh, yeah, he’s one of my best friends, so I definitely do like him?” You were genuinely confused at this point.

“No Y/n, I mean like like. Like as in more than a friend,” he clarified.

You froze for a split second and the heat rushed quickly to your face for reasons unknown to you. Almost too quickly, you responded, “What? No! Why would you think that?”

Ned rubbed his face, groaning. “Y/n, why are you both so ridiculously oblivious?” He had no clue how both you and Peter, two people so hopelessly crushing on each other, couldn’t see it.

“Wait, what do you mean?” you questioned.

Ned couldn’t stop the knowing smirk that overtook his features at the quizzical look on your face. He wanted to see two of his best friends happy together, but he needed you both to figure out your feelings for each other because it would be unfair of him and MJ to try and get you both together before that happened.

In this moment though, the utter cluelessness in your eyes was absolutely comedic to him.

“Oh, would you look at that, it’s our stop!” he quickly picked up his bags and walked off the bus, leaving a very perplexed you to follow him.

You pestered him to explain what he meant by that the entire way up to your respective rooms, but he wouldn’t do anything but grin. Your split-second panic and silence, combined with the redness of your cheeks as soon as he’d asked you about Peter was confirmation enough for him. He’d lit the spark, the questioning, inside of you, and that was all he felt was appropriate for now. Now, you needed to let it grow into a full flame and come to terms with your feelings.

“Bye Y/n! I’ll see you in a little bit!” he waved at you as he quickly slipped behind his door.

You groaned, stomping back to your room. You tossed your bags to the side and flopped right onto the bed.

‘Why was Ned asking me that? What did he mean by saying Peter and I are ‘oblivious??’ And why did I panic? Is there a chance that I- No, don’t finish that thought. Y/n, Peter’s just your best friend - feelings involved make things messy. You know what though? You don’t have to worry about that, it’s fine, because you don’t have feelings for him anyway. It’s all good. You’re just best friends, it’s nothing more than that, for sure.’

You lay there, staring at the ceiling, and rationalizing whatever supposed “feelings” you had for Peter until you heard MJ swipe her keycard. In walked both Peter and MJ, and you watched as his eyes lit up as soon as he saw you.

You felt your lips curve upwards into a smile, and before you could even realize that your body was moving, you had both engulfed each other in a massive hug.

That was normal though, right? You would hug MJ right after that too - you always hugged your friends. That didn’t mean anything.

Ned was probably just fooling around. Yeah, that’s probably what it was. One of his extended pranks. That explanation made sense.

Either way, you know what your feelings for Peter are: platonic. Absolutely, positively not anything other than that.

***** one

The day you’d been dreading was finally here: the end of your senior trip.

You were in your hotel room, zipping up your suitcase and making sure you had packed all of your belongings.

“I guess this is it, huh?” you squeaked out.

Hotel rooms had become your home for the last almost two months. They were where you and three of the closest people in your life right now spent so much time together, laughing, crying, just enjoying each other’s presence. Now, you were being made to say goodbye to that, and it was too soon for your liking.

“It is, yeah,” MJ gave you a small smile. “Don’t be upset about it though, we’ll all still be together and go out all the time once we’re back.”

“I know, I just…” you sighed. “I just liked this whole ‘no-other-responsibilities-to-tend-to’ version of going out. Time really does fly when you’re having fun.”

MJ placed the last of her clothes in her suitcase and zipped it up. “Well, at least it was fun while it lasted, right?”

You nodded. It was fun while it lasted. Was it insanely tiring walking around every single day because there was always so much to do? One hundred percent. Was your sleep schedule messed up from staying up late hanging out with your friends and waking up early to go grab breakfast and get ready for the day? More than ever before. Would you trade the experience for anything else in the world? Absolutely not.

You did one final sweep of the room to make sure you’d grabbed everything you’d brought in. “Ready to go?” you asked as you placed your suitcase upright on the ground.

“Yup, let’s head downstairs before the bus leaves,” MJ chuckled, shaking her head. “I am so ready to sleep in my own bed again.”

You laughed and grabbed your keycards. MJ placed the remote back on the TV stand and wheeled her luggage out the door and you followed suit, pulling the door shut behind you. Once you double-checked that the door had been locked properly, the two of you headed down to the lobby, where you were supposed to meet the rest of your classmates.

Dropping the keycards off at the front desk, you made your way over to where you could see most of your cohort already gathered.

“Oh good, you’re both here,” Mr. Harrington checked your names off his list. “The only ones left now are Flash and Brad. They’d better come down soon, wouldn’t want to- ah! There they are!” he marched over to where the two boys were.

“Wow, I don’t think I have ever seen him look that relieved. Is it just me or did he get taller?” you heard a voice approaching you.

Peter.

There he was, walking towards you, wearing that blue checkered shirt that looked oh-so-good on him. Something about him today hit you differently. You couldn’t put a finger on what exactly it was, but it was safe to say that you felt your heart skip a beat at how amazing he looked.

“As much as I hate to say it, I agree with you,” MJ joked. “Crazy what lifting some weight off your shoulders can do for you.”

“Crazy how quickly this whole trip is already over,” Ned spoke. “I don’t know if I’m ready to go home yet.”

“Oh hush, just last night you were on the phone telling Betty that you couldn’t wait to take her to the movies once we’re all back in Queens,” Peter quipped, effectively making Ned blush and all of you laugh.

The aura of the lobby was very mixed. On one hand, the atmosphere felt lively as people chatted with their friends about all the fun times they had over the last few weeks, about the constant highs they all felt. On the other hand, there was a certain longing in most people’s eyes, a willingness to hold on to this feeling for just a little longer.

It was a very bittersweet vibe, and very understandably so.

“Alright guys, um- hey, can I get your attention for just a minute please?” Mr. Harrington squeaked. He raised his arms up to try and grab everyone’s attention, and to his own surprise, it worked.

“So, basically, I just wanted to say thank you to every single one of you for attending this trip, and I hope that it was a great experience for you all. Our bus should be here shortly, but before we go, I was hoping to get one quick picture with the entire group, if that’s okay?” After confirming that nobody had an issue with it, he handed his camera over to one of the staff members from the reception desk, who quickly snapped a wonderful picture of you all.

He thanked her, and then went outside to check for the bus.

“Looks like there’s still some more time before we leave,” you stated, peeking out through the glass windows and noticing the absence of a bus.

“Judging by the way Mr. Harrington’s seeming frustrated, I’d say you’re probably right,” Peter chuckled. “Hey, let’s get some pictures of our own in the meantime, I still have some film left on my camera!”

You, Ned and MJ agreed, and Peter pulled out his camera from his carry-bag. You all took turns posing with each other, starting off with simple smiles, but progressively getting goofier and sillier until you’ve hit the point where you were just standing in the middle of the lobby recreating iconic memes, sending you all into fits of laughter.

“Okay, okay, enough of this,” Peter giggles, still coming down from moments ago when he was guffawing at your attempt to recreate that one young Cardi B picture. “Let’s get some group shots now.”

MJ quickly asked Yasmin, another one of your classmates, if she’d be okay with getting a few shots of them and explained to her how to work the camera.

You went to grab a sip of water and stood off to the side, letting the three have their moment. They’d been there for each other for four years, and while you were all close now, you’d only come into the picture recently. You wanted to let the squad - the original squad - get some pictures too, you’d been in enough with them already, it was okay.

Ned said something which you couldn’t hear, but it drew out undoubtedly heartfelt laughs from the other two. Eyes scrunched and faces radiating with nothing but joy, Yasmin saw this as a perfect moment to capture, and you saw her take what you were sure would have turned out to be an amazing candid.

Yasmin went to hand the camera back to MJ, but Peter quickly stopped her.

“Hold on one second please, would it be okay if you got just one last picture? With the whole group?”

She nodded, stepping back.

“Y/n! Why are you off to the side?” Peter rushed over to you, pulling you out of your thoughts. “Come on, we can’t take a full group photo without you in it!”

In that very moment, as Peter grabbed your hand and gently pulled you to where the rest of the group was standing, something in your mind clicked. You laughed as Peter abruptly stopped and you bumped into him, hearing the click of the camera go off. None of it seemed to matter though. All you could see was Peter smiling back down at you, the crinkles by his eyes more defined than ever, but also surprisingly more beautiful than ever.

You could sense the three people around you continuing to throw up more poses quickly, Yasmin capturing them, but the entire while, your eyes wouldn’t leave Peter’s grinning face, your mind slowly stopped registering anything other than the feeling of Peter’s arms around your shoulders. The pure warmth he radiated pulled you in further, and everything around you except his perfect smile blurred.

One thing became very clear in that moment of complete encapsulation though, despite it being a completely foreign feeling to you, as the same words played in your head, over and over.

‘Holy crap, I think I’m in love with my best friend.’

If only you knew, those were the exact same words racing through Peter’s mind.

430 notes · View notes

neworleansspecial · 4 years ago

Text

Summary: Nancy isn’t coping after Tim’s death

Warnings: implied alcohol abuse, suicide attempt, ptsd, emeto

WC: 4.5k // AO3

Tags: @heartofmarjan @bristrandd @blakestrand126 @fedoralaura11

Nancy has to be dragged away from Tim.

She tries to work on him, save him, do something for him, even if it’s already too late by the time they follow Owen’s scream to Tim’s body, pinned beneath a massive piece of ejecta. Nancy drops to her knees by his side and grabs for it with her gloved hands. When she can’t move it, when her gloves begin to melt into her skin, she peels them off her burned hands and feels frantically for his pulse.

“Starting compressions,” she cries, getting up on her knees, but she doesn’t know where to put her hands. The ejecta had initially covered Tim’s chest, right where she would do CPR, but has since melted through his body to singe and sink into the dirt. She thinks she might be screaming when she grabs Tim’s scorched face and tries to wake him up.

