#oc: scarlet parker

[spacesquidlings]

A Kindling

Description: Scarlet knows there's something strange about the pale elf, but she can't put her finger on exactly what. She feels apprehension, denied her sleep as she ruminates on what it could be, waiting for him to return, some part of her knowing that tonight she will learn something new about him.

Warnings: None <3

Note: Hey team!!! I was in a mood and struggling to write and so I started testing the waters with my personal ocs in the world of bg3. I obviously have Astarion brainrot so that was the FIRST thing that came to mind. This is sort of a rewrite of the sleeping-Tav/bite scene. This is just for funsies, I don't know if I'll do anything with it beyond this but I did have fun writing this and frankly that's probably the most important part of it all!!!

*******************************

Nothing but the crackle of the fire devouring the kindling could be heard, nothing but the hush of sleeping breaths.

The camp, near drowning after a harrowing day, was silent. Everyone was asleep, curled up in tents or tucked comfortably in their bedrolls.

But Scarlet wasn’t.

She counted Xander’s breaths from where he had snuggled himself into the roll next to hers, one hand reaching out, their fingers still tangled together. She listened to the snap and pop of the kindling as it turned to char, smelled the smoke as it burned the inside of her nose.

Magic and power were roiling in her veins and her belly like the angry sea, white-capped waves crashing with unforgiving rage against knife-edged cliffs, whipped up into a frenzied rush by a deafening storm. It was no different than most days now, and she could sleep through it until the magic calmed to gently lapping waves. Even now, fatigue crawled along the edges of her mind, a siren song lulling her into sweet oblivion after the nightmare the day had been.

But something tugged at her chest, held her taut as a bowstring. It would not allow her to sleep, to rest. Not until whatever was going to happen finally happened.

So she waited, and she listened to the soft sighs of her companions, of her beloved. How Xander had been willing to stay with her after everything, after the realization of what she was, of what lay buried in her bones, made her eyes burn with all the tears she had already cried and all of the ones not yet shed. How she ached to curl into his arms, to sleep, to rest.

Soon. The force holding her awake promised it would be soon.

Footsteps, near silent as they stumbled over the grass. The snap of a twig beneath the weight of a body, almost hidden entirely beneath the crackle of the fire. Heaving breaths, the smell of sweat and fear heavy in the air.

She kept her eyes firmly closed, but she already knew who it was. The pale elf, the vampire who was hiding in the daylight.

He had said nothing of himself, but she hadn’t needed much. There was fear in his eyes, hidden behind the cruel calculation and cunning that he masked himself with. And she would have been a fool not to notice the elongated incisors when he’d gotten close enough to hold a dagger to her throat.

His footsteps faltered, froze a few steps from her, and she held her breath, wondering what he would do next.

Her friends would call her nosey, but she felt the urge to find out what was going on, to dig deep into these new companions they had stumbled across. If for no other reason, than because they were people that needed help, and she would use every last drop of power crackling in her veins to help them.

She tried to keep her breathing even, soft. She was not adept at feigning unconsciousness, but perhaps the vampire wasn’t focused on everyone’s breathing patterns. Perhaps his mind was elsewhere, although she doubted prying would tell her much. His countenance was shifty, like he was forever balancing on the edge of the knife, preparing to bolt at the first sign of trouble.

More rustling, he was moving again. But strangely he was moving towards her. It sounded like he was sitting down, or perhaps kneeling, the subtle shift of his clothing against the damp grass telling her that he was close.

She could make out the frantic beat of his heart, flitting like hummingbird wings. His breath was coming in short rasps, and she could smell the sharp tang of sweat and fear burning her nose.

Scarlet rolled onto her back, eyes snapping open to see him unhinging his jaw, fangs sharp as knives as the firelight washed across them.

But just as quickly as he had bared his fangs he fell back, cursing as he stumbled to his feet, backing away from her.

Scarlet sat up, drawing her knees to her chest as she regarded him quietly. “Restless evening?”

He opened his mouth, closed it again. Some of the tension in his body melted away as confusion washed over his face like ocean waves reaching across a beach. “Excuse me?”

“You seem restless.”

His brow only furrowed more. “Yes, well I-” He froze, scowling then. “What is this about? You don’t seem surprised or upset in the least.”

“That you’re a vampire?” Now she was the one frowning, wondering if the fatigue creeping at the corners of her mind was at fault. “Why would I be upset about that?”

He blinked, slow at first, then faster, like there was something caught in his eyes. It made her smile, just a little, to see some of his facade slipping away already. He was no charming rake, of that she was certain. She had spent enough time with people pretending to be something they were not to tell when someone was hiding their true heart.

“I’m not stupid,” she muttered into the silence. “I knew you were a vampire immediately. You’re not exactly hiding it well.”

He looked almost hurt at that, although the expression was quickly replaced by a petulant frown. He huffed, crossing his arms. “What are you talking about? I’ve spent 200 years lurking in the shadows, no one has been able to tell.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Another huff, this one followed by what very well might have been a foot stomp. Scarlet fought against the urge to raise her brows, but she could not fight against the giggles that bubbled from her lips.

“What’s so funny? This isn’t exactly a laughing matter.”

He looked angry now, and his eyes flickered. It might have been a trick of the light, but Scarlet could feel it in her bones as surely as she could feel the rivers of energy that were drowning her cells. Fear, sharp and brutal as a well-honed blade.

“I’m sorry for laughing,” she said, unfolding from where she sat curled in her bedroll to stand. She held out her hands in peace, in apology. “I’m not laughing at you, or making fun of you. I suppose I find this all a little strange.”

Another huff, but he looked less annoyed, perhaps only slightly perturbed now. “Well you’re not the only one, dear. I’d say all of this is more than a little strange.”

“Please forgive me, I didn’t mean to insult you.”

His brows drew together, and he looked on the verge of saying something more, but he did not, only regarding her curiously.

“What exactly was it that you were doing anyways?”

A sigh, his head tipping to the side. “I suppose we couldn’t ignore the elephant in the room forever, could we, darling?”

“No, I think it’s probably a good thing if we address it.”

He inclined his head, eyes cast to the ground for a moment. “It’s not what you think, I swear. I only needed a little blood.”

She smirked, arms falling to her sides. “And you regularly take blood from sleeping victims?”

“What?” His brows shot up and his eyes shot to hers, wide and afraid again. “No, no I swear. I usually drink from animals. Bears, deer, kobolds, whatever I can get.”

“And do I look like a deer?” She was poking fun at him, trying to lighten the mood at least a little, and she was rewarded for her efforts with a wry smile.

“No, darling, although right now you are much more appetizing than one.”

She snorted, taking note of the twitch in Xander’s hand a few feet away. There was no way he was asleep. “Sorry, the kitchen’s closed.”

Astarion clicked his tongue, pouting a little. He was no longer afraid, and she felt a glimmer of delight like an ember cast from the fire beginning to bloom. If he was no longer afraid, then they were one step closer to trust. And trust was one step closer to friends, and that was a thought so delightful she smiled a little herself.

“I only meant to have a taste. I’m weak, too weak to hunt. I only wanted enough to regain some of my strength.”

She nodded, her mind already made up. It had been made up before she’d even opened her eyes to find him looming over her.

“Do you think you could trust me?”

She didn’t hesitate. “I do trust you.”

A pause, his eyes widening. “Well… Do you think you could trust me a little more? Do you think you could allow me to-”

“Yes.”

Again that look of surprise brightening his face, some of the darkness that had clung to him when they’d first met vanishing in a blink. He smirked, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. “You didn’t even let me finish.”

“So you weren’t asking if you could drink my blood?”

His smile widened. “I certainly was, I just didn’t anticipate someone agreeing so quickly.”

She shrugged. She knew it wouldn’t cause her any danger, and even if it did, she would have gladly helped him anyways. There was clearly more hidden beneath the surface than he was willing to reveal tonight, and she wasn’t about to assume the worst. Yes, he had tried to attack her in her sleep, but so had Raven on multiple occasions, and Scarlet counted her amongst her closest friends.

“Scarlet.”

She looked over to find Xander sitting up now, his golden hair a mess, bags heavy under his eyes. He looked like he was on the verge of chastising her for making deals with vampires in the dead of night.

“Hello, my love,” she sang, ignoring the scowl he levelled on her. Xander wasn’t one for dark looks or reprimanding her, but when he did he could be unforgiving, reminding her more of the nobleman who had to rule his lands justly while scheming around his family’s machinations.

She knelt beside him, cupping his face and stroking his cheeks. “You look tired, my love. Maybe you should go back to sleep.”

“I had a dream you were about to do something foolish, and it made me so anxious it woke me up.” His voice was low, on the cusp of irate. He wasn’t buying her charade, although that didn’t mean she wouldn’t keep trying.

She gave him her sweetest smile, “It’s a good thing I would never do something foolish this late at night.”

One brow arched, his lips pursing. “Scarlet…”

She tipped his head to the side, her own head falling to the side to match. “Do you trust me?”

Resignation and fatigue washed over his face as he closed his eyes. “Of course I trust you.”

“Then you have to trust me, okay?”

Another sigh, and when he opened his eyes they were softer, the corners of his lips twitching like he was trying not to smile. “Didn’t you tell that to me before you jumped off a building?”

“And? I’m okay, aren’t I?”

An awkward cough erupted behind them, reminding Scarlet of why exactly Xander was annoyed with her. “Do you two need a bit of privacy?”

Xander’s glare was back in full force, although it was no longer directed at Scarlet, which was a relief. “You can give us another moment.”

“Don’t mind me, I’m only starving after not having a proper meal in centuries.”

Scarlet sat up straighter at that, whipping around before Xander could stop her. “What do you  mean, centuries?”

Astarion’s shoulders slumped, his eyes flicking away from her. “I fear I’ve said too much.”

“Xander,” she whined, turning back around. “Babey.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “I trust you, I just don’t know if I trust him.”

“You wound me. I’ve never hurt a hair on your head.”

“You tried to suck my wife’s blood while she was asleep.”

“Yes, well, we all make mistakes sometimes.”

Scarlet covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. It did little to help, instead earning another scowl from Xander.

“It’s okay,” she said, still giggling as she tried to speak. “This is my decision. But will you hold my hand? Please, Xander?”

Xander held her eyes for a long moment, silent, before he finally nodded. “I’ll always be beside you, sunbeam. No matter what.”

“Well this is all very romantic, but I’m still over here, starving.”

Scarlet sat back, looking up at Astarion once more. Although his words had been sharp, there was something tired in his face, a heavy weight pushing down on him that she did not yet understand.

“You can drink my blood if you want,” she said, threading her fingers with Xander’s. “I trust you.”

The relief in his eyes reminded her of the dawn, sunshine cresting over the horizon and gilding the world in light. “Thank you.”

He gave an awkward flick of his hands as he tried to instruct her how to sit before he knelt beside her. His hands pressed against her shoulders, his eyes suddenly alight with feral, animal hunger. He bared his fangs, lunging for her neck in one quick motion.

His fangs sinking into her skin was like two shards of ice cutting into her, extinguishing some of the heat of the power roiling in her veins. She wondered, distantly, if she ought to have been a little less cavalier with offering up her carotid. She was not immortal, not by any stretch of the imagination, and power or no she could still be killed as easily as any mortal.

Well, almost as easily.

There was no fear of him draining her to death, but she supposed he could rip out her throat. Maybe.

It wasn’t exactly an experiment she was keen on trying, but she supposed it might work.

Xander’s hand squeezed hers tighter, his eyes dark as the midnight sky as they found hers in the shadows.

“Are you alright?”

She smiled, although she was unable to nod with the vampire still latched to her throat.

A fuzzy feeling came over her mind, blurring out the crackle of the fire, softening the sting of the smoke. She felt more tired than anything, and yearned to sleep, to get lost in her dreams until the sun was too high and too bright and it pierced through the veil of oblivion.

Several moments passed, and Astarion showed no signs of stopping. She supposed she could have tapped him, could have told him to stop, but she was not afraid of him. Instead, she idly tapped patterns onto Xander’s hand with her thumb, an old game they had played when they were younger and trapped in lessons together. She would tap out a rhythm for a song and he would have to pick it up and switch it to a new song.

They managed to get through a total of ten songs before Astarion yanked himself away with a gasp. He pulled away with such force he fell flat on his back, arms flailing before he managed to push himself back up, hand covering his mouth as blood trickled down the pallid skin of his chin.

“Are you alright?” She leaned forward, reaching out to steady him.

“How are you-” His eyes were wide as saucers, the red so bright they seemed to glow. “I didn’t mean to-”

She shook her head, waving her hands next to her face. “I’m alright, see? Not hurt in the least.”

Beside her, Xander narrowed his eyes. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’ll heal.”

Astarion was still staring like she’d grown a second head. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

She blinked. “You were hungry.”

“Yes, but I could have killed you.”

She shrugged, ignoring the sharp glare Xander levelled at her. “I don’t think you could have.”

His brow furrowed, his mouth quirking into a frown. “You’re awfully confident about that. Are you familiar with a vampire feeding from you?”

She snorted. “No, but I doubt my goddess would allow me to perish so easily when there is work to be done.”

That earned a small smile from Xander, her dearest confidante. The lie rolled easily from her tongue, like honey sweetening over-steeped tea.

Astarion took it easily, not questioning her as he shrugged. “Well, thank you. I’ll be off now, to hunt some great beast to further sate my thirst.”

He was gone without another word, swallowed by the shadows surrounding the camp.

Which meant that she was alone with an incredibly irritated Xander.

Scarlet whirled around, pressing a hand to Xander’s mouth before he could start laying into her.

“Not a word,” she whined. “I was just trying to help.”

Xander’s scowl did not budge, although he did remain quiet. Silence stretched between them, heavy and tense. Scarlet could feel herself wavering, her resolve a crumbling wall of sand beneath a gathering storm. 

She didn’t like silence, and she liked tension even less. She had thought Xander would try to argue, or that his expression would at least change so she wasn’t frozen in place by the power of his glower.

Moments ticked by, nothing but the crackle and pop of the fire to fill the silent void growing between them. Another moment passed, and then another, and when it all became too much for Scarlet to bear, her eyes burning with unshed tears because she was tired and Xander was upset and couldn’t he just speak so his worries were free and they could both be at ease?

Xander’s breath was sharp, like he were steeling himself. And then he licked her hand.

Scarlet squealed, falling back as she shook her head. “Ew! Xander, that’s gross!”

He chuckled, the sharpness of his previous expression replaced by mirth, buoyant as driftwood on ocean waves. “It’s your own fault! You had your hand pressed against my face so long I thought I would suffocate!”

“Oh please.” She wiped her damp palm on the side of his face, earning a wicked look. “You could breathe perfectly fine. And that’s your own fault, too!”

He snatched up both her hands, leaning forward like he might tackle her. “I wasn’t the one that just let a vampire feed on me, Scarlet.”

She pouted, ignoring the furrow of his brows as he glared. “You usually call me sunbeam.”

“I-” He groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. The corners of his lips twitched, like he was trying desperately not to smile. “It’s awfully late for your shenanigans.”

She reached up to brush a lock of hair back from his brow. His hair was always so perfectly tousled, styled just the right amount to make it look like he was carefree, like he hadn’t bothered to brush it at all, but still so devastatingly handsome you had no choice but to look twice. And while she’d always known the real Xander, the messy one, the sleepy one, the whiny one. The Xander that helped her do her laundry, that whined when he wanted a kiss, that laid his head in her lap while she sang to him in the evenings. Still, it was strange to see him like this, removed from their home, his hair a mess, sticking up at odd ends and flattened against the side of his head.

“Then get some rest, my love,” she murmured, tracing her hand down the line of his jaw. “It’s been a very long day, and you need to rest.”

He sighed, capturing her hand, holding it against his cheek. “I know you think you’re invincible, but you could have died today. Or worse.”

She winced, a dull ache rippling from the back of her skull down her spine. Her eye throbbed, and for a moment her stomach roiled at the memories of the day. Or days. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been on that ship, only that she wasn’t some alien creature yet. And none of her friends would be, ever.

“The ‘or worse’ is still on the table, unfortunately,” she said, trying to keep her tone light.

It was, undoubtedly, absolutely the wrong thing to say. Xander’s expression darkened, his eyes shuttering.

“My love I didn’t mean it like that,” she breathed, her voice feather-soft. “Only that… Well…”

She’d only meant to joke around, but she doubted that would be a response Xander very much liked either. “I don’t really know what I’d meant.”

Another sigh, his eyes falling closed. “I understand what you were trying to do. But I worry. Right now more than anything.”

“We’ll get through this,” she insisted. They would, they had to. She would not accept another solution. She’d never been one to yield, not without a fight, and she was quite adept at winning fights. “We’ll find a solution.”

Xander squeezed her hand, leaning forward until their brows pressed together. “I’ll accept nothing less. We’re getting through this, and I will make them take that worm out of your brain myself if I have to.”

She giggled, stroking his cheek. “Always the drama queen.”

“Isn’t that why you love me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Among other things.”

She felt his smirk as he brushed his lips to the curve of her jaw. “Care to tell me about all these other things?”

“Unfortunately, it’s quite late,” she said, tapping his chest. “We don’t have the time, and I find I’m suddenly very exhausted.”

He drew away, shaking his head. “And whose fault is that?”

“Xander, he needs to eat, I’m not going to let him starve. And we both know I’m the best person for the job.”

Her power was muffled, if only just, but still it replenished her veins quickly, knit her skin back together without so much as a scar. Her body would heal itself quicker than she could be drained.

“I’ll heal quickly, and it means no one else will be at risk,” she continued, trying to make him understand, to trust her. “My love, Xander, do you trust me?”

“I trust you,” he breathed, still clutching one of her hands to his cheek. “But I’m terrified. I don’t want to lose you.”

“And you won’t.” She slid her free hand up to his other cheek, caressing the wind-kissed skin. “I love you, I will always come back to you.”

“I wish you could stop sacrificing yourself,” he muttered, sounding unconvinced, sounding hurt. “I wish you would stop putting yourself in harm’s way for everyone else. What about you?”

“Xander…” Pain spiderwebbed out from her heart, clawing through the cage of her ribs and branching out to bury in her veins, in her bones. “You know I can’t.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, anger flickering in the dark of his eyes. But instead he only looked away, raking a hand through his hair, making it even messier than before.

“Come lie down with me,” he said instead, holding out his arms. “I need to hold you.”

She curled against his chest, letting him draw her into his arms as he laid them both down. There were words unsaid, lodged deep in his throat, and she knew this conversation was not over, this fight not yet at its conclusion. This was only a respite, a temporary truce.

“I love you,” she murmured, her words catching against the fabric of his shirt. “I love you so much Xander that it hurts.”

“And I love you,” he breathed, his words tangling in her hair. “I love you to the edge of the world, to the end of time.”

Her blood still roiled, her stomach churning, and a new weight had settled on her chest as something strange brewed between them. But for now they were both safe, for now they could be at peace.

[pipomercuryy]

Father issues energy⚡️

[my-magical-oc-s]

[mrsaguapapi]

Ch 1  Ch 2  Ch 3  Ch 4  Ch 5  Ch 6  Ch 7  Ch 8  Ch 9  Ch 10  Ch 11 Ch 12  Ch 13  Ch 14   Ch 15 Ch 16  Ch 17

Chapter 18

My Sunshine

The Vibe:

Corinne Bailey Rae 11. Seasons Change

"Wanda is dead. I saw her die" Stranges says pacing away in his office. Looking absolutely ridiculous with his lounge clothes and a cloak.

"She's alive Stephen." I say exasperated

"Okay, I'll play. Let's say she's alive, which she's not. Why of all people would you go to her?" he gestures to himself, "I can help you."

"I'm not letting you anywhere near my memories thank you very much." I scoff at him, "I don't have time to bring you up to speed, I need to speak with her, and considering with what happened in Westview and your little multiverse incident, I don't know where her head is at mentally. All I'm asking is that you watch my back and be on standby" I plead

"Look I want to help you but that last thing we need is to instigate another fight with Wanda Maximoff, IF, she's even alive," Strange says. "If she's alive, I theorize she won't be happy seeing me, so no, I'm not going with you," I roll my eyes and stand up, ready to walk out, "I didn't say I wasn't going to help you," he says stopping me in my place

"Okay well, Stephen can you just spit it out some of us have shit to do," I say holding my hands out annoyed

He rolls his eyes and pulls out a display and uncovers it revealing a floating crystal ball, "This is the Orb of Agamotto. This allows me to monitor the universe and other surrounding dimensions. With the ability to 'Livestream' other planets and pinpoint magic users anywhere, except for those with the power to block its view. I can use this to watch you from a distance and if anything goes wrong, I'll portal to you and help"

I take a moment to think about it, "Fine, you have a deal" I say holding out my hand to him

He shakes my hand and smiles, "Does this mean I'm forgiven?"

"Ugh and you ruined it," I say, dropping my hand, rolling my eyes, and grabbing my sling ring, "For the record, I never really blamed you, and neither does Peter. You just happen to have an annoying face and that I can't forgive" I laugh to myself," Give me your phone" I say to Strange. He hands me his phone and I put my number in it and call myself so I have his number, "When I get there I'll call you and have you in my ear." I say putting an airpod in and giving back his phone. Pausing for a moment I take in a deep breath and exhale allowing myself to relax before opening a portal to the shuffling streets of Sokovia.

