#on the other hand we have a child who was let down by the system and became a mass murderer about it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sexinahandbag · 29 days ago

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Grief Is A B*tch

Pairing: Jason Todd x Amazon!Reader

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, alcohol use, language, violence, fluff, angst (if you squint really, really, really hard), Dick and Reader flirt like once or twice, jealous!Jason, Jason and Dick are twenty one, reader is twenty, does not follow canon except for a few things it’s my own little universe, everyone lives in Wayne Manor, SMUT (pinv, oral (m & f receiving), face sitting, riding, family restroom sex)

Summary: Ten years ago your mother, Diana, sent you to train with her friend Bruce Wayne Batman and his "Bat-family." For eight years, that's exactly what you did; you trained with Dick, Jason, and Stephanie, you hung out with them, you went to school with them, basically you did everything with the Bat-fam. After the death of someone incredibly close to you, you decided to leave Gotham and give up the mantle of Alectrona. Now, two years later, you've returned and this time you're ready to be a hero, at least you think so.

a/n: guys i have an alternate ending to this PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT IT

♠︎♠︎♠︎

You huffed as you lugged your suitcase in one hand up the stairs and your one hundred twenty pound Bullmastiff, Brutus, practically pulled you in the other hand. Of course you could easily tame the situation with your super strength, but you’re trying to live like a human. That’s what the last two years have been about: trying to live like a human, giving up the secret identity, putting yourself first for the first time. You pushed open the door to the Wayne Manor, surprised at how easy it was to get in.

“Hello!” You called out, kicking the front door closed behind you. “Your favorite half-Amazon is back!”

You listened carefully for any movement, closing your eyes to really gauge your surroundings, just like how Bruce taught you. You opened one eye when you heard footsteps running from across the house. Two, two sets of footsteps, possibly children. You crossed your arms as the running got closer, waiting for the “attack.” Two boys appeared before you one clearly a child, possibly six to seven, the other an adolescent, possibly twelve to fifteen.

“Halt!” Said the little one, sticking his hand out to stop you from moving farther. “What brings you here? How did you get past our defenses?”

“What? Defenses? There were no outside defenses.” You answered, confusion washing over your face.

“Damian, where’s Titus?” The older one asked, running his hand over his face.

“I told him to guard the door like you asked.” Damian explained.

“Okay, where’s the adults? Where’s Alfred?” You sighed, looking around the foyer.

“Perhaps your monster ate Titus.” Damian claimed, pointing at Brutus.

“How dare you?” You gasped, clutching your chest with your hand. “My Brutus would never- Nope, not getting caught up in this. I’m going to go find Alfred.”

You left your suitcase in the middle of the foyer and walked to the study with Brutus where you knew you could get entrance to the Batcave. You felt the two boys push past you to prevent you from going any further.

“You may not go any farther.” Damian said, crossing his arms to stand his ground.

“If I know how to access the cave, did it maybe cross your mind that I’m important enough to come down here?”

“That is a valid argument.” The older one pointed out.

“Okay, you take this. I need to get to Alfred.” You said, handing Brutus’ leash to the older boy. “And be careful he probably weighs the same as you.”

Before the boys could protest, you sped out of the tunnel and into the cave where you finally found your old friends.

“You know if your new defense system is two annoying little boys, it works great.” You smiled.

“Ms. Prince, we were unaware of your arrival.” Alfred said, surprised as he walked towards you.

“Well, that’s the point of a surprise, no? And before you ask what I’m doing here, I decided it was time for me to come home. Decided I spent plenty of time away trying to figure out who I am, when I realized it was right in front of me the whole time.”

“Congratulations, Ms. Prince. Welcome home.” Alfred smiled before walking past you, towards the tunnel you had just exited from.

You looked around the cave, noting the slight differences. When your eyes landed on him, though, your smile faltered, your gaze hardened a little. You sped in front of him, your hand hesitating to ghost over his face. You took a second before your smile came back and it was like you came back to your senses.

“y/n…”

“I’m sorry, why is there a super clone of my ex-boyfriend, here?” Your eyes wandered over the clone’s body, it had Jason’s face, but as if Jason had been alive the last two years, his face was more mature than the last time you saw it. But the clone didn’t have his body, or his beautiful brown eyes. Instead, he was big, like really big and his eyes were green now. Still gorgeous, but not the brown ones you had fallen in love with. You watched as the soft gaze on the clone got impossibly softer, and somewhat sad.

“Y/n…” Dick said softly, turning towards you.

“I-I’m not a clone. It’s me.” Jason stuttered out, not sure how to deal with this. He was the one that decided it was best not to reach out to you. One night he decided to pay you a visit and by visit he means, he looked into your apartment bedroom from the fire escape and watched you sleep for thirty minutes before you started moving too much for his liking. But, when he saw how peaceful you looked, how you started building your new life, he decided it was just best to let you go. When Jason told you that it was him, your head hung low, and your eyes remained trained to the floor of the cave. You were trying your best not to cry.

“Okay, I’m sorry, I didn’t tell anyone that I was coming home, and I’m not even sure how you found out I was on my way back here. But, this isn’t a funny joke, Dick.” You said quietly, assuming Dick had somehow found out you were on your way back, and had a Jason robot built or a clone made to scare you.

“I wouldn’t—Y/n, I would never do something like that to you.” Dick tried to reach out to you, but you pulled away. Tears were invading your sight as you battled with the thought that the love of your life was possibly alive. If he was alive though, then you felt that meant the last two years could have been completely meaningless.

“He isn’t a clone, it’s Jason.” Bruce said, stepping out from the tunnel you had just gone through. “We would’ve told you sooner, but we thought that it would’ve been better if we just never said anything about the situation to you.”

Your eyes never left the ground as you listened to the people you trusted most, explain to you about how they lied to you about the most precious thing in your life.

“No.” You said softly, swallowing the growing lump in your throat. “Jason is dead. He’s not coming back. I know you guys want to believe that, that is Jason, but I-I…I watched Jason get…beat to a pulp by the Joker, before being forced to leave by Batman.”

The words that you had practiced time over time in your therapist’s office came out of you like the voice wasn’t your own, it was robotic almost. You added a few words for the context of the situation, but other than that, it was almost exact.

“You’re half god and you think resurrection isn’t possible?” Dick asked, narrowing his eyes at you.

“She’s in denial. She’s gone through a lot the last two years dealing with the death of Jason.” Bruce said, crossing his arms while he leaned against the wall, like he was waiting to see how things would play out.

“Which is why I didn’t want anyone to tell you. I saw how good you were finally doing and I didn’t want to ruin anything.” Jason explained.

Your head snapped up as Jason’s words settled in your brain. The tears that once clouded your vision were now dried against your cheeks. If someone looked into your eyes, they wouldn’t see sadness anymore, but anger and maybe disappointment.

“You saw? You came to see me and you didn’t even have the audacity to knock on the damn door?” You were practically shouting at this point. Your fists were clenched at your side and you were seething. Not only did the people you consider family keep the fact your dead boyfriend was alive, a secret from you, but your once-dead-but-now-alive boyfriend saw you, looked into your windows, and didn’t say anything to you. You felt like you were on the world’s worst emotional rollercoaster right now. Your breathing started to quicken as you listened to the boys attempt to explain things to you, all shouting at you at once. You were being pushed to your limits, and sometimes, like now, when you were pushed to your limits, you lost control. As soon as you started talking, you were floating off the ground. “You know Bruce, I was in denial because I couldn’t comprehend the idea that Jason, my Jason, would suddenly come back to life and not even bother to send a fucking text. I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that yo-you wouldn’t even knock on my door or -or send me flowers on Valentine’s Day. I would be more understanding if Bruce told you, you couldn’t see me. But, he didn’t! You made up the decision on your own! You’re a coward, Jason. My Jason wasn’t a coward.”

At this point you were about two feet off the ground. You let out a frustrated groan once you realized you had let your emotions get the better of you for the first time in two years. You put yourself back on the ground and turned on your heel, practically stomping back into the tunnel you came out of.

“We’re so sorry, we didn’t realize who you were at first. If we knew you were y/n—If we knew you were Alectrona we wouldn’t have tried to stop you.” The older boy from earlier explained rapidly. “I’m Tim by the way and this-this is Damian. I also still have your dog so-”

“Give me my damn dog.” You said, accidentally taking the leash a little harder than you intended

♠︎♠︎♠︎

You stood in your room unpacking your suitcase that Alfred had brought up for you. Brutus laid on the bed, taking an undeserving nap as you sped back and forth between your closet and your suitcase. You stopped in your closet and glanced over at your old school uniform, gazing at it fondly, memories of when life was easier flooding your brain. But, suddenly you heard a floor board creak and you quickly dropped your uniform. You grabbed your knife from the inside of your fur coat and stepped out from your closet, throwing it just past the person’s ear as a warning.

“Seriously?” Dick said, ducking slightly. “I knew you were mad, but I didn’t think you were that mad.”

“What do you want, Dick?” You muttered, walking over to your suitcase to zip it up

“How long are you home for?” Dick asked, looking over you for a second before he walked over to your knife and pulled it out of the wall.

“Until I leave again.” You shrugged, crossing your arms.

“That’s not a very solid timeline.” Dick chuckled, walking closer to you.

“I’m back for the foreseeable future. Is that a better timeline?”

“Loving the attitude. Do you wanna talk about it?”

“That was a one time thing.” You said through gritted teeth, pointing your finger at Dick.

“Hey, you know you liked it, I know I liked it.” Dick smirked, holding his hands up. “Why don’t we make the sequel babe?”

“Stop. Being. Gross.” You muttered, punctuating each word with a slap to Dick’s arm.

“Okay, okay.” Dick groaned, rubbing his arm. “I came here to apologize. So, I’m sorry, If I knew you were coming back to Gotham I would’ve told you that Jason was alive, but you didn’t so I couldn’t prepare you for what you would see.”

“Don’t you dare try flipping this on me, Richard John Grayson.” You accused, making Dick cringe at the use of his full name.

“I—Okay, I’m sorry. I should have told you that Jason was back I knew what it would mean to you. I should’ve given you the decision of whether or not you wanted to see him. It wasn’t my place to take that from you. You’re my best friend, and I’m sorry.”

“Why…Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was being a good brother. He asked me not to tell you, I honored his wishes.”

“How many times did you come see me and you knew Jason was alive?”

“Two or three…”

“Which one is it, Dick? Two or three?”

“Four.” Dick squeaked out, cringing slightly, afraid that you would hit him again. You sighed deeply, turning towards Dick fully.

“y/n…”

“I will accept your apology, but there’s been strain in our trust and friendship, Dick.”

“So, I guess now’s a good time as ever to tell you, I’m putting you on patrol with Jason tomorrow, which means you also have training with him tomorrow.” Dick muttered. You squeezed your eyes shut and let your head fall back as you listened to him. “Look, you decided to come back and that’s great, but we need to ease you back into it and I figured who better than Jason? He’s someone you’re comfortable with, someone you know.”

“Someone I know?” You chuckled dryly. “Fine, whatever, that’s…that is fine.”

“It is nice to see you back in Gotham. You look good, gorgeous, some would say you’re practically glowing.” Dick smiled. “I see you’ve gotten a few new ear piercings since the last time I saw you. Wanna tell me about any other piercings you might have gotten?”

“Pleasantries aren’t going to get you anywhere, Dickie.”

“What about dinner then?”

“It could possibly be a start.”

♠︎♠︎♠︎

You groaned as you heard the rapid knocking on your bedroom door, pulling you from the few hours of sleep you had grown accustomed to, causing Brutus to bark at whoever was on the other side.

“Down.” You muttered to him as you walked through your room, causing Brutus to lay back down in his dog bed. You glared as you opened the door, the light from the hallway being a little much. Jason gulped when you opened the door. Your hair was a mess, your eyes were puffy, and you were wearing a shirt that was far too big to be yours, he recognized it as one of his. You may have looked like a mess, but Jason didn’t think so. It reminded him of mornings spent in bed when he could sneak into your room without getting caught by Alfred. It reminded him of when times were good, when there was color in his life.

“What?” You groaned out, leaning between the door and the doorframe.

“We have training.” Jason said rather quickly, keeping his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Since when was training at four in the morning? What happened to three o’clock in the afternoon, when people are properly awake.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you until I hear an apology anyways.” You smiled lazily, keeping your eyes shut to remain as tired as possible.

“You know I’ve never been one for verbal apologies with you.” Jason smirked.

“y/n…”

“Well, it’s a great day to start learning.” You said before moving to close the door. But, before the door closed, Jason held it open. You cocked an eyebrow as you looked up at him. “You know I can close this door and crush your fingers with it, right?”

“Great, you can also crush my fingers during training.”

“If you think I’m joking about not going anywhere with you, then you must’ve forgotten how stubborn I am. Either that or it’s not really you like I said from the start.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll apologize.” Jason started, letting go of the door. You straightened your shoulders and let go of your own grip on the door, showing you were willing to listen. “I don’t have anything prepared, everything’s off the cuff, so bear with me.”

You watched as Jason took a second to collect himself before speaking, making you cock an eyebrow at him.

“You were right, I am a coward. I convinced myself I was just protecting your peace, pushing you forward and not holding you back. But, the truth is, I wasn’t doing it to protect your peace, I didn’t see you because I figured you wouldn’t want to see me. I was scared of what you would think of me. I was scared that you would say that you didn’t need me anymore. So, yes, I was a coward and I’m sorry. You don’t deserve a coward, you deserve better than that.”

“I woul-” You started, before taking a second and taking a deep breath. “This is why I am so upset you didn’t come to me. I would never tell you I don’t need you. Even if we weren’t together, you would still be someone I’d need in my life. You’re someone I’ll always need in my life, you’re one of my best friends, Jason. When you died, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t train, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t eat. All I could do was cry. The only time I had a moment of peace is when I would get those wonderful two to three hours of sleep every night. It was the only time I could see you again. And then, I would wake up and for a few minutes I would forget, and then I would open my eyes and everything came flashing back. How I couldn’t help you, how I had to leave you there. It took me months and constant visits from Bruce and Dick to actually get out of bed, to have the energy to leave your fucking room. To get out and never…never go back. Yes, you coming back probably would’ve disturbed my peace, but that was something I prayed for every night. I prayed that I would get just a couple minutes with you again, just to talk, just to feel you again. And when I finally, finally, accepted that you were gone forever and I was sort of okay with that, here you are, acting like it’s just another Tuesday. You didn’t even give me some sort of sign. A sign—gods, I prayed for a sign from you.”

“If I knew how badly you were hurting, I would’ve rushed to save you, in a second. But, Bruce made it seem like you were doing great. He told me you started a whole new life. He told me you had a great apartment and you were going to Yale. I mean, Yale, why-why would I want to be part of the reason why you stopped going to Yale?”

“I could go back to Yale, I couldn’t get you back.”

You sighed and dropped your head, you had been moving your arms dramatically at this point while trying to get your point across.

“Give me twenty minutes, and I’ll be ready.” You muttered, going to walk back into your room, but Jason stopped the door again.

“No way, sweetheart.” He chuckled. “You think I trust your ability to not crawl back in bed?”

“So, what, are you gonna watch me change like a creep?” You asked, crossing your arms.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before.” Jason smirked and you took a second and nodded, muttering ‘nothing you haven’t seen before’, before opening the door just a little bit further to let Jason in. Jason shut the door behind him as you walked into your bathroom to wash your face. You listened intently as Jason spoke to Brutus with a baby voice.

“You know I don’t need a babysitter, right?” You said from your spot in the bathroom, your mouth full of toothpaste, as you brushed your teeth, after washing your face.

“Do you remember how often you tried to get out of training when we were kids?” Jason asked leaning his forearms against the bathroom doorframe, while his hands hung loosely in the air.

“Of course, some of my greatest excuses were formulated in this room.” You replied after spitting.

“That’s why you need a babysitter.” Jason laughed.

“I do not need a babysitter.” You protested, smacking Jason in the arm with the closest hand towel you could grab. The gears started turning in your head and you realized just how you could get out of training. You moved closer to Jason, but his stance never faltered, he remained leaning against the doorway. Your hands found purchase on Jason’s waist just underneath the compression shirt he was wearing, as you looked up at him through your lashes, a pout forming on your face. “Come on Jay, don’t you just want to stay in bed? We have so much to catch up on.”

Before you could move your hands any farther, Jason pushed your arms away. “No, you can’t use that little charm magic power you have.” Jason said, crossing his arms, the most serious look settled on his face.

Confusion washed over your features and your eyes wandered around the room as you tried to find an answer to your question.

“Wha-What are you talking about?” You asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“You know that fucking thing you do with your voice and face when you want something. It’s like you put on a magic charm or something.” Jason explained. When the realization of what he was saying sunk in, you laughed so hard tears started to form in the corner of your eyes.

“That’s not one of my powers. I use something called manipulation. I know what you like and I use that to my advantage-”

“I know what manipulation is.” Jason cut you off, using a matter-of-tone voice. “You are now, officially, ten percent less cool than I thought you were before.”

“Wow, so what, you think I’m like ninety percent cool now?”

“No, more like seventy five.” Jason shrugged.

“So, you thought I was only eighty five percent cool before.”

“Yeah.” Jason said flatly.

“Wow, that’s…that’s, like, harsh, almost.” You joked, clutching your chest. You closed your eyes, allowing the tears to collect at your waterline before opening your eyes again. “That’s like really mean, Jay. I always thought you were a hundred percent cool.” You cried.

“Shit, please don’t cry—Wait a second, stop trying to manipulate me!”

Your face dropped and you wiped the tears off your face.

“Damn, you’re good at picking up on that.” You muttered, as you pushed past Jason to walk to your closet. Jason tried his hardest not to peer into your closet, keeping his eyes focused on anywhere else in the room. You walked out wearing a black Lululemon sports bra and the matching leggings, hopping around as you pulled on your running shoes.

“Tie this for me, please.” You said, pulling your left foot up onto Jason’s thigh, as you bent over and tied your other shoe; Dick wasn’t the only gymnast, you had been in gymnastics from the ages of four until you were eighteen. Jason sighed and started tying your shoe, like you asked.

You and Jason made the walk to the cave in a somewhat comfortable silence. Jason knew you weren’t fully awake until about two hours after you woke up, so he wasn’t gonna push you to talk. And you had way too many questions circling in your head, that you were uncertain of what you wanted to ask.

“They want me to run a marathon.” Jason said once you reached the training room in the cave. “And they want you to run as long as I do.”

“And by run, I’m assuming, they mean run.” You sighed, tilting your head back slightly. Memories of being pushed to your limit while using your powers flooded your brain.

“Yeah.” Jason muttered, looking at his hands. He had first hand experience in just how much harder you were pushed than everyone else. He knew how much you hated it.

“Do they even have a treadmill that goes six thousand miles per hour for almost three hours anymore?”

“You mean like the one you used to have when we were kids? Like that one right there?” Jason pointed to the treadmill in front of him and you groaned at the familiar sight of it. In high school and middle school, Bruce would make you run at your top speed for hours on end. He would always make you stop right before you passed out, but he would push you to that limit nonetheless. You sighed as you climbed onto your treadmill, pressing the big red start button. Your treadmill went as fast as you did, so you wouldn’t have to go so fast from the start, you could build your way up to six thousand miles per hour. You closed your eyes and focused on the music playing through your headphones as you built up speed.

♠︎♠︎♠︎

You stepped off the treadmill a short three and a half hours later, panting a little from using your powers for so long.

“You good?” Jason asked, panting hard.

“Better than you.” You joked, straightening up once you started to feel better.

“Ready to spar?”

“Don’t you need like, fifteen minutes?”

“I’m fine.” Jason huffed, in that tone of voice you knew not to fight with. You shot him one last look before heading over to the sparring ring.

You wrapped your hands up, not for your comfort, but for Jason’s. You knew when you hit, it hurt, and you would do anything, especially when it comes to training with another person, to ensure their safety.

After a few rounds of back and forth between you and Jason, you finally let him pin you to the mats. The last time Jason had you pinned like this, it was not nearly as innocent as this sparring session had been. You could easily break out of his pin if you wanted to, but you hadn’t been this close to Jason in years, and you wanted it to last just a little longer. Hell, you wanted it to last as long as it could, because you didn’t know when you would be this close to him again. You still were trying to figure out if this was some sick lucid dream or not. But, you would take the moments where you could get them.