She cries, she screams, desperate to help him, desperate for someone to do something, until Owen says something and Paul and Judd grab her arms to pull her away. She fights them. Of course she does, because she’s a Goddamn paramedic and she needs to get to Tim to save him, but they’re both holding her back as Marjan and TK move to block her view. There’s tears in their eyes. They have no right to cry when they won’t let her see him, help him. Save him. She has to save him.

“No!”

Owen stands in front of her so that all she can see is his worn face and blue eyes, not Tim. Not even the people blocking Tim. Just him, and he puts his gloved hands on her shoulders above Judd and Paul’s hands.

“Nancy,” he says gently, “there’s nothing we can do. We’re going back to the station now, okay? Let Tommy patch up your hands on the way.”

“We can’t leave him!”

“There’s nothing we can do,” he repeats. “Judd, drive the ambulance?”

“Sure thing, Cap.”

Usually Tim drives. Nancy makes an inhuman wail and doubles over, only held up by Paul and Judd’s strong grip, until they carefully lower her to the dirt. She claws at her face in her grief, desperate to feel something, until they seize above her burned wrists and hold her still so she can’t hurt herself anymore.

“Breathe, Nancy,” Tommy says as she kneels in front of her. She has her medical bag. Did she have that when they came over and found Tim? Why didn’t she help? “It looks like second degree burns, you’ll need to go to the ER, but I’ll get it all cleaned up and bandaged for you.”

“Tim needs to go to the hospital,” Nancy counters.

No one responds to her.

She stares down at her hands as Paul holds her right still for Tommy to rinse with saline and wrap heavily in cool white gauze until she can’t move her hand at all. Paul steadies her left. She’s been made useless as they guide her to the back of the ambulance, where Tommy helps her onto the gurney and sits beside her as Judd goes to start the engine. Everything is very quiet. Nancy prefers this to fake condolences when they wouldn’t let her see or help Tim, and curls up on her side on the gurney so she doesn’t have to look at Tommy.

“There was nothing we could do,” Tommy says.

“I think I’m tired of hearing that.”

They drive for a long while, to the point that Nancy realizes they’re at a clinic and not the station. “It’ll be faster than the ERs,” Judd says when he opens the doors. He and Tommy help Nancy down from the gurney and the truck bay, and lead her into the clinic. They stay with her while she’s seen. She’s given medicated ointment, painkillers, and antibiotics, as well as a fresh dressing on her burned hands. Looking at them, they remind her too much of Tim’s skin and she has to turn away.

Then they take the ambulance back to the station, where Nancy has to meet with Owen and the department chief and tell them what she saw. What she did. They all stare at the bandages on her hands the whole time. Finally, she’s allowed to go sit with the rest of the crew and hold a pillow to her chest while they talk.

She says they should have saved him. Worked on him. Helped him.

“There wasn’t enough of him left to work on,” Judd says sadly.

She wants to hit him. Instead, she throws the pillow at him and goes to clean out Tim’s locker because no one else will. It’ll be difficult with her hands, but it isn’t as if anyone else will do it. No one really cared about her and Tim except for Michelle, and she’s not here anymore.

Oh God, Nancy has to tell Michelle. No one else will think to call her.

She carefully takes down all of Tim’s hoodies, a feat made difficult by her bandaged hands, and cries until Tommy comes to help, and promises to look after Buster. She also offers to drive Nancy home, something which she has no choice but to accept since she can’t drive with her burned hands. She doesn’t want to be comforted. This is something which Tommy seems to sense. There is no radio, no speaking. No nothing.

When they get to Nancy’s house, she hands over her phone with sad eyes.

“Can you call Michelle for me? I need to tell her.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Tommy says.

She helps Nancy out of the car and into the house, fiddling with the keys much slower than Nancy is usually able to do this, and lets her in.

“Do you need anything else tonight?”

Nancy shakes her head. She wants a shower, but she can’t take one with the bandages like this and refuses to ask for help with that. After a long moment, Tommy leaves. Now, Nancy is completely alone, and she collapses on the floor to sob.

The next morning, she wakes up to a knock at the door. Nancy fumbles with the lock and the knob for a moment before opening it to see Michelle, red-eyed and somber. “I thought we could both use some company.” In her arms are grocery bags full of ice cream and tequila, so Nancy steps to the side to let her in.

Michelle eyes the hand shaped bruises on Nancy’s biceps from the restraint, but doesn’t say anything. Instead she sets up two glasses full of tequila and spoons for the ice cream on the couch, with a soft offering of help if Nancy needs it. This feels like breakup protocol, but cold ice cream and hard liquor don’t seem like such a bad idea to soothe the burn inside of Nancy’s chest at the loss. For her, there is no grace period in which it doesn’t seem real. She touched his body. She burned her hands trying to help him. She could not save him.

“Owen tells me they had to pull you away.”

“I had to try and save him.”

“I would’ve done the same.”

Nancy manages to get the glass to her mouth and drains it all in one go. Michelle wordlessly refills it. They will likely get fucked up, and pass out on the couch, but it’s not as though Nancy has anywhere to go. Everyone got a few days off for the grief, and Nancy has a couple weeks while her hands heal. She’s lucky she doesn’t need grafts or it would be longer. Instead, she’ll simply get blisters and pus for a while, and then it’ll turn into scars spanning the entirety of her palms.

“Who’s taking care of Buster?” Michelle asks.

“The new captain took him in. I think she feels guilty.”

“She should. She lost someone.”

They pretend it’s fair to blame Tommy, because that’s easier than blaming no one, and Michelle starts drinking straight from the tequila bottle. Luckily there’s another, which Nancy begins to do the same from. It burns going down in a new sort of way, but Nancy loves the sting of it and the way her head begins to get too fuzzy to really feel sad anymore. She falls asleep next to Michelle and wakes up alone.

Tim’s funeral comes a week later, when the firefighters of the 126 are out fighting some wildfire. None of them come home to attend. Nancy, whose hands are somewhat healed and require much less thick bandaging, is able to dress herself and pull her hair out of her face before she goes. She wears sensible flats instead of heels because Tim always said she walked like a baby deer in her heels. This is true. She thinks it would honor his memory to stand up straight and serene rather than stumbling and losing her balance like a drunkard.

The thought reminds her that Michelle has left some alcohol in the house for her, so she hunts down the bright pink bottle of fruity vodka and brings it to her lips. Drinking doesn’t burn as much as it used to, and she downs the equivalent of four shots with ease, licking the remnants off her lips after. It will make the funeral easier to bear. Then she goes out and sits on her front porch, under the bright blue and unfairly sunny sky, and waits for Tommy, who promised to drive her.

Tim’s family will be at the funeral, Nancy realizes, and the thought terrifies her. They’re going to ask her why she didn’t do more to save him, and she will simply look at her burned hands and shrug because she has no answer. She did all she was able before she was stopped. Part of her knows, rationally, that there was nothing to do; Tim was dead before she got to him, they say, but most of her believes there was something she could have done. Anything, really. She doesn’t believe herself to be blameless in this, and she doesn’t expect others to believe it either.

“How are you doing?” Tommy asks in that gentle voice that everyone who called Nancy with condolences has used. “Been sleeping okay?”

“Fine.”

Tommy doesn’t comment on her unusually brusque behavior, which is good, because Nancy is too exhausted and hurt to try to put on the niceties and act like she hasn’t been on a small bender between drinking and her painkillers for the last few days. Michelle has been kind enough to stop by a couple more times, so the two of them could grieve together. Unlike the current 126, Michelle will be coming to the funeral.

When Nancy and Tommy arrive, she gets out of the car and joins Tim’s family. They had asked her to be a pallbearer, and though it broke her heart, she said no. She can’t carry his corpse to the grave. There is a large procession, given the times, and Nancy takes Michelle’s hand while two police cars lead the funeral procession. Four paramedics from another house, people who vaguely knew Tim, carry his casket. Their white masks look so awful compared to the dress blues everyone wears for the occasion.

Her own feel too itchy and tight without Tim beside her to make a joke, and Michelle leans close to whisper in her ear. She expects reassurance. Instead, Michelle murmurs, “Have you been drinking?”

Nancy doesn’t bother to respond. Of course she’s been drinking. Her best friend is gone, and without him, she doesn’t know how she can ever walk into the firehouse again. She doesn’t know how she can live again. It feels like the past few days, she’s been wading through glue, waiting for some miracle news that Tim is alright.

He’s not.

The tears come quietly instead of the loud, ugly sobs she’s suffered through recently. Michelle squeezes her hand. Tommy takes the other and holds on tight. Between the two of them, they attempt to anchor her, but it feels too much like being dragged away, so she lets go and crosses her arms protectively in front of her chest.

Her eyes burn and her cheeks wet her mask while the procession goes on, ending with Tim’s flag being taken off the coffin and handed to his mother so he can be buried. This is it. There is finality in his burial, proof that he will never ever be coming back. The feelings of the past week all hit at once and Nancy’s legs give out. Michelle and Tommy have to hold her up. Though she doesn’t much want to be touched or held in any capacity, she allows them so she can stand through Tim’s funeral, and leans against Michelle when it’s over.

“Let it out,” Michelle says, and the sobs come once more. They’re the same ugly, desperate things as the night it happened, but no one is cruel enough to accuse her of theatrics. Thank God. She couldn’t handle her pain being questioned right now, she knows, and it’s lucky that Michelle shoos away anyone who comes to ask. She seems to sense how fragile Nancy feels right now. “I’ve got you. It’s going to be alright.”

“No, it’s not! He’s dead!”

Everyone quiets at her shout, and Michelle guides her away from the crowds to grieve in peace, if there is such a thing in a world without Tim.

