#prison cypher

[ajdefender]

Scouse Niko in the house

I lost a challenge, now I've gotta speak scouse

I love chicken and chips and a can of coke

AJ eats children, and that's no joke

The prison life, no it ain't my hood

And all these guys are asking me to hold their wood

And I don't know if I should

Cuz I bet it feels good

I bet Chunkz can hold it down

Like he did with Chris Brown

Get me out of prison

Get me out of prison

Please get me out of prison

I know it's a mission

But please get me out of prison

[reds-skull]

BLOOD||HUNGER

[PREV PART] [AO3]

OOO I'm very excited to share this chapter! We're getting close to the finish line!

Its name is "The Song of Us"

Page 54 of the “Blooede Starvatfōre-dēde”, parable 15:

The Blind man asks his companion, before dawn break, What do you believe, is a beast’s fate, Once death seizes its life, in his inevitable grasp? The beast, his heart knowing of the fallen knight’s pleas, Of men they lost, who were left to be but a worm’s dark feast, Answers, death reaches for monsters all the same as men, For the unjust, for the cruel, For the kind, for the forgiving, All bones become one, until they become none, As death is the only being, to see all as one and the same.

This city is quiet, in the way a drowning is. Something wicked is happening under the surface, hidden from plain sight. If only its victim had air to scream.

The Hunter has intel beyond the SAS’s scope, beyond Laswell’s. Informants, comms. A man pronounced to all as dead. How is it possible, they were written off as a non-threat before?

Soap grits his teeth, tapping the lit end of his cigarette on a wall. Simon started moving a few minutes ago, the poison once again retreating. By the haunted look in his brown eyes, John could tell they both know he’s running out of time.

Price has been arguing with Laswell while helping Simon. Something about the fact the Hunter seemingly didn’t exist a year prior, on paper. Appeared out of nowhere one day with an army behind them, ready to burrow into intelligence networks in a way even Makarov couldn’t.

Makarov’s name came up a lot in that conversation. Enough that Soap had to take a smoke.

Anger thrums through his veins. Begging for blood. The same incessant screaming that drove him to choke the life out of Makarov, the same fire that kept him going through this personal slice of hell.

Maybe he’s an idiot, for wanting to kill the Hunter, for believing it will change anything.

The cigarette’s flame licks his fingers.

Soap crushes it against the wall. He turns around, watching Simon and the Captain. Far enough to not hear them, but they seem to need a bit of privacy anyway. Soap can’t say he’s ever seen Price that emotional, in their short meetings.

He asks himself where Gaz is when the Lieutenant approaches him.

“Price is bloody livid, isn’t he?” Gaz huffs.

Soap hums. His eyes move from the Captain to Simon, his mask still on the ground besides him.

Kyle follows his stare, “did you know Ghost’s identity, when I found you two?”

“No”, the white skull almost glows in the moonlight, “I only found out when… the communicator tried to use it against him.”

He can feel Gaz scan his features, “and you still decided to work with him.”

Soap doesn’t answer. Simon and Price are hugging now, the movement uncoordinated to Ghost. He doesn’t know how he can tell.

He turns to face Gaz, “I swore we will finish this together. I don’t go back on my word.”

“We both know this goes beyond that, Soap.” Gaz gives him a half smile, “the way you look at him… Haven’t seen you like that with anyone else.”

Soap frowns, scoffing, “don’t know what yer-”

“You have feelings for him, don’t you?” Gaz asks, almost gently.

…Feelings?

…..Could he?

“I…”

“Don’t lie to yourself.” Gaz murmurs, “in all the years I’ve known you, you didn’t act like this. Going against everyone you know, jumping in front of him when Price starts threatening him, letting him rest his bloody head on your legs- c’mon Soap, you’re fucking smitten with the man-”

“Kyle.” Soap stops him, head hanging down to hide the embarrassment painting his cheeks red. He scrubs a weary hand over his features, looking up at his friend between his fingers.

Gaz’s eyes soften. Soap sighs, “I- this is not the time for that kind of shite. We need to fuckin’ dust the Hunter, and then-”

And then what?

Soap lowers his hand, stare unconsciously drifting towards Simon. Since when have his eyes started doing that?

It hasn’t been more than a month since he arrived to this godforsaken city. How is it that John can’t imagine being alone again?

Or… how can’t he imagine an ‘after’ without Simon?

“I won’t lie to you.” Kyle starts, his tone gentler, “I still don’t fully trust Ghost. Even if he is… Simon Riley.” the Lieutenant places a hand on his shoulder, “but I can tell what you truly want, even if you think it’s not feasible.”

“That’s because it isn’t-”

“Bullshit.” Gaz turns John around to face him, “look, we are not good men. We’ve been operating outside the law for… for as long as I can remember. What we do, the way we dirty our hands...”

Kyle lets out a shaky exhale, squeezing his shoulder, “what I’m saying is, we can make people disappear. And if you… if you want that, I can help. I’m sure Price will too-”

“Yer out of yer mind-”

“Are you going to go back to Scotland, mate?” Gaz’s voice sharpens on desperation, “are you gonna go back to feeling like you have nothing to live for? Can you really leave this life, leave Ghost, behind?” He almost whispers the end, “be honest.”

How could he go back? No apartment, endless job search, a buzz under his skin that cannot be scrubbed off, disappointment to his family, emptiness, emptiness, emptiness-

“What else can Ah do?!” Soap tenses under Gaz’s hand.

That hand keeps him steady all the same, “whatever you want, John.” Kyle smiles sadly, “me and Price don’t have that freedom, but you two? You don’t have stuffy generals breathing down your neck.”

“I don’t-” Soap cuts himself off, thoughts whirling faster in his mind. He gets reminded of what his therapist used to say about him, back when he was just discharged.

“You fixate on danger, John. To the point of obsession. You don’t know when to let go, if you believe you can make things right.”

“Even if the cost is more than you should be willing to pay.”

“Just… think about it. Besides…” Gaz looks away, expression darkening, “I have a feeling the 141 might need people like you in the future.”

Soap brows furrow, “dishonorably discharged adrenaline addicts?”

Kyle chuckles, “no”, his hands tighten on Soap’s shirt, “people we can trust. People who are willing to do what’s right, even if they know they shouldn’t. Even if they don’t act the way the higher ups would want them.”

His brown eyes turn to look at John, determination he first saw on bootcamp only growing stronger, “people like you.”

Soap goes through another cigarette with Gaz by the time Price and Simon return to them. Both of their eyes shine with tears.

“Laswell did some digging.” Price grunts, “wasn’t easy, finding intel on the Hunter. They know their way around our networks, clearly.” his stare flickers towards Simon, “this operation-”

“Mass murder” Soap corrects. Calling this an operation would spit on the dozens of innocent people left to rot here.

“Mass murder”, the Captain continues, “is very unusual for the Hunter’s soldiers. Almost… flashy.”

“The communicator admitted it was an attempt to frame me.” Simon rolls up the mask in his hands, slipping it on, “they needed to show the British Army I’m too dangerous to keep.”

“And they knew the SAS would send the 141 because of the informant.” Gaz huffs.

Price nods, ��which they did succeed in, but it also exposed them to us.”

“The SAS wouldn’t have investigated it further if ye actually killed Ghost the first time around.” Soap grumbles, wincing a moment later when he remembered who he’s talking to.

The Captain takes it surprisingly seriously. “Correct. This is not the first time they hide behind a smaller, supposedly unconnected criminal.” he hangs his arms on his tacvest, commending voice booming in the empty streets, “the Hunter is now top priority for the 141, our orders are to eliminate them, along with any high ranking officers remaining within their army. This mission is classified to all but us and Laswell - anyone else will be treated as a potential collaborator of the Hunter.”

“What about Soap and Ghost, Captain?” Gaz asks.

Price sighs, “Ghost has escaped after releasing the civilian he captured as leverage. And John MacTavish?” a sly smile pushes his mustache up, ”he has never set foot in this city.”

Kate Laswell isn’t someone Soap knew well, back in his service. Has heard her name being dropped in a couple of debriefs, a few calls here and there regarding missions.

He becomes increasingly grateful she’s on their side, as she brings up more and more intel on the Hunter. Their main source of information is the informant Ghost killed - the man recognized several undercover soldiers moving supplies in and out of the city in the past few weeks. He knew something big was going to happen, but the SAS waved it off as a local gang.

On the day of his death, he managed to send in one last report. The informant knew his time was limited, that his cover was blown, so the message was painfully short.

‘Skull in warehouse, Konservy, game over’

It was not clear if who he referred to when he transmitted the name “Skull”, and at the time the comms officer asked the informant to repeat, thinking it was a mistyped “Ghost”. With what they know now, it’s highly likely he was actually talking about the Hunter, and their red skull insignia. Konservy is a name of a warehouse, two clicks out of the city, as Laswell quickly found out.

‘Game over’ is the agreed upon sign for caught spies.

Price and Gaz have brought out their maps, attempting to lock down the warehouse’s location. Soap and Ghost were gently shooed away after it became obvious they don’t have any more useful intel to provide.

“How’s your neck?” Ghost asks him, the two of them leaning against a crumbling wall.

Soap opens his mouth to answer, when gloved fingers brush over the bruised skin on his throat. “I uh…” he swallows, the hand following the movement, “I feel fine.”

Ghost hums, caressing the wound for a moment longer before pulling away. Soap wants to chase the touch.

He really is in over his head, isn’t he?

“Simon.” Soap looks up at the bright skull mask, “have you thought about… what are ye gonna do after?”

“...no.”

“...Would ye go back? To what you did before?”

Simon stares at him deeply, eyes closing, “I don’t think I can.” he looks back at Soap, “you? What did you do before?”

Soap chuckles bitterly, “ah, I was spendin’ my newly civvi life indulging in only the greatest of pleasures. Like sittin’ in an office for nine hours a day, or knittin’ a scarf on my therapist’s orders.”

Simon’s shoulders shake with a badly hidden laugh, “I’d like to see you knit.”

Soap grins, “oh I was a natural. It definitely didn’t have several holes by the time I was done.” 

“How did you get here, then?” Simon asks, mirth still creasing his eyes.

His smile drops, words dying on his tongue, “I uh…” that weeks-old shame starts creeping back in, “was about to be evicted. Got fired, bastards never liked me anyway. I jus’ took all of my money and… ran as far as I could.”

Simon hums, shoulder leaning in to nudge his. Soap thinks the conversation is over after a few moments of silence, the both of them mauling over the words, when Simon surprises him.

“Think I’d like that… running away.” he murmurs.

“Aye? Where would ye go?”

“Don’t know. Don’t think it matters.” Simon leans in closer, their foreheads almost touching, “as long as the company is good.”

Soap feels a shiver go down his spine, eyes wide as he tries to find the joke that must be in Simon’s.

But he looks so painfully sincere, even when he finally leans away, “too bad there’s none ‘ere. Might ask Laswell if she got any tips on finding partners in crime.”

Soap lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, “think they make dating apps for fuckers like ye?”

“Doubt I’ll find anyone as mental as you on Tinder, Johnny.” Simon deadpans.

“That’s because yer looking in the wrong place - Christian Mingle is where the real crazy bastards are.”

Simon can’t hold in his laugh this time, and for the first time Soap hears the way he snorts a little when his giggles become uncontrollable. It’s a horribly endearing sound, one that he wants to hear for every day for the rest of his life.

It makes his heart hurt, heavy, sinking in his chest like a death sentence.

Gaz was right.

He’s in love with Simon Riley.

Gaz went back to get the vehicle he and Price infiled with. It had a laptop, a few maps, and the most wonderful MREs Soap ever had. He never thought he’d miss that shite, but after running on a handful of oranges and a possibly moldy sandwich, they tasted like heaven on earth.

As he and Ghost had their meal (Simon’s eyes sparkled in a way that told Soap he was clearly as delighted with the food as he was), the 141 finalized their plan with Laswell. Soap could see them arguing about something, but he was far too preoccupied with eating to care at the moment.

Ghost, however, did care, “need anything, Price?”

The Captain snaps his head up, taking off his hat and scratching at his hair, “we have an angle to breach, but…”

Gaz joins in, “We don’t have intel on how many guards are posted, their location… mission will be doomed from the start if we just go in guns blazing.”

“Why not do some recon, then?” Soap wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, “we’re all trained for that.”

“Too risky, the warehouse is exposed, and the Hunter won’t leave any obvious gaps in security if they’re worth their salt.” Price grunts.

Ghost gets up, walking over to the maps spread on the truck’s hood, “then we break in.”

Soap smirks at the assurance in his voice, “and that’s why I love the Ghost.”

He instantly catches the knowing expression on Gaz’s face, as well as Simon stiffening beside him. Soap curses himself mentally, feeling his face heat up in shame. He prays for any god that might listen, that Ghost didn’t take it as seriously as the truth is.

Thankfully, Price saves him from blurting out some more recently-discovered-emotions, “no other way but through, eh Simon? What do you have in mind?”

Ghost scans the maps of the warehouse Laswell has sent over, “The Hunter doesn’t know we’re working together, if they’re expecting an attack they would only expect two people - me and Johnny.” his eyes flicker to Soap’s for a brief moment, “if we split up, the 141 could take them by surprise.”