“Stop holding back.” Jason groaned, his grip on your wrists tightening.

“I’m not holding back.” You said, as you pretended to struggle against him.

“Come on, baby, you know you have fifty four ways to get out of this.” Jason teased, smirking down at you. He adjusted his position slightly, grinding his hips against yours in the process on accident. “Shit, I-”

You cut Jason off by bucking your hips up against his and pushing him to the side with your hips. You moved to straddle him before swinging your right leg around his left arm, twisting around quickly so you were laying on the ground next to him, with his arm trapped between your twisting legs, while your arms pulled up on his arm.

“You’re right, baby, I do have fifty four ways of getting out of that. You’re lucky I went with the least painful option.” You teased back, pulling his arm up further to inflict more pain. Jason attempted to move his arm up with you on it, but found it quite hard.

“Alright, alright, you win.” Jason sighed, tossing his head back against the mats. You removed yourself from Jason’s arm with a smug look on your face, before standing up and offering your hand to Jason to help him up. You watched as Jason eyed you suspiciously.

“I’m not gonna drop you. I’m not you.” You protested, rolling your eyes. As soon as your eyes hit the back of your head, you felt Jason grab your hand. You quickly helped him up, despite the sickening feeling in your stomach, which felt wildly similar to nerves.

“I’ll see you tonight.” Jason said quickly before turning and walking out of the cave.

You muttered a quiet ‘what?’ to yourself in confusion, while looking around. You followed Jason quietly out of the cave, keeping your distance from him.

When you walked out of the study and into the kitchen, where you were hoping to find Alfred, you were greeted by Tim being pulled around by Brutus, while he sat in a wagon that was clearly too small for him.

“It seems Master Drake has taken a liking to your dear Brutus.” Alfred smiled when he saw you.

“Alfred, can I talk to you?” You asked, twisting your fingers.

“Oh dear, I haven’t heard that tone since you were in high school.” Alfred said, dropping what he was doing to turn the stove off and take off his apron. “Let’s go somewhere more private.”

You followed Alfred to the library, where he sat on a couch and you paced in front of him.

“I…had…sex with Dick.” You muttered quietly as you came to stop in front of him, your head hanging low. “And before, I felt fine about my decision. I was secure in it. But now, Jason’s back? And I feel guilty not telling him, you know? I mean I was single when it happened, technically. I thought Jason was gone, Dick thought Jason was gone, everyone thought Jason was gone. I mean am I obligated to tell him? I feel like I should, like my gut is telling me that I should.”

“Oh, dear Lord, I figured this day would come. Truthfully, I thought it would come when you were in high school, but you know, you started dating Jason. When did this happen?”

“About a year ago.” You answered quietly, biting on your thumb nail.

“When Master Grayson was in Paris?” Alfred gasped.

“Now is not the time for details Alfred. What do I do?”

At this point you were so nervous you were floating six inches off the floor.

“Do you think the two of you have a chance at getting back together?”

“y/n…”

“Well, there’s definitely a flirty undertone when we talk. And during training he called me baby.” You bit on the knuckle of your index finger as you watched Alfred’s reaction of disbelief.

“Well, Ms. Prince, I would say you should tell Master Todd about your relations with Master Grayson. It seems as if he has hope for the two of you getting back together. If he does, then it’s fair to ensure he has all the possible information.”

You nodded as you took in Alfred’s words. “Thanks, Alfred, I actually think I know what I need to do.”

“Are you going to tell Master Todd?”

“No, I’ve decided I’m going to kill them both so I don’t have to deal with any fallout.” You shrugged. “It would be quick too, they wouldn’t even realize.”

“Ms. Prince…” Alfred said carefully, suddenly startled.

“Ugh, I’m just joking, Alfred. Yes, I am going to tell Jason that I slept with Dick.” You explained, your hands flopping around in the air as you spoke.

“You had me startled there for a second. Well played, Ms. Prince.” Alfred chuckled.

♠︎♠︎♠︎

Later that night, you made your way down to the cave, where you found your suit. Bruce had a few changes made to it, but it was still essentially the same.

“Hello, old friend.” You whispered as you picked up your suit. You quickly changed and met Jason by his bike.

“You know I can fly, right?” You asked as you pointed limply towards Jason’s bike.

“And have you get hurt or kidnapped because I let you out of my sight? No chance.” Jason helped you climb onto the back of his bike, giving you no chance to protest. He handed you a helmet and you cocked an eyebrow at him, before staring back at the helmet. “Put it on.”

“I hate to pull this card, but, do you like, know who I am?”

“Yes, and I know you think you’re invincible, but you’re not. So, for my sanity, please put it on.”

You huffed and pulled the helmet on, letting Jason make sure everything was alright, before tapping the helmet twice with his hand. As soon as he was on the bike, your arms wrapped around his waist. You felt as Jason jerked away at first, before leaning into your touch.

“Comms check.” You heard Tim say through the communications piece you had in your ear, once you and Jason entered downtown Gotham about twenty minutes later.

“All good.” You and Jason returned at the same time, shouting over the wind that whipped around you two.

“Okay, you guys can’t speak at the same time otherwise I can’t differentiate between you two.”

“We’re good, Tim!” You shouted, wrapping yourself slightly closer to Jason, enjoying his warmth that covered you like a blanket, protecting you from the cold air of the night.

“Alright, the deal’s going down in the old toy factory on third avenue. Wait in the alley until you see a guy in a tan suit enter. Then, you can head in.”

Jason turned off the bike as he pulled up to the old factory and pulled back into the alley across the street.

“So, how long have you been back?” You asked Jason in a lowered voice, ensuring no one could hear you, placing your hands behind you and holding all your weight against them, as you let your legs dangled off the side of the bike.

“About six months.” Jason answered, keeping his eyes trained on the building in front of you.

“And your first instinct was to go to the manor?”

“After I got out of the hospital and away from Ra’s Al Ghul, my first instinct was to find you. The last place I knew you were was the manor.”

“How long did it take you to find me?”

“Not very long. Dick kind of gave up your address the first time I asked for it.”

You pursed your lips and nodded understandingly, not that Jason could see it.

“Hey, isn’t that the guy Tim said to look out for?” You pointed towards the guy that was walking into the factory.

“Alright, I’m heading in.” Jason said, getting off the bike.

“What? What do you mean you’re heading in?” You whisper shouted, as you took your helmet off.

“I mean, I’m heading in.” Jason whispered back.

“There’s no way you’re going in there alone.” You protested quietly.

“It is way too dangerous in there for you.” Jason said through gritted teeth.

“You need to stop treating me like I’m porcelain, Jason. I was quite literally made for this.”

“No, your mom was made for this. You just so happened to inherit her powers.”

“I am going to choose to ignore that out of kindness. I guarantee I can go in there and do the job in a quarter of the time it takes you. No one would even see me.”

“You’re not going in there.” Jason reaffirmed.

“One of you needs to get in there, now.” Tim said over the comms.

You rolled your eyes and sat back down on the bike.

“If I come out screaming, ‘go, go, go,’ jump in the front and take off. I know you think I won’t catch up, but I will. Just go and I will jump on the back when I catch up.” Jason explained.

“Fine.” You huffed, crossing your arms.

After fifteen minutes of sitting around doing nothing, you heard gunshots ring out from the factory, followed by Jason running out frantically screaming “go, go, go.” You panicked for a second before starting the bike and pulling out of the alley. You listened intently as you heard bullets being shot from behind you and the heavy feet of Jason, stomping along the road as he followed you. When you felt Jason jump onto the back of the bike, you let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding in.

“What happened in there?” You shouted over the comms.

“I fucked up.” Jason admitted, before turning around half way to shoot back at the car that was following us.

“I told you I could go in and finish that job in a quarter of your time without anyone even seeing me! But, no, you just had to be the one who did it!”

“I can’t hear you! I’m too busy trying to protect our asses!”

“Do you trust me?”

“Is this really the time-”

“Do you trust me?” You repeated, a little louder this time.

“Fuck…Yes, yes I trust you!”

“Good, I need you to take over!”

Once you felt Jason’s arms come around you and take over the driving, you turned around so you were facing Jason, pulling his guns out of his holsters in the process. You peered around Jason’s shoulder and started shooting at the car, making sure to aim for the tires you planned to make flat. But, you’re not exactly the best shot, and when you accidentally hit something beside the tire, the car blew up.

“Woah, when did you become a good shot?” Jason asked, as you slid his guns back into their holsters.

“Wouldn’t exactly say that.” You muttered, turning around to face the correct way. But, when you turned around, you got a whiff of something, something metallic. “Are you bleeding? Did you get fucking shot?”

“I’m fine.” Jason said through gritted teeth.

You pushed Jason’s hands off the handles and took over driving.

“You need to apply pressure to that!” You shouted, nudging Jason’s arm with your elbow.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Jason reassured you, as he moved his hand to cover the wound.

It wasn’t long before you were pulling back into the cave, where you were greeted by Alfred and Tim.

“Good news, it’s just a graze on your arm, but you will still need stitches.” Alfred said as he checked Jason’s arm. “I think Ms. Prince should be the one to patch you up. It will be a good chance to catch up on her first aid.”

“Are you sure-” Jason started but was soon cut off by Alfred and Tim walking out of the cave.

You sighed and went to grab a suture kit, as Jason hopped up on the exam table.

“Can you take your shirt off, please?” You asked quietly, as you moved to stand in front of Jason. But, when Jason didn’t move, you grew concerned. “Jason, please, can you take off your shirt?”

“It’s—It’s not a pretty sight under there.” Jason said quietly, hanging his head low.

“Jason, I don’t care how scarred you are, I mean I do, just not right now. I’m focused on getting this wound closed.”

Jason hesitated for a second before taking his shirt off. Suddenly, you understood why Jason didn’t want you to see him without a shirt on. Your hands ghosted along his scars, your fingers tracing them lightly. Jason’s eyes fluttered shut at the feeling of your fingers on his skin.

“y/n…”

When your mind caught up with your body, you took a step back and cleared your throat. You moved to Jason’s left side and slipped on a pair of sterilized gloves after washing your hands. Taking a deep breath, you opened the suture kit.

“If you don’t want to do this-”

“I got it.” You muttered, applying a local anesthetic to the wound area. Carefully, you cleaned the wound, making sure that any bullet fragments were removed.

After a short twenty minutes, you finally finished stitching up Jason.

“Finally.” Jason groaned out as he pulled his shirt back on.

“Maybe if you didn’t move around so much, I would’ve been able to finish faster.” You smiled, to show you were joking, as you moved around the table, collecting the bloody gauze.

“I thought about what you said this morning.” Jason said, breaking through the silence. “I should’ve left you some sort of sign or let Dick tell you that I was alive. If I knew how badly you were hurting, I would’ve done anything to ease that pain.”

“I slept with Dick.” You blurted out. You watched as Jason went through a handful of emotions, before he got off the exam table and walked towards the tunnel.

“Jay, Jay, please.” You pleaded, tears collecting at your waterline, clinging onto his arm to keep him with you, so you could at least talk. But, Jason just shrugged your arm off of him. “Please can we just talk, Jay?”

“So all that bullshit about how you were so upset you couldn’t even function, was just that then? Bullshit?”

“What? No, of course not. Everything I said was true. I would never lie to you, you know that. Dick was just a one time thing. He came to see me while I was in Paris and things just happened. But, it didn’t mean anything, I swear. We thought you were dead and never coming back. Dick was the only one who understood what I was going through at the time and he was just there.”

“So now you’re just having meaningless sex?”

“No, Jason, god. But, it’s not like I was in a committed relationship anymore. Again, as far as I knew you were dead. Even if you were still gone, did you expect me to stay single forever?”

“I didn’t think you’d sleep with my brother!”

You opened your mouth to say something but no words would come out.

“That’s what I thought.” Jason scoffed before turning back around and leaving the cave.

♠︎♠︎♠︎

You were walking through the hall, when you felt someone grab your elbow and pull you down another hall.

“What the hell, Dick?” You muttered, but when you really looked at him, you could see the black eye that was still settling and his busted lip. “Oh, shit.” You tried to stifle your laugh, but your smile still broke through.

“I talked to Jason.” Dick said as his hands settled on either side of your head, trapping you in place. “Why would you tell him?”

“He deserved to know, Dick.”

“He’s not entitled to knowing anything you did outside of the relationship. And if you really felt like you needed to tell Jason, then you should’ve come to me first.”

“Why? So you can get a head start?” You teased, trying to hide your smirk, but Dick didn’t find it funny. You sighed and rolled your eyes. “Look, why don’t we go to the club tonight? The three of us, like when we were in high school, just without the fake I.D.’s. Come on, Dickie, it’ll be fun.”

“Fine.” Dick huffed, taking a step away from you.

As you started to walk away, you turned back around and smiled, saying, “Oh, and if you try something like that again, I’ll make sure it’s the last thing you do, for a while.”

You continued your path down the hallway into the library, where you found Alfred dusting the books.

“Oh, good, Alfred, just the person I was looking for.” You said, closing the door behind you. “I did what you told me to.”

“I figured as much when Master Grayson greeted me this morning with a fresh black eye and still bleeding split lip. How did it go with Master Todd, though?”

“Dick getting beat up didn’t give it away?”

“I figured Master Grayson receiving a beating was inevitable.” Alfred shrugged. “So, not good then?”

“No, Alfred, not good.” You huffed, throwing yourself down on a couch. “I mean, what if Jason never speaks to me again?”

“Trust me, Ms. Prince, Master Todd is a young man, who you’ve had past relations with, he will speak to you again.”

“Do you think he’ll speak to me today?” You asked, sitting up a little straighter now.

“I wouldn’t push it, Ms. Prince.” Alfred answered and you slumped back against the couch.

♠︎♠︎♠︎

You sat at your vanity, focusing on your eyeliner, with the door open, when you saw Jason walk past your room. You quickly paused your music and ran out into the hallway, not minding that the only thing you were wearing was your silk robe.

“Jason.” You started after you stopped in front of him, your arms crossed and your weight resting on one foot. “Do you want to come to the club with Dick and I tonight?”

“And be a third wheel? No thanks.” Jason scoffed, before he moved around you and continued on his way. You grabbed his elbow and pulled him back towards you, his weight not being a problem compared to your strength.

“You wouldn’t be a third wheel. Come on, when was the last time the three of us went out together, just to have some fun?”

“Fine.” Jason huffed, his hard face faltering when he saw your face light up with excitement as you jumped up and down, clapping, while you cheered. When you realized what you were doing, you quickly stopped and cleared your throat.

“Um, so you should get ready. The pregame is in Dick’s room.” You chuckled awkwardly, pointing finger guns at Jason, earning a raised eyebrow from him. You quickly turned on your heel and headed back to your room, silently swearing at yourself for your embarrassing actions.

♠︎♠︎♠︎

You sat in Dick’s room on the couch playing Mario Kart with him, as the two of you waited Jason to join. Beerio was always the go-to pregame for the three of you, but, specifically the Wii addition. When you saw Jason walk in, you put your controller down on the couch and walked towards him.

He looked good, like embarrassingly good, like you just wanted his attention, and his attention only, all night.

“Wow, you do remember how to dress for the club.” You smiled as you looked over Jason shamelessly.

When Jason saw you, he could feel his breath get caught in his throat. No matter how mad he was at you, his body would always have a reaction to you, his brain would always short circuit when he saw you.

“Took a couple tries, but I got there eventually.” Jason muttered, causing you to smile.

“y/n…”

“We’re playing your favorite game, if you want to join.” You offered with the same smile still on your face.

“I guess I’ll play a couple rounds of Beerio.”

You and Jason made your way over to the couch and you couldn’t help but feel worried; worried that the two boys wouldn’t speak to each other, worried that the night could be a bust, worried that the two boys would get into a fight.

Dick stood from his spot on the couch as you and Jason approached, sizing Jason up.

“Nice eye.” Jason smirked from behind you.

“Want a matching one?” Dick responded, a scowl forming on his face.

“Okay, we’re not gonna do that tonight.” You interjected, holding your hands up to the boys’ faces. “What is going to happen, now that you’re both here, is you two are gonna talk to one another, apologize to each other, and kiss and make up. What I’m gonna do is walk out that door and hold the door shut so neither of you can leave. Oh, and good luck going out the window, I put a landmine under it.”

“That is psychotic.” Dick said to you, his eyes wide.

“I told you about it, didn’t I?”

You pushed past Jason to walk out of Dick’s room. You closed the door behind you and listened in on the two boys.

“Okay, well, we’re trapped in here.” Jason sighed, sitting down.

“Thank you, for pointing out the obvious, Jay.” Dick replied, following Jason’s movements to sit on the couch. “She could be bluffing.”

“She’s not, she used the same tone of voice she uses when she thinks she’s in the right and everyone else is wrong.” Jason pointed out.

“Well, then, we’re gonna have to do what she’s asking for. And she’s probably listen to our every word, so it’s not like we can pretend we made up just to get out of here.”

“I know what you’re trying to do, Dick!” You called from the hallway. You raised your eyebrows as you heard Dick groan in frustration.

“Okay, fine, let’s just get this over with.” Dick muttered.

“Fine by me.” Jason replied.

“Well, you obviously aren’t gonna go first, so I’ll go.” Dick started after waiting for Jason to speak first. “I’m sorry, I slept with your…with y/n. It was wrong and I shouldn’t have done it.”

“And I’m sorry I jumped you while you were coming out of your room this morning.” Jason apologized. “I just have a couple of questions.”

“Okay…” Dick said hesitantly, narrowing his eyes at Jason.

“Did you have feelings for her before I…” Jason asked, avoiding the use of the word ‘died’.

“No, no, I wouldn’t do that to you. You were in love with her like the second you met her. It was just like a heat of the moment thing.”

“Do you still have feelings for her?”

The fact that Dick and Jason knew you could hear them, made Dick more uncomfortable than he’s ever been before. You listened intently as Dick shifted around in his seat.

“I don’t—No, no, I don’t.” Dick answered, swallowing the lump in his throat.

You walked back in with a smile on your face.

“Well done, boys.” You cheered.

“Go disarm the bomb.” Jason said, pointing towards the window.

“Ugh, fine.” You groaned, tilting your head back. “But, Tim and I did have a bet on who would blow up first, so…”

“Go disarm the bomb.” Jason repeated, raising his voice a little this time.

You sped outside and quickly disarmed and removed the bomb and made your way back to Dick’s room before either of them were able to get three words out to each other.

“Anyone up for Beerio?” You asked with a smile as you pushed your hair out of your face.

After about three hours of pregaming, you, Jason, and Dick stood at the top of the staircase, figuring out how to get down the quietest way possible.

“I could just fly us down.” You offered quietly.

“Do you know how demeaning that is?” Dick asked, his words slurring a little.

But, a few minutes later, you were flying down the stairs, while holding onto the two dumbest men you’ve ever met.

“Where do you three think you’re going?” Bruce asked, flicking on the light in the foyer. Out of shock, you dropped both of the boys and your hands clasped around your mouth, an attempt at trying to hold your laughter back.

“We were just going out for some adult fun.” You explained as you made your way back to the floor, your heels clinking against the hardwood, and the boys scrambled to their feet.

“Dressed like that? Not a chance.” Bruce chuckled.

“Bruce, I’m not a kid anymore you can’t tell me what to wear.” You protested, crossing your arms.

“My house, my rules.” Bruce smirked, making you scowl deeply, the reminder of ‘my house, my rules’ from your childhood leaving a bad taste in your mouth.

“I’ll do an extra night of patrol next week.” You offered, sighing deeply.

“Boys?”

“I will train with Damian, twice, next week.” Dick said, his head hanging.

“I’ll tag onto that extra night of patrol.” Jason smirked, crossing his arms.

“You may go. But, stop trying to sneak out, it never works well for you three.”

“Wait, how did you know we were leaving?” Dick asked.

“You three aren’t exactly the pinnacle of quiet.”