It’s another two weeks before Nancy is cleared to return to duty, although part of her wants to just stay home rather than go to a firehouse where Tim no longer works. Still, she puts on her uniform and pulls back her hair to drive herself, something she hasn’t done since she was injured. She needs to go grocery shopping, she thinks, but it doesn’t seem very important in the wake of the past few weeks.

She’s vaguely hungry when she parks and walks into the firehouse, especially once she smells the pancakes Paul is making and the nice syrup Marjan has cracked open. “We made a little welcome back breakfast,” Mateo explains. He’s dusted with flour. “Pancakes with the good syrup from Cap’s farmer’s market, and powdered sugar, and raspberries, your favorite!”

Raspberries were never her favorite. She ate them voraciously as an inside joke with Tim, who was really the one to like them. Nancy forces a smile and a thanks even though she feels hollow inside. Judd asks if she wants a hug and she says no. His arms will remind her too much of that night, and she can’t afford to break in front of everyone any more than she already has. She’s too sober for this. She can’t drink on the job, though. So instead she sits down with the team for a delicious breakfast that she can tell they poured a lot of love into.

It tastes like sawdust.

She eats it anyways though. Judd gives her a second helping, which she carefully picks through to make it look like she has more than she does. They all usually take seconds, sometimes thirds, because of how much energy the job takes. Everyone else certainly has plenty. Tommy gives her a look. Nancy looks back and gets up to scrape her plate into the trash. They don’t put her on dish duty today.

Marjan follows Nancy to the rec room and sits beside her on the couch. They don’t speak. It’s much easier to be quietly upset than it is to talk about what losing Tim felt like, which Nancy knows everyone will be asking. She completely broke down in front of all of them, and regardless of how rational that may have been, she doesn’t want to contend with trying to relive all the agony when she’s just learning to push it down with lots of alcohol and little sleep.

“Do you have nightmares?” she asks Marjan.

“Sometimes. They’ve gotten worse since… I dream of him, as I’m sure you do.”

“Every time I close my eyes.”

Marjan nods and holds out her hand. Nancy takes it, only because she doesn’t know what else to do, and revels in the small amount of comfort for as long as Marjan will give it to her. It’s nice to just have something instead of being asked if she’s alright, or instructed to talk about the death of a loved one. Owen wants Nancy to go to a department counselor to talk about it, but she imagines that unleashing the beast will only make things that much worse. She doesn’t want to deal with letting that monster out of its box any more than she already has.

The two of them stay together in a heavy silence after that until the bell rings, and Nancy rushes to the ambulance in the bay. She goes to hoist herself into the truck, passenger side, and her heart stops.

Tim isn’t here to drive the ambulance.

She freezes until Tommy comes up behind her and places a hand on her back.

“You alright, Gillian?”

“Fine.”

Nancy goes to the other side of the truck and pulls herself into the cabin, having to briefly adjust the seat for her longer legs before she can drive. It feels like erasing Tim from the ambulance. It feels like abandonment. But she does it nonetheless, and ignores the tears that wet her cheeks as she pulls out of the bay to follow the fire trucks. Tommy sits beside her, when there’s no patient in the back of the ambulance, and luckily doesn’t comment on Nancy crying. It hasn’t been long since Tim’s death. She thinks she’s allowed this.

When they pull up to the call, it’s at a pool, because of course it is. Some little kid slipped and fell, breaking her leg and hitting her head. It’s broad daylight and nowhere near as hot as it was that night, and the pool is a classic neighborhood rather than a rooftop. It’s not the same at all. But it’s close enough that Nancy freezes up completely. All she can think about is Tim’s body next to that kid on a backboard.

“Gillian.”

Nancy shakes her head and goes to kneel beside the patient to help Tommy. The fracture isn’t too bad, but the head injury is bleeding a lot. Head injuries do. Nancy secures a c-collar over the child’s neck and gently feels the injury on the back of the head.

“Six inch lac,” she reports to Tommy. “Minor swelling.”

She avoids looking at the pool because it hurts to think about. So she focuses on the child, someone she can save, and pushes all her emotions as far down as she possibly can to make this easier.

They load the child up onto the stretcher and her mother joins Tommy in the back of the ambulance. Once again, Nancy faces the daunting task of sitting in Tim’s seat and doing his job, but much to her surprise and upset, she doesn’t feel it as strongly. That in of itself is a betrayal. Of course she drives, does what she’s supposed to, but it’s too easy in a way that makes her want to throw herself out of the car entirely.

The rest of the shift is the same, and as it gets easier to get behind the wheel of the ambulance without crying, Nancy hates herself a little bit more. She shouldn’t be forgetting him so soon. She wants to slam her face into the lockers and remember his laugh and think about her best friend as he was alive, not the night he died. All her memories of him are too heavily tainted by the sight of his corpse and it simply isn’t fair.

She starts drinking more, though she’s careful not to drink before she has to be on shift. It is the only time in which she gets any peace of mind, any quiet to her thoughts. She’s willing to do whatever it takes to ease the pain, and this helps. She doesn’t go out to the bar with the squad, because she knows they’ll notice her drinking too much and mourning Tim’s absence, instead going home to drown her sorrows in solitude.

She takes a lot of baths, too, and realizes one night when she nearly passes out in the water that she could have died. Such a thought ought to scare her, but instead it brings a strange amount of relief. If she’s dead, she won’t have to be in pain anymore. On a logical level, she recognizes the danger of this feeling, and she wants to tell someone. She wants someone, anyone, even Tommy to see how badly she’s spiraling, but at the same time, she doesn’t want anyone to know until it’s too late to do anything about it.

That night, she sits on her bed with a bottle of pills and a decanter of whiskey and considers it. This is the coward’s way out, and there is nothing here to make her remember Tim in her last breaths. These few weeks without him have been hell and she just wishes she could tell him one more time how much she loves him and what his friendship meant to her. He was her world at work. Her best friend. Her lifeline. She doesn’t know if she ever told him any of those things, but at least now she’ll get the chance to.

Nancy makes a plan.

She writes out her suicide note on her computer, double spaced, and prints it out before folding it up and putting it in a sealed envelope. It is short. Most of it is words to Tim she wishes he could read, but some of it is taken up by apologies to her firehouse and a brief explanation of the agony she’s been in for so long. She tucks it into her backpack instead of her cell phone when she goes to work, and irons her slacks an extra time before pulling them on. It will be her final dress, after all. Nancy plasters on a smile and forces herself to just be normal when she gets to the station and everyone says hello.

Paul watches her. She thinks he knows something is wrong, but they aren’t close enough for him to say anything to her. Besides, he reminds her of that night when she looks at his hands and thinks about the way they felt on her arm, pulling her away from Tim.

Instead of sitting down to breakfast with the others, she goes to the bunks and lays down on the bed that used to be Tim’s. It hasn’t been his in weeks, and the other shift uses the same beds as them anyways, but it feels like connection when she lays down on the soft mattress and cracks open two bottles.

She takes ten pills four times, chasing them each time with vodka snuck in via her backpack. It’ll take time to kill her, but hopefully she can die before a call comes in and someone runs looking for her to get up on the ambulance and come with. She will not drive Tim’s ambulance again.

Nancy peels back the covers and curls up under them, content to die warm and safe. The pill bottle and the rest of the tequila sit proudly on the nightstand beside her suicide note and she realizes she’s at peace. She doesn’t mind dying. It’s a respite from the pain, but it is also the ending of a book at just the right time. All her storylines are complete. Her life is at its natural conclusion.

“Hey Nancy, Cap wanted me to-”

She looks at Mateo. He looks at her. He looks at the bottles on the nightstand and the note ready to be read and turns and runs right back out of the room. He’s getting help. She covers her face and sobs. This isn’t fair. They’re going to make her throw up the pills and take her to the hospital, where she’ll be treated whether she likes it or not.

Tommy comes in with her medical bag, Owen and Mateo flanking her. The others must have been told to stay away. She pulls out her blood pressure cuff and reaches for Nancy’s arm, only for Nancy to pull away and draw her knees up to her chest. Owen picks up the pill bottle and reads out the drug and dosage to Tommy.

“How many did you take?” Tommy asks her.

“I refuse treatment.”

“She’s a threat to her own safety,” Owen says. “Treat her anyway.”

“I refuse treatment,” Nancy repeats, and scrambles away when Tommy reaches for her again. “Don’t touch me.”

Owen watches her nearly fall off the bed. “Mateo.”

“Captain, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Tommy interjects.”

“Got a better one?”

So Tommy nods at Mateo, who grabs her arms and holds her down against the bed. Her heart is pounding. She screams no, tries to throw him off of her, does anything to be able to escape this just as she did the night Judd and Paul held her back, but Mateo is stronger than her and has more leverage. Nancy screams and thrashes the entire time they take her vitals. She cries when they drag her out of the room and to the gurney where she’s strapped down with soft restraints in front of everyone. The weight of their eyes is just as heavy as Mateo’s weight on her body had been.

Tommy sits in the back of the ambulance with her and stares at her as she takes rapid, panicked breaths. During the drive, Nancy starts to feel dizzy with the pills, and thanks God that she might die before they get to the hospital. She should have slit her wrists, she thinks. It would have been faster. Maybe even successful before she was found.

“I need you to stay awake, Nancy,” Tommy tells her.

“Fuck off.”

She’d never normally say such a thing to her captain, but she’s angry and ready to die, tied down to a gurney in the back of an ambulance and waiting for the meds to do their job. Nancy purposefully ignores Tommy’s speech about how precious life is and how many people love her, tuning it out in favor of the dull hum at the back of her mind that’s slowly rising. She wants it to overtake her. She’s ready for it.

Unfortunately, she’s still mostly awake when they arrive at the hospital. She shuts her eyes and tries to calm herself down, fake dead so they leave her alone, but that just earns a doctor rubbing painfully against her sternum to rouse her.