“You said they’re after you and John, Simon. If they catch you, we might not be able to help.” Price says grimly.

Ghost sighs, looking away frustrated. His head turns to face Soap, eyes calculating, “...what if they don’t know it’s us?”

“What?” Price asks.

Ghost continues, eyes still staring deeply into his, “Johnny can easily disguise himself, he’s done so before. All he needs is to cover up his face and hair.”

The Captain nods to Ghost, “and what about you, son? Everyone knows your mask.”

“But no one knows his face.” Soap answers, understanding washing over him, “but Simon-”

“I can’t be Ghost if we want to finish this.” Simon brushes fingers over the bone-white teeth of the skull mask, hand tightening into a fist.

Gaz nods slowly, “and we can’t be the 141.” he sends a meaningful look to the Captain, “this operation has to be kept secret. If the SAS learns we collaborated with the Ghost…”

“Then we won’t be.” Price walks to the back of the truck, pulling out 3 black balaclavas and throwing them to Soap and Gaz.

Price begins explaining their plan, “Laswell has gathered up a few blueprints of the Konservy warehouse. There are several key points that appear to be far too open for us to breach, all except one - the offloading garage. We’ll split into two teams, me and Gaz will take the offices and CCTV rooms, clearing the way for Soap and Ghost to infiltrate the main machinery room.”

“Our plan depends on each team watching the other’s six, we’ll have to keep comms up.” Gaz adds.

“Once the first team takes over the CCTV room, we will be able to locate the Hunter. The faster we do this, the less likely reinforcements will arrive.” Price hands Soap and Ghost a radio.

“Do we know where they keep their vehicles?” Soap asks while fitting the comms over his clothes.

“Yeah, should be around where we first enter. Why?” Gaz raises a brow towards him.

A wicked smile spreads on Soap’s lips, “might be able to set up a little surprise for any newcomers.”

Ghost chuckles darkly, “always ready to craft a trap, aren’t you, Johnny?”

“Never failed me before, Simon.”

“You can take a look at our supplies, take whatever you need.” Price looks over each of them, “any questions?”

Soap flexes his hands, adrenaline thrumming a familiar song through his veins, anger painting his vision red, “what are we waiting for?”

[epitheterased-confessions]

im concerned for the amount of nsfw mentions about rick hes literally just a Guy. i mean this affectionately but. still

mod also didn't expect it but we're literally on the website where characters that are just "Wacky Loser"s are considered sexy

[thelittlemage-arts]

So why is Blitzwing the brother of Cypher?

So, the short answer is that in some of the continuities, they share the same parents. In others, he was lowkey adopted by her parents, and he took to the role of brother very well.

The long answer is that I was talking to a friend, and it kinda just came up? Like they asked, would Cypher have any siblings. And I had already decided on giving her an older brother (that i later named Gust), but if i had to pick an existing character. Def Blitzwing or Jazz.

So now she has a very strange family that's split between the war. Her and her sisters are kinda high key messed up internally. Like. They were not meant to be two-wheelers, but thats what happened after a whole lot of trauma while developing.

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

Lonely at the top

Written for the @steddiemicrofic challenge, May 2024 edition

Prompt: top, 510 words

Rated: T

Tags: Fantasy AU; Magic AU; Guard!Steve; Thief!Eddie; forbidden love; imprisonment; sensory deprivation; Steve Harrington whump

From the day he was born, Steve’s life was mapped out for him.

There were were expectations tied to being a Harrington, and Steve did his best to meet them. Joined the city guard at sixteen, became captain like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather before him.

“It is lonely at the top,” Steve’s father used to tell him.

Sometimes he wonders if that is why they chose this place to be his prison. His punishment for falling for a criminal, for betraying them to save the man he loves.

A magical vault on a floating island, miles and miles in the sky. Set at the center of an eternal tornado, guarded by dragons and griffins and manticores.

If there's a top of the world, it must be this place.

And lonely it is. Terribly, dreadfully lonely.

His cell messures a few feet in either direction. He cannot see the walls - they're the same blinding white as the floor and ceiling - but he knows they're there. He has spent hours running his fingers over every inch of them. There's no door, no windows, no bed. No colors. No sound. He tried to scream, in the beginning, but the magic swallows even his own voice.

He is starting to forget what it sounded like. Starting to forget what colors are. What touch is. He clings to the memory of brown eyes gazing into his, of lips laying blazing trails across his skin, of a rumbling, boisterous laugh. He dreads the day it'll slip from his grip.

It starts as a high whirr in his ear, a pulsing throb in his skull. The same sensation he knows from taking a hit to the head. This is it then, he thinks dully. He's going mad. It is the only explanation.

Why else would the pressure-thrum in his head keep getting louder, like the echo of fists pounding on a wall? Why else would he be seeing things that aren't real? Shadows moving behind the white, like silhouettes through a paper screen.

And then he blinks and the white splinters.

The colors return first. The white shatters like a mirror, raining down all around him, and the shards are drenched in a sunset sky - blues and purples and oranges and the brilliant glow of stars.

Sensation rushes back in through the cracks. The caress of wind in his hair, on his skin. The taste of dust and smoke on his tongue. The scent of magic, sharp and angry in the air - and beyond it, something else. Something familiar. Tobacco and sandalwood and leather.

In the center of the falling mirror shards stands a figure, dark against the white. Black armor gleaming in the dying light, dark hair billowing around it like a halo. Eyes so much deeper than in his memories.

The figure opens its arms. Steve stumbles towards them as if a rope has been wrapped around his hammering heart. Muscle memory moves his tongue. The name that tumbles from his lips is the first sound he hears.

“Eddie.”

More Phantom Thief AU

Tag list:

@sourw0lfs @bananahoneycomb @whoneedscanon @firefly-party @steddie-island

@sidekick-hero @theheadlessphilosopher @extra-transitional @penny00dreadful @medusapelagia

@mugloversonly @0happyeverafter0 @stevesbipanic @acingthecounts @sweetheartprincess28

@starryeyedjanai @sailing-through-hawkins @original-cypher @tinyplanet95

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

Read Palestine Week

🇵🇸 Good morning, my beautiful bookish bats. Can I start by saying a huge THANK YOU for sharing my Queer Palestinian Book post? Seriously, thank you so much. Let's keep that momentum by observing Read Palestine Week (Nov 29 - Dec 5). I've compiled a list of books to help you, along with a list of upcoming events and resources you can use this week and beyond.

🇵🇸 A collective of over 350 global publishers and individuals issued a public statement expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people. Publishers for Palestine have organized an international #ReadPalestine week, starting today (International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People).

🇵🇸 These publishers have made many resources and e-books available for free (with more to come). A few include award-winning fiction and poetry by Palestinian and Palestinian diaspora authors. You'll also find non-fiction books about Palestinian history, politics, arts, culture, and “books about organizing, resistance, and solidarity for a Free Palestine.” You can visit publishersforpalestine.org to download some of the books they have available.

POETRY 🌙 Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha 🌙 Affiliation by Mira Mattar 🌙 Enemy of the Sun by Samih al-Qasim 🌙 I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti 🌙 A Mountainous Journey by Fadwa Tuqan 🌙 So What by Taha Muhammad Ali 🌙 The Butterfly’s Burden by Mahmoud Darwish 🌙 To All the Yellow Flowers by Raya Tuffaha

FICTION 🌙 Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury 🌙 Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales 🌙 Men in the Sun by Ghassan Kanafani 🌙 Morning in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 Gaze Writes Back by Young Writers in Gaze 🌙 Palestine +100:Stories from a Century after the Nakba 🌙 Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh 🌙 Out of Time by Samira Azzam

🌙 The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher 🌙 You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat 🌙 A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum 🌙 Salt Houses by Hala Alyan 🌙 A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar 🌙 Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 Minor Detail by Adania Shibli 🌙 The Woman From Tantoura by Radwa Ashour

NON-FICTION 🌙 Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour 🌙 Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine by Raja Shehadeh 🌙 Palestinian Art, 1850–2005 by Kamal Boullata 🌙 Palestine by Joe Sacco 🌙 The Hour of Sunlight: One Palestinian’s Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker by Sami Al Jundi & Jen Marlowe 🌙 Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha 🌙 Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine by Noura Erakat 🌙 The Words of My Father: Love and Pain in Palestine by Yousef Khalil Bashir

🌙 Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution by Hanan Karaman Munayyer 🌙 Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture by Salim Tamari 🌙 This Is Not a Border: Reportage and Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature 🌙 We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir, by Raja Shehadeh 🌙 Les échos de la mémoire. Une enfance palestinienne à Jérusalem, by Issa J. Boullata 🌙 A Party For Thaera: Palestinian Women Write Life In Prison 🌙 Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, 🌙 Voices of the Nakba: A Living History of Palestine

[galahadwilder]

Ways of Grieving

Warning: Canon non-compliance, Major Character Death, Suicide.

_

When Nathalie finally passed, after years of battling the damage the Peacock had done to her body, Adrien felt nothing.

He hadn't cried when her hand, entwined with his, had lost all its strength, the muscles slack. Like a dead fish, he'd thought. Or Lila trying to show real human emotion.

When the light went out of her eyes, he'd felt nothing. She was there, and then she was not. The body was Nathalie, and now it was not. It was a body. A body that had once been there closest thing he'd had to a parent for seven years, and now it was just. Meat.

That's all his father had ever treated her as anyway. Now she matched.

What a horrible thing to think.

So why couldn't he stop thinking it?

The hospital had been cold when he walked in. It may have still been cold. He couldn't tell. He couldn't feel anything, except, maybe, guilt. Guilt that he couldn't offer any tears to the woman who'd raised him. Guilt that he had nothing for her in his chest except an empty, dead feeling.

Marinette, of course, was inconsolable. She'd been sure that the cure was in the Grimoire somewhere, but translating had been long and difficult work—it had been written over hundreds of years, with linguistic drift and different cyphers building up into a monstrous decoding project that she'd only gotten halfway through. She'd prioritized any page that seemed to reference the Peacock, or healing, or Miraculous damage, but she hadn't found an answer and she'd run out of time.

She sobbed into his chest, into his shoulder, and he thought of how odd it was that the girl he loved, who'd barely known Nathalie as anything other than an obstacle between herself and him and then as a weak and dying woman, would need to be comforted by him over the passing of someone she'd barely known, while he couldn't even bring himself to feel... much of anything. No relief that she was free of her suffering. No sense of loss. Perversely, he would have preferred joy to this... nothing.

He felt the way he did when Chloé used to kiss him, or when he'd modeled alongside Lila—like he wasn't properly in his body. Like all the chemicals and meat and physical reactions in his neurons, his muscles, his skin belonged to someone else, and he was just watching from next to himself. Watching a statue.

_

He went through the next two days the same. He didn't bother to shower, or to change his clothes, not even to go to bed. He barely ate, because he couldn't find it in himself to feel hungry. He didn't expect Nathalie around every corner, the way some people described—this was his apartment, not the mansion, and she'd never been here. She'd moved to the hospital full-time before he'd moved out. So there was no expectation of her arrival.

Marinette called him seven times and texted him thirty-six. He let the phone ring. Didn't read the texts. He was barely aware of time passing, of the days blending into nights and the nights blending into days. He slept when he slept. He awoke when he awoke. Things were what they were.

He wasn't sure how much sleep he'd had when the splitting sound of his phone in his ear had wrenched him out of dead and dreamless sleep. Blearily, he looked at caller ID, and realized it wasn't Marinette calling him. La Santé, the contact name said. His father's prison.

The public contact was apologetic, almost pleading for some kind of forgiveness. He couldn't understand why, until she explained the situation.

Gabriel had heard about Nathalie, she told him. The wardens found him the next morning hanging from the top bunk with his own bedsheets expertly tied around his broken neck.

She'd been so broken when she told him. There'd been a note, she said. He could come down to read it whenever he was ready.

Adrien thanked her with a hollow voice, let her know he wasn't sure when he'd be able to come by, and then hung up the phone.

Then, lying on his bed and staring up at the Marinette-pink ceiling, he felt something inside him shatter.

Pain lanced through his entire body, burning and tight and angry. He turned to the side, tucked his knees into his chest, and sobbed. Tears came to his eyes, slowly at first, then in a river that wouldn't stop. Snot flowed from his nose as freely as the saltwater from his eyes. He held himself together as best he could with his arms, his shivering form feeling like someone had scooped something out of him like an ice cream bucket. Like his ribs, his heart, had been careless torn from his chest and he'd been left open and raw and bleeding.

He couldn't stop crying. He couldn't stop the wave of despair that washed over him, the black tide drowning his thoughts and leaving him unable to breathe between sobs.

Why? Why could he cry for Gabriel, a man who had never loved him and who he'd given up on loving years ago, and not Nathalie? Not the woman who'd shown him care when he'd given up on expecting it? Why did fucking Gabriel get his tears? Bastard fuck of a father, the man who'd murdered him again and again and again, even after finding out it was his own son he was killing. The man who'd nearly ruined Marinette's life with his obsession and spite—left her still unable to enter a room without marking the exits and any objects she could use as Rube-Goldberg weapons. Left him with this deep and aching sense that he the most Adrien could do to be loved was die.