♠︎♠︎♠︎

Jason swore he was going to break the glass in his hand as he watched you dance with Dick. He watched as Dick’s hands slid up your hips over the leather of your red mini skirt, up to your waist, where he teased the skin under your matching red, leather, strapless corset top you were wearing. When Jason’s eyes met Dick’s, Dick smirked and traced his teeth along the column of your throat, placing a kiss at the base of your neck. You broke out of Dick’s hold and made your way over to Jason, with a smile on your face.

“You can’t have fun if you’re brooding in the corner.” You joked, grabbing his hand to pull him towards the crowd of people.

“You seem like you’re having fun.” Jason replied, remaining stuck in his spot.

“I’d be having more fun if it was you I was dancing with. Dick is fine on his own, I’m sure he’s already found someone else to dance with. I want to dance with you.”

Jason set his glass down and let you pull him into the crowd. You had lost Dick, but you didn’t really mind. You were just focused on the beat of the music and how well your hips moved with Jason’s.

“y/n…”

But, back at the manor, things were going differently than you thought they would be going. Alfred and Bruce sat in the study as Alfred caught Bruce up on the drama going on between you, Jason, and Dick.

“So, what about you, Master Wayne, which ‘couple’ are you rooting for? Master Drake and the younger Master Wayne have both placed their wagers.” Alfred said.

“I am rooting for peace, Alfred.” Bruce replied flatly.

“I know you better than that, Master Wayne, you have your mind made up.” Bruce smirked softly at Alfred’s comment and looked down at his glass of scotch.

“You’re right Alfred, I do have my mind made up.”

About two hours later, you and Jason had Dick’s arms draped across your shoulders as you walked outside the club.

“Can we get Taco Bell?” Dick asked, his words slurring together.

“Yes, we can get Taco Bell.” You laughed, patting Dick’s chest with your free hand. You looked over at Jason—who wasn’t too far behind Dick in terms of drunkness, but was definitely more coherent—to see him already looking at you. You sent him a small smile, which he returned with a lazy one, too busy focusing on carrying Dick and trying to walk straight. You walked into the Taco Bell that was just across the street from the club and it was packed with people. The three of you walked up to the self-older kiosk, with you standing at the kiosk, putting in everything the boys slurred at you. When it was time to pay, Dick tried to push you to the side as you dug through your purse for your wallet.

“It’s ok, Bruce’s got it.” Dick assured you, as he took out his black card.

“No, it’s fine, my mom will pay for it.” You responded, pulling out a similar black card.

Ah, it was time for your favorite game: ‘Which Rich Kid’s Parent Is Going to Pay for the Most Mundane Thing?’ Before you and Dick could end your stare off and incessant babbling of ‘No, really, it’s fine,’ Jason inserted his own black card into the card reader.

“Sorry, I’m hungry. And you guys were taking too long.” Jason whined.

The three of you found a table, once your food was called, and sat down. Jason sat next to you and Dick sat on the opposite side of the booth.

“Come on, baby, let’s just ditch Dick and go back to the manor, just you and me.” Jason whispered in your ear. His arms were wrapped around your waist as Jason nipped at your ear lobe softly.

“We’ll be right back.” You said to Dick as you dragged Jason out of the booth and towards the family restroom. You quickly locked the door and turned back towards Jason.

“We can’t leave Dick here, Jason.” You muttered quietly as Jason started his attack on your neck, leaving quickly healing marks littered around your collarbone.

“Why not? You can’t dance like we’re fucking for two hours and tell me you aren’t a little worked up.” Jason said, his hands pushing your skirt up to paw at your ass.

“Because, he’s barely coherent.” You explained, threading your fingers through his dark locks, tugging lightly.

“Come on, baby, just a little quickie, at least.”

It wasn’t long before Jason had you bent over the sink of the family restroom, your skirt bunched up around your waist with your thong pulled to the side. Jason’s hands gripped your ass cheeks, spreading them apart to see where the two of you connected, evidence of your first orgasm as a ring at the base of his cock.

“Did Dick fuck you this good, baby, hm?” Jason asked, leaning forward to talk in your ear.

“No, J-Jay, j…just you-u.” You moaned out, your hands gripping the sink so hard, it was starting to crumble under your strength, as your eyes rolled to the back of your head. You were trying to stay as quiet as possible, praying no one would hear you. But, Jason was making it hard with the way he was touching you and grunting in your ear.

“Doing so good for me, baby. Taking me so well.” Jason grunted, his thrusts starting to become sloppier. Your wet, warm cunt squeezing around Jason’s cock was enough to egg him on, tossing his head back as his hips snapped against yours. Jason couldn’t help himself from staring into the mirror, watching as your face contorted with pleasure. “So fucking pretty like this.”

It wasn’t long before that familiar feeling started creeping up on you. A few thrusts later and both you and Jason were coming. Jason’s head hung low as he panted loudly, his grip harsh on your hips still. Your eyes wandered up the mirror, looking at Jason through the mirror, smiling like you had done all the work and now you were looking at your masterpiece. Jason pulled out of you slowly and stepped back from you as he fixed his pants. You adjusted your own clothes before stepping out of the bathroom and quickly making your way back over to Dick, who had half a taco hanging out of his mouth as he started to drift off to sleep.

“No way, did you two just have sex?” Dick slurred, glaring at you and Jason.

“No.” You answered flatly, looking at your phone.

You called an Uber for the three of you and cleaned up the trash, before you and Jason hauled Dick outside. The three of you weren’t standing outside long before your Uber pulled up.

♠︎♠︎♠︎

When you walked into your room, you thanked the gods you had asked Tim to take care of Brutus for the night. Jason kicked the door to your room closed behind him, his grip on your hips never faltering as he kissed you delicately.

This wasn��t like the drunken mess in the bathroom, this was soft, patient. Jason’s hands only left your hips to hold on to your face, his thumb caressing your cheekbone softly. You quickly unbuttoned his black button up, not hesitating to use your speed as you unbuttoned it, before quickly pushing it down his shoulders and arms. All while Jason fumbled with the knot of your corset top. Frustrated with it, Jason just opted for tearing the top off of you, muttering ‘sorry’s’ and promises of buying you a new one against your lips.

“That was Dior, baby.” You whined as the back of your knees hit the bed, forcing you to sit down.

“y/n…”

“Like I said, I’ll buy you another one.” Jason shrugged after he kicked off his shoes and started working on his belt. You leaned forward and put your hands on Jason’s waist as you peppered kisses along his abs. You caught Jason’s cock before it could slap against your chin. Slowly, you teased Jason’s tip with your thumb, spreading his pre-cum all the way down his shaft, as you continued your assault of kisses on his stomach. Soon enough, you averted your kisses away from his abs to where you knew he really wanted your lips. You pressed delicate kisses to Jason’s tip before licking a stripe up the underside of his cock. You bobbed your head down one, two, three times, watching as Jason was a groaning mess above you. His hand gripped your hair tightly, sightly guiding your head as he thrusted into your mouth. At this point, Jason had taken over most of the work and you could feel your own arousal dripping down your legs along with Jason’s cum and your own. You may have forgotten how big Jason was, but your body didn’t. It was like instinct the way your throat opened up for Jason. You could feel Jason’s thrusts start to get sloppier as he got closer to his release. You pulled your head back, letting go of Jason’s cock with a pop.

“Sorry, baby, the only place I want you coming tonight is inside of me.” You said, slightly shaking your head as you ran your thumb nail over the vein on the underside of Jason’s cock, slowly. You guided Jason to lay down on your bed, his head hitting the pillows softly. He watched as you stood up at the side of the bed and pulled down your skirt and thong, leaving you only in your heels. Jason’s hand came up to your hip, massaging it softly, as you walked closer to the bed. You climbed onto the bed and crawled over Jason so you straddled his abs, your fingers tracing invisible patterns on his chest as you looked down at Jason with the dirtiest look in your eyes.

“Jay, I have a question for you.” You started softly, tracing some random scars that ran across Jason’s chest. “Can I sit on your face?”

Jason didn’t say anything in reaponse, he just grabbed your thighs and pulled you up so you were positioned above his face. The suddenness of Jason’s actions had you grabbing the headboard to prevent you from falling forward. Jason’s hands snaked around your thighs, pulling you down flat against his tongue. You gasped out at the sudden feeling of pleasure, causing you to arch your back and press yourself further down against Jason’s face, his nose bumping into your clit. He licked a stripe through your folds, sending goosebumps up your spine. You grinded against Jason’s face, forcing his tongue impossibly deeper inside you. The noises that left your mouth as Jason lapped at your cunt could be labeled as pornographic.

God, you had waited for this moment for so long, to be able to touch and feel and be with Jason. Now, the two of you were catching up the best you knew how; by proving to each other just how well you remember each other’s bodies. Sex was such a big part of your relationship before, mainly because you were horny teenagers, but it happened any time you were stressed from being worked so hard by Bruce or stressed from yet another day of training, going to school, and then staying up most of the night to fight the never ending crime of Gotham, or if you just wanted to be closer to each other, more intimate.

A particularly sharp bite to your inner thigh, brought you out of your thoughts and made you squeal.

“Sorry, baby, I was losing you.” Jason said from between your thighs, before pressing a soft kiss to your clit. “What were you thinking about, my love?”

You rolled your eyes at the game Jason wanted to play. He loved hearing you talk during sex, it let him know just how good he was doing.

“Don’t want to talk about it.” You whined, trying to grind yourself against Jason’s face, but he held you in place. Jason wouldn’t do anything until you spoke, he would make you sit here until you suffocated him. You huffed and Jason took this as a good sign as he started eating you out again. “Just thinking…ab…ab…about us.” You managed to moan out. You smiled as Jason allowed you to start moving again, letting you get the amount of friction you wanted. After a particularly good swipe of his tongue, Jason had you grabbing his hair with your hands. You weren’t pulling hard, just kind of had them there. “A-and…how…much-h…I-I…missed…you…a-an-” You were cut off by a loud moan that had you blushing. You were close, Jason could tell you were close. Jason sped up his attack on your dripping cunt, focusing more on your clit. His name fell from your lips like a prayer, as your orgasm washed over you, your thighs clamping down roughly around Jason’s head. Gasps and little moans made their way out of your mouth, mixing with the other sounds of the room. Jason lapped at your folds, trying to collect all your juices. You moved back slightly so you could lean down and kiss Jason, tasting yourself on him.

“Come on, baby, stop being such a tease.” Jason joked, smiling up at you as his hands rested on your waist.

“I’m not teasing.” You smirked. “Sometimes I just like to kiss my handsome boy.”

You could feel Jason’s tip twitch against your ass after you said that. Repositioning yourself above Jason’s hard length, you lined up Jason’s tip with your dripping entrance, and started to lower yourself onto it. Slowly, you took inch after inch until Jason was fully inside you.

Jason always thought you gorgeous in every way, but he definitely thought you were the most gorgeous like this; stuffed to the brim with him, your back arched, tits on full display, and making the prettiest little noises he’s ever heard.

Jason’s hands found residence on your waist to help guide you as you moved up and down. For the first few minutes, you moved your hips slowly to antagonize Jason.

“You’re killing me here, babe.” Jason groaned, his head hitting the pillow. “Keep going this slow and I might have to take over.”

“Baby, I could give you friction burn if I wanted to.” You smiled sweetly. “Let me have my fun.”

Eventually, you did pick up speed, giving you and Jason the pleasure you both so desperately wanted. Your hands gripped onto Jason’s thighs, letting you lean back on your hands for support. The change in the angle allowed Jason’s cock to touch a place it hadn’t touched yet, causing you to let out a loud moan.

“Feels so good, Jay.” You moaned out. You weren’t one for talking during sex, but you knew Jason liked to hear how he made you feel, it let him know he was doing what he was supposed to be doing.

You started to pick up the pace as you felt your orgasm approaching. Everything was starting to become almost too much. The wet sounds coming from your cunt, the smell of sex in the room, the feeling of Jason’s cock buried deep inside you, reaching places only he could. Your senses were on fire. Your jaw hung low and your eyes squeezed shut as your orgasm washed over you violently. Jason leaned up and wrapped his arms around you. He placed soft kisses along your neck as he solely moved you up and down, helping you ride out your high.

“Think you got a couple more in you?” Jason whispered in your ear as you crumpled in his hands. All you could do was nod in return, letting Jason move both of you so you were laying on your back now. You had a feeling it was gonna be a long night.

♠︎♠︎♠︎

After a couple of hours and countless orgasms from you both, Jason and you were on your sides, your leg was thrown over Jason’s hip as he thrusted into you slowly, placing kisses along your neck and whispering sweet nothings into your ear. You and Jason had agreed this was the last round of the night, but even after you both finished, neither one of you wanted to let go. You were afraid to fall asleep, incase you woke up and found yourself back in your apartment in Connecticut. But, as long as you were touching Jason, you convinced yourself you were safe. You were always safe as long as you had Jason nearby.

“y/n…”

You reached your hand behind you and threaded your fingers through Jason’s hair. A warm tear ran down your face and it was like Jason could feel a change in the air.

“Whats wrong, my love?” Jason asked softly, stopping his movements immediately.

“What’s…What’s my name?” You asked hesitantly, closing your eyes as you could feel more tears coming to your eyes.

“What?” Jason asked, clearly confused.

“You’re the only one, since I’ve been back, who hasn’t said my name.”

“Baby, I know your name.”

You let one more tear go before slowly pulling yourself off of Jason and standing up at the side of the bed.

“Jason loved my name.” You said quietly. “He said it was the most beautiful thing he ever heard of. And Jason never called me ‘baby,’ he said I deserved better nicknames than that. I guess, I should’ve realized what was going on earlier when we were training, when you called me ‘baby’. And that treadmill? Bruce got rid of that treadmill after I flew off of it…this-this is a dream, right?”

You watched as Jason’s soft gaze hardened.

“Baby, come back to bed.” He insisted.

“No. I’ve read studies on Lucid Dreaming, acknowledging you’re in a dream, tends to piss the dream people off. Maybe I should’ve realized it when we were on patrol; Jason, my Jason, didn’t treat me like porcelain.”

You turned to walk towards the door, it had to be the way out.

“Please, don’t go.” You heard Jason plead as you walked towards the door. “Are you really gonna leave me? Just like you did the night I died? The night Joker murdered me?”

Your eyes flickered to the ground, before you wrapped your hand around the doorknob and yanked it open.

“y/n!”

You woke up with a jolt in your apartment in Connecticut. You were breathing so hard, you were worried you might actually have a heart attack.

“Oh, thank God.” Dick muttered, his head dropping.

“Dick…Dick what-what are you doing here?” You asked, catching your breath.

“I came in a couple of hours ago, I wanted to surprise you.” Dick answered with a smile. “But, you were crying in your sleep. I was so worried I woke you up. Was it Jason again?”

You pulled your eyes away from Dick as you nodded.

“What happened this time?” Dick asked quietly, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear so he could see your face from where he laid on the bed.

“Just the usual. I’m a piece of shit for leaving him with Joker, I murdered him, you know all the things dead boyfriends say to their girlfriends.”

“Dead people don’t talk, Love. You know if Jason were alive he wouldn’t blame you for anything. No one blames you for anything.”

“I could’ve…I am just as strong as Wonder Woman and I could’ve gone after Joker that night, if Bruce had just let me.”

“Y/n, you were angry, you were upset, you just witnessed your boyfriend get killed. Bruce pulled you out of there to keep you safe. He knew you would’ve gone after Joker. He knew you would’ve killed him and he didn’t want you to have that on your conscience.”

“I’m not a killer.” You muttered as you looked down at your hands.

“No, you’re not, Love.” Dick agreed softly, threading his fingers through yours.

“How are…things with that Red Hood guy?” You asked, an attempt at trying to change the subject.

“Thats the thing. I need you to come home.”

#jason todd #jason todd x reader #jason todd smut #dc comics #dcu #dc universe #dcau #dick grayson #dick grayson x reader #bruce wayne #batman #batfam #alfred pennyworth #x reader #jason todd x you #jason todd x y/n #smut #dick grayson x you #dick grayson x y/n

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dinarosie · 4 months ago

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I Was Bullied Too, So Why Didn’t I Turn Out Like Severus Snape?

I came across an anti-Snape post where someone shared their experience of being bullied in school. They said that even though they were bullied, they were able to overcome it, which is why they admired James Potter—because he changed and stopped being a bully. However, they hate Snape for not being able to move on from his past.

Everyone has the right to hate or love the characters based on their taste but What bothers me is how people often compare their own trauma to others' and disregard the genetic and environmental differences that shape us as individuals. I’ve decided to write a long post comparing my own life with Snape’s—two people who were both bullied as children. it was difficult for me to write this post, but I hope this comparison shows that not everyone who experiences bullying ends up the same. The variances in our upbringing and support systems play a crucial role in shaping who we become.

When I was seven years old, I was mocked and humiliated by a group of older girls on the school bus (they were eleven at the time). They made it clear that they bullied me because I was smaller and weaker than them. They treated me in a way that made me believe I deserved their bullying. I thought a weak and ugly girl like me was deserving of all their humiliation. They would mess up my hair, pull it, and ridicule me for having messy and ugly hair. Whenever I cried, they laughed. They didn't even let me be friends with other girls. To torment me further, they would point at me, whisper to each other, and giggle, making me feel even more isolated. I had allergies and a runny nose, and they wouldn’t let me wipe it, which they used as another reason to belittle me, saying I was disgusting. Even if there was an empty seat, they wouldn’t let me sit with them because I was "gross." I was terrified of them, hated school because of them, and cried every morning, begging not to go to school.

But why didn’t I turn out like Severus Snape?

1- I grew up like a normal child in every other aspect of my life. I was cared for and valued. I always had birthday parties with cake and gifts. I was praised when I got good grades. I had friends outside of school to play with, went on family vacations, and had fun times. From childhood to adulthood, I’ve had a safe home, enough sleep, good food, and a loving family.

2- I had parents who loved and cared about me. When my mother found out about the bullying, she went to the school and demanded they stop it. My parents also enrolled me in a private school to protect me from further bullying. When I started having nightmares and trouble sleeping, they took me to a child therapist.

3- My grandparents adored me. I would stay at their house when my parents were at work, and they made my childhood even more joyful. I always had safe arms to run to. Plus, my aunts and uncles cared for me and regularly took me to parks and other fun places, showering me with gifts and making sure I enjoyed my time.

4- My family had a respectable place in society, and I was never shamed or humiliated because of my family's circumstances. My father cared for me, my sister, and my mother, and he worked hard to provide for our needs. He respected my mother, and I never witnessed any abuse from him toward her.

5- My family had a stable income, and I always had new, appropriate clothes to wear. I never had to worry about poverty, hunger, or wearing hand-me-downs that would make me feel inferior to my peers.

6- My bullies mocked me, but they never caused me serious physical harm. I never feared for my life or sexual assault at school. The bullying was short-lived, lasting less than two years, and by the time I was a teenager, it had completely stopped. As I grew older, I made plenty of good friends and was popular among them. I have many fond memories from high school with my friends.

7- As a teenager, I didn’t worry about my future. My concerns were not about surviving a war, avoiding humiliation, or escaping poverty. I was free to plan my life, knowing I would go to university and study what I loved. Whenever I needed help, I knew I could count on my family—they were always there to support me.

8- I’m a psychology student, and studying this field has completely shifted my perspective on myself and others. It has allowed me to see the world with greater depth and empathy. I’ve become better at recognizing not only my own psychological wounds but also those of others, which has helped me connect with people on a deeper level. I've also sought therapy, both in-person and online, and have seen positive results. While I still struggle with some issues from my past—like feeling insecure about my appearance, doubting people’s motives, and having a hard time trusting—I’ve learned how to manage these feelings fairly well.

All of these factors combined have shaped me into someone different from Severus Snape. Yes, I was bullied, but I didn’t turn out like him because, unlike Snape, I was given numerous opportunities to grow, to experience love and joy, to heal, and to find pleasure in life.

Now, It’s much easier for someone like me to be kind and nice to others, to love people, to forgive myself and others, and to move on from those who don’t like me. It’s easier for me to see the world and people not as threats but with a more mature and balanced perspective. but I’m under no illusion that I am a better and more worthy person than Severus Snape or anyone like him who didn’t have the chance to heal. I simply know that I’ve been luckier, and for that, I’m grateful. But I never want to dismiss or belittle the suffering of others or blame them for their psychological struggles.