“Nancy? My name is Dr. Reese, I need you to open your eyes for me.”

Nancy shakes her head, which makes her feel sick. She gags. Her stomach is rebelling against the drugs she took, or maybe they put something in her IV that makes her throw up, because she’s suddenly leaning over a blue bedpan and throwing up bile.

She’ll survive this attempt.

She’ll try again.

#911 lone star #911 lone star fic #911ls #nancy gillian #tim rosewater #owen strand #paul strickland #judd ryder #tommy vega #marjan marwani #tk strand #mateo chavez #michelle blake #suicide tw #emeto tw #alcohol tw

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thedreadvampy · 4 years ago

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look it's very simple most main cast tma characters (except possibly Basira and Sasha and MAYBE Tim) are reacting to not just supernatural trauma but clear, explicit childhood trauma and I think that's important to take into consideration.

Jon evidently came from a difficult place in the first place, and he was taught that he was an unwanted annoyance who'd derailed his grandma's life, that his intelligence was unpleasant, arrogant and inconvenient, and that the worst thing he could do was get in a grown-up's way. Of course he's bad at talking to people about his feelings. Of course he apologises for seemingly random things and tries to hide big problems and power through on his own. He had a really lonely childhood where he felt like an inconvenience, and now in adulthood it's deeply difficult to believe that anybody will help him and not hold it against him. Of course he comes across staid and aloof - he doesn't believe that anyone will like him if he isn't Doing Everything Right. It's so easy in that situation to worry so much about not being a burden that you freeze your friends out even as they can see you spiralling and you end up hurting them when in fact they'd be more than willing to offer help and get you out. It's why addiction is such an easy hole to fall in, because it feels like a way you can be self-sufficient and deal with your feelings without being a burden. Jon ISN'T a very closed off person naturally, he wants to reach out and be close to people, but he's been taught over and over (as many autistic children are) that he's too much, that he takes up too much space, that it's unfair for him to expect people to go out of their way to help him, so he boxes it away and shoves it down and turns to cigarettes, paranoia and denial in an attempt to manage the problem by himself. He's trying so hard to not be the Weird Kid, he's trying to play the part of what he thinks an archivist and a boss should be and blah his way through; he knows believing in weird shit opens the door to all sorts of stuff so he sticks his fingers in his ears and goes LALALA. he's deeply avoidant which ironically is why he often ends up diving in recklessly - it feels safe to only put yourself at risk (you who think you don't particularly matter, are unloved, and are an annoyance anyway) rather than wait and let others get involved and either judge you or get hurt. He didn't tell ANYONE that his encounter with Daisy had hurt him for SEVERAL YEARS because he didn't want to upset anyone. This speaks to me so much of a kid who growing up was always treated as underfoot, in the way, abnormal and with emotions and problems that weren't nearly as significant as the Important Grownup Things. I don't think anyone knew how to help 5 year old Jon with navigating his parents' deaths, and his grandmother's grief at losing her child probably made it very hard for them to connect whether or not she actually resented him the way he thinks she did. He was treated with bitterness and coldness his whole childhood, and he's never been given space to be angry about that because she was doing her best and dealing with a difficult situation, but it certainly left him with an expectation that trying to turn to anyone for emotional help and support will get you in trouble AND is unfair on them. Being with Martin, and indeed all his friendships and relationships, is hard to navigate when you've been taught for so long that exposing your vulnerability will get you yelled at or will upset people. You try to harden up and develop an exoskeleton but you're so chronically soft and in need of help and love so it spills out messy and you don't know how to take the walls down or build better ones up.

Martin's obvious, because his parental abuse is at the centre of his arc and is explicitly spelled out by Elias. He's so sure it's something he's done that's made his dad leave and his mum despise him, and he's hoping against desperate hope that if he can be Good Enough, little enough of a problem, helpful and invaluable, he can make up for whatever chronic flaw in his personality makes him unlovable. Of course he ISN'T unlovable, and none of his parent's treatment of him is his fault, but it's much safer to believe it's your fault and you can change it than it is to believe people who are meant to love you can just not hold up their end of the bargain for reasons totally outside your control. Much like with Jon, Martin has been taught to believe that he's a Problem - where Jon puts up walls and tries to be aggressively separate, Martin tries as hard as he can to prove himself Useful and Valuable while walling off an excess of humanity. Honestly though Martin's coping with it better than Jon throughout the series because he knows what it is and he's TRYING to push past the impulse to Not Be A Bother and actually let people love him. But he's still seeing the world through the lens of someone who's spent his whole life believing that the only way he'll deserve love is to become invaluable, to be useful, to be caring, to be needed, to be all give and no take, and that's not sustainable. And how much must it knock him back from trusting enough to ask for help when his boss (leave aside the love interest bit) talks about him like he's a buffoon and a waste of space however hard he's trying to be helpful and valuable, just like his mum has for years? Finding out that you matter enough to that person for him to risk his life to save you, and to really truly see you, goes a long way towards showing you that you're not always right to assume that people are lying when they say nice things about you and honest when they say cruel things about you - sometimes you are genuinely loved by people who ALSO see you as flawed. and while obviously after that the circumstances are very different I think we've seen Martin become more comfortable with his own tendency to acidity and sarcasm, anger and messy feelings, around not just Jon but in general (although also I can't talk about this without as usual observing how weird it is that people read Martin as sweet, servile and wimpy when he's consistently tough, sarcastic and brave AS WELL AS deeply lacking in confidence, afraid of conflict, emotionally giving, and terminally people-pleasing. He's right when he repeatedly says people underestimate him and don't see him - it's weird that the fandom is a big culprit of that)

Speaking of characters whose trauma responses are often overlooked, Melanie doesn't talk much about her pre-statement life but she's clear that it hasn't been good, and that other than her dad she's had nobody in the world she can trust. I am positive that her childhood was marked by parental abuse/neglect to at least a certain degree, because she was willing to kill her mum/let her die without much compunction (I THINK that's the implication of Elias' line about her mum's life insurance paying for her dad's care). To me (projecting), Melanie's fear of losing control of her own anger speaks to somebody who grew up in a volatile and probably physically violent home, and I suspect her mother was struggling to cope and lashing out at Melanie and her dad. (I also think that while it's unlikely to be made explicit because Jonny generally shies away from talking it writing about sexual abuse, that it's very probable that Melanie experienced adolescent sex abuse from some source and wasn't protected or supported. That's pure conjecture though based on how she acts.) I think she's definitely had issues with everyone in her family except her dad when it comes to her sexuality and that she's been largely estranged for a long time, and I think those are the kinds of things which, coupled with abuse and sidelining in adulthood, leave you with a lot of rage and nowhere to put it, and with a huge amount of difficulty trusting people. Undeniably, Melanie has been on the sharp end of other people's violent anger often enough to be really, really wary of ever giving her own anger free rein, or losing control of herself.

We don't know much about Daisy's childhood beyond what happened with Calvin (Pretty Damn Traumatic), but I think what I find interesting about Daisy is that she's definitely someone who, like many girls, struggled with that point in childhood where you're supposed to Stop Liking Boy (Fun) Things and Become A Girl. I think it's safe to say that Daisy was fairly subject to bullying and alienation in primary school, and I think people often overlook how badly that affects you your whole life. But also to be severely injured and traumatised, to tell people what happened, and to not be believed? That leaves marks. Marks that teach you that you can't trust that justice will be served, and you have to take the law into your own hands. I think there's also a lot of the Gendered Traumas happening around Daisy - she clearly has a conflicted relationship with femininity - but that's another post.

#tma meta #csa mention #abuse mention #jon sims #martin blackwood #melanie king #daisy tonner

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dragimal · 4 years ago

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now that s5 is over and I’m starting to wind down from the high of the finale, I think I can finally grasp *exactly* why I have mixed feelings on s5. to be clear, I absolutely ADORE TMA as a whole, and still consider it one of the best pieces of horror media I’ve consumed. but s5 left me feeling... not bad, but off, even when there’s plenty I still rly like abt s5

it mainly comes down to 2 things for me: 1) the severe tone shift, and 2) Martin being Fucking Weird for a lot of the season

a lot of ppl have talked abt how s5 just wasn’t as scary as the previous seasons for various reasons. one kinda inevitable reason was simply that a lot of the mystery of the horror had been revealed at that point, and a monster is never as scary once you can see it clearly. but I think the bigger reason is that the format shifted from horror anthology to.... sociology anthology. like, every statement of s5 felt like a sociology paper on fear and systemic abuse, rather than something meant to chill the reader

this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, honestly-- like I said, much of the mystery had been revealed, so I think it was an understandable move to try to shift the narrative somehow. also, I love sociology papers! I think they’re interesting to read, and s5 gave us some rly creative frameworks for some of them (the poetic carousel, Oliver’s professional assessment, Jared’s garden--)

however, I do think the tone shift was still a bit jarring, esp considering what the audience was used to up to that point. perhaps that’s an appropriate move, to match a plot point as game-changing as the literal apocalypse. BUT that doesn’t mean the tone shift still wasn’t a bit of a let-down, in terms of horror and tension

like, yeah a lot of the mystery was gone, but Hill Top Road ended up being the big mystery of s5... and we weren’t even fully aware of it til almost the end of the season? sure, there was plenty of fan speculation, but we were also considering SO many other possibilities, Hill Top was never rly a core theory until VERY late in the game. like, the mystery seemed to take a backseat to the sociology papers, if that makes sense, lmao

literally the ONE episode to give me chills down my spine like the good ol’ days pre-s5 was MAG196: This Old House. Annabelle vaguely threatening Martin, and ending on, “You have no idea who’s listening, do you?” fucking SUPERB, I was absolutely DELIGHTED by the possibilities of that one line! like, what did it mean? were we gonna go full meta??

but the last few eps after that were... frankly kind of a letdown from that spike of tension? I think those last eps are what rly cinched this idea for me-- that s5 was literally like reading a sociology paper. it rly all was just, arguing about the possibilities, considering the consequences, and making decisions. which, again, isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s not horror-- it’s a thought exercise with an apocalyptic garnish

EDIT-- I forgot to say, I think this is part of why MAG200 simply didn’t hit me the same way it hit others. it was intellectually satisfying-- it tied up loose ends, closed character arcs/relationships, left some delicious ambiguity-- but not emotionally cathartic, if that makes sense? like, I was expecting to cry, but I didn’t even rly get teary? I was grinning and delighted by all the satisfying conclusions, but I didn’t feel that emotional RELEASE that I was expecting and hoping for

as for jonmartin, I want to be clear here. I am NOT one of those ppl that thinks jonmartin came out of nowhere in s4-- I think the buildup pre-s5 was excellent, and their finally being together at the end of s4 was so so earned and rewarding. I’m also NOT one of those ppl that thinks arguments = abuse. I think when I briefly criticized jonmartin in s5 in the past, ppl got this impression that like, I think that jonmartin miscommunicating and having bad coping mechanisms... means that they’re bad for each other and abusing each other? and that’s just not the case??