He hated him so much. Not just for what he'd stolen from Adrien, from Marinette, from Nathalie, but because he'd taken the grief that had belonged to her. The woman who'd been his stepmother in all but name, versus the man who'd only ever been his father in name. Why could he grieve the one but not the other?

It was good that he was dead. It was good that he was gone. So why did Adrien feel so empty over it?

_

He didn't tell Marinette about it. It consumed his waking days—how thinking about Nathalie emptied him out, while thinking about his father filled him with grief and rage. He begged off patrols, rejected her calls. He was a monster, for grieving wrong. For grieving a man who'd torn him apart. Literally, on some occasions.

Still, Marinette had his apartment key, and she couldn't be avoided forever.

He wasn't sure how many days had passed since Nathalie slipped away in his hand, how many days had passed since his fucking bastard of a father had shoved one last burden onto him and then escaped the consequences forever. Still, his stomach dropped when he heard Marinette's key turn in the front door.

"Kitty?" she called. "Are you okay?"

"Kid hasn't moved in a week," he heard Plagg say from the front hallway. "I'm not even sure he knows I'm talking. He won't respond to anything. He's not even eating."

"Where is he?" Marinette asked, her voice trembling.

"Bed."

The door to his bedroom creaked open. "Kitty?"

He didn't want to see her. He buried his head under the pillow and pretended she wasn't there.

She sat down on the side of his bed, the mattress deforming under her weight. "Adrien, please. I'm here." Her hand tried to press on his shoulder, to massage, and he twisted away from her touch.

"Adrien..." she murmured, her voice so soft and full of concern and he couldn't stand it, he couldn't fucking—he couldn't—

"I couldn't fucking cry for her," he snaps, still facing the wall away from her. "I felt—I felt—nothing. And then—and then—he—and I just..."

He turns over to look at her through blurry eyes. "Why does he get my tears when I can't—I can't—I can't feel anything for her?"

Marinette covers her mouth in shock. "Adrien?"

"When he died, I just... I broke, okay? I—everything hit me at once, and I couldn't stop crying and thinking about him, and Nathalie was just—she slipped out of the back of my mind, and I couldn't—I couldn't—" He was sobbing now, but nothing was coming out. He'd had so little to drink in the last... week? Plagg had said week.

Marinette took his hand, and he wanted to jerk away, but he forced himself still.

"Of course you did," she whispered. "Nathalie... the grief is too big for you to look at."

What?

"Adrien, you may think you're not grieving her at all, but I—I saw the way you broke in that hospital room. I—your model smile came back. The fake one. I haven't—I haven't seen that in years." Marinette brushes her hair away from her forehead with her free hand, eyes closed, lashes wet. "You stopped responding to people, you stopped—it was like you were there, but you were gone."

"And—and why am I crying for him?"

"Because—" Marinette seems unsure. "I don't know. Maybe because... you're grieving what could have been? You're grieving the man you wished he would be?"

Maybe. Maybe she had a point.

"Maybe because you're angry. Angry at him for taking the moment that should be about Nathalie and making it about himself. Angry that you'll never get him to understand how much he hurt you."

Adrien curled up further. She was right. She was always right. God, he wanted to dig up his father's grave and scream into the man's face.

"Adrien, I cried when I heard. And it wasn't for you."

His brain slammed to a halt. What? She'd—why had she...?

"That man made our lives a living hell for five years. And I'd built... so much of myself around opposing him, around being everything he wasn't, around hating him and fighting him, and suddenly he was just... gone?" She squeezed his hand. "You loved him. You hated him. You can still grieve people you hate. And hating him... doesn't mean you didn't still..." She sighed. "There's nothing wrong with still loving him. There's nothing wrong with grieving him."

"And crying...?"

"There's no wrong way to grieve," she said. "And it seems like it's... smaller. So take it one step at a time."

"Hm?" he said, confused.

"Grieve them in whatever order you need to," Marinette said, holding his hand to her chest. Right over her heart. "Let it happen how it happens. I'm right here."

The last piece of Adrien that was holding together snapped, and he crawled into her lap and finally let himself collapse.

[ak-vintage]

Quarry - Chapter 22

Pairing: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x f!reader

Summary: Din Djarin is on what he expects to be his last bounty hunt for Greef Karga. After all, Nevarro is swiftly moving away from its previous reputation as a Guild member’s paradise, and Din has more important concerns now, like finding a Jedi to train his mysterious foundling. However, after capturing a wanted starship engineer who would rather go anywhere other than “home,” the Mandalorian is forced to reassess his priorities.

Your taste of freedom had been brief but glorious. Now you are a prisoner of the most infamous bounty hunter in the Outer Rim – it’s only a matter of time before he turns you in. There isn’t much you would not do to keep from being sent home, but as you find yourself growing closer to your captor and his strange little companion, you start to wonder whether escape is really what you want.

Set after Chapter 13: The Jedi but before Chapter 14: The Tragedy.

Chapter Tags & Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Reader is Mando's live-in starship engineer, second-person, no use of Y/N, minimal descriptors of reader character, light angst, canon-typical violence and peril, lots and lots of mostly made-up Star Wars technobabble

Series Masterlist | Read on AO3

Note: This chapter features events from season 2 episode "Chapter 16: The Rescue." You will notice borrowed dialogue and synced plot points.

---

Of the seven-person team that Din had assembled to rescue Grogu, you were the only one who had never had the experience of waking for the day only to immediately begin preparing for battle. However, as a pale sunrise bloomed over the horizon of this nowhere planet where you had found Bo-Katan, as the inhabitants of the Firespray all began to roll out of their bunks, you could feel the shift in energy like a tangible thing. The comfort and the softness of sleep, the comradery of your friendships, even the tender intimacy of your shared quarters with Din all dissolved as the ship’s lights flickered on and instead were replaced with an intensity of focus you had never encountered.

It was militant and almost entirely silent, the way each party member prepared themselves, and the lack of easy conversation that had become so normal on the Firespray over the last weeks set you on edge. Blasters were wiped down and loaded, armor was donned, and every belt, pocket, and holster was filled with backup supplies and secondary melee weapons. Everyone took turns in the mess, moving around one another quickly and efficiently like a well-oiled machine. They all seemed to favor light, nourishing breakfasts of nutrient-dense ration bars, canteens of water, and – in Fennec and Cara’s case – strong carafes of caf. You, however, could barely stomach your food, so tied up in knots was your body at the thought of the approaching challenge, but you forced down a few mouthfuls anyway at Din’s insistence.

“Epar, cyar’ika. Eat,” he bid you, hitting you with a hard stare through his visor. “You will need your strength.”

You did not have the same arsenal of supplies as the others, but you did take some time to back up your schematics of Gideon’s light cruiser onto a palm-held holoprojector you borrowed from Boba’s supplies. You also tucked a couple of datasticks into your pockets with some cyphers you recalled from your days of installing and configuring starship security and defense systems. Other than that, all there really was for you to do was to lace up your boots, whip your hair into a tight braid, and wrap your beloved scarf around your head like a headband. You didn’t really need it here, you knew, but at this point, it felt almost foreign to dress without it.

Just before you disembarked to board the Lambda shuttle with the rest of the group, Din took you aside and inspected your blaster while Cara Dune fitted you with a slick black leather utility belt from her own wardrobe. She fastened it snugly around the flare of your hips before slipping a matching leather holster onto the strap.

“Safer than keeping that thing in your pocket,” she quipped with a wry smile, nodding toward the blaster Din was currently polishing and reloading for you. You huffed a laugh and thanked her, but not before she slid three additional tibanna cartridges into your belt loops.

“You really think I’m going to need all this?” you asked warily.

The dark-haired woman shrugged, and you noticed that she had lined her deep brown eyes with kohl this morning, giving a fierce, predatory look to her striking features. “Maybe not, but better to have it than wish you did.” You swallowed thickly, nodding, and she clapped you warmly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ve got your back.”

“Cyare.”

At the sound of the endearment, you glanced over at Din and found him extending your blaster back to you. You took it with a murmured “thank you” and slipped it into the holster, feeling the cool, steady weight of it against your thigh. It was already more comfortable than having it shoved in your pocket.

“Are you ready?” the bounty hunter rasped.

“As I’ll ever be.”

Inclining his helmet at you solemnly, he pressed his hand into the small of your back and steered you toward the ramp. “Then let’s go.”

---

Mere hours later, in the depths of hyperspace, the boarding party clustered around the helm of the Lambda shuttle as you neared your destination. The recycled air was thick with anticipation, with the knowing that the moment you dropped out of light speed, there would be no more time for preparation. Of course, this was precisely the kind of thing that everyone had been trained for.

Everyone but you.

Shifting on your feet, your palm fell to the grip of your blaster, and you could feel the sweat on your skin slip against its textured surface. Your heart was hammering against your ribcage, your stomach heavy and acidic in your abdomen, and you struggled to keep yourself present – in the moment rather than in your head, lost in your anxieties. At the heart of it all, however, was frustration with yourself. You had fought for this chance, this opportunity to exercise your skills, to contribute, to be kriffing useful for once, and you refused to throw all of that away out of fear. This team needed you; Grogu needed you. You had to get it together.

And so instead of hyperventilating, as you thought you might have done otherwise, you focused on taking deep, steadying breaths and drying your palms against your boilersuit.

“Moff Gideon is mine,” Bo-Katan emphasized from her seat at the helm, hands steady and sure as she manipulated the controls without even hardly looking. “Got it?”

“He’s ex-ISB. He’s got a lot of information.” Cara adjusted her grip on her heavy-repeating blaster rifle, the butt of which sat propped on the toe of her boot. “I need him alive.”

Bo-Katan smiled icily. “I don’t care what happens to him as long as he surrenders to me.”

At that moment, Boba Fett’s low, gravelly voice crackled through the comm system. On one of the readouts on the console in front of you, you could see the vague outline of the Firespray pursuing you through the hyperspace tunnel. “Prepare to exit jump space.”

“Copy that,” the red-head replied. “Get the hell out of there as soon as they clear us to dock. And your shots have to look convincing.”

“Power up those shields, princess. I’ll put on a good show.” You smirked at the sound of his gentle condescension in spite of yourself.

The expression was echoed on Bo-Katan’s sharp-featured face. “Watch out for those deck cannons.”

There was a brief pause, and Boba sounded genuine this time as he responded, “Don’t worry about me. Just be careful in there.”

On the console in front of Koska, you watched as the glowing icon indicating your target coordinates grew ever larger in size.

This was it. It was time.

On instinct alone, you reached out, took hold of Din’s hand, and squeezed, suddenly desperate for something to ground yourself. All broad palms and long, thick fingers, he gripped you back with a ferocity you didn’t expect from his calm, collected exterior. Somehow, knowing that he was just as strung out as you over this eased your fears even more than the touch would have otherwise.

Koska, however, was the picture of composure as she narrated your approach. “Exiting hyperspace in three, two, one…”

The tell-tale, stopped-time sensation of dropping out of hyperspace tugged at your navel, and then –

Bright red blaster cannon fire lit up the forward viewport, Bo-Katan poured on the acceleration, and you took off at the fastest sub-light speed the Lambda shuttle could handle. Dodging Boba’s attacks with expert precision, you noticed that each round only narrowly missed the long, fin-like wings of your hijacked Imperial shuttle. The proximity of a few of them had your heart jumping into your throat, but each time, she managed to evade them.

Up ahead, looming pale and angular and absolutely massive against the inky blackness of space, precisely as you had pictured her, was Moff Gideon’s Imperial light cruiser. And you were headed straight for her.

Bringing her palm down on the comm controls, Bo-Katan hailed the cruiser and shouted into the receiver, affecting a distressed tone, “This is Lambda shuttle 2743, requesting emergency docking!”

Her distress call was met only with silence, and you couldn’t help but glance around at the others’ faces as the subspace connection remained dormant. Would the cruiser really ignore them? They looked like an ally, why would they not –

“Repeat – requesting emergency docking. We are under attack!” Bo-Katan echoed.

This time, a commanding, feminine voice responded. “Copy, Lambda shuttle. Request received.” Another pause, this one much shorter than the last, and then, “Stay clear of launch tube. Deploying fighter squadron.”

Bo-Katan shot a significant look at Koska, and the dark-haired woman clenched her jaw and nodded once. You realized they must have come to the same conclusion – the plan would need to remain the same even in the face of this new hurdle. In order to board the ship where it was most vulnerable, the Lambda shuttle would be facing down the TIE fighter squadron head-on – at the mouth of the launch tube.

Just as this thought occurred to you, a single silver TIE fighter streaked from the opening of the launch tube, rocketing out into space through the narrow walls of the aperture. Through the viewport, you watched as the fighter drew closer, closer, closer still. Bo-Katan held her course, however, continuing to dodge Boba’s cannon fire while never once wavering in her aim. For a moment, you thought the fighter might not adjust course in time, but then, at the last second, it veered hard to starboard and only barely missed clipping wings with the shuttle.

You swore you could feel a collective breath of relief being released across the room, but the feeling was short-lived as another TIE fighter appeared at the mouth of the launch tube.