I can’t say for certain what I would’ve done in Snape’s exact situation or how bitter I might’ve become. But I’m certain of one thing: I could never be as brave or as selfless as Snape was, sacrificing his own life so readily for others. I know that I could never be a hero like him.

#severus snape #pro snape #professor snape #snapedom #snape fandom #anti snaters #snape defender #snape meta #anti james potter #character complexity #Hero In Shadows

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starkwlkr · 2 years ago

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Hi, I love your Ruby universe. Can I request Ruby's first day at pre-k and Charles being a nervous wreck about it.

just like papa | charles leclerc

idk how the school system works in monaco or at what age the kids start school there so if i get anything wrong, please correct me <3 also instead of charles being nervous, it’s my girl ruby 👀

another similar request: Hi, I really like your work, could you do a picture of Ruby at school and what her experience would be like

small mention of charles’ father

Charles was extremely thankful that he wasn’t racing or in another country when the day of Ruby’s first day of nursery school arrived. A week before, she was excited. She had gone shopping with Pascale and Y/n and picked out a new backpack, supplies, new shoes and clothes. Everyday leading up to the first day of nursery, she would make sure she had everything in her backpack. She didn’t want to miss anything.

But then came the first day nerves on the night before she would officially be in school.

“You’re going to have so much fun, Ruby.” Charles assured the girl who was too nervous to even go to sleep. “You’re going to meet other children make friends.”

“Is it scary?” Ruby asked.

“It’ll seem scary at first but then you won’t want to leave.”

The nerves were still there the next morning. Ruby was always a bit energetic in the mornings no matter what, but now she was a little too quiet. She ate her breakfast in silence, spoon full of cereal in one hand while the other held her bunny plush she had named floppy.

“Good morning, my Ruby Jules.” Charles entered the dining room and pressed a kiss to his daughter’s temple to greet her. “Ready for school?”

Ruby hugged floppy tighter and slowly nodded. She remained quiet.

“It’s okay to be scared, mon amour. I get scared before I race too. But guess what? You’re the bravest girl I know.” Charles said.

“You’re brave too,” Ruby finally spoke. “Just like papa.” She said, referring to Hervé. Charles had told many stories about his father to Ruby, which convinced her that her grandfather was a brave, kind, loving man.

“Yes, just like papa.”

Y/n joined her family and watched as they continued their talk about nursery school. “Are you taking floppy?” She questioned the girl. Floppy was like another member of the family. She was a gift from Arthur when she was just born. She quickly grew an attachment to the stuffed animal.

“Can I?” Ruby asked.

Before Y/n could say anything, Charles spoke. “Of course you can. Floppy can join you everyday.” Ruby cracked a smile. Now she felt like herself again knowing floppy was joining her.

Y/n knew she would have to talk to Ruby’s teacher about taking floppy. She hoped the teacher would understand and let Ruby and floppy stay together.

“Okay, finish up. We have to get you to school, baby.” Y/n said to Ruby, who happily nodded and ate the rest of her cereal.

Charles wasn’t going to let Ruby and Y/n go to the nursery alone. He wanted to see Ruby enter the classroom with his very own eyes. It wasn’t everyday his little girl would experience her first day of school. He felt like his girl was growing up even though she was just going to school. He didn’t want to miss that.

The nursery was a walking distance from their home so as the family of three walked, Charles told Ruby about his nursery days. He didn’t remember much, but he told her good things to help ease her nerves.

“By the end of the day, you’re going to be even smarter. You might even be smarter than papa.” Y/n teased.

“She already is, right?” Charles looked down at the little girl who was holding his hand.

“You’re smart, papa.” Ruby smiled at Charles.

“Thank you, my Ruby Jules.”

As the family arrived to the gates of the nursery, Ruby began to feel the nerves again. She held onto floppy as Y/n greeted a friend who was also dropping off her child. Soon, they found themselves inside the nursery school. The hallways were painted with bright colors and had tiny handprints with names written on them. Ruby gripped Charles’ hand as they walked to Ruby’s classroom.

“Welcome! I’m Ms. Olivia.” A woman greeted the family at the door.

“Hi, I’m Y/n and this is my husband, Charles. And this is our daughter, Ruby.” Y/n introduced her family.

Ms. Olivia crouched down to meet with Ruby. “Hello, Ruby. I’m your teacher.” The woman smiled warmly.

Ruby looked unsure. In that moment, she wanted to be anywhere else, she’d rather be with her grand-meré. She backed away until her back hit Charles’ knees.

“It’s okay, you’re safe.” Ms. Olivia assured. She then looked at the stuffed bunny in Ruby’s hand. “That’s a lovely bunny. What’s their name?”

Ruby looked up at her papa and mama as if asking if it was okay to talk to the woman. Charles nodded at her.

“His name is floppy.” Ruby said quietly.

“That’s a pretty name. I have more toys for you and floppy to play with. Would you like to see them?” Ms. Olivia asked.

Ruby looked around the classroom. It was filled with kids her age. Some were playing with dolls or trucks, others were coloring. Y/n could see Ruby was still nervous.

“Is it okay if we go in with her?” Y/n asked the teacher.

“Of course. Most parents do that because of how nervous the kids get on their first day.” Ms. Olivia explained.

The family entered the classroom and found a table and chairs where they could sit at. Problem was that the chairs were small since it was designed for a child so the parents looked like giants in the chairs.

“Look, we can color.” Y/n saw blank coloring pages and a pack of crayons on the table. She passed the page and crayons to Ruby. “What color are you going to make the butterfly?”

Ruby shrugged, still holding onto floppy. “I don’t know. Papa, what color?” She asked Charles.

“What about blue? Blue is a nice color.” Charles said.

“Floppy likes blue.” Ruby added. “Mama, what color do you want?”

“I think pink goes nice with the blue.”

As Ruby colored, Charles took the opportunity to take out his phone and take a few pictures of his daughter on her first day of nursery school. He sent them to his family group chat and of course to Pierre.

“That looks beautiful, baby. Let’s put your name so everyone knows who colored it so pretty.” Y/n said once Ruby was done coloring in the butterfly.

Ruby grabbed a red crayon in her left hand. Just like her uncle Arthur, she was a lefty. It was actually Arthur’s fault for Ruby being left handed. He dared the girl to write with her left hand so she practiced for a whole month and it just kinda stuck with her.

“Rubyyyy Ju . . . Jules.” Ruby sounded out her name. “What goes next?”

Y/n chuckled. “Your next name is Louise. Lou . . . ise. There you go, you’re my smart girl.”

It wasn’t really readable at all, but to Ruby, it was her name. It looked like scribbles, but she didn’t care.

“And what’s your last name, mon amour?” Charles asked.

“Yours!” Ruby excitedly said.

“Yes, but what is it?”

“Gasly.”

Y/n tried to hold in her laughter once she heard Ruby. Charles quietly laughed as Ruby looked confused as to why her parents were even laughing.

“Baby, that’s uncle Pierre’s last name. Ours is Leclerc.” Charles explained to her.

“I know, but can I put Gasly too? Then I can show Uncle Pierre.”

“I’m sure Pierre is going to love it.” Y/n nodded, still holding in the laugh.

“Okay, how do you spell it?”

Liked by pierregasly, arthur_leclerc and 739,266 others

charles_leclerc baby leclerc takes on nursery school

scuderiaferrari good luck from all of us here at Ferrari!

lewishamilton the smartest girl already❤️

pierregasly tell her to stop growing up or I’m going to get mad

charles_leclerc she says she wants to be tall so she can give you all the kisses and hugs

pierregasly ok then she can grow 😌

lorenzotl hope she had a great first day!

charles_leclerc she wants to show you her drawings

lorenzotl on my way with ice cream❤️

#formula 1 #f1 x reader #formula 1 imagine #f1 imagine #f1 x you #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc one shot #cl16 x reader #ferrari #baby leclerc series #dad!charles leclerc #charles leclerc imagine

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drghostwrite · 1 year ago

Text

Dark Nights

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x preg!wife!reader

Summary:

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

"You can't ask that of her!" Natasha yelled across the table. You were both called into a conference room with Fury and agent Hill, they were talking about a last-minute mission though your wife was concerned about your approaching due date. While they argued and Maria played referee you found yourself staring out the window of the large conference room a million things running through your mind, one hand running along your bump as your baby kicked.

"And who are you to decide that?" Nick Fury shot back at the other agent.

"I'm her wife." Nat responded.

"Oh because that's stopped other agents before." He responded

"Fury you know I respect you but that's my wife, the mother of my child, our unborn child that in case you haven't noticed she's carrying."

"Okay, okay, before this goes any farther... How about we ask Y/N, she is sitting right here." Maria finally spoke up, motioning to your distracted form.

"Y/N?" you're wife gently called.

You rubbed a hand over your eyes trying to clear your head taking in a gasp before refocusing your eyes on them, "If and I mean IF I were to agree to this what all would it entail?"

"Well that..."

"No I want full disclosure, no more confidentiality and clearance levels, if I'm doing this and potentially putting my life and the life of my unborn child on the line I need to know everything." Nat sat next to you and turned to Fury.

"We had a situation a few years back, an agency that's been working against SHEILD, they used to be a part of Hydra but they reformed, they have recruited agaents and took over one of our smaller compounds, though it's to be evacuated this week to keep their identities a secret, we need someone to get in ther."

"That's where I asked why they picked you with being on leave."

"My main concern isn't getting you in, it's the systems on the inside, all the coders did was build into the SHEILD mainframe, they have no access to us but they have similar systems so I need someone that's a trained agent, and good with the computers, it would be in and out, need to know basis, all I need you to do is get in, crash their systems and get out."

"So that's where I come in?"

"Exactly."

"Okay, in and out, only on the condition that you do have agents on site and Natasha is in the command center, I want her in my ear at all times."

"Whatever gets you onboard, let's get you briefed and prepped for the field." Fury said.

---time jump---

You turned down the hallway, dimly lit by soft baseboard lights, you turned another corner but quickly pushed back when you saw two guards stationed outside the control room, any other time you would've just incapacitated them both but being 36 weeks pregnant wasn't helping you much.

"Natasha?"

"Y-Y/N? I'm r-r-ri-ght here what'sss go-going on-n?" The intercoms were breaking up which meant your job was going to get that much harder. "Two guards outside the command room, change of plans."

"Detka please, be careful."

"Will do, intercoms are getting scratchy, if this is it till I get out of here, I love you Natasha."

You made the decision that if you couldn't get in the control room you could still shut it down remotely, so you backtracked and took some different turns stumbling upon the old director's office, silently patting yourself on the back and opening the door.

You walked over to the desk, and brushed your hand along the command bar that's built into the desk, the hovering screens flashed to life. You swiped moving the screens around, they asked for your password and thanked Tony Stark for giving you a built in back door, when Ultron took over he built a back pathway that allowed you access but nothing was associated to you as a person so you had access to the entire system without anyones knowledge. You quickly started working pulling up the mainframe and started untagling the mess the rebellion had created, you were so close to unraveling the whole thing when you felt a sharp pain running through your abdomen.

You stopped in your tracks waiting to see if it was just your imagination, but then another one, this time catching you off guard causing you to keel over using the desk for support. "shit, shit, shit... this can't be happening." you said worry flooding your features, you tried calming yourself but you knew what this could mean.

"Natasha?" You called over the intercoms, but no response so you tried again but you realized there was no signal, you were alone and going into labor. You thought about backtracking and alerting them but as you went to exit the office you heard footsteps, quickly swiping the screens dark again you watched as the guards walked by standing next to the door frozen, you felt the warm liquid running down your legs and realized that this was it, the night just went from dangerous to deadly if you didn't get help quickly. Your water just broke and you were by yourself in an enemy compound with no way to communicate with anyone outside.

You cringed as another contraction took over your body pressing a hand tightly under your swollen bump, "Oh baby not now, please not now." you brought the screens back up typing rapidly, taking the mainframe down meant potentially setting off a bunch of alarms which meant that you would be exposing yourself in the height of labor.

"Okay wait if this is built into the SHEILD mainframe I can get ahold of your other mommy...Oh God..." Another contraction took over, you slid to the floor, pulling out your phone you connected it to the computer sending an "SOS" to Nat hoping that she would get it in time.

"Okay baby, this is me and you until we get help, so I'm gonna need you to slow down a little bit." you ran a hand over your bump closing your eyes and leaning against the strong desk.

You moved quickly into the adjoining room moving into the corner, grimacing at the pain of your baby trying to make it's way into the world, "God you're as impatient as your mother...Nnngghh."

You heard the door to the office start to open and held your breath, hearing light footsteps, and saw as a light scanned the room.

"Y/N... detka are you in here?" you heard a whispering voice call out.

"Natasha?" you called, you listened as hurried footsteps moved towards you, the door swung open revealing your wife. As she looked in on you her worst fears coming true, she quickly got down in front of you, running a hand soothingly along your thigh.

"Y/N what's going on?"

"It-it's the baby...Nnghh, Natasha our baby is coming," you said and tears started to fall, you were a trained agent one of the best to ever step foot in SHIELD, you were an Avenger a super soldier, but in this moment you were scared out of your mind.

"Um, okay baby it's okay."

"M-my water broke...we need to get out of here"

"Okay, Y/N it'll all be okay, Maria is outside getting a hold of Steve she's calling in a rescue team, you know Bucky will be breaking down that door as soon as he finds out."

"I-I cannghh..." you gripped her hand throwing your head back gritting through a contraction, "I got you baby, just breathe."

"Nat this is happening now."

"Okay, then let's do this." she said as you slowly shook your head agreeing with her.

"Okay, my pants you gotta help me." you said pushing at the waistband, she quickly hooked her fingers in your pants pulling them off along with your panties and laying them to the side.

"Y/N, I can see it... I can see the head."

"Whaa- no I-I no this wasn't supposed to happen like this... Nat I can't do this... Hhahh, I can't do this."

"Y/N Romanoff yes you can, you are my wife, one of the strongest people I know I've never once seen you back down from a challenge or a threat and you protect the ones you love so fiercely, I never once doubted starting a family with you, so if anyone knows, I do. I know that you can do this."

"Woouuu...Nnghh." you tried but these contractions were getting closer and closer, "I-I need to push."

"Okay, follow your body." you pushed, your nails digging into Natasha's shoulder as she was bent down in between your legs, she was reassuring you while you fought through a few more contractions.

"Okay Y/N head is out, just a couple more and we meet our baby." you tried to answer but the contractions were too close, you pushed a couple more times before your wife was holding your newborn in her arms.

"It's a girl, we have a baby girl." you listened as her cries filled the room, you started feeling lightheaded.

"Natasha I don't feel so good."

"Y/N, I-Y/N..." she said noticing the blood, you were bleeding fast and she realized that you needed to get out of there asap.

She heard as the door to the office crashed in, "Y/N! Natasha!" you heard Bucky yell out, he moved around the room and stopped outside the door hearing your newborn daughter's cries, he opened it coming in.

"Is that?"

"Yes." Natasha said tears in her eyes, and he quickly realized how dire the situation was.

"Bucky, she, the blood..."

"Okay let's go I got her." He quickly picked you up making sure you were covered and started out the door. Natasha saw the screens still live and hit the execute button, running our behind Bucky with your baby in her arms.

46 hours later and the mission had been executed, you were finally awake and safely at your home holding your baby girl, Natasha was next to you holding you both in her arms, you had minor hemorrhaging after the birth but luckily had some of the best doctors around, meaning you made it out almost completely unscathed and with a perfectly healthy baby girl. Though you and Nat quickly agreed that next time there would be no last-minute missions so close to your due date.

#x yn #pregnancy #giving birth #mcu natasha romanoff #natasha x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes #marvel x reader #nick fury #maria hill #the avengers

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whenmemorydies · 4 months ago

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You love taking care of people: Fine Dining in the Time of Late Stage Capitalism

CW: this post discusses toxic and abusive workplaces and makes brief mention of institutional child abuse and intergenerational trauma. I might also talk about global systems collapse, for shits and giggles. Also this is another long one. You know the drill. Lets have a cuppa. Also this is my last minute submission to Sydcarmy Week 2024 and the theme of “you love taking care of people”. Enjoy!

I have a confession to make to The Bear fandom:

The food is my least favourite part of this show.

Its not that its not interesting. It definitely is. I'm a home cook and for the most part, I enjoy cooking (when I can do it at my leisure and not like most mothers, while balancing the mental load). I just find all the other aspects of the show much more fascinating.

In fact, I think this show about a bunch of cooks in commercial kitchens is so popular not so much because of its take up of cooking but its unflinching and loving interrogation of grief and trauma, including the kinds that get passed down through families.

The truth is, I've also never been overly excited about the world of "fine dining." I grew up in a large, Tamil family and so our meals were big, shared and not necessarily conducive to the minimalist plating preferred in exclusive, "gourmet" spaces:

Photograph is mine, delicious Jaffna Tamil spread is the handiwork of my great aunt (Kunchi Ammamma or “little maternal grandmother”), arguably the best cook in our sprawling, extended family.

As tumultous as family life could get, I often experienced meals (that, lets be real, were almost always prepared by the women in my family) with my loved ones as a happy experience. I mean we also had our share of blow ups at the kitchen table but what was always consistent was the love and care that went into the food that we were given to eat. It was woven into the rich and complex flavours that made up the curries, varais, and sambals we had on our plates (and that even now, make me salivate just thinking about). It was spread throughout the warm, coconut-y rotis and steaming rice and puttu we ate with our hands and used to mop up all that spicy, flavourful goodness.

And if there's one question I heard more than any other from older family members growing up, it was "ni sappittiya?" ("have you eaten?"). More than "how are you?" and definitely more than "I love you." As with many Global South cultures, for Tamil folks, food is used for nourishment but also as a primary means of conveying deep care. Obviously Tamil people don't have the monopoly on using food to show their affection (or even the monopoly on using food to replace actually saying the words "I love you" lmao). Food has been found to increase interpersonal closeness and can also contribute to emotional regulation. Feeding a child is one of the first means of bonding between parents and children. Food also plays a big role in the course of romantic love: as a basis for first dates and future time spent with a partner, and of course also as an aphrodisiac.

As Cesar Chavez, Mexican-American civil rights activist, labor organiser and co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association (which later became the United Farm Workers union) said,

The people who give you their food, give you their heart.

You love taking care of people

Conveying care and love through food is a theme that comes up repeatedly in The Bear. Recall 1x02 Hands and the phone conversation with Nat and Carmy:

Natalie: Chefs always say a big part of the job is taking care of people, right?

Carmen: Yeah, yeah. No I guess.

Also recall an almost identical bit of dialogue between Carmy and Sydney, under the world's most famous table that had absolutely nothing wrong with it in 2x09 Omelette:

Carmen: You love taking care of people.

Sydney: Yeah I guess.

Here's some further mirroring between Sydney and Carmy about giving people joy through food. Recall again the phone call between Carmy and Nat in 1x02 Hands:

Natalie: When did the breathing problem start?

Carmen: I think maybe sometime in New York. I was throwing up every day before work.

[...] Chef was a piece of shit.

Natalie: Then why'd you stay there?

Carmen: People loved the food. It felt good.

Also recall the conversation between Sydney and Marcus in 1x08 Braciole:

Sydney: I want to cook for people and make them happy, and give them the best bacon on Earth.

Be gentle with each other, so that you can fight stronger together: seasons 1-2 of The Bear

As rough and tumble as The Beef was, the clear throughline in season 1 (when The Beef was in operation) was the importance of the relationships and care between the show's characters. This was also the case in season 2 where the majority of the season was spent in the context of renovations and training prior to the opening of The Bear (in that season's last episode).

In season 1, we had Carmy leading the crew at The Beef by being patient, clearly explaining technique and positively reinforcing his staff's work.

Above left: Carmy walking the BOH crew through making Donna Berzatto's Lemon Chicken Piccata in 1x05 Sheridan. Above right: Carmy encouraging the crew to keep up their current pace in 1x06 Ceres.

We saw him working with Sydney, supportively encouraging the team to go further, to push themselves. We even saw Carmy at ease enough to talk about Mikey and his mother while at work. We had a Carmy showing us how integrated he can be.