I step through turning to look at Strange, "If she's alive and as powerful as before she could easily sever my connection. Just keep that in mind." He warns. I nod my head and close the portal.

"Okay let's get this show on the road," I say to myself walking the down the city streets

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

After getting some food and thinking about the next approach I decided instead of using a locator spell and exposing her safe space, I figure I'll summon her to me. So I picked the most public place I could think of.

A playground

Sitting on the bench watching the children play, I say in my head, "Wanda, I need your help" I call out to her making sure my intention is clear and that I mean no harm, "That should do the trick" I whisper to myself. I pull out my phone to call Strange, "Hey, she'll be here any minute. Can you see me?"

"You chose to bring 'The Scarlet Witch' to a playground?"

"She won't hurt the children," I say

"I once thought that too until she tried to murder America Chavez in front of me" he quips

"Yea well this time will be different Stephen," I say annoyed "Have a little hope will ya?"

He sighs, "You never told me why you need her specifically."

"I was told by my dead mother to go to her directly. She didn't say why, but I trust her judgment. Wanda may also have some info on someone else I'm looking for." I say rather quickly and annoyed

"So the short answer is you don't know," he says

"I've been on the phone with you for 2 mins and I already want to kick your ass," I say making us both laugh

"What's so funny?" I hear someone say near me, causing me to damn near jump out of my skin. It was Wanda sitting next to me in civilian clothes with her hair dripping wet.

"Good lord girl. You don't have to be so creepy" I say clutching my fake pearls

"You started It. I heard your little whispers in my ear while I was in the shower. I thought you had the drop on me." she laughs under her breath, "So why are you here? Don't you know I'm 'dead'? I'm sure Stephen told you. Right Stephen?" She asks a little louder

She knows

"Did you think I wouldn't know?" Wanda Asks

"Millie she's blocking me, I can't see you anymore," Stephen says in my ear, "I'm coming to you"

"Hold off Stephen," I say out loud, "It's okay" I pause looking at Wanda with a small smile, "Do you blame me? If I didn't come with some sort of backup, I'd be pretty dumb don't ya think?"

She looks at me for a while like she was searching for something in my face eventually looking away and letting out a large exhale, "I have been a real witch lately" she says causing me to laugh, "You said you needed my help and I could really use a distraction right now, so what can I do for you?"

"Hey, Stephen you still there?" I ask

"I'm still here. You still alive?" He asks

"Yep. I'm gonna let you go, I'm okay" I say to him

"Are you sure?"

"Mhmm, I'll text you later," I say before hanging up on him, "Let me buy you a drink. We've got a lot to talk about." I say standing up and holding out my hand to her

"One drink isn't going to cut it," She says taking my hand "Might have to buy the bar," she says making us both chuckle.

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

Wanda and I have been venting and drinking for an hour or so at this dingy little bar in the middle of town. We both are sitting in a booth in the back of the room effectively away from the other patrons.

"So," I say before throwing back another tequila shot, "So out of grief you kidnapped and brainwashed a random town in New Jersey, Created a fake husband and children, and then traveled through other universes, blindly looking for said fake children?" I ask

"Well," Wanda taking a sip of her bourbon, "I feel like you're oversimplifying it a bit. Westview wasn't a random town, Vis bought us some land there to build us a home and my children are only fake here, they're very much real elsewhere, but... essentially yes you are correct." She says finishing the drink

"Wanda," I say rubbing my head from the sudden rush I'm feeling, "That like really sucks"

"I Know right? "Oh and let's not forget Pietro, my dead twin brother," She says nonchalantly

I burst out in laughter, I couldn't help myself at her candor, "I'm sorry that was so mean" I said trying to control myself.

Surprisingly Wanda joins me, "You are fucked up, you know that?" She says laughing with me

"I know! I know! I'm sorry, it's either you laugh or you cry and I'm tired of crying" I say catching my breath from laughing

"Couldn't have said it better myself" Wanda says collecting herself from laughing with me"So enough about me and my lifetime of trauma, fill me in on what's going on; why do you need my help?"

"Can I just so show you? It will be quicker" I ask holding my hand out to her

"Is it going to hurt?" She asks hesitantly

"No. I mean no one has complained before?" I say smiling and shrugging. She places her hand in mine and I use my memory transference on her filling her in on everything; my ghost mom and her past with the darkhold, the books from Wakanda, how peter found me in the lake, and my lack of memory.

"Wow," Wanda says taking her hand back, "You've got some serious power Millie, your magic is vast." She says rubbing her hand "Unpredictable too... It's very familiar."

"Well that wasn't ominous at all," I say a little creeped out, "Can you help me?"

"Yes, I think so. We'll need an open field and it's probably going to hurt" She says standing up "Come on we should get going"

"Fine," I say standing up and throwing some cash on the bar, "But can we not skip over the whole 'it's going to hurt thing"

"I imagine being struck by lightning doesn't feel good," She says walking out

"Well Fuck" I say following her

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

The Vibe:

Bishop Briggs - Lessons of the Fire: Official Lyric Video | Devil In Ohio | Netflix

Wanda takes me to this field on the outskirts of town. It was surrounded by overarching trees and we were in the open center. When I look up I see nothing but a full moon and stars. The air was cool and the energy surrounding us was peaceful. Wanda had set up several candles around me in a circle and stepped out leaving me alone in the center

"Explain it to me one more time, " I say a little freaked out

"You need to summon the lightning to strike you"

"Okay but why?" I say a little freaked out

"The connection you and your ancestors have with nature runs deep in your blood. Channeling the weather seems to be something engrained in your DNA, specifically thunderstorms and lightning. A storm woke you up in that lake; you were struck by lightning. I'm hoping that with almost the same conditions, it could do the same for your mind. Make sense?" She finishes

"Yes, it does, I think. I'm sorry but I am scared the last time this happened it left me with a giant scar across my body." I say unconsciously rubbing my scar, "Are you sure you can't do some kind of spell?"

"I can't. Quite frankly I'm afraid too"

"What does that mean?" I scoff

"You possess multiple forms of magic. It shouldn't be possible to have more than 2 or 3. Millie, from what I felt from your hand and what you've shown me in your memories, you seem to possess 4. I'm afraid if I go poking around in your brain that you will unconsciously retaliate and that's the last thing we want to do."

Why is she being so cautious?

"What forms do you think I possess?"

"1 being eldritch magic, which you learned from the sorcerers. Accessible by humans, eldritch magic can be properly controlled by those with highly disciplined minds who have been trained in casting spells. Your ancestor Ayesha was a sorcerer supreme, so it's only natural that you have an affinity for this form. " Wanda pauses, I can tell she's a little hesitant to continue.

"Go on it's okay, I can take it," I say trying to convince her, and myself

"The second being Dark Magic, also known as Witchcraft. An extremely powerful and difficult type of magic used by sorcerers and witches to achieve their goals through morally questionable means.

"Morally questionable means? I would never hurt anyone.." I begin to say

"You wouldn't now, but what about you before your memory loss? Who's to say you weren't a bad guy? In your memories when your mother died you were taken by a coven of witches led by Agatha. Agatha isn't exactly a good witch; she's ancient and she's evil. I wouldn't be surprised that her influence on you wasn't positive, especially considering that she's also possessed the darkhold." Wanda sighs. "She was a pain in my ass, I'll take you to her after this."

She has a point, what if my memory comes back and I still have an allegiance to her? What If I lose my feelings for my current loved ones...

"Anyways" Wanda continues pulling me back from internal panic, "Dark magic can be combined with other types of magic, which leads me into your last 2 forms, darkhold and chaos Magic. When your mother was using the darkhold while pregnant with you, a portion of its power embedded itself in you.  I am almost positive that's why are you able to use magic just by mentally displaying your intent."

"I can understand why I may have dark hold magic but chaos magic feels like a stretch. Due to its very nature, chaos magic is extremely unstable and requires a massive amount of energy and control to master it; I don't feel I'm at that level. I would have noticed by now right?"

"Like me, you were born with latent magical abilities, yours coming from your ancestors. Your generational power bestowment has given you vast immeasurable strength that was the perfect breeding ground for chaos magic. Let me ask you, have you been losing your temper or lost control of your powers lately?"

"Yea I have been losing control of my powers," I say thinking back to the incident in my bedroom and outside of the royal palace in Wakanda, "I also almost killed a man yesterday. Honestly, I think I could have done it if I wasn't stopped."

"Key signs. I knew your power felt familiar, I felt the chaotic energy pulsate through your veins; You're like me. If I fuck anything up messing with your memories you could go crazy destroying everything in sight. Do you get it now?" She says to me very seriously

"I do" I pause lost in my thoughts. After a few more seconds I hear a loud beep come from my pocket. I pull out the source of the noise and realize it was my pager.

It was a new voice message from Namor, I hold it to my ear and listen, "I miss you more Ki'ichpan"

Through messages and he still makes me swoon.

Feeling a little relaxed, I take in a deep breath, "What do I need to do"

Wanda holds out her hand, "Give me your beeper and your cell so they don't get destroyed." Doing as she says I throw my things in my sling bag and hand it to her, "Okay do what you need to do, to feel as connected to the nature surrounding us"

I take off my sneakers and socks linking my feet to the grass, "Okay" I nod to her

"You can already control the basic elements correct?"

"Yes," I say

"What are the conditions needed to cause a storm?" She asks me

"Storms form when warm, moist air rises into the cold air," I respond

"Make that happen," She says plainly

I silently nod my head and close my eyes; my feet are firmly planted on the ground and my hands are open at my side. I begin to box breathe:

In 1,2,3,4

Hold 1,2,3,4

Out 1,2,3,4

Repeat

Eventually, I feel myself relax, I'm only focused on the surrounding sound of the night; the wind around me was nothing more than a breeze. I was in a total moment of zen and for a while it was quiet. After minutes of silence, the wind around me began to dance and I feel the hair on my arms stand, "It's coming I can feel it" I said as the wind begins to pick up rapidly.

I open my eyes and lift my hand to the sky calling the lighting to me. I see storm clouds forming over us almost fully blocking out the moon, nearly leaving us in total darkness if not for the candles, "Come on" I yell to the storm. For a moment it grew eerily quiet but suddenly flashes of lights began to paint the sky; it was my lightning. Just as I began to smile with pride from the storm I created, a giant bolt of lightning makes it's way down, connecting to my hand and making my whole body seize.

The pain I feel is almost indescribable; not only did my body feel like every inch of me was on fire but my head felt like my brain was boiling inside my skull. For what felt like an eternity, but in reality, it was only a matter of seconds, the pain stopped and I fell to the ground. The only thing I remember before fading away was Wanda rushing to me, "Millie Wake up" she says, "Millie don't g-", was all I hear before slipping away.

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

The Vibe:

Breathe me -- sia

It's dark and quiet. I can't feel anything. I can't move.

"Mom.." I hear a males voice whisper

Who's voice is that?

I hear the voice speak again, "Mom I-" he coughs not being able to finish his sentence.

I know that voice.

"Momma I can't move" he speaks clearly before coughing and gurgling. That voice is so familiar. It's warm like the sun. The sun...

You are my sunshine

My only sunshine

You make me happy

When skies are gray

You'll never know, dear

How much I love you

Please don't take

My sunshine away

I love the sun. My son. I named him after the Sun God; the creator of the universe. He's my sunshine, my world, the center of my universe. My Amun.

"Amun!" I yell jolting up. When sitting up I instinctively grab my stomach in utter pain. Looking down I see I'm bleeding, I'm assuming a stab wound. Looking around I see I'm back at that same awful place. Kissena Park.

"Mom," Amun says

I hear my son call to me again; I snap my head in his direction and I see my son lying on the ground covered in blood, "No!" I scream crawling to him, "No, no, no"

When I reach him and scan him a little closer I can see he was stabbed like me but it must be somewhere fatal spot because he was coughing up blood, "He stabbed and knocked you out" he says in between coughs, "I tried t-to protect you but I wasn't strong enough, I'm s-sorry Mom"

"Hush now baby," I say panicked and in between tears, "I can heal you," I say holding my hand over his wound.

"You're too w-weak, you'll die," He says

"I don't care. You are my son, my life means nothing without yours. Just breathe baby" I say trying to calm him and myself down

"Momma, who is that? Sh-she looks like you" He says looking past me. I turn around and see no one.

"Amun baby no one is there," I say

"Momma she's so warm. I think- I think I'm going to go with her" Amun says to me

No.

"No baby stay with me. Don't go." I say my voice begins to shake, "Stay with me, I can fix you, Please" I beg

"It's okay momma, I'll be fine." He says before looking behind me and nodding his head.

I turn around and still see nothing, "What am I to do?  How do I breathe without you?"

Amun takes my hand and squeezes it and smiles before taking his last breath. His hand relaxed in mine, and his eyes glossed over. As he took his last breath he took a part of me with him. I pull my son's body to me holding him tightly never wanting to let him go.

"Well that was dramatic" I hear a man say from behind me, "It was a shame he went down so fast, I expected more from him considering his lineage."

I gently put my boy's body down leaving a kiss on his forehead before standing up and turning around. It was the faceless man in the black suit, "Bring him back"

"Like mother, like daughter. What are you willing to trade for his life? Your mother gave me her power. What do you have to barter?"

"Take anything, my power, my life, my soul. I don't care to take it all"

"No" he responds, "Why would I bring him back? I was the one who killed him."

"Y-you attacked us?" I asked. My voice was shaking; I was filled with not only grief and sadness but an overwhelming sense of rage, "Why? We lived in peace, I have atoned for my past. How did you even find us, we were so careful for years."

"Your family has always been on my radar, But you should thank your friend Agatha, she pointed me in your direction." He smiles as my heart drops

Agatha why?...

"I knew one day eventually one of your family's descendants' power would rival mine and I just can't have that. I figure it's time to end the whole bloodline. You should take some pride that it ends with you, you are the strongest and with more time you could have been more powerful." He steps closer placing a hand on my cheek. I look at him where his eyes should be, "It'll be easier if you just surrender Millaenyia"

"All chances of me surrendering left when you Killed my son." I sneer

"So be it," he says disappointed. Before I knew it his hands were hovering at the side of my head, he was draining me of my power and my life, "Don't worry this won't take long" he says softly

I fall to the ground, no longer able to stand up. If I don't act quickly, I will die.

Maybe I should let him.

I ponder on that thought for a while and just as I was about to accept my fate the man speaks up, "Almost done, you'll soon be with your son"

My son. He killed my son.

I snap out of it, realizing I was about to let my son's murderer roam free, I quickly devise a plan.

I'm too weak to kill. But I think I have enough in me to trap him.

I look up and see the man holding his head back as he was draining me, he wasn't paying attention to my hands. I lift my hand out toward the tree behind him; I use what's left of my powers to form an opening in the tree that was big enough to hide a body within it. Once done I call to the roots and branches of the tree, willing them to slowly creep up behind the man and gently wrap around his legs and arms. He was so focused on the feeling of this newly acquired power of his, that he didn't notice he was being detained until it was too late.

"What is this?" He says seeing the branches wrapped around his hand, "What are you do-" the man says before whipping back into the tree. His arms were now behind his back being thoroughly wrapped in roots followed by the rest of his body. The only exposed part of him now was his neck up, "This won't hold me, you child"

I stand up and walk to him, "You will rot in here" I sneer before wrapping my hand around his neck quickly taking back my power and life force. "All you care about is power right?" I ask knowing the answer, "I'll take that too" I say now draining him of his energy and power, leaving just enough to keep him alive so he can rot here for the rest of days.

"Let me-" he struggles to say "Let me ou-" The roots cover the rest of him effectively muffling his words. I step back holding my hand out to the tree and use my powers to close and seal it shut. I place my hand on the tree and close my eyes:

To be Seen or Unseen.

Never in the focus of one's eye

Of nature's age, it does defy

To be Seen, or Unseen

With this spell, this tree will never age. It shall never be directly seen but it will always be here.

Once done with the small runes are now etched around the tree sealing his fate. I walk back to my Amun and look at him one last time.

I need to bury you, my love.

When I go to pick him up I see he had the journal he made of me tucked away in his jacket. Not wanting to leave the journal behind for someone to find and use, I grab it and bind it to my wrist before I pick Amun up. I walk towards the lake and will the water to separate allowing me to walk down to the center of the lake. Once I make it to the spot I place Amun down. I kiss his forward one last time, "My sweet boy" I say before I hold my hand out and use my power to have him sink into the dirt, fully burying him.

I lay beside him now, with the intention of ending my life and resting beside him for eternity. But I couldn't bring myself to do it, something was stopping me like there was someone in my ear telling me no. So, still intending on resting beside my son, I decide that if I'm too cowardly to end it now, I don't deserve to remember him in case I wake up:

Forget me not

Forget me now

Forget the past

Forget the sound

Forget the memories

Forget the love

Forget it all

Forget it now

As I finish the spell, I feel myself begin to fade away and sink to the ground. The water released and is slowly filling the lake back up; I find comfort in my last lingering memory of my son's laughter before I'm completely asleep.

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

The Vibe:

Labrinth & Zendaya - I'm Tired (From “Euphoria” An HBO Original Series – Lyric Video)

"Millie wake up!" That is all I hear before I feel water being poured on me.

The sudden feel of cold water all over me jolted me awake. I sit up completely dazed; my eyes were fuzzing and my ears wear slightly ringing. Eventually, the ringing faded and my eyes clear up. I look around and see Wanda sitting next to me, looking like she has seen a ghost, "Are you okay?" She asks, "Fuck you are still steaming, does that hurt? I thought the water would help," she says concerned.

"I'm okay," I say plainly.

"Are you?" she says. I look to her with expressionless eyes and nod.

My body feels numb, it's because of the lightning... No, I remember...

"Did it work? Do you remember?" She asks

"I remember everything," I say beginning to cry, "My son..." I say holding my stomach, I feel like I'm going to throw up, "Oh god my son" I say sobbing

[raepritewrites]

The Return

There were some good things that came out of Heather’s metamorphosis, despite it being one of the most painful experiences of her life… which was saying something, because she had experienced being vivisected while fully conscious. She wouldn’t recommend either of those experiences, by the way, a definite zero out of ten.

Still, at least the end results of her body mutating were beneficial. She was more durable than she was previously, her healing factor was a good bit faster, and while the fangs were annoying at times, the paralysis venom they made was infinitely useful. She could feel it collecting like a thick second kind of saliva just above the roof of her mouth throughout the day, which grossed Kurt out to no end when she explained it to him. He had fangs too, but his were for show, or so he claimed with a winning grin.

After a while, she’d figured out that if she concentrated she could use the venom on command. Once she knew how to do that, she started collecting excess venom into glass beakers before transferring it into small darts. Kurt thought it was hilarious the first time he walked in on her standing in the kitchen with the glass precariously gripped between her fangs and bottom teeth as she scrolled Instagram on her phone. When she had enough darts filled, she would load them into some wrist cuffs that Tony had gifted her. It was a lot more hygienic than biting a criminal’s neck. (Seriously, who knew where they had been?)

Another small perk of the venom her body naturally generated? Poisons, knockout gas, and paralysis formulas barely worked on her anymore. Ninety percent of the time, her body could fight off whatever it was, and she’d be up and moving again in twenty minutes tops. She still wasn’t bulletproof, but hey, she’d take what she could get.

Which was why, when the alarm system started blaring in Mount Justice and thick smoke filled her room, she didn’t panic right away even as her vision swam and she found herself collapsing to the floor.

When consciousness returned to her, the alarm was still going off, and she checked her watch. She’d taken a ten minute cat nap thanks to that gas, and she estimated that the old her probably would have been out for hours. She quickly left her quarters, checking on everyone’s rooms as she swung down the hallway. Out like a light, every one of them; even Conner, who was a lot more difficult to knock down than all of them combined. Whoever had hit the mountain knew about them, and that scared her a little.

What scared her more was finding Robin’s quarters empty.

“Shit,” She hissed, crawling along the ceiling as fast as she could, searching for the little bird.

The biggest reason she’d accepted Nightwing’s plea for her to return to the team in a mentor capacity was because of Robin. After Jason had died, they’d all spiraled in their own way, but Bruce was the worse off by far. Nightwing and Batgirl had thrown themselves into team missions, Heather had retreated from the caped life and into her secular work, but Batman… Batman was not doing well. He’d pushed away everyone, even Superman and Dick, and he’d grown reckless and more violent in his cases. Dinah had tried repeatedly to talk with Bruce about the obvious grief he was going through, but it was like talking to a brick wall.

The three of them all blamed themselves for Jason’s death, but Bruce had taken the loss of his son the hardest. He didn’t want to let himself be close to anyone else, and he was having less and less regard for his own life. Something had to change, but she, Dick, Barbara and Alfred were all unable to figure out what.

Then along came Timothy Drake.

Tim knew about them. About all of them. He’d been stalking the bats for at least two years across the rooftops of Gotham, and none of them had noticed, not even Heather. Her only explanation for that was the boy didn’t set off her spider sense. He’d never meant them any harm.