If the first of the squadron had cut it close, this one was downright reckless. Blasting at top speeds through the narrow mouth of the tunnel, you were certain you could see the black reflective surface of the pilot’s helmet through his own transparisteel viewport before he finally dropped into a steep dive and ducked beneath the Lambda shuttle.

And still, Bo-Katan and Koska held steady. The aperture of the launch bay glowed bright blue in the distance, visible through the long, thin tunnel right at the nose of the light cruiser. Another fighter was being brought out – you could see it clearly now; another was about to launch, and the shuttle was nearly at the tunnel’s mouth.

You were coming in too hot. If Gideon’s crew launched that fighter, you would meet in midair, trapped in the restrictive space of the launch tunnel with nowhere to go, and no dodging or maneuvering – no matter how expertly done – would be enough to stop a collision.

The crew on the light cruiser seemed to have noticed the same. Bursting through the comm lines with urgency, the communications officer barked, “Request denied! Please clear launch tube until fighters deploy!”

Bo-Katan grit her teeth and responded, a bit of real anxiety beginning to creep into her façade. “Negative! Negative! We are under attack!”

You braced yourself against the nearest bulkhead as the shuttle dodged another volley of rounds from the Firespray, and in that moment, bright green blaster cannon fire joined the red. The two TIE fighters had joined the fray. Your pilots were left then to dodge both assailants and somehow still thread the needle into the mouth of the launch tube.

Gripping Din’s hand in yours even harder, you swallowed the ball of fear that had begun to build in your throat.

You had talented pilots at the helm of your ship – experienced fighters, cunning warriors both with nerves of steel, you told yourself. You had to trust their timing, their skills. Otherwise, you would be a harried mess before you even had the chance to step foot out of the shuttle and begin the mission in truth.

“Clear launch tube immediately!” the comm link commanded, and although she knew they could not see her, Bo-Katan shook her head, red bob dancing along her jaw.

It was miraculous, truly, what the would-be Mandalorian ruler was able to accomplish over the next few seconds. The sequence of events began to blur together, dissolving into one long, chaotic moment, but the next thing you knew, the entrance to the launch loomed directly in front of the viewport. You felt the ship shift with the mechanical vibration of the shuttle’s wings lifting into their vertical position, narrowing the ship dramatically, and just as they locked into place, you breached the mouth of the tube with mere inches to spare on either side.

But you were still coming in too hot, too fast. The short distance between the mouth of the tube and the ship’s shield-guarded launch portal was quickly disappearing, and there was no way the bulky wings of the Lambda shuttle were going to make it into that tiny opening unscathed.

“Hang on!” Fennec warned, seeing the same thing you did. Din dropped your hand and wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you into his side as though preparing to shield you against the inevitable collision. You hid your face in the crook of his shoulder, unable to watch, as the aperture swallowed the shuttle whole.

The impact was immediate and brutal, clipping the edge of the portside wing and sending you, Din, and Cara all flying across the cabin and slamming into the unforgiving deck plating. Din cushioned your fall somewhat, though you couldn’t say the beskar was a much more comfortable place to land. The shuttle trembled violently around you, and bright sparks flew as both wing joints dragged along the inside of the launch tube. The belly of the ship bounced once, then twice, the vibration ringing through your teeth, and finally – after what felt like an eternity but in reality was a mere handful of seconds – you skidded to a stop at the end of the launch tube.

The moment the shuttle stopped rumbling beneath your bodies, Din and Cara were on their feet, and you scrambled to follow. This was the moment – time to execute the next phase of the plan. And time for you to leave the bounty hunter’s side and pray that you would reunite on the bridge unharmed.

Gripping the side of your face in one hand and drawing his blaster with the other, Din yanked you to him and pressed his forehead to yours one last time.

“K’oyacyi, cyare. Come back safe.”

“You, too,” you whispered, breath fogging his visor. “Go get him. Bring him home.”

“We’ve got her, Mando,” Cara assured him as she raised her blaster rifle, pushing her dark, disheveled hair out of her face. “C’mon. Time to go.”

You nodded once, drew your own blaster from your holster, and stepped back as Fennec shouldered her way to the rear of the cabin. With sharp, determined eyes, she did a quick inventory of the room, ensuring that all members of the boarding party were prepared to disembark.

When her gaze landed on you, she said, “Remember the plan, girl. Keep to the center of the formation, wait for clear windows to shoot, and for kriff’s sake, don’t try to be a hero.”

Releasing a huff of laugh, you agreed with a glib “yes, ma’am,” and then Bo-Katan’s sharp voice rang out behind you, the sound modulated by the sudden addition of her helmet vocoder.

“Drop the ramp – let’s go.”

As the ramp began to descend, dense, white coolant steam billowed from the shuttle’s undercarriage, obscuring your view of the bay ahead. In the distance, you could hear a Storm Trooper shouting, “Clear the launch tube! What are you doing? Get that thing out of here – ”

Whatever he was meant to say next, he never got the opportunity. With steady precision, Koska raised her blaster pistol and shot twice through the fog, and instead of more protests, all you heard was a pained “argh” and the sound of two armored bodies hitting the deck.

Then chaos erupted.

Shoulder to shoulder, Fennec and Koska led the charge down the ramp while Bo-Katan and Cara brought up the rear. You stayed tucked between them, blaster drawn, head down, the marshal’s broad form shielding you from the bright red bolts of light that filled the air. In the distance, you could see more than a dozen Imperials charging at the shuttle – some in full Storm Trooper white, others in officer gray, all with blasters drawn, raining fire on your boarding party.

But the women who surrounded you moved as a unit – like one that had been fighting arm-in-arm for years rather than days. It was tactical, the way they divided the oncoming hoard of combatants, and in perfect synchronicity, they cut through the launch bay like a hot knife through butter. The sound of it was overwhelming – the overlapping shrieks of volley after volley of blaster rounds, the whip of a grappling line from one of the Mandalorians’ vambraces, the flare of heat from a jetpack, the echo of heavy boots sprinting across durasteel deck plating. You kept your head on a swivel, your own blaster at the ready, but by the time your party had made it to the far side of the launch bay – leaving a trail of Imperial bodies in your wake – you found that you hadn’t even needed to fire it.

They had eliminated everyone in their path with such deadly precision, your presence had been entirely superfluous.

However, you hardly had the opportunity to feel self-conscious about that fact. Just as you had predicted, just as Mayfeld had warned you as you sat huddled over datapads and schematics in the depths of hyperspace, the moment the ship’s internal sensors detected blaster energy signatures, the launch bay doors slid shut. Emerging from the depths of the bulkheads on either side, two blast doors slammed closed over them, and a series of forbidding red lights flared to life around the metallic doorframe. The control panel to the right of the door also glowed red, and you felt the faintest surge of satisfaction at the sight.

The first security checkpoint had been activated. No one would be leaving the launch bay without passing a genetic scan and a chain code verification. You had been right.

“You’re up,” Fennec beckoned as the group approached the foreboding door, and you nodded silently.

This was what you were here for. This was something you could do.

Slipping to the front of the group, you took notice of how the other members closed ranks around you, placing their own bodies between you and any potential threats. The room around you was silent, almost eerily so, and you knew that none other than your team had been left alive. But still, they protected you.

For now, however, you shoved all of the warm feelings that realization elicited to the side and instead dug one of your arsenal of datasticks out of your pocket. You gripped it between your teeth to free up your hands, and then, digging the tips of your fingers into the frame of the control panel, you wrenched it open, exposing the inner workings of the terminal. The wires and switches and flashing lights before you might have looked anonymous and random to others, but to your eyes, it was a puzzle waiting to be solved.

Plugging the datastick into the open port, you went to work.

Slice into the internal security system. Access the secondary protocols. Isolate the launch bay terminals, cut them off from the rest of the system. Identify the unique override sequence. You frowned, drawing your lower lip between your teeth in concentration. The press of bodies around you shifted restlessly as the seconds ticked by. You resisted the urge to reassure them – you were close, you were almost there, just one more redirect and –

“That’s it,” you breathed, removing the datastick, replacing the control panel cover. With quick fingers, you entered a series of commands into the panel, and suddenly, all of the lights surrounding the blast doors flickered blue. With a loud, mechanical thunk, every layer of the barrier retracted back into the bulkheads, and the path ahead looked back at you, clear and open.

Behind you, Cara released a breath of relief, and Bo-Katan swept an impassive stare from the bottoms of your boots to the top of your head, as though appraising you. “Well done,” she said, brusque but earnest. “Now fall back.”

You tucked your datastick back into your pocket and withdrew your blaster from your holster as you retreated back into formation. Koska took point once again as the party charged down the open corridor, and you encountered no enemies along its length. After a handful of minutes, you came upon a path that branched perpendicularly to the left, and Koska held up her fist for you all to slow to a stop. Blaster drawn, she peeked around the corner and scanned the area quickly. “All clear.”

Bo-Katan rounded the corner ahead of her, taking in the new corridor for herself. “A little too clear,” she agreed. Beckoning the group forward, she proceeded cautiously, and as you advanced, you realized that you had come upon an open-air catwalk connecting two sections of the ship. Above and below the narrow strip of decking that stretched out before you was nothing but open, vacuous space, and if you dared to glance down, you could see the infinite blackness twinkling back at you from beyond the life support system’s ray shields. Swallowing the wave of anxiety that washed over you at the sight, you kept your eyes on the back of Bo-Katan’s helmet instead.

“Keep your eyes open,” she cautioned as you began to traverse the catwalk. You were back to the center of the formation, as planned, allowing the others to keep themselves between you and the unfamiliar surroundings, but your blaster remained firmly gripped in your hand anyway, ready to defend yourself should you need to.

You made it about halfway across the catwalk unmolested. Just as you were beginning to think that this leg of your journey might prove to be blessedly simple, four Storm Troopers emerged from the open door ahead.

As if they had planned such a synchronous maneuver in advance (which, to be fair, they probably had), both Koska and Bo-Katan fired up their jetpacks and dove off opposite edges of the catwalk, leaving you, Cara, and Fennec to face the oncoming assailants alone. The marshal was quick to dig her fingers into the back of your boilersuit and tug you bodily behind her, but that didn’t stop you from raising your pistol. On instinct alone, you thrust the muzzle of your blaster into the space between the other two women’s bodies, and your fire joined theirs in gunning down the troopers. You couldn’t be certain whether any of your rounds landed, but by the time all of them had either crumpled to the floor or fallen off the edge of the catwalk, the unlucky Storm Troopers had only managed to get off a single round. No one from the boarding party had been harmed.

“Freeze! Drop your weapons!”

A sharp, modulated voice rang out behind you, and your stomach dropped, all of the bravado you had felt mere moments ago slipping away as quickly as it had come. Turning slowly, you found six more Storm Troopers equipped with sleek black blaster rifles spilling onto the catwalk.

“Dank farrik,” you swore under your breath, icy, paralyzing fear gripping your spine for the first time since leaving the shuttle. There had to be too many of them. You didn’t have the element of surprise like you had with the others; these troopers already had their weapons trained on you, and on this narrow walkway, there was nowhere to hide.

Should you surrender, you wondered? Drop your pistol to the floor, put your hands in the air? The idea had your stomach rolling. No, you couldn’t give up, not now –

The distinctive rumble of jetpacks reverberated off of the nearby bulkheads, and a rush of relief so powerful it nearly had your knees buckling washed over you as both Koska and Bo-Katan shot out from their hiding places under the catwalk. From several feet in the air, they rained blast fire down on the unsuspecting troopers, red light and white sparks flying with each impact, and in a handful of seconds, all six of your would-be captors had collapsed into white plastoid heaps on the deck.

You sent the two Mandalorians grateful smiles as they landed smoothly back on the surface of the walkway, and then you were off again, proceeding with haste through the open archway ahead.

---

The deeper into Moff Gideon’s cruiser the boarding party penetrated, the more confident you became. The adrenaline racing through your veins felt less unsettling, rattling on your nerves; instead it seemed to focus you, blocking out all other concerns and fears and narrowing your field of vision to just the mission at hand. Keep your head down. Shoot when you have to. Override every barrier, disable every checkpoint in your path. Trust your comrades to keep you safe, but watch their backs, as well. It reminded you a bit of the Razor Crest’s pursuit of Kevok Teklolq, the way you found yourself able to sink into this role, to concentrate only the task in front of you to the exclusion of all else.

As you made your way across a densely-packed cargo bay, surrounded on all sides by Fennec and Cara’s blaster fire and crumpling white-armored bodies, you felt as focused and in-control as you did behind the helm of a starship. So when one of those anonymous plastoid helmets rounded the corner in front of you, blaster at the ready, you didn’t hesitate, and at this close of a range, even you couldn’t miss.

You shot once. Twice.

The soldier let out a pained grunt and toppled to the floor, and if bile rose in the back of your throat at the sound, you were too focused on reaching the next checkpoint to notice.

Unfortunately, that next check point appeared to be at the far end of an endless series of corridors, and each one seemed to be filled with more Imperial forces than the last. The closer you drew to the bridge, the tighter the defenses. Keeping tight to your formation, the five of you cleared each hall as you entered it, the occasional round bouncing off of Bo-Katan and Koska’s armor as you advanced. It wasn’t until you reached the last turn that the endless wave of combatants became too much to bear.