Above: Carmy and Tina in 1x05 Sheridan

Heck, we even had a Carmy who wanted to get a compost installed at The Beef for processing food so that it didn't go to waste. Recall this golden bit of dialogue between him and Sweeps in 1x01 System:

Carmen: Eh yo Gary, you set up a compost for me today, Chef?

Sweeps: After I do my thing in the place.

Carmen: That's very clear. Thank you.

We had a Carmy who had time. Recall the below scene in 1x02 Hands before Sydney gives Carmy her draft business plan for The Beef (that she drafted on her own initiative and time to support his family's struggling business. If this man doesn't hurry up and fight for her in s4 istg...):

Sydney: Hey you got time?

Carmen: Always. What's up?

Similarly, we had Carmen in the first episode of season 2 making time to talk to a clearly distraught Richie:

Richie: Yo you ever think about purpose?

Carmen: I love you, but I do not have time for this, alright? *starts to walk up the stairs out of the basement*

Richie: *Nods, looks dejected, sniffs*

Carmen: I have time for this. *comes back down the stairs and sits with Richie*

Most pointedly in season 1 we had the conversation between Sydney and Carmy in 1x03 Brigade which lays the blueprint for their joint vision for the restaurant and which should have acted as a touchstone for both of them in season 3:

Sydney: You know, I think this place could be so different from all the other places we've been at. But in order for that to be true, we need to run things different.

When I said I didn't think that the brigade was a good idea, you didn't listen. And its not that you told me that I had to. [...] But you just didn't really listen and if this is going to work the way that I think we both want it to work [...] I think we should probably try to listen to each other.

Carmen: Yeah. You're right.

Sydney: The reason I'm here and not working somewhere else, or for someone else, is 'cause I think I can stand out here. I can make a difference here. We could share ideas. I could implement things that make this place better. And I don't wanna be wasting my time, working on another line or tweezing herbs on a dish that I don't care about, or running brunch, God forbid.

Carmen: *nods vigorously*

In season 2 while The Beef undergoes its facelift into The Bear, some of the show's most beautiful moments were when characters displayed their faith and trust in one another. Recall 2x01 Beef where Sydney asks Tina to be her sous chef, or 2x02 Pasta where Sydney and Carmy send Tina and Ebra to culinary school (and Tina's unwavering belief in and support for a nervous Ebra once they get there), and 2x03 Sundae and 2x04 Honeydew where we see Carmy and Sydney send Marcus to Copenhagen to stage with Chef Luca and build up his skills as a pâtissier.

So what happened at The Bear?

Season 3 of the show has been the most divisive of the series, with its preceding two seasons being almost unanimously adored by fans and critics alike. There's been a lot of debate on here and elsewhere as to why this is the case. What appears to be a dominant line of reasoning in this regard is the shift in Carmy and his approach to running The Bear as a fine dining institution.

At The Bear, we have Carmy as an Executive Chef who's berating, hostile, and blaming everyone else for his emotional state ("You guys are fucking killing me"). We have a Carmy who has taken "every second counts" to a point so minute that he has given up smoking because of the time away from the kitchen that it will cost him. We have a Carmy who has no patience for his team, almost all of whom have no experience working in fine dining before the opening night of The Bear. We see how out of sync Carmy and Sydney are ("Been off"). We have a Carmy who is reverting to patterns of behaviour that have been modelled for him by two of his abusers: his mother, Donna Berzatto and his previous boss, Chef David Fields, Executive Chef at Empire.

Perhaps second only to Donna and her stand in Claire, Chef David Fields' toxic legacy haunts season 3 of The Bear.

This is nowhere more clear than in the sheer wasting of food and money in season 3 epitomised by Carmy's insistence on changing the The Bear's menu every day (to quote Tina: "Every day, Joffrey Ballet?!") and his repeated throwing out of dishes he deemed "not perfect."

The waste did not go unnoticed by other characters on the show. Recall Natalie telling Carmy off in 3x03 Doors:

Natalie: The menu cost is out of control.

Carmen: Nat, figure it out.

Natalie: Oh. Oh. Figure it out? Wow.

Carmen: Figure it out.

Natalie: Why don't you fucking figure it out?

Carmen: I'm trying to use less shit.

Natalie: Okay, well, whatever you're doing, the R&D [research & development] of that, its fucking us.

Carmen: Well, we're using the best shit.

Natalie: Duh. Duh. Well, duh.

Carmen: Duh? Don't duh. No duh. [lmao this dialogue]

Natalie: Don't buy fucking crazy shit and then use it once, Carm. It's so wasteful. Duh! Duh, duh. Fucking duh, bro.

In episode 3x05 Children, Uncle Jimmy commissions The Computer to come in and run analytics on The Bear in an effort to get its costs under control (LOL at his assessment below, scrawled on the back of the dodgiest looking pie chart I've ever seen):

Computer: This sample is based on the month and a half we've been operating and does not take into account any funds spent previously on build, friends and family budget, other assorted fuckery.

Carmen: I mean, there hasn't been that much fuckery.

Cicero: Oh neph. You specialise in the fucking fuckery, bro.

Uncle Jimmy had plenty to say about Carmy's use of the former's funds (which Jimmy has duly invested in The Bear to support his nephew) including Carmy's decision to spend $11,268.00 on Orwellian butter (aka Dystopian Butter from the Fucking Rare Transylvanian Five-Titted Goat, lmao).

Even Carmy was under no delusions about how wasteful he was being this season. Recall his discussion with Sydney in 3x05 Children:

Sydney: You know what we should be doing?

Carmen: Produce vendor. You don't have to say it.

Sydney: Okay, I didn't say it then. I didn't say anything. Do you want me to say something?

Carmen: That I'm jamming us up 'cause we have a new menu every day and the economics aren't great?

Sydney: Well, I'm an accomplice, so...

Note: the language in this small bit of dialogue struck me as being off. Why does Sydney needs Carmy's permission to say anything? Its like she knows that he knows the constantly changing menu and exorbitant expenses are an issue but doesn't want to say anything until Carmy brings it up first. @yannaryartside has a great break down drawing the analogy between Sydney's "accomplice" confession here with Molly Ringwald's (sorry I dunno what her character's name was) confession about facilitating her partner's substance abuse, during an Al-Anon meeting in 1x03 Brigade.

We have Carmy repeating harmful patterns of behaviour at work that he has picked up from his personal life (for example, from his mother) but also from his professional experience.

The world of fine dining that both Carmy and Sydney came to The Beef from was marked, by their own admission, with "complete and utter psychopaths" who screamed, pushed and yelled at their staff (recall Sydney's disclosure to Carmy at the end of 1x05 Sheridan) or "fucking assholes" (in the case of Chef David Fields), who made their staff "very, probably mentally ill." Sadly, this aspect of The Bear is not fiction. @moodyeucalyptus pointed out in this post that both Carmy and David Fields appear to have elements of their characters based off of real life fine dining wunderkind Chef Charlie Trotter: a Chicago-based chef known to be brilliant but who mistreated his staff so badly that he had two class actions brought against him (one by FOH staff, and another by BOH staff led by James Beard Award winner Beverly Kim).

There are other stories about the grinding nature of the fine dining industry which we'll get into below. We'll also look at a few stories of chefs who are leading a renaissance away from the "toxic, hierarchical shit show" that has historically plagued fine dining and who Joanna Calo and Chris Storer may have front of mind as they take us through Carmy and Sydney's journey together in season 4 (because as tempting as Shapiro's offer is, we know Sydney isn’t leaving Carmy). But first, we need to go further back in time to look at how the fine dining industry itself has created the conditions for a chef like season 3 Carmy to exist in the first place. Lets look at the system, baby (to quote Tina in 1x01).

The Bear's culinary ancestry: Chef David Fields and the Fine Dining Industry

I should say that I did not want to go too far into history with this post. After Carmen, Natalie, and the Berzattos, I was committed to trying to write shorter meta (/snort). But I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the origins of fine dining, and before that, the rise of Europe as the base of "haute cuisine" (which itself is directly tied to its history of colonialism and...Empire *badumbum* @freedelusionshere has made the point that The Bear writers have given Chef David's restaurant the name Empire purposefully and they're not wrong). All of this informs the current state of fine dining today.

Though France is often credited as the place where restaurants began (in the 1700s), its been established that folks were eating in communal restaurant settings all over the world, including in China about 700-600 years earlier. The origins of western fine dining (the tradition that Carmy and Sydney have trained within) however, are synonymous with French cuisine and the efforts of Georges Escoffier (who Carmy name drops in 1x03 Brigade).

The French Brigade

Escoffier was responsible for developing the French Brigade system of organising kitchen staff which is still used today in many restaurants worldwide, including at The Bear. The French Brigade was based on Escoffier's own military experience in the Franco Prussian War and was set up to identify roles in the kitchen and increase efficiency and consistency so that restaurants could scale their work to serve larger numbers of customers.

The thing with anything based on structures found in the military is that its going to replicate hierarchy (a chain of command is central to the running of military operations). In fact, much of 1x03 Brigade is spent with Sydney resisting what she identifies as the imposition of a "toxic hierarchical shitshow".

Mariya Moore-Russell, the first Black woman in the world to get a Michelin star (who also happens to be from Chicago) talks at length here about the benefits of the French Brigade for systematising commercial kitchens but also how easily it can get corrupted if the wrong people are in the kitchen. She says in those circumstances, the Brigade can quickly perpetuate, racism, sexism, perfectionism and "all of the isms." My fav quote from the video? When Russell talks about the French standardisation of cooking adopted by most kitchens in fine dining industry (at 23:39):

They were like okay, how do we take what Grandma does, what Mama does and make it you know efficient and consistent but also just extremely stressful for everybody involved? (lmao)

Note: Moore-Russell has a series of videos on YouTube about her experiences in fine dining which are very illuminating. She's also such an engaging storyteller. For example, watch "My path through the restaurant industry".

Service à la française to service à la russe

In addition to the French Brigade, another development in the history of western fine dining was the shift in styles of food service from service à la française to service à la russe. Service à la française ('service in the French style') involved serving all the dishes for a meal at once, allowing patrons to serve themselves. Think something akin to buffet style. See below for table layout using service in the French style from 1775:

Source: Wikipedia.

To me, service in the French style looks kind of similar to how my Tamil family lays out our meals (as can be seen in the first picture of this meta, minus the pheasant, moonshine and roasted woodcocks...lol). This style of service also looks a whole lot like "family style" dining which can be described as: "when food is brought to the table on large platters or serving dishes rather than being individually plated. Guests then serve themselves from the dishes which are passed around the table." In fact, service in the French style or family style dining is how many cultures serve and eat their food, both in the home and in restaurant settings (whether they use these terms to describe that layout is another matter).

I also seem to recall a couple of soulmates Jeffreys deciding to open a family-style restaurant in 1x08 Braciole (which @bootlegramdomneess has also pointed out in her post here).

In the 19th century, service in the French style became replaced in European restaurants by service à la russe ('service in the Russian style'). This style of service is what Western fine dining and haute cuisine restaurants utilise to this day. It involves bringing courses to the dining table in sequence, one after the other. Courses are portioned and plated before being brought to the diner by service staff.

In the case of Western fine dining, Escoffier shaped haute cuisine ('high cooking') through the use of his French Brigade system and the implementation of service in the Russian style. Haute cuisine has undergone shifts and changes since the 19th century including with the nouvelle cuisine movement in the 1960s which was marked by a focus on fresh produce, paired-back menus and a focus on invention. Haute cuisine of today has been described as a fusion: employing elements of nouvelle cuisine and more elaborate techniques and processes from Escoffier's system.

To my mind, service à la russe involves a lot more people (definitely more wait staff) to have it deployed effectively. When you have more people, you have more room for error (like all those dropped dishes in season 3). Family style service or service à la française allows people to serve themselves. It encourages sharing. Personally, I prefer the latter. Also can we talk about how small the portion sizes are in haute cuisine? lmao. I get it, its art. You need a gigantic plate for a small piece of hamachi because thats the canvas. Some (read: me, lmao) might also say its big ol' waste to wash a plate that size for food that takes up maybe a 1/5 of its surface area. Can we also talk about the concept of "chargers" (which the Computer rightfully rips into Carm and Sydney for in 3x05 Children) - why do you need a table setting that no one's gonna use? I'm sure there's other aspects to haute cuisine that make no fucking sense but honestly this meta is gigantic enough as it is so I'll stop there lol.

Anyway, notably it is service à la russe and food that would be described as haute cuisine that we see at The Bear. Family style is nowhere to be seen in season 3.

Colonialism, Empire and the rise of Western food cultures

A fact that is often left out of discussions about why the French and other European countries developed such globally renowned food cultures as well as their staggering wealth and status as "first world countries" (particularly in the period between the 1600s to the 19th century) was that at around the same time, these nation states were expanding their own empires by colonising other parts of the world with the express purpose of acquiring ingredients (and other resources) that they did not have access to in Europe. A brief and non-exhaustive list of examples below:

Europe's demand for flavour was so great in the 1600s that the Dutch traded Manhattan to the British in order to secure the Indonesian island of Banda Run which, at the time, was the world's only source of nutmeg. When they first arrived in the Banda Islands, the Dutch killed and enslaved much of the Bandanese population, taking control of the island's local nutmeg plantations. This violence would come to be known locally as The Banda Massacres.

It was the hunt for a direct trade route with India for black pepper that Christopher Columbus used to pitch his voyage to the King and Queen of Spain and which ultimately led him to the Americas. Columbus' arrival precipitated the colonisation of the Americas, which resulted in enslavement, disease and outright genocide, decimating First Nations populations throughout North and South America.

The colonisation of the Americas would also lead to the exporting of various foods that have come to be staples in European cooking. For example, the tomato - the key ingredient in many Italian (and Italian American) dishes - orginated in South and Central America and was brought to Europe via Spanish colonists.

The British set up their infamously brutal East India Company (EIC) to control the Indian subcontinent and the trade of various resources including precious metals, opium, textiles (silks and cotton), spices (such as cinnamon, black pepper, nutmeg, cloves, mace) and other food items (like salt, sugar, coffee and tea). The EIC would later be supplanted by the British Raj in Britain's stranglehold on India and after almost 200 years of imperialism and economic fraud, it has been estimated that the British drained India of nearly $45 trillion. I can't even begin to fathom an amount of money that large but the British could, and that theft powered much of the empire during its height.

The influence of Indian ingredients and cuisine spread throughout the British empire, including back to Britain itself. In fact, through colonisation and empire, Indian influences appear in various global cuisines (including other European cuisines as well as in the Caribbean).

Indeed the British's impact on food globally included its colonisation of Australia and New Zealand. These two colonial outposts essentially became gigantic cattle and sheep runs for the British who facilitated the wholesale theft of land - and in the case of Australia, did so without even bothering to enter into treaties with First Nations people - in order to run livestock that was then exported to feed Britain.

In order to satisfy its sweet tooth, France operated huge sugar plantations on the backs of the labour of enslaved Africans, particularly in Haiti (known at the time as Saint-Domingue). In the late 1700s, Haiti was responsible for exporting 40% of all the sugar consumed in Europe. The human cost of this was high and brutally violent. Eventually in 1803, after many armed revolts, enslaved African-descent people kicked the French out of the country after over a hundred years of heinous exploitation (thereby creating the first Black republic in the world). The French were so economically dependent on the colony for its production of coffee and sugar that when Haiti got its independence, France decided to punish the new republic for the loss of future income on Haitian exports, demanding 150 million francs in gold as compensation. The French sent warships to enforce this cruel debt. All in all, Haiti spent approximately $21 billion paying off France for the freedom that its people had already lost their lives and shed their own blood for. The debt (which involved the fledgling republic taking out exorbitant loans and fundraising amongst its citizens) was not paid off until 1947: 122 years after it was initially enforced. The French even charged Haiti interest.

Were it not for its vicious history of slavery and its century-long extortion of its former colony, I'm pretty sure France wouldn't have had the quantities of a certain key ingredient necessary to develop its worldwide reputation for pastries and desserts. I mean, you try making a crème brûlée, an eclair, a tarte tatin, a sweet galette, a mille-feuille, a madeleine, a crepe...without sugar.

This history deeply informs fine dining today. For centuries, Europe underdeveloped much of the world (borrowing Walter Rodney's turn of phrase) through colonialism and imperialist extraction. It then used those spoils and excess wealth to, among other things, develop its own food cultures and then self-proclaim itself as the cutting edge of the culinary world. To be clear, you can only faff about in a kitchen and create fancy sugar palaces and 10-course meals if you have the means and resources to do so. Haute cuisine is a product of wealth and resources, accumulated over time. Europe's colonial history also dictates which cuisines are recognised via awards like the Michelin star system. Hell, it dictates why you have the French (Michelin is a French tire company) dictating what constitutes "good" food in the first place. If you want to read more about this topic, this essay on Medium provides a good overview of the sad, racist state of affairs over at the Michelin Guide.

Where Europeans colonised and settled, this same lens was applied. This is why you have the undervaluing of Indigenous cuisine and ingredients in Australia, a situation which has only recently begun to shift. The colonisation of Australia actively involved the lying about Aboriginal foodways in Britain's attempt to falsely claim that Aboriginal peoples were nomadic hunter gatherers who did not use their land. Its why the history of how enslaved Africans brought their food cultures with them through the Door of No Return and transformed American cuisine, is not more widely known. Its why so few chefs of colour have been recognised for Michelin stars globally.

Empire and The Bear

Season 3 of The Bear pays clear homage to the impact of European empire on the world of fine dining in a few ways. The most obvious is the fact that Chef David's restaurant is literally called "Empire" lol. Another example and one of the most visually striking to me occurs in 3x01 Tomorrow. First, recall Chef David Fields' outright theft of Carmy's dish (I think we've established that you can't get more empire than the theft of food, yes?). Can we talk about how not only did Fields steal Carmy's dish but also, turned it into the most beige meal we've seen on The Bear to date, bar that single sprig of dill fighting for its life?

Carmy's penultimate plate (the final version being The Best Meal That Sydney Ever Had™):

Chef David Fields' dick measuring exercise version:

Carm was not a fan:

Can we talk about how the original plate featured the colours of the Italian flag (green, white and red) - emblematic of Carmy's cultural heritage and what is certainly one of the single biggest influences in his culinary journey (the dish also features fish, just like the main course in La Vigilia, the Feast of the Seven Fishes) - but after Fields was done with it, that shit was practically three shades of mayonnaise?

Can we talk about how Carmy's version of the dish almost certainly had a varied and dynamic flavour profile while Fields' looks just how I imagine it tasted like: whatever flavour meh is. The dish literally has no acid from what I can see (ingredients: paupiette of hamachi, fennel soubise, potato chip and dill). And I *know* a balanced dish has salt, fat, acid and heat (cos Chef Samin Nusrat told me).

Can we also talk about how Fields hates the most commonly traded of spices? The one that Columbus was looking for when he landed at what is now the Bahamas. The one that was an integral part of the East India Company's business plan rort to fuck India and South East Asia more generally?

Carmen: He hates black pepper for some reason I'll never understand. (from 3x10 Forever)

White folks in Europe were so hungry for spices to liven up their food that they invaded large swathes of the rest of the world to get the stuff. And yet, here we have Chef Fields, disliking Europe's gateway spice: the one that the Romans (Carmy's ancestors) had been trading with the East for centuries prior to Europe’s imperial frenzy, and which now makes up 20% of the world's spice trade.

Is the man so dedicated to meh that he couldn’t even bring himself to embrace pepper? Used to be one of the best chefs in the world, is right Chef Luca.