I admit that my initial response to some of the jonmartin weirdness may have been a bit harsh, but even at the time I still loved jonmartin and was simply looking at their relationship with a critical but loving lens

what I have a problem with is that Martin pulls just as much bullshit as Jon in s5, and NEVER gets called out for it

this post I made a while back gets more into the details that bother me, but essentially, there’s always been this rly uneven “accountability scale” (idk what else to call it) for Jon vs. a lot of other characters-- in that, Jon always gets called out for his bullshit, while a lot of other characters don’t. now a lot of this is perfectly explainable as Jon being the main character, so we simply see his fuck-ups AND the subsequent consequences more often than any other character. and there are plenty of characters that I absolutely do NOT blame for going a bit overboard (I give Melanie and Tim in particular a ton of leeway here, given their respective situations. they more or less have full rights to bully Jon imo)

but, the problem is, there are also a LOT of moments where other characters say something absolutely horrific to Jon (namely Basira and Georgie in s4), like imply that he’s responsible for problems he had absolutely no control over, or fucking blame him for literally being groomed into an Archivist by people/powers he couldn’t even grasp... and those accusations are just left to sit and fester in Jon, completely uncontested

the nice thing abt s5 is that most of this is addressed-- like Basira’s completely unfair double-standards for “monsters”, and Georgie unknowingly blaming Jon for his trauma, etc.-- in very satisfying ways.

.... except for Martin.

without rehashing that linked post too much, Martin’s main problem in s5 is that his go-to response to trauma is denial. he denies the fact that he wants to kill avatars for his own satisfaction (which is a completely reasonable desire on its own tbqh!), and instead continues to lie to himself (for quite a long time) that killing avatars is actually helping anyone but Jon and Martin. he denies that Jon’s become a real full-fledged “monster”, and refuses to acknowledge all the baggage that comes with that

this denial unintentionally projects a lot of rly fucked-up messages at Jon, like: Jon is now a freaky horrorshow (even when he’s doing something completely innocuous, like talking casually about his powers); Jon’s fears over losing his autonomy/identity to the Eye, and his fears over his proven abilities to hurt others, are invalid; monsters inherently deserve to die, despite Jon technically being one; Jon not being able to use his powers “well enough” is some failure on his part

now, none of this is to say Martin’s characterization on its own is a bad thing-- I actually think it could’ve been interesting! it’s a perfectly reasonable trauma response, it tracks for Martin’s character pre-s5, and could have been a rly interesting perspective to explore.... if it was ever actually challenged by the narrative or other characters

I think the closest we got was Martin’s conversation with himself in his own domain, when his double calls him out for fantasizing a happy ending where Jonah is dead and Jon and Martin kiss (OUGH.... JONNY YOU HURT ME..), but that still never rly addresses the hurt that Martin’s denial causes Jon

and god, I was rly holding out-- Martin seemed to chill out on the denial a lot after the first third of the season, and I was hoping it might go a similar route as Basira, where it would just take a while to rly address Martin’s issues. but then Jon and Martin have their argument in MAG194, and I was fully on Martin’s side of it, UNTIL he said, “You weren’t meant to enjoy it this much!” (in reference to Jon killing avatars), and when Jon calls him out, Martin just brushes over it!

BOY when I tell you I went BALLISTIC.... FUCK YOU Martin, YOU’RE the one that went all Kill Bill and PUSHED Jon to feel the same way!! JESUS. like I get that that wasn’t the core of the argument there, but oh my god that one bit...

and once again, to make myself perfectly fucking crystal clear here, this is coming from someone who relates heavily to both Jon and Martin. I can see exactly where Martin is coming from for many of his decisions, and the trauma that’s led him to mentally protect himself like this. so it only makes me more frustrated to see him refuse to face his own issues, while still (understandably) expecting Jon to face his issues. yes, Jon pulls a LOT of bullshit in s5 that he deserves to be called out for (and called out he is!), but accountability goes both ways, Martin! you can’t demand responsible behavior from others if you’re not willing to extend the same courtesy!

#the magnus archives #shut up ashley #tma

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hydemind · 4 years ago

Note

Your thoughts on Isaac, William, Frankie an Jack 🎤?

OHHHHHH CROW I COULD GO ON ABOUT THEM FOR HOURS.

this post is SUPER FUCKING LONG so for the first time in my life im using a read more link.

I'm gonna start out with Will, who, a little fun fact, isn't actually named William! His full name is Willis Grossman. His parents thought it'd be funny. Will doesn't know his full name.

Here are some other fun facts about me and @functionentropy 's Will (along with other characters below) (he is also the one who has been making this entire creepypasta interp with me! Go check out their art or else /lh):

Will was born in the late 1800s early 1900s!

His parents were a lot like a Bonnie and Clyde duo, and they cared and loved for Will very, very much.

Will always looked up to Isaac! He wanted to be exactly like his grandpa when he grew up. Isaac was also a wonderful grandfather as well.

Will, on his 13th birthday, got Isaac's mask as a gift. When he got it, Isaac said to him: "keep it safe. It's a family heirloom.", Will uses that excuse as to why he still wears it to this day.

Speaking of Isaac, he's the underrealm equivalent to a tumblr sexyman. Everyone thinks he's hot shit, but that also goes for a lot of serial killers residing in the underrealm. Will unfortunately had to see his grandfather on magazine covers talking about the underrealm's HOTTEST NEW KILLER. He hates it.

Will ran away from home after Isaac died at around the age of 20 to 21, and considering he was a legal adult, his parents couldn't do much. They're still looking for him. (How, you may ask? Well, a little thing about the underrealm is that it stunts growth. You're essentially unable to die of old age down there. Think shitty immortality. His parents are looking for him, and they know he's in the underrealm- so that's how they are still around!)

Will had the worst time in the underrealm for the first few years he was down there. He wasn't immediately enrolled in the institution and he had a hard time holding down a job. Eventually he met Frankie! They live(d) in an apartment together. The first time Frankie met Will he thought he was Isaac and told his landlord and him HELL NO. Frankie does not like Isaac. Cue [will's offended gasp] and him saying he's his GRANDSON, and WHY IS HE ACTING LIKE ISAAC SUCKED? Cue Frankie making fun of him for being a grandpa's boy.

Frankie and Will had a bumpy relationship for a while. Will wasn't always a good person. Not really bad, just a fucking dumbass.

Speaking of Frankie...

Here's stuff about Frankie!

Frankie's origin story is essentially the same in this interp. Except for the fact that Frankie very much HAD A PAST. (which. If u wanna know more........I would love to talk about it......but this is about CURRENT Frankie so if u wanna know more bro just pop up in my dms or send another ask im feeling wild tonight)

After Amy passed (which was NOT due in part to the operator in this universe. The operator just found her like that) he was found by Bell (prince beelzebub, ruler of the underrealm at that point). You should know Frankie wasn't always an adjusted and normal fuckin person. He was like a rabid dog for a good while there.

While Frankie was unhinged he fucking death rolled Daisy the first time they met. (Daisy is an oc! I'm willing to talk more about him if you want the deets. He's interesting :]) because of this Daisy is the only one allowed to openly make fun of Frankie. (Playfully, of course.)

Daisy and Bell both basically helped Frankie adjust to society.

Frankie is autistic! So is Will. And Isaac. All. Everyone. Everyone has autism. (Shhhh. i'm projecting.)

Frankie can see souls! He's a very good judge of character because of it. However Frankie doesn't know what he's seeing is people's souls.

Frankie goes specifically after bad people. He'll take jobs from bad people, but he'll kill them, too. He says "he's sending them back to where they belong".

Frankie was the first to really show Will killing isn't just something you do. It's more than that. Will had never really processed death and murder of his fellow man like that before. He has a hard time even processing people as people sometimes, outside those of whom he cares for. This is because of Isaac. Isaac taught Will that people are bad- all of them. And that killing them is preventing them from hurting others, even if they haven't yet.

Frankie is a good guy and honestly a softie deep down. He worries and cares for all those who are close to him, even if he doesn't act like it sometimes.

Frankie says Toby "kidnapped him" and "made him diseased". 1. Frankie can very much leave the household at any time and 2. Frankie is referring to the operator sickness. Speaking of that-

Frankie was dragged through the operator's own personal hell! (Aka the realm they reside in more often than not, aka the place that Tim gets tossed around in near the end of marble hornets.) Reason being was because he threatened Toby's life. The operator is very protective of Toby.

Speaking of that, someone else was around when Toby met Frankie...