“Split up!” Cara barked, breaking away from the group. Her massive blaster rifle propped firmly under her arm, she placed herself in front of the rest of you, strong shoulders broad and centered as she took on the oncoming troopers like a force of nature. You tucked yourself behind a support beam, pressing yourself against the bulkhead to steady your aim and did your best to back her up, but next to her oversized rounds, the ones coming from your little pistol seemed to almost inconsequential.

However, as Cara reached the end of the corridor, you heard a distinctive whirring, seizing sound coming from her rifle, and you watched as she quickly found her own support beam to take shelter behind as she cried, “My gun’s jammed!”

Fennec was quick to jump to her aid, yelling, “I got you!” The assassin was nimble, light on her feet, dodging shot after shot as she cut down the corridor toward where Cara had hidden. She was good, great even as more and more Storm Troopers fell at her feet, but it wasn’t enough. The two Mandalorians were occupied with forces approaching from behind, and while the marshal wrestled with her uncooperative weapon, Fennec was outgunned.

A sickening bolt of fear broke through your concentration as you watched yet another trooper round the corner into the corridor, raise his blaster, and take aim directly at the Rebel dropper at his feet.

“Cara!”

Again, you didn’t think, didn’t hesitate. You shot off three rounds, two of which arced wide, but the third one kept true and collided with the trooper’s chest. He staggered back with the force of the impact, a hollow “ugh!” ringing out through his helmet, and then Cara Dune was on her feet once more. Having given up on repairing her blaster rifle, she deftly spun the thing around and wielded the stock like a bludgeon. Lifting the gun high, she shattered the trooper’s helmet in a deadly blow, and white shards of plastoid sprayed through the air as the man collapsed, motionless on the ground.

The marshal shot a wild grin over her shoulder at you, pride gleaming in her dark eyes. “Thanks,” she huffed breathlessly.

You weren’t certain how you felt about that sentiment just now, knowing that you were being thanked for helping her to take a life, even if it had been to save hers. But you could unpack that another time, you decided. Now, your expertise was needed at the doors to the lift that loomed ahead – the lift that would take you to the cruiser’s bridge deck. You were nearly there.

You didn’t wait to be prompted. While the others polished off the remaining troopers, you darted over to the lift, outlined as all the other checkpoints had been in bright red lights. You got to work immediately – peeling back the control panel cover, plugging in one of your datasticks, everything just as you had done for the previous checkpoints. However, as you felt the rest of the boarding party fall into formation behind you, you noticed that each time you thought you had disabled a set of protocols successfully, the effects seem to only last for a moment or two. The layers of security would fall away, and then they would surge back into place, as if you hadn’t just spent long, precious seconds systematically taking them apart.

“Fuck.” The curse came out breathless, and you could feel sweat gathering on the back of your neck and across your forehead as the realization shot down your spine like a livewire. “They’re changing it.”

“What is it?” Bo-Katan asked sharply, her modulated voice sounding just over your shoulder.

“The ship’s crew is countering. The security algorithm has started to vary – they’re trying to stop us from reaching the bridge.”

“Can you compensate?”

You weighed your answer only briefly before nodding. “Yes.”

The new cypher was complex, more nuanced and layered than the first, as though designed to test the limits of your knowledge and see how far you could push them. As you keyed through the terminal, you dug through your memories, your experiences with programs like this one. You pictured your father’s starship database, the endless stores of information, wishing you could remember even half of what you had studied at his side. You had always been more of a hardware girl, anyway; more than anything, you wished you had your plasma torch just so you could see how the security team on the bridge would respond to you simply cutting through the doors they erected in your path.

“Not to rush you, engineer, but if we need to find an alternate way to the bridge, we need to know now.”

“Shh,” you whispered, keeping your eyes on the open terminal before you. You were so close. You could feel it, you just needed to focus, you just needed –

There.

Your hands flew to reassemble the control panel, dropping your datastick back into your pocket once more. One quick command sequence, the foreboding red lights flickered blue, and the lift doors slid open without prompting.

All of the breath left your lungs in one loud exhale, and then you were all piling into the lift car. You input the bridge level number before anyone could ask, and as the car began to rise, you collapsed back against the durasteel wall in relief.

That had been too close for your comfort.

The near-complete silence in the narrow walls of the lift was jarring after the sounds of battle. You could hear the pounding of your heart for the first time since you had left the shuttle, and your own breath sounded too loud in your ears. In the quiet, Bo-Katan turned to you and demanded, “Did you shush me back there?”

Stars, had you? You supposed you had. Perhaps not the wisest choice – to be so disrespectful to the future Mand’alor. It hadn’t been consciously done, but still…

Thankfully, you were saved from needing to answer for this slight by Marshal Dune banging the butt of her blaster rifle on the floor and cursing loudly. “Dank farrik!” She fussed with the action, opening and closing it multiple times, blaster parts clanking against one another in a way no one in the lift could have ignored. “Son of a mudscuffer!”

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?” Bo-Katan asked wryly.

With gritted teeth, Cara slammed the stock of her gun down once more, this time with enough force that you could feel the vibration of it through the floor. A distinctive whirring sound emanated from the depths of the rifle, and you breathed a sigh of relief as she said, “I think that did it.”

Just then, the lift arrived at the bridge level, and the marshal swung her oversized weapon around toward the opening lift door. “Excuse me,” she muttered under her breath, and then she was leading the charge, teeth bared, pouring a never-ending stream of glowing yellow blaster fire down the enemy-filled hallway.

“Hostiles! Stop!”

The command from one of the Storm Troopers ahead did not deter you. The four of you followed in the marshal’s wake, unleashing every ounce of aggression you had left, and just as before, the dense press of armored bodies fell in the face of your party’s sheer force. However, as you gained ground toward the bridge, which shone in the distance, you watched as one final security checkpoint – one you hadn’t planned for – flared to life around its entrance. Warning lights glared red in the frame, two layers of blast doors slammed shut at the end of the corridor, and you swore you could feel the leaden finality of them reverberate through your bones.

Somewhere off to your right, Fennec shouted your name through the deafening roar of blaster fire.

“Go! Get that door open!” she shouted, her low, warm voice hoarse and strained. “I’ll cover you!”

Wordlessly, you nodded, and then you were off like a shot, sprinting down the remaining distance between you and the door with single-minded focus. You did not allow yourself to look as troopers fell around you at the end of Fennec’s rifle, did not allow yourself to hesitate as you jumped over their bodies, as you ducked their flying blaster bolts. You trusted the assassin. Your teammate, your friend. She would keep you safe as you ran. She had to.

You nearly skidded to a stop by the time you made it to the bridge’s entrance. Bracing yourself with your palms against the durasteel, you curled your shoulders inward and tried to make yourself as small a target as possible as you got to work. There was no four-fighter squadron shielding your back this time. You would need to be fast.

As you sliced into the system, you found even more modifications to the algorithms than you had seen on the lift. Brows pulled low, lip between your teeth, you took deep, steadying breaths as you worked. You kept the peril of your situation at arm’s length, knowing that if you allowed yourself to experience it, to really hear the fight going on around you, you would freeze. Instead, you kept your eyes on the terminal, and you ripped the protocol to shreds.

You were putting the control panel cover back on when you heard it – Cara’s voice, then Fennec’s, then even Bo-Katan’s cutting through the chaos. Your name, repeated over and over. “Get down! Get down!”

You hit the deck on your knees, legs collapsing beneath you.

And three blaster bolts collided with the durasteel blast doors right where your head had been.

You felt as though your stomach had fallen clean out of your body as you stared up at the glowing hot dents in the metal, all clustered together right where you had been standing. Sweat poured down your face, fatigue settling in your bones. Stars, that had nearly been the end of you. Your mind flew to Din and then to Grogu, thankful down to your core that you hadn’t seen the last of them.

So overwhelmed were you that you barely noticed Cara coming up behind you until she hauled you to your feet.

“You’re all right, sweetheart, shake it off,” she encouraged, brushing imaginary dust from your shoulders. “We took care of that guy, don’t worry. Let’s get in this room, huh?”

You nodded gratefully. With the other woman’s arm still tucked protectively around your shoulders, you entered the final command sequence, and the security system disarmed.

The party made quick work of the few Imperials left on the bridge when the doors opened. Fanning out across the room, it took only a handful of quick, efficient shots to have the entire bridge crew on the ground.

Koska charged straight for the security station, withdrawing an abandoned code cylinder from the console. “Weapons systems disarmed,” she said. “Secondary security protocols also disabled. Everyone should be able to move freely now.”

Thank the Maker. All that was left now was to wait for Din to rendezvous with you all, and with any luck, he would have Grogu in tow. Your relief was all-consuming, and you found yourself sinking into one of the officers’ chairs with a sigh.

However, there was one member of your party who did not seem especially pleased with the results of your efforts. After taking a full tour around the perimeter of the bridge, Bo-Katan Kryze came to stand in front of the viewport, confusion and fury pouring from her in palpable waves even through her impassive helmet.

Shoving both of her blaster pistols into her holsters with force, she hissed, “Where’s Gideon?”

You glanced around at the bodies that littered the floor, seeing a handful of troopers, a couple of officers in gray... But no one in command black.

Moff Gideon wasn’t here.

---

Mando'a Translations:

epar - eat k’oyacyi - Cheers! Hang in there! Come back safely. Literally, "stay alive"

[power-chords]

Malcolm’s epiphany constructs a narrative frame—an explanation of the condition or source of the narrative. But this is a frame or condition we only learn about at film’s end, and is thus a terminal frame, or a buried frame, a late embedding of one narrative level by another, or a narrative that takes the “form of a vision” from which the reader or viewer is “rudely ejected” at narrative’s end (Fludernik 29). In American Psycho, A Beautiful Mind, Cypher, eXistenZ, Fight Club, Hide and Seek, Identity, The Jacket, The Machinist, Mulholland Drive, The Number 23, The Others, Premonition, The Prestige, Secret Window, Shutter Island, The Spanish Prisoner, Third Person, Unknown, The Usual Suspects, Vanilla Sky, and so on, the central character at film’s end is revealed to be spectral, virtual, imagined, traumatized, conned, delusional, or in some other way compromised as a credible witness to, or participant in, the narrative’s events. In most of these films, what we thought to be objective narration turns out to have been thoroughly subjective, as a “deeper diegetic ground is inserted below the level we took for the baseline of reality” (Stewart 143). In several of these films we encounter the millennial trope I label retrospective revision: a montage sequence near the end of the movie in which we review earlier scenes, now recognizing the blind-spots, freshly cognizant of how we were deceived and how completely we should revise our understanding of the entire film. Like a transmedial franchise in which the narrative is just so much data to be used, reformatted, and reused, the ending of The Sixth Sense goes about repurposing the film itself, remixing and recontextualizing earlier scenes, a narrative parallel to the new fluidity of the moving image; it can go back and remix itself, even as it directs us forward to acquire and re-watch the movie in its post-theatrical life. This is a new formal logic within popular cinematic narrative: reconfiguration, revision, and remixing.

Audiences today have come to expect final plot twists to be thoroughly integrated into the structure of the film: “The ending can’t seem arbitrary, non sequitur, or tacked on; it should flow naturally and organically (if only in retrospect) from the rest of the story” (Susman). Twist movies today are often made to repay multiple viewings, to enter into a “culture of replay,” in which “the already seen and heard” becomes an “emblematic feature of the media business” (Klinger, “Becoming Cult” 4). This is a type of movie that viewers are encouraged to analyze, reflect back on, likely re-view, and perhaps even read about online in order to fully appreciate the intricacies of the story’s narration. This marks a stark departure from traditional expectations—as Charles Ramírez Berg writes, “For nearly a century now, the poetics of film narration was based on the need to be completely legible to one-time viewers” (31). Writers and producers of these films, in a “cognitive arms race” (Max) with audiences, begin to void long-held narrative contracts. They draft new arrangements with new rules that take into account the attainability and interactivity of contemporary cinema, or all of the digital means that encourage deep immersion in story worlds and negate the primacy of the theater. These movies are internet- and “DVD-enabled,” Thomas Elsaesser writes, their narrative structures determined in part by the technologies audiences use to consume them (“Mind-Game” 38).

—J Lavender-Smith, The New Reflexivity: Puzzle Films, Found Footage, and Cinematic Narration in the Digital Age, 2016. Emphasis mine.

[nixalegos]

FFAF: He puts on a very confident face. When was a time he did not feel confident and how did he handle it?