On top of dubious taste (I'm not a food critic but no one can tell me that hamachi and fennel soubise dish tasted anything other than fucked lmao. idc idc), Chef Fields is also one of the clear antagonists in The Bear. Along with Donna Berzatto, he is one of Carmy's two primary abusers. His impact on Carmy was never as clear on the show as it was in season 3. Lets take a closer look at that impact below:

Culinary ancestry and intergenerational trauma

Both Donna and David are ancestors of a kind to Carmy. Donna is clearly a biological ancestor in that she's Carmy's birth mother. I've argued here that David Fields is a culinary ancestor to Carmy. For ease of reference, I'll include my explanation of what I mean when I say "culinary ancestry", from that earlier meta, here:

Most folks understand ancestry to refer to our family or genetic lineage. When I was in university, I learned about intellectual ancestors or genealogy: where one can trace your intellectual lineage - the thinkers and creators that have shaped your understanding of the world and/or your chosen profession. I think its useful to take this concept and apply it to The Bear to help understand what the show is saying about legacy. I wouldn't limit the concept to "intellectual" ancestry though. It might be more helpful to talk about culinary ancestors in this context because the process of creating food - crafting dishes - isn't solely an intellectual exercise. It engages our intellect yes, but also each of our senses, our memories (recall that chocolate banana from 2x10 The Bear), and the need to nurture and be nurtured. Culinary Ancestors Carmy's culinary ancestors are varied given his work history. We know he's cooked under some of the best chefs in the culinary world of The Bear, including: Daniel Boulud (of Daniel), René Redzepi (of NOMA), Thomas Keller (of The French Laundry), David Field (a sociopathic Joel McHale, of Eleven Madison Park Empire), and Andrea Terry (a sublime Olivia Colman, of Ever). I'd also include here Mikey, Donna and Natalie Berzatto. I'd include cousins Richie Jeremovich and Michelle Berzatto as well. These are the home and line cooks Carm grew up with, watched in his mother's kitchen and at The Beef. He took his lessons - the good and the bad, learnt voluntarily and involuntarily - from all of these people, incorporated them into his working self and transmuted them into his food.

NOTE: In "Ancestors and The Bear" and in other meta I've written, I've incorrectly noted that Chef David Fields was the EC at Eleven Madison Park (instead of Empire). This was due to the fact that up until 3x10 Forever, we are not told the name of the restaurant that Fields and Carmy worked at together. In the draft script for the pilot, the restaurant is identified as EMP (Eleven Madison Park) by Sugar (see p 23 of that script), however this appears to have changed to "Empire" during the course of the show's development.

Through the lens of culinary ancestry, there is a clear connection between Carmy's wasteful R&D and menu choices in season 3 with the "lessons" he received under the tutelage of Chef David at Empire. For example, and as discussed above, the refusal to serve any dish that isn't viewed as "perfect" led to extreme amounts of waste at both The Bear and at Empire.

Additionally, Chef David focused on "subtraction" (recall his writing "SUBTRACT" on green tape and sticking it to the expo of Empire in 3x01 Tomorrow) and never repeating ingredients in the dishes that came out of Empire. Instinctually, these two strategies appear to me to be techniques to create needless scarcity. They're attempts at repression in and of themselves. Carmy adopts these philosophies and tries to implement them at The Bear as well. They manifest in his unilaterally overhauling the original menu at The Bear (without Syd's input) as well as his insistence that the menu change every day.

Minimalistic subtraction of elements was also a characteristic of Escoffier's approach to cooking which would be taken even further with the nouvelle cuisine movement in France. That movement focused on minimalistic dishes with fewer seasonings and sauces. Chef David Fields is clearly rooted in the French school of fine dining in this approach.

Subtraction also shows up in the show in a more dire way: in the cutting off of relationships and the whittling away of self.

I recently come across a promo still for The Bear. It features Carmy as the CDC of Empire, plating a dish. I've seen the image before but I never noticed the writing on the wall next to Carmy before. It reads:

"Its only after we've lost everything we're free to do anything"

This quote also appears in the 1999 David Fincher film, Fight Club (which itself is based on the book by the same name by Chuck Palahniuk):

Left: Carmen Berzatto, CDC at Empire in The Bear; right: Tyler Durden, general nihilistic fuckwit in Fight Club, also preaching the gospel of David [Fields].

This ethos, written on the wall and haunting the kitchen at Empire is emblematic of how Chef David operates. It reads like a fucked Psalm, giving a poetic shimmer to Field's abuse. Chef David tears down his staff, verbally degrading them to the point that he has the gall to whisper "you should be dead" to them. (OK. Can we...for a minute...imagine being a manager and that being your management style? Telling your best performing staff that they should be dead? Excuse me, mon cheri? A literal devil).

Chef David literally strips his staff of their dignity and their connections to the outside world. He makes them lose their sense of self and claims its all to make them better chefs. He tells Carmen in 3x10 Forever:

Chef David: So you got rid of all the bullshit, and you concentrated, and you got focused, and you got great. You got excellent.

The parallels between Carmy's experience at Empire - and even in the Berzatto household - and the critique of performative violent masculinity that Fight Club was trying to get across are worth pointing out. In Fight Club, white men beat each other up to try and assert control over a perceived loss of power. At Empire, Chef Fields consistently berates and degrades Carmy, clearly threatened by his CDC's talent. Similarly we have Richie complaining about having to take orders from "toddler" Carmy, saying "I was a baby too once, Syd. Nobody gave a fuck" in 1x02 (which could have been the origin story of any one of the men who joined Brad Pitt/Edward Norton to carry out "Project Mayhem" lmao. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the dudes on Reddit fawning over Richie circa seasons 1-2 also watch Fight Club as if it was some sort of aspirational manifesto and not the satire that Fincher intended it to be).

Chef Fields is meant to be representative of a toxicity found in the restaurant industry globally. There have been numerous reports of the physical and psychological violence meted out against kitchen staff by those higher up in the brigade.

Additionally the structure of the French Brigade system is such that those at the bottom - stages - are often expected to work for free. While unpaid internships are common in various lines of work, those industries start to run into trouble when large amounts of their products and services depend on unpaid labour. In fact, darling of The Bear, René Redzepi of Noma faced criticism of his restaurant's unpaid internship program. The internship program was rife with stories of ridiculous working conditions. Redzepi finally began paying interns in 2022 but then announced that Noma would shut down regular service at the end of 2024 due to being unable to afford its staff (at one point, unpaid stages made up almost half of Noma's staff).

The fact that entry into the world of fine dining means people need to work for free as a stage automatically eliminates this as an option for folks who cannot afford to volunteer in order to gain work experience. This would disproportionately impact on certain communities, particularly communities of colour whose members may not have access to sufficient wealth that would allow them to work for free. This is clearly illustrated in The Bear where we see that Carmy has the safety nets and access in place that allow him to stage at various fine dining institutions and gain much sought after experience (e.g. his family's ownership of The Beef and his ability to work there, his cousin Michelle's restaurants in NYC and his access to those spaces). Sydney, Tina, Marcus and even Richie have very different entries into the world of restaurants and fine dining.

The issue of sexual abuse and harassment in the restaurant industry is also very subtly broached in The Bear (though it is more heavily implied in the draft script for 1x01), particularly in 1x07 The Review with Richie accusing Sydney of giving a food critic head in order to get a positive review for her risotto (season 1 Richie was genuinely the worst). But the issue is huge, with more sexual harassment claims filed in the US in the restaurant industry than any other field of work.

Even scrubbing floors by hand and cleaning with a toothbrush, while ensuring sparkling kitchens, have also historically been used as a means of punishment, particularly in institutional settings. During Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, there were numerous reports of children in care homes being forced to scrub floors with toothbrushes as a means of physical punishment and control. (CW: the above link discusses accounts of institutional child sexual abuse).

Given the above, its clear to see that the industry - the system - facilitates a whole lot of shit that its workers are subjected to. So when Chef Adam Shapiro catches Sydney as she leaves the train station in 2x04 Violet and asks her how she's doing, her response is telling:

Sydney: It's been a long month [at The Bear].

Chef Adam: Ah. That bad?

Sydney: No, just-- Restaurants.

Chef Adam: Yeah. Right? Why do we do this to ourselves?

Sydney: 'Cause we're crazy.

Chef Adam: Yeah. What was this month's crazy?

Sydney: Um. The kind that's inherited.

Chef Adam: *Nods emphatically* Understood.

This Financial Times article on the dark side of restaurant culture in Copenhagen, sums things up perfectly:

“We always had this joke, an explanation for why things are so horrible: shit falls down,” [Chef Levi] Luna told [the author Imogen West-Knights], with a cold laugh. In the kitchen, the head chef gets mad at the sous-chef, who gets mad at the person below him, a chef-de-partie, who then takes it out on a stagiaire. Then one day, the sous-chef is the head chef, and he has learnt how a head chef behaves: badly. It should give a sense of the strength of feeling I encountered about how damaging this system is that several people independently described it as being like children who are abused going on to commit abuse as adults. This is the dark flipside of the restaurant-as-family metaphor.

Challenging the status quo @ The Bear

By the end of season 3, Carmy appears to recognise that subtraction in his life is not going to bring him happiness. In fact, in 1x08 Braciole, he identified subtraction - specifically, the cutting out of people from his life - as the reason his life got quiet as he grew more isolated. In 3x10 Forever, when he finally confronts Chef David, Carmy laments the psychic and physical impact of Fields' abuse as well as the isolation it engendered. Fields, psychopath that he is, remained unfazed:

Carmen: You gave me ulcers, and panic attacks, and-and nightmares. You--You know that, right? Do you-- Do you understand that?

Chef David: Yeah, I gave you confidence, and leadership, and ability. It fucking worked.

Carmen: My life stopped.

Chef David: That's the point, right?

Additionally, its worth pointing out that despite all the focus on precision, minimalism and (quite frankly) rage being put into the impeccably plated dishes of The Bear, it's the messy, juicy, multi-ingredient filled Italian beef sandwiches that remain the site's best seller. Indeed, in 3x05 Children, Nat tells Carmy that the sandwich window is the only thing at The Bear making any money. So much for subtraction.

We also see Carmy resisting a total acquiescence to Chef David's approach to running a kitchen early on in season 3. His non-negotiables read in the hindsight of the entirety of the series like his attempt at integrating the lessons he’s learned from various kitchens. It’s why the list says “no repeat ingredients” AND “vibrant collaboration”. We know that vibrant collaboration had to come from someone else’s kitchen cos Fields certainly wasn’t collaborating with anyone. That asshole was out there dictating like a fascist.

Additionally, while Carmy has realised the dangers of the fine dining industry by the end of season 3 (and not for the first time - recall in 2x01 The Beef when he called the Michelin star system "a trap"), and while Sydney grapples with her role as an "accomplice" to Carmy's season 3 bullshit, their protégés Tina and Marcus continue to keep the flame of genuine care, collaboration and inspiration alive. This is most clearly seen during the conversation Tina and Marcus have in 3x09 Apologies where they discuss Marcus' mother and his memories of her as well as brainstorm ideas for Tina's cauliflower, brussel sprouts and horseradish dish (please for the love of gad, give us more Tina, Marcus and Ebra next season).

Challenging the status quo in the real world

There are also actual chefs in the real world who appear to be doing something different with their work: embracing their own food cultures that have historically been locked out of the world of fine dining and also trying to run their kitchens in more egalitarian ways.

Above clockwise from top left: Chefs Tim Flores and Genie Kwon of Kasama, Chef Adejoké Bakare of Chishuru, Chef Asma Khan of Darjeeling Express and Chef Mariya Moore-Russell formerly of Kumiko and Kikkō.

The first, most obvious example of this for The Bear fans is Kasama, (shout out to @currymanganese and @thoughtfulchaos773 for introducing me to the above linked, short doco) the Filipino American restaurant founded and run by Chefs Tim Flores and Genie Kwon (who also happen to be married) in Chicago. Kasama is also where Carmy and Syd were meant to have their palate cleansing "reset" in 2x03 Sundae and where Sydney may have also been hit on by fellow Coach K fan, Kasama bae (shout out to @sydcarmyfan for verbalising what I squee-ed about on first watch of this episode lmao).

Both Flores and Kwon come from fine dining backgrounds but appear to challenge some of that industry's basic tenets, including the messianic role of the EC as top of Escoffier's brigade food chain. Flores openly states that his cooking is an ode to his Filipino mother who regularly taste tests his food. In the Nick Cavalier doco linked above, Flores states "if [his mother Lolly Flores] eats [the food] and there's no reference to her dish at all, I'm not doing the right thing." Flores and Kwon also operate Kasama using a hybrid model (that I think would send regimental Escoffier into a tailspin) where they offer fast and casual service featuring Kwon's baked goods during the day and offer a Filipino tasting menu led by Flores for dinner service only. Kasama was awarded a Michelin star in 2023, the first Filipino restaurant in the world to achieve that title. It also took home a James Beard Award that same year.

Note: if you haven't already, have a read of this interview of Tim Flores and Genie Kwon conducted by the Michelin Guide. ISTG Storer and Calo have read this and lifted whole paragraphs for The Bear's script. An excerpt that stood out to me, in particular:

The two first met at Bib Gourmand restaurant GT Fish & Oyster, also in Chicago. "He was leaving as I was starting. So we didn't overlap for very long. But I actually went to eat at the restaurant that he was working at afterwards, and I had one of the best experiences of my life at a tasting menu. And after that we started talking and hanging out, and eventually started dating," recalls Kwon about how she and Flores first met.

Sounds a lot like a couple of Jeffs we know, yes?

Also check out Chef Adejoké Bakare, who in 2024, became only the second Black woman to get a Michelin star in the world (the first being Chicagoan Mariya Moore-Russell who announced in 2020 that she was taking a break from her career for her mental and physical wellbeing and who also...is married to a chef lol). Bakare's restaurant, Chishuru in London, specialises in West African cuisine rooted in Bakare's Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa cultures. Bakare, like Genie Kwon, has a background in biological sciences. She also began her career as a home cook, then ran a fish and chip cart while studying at university in Nigeria. Once she moved to the UK, she ran a supper club and later won the opportunity to run a short term pop up restaurant. During the ceremony where she got her Michelin star, Bakare noted "[i]t did feel rather odd at last night's ceremony that 90% of the room was white middle-aged men. But the passion I see among young women in the industry is such that I'm confident things will change."

Take also Chef Asma Khan, who got her start in the industry as a home cook and then began running supper clubs out of her house in the UK. She then opened up the Darjeeling Express with a group of South Asian women she had met when they were all fairly recent arrivals in the UK, none of whom had formal culinary training. To this day, her kitchen remains fully staffed and run by women.

In this TEDx Talk about her work, Khan says:

"I wanted to cook but I actually wanted to feed people. This gave me the greatest pleasure. I felt at my most powerful when I was able to serve someone something I had cooked. In some ways it was my way of showing affection and love, and being able to give them something that took them home."

Sounds familiar yes? Like a couple of Jeffreys in season 1 of a certain show?

About the systemic sexism in the industry, Khan says:

"But at that time, in England, anywhere in the West, everywhere you looked it was male chefs you saw that was on television [...] in the media. It was always about men who were cooking kitchens. The greatest irony of it all is that [...] in every South Asian home you go to, you will invariably find a woman [cooking] but in every South Asian restaurant you go to, not just in India but in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, almost everywhere in the world, you will usually find a man cooking in the kitchen. And it was a desire for me that I wanted to cook but there was no road or route in front of me."

Khan elaborates further on the skewed and gendered manner in which elite fine dining operates, in this article:

“There is no public hanging [in her restaurant]. Male chefs have made cooking into a combat sport. I think it’s a reaction to the idea that cooking is feminine: I’m not the dinner lady! I’m not your grandmother! Sorry, but if you’re constantly screaming at staff it means you’ve trained them badly.”

Khan is describing the hyper-competitive nature of fine dining (and her suspicion that in a highly gendered industry that is populated by majority men, that there is a need to perform a hypermasculinity in order to put distance between themselves and the historically feminine-gendered roots of the act of cooking) and how Khan wanted no part of it, for herself, her staff or her patrons. In this Guardian article, Khan points her attention directly at the toxic work cultures of many fine dining institutions:

Khan sees herself as a vital heckler on the sidelines of the industry, rather than part of its elite club of star chefs. She is especially scathing of a macho restaurant culture that has allowed workplace bullying and abuse to become normalised – and of those who enable it.

“My deep concern during the pandemic is seeing very prominent people with considerable wealth remove the entire workforce without a safety net.” A surge of restaurant and pub workers were reported to be sleeping rough in central London in April, a fact Khan can’t shake. “It is so shameful, my heart bleeds for the industry, it is immoral. I don’t want restaurants to be ranked by Michelin stars for the fluff and edible herbs they put on a plate. I want to know how they treat their people, they should be ranked on that. Where there is bullying and racism, where there is sexual harassment, where staff don’t feel safe, people should boycott those restaurants. I don’t want to see them prosper.”

Honestly, after reading some of the horror stories about work place practices in the restaurant industry, I'm with Khan. I'm also with Flores, Kwon, Bakare and Moore-Russell. I reckon Storer and Calo are also with these folks too and that we're going to see a shift in season 4 of The Bear that reflects the larger industrial change in the world of fine dining that chefs like these are heralding.

The death of fine dining

Above: Carmy's phone in 3x05 Children

Like @freedelusionshere says here, I don't think its a suprise that season 3 ended with Ever's funeral. The fine dining of Empire and even Ever is dead. How can it not be given the way its been largely running to date, as discussed above? How can it not be when we are living in a time of severe food insecurity precipitated by runaway consumerism and the twin existential threats of global climate and extinction crises. How can anyone in good conscience justify charging exorbitant amounts of money on a plate that is not going to fill patron's bellies while there are communities worldwide who do not have enough food to feed their children? When some communities, even in so-called "first world" countries like America and Australia cannot access clean drinking water?

Truly, the argument for fine dining posited by Will Guidara in 3x10 Forever made me (and I'm sure many others) actually cringe.

There's nobility in this. [...] We can give them the grace, if only for a few hours, to forget about their most difficult moments. Like, we can make the world a nicer place. All of us in this room. We have this opportunity, perhaps even a responsibility, to create our own little magical worlds in a world that is increasingly in need of a little more magic.

There *is* nobility in nurturing people, in feeding them. But in a time of the multiple and rolling, global existential crises, where particular communities are being targeted not just for marginalisation but whole scale eradication, this is not a time for more "magic"; particularly when those "little magical worlds" are reserved for the select few who can afford them. We don't need more holes to bury our heads in. We need real spaces of care that are accessible, kind (read: not nice, but kind. there is a big difference) and nurturing. And those spaces need to be those things not just for the patrons who visit them but also for the staff who work there.

There is also literally no time for escapism, at least not of the kind that late stage capitalism promotes and as described by Guidara in 3x10. We are living at a time where food systems are said to make up one third of all greenhouse gas emissions, pushing the climate crisis further to the point of no return. What's the point of making magic worlds to escape an actual world on the brink? And while your magic-making contributes to the brink getting closer? Its like putting lipstick on a pig.

Indeed some have posited that it was the British Empire's remaking of the world to feed Britain (which we've looked at briefly above) that has been the single biggest contributor to the current environmental crises facing our planet. The Bear acknowledges the issue as well. Recall 2x04 Violet when Tina visits Jerry at the farmers' market and his explanation for why he has so little produce to sell:

Jerry: There's fewer and fewer moths to grow vegetables now, and 'cause of that, there's fewer and fewer farms. Used to be you could come down here, buy everything you needed for a full menu. All in one spot. Whatever grows together, goes together.

The reason there are fewer months to grow vegetables is because of climate change which has impacted on everything to season length, groundwater and rainfall levels (as the two main sources for global farming irrigation) and increased periods of drought and heatwave.

So whats next for The Bear?

Season 3 put us through the ringer with Carmy replicating toxic practices in his restaurant that are rife in the industry at large. Yes, Carmy also has mental health issues and is a survivor of multiple sources of trauma. We know this. I've talked about this at length here and here. But he's also a guy who's running his own business with folks who are dependent on their place of work for their livelihoods. As such, he, Nat and Uncle Jimmy (as co-owners of The Bear) have responsibilities to their staff.

As EC at The Bear who is directly responsible for managing BOH, Carmy has a choice to make about whether he "blows his trauma through" (shout out to Dr Resmaa Menakem and his book My Grandmother's Hands) the bodies of those closest to him, including the crew at The Bear. Just as parents have to work on themselves so that they don't replicate harmful patterns of behaviour in raising their children, so too do we all in our daily relationships, including where many of us adults spend most of our waking lives: at work.