He figured out their identities a long time ago, and the only thing he’d done about it is defend their public personas in online forums and take pictures of the bats as they protected Gotham. It was clear that Jason was Tim’s favorite Robin, most of the pictures were of him. Dick tried very valiantly not to be jealous, but Heather could tell it rankled him a little.

Tim was more than just a fanboy though. He was scary smart. His computer skills rivaled Barbara, Dick, and several members of the League combined. When Tim realized something terrible had happened to Jason, he started keeping closer tabs on Bruce. He saw the dark path Batman was heading down, but unlike them, he had a solution.

And so eleven year old Tim Drake, with the biggest nerves of steel Heather had ever seen in her life, had rang Bruce’s doorbell when he knew he was at home (apparently, the Drakes were Bruce’s closest neighbors?? Who knew?) and had told Bruce in no uncertain terms that he knew he was Batman, he knew he’d lost his Robin, and he needed a new partner so here he was.

Seriously. The kid had blackmailed Batman into giving him the mantle. Heather would have been a little offended - heaven knew Dick was - if she hadn’t been so impressed. Plus, if she was being honest, she’d kind of done the same thing to Spiderman back in the day, even if in the end he’d essentially dumped her into the team and ghosted her from there as much as he could. The point was, who was she to judge?

It was obvious immediately that Tim was more than capable of taking up the title, too. The kid was small, but much like Dick at that age, he was full of surprises. He took to fighting like a fish to water, using a bo staff as his preferred weapon over even wingdings or Dick’s own escrima sticks. He wasn’t like Dick and he wasn’t Jason, that was certain, but that was okay. Tim was his own Robin, and he treated the title with so much respect it was practically religious. He followed Batman’s instructions, but he wasn’t so much of a fanboy that he couldn’t disregard an order if needed, something she could appreciate.

Heather took to the kid pretty quickly, much quicker than Dick had. From the little Tim would say about his parents she had pieced together his homelife situation, and the picture wasn’t great. His parents were… inattentive to say the least. The Drakes seemed more interested in globe trotting and growing their business than being home with their son. While Heather had been able to rely on her mom being home every night, she could still understand how lonely Tim must have been. Growing up in a giant cold mansion alone for weeks at a time… that sounded like a nightmare to her.

After several long talks between herself, Dick and Dinah, her friend had finally come around to the idea of someone else taking on his old moniker. The anger that had initially accompanied Jason ‘stealing’ Robin away had finally melted into a bittersweet feeling for Dick. On the one hand, he was still mad at Bruce for not asking his permission, but he was finally able to admit that Jason had been a worthy successor. Too late to actually tell the boy that in person, but at least now Dick could be a better brother to Tim than he had been to Jason.

When Dick had asked her to return to help the team, but especially Robin, she couldn’t say no. The kid had seen how much Bruce was drowning, and pulled the man back from the deep end. She was grateful to him for that, but he was also just genuinely fun to work with. It helped ease some of the ache that still lingered around Jason’s memory, and made it a little easier every time she visited the manor.

Now, Tim was missing, all the rest of the team were either out on a mission or knocked unconscious, and judging by the static in her earpiece, the comms were down. She’d be damned if she let something happen to that kid on her watch.

She resisted the urge to call out his name as she ran through the mountain, just in case the kid was holed up somewhere hiding from whoever or whatever had done this. She just prayed this wasn’t another Tornado family reunion, that had been a nightmare she never wanted to repeat.

When Heather finally skidded around the corner of the gym, her heart caught in her throat. “Robin!”

The boy wonder was pinned to the wall at the neck by a man wearing combat boots, cargo pants, a leather jacket, and a bright red full face helmet. There were guns sticking out from holsters under the jacket and he was holding a wicked looking knife to Robin’s neck. The boy had clearly already been fighting off his attacker for a while, blood leaking from a cut above his right eyebrow, and while one arm was desperately grasping at the man’s giant hand so he could draw in a full breath, his left arm hung limply at his side.

Scarlet Spider moved on instinct, webbing flinging out to grab the intruder by the back of his jacket and yanking him away from Robin who fell limply to the floor with a cry of pain. The attacker looked up at her as he rolled from the floor back to his feet smoothly, slicing the webbing off of him in one movement. “You should still be asleep, little spider,” his modulated voice sent a shiver down her spine, but only for a moment.

"What can I say? I'm a light sleeper," She snapped, lunging for him.

The man backflipped away, smoother than someone his size should have been able to, then made a wide slash at her with the knife. She jumped back, grabbed his still extended wrist and twisted until the knife clattered to the ground, kicking it well out of reach.

She saw Robin slowly trying to rise to his feet from the corner of her eye and realized he was trying to help. Sweet, brave, dumb boy, he really is a bat, she thought just as the attacker broke out of her hold, kicking her in the chest and sending her flying back. She scrambled to her feet and dove for the attacker as he turned his attention back to Tim.

"Robin, run!" Scarlet Spider snapped, wrapping her arms around the man's thick arms and torso.

"That's right, Robin. Run away like the fraud you are," the man taunted, trying and failing to break her hold on him. "You never had a chance."

"Shut up!" Robin said, but his voice warbled. He leaned against the wall, clutching his clearly dislocated arm and glared at his attacker.

"Poor little replacement just can't cut it," the man continued, planting his feet and flipping Scarlet Spider over his head. She twisted in mid air to land her feet, skidding back on the concrete for a few seconds before resuming her fight stance.

"Leave him alone!" She demanded. Every big sister instinct she had was screaming at her to get Tim out of there. "Pick on someone your own size, you bastard."

"Big words coming from someone who lets child soldiers fight their battle for them," he mocked, reaching for his guns only for her to web them straight out of their holsters and into her own hands. She removed the magazines and dropped them to the ground.

"Robin has the right to fight for what he believes in as much as any of us," she shot back, keeping herself between Tim and the assailant. "You're the asshole who broke in here and specifically targeted him."

"He shouldn't be here!" The man yelled, pointing an accusing finger at Tim. "He doesn't deserve to wear those colors. He's. Not. A. Robin." He grit out, reaching for something in the pocket of his pants, but Heather had had enough.

She jumped forward and tackled him to the ground, using more of her enhanced strength than she normally would as he fought to free himself from her grasp. For several tense seconds, the two traded punches as they rolled across the floor. Eventually, she gained the upper hand, and had him pinned beneath her. She kept his arms locked above his head even as he bucked and writhed like a wild horse.

"I don't normally like to do this," she grunted, tightening her grip. "But for you? I'll gladly make an exception." She opened her mouth wide, venom already dripping and sunk her fangs into the small sliver of skin visible between his helmet and armored shirt.

It took less than thirty seconds for his body to go limp, but she didn't let go for several more, not trusting him to not have another trick up his sleeve. Finally, she released her hold and sat back, breathing out a sigh of relief. She looked down at his lolling head and reached for the edge of his helmet, only for her spidersense to flare up. “What kind of psycho puts something that dangerous right next to his face?” She muttered, pulling away from the helmet. That was a puzzle she’d sort out later.

A painful groan snapped her attention back to Robin, who was struggling to stay upright. “Kid! You okay?” She was at his side in seconds, gently taking his chin so she could examine the cut above his eye. She was careful of the bruising that had started to appear on the boy’s neck as she tilted his head back and forth. “That doesn’t look too deep. Head wounds just love to bleed. What’s wrong with your arm?”

Tim grimaced. “He popped it out of the socket. Wrist is on fire. Sprained, I think.” He spoke in terse short sentences laced with pain, but he was still standing and she gave him credit for that.

“Any other injuries?” Heather asked, lightly running her fingers over the swollen skin of his wrist, gently prodding for broken bones. Tim hissed and she murmured her apologies.

“Head hurts. Pistol whipped,” He reported reluctantly.

Heather knew if he was in a different frame of mind, he never would have admitted to that one. Like all the bats, he was notorious for skimping on injury reports. It used to drive her up a wall. It wasn’t like they were extra durable the way she was - they were more human than most of the league and the team combined. Sometimes, it was like they had begun to believe their own made up rumors, that the bat clan was something other. Which, as Heather well knew, they were not. They could bleed, they could break, they could even die.

Heather swallowed quickly against the deja vu as she saw a vision of a different Robin in front of her for a moment. She was thankful for her mask as she blinked quickly. “Right, let’s get you to medical. He’ll be out long enough for me to send a distress signal to the League and get someone here to help.”

“Is everyone else okay?” Tim asked, watching Heather quickly web his assailant to the floor.

“Unconscious, but otherwise fine. You were targeted specifically. The question is, why?” Heather wondered aloud, waiting until Tim’s brow scrunched in thought before quickly popping his shoulder back into place.

The boy howled, crumpling against her. She gripped him in a tight hug and ran her fingers through his hair. “Sorry, sorry, sorry! You know it goes in easier if you aren’t thinking about it. Sorry Timmy, sorry,” she hushed him gently as she felt a few tears hit her shoulder. “You did so good, Tim. I’m so proud of you.”

“Why?” Tim sniffed. “Why would you be proud of a pathetic replacement? Jason would have had that guy knocked out and cuffed in seconds. I couldn’t even hold out more than twenty minutes. He’s right - I’ll never be worthy of the title.”

“Hey!” She pulled back enough to meet Tim’s eyes even through their masks. “None of that. Do not ever think you aren’t worthy. You’re more than capable of being Robin. You are a good Robin, maybe better than even Dick was,” she admitted.

“But-”

“Are you really going to let the likes of him tell you whether you should have the mantle?” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the still knocked out assailant. “You’re smarter than that, Tim. Don’t be like me, kid. I spent too many years feeling unworthy of taking up Dad’s mantle, hiding behind the name Black Widow, and that wasn’t even mine either. I finally realized that my Dad would have wanted me to be the Scarlet Spider, and if he were still here I know he’d be proud. Jason would be proud of you Tim, do not let anyone tell you different not even yourself. You got it?”

Tim sniffed once and nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, okay,” he said, with about as much enthusiasm as he would have if she’d told him to do push ups.

Heather sighed and gave him a small smile. “We’ll work on that confidence together, yeah? Come on, let’s get you to med.”

It took very little time to get Tim set with some basic first aid. An xray showed his wrist was sprained, not broken, and only required some wrapping and an IV for fluids and light pain meds. Heather had found bruises all across the boys body that he had failed to mention. She vowed to herself to have a team meeting ASAP on honesty in all things - especially field injuries.

Once she didn’t have Tim to worry about as he fell into a light sleep, she was able to overcome the jamming signal that the assailant had used. She would have to discuss with Batman the Mountain’s security measures. Something about the attack rubbed her the wrong way, but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was.

“Mount Justice to the League, this is Scarlet Spider. The mountain was infiltrated and the team was attacked. Requesting backup,” Heather waited impatiently for someone up on the satellite to answer her, although it actually only took a few seconds.

“Batman here, status?”

“The team was knocked unconscious with some sort of gas, even Superboy. Robin was specifically singled out and attacked by an assailant currently in custody. I need you, Martian Manhunter, and possibly one other Leaguer to assist.”

There was a palpable pause. “Robin was attacked?”

Heather could hear Bruce under Batman’s terse question, the parental worry only obvious to someone who knew him well. “He’s stable. Dislocated arm, laceration above his eye, light head injury, bruising all over his body from the fight… he did good, Batman. You should be proud. I only had to intervene at the very end after I regained consciousness,” she added.

Another pause. “That’s good to know. We’ll be down shortly. I’ll bring Black Canary and one of the lanterns as well.”

“I’ll have the assailant in holding. Scarlet Spider out.”

Heather rolled her neck and sighed. She knew Batman would want a more thorough report later, but for now she had a would be assassin to move to interrogation. Normally, suspects would be taken straight to the police, or possibly the satillite if they were big enough threats for interrogation. But this was personal, and Heather would be damned if she let the League take charge of what was a team matter, and she knew Dick would agree with her.

She found the suspect right where she’d left him, cocooned to the floor. She hoped the Manhunter would be able to remove the helmet without harming them or the suspect. Well, if the suspect got a little hurt, Heather wouldn’t have minded.

She knew that was cold, she knew it wasn’t very heroic. However, all she could think of was how easily Bruce could have had to bury another son today had she not gotten there in time.

She stretched out her spidersense as far as she could, sensing for danger or ill-intent, but there was nothing. The man’s chest rose and fell evenly in drug induced sleep, muscles lax. Still, she stayed on her toes as she lifted the man over her shoulder and carried him to an interrogation room. Once he was in a metal chair, she gave him another layer of webbing to anchor him in place. He hadn’t seemed to possess super strength, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

In short order, Dinah and J’onn appeared.

“Are you alright?” Black Canary asked, eyeing their suspect with barely disguised disgust. All the Leaguers were protective of the team in one way or another, but the Robins held a special place, especially for the original members like Dinah.

Heather shrugged. “Not a scratch on me. I’m assuming Batman is with Robin?”

“Indeed,” J’onn replied. “Green Lantern is scanning the cave for clues. We’ve already checked on the others. They show no adverse affects from the gas that was used on them. It was only flooded into the private quarters and a few of the public spaces, but the gym where Robin was held no traces of the gas. You’re initial assessment appears correct. Robin was the target.”

“They knew enough to get into the mountain’s security and how the airvents flow to distribute the drug,” Black Canary said thoughtfully, leaning against the metal table that Heather had moved to the side.

“But they didn’t know the gas wouldn’t work well on me,” Scarlet Spider added. “Who could have that much knowledge about us? Who would go through all this trouble just to attack Robin here, rather than in Gotham?”

“Maybe they wanted Robin isolated from Batman,” Canary suggested.

“But why Robin?” Heather asked again, feeling at a loss.

“Perhaps we should ask him,” Manhunter suggested. “He is awake, though very good at masking it. I almost did not sense his change in brain activity.”

The assailant had the nerve to chuckle, lifting his chin from his chest. “Good as ever Manhunter. Couldn’t ever get anything passed you.”

“You act as though we have met before,” Manhunter said, his tone flat.

“Haven’t we?” The man turned towards Canary and Spider. “Black Canary, lovely as ever.”

“Who are you?” Canary demanded, making a move like she was going to remove his helmet, only for Scarlet Spider’s hands to catch her own.

“His helmet is booby trapped,” She explained when the older woman gave her a raised eyebrow. She released her grip and Canary stepped back thoughtfully. “That’s part of the reason I asked for Martian Manhunter. I thought he might be able to remove the helmet without anyone getting hurt.”

“You always did have a bleeding heart, Black Widow… or is it Scarlet Spider now? I can never keep up with your latest identity crisis,” The man said dryly, knowingly.

None of them outwardly reacted, but Heather felt her heart skip a beat. This man knew how to access the mountain, knew how to knock out even a Super, he knew she’d had a prior codename and that she’d struggled with accepting it.

There’s no way he heard me talking with Robin. I mean, he was unconscious, and I was speaking too softly to be overheard, She thought and turned to Martian Manhunter who mentally linked her with Canary so they could discuss how to handle this.

Maybe we should wait for Batman to conduct this interview, Canary thought as they watched their captive struggle in his sticky prison.

That could be a while, Scarlet Spider replied. He won’t want to leave Robin’s side.

I agree, we can handle this and inform Batman of the results later, Manhunter answered.

As if he’s not going to be watching the security monitors, Black Canary thought with a snort. Manhunter, can you phase the helmet off? I wanna see this guy’s face.

J’onn floated forward and placed his hands on either side of the red helmet.

“I wouldn’t if I were you. We’ll all go sky high,” the man said in a singsong voice that struck Heather as strangely familiar, although she couldn’t say why.

The Martian didn’t reply, merely phased the helmet off completely intact, revealing the explosives rigged into the bottom of the equipment. That wasn’t what Heather was focused on however. Tan skin, sharp jawline, black curls with a shock of white hair right at his temple, eyes hidden by a domino mask, but Heather would know that face anywhere.

“What the fuck?” Heather breathed, stumbling back a step. “Jason?!”

Dinah and J’onn both looked equally stunned. For a moment, time almost stood still, then someone pressed fast forward.

“Is it really him? Can you check, J’onn?” Dinah asked at the same moment Heather rushed forward and cupped his face in her hands.

“Take a picture, it will last longer,” Jason spat, trying to wrench himself from her grip but she wouldn’t let him get far.

Keeping one almost bruising grip on his chin, Heather used the other to pull off his mask. His eyes were a bright toxic green, not the clear blue she remembered, and for a moment she doubted. Then he spat in her face to try and get her to let go, and she felt her heart shatter and reform a thousand times in her chest. Ignoring J’onn and Dinah’s protests, she reached up and removed her own mask so they could meet eye to eye.

“You’re fucking nasty,” she said, voice warbling with tears. “I can’t believe it’s you, Jason.”

He grit his teeth, struggling to pull away. “Let me go, bitch!”

“I am never letting you go again, brat,” She countered, pulling him into a bone crushing hug. “I don’t know what happened to you, or why you’re so angry, but I am never letting go. Do you hear me? I had to say goodbye to you once - I won’t do it again.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Dinah demanded.

“He has been exposed to Lazerus waters, it has made many of his memories hazy or tainted by hatred,” J’onn said, his eyes glowing as he concentrated. “From what I can glean, he…” the Martian hesitated before continuing, “he awoke in his coffin and dug himself free, then wandered for some time in a vegetative state. His next clear memory is of a woman of Arabian descent taking him somewhere, and then being thrown into one of the pits.”

Heather pulled back from Jason and looked at Dinah in dawning horror.

“Talia!” “Ra’s Al Ghul!” They exclaimed in unison.

“No wonder your brain is all scrambled,” Heather said, turning back to Jason, who suddenly looked less angry and more confused. “If you weren’t mentally well when you got dumped in a pit, it would only get worse with exposure to Lazerus waters. The pit revives the body, but it causes extreme psychological damage if your mind isn’t completely whole.”

“How would you know?” Jason demanded.

“What did you think I was doing during those long nights when there were no cases to work on down in the cave?” Heather asked. “Once my assignments were completed, I read up on old cases. I basically read the whole databank in the batcomputer; anything I could get my hands on, including all of Bruce’s info on Lazerus waters and the League of Assasins.”

“And what right did Talia have bringing you to Nanda Parbat in that mental state instead of bringing you home?” Dinah said indignantly.

“She -” Jason was blinking sleepily, and Heather saw that J’onn was working overtime to repair his damaged memories. “She was trying to help.”

“She kidnapped you!” Dinah retorted. “She literally kidnapped a minor. She may have had good intentions, but she of all people should have known what a terrible idea it would be to put someone in your mental state into a pit.”

"I swear to god, next time I see her, I'll punch her in the face. I don't care how fond of her Bruce is or where she stands with her father, she had no right to put us all through this," Heather vowed, running her fingers through Jason's hair absently. "If she found you like that, she should have brought you home!"

"You - you didn't care that I was gone," Jason argued weakly, his eyes now closer to their original color than before.

J'onn shook his head as his eyes stopped glowing. "I don't want to push too much too fast. It may do more harm than good, but I've done my best for now to help him remember his past and curb the influence of the Pit on his memories," he explained quietly to Dinah as Heather crouched down to eye level with her long lost brother.

"Jason, I - losing you nearly broke me," she whispered fiercely, eyes shining. "That night that Bruce brought you home? I don't know how I survived it. Sometimes it still feels like a part of me died too. I'm not the only one either." She swallowed thickly. "Nothing has been the same since. Dick, Babs, Alfred and I have been a mess. And Bruce is-"

"Don't you dare talk about that asshole right now!" Jason snapped, even as his own eyes grew red and glittery.

"You can't blame only him for what happened," Heather protested, shaking her head. "It was all our fault, and mine most of all. I should have been able to stop you from leaving the cave. I should have been able to find you! I-"

"I don't blame you for my death, Heather," Jason rolled his eyes.

She frowned. "How could you not-?"

"I accept that you couldn't get there in time," he interrupted impatiently. "I accept that I made a bad decision, and I paid for it. What I can't accept is why the fuck the Joker is still alive?!"

Understanding dawned in her eyes, then regret. "I… Jason…" She turned and looked at Black Canary and Martian Manhunter. "I need you guys to give us some space for a few minutes."

The Leaguers exchanged doubtful glances.

"Please, I promise we're good here it's just-" Heather couldn't hold their gaze. "I made a promise to never discuss this, but Jason needs to hear this now, and I can't wait for permission. I'll call you back when we're done."

Dinah considered her for a moment before relenting and J'onn followed her lead. Once the interrogation room had just the two of them, Heather turned purposefully to the security cameras, arms crossed. "I know you're listening to this Bruce, and I know what I promised, but this can't wait for a family meeting. I would do this regardless of what you said anyway."

She grabbed the other chair she'd shoved to the side and put it in front of Jason's, sitting down heavily. "I'm sorry you're still ah stuck here," she motioned at her webbing keeping him in place. "But given what happened earlier with Robin, and what I have to tell you, I think it's for the best to leave it be for the moment."