It was amid the depths of beyond. The one place a soul was never meant to see. Hearing the repeating song. Proof; tangible, physical proof of a grand and unifying design. He stared at the shifting complex array that was the sky to the capstone foundry of all afterlives. All the purpose of souls for what felt like hours. Mortis. Ordus. Lumen. Vitae. Tumult. Umbra. Names cracked by piercing cyphers and mysteries, wrenching enigmas into shapes his mind could bear to hold without hemorrhaging on itself and out his nose. He was right. Their whole existence, every iota of magic, every hope, every nightmare, every conflict, every loss and success and shift along the cosmic battlegrounds, a crucible to rend the primordial forces into new, more impossible powerful gestalts. To become something more than the mere sum of its parts. It wouldn't be enough. Not against the true nothingness. Real oblivion that was beyond concepts like time and darkness. Eternity? Actual genuine Eternity? The deathless and the immortal andthe unliving could not even conceive the length eternity actually was the way he knew it. He felt his stomach rise into his throat and he tried, in vain to swallow down the bile and keep himself from shuddering. It was never going to be enough. The truth, that he'd perceived actual unending oblivion all those years ago. Not some trick of the void. Not the consumption of fel. The seventh force. It was as real as the complex array above him. Had to be. It was the point of existence to be defined against. Crushing, soul crushing despair that all the horror he'd endured, every vile act he'd perpetuated in the name of avarice and heroism. The helplessness of realization, that nothing actually, truly, ever mattered for anything washed over him like a death shroud. And then the little broken selfish part of his soul ground against that shroud like a jagged prison shank on silk. So what. He rolled his neck. Swallowed down the sensation of weakness that had nearly escaped his throat. So what if nothingness itself was coming for it all. It. Changes. NOTHING. He would stand an inch away from the event horizon. As he had all those years ago. When doom comes for him as predator, it would not find him prey. Never again. Thanks @kharrisdawndancer!

[leolingo]

do you guys remember when bagi was investigating the fed employee murders at the very beginning and there was a diary from cellbit reliving old memories and it had GUAPITO as the cypher key but the way it was written made it ambiguous so for a brief moment we all contemplated the possibility they were about to reveal roier had been at the prison with the brazilians too … bc that was fucking crazy

[cemetery-irises]

No thoughts just Luca wanting praise so fucking badly on his bad days because even if it's a lie, even if it's fake, he just wants to feel like himself again. He longs to play the role of a genius even if he thinks he's completely fallen from it, because he thinks that he can never be praised like that again, and it tears into him.

And also to make it worse I think that after prison Luca vastly underestimates his abilities. He thinks he's stupid even though nobody else in the manor knows their way around the connections in the matches like he does, or how to most efficiently operate the cypher machines, or hell, how to properly repair half of the things Luca ends up fixing without much thought towards it. (I think most of the knowledge he has is second nature to him, so he doesn't even realise that he has it in the first place and just thinks all of his smarts are gone forever.)

I think some of the other survivors would think he's extremely smart but when Luca catches wind of this he actively denies it. ...Maybe a little too strongly than he was going for.

"I- I'm- What?? I-I'm a f-fucking idiot!! What d-do you mean 'smart'?? I- You- T-tell me one thing!! That makes me smart!!! ...What the hell do you mean!? A-anyone can d-do that!! I-I'm not special for it!!! Y-you liar!!!

......'m s-sorry... didn't mean... to... ...just leave, please..."

oh yeah,, true with the second nature thing absolutely

[3pirouette]

Fic: Timeless (1/1)

Title: Timeless

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: Loki Season 2 (especially Episode 6), MCU through Endgame, Several of my own Steggy Fic

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3/Tumblr  Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: for @behindthelabels for Steggymas2023/Steggy Week 2024 Day 5 “Inspired by”! Hauhet spends her days languishing in the Decoding and Intelligence office at the TVA, but when things start to unravel into chaos, she finds she, too, had a normal life on the timestream as one Agent Peggy Carter. 

AN: Inspired by the Taylor Swift song Timeless (Which is irrevocably Steggy) and Season 2 of Loki and the character of Oroborus. This was put on the back burner once I found out Behindthelabels actually HADN’T watched Loki season 2 and would understand none of this. I wrote her another fic, and said she’d get this as the non-returnable stocking stuffer she never asked for. Almost a year late, but, here you go! Thanks @steggyfanevents

Also, I decided to be REALLY self indulgent and reference a bunch of my own fic as AUs. I tried to include some of my "Greatest hits."

I highly recommend either listening to this song or looking up the lyrics before reading the story. From a random lyrics website: "The song is ultimately about a love so powerful that it would still come to fruition even under circumstances that made it close to impossible to exist."

Hauhet- Egyptian goddess of infinity

Tenses jump back and forth between past and present on purpose. I hope it’s not too jarring, but I felt it would be an interesting way to portray that everything is happening all at once and yet over and over again… 

Also see notes at the end of the fic…

~*~

Read below or HERE on AO3

~*~

It was, in a word, chaos. Time was branching, and without the branches being snipped, she didn’t know what would happen. 

That wasn’t her department, though. The little sign that said “Decoding and Intelligence” on her door kept her separated from the rest of the TVA and though she felt the need to jump into the fray, there was also a deep fear that she’d done that before and it had come to no good. 

That she’d suffered great loss. 

Some days, her little isolated office of books and codes felt like home. People so rarely needed her or visited her, but when she was needed to decode messages or break complicated cyphers, Hauhet knew she was appreciated. 

Yet, sometimes, her little office felt like a prison. 

If she thought too long, she couldn’t remember, exactly, how long she’d been there. She couldn’t remember when or how she’d gotten her job. She couldn’t quite remember what her home even looked like. But those thoughts vanished like the ether, quickly replaced with the urge to update her codex or rearrange her shelves of gadgets. The impetus to think never really left her though, and she spent most of her time alone feeling unsettled, like she was meant for more. 

She just knew she had to be ready, available, for when a time agent would come to her, needing help. Those were the times she felt like she was doing what she was meant to do: breaking cyphers, deciphering codes, solving mysteries. They never let her outside of the TVA, never took her with them on site, but she felt just a hint of value inside her. 

She had so much more to give. She knew that. She just didn’t know how to tell anyone else. 

Not that anyone asked, anyway. 

But the chaos outside of her door today stirred something deep inside her, and within a few minutes she hacked her data pad, listening to the conversations of those agents floors and floors away, discussing things that shocked her. 

They had been people. People in the time stream. 

She wasn’t just a worker at the TVA. She had been someone before that. She’d had a life and a family and she had had something so important that felt just out of reach to her into the annals of her mind. If she closed her eyes and concentrated she saw smart clothes in army green and bright blue and fiery red. High heels and dramatic hats. 

Red, white, and blue Stars and Stripes that made her heart flutter. 

All she ever wore was drab TVA khaki with her sensible sneakers and her hair in a tight knot at the top of her head. With a sudden burst of longing that had to be from something real, she missed the feel of soft silk on her legs and the powerful sound of high heels clicking on tile floors. 

There was a smile. 

She missed a smile. 

If she closed her eyes she could see it: bright teeth that were straight, but not too straight, soft pink lips, a little hint of a quirk on one side so genuine she could feel her heart melt. 

She’d had someone. 

Hauhet stood and paced her little room, running her hands over the bookshelves lined with thick tomes, new and old, chewing at her lip as she tried to get the nervous energy out of her body. 

It was a loss and a gift all at the same time: she’d had another life, but she didn’t know if she could find it or get back to it. 

Did she even want to?

What if… what if that life wasn’t as exciting as this one? What if she’d contributed even less? She picked up her Data pad, rolling it over and over in her hands. There was only one way to find out. 

Hauhet sat at her computer and pulled out a small set of tools, slipping her magnifying glasses on. It took longer than she liked, but eventually she had her data pad wired into her computer. 

With a deep breath, she input the search and waited only a few seconds for it to blink upon her screen. She pulled her glasses off slowly and watched…

~*~

“Well, what do you think?” Steve turns in a circle in the empty living room, pointing at the stairs to the second floor. “Three rooms and a full bathroom up there, half bath, kitchen, a den, and a living room here. Plenty of space downstairs in the basement for a washer and a dryer and a home office…” He shrugs, smiling. 

Peggy sighs, bouncing Mandy in her arms. “You don’t think it’s too big?” The baby giggles, reaching out her arms for Steve. Peggy passes her over before wandering away into the kitchen. “It just seems like a lot…”

”It is,” he quickly agrees. “It’s more than I ever had, that’s for sure.” He steps over to her, looking out the window over the sink, past the back porch and into the green expanse of the back yard. 

“More than I’ve had as well,” Peggy mutters, turning back to him. She taps her fingers on the stove before walking a slow circle in the kitchen, eyes roaming over every surface. “I’m used to barracks and hot plates now.”

Steve nods, his hand running over the downy hairs on Mandy’s head as she snuggles into his shoulder. “Yeah, well, there’s room to spread out,” he says gently, looking up with warmth in his eyes, “Room to grow.”

Peggy pauses, thinking about all the things they’ve said to one another, all the promises they’ve made, and for once, there’s about to be peace in their lives with little else to do but think about the future. The ring on her left hand is still new, and she turns it with her fingers anxiously. 

There will be time to think about growing. 

“It’ll be tight,” she starts, turning pragmatic as she moves past him and towards the front door, “on our pays.”

He follows, a bright spring in his step as he knows she’s made her decision. “I’m pretty sure they’re keeping us on the payroll, Peg.” He smiles at Mandy, bouncing her in his arms as he follows her out the front door. 

“And there’s going to be plenty of work to do to keep it up: mowing, gardening, taking out the trash…” she pauses, tilting her head as if she’s just thought about it. “We’re going to have to do our own grocery shopping. Cooking.”

”I’m sure Jarvis will take pity on us once in a while,” Steve chuckles. He joins her on the front step, closing the front door behind him and looking it over before turning back to her. “So?”

Peggy turns, still serious, looking at the door and all it represents. “What do you think, darling?” She reaches over and tickles Mandy under the chin. “Ready to have your own room? Leave the little government apartment we’ve called our own for a few months now?”

Mandy’s squeal and giggle are a resounding positive. 

“Alright then, darling, we’re all in agreement,” Peggy smiles up at Steve. “We’re going to be homeowners.” She leans up, kissing him quickly, but stopping him when he starts to speak again. “We’re not getting dog.”

~*~

Loop 1

Hauhet stood and paced her little room, running her hands over the bookshelves lined with thick tomes, new and old, chewing at her lip as she tried to get the nervous energy out of her body. 

It was a loss and a gift all at the same time: she’d had another life, but she didn’t know if she could find it or get back to it. 

Did she even want to?

What if… what if that life wasn’t as exciting as this one? What if she’d contributed even less? She picked up her Data pad, rolling it over and over in her hands. There was only one way to find out. 

Hauhet sat at her computer and pulled out a small set of tools, slipping her magnifying glasses on. It took her less time than it should have to wire her data pad to the computer, she was surprised at how easy it seemed. 

With a deep breath, she input the search and waited only a few seconds for it to blink upon her screen. She pulled her glasses off slowly and watched…

~*~

The music swelled, and Peggy couldn’t quite stop the welling of emotion in her chest. 

“I promise I’ll write ya,” Steve says loudly, loud enough that his voice carries all the way to the back of the empty auditorium. 

“And I’ll write you, every day,” she answers under the hot stage lights in her best American accent, stepping forward and putting her hand on his arm. “Just promise you’ll come home to me.”

He looks at her, stares at her for longer than he should, before saying his next line. “Hitler himself couldn’t stop me from coming home to you, Betty.” There’s a lilt in his voice she’s never heard before, a catch before he says her character’s name. 

The music swells again, and when the lights go out and they hurry off stage, she can’t quite seem to catch her breath. 

“You okay?” Steve asks as soon as they’re off stage, the lights raising again and filling the wings with warmth as the girls take center stage to sing. 

Peggy turns back to him, nodding and forcing her breath to even out. “It just…”

”Seemed almost real, right?” he nods, pulling her deeper into the wing and out of the way of the stage hands setting up the next scene change. He almost crowds her into the corner in his effort to give her some privacy while she composes herself. 

Peggy nods at him, wiping away tears that aren’t quite shed from the lash line of her eyes, the dark black stage eyeliner coming off on her fingers. “I almost lost you once, Steve, and I will not go through that again.” 

He leans down, taking her into his arms and letting her melt into him. “You won’t have to, Peg. I promise.”

”You don’t know that, you just can’t-“

”You won’t, I-“

”I hate to break this up,” Angie’s voice, full of her own thick emotion, floods over them, “because I’m sure you could use a minute.” She sniffs, wiping at her own stage make up carefully to lift the tears away. “I mean, you got me crying, too!” She reaches over and pulls Peggy from Steve’s arms gently, “But if we don’t move our asses we’re gonna miss the quick change again and you heard him- if he has to stop the show we’re gonna be here all night and I do not have another 15 hour rehearsal in me!”

Steve watches Peggy go, his arms feeling empty as Angie hurries her away to the little dressing screen they have set up for her. 

He felt it, too. Maybe it is the music, or the costumes. Maybe between the lights and the costumes, the backdrops and the speakers, it makes it feel like hyper reality. But whatever it is, something is different. It isn’t hypothetical anymore. She’d almost lost him once already, and as soon as they’re done here he’ll be on the front sooner rather than later, and she’ll be there, too, in just as much danger. 

And yet, his arms feel empty without her. 

He doesn’t want to write letters. 

He doesn’t want to go months without seeing her. 

He doesn’t want to go to bed one single night without her next to him. 

It is an amazing feeling, swelling in the sadness that had just filled him from their little, poorly written scene. 

He loves her, and he knows now he isn’t letting go. 

~*~

Loop 114

Hauhet stood and paced her little room, running her hands over the bookshelves lined with thick tomes, new and old, chewing at her lip as she tried to get the nervous energy out of her body. This felt like it had happened before. 

Could that be? 