ONTO LAUGHING JACK!

ohhh man. Oh man. Oh baby. This clown is FULL of illness. Alright. So let's start off simple:

Lj was of course, made for Isaac. That's still a consistency. What isn't is that lj was around Isaac for a lot longer than in the original story. They developed a very close bond over the years they knew eachother, but, all good things must come to an end.

Lj returned to his box when Isaac left for boarding school. However, unlike the original story....Isaac didn't really come back to open the box. In fact, the most Isaac did was...well, I'll wait to spill that for Isaac's part later.

However! Eventually the house got passed off to another family. Years, and it mean YEARS later someone found lj's box in the attic! They were an unfortunate casualty.

After this, lj went and hunted Isaac down. Cue gore filled murder scene.

Things to note: LJ feels HORRIBLE about what he did to Isaac. He regrets it everyday. He wishes he had never done that to him.

But, time skip a bit.. we're further in the future now. LJ has his carnival set up and hidden away in an empty spot in the forest. He eventually comes across a wandering spirit because of this. This wanderer just so happens to be Sally!

LJ takes her in and swears to protect her with his life. In a way, you could say he sees her as a chance of redemption.

Sally was a wandering spirit, meaning she never really was stuck to one spot in particular- also meaning she wasn't very strong. Because of this, LJ gave her some of his own angelic essence. This boosted Sally and essentially made her a poltergeist!

(Note: Sally doesn't know how she died. Also, none of the things in her og story happened to her in this one. Fuck mishimishi. All my homies hate mishimishi.)

A little while after this they actually meet Toby and Jeffery! But this is getting long and to explain THAT entire debacle would make it even longer. but again I fully invite you to send more asks or just straight up dm me if you wanna know!

Now, last, but certainly not least..

ISAAC GROSSMAN.

OH MAN. Isaac is a DOOZY. Just like LJ, this baby is chocked FULL of illnesses! *slaps the top of his head like the roof of a car* but also, fair warning here: im gonna be talking about some heavy stuff. Abuse, physical and mental, gore, just. Death in general. Cannibalism, and EXTREME MENTAL ILLNESS *loud airhorn* so if any of that stuff gets to you steer clear of this part!

Anyways, let's start out simple!

Isaac was born in victorian England.

Isaac's mother was terrible towards him. I'm talking mental and physical abuse. She was a horrible, horrible woman.

Isaac's father...he wasn't a good person either, but he didn't beat Isaac. Nor did he really mentally abuse him either. He just...let it happen. He didn't even hurt his mother like he did in the original story. Isaac's mother was just plain bad for no good reason.

Isaac was sort of. Born having mental illness. They didn't just develop for him due to the abuse he experienced, though they certainly DID make it worse. There were other mental issues he has now that developed due to the abuse, however.

LJ was quite literally a godsend for Isaac. Metaphorically and not Metaphorically. LJ made Isaac happy, gave him comfort, and was basically like the mom he never had.

that's why it was so hard on Isaac when he had to leave lj behind. For a while he even had hallucinations of lj while in boarding school (which only furthered his future belief that lj was a hallucination brought on by the need to cope).

Isaac's first technical "murder" you could say was at boarding school. He pushed a shitty teacher down the stairs when there was no one around and they died. It wasn't even premeditated- more like it just sort of..happened.

Eventually Isaac graduated. When he did, he promptly returned home and killed his parents, as you do. /s

Isaac killed his mom in a rather violent fashion in comparison to his father- he whiplashed her so hard she fucking died.

Not long after this Isaac started his..well. I guess you could call it career.

Basically you know what happens after that. human skin chair, yadda yadda yadda, underrealm's sexiest killer, you know the drill.

Isaac did more than the human skin chair though! In fact, he uh. He. He did a lot. He did. SO much. But that was because Isaac believed in not wasting any part of the body. Which means Isaac not only made human skin chairs, but he was an avid cannibal, as well. (Fun fact, this very much extended to Will's father, mother, and Will as well. Will didn't know they were eating human for a long time. He had to realize that on his own.)

Eventually, Isaac punched his ticket because of LJ. But..I'd be a liar to say he really died.

No, our wonderful boy Isaac didn't die. He became a ghoul. Which, by the way, only further fucked with Isaac mentally! He's so ill. Some other things happened which I won't say here because they're spoilers for the fanfic I'm working on (Oh yeah the hyperfixation is that bad, but if you wanna know, again, I fully invite you to ask), but basically Isaac eventually gets taxidermied by, drumroll please..TOBY!!!! yeah. Toby does taxidermy as a job. He invited a new type of it for taxidermying Isaac. It was to repay daisy for something he did for the group.

But to say, again, that THAT was Isaac's end, would be another lie! No no no. Isaac was alive during the entire process! The good news is that he's never looked better after he escaped daisy's house when it got exploded by Frankie. Which..that's uh..another story for another day. This post is already insanely long and I am NOT putting it in the main tags.

So yeah! Im absolutely crazy for these dudes and I love all of them. By the way if you couldn't guess before Frankie and Will very much get together and are so so gay. Another little thing: Isaac is gay too, he had a past relationship with a man by the name of Dr. Locklear! Locklear is French German and his accent shows it. They were very close but fell out because of Locklear being involved with the institution and...a certain foundation.

I'll leave it to you to ponder on that one.

#if you have any specific questions about them feel totally free to ask!!!! im so insane and i WILL talk about all of them for hours given #the chance #asks #shut up murphy #ALSO please dont reb/lo/g this im a little afraid of me and tropy's ideas being stolen sgjndfk #th ank

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summahsunlight · 5 years ago

Text

The First Step

Word Count: 3320

Characters: Tim McGee, Tony DiNozzo, others mentioned

Summary: Sometimes we just need a friend to help us get back on our feet. Tony and McGee friendship fic.

A/N: This was the first ever NCIS fic I wrote. Originally posted on FF (which I’m slowly moving away from to AO3). Link to the AO3 story is posted below. As I post more NCIS stories, I will create a master list. Enjoy!

AO3

Timothy McGee could not believe he was about to do this, but he steeled himself and banged on his partner's door—loudly.

It had been four days since anyone had spoken to Tony DiNozzo. He was ignoring cell phone calls, landline calls and emails. Effectively the federal agent had shut himself up in his apartment and off from the world. Abby was in tears most of the time, Gibbs snarled at McGee at every opportunity he got. The poor green agent that had been assigned to the now empty desk had only lasted a day before she ran from the building in hysterics herself.

Everything had fallen apart four days ago. And he wasn't even embellishing like Tony. Ziva's abrupt departure had thrown them all into a topsy-turvy, spiral, where some of them were fairing better than others.

"Come on, DiNozzo, I know you're in there!" Tim hissed. "Abby traced your cell."

Slowly the door to the apartment opened and all fight left Tim as a hallow look peered back at him from heavy lidded hazel eyes. It appeared Tony had not shaved—or showered for the matter—in a week. An unkempt beard covered his face, his skin, which usually had a healthy tan to it, was a gray pallor, and his breath reeked of stale beer and whiskey. "Tony?" He gasped, pale green eyes widening. "What the hell?"

"Oh, nice to see you too, McGee" Tony snapped but there was no bite behind it.

Tim realized he was looking at a man that was defeated. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen Tony quite like this. Not even after the break-up with Jeanne had the man gone on what was most appropriately deemed a bender. Tony was warped into a man that Tim didn't even know anymore. "Listen, I'm sorry. That came out wrong. But your appearance…it's not what I'm used too and we've been worried about you since we got the news that Ziva was leaving. Ducky said you needed your space. But Abby wanted to storm the gates—this was the compromise."

Tony grunted a response and threw open the door, allowing Tim access to his domain. The usually neat and orderly apartment was in disarray. Dirty clothes were tossed everywhere, pizza boxes towered on the dining room table, and beer bottles accented as many empty surfaces as possible. Ironically the only thing that could be considered clean was the goldfish bowl. Kate the goldfish happily swam around her bowl, in pristine water, and Tim realized that there was a sliver of hope that deep down Tony was still Tony—he still cared about something.

For a moment Tim watched as Tony plopped back down onto his sofa, eyes focused on the screen on some movie that the younger man had no idea about. There was a bottle of Jack Daniels on the coffee table and he winced at the implications of that. His partner had moved on from beer to the heavy stuff. He supposed that all men had a breaking point—he just never believed Tony DiNozzo was amongst them. Abby had once said that he was a solid rock. It took a lot to chip him and everything just rolled off of him and he kept going.

But was that a fair description? Tony was, despite the juvenile nature, very complex.

"So, um, Abby and I were wondering if you'd meet us for drinks later," Tim ventured.

Tony reached for his bottle of whiskey and took a swig. "Got plenty of drinks here."

Tim winced. That had been a dumb question. It was obvious that Tony had been drinking since he'd come back from tracking down Ziva. He knew it was none of his business but he desperately wanted to know what she had said to Tony to shove him on this self-destructive path. "We can do pizza and a movie. Or Chinese. It's been awhile since we all hung out. And I think…I think we all need it."

His partner shrugged his shoulders. "Don't feel like hanging out, Probie. You and Abby go and have a great time though. Suppose she's upset."

"Well, yeah, I mean she had to deal with us all resigning and we're not exactly coming back whole, are we?"

"Nope. We're not."

"Listen, if you need to talk about it."

Tony glared at him and Tim backed down. There was a dangerous look in the senior field agent's eyes and Tim was not in the mood to explore it. After all, Abby had requested that he get Tony to come out of his apartment for a few hours, not make matters worse.

Tim looked around the room, listening to the old movie playing in the background. "We can go bowling. Sister Rosita and the nuns bowl tonight. They'd love to have us."

"Sorry, but no thanks. My back hurts."