Jason rolled his eyes, but he'd stopped trying to break free a while ago. "Nothing you could tell me is going to change how I feel. The Joker should be dead. Not for me, but for every other single innocent life he's ruined."

"He did," Heather said flatly.

Jason blinked. "What are you talking about? I'm not fucking stupid. First thing I checked once I came back to my senses was to look into the bastard, and I know he's in goddamn Arkham!"

"Yes, currently he is," She agreed. "But the Joker did die." She scrubbed at her face roughly, looking suddenly ten years older. "Nightwing killed him. He found him, beat the shit out of him, and I- I watched it happen and did nothing to stop it."

Jason's jaw worked furiously for a few moments, emotions warring on his features. "I don't- I don't understand-" he finally managed hoarsely.

Heather leaned forward on her elbows, her face earnest. "Taking a life changes you. It kills a part of you that you can never get back."

"How would you know?" He scoffed.

"Three people have died directly because of me," She said quietly. "My father, my classmate, and you. Those deaths broke me. They took something from me, and I've had to stitch myself back together every time it happened, but I've never been the same after. When I saw Dick's face after that piece of shit stopped breathing… I knew he was different now too, and I-" tears were pouring down her face now but she made herself continue. "I couldn't let Dick live with that guilt. I'm so sorry, but I couldn't do it, I'm not strong enough."

"What did you do?" He demanded, eyes flaring toxic green again.

"Batman had gotten there and pulled Nightwing off the body, and I just- instinct just took over. I did CPR," she sobbed, gripping her bowed head, "and I hated myself every second of it, but I couldn't bear seeing Dick look like that."

[smidgeart]

SWINGTEMBER

Finally finished with this art challenge! It was so much fun to work on, and I loved drawing Scarlet!

I’ll still be doing more ATSV art and my sona in the future!

[thelittlestled]

on my next gen oc x canon bullshit again ❤️

decided to bite the bullet and redesign everyone, as well as settle on designs for the future adults and give the mc2 gang my own little design twist. also aged all the kids up a bit. so long, high school students, hellooooo college students! all the past teens are now anywhere between 18-22, for the most part!

the other hybrid kids are still a wip, so i did the royal polycule just to make my load a tiny bit lighter, while still making progress hehe!

if anyone wants to ask me questions, please do, i will go insane /pos

[green-ville]

Unravel

TW: Violence. G*nfire. G*n related de@th.

             Synopsis: Miguel O’Hara thought she was an anomaly. An accident. A mistake. That she shouldn’t exist. Really, it was his fault for opening up the other worlds of possibilities for her. It was his actions that showed her the multiverse. The endless possibilities at the turn of a watch.

           She may not have had the same story, but she was not Spiderman. She had said it since day one. Spiderman is dead, and his enemies now get her instead.

           She was Recluse. She would not let Spiderman’s death go unavenged.

 Chapter 1:

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

             The city walked below. Hues of teal green and ochre blended together to illuminate the night life. The party goers, the party leavers, the quiet couples having dinner, the friend groups that met up once in a blue moon. The night shift rushing to work.

           The sky was clouded over. It was always dark now, even during the day. Surely that was a sign of the times.

           Down below, a hooded figure ran. A helpless victim screamed over a lost possession.

           Several blocks away, one drivers mistake led to a car pile-up. Ambulances blared towards the scene. Blue and red mixed in with the teal and ochre, sirens singing their cry.

           A different street. A gunshot rang out.

           Always something.

           The city had fallen, the residents succumbing to their intrusive thoughts.

           What if I killed this man? No one was going to stop me. Not with Kingpin ruling.

           As long as it’s not Kingpins bank, he won’t care if I rob this one.

           This old lady doesn’t have long to live anyway. I need the money more than her.

           There’s nothing left to live for. If I crash at this speed, I’ll have peace right away.

           That was the problem with intrusive thoughts. They were supposed to stay intrusive. When they became extrusive. . .

           A figure swept down from above.

           The hooded criminal running with stolen goods fell to the ground, ankles wrapped up in spider webs. He knocked himself out falling, his landing hard, his forehead smacking concrete.

           Pedestrians looked up and found no one.

           A different street.

           The pile up. Five cars. A figure landed on the top car with the sound of a gentle thud. Gas trickled from that car all the way down. The smell of it almost overpowered the stench of failure and crime. Not all the way.

           The figure crouched down and ripped off the car door, throwing it to the side. It skidded on the sidewalk, missing a pedestrian, but centimeters from cutting them with its sharp metal. The figure reached down, yanked a person out. With their left hand they flicked their wrist to a nearby building. A spiderweb shot out at the action and splattered on a building wall, and they connected the opposite end to the person, letting the web yank them away.

           They kicked the top car down, it rolled onto the concrete, crunching more and more on the journey. It settled as two more people were swinging to the sidelines, a spider web taking them to safety.

           Six people in total rescued, two children. Those were the living. The causer of the accident was dead. The first person to hit them was dead. They were set to the side, a safe distance away that when the gasoline that had already leaked hit the small engine fire and everything blew up, they weren’t harmed any further.

           The figure vanished with that ball of fire and the next time they landed it was in front of the figure that had shot the gun. The gunman didn’t wear a mask, didn’t conceal his identity by any means, and he certainly did not run in panic.

           No. His father would get him out of anything he did.

           When the figure dropped in front of him, he stopped.

           He grinned. “Busy night, Spiderman?”

           The figure raised a gun and shot him point black. His head knocked back first. His arms raising up as the momentum drove him back. He hit the ground with a thud, eyes shut.

           “Spiderman is dead,” the figure said. Deep voice. Emotionless. Flat. “You get me. As will your father, Richard Fisk.”

           The figure re-holstered the gun. A piece of paper appeared in their hand and they tossed it as they shot into the sky, web sweeping them away. The piece of paper floated back and forth, back and forth. . .it set gently on the dead man’s chest.

           It read: To Mr. Pin. Do I have your attention now?

 ~

           “That spider fiend finally disappears and crime rages. I’ll admit when I’m wrong, maybe the maniac did some good. But this lunatic?” James Jonah Jameson shouted at the camera. “Killing off Kingpin’s biggest allies and sending him into a rage? Killing off his son in the middle of a street, with a gun no less, like a common criminal? That’s what they are! They’re a criminal! A menace to society that doesn’t need any more menacing!”

           The figure stared at the large billboard that played the news. They stood on the edge of a building, close enough where a sane person would immediately lose their balance and fall. They were as still as the dead.

           The wind breezed past lightly, seeping around their uniform.

           Their uniform. Yes. It was what they called it. Others called it a costume. A mask to hide behind. They weren’t wrong with that one, it was a mask. She just wasn’t hiding.

           Her uniform bore the resemblance to Spiderman’s in design and detail, but the color was all black. Her cape was purple, the same shade and shape as the Prowlers cape. Almost the exact same thing. . .The mask was eerily similar to what the Vulture had worn. Smaller, no doubt. The differences subtle. . .but the resemblance was uncanny.

           Her arms spread out, a hug to the world. Her head raised to the dark sky, face hidden behind the stolen mask and stolen hooded cape. She tilted forward slowly, breaching the point where sane, healthy people began to spiral, windmill their arms, scream – she kicked off the last second, and the push was enough to have her diving away from the building.

           The wind soared past, blowing her hood back, but her mask remained in place. Revealing green eyes. Revealing black hair tightly braided back.

           A web shot out from her wrist, latching onto the part of the ceiling she kicked off from. It pulled on her and she was no longer going away from the building, but towards it again,

           Her reflection in the windows grew larger. She saw her target. The gunfire from the hired goons started. Her thumb pressed a concealed clicker and the windows blew as her distraction, a rain of glass blowing in and out.

           She detached from her web, soared through the fire and smoke and glass, and webs shot in every direction. Two men were yanked together, their collision would knock them out. One guard had their gun pulled away and someone else, in an attempt to shoot her, shot them instead. She shot the shooter back.

           One foot landed on the large desk of the man she sought. Her other foot slammed into the large man’s shoulder, shoving him back into the wall. It wasn’t a hard landing, she was perfectly still, entirely in control.

           She held a gun to his head.

           “If it isn’t the itsy bitsy spider.” The Kingpin greeted, staring at her, not the barrel to his forehead. “What can I do for you?”

           It was the confidence that she wasn’t going to shoot. That he could make her an offer so amazing that she put the gun away and fell under his service. It was cockiness that he could talk his way out of anything, or at least strike enough fear into them that they crumbled and he could flip the tables.

           That didn’t happen.

           The bang rang out and his mass tilted back. He hit the wall, there was a narrow splatter of crimson on the rich wooden walls.

           The gun tucked away into her chest holster, hidden beneath the stolen cape.

           “I’m taking over now,” she promised, “and I will wash away everything you did.”

 ~

           “Miguel.” The voice buzzed through the air, emitting from the watch he wore around his wrist.

           He unfolded his arms and the short hologram appeared, displaying one of their many Spiderman allies. If he remembered correctly, this one was on Earth 14-324 for assessment.

           “Report?”

           The man cleared his throat. “We have a situation, requesting back up.”

           “What’s the situation?”

           “Well, uh. . .the Spiderman of Earth 14-324 is dead. There’s someone in charge, and from what I know of, they’ve already killed Kingpin, Vulture, Venom, and Prowler. They’re ruling the city as Captain of the police force.”

           What?

           “What do you know about them?”

           “They’re new, only been around a few months. Spiderman died just before – “

           “How?”

           “Don’t know. There’s rumor he’s only missing, not dead, but I found the grave.”

           “And this is when this new person came about?”

           “Appears to be that way. The news reports start talking about them after they stop talking about Spiderman, and it’s all the same. Talking about who they’ve taken down. Three months back they became Police Captain.”

           “What do you know about them? Identity? Powers? We only deal with Spidermen.”

           “But, they are. I’ve seen them in action. Spiderwebs. Spideysense. The strength and agility. Only they don’t go by Spiderman, they go by Recluse.”

           Miguel rolled his eyes. “I’ll send in Gwen to get into the force and act as our inside man. Find out what you can about who they actually are, name, residence, family. We need to know it all.”

           “Yes sir.”

           The hologram shrunk into nonexistence and Miguel turned back to his monitors. His gaze narrowed.

           “Pull up Earth 14-432,” he ordered. “And show me the Recluse.”

           An image pulled up right away and the hairs on his arms raised at the newspaper image. He got his first good luck at the masked figure and he learned a lot right away.

           The Prowlers hood hid their identity, clouding them in darkness. What part of their face wasn’t shrouded was hid behind Vulture’s respirator. It was a close picture, like they had posed. Staring down the camera, wanting the world to know who they were.

           Miguel studied the screen, speaking as if someone was nearby. “Lyla, alert Gwen Stacey to rendezvous with Spiderman on Earth 14-432 for observation and report of the figure named Recluse. High priority.”

           A figure popped into existence on top the computer screen, phone in her hands. “You sound so official. You really need to learn to relax more.”

           “I’d relax more if I knew how this anomaly came to be, and how much of a threat they pose,” Miguel answered, raising his hand, palm to the screens, and beginning to swipe through the articles.

           And there were many articles.

[marvels-bitch-boy]

The Scarlet Spiders:

Word Count: 2.9k

A/N: I was gonna wait until I had the 10th chapter finished but I couldn't wait to give you guys more

Masterlist , Chapter 4: Something Amiss

Chapter 3: Cracks In A Web

Just to end everyone's overwhelming concern...-just pretend to be- I made it back to the city unscathed. I refuse to go back to Feast. I did however find some access to a laptop... hack some stuff and was able to confirm a transfer spot into the Queens High School for the Sciences, had to at least get my spot back.

- - -

Walking into a school office he once knew made Degan feel empty. He didn't have any connections he once had, he was alone in a place that he felt was his second home. Sitting in a chair outside a principal's office he'd never met before. Staring at kids who wore uniforms he'd never even seen before. His knee bounced up and down as though it was a perpetual motion machine. One of the shortest questions Degan has heard in his life snapped him out of his head. "Mr King?" his head spun towards the voice and he scanned the man's face as fast as he could and produced a smile. "Sir, it's nice to meet you Mr Morita" he held out his hand for the man. This took the man aback for a moment before he produced a smile of his own and took the hand, opening the door even wider for the boy to enter. "Mr King, your record so far looks impeccable." he closes the file in front of him and looks at the boy curiously "I do have to ask why you suddenly decided to transfer?"

Taking in a large breath he racked his mind, thinking over the following days "I realized I wasn't being challenged enough at my last school, science is my passion and I want to make sure I'm at the best place for it" giving a nonchalant smile he turns his head towards the window that looks out at the hallway with students walking around. "It already feels like I belong here" Principal Morita gives him a warm smile before getting up and making his way to the door. "Well, I'm glad." the door opens and a smiling face greets Degan from the doorway "Hopefully you'll feel even better once you get a tour," gesturing to the girl smiling "this is Chrissy, one of our welcome members on the student council".

"Hi! You must be Degan!" she waves and he feels his eyes widen and brows raise. This was not something he expected. "You don't have a uniform yet, but that's the first stop." Degan opens his mouth to object but is quickly shut down by the bright girl shining her smile at him "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll look great" getting up he hesitantly followed the girl.

- - -

Shit Shit Shit. Not only do I now need a uniform but I also have to get a tour and talk to someone... something I hate. She kept smiling and waving to people. So much friendliness.

- - -

Stepping out of the changing room he begrudgingly put on the navy blue blazer. Catching his reflection he felt like he was seeing a stranger, his wavy hair had begun to straighten itself, and his eyes felt sunken in more than they usually did. He tugged on the collar and forced a smile once his tour guide turned to him. She squealed and his face went from uncomfortable to eyes wide in fear. "You look perfect. Like actually perfect" She stood up and opened the door out into the hallway and beckoned him to join. "C'mon, You have Wells for your first class." walking to the door in the most uncomfortable shoes possible, in a tie that feels more constricting than any time he's been choked by Scorpion. Stepping into a hallway he's walked a million times felt like amnesia, the colour of the lockers was the same, and the student's faces passed by unlike any he's seen before. As he walked he felt a spidey sense go off in the smallest of proportions he thought it was simply a phone vibration. Taking one step forward he then collided with a flurry of dirty blonde hair that almost fell backwards. Catching her by her arm he just stared at her and helped get her back up to her feet. Not saying a word and just avoiding her gaze he continued on with his tour. Scurrying away he could only hear a small "thanks" as her voice left his ears.

"Here's your locker, you can put your clothes in for after school" focusing back on the face of the girl in front of him, he noticed more of her appearance. She had fluffy brown hair that matched that of cocoa, and dimples that flashed every time she spoke and smiled... so they seemed to appear often.

"Thanks" shoving the pile he had tucked into his side now into the large metal locker. Turning around he found the girl with dirty blonde hair eyeing him up like a prize at a county fair. She had a smile on her that was skewed to one side, her eyes were green and they held a certain glint to them. Degans eyes followed up and down as she surveyed him too, seemingly understanding what was happening as they kept the focus on each other. "Okay, well I'll save you a seat...in room 9" his attention was now on the brown eyes that followed the smile and dimples as they turned and walked away. Looking back at the blonde, he found her to be making her way towards him. The smile on her lips didn't change at all and the glint in her eyes only seemed to get brighter.

"Where did you drop in from?" her voice was one that screamed mischief from a rooftop. Degan only cocked a brow and turned back to his locker. she leaned against the lockers next to him and stared intently into his eyes. "C'mon, let me thank my hero somehow"

"I'm okay, I'd rather you pretend I don't exist" closing his locker and walking away he could feel her eyes tied to him as he walked.

Keeping his head down he didn't even need to ask for directions on the way to his first class, he'd already memorized the layout on his first day... his other first day.

His head perked up for only a moment when a voice pierced his ears. He knew who it belonged to from before he even saw the back of her head. Before he saw her giant curls of chestnut hair. Before he saw her turn around and face him with a smile that he had missed for ages. It was the smile that he was greeted with after almost every patrol, the smile that he found himself wanting to be near every day after resenting it for over a year. A small smile perched at the corner of his lips before this reality came crashing down on his brain as it seemed to always do. "Pete!" she called out. Fuck. His head fell and his lips almost crumbled off his face onto the linoleum floor beneath his feet that propelled him forward. He continued until he almost bumped into the blonde from earlier. She caught his hand as she manoeuvred around him. How is she doing this? They landed in a position that interlocked their hands and ended with him leaning against a set of lockers that decked out the hallway. "Look who it is...," her voice purred in his ears, she looked down at his hand with that mischievous glint and gave it a small squeeze "you sure you want me to pretend you don't exist?" pairing her eyes with a smirk it was almost difficult for him to break away from her. Almost.

Tearing his hand from hers he had a thought 'What if MJ saw?'. That was before he forced himself to remember the situation, she would never see. She would never see him here. She no longer thought of him. No longer searched a crowd for his face, never searched the police scanners to hear if he was alright, never texted him about a new recipe for date nights, and never was a part of her world. He found his eyes drifting away from the blonde in front of him back to the sandy brown and matching curly hair girl who he just so happened to also catch her eye. "No, no lover boy, that's Parker's girl... more like Parker's her boy actually. Either way, she's off limits..." Using one of her fingers from her perfectly manicured set to shift his gaze back on her with the smile she gave him when they first locked eyes. "Me on the other hand...I'm Felicia," taking his hand once again she practically dragged him off and through the door, he was just heading towards. "You'll be next to me" she took a seat that wasn't too far away from the front to not appear like she wasn't paying attention, but not too close as to draw too much attention to herself. She motioned for the seat next to her but instead, he rolled his eyes and moved to the seat directly in front of her. If he was going to last here without MJ he would need someone assertive but he also wasn't going to let her boss him around like he was her toy.

A few seconds later Chrissy walked in with a binder that had papers sticking out of it like a mad scientist had been the previous owner. Taking notice of Degan she huffed and picked up all the items that had been organized on the desk 3 rows over and sheepishly moved them to be next to him. "I told you I'd save you a seat..." she seemed rather embarrassed and blue. The sound of a small laugh coming from behind him caused Degan to shoot a rather testy look at Felicia. He turned back to the bright-eyed girl who seemed to be trying her best to make him comfortable and welcomed -in her mind, he'd never faced the horrors of a new york magnet school...- he softened his eyes and gave her an apologetic smile "I'm sorry, this bobcat seemed to be gunning for me and pulled me here," he snuck a glance at the blonde and then back at dimples that now seemed to appear with a grateful smile "Don't worry, she only looks like a bobcat... inside she's a little tabby" Felicia didn't have to say anything but the roll of her eyes themselves was enough.

During this interaction, other students had been slowly trickling into the room. Degan kept his head only slightly up as he waited for class to start and his eyes caught the same hair from the hallway, the same smile and eyes that used to be so familiar. She took a seat near the back, and the boy who she was smiling at in the hallway took the seat in front of her. She'd never let him do that, he'd always sit next to her or behind her.

- - -

What the fuck, who is this Felicia girl? Why the hell is she so interested in me and forcing me to be her friend? Also, my teacher already gave me a giant packet of work to do... not that I can't do it but it's not science, it's god damn AP World History. I'm great at it but I hate doing the work... Anyway now though I have a second class of the day and that is mathematics -specifically calculus. I can sit in the back and figure out the whole reason I'm here, or even how I got here. Finally peace.

- - -

The fluffy brown hair appeared in his peripheral vision and placed itself right next to our spider. Keeping to himself Degan had chosen a seat all the way in the back, he knew it would put him at risk of losing any class participation but he could ace this class in his sleep. He wasn't worried. As the sound of his music beats on in his head, he began to think about the words that Bruce had said

"I'm sorry to say this but we currently have no way of getting you home. The only theory right now is to wait for another one of those multiversal sinkholes... to well open up again. I'm sorry"

"No way of getting you home."

The greatest mind he's ever known doesn't even think he can get home. The man who taught him pretty much everything he knew was left with no answers. This whole experience was starting to feel like some kind of cosmic joke on him. He was finally happy with MJ, they were talking about colleges, possibly even a full-time Avengers spot. But that was all gone now. The chances of them coming back were almost slim to none. The music in his head began to fade as he thought for longer. It seemed to mould into his thoughts.

"You have lunch?" Degan felt his consciousness fling back into his body like a slingshot. Looking at the brown-haired girl with confusion he shook his head no. "you can have some of mine, we can sit together" he seemed to be deliberating this option in his head and as Chrissy waited for a response she brought out her packed lunch and set it on the table. "Doesn't have to be in public, just here if you want?" This made a small smile appear on degans face for the first time since getting here, the other smiles were all for appearance, this one was as real as a soldier trapped in time. The two of them sat there for a moment and she began to open the bag and spill the contents across the small desk. There was a sandwich cut in half, a bag of chips, Oreos, and two granola bars. She handed Degan one-half of the paper bag and placed exactly half of the meal on it. Neither one of them had more or less than the other.

"So, tell me about yourself. What do you do for fun?" she took a bite of her sandwich and stared at him with interest. He felt like he was being interviewed for one of the lamest talk shows. "I like to watch movies, see art, and sometimes I like to cook," he hesitantly took a bite of his own food "Not really a lot to talk about". He could tell by the look on her face that it was indeed a lot to talk about. "Excuse me! You can cook and you like art?" he nodded at her question "Would you cook for me someday?" he let out a small chuckle at her request.

