#peppernakia

[alexeishostakoff]

u thought i was done with that marvel it au? fool. i will never be done.

meet the losers club: sharon, natasha, maria, nakia, pepper, helen, & sam

sam’s best friend riley went missing. he won’t say he’s dead, refuses to say he’s dead, just keeps looking for him even when it’s been months and everyone else shoots him pitying glances that make him want to scream but he can’t so he balls his hands into fists and keeps his head down

maria just moved into town. she’s quiet, reserved, spends too much time at the library, probably. really, she just wants to stay out of the house, it’s not like she has friends to talk to, and derry’s history is actually pretty fascinating. fucked up, but what about this place isn’t? she’s always liked true crime

nakia’s homeschooled. she’s okay with it, but it’s a little lonely, if she’s being honest - the other kids mostly ignore her. except for t’challa, but he’s different, his dad works with her dad, he has to like her. she’s learned how to pull a trigger without throwing up, but that doesn’t mean she’s not lying when she tells her dad she likes the work

helen’s fine! she’s fine! her inhaler is broken and that hecking jerk down the street shoved her into the mud and she can’t get the dirt out from under her nails but it is Fine!! she’d become a doctor one day if she weren’t so nervous about getting sick. she reads scientific textbooks for fun and is sharon’s kinder half, honestly

sharon refuses to act like she gives a shit about what anyone thinks. loud, blunt, bi, terrified of coming out, perpetually with scraped knees and bandaids over her knuckles, she might not be as brave as she acts, not that she’d admit it. once iconically responded to being called trashmouth by yelling ‘suck my dick’ and then stitching it onto the back of her favorite denim jacket

pepper’s the Good Kid. she always earns straight as and doesn’t get her skirt covered in dirt *cough*sharon*cough*. she’s 100% done all the time and rolls her eyes a lot. she’s very loyal and dedicated, she’s known sharon since forever, and she usually offers the more rational response to situations. can be overly cautious

natasha cuts her hair short and sticks to herself, is snarky and fierce and rebellious and kind. she’s only ever really kissed one guy, but that doesn’t stop everyone from saying otherwise. she’s given more than one black eye to someone who talked shit. her father terrifies her, but she never says a word, and sometimes she thinks about how to get rid of him permanently

sam’s never told a soul but sometimes he goes out at night armed with a pocketknife and a flashlight and sheer determination and tries to find riley. he hasn’t yet worked up the nerve to go into the sewers alone but he’s getting there

nat saw him one night when it was raining and didn’t bother to ask what he was doing, just grabbed her boots and raincoat and jumped from puddle to puddle and they didn’t talk but sam found it strangely comforting and when they went their separate ways she gave him her lucky golden lighter that she stole from the dollar store on third street

sharon's...not really good with feelings. she mostly tells jokes to hide it when she's hurting or scared and she's so good at it but when she was twelve her father died and she wasn't sure that she could keep it all in and she went into the woods and cried a little and wondered where she'd end up if she just wandered off and saw where it took her

nakia found her on her way home halfway through the day and noticed her tear stained face before she could hide it and offered her half of her lunch and well. sharon wasn't going to say no to a pbj sandwich and someone to talk to

pepper was failing biology first quarter freshman year and she started to get really anxious before every test and she and helen had never been super close but that didn't stop helen from helping her study and staying up late the night before the test to work with her

no one talks to maria because she’s the new kid but it’s not like natasha has any popularity to lose so on the last day of school she helps maria pick up her fallen papers and jokes a little with her about new kid on the block

this was NOT well thought out plot wise but whatever!! whatever

all of them see the clown - see things that haunt their nightmares but who are they going to tell?

nakia brings it up with her father, who brushes her off with mutters about superstition and derry being cursed.

helen starts to say something, then thinks better of it, because sharon would only laugh at her, anyways.

and sharon isn’t allowed to be scared so when she sees a clown outside of her house she doesn’t say a fucking word.

maria gets chased out of the library by a dark shadow that was hiding in the stacks, and when she tries to tell the librarian she only stares at her.

pepper sees a woman that leaves her shaking with fear and tries to rationalize it, to calm herself down, but that doesn’t do anything to stop the nightmares.

natasha knows better than to talk to her father, and sam, well - sam still haunts the street at night, even when he thinks he hears someone following him.

maria gets beat up by rumlow and his gang of assholes, and when sharon, helen, sam, and pepper pull her, bleeding, out of the brush, and take her back into town, natasha steals them medical supplies and a pack of cigarettes she shares with sharon. suddenly, reluctantly, natasha and maria are part of their little gang, too.

maybe maria more so than natasha, because pepper and helen light right up around her and sharon grumbles a little bit less, but natasha - natasha has sam, and he’s nice to her, and maria very well might be in love with her, so even if sharon whines sometimes, she’s okay with it.

sam keeps looking for riley, and maybe it becomes a little bit of a game, with the rest of them, and adventure to have, running around derry, but he’s just glad for the company, because riley is alive, he knows he is, but if he isn’t and he finds him somewhere - no. no, he’s alive. has to be.

kids keep going missing. more posters go up, covering up the old ones that cover up the old ones, and they all forget their names.

maria has a binder full of questions and the walls of her room are filled with newspaper clippings. it looks like a madman’s house. she doesn’t tell her friends.

sam becomes convinced that riley is in the sewers - that’s where pepper and helen draw the line.

that’s where they meet nakia, too.

nakia, who’s running from rumlow, skidding down the bank of the river, and then the rest of them are running, too, stopping only to gather rocks and hurl them back at the neighborhood bullies, grinning, cheering when they run away.