"Come on, are you going to hole yourself up here for the rest of your life?" Tim sputtered. "It's not the first time changes to our team have been made. You once told me that you suffered through a rotation of agents and then as a two-man team with Gibbs before Kate joined. We'll get through this. It's not reason to drink. We survived Kate's death, we can survive this, Tony."

"This is different," Tony mumbled.

"Of course it's different. It's better, right? I mean, Ziva isn't dead. It's not like she can't come back and visit us."

"She won't."

He was a little tongued tied. "You psychic now?"

Tony shook his head, another swallow of whiskey. "Nope. She made it clear that she needed a clean break. If she comes back, it won't be any time soon. Tell Abby she can stop emailing and begging Ziva."

"How...never mind, it's not important that you knew this," Tim said, putting his hands up in surrender. "What's important is that we get you out of this apartment and...and functioning again."

"Saying I'm dysfunctional McGee?"

Tim's mouth hung open for a moment. "Well! Look at you!" he gestured to Tony's bum like appearance. He really didn't know what else to say. It was the last card he could possibly think to play at this point.

Tony quirked an eyebrow and swirled the amber liquid around in the Jack Daniels bottle. "Guess I have let myself go."

"You guess?"

"Alright I have. Just a little."

"Just a little?" Tim spat, the pitch of his voice raising. God, I need a mirror so he can see.

His partner didn't offer any counter argument to that and leaned back into the cushions, watching the movie on his plasma television screen. He was really starting to worry Tim. Had Tony been this messed up after Kate died? Tim couldn't recall but at the time he was still fairly new to NCIS and had easily accepted whatever Tony told him. He should have known that Tony did not cope with Kate's death by eating junk food. Tim rubbed his temple for a moment. "Come on, Tony. You need to get out. Hiding away here isn't doing you any good."

Tony threw his head back and took another long swig of the whiskey. Wiping his mouth clean of the alcohol with his sleeve, he narrowed his eyes at Tim. "I know what I need—to be left alone. I'm not going to bounce back like you or Abby or Jimmy. I'm not going to let this roll off my shoulder like Gibbs or Ducky. Because it's different this time. This isn't just a partner leaving. She meant more to me than a partner, than a friend. And forgive me, if I feel like drowning my sorrows in alcohol and old movies."

Suddenly the gravity of his words hit Tim full bore in the chest. He saw the pain, the betrayal and the longing in his partner's eyes. He'd been turning a blind eye now for years. Sure, he'd always known that Tony and Ziva's relationship was different, he just didn't think-or refused to believe-Tony had actually fallen in love with her. Lord does he have a way of falling in love with the wrong woman, Tim thought as he found the easy chair and sat down. "She was Mossad, Tony. You didn't actually think…it was every going to work out in the end, did you?"

"Not when she was officially with Mossad, no," Tony muttered, closing his eyes tightly, "but she left them, to join us because…foolishly I thought it was because she wanted to start anew."

"And you thought, someday, it would work."

"Yeah. Should have known it wasn't going to end any other way. Once Mossad, always Mossad, eh?" Tony spat, bitterly. Another swig of whiskey. "Just another notch on my stupid things I've done belt."

Tim shook his head. "It wasn't stupid, Tony. We can't always control who we fall in love with."

Tony peered at him, thoughtfully. "Look at you, McRomeo. I take it that fair Delilah is treating you well."

"Don't change the subject—this is about you," Tim admonished him. "And besides, you'll bounce back—you always do."

"No, I don't just bounce back. I'm not a rubber ball."

"I don't understand."

Slowly Tony let out a breath, and looked right at Tim. "After Wendy left, I didn't eat for weeks. Gibbs almost literally had to shove food down my throat, pick me up and dust me off," Tony mused. "It was years before I actually went on a date again. Just around the time we met you I think. Oh, don't look that surprised. You've known for a while now that most of the time the women are just apart of the act."

Tim had to admit there were times he was certain that Tony's stories of his dates and his little black book were just that—stories. But hearing first hand affirmation of that shocked him. "And after Jeanne?"

Tony shrugged. "Pretty much the same, except for Gibbs picking me up and dusting me off. I kept the pain private, made it look like that I really had been acting and that I never did love her. Truth was, I loved her—a lot. If we had met under different circumstances, say, where she knew the real me, I might have ended up making a life with her."

"EJ?"

"It hurt that she didn't trust me. Ran from me all the time. But I couldn't let people see how much it hurt. Have a reputation to maintain after all, McGee."

"Tony…why didn't you…God, we would have helped you."

Silence fell between them for a moment, before the SFA put the bottle of whiskey down and looked at his partner, sternly. "You already don't think very highly of me, McGee. I didn't want to give you anymore ammunition to use against me if you saw how weak I'd become."

Tim looked away, embarrassed. It was true. He wasn't always nice to Tony but somewhere throughout their eleven years of working together, the man's goofy charm had grown on him. It was true that at times Tony annoyed the hell out of him, but as of late, he was finding that he really missed the oddball joke or movie reference just to break the tension. "Yeah. Guess I owe you an apology."

Tony shook his head. "No. You don't. I didn't make it easy for you."

"I'll say," Tim mumbled. He heard Tony chuckle for the first time since arriving.

Again they fell into silence, the only sound in the apartment that of the old movie playing on the television, and then the clunk of the Jack Daniels bottle as it was set down onto the coffee table. Tim watched as Tony rubbed his hands over his scraggly face. "What am I doing, McGee?"

Tim cocked an eyebrow in curiosity. "You mean besides locking yourself away, drinking at all hours of the day and watching old Cary Grant movies?"

Tony smiled, sadly. "Impressive, McGee. Didn't know you were familiar with Cary Grant."

"Well, Ducky says you fancy you self the modern day Cary Grant with your dress," Tim replied with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "But back to the point, since your ADD has sent us off track again. What do you mean, what are you doing?"

"I'm sitting here wallowing over a woman that I was never in a relationship with."

"Come on. Not the first time a guy has wallowed over a woman that wasn't his."

Tony grunted, lowly. "Don't try to make me feel better, because this is how I end up—again and again. In the movies it's the pretty girl crying over the jock breaking her heart. My life—it's my heart that's been broken over and over. Wendy, Jeanne, EJ—Ziva—they all left me."

Tim absorbed that bit of information. "Come on, you must have ended a relationship before."

"I've ended a lot of one night stands and long weekends, relationships that really do not qualify as one."

"I could drop a horrible cliché here and say, everything happens for a reason."

Tony shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "Horribly cliché. Not sure the reason why my heart being broken over and over again is. Guess I should just come to terms with the fact that I'm probably going to be alone the rest of my life. I'm married to the job."

Tim didn't know why but his partner's declaration of damning himself to solo life, stung. Tony didn't deserve all that had been thrown at him over the years and as he sat there with him, Tim was beginning to wonder why the mental breakdown had taken so long to grasp him. Of course, maybe it was always that the thought that someday Ziva would feel the same way about Tony and everything was going to work out that they would get their happy ending. Who knew that the womanizing, play boy, Anthony DiNozzo was really a hopeless romantic at heart? "You just haven't met the right girl yet."

"Ya think, Probie?"

"Listen. If it's going to happen maybe you shouldn't be looking for it."

"Wasn't looking for it when I fell for Ziva."

Tim rubbed his temple. They could easily go around in circles for hours. Tony was good at that. "You said Ziva was different. She was different because she was your partner for eight years. You survived all different kinds of hell with her. There's a small possibly that you love her but you're not in love with her."

Tony reached for the bottle of Jack and took a long sip. "You're not making any sense, ."

"Hear me out."

"Fine."

Tim took a deep breath. "If you were in love with her you would have stormed off that plane in Israel and told her. If you were in love with her you would have stopped her from going on that suicide mission to Somalia. If you were in love with her you wouldn't have waited for Gibbs silent signal to go after her when she stormed out of the cabin in May. If you were in love with her you never would have let the relationship with Ray get that close to marriage and that was only stopped because the guy killed someone."

Tony looked away, briefly. "You forget I went to Africa to avenge her death, I disregarded protocol to protect her when Rivkin was in town, and I spent all those hours trying to track down those damn opera tickets but had to settle for a recording. Does someone who isn't in love do that?"

"You did all those things because you care about her. You didn't want her to lose her job when Rivkin was compromising her, we both went to Somalia to avenge her death, and we both know how much honoring Tali means to her. You leave Nutter Butters on my desk all the time, bring me coffee late at night and Chinese food. Abby gets roses and cupcakes on her birthday, and whenever she's down, I can usually find her here, curled up on your sofa with you watching a movie—does that mean you're in love with us too?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Probie. I do that because I care about you guys."

Suddenly a look of understanding passed over Tony's face. Tim finally felt he'd broken through. God, Tony was stubborn, and Abby was right that he was a rock—but he was a rock wall that needed to be chipped away in order to get to him.

In that moment the senior field agent's shoulders eased and it was as if he finally came to accept that Ziva wasn't coming back, that he needed to move on with his life no matter how much it hurt. Tim wasn't stupid. He knew that Tony wasn't going to heal overnight, but at least he could go back to NCIS and report to Abby that he broken Tony out of his fog.

Maybe now he would come back into work. Vance was being awfully lenient with all of them, giving them some days to sort everything out before returning to work. Tim and Gibbs had not taken the days offered to them, but Tony had. It had surprised them both if they were honest.

"So. What are you going to tell Abby when you go back?"

"Oh, ah, that you just need some time…and space."

His lips pulled into a small grin. "Like Abby's going to listen to that. She'll be here tonight," Tony replied.

Tim winced. "Yeah. Probably. I'm really sorry, Tony."

"Don't be," Tony said, pulling himself from the sofa. "Gives me an excuse to finally clean the place up, maybe shave and take a shower."

"Maybe? You smell like you've been lost in the desert for weeks."

Tony lifted his tee shirt to his nose and sniffed. He made a vulgar face and agreed. "Yeah, maybe I'll shower first."