"No -sorry I don't cook for other people..." he thought of the nights he'd spend hours perfecting the recipes that MJ would send him, sometimes they tasted awful but that was part of the fun of it. "What about you? What do you do for fun?" shifting the conversation away from himself he decided to get to know his new friend. Her eyes lit up when he asked her and she had to straighten her posture before speaking "I love to just lay on the floor sometimes, staring at the ceiling," it was obvious by how she was answering that she doesn't get asked this a lot "it helps me think... -especially when I get stuck on homework".

Degan didn't mind listening to her, he didn't mind if she was the only one who talked. He hated talking. Except when he was patrolling, that's when he was his happiest. Swinging around the city his mind was free, and he gets to think. It's his variation of laying on the floor. He understood what it meant for her, especially finally having someone to talk to about it. So he let her. She ended up talking for the rest of lunch. When the bell rang she quickly finished her food and said her byes. Degan stood and gathered his bag, leaving the room he walked down the hall and felt a pair of eyes stuck on him. Looking around he couldn't find the eyes until he made a complete one-eighty and his eyes landed on a pair of brown eyes that he once recognized but still carry a warmth that will forever hold a place in his heart. Seeing her, he found himself stuck in place unable to move his heart began to speed up, and the pace that his mind reached felt inhuman. She wasn't his and she had never been his here, she averted her eyes from him and went back to talking to the shorter boy in front of her. Degans eyes focused now on the boy, taking in his stature and the way he comfortably talked to the girl in front of him. He seemed like a friend.

- - -

Maybe if I had been born in this universe he would be my friend... Maybe I'd actually have friends. To be honest, MJ was one of my only friends. I had one other though... his name was -well I think you know his name, currently, he goes by "Nova". Sometimes he's a prick and can't tell when someone hasn't spoken in hours because he's too busy talking about food or some kind of sport. Now that I think about it... he's a lot like Chrissy but less sweet and she can't blow up a whole RV by accident on the annual road trip... I AM STILL NOT OVER THAT!!

-sorry. Too emotional but I can't help it. I don't exist in this universe... honestly what if I don't exist in any other one but my own. I hope I do... I hope I'm different in them. I hope that she's with me, I hope that I'm not alone.

[denniskdraws]

Some Spider-Man (re)designs from the sketchbook

[aza-writes]

I’m making a taglist!!

Comment the emoji to be tagged the fics you want

🩸: Blood Red Fic

😈: Devil of Hell’s Kitchen

🪄: what in Merlin’s name is a scarlet witch

🦸‍♀️: MCU oneshots

🧚‍♀️: HP oneshots

🎤: Harry styles one shots and series

[spacesquidlings]

The Defining of Mirth and Mischief; or, Xander Not Now (Although There is Rarely an Appropriate Moment)

Note: Hiya!!!! This is another piece of original fiction featuring my OCs Scarlet and Xander!!!! This is post epilogue of my main story so it’s mostly them just messing around and acclimatizing to a mostly civilian life

Featuring: My OCs Scarlet and Xander

Warnings: Some suggestive content, but nothing overt

Words: 10970

***********************************************

“Xander, not now.”

Xander Duval-Rogers, CEO of Duval industries, head developer of the tech branch of his own company, knight of the imperial starfall army, right hand of the Lightborn herself, hated hearing those words.

Scarlet had been busy all morning, handling work details and coordinating with Corrina and Iris who were halfway across the globe, handling a monster that had emerged from the ocean like something out of a bad movie. And then she had been handling the kids, one twin balanced on each side of her hip as she’d danced with them to soothe them after a shared nightmare that had left them in tears.

She was hunched over her piano now, her headphones handling from her neck as she frowned at sheet music propped in front of her, a pink gel pen clenched between her teeth.

Xander wanted a hug, wanted to cuddle with his wife after spending the entire morning and early afternoon without her.

“Did you hear that, girls?” He asked the twins, staring at twin sets of dark blue eyes watching him curiously. “Your mama doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

Scarlet scoffed, straightening as she turned around. “Xander, that is not what I meant-”

“Oh well, I suppose that’s it for me,” he whined, pouting a little as he settled the girls onto the soft blanket he’d spread out on the floor for their regularly scheduled tummy time.

They fussed, and he couldn’t help laughing as he set out a few toys for them. “I know, I know, there are more important things to worry about.”

“Alexandre.”

He ignored the warning in her voice, instead touching his hand to his bad shoulder, where he’d been shot years ago. It wasn’t bothering him today, but a little teasing never hurt.

He didn’t need to say anything now, Scarlet rushing from her spot on the piano bench and throwing herself into his arms.

“You are the worst,” she ground out, even as she buried her face against his neck.

Xander laughed, squeezing her tight. “I think this is just the medicine I need.”

“I was working on something,” Scarlet continued to whine, wiggling in his arms.

Xander held her tighter, heaving a sigh. “Just a little longer? My arm is stiff from holding the girls, and you know it never healed properly-”

Scarlet heaved a long, exhausted sigh, but remained nestled in his arms. He scattered kisses over her face and neck, snickering when she squeaked as he found the ticklish spots on her throat.

“Just a little longer,” he whined against her hair. He stroked her side, readjusting so he could hold her in his lap better. “I just need to hold you for a little longer.”

Scarlet rolled her eyes, but he felt her smile against his jaw as she brushed her lips against his skin.

“You’re lucky you’re pretty, Xander,” she murmured, pinching his side as she pulled back, grinning wider now.

“I’m glad you noticed,” he teased, pinching back.

“That was not the response I was looking for,” she whined, peeling away from him.

“But I am pretty,” he said, laughing as he drew her back against him. “So why would I lie?”

She grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like his full name, but he chose to ignore it, cuddling her closer while he could.

Harmony and Melody, their twin daughters, watched him curiously with wide eyes and Xander pressed a finger to his lips, hushing them. “This is my time with mama. I need to get my cuddles while I can.”

“Xander, I sleep with you every night!”

He heaved a sigh, nuzzling his face against her neck until she shrieked with laughter. “That doesn’t count.”

“Yes it does!”

“It doesn’t count when you’re asleep,” he whined, dropping his head lower, smiling to himself as he pressed his head into the valley between her breasts.

Scarlet smacked him, crawling free from his arms. “Alright, that’s enough.”

“But sunbeam-” He tried to reach for her once more, pouting as she got to her feet.

“You promised you’d do tummy time with the girls,” Scarlet cried, crossing her arms over her chest, cheeks flushed the pink of a newly bloomed rose.

Xander grinned, smug satisfaction warm in his chest. He could make that pink a burning red that rivalled her name.

“Scarlet,” he drawled, stretching his legs out in front of him, leaning back on his hands.

He would have said more, would have surely managed to make her melt into his arms. But Scarlet was still in control of her senses, and she quickly pinched his cheek, batting his hands away when he tried to grab her once again.

“It’s tummy time,” she ground out through her teeth. “The girls need it!”

“But once we’re done-”

She pulled on his cheek harder and he relented, holding his hands palm up as he laughed. “You win, you win.”

Satisfied, Scarlet released him. She paused for a moment, crouching down to bring one of the toys closer to Harmony, who was struggling to grasp it with her chubby baby hands.

“You girls are so good,” she cooed, running a hand through their downy hair. “Nothing like your father.”

Xander laughed again, the sound reverberating through the room. And despite herself, Scarlet laughed too.

***

Cooking oil, diced onions, minced garlic, left to sizzle on the frying pan as Xander began slicing up the beef. It would just be him, Scarlet, and the twins for the day, so he figured he would get rid of some of the leftovers still in the fridge and make something nice and healthy for Scarlet.

Corrina and Iris wouldn’t be back for a few weeks, he had no idea where Wes was, Babs and Ryu and Flora were still away working on allocating the imperial powers to the elected council in Starfall, and he was pretty sure Marigold wouldn’t be home until the next day.

Which meant he didn’t have to listen to a single person whine if he made something they didn’t immediately want.

It was bliss.

He laid the beef into the pan, grinning as he listened to the sizzle of meat before he turned away to wash his hands. It wasn’t going to be anything fancy, but he hoped it would be something Scarlet would enjoy now that she’d mostly regained her appetite.

He heard footsteps upstairs, the creak of a door closing. Then the telltale sound of Scarlet creeping down the stairs as delicately as she could.

“Are you okay?” Xander asked, noting the bags under her eyes as she shuffled into the kitchen.

She ran a hand through her messy hair, all in tangles no doubt from the twins gripping it as they desperately tried not to go down for their naps.

“I am…” She trailed off, collapsing into a chair. “I am alive.”

“I’ll put them to bed tonight,” he said, pushing the beef around the pan, ensuring it would be fully cooked.

“Do we have enough milk?” She asked, her eyes falling closed, head drooping.

“I can just use formula.”

She winced, opening her eyes once again. “I know, I know. But they don’t like it as much.”

He shrugged, covering the pan to stop the steam from escaping before sinking into the chair next to her.

“It will be okay,” he promised, squeezing her hand. “I’ll just come up with something that will keep their attention on that instead of what’s in their bottles.”

“You could play music, or an audiobook,” Scarlet suggested, stretching her arms out across the surface of the table. “They seem to be really into The Cruel Prince lately.”

Xander snorted, running a hand through his hair. “I’ll just dress up as a faerie.”

“I don’t think there’s any spirit halloweens open in the middle of the winter,” Scarlet teased, taking his hand and twining her fingers with his.

He smirked, lifting her hand to press a kiss to her knuckles, humming as he let his lips linger there for a long moment. Scarlet’s face turned red in an instant, catching fire as quickly as dry kindling. He could feel the warmth in her hand, too, as a soft golden glow began to spill from her skin.

“I’ll just borrow some of your glitter and some fake elf ears,” he said, lowering her hand, although he did not release it.

“Xander, I think you’ll need more than that,” she said, arching a brow. “They’re only a few months old, I don’t think they’ll understand it.”

He kissed her hand again, dragging his teeth across her skin, and Scarlet’s arguments quickly melted away.

“Xander,” her voice held a note of warning in it, but he ignored it, choosing to grin wider instead, hoping to dazzle her contention away.

“Just trust me, sunbeam,” he said, flicking his eyes up to meet hers, even as his head remained lowered, his lips brushing against her skin.

He loved the colour that bloomed across her skin. He would surely have to buy flowers in a similar shade. Crimson roses and tulips, scarlet chrysanthemums and amaryllis. Foxglove too, if he could find some red blooms, and peonies, although they were never the brilliant red of her cheeks.

But Scarlet loved peonies, and Xander would be remiss if he bought her a bouquet that did not contain her favourite flowers.

She wrinkled her nose, pretending like she wasn’t flustered in the slightest, despite the blush in her cheeks saying otherwise. “Alright.” She shifted, the lines in her face fading away as her mouth turned down. “I just feel a little tired.”

Xander squeezed her hand before standing, returning to the food that required his attention. “Why don’t you rest for a little?” He asked over his shoulder, waving steam away as he checked on the meat.

“There’s too much to do, if I nap I’ll lose all that time,” she argued, slumping in her seat.

“Sunbeam, what is there to do?” Xander asked, covering the food once again.

“Picking up toys, starting the laundry, taking out the diaper bin, doing the dishes…” She trailed off, sighing as she banged her head against the table. “Not to mention the things that I want to do. Just for me.”

Xander knelt on the ground beside her, taking her hands in his. “I am more than capable of cleaning up and doing laundry. And if it’s that overwhelming I can hire someone to come in and clean. I’ve been considering bringing someone in anyways.” He narrowed his eyes, throwing a furtive look around the kitchen. “Iris and Wes always seem to leave the worst messes behind.”

Scarlet snorted, squeezing his hands in kind. “It’s the remains of their pranks.”

“Well they really need to stop pulling pranks because it’s freaking the girls out.”

Another laugh, followed by a yawn, Scarlet’s brow furrowing, her nose scrunching up. It was cute, and Xander felt the overwhelming urge to squeeze her against his chest and never let her go.

She huffed a sigh when the yawn had finally released her from its grip. “Sorry.”

“Lie down,” he urged, standing. “You need rest.”

“But what about you?”

He drew her to her feet. “I am perfectly capable of taking care of the house for a while. And I can wake you when lunch is done.”

She opened her mouth to argue more, but Xander pressed one hand to his bad shoulder, patting it as though it ached.

Sometimes it did ache, although Xander would never admit to those times. He didn’t want to worry her, not really. Just exploit his old injury a little.

Scarlet’s mouth shut, her nose wrinkling once again.

“Go lie down,” he insisted, rubbing his shoulder again.

“You’re incorrigible, you know that, right?”

Xander only laughed, taking her hand to guide her through the house, and up the stairs to their room. “I don’t plan on changing.”

Scarlet’s answering smile was soft, some of her chagrin washing away like sand beneath the ocean tides. “I hope you never do.”

He grinned, seizing the perfect teasing opportunity as he took both her hands, spinning her around and around. Scarlet struggled to stifle her laughter, resulting in a stream of snorts escaping from her nose and her pursed lips that made Xander’s heart stutter.

She’d been terrifying and wondrous and utterly adorable from the first day he’d met her. And after all the years he had known her, for much more than half his life now, still she remained as terrifying and wondrous and absolutely, incredibly adorable. Perhaps more than she had been when they were small, growing more wonderful with every passing day.

He drew her towards him, her face covered in pink and red splotches as she continued to hold in her laughter.

“So you admit that you adore me,” he teased, squeezing her hands.

She rolled her eyes. “Xander, I never said I didn’t adore you-”

“You think I’m wonderful, your most cherished person,” he continued, nuzzling his nose against her cheek.

She laughed, wiggling her hands from his grip and pushing against his chest. “Xander, I thought you wanted me to sleep-”

She never got the chance to finish her sentence as he dipped his head lower, grazing his teeth against her throat as he spoke. “Your most beloved, most precious person.”

His voice was little more than a whisper against her skin, and he made sure to lower her voice, to let it sink into her bones and her marrow, to reverberate in her veins.

Scarlet snorted again, trying to squirm free from his hold. But he had his arms around her waist already, holding her close.

“Right?”

“Xander!”

She squealed, burying her face against his hair as she tried to muffle the sound of her laughter as Xander continued to nip at her throat.

“Right?” He tried again, sliding his hands up her sides, grazing the spots he knew were most ticklish.

“Okay, okay!” She shrieked, wiggling helplessly. “You’re right!”

He continued nipping at her skin, grazing his tongue over the bites. “What am I right about?”

“You’re my most beloved and precious person! I adore you!”

He grinned victoriously, lifting his head to press a chaste kiss to her cheek. “I knew it.”

Scarlet scoffed, pinching his side until he yelped. “Alexandre, you are simply horrible.”

He shrugged, positively beaming with satisfaction now. “But you love me, you adore me.”

She groaned, shoving his chest. “Weren’t you the one that wanted me to take a nap?”

He nodded as sagely as he could with the goofy smile that was on his face. “I am. I do want you to take a nap, sunbeam.”

She jabbed a finger at the door, but the half-moon smile on her lips belied any true ire. “Then get out!”

Xander did not, in fact, get out. Not right away, anyways. He wasn’t so clueless as to believe that Scarlet would immediately lie down were he to leave her to her own devices.

So instead he made sure she laid down, made sure she was tucked into bed with her favourite blankets so she was less likely to get up, made sure her favourite plushies were arranged around her for maximum comfort. He even made sure to play an audiobook on low volume, one of her favourite books that he knew she’s been talking about rereading for a while now.

“There,” he said at last, finally satisfied with his work. “Now rest, okay? I’ll wake you up in a little bit.”

Scarlet scowled, but Xander hadn’t even made it to the door before he saw her eyes falling closed, too heavy to keep open for a moment longer.

***

Scarlet was a lot of things. Had been called a lot of things. Had been told she was a lot of things. A lot of horrible things, a lot of curious things, and a fair share of good and wonderful things, too.

But one thing she had not expected to be was so easily and knowingly manipulated, and by Xander no less.

No, perhaps that was wrong. Because it was not a huge stretch of the imagination to see Xander manipulating her and succeeding.

Perhaps Scarlet was just annoyed that she was being manipulated. By Xander. Her best friend. Her husband. The one who alleged that he adored her and loved her.

And yet here he was, teasing her and manipulating her while they were out for the day.

It should have been a relaxing day. She had been promised a relaxing day.

Wandering around through the shops that had been opening once more downtown. Getting something nice and warm to drink to banish the chill that slipped beneath their jackets and clung to their bones. Maybe the bookstore, maybe the new handmade candle shop that had just opened.

Then they would go to the movie theatre and catch one of the fun new films that had recently been released. And afterwards they would get something to eat, at a restaurant that Xander refused to disclose, although Scarlet had a sneaking suspicion she knew exactly the one.

It wasn’t a particularly busy day, or jam packed with many activities or plans, but she had still been looking forward to it nonetheless.

Until she’d stepped outside the house, anyways.

She had to be dragged down the front walkway, neck aching from how she was struggling to watch the sight of Harmony and Melody growing smaller with every step.

They would be okay. They were fine, they were safe. They were being watched by Babs and Ryu and Marigold. Wes had even made an appearance, crawling in through a window covered in dirt, terrifying Marigold while she’d been preparing a bottle for Harmony.

Their friends would watch over the girls, taking turns holding them and playing with them and rocking them while they slept.

And yet Scarlet couldn’t shake the terrible feeling of shame, or the overwhelming urge to run back inside and scoop the babies out of her friends’ arms.

She hadn’t thought herself such a worrier, either. But she supposed she was introduced to a new aspect of herself everyday.

It had been unbearable, although she couldn’t put her finger on why.

Maybe because she hadn’t really gone out anywhere since the girls had been born, or maybe because when she had she’d had them in tow. Usually one of them was settled into the sling carrier she sometimes tucked them into, curled up against her chest safe and warm.

It was more comforting for her to carry the babies against her chest. They had tried a stroller once, about a month after the girls had been born and Scarlet had felt restless from staying in bed for so long.

They had only planned to walk by the ocean, so she could feel the ocean-spray against her cheeks and breathe in the salt and the brine. So she could sink her toes in the sand and feel the foaming waves gathering over her feet and ankles.

But when they had started walking down the little oceanside path, newly planted saplings on either side reaching for the sun, they had almost immediately been accosted.

People trying to peek into the stroller, people pushing back the stroller cover to peer down at the girls. People trying to touch the babies, to grab at them and their little wrinkled hands. People shoving Scarlet out of the way like she didn’t exist, or glaring at her or making snide comments about needing to lose the pregnancy weight.

“It’s already been a month, dear. You know my sister was able to lose the weight in a few weeks.”

Scarlet hadn’t bothered making a retort at the comment, her nerves already shot beyond repair. She’d only clung to Xander’s arm to anchor herself, digging her nails in so deep she’d left little crescent moon marks in his skin.

He hadn’t complained, for his part, and she’d been so thankful. He’d only covered her hand with his, and politely, although not particularly kindly, told the woman to shove off. And then told any person that came near that they needed to step away.

She’d been a nervous wreck afterwards, and the next time they had gone out each of the girls had been snuggled safely in a sling against Scarlet’s and Xander’s chest.

And now, as Xander dragged her to the car, she missed the comforting weight of a baby against her chest. She missed cradling them in her arms, listening to their gurgles and unintelligible babbles.

Harmony would pull on her hair if it was down, demanding attention. Melody would gurgle and giggle and squeal until Scarlet kissed her fat cheeks and let her grab hold of her index finger.

She missed their weight, missed their little voices, missed the downy softness of their auburn hair.

And how could she just leave them? How could she leave them and go do something without them?

Tears burned her eyes as she sat down in the passenger seat, streaking down her cheeks as Xander started the car.

“Hey,” he said, reaching over to take her hands. “Sunbeam, hey.”

She looked up at him slowly, wondering if he felt the same ache, the same guilt and loneliness and anxiety.

His brow creased, the sunlight in his eyes making the colour spin and glow in a kaleidoscope of light.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, squeezing tighter, stroking his thumb over the back of her hand.

She sniffed, wiping her nose on her shoulder. “It’s dumb.”

“I can promise you it is not dumb,” he murmured, the worry lines deepening in his brow. “Please sunbeam, talk to me.”

So she told him, feeling small and pathetic and sad as she did. That she didn’t want to leave the girls, that she wanted to feel their warmth and hear their little giggles in the car with them. That she felt so nervous her stomach was beginning to roil.

“Scarlet,” he said, his voice low and even, the soothing voice he often used when her nightmares got the better of her, the one he used when he pried their claws from her bones.

“I think this is a completely normal feeling,” he said, lifting her hands so he could press kisses to her knuckles.

She opened her mouth to argue, but he shook his head, nose bumping against the backs of her hands. “Just give me a minute, love.”

She would have drawn her hands back against her own chest had Xander not continued to hold them, as though he were ensuring that she didn’t pull away and curl in on herself again.