Could time have repeated? Here? In the TVA?

It was a loss and a gift all at the same time: she’d had another life, but she didn’t know if she could find it or get back to it. 

Did she even want to?

What if… what if that life wasn’t as exciting as this one? What if she’d contributed even less? She picked up her Data pad, rolling it over and over in her hands. There was only one way to find out. 

Hauhet sat at her computer and pulled out a small set of tools, slipping her magnifying glasses on. The ease with which she was able to connect her data pad to her computer, something she’d never done before, told her that time was indeed not running correctly. 

It didn’t much matter right now, though. 

With a deep breath, she input the search and waited only a few seconds for it to blink upon her screen. She pulled her glasses off slowly and started to watch…

~*~

The rain pounded the top of her canvas tent, the little light she had flickered in and out as the storm raged. She couldn’t seem to get dry in her little tent, but then again, nothing had been dry in days. 

It felt like the war had come to a stand still. Both sides were trying to fight trench foot and keep people warm and alive. They didn’t have time to fight one another. Hydra seemed farther and farther away every day that kept her in camp and away from the front. 

Instead, all Peggy could do was pull out her little nub of a pencil and write. Again. 

Not that Steve minded. She was sure he didn’t, just like she didn’t mind any time she got a letter from him back in New York. She opened the little tin box she used to keep her paper dry and ran her fingers over the little picture of Steve she kept taped to the top. He’d obviously posed for it, had someone else snap it and gotten it developed just to send to her. It was the only thing she really cared about keeping dry, that and his letters. 

She ran her fingers over them, filled with stories from home and all the things he wanted to do with her once the war was over, all the things he wanted to say to her in person but would have to suffice in the written word. 

They were an ocean part, with only the vaguest of promises between them, but she knew, deep in her heart, that the frail boned man would be her destiny. She’d known the first time he’d smiled at her. 

She pulled out his last letter and started reading. It still astounded her that he liked her, that a smart, interesting, funny man like him could find something in her. She’d always been told she was too bold, too brash, for men to like her. All her life her mother had tried to get her to play a part to attract a suitor, and now, after Erskine’s experiment, she knew she wasn’t what most men would find attractive. 

Steve? Steve looked at her with love in his eyes and it astounded her every time. 

She read about the war effort and his experiments with Stark, his art projects and how much he hated watching the kid in the neighborhood have to go without birthday cakes because of rationing. 

She read his letters over and over again until she could recite them by heart. Some days, deep in a foxhole or shivering in the rain while she waited to raid a Hydra strong hold, reciting his words in her head were all that gave her hope. 

She loved him, and she was pretty sure he loved her. 

She just needed to put an end to this damn war, and then she’d be able to show him just how much. 

~*~

Loop 872

Hauhet stood and paced her little room, running her hands over the bookshelves lined with thick tomes, new and old, chewing at her lip as she tried to get the nervous energy out of her body. This seemed… familiar. This action, this moment. 

She’d lived it before.

The emotions weren’t new. They were old and worn in, even if she couldn’t remember ever feeling them before. 

She picked up her Data pad, rolling it over and over in her hands. There was only one way to find out. 

Hauhet sat at her computer and pulled out a small set of tools, slipping her magnifying glasses on. In seconds the interface was working. 

With a deep breath, she input the search and waited only a few seconds for it to blink upon her screen. She pulled her glasses off slowly and started to watch…

~*~

“Skinny Bastard,” Phillips mutters, shaking his head as he enters. 

Steve laughs, climbing down the ladder and out of the rafters of the stage. “You’re gonna have to stop calling me that one day.” He holds his hand out once his feet are on the ground, smiling when Phillips shakes it firmly. 

Phillips works hard to hide his smile. “You’re a day late.”

”Don’t go blamin’ him!” Angie’s voice carries through the empty auditorium. The building is almost unrecognizable to what it was a few years ago when they put on their first show. She weaves her way through the rows of seats, carrying garment bags of gowns in her arms. “All this one’s fault! 

“Now that’s just-“ Bucky’s words fall away as he sees Phillips’ stern look. “sir. Yes sir, I was just-“

”Dawdling? Like always?” He holds his stare for a moment, watching the way the poor man’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows before shaking his head and laughing. “I’m not your commanding officer anymore, Barnes.”

”No,” he responds, moving into he room with his arms full of stacked crates, “But you do put us up for the whole winter while put together a new show so I figure I should still, ya know.”

Steve pulls the crates from Bucky’s hands, stopping his rambling. “Go get the rest of it, will ya?”

”Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, dropping his head and heading out to Phillips’ amusement. 

Phillips follows Steve to where he drops the crates by the edge of the stage. “So what’s the big to-do? Ana’s been looking like the cat that swallowed the cream and won’t give any of us a damn hint.”

Steve smiles to himself as he starts to unpack the stage lights from he crates. “Peggy won’t be in the show this year.” 

Phillips watches him carefully. “I’d ask if there was trouble in paradise, but you’re still wearing your ring, and you’ve got that stupid, suspicious as hell smile on your face that I don’t like.” He leans back on the edge of the stage, watching as Angie weaves through the seats to head back out and help Barnes with unpacking the rest of the truck. “You let that wife of yours get a better offer from a club in the city?” 

Peggy’s voice rings out from the wings. “Oh no, I promise you, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

He looks over, but can’t see her in the dark. “Well then, what’s the damn secret?”

Peggy moves out, less graceful and less lithe than she was last time she was on this stage, hindered this time by the way her rounded belly leads the way. She lets her hand run over it, her dress tightening for just a moment so Phillips can see it. “Not much of a secret anymore, I’m afraid.”

”Skinny Bastard knocked you up!” he can’t help the smile that slides along his face. He claps Steve on the shoulder. “Congratulations, you two!”

Peggy waddles over to the edge of the stage, letting Steve gently lift her down. “I’m afraid I had to tell someone. Looks like our little one may be making an appearance before we’re done for the season. She’s helped me find a local midwife.”

”Good, good,” Phillips mutters, watching the way Steve absentmindedly stokes her lower back as he inventories his crate, the way her hand smooths over the rounded bump of her stomach. “Makes sense why he wouldn’t put you in the show.”

”Absolutely does not,” Peggy bites out, eyes narrowing. 

“Does too,” both men reply at the same time. 

She huffs, but doesn’t make a quip back. This is an old fight, and one she doesn’t want to rekindle now. 

“Jarvis!” Phillips calls, and the mana pops his head in the auditorium comically fast. 

“Yes, sir!”

”Did you know Carter was pregnant?”

”I believe she goes by Mrs. Rogers now, but yes, Ana had let it slip that-“

”Well, why in the hell are you still standing here? We have work to do!” Phillips stars moving away, despite Steve and Peggy’s protests. “we’ve got to make sure that cabin’s draft free, and that their hot water heater’s been checked and re-checked. Get that midwife on the phone for me, she’ll be staying here until that baby’s born. And another…”

His voice fades as he and Jarvis disappear from the room into he main part of the inn. 

“I told you,” Peggy mutters, leaning back on the edge of the stage. “He’s going to make an insufferably big deal of this.”

”Of course he is!” Barnes pipes in, carrying another set of crates in. “In my opinion, Steve is being way too cavalier about my godson being born.” 

“Or goddaughter,” Angie cuts him off quickly. “And he’s just being sensible, aren't you, Steve?”

”I’m trying,” he sighs, turning to Peggy. “I really think you should have stayed in the City. I could be back as soon as you go into labor and-“

”Absolutely, under no circumstances, will you miss the birth of our child because of show.” She raises her eyebrows at him. “Especially one you won’t let me in.” She softens, taking his hand and settling it over her belly where he can feel the soft kicks. “This is a family act, Rogers. Get used to it.”

”Yes, Ma’am.”

~*~

Loop 2,467

She didn’t think about it anymore, just let her body run on instinct. She’d been here before, she’d done these things before. 

With a deep breath, she input the search and waited only a few seconds for it to blink upon her screen. She pulled her glasses off slowly and started to watch…

~*~

“Damnnit, Rogers, run faster!”

Steve pumps his legs, jostling Peggy on his shoulder. “I’m running for two here, Jones!” He calls back as they move through the cavern, the walls shaking and collapsing around them. 

“Care would be appreciated!” Peggey called from over his shoulder where he was carrying her, her arms and legs still tied tight to her sides, a high pitched squeal leaving her throat as Steve narrowly jumped away from a tumbling boulder. 

“Speed might be better!” Jones called, hysteria creeping into his voice, jumping over a crack that appeared in the ground in front of them. 

Steve took the same widening crack, now nearly a full chasm, easily as dirt and pebbles started to fall from the ceiling. 

“Is this standard Hydra?” Jones called, slowing and climbing over a pile of rubble that stood between them and the exit. 

Steve took Indy’s hand, keeping one arm around Peggy and letting his friend boost him up and help him navigate the rubble. “Not really, no,” he replied loudly, never missing a step as the path cleared out in front of them once they were over. “But then again, I’m not that surprised, either.”

”Implosion or explosion?” Peggy asked, looking up at Jones from over Steve’s shoulder as he took the lead, using his nearly photographic memory to wind them back through the shaking catacombs. 

“Could be either,” Jones huffed, trying to keep up, “but I’m betting implosion. Easier to set this low in the ground.”

”Either one is bad,” Steve bit out, moving faster.

Peggy dropped her head, unable to hold on with her hands still tied to her sides. “Bit of an understatement, darling.”

”Are we having a chat?” Indy bit out sarcastically, overtaking Steve again as the dying sunset shone through the small entrance of the cave. “I’d like to get as far away from the bomb as possible, please!”

Jones shimmied out of the small hole, then reached his arms back in, carefully grabbing Peggy around the hips as Steve set her down and wiggled her through the opening. Jones had her in his arms, though a little less gracefully than Steve, and was running as soon as her feet left the ground. 

“Steve!”

”Steve will be fine,” Indy puffed out, breathless as he moved across the empty desert terrain. “He’ll be better than us if he’s close.”

”Won’t be close,” Steve called out, just a step behind, “Let’s move!”

 He reached out, pulling Peggy from Jones’s arms and both men pushed their legs even farther and harder. 

They felt the explosion before they heard it, the ground shaking beneath their feet. Indy and Steve tumbled to the ground, both men wrapping themselves around Peggy as they tumbled, working to keep one another safe. 

They skidded to a halt just in time to turn and look at the small mountain they had just been under crumble in on itself, spewing dirt and sand into the air. When the cloud settled and the ground stopped shaking, when they could blink their eyes open again and when the dry coughing from the dust-laden air stopped, there was only a crater filled with rubble where there had once been a secret Hydra base. 

“Implosion,” Indy muttered, humming. “Told ya.”

Steve sat back, pulling his helmet and gloves off, wiping at his face where stark lines of dirt streaked where his helmet hadn’t covered. “Told ya It’d be bad.”

Indy pulled his hat off his head, hitting it to get the dust dislodged. “Well of course it was going to be bad, Rogers, it was a self-destruct.”

”Hydra doesn’t always-“

”Well of course they always-“

Peggy huffed, lifting both feet and slamming them back down in the dirt, getting the attention of the men as they talked over one another as they let off the adrenaline of the last few hours. “I’d get up and leave you two to your bickering,” she started, wiggling in place as the ropes that tied her together were still laced across her chest and down around her legs, “but I seem to be having some trouble. Care to help?”

She raised her eyebrow at them, waiting as they both stared at her, jaws hanging open. 

“Well?” She asked again, wiggling her hands at her side when they still didn’t move. “Untie me!”

Indy leaned back, smiling. “You know, you're the one who ran off and got captured. Seems it’s in our best interest to keep you from running off again, don’t you think, Steve?”

Peggy huffed, but Steve shrugged, sitting back. “I think slowing her down a little bit isn’t a bad idea.”

”You wouldn’t dare!” Peggy bit out, starting to get truly incensed. 

Steve shrugged as he and Indy stood, wiping the dust off themselves. “I could use to know where you are for a bit, Peg.” He smiled in a way that was usually cheeky and charming, but only served to increase her ire. He reached down, even as she started squirming, and hoisted her over his shoulder again. 

“You put me down and let me out of this right now!” She wiggled, but didn’t fight against his tight grip too much as he started walking back the mile and a half to the jeep in step with Jones. 

“You heard him, Peg,” Indy said, his voice full of smug teasing. “We gotta know where you are.”

Peggy lifted her head, throwing Indy a harsh look before she flopped back down. “Don’t think I won’t forget this,” she muttered. 

“Don’t think I’m gonna forget you scaring the shit outta me,” Steve replied, “by intentionally getting yourself captured.”

”Language!” Indy interjected with a smile. 

“Well, it worked,” Peggy muttered, her fight gone. “Hydra’s lost another base and we have a lead on Schmidt.”

Steve didn’t say anything, but she felt more than heard his grumble. 

After a few quiet minutes, Peggy finally spoke again. “Well, joke’s on you, darling, I’m getting a lovely break back here, with a lovely view, and you’re doing the work for both of us.”

Indy laughed next to them. “If you want to leave her here, Rogers, I won't tell anyone.”

”Nah,” Steve responded, gently tightening his hold on her as the Jeep came into view, “I’ve grown a little attached.”

