#side note: while figuring out the timeline for this I realized there is. a 9 year gap. between Yoon's emancipation and the ball scene

[akhaste]

Lee Yoon - Song of the Bandits Sketchs/ Studies 1920's & 1890's

Bonus: 1920's, but without the 'stache

[aingeal98]

hiii. while you're thinking about Al Ghouls do you have any comic book recommendations for them? I want to know more about Ra's and Talia without the post 9/11 narrative. Or more about the LoA in general.Tha k you!

Absolutely! I know there's a few reading guides out there for Talia that can probably give a better overview with a more filtered and streamlined guide. Such as this one here, which features Talia at her best:

Other than Son of the Demon, when I refer to LexCorp era Talia and her old character, these are usually what I'm referring to. This is who she was right before she got tortured into being evil. For a deeper dive into Talia's history, this reading list is really well put together:

If you're looking for something even longer, with the full history and context of Batman and the al Ghuls, here's pretty much everything I've read for the al Ghuls starting from the beginning. I'm not an expert by any means so I may have missed some relevant story or mixed up the order of a few different single issues, but there's enough here to offer a coherent timeline. If you can't afford to buy the comics, all of these should be available to read for free by typing them into a search engine and adding "read online" at the end.

Also please note that you don't have to read all of these. Some of these particularly in the 70s/80s contain repetitive story beats. Ra's has a scheme to make Batman his son in law, Talia helps him out. Batman opposes it, Talia helps Batman but doesn't fully abandon her father. That's the pattern writers fell into after the initial establishing of Ra's and Talia as characters. Some stories are better than others, and some break the mold entirely or put a fresh spin on it.

This is going to be LONG and I apologize in advance. I like to ramble about things. Tis a key part of this blog.

The 70s, aka the beginning of it all

Note: In all of these the al Ghuls feature in the main storyline, not the side stories such as Robin or Batgirl unless noted otherwise.

-Detective Comics 411: Into the Den of Death Dealers

Bruce and Talia's first meeting. Written by Denny O'Neil, Talia and Ra's creator. Batman fights a bull. It's very charming in the way only this era of Batman can be.

-Batman 232: Daughter of the Demon

Ra's and Bruce's first encounter, featuring Dick getting kidnapped, Bruce fighting a leopard, and Ra's attempting a ridiculously elaborate overprotective dad scheme.

-Batman 235: Swamp Sinister

-Batman 240: Vengeance for a Dead Man

The one where Batman and Ra's dynamic takes a turn for the worse, where Batman realizes that Ra's has a very different set of morals to him and can be ruthlessly evil.

-Batman 242-244

Introduction of the Lazarus Pits. Some racially insensitive moments that are on par for the 70s.

-Batman 257: Hail Emperor Penguin

-Detective Comics 444-445 and 447-448

Ra's framed Bruce for murder long before David Cain stole his idea. I think Cain did it better but this is still fun.

-Black Lightning 2: Merlyn Means Murder

A non Batman related Talia appearance.

-Batman: Where Were You on the Night Batman Was Killed?

4 part story where Batman's rogues thinks he's dead and come together to figure out who did it. Not massively important for the al Ghuls but Ra's being the judge in this trial is so funny to me.

-DC Special Series 15: I Now Pronounce You Batman and Wife!

The one where Ra's gets fed up of Batman refusing his son in law offerings so he just knocks him out and drags Batman to the wedding ceremony. Not my favourite by a long shot but the "marriage" is important for Damian's conception, since in Son of the Demon Batman hilariously enough doesn't want to sleep with Talia out of wedlock until she reminds him that they're technically married if you stretch the law by a whole lot. After that he's all for it.

-Detective Comics 485: The Vengeance Vow + Detective Comics 490: Requiem for a Martyr

Not a huge fan of this issue considering it fridges Kathy Kane and uses a brainwashed Bronze Tiger to do so. It's included a lot in reprints of the al Ghul storylines and does give us a look at the inner workings of the League of Assassins, but I could do without it. Also DC having two master martial art old men called Sensei who look very similar with one being good and the mentor of characters like Richard Dragon and Shiva, while the other is Ra's al Ghuls father and evil, is very confusing. You could tell how much they REALLY loved Kung-Fu based characters in this era of comics.

-The Brave and the Bold 159: The Crystal Armageddon

The 80s, aka seeds of Character Development and Plot!

-Batman 330-335

The start of Dick and Talia's dislike of each other. Also featuring the most terribly racist Fox family plotline I've read. It makes me glad Jace Fox gets to be Batman in the future even if I didn't like that comic either. He deserves to be Robin and Nightwing too as compensation for this storyline.

-Batman Annual Volume 1 Issue 8: The Messiah of the Crimson Sun

I enjoy this story because rather than have Talia working with Ra's and switching sides halfway, she's firmly opposed to her father from the start here. We start to see the beginning of character development compared to the regular pattern of the old comics.

-Detective Comics 526: All My Enemies Against Me!

We get Pre Crisis aka Earth One Jason Todd's origin while also getting Talia and Catwoman helping Bruce, Babs and Dick fight all the other rogues. I really, really love this issue and I can't fully explain why. It just ticks all the boxes for me.

-Batman 400: Resurrection Night!

Another comic I really enjoy, with Talia teaming up with Robin!Jason to help Batman and Catwoman foil Ra's latest scheme.

-Batman: Son of the Demon

Damian's origin. A must read. The tragedy of what could have been and how loved he was by both parents kills me every time.

The 90s aka we're getting darker and edgier now. Also featuring character regression and Bane for some reason.

-Batman: Bride of the Demon

Classic shenanigans but featuring Tim as Robin this time.

-Batman: Birth of the Demon

Ra's al Ghul origin story time! Trigger warning for sexual assault. Definitely not the tone a 70s era Ra's comic would have but not bad in my opinion.

-The Batman Adventures 13 + 17

Set in the Batman The Animated Series universe, it shows this universe's version of Talia and Ra's and is a pretty faithful adaption! Shocking I know.

-Azrael Issues 5-9 + 29-30

Azrael meets the al Ghuls and Ra's considers making Azrael his heir instead. Basically a classic Ra's Talia and Batman story with Azrael there instead of Batman. Not my favourite, it feels like it belongs in the 70s instead of being 90s al Ghuls.

-Batman: Brotherhood of the Bat + League of Batmen

A future elseworld story starting Tallant Wayne, son of Talia and Bruce. Clearly inspired by the baby in Son of the Demon, who would grow up to be Damian in main continuity.

-Batman: Legacy Volume 1 + 2

A sequel to Batman: Contagion, where a deadly virus spread through Gotham and even infected Tim. This time Ra's is in charge of the spread of the second round of the virus, Talia is back under his thumb and seems miserable about it. And also Ra's is considering making Bane his heir and Talia's husband, which probably contributes a fair bit to her misery. Character regression for Talia compared to how much she went against Ra's in the 80s, but one I personally find realistic. Main drawback is that a lot is written by Chuck Dixon and Talia is weirdly sexual at times. An understandable deal breaker for many, but it's the biggest 90s al Ghul story so I felt it important to mention.

-The Batman and Robin Adventures #10

Set in the comic version of the Batman The Animated Series universe, so if you're a fan of that cartoon you'll probably enjoy this.

-Batman Chronicles Volume 1 #8

Talia centred story that sums up her internal conflict between her father and Batman. Gets to the heart of why Ra's, despite his love for her, is not a good parent at all. Would recommend.

-Batman & Spider-Man: New Age Dawning

Crossover goodness for any Spiderman fans out there.

-Batman No Man's Land #0

The Talia cameo here is good imo. It shows layers to her and Bruce's dynamic that we haven't fully seen before. Plus we get to see Helena becoming the Bat of No man's land.

-Batman: The Chalice

One shot that doesn't fit in NML continuity despite being published at the time. I'm adding it anyway because I enjoy how it portrays Ra's and Talia. A nice break from their most toxic era so far (relationship wise).

The early 2000s aka The Brief and Glorious Talia Independence Era

-JLA: Tower of Babel

The tipping point. Ra's goes too far in messing with Batman, and Talia leaves him. It should have been her permanent break from Ra's and his cult, but if you ignore everything from Death and the Maidens onwards and live in denial like me, it still is!

(This comic also had the unfortunate consequence of giving the most insufferable "Batman solos fiction" fans more fodder. But tis a small price to pay for Talia finally freeing herself from Ra's suffocating grip on her life.)

-Batman Chronicles 22

You get good short stories for Shiva, Steph AND Talia in this issue, exploring more of their character without any of the usual entourage around to hog the spotlight

-Detective Comics 750

Talia is so delightfully done with both Ra's and Bruce. She's sick and tired of their shit and doesn't want to be dragged into it any more. If Tower of Babel was her gaining independence from Ra's, this is her gaining it from Bruce.

-Action Comics 772-773

The start of Talia's LexCorp era.

-JLA Secret Files and Origins 3

Flashback story giving more insight into Talia's POV during Tower of Babel.

-President Luthor Secret Files and Origins #1

-Batman Legends of the Dark Knight 142-145

Like the Birds of Prey storyline of this time, these issues make no attempt to stay in continuity with the rest of this era. It's more a generic 90s story than one that fits where the characters are timeline wise at the date it was published. Only reason I'm adding it to the list is because you get Talia shooting the Joker and leaving him for dead. Batman has to dip him in the Lazarus Pit to stop him from bleeding out.

-Superman Volume 2 Issue 170 (cameo)

-Batman: Our World's at War Issue 1

-Superboy Volume 4 #89

-Suicide Squad 2001 #2 (side role)

-Superman: The Man of Steel 120

Talia is trying to take down LexCorp from the inside meanwhile Superman is like "I stopped the evil stuff you were doing!" and she's like "Congrats you destroyed the evidence of LexCorp doing evil stuff in the process." He still doesn't realise she's on his side, which to be fair is part of her whole antihero deal at the minute.

-Adventures of Superman 600

-Superman: The Man of Steel 122-125

Plot starts in 122. Talia appears in 123 onwards.

-Superman Volume 2 Issue 190 + 194 + 198

Batman: Hush Issue 4. (brief appearance) and Issue 9.

Decent Talia characterisation to me, not so decent Lady Shiva appearance. Torn between amusement and disappointment that Talia manages to beat her by hitting her with a chair. (Yes, really.)

-Superman/Batman #6

Batman informs Lex that Talia has bankrupted him and sold the LexCorp building to Bruce Wayne. Sucks to suck, Lex.

After this, there was so much potential. You had a solid basis for Talia as an independent anti-hero, using her connections to team up with villains only to double cross them when the time is right and take them down from the inside. A master at espionage in the making. Instead Death and the Maidens happens. You might as well skip to Robin: Son of Batman and fill in the blanks however your imagination deems fit. It's probably better than what DC came up with.

[skellebonez]

SO, remember that thing you wrote a while back, about Monkey King and Mk time traveling back to the JTTW time period?

Link to said thing: https://skellebonez.tumblr.com/post/647766968590581760/18-for-present-wukong-and-mk-to-accidentally-time

THIS? RIGHT WELL, I HAVE HAD IT OPEN IN MY TABS FOR A REALLY LONG TIME AND WOULD LIKE TO GIVE YOU AN OPENING TO CONTINUE WITH IT IF YOU'D LIKE: PROMPTS 34 and 41

So. Time travel is funky. This is set post-Special, immediately pre-season 2. But has spoilers for events up to S2E7. For reasons. Side bar: sometimes time travel comes with some fun side effects. Fun for the viewer. Less fun for the people experiencing them.

Truth be told, I forgot they were even here./Can you teach me how to do that?

"Won't this cause some kind of... I-I dunno, time paradox?" MK asked in a harsh whisper as they followed the traveling group at the back of the line. "Or is this gonna be some kind of 'you changed one thing and now two timelines exist' kind of deal?"

"I genuinely have no idea," Wukong said with a sigh, digging at the uncomfortable but familiar feeling in his ear and trying to keep his voice down as much as possible. He was honestly surprised that it had taken MK this long to ask this particular question, but then again... they had other things to worry about. "I don't remember this, but that may not even matter. I've around for centuries, Bud, but even I have no idea how thing works for us."

"That is not a comforting sentence."

It had been a little over two days since the mentor and student had found themselves thrown backwards in time a few centuries away from home. And Sun Wukong could tell that MK was starting to get more and more frustrated as time had gone on. To be fair, they had made little progress. And there was... another reason... multiple other reasons. But most importantly, there wasn't exactly a power source they could plug the machine into that would give them enough juice to send them home, at least not unless they chance by a demon with lightning powers that Wukong didn't remember. No, instead they had to wait until they hit a storm.

One that was more than another two days walk away.

The young man did his best to not let it show, however. Most likely because of who they were traveling with.

His younger self lead the group, pointedly not looking back at them and keeping a watchful eye for demons that the elder Wukong knew would not come. He dared not bring this knowledge up, though, not knowing if MK had a point about that paradox. He didn't seem to trust the completely, but there was someone else he trusted.

Behind him was his former Master. The monk Tripitaka, Tang Sanzang himself, on the back of the horse formed dragon Bai Long Ma. Bai Long Ma had said nothing, as they were wont to do, and seemed to mostly ignore the two of them unless they were loud. Mast- Sanzang. He had insisted that the elder Wukong and MK call him Sanzang. Probably to help differentiate who was speaking to him if he could not see the two immortal monkeys, and also because MK kept trying to figure out which title to use for the monk and he took pity on him. Sanzang, after a hour's long explanation and from proof via MK's phone and knowledge of past adventures none should know of (and one very interesting game of staff trading between the two monkeys for a moment where the younger Wukong realized it was indeed the same staff).

Sanzang had not mentioned his crying when they met. Neither had his younger self. Or MK.

Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing took up the rear. Wujing had not said much to the two of them, but he was nice enough. Suspicious of them, but nice. He put more faith in Sanzang and younger Wukong (perhaps he should call him something else in his head) than his companion.

Bajie didn't trust them as far as he could throw them, that was clear from the way he kept glancing back at the duo with daggers in his eyes. He was immediately unhappy with their new travel companions and... Wukong realized with a sad jolt that he actually missed that. At the time he only found Bajie's contrary nature to his own to be frustrating but now... now he hadn't heard that in 500 years and he could see that while it may have been misguided at times (many times) it was born of a sense of self preservation and a want to protest Sanzang.

Even if he contradicted himself at times as well.

"You two doing ok back there, older me and Kid?" Younger Wukong called back suddenly.

"Yup, just. Hanging." MK yelled back, tone as terse and done as it had been for the last day. "Not like I can do anything else." The second bit was muttered under his breathe, most likely in the hopes even his mentor couldn't hear him. He was wrong.

Wukong felt... bad. Because he was the primary source of this rotten mood.