Tim felt some relief wash through him. "Want me to stay and help?" When Tony threw him a questionable look, he clarified, "I mean with the cleaning."

"Put the pizza boxes in the trash chute on your way out?"

"Sure."

Tony moved towards the bathroom but paused. Slowly he turned while Tim was gathering up the pizza boxes and bit down on his lower lip. "Probie."

Tim glanced up from his cleaning and looked at his partner expectantly.

"Thanks. For picking me up and dusting me off."

"No problem, Tony."

"You do realize that if you tell anyone about our little heart to heart here I will have Abby kill you without leaving forensic evidence?"

Tim couldn't help the goofy grin that plastered his face. It was great to have a semblance of the old Tony back. "Yeah. I know."

Tony grunted and disappeared into the bathroom. Tim gathered up the pizza boxes, left the apartment with the door slamming shut behind him and tossed the trash down the chute. On his way out of the building he shoved his hands into his pockets. He knew that Ziva leaving was going to linger with Tony for a long time but at least now he was moving beyond sitting on his sofa drinking the days away.

And that, he reasoned, was a the first step.

#ncis #ncis fanfiction #tony dinozzo #timothy mcgee #the first step

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whatmack · 6 years ago

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I LOVE YOUR NEIL TWIN HC!!!!! It's my one reason to live now, I'm addicted and you write it really good! If you were considering writing more (but it's absolutely not an imposition, do whatever you want with this, you're amazing either way) maybe just him and Neil bonding? Or Andrew warming up to him? That'd be nice, I mean, what is Andrew even thinking here?

can you pls hmu w/ some of that good good neil & liam content? ((and maybe andrew bein a tad jealous bc neil’s spending so much time w/ his brother but also he’s not jealous andrew minyard does not get jealous and if you dare imply that then you must not fear death))

!!!! Andrew’s reaction is GREAT to think about, isn’t it? Let’s have some angst(YOU’RE BOTH SO NICE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MUCH LOVE)

This café has the worst coffee on campus, which is to say,it has coffee pretentious about the place it comes from, boasting citrus notesor whatever the fuck else is trending and meaningless. It just tastes bitter toAndrew; they never put in enough whipped cream. He buys two cups and dumps thetoppings from one into the other, tossing the leftover dregs into the trash canon his way to the table. Neil makes the pinched face that means he’s disapprovingof Andrew’s sugar intake. Or maybe his money wastage. Andrew slurps obnoxiouslyat his whipped cream until Neil sighs and looks away.Liam takes his coffee with milk, which makes him different from Neil, who takesit with nothing. Andrew keeps a running list of their similarities anddifferences, and gets a thrill of satisfaction every time he finds some new waythey diverge. He realizes it’s him trying to cope with the wholeness of a truthhe hadn’t known, that’s so close to his—that’s so close to Neil, and reflectiveof himself. Andrew can pick apart his own mechanisms now, break them down toengine grease, but that doesn’t mean he’s inclined to stop them. He shakes hishanging arm to feel the comforting weight of his knives. With a flick of hiswrist this problem could be resolved.

Except that it wouldn’t be, because the world is harsh and complicated. Andrew shovesNeil down into a chair instead—hates how Neil goes willingly—drops into theseat next to him and props his feet up on the metal table. His pile of whippedcream wobbles dangerously. Andrew licks up the dollop that fell onto his handand points at Liam across the table.“Talk.”“Bad cop and bad cop, is it?” Allison says, rolling her eyes. Andrew flips heroff. She knew when she invited him here that he wouldn’t be polite—he’s neverpolite—so he doesn’t bother telling her. Her own coffee (two pumps of caramel,non-fat milk, his brain supplies pointlessly) steams mightily before her. Fallis settling in. Andrew makes a mental note to get Neil a pair of gloves thenext time he’s in the vicinity of a department store. Neil’s hands were chappedto bleeding last winter.(It hadn’t been his business, then. It is now.)(God, he’s so annoying.)Andrew kicks the leg of Neil’s chair. Neil turns to him, squint-eyed in query.There’s a gutter-wet leaf on the table the same color as his eyelashes. Andrewslurps up more whipped cream and opens his mouth to show Neil the mess. Neil’snose wrinkles in disgust. His squint softens to fondness. Andrew looks at Liam instead.“I thought the point of this was to have no witnesses,” Liam says, speaking toAllison but staring at Andrew. His face is so like Neil’s, but not, even withoutthe scars; it’s like someone made Neil into a mask and put him on, and tried topass himself off as the real thing. Andrew wonders if that’s what Neil thinkswhen he looks at Aaron. Andrew kicks Neil’s chair again so he won’t keepwondering stupid, useless things. The metal clang sounds like the grate of hisheart. “Andrew’s not a witness,” Allison says. “He’s a lie detector.” You can tell when Neil is lying, she’dsaid to Andrew, so come along and tell mewhen Liam is. Andrew had neglected to point out all the times he’d failedto notice Neil’s lies, been blinded by his own desire for what Neil said to betrue, and told Allison she could go to hell and take Liam with her. Differences,differences everywhere, but never a drop to drink. Allison had said, Neil’s coming, and Andrew had followedher out the door.Neil has swayed towards Liam, heads bowed together, hair featheringover their foreheads in a repetition that never stops. It reflects back andback on itself, becoming the swoop of their nose, the hitching gesture of theirshoulder. Andrew wonders if they have any of the same scars. The Butcher hadseemed the sort to like that kind of symmetry.Fucker. Andrew shakes his arm again. Knives, check. “Well?” says Allison.“Give us a minute,” Neil says. Us, us,like being born together means anything. The blood of the covenant and the waterof the womb are both steeped in shit. Neil’s hand is in Liam’s hand, grippingtight against the table. Andrew hopes they cut off each other’s circulation. He finishes his whipped cream. The only thing left is the bitter citrus coffee.He flicks the side of the cup until it falls off the table, splattering acrossthe concrete patio. Allison tsks athim. Neil isn’t paying attention. Liam is a fuckhead.He’s mine, mine, mine, get off him. (I didn’t know you had a brother.)(I know. Andrew, I’m sorry.)(I don’t care.)“What do you want to know?” Liam asks finally, in that accent that cuts out allthe vowels. “I’m not giving you a whole…life story.” His hand slices throughthe air. It’s Neil’s gesture. Give itback. Mine, mine. Allison makes a noise of disgust. It’s either at Liam or thecoffee, which she’s just taken a sip of. “I don’t want that. What I want is youto tell the truth. And the truth I want is what the fuck you think you’re doinghere.”“Allison,” Neil chides, leaning even closer to his brother. Allison doesn’tlook guilty, but she does take another sip of her drink. Andrew clenches hishands into fists. He knows Neil sees. He didn’t try to hide it. “I’m here to reunite with my brother. Isn’t that enough?” Liam’s voice gains atinge of frustration, but it might be feigned. The best lies have some of thetruth. Neil makes a soothing noise and Andrew imagines slamming his fist into–No.Stop.Don’t hurt Neil don’t hurt himBreathe. There you are, Andrew. You’re back with me? I’m very proud of you.At some point Andrew has closed his eyes. He blinks them back open. Liam istalking. Neil is not. Andrew never thought he’d hate it so much, hearing Neilfinally shut up.“We thought it would be harder to find us if we separated,” Liam tells Allison.His hand is still clenched in Neil’s, the same shade of white-knuckled. “Wewere…almost right. Our father found one. I’m…” he tilts his head towards Neil,and Neil’s face goes tight-pain-sorrow-sympathy in the space of a moment.Andrew thinks it might be an apology, and the acceptance of it. Neil’s anidiot. Andrew would have made Liam beg. He still will, come to think of it.Allison makes a rude noise, like a fart mixed with a yappy dog. “So what’s withthe whole Tiny Tim act? You’re here. You saw Neil. Congratulations.” “Do you have siblings, Allison?”“No,” she says. Everyone at the table carefully doesn’t look at Andrew. (I heard a thing from Mom today, AJ, you know what it was?)Stop.Breathe.Knives.“Then I don’t expect you to understand.” Liam swallows. Neil does, too. Does heeven realize when he’s a mirror? “I need… he’s my twin. We can’t be taken away from each other again.”“And you need us to like you for that?”“Yes,” says Liam, and the frustrationthis time sounds real. “Don’t yourealize how your team acts? You’re a closed group, and Neil’s inside. Being inthe same place isn’t the same as being together.”The worst part is, Andrew understands. His life has been defined by lines thatseem invisible unless you’re on the opposite side of them. Monsters and theupperclassmen. Foxes and the rest of the student body. Two-parent household and…none.Andrew needs to feel Neil’s skin under his own. The warmth of him. The weightof his reality. It is weakness, needing another. Andrew takes his feet downfrom the table, stomping them on the ground to cover his shuffle to press theside of his calf along Neil’s. Neil sucks in a breath and leaves his leg there.Always so eager for what Andrew gives him. Acting like it’s always Andrew giving,and never him taking away.Andrew needs more whipped cream. He also needs a drink.Allison says, “If you want us to let you in, you have to prove you’re one ofus.”“How?”“Not sure,” she says. Her coffee is almost gone. “That part’s not my problem.”“I’m supposed to figure it out myself?”Neil murmurs and squeezes Liam’s hand. Of course Neil will help him. Of courseNeil will get his happy little twin back and everything will be great for them.Andrew wants to curl his fingers in Neil’s collar and say, you need me, remember? But maybe that’s not the truth.Not anymore.

#my fics #Anonymous #liam neeson's knees son #me: let's have a good time #my brain: angst? did u want angst??? is that what u wanted?? angst???#....#consistent formatting? on MY blog? never #(DON'T WORRY KIDS REMEMBER I'M A SAP)

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