~*~

Loop 12,356

Hauhet could hardly breathe. She couldn’t remember anything, not really, little foggy memories and ideas of lives before this, of painted nurseries and undercooked hams and missions in snowy communist countries. 

All of those half formed memories seemed much, much more real than her time at the TVA, than whatever illusion of a life she had here. 

With a deep breath, she input the search into the data pad and waited only a few seconds for it to blink upon her screen. She pulled her glasses off slowly and started to watch…

~*~

“Steve! You’ve come back!” 

He takes her hand, holding tightly from the side of the bed. 

“Yeah, Peg, I’m here.”

She could feel the emotion welling up in her chest as she tried to sit up, but he just smiled down at her, leaning forward and helping her sit. Always the gentleman. 

“Easy, Peg,” he whispers, his voice thick with his own emotion. 

“How?” She whispers, reaching up and running her hand over his cheek. She pauses, looking at the dissonance between their skin: his as young as the last time she saw him, and hers, withered and wrinkled with a lifetime lived. 

He lifts her hand from his cheek, holding it in both of his as he sits on the side of her bed, smiling sweetly. “It’s a long story for another day.”

She can’t help but be maudlin, can’t help but say all the things she’s thinking. “I missed you every day, my darling.”

His eyes flutter shut, chin falling to his chest. “I-“

”Don’t apologize,” she whispers, “I came to terms with what you did long ago.” He looks up at her, and this time, his eyes are filled with tears. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t love you, didn’t miss you, every day.”

He swallows, hard, and threads his fingers in with hers. “Didn’t mean to stand you up for our date,” he croaks out, fighting to force a smile. 

Peggy smiles up at him, holding his hand tighter in hers. “You’re here now. you always were just a little late, weren’t you?”

~*~

Loop 300,465

She doesn't think, she just does. Hauhet has learned to trust her intuition in her time with the TVA, but something screams in her that she’s simply remembering now. Something screams to her that this was a skill she had before.

This was something she’d done without thought. 

Agent.

Even the seconds it takes for her to connect the Data pad seem too long. 

She needs to know…

~*~

“Peggy, this is my choice.”

Peggy holds the microphone tight in her hand. She wants to say something, anything, but no words come to her, nothing swells but the feeling of loss, bigger than anything she’s felt in a long time. 

His voice comes through the line, tinny and resigned. “Peggy, I’m gonna need a rain check on that dance.”

”All right,” She takes a deep breath, desperate to hold on to whatever time she has left with him, uncaring of who is still in the room, uncaring of the tears running down her face. “A week next Saturday, at the Stork Club.”

”You got it.” His voice is tight, strained. But not afraid. 

Never afraid. 

Steve has never, for one moment, been afraid of what he’s thought he’s had to do since she’s known him, even when he was small and skinny and jumping on grenades.

”Eight o’clock on the dot,” she continued, trying to take some of his bravery, trying to steal some of his damn assuredness, “don’t you dare be late. Understood?”

”You know I still don’t know how to dance,” he rushes out, his voice starting to shake. She pretends it’s just the shaking of the plane. 

She can’t help but smile, can’t help but think maybe… maybe… if there is a God in this world, he won’t let this good man die on her today. “I’ll show you how,” she rushes out, hoping he can hear how much she needs him, how much she wants him to survive this in her voice. “Just be there.” 

His voice is raising. It’s not much, but she can tell it’s there. Nervousness. “We’ll have the band play something slow.” The ship shakes over the line, the sound of shivering metal something she’s heard before in transmissions just before disaster strikes. “I’d hate to step on your-“

The static, a low rumble in the room, is deafening. 

“Steve?” She pleads across the line. “Steve?”

She’s lost him. 

She can only pray, as the tears fall, that there’s still a chance to find him. 

~*~

Loop 1,475,692

Hauhet sits heavy on the floor of her office.

No, not Hauhet. Peggy Carter. 

Agent Peggy Carter. 

She’d had a life once. 

The memories flood into her, stronger than whatever force is being used to keep her complacent. This day has happened over and over. She sees herself, sitting at that desk, over and over. Hundreds of times. Millions of times. 

More than any sane person could handle, she’s sure, if they could remember. 

But she does remember now. Because she met him in every single branch. Every single universe. Every single timeline. 

Steve Rogers. 

And no matter when or how they met, it felt like home. 

She could feel him, sitting in her heart, like a beacon. She had her own Steve. There was a man with that little boyish lopsided smile and the courage of a lion out there somewhere, waiting for her. 

And she’d been languishing in this pace for millennia, doing the tedious desk work she’d fought so hard to get away from all of her life. 

She hadn’t found her Steve yet, she knew that. None of the branches, none of the stories she had seen so far gave her anything more than a longing. 

She’d feel it when she found him, when she found her timeline and her world. She knew it. 

And as long as this day kept repeating, she’d find him. She’d find their life together. 

They made each other better. Even in the timeliness when they lost one another, even in the timelines when there was only a short period of time left together, they made one another better. 

They were timeless, finding one another again over and over, no matter what the world looked like, no matter when their souls showed up. 

Even if he was gone in her timeline, she wanted to be a place where he was, where he had been and she could find and recover and languish in the memories. 

She was ready to give up this drab, rote existence. 

Saving the universe meant nothing in here. Saving it from out there? With her heels and her gun and the love of her life? 

Well, that was something that had real value, and Peggy was going to stop at nothing to find it. 

Without even thinking she let her hands fly over the wires, connecting her Data pad to the computer. 

She was going to find him, and she was going to get back to him. 

~*~

End A/N: 

While we have our MCU Steggy and What If…? Steggy, I couldn’t HELP but throw in my favorite Steggys in there from my own fic. (Yes, it’s a little *cough*lot*cough* self indulgent) They’re all Extra Scenes that don’t show up in the main fic and they’re inspired by the lyrics to Timeless. In order that they show up in the story:

1- Nobody’s Baby (Two lovers laughin’ on the porch of their first house)

2-The Captain and the Missus (On a Crowded Street in 1944 and you were headed off to fight in the war)

3-What if…? (I would have read your love letters every single night)

4- A Red, White, and Blue Christmas (Which brought me back to the the first time I saw you Time stood still)

5-Interested Parties Series (Indiana Jones Crossover) (Down the block there’s an antique shop)

6- Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Time breaks down your mind and body, don’t you let it touch your soul)

7- Captain America: The First Avenger (Story of a romance Torn Apart by Fate)

[epitheterased-confessions]

ok this isn't really a confession but 😭 I genuinely cannot tell what people find so attractive about rick 😓😓 he's my favorite epithet erased character and probably my favorite of all time, BUT??? HE'S NOT THAT HOT WHAT DO PEOPLE SEE IN HIM

buddy the bar is so low it hits the ground and we've been digging down for years

[rosavulpes]

Yawning , as he pushed back on the frame of his glasses to have it better rest over his nose . He'd softly smile , nodding his head once in thanks to the flight attendant that had come by to ask if he'd needed anything else . Whispering politely in response that he was fine .

" ありがとうございます。元気です。"

While he'd since turned off his overhanging lights as to not disturb any of his nearby fellow passengers as they lay asleep in their seats , it was hard for him to do the same as they did . To let his eyes lay closed for too long was not something he could risk at the current moment . So awake he lay just as he'd been when he'd first boarded .

While there was always a feeling of melancholy that accompanied him when the time had come for him to leave behind one teacher in order to seek out his next . When it had come to leaving behind the mentors he'd found in the western part of China in order to travel elsewhere ... this time around ? He'd left behind his recent former tutors on very uncertain terms .

Which was why during the extent of his travels from the western part of China to the east , he'd swapped his face numerous times to avoid detection . Changing his identity , changing his appearance , changing his voice , all to ensure that he wouldn't be followed by those that might be seeking him out even now . Looking over his shoulders every now and again . Even now , on this commercial airplane flight destined to take him to Japan that had departed from Hong Kong . He remained alert while appearing aloof .

Remaining calm , remaining unfazed , he'd put in extra work on his dialect to ensure that he even sounded more like a rural chinese local than a western traveler . Neither over playing his part or slouching . As far as the authorities knew , and as far as any of his fellow passengers knew ? He nothing more than a rural young man , born far outside the capital of Beijing , traveling to Japan to seek employment , and education as a cheaper alternative to doing so in the mainland to support his elderly parents .

Then ? In a few days ? His identity would change once more , his current persona would disappear in favor of the one that he was planning for now to stick with for as long as he remained in Japan . Keichi Furude . A student moving from the rural Gifu prefecture to study in Tokyo on a yet unclaimed scholarship .

His new documents , new identity , and new face would be waiting for him once he was well outside of the airport .

Staring from his window out towards the distant lights that where drawing closer with every passing minute . Only about an hour remained until they touch down , and as the gentle hum of the plane's turbines rose above the soft silence of the cabin space he wondered if they'd gotten his last letter . It had been some time , quite some time since he'd last written to them . His last later mailed before he'd begun his time training with the League of Assassin's . Or rather , before they'd found him . Seemingly wasting away in a remote prison cell in the country after a brutal fight with the other inmates that morning during breakfast . However , Bruce had been detained not by mistake earlier on . But by his own choice .

While he couldn't relay exactly where he was , and what it was that he was doing at the time of putting pen to paper . What they would know was that he remained alive , a very generalized description of where he was , and a lie of what he was there for . Which was far more than what most of the world knew of Bruce Wayne's current whereabouts . Of course , Bruce had used cyphers , invisible ink , and all other manner of different methods to disguise his true identity/messages to peering eyes but all that meant was that he'd inadvertently created an air of mystery when it came to exchanging messages . A game almost .

With a soft smile , a genuine smile . He wondered if they'd looked forwards to getting his letters as much as he did theirs whenever he was able to receive them . How long did it take for them to figure out which letter was his among the many that their family already received daily ? How long had it taken them to figure out , and decrypt his jumbled word puzzles ? He knew . They'd tell him , as a way to test one another's wits but it'd be nice to hear it from them in person this time around .

He'd first meet Rukia & Byakuya Kuchiki when he was a child many , many years ago . Back when he lived happily with his mother , and father in Gotham City in North America . The Kuchiki Families visits weren't frequent , but their company was always far more enjoyable than those of the Gotham Elite's families . He remembered those days playing tag with them in the outdoor gardens , hide n' seek , reading , and much more . They'd even been one of the many faces that Bruce had seen present during his parent's funeral after they'd been killed . The murder that shook all of Gotham , and beyond . Everywhere the Wayne Family and their influence had touched . Though he certainly hadn't been able to laugh , or smile when seeing Rukia or Byakuya on that day . Still , they'd been , and remained good people . Good friends to him . Of which he had few . He'd learned much later on that that basis for the meetings had been to establish Wayne Enterprises overseas in that part of the world . Products , knowledge , and most importantly their philanthropy practices . It was a partnership that still ran to this day with the Kuchiki Family and their business . Though Bruce had long since cut ties with the corporate happenings of Wayne Enterprises after he'd left Gotham altogether .

Alfred kept him aware of important changes every now and then but ultimately Bruce knew that as far as the overseeing board that now ran Wayne Enterprises was concerned ? Him being out of the country all this time meant that they didn't need to deal with him , he wasn't going to assert control , despite him still having inherited majority stock control .

As time passed , and the tires of the airplane squealed as they touched down on the runway . Slowing down , Bruce would rise once everything had settled . Taking his items out of the overhead carry on luggage bin .

On top of collecting his new identity , documents , and new face once he left the airport he'd stop to collect a few extra things that he had shipped over by freighter a few days earlier on before he'd boarded his flight . While one of these souvenirs had been a bit harder to obtain than the other , he'd always promised them that he'd gift them something that would represent a piece of journey around the world so far .

For Byakuya ? He'd obtained a scimitar , originating from the middle eastern part of the world . Shaped , forged , and sharpened by expert hands . Meticulously made to look , feel , and handle like it dated back to the 18th Century .

For Rukai ? He knew of her love for the Chappy the Rabbit mascot character ever since they were kids . It's face , and likeness appearing on products the world over . Especially the Chappy doll she'd carried with her everywhere she went to which , he'd managed to pick up a special edition version of Chappy the Rabbit that ran for a limited time in Sweden . He's spotted it in passing while he'd briefly been in the country while attending a university there , and knew he'd be remiss to not pick it up for her . So Chappy , as well as some other imported Chappy branded chocolates , candies , and other collectibles would take a part of his luggage as he drove down the highways of Japan . Wanting to make it to Tokyo by dawn .

@rukia-kuchiki-divided

[dryingpanzer]

for your ask game I’d love to see prisoner ! :3 he’s my main and I adore the man

sending love and good days !

-a stranger

“Prisoner”/Luca Balsa

Despite people in the community calling him a rat (I think at least I don’t know), I don’t know if a rodent would fit him that well. I decided to go with a cat instead just cuz he has a very feline aura about him (maybe why Alva was so interested in him)

Prisoner was actually the first decoder I ever played and I think my 3rd unlocked character (behind Mercenary and Gravekeeper). I don’t play him as much anymore but as rescuer whenever I see prisoner hook up to my cypher I want to give them a lil kiss on the forehead for doing such a good job (if over 18, if a minor they’re getting a pat on the back)