The staff digging into his ear for the first time in centuries was a reminder of that. An agreement between himself and his student to not bring up any undue suspicion and questions that would take time they may not have to get back home. They'd agreed that the group would also call him Kid, since MK wasn't as fond of the others calling him Bud for some reason, and the name was just... a smidgen to close to Monkey King to not raise similar questions. It was also a reminder that Wukong had let slip in a follow up conversation, away from prying ears, about why this may or may not be really necessary that he had planned to leave the next day in present time.

MK hadn't been happy since. Not with him at least.

"Bajie, remember to ask them how they are doing from time to time. Please?" Sanzang insisted in front of them.

"Truth be told, I forgot they were even here," Bajie lied.

~

Bajie glowered down at Wukong, throwing the fruit and wrapped rice packages in his general direction and not caring whether he caught it or not. There was a soft and disappointed cry of his name from Sanzang from the other side of the camp.

"Master and the stupid Monkey may trust you," he snorted, ignoring the call and looking between Wukong and MK. "But I don't. If you even so much as set one little toe out of like I will re-"

"Rend our souls asunder with your mighty 9 Toothed Rake, yeah," MK sighed as he used some of the water from his cup to wash the berries thrown at him. "You're Zhu Ganglie, Zhu Bajie, Tiānpéng Yuánshuài, commander-in-chief of 80,000 Heavenly Navy Soldiers. You will kick our asses. We know."

For a whole second Zhu Bajie looked genuinely surprised and... kind of impressed.

Then he scoffed again and made his way back to the group of five and watched them from the edges of his vision with less suspicion and more curiosity than before.

"Mei was right when she said he was kind of like Pigsy," MK noted, popping a berry into his mouth.

"When was that?" Wukong asked, doing much the same.

His student froze, looking down at his hands for a moment as if trying to remember something. "... not important. Let's just eat and get some rest, like Sanzang told us to."

It didn't take a Great Sage to realize something was wrong.

Wukong said nothing.

~

"Kid, we told you to stay back with Master!" Wujing shouted as MK peaked his head around the rock he and the monk were taking shelter behind.

"I know!" MK snapped, growling as he ducked back down and presumably curled in on himself. "ARGH I feel useless!"

Wukong winced at his tone, feeling bad. MK wasn't useless, to be fair, but without his staff and no backup weapons he was fighting up a creek without a paddle as it were.

"You're not useless, and you're protecting Tripitaka!" He shouted, letting out a yelp as he narrowly avoided a hit from a demon that should not even be here. Or, some kind of time anomaly mockery of a large demon. An enormous smoke or shadow creature that was far too familiar for his own liking. Not the same, something possibly cobbled together from time itself.

"Wow, uh, future me you're not doing so hot!" Younger Wukong said with a raise of his eyebrow as he blocked a strike with much more ease. "Aren't I supposed to get better with age? Like a handsome fine wine?"

"I'm a bit RUSTY ok!?" He snapped, slicing off one of the shadow creature's cloth tassels to watch it flicker away. "Haven't been many demons to fight!"

He heard a scoff from behind the rock before he felt the giant fist punch him into it. And through it. A Wukong sized hole between student and old master. He realized too late that he had lost his grip on his staff as it flew into the air above them.

"Alright, that's enough!"MK shouted, and before Wukong could even move to stop him the Monkie Kid had jumped into the rock and reached up.

"KID DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH!?" Bajie shouted in horror as he made to rush back and tackle him out of the way. He hadn't moved fast enough either.

None of them had, before MK caught the staff as if it was as light as a feather and twirled it around himself before extending it and launching himself at the shadow creature with a scream of rage and frustration and landing what would have been the killing blow had it not clearly been something not living in the first place.

It dissipated much as the piece cut off before it did, leaving MK to... give a confused yelp and fall into a heap on the ground. The staff fell to his side as he clutched his head and yelled in pain from a source Wukong could not see.

"Kid!" Wukong screamed, moving faster than he had during the entire fight to his student's side. "Kid, shit, MK! What happened?"

"MK?" Sanzang and his younger self asked softly in tandem as Wujing and Bajie watched on, all moving closer. But not too close, giving the two room to move.

MK didn't answer. He sat up, holding his head in his hands as he breathed deeply and tried to keep from screaming again before everything just... stopped.

His sat on his knees, hand hanging limply at his sides as his true sight shone in his eyes and he looked on forward blankly.

"What's... who is he?" Younger Wukong asked slowly as he turned to his older self. "What is he?"

"The Hero and the Warrior were like the Sun and the Moon..." MK muttered softly all of a sudden, just loud enough for the group surrounding him. His voice was slurred, almost like he was in a trance. "Their light a protective glow shining upon the world..."

"MK, where did you-" Wukong tried to ask instead of answering his younger self as he slowly stepped forward, cautiously, but MK continued on as if he had not heard him at all.

"Together there was nothing that could stop the two of them. Either in the Celestial Realms... or on Earth. As time went on, the Hero attained power beyond comprehension. As the Hero's light grew so too did his shadow and soon the Warrior was cast in that shadow. In the darkness, the Warrior was forgotten by the Hero..."

MK immediately slumped forward as he fell unconscious.

"MK!"

~

"His name is MK... and he's the Monkie Kid... My successor," Wukong finished as he laid a fresh cold wet cloth over his student's forehead. After he had collapsed it became obvious something was seriously wrong with MK, high fever burning him up quickly. They were only just close enough to a town for him to grab him and the staff and rush off with barely a shouted back explanation of "find us at the inn" to the rest of their group. "We thought that... keeping that a secret might prevent any kind of... weird time travel... stuff."

Wukong sighed. His explanation was weak even to his own ears. Excuses. Ways to make things easier for him.

He felt worse than he had just the day before.

His student laid unconscious still, fever burning even after the medicine from the town doctor had been given to him with water carefully. The only thing Wukong could think of was the staff. MK wasn't invincible like he was, maybe contact with it had caused a reaction from the time travel that couldn't affect the immortal.

"Why would you need a successor, Wukong?" Sanzang asked after they sat in silence for a moment.

Bajie handed Wukong the mortar and pestle he had been working with to prepare more medicine, something to add to tea when MK woke up. The pig demon had not questioned him once since they arrived, only grabbed what Wukong was trying to mix poorly himself and listened.

Bai Long Ma had changed into a human form, one he had rarely seen, and sat beside Wujing. They both also listened.

His younger self looked at MK in a mix of wonder and confusion and horror and Wukong could not blame him. The idea of a successor... he must have known himself what that meant even if no one else did.

"I hope I don't have to tell you," he said softly. He didn't look away from MK, even as Sanzang laid a comforting hand on his back. "And I don't want to risk what telling you might do..."

No one questioned him after that.

When Bajie prepared the next bowl of medicine for MK, Wukong took a chance he never had with the demon he once considered like his brother.

"Can you teach me how to do that? Properly?"

Bajie did.

~

"Monkey King?" Came the hoarse rasp of MK's voice ringing through the room, and Wukong shot up from where he was watching the stars in an instant.

"I'm here, MK," He said softly, still soft, not wanting to hurt his student in case hie head ached. "How do you feel?"

"Dead, but only from the neck up," MK groaned out, and Wukong let out a relieved sigh. He wasn't sick enough to not joke around at least. "Where are we?"

"The town we need to be in," Wukong answered, quickly working on adding the medicine into some now (sadly) cold tea. He had hoped MK would wake much sooner. "Storm is tonight... you've been asleep for a whole day. Hopefully getting you home with this medicine in you will make you feel better, you uh... you weren't doing so great before-"

"What happened to Macaque?" MK asked suddenly, looking for all the world like he had no idea why he would even ask that question to begin with. "Not the battle your younger you had. Before that. In the story. Sun and Moon. Please, I... I want to know. Just... just tell me something, for once."

Wukong froze, fur bristling and stiff and this was not the conversation he wanted to have with his student right now. This is not the conversation he should be able to physically have with his student right now because MK should have no way of knowing anything like this at all. But he had. He'd recited the story he'd heard before word for word from... Macaque.

This was not the time for easy outs. Not anymore.

"I've made a lot of mistake, MK," He started, lifting his student's head onto his lap to help him sit up for the drink. "And a lot of them are ones I didn't think you would have to know about. But Macaque... it's complicated, I know that now. I didn't back then."

MK sipped the tea but said nothing, only made a face at the taste of the medicine.

"We were friends, once. Back on Mount Huaguo before I went to the Celestial Realm, he became immortal in... other ways to my own. I was trapped for 500 years under a mountain without him, no one came to see me so... I guess he was never able to find me. Or he waited thinking I would eventually come back," Wukong tried not to think about how that meant he could have had trust in his friend and not for other reasons he had assumed for so long. "You know the story of the White Bone Spirit from our journey? How Bajie got me banished?"

Wukong couldn't help but chuckle. Oh, he'd been so mad at Bajie for so long for that. He still was, in many ways. But given what happened to him later on in the journey Wukong couldn't hold a grudge.

"Yeah you-" MK coughed a little, probably from not talking for a whole day and a sore throat. "You went back to Mount Huaguo."

"And to Macaque," Wukong continued. "For the first time in 500 years."

"I bet he was angry."

"No..." Wukong disagreed, shaking his head and thinking back. "No, he... wasn't. Not at first. He was ecstatic I came back. The Hero and Warrior of Mount Huaguo back together again, just like old times. But it wasn't like old times. I was already different, I knew how I treated others including the monkeys on my mountain hadn't been the best. And when Bajie came to bring me back... I couldn't help but wanting to leave back to the journey. Part of it was to get the fillet off, but part of it was because... I realized I cared for the others. I wanted to see the journey through with them."

"Macaque thought you were abandoning him," MK said after a moment, eyes widening. "That's why he took on your identity. He wanted... revenge? For you to have no reason to leave again?"

"I think he just wanted what we used to have," Wukong said with a frown. "I've been running from him for so long... over another 500 years. I've made so many mistakes in my life MK, but I think not trying to get him to come with us or trying to properly explain what I was doing... may have been the worst."

"... The warrior was never forgotten by the Hero after all," MK said softly before drifting back to sleep.

"No," Wukong agreed, though he knew he was not heard. "No, the Hero never forgot. The Hero never will, not completely. Even if it hurts."

~

The storm came on schedule. The machine was charged.

Over the day they came back their memories of the trip back in time faded into a distant thought, one that both mentor and student soon forgot to fear the loss of.

By the next day they had forgotten. Time had fixed itself.

But not completely.

The Hero never forgot completely, after all. There was something telling him in the back of his mind to check more on his student. He remembered a hand on his back that should not have been there. He knew how to mix something he never had before.

Neither did the Warrior, uninvolved in this adventure as he may be. He had plans.

And the one between them, with no title to himself, didn't completely forget either. He recalled feeling warm and safe. His head was on someone's lap. There were berries and someone not unlike one of his father figures.

The memories of what happened lingered, quiet, uncalled but emotions still there.

A short time later the one between felt that a play he went to was strangely familiar to him and needed to rush out before his head began to ache in memories he didn't recall.

"So um... what happened to him? The Warrior?"

The answer was somewhere in the back of his mind. If only he could remember.

[can-of-pringles]

Song Analysis - Iriel's Playlist

Note: some of these songs don’t perfectly fit timeline-wise. As the order of them could be a bit off. Also, some have full lyrics while others just have a brief description. Also, you can only have up to 10 Spotify widgets so I’m trying to save them for specific songs.

Human - Orla Gartland

(This song isn’t playable on Spotify anymore but I can’t bring myself to take it off the playlist)

This song is from Iriel’s POV. It’s about her feeling envy of humans and how much freedom they have.

This one is about Iriel and Arith. It’s not from their POVs. It’s more I guess ours (or mine at least)

About Iriel and how she usually has a strict routine to follow, until she met Arith. She falls in love and doesn’t know how to deal.

Daddy's little girl started growing up (Up, up, up, up)

She left the suburbs in the summer 'cause she fell in love (Love, love, love)

Temperature's 101, uh, on the 405

Right around 6:15 and she's gotta be back by 9

Honey's just 22 and she doesn't know what to do

So I tell her "don't cry, can't worry 'bout time"

You can't worry 'bout time

And you can hit my line like 24/7, 24/7, 24/7

I'll be there to listen anytime

I'll be there to listen anytime

Arith telling Iriel not to fret too much about it and that he’ll be here to comfort her.

Arith’s part

Mama's baby boy started blowin' up (Up, up, up, up)

Left his hometown, didn't slow down 'cause he never fell far enough

Headed out on PCH, mm (Oh, yeah)

Doing 58, (Oh, yeah) doesn't want to be too late (Alright)

So he's switching lanes

But he's just 25 (Hey!)

And he got his money, right?

So I told him "don't rush, just give it some time" (Ohh)

Just give it some time (Ooo)

You can hit my line like 24/7, 24/7, 24/7

I'll be there to listen anytime

I know what it means to ya

Any time, all day, every week, for ya

I'll be there to listen and believe in ya

It's the same thing that I really need from ya

Time, we only get so much time

I think this particular lyric sticks with me so much because they really only did get so much time. It’s sad I know.

And you can hit my line like 24/7 (All day), 24/7 (All night), 24/7

I'll be there to listen anytime

24/7, 24/7, 24/7

I'll be there to listen anytime

I'll be there to listen any-

Sable On Blond - Stevie Nicks

From Iriel’s POV about Arith.

Only Angel - Harry Styles

This one is kinda just Iriel vibes imo.

Iriel’s POV. About how she’s finally realizing that Heaven is corrupt. (And that Arith is helping her realize this)

You're waking me up

I hope I land on two feet

Clueless up until today

Writing off anyone that tells me anything

Stubborn locks of gold

Hiding my face inside of my head

She does have blond hair.

Running my mouth but not telling ya how I feel

How I feel

How when she has to report something to Heaven but doesn’t say what she wants to say.

Until now, I've kept this to myself

Been sleeping right through it all

It feels good to finally figure out

I needed this all along

You're waking me up

Oh, everything feels different

You're waking me up

Oh, everything is solid gold

You're waking me up

I never saw the bright side

Not up until today

I always saw the darkness in everything

Bit of an exaggeration but it could be tiring for her to constantly do the same stuff for Heaven for what she thought would go on for eternity.

Stubborn locks of gold

Hiding my face inside of my head

Running my mouth but not telling ya how I feel

How I feel

Until now, I've kept this to myself

Been sleeping right through it all

You're waking me up

Oh, everything feels different

You're waking me up

Oh, everything is solid gold

You're waking me up

Oh, everything feels different

You're waking me up

Oh, you're waking me up

Everything I see melts with my eyes

Every thought I have glows with the light

You're waking me up

Oh, everything feels different

You're waking me up

Oh, everything is solid gold

You're waking me up

Oh, everything feels different

You're waking me up

Oh, you're waking me up

Iriel’s POV. About how she thought she belonged in Heaven but realized she was better without them. It still hurt to find out though.

Was it real?