“I think what you’re feeling is normal, and it’s hard,” he murmured, continuing to stroke her hands, holding them like they were precious. “You’ve been with them for their entire lives, you carried them in your body and kept them safe and they’re always close by, even if you’re not the one holding them.”

She nodded, tears still slipping down her cheeks.

“And we always bring them with us when we go out, and you’re always worrying over them.” He sighed, letting go of one of her hands to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “But I don’t think the feeling is going to just go away anytime soon.”

She wilted. That wasn’t something she had wanted to hear.

“But it doesn’t make you a bad person, or a bad mother to go out without them, or to not be focused on them,” he continued, cupping her cheek. “You’re still a person.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, the wheels of her mind moving at a sluggish pace.

This had been one of their concerns, that she would slip quickly into old habits. That she would focus entirely on the care of the babies, rather than her own self.

Something clicked, a puzzle piece falling into place, although it made her wilt a little more. Xander’s plan had likely been some sort of intervention to draw her from the habits, to remind her to care for herself, too.

“The girls are safe, and they’re being taken care of,” he said, squeezing the hand he still held. “Nothing will happen to them while we’re out. You’re not a bad mom for having a day where you’re not changing diapers or pumping milk.”

Her shoulders slumped, and she looked away, staring at the dust gathering on the dash of the car. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear anything more, her heart aching. She felt like her ribs might shatter from the pain, that her bones would splinter and break, that her chest would cave in.

She really didn’t like this feeling.

She wondered if she was bad, if she was a broken person. For losing herself years ago, and so easily being lost once again. Perhaps that made her a bad mother, too. How could she make sure the girls were always happy and lived good lives if she-

Xander pinched her cheek, snapping her from her thoughts.

“Hey,” he said, his brow furrowing. “Don’t do that.”

Her voice cracked like kindling as she spoke. “Do what?”

“Get lost,” he murmured. “Get lost in your own mind.”

Scarlet glared at him, turning away to stare out the window, at the sleeping garden, flower bulbs and stems hiding beneath the soil waiting for spring.

“You’re not a bad person,” he continued, pinching her cheek again to yank her attention back towards him. “Or a bad mom, or broken.”

She wrinkled her nose, but Xander only gave her a smug grin.

“Because I knew you were thinking you might be. But you’re not. Not even a little.”

Xander’s hand dropped from her face, and Scarlet rubbed her cheek, the skin sore and stinging. She would have continued glaring at Xander, but she just didn’t have the energy, and she wasn’t even sure why she was glaring at him in the first place. She wasn’t mad at him, not really.

She was perhaps just mad at herself.

“You’re a person, Scarlet. You deserve time to rest, and time to have fun. Your entire life doesn’t have to be about the girls. It can be about you, too.”

She slumped in her seat. She didn’t really know what to say now, her words crammed in her throat with no escape.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Xander said, covering the hand she still held against her cheek. “Just know that I love you, and that there is nothing wrong with you, and that you are allowed to feel all the things you’re feeling right now.”

“But they don’t make me broken?”

He shook his head, smiling. “They don’t.”

“But I still feel like I am.”

“That doesn’t make it true.”

She nodded, her words failing her once more.

“We can try, just for an hour,” he said, searching her face slowly. “And if you’re still not comfortable we can come home.”

“You won’t be mad?” She hated how small her voice sounded, how childish and weak.

“My sunbeam, I could never be mad at you.” He leaned forward to brush his lips against her cheek. “And I would rather you feel okay than force you to go out when you’re unhappy.”

She nodded again, closing her eyes. “I’ll try for an hour.”

Xander’s answering smile warmed some of the ice clinging to her bones, some of the fear that normally wouldn’t vanish even when she willed it to. When she so desperately wanted it to disappear.

But she could feel some of it melting away, could feel the roiling sea of despondency in her belly pulling away like low tide.

So she decided to trust Xander, trying to ignore the scratching claws of all her fears and worries that clung to the back of her mind. They drove from their quiet neighborhood through the city that was still rebuilding itself, taking the long route to the downtown core so they could drive past the ocean.

Xander rolled down the windows, shouting above the scream of the wind and the crashing waves that he wanted to smell the ocean air. Scarlet had shrieked, smacking him until he put the windows back up, shivering as she brushed snow from her hair.

“What was that for?!” She shouted, smacking his arm again, her body shuddering as chills crawled over her skin.

Xander shrugged, eyes narrowed as he watched her from the corners of his eyes. “I wanted to smell the ocean air.”

“We live on an island, you always smell the ocean air.”

He chuckled, sounding like mischief, lifting one hand in surrender before returning it to the wheel. “You caught me. I just wanted to see that beautiful pink on your cheeks.”

Scarlet clapped both hands over her cheeks, covering them from view. “Excuse me?!”

He grinned wider, his eyes dark as the sky during a summer storm. “It’s one of my favourite colours.”

“Xander.”

He slid his eyes back to the road, his tone nonchalant, but his voice warm and heady as the spiced wine they’d had the night before. “Although my favourite is the pretty red your cheeks turn when you’re excited.”

“Alexand-”

“Or the deep wine red colour your lips turn when you’ve been thoroughly kissed.”

She considered reaching over and yanking the wheel from him and throwing them both into the ocean. She could not believe this, could not believe what he was saying. She’d known him for more than half her life and yet he still teased her like this, still said such silly, devilish things that her heartbeat thrummed against her chest with the speed of hummingbird wings. That made her stomach flip and twist, made her press her thighs together at the horribly needy ache that bloomed there when he smiled the way he was smiling now.

“Oh look, we’re here!” He sang, pulling the car into park.

Scarlet was caught off-guard, too wrapped up in being annoyed that he could make her ache without having to touch her in the slightest, that he could tease her like this and get away with it. She hadn’t realized they’d pulled into a parking garage, that their drive was almost over.

And it wasn’t until she’d gotten from the car and taken Xander’s hand that she remembered the oily feeling that had coated her veins when they’d tried leaving the house. She felt heavy, felt such guilt that she had not brought the girls along.

She imagined how happy they would be, gurgling and wiggling in their slings as Scarlet and Xander carried them around. Perhaps they could have taken them to the park, where peacocks roamed freely and where a little petting zoo was. They could have taken the girls out of their slings and held them so they could see the baby goats running past. Then they could have taken them to try ice cream, buying a small vanilla cone and letting the girls have a taste just to see their faces light up with joy.

Guilt churned in her belly, even as the thought of bringing the girls warmed her heart. Guilt that she was ruining the day, that she was too focused on being their mama and not on the nice day Xander had planned. That she wasn’t letting herself enjoy her time and the day would be wasted.

She sighed, pulling at her necklace, fiddling with her ring. She felt like an oceanside cliff, or perhaps more like a rock stuck in the sand of a beach. The tide came again and again, emotions bashing her like waves, threatening to drag her from the shore.

Xander’s words before they had left had helped, but pretty words didn’t banish the feelings in her heart and her mind. They could not stop the twist of her belly, the cold feeling that sluiced in her chest.

She felt a hand in hers, squeezing gently. An anchor to keep her grounded, to keep her from being drawn away.

She didn’t know how to reconcile the feelings, how to live with them churning in her veins.

She wished it were as easy as punching a robot, or sneaking through an enemy spaceship, or using her staves. But this seemed harder than tearing through a ship’s navigation controls or letting herself be bait to be chased or flying a pegasus.

Perhaps because there was no true end to these feelings, just the hope that they would soften with age, become so subdued that they would settle to the back of her mind. That they would fade away, nearly forgotten, and would disappear one day without her knowing.

That was the way with these things. There was no way to force them away, no way to come out the other side the way fighting an army of robots had.

Xander squeezed her hand again, seeming to sense her introspection, that he was losing her in the stream of her own thoughts.

“Why don’t we get something to drink, first?” He offered. Not that he really waited for a reply before dragging Scarlet down the street to one of his favourite coffee shops.

For the teasing she’d endured, Scarlet made him buy her a brownie as well as a warm coffee. It was only fair, after all, that she be given some form of recompense.

She beamed as she broke off pieces of brownie, the paper bag crinkling in her hand as she held it close to her chest. The girls couldn’t yet have brownies, but she couldn’t help wondering how they would react to one, if they would like them. She was almost certain they would, both of them seeming to have a taste for anything that was incredibly, tooth-achingly sweet.

Xander did not try to steal any of her brownie, which was a welcome relief since she wasn’t particularly inclined to share. Normally he would whine and slump against her or try distracting her with his lips and his teeth, but this time he did not. Instead he just tugged on her sleeve or slipped his arm around her waist when he wanted to guide her down another street or wanted to pop into a store.

They browsed one of the smaller bookstores first, wandering through the cramped aisles, brushing fingers over the spines. There wasn’t much that they liked so they wandered back out, pausing long enough to stop into the tea and pastry shop next door and buy a piece of cake each.

It was cold outside, snow clinging to the barren branches of trees and in the crevices and cracks in the sidewalk and fluttering through the air like scraps of ivory tissue paper. But they walked around as they ate, huddling on a bench by the harbour, watching the ocean waves lap gently against the stone of the harbour walkway.

Snow clung to their clothes and their hands, and at times Scarlet had to set her little dessert to the side while Xander took her hands in his to warm them. But once they were done they still remained, curled together, remembering when they had been younger, when they had wandered this walkway after school or during the holiday breaks. When they would buy little cakes just like this and sit in the snow even though their fingers ached from the cold.

There had been more people, then, even during the winter. Tourists wandering aimlessly, locals searching out a quiet spot, a calm moment in the sea of madness the city used to sometimes be.

But now there was hardly anyone, even as the city rebuilt. It was quiet, their voices seeming to echo in the air, ringing clear as bells. Birds cried overhead, lone seagulls and crows looking for crumbs to steal.

Her stomach twisted, a strange ache filling her chest. Something close to melancholy spilled through her blood, although she couldn’t put her finger on what it was, or why.

Perhaps it had something to do with the way things had changed. The city, different than it had once been. Her, different than she had once been. Xander too.

Different, but still good, still precious, even if there were scars they carried that could not be erased.

She wanted to bring the girls one day, wanted to bring them here, where it was quiet and they could listen to the ocean. Sometimes she would play ocean sounds when she settled them down for naps, and she thought it might calm them. Especially if they had been given ice cream beforehand, and gotten to visit the petting zoo and the park, so much excitement that their little bodies would surely be filled with energy that needed to be soothed.

“What are you thinking?” Xander asked, a line between his brow.

Scarlet shrugged. “I’m thinking that things are different. That everything is the same, but everything is different.”

He leaned his head against hers, humming. “Sometimes different is good.”

“You’re right. But it’s still strange.”

“It is.”

She sighed, closing her eyes as a flurry of snow blew against her face. “I was thinking it might be nice to bring the girls here.”

He ran his hand up and down her side. “Here?”

She nodded, opening her eyes. “Yeah. Take them to the park, to the petting zoo. Maybe buy them a little ice cream.”

Xander chuckled at that. “They would love that.”

“And then bring them here, until they fall asleep.”

He squeezed her closer. “You know, then they’d be just like their mother.”

“Excuse me?”

Xander smirked. “You don’t remember?”

Scarlet shuffled through her memories, the ones long before her powers had grown. Some were salt-touched and echoing with the scream of gulls, others enveloped in a delicate pink glow reminiscent of the cherry blossoms that bloomed throughout the city.

“Falling asleep, your head falling in my lap,” he chuckled, far too smug to be telling a lie.

Scarlet’s face burned and she drew away from him. “I don’t remember that.”

He snorted, trying and failing to take her hand before she pulled it out of reach. “You don’t? When we went to that horror escape room? The one with the zombie?”

Scarlet shuddered, the echo of a memory singing in the back of her mind.

“You can’t tell me you don’t remember.”

She stuck her nose up, huffing as she crossed her arms. “I do not.”

She didn’t see him in the corner of her vision as he swept forward and wrapped his arms around her waist. She stifled a shout as he perched his chin on her shoulder, sighing.

“I can’t believe you, sunbeam,” he whined, shaking his head so his hair tickled her cheek. “Forgetting such an important day for me.”

“You said that about ribfest.”

“Ribfest last year was important to me,” he argued, but she could feel his smile against her skin.

“It was half the size it usually is, love,” she teased, brushing snowflakes from his hair. “I’m sure there have been better years.”

He huffed, nuzzling his nose against her cheek. “Doesn’t make it any less important to me.”

His breath and his hair against her skin tickled, and she couldn’t help laughing.

“What even happened then?” She asked, laughing as he continued to nuzzle his nose against her face.

“If you don’t remember then I’m not telling,” he said, pulling away suddenly to feign dismay. His nose wrinkled, his arms crossing. “It’s my secret now.”

Scarlet poked his side, sliding closer. “Aw, don’t be like that.”

Xander opened his mouth to say something else, but paused as an alarm erupted into the quiet. He pulled his phone out, silencing the noise.

“What was that for?”

He shrugged, tucking his phone away. “I set an alarm so we knew when an hour passed.”

She opened her mouth, closed it again. “Ah, I see.”

“If you don’t want to be out any longer, we can go home,” he offered. The corners of his eyes creased, his brows wrinkling as he took her hand. “I’m happy with whatever you decide.”

Scarlet bit down on the inside of her cheek, the fingers of her free hand twisting in the chain of her necklace. They could go home now, she’d satisfied his request. They could go home and she could hold her babies and cuddle them close and listen to their nonsense babbles.

But something in her heart ached as the cool winter air seeped beneath her skin. Something she didn’t understand.

“Maybe we can stay out a little while longer,” she said, squeezing Xander’s hand. “If that’s alright?”

He pressed a kiss to her hand, and then to her cheek, his expression all softness. Like early morning sunshine, like blankets fresh from the dryer, like downy feathers. Like warm caresses that are little more than breaths against her cheeks, her arms, her hands, reminding her that she is loved and she is good and she is human.

“As you wish, sunbeam,” he said, brushing one last kiss to the tip of her nose. “Although I do have one request.”

She furrowed her brow, wondering what it was that Xander could possibly request. Wondering if he was about to pull his usual trick, hand on his chest, on the injury that had long-since healed.

“Can we please get something to eat? I’m starving.”

Scarlet snorted, and then she giggled, and then more laughter bubbled from her like she was drunk on wine.

“I didn’t realize my hunger was that funny,” Xander said, tone dry, but she still caught a glimpse of his smile. “For that, I want to pick the place we eat.”

“Oh Xander, can’t we get some really fancy ramen? I really want something salty.”

He scoffed, pressing his hand to the old injury, right on cue. Scarlet snickered, covering her mouth as Xander glowered.

“You would deny me the ability to choose our lunch? After Harmony threw up on me this morning?”

Giggles filtered from between her fingers. “She threw up on me too? I was in the middle of burping her.”

“And she projectile threw up on me!”

Scarlet shook her head, resting her brow on his shoulder. “Alright, you win. Where would you like to have lunch?”

He touched a finger to his lips. “It’s a surprise.”

Scarlet would have rolled her eyes, but something about the way he spoke filled her heart with mirth. So, instead, she took his offered hand, letting him lead the way.

***

Xander leaned back against the headboard of the bed, crossing his arms to emulate his wife as she stood across the room, arms crossed, an annoyed scowl fixed on her face.

Rather than her glare, however, he grinned, satisfied that his ploy had worked.

He’d hidden her notebooks and her favourite pen, and he knew she wouldn’t want to start notes on a loose sheet of paper, or write music in a different coloured pen.

“You hid my things.”

He feigned innocence, tipping his head to the side like the singbirds on their windowsill in the early morning. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“My notebooks, and my pen.”

“The pink one?”

She narrowed her eyes, stalking closer to the bed. “You can drop the act. I know it was you.”

“What was me, my sunbeam?”

She arched a brow, eyes sweeping across the room. Not that she would find anything; his hiding places were a well guarded secret that even Iris did not know of. She could read his mind, but she’d never yet been able to find that particular piece of information.

He extended his arms, reaching for her where she stood near the bed. “Why don’t you get ready for bed, sunbeam. You’re tired, I’m sure you’ve just misplaced your things and you’ll find them in the morning.”

He couldn’t help the grin that pulled at the corners of his lips. Scarlet’s eyes narrowed, twisting her wedding band around her finger again and again as she continued her relentless glare.

“I guess I could just use some scrap paper and a random pen until I find them.”

She made to turn to go, but Xander leaned forward, snagging her wrist. “You should rest, love.”

“It’s not that late.”

“Scarlet, it’s after 1am.”

She faltered, peeking at him over her shoulder. “Then why are you still up?”

She had a fair point. He was usually in bed much earlier. He would get the girls up and give them morning bottles and play with them while Scarlet got a bit of extra rest, and once she was up he would attend to the paperwork and unending stream of emails constantly cluttering his desk and computer.

But he couldn’t say the reason he was up late was because he’d been hiding her things. So he picked the second truth, which he considered to be just as important.

“I just couldn’t sleep,” he admitted, still grinning, not really able to stop himself. “I missed you.”

Scarlet sighed, his words an arrow finding a chink in her armour. “Truly?”

“I mean it. I wouldn’t lie to you, sunbeam.”

He just wouldn’t tell her the entire truth.

She watched him for a long, long moment, her eyes glowing in the dark. Had he been anyone else he would have been unnerved, their golden glow inhuman in the shadows. But he had grown up with those eyes, knew what lay beyond their shine.

He also knew she could absolutely make them glow a little brighter, a tactic she’d used to set criminals on edge when they’d been younger.

He pressed his hand to his old wound, popping his bottom lip out in a pout, hoping it would tug on her heart enough for her to relent.

Finally, after what could have been an eternity or barely a second, her shoulders slumped and she yielded. “Alright. Give me a minute to change.”

Xander released her wrist, beaming so bright he surely outshine the moon and her stars. Scarlet crossed the room, rifling through her drawers until she found her pajamas and quickly changed, sparing him a tired glare as he continued to grin.

“You’re insufferable, you know,” she muttered, letting herself be dragged from her feet and under the blankets.

Xander nestled his chin on her shoulder, breathing in the smell of peonies and cinnamon and baby powder. “It’s one of my many charms.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist, and Scarlet settled her hands over his. “Will you give me back my things in the morning?”

He snorted, kissing the spot just behind her ear. “I’m sure you’ll find your things once you get a good night's sleep.”

“You can be absolutely dreadful sometimes, you know that right?”

“I have many talents.”

She scoffed, and he kissed her again. “Go to sleep, my sunbeam. I just want you to sleep well.”

She sighed, but he could feel something in the way her body settled, like she was letting herself sink into the pillows.

“I love you,” he murmured, sensing oblivion was close at hand. She was always so much quicker at falling asleep than he was.

Another sigh, her fingers wrapping around his wrists as she squeezed, her words little more than a whisper in the dark. “I love you, too.”

He waited until her breathing grew steady, until he was certain she was asleep, before he let himself sleep too, knowing now that she was safe.

***

Had she the words to describe the fire crawling beneath her skin, Scarlet would have used it.

But unfortunately she did not, which meant she was left to scrabble through similar words, not-quite-synonyms, to describe what she felt as Xander stood before her, beaming with a smug delight that made her feel like she was a teenager all over, and she was about to ignite into a wildfire.

He laughed, the sound echoing through the house, empty of everyone except for them. Even the twins were gone, taken out by Flora and Babs for the day. It made her burn more, and she worried she would turn to ash in the wind spilling from the window cracked open in the kitchen.

Xander stepped closer, and she stepped back, more on reflex than anything as he continued to grin. There was icing on his cheek, a cream cheese frosting trail that crept into his hair, and she had the incessant urge to reach up and wipe it away.

But doing that meant getting closer to him, and she was certain she would set him on fire too if she got too close.

“There’s frosting on your face,” he murmured, reaching out as Scarlet bumped up against the wall.

She bit down on the inside of her cheek as her stomach twisted, threads of fire tangling together in her belly. He swiped his finger across her cheek, down her jawline, through the frosting that had splattered against her. His smile was still smug, and he seemed far too pleased with himself as he lifted his hand, displaying the pink frosting on his fingers.

He lifted his fingers to his mouth, and Scarlet’s breathing shuddered, her lungs seeming to convulse as no air was drawn in from her lips.

He licked the frosting from his fingers, so slowly she thought she would turn to tinder for the heat in her skin. The tangled fire in her belly knotted, growing heavier, harder to ignore.

He tipped his head to the side, clearly enjoying himself, and for a moment her mind was rinsed clear, flames extinguished. She considered pinching his cheek and slipping away under the arm he casually bracketed on her one side.

But he spoke and the drop of sanity fizzled away, nothing more than smoke twisted within the smoke of the flames. “Are you mad?”

There was a petulant note to his voice, like he was moments from pouting. But his eyes were bright, the blue of a clear evening sky that hadn’t yet succumbed to night and the silvery glow of the stars. His smile, too, remained, the lone dimple in his right cheek becoming more and more distracting the longer he smirked.

“Why would I be mad?” She muttered, struggling to find something to fix her gaze on that wasn’t a part of Xander.

Not his face, not his arms, not his chest. She made the mistake of looking down, trying to find a spot on the ground to focus on, only for her eyes to slip past his slim waist, catching on the very noticeable bulge before she could look away.