Like Richie observed, Carmy is not integrated in season 3 but neither is the industry in which he's working. A menu that constantly changes, wasteful food practices, a food production and agricultural industry that contributes to a third of global greenhouse gas emissions leading to increased global warming. These things are absolutely not integrated. In many ways, Carmy's mental state in season 3 - anxious, agitated, exhausted, is a reflection of the times. Given all of the above, Carmy's "I'm so fucking sick of this" in 3x09 Apologies hits me harder in the chest. Yes Carmy, you should be. Now go do something about it.

Having looked at the career trajectories of a few talented, conscientious chefs in the course of writing this meta, I think its pretty clear that the old way of running restaurants a la Chef David Fields is over. As we sit at the precipice of climate disaster, watching multiple genocides unfolding at once, during a time of massive food insecurity, who the hell has time to be suffering in the way Chef David made his employees feel in the course of making food that is meant to nourish people? What fucking cognitive dissonance is required to continue on THAT kind of a path?

Come season 4, I reckon we are going to see a massive shift in the trajectory of The Bear. This will be precipitated by multiple things (like the review Carmy got at the end of 3x10 and whatever the fuck Uncle Jimmy is up to with that box and those golf clubs lol) but most significantly, by a realisation on Carmy's part that his version of Michelin mode IS NOT IT.

I reckon Carmy and Sydney are going to continue to work together but they'll go back to the original plan they made with one another in 1x08 Braciole. They're going to go back to family style. They're going to treat their staff better (after Carmy apologises lol). They're going to shift from wasteful, haute cuisine to sustainable food practices that support producers and the planet more broadly. They're going to leave Chef David Fields' scare tactic of subtraction behind and lean into using more pepper.

Above: Sydney's notebook as she workshops a recipe at home in 1x08 Braciole.

Tagging: @moodyeucalyptus @currymanganese @hwere @freedelusionshere @thoughtfulchaos773 @ambeauty @brokenwinebox @devisrina @espumado @fresaton @kdbleu @vacationship @birdiebats @bootlegramdomneess @mitocamdria @tvfantic87 @angelica4equity @anxietycroissant @turbulenthandholding @yannaryartside @afrofairysblog @ciaomarie

cos you may be interested but as always, I'd love to chat to whoever wants to about this stuff!

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specialagentlokitty · 2 years ago

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Reid x Deaf!Teen!reader - translation

reid x teen/child!reader who is deaf but no one realises till he starts signing to her - Anon💜

A/N: sign language will be in bold

Sitting in the interrogation room, you frowned a little as you stared at the two older men in front of you, they were talking but you had no clue what they were saying.

Looking around the room, you found a clock and decided that if you stared at it long enough maybe they would let you go.

“Can you give us anything? Did you see anything?” Rossi asked.

You didn’t reply and he turned to Hotch who sighed and shook his head, gesturing for him to leave and they did.

They stood on the other side of the glass watching you.

“Are they just ignoring us?” Derek asked.

“I assume so, but they’re the only one what was in the area. Surely they must’ve heard something, we can’t even get a name out of them.”

“Partners with the unsub?” Emily asked.

“I don’t think so, the profile points to the unsub working alone. Unable to work with a partner.” JJ replied.

“Maybe they’re protecting the unsub then.” Hotch said.

They all looked at you, they had no clue what to do.

They couldn’t find any ID on you, no address or anything, you didn’t have a phone with you, you weren’t coming up on their system and you didn’t match any missing persons report.

So if you did have a family they didn’t notice that you were missing.

“Hey Reid, come here.” Derek called.

Reid looked over from where he was sat at the table doing some research.

Getting up, he walked over.

“Yeah?” He asked.

“What’s with the kid? You’re the only one who hasn’t talk to them maybe they’ll talk to you.”

“We’ve all tried, we’re not getting anywhere.” JJ sighed.

Reid turned to look at you through the glass, you were looking at the clock on the wall.

“We haven’t gotten any response, they won’t even look at us most of the time unless we touch the table.” Hotch explained.

Reid watched you, raising a finger but stopped himself.

Instead, he walked into the room, noticing how you didn’t look at him as he quietly closed the door.

What did make you turn was when he tapped once against the table and you looked at him.

“Hi, I’m Dr Spencer Reid, can I sit?” He asked.

You blinked, staring at him blankly.

He smiled a little and raised his hands.

Can I sit?

You quickly nodded and waited for him to sit down before raising your hands.

You can sign?

He nodded.

Yes. I learned in high school, my team think you’ve been ignoring them. Are you mute or deaf?

Deaf. Since birth. My parents only sign so I never learned to lip read.

He smiled his head and nodded in understanding.

Can you tell me your name?

(Y/N) (L/N). What’s yours?

Spencer Reid, can I have someone come in to ask you questions? I’ll be right here to translate.

You nodded and he left, you sat patiently waiting for him to come back.

It was one of the same men from not long ago and he smiled at you.

This is Hotch, he’s going to ask you questions and I’ll translate for you.

Go ahead.

You were asked all sorts of questions, did you see anything, was there anything unusual, why were you out so late.

They were trying to get as much information they could to find anything that could help and when you saw Hotch ask something and Reid stop translating giving him a deadpan look at Hotch smiled sheepishly you smiled.

You tapped the table getting their attention.

He asked if I heard anything, didn’t he?

Yeah. Sorry.

You laughed a little, and shook your head.

I heard a massive mole man wondering about.

Reid laughed at this and told Hotch what you said and he laughed a little bit as well, smiling at you.

Do you have any family we can call?

You shook your head a little.

No. They passed. You can just drop me off where you found me.

Reid frowned and turned to Hotch.

You watched them have a conversation that seemed to last a few minutes and finally Reid turned his attention back to you.

You can stay at the station with us for now, just to be safe. Is that okay?

You shrugged a little.

Yeah beats my crap motel room.

Reid smiled and nodded, gesturing for you to follow him and you did.

He showed you where you would be able to sleep, and got you some food and something to drink and he sat talking with you most of the night.

When you did fall asleep, Reid covered you up with his sweater and went back to helping with the case.

He knew they’d have to cal CPS eventually, when the unsub was caught and you were safe, but he felt protective over you. He felt he had to keep you safe

#criminal minds #criminal minds x you #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds x teen!reader #criminal minds x y/n #Spencer Reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n

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sullina · 1 month ago

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i honestly really appreciate Mairimashita Iruma-kuns take on demons, because demons in many fiction-works (which is... all of them, bc demons aren't actually real...) are portrayed as selfish and only doing what they want, or are literally just 1:1 to humans but this time with horns.

And yeah, in "Iruma-kun", they're also selfish and do whatever they want, but they're also still very much social and have a (more or less) working society. So they can work together, despite their selfishness.

And this also reflects in the demons we see working. Full disclosure, i don't remember that much right now, but just thinking of the teachers at Babyls, they all absolutely love their jobs and are amazing at it, if to varying levels.

And why wouldn't they? Demons only do whatever they wanna do. The teachers at Babyls aren't forced to work as teachers, they chose to become teachers, because that's what they wanted to do. And if you love something, you're willing to put a lot of work into it.

Even Kaluego, despite his usual demeanor and attitude, loves being a teacher, and especially wants to see every single one of his students grow to their fullest potential. Why else would he have a notebook dedicated to each and every single student? I don't think teachers are required to do that, so the only answer left is that he loves his job.

Also Balam, who gets so excited about new things that it scares most students.

And Bachiko, who taught Iruma archery. She was tough on him, but she never called him annoying or wanted him to go away, unless you count the beginning of their training, but even that was because she had so many students give up and didn't think Iruma was any different. Once he had proven himself to be capable and willing to do whatever it took to master archery, she was behind him 110%.

I just love this take, because on the one hand, it's more fresh, and on the other, also seems a little more... accurate?

Because consider any other medium where demons are portrayed as hating and killing each other on the daily, but still have cities and schools, and just a society in general (if a broken one), and it's said that it's "always been this way". Basically just "humans with horns and way more hostile". Why the fuck would they band together if they can't cross paths without trying to tear each others throats out? Why would they reproduce? If a demon can't care for anything other than its own individual self, why would they raise their children? Let alone anyone elses children, like in schools? You don't band together, unless there's some sort of benefit that outweighs the cost. In that kind of world, it makes no sense that demons would have cities, let alone countries, and without countries, there wouldn't be any wars either. Wars are fought by countries, which is a collection of people, or demons in this case, all fighting collectively for the same goal. If demons don't fight for a collective goal, because they're not a collective, there can't be any wars, only senseless bloodshed where it's everyone vs. everyone and the winner is the last individual left alive.

And yeah, in Mairimashita it's still said that it kinda sorta was like this a long time ago, but it's not like this now, and the clear reason is that Delkira, the demon king, made it this way, in part by introducing the rank system that allowed anyone to get higher in their society. And even then, in that "a long time ago", demons still had a society, just not an equal one. And while we see demons being selfish in the manga/anime, we also know that they CAN care for others, be it their friends or family. And in that amusement park arc, i distinctly remember a child being trapped in a building that could come down any second, and Iruma, the resident human, stepping in to save the child, which inspired his demonic friends to step in and help him. So yeah, demons in mairima are very much naturally selfish, but not to such an extent that they can't care for others.

#mairimashita iruma kun #mairimashita! iruma kun #mairima analysis #i guess? idk #it is 1am i need to go to bed #good night

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escapingrealtiylovinginsanity · 7 months ago

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Jay Halstead: By The Four

Just finished rewatching 5x5 and I had to write this. Pure indulgence. Short and sweet.

You opened the apartment door and instantly knew that something was different. You could usually hear the muted sound of the game and Jay cheering or frustration depending on how his team was doing. You tilted your head as you heard a familiar song from a Disney movie. You could also hear the sliding of sheets.

You weren’t sure what to expect when you rounded the corner, but it certainly wasn’t the site in front of you. Jay was in his normal position on the couch sipping a beer. Encanto was on the TV instead of the hockey game. A little girl, maybe five, half asleep with her head on his lap. His free hand was carding through her thick dark hair like he often did for you. The blow-up mattress was on the floor in front of the couch with two other olive-skinned children. One boy and one girl no older than eight or nine. They were cocooned in soft blankets. A final Asian boy was sitting on the floor slightly separated from the group holding a pillow to his chest.

You paused in the doorway, “Hey baby,” Three sets of little eyes and your boyfriends turn to you. Jay had a guilty look. You raised an eyebrow at him before heading to the kitchen to drop off your stuff. He slowly started to untangle the girl from his lap to follow you. You were pouring yourself a glass of wine when he entered the kitchen. You were a DFS worker and had been called out on an emergency keeping you out late. You met his gaze, “Why are four children sleeping in our living room?”

“It was a bad case, we just freed them from a child trafficking ring. They didn’t have a good placement- they were planning on sending them to a lockdown group home for the night. I couldn’t let them do it.”

You smile at Jay. He had such a big warm heart. You leaned and stole a soft peck from his lips. “Seems like I’m not the only one who can’t help but bring home strays.” You rub your noses against him in a few Eskimo kisses.

You drink your glass of wine as Jay explains to you how parents were using online sites to “rehome” their adopted children. You had nodded along with him. You were aware of the barbaric process. Hearing about how these children had been used, makes you sick to your stomach. “How am I supposed to trust that these kids are going to be taken care of? After all this? Put them back in the system that allowed them to be used like that?” Jay shakes his head in disgust. You rub a calming hand up and down his back, pressing a comforting kiss to his jaw.

“Bunk beds in the spare room?” His gaze shoots back to yours assessing your seriousness.

“Don’t joke. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it.” His voice is half sarcastic, but you can hear the honest undertone. "They would fit."

“You would make an amazing dad.” You lean more against him, and he wraps his arm around you. “Doing it four at a time might be a bit overwhelming, but not completely undoable.”

#chicago pd #jay halstead #jay halstead x reader #jay halstead x you #jay halstead imagine

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peggyao3 · 8 days ago

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Relic - Pt. 18 "Universe"

PAIRING: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Unnamed Ambiguous FMC

SUMMARY: This chapter is dedicated to the quantum spirits.

TAGS: Third person POV, she/her AFAB FMC, explicit sexual content, smut, vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, oral sex, Porn with Plot, Feyd-Rautha's black cum and big cock, Praise Kink, Body Worship, angst/hurt and comfort, drama, fluff, plans within plans, implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced abuse, Trauma, mentions of suicidal thoughts, Healing, Strangers to Lovers, falling in love, Vulnerable/ Emotional/Possessive Feyd, Feyd is a sweet baby who did nothing wrong and I WILL pamper him, nurture not nature, Stockholm Syndrome but in a consensual way, lucid dreaming, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, murder, teaching the universe about feminism, female rage, Frank Herbert would frown, No actually he would kneel in front of me, putting the science and the porn in sci-fi, angst with a happy ending

WORD COUNT: 5k

A/N: It's a Christmas miracle! 🎄 The final chapter is ready just in time. And, my God, I'm so emotional about it 😭 It hurts to let it go.

After finishing this chapter, you might want to re-read a certain part of a certain other chapter, because of reasons 🤭

If there ever pops up a 19th "chapter", don't be surprised! If it happens, it's going to be a bit of art for this fic 💖💖💖

My biggest thank you goes to @/ClockworkSiren, once again, for beta reading this whole thing and letting me borrow our lovely babies Alyth and Michael and turn them into Lilia and Mikhail ❤️😭

Reposted from my Ao3💕| Masterlist | Relic Masterlist

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

← Previous Chapter

"So, this is it?" She gazes out the window, engines rumbling under their seats. "The Maldives of Giedi Prime?"

"What was that, darling?" Feyd's hand is heavy on her knee, the coolness of his wedding band seeping pleasantly through her gown. His bald head thuds softly against the back panel as he follows her gaze.

The black, oily waves of the svart valta lick at the pale coast of the peninsula below. White sand stretches between tall, chalky cliffs that stand out of the landscape like the unearthed bones of an ancient beast. According to her interface, they're still 150 meters above the ground.

"The Maldives," the relic mutters pensively. "They were an archipelago on Earth, a popular honeymoon destination. Never been there. They were flooded around the time I was born."

"Honeymoon," Feyd repeats the foreign word that lacks a proper translation in Galach, but with the individual words grafted together, it sounds cute. He likes it. "M'gonna drink your honey as soon as we touch down. Until the moon comes out?"

His wife snickers warmly and her breath fogs up the window. Feyd's hand slides to the inside of her thigh, squeezing the soft flesh above her knee.

"Not if I drink yours first," she teases, though her musing gaze remains on the lurid landscape below, abyssal wave hungrily trying to scorch the peninsula of Telkel. From the tasu aurinkosesti, they had flown east to reach one of the most remote Harkonnen settlements on Giedi Prime. Looking at the undulating mass of radiation, she wonders: "What color do you think it'd have under a yellow sun?"

"Don't know," Feyd hums. "You're the scientist. Green, maybe? Or brown."

He had explained to her earlier that the settlers had tried to reintroduce fish to the sea here in Telkel. The giant, corroding basins along the shore remain, but their filter systems have been shut off for decades. To cultivate fish that can not only survive but thrive in the heavily polluted waters would take some serious scientific effort that the late Baron Harkonnen didn't think promising enough to chip his budget for.

"We could have gone to Lankiveil," his woman briefly pouts, though her eyes betray her fascination as the village below increases in size. "I would die to dip my toes into an ocean without having them singed off. Or for some fresh air and a walk among pines. I never had much of that on Earth either."

Feyd hums, contorting his torso to press his cheek against hers as they both gaze out of the same window. Long, pale fingers play along her ribs. "The waters on Lankiveil would freeze your toes off, but… We'll go there," he promises with a low whisper. "Or any other planet you want. The universe is practically ours now."

Practically. Perhaps after a week of writhing on top of each other in damp sheets, their thirst for revenge will return.

The conversation between Feyd and his brother after the ceremony had been brief, but Glossu had formally invited the both of them to Lankiveil, the snowy, tranquil home of Feyd's early childhood and a place full of emotional debris. But he would rather not elbow his way through the wreckage on their honeymoon.

The aircraft touches down on a bleak landing pad between low buildings that look like matchboxes among the unforgiving landscape. A small committee of a dozen Telkelis awaits the daunting visitors from Barony, their massive aircraft ink-black and shiny, factory new, among the dusty grey architecture and pale hills. The sharp wind of rotor blades makes the Telkelis' drab trousers whip around their legs.

Lilia quickly maneuvers to the other side of the passengers' cabin after prying the hem of her Lady's travel mantle out of Glugo's many finger-toes. The garment has the same functionality as her wedding down, but simpler and more practical.

"You'll get your plushies back when we're inside," the handmaid tries to soothe the wistfully glugging creature. "They're in the suitcase— Oh! Not that one."

But Glugo has already wrapped four out of eight hand-feet around the handle of Mikhail's personal suitcase that the guard had refused to deposit in the cargo department because old habits die hard. As a former resident of the slums of Ganpolis, he prefers to have his belongings where he can see them.

Feyd-Rautha clicks his tongue while Lilia helps his wife into the shiny mantle and gloves, concealing her from head to toes.

Outside, scalding wind carries the sound of distant, crashing waves and the scent of bitter salt. The relic has to hold onto her husband's arm as she sways on the iron footsteps of the aircraft. Behind them, guards spill out of the second cabin, half of them heading straight to the cargo compartment where her cryo pod is stored. She is quite like Mikhail in that regard.

The committee bravely keeps a stoic face and doesn't flinch at the disturbingly cute sight of an eight-arm-legged creature toiling away with a too heavy suitcase and refusing a desperate guard's help.

Leaning towards his wife, Mikhail whispers: "My chair's inside that thing!"

Feyd's nostrils flare as he struts towards the gathered dozen with heavy, leisured steps, clutching the hand of his wife. His other hand lifts to shield himself against the glaring sun and the tip of his thumb subconsciously slides against his ear where an inconspicuous black button pierces his antihelix. To the unsuspecting eye, it looks not too different from a regular transponder with an unconventional placement, but what it really contains is a tiny loudspeaker and a chip with just enough memory to run the script that detects the voice.

"Welcome to Telkel, my Lord, my Lady." The committee bends their knees and salutes. The clumsy tension in their limbs gives away that they didn't have to salute to authority often in their lives out here in the godforsaken wilderness.

"Thank you for having us."

If it weren't the young Baron's very own raspy drawl speaking, the Mayor of Telkel would have never believed that 'thank you' would be the first words coming out of Feyd's mouth. The Mayor's daughter had cried in the morning, certain that Feyd-Rautha would behead her father for something as mundane as the driveway to the villa being too crooked or the bad condition of the weather-beaten landing pad.

"It's an honor. The entire village is ecstatic, my Lord." Still hunkering down on one knee, the man's smooth brows suddenly shoot up in horror. "Congratulations!" He blurts. "On your marriage!" He'd meant to say this in the very beginning. Helplessly, his pale eyes snap from Baron to Baroness.

"Thank you," the Lady speaks from behind the curious veil and her voice sounds kind and human. "Why don't you stand up. Don't hurt your knees."

Feyd-Rautha casts a threatening glance at Mikhail, so the guard doesn't blurt out that 'the Lady could print y'all some chairs.'

The Mayor and his people shuffle, straightening their bodies into the sharp wind.

"Oh, my Lady, our knees and backs are used to it." The older man points a scarred thumb behind his shoulder, where the inkvine plantations are beyond the village border. This is how Telkel gets by now, hovering over the maws of poverty at the whims of Giedi Prime's rocky soil and erratic volcanoes.

The Lady lets out a sympathetic sound and the Mayor can't help himself. The next words just come tumbling out. "It'd be an honor to show you around the plantations and the old basins, if you'd like. Never seen them in action, but my father did. For a year or so, they had a relatively stable population of Tilapia in there."

"I'd love to see them. Actually, if I could have some water samples, maybe I could—"

"Not now, sweetling," Feyd's grating voice chastises and he squeezes his wife's gloved hand, compressing her wedding ring between her fingers. "The villa is prepared?"

"Yes, my Lord. The maids and workers you sent have been very thorough. Radiation-proof window panes, fresh paint. Even got some imported plants. My daughter picked them." The renovated villa is now considerably more homely than the Mayor's own residence. "Shall we head there?"