Or was it my imagination that got hung up on a search for a thrill?

Or something to feel

If I'm in the way, tell me to move

But can we have a conversation where we're making it about what's true?

Let me tell the truth to you

I thought I heard the welcome music playing

I thought I heard a voice say I belong

I didn't know it was so complicated

To read the signs that told me you were home

Arith being her home symbolically sort of.

I thought I saw the lights on

I thought I saw the lights on

Ain't it strange

That after everything we talked about I'm feeling like it's alrеady changed?

Ain't it strange?

She and Arith discuss the hard truth(s) about Heaven.

I'm searching for signs, looking for cluеs

I could have sworn that door was open, now there's not even a window to use

I'm a little confused by you

At first, she is a little confused by Arith. Mainly because he hates Heaven and Hell, so where did that leave him? She didn’t realize that she could be independent of her side.

I thought I heard the welcome music playing

I thought I heard a voice say I belong

I didn't know it was so complicated

To read the signs that told me you were home

I thought I saw the lights on

I thought I saw the lights on

I thought I saw the lights on

I thought I saw the lights on, the lights on

So tell me again, tell me again, tell me again

Is it me that you're afraid of?

Tell me again, tell me again, tell me again

Or is it something we keep running from?

'Cause love is simple when the battle's always left undone

I need what I want

I thought I heard the welcome music playing

I thought I heard a voice say I belong

I didn't know it was so complicated

To read the signs that told me you were home

I thought I saw the lights on

I thought I saw the lights on

I thought I heard the welcome music playing

I thought I heard a voice say I belong

I didn't know it was so complicated

To read the signs that told me you were home

I thought I saw the lights on

I thought I saw the lights on

I thought I saw the lights on

I thought I saw the lights on, the lights on

Whoo!

The Family Jewels - MARINA

Iriel’s POV about Heaven. It’s a little bit like a toxic family (to her at least)

Morningside - Saint Blonde

This one is more general Iriel vibes.

Falling For U - Peachy!

This is from Iriel’s POV. About her crush on Arith but being scared of what would happen if she told him how she felt. So she keeps it to herself at least in the beginning.

Iriel’s POV. Kinda similar to the one above.

I want you

I hold one card

That I can't use

But I want you

You're coming back

And it's the end of the world

We're starting over

And I love you, darling

And I am done, dear

The end of the world part is more about how what happens to them eventually.

You're in the house

And I am here in the car

I just need a quiet place

Where I can scream

How I love you

I found you

I found the door

But when I stepped through

There was no floor

You're coming back

And it's the end of the world

We're starting over

And I love you, darling

And I am done, dear

You're in the house

And I am here in the car

I just need a quiet place

Where I can scream

How I love you

I want you

I want you

Holy Ghost - BORNS

From Arith’s POV actually. About Iriel.

Undisclosed Desires - Muse

This one has similar vibes to the above song but opposite. It’s from Iriel’s POV. About Arith.

This Side of Paradise - Coyote Theory

About Arith and Iriel.

Both Iriel and Arith’s POV

Iriel’s part

Stayed up all night long

Trying to get it right

Fear I won't belong

Till I go outside

On the water

Staring inside of the sun

Wanted to pull me closer (Closer)

On the water

Staring inside

Can I go for a ride to the glow?

When I’m with you

I'm closer to the sun

I pack my bags and go

Like I'm on the run

When I’m with you

I'm closer to the sun

I wanna get, get, get away

I wanna get, get, get away

I wanna get, get, get away (I wanna get, get, get away)

Arith’s part

Stayed up all night long

Staring in my eyes

Feel I don't belong

Till I'm in the light

On the water

Staring inside of the sun

Wanted to pull me closer (Closer)

On the water

Staring inside

Can I go for a ride to the glow?

When I'm with you

I'm closer to the sun

I pack my bags and go

Like I'm on the run

When I'm with you

I’m closer to the sun

I wanna get, get, get away (Get away, get away)

I wanna get, get, get away (I wanna get, get, get away)

I wanna get, get, get away (I wanna get, get, get away)

When I’m with you

I'm closer to the sun

I pack my bags and go

Like I’m on the run

When I'm with you

I'm closer to the sun

I wanna get, get, get away

Get away

When I'm with you

I’m closer to the sun

I pack my bags and go

Like I'm on the run

When I'm with you

I'm closer to the sun

I wanna get, get, get away

I wanna get, get, get away (I wanna get, get, get away)

I wanna get, get, get away

(Closer to the sun)

I wanna get, get, get away

Shadows - Sabrina Carpenter

Iriel’s POV. About Arith. And how she genuinely loves him despite his past and flaws.

Army of One - Coldplay

Iriel’s POV. Arith will be there to protect her, but this is a reminder she’ll be his protector as well.

Iriel’s POV.

I steal a few breaths from the world for a minute

And then I'll be nothing forever

And all of my memories

And all of the things I have seen will be gone

With my eyes, with my body, with me

Iriel originally believed that she’ll just be existing with basically no purpose forever.

But me and my husband

We are doing better

It's always been just him and me

Together

So I bet all I have on that

Furrowed brow

And at least in this lifetime

We're sticking together

Me and my husband

We're sticking together

Until she realized there’s more she can do, to be happier and live life fuller. Especially with Arith by her side.

And I'm the idiot with the painted face

In the corner, taking up space

Iriel being in Heaven and being ignored or having to put on an act if someone does interact with her in HQ.

But when he walks in, I am loved, I am loved

When she’s done having to be at HQ, immediately goes home to Arith and feels happier.

Me and my husband

We are doing better

It's always been just him and me

Together

So I bet all I have on that

Furrowed brow

And at least in this lifetime

We're sticking together

Me and my husband

We're sticking together

Me and my husband

We are doing better

Iriel’s POV. I feel like this one has a lot of different topics so to speak?

Tonight I think I might explode, yeah

Nothing's right, nothing's right

Comfort me until the sun arrives

You can't go ratting me out this time

You can't go ratting me out this time, no

You can't go ratting me out this time

You can't go ratting me out this time, no

About Heaven trying to expose what Iriel’s doing but how she’s at the point where she doesn’t care anymore.

Carry me, are you strong enough

To make me feel complete

Like there's church in my heart

Carry me, are you strong enough

To make me numb and free

Like there's nothing to fear in the dark

She worries sometimes that she might “be too much” for Arith. (Though of course this is an irrational thought)

I've been filling up a ditch

With anything that I can fit

Comfort me and get me through the night

You can't go ratting me out this time

You can't go ratting me out this time, no

You can't go ratting me out this time

You can't go ratting me out this time, no

Carry me, are you strong enough

To make me feel complete

Like there's church in my heart

Carry me, are you strong enough

To make me numb and free

Like there's nothing to fear in the dark

Sometimes it takes ahold

Sometimes it takes a toll on me

(There's no one there, in the night)

You can't go ratting me out, not this time

Carry me, are you strong enough

To make me feel complete

Like there's church in my heart

Carry me, are you strong enough

To make me numb and free

Like there's nothing to fear in the dark

From Arith’s POV. Kinda about their relationship. This one is more of a general fun vibe.

Honey, this club here is stuck up

Dinner and diatribes

I knew well from our first hookup

The look of mischief in your eyes

Your friends are a fate that befell me

They do have mutual friends (Crowley and Aziraphale)

Hell is the talking type

I'd suffer Hell if you’d tell me

What you'd do to me tonight

Tell me

Tell me

Tell me, ah

That's the kind of love

I’ve been dreaming of

That's the kind of love

I've been dreaming of

Honey, I laugh when it sinks in

A pillar I am, upright

Scarcely can speak for my thinking

What you'd do to me tonight

Now that the evening is slowing

Now that the end's in sight

Honey, it's easier knowing what you'd do to me tonight

Tell me

Tell me

Tell your man

That's the kind of love

I’ve been dreaming of

That’s the kind of love

I've been dreaming of

(That’s the kind of love

That's the kind of love

That's the kind of love

That's the kind of love)

Oh, let there be hotel complaints and grievances raised

And that kind of love

The grievances part is definitely true when the sides find out about them.

(That’s the kind of love

That's the kind of love

That's the kind of love

That's the kind of love)

Oh, let there be damage ensued and tabloid news

And that kind of love

(That's the kind of love

That's the kind of love

That's the kind of love

That's the kind of love)

That's the kind of love

I've been dreaming of

Ah, oh-oh-oh, ah

That's the kind of love

I've been dreaming of

And that's the kind of love

I've been dreaming of

Titanium - Madilyn Bailey

Iriel’s POV. About how strong she is tbh.

Iriel’s POV. About different things.

A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes

I screamed aloud, as it tore through them

And now it's left me blind

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

You left me in the dark

About how Heaven lied to her.

No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight

She’s in the middle of everything.

In the shadow of your heart

And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat

I tried to find the sound

But then it stopped, and I was in the darkness

So darkness I became

She didn’t really become darkness but it’s more how the other angels viewed her once she was in her relationship with Arith. Iriel didn’t mind this perception of herself too much, it slightly gave her pride. Because she was rebelling.

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

You left me in the dark

No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight

In the shadow of your heart

I took the stars from our eyes, and then I made a map

And knew that somehow I could find my way back

Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too

So I stayed in the darkness with you

Iriel decides to stay with Arith.

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

You left me in the dark

No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight

In the shadow of your heart

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

You left me in the dark

No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight

In the shadow of your heart

Holding on Where I Am Able - The Oh Hellos

This one is instrumental! But I just thought the vibes reminded me of Iriel.

From Arith’s POV. It’s kinda an overview of their relationship and what happened to them. More so the vibes. Like if Arith could rewatch his and Iriel’s lives with an outside perspective (knowing what happens to them)

I, I gazed

Upon the Earth

Observed

Every faulted line

And time

She moved so slow it taxed my feeble

Mind

And I waited impatient for something to come around

Did you know I was there?

Did you know what I needed?

How, how long?

How, how long

Did I stand in the garden with my breath against the leaves

As the trees bowed down and weeds would gather 'round my legs up to my knees

How, how long?

How long?

How long?

I, I gazed

Into your eyes

The day

You promised you could lie forever

This way

Your hand in mine and the stars singing our

Names

And I waited impatient for something to come around

Did you know what it meant?

Did you know we were fading?

How, how long?

How their relationship (and them) was/were killed.

How, how long

Did we lie in the soil with our arms and legs tangled up

Like the weeds and the branches of the trees that bound our souls and necks to the ground below?

How, how long?

How long?

How long?

Didn’t mean to take you down

Didn't mean to take you down

I thought you'd wanna stay

I thought we would be fine whatever came our way

Arith feels guilty and blames himself partially for what happened to them. (Iriel of course did want and choose to stay while they were alive) but Arith thinks so much pain could’ve been prevented. It’s difficult.

Didn’t know my world was dark

Didn't know my world was dark

Until you came

And you wilted with the lack of sun

Falling prey

To the weight

And disarray

Now you know how it felt

Now you know why I needed it

How wrong

How wrong

You assumed that I could make you feel it was worth it

But all I ever did was drag you down and bring you in and out through hell again

My goddess of light

And spring and all things good

How wrong

How long

Before you break down and fly away with your spirit

And mine in tow and leave me below with all the fates and shades and the river passing through?

But I could never blame you

No, I never could blame you

He never blames her for anything that happened to them, he always blames himself. 😢

[krsnbgirl]

Fly High! || Masterlist || Kageyama x Fem!Reader Series

Summary: Attending Karasuno High School was your way of starting over and moving on from your injury in middle school. What you didn’t expect was to be pulled back into the world that you tried so hard to stay away from. Along the journey of recovery, you didn’t think you would grow close to Karasuno’s Boys Volleyball Team. Also falling in love with a certain setter was definitely something you didn’t expect at all. There’s one thing in common that you two share and that it’s wanting to fly as high as you can.

Pairing: Kageyama Tobio x Fem!Reader

Genre: Rom-Com, Slice of Life, Sports, Slow Burn

Warnings: Slight swearing, Anxious characteristics, Smoking (Ukai), Timeline based off of the anime (starting from season 2)

Author’s Note: I realized that I haven’t made a masterlist for this story, so here it is! Hopefully this can help with reading all of the parts that have been or are going to be posted! Taglist is still open if any of you would like to be a part of it! Also crossed posted on AO3! xoxo, Ren  ❤

TAGLIST OPEN

Part 1

Word Count: ~3.4k Synopsis: The school buzzes with curiosity after news of the boys volleyball team got close to beating Aoba Johsai at the Inter-HIgh Prelims. You check in with your best friend Nishinoya and Shimizu calls you to the gym for some help. It’s been a while since you’ve been inside a gym and it brings back so many forgotten memories and feelings you’ve cast aside after your accident.

Part 2

Word Count: ~3.1k Synopsis:  Still reeling over what had happened the week before, you look back at how your daily life at Karasuno immediately changed for the better. Nishinoya also comes to ask you for a favor that helps you grow closer to the weird quick duo after school. The boys also learn more about your past from middle school.

Part 3

Word Count: ~2.9k Synopsis:  The volleyball club is very keen on making you join and you find yourself slowly giving in, despite having doubts about yourself. You also find yourself naturally gravitating towards Kageyama without realizing it after one of their practices. Kageyama also finds himself questioning the effects you have on him. 

Part 4

Word Count: ~3.8k Synopsis:  With the deadline for your response to being Karasuno's coach approaching, it's all that you can think about. Kageyama bumps into you and shares his thoughts about your situation. It doesn't go as smoothly as either as you hoped but in the end, Kageyama learns that maybe he'd found someone that understands him.

Part 5 

Word Count: ~3.1k Synopsis:  Hinata and Kageyama come over for a tutoring session since exams are right around the corner. Finally, they have a chance to have a little peek of your personal life at home after getting to know you more through your lunch time tutoring sessions. Kageyama also touches base with you about your decision which has finally come to an answer.

Part 5.5 || Side Chapter

Word Count: ~1.4k Synopsis:  You head to Ukai’s store to have a conversation. He learns about some of your past and what your future goals were before coming to Karasuno. You both also come up with some new ideas that can help during practice.

Part 6 

Word Count: ~3.4k Synopsis:  Exams at Karasuno are finally finished. While you talk about exam results with Hinata and Kageyama, he notices something you’ve recently found out and the two of you grow a little closer now that he’s found out your little secret. Then fast forward to the training camp, you reunite with old friends and for old time’s sake, play a small game with them.

Part 7 

Word Count: ~2.5k Synopsis:  The first day of training camp has come to an end and the night is still young. After thinking about the boys’ current status at the camp, you spend some times with the rest of the managers. The topic of boys come up and you can’t help but spill your secret to them. As the night goes on, you end up at the gym and try to get in some personal training in when Kageyama shows up. You finally get to have a moment with the one person who has recently been taking up all of your thoughts.