The knotted threads of heat grew taut in her belly, her heartbeat a thundering, erratic pulse in her ears.

He moved closer, barely a breath between them as he took her face in his free hand, tilting it up as he leaned closer. He hummed, seeming to inspect the frosting still on her cheek and neck.

“I don’t think it’s going to be wiped up so easily.”

She could have smacked him. How could he talk so casually right now when she was certain to set the house on fire? When heat continued to bundle in her core, growing tighter and harder to ignore with every passing second.

She lost her breath entirely when he licked the frosting from her skin, sighing a little as if it was divine, as if it was more than lumpy frosting she’d been mixing a few minutes ago.

“Xander,” she chided, although there was no real reproach behind it, no real force. She gave a half-hearted shove against his chest, but there was no strength in her arms. 

She wasn’t really trying to push him away, her legs like jelly, her heart in her throat. The rational side of her was slowly fading away into mist, curling upwards and far, far away from her mind where she most needed it.

“What?” He drawled, lips curling up in a smile that smouldered like a slow, languid fire before bursting into flame. “Did I miss a spot?”

Scarlet felt a little like a mouse being batted between a cat’s paws. Xander knew she was struggling to find her voice, she could see it in the shadows in his eyes, the spark of light like stars where the blue turned dark as midnight. And he seemed to be utterly delighted by it.

She would have smacked him had she any strength left in her arms.

“Or maybe you didn’t like it,” he mused, stroking her cheek for a moment, as though he were in thought.

He pouted then, although his eyes were still bright, and he was still enjoying every moment of his little game. “If you don’t like it, does that mean you’ll punish me?”

Scarlet blinked, the gears in her mind grinding to a halt.

What?

She shook her head, tasting ash on her tongue, smelling smoke in the air. The wall she was pressed against was growing warmer by the second, and she knew it was only a matter of time before it really did catch flame.

He hummed, taking her hand and guiding it behind him. “Will you hold my hands behind me?”

She thought her head might combust. She barely had the strength to keep her legs under her, let alone anything else.

Xander chuckled, as if reading her mind. The sound was warm, gently dragging across her nerves and sending tendrils of heat to the knot in her core. She could feel warmth spreading between her legs now, but she couldn’t move lest Xander took notice.

But he had always been a little too perceptive, and he noticed as she shuffled her feet, trying to draw her attention away in the hopes it would stop the fire beneath her skin.

“Would you like me to show you?” He asked, his voice feather soft. His pout dropped away, his hand returning to her face, caressing the line of her jaw. “Because I can.”

“Xander…” She trailed off, her voice cracking before slipping away.

His hands fell to her thighs, like he was about to pick her up and carry her away, that smug little smile like a permanent fixture on his face. When her senses returned to her she was absolutely going to pinch his cheeks until he begged for forgiveness.

“Should I carry you? You look a little unsteady.”

She hesitated, certain this was another one of his little tricks. Although her options were already quite limited, and she knew already that he was going to have his way whether she let him carry her away or if they remained here in the kitchen.

One of his hands brushed against the spot just below his shoulder, where the old wound lay, and Scarlet felt herself snap back to reality for the barest of moments. She was already the proverbial putty in his hands, she didn’t understand why he was guilting her now too.

“Alright,” she managed, wrapping her arms around his neck so she could bury her face against his shoulder. She did not want to see how wide his smile had grown, how victorious he likely looked as she scooped her into his arm, her legs wrapping around his waist.

Scarlet winced, stifling a whine, as he seemed to press his hips a little too forcefully against the heat between her thighs.

“Now what would you like?” He teased, even as he began walking, carrying her away. She peeked over his shoulder, wincing as she noted the charred smudge against the wall. She really had nearly set the kitchen on fire.

“Whatever you want,” she grumbled, twisting her fingers into his hair.

Xander chuckled, a joyous, mirthful sound. Utterly at odds with the way his hand was creeping up her back, quickly unclipping the hooks of her bra. “Then I am very, very lucky.”

“Because I’m letting you do what you want?” She asked, peeling away to meet his gaze, bewildered.

He shook his head, brushing his lips to her jaw. “No. Because I get to be with you.”

She peered down at her arms to see the gentle golden glow that so often enveloped her when her heart felt warm. A different warmth, not made of wildfires and smoke and lingering ash. It was the gentle heat of candle flames and morning hugs and a warm mug nestled between her palms.

She cupped his cheek, some of that glow washing over Xander’s face, turning him to gold. “Then I am very, very lucky too.”

***

Scarlet held up two DVD cases, even as she knew exactly how Xander was going to react.

She watched as he hummed softly, eyes flicking between the two options, before he slid his hand over the DVD case next to him and he held it up.

Scarlet groaned, although part of her knew he was expecting it, and so she had prepared her response in advance. She knew this song and dance, knew exactly how his eyes were going to sparkle, his lips were going to quirk up.

If he started lifting his hand…

She narrowed her eyes, watching as he patted his hand to the old wound.

Enough of that.

She would have wiggled from his arms and slipped away, but another thought began to take hold in her mind. It was hard to ignore, especially now, when his eyes had caught the soft light of the lamp in the corner, when his cheeks were flushed the pink of fresh peonies, when his hair was mussed and soft as silk between her fingers.

Her teeth ached a little, and she leaned over, biting his bicep.

Xander sucked in a quick breath, his eyes wide as Scarlet peeked up at him. The pink in his cheeks had quickly deepened, but his smile still remained, the corners of his lips quivering.

“Sunbeam,” he said, enunciating slowly. “What are you doing?”

She bit him a little harder, giggling when he gaped.

But Xander was quick to succumb to his fate, snorting as he ran his free hand through her hair. “Okay, we can watch your movie choice.”

Beaming, Scarlet pulled back, patting his arm as though she hadn’t just gently bitten him like a toddler. “Thank you, love.”

His brows furrowed as she got up to put the movie into the video player, his smile bemused. “What was that for?”

“What was what?” She feigned innocence, snagging a soft red blanket to wrap around herself, savouring the feeling of having no one clinging to her for a few moments.

The girls were napping, and a few of their friends had agreed to keep an eye on the baby monitor so neither she nor Xander had to worry if the twins started fussing.

Xander gestured to his arm, to the tooth marks in the fabric of his shirt. “Take a guess.”

She shrugged, considering whether she would be able to get away with biting him a second time.

Seeming to sense the twist of her thoughts, Xander covered his arm where she had bitten him, wrinkling his nose. “You won’t get me a second time.”

“We’ll see about that!”

He blinked at her chipper tone, looking more confused than before as she fell back on the couch beside him, pulling the blanket up to her chin.

“It’s revenge for all the times you’ve pulled your little trick,” she said, waving her hand towards where the wound had been. “When you put your hand over the scar from the wound that I healed for you!”

Xander had the good sense to look the slightest bit bashful, the red of his cheeks turning to a blazing crimson, the colour creeping up beneath the soft waves of his sunshine hair.

He offered her a shy smile, and Scarlet felt her ire beginning to wane. Which was absolutely, unbelievably unfair. How could he just flash the smallest of smiles and all her grievances would just melt away?

“I was only teasing,” he mumbled, reaching out to wrap her in his arms, a hand tangling in her unbound hair. “Just a little teasing.”

“More than a little,” she groused, pinching his side.

Xander huffed, knocking her hand away. “Alright, alright,” he conceded. “I’ll stop.”

“You promise?”

He leaned his head down, and Scarlet was certain the words ‘I promise’ were on his lips. That he was about to apologize once more and swear not to tease her with the old wound.

Except his head dipped to the side, and Scarlet was too shocked to make a noise as his teeth sank into the skin of her shoulder.

All she could do was blink, too stunned to form a single thought. Xander was chuckling, smirking as he pulled away, but still Scarlet couldn’t make a single thought.

She was far too dazed, lost in the fog of astonishment.

She didn’t know why she didn’t think he’d do something like that; it was peak Xander. Turning her attempt to grab his attention against her, dulling her faculties through pure shock alone.

The desire to pinch him once more piercing through the veil of surprise was the first clue that she was coming back to herself. Now if only she could move from his arms, putting space and a wall of pillows between them. Make him feel a little bad for teasing her again. And so shamelessly.

But in this moment Xander was much quicker than she was, and she remained wholly tangled in his arms, her cheek against his shoulder as he continued beaming with far more self-satisfaction than he deserved.

“What was that for?!” She snapped, wriggling uselessly so at least she didn’t have to look at his face as he smirked.

“Just some teasing.”

“You never promised to stop.”

“I don’t plan to.”

She scoffed, reaching for his hands to pry herself free from him one finger at a time. “You are the worst. Utterly incorrigible. You are-”

He flipped his hands around to grab hers, drawing them up to his lips in half a breath. She looked away, focusing on the television screen and doing her best to ignore the smile she felt like a half-moon curved against her palm.

“Handsome? Adoring? Beloved?”

“I was going to say ‘annoying,’” she muttered.

But Xander only laughed once more, and she could see his smile in her mind, see the way the tips of his ears would turn the colour of rose petals, how his hair would spill over his brow as he tilted his head to the right, his eyes half-closed, little more than slits of sun-warmed sky.

“I’ll stop,” he murmured against her palm. “For now. But I can’t promise I won’t tease you in some other way.”

Scarlet couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her lips as she finally did look back at him.

He truly was wearing a self-satisfied smirk, his cheeks and ears stained in rose-petal pink, his hair messy and perfect for running her fingers through.

“Surely you can’t expect me to give up teasing entirely,” he asked, the smallest of pouts on his lips.

Scarlet grinned wider, knowing that would be like asking him not to breathe oxygen, or her not to love him with the entirety of her heart and her soul. “I could never.”

Xander’s smile softened, the corners of his eyes creasing as he released one of her hands to cup her cheek. “You are the most precious person in my entire life.”

“And you’re mine.”

He arched a brow, settling back against the cushions, although still he held Scarlet close. Not that she minded much now; her indignation had passed, and once more her heart felt warm and full of the sunlit love and contentment she always felt with him.

“Does that mean you won’t bite me again?” He asked, his eyes glittering like a star-drenched midnight.

Scarlet’s mouth quirked up, and she shook her head, hoping she was able to fully emulate the spark of mischief dancing like a candle flame in her chest. “I can’t make any promises.”

Xander laughed, dragging the blanket around them both, cocooning them together. “I don’t know what I expected.”

He nuzzled his nose against her temple, his lips brushing against the corner of her eye. He was so warm, and he smelled as he always did, of citrus and fresh, sunwarmed linens. And a little of baby powder now, and the homemade applesauce Melody had thrown at him when he’d tried feeding her lunch.

The image of his expression as he gaped at their daughter, applesauce dripping from his face, rose in Scarlet’s mind. She snorted, covering her mouth to try and stifle the laughter.

He poked her side, although he did not pull away. “What are you laughing about?”

“Just thinking.”

“You’re thinking about the applesauce, aren’t you?”

Scarlet bit her lip before she said anything more.

“Don’t get any ideas,” he grumbled, and she felt the wrinkle of his nose against her skin.

“I would never.”

He scraped his teeth against the side of her face, snorting as she gasped. “I don’t believe you.”

Scarlet pressed her hand to his chest, shoving him away so he could no longer nip at her. “Shoo! Shoo!”

Laughing, Xander relented, although he did not let go of her entirely, instead electing to tuck her head beneath his chin, his arms wrapping around her.

“Are you sure you want to be this close to me?” She asked, tapping his arm where he’d already been bitten. “Your arm might not be safe.”

He sighed, the sound tangling in her hair. “I’m more than happy to risk it.”

For that she did bite him again, but only so he would laugh, so she could hear it dance through the room like music, so she would feel his smile against her head, and she knew he was just as happy as she was. Even if she did occasionally take her revenge against his mischief.

[bluejaybytes]

Parker's literally not even the protagonist. She's just straight up not. The protagonists are May and June and they're the main lens of which the narrative centers itself around. Parker was literally just a background plot element for a side character who grew wildly out of control and warped the entire plot around her by accident. Fuck !

Being an OC guy can literally get so dire. What do you mean I'm obsessed with my own bullshit. AGAIN

[padfootdaredmetoo]

Romance, fluff, hurt/comfort, and the occasional heartbreak.

Peaky Blinders, Sherlock, Tangerine, Wade Wilson, Peter Parker, Marauders

Peaky Blinders

Kidnapped - Tommy Shelby X Reader - Pt. 2

Reader gets taken and Tommy does everything he can to get her back - kidnapping, torture / hurt /comfort confession of feelings

Arthur Shelby X OC Joey Request - Catching feelings / hurt / comfort

Falling Hard - Tommy Shelby X Pregnant Reader

She falls off the horse - Rated G, Cute fluffiness, Worried Tommy

Meet Cute - Tommy Shelby X Reader

 Proper courting, Rated G, Tommy falls for reader at a party

Domestic - Tommy Shelby X Wife Reader

 Cooking, Baking, Slight hurt comfort, Tommy being a good dad, kids being little, just lots of fluffy goodness

Self-Defense - Tommy Shelby X Reader

He defends her but she can defend herself - Teen for violence Hurt / Comfort

Girls Outing - Tommy X Wife Reader

Attempted Murder, mild description of attempted sexual assault, Murder, Tommy Comforts reader, Hurt / Comfort

Time Travel - Tommy Shelby x X-Men Reader

 Rated Teen for extreme heart break, time travel, romance, X-Men themes

The One That Got Away - Tommy Shelby X Reader

Hurt and pain. Charlie gets kidnapped and Reader has to make a difficult choice

Campbell - Tommy X Reader Wife - Pt 2.

She’s beaten by Campbell and eventually talks - Mature content - Reader is beaten badly and miscarries. Tommy comforts her.

Stay Home - Tommy X Wife Reader

He doesn’t want her to work while pregnant.

Heart Broken - Tommy Shelby X Reader

You just got broken up with - Fluff, Comfort Tommy

First Wizarding War - Tommy Shelby X Reader (HP crossover)

Reader gets attacked, falling in love, pre war, then post war follow up

Protecting What's His - Tommy Shelby X Pregnant Wife Reader

When someone breaks into the house Tommy has to protect what’s his - violence, shock / panic is described. Fluff at the end & kissing

Scarlet Witch - Tommy X Magic Reader

She has kept her powers hidden but Tommy and the family find out! Reader saves the day with her magical abilities.

Sold Down the River - Tommy Shelby X Reader

Reader gets sold to Tommy Shelby by her fiancé. Her and her baby have to adjust to arrow house

Animal Shelter - Tommy Shelby X Reader -- Pt.2

When Tommy gets Charlie a dog from the pound he doesn’t expect to take the bubbly worker home as well.

The One That Almost Got Away - Tommy Shelby X Reader

Tommy and the reader play hard to get until Polly puts and end to things. Drama, trust issues, happy ending, Polly to the rescue.

The Doctor - Shelby Sister X Alfie Solomons

he reader is underappreciated so she leaves and begins her own life. After becoming a doctor she falls back to her family and finds out that not all things are lost. Mending her heart she also finds her way back to a long lost love…..

Kisses - Finn Shelby X Reader

The one where the reader ends up with a marked up neck, the family is determined to find the culprit only to find out it was one of their own.

The Witch - Tommy Shelby X Reader

 The reader is a witch who can tell the future but she definitely did not see him coming.

Childhood Bestie - Tommy Shelby X Reader

Even though he married Grace true love never dies - even when you almost do 

Mean Boyfriend - Finn Shelby X Orphaned Reader

The Reader happens to have a mean boyfriend. Good thing the Shelby’s have a strict *no mean boyfriends allowed* rule at the garrison.

The Smallest Blinder - Tommy Shelby X Reader

The boys hate having to watch over her, but more often than not she’s the one that saves the day 

Quiet Working Girl - Tommy Shelby X Reader

Reader is hired on to work at the Garrison, and Tommy takes an interest in her. When things start to fall apart, she’s the first person he suspects. He makes a right mess of things again, but this time he’s not so sure if he can fix it.

Cold - Tommy Shelby x Reader

Head cannons about a woman who never smiles and how the Shelby family would interact with her.

Ambition - Tommy Shelby X Reader

The reader always wanted a big life and so did Tommy. Promises were made and the reader comes to cash in

Sickness - Tommy Shelby X Lizzie Shelby

Lizzie makes a difficult decision to hide her diagnosis from Tommy. She goes off on her own much like he does, when word reaches him of Lizzie’s illness he has to find a way to make peace with her before it’s too late.

Spellbound - Marauders Reader X Tommy Shelby - Series

The reader leaves the magical world - not knowing what else to do she sees an advert for a bartender. Having worked at Three Broom Sticks she figured it couldn’t be that different. Falling for her boss and getting sucked into the complicated crime underworld of Birmingham was not a part of her plan

I Can Fight - John Shelby X Reader

Having been in a toxic relationship she learns what it means to be with John Shelby.

Languages Expert - Tommy Shelby X Reader

The boys assume Tommy only keeps the reader around because she’s pretty to look at. when a deal starts to go sideways they quickly learn the importance of having a language expert

Lunch Dates - Tommy Shelby X Reader

with limited time and lots of stress you decide to take a breath and get some lunch with your husband.

Rejected - Tommy Shelby X Reader

The reader isn’t interested in what Tommy has going on

The Kindest Blinder - Tommy Shelby X Reader Wife

Tommy’s wife isn’t what people expect. Her soft kindness is visible to anyone that see’s her. She’d do anything for her family, but when she’s pushed to the limit a different side of her shows.

Grace - Tommy Shelby x Reader

When she showed up to reclaim the love of her life, she wasn’t expecting you to be there.

Pregnant? - Tommy X Reader

The reader doesn’t realize she’s pregnant and a big surprise awaits the family 

Mr. Brightside - Tommy X Reader

Tommy realizes his feelings for you, too bad he’s too late and you’ve already found a guy.

Bad Habits - Tommy Shelby X Lizzie Shelby

Tommy struggles with his drinking thankfully Lizzie is always around to help.

The Mark of a Kiss - Sherlock's Sister X Tommy Shelby

Sherlock's other sister solves a mystery involving the notorious Tommy Shelby

Come on Barbie - Tommy Shelby x Reader

Thomas sits back and wonders how his girl manages her crazy lifestyle.

I've Got My Eye on You - Tommy Shelby X Reader

A traumatic event has left the reader with one eye and an emotionless appearance. Captivated by her beauty and voice Tommy tries to get to know her better

Sherlock - Enola Holmes

The Mystery of the Shelby Sister - Sherlock X Peaky Sister Reader

Sherlock tries his best to ignore his neighbor but when Enola gets attached it becomes increasingly difficult.  Extras - Big Kiss

Tangerine - Bullet Train

Angst - Tan X Reader

Things go from bad to worse leaving you two very far apart…

Geralt of Rivia

Surprises - Geralt X Reader

Geralt of Riva finds out you are pregnant with his baby 

Wade Wilson & Peter Parker

Tired - Hurt & Comfort

Trusted - Hurt & Comfort / Seeing his face for the first time

No Powers - SpideyPool

The Amazing Panic Attack - SpideyPool

Peter has a panic attack after saving someone that looks like Gwen. After being MIA Wade comes to find him, and after a whole lot of comfort, their relationship takes a new direction.

Marauders

Head Cannons

[raepritewrites]

Yet another ficlet that I don't feel like putting on ao3, enjoy!

Blood is Thicker

Marvel x Young Justice AU

TEEN for kidnapping and blood mentioned

Ocs: Heather and Harry Parker

Cheshire and probably Lex Luther, haven't thought that far ahead

“Experiment 337 is not progressing as predicted. The chemical chains are breaking down faster than the team had anticipated, making the solution inoperable for further testing,” Heather squinted down the microscope in front of her, watching the tiny world on the slide deteriorate like a building imploding.

“Fuck,” she added, hoping FRIDAY knew that part shouldn’t be on the official lab report. “I really thought we had it that time.” She pushed back from the microscope on her rolling stool, rubbing her eyes. It was late; she’d been here since six am and it was nearing two am now. At least Stark Industries paid really great for overtime.

She and her team had been working relentlessly on their newest theories to “unlock human potential” as Pepper Potts had put it to the investors. Tony later said that was fancy talk for “curing cancer”, and Heather had told him that was a gross understatement.

If Heather and her colleagues were correct, and they were ninety-eight percent sure they were, human genetics held the key to curing some of the worst ailments suffered worldwide. They were also, even before Tony or anyone else could say it, well aware that it sounded like something a supervillain would state. But the numbers didn’t lie - they’d spent a long time theorizing before they had ever gotten close to the lab testing phase, and human testing was practically lightyears away.

What had never been included in the official reports was Heather’s suspicion that her own genetics might hold the key they were looking for. She was sorely tempted in moments like this, when yet another experiment failed, to grab a syringe and draw just a small blood sample.

Just a few drops, that might be all she needed to make a breakthrough… but she always stopped that thought cold.

Now that was a supervillain origin story just waiting to happen - a scientist starts experimenting on herself in desperation for answers. She could name half a dozen villains off the top of her head with that exact backstory, and she refused to become a statistic on principle alone.

Maybe it was time to call it a night. Or a day, rather. She was supposed to be off tomorrow. Today, whatever.