Despite its forlorn ugliness, the relic finds Telkel and its grey, flat buildings among chalky hills oddly charming. Even if she'll be covered from crown to toe in her lead-painted mantle, she swears she will go to the beach — if Feyd lets her out of the bedroom — and feel the sand underfoot, hear the massive waves trying to swallow the shore. Compared to Barony and the roiling industrial trenches that stretch across most of the northern hemisphere, this is a natural paradise.

"Guess we won't be seeing ya for a while, eh?" Mikhail leers, freshly painted teeth brilliant in the glaring sun as he leans lopsidedly against the grey pillar of the villa's roofed porch. Lilia harshly pinches his side, between the plates of his armor, but the apples of her cheeks round up with laughter. Sometimes it still scares her how openly her husband jests with Feyd-Rautha, a man who used to be known first and foremost for his quick blades and unstable outbursts.

The welcome committee has left them ten minutes ago and the guards currently come shuffling out of the building, having deposited the Baroness' priceless sarcophagus in the room adjacent to their honeymoon suite.

"You may join us for meals," Feyd concedes, grinning.

"Meals as in…?" Mikhail cocks a hairless brow.

"Oh, absolutely not!" The relic gasps and her guard breaks into raspy laughter, lungs expanding in crunchy hops.

"Dun' worry. I wouldn't share my woman anyways. Not even with you, m'Lord. Aight then, see ya in a week, eh?"

Wiry arms curl around Lilia's thighs and the scrawny guard hauls his wife quite easily over his shoulder. She calls him a prat between giggles, and a mongrel, but Mikhail already makes a sprinting beeline for Glugo who still stubbornly drags his suitcase down the freshly paved pathway to the guest house.

"They'll be fine," Feyd-Rautha soothes his wife's veiled, lingering glance. "Look at me." His gravelly timbre demands for her undivided attention and her eyes follow his magnetic pull.

Pale fingers sprawl across her sternum, urging her backwards. Even through the lead-painted layers, she feels his possessive touch singe her skin and bones. Unwittingly, her feet pass the threshold of their holiday abode and the door closes at her husband's back.

Inside, silence embraces them. This place is only for them, where they need to be nothing but lovers. Color provided by golden glow globes fades into Feyd's pallor, the softest notes of pink on cheeks and lips, and blue framed by dark blonde lashes.

The building is brutalist in its arches and pillars, but less suffocating than the palace. The welcoming range of non-colors and sharp angles creates actual depth and contrast, not like the bulbous pyramid interior that reminds of a termite burrow, or the innards of a giant insect. Bright daylight streams through the thick windows, fading into glowglobe haze.

Something about this place evokes… Nostalgia.

"You're blushing, husband," she teases, though her hammering heart under his palm betrays her own butterflies.

"Off with that thing." Feyd-Rautha has already mapped out the buckles that keep her mantle fastened and strips it off her frame quicker than she would have ever managed. Her gloves land on the same shiny pile and she hooks her bare fingers into Feyd's belt loops, turning her husband around his tall axis to walk him up the curved stairs. Those pretty eyes could eat her alive, oozing lust like blue honey.

Neither of them take note of the gentle, green fern that line the staircase in tasteful pots.

"Off with that thing." The woman's fingers glide under Feyd's lapels and over his smooth shoulders, slipping his ornamental jacket off his arms. The expensive garment flutters over the banister and he remains in a sleeveless tunic and trousers.

"So, now that you're my wife, will you stop taking that potion?" Feyd leers at her stomach once they've reached the top, his tone playful. The hand that lunges to smack him atop the head is one that he had predicted, and so he dodges it masterfully and dances behind her. Hard, strong arms curl around her middle, lifting her off the ground until she breaks into gasping giggles and demands to be let down with kicking feet. The hem of her gown slides up her shins.

Feyd grins, feeling the plushness of her breasts against his forearms. "What a rare pleasure to have you in a gown, my darling" he purrs.

"For this special occasion, I thought I might as well," she huffs with laughter, accepting her airborne fate.

"I like it. It's practical."

"Practical for you, not for me."

The garment is a classic cut worn by Harkonnen noblewomen, flattering and intricate in the way it curls around her bosom and hips in obsidian black, nothing like the stiff latex and see-through plastic of the former Baron's palace servants.

"Don't worry, you won't have to wear it for the rest of the week, my darling. You'll wear nothing but sweat and cum on your pretty skin. Or maybe some blood. I didn't bring a coffer full of toys for nothing."

"I hope some of them are for you."

"More than you'd think," he purrs, pink lips pressing against her neck. "And some of the blood will be mine."

"Oh? We could start now." The woman twists out of his grasp, turning and grasping his lapels. Her lips find the crescent scar on his clavicle, pretending to delve for a kiss when she really pinches the thin layer of skin over the bone between her teeth. Feyd grunts, shamelessly pressing his confined erection against her navel.

"Let's go, my darling." He seizes her hand, his whole universe, and opens the door.

🎶🎶🎶

"Look, doesn't this remind you of something?" His wife's voice whispers to him excitedly and Feyd-Rautha tilts his head, brows furrowed.

"What do you mean?"

"Look!" Her ringed hand slides out of his grip and he chases after it viscerally, nearly overwhelmed by the sudden discomfort of having no soft palm against his own. She shouldn't be slipping away from him at all on their honeymoon.

But then, recognition carves into him, serrated blades that tear his guts open with a monstrous sense of deja vu. His head spins as he advances into the room.

Feyd's feet step on polished parquet and his gaze swivels around, scanning the surroundings which he thought he would never see again. There are white curtains fluttering by the window, a king-sized bed carved out of white marble, a black comforter tucked around the mattress and blue pillows are lined up against the headboard. A real fern grows in a terracotta pot in the corner.

Horrified, Feyd's head snaps back to his woman, suddenly recognizing the Harkonnen gown wrapped around her curves. He finds her eyes brimming with meaning.

She clutches his wrist hard, nails digging into tender skin, and it is like some sense of frantic, mutual understanding settles upon wife and husband. Her features soften and she looks at him, seemingly confused.

"I don't recognize this place," he lies. His heart clamors like a captive beast.

"Me neither." She pulls her hand away and takes a step back, her cheeks hot and her head dizzy as the universe's mysterious gears rotate around them. But she masks it well.

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?" Feyd rumbles, tracing his fingertips over the cool, smooth marble bedpost. It feels so real. It is real and always has been real.

"I don't know. I feel so awake."

A flash of warmth blossoms in Feyd-Rautha's chest as he regards the woman he has seen so many times before, in visions and reality. Curiously, she moves around the light-flooded bedroom. Sunlight filters through the curtains, temporarily robbing her flesh of color. A frown decorates her brows and she turns back to face him. Years of comfort reside in the way she moves and Feyd chases after her with measured steps.

"What's your name?" He asks. She tells him only a forename, no House, because she has none, unfamiliar sounding, because the name was given to her 24,000 years ago. "I've never heard that name before," Feyd confesses, standing mere inches away from his wife. Her pretty face is craned upwards to meet the alluring gaze of his eyes. She would describe the color as baby blue. The prettiest shade in the world.

"And what's your name?" She breathes. No matter what this is, she has no reason to be nervous. It already happened.

He hesitates at that. Feyd-Rautha Rabban. But ultimately, he stays true to the script. "Feyd."

The name sparks no judgment on the woman's features and he remembers the flood of immense, stupid relief and how he had concluded that there is probably more than one person in the universe named Feyd, that Harkonnens all look the same to foreigners. To talk to a person who only knows Feyd, not Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen had been his lifeline out of the gluttonous maws of death.

"Feyd," she repeats, suddenly giggling.

He too is in the mood for giggling, but he didn't giggle then, so he doesn't giggle now. Feyd leans an inch closer, eyes rapidly dancing across her mirthful face.

"Feyd as in you will fade away when I wake up?" She covers her mouth now, still laughing. Something compels him to laugh as well because all things considered, this is still a funny joke, even though neither of them will wake up.

Or will they?

No. No, they won't.

The pressure against the apples of his cheeks doesn't feel so unfamiliar anymore, as the corners of his mouth lift into a wide grin. His lips part and what escapes him is a small haha.

Suddenly, the woman flinches and her smile drops. Perhaps she had the same thought as he did. She catches herself quickly and remembers: "Sorry! I just—"

"What? Oh, the black teeth? People usually find them very pretty where I'm from, desirable even.” Feyd closes his mouth. He's still unsure if laughter suits him, but his woman seems to like it. Always has.

"Oh, no, please keep laughing!" She wraps her hand around Feyd's wrist. So smooth, every part of him. She wants to curl against his body and rub her cheek against his pallid flesh. Even now, his features are still outlandish to her, strikingly pretty. The pale skin, so light that it almost looks translucent, the entirely bald head and lack of brows.

She should have always known that he's not a figment of her imagination, because she couldn't have imagined someone so pretty.

Encouraged by her touch, Feyd smiles once more and it has never been easier. It feels so good. He looks away from his woman who still holds his wrist and finds a mirror on the far wall. He looks foreign to himself, his cheeks not in the right place, but he's gotten more used to it.

"If I pinch you, will you wake up?" She teases, pinching his skin without waiting for his answer. She seems fascinated by the small blotch which decorates his wrist where she poked him with her nail, twisting and turning his wrist and hand like he's an interesting specimen. Of course she would look at him like that — his little scientist, life saver, love of his life.

Even though this is not a lucid dream, Feyd knows he doesn't have to worry about what he does, not with her. She has loved even the most unlovable parts of him. He feels compelled to do things he would have never done before her, such as dismantling the walls around his soul with laughter.

Even though this is not a lucid dream, she knows she doesn't have to worry about what she does, not with him. She also feels compelled to do things she would have never done before him. Such as getting married to the apocalyptic soundscape of an erupting volcano and adopting a lovely freak of immoral genetic engineering.

"So, Feyd…" She purrs his name like an exotic, amusing thing. "What would you like to do?"

Feyd pretends to be taken aback by the question, because no one ever used to ask him that. Not like that. "What would you like to do?" He coos, slinking closer with rolling gait and a small smirk on his serpentine features. He knows the way her pupils dilate well.

"There's a bed in the room, so…"

Feyd leers, smile turning wolfish. Yes, he will fuck his wife senseless. He might even fuck her so good that his own climax jostles him awake and out of whatever the fuck this bizarre simulation is. Which, upon second thought, would ruin his life.

She speaks again, moving her lips closer to his, pretty lashes lowering so they almost kiss her cheek bones "...So perhaps that means we should sleep."

Feyd acts baffled, then rumbles: "I won't sleep in my sleep."

"I meant sleeping with each other."

Of course she did. Feyd's hairless brows shoot up and something light flutters in his stomach when she starts giggling again, attempting to turn away as if suddenly bashful about her own words.

"To the bed, you confusing woman," he orders with a low growl and there is not even an ounce of resistance when his hands wrap around his wife's shoulders, nudging her backwards, so her knees bend around the mattress of their honeymoon bed and she sinks down.

Her husband's face hovers directly over her and she admires the dip of his cupid's bow and the soft curve of his jaws. So pretty. She reaches up and cups his cheek and the way his bone structure slots against her palms feels just right, always has.

Feyd pounces on her like a tiger and the strength and weight of the hard muscles concealed by a black tunic and slacks becomes evident. Heat pools into her abdomen instantly, caged under the man of and from her dreams who is made of flesh and blood, smells like it too. A familiar note of something leathery and metallic clings to him.

There is no need for a prelude, because they've loved each other a thousand times, in the past and the future. Feyd's lips kiss her decolletage before they find her throat and by the time they've found her lips, the hard ridge of his cock is pressed against her core which is only covered by the fabric of her dress, ridiculously easy to access.

Practical for him, as he said.

Why not, she thinks. It's not like the world is going to come collapsing down on them. Right?

Why not, he thinks. Even if the world comes collapsing down on them when they're done, it would be worth it.

Her hands curl around the back of his head gently and Feyd wants to weep at how soft her touch is, almost like she's worried of hurting him. He loves her nails in his scalp as much as he loves the loving dance of her fingertips.

She rolls her hips against his pelvis, ever amazed how hard his body is. A small grunt escapes her husband's mouth and mingles with the sloppy kiss which is all soft lips and saliva, leaving her open-mouthed and softly moaning for more as her core yearns for friction.

Feyd-Rautha is ever amazed by how soft and pliant her body is, breasts and stomach like a pillow for him to snuggle. And her little cunt is already grinding against his crotch. Under different circumstances, he might have had his fun right away, but that's his wife and her squirming hips are too tempting not to spoil her rotten before he fucks her. He reaches down, long fingers gliding up the curve of her thigh where the dress has pooled around her hips. Instinctively, her leg curls up higher, knee pressing against his ribs. Feyd works her underwear halfway off her rear, needing to get up to slide it off fully.

"If this is a lucid dream, I should be able to make myself wet with a thought," she muses as Feyd scoots down and freezes halfway, before he can settle down between her thighs, hard cock straining against his trousers.

The brief moment of hesitation is all it takes to throw him off the track of time that has carved its way through the universe.

"But it's not a lucid dream. They were visions all along, weren't they?" Feyd blurts, deviating from God's wicked script. For a moment, they both stare at each other in terror, as if expecting the universe to disintegrate and crush their souls into one smoldering singularity in space-time.

But nothing happens.

Nothing at all.

The relic shuffles up slowly, tugging her dress down her legs and sitting back on her haunches.

"What is going on?" Feyd hisses, scared that the quantum spirits in the walls are listening. "What the fuck was that?"

He has never been so grateful to see the spark of knowledge in her eyes.

"That was our past, present and future."

"So, are we in a— a fucking time loop? Are we gonna wake up and go through hell again? Will I have to wait another eternity for the Guild to pluck you out of space?!"

"No!" She curls her arms around his shoulders and lays her forehead against his. No, my love… But it is a loop of sorts." Rapt fingertips glide slowly to the crescent scar on Feyd's pallid clavicle, inflicted by herself a few months back, first noticed by her 24,000 years ago, when Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen was not even a spark among the stars. "We could have never ended up together if we hadn't already seen us be together in the past, but what we really saw back then was our future. Weren't we the greatest actors? We were so good, we convinced even ourselves."

The terrible, beautiful Ouroboros has finally come to devour its own, cosmic tail and a shudder of awe passes through the two souls who straddle the starry serpent's undulating neck. From the macroscopic cosmos to the microscopic one within their bodies, it makes even their molecules tremble, even the quantum particles that make up the endless void of every ounce of matter, every brain, every soul.

"But I messed it up," Feyd insists. "I said the wrong thing. Why didn't we see ourselves having this conversation during our first dream? Why didn't we wear our wedding rings then?"

"There's never just one future." She kisses him on the lips, stealing his anxious breath for but a moment.

"How many?"

"Many." The engineer laughs, hands trailing up Feyd's neck to cradle his jaws. Panic fades from his gaze and flows into blue-eyed petulance. "Are your scientists aware of the many-worlds-theory?"

"Do I look like I know?" Strong hands hold his wife's face in a gentle vise.

"In quantum physics, a particle always has two states at once until it is observed. Then, its waveform collapses and it becomes one of the two states. But what happens to the other state?" She pauses, closing her eyes. "It exists too, but in another world. That is the many-worlds-theory.

With every decision we make, every beat of a butterfly's wing, every quiver of a molecule brushing against another, a new world branches off. That makes a tree with infinite branches or a delta with infinite rivers, rolling onwards and onwards since the birth of the first atom. Among this… infinity—" Her breath shudders in trembling reverence. "—there are branches in which we said it just right, because we knew what to say. Branches in which we saw exactly this conversation, or never found each other at all."

"So, why are we in this one where every vision of us acting was aligned perfectly? How probable is that?"

"As probable as any other nexus of visions. One infinity can't be bigger or smaller than another." A small smile plays around her lips. "Some say, the entire universe in itself is a simulation. For all we know, we could just be figments of someone's imagination, or pixels on a computer screen. Perhaps it would have been a less exciting story to tell, if it happened any other way."

The relic briefly turns her head to look at you — yes, you — quantum spirit in the walls.

"And why us?"

She is so happy that her husband's spark for science has finally been ignited, even if just for a few heartbeats — or a few beats of a butterfly's wings.

"When I was with the Bene Gesserit, they called it prescience. They said it's genetic and that my genes allowed me to survive millennia in cryo sleep." She sighs with bitterness. "If my own family has an aberrant sequence in our DNA, we might as well be the ancestors of— of everyone versed in prescience."

And the cause for so much suffering.

Feyd sees it in her eyes, that flame of intrigue followed by the need to explore and sink into the inland empire of her mind and the ancient technology that's fused with her, a place where he can't follow. So, he tilts her face upwards in both loving hands and kisses her hard before breaking away with a coy grin.

"Are you saying you're my great great great aunt?"

"Yeah!" She blurts out laughing. "I think I am."

Giggling, she goes back in, throws her arms around Feyd's neck and topples him on his back, tangling her legs with his like their threads of fate.

In their angry daydreams, they have pictured themselves in red and gold as the king and queen of a new, better empire, handing out guns and bombs to the revolution.

But in their hearts, they're just a girl and a boy. An astronaut lost in space and a man who has yet to discover his destiny beyond being the unwilling prince of a noble House.

From now on, their future is theirs, and despite all the rights and wrongs, it boils down to a single question.

What do they want? A war to make the universe anew as they see fit? Or maybe just a universe as big as they are. Maybe just—

Peace.

Caught in the riptide I was searching for the truth There was a reason I collided into you Calling your name in the midnight hour Reaching for you from the endless dream So many miles between us then Now you are always here with me Nobody knows (nobody knows) why (why) Nobody knows how, and This feeling begins just like a spark Tossing and turning inside of your heart Exploding in the dark Calling your name in the midnight hour Reaching for you from the endless dream So many miles between us then Now you are always here with me Oh, inside me I find my way Back to you, back to you Calling your name in the midnight hour Reaching for you from the endless dream So many miles between us then Now you are always here with me Two words In your hands, in your heart It′s one (whole) universe You are always here with me

- Here With Me (Two Worlds) by Susie Suh

FEYD TAG LIST

@nostalgichoya, @forgedfromthestars, @sweetiee-o, @missbingu, @minedofmoria

@sebastianswallows, @charmingballoon, @flower-frog, @welliah, @aoi-targaryen

@coastalcowgirl35, @esolean, @szapizzapanda, @tatertooted, @sunny747

@ughdontbeboring, @meetmeatyourworst, @gravesdiggergirl

A/N: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for accompanying me on this writing journey ❤️ I'm a little heartbroken that it's over 😭 I had expected to be more relieved, but I'm actually so sad right now. Proud and happy but sad 😭

If you enjoyed reading this labor of love of mine, please do let me know in a comment, if you can find the time 🫶🏻 No matter if you have or haven't commented before, I'm going to be so grateful about every thought, every reaction. Comments are genuinely the most rewarding thing when publishing my stories, much more so than hits and kudos, because fanfics (in my opinion) are to be relished and not consumed 🫶🏻

I'm not ready to say goodbye to the Dune universe. I have more stories in mind. The idea that I've been mulling over would be the largest, longest and most complex work that I've ever written. I'm talking about heavy world building, an entirely original planet and population, a much more depraved Feyd-Rautha and female protagonist. I've already been teetering at the border of an OC with the reader character in this one. For the next one, I would cross that line for the first time and go for an OC, make the FMC as fleshed out as Feyd is. The story would have a heavy emphasis on religion, corruption kink and cannibalism. It'd be a dove that's almost dead. Basically, all the world building would be my excuse to write deranged, blasphemous, messy smut. It definitely wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea. However, I wouldn't wanna start posting before I've written the entire thing, which might take a long time, so as not to put too much pressure on myself. Can't disappoint anyone if I'm only writing for myself for the time being ❤️

I also have a smutty F/M/M threesome oneshot cooking in my brain, one of the men being Feyd, the other being a surprise 🤭

Annndd I also have two other Feyd oneshots (that have been on ao3 for ages) to upload here, which I'll probably do within the next weeks.

If any of this sounds like something you'd enjoy, feel free to subscribe to me as an author on ao3 to receive email notifications, or follow me here on Tumblr 🫶🏻 I would be so happy to see you again, all of you 💕

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