Part 8 

Word Count: ~3.5k Synopsis:  Tensions are high between Hinata and Kageyama during their time in Tokyo. You can’t help but be on the sidelines and only step in when it’s necessary. Kuroo checks in with you and tries to help you relax during one of their breaks. Also, you show Kageyama that you’re going to be there for him whenever things get tough and he appreciates you for being by his side.

Part 9

Word Count: ~4.8k Synopsis:  You finally figure out what’s been missing for the crazy duo’s quick and it’s all thanks to Ukai dragging you along to meet his grandfather. The rest of the boys are also doing their best to improve with the new practice regimen that you put together and you mainly helped Kageyama with his sets for further accuracy. Practice isn’t the only time you’re with Kageyama, but you’ve also become his personal tutor when it comes to school work. As time passed, you managed to grow closer to the socially awkward setter and the two of you begin to realize that it could be something more.

Part 10 

Word Count: ~5.1k Synopsis: The team has a field day when they see you come in to practice late. Their teasing is relentless and it sticks with you throughout the whole day. You can’t help but think about the situation you’re in with Tobio and an old friend helps you find clarity. Then when Tokyo Camp is finally in session, you end up over pushing yourself and Shimizu tells you to rest for the first half of the day. While you’re resting the boys find out what happened to you and they need to figure out who’s going to check up on you before their practice matches begin.

Part 11 

Word Count: ~2.9k Synopsis: You wake up to find Kageyama delivering the food that the rest of the managers reserved for you. While eating, you get to see the rare side of soft Kageyama and the small time frame you have with each other, it shows that both of your walls are slowly coming down. Then after having a late start to the day, the boys show how much they’ve missed you and as the day goes on, some priceless moments are finally captured through your infamous Polaroid.

Part 12 

Word Count: ~3.5k Synopsis: The boys have been working as hard as ever during the training camp and Kuroo gives you some updates on what happened during free practice the night before. Then later that day, Nishinoya checks in on you during one of their breaks and a bet is made between the two of you. And as the day comes to a close, as usual, you’re practicing with Kageyama and both of you lose track of time. This time, you’ve accidentally pushed yourself past your limits and your injury acts up again.

Part 13

Word Count: ~3k Synopsis: The girls recap what happened the night before and Kuroo decides to have a talk with Kageyama when he and Bokuto visits your nightly practice with Kageyama.

Part 14 

Word Count: ~4.6k Synopsis: It’s the final day of Karasuno’s training camp in Tokyo and the boys find out about the barbecue that will happen once they are all finished. Sugawara offers Kageyama some help before their last practice game and you finally get to see the quick that you’ve been dying to see in person. Then once the barbecue is in full swing, you catch up with your childhood friends and Kageyama finally asks you a question.

Part 15 

Word Count: ~3.7k Synopsis:  You finally have lunch with Kuroo and Bokuto where you catch them up with the night before. They comment throughout your story and as they walk you to Homura’s apartment to catch up with your girls, Daichi calls you out of nowhere. The call leads you to the girls’ gym at Karasuno after the weekend ends and a new opportunity awaits.

Part 15.5 || Side Chapter

Word Count: ~1.7k Synopsis:  You get your hair dyed while hanging out with Rui, Homura, and Nishinoya. In the midst of hanging out, you get caught texting Kageyama and your friends do what they always do: instigate and get to know the boy you’ve been crushing on.

Part 16

Word Count: ~4.9k Synopsis:  It’s finally the day for your date with Kageyama and you can’t help but feel so nervous. He surprises you by taking you to your favorite place and the day is filled with constant blushing while spending time with your crush.

Part 17

Word Count: ~5.3k Synopsis:  Qualifiers for the Miyagi Prefecture has finally arrived. Being back at a competition venue made you nostalgic and you end up making another bet with Nishinoya. In order to prepare for the long day ahead, you grab some water for the team and someone approaches you.

Part 18

Word Count: ~5.3k Synopsis:  With school back in session, your schedule with the girl’s volleyball team finally collides with your time as the boys’ manager. It’s something you’ve put off for a while and finally have to address with the team.

Part 19

Word Count: ~4.2k Synopsis:  During the two months that the boys have before the Spring Nationals, Kageyama does recon and your schedule starts to look more hectic. Then during one of your trips to Tokyo for another training camp, Bokuto decides to have his talk with Kageyama and it makes him realize some things about himself.

Part 20

Word Count: ~4.1k Synopsis:  Spring Nationals/Qualifiers has finally arrived and the boys are ready for their first match against Johzenji. As you all make your way towards the gym, Kageyama and Hinata end up bumping into Terushima. Then once their match starts, Kageyama ends up getting injured and there’s an unexpected turn of events when you take him to the nurse’s office.

Part 21 

Word Count: ~3.9k Synopsis:  The girls try to get out what happened between you and Kageyama and the boys win against Johzenji. Now that it’s the second day of matches after successfully beating Wakutani, Karasuno gets ready to go against Aoba Johsai. And knowing what had happened before, you prepared a small surprise in hopes to boost the boys’ morale for their upcoming battle.

Part 22

Word Count: ~4.4k Synopsis:  The long-awaited battle against Aoba Johsai is in full swing as you watch along the sidelines. Tensions are high and it can’t help but remind you of memories you kept close to your heart. While watching, it reminds you of just how much the boys have grown in such a small amount of time.

Part 23 - TBD

[page-doctor-bekker]

transfemme!sarah au

thinking about transfemme!sarah

literally coming up with this au on the fly but here you go

this is literally so long but whatever i like it

there are a couple trigger warnings in this (suicide, hate crimes), they’re listed in bold italicized writing before and after the trigger so you can easily skip them. this is in bullet point format.

anyways i love this and i'm obsessed with it so enjoy! first chicago med au. it doesn't really have a name yet but i'm tagging it transfemme!sarah for now

from the minute sarah was born she was definitely different, and her parents actually had her tested for autism

then got her tested again when the first one was negative. and then again when the second one was negative.

her parents were actually so positive that she was autistic that finally one of the psychologists ended up giving her a PDDNOS (pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified) diagnosis until a therapist suggested gender dysphoria

i mean back then kids weren’t trans they were just Troubled(tm)

so up until she was about nine or so they figured she just didn’t have enough care for social cues that she didn’t understand gender enough to act like a boy instead of acting like a girl. she refused to wear “boy’s” clothes which was mistaken for sensory issues, had anger issues and outbursts that were mistaken for meltdowns, they really thought she was autistic

i mean. she pretended to breastfeed baby dolls for christ’s sake.

anyways once her therapist figured this out, she was discharged and transferred to a gender specialist psychologist who revoked the pddnos diagnosis and switched it to a gender dysphoria diagnosis

sarah’s mom was completely on board and had quietly suspected it herself but her dad

hooo boy her dad

her dad hated the idea so much that he basically walked out and never came back

sarah started going by sarah because she loved sarah from hocus pocus

anyways she was 9 when she changed her name and she moved schools because she was getting bullied

when she was 10 all her girl friends at her new school started growing boobs and getting their periods and sarah started getting really depressed

which ultimately lead her mom to take her to an endocrinologist that specialized in gender diverse care

and she started puberty blockers

sudden new issue: sarah is terrified of needles. her childhood vaccines caused full-blown panic attacks and the blockers were no different.

she is horrifically stubborn and determined to make this work though

so she kept going. and every week she had a panic attack and had to skip her injections a couple times because she just couldn’t handle it

but eventually, her panic attacks got less and less overwhelming with the help of being prescribed a benzo to take fifteen minutes before her injection. eventually once she could handle the injections with the help of the benzo, they tapered it off until she could 100% handle needles sober. this took close to two years, but she did it.

(side note - this positive experience with exposure therapy was why she was so keen on trying it during s3 with dr charles)

so at this point she’s about twelve and still feels left out from her peers. she’s going into middle school, her friends are all growing up physically and she just feels left behind

her mom tries to convince her that some girls are just late bloomers, she can still fit in even if she waits to go on estrogen, nobody is going to suspect a thing, etc etc etc

but it gets really bad. her dysphoria gets terrible and she starts having panic attacks so severe that she had to leave school and be homeschooled.

SUICIDE TW UNDER HERE

then sarah attempts suicide

she spends about a month in the psych ward to recover, and ultimately the doctors advised starting low dose hormone replacement to alleviate her dysphoria

SUICIDE TW OVER

sarah cried when she had her first estradiol injection, but this time it was happy tears, not tears of panic

she had injections weekly, and as she started to see changes she got so, so much happier

fat redistributed, her skin got softer, she even started to grow breasts. lots of fun stuff.

they later added progesterone for more effects when she was in highschool

also in highschool she found out she was a lesbian. not important rn but that did happened

her graduation gift from her mom was breast augmentation surgery <3 congratulations sarah ily

after all that, she finally decided she wanted to go into medicine.

so she started college and moved to chicago

the first year of college, she was out and proud and even had an officer position at the gsa on campus

HATE CRIME TW

in her second year she was the victim of a pretty bad hate crime committed by a group of frat boys on campus. she was attacked walking home from a party at night.

HATE CRIME TW OVER

while she recovered from that experience, both mentally and physically, she had to take a gap year from college and move back home with her mother

her mother persuaded her to finish her degree closer to home, so sarah stayed home for the last two and a half years of college, and upon graduating college, she decides to move back to chicago for med school

this time she stays closeted because she has ptsd from college

first three years are uneventful but she does quietly get a bottom surgery consult, but she decides not to move forward for awhile

and that brings us to season one

alrighty season one

as we know there’s a lil mild homophobia and whatnot in the hospital and as a result of that, sarah deals with some lovely compulsive heterosexuality and is still extremely closeted

so she dates joey even though she is most definitely a lesbian in denial but she doesn’t tell him she’s trans out of fear

then things with joey get even more serious and he wants to get intimate with her, so he makes an advance one night when they’re home watching a movie

so she lies her way out of it, says she’s waiting for marriage and not ready and blah blah blah

total lies

she’s a lesbian and she knows this

so anyways she breaks up with him right after she graduates med school, quits pathology to avoid him, and mourns the loss for a bit before she realizes

she wants to move forward with bottom surgery

so she schedules an orchiectomy and has that done during the time before she was hired by dr. charles

for laymen, an orchiectomy is the removal of the the testicles :) typically the first step in multi-stage bottom surgery, which is where you do each stage of bottom surgery at different times

anyways it fits into the timeline because recovery from that procedure takes less than a week

then dr charles hires her for s2, events of s2 go as written

then the sexy ava bekker moves to chicago med from south africa and sarah is SMITTEN

anyways i should probably stop here and avoid spoilers

well whatever i'm open to asks abt this <3

[fluffymcu]

Letting Loose

Part ONE

This series is TICKLE related. Outfits that are linked here are purely for picturing the clothes, you don’t have to look like the model.

Series Summary:  You’re the little sister of the one and only Captain America. You’re also the youngest girl on the team, so that automatically makes you the avengers’ little princess. And they spoil you as such. They have become your amazing family and you don’t know where you’d be without them. This series will show random adventures and fluffy events in the daily life of the reader and her family, along with an unexpected turn later on as you read.

A/N: I’m so excited to be writing this series! This is my first time writing one and I’m a bit nervous but I hope it all goes well. :) The first few chapters will be about random events, not really following a timeline until Chapter 9. Hope you enjoy! 

Word Count: 3,500

Next

-----

It was 1945, and you were only 5 years old. You and your brother Steve lived with your Aunt Kimmie until Steve left to join the army. When HYDRA got word of an enhancing super-serum, they planned to find out who they were experimenting on to try and steal the serum before it was injected. But it was too late. Captain Rogers was born, and their plan to steal the serum from Erskine had failed. Their only resort was to take out the serum out of Steve’s own blood. But they had to catch him first. After doing much research, they found you. Y/n Rogers. You were young, and important to the captain. 

When you least expected it, HYDRA stormed into your apartment, taking the life of your Aunt, your mother figure, and taking you into their clutches. They had taken you to a facility that was dark, and scary. They threw you in a room and kept you there for days, only feeding you when you were about to pass out. Steve had stormed many HYDRA bases in search of you but never found you. In the final battle against Red Skull, he had not know that HYDRA had taken you on the plane to terrorize the world. You were being kept in on the the small cells that were installed in the plane. By the time Steve knew your were on board, it was too late. He had to make a decision. 

“Stop!! Look around you!” Red Skull yelled, weak and defeated. Steve was on the pilot seat, calculating what to do. “This is the resolution to everything, Captain! If you stop this plane, everyone in here that is willing to do our good work will perish!” Steve payed no mind to him as he continued to type in new coordinates. Red Skull grunted as he stood up to give this a chance one more time, grabbing the tesseract in his hands. “DO YOU HEAR ME? EVERYONE HERE WILL DIE! EVEN THE GIRL!” 

This made Steve pause and look at the villain with fear filled eyes. His sister was there. In the middle of all of this. Once Red Skull had his hands on the tesseract, he was banished to Vormir and never seen again. Steve turned back around to face front, with tears in his eyes. This was the most difficult decision he’s ever had to face. He had no problem giving his life to save the world from destruction. But his little 5 year old defenseless sister was on board. He knew what he had to do, but it hurt him deeply. With tears glazing his eyes, he aimed the plane downward, closing his eyes and mumbling out an apology before crashing the plane, freezing the both of you for over 65 years.

You woke up in your brothers arms, and you didn’t recognize anything of the outside. It was so bright, and your brother looked scared and alert, holding you protectively in his arms until a tall man approached you both and explained some things to your brother. 

A lot had passed. Thankfully, you were very young when you were frozen, so it didn’t take you too much time to adjust to the modern world. You lived with Steve in an apartment for about a year and in 2012, after the battle of New York, you both moved into the Avengers tower.

That was 9 years ago.

Things were different now. Those memories were long forgotten and you moved on and focused on what you had now. The team had moves to the compound now, and your relationship with every one of them had grown so strong. They were your family and you were their Princess. And you had the best life you could have.

----

“Y/n, you’re gonna be late to school!” Tony sang, peeking his head through your bedroom door. You groaned and turned on your belly, deciding to ignore him. “Come on. I know you’re sleepy but you’ve got school.” He said, walking over to your bed and snatching the covers off of you. 

“hey!” You whined. Tony sighed and shook his head at you. 

“I can’t believe you don’t wanna go to school. You love school!” He teased. You rolled your eyes and sat up in your bed. 

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I wanna go to a place filled with obnoxious kids, degrading principals, and teachers who only care about a number on a paper?” You replied sarcastically. Tony helped you up off the bed and patted your back.

“That’s the spirit. Wanda made breakfast, come down in 10 minutes or you don’t eat.” He smirked. You playfully glared at him but complied nonetheless.

You walked over to your humongous closet and picked out an outfit. You threw on a thin white woven swear and some black jeans. You were a sucker for black jeans. You put on your white shoes and some diamond earrings before grabbing your bag and running downstairs.

Steve, Tony, Bucky, and Nat were up and eating breakfast in the kitchen. “Morning guys!” You greeted. Everyone turned towards you and smiled widely.

“Good morning!” They greeted back and you walked behind Bucky, where he was sitting on one of the stools and hopped up on the foot bars, reaching from behind and hugging him tightly. You had a special place for Bucky in your heart. Just for him. He was your brother’s best friend and you remembered when he would come over to your apartment and play with you, throwing you up in the air and playing with your dolls. And every time you would need a babysitter, he would always volunteer and you never wanted anyone else. You smiled as you nuzzled your face into his back. Bucky smiled, tracing patterns on your arms that were wrapped around him. “Alright, come eat, you leave for school in 10 minutes.” Steve said, being dramatic and pretending to rip you off Bucky’s back and leading you towards the table where a waffle on a plate was. You giggled and sat down to eat. The team continued on with their conversation until you finished eating and put the dishes in the sink. 

“Thanks for breakfast!” You said with a satisfied smile on your face and made your way back upstairs to Peter’s room. You strolled in shamelessly but stopped in your tracts when you saw him passed out in bed. “Oh,,, Happy’s gonna be so mad.” You chuckled, making Peter stir awake. 

“Huh? What happened?”

“You’re still in bed? Happy’s waiting out in the car. You got like, 2 minutes, dude.” You giggled as you saw Peter’s eyes widen in realization. 

“Crap!!” He yelled, scrambling off his bed, only in his boxers and ran around his room, putting on random clothes. You laughed at his frantic state and shook your head slowly. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” He whined at you. You raised your eyebrows and scoffed.

“Me?! Why am I the one to blame? Tony said he came in here to wake you up but you must’ve fallen back asleep.” You shrugged. 

“okay, uhh, just tell Happy I’ll be there in 2 minutes. 2 minutes, I promise.” He said, throwing on a shirt and looking for some khakis.

“Okay.” You shrugged, skipping down the stairs and outside after saying goodbye to the team. “Hey Happy. Peter said he’ll be here in 2 minutes.” You say as you enter the car. Happy nods with a sigh and about a minute later, Peter runs out of the front door and jumps in the car. 

“I’m here!” He pants. You shake your head at him with a teasing grin and he rolls his eyes, poking your side. Happy leaves to go drop you both off at school. Once you get there, you hop out the car in a rush, since you’re about to be late. “Thanks, Happy!” You both say and run inside. 

“See you after school.” Peter says while running next to you. You nod before both of you going your separate ways to your classes. You run into your classroom just as the bell rings, following your classmate inside. You sigh in relief and go to your seat, panting.

School went on like normal, you studied, had lunch, tolerated Jeremy, who was the kid who constantly teased you and pulled your hair, stole your notes until you ask him to give it back, and so on. Jeremy never really bullied you in the sense that he never said anything mean to you or made you feel bad, he just did things to annoy the crap out of you. You tried your best to avoid him but it seemed like he knew what you were trying to do and made it his personal mission to make himself known to you every chance he got.

The final bell rang to your relief, and you quickly packed your stuff, speed walking out of class to purposely escape from Jeremy. You smiled lightly as you were able to get out of there since he was still packing his stuff. 

You walked to your locker, hoping Peter would meet you before Jeremy did so you could go home. You looked hopefully through the moving crowd and groaned as you saw Jeremy walking over from far away. You sighed but then perked up when Peter suddenly appeared from the other hallway, coming closer. You pumped your fist and waved at him to go faster. Peter looked surprised at your rushed behavior but sped up nonetheless.

“Hey, What’s up? Why were you... eager to see me?” He smirked, wigging his eyebrows. You scoffed and rolled your eyes.

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself. I wanted you to go faster because Jeremy was right behind you and he would’ve started annoying me again.” You chuckled. Peter hummed and nodded.

“Ah, the douche.” He sighed. You giggled and nodded your head, the both of you going outside to look for Happy’s car. 

---

You walked through the entrance of the compound and greeted everyone in the living room. “Hey guys!” You and Peter greeted before jumping on the couch and settling between Pietro and Bucky. You all discussed what you wanted for dinner before Steve and Clint went to the gym and the rest of the team went to the kitchen to cook and others to their rooms.

You went to your room with Peter and started to put on your ballet outfit to stretch and practice. Peter sat at your desk to start on his homework. You were so glad your teachers spared your class and didn’t give you any homework. “What did Mr. Brandon give you today?” Yo asked, stretching, lifting your leg to rest it on the bar Tony installed on your wall and touching your head to your knee. Peter sighed, flipping through the pages.

“Basically the same thing as yesterday, gave us a 6 page packet and told us to write down why we think these theories are correct or incorrect.” You hummed and continued to stretch for a while before Peter started to collect his papers. “I’ll see you at dinner, Imma go to my room and start writing my essay that’s due in a couple of weeks.” He smiled. You nodded as he left and you decided to finish up and take a shower.

After you got dressed you laid down on your bed, sprawled out like a starfish and sighed. Right then, Steve came in your room with a smile and and sat next to you on your bed. “Hey, Princess. So, how was school?’’ Steve would come over to your room every few days just to have one on one time and talk about whatever.

You shrugged. “Ehh,” Steve chuckled and gently grabbed your arm, pulling you to sit up.

“Why do you say that?” You rolled your eyes at the mere thought of how annoyed you were at school. 

“Jeremy. He’s so. annoying.” You ground out. Steve chuckled and nodded. You had told him about Jeremy before. But it seemed like you were ranting about him more and more often. “He’s always grabbing my notes, or pulling my hair to get my attention, or whispering at me during class. I try to ignore him but he just keeps doing it until I answer! And when I do, I GET IN TROUBLE!” You whined, throwing your hands in the air. 

Steve smiled widely, chuckling at your frustration. “You know, have you ever thought that that’s why he bothers you so much? That he likes getting you angry? Because... maybe... he likes you?” He raised his eyebrow at you. You make a face of disgust, making him laugh. “I’m just saying, especially with teenage boys, their way of flirting with a girl is by picking on them. So maybe he has a crush on you!” He sang, bumping his arm against yours and poking your side. 

“Eww, no! Steve stohop!” You whined, slapping at his hand but he only chuckled and started to run his fingers over your belly.

“You know I have a point.” He said cheekily, smiling when he hears your airy giggles. You push at his hands harshly and twist around.

“Stohohop! Steve I swehear to gohohod if you don’t stop,” You glared at him through your giggles. Steve gasped before tackling you and throwing you on your back. 

“Did you just threaten me? huh?” He teased before scribbling his fingers around your torso with more pressure, causing you fall into a fit on hysterical giggles. “You had the audacity to threaten Captain America.” He shook his head, feigning disappointment before lifting his hand under your shirt to pinch at your bare belly. Just the absence of the thin fabric on your skin made the sensations so much worse as you shook your head side to side, letting out a steam of squeals and hiccups. 

“IHIHIM SOHOHORRY!” You squealed when he came in contact with your ribs, digging in between them at a slow pace before quickening his fingers and tasing them into your ribs. You let out a scream and you arched your back, giving him the opportunity to blow another raspberry on your belly. You cackled and pulled at his hair to pull him away. He sat back with a wide smile and wiped the messy hair off your face. You were panting heavily and moving your hands over your torso, trying to rub off the lingering tingles off your body. “You’re a jerk.” You huffed after you caught your breath, gently kicking him in the stomach. Steve chuckled and helped you up. 

“Come downstairs.” He suggested, walking down with you when you nodded. Everyone was downstairs in the kitchen and living room except Bucky and Peter. Bucky was taking a nap and Peter was still working on his essay. 

You sat on the couch next to Nat and rested your head on her shoulder. She leaned onto you, doing the same. A few moments passed, and Tony and Clint were getting into a petty argument about the spaghetti sauce. 

“It’s too thick. You need to water it down.” 

“Who waters down sauce? You don’t do that. Look, contrary to popular belief, I know what I’m doing. And I’m definitely sure I know how to make spaghetti. Lay off.”

“I’m just saying! It’s already too thick! And the more you boil it, the thicker it’s gonna get, you need to dilute it!”

“You can’t dilute sauce!!”

Nat rolled her eyes with a groan and stood up. “I’m gonna go break them up, I guess.” She mumbled before going to the kitchen. You heard from your place on the couch, all of their yelling and Nat telling them to break it up. You smiled to yourself, shaking your head. The argument died down after a moment and the conversation went back to pleasant. 

You were alone in the living room until Pietro zoomed in and sprawled himself on the other couch. You smiled when you saw him, taking note that he looked very tired. He didn’t look like a sleepy tired, more of a bored tired. You sat up a bit and rested your chin in your hands, looking at him for a bit. When he sensed your eyes on him, he looked at you a smiled. “What’s wrong?” He asked. 

“Are you bored?” You asked him, smiling when he sighed loudly and laid back down.

“Yuppp.” He said, popping the ‘p’. You stood up, bouncing a bit on the balls of your feet. 

“Do you... wanna have a pillow fight?” You smiled widely. Pietro perked up and returned the smile. 

“Yes.” You giggled at his quick response and grabbed a throw pillow from the couch. You knew Pietro was very energetic and got bored easily, which made him really fun to play around with because he was always open to do anything if it meant he didn’t have to sit around and do nothing.

He stood up and grabbed a pillow before you both got in a stance.  “COMMENCE!” You yelled, grabbing the attention on everyone else in the kitchen, making them smile fondly at the scene. Tony groaned. “Oh, great. They’re using the throw pillows. They are going to tear. those. up.” He sighed before putting the noodles in the pot. The team went back to their conversation while you and Pietro were battling with your pillows. 

You were giggling a lot, making you lose your balance many times and made your aims more miscalculated. You stepped back to compose yourself again before aiming at his head. But Pietro used his speed to dodge it, appearing behind you and whacking you to the floor. No mercy. You grunted as you hit the floor but couldn’t help but laugh. “Hey! No powers. It’s not fair.” Pietro sighed and agreed before helping you up. He let you whack his head and the fight continued for a few more minutes.

Pietro currently had the upper hand as you were once again in a fit of uncontrollable giggles. He was whacking you over and over, making you cower away a bit, and bring your leg up to shield yourself. Pietro was also laughing, not having any mercy. “Give up, Printsessa.” He chuckled, whacking you again.

 You laughed, trying to grab his pillow away from him but he pushed you onto the couch, stuffing his pillow in your face, pretending to suffocate you. The situation was hysterical to you and you fought against him to get the pillow off your face but your laughter was making you weaker by the second.

Pietro laughed and pulled the pillow off your face and started to tickle you around your sides. You shrieked and kicked out your legs to get get him off. “NOHOHOHO!” You squeaked, hugging your arms to yourself to block his hands. There wasn’t much you could do anymore because the pillow fight had taken a lot out of you already. Your laughter was desperate while he nuzzled his stubble in the crook of your neck. You squealed before falling into silent laughter, the feeling paralizing you and making you melt onto the couch. Pietro blew a final raspberry on your neck before sitting back and getting off of you. 

The team was chuckling at your exhausted state and got up to sit at the dinner table. Pietro helped you up to sit down at the table. You took a seat next to Tony and the empty seat where Bucky was gonna sit. Tony called out for Peter to come down and Pete took a seat across the table form you. When Pepper served the plates, Bucky came down and sat next to you. When everyone was here, you all began eating and talking about the day and the plans some people had tomorrow.

After dinner, you and Peter helped wash the dishes and put them away. You and him were messing around, cracking jokes at each other and Peter was pretending to drop a glass over and over. “Peter stohohop. You’re gohohonna actually drop it!” You giggled, shaking your head as he continued, not even a second later, the glass fell and was just an inch off the floor before he caught it, biting his lip in shock. You gasped, expecting to hear a big shatter but sighed in relief. “See you goof? I told you were gonna drop it!” You whacked his shoulder with the drying towel. 

“Ah, but I didn’t.” He raised his brow at you. You rolled your eyes and pointed over to the sink. 

“Just finish with the dishes before you break something.” You scolded, smiling when he complied with a sigh. Not long after, you were done with the kitchen and you bid everyone goodnight with a hug or a kiss on the cheek. You made your way upstairs to your room, changing into some pajama shorts and a tank top. 

You crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to your chin and scrolled through Instagram for a few minutes before turning off your lamp and going to sleep.

[bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture]

Chapter three! I already skimmed through it and just. Holy fuck I’m falling in love with this series all over again, and this is just the opening arc, how the hell is this so good??? I’m genuinely just in awe and fuck is it making it hard to decide where to have a cut-off point for this chapter. I suppose we’ll just have to see what fate decides.

(Also, the temptation to just paste in all of the last three pages of the chapter is so incredibly strong, you don’t understand.)

[No. 3 - Entrance Exam]

We start off with some exposition: UA’s hero course is designed to give students all they need to go pro, and is the toughest and most popular hero course in the country, with only a 1 in 300 acceptance rate. Discounting the four slots that are recommendation students, that’s 36 slots a year, which is about…

Yeah. That’s a lotta applications, and that’s just for the hero course! 

Several alumni are mentioned: All Might, who declined the people’s choice award; Endeavor, who’s stopped more crimes than anyone else in recorded history; and Best Jeanist, who’s won the Best Jeanist award eight years running. (One of these things is not like the other~ One of these things just doesn’t belong~) The exposition suggests that graduating from UA is basically a requirement for becoming a great hero - something which we’ll learn soon enough isn’t quite true.

But yeah, Endeavor with the record for crime handling, even above All Might. Quite the impressive hero, though that face…

Not precisely reassuring.

So yeah, Izuku here mentions the date of the exam - February 26th. I figure that this has to be a Sunday, for the simple fact that Japan has a slightly different school schedule than us. Most notably: Japanese schools (some of them, anyways) have 5.5 day school weeks. Yes, that means the first half of Saturday can still be a school day. 

While I couldn’t confirm for sure whether this is more common among the higher end schools, I feel like a school like UA, with its ‘Plus Ultra’ motto, would definitely be a school to have a half-day (or even a full day) on Saturdays, and since they also have to accomodate for middle schools that have Saturday morning classes, I figure that it would make the most sense for UA to schedule this exam on a Sunday. 

The benefits of this, as we’ve already seen, is that we can then narrow down the timeline for the rest of the series, just based on that single, confirmed date. We know from the last chapter that the Sludge Villain had to happen on a Thursday or Friday of the first week of school (April 14th/15th), with the first training session two days later (the 16th/17th). But what this also gives us is when Izuku’s first year of UA starts, AND the possible years it could start on. 

Since we see the glowing baby is in a modern hospital, we can assume that’s correlated to about our times. Give it a few generations, and we can guess that we’re in the 2200s or 2300s for the current era. Based on that assumption, we get the following years that have February 26th on a Sunday:

23rd century potential years: 2204, 2209, 2215, 2226, 2232, 2237, 2243, 2254, 2260, 2265, 2271, 2282, 2288, 2293, 2299

24th century potential years: 2310, 2316, 2321, 2327, 2338, 2344, 2349, 2355, 2366, 2372, 2377, 2383, 2394, 2400

As a side note, when I got into the series, my brain weirdly latched onto the idea that this had to all be happening in the year 2317. I don’t know why I decided on that number, but that’s what I rolled with, and hilariously I could be RIGHT about the year the current manga arc is happening in, provided Izuku’s first year is in 2316. Sometimes you just know, ya know? I know at least one other friend made these calcs independently of me and chose to run with 2237, which is totally valid! Probably makes more sense to be in the 2200s, but there’s room depending on how much time one thinks has passed.

As for when Izuku’s high school school year starts, we know that Japanese schools start on the second Monday of April. Since we don’t know if this is a leap year or not, we’ll end up with two dates, but that’s fine!

Feb 26 (Sun) -> Feb 27 (Mon) -> March (6/5, 13/12, 20/19, 27/26) -> April (3/2, 10/9)

Therefore, Izuku’s first day of classes (not counting the orientation, which I’ve seen a few other timelines assume is on the Sunday before classes start) is April 10th (or the 9th if a leap year)! I know this is all in the future from this chapter, but still, I wanted to share this at some point and figured now was as good a time as always.

Math!

Sorry, I’ve just wanted to share this math I did for a while now, I put a lot of work into it and I am very proud of it. Let’s get back to the chapter.

So Izuku lives a 40 minute train ride away from UA, and has made it just in time for the exam. Apparently, this is only the practical portion? Or well, that’s the part that gets focused on in this chapter, with no mention of the paper exam. I would imagine they’d be the same day, though? But I suppose one can do whatever they like with it.

He’s standing there looking at the school, thinking about how he didn’t have a chance to test the power, while the other students head in-

Excuse me, Toga?? I know that hairstyle is just a bit off, but… ???

...right, anyways. Izuku is wondering whether the hair really did anything (also, it was apparently sour, which, ew.) Katsuki comes up behind him and tells him to move aside.

Truly a flattering image. Izuku panics a bit and greets him, but Katsuki just walks by without another word or gesture, leaving Izuku confused as he watches him head on into the building. The narrative notes that since the villain incident, Katsuki hadn’t bothered Izuku, while the unnamed characters in the background apparently recognize Katsuki from the ‘sludge’ incident (well, not shocked how the fandom held onto that name). 

Izuku notes that he’s gotta stop flinching instinctively, and then tries to hype himself up, noting that it’s not like before, and think about the past ten months while taking a wobbly step forward- and then tripping over himself.

I’m sorry Izuku just has so many fantastic faces in this chapter I am crying trying to limit myself to just a few. But yeah, that little derp as he realizes what’s happening is adorable, especially while Ochako gently sets him back on his feet. She mentions that it’s her quirk, and apologizes for using it, but that it’s a bad omen to trip and fall. (I wonder if that gets played with again during later parts of the series… will have to check to see.)

While Izuku freaks out over talking to a girl, Ochako notes that the exam is nerve-wracking, and then heads off while wishing both of them luck as Izuku stares after. 

This fucking kid. I love him so much. His flustered excitement gets him some weird looks from the others still outside.

We transition to a new character (Present Mic) who immediately shows off his performative side by calling for a ‘hey!’ which… is met with silence from the crowd. He doesn’t let this throw him off, instead letting them know that he’ll present the guidelines for the practical, followed with a ‘YEAH!’ that gets met with an even heavier silence.

Izuku and Katsuki are seated next to each other, with Izuku descending right into excited muttering over Present Mic and how he listens to his radio show every week. Also with the assumption that all the UA teachers are pro heroes, which I mean, true, but still. Katsuki tells Izuku to shut up.

Present Mic explains the test: ten minute long ‘mock cityscape maneuvers’, with the applicants split among seven arenas, labelled ‘A’ through ‘G’. With more than 10k applicants total, that’s about…

Yeah, more than 1500 per arena. Fucking hell, no wonder the robots deplete so quickly in only a few minutes. Also of interest:

“Bring along whatever you want.” So technically, if Izuku were able to procure the tech and training to handle the robots, there would be nothing keeping him from getting into UA quirkless… though I imagine any kid who gets in mostly on tech probably gets side-eyed… though if said kid made their OWN tech, they might also get an offer from the Support department.

(AU where Mei accidentally took the heroics exam and got a shitload of points, but she ended up taking the offer for Support instead despite setting the record for most points in said exam. Katsuki forever wants to fight her. Izuku and her are good friends.)

Also, another thing I love is how Katsuki just told Izuku to shut up a moment ago, and then:

He’s the one to initiate conversation on the details of the test, basically agreeing on the reasoning behind dividing up the students between arenas. Katsuki is annoyed at not being able to crush Izuku, which has Izuku awkwardly silent. 

Also mini-Mic.

Poor, poor Mic. He just wants audience participation. Anyways, he continues on to explain the points system, with the help of cute little Mario-themed silhouettes. There are three kinds of faux villains, with different points awarded for defeating each based on their difficulty levels. Also, attacking other examinees is prohibited!

A student (cough Tenya) raises their hand to ask a question, going on to note that the handout sheet appears to have four varieties of villain, and that such a blatant error (if it is one) reflects poorly on Japan’s top academy. He then spins around and points at Izuku, calling him out for his muttering and how distracting he’s been, and that ‘if this is some sort of game to you, then please leave immediately!’ 

Is that… Mineta seated behind Izuku? I can’t find another panel that disproves that theory, so. Whelp. If you ever for some reason want to have Izuku accidentally deal with the grape early, he’s right there. 

Anyways, Present Mic brings the convo back to the initial question/comment, noting that the fourth villain is worth zero points, and is more of an obstacle. He then brings up Super Mario Brothers, the old retro game, and compares the Zero Pointer to a thwomp. There’s one per site, serving as a gimmick that’ll rampage in close quarters. Tenya thanks Mic and apologizes for the interruption. 

And so we get our final words from Present Mic:

??? either he's referencing the original guy (which I think would be a misquote because I doubt OG Nap ever noted anything like that) or some French hero or the like who took on the name.

Discord offered this to me while putting together the post:

So there you have it. Tentatively confirmed.

Those EYES man, dude’s got the Rinnegan going on.

Honestly, I have to end on this panel just because of that last line from Present Mic. Like, look me in the eyes and tell me this isn’t the exact point to end on. 

The discord’s takeaway from this:

[tundrainafrica]

Title: A Tale of Two Slaves (3/17)

Summary:  “Soulmates don’t exist. Fate doesn’t exist. Everything is a choice.” At that moment, Levi could only watch as she made the choice for him.“

Reincarnation AU. Levi remembers everything from their past life. Hange doesn’t.

Note: This has been sitting on my computer untouched for a while, along with the timeline I prepared for a multichapter fic. Will probs go back to it soon. Feedback is very much appreciated.

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Link to cross-postings: AO3

The forms were so painfully boring, Levi almost regretted agreeing to meet Moblit. One of the few things, if not the only thing, stopping him from backing out of the study then and there, was the hope it could give him an excuse to see her again. He planned to ease himself into the process of meeting her, not wanting to make a complete fool or a complete stalker of himself.

There was the option to ask for her number. The option to ask for her schedule. Or he could maybe just scan through enough pages on google to find some hint as to what the hell she does, where she goes and where he could possibly “accidentally” meet her. The last option had proved ineffective, Levi spent a good few hours a day doing just that. Just in case maybe, the links he found through google do change.

The sheer embarrassment and conflicted feelings that came with having delusion drive his actions, had Levi worse off than before. Although the nightmares that left him in pain in the mornings had become few and far between, he could not help but think that possibly the reason why was because he barely got any sleep anymore, kept awake by his brain trying to process that relationship he had with Hange and the story that was made known to him.

His five hours a night had dwindled into three when classes started. His brain having no time to process the dreams during classes and training, Levi found himself taking up more time lying awake in bed, building the world his dreams were telling him about and how Hange fit into all of it.    

The lack of sleep caught up to him particularly when he was sifting through the pages of waivers and information sheets in the coffee shop near campus at nine in the morning. The words started to blur into blobs and Levi became aware of how much he hated Calibri as a font, a small issue in the grand scheme of things. Lacking sleep and utterly frustrated at his lack of progress though, Levi was finding many reasons not to read them.

He eventually gave up, instead checking box after box after box. “When do you need this?” Levi asked Moblit who sat in front of him.

“As soon as possible… But I really recommend you read ---”

“Well, how much time are you gonna give me to read?”

“I don’t have any classes today so I’m pretty much free the whole day.”

“Same.” He felt the venom in his tone particularly resonate and a part of him regretted it as he said it. That day was particularly special. He had no class. With their coach out on a meeting with other schools to discuss the tournaments and line ups this year, he had given the players a day off. Levi pretty much had that whole day to himself yet, he still went to the trouble of dressing up just to meet Moblit only to find out he’d be going through pages worth of documents while half awake. “I’ll just get a cup of coffee.”

Levi was already halfway out of seat when Moblit took out his wallet.  

“Let me pay for it.” Moblit handed Levi a few bills. He had an apologetic look on his face as if he did understand the inconvenience the study would cause anyone. The look Moblit gave him suddenly made Levi self conscious about the tone he had been answering Moblit with since a while ago.

Levi took the money with a small nod of thanks. It was free coffee after all and he did not have much leeway given his monthly allowance.

When Levi got back to their table black coffee in one hand, he could see that Moblit had reorganized the papers, the uncompleted page sitting neatly on top. He had also opened the sandwich he had bought half an hour ago and was eating it already

“Before I forget, did you bring Hange’s keychain?” Moblit asked in between bites.

“Ah, I forgot about that.” Levi kept his tone emotionless for fear of having his guilt take over him. In fact, he never did forget about the keychain. It sat on the side table next to his bed, a glimmer of hope that that morning in the track wouldn't be the last time he saw her.

“Maybe I could come back to your dorm with you and get it after this?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. I’m not going straight to the dorm. I have plans after this.” A blatant lie. Levi rarely forgot plans.

“Really?”

Levi made a show of going through his phone as he sat down. “Sorry, I didn’t check my calendar this morning. It looks like I have to work on my own stuff for my thesis with my groupmates.” Seniors did not have as many classes as lowerclassmen so the excuse for classes probably would not have worked. As Levi also was aware, the weight of the responsibility lost by only having two classes a week was replaced with the weight of the expectation of creating their own research to add to the body of knowledge in their major.

“How long is your meeting? Maybe I could stop by...” Moblit looked unsure about his own suggestion as if he too understood too the importance of thesis for any senior.

“I dunno. It’s our first meeting and it’s pretty important since we still don’t have much planned.” At that moment, Levi thanked the heavens for his course. He was taking an interdisciplinary track so people had the option to do their thesis by group or individually. His choice of his classes had made it so that he had to do his thesis individually. Moblit did not need to know that much though.

The magic word “thesis” eventually did work in the conversation between the two seniors and finally, Moblit had dropped his shoulders in defeat. “Sorry if I’m being a little pushy. I guess that keychain is just pretty important to me too. I was the one who gave it to her.”  

Levi studied the face of Moblit as they talked. Molit did not have the most memorable face so Levi had not figured it out at first glance. As he allowed himself a few seconds to focus on his features and match it to those in his dream, he realized that Moblit was the same soldier who was constantly following Hange in his dreams. “You two must be close,” Levi said. Hange and I were close too.

"We're childhood friends.”

Levi found himself envying Moblit’s place in Hange’s life. Not wanting to engage that thought though, he instead decided to digress into something more positive for him. “So you'd know why she seemed pretty enthusiastic about her thesis.”

“She’s just passionate and gets a little too excited at times.” Moblit gave an embarrassed smile from what could have been second hand embarrassment. “I really hope you didn’t end up hating her. She really wanted to get to know you.”

“Oh really?” Then why doesn’t she. Levi added to himself.

“She’s been studying athletes since we were in high school. One of our friends was actually the subject of our final thesis for high school and Hange won best research with her. She wanted to move on to studying more high level athletes and she was talking non stop about the possibility of working with an athlete here. Then when we were scouting around for athletes to possibly study, she started showing me a lot of videos of you. She could talk non stop about your form, the height you achieved, your body control. I guess that was until you guys ended up meeting...” Moblit looked like he was aware of the weight of that statement and had tried to lighten the mood with a light laugh.

Levi rearranged that last sentence in his head. Until she met me.

Moblit had trailed off from there and Levi wondered how what kind of face he was making for Moblit to realize he had felt guilty about it.

Moblit gave Levi a consoling look. “She seems to be progressing well with Elijah though.”

For a second, Levi could not fathom how Moblit got the idea that that sentence could console him. In fact, just knowing that Hange had gotten over him so fast, had his chest knotting up.

On the outside though, he made sure to raise his eyebrows and nod, to look at least a little surprised and interested. “How’s her research so far?”

Moblit shook his head in amazement. “She's working at a much faster pace than I am. After what happened with you, it’s pretty admirable she bounced back so fast.”

“I don’t hate her. I could work with her if she really wants to.”

“God, this makes me think I should have started earlier." Moblit rested his forehead on his palm. "Your suggestion might be hard... Last time I checked, she was neck deep in her research with Elijah already.”

Even as a senior, there were places on campus Levi had never visited. All of his classes were clustered in one small area of the campus.  The track he would rush to train in would be just a five minute walk away, his dorm a fifteen minute walk or a five minute bike.

He never had any reason to visit the other side which housed the science students and the laboratories. Possibly, one of the reasons why he had never met Hange until that day in the track.

It was a ten minute walk from his dormitory, in a completely different direction from his buildings and the track. He decided to abandon his bike for the more flexible option of walking. He did not know if they had have any place to park a bike nor how long he would be there. More importantly, he wanted the freedom of slowing his pace without considering the traffic as he took in the unfamiliar scenery.

Third floor. Fritz Hall.

In fact, he did not need the directions to the biology department. He could have easily asked anyone among the students there. The more important information was the room number and the laboratory name.

He clutched the keychain in his pocket and  took the stairs two at a time arriving into a narrow corridor that stretched into both directions.

Thesis labs. Or that was how Mobilit described them. Each biology professor managed a laboratory for students. There were those who focused on internal medicine, those who focused on epidemiology. In each of those rooms was an office and a lab for senior students doing research under the guidance of a professor of a similar specialty.

If he wanted to find Hange, the office was their best chance. Room 301. It would be at one of the ends of the corridors. He only had to figure out the order of the numbers and from there, walk towards the end of the hall. He gripped the handle of the door and pushed it down, only pushing slightly at the door to open a crack wide enough to peek in.

“May I help you?”