She’d use that time to catch up on sleep, cuddle with her fiance, and maybe return Nightwing’s phone call. Maybe.

If it had been Dick calling her, she wouldn’t have hesitated for her ‘adopted’ brother. However, it had definitely been Nightwing calling over her comms line this past week. He was asking for a favor, a mask related favor, and she really was starting to regret not burning that bridge.

She still loved helping people, but that’s why she’d pushed herself so hard to obtain her biochemical engineering degree. This, her research, helped people long term.

Masks could help with the immediate disasters, sure, but there was always another one looming on the horizon. The hunt never ended. And she was tired of the hunt. She was tired of chasing something she wasn’t even sure she wanted anymore.

She’d thought as a teenager that superheroing would give her closure. Her father had died saving her. Surely carrying on his legacy in the mask would honor his memory, would give her a sense of purpose. But it had never really filled the hole in her heart left by his absence.

Her father was gone, and the only way she could give herself closure was to keep moving forward, not stay stuck in the past.

“Alright FRIDAY,” She finally said with a sigh, hopping off her stool and stretching her back. “I think it’s time for me to go home.” As usual, she felt the danger just a fraction of a second too late.

"So soon, Ms Parker? But we just got here," said a female voice sweetly.

Heather acted more startled than she actually was, whirling around and 'accidentally' knocking an empty plastic vial tray off the counter.

Two men of standard bodyguard build, and a woman that she was unfortunately very familiar with had somehow made it all the way to the 24th floor of the SI building, bypassing multiple security checkpoints, and even FRIDAY herself.

In very classic fashion, Heather asked the logical question first. "How the hell did you get up here?"

"That's not important," the woman said, the wide stretched grin of her mask unnerving even to someone who'd seen it many times.

"Pretty sure my boss would disagree. I'm assuming FRIDAY is offline?" Heather crossed her arms, trying to look uncomfortable by the intruders while actually hiding her fingers that were pushing the beacon hidden in her watch.

"She's been locked out of this floor temporarily. Just long enough for us to collect you, Ms Parker," Cheshire replied, running her gloved finger idly along a countertop as she wandered the room.

Heather knew she was probably looking for extra security measures, but this high up in the building, it was just FRIDAY - which normally was more than enough. "And what can I do for you, Miss…?" She raised an expectant eyebrow.

"Call me Cheshire," the half-Vietnamese woman said with a bow.

Considering you're Artemis' sister, I should probably be calling you a cousin by now, Heather thought. "Cute. You didn't answer my other question. What do you want?"

"My employer is looking for some specialized assistance. They decided you were the perfect candidate for the job." Cheshire was idly twirling one of her blades on the spotless lab counters.

Heather shouldn't have been surprised the woman talked about abducting scientists in the same way one discussed the weather, and yet…

"Wow," Heather said dryly. "I finally reached the point in my career where someone deemed me smart enough to kidnap. I'm flattered."

"Don't be silly, Ms Parker. We’re not here to kidnap you. You're going to come willingly."

Heather snorted. "Yeah right."

Cheshire seemed more amused than usual as she sauntered closer. "I'm perfectly serious. In approximately one and a half minutes, you're going to walk out of the lab with my associates and I. You will tell the AI that you're going of your own free will, and that everything is fine. We will walk out of the building together, get into our vehicle and make our leave. Nice, clean, simple."

"No amount of money in the world could ever convince me to go build some maniac a dirty bomb, or whatever your boss wants me to do," Heather stated firmly.

"Oh but the prize being offered here is… well, quite priceless," Cheshire nodded her head towards her backup muscle. One of the men pulled a smartphone from his coat pocket, tapped it a few times and held it up where Heather could see the screen.

Heather felt the blood drain from her face as her stomach clenched. On the other end of the video call was her little brother, Harry, bound hand and foot to a chair in a dark room and gagged. There was a blossoming bruise barely visible beneath his shaggy bangs, and a tear in his favorite denim jacket, but he otherwise looked unharmed. Terrified yes, but alive.

After a moment, Heather found her voice. "I don't know who your boss is, but he's made a very big mistake," she glared at the masked woman. "If anything happens to him, heads will roll."

"Like I said," Cheshire said coyly as she turned away. "I knew you'd come willingly."

Heather swallowed the insults that flooded her mouth, knowing Cheshire was just the messenger. She tapped her anger down into a small box in her chest, focusing on logic instead.

Yes, these people had Harry. Did they know she and her brother were enhanced? It was unlikely, given that they'd tied her brother with what looked to be standard hardware store rope. Then this had nothing to do with their secret identities or their step-father’s. Knowing that gave her the smallest advantage but also put her in an interesting bind.

She could still refuse to go with them and rescue Harry herself. She could get a message to Peter, or the League, and let them bust Cheshire's employer. Problem was, she didn't know where Harry was, or who had him. If she didn't play this right, she could blow all of their secrets.

On the other hand, if she didn't play at all, Harry would die.

"Dammit," she muttered, dropping her arms in defeat. "Alright, just… Let me grab my bag."

"Oh please, allow my associate to help you," Cheshire offered, as the man not holding the video feed of her brother picked up her purse and jacket. "I wouldn't want you getting any funny ideas about calling the police. After all, you're coming with us willingly, remember?"

The man pulled her phone out of her purse and left it purposefully sitting on one of the counters, like Heather had put it down and forgotten about it. He made a grabbing motion with his hand. "Smartwatch too, Ms Parker."

Heather gritted her teeth but removed her watch, handing it over. It was placed neatly beside the phone as he offered her her jacket.

So much for my civilian beacon. I don't have my backup with me either, she thought, shrugging into her jacket and accepting her purse. She gave the video feed one more glance and felt a new resolve harden in her gut.

I'm coming, baby brother, just hang on.

When she and her three new friends walked out of the lab, FRIDAY's voice greeted her instantly. "Ms Parker, I have been out of contact with you for two minutes and forty-three seconds. Is everything okay?"

Cheshire gave her a pointed look.

Heather took a deep breath. "Everything is fine, FRIDAY. I'm leaving here of my own free will. Please, make sure to tell my dad I have to postpone our meeting until later, something has come up."

She held her breath, hoping her 'friends' wouldn't find anything wrong in her words that could get her brother killed. She knew FRIDAY was one of the smartest AI's on the planet, and even if she wouldn't know exactly why Heather’s words were off, she would know to share them with the right people.

FRIDAY processed her words for a long heartbeat. "Very well, Ms Parker. Have a good evening."

The AI opened the elevator for them, and soon they were dropping down into the parking garage. The three led Heather to a nondescript black SUV, and within moments they were pulling into late night traffic. The two men were in the front seat, Cheshire and herself in the middle row. Once the Stark Industries building was out of sight, Heather’s voice was like ice. "How do I know that your boss will release my brother when they get what they want?"

"You have my word," Cheshire promised coolly. "I have no intention of breaking up a family."

"Right," Heather drawled, unimpressed. "I suppose you won't tell me what they want until we arrive."

"And spoil the surprise?"

Heather rolled her eyes. "Mmhmm. Listen, I've been going nonstop for about twenty hours now, so I'm going to get some sleep. I'd appreciate it if no one stabbed me before I got to see my brother."

"You've got it, sunshine. Pleasant dreams," Cheshire cooed at her smugly.

Heather glared at her hard enough that she could see the woman stiffen. "I meant what I said, Cheshire. I don't care what happens to me, but if anything befalls my brother, I won't rest until everyone responsible is dead. You have my word on that." With that said, she leaned back in the leather seat and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the mental images of yet another loved one lying in a pool of blood at her feet.

Harry didn't know what was happening, and as someone who was usually in the loop, he did not enjoy the feeling.

He'd been on campus, leaving a party much later than his mom would have liked him to be, but he didn't have class the following day, and he'd been in a festive mood.

He had gotten a girl's number from the party, which didn't happen often to a Parker (or a Reilly for that matter). Her name was Sabrina, she was an art major, she loved dogs and wanted to paint a wall mural somewhere in the city - and he had her number!

Harry had been so happy walking back to his dorm that he hadn't paid his spider sense any mind until rough arms were dragging him down an alley.

At first, he'd thought it was a mugging, but then his three assailants were trying to shove a chemical soaked rag over his mouth and nose. He'd taken a deep breath of the stuff before his head caught up with what was happening to his body.

He threw two of his attackers off with just a fraction of his enhanced strength, and punched the third in the jaw. He turned to run for help when the chloroform seemed to catch up with him, speeding through his system from his rapid heartbeat. He staggered, tripping over a garbage can and landing roughly on his hands and knees. He opened his mouth to call for help when he was tackled from behind, knocking the air from his lungs.

Harry flipped onto his back, trying to aim a punch at the man's throat but his slowed reflexes meant the hit just glanced off of his attacker's shoulder. The man retaliated with a punch to Harry's temple, bouncing his skull against the concrete. Harry blinked the stars from his eyes as the other two men pinned him down and forced the rag over his face again. He tried to hold his breath, but the man straddling him had a knee pressed against his diaphragm, making him more and more aware of his need for oxygen.

Harry kicked his legs weakly, desperately, trying to tug his arms free but soon his lungs burned for air. He took in a desperate gasp and instantly felt his head swim as darkness took over his vision.

When Harry woke up sometime later, he was bound to a metal chair bolted to the floor, cotton in his mouth and sticky tape sealing his lips. He took several minutes to clear the fog from his brain and take stock of his situation. The room was dark except for a single light bulb hanging above him, its weak light only illuminating a ten foot radius. He was alone, as far as he could tell, and that made him more nervous.

He very carefully flexed his muscles and knew instantly he could free himself. Clearly, whoever had grabbed him didn't know his secret. So, that eliminated the Spiderman angle, or at least the Stinger angle. So why was he here?

Outside of his extra curricular activities with his dad and occasionally his sister, there was nothing remarkable about Harry. He'd gotten into college on a soccer scholarship, he made average to good grades, his parents weren't rich, and he wasn't in any kind of fraternity which eliminated the odds of this being a hazing gone way too far.

He couldn't even say that Harry Parker had enemies. He was generally well liked by most of his class - even Malcolm Washington, the little prick, didn't rank any higher than a traditional sports rival. Stinger had enemies, that was for sure; ones he'd inherited from his dad, and ones he'd made on his own just from fighting the good fight.

But if these people wanted Stinger, why tie him up with regular rope and leave him unguarded? That didn't make sense.

Suddenly, a door Harry hadn't noticed before opened and someone cast in shadow from the light outside stepped in. Harry squinted against the bright light, eyes struggling to adjust from the dark. It looked like whoever it was had a long metal object in their hand, and a spike of panic went through him.

The shadowy person approached deliberately and Harry willed himself not to outwardly react, even when his heart threatened to bust its way out of his chest. The person paused just outside of the circle of light and took the long metal object, which Harry finally recognized as a tripod, and set it up in front of him. They placed a smartphone onto the tripod so it faced Harry, and stepped back further into the shadows.

Harry narrowed his eyes in confusion, but with the wad of whatever-it-was shoved in his mouth, he couldn't ask what the hell was happening. He didn't have to wait long, though.

A video call came across the screen and the shadowy person answered it. Harry at first stared back at his own disheveled reflection in the camera before the call connected, and suddenly he was staring at his big sister's pale face. Her voice came over the tinny speaker, furious as her gaze switched from him to someone off-screen. "I don't know who your boss is, but he's made a very big mistake. If anything happens to him, heads will roll." He’d only heard her sound so angry a few times before. It wasn’t her Scarlet Spider voice, not exactly, but it was very very close.

"Like I said," A mystery woman responded. "I knew you'd come willingly."

Harry’s confusion only deepened as he watched a myriad of emotions cross his sister’s face. Who were these people? What did they want from Heather? It couldn’t have been ransom, she didn’t have any more money than his parents did.

He’d found that strange when he was younger, since his sister was friends with not just one but two billionaires, but she’d explained to him that she wanted to earn her own way through the world - not rely on charity or favors. While she had accepted the scholarships that put her through college from Wayne Foundations and Stark Industries, she’d made their respective CEO’s promise to actually consider other candidates’ essays, instead of just picking hers because they knew her. Wayne and Stark had assured her that she’d won them fair and square with the handful of other candidates. And then Heather had gone and interrogated Pepper Potts and Dick Grayson to make sure it was actually true before accepting them.

“-you’re coming with us willingly, remember?” The mystery woman on the call said, forcing Harry to halt his scattered thoughts and focus on what was happening.

Heather surrendered her phone and smartwatch, looking like she was swallowing a lemon as she did. He knew why too. Her watch had a distress beacon built into it for civilian emergencies. Without her watch, the likelihood of someone finding them had dwindled significantly. She turned back to the phone and met his gaze through the feed, a familiar look of steely protectiveness in her eyes before the call was cut off.

When he was younger, he’d found his sister’s protectiveness annoying at best and overbearing at worst. He was his own person, with his own powers, and could take care of himself. If he wasn’t worried about blowing his status as enhanced, he could bust himself out of here right now. He hated that he was being used as leverage against his sister for… something.

He couldn’t begin to imagine what they would want from her. Sure, Heather knew a lot of people, but most of those connections were strictly through the mask. The few she knew that were of public knowledge - Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, a few of the X-Men - nobody outside her inner circle had any idea how deep those connections went. As far as the world at large was concerned, she and Dick Grayson had met at a charity event as teenagers and remained friends, Tony Stark was her boss along with thousands of others, and her fiance was a retired member of the X-Men. Not exactly blackmail material.

The shadowy figure had left at some point during Harry’s musings, leaving the tripod and phone behind and cutting off the outside light. The dim lighting and bareness of the room once again set his nerves on edge.

Harry wasn’t one to spook easily, but his spider senses seemed to be stretching out taut as a bow string, searching for danger or stimulus of any kind. He was restless and wished he could get up and pace the room.

Heather had explained to him that the spider sense was a kind of precognition. It was an extension of what most people referred to as a sixth sense; the creeping feeling you got when you instinctually knew something was wrong, but multiplied by a hundred.

When the sense had finally come to him fully, he’d been so nauseous with vertigo he laid in bed for three days, choking down clear liquids and saltine crackers only to throw them back up a few hours later. Heather had stayed by his side the entire time, coaching him through reining in the power until it didn’t overwhelm him.

“It’s a muscle, Harry. Think of it like your diaphragm,” Heather had explained to him in a soft voice. He’d had his eyes pinched closed as tight as they would go, his head exploding with sounds and colors. He could hear traffic from outside their apartment like it was right beside him. He could hear every baby crying, and every neighbor in their building as they cleaned or talked or watched television or vacuumed or made dinner.

It was too much, it was all too much.

“Breathe Harry. Come on, little brother, breathe. Focus on the sound of my voice, on my heartbeat and nothing else. Your spider sense is trying to find danger that isn’t there, constricted as tight as if you were holding your breath. Let it relax, let it acknowledge that you’re safe, and then reel it back one breath at a time.” Heather and pressed her forehead to his as she sat on the edge of his bed, taking his hand and guiding it to the pulse point in her neck. “Breathe, one two. Breathe, one two. That’s it little brother.”

Harry closed his eyes now and focused his breathing, focused on the pounding of his heart that sounded so loud in his ears. Slowly, his spider sense uncoiled itself from around his throat, his breaths evening out as his brain reasserted control. Yes, he was in a bad spot. Yes, he and his sister were in danger. But it wasn’t anything they couldn’t handle together.

His spider sense returned to it’s normal hum at the base of his skull - a snake ready to strike when danger reared it’s head, but also content to let its prey come to it. It was his constant companion, as much as it was for his sister, and their fathers before them.

Harry opened his eyes, frowning at that thought. His fathers. He rarely thought about his birth father, Ben, these days. Peter was the only father he’d ever known, though the man wasn’t always worthy of the title.

To his credit, Peter had really stepped up during Harry’s high school years, becoming a more prominent presence in his life than he’d ever been previously. Did it make up for the years Peter had squandered, too lost in self pity and hatred? No, not really, but the effort was appreciated.

Yet despite Peter’s shortcomings, Ben didn’t weigh on Harry’s mind the way he knew the man did for his older sister. Heather would probably never recover emotionally from the loss of their biological father, and the bitterness she had towards their stepfather ran deep. Oh sure, she’d taken steps. She’d attended therapy sessions, surrounded herself with friends who understood - at least to a degree - what it was like to lose a parent, even if it wasn’t in quite the same way as she had. She had made a kind of peace with the tragedy that stole Ben away from them before Harry was even born, but it was unclear whether she’d ever really forgive Peter’s role in her trauma. Despite her personal feelings, she didn’t seem to begrudge the close bond that Peter now shared with Harry and their younger sister Audrey.

“I don’t want you two to grow up to become jaded like me,” She’d told him once when it was just the two of them. “There’s only room for one black sheep in this family, and I’ve laid claim to it. You and Audrey should have the dad that I never really got.”

“It’s not like he wasn’t there,” Harry had argued at the time. He’d been eighteen and certain he knew how the world worked.

Heather had been twenty-three. Her smile had been so sad, just remembering it hurt. “Not in the ways it mattered,” was all she said.

Harry was twenty-one now, and while he better understood his sister’s perspective, he also knew that this was something they’d never truly see eye to eye on.

Harry's thoughts continued to wander as he waited in darkness. He wondered if his roommate Josh had noticed his absence. If he'd called his parents. Was his dad out looking for him now? He wondered if he'd see his mom again, or get to hug his adorably bratty thirteen year old sister one more time. Just as his thoughts were really beginning to spiral, the door opened again. He jerked his head up, squinting as he was once more blinded by the light.

"Harry!" Heather cried, running to him. She cupped his cheeks gently as she examined the bruise he could feel on his temple, eyes glittering suspiciously. "Are you okay?"

Fine, he tried to say, only to remember the gag.

Heather turned her head to glare at her escorts, while keeping a reassuring grip on her brother's broad shoulders. "Let him go. You've got me here, you don't need him anymore."

"Unfortunately, he will have to remain our guest for a little longer," Cheshire said, and Harry suddenly recognized it was her voice he'd heard on the video call. "Do as my employer asks, and he will be released."

Harry felt more than saw the tremble of rage that slid down Heather’s spine, his spider sense warning him of the very real harm his sister was capable of when provoked.

She seemed to give herself a five count to control her anger, before turning back to him. She smiled forcefully, leaning down to wrap her arms around his shoulders and bury her face in his neck. Only he could hear her as she breathed, "don't worry. Peter will be here soon. Play along until I can get us out of this."

Harry leaned his head toward her in response, grunting softly in acknowledgement. She pulled back enough to kiss his cheek and said loudly enough for everyone to hear, "I'm sorry you got dragged into this, baby brother. Everything will be fine, okay?" She carded her fingers through his dirty hair, seemingly on the verge of tears, but he knew her well enough to see they were fake.

He played along, nodding with wide eyes, letting his Adam's apple bob nervously as he looked between his sister and the muscular guards. Playing the part of a scared victim was almost too easy. Mary Jane had given all of her children acting lessons to help maintain their secret identities. She always joked they would need it, since Peter was a terrible actor.

[sakuramochi1310]

I completely forgot to show my Sonic OCs, which I already have! They're waiting for a small redesign, but I'll show them anyway :>

There are heroes of my Xeno!AU, in which Sonic and his friends go to Xenobilis - a city on Mobius that they know very little about, or perhaps they don't know anything at all. This city literally lives with modern technologies, and 80% of its inhabitants immerse themselves in science every day and even every minute!

———

And now about the characters who will appear in my AU:

Doris Parker the Fox is a resident of Xenobilis and an assistant to professor Martin Parker. This fox became almost his own son, since the professor raised him from an early age (Doris was 8 years old at the time of meeting Martin).

Doris is very passionate about mechanics and programming, especially since he started living in the professor's laboratory. And because of that, he can create literally ANY gadget.

———

Scarlet Parker the Rabbit appeared in Doris' life completely by accident: she was found by him when she was still a newborn rabbit, and then got into the professor's laboratory with the fox. Since that time, she has become almost a sister to Doris and a daughter to Martin.

Shy and quiet in front of strangers, she often hides behind her brother in their presence. But sometimes she likes to have fun and even be naughty.

———

Desimate the Cat is Doris' best friend. Well.. she WAS his best friend. Now she is insensitive and cold to everyone and everything, as she has become "Eggman's most powerful weapon."

Before becoming a victim of experiments with an unknown substance, Emilia (that was the name of Decimate in the past) was a very kind and caring cat who never left her friends in sorrow and trouble. Now she doesn't remember anything about herself and her friends, not even their names. At a high level of anger, Decimate can increase strength, speed and agility by almost three times: this effect is given to her by the same unknown liquid that is now flowing through her vessels.

———

Karilain the Hedgehog is the head of a military organization that aims to protect Xenobilis. She is a successful leader who never succumbs to provocation, always has a lot of plans in her head and does not forget about her duties.

Although she cannot leave her army of defenders of the city to be a member of Doris' team, Karilain decides to help the fox overcome his fears and gain a skill like quick reaction.

———

That's all for today. When the references of all the characters described above are ready, I will tell you about each of them in more detail.