none of them know nakia’s name, but in that moment, she’s family, too. and she stays that way. no backing out, she’s stuck with them. she shares more than a few tired looks with pepper.

another boy goes missing. not many notice. not many care.

natasha’s bathroom is covered in blood, her hands are covered in blood, and she can’t make it go away, it’s all it’s fault and she can’t make it go away. she scrubs her hands red and raw under the tap but it doesn’t do a thing, until she calls the others and, while pepper and helen clean and sharon distracts the neighbors, sam and maria sit with her and wipe the blood from her face, calm her down - they stay, steady and comforting and she’s never been more grateful in her life.

she tells them about the clown, and maria connects the dots, takes them to her room and her research and waits for mockery that never comes, helps them put together the pieces of the puzzle that is the history of this tiny, hellish town.

when they go to sam’s garage to look at maps of derry, old photos maria snuck out of the library, the clown himself appears, and helen runs shrieking into sharon’s arms, pepper and nakia holding hands tightly in the dark, and natasha and sam stand in front of them all while maria scrambles for the door, the daylight spilling into the room while they all run, screaming, onto the street.

sam’s mother tells him to take down his makeshift diagram of the sewers of derry, tells him riley’s gone, he’s never coming back and sam clenches his jaw and wants to cry but complies anyways.

 they’re scared. god, they’re all so scared - it’s summer, for fuck’s sake, they’re kids, they should be having fun, not - not hunting some fucking demon clown that’s been murdering children for years!

but they know where it lives.

they know where it lives, so helen and sharon and sam go inside the old, terrifying house, pepper and nakia and natasha and maria keeping watch, and it separates them. it separates them.

it shows sharon her own missing poster, her own missing poster, because she’s a girl who likes girls in a small town and, god, they all know what happens to freaks like that, don’t they? they all know, they do, they do.

helen runs and falls through the floor and her arm breaks and sharon’s running after her and - sam is paralyzed, staring into riley’s eyes, but it isn’t really riley, it isn’t, it’s the clown, and pepper and nakia and maria rush in and they’re all going to die -  natasha stabs it in the head with a pipe, and they live to see another day.

once they get out of the house, things start to split. to splinter. to get bad, and then worse.

it turns out, sam and natasha are the only ones who really want to stay, to fight the dragons and go on the great adventures.

helen’s mom appears, hauls her away, yelling about how she’ll never be allowed around “this lot” again, and sharon watches her go, slightly - heartbroken? is she heartbroken? well. helen’s her best friend. it must be because of that.

and then sam says something about them regrouping, coming back to fight another day, and pepper just shakes her head while sharon turns, incredulous and aching and turning her pain into anger like she always does.

she says some things she knows she’ll regret, things about riley and , and sam punches her square in the jaw.

she leaves, seething, and so does pepper, tired.

nakia and maria are more hesitant, but then nakia makes her excuses and goes, and maria lingers a few moments longer, apologizing before she bikes away.

sam and natasha end up where they began: on a street. silent. alone.

eventually, natasha leaves, too, and it stays like that for weeks, weeks, sam returning to his midnight wanderings and the rest of them to their usual lives.

(pepper has her bat mitzvah and tells a room full of scandalized grown ups that being an adult is about no longer giving a shit - sharon jumps to her feet and applauds, but she’s the only one.)

and then one night natasha’s father is home, drunk and angry, and he comes after her, and natasha slams his head into the sink and he - he doesn’t get up. doesn’t move. she’s terrified, and there’s no one else around, and when it comes for her, she can’t fight back. she can’t fight back. not anymore.

the others have never really thought of themselves as the hero types, but she’s their friend. she’s their friend, they’re always going to come for her.

pepper and sharon jailbreak helen from her house, and sharon takes a red sharpie and turns the ‘loser’ on helen’s cast to ‘lover,’ presses a kiss to her cheek and walks away like it’s nothing. pepper rolls her eyes while helen turns bright red, and then it’s her turn to blush when nakia shows up and gives her a grin so bright it’s blinding.

the six of them - sam, pepper, sharon, nakia, helen, and maria - walk into the house once again. they’re determined to have seven walk out.

seven do walk out.

(nakia kills rumlow without flinching, pepper almost dies while screaming, you’re not my real friends, you’re not my friends, you let it get me, helen falls in the disgusting sewer water and almost has a panic attack, sharon loses her last shred of self control and takes a swing at its head with a baseball bat, maria learns her love is not enough to save anybody, natasha almost never comes back down to the ground, sam clutches riley’s bloody, torn up jacket and lets himself sob for the very first time)

seven do walk out, and they will have to live with what that cost him.

at least, they think they will have to live with what that cost them.

they defeat the clown, for now, and they stand in a circle, all of them, hands clasped tightly together and bleeding, making an oath to come back in twenty-seven years if that clown dares show its face again.

pepper and nakia walk away first, nakia with a hand around pepper’s waist while pepper leans her head on nakia’s shoulder.

then it’s sharon and helen, helen laughing at some joke sharon made, sharon draping her signature coat around the smaller girl.

maria, sam, and natasha remain, watching each other too close, waiting to see who makes a move, and towards who.

sam inches towards natasha, and maria droops, starts to leave, and then natasha’s hand is on her shoulder, and after she kisses sam, she kisses maria, too, and that’s - okay. more than okay. it’s really good.

they still forget.

sharon carves ‘s + h’ on the kissing bridge.

they still forget.