“You’re Erwin Smith…” Just like with Hange, Levi had quickly picked up the name as he saw him.

“Yes I am. Nice to meet you.” Erwin did not look surprised to see that someone had named him by face. That was enough of a hint for Levi to realize that that man was probably their professor on top of how he dressed and how he carried himself.

“I’m looking for Hange Zoe.” Levi decided at that moment not to lie. He was sure he could find a reason to justify wanting to give it directly to Hange. He did not want to consider it at that moment. He just wanted to see her.

“She has class now but you can wait for her inside the lab." He gave Levi a onceover. You must be Elijah then.”

Levi gave a subtle nod, hoping Erwin would at least not take that as a full yes later on. At that point in time, he just wanted to minimize the questions he might need to answer. HIs heart was beating hard and his mind was racing. He had gone behind Moblit’s back, taking note of the schedule shared to him and picking a time where Moblit would not be in the office. Pretense and lies were nothing new to Levi but the presence of Erwin in the room particularly made Levi feel dirty for going through all that just to meet one person. With Erwin in front of him, for the first time he felt guilty lying.

"It's obvious from your build that you've been jumping and running your whole life. I hope you could give Hange some good data. All she’s been talking about was this study since I agreed to take her in."

“What’s her research about?” Was she enjoying working with Elijah so far? Was she happy? There were too many things Levi had wanted to ask but he found himself treading along the narrow path of things only Elijah would have known.

Erwin looked at him questioningly. “She wants to do a case study. I expected she’d at least tell you that much.” He shook his head and smiled. “She always had trouble explaining science jargon to the average person.”

Levi wanted to kick himself. Erwin at least answered his own question on any suspicion he might have about Levi (or Elijah.)

“Elijah, do me a favor and ask her yourself. I’d rather Hange also learned how to communicate science to the average person.” Erwin tapped Levi on the shoulder. “Make yourself at home. NIfa’s in the laboratory right now so she can keep you company. You can also use the computer while waiting.”

Levi only noticed the book bag Erwin was holding to his side as he looked back at him. He could not help but feel a bout of disappointment as he saw the professor walk away. It felt like there was still a lot to learn from him.

Levi entered the laboratory to find a woman with auburn hair hunched over a microscope. “Where’s Erwin going?” He asked.

“Erwin?” Nifa looked up from her  “Doctor Smith you mean?”

Nifa. That’s her name. Oddly, Levi did not need to ask for her name either.

Nifa only confirmed it a second later after chastising him for calling Erwin his first name. ‘Doctor Smith did not roll out of Levi’s tongue as well as Erwin. The most Levi could hope for was he never faced a situation where he had to call him by name again. A long shot if he ended up working with Hange or Moblit. At the same time, a worry he did not want to occupy himself with again.

“Hange’s class ends at two so you’re gonna have to wait an extra thirty minutes. You can use the computer over there to pass the time.”

Levi looked down at his phone to see only one bar on the upper right.

“Yeah, problems about being stationed at the corner of the building. No signal. And the wifi is only strong enough for a laptop.” Nifa gestured at her own laptop next to the microscope.

Levi walked towards the computer. It was an older model but it looked well loved. He only had to click on his mouse for the screen to boot up to the home screen with some desktop background which looked like some campaign for underprivileged kids and untapped potentials.

He clicked on the google chrome icon. The option to restore pages from a previous session popped up. He had considered completely ignoring it but he considered it might be someone’s precious browsing history and instead decided to leave it on and to just open an incognito instead for his own personal browsing

He was ready to open one up when he saw the tabs that had opened up in front of him.

Ackerman bags gold, Miller silver in the Collegiate Cup.

Levi looked to the profile on the right to see that it was Hange’s Google profile logged into the account. She was researching him?

That small glimmer of what could have been happiness dissipated as soon as Levi figured out the pattern of the articles.

It wasn’t about him.

High Jump Superstar Miller breaks record in high school meet.

Miller commits to Paradis University.

College sophomore Miller bags gold in Horizontal Jump Event.

It was torture looking through the multiple tabs that reopened. As painful as it was, he still  wanted to confirm if Hange really was ‘neck deep’ in her research. The bookmarked pages, he also decided to take a peek at had confirmed his fear. There were fifty if not a hundred tabs with article titles mentioning that one athlete.

Levi found himself closing the tabs as he went through them, a small rebellion to the reality in front of him. Hange probably bookmarked them if she needed them anyway. He stopped as he came across a Youtube video towards the end of the string of tabs.

WATCH: College Junior Ackerman beats both personal and national record for the High Jump Category.

Rookie Ackerman bags gold in the Regional Cup with record breaking height.

Levi recognized those tournaments. Those were his best jumps, one of them the most recent one he had performed, only earlier that year.

Watching the videos with the commentary felt surreal. In the interviews, he was the one answering the questions but somehow, Levi felt like he was still learning something new from the version of himself of the screen. He never did pay too much attention during interviews, only asking the questions when asked in the manner Coach Greg had directed him too.

Not wanting to confuse himself any longer with what seemed like another out of body experience, he focused again on Hange’s Gmail account which was logged into Youtube. Just to make sure his conclusion had been real. She was still watching his videos.

She had committed to working with Elijah. Why?  

“Miller was slated to be the new superstar in Paradis University with a vertical jump of 8 centimeters  and a promising record height differential of 40 centimeters.”

Levi jumped as he heard someone talk behind him. How long has she been there? It was her voice. Yet at the same time, it was too uncharacteristically serious he did not want to believe it was her. As Levi slowly looked behind me, she only continued to talk.

“But then four years ago, Coach Gregory Rivers scouts a new kid from a small town five hours away from the city. The kid had potential. Enough potential to maybe play backup to Elijah Miller. Levi Ackerman with a vertical leap of 76 centimeters and a record height differential of 37 centimeters.”

“Elijah Miller had a higher overall record. Mike Zacharias and Nanaba Briete too." Mike Zacharias and Nanaba Briete . Those were the two athletes who had cooperated with Hange's study back in high school. Levi had made sure to read her old research, in case he would have to use them to convince her to reconsider him.

“Your numbers in high school weren’t groundbreaking. Unless we consider that you’re 157 centimeters tall." The wonder was back in her voice, completely replacing what he realized was the scientist in her talking. "You did not have the height but you had remarkable control, the core strength, the leg power and the flexibility to fly over the bar even when you’re so close to it. That was what Gregory Rivers saw in you when he scouted you for Paradis University. What he didn't expect was for you to outshine Miller or even the seniors."

Hange came up behind him and grabbed the mouse. As Levi watched her go through the bookmarks, he realized if he had scrolled further, he would have seen more bookmarks.

Rookie Ackerman bags gold in the Regional Cup.

Super rookie carries Paradis to nationals.

She clicked one of the bookmarks and played the the video that came up. Levi could only watch silently as the Levi on the screen ran towards the bar, and propelled himself through the air. His vertical was definitely much higher than 37 centimeters at that point. In college though, no one in his team was counting anymore. The importance was he got through every jump without ever touching the bar.

"I wanna know Levi. From a nobody from a no name school, how did your height differential increase twofold. More importantly, how is it that you've not failed a single jump since you entered university? It's amazing. The amount of balance, core strength and body control to keep your body flexible enough not to hit the bar. The amount of leg strength needed to jump that high. You really must be superhuman.”

“I’m not.” Regretfully, Levi’s denial was enough for Hange to snap out of her state of what seemed like euphoria.

Hange put her hand to her mouth. "Sorry, I talked too much." With that, she resisted the closeness and was once again a meter away just standing awkwardly behind him. "I guess I should go back to work. Did Moblit tell you what time he'll be coming?"

"Moblit's not coming today."

"Oh... Can I help you with something?" Once again, Hange was watching her words and her movements with him. That was not the Hange from his dreams. The Hange that had introduced herself the first time they had met on the track. It pained Levi to see her like that and he wanted to make it right.

Levi had prepared himself for possible interactions when he read through Hange's old works. At that moment, Levi took control of his feelings. " I came here because I wanted to ask if you'd be willing to consider." He kept his words as careful as Hange's were with him. "I read your case study on Nanaba Briete and Mike Zacharius. And I thought I could probably provide you with similar data, maybe better data. Let me jump for you."

"Levi…"

"No. I wanna jump for you." Levi did not know what Hange had planned to say. At that point, he did not want to give her any doubts to build on.

This time I'm not going to lose you. A voice inside him said. It disappeared soon after and Levi wondered when he had he lost her.

[andy-loves-corgis]

All of The Lights - Ch 9 (TRR AU)

Book: The Royal Romance

Pairing: lots of pining.

Rating: M (I can’t make them not curse I guess…).

Word count: ~ 4,000

Notes: I’m a bitch and I have no right to ask for forgiveness, only thank those who are still putting up with my bullshit!

WARNING: Read the Prologue! Every chapter has TWO timelines, Before (about a year before the Prologue) and After (two years after the prologue), if you don’t pay attention to that you might get confused!

Iris

And I would give up forever to touch you

BEFORE

There were voices muffled by the clatter of pans and cutlery at the kitchens, but somehow Savannah’s voice seemed to rise above all the noise pointing at the TV.

“Just look at her.”

Drake did, it was a sequence of pictures from the past couple of weeks, all the royal functions Riley attended alongside Liam, Leo, and Madeleine; the three women on the morning show were analyzing if Riley was there with Liam or just as a maid of honor for Madeleine. In each photo Riley sported her noble grin, he knew it was the fake one because when she smiled fully you could spot the smallest of dimples on her cheeks.

“She looks miserable.” Savannah continued looking for his reaction.

“No, she doesn’t” Drake brushed her off and finished his orange juice in one big gulp before getting up. “Riley is a big girl; she can make her own decisions.”

“Are you going already? I thought you didn’t have classes at all today”

“Well, first…” he kissed the top of her head “… I still work, and Liam texted me to meet him this morning.”

“Oh, because you’re soooooo important!” Savannah laughed rolling her eyes.

Drake pushed another croissant in his mouth and left the kitchens, feeling in the air that the cold was preparing to go away. The competition season would start soon, and he would hate to wake up in the early hours of the morning – as he used to during this events-, to cold weather. He spotted Liam with his black zip-up jacket waiting for him, with a couple of men from the Royal Guard; Drake took his time to pull up the sleeves of his hoodie.

“Hey. Thought you wanted to talk” Drake said greeting his friend.

“I need to blow off some steam, thought it would be good to go for a run. Are you out of shape?” Liam teased.

“As I remember, we did the Army training together, I was the fastest on our squad.”

“Nah, I let you win,” Liam said, and Drake laughed.

“Start running, then. Your highness.” Drake challenged him with a smirk.

After 20 laps, Drake notices signs of fatigue in Liam.

“Come on!” Drake teased, turning on his back but still running ahead of Liam.

“Jesus, what are you made of, Walker?” Liam laughed, throwing his head back almost in exhaustion.

“Whiskey and one-night-stands.” Drake laughed and stopped as soon as they reached their starting point, both leaning on the wall to even their breaths.

“Yeah, about that…” the prince took a big gulp of water from his bottle and turned to his best friend. “What happened at Leo’s bachelor party?”

Drake looked puzzled.

“Did you blackout?”

“No, not at all, actually” Drake knew Liam was trying to keep it cool, but he could see right through him. “You were alone with Riley for some time… did she say anything?”

“Liam, I spend a lot of time alone with Riley, I really can’t see your point…”

“Did something happen?” Liam wasn’t bothering to hide anymore.

Blinking a few times, Drake finally understood where the conversation was heading.

“I won’t bother to answer you, Liam.” Drake stopped leaning on the wall “Riley and I were friends since we were kids.”

“You know she’s completely off-limits, right? Even if we wore broken up, it’s Bro Code.” Liam tried to sound casual.

“Like when you slept with Erika?” the color was drained from Liam’s face when Drake finished his remark.

“You already know what happened” his answer was strained. “She was playing you and took advantage of the fact that I had too much to drink that night after a fight with Riley.”

Drake preferred to believe his longest friend.

“It doesn’t change the fact that I caught both of you naked in bed and never told Riley, that alone could remind you the WE are friends too.” Liam stayed silent after this. “I don’t know if my answer was enough for you, but I have work to do.”

“I… forget what I said, Riley has been weirdly good-behaved, she just makes me unsure…”

“That’s… your problem, Liam.

Drake shrugged and shook his head. He knew he shouldn’t give the literal back to the prince, but it wasn’t like he could handle another minute of awkwardness.

Concentrating was hard in the first hour, he kept reliving the moment where he opened the door of the room Erika was staying, how she was curled up on Liam’s chest. The surprised look on her face, from her to Liam; how she begged for forgiveness.

After three hours he figured he wouldn’t get any work done, so he decided to find Riley and see if she wanted a ride to Valtoria, he was scheduled to select the horses there for the next competition; he wasn’t surprised to find her along with Savannah at the dancing studio.

“I thought I smelled Tiger Balm,” he said as soon as he opened the door. “Should you be doing that already?”

Savannah was sitting on the ground with 3 pairs of ballet shoes and a sewing kit; Riley was right across her in a perfect split.

“You always liked the smell” Riley smiled dodging his question. “See… if you sew an elastic instead of silk, it will allow you more movements.”

“What are all these shoes?” Drake asked.

“Riley gave them to me so I could practice for the presentation” Savannah gave him a toothy grin.

Drake side-eyed Riley, the girl just clenched her jaw, sat back, and got up.

“Oh my, I just forgot I had to meet Maxwell… See you soon, bye!” Savannah exclaimed sensing the change in the atmosphere.

Drake waited until he heard the door closing behind his sister

“We had an agreement on gifts,” he said to her back as she pretended to look for something on her gym bag; he heard the clinking sound of her painkillers shaking in their bottle, she shouldn’t have been training so soon.

A long exhale followed.

“I bought them to myself, but it doesn’t seem like I’m going to wear them anytime soon, does it?” she was in a sour mood grabbing the orange bottle more forcefully than she should.

“I’ll count them as birthday gifts.”

“They are just fucking ballet shoes, Drake!” she turned with her jaw clenched, her blue eyes glimmering. “Helping Savannah is literally the only thing I’m holding onto right now.”

Her fists were balled on the side of her body and her whole frame was slightly shaking.

“Riley” Drake changed to a much softer tone. “Is everything alright?”

She closed her eyes for a second too long.

“Define ‘alright’.”

Drake didn’t say anything else, his hands just circled both of her upper arms and pulled her to his embrace, he felt in his chest as she inhaled and exhaled deeply, containing her tears. Even as a child, Riley hated crying in front of anyone.

“Hey, New York is just around the corner, ok?” Drake said and a sob escaped her mouth. “Soon you’ll be oceans away.”

Her sobbing was uncontrollable now.

“I’m not going.” Her voice was muffled by his chest.

“Wait… what happened?” he took a step back and his heart clenched at the sight of her watery eyes.

“I burned my acceptance letter two weeks ago, it was just bullshit, Drake. Everyone knows I can’t escape this place.” She forcefully wiped a tear that rolled down her cheek.

A small part of him, a part he would hardly acknowledge, was relieved to hear she wasn’t leaving; although, there was another part of him that was dying to see her like that. He always imagined Riley as an exotic bird inside a golden cage.

“You shouldn’t have done that!” he pulled her back to his arms and kissed the top of her head. “Things are going to be fine; I can’t tell you how, but they will, even if I have to make them be, ok?”

She sniffed on his chest.

“´k”

“Hey, let me take you back to Valtoria tonight, I’m headed there anyway” he moved back just a little to see her quickly drying her eyes.

“Yeah, that would be good, thanks.” She gave him a small smile.

“Be ready at 6 pm”

Drake left the room with a strange feeling at the pit of his stomach. Getting back to his office, he tried to concentrate on the paperwork for the next competition; stopping a little early than 6, he scrolled through his Instagram and something caught his attention, a smile spread on his face as he realized how he could lift Riley’s mood.

For some unknown reason, his legs were shaking while he waited for her outside his truck, it got worse once he saw her leaving the castle, wearing just jeans and no makeup on.

“Ready?” she asked, she sounded a little more cheerful than in the afternoon.

“Yeah” he opened the door and helped her hop in his Silverado.

As he drove far from the palace she seemed to relax, even more, concentrated on the changing blue sky as the night fell.

“We’ll need to stop somewhere first…” Drake started uncertain, regretting his words as soon as he said them.

“Where are we going?” she looked at him puzzled. “Are you gonna kill me and dispose of my body in the woods?”

Drake rolled his eyes and threw his cellphone on her lap.

“Sometimes I think I should…” he joked but stopped to study her face as a crease appeared between her brows.

“Are you serious?” she looked at him suspiciously. “Is this a prank? You would NEVER do this…”

“I can head right to Valt…”

“NO NO, we’re going” she reached for the steering wheel.

“You’re a danger even in the passenger seat, York” Drake pretended to slap her hand; he couldn’t help but smile at her excitement.

He parked his truck in front of the Wood Wheel and Riley hopped off the car like a child anxious to get into the park.

“Am I allowed to record?” she asked grinning.

“No” he stated, pulling his guitar from behind his seat. “I’m only doing this because I hate owing you.”

“Whatever you say, Walker…”

Getting inside, they were welcomed by the smell of Al’s greasy fries, loud chatter, and someone finishing a song on the makeshift stage at the right corner.

“Look if it isn’t my favorite costumer and again, he brought his girl that knows how to drink.” Al greeted them from the counter.

“Al doesn’t understand the term ‘friends’” he threw Riley an unapologetic look and she shrugged, making a beeline to the bar and grabbing a glass of wine for her and whisky for him.

“Drake’s gonna sing today!” Riley stated excited sitting on the stool.

“Oh, is he?” Al looked at him puzzled as Drake rested his guitar on the floor.

“I lost a bet” he mumbled grabbing his glass.

Al snorted, cleaning another glass.

“I have a free slot in half an hour, I’ll be waiting” Al mocked him.

After his second glass, he felt more at ease, especially after watching Riley chat cheerfully with Al, the remnants of her sadness not showing anymore.

“Ohhhh, it’s your turn, I’m so excited! I’ll get to check another one of the items on my bucket list for this year!” Riley clapped unable to contain her excitement.

Drake exhaled loudly and turned to grab his guitar when he felt Riley’s small hands on his biceps.

“Hey” her voice was hoarse, maybe for all the wine, she was drinking. “It’s going to be great.”

“It’s pretty packed, isn’t it?” Drake averted his eyes to all the occupied tables in front of the stage.

“It doesn’t matter, pretend it’s just us. Like we’ve done a hundred times”

He nodded and gulped despite all the encouragement from Riley.

Trying not to look at anyone on the tables, he silently sat on the stool with his guitar and adjusted his microphone.

“Hum, hello everyone. My name is Drake and I lost a bet.” The crowd laughed and brown eyes met ocean blue.

With a sigh, his fingers hit the strings.

I've been roaming around Always looking down at all I see Painted faces, fill the places I can't reach

You know that I could use somebody You know that I could use somebody

Someone like you, and all you know, and how you speak

 He tried to focus solely on his fingers hitting the strings, the hot light above him, muffling any sound of the crowd singing along, or the way his heart skipped a beat by his unconscious choice of song.

 Off in the night, while you live it up, I'm off to sleep Waging wars to shape the poet and the beat I hope it's gonna make you notice I hope it's gonna make you notice

Someone like me

 Although it wasn’t a matter of someone, more of a matter of somewhere, some other reality, because, in this one, this was just a song, it had to be just a song.

Drake finished the last notes with everyone in the bar singing along and clapping after he finished, completely flushed, and not from his whiskey.

“You were AMAZING!” Riley almost shrieked in excitement. “this was the best night EVER! God, I want to pee… wait a minute and we can go.”

Riley didn’t let him say anything before rushing to the bathroom.

“Your girlfriend is something else!” Al laughed pouring him some whisky.

“I’ve already told you, she’s not my girlfriend.” He drank half of his shot in a big gulp.

“Ok, but have you told her?” Al looked at him mischievously. “Because she was sitting right there where you are, looking at you like a lost puppy crazy to follow you home.”

“She’s not remotely interest… Hey York! Should we go?”

Riley was back with a half-drunk smile.

“Sure!”

The ride to Valtoria was peaceful, a recomforting silence with the radio buzzing old songs while Riley closed her eyes feeling the chilly night air on her face.

Drake parked his car on the west wing of her estate, where she could get inside by the kitchen door and he would be just a short walk from the staff’s rooms. He made sure to help her out of the car, not prepared to be that close to her.

“Thank you for this night” her voice was above a whisper.

“That’s what best friends are for” he winked and for a split of a second, he thought he saw her smile falter.

“Yeah you’re a great friend” she kissed his cheek for a second too long. “Good night, Drake.”

“Good night, Riley.”

He watched as she moved towards the entrance, turning to glance at him before entering, a pang in his chest hit him heard. He hoped he was having a heart attack.

AFTER

“No! You’re not putting any animal down without me saying so!” Drake almost shouted on the phone, Yanis, one of his assistants pretended he wasn’t witnessing the awkward moment. “You’re going to wait for me to get there then we talk. Bye!”

Drake almost threw his phone on the table and exhaled loudly.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, what happened?”

Yanis fidgeted on his seat.

“Hum, Lady Riley was here a while ago, she said she needed some files”

Shit, he forgot to hand them to her.

“Damn, if you see her, tell her I’ll have them delivered to her quarters today.

“She actually asked you to meet her at 3 pm, somewhere called South Wing.”

“Yeah, ok, anything else?” the boy just shook his head and got up as fast as he could.

Drake exhaled again; he didn’t want to scare the boy. He was one of the good ones sent from the company that now took care of the Royal horses.

He remembered how was to enter his office again after everything happened. Drake actually couldn’t remember how one thing led to another; how coming back from the hospital turned to join the taskforce against The Sons of Earth, then sharing a whiskey with Liam when they finally caught the bastards. Applying again for his job as an official Royal Veterinarian, now to a company, not Liam.

Everything got back to normal. Then she came back.

He gave up on his report and decided to do some handwork to pass the time.

 Riley’s back came into view as soon as his feet reached the grass; she seemed too absorbed by the view in front of her to notice Drake getting closer.

“Hey,” he said, and she was startled by his voice.

“Ohmygod… sorry, my mind was elsewhere.” She shook her head.

He followed her eyes to the window, they were facing the south wing of the castle, right beside the grand ballroom, the wing housed the conservatory and a dance studio, where right now a bunch of noble preteens were having a ballet class.

“Do you still dance?” Drake caught himself asking.

Riley chuckled and shook her head.

“I don’t dance at all.”

“At all? I pretty much saw you waltzing a couple of times since you came back.” She turned her head to face him and gave him half a smile.

“Waltzing is like shaking hands, you do it because you have to.”

“So, you’re telling me that you haven’t gone out clubbing in NY?” Drake questioned almost amused.

“Well, it was considered risky behavior for a person like me” she let the sentence hang in the air. “But yeah, I barely danced two songs in the past two years.” She shrugged like it was no big deal.

Drake stayed silent for long seconds, thinking through the sentence he wanted to say.

“You should do it; I know there’s a part of you dying to.”

He didn’t mean it to sound so personal, he just couldn’t help it; Riley blushed and looked at her feet before clearing her throat.

“Did you get her last address?” she changed the subject.

“Oh yeah, here it is” he offered her a folder with the little information he had gathered on Savannah’s whereabouts. “you’re not paying anything for it, right?”

“No, I beat up a PI at poker in New York and he owed me a favor for letting him go in his car.” She laughed to herself.

“Why does this story sound so much like bullshit?”

“His name is Damien Nazario, he was there with his girlfriend and another weird couple, you can look up for him online.” She smirked, “And for the record, I’m really good at poker.”

“So… poker wasn’t risky behavior?”

“We need to beat our vices one at a time, Walker” she laughed a little more truthfully. “So… that was another thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

Drake tensed.

“I went to the Wood Wheel yesterday and ended up bumping on Cassidy” Drake’s stomach clenched and Riley blushed from the awkwardness of the situation “Sorry, I didn’t know she was your girlfriend, she seems really nice though… hum, I obviously didn’t say anything and…”

She started twisting her fingers.

“And…?”

Riley sighed and leaned on the window,

“Look, I know it’s too much to ask, but no one never knew we were together…” it was almost painful to have the words together thrown at him. “well, aside from some people in the court… but, we could pretend it never happened so I wouldn’t lose my favorite bar.”

“You want me to lie to my girlfriend?” Drake rose a brow to her.

“No, I’m just asking for you not to blatantly tell her” he held his gaze on her shameful eyes. “Look, Wood Wheel is the only place I can drink without being bothered by people knowing me or paparazzi showing up. If she asks you, you do what you want to do, but think for a moment that we can bury whatever happened to us and just move on. This is the perfect chance.”

Whatever happened to us. Ouch.

“Okay… It’s not like I would want her to find out.”

Riley nodded not looking directly at him.

“Well… I got to go and email this stuff to Damien; I’ll tell you as soon as he gives me a lead.” Riley tried to brush off the awkwardness with a half-smile.

“Okay” Drake silently answered.

Returning to his office he got his phone back, noticing there were a couple of calls from Cassidy.

“Hey, Cass,” he said as soon as she picked up.

“Hey, Drake! How’s your day going?”

“Pretty normal, how about you?”

“Well…” she started and he heard the sound of the pans behind her. “the Chef is a little moody today, but the movement is low, not many tourists, so I’m now consuming Cordonian gossip.

“Oh… why?”

“I mean, in Greece we don’t have an ‘active’ Royal Family, sometimes I even forgot they existed, but here they are like celebrities.”

“Hum” Drake huffed not wanting to get to this conversation so soon. “Most of them are just assholes with money.”

“About that… Is ‘Lady Bitch’ related to Riley York?”

There it was.

“Yes, she’s her mother. Why?”

“Oh, I met Lady Riley yesterday… at Wood Wheel.” She finished like it was a surprise to find the noble there. “It seems like Al knows her, he even let her go out for a smoke with a glass on her hands.”

“I saw her there a couple of times in the past, before…. The whole thing”

Before I pulled her half-dead body from the ocean.

“Do you know her? She dated Prince Liam, you’re friends with him, right?”

“Yeah, I know her, everyone kind of know each other, is a small circle.”

That was safe.

“Hope she comes back to the bar when is our night, she looks like she tips well.” She laughed and he tried to follow. “Oh, I gotta go, Matt is calling me. Bye!”

“Bye…”

The rest of his shift was spent reliving the conversation.

He exhaled loudly. Drake didn’t like lying, and it felt like he was lying all the time, even if Cassidy would never think about Riley and him being anything but acquaintances; if he was being true to himself, he had been feeling close to suffocating ever since Riley came back, things were simpler then, now everything was gray, except for one of those exotic blue-ish flowers that always caught his eyes on the way back to his room.

Not even the chilly air of the garden was calming his nerves, then he noticed a light that wasn’t supposed to be there, the south wing was usually dark by that time at night, the only other times he recalled someone using it at was way back…

When Riley still danced.

He stopped dead in tracks near the window, watching as she executed a triple spin, only to stumble on her feet; he could see her frustration, her brows joined as some strands of hair fell from her bun to her face. Giving up, she sat on the floor and started to untie her shoes, she gave a long sigh when the music coming from the speakers changed drastically.

The sweet strings from Dramarama’s cover filled the room; she looked as surprised as him, they used to hear that song at full volume in his car right when he started driving. Now barefoot on the wooden floor, she got up and started to shake her shoulders timidly, then her hips followed… her legs and her arms.

 Do you wanna eat? Do you wanna sleep? Do you wanna drown?

Just settle down, settle down, settle down.

I’ll give you candy, give you diamonds, give you pills

I’ll give you anything you want. Hundred-dollar bills.

The song related morbidly to her, but it seemed to give her strength, totally lost on the beat; jumping around and biting her lips she untied her hair and let it fall loose shaking her head.

It was when a full-blown smile took over her face, with dimples and all.

Seeing those little dimples on the corner of her mouth as she smiled to the roof with her head thrown back, swaying hips and arms, he remembered why storms were named after people.

.

I just love you guys!

@saivilo​; @kimmiedoo5​; @pug-bitch​; @bee1arw​; @laurmillen​; @axwalker​​; @world-of-dreams-and-muse​; @rtinaz​​; @iplaydrake​​; @notoriouscs​​; @mind-reader1​​; @annekebbphotography​​; @walkerismychoice​​;  @tmarie82; @blackwidow2721; @thequeenchoices; @missameliep; @jovialyouthmusic; @perksof-everything; @choicesmacmakes; @carabeth @drakenazario; @drakesensworld; @moneyfordiamonds; @ao719; @lynne1993; @ilovedrakewalker23; @msjpuddleduck; @drakewalkerisreal; @violinist3121; @wannabemc2; @gibbles82; @furiousherringoperatortoad; @jens-diamondchoices; @rainbowsinthestorm​; @fromthedeskofpaisleybleakmore; @emceesynonymroll; @addictedtodrakefanfic; @texaskitten30; @dcbbw; @i-bloody-love-drake-walker; @mom2000aggie;

[kindrednerdspirit]

Sometimes A Thing Feels so Right: Part 2

Excerpt: Maybe she should be grateful she even knows someone could make her feel the way Newton does. Lately, though, it’s hard to feel grateful. Izzie is back to the ol’ numb-your-emotions-to-get-through-the-day routine. Her mum left again. No note, no nothing, just unanswered questions and disappointed kids.

TLDR: Timeline is after Season 3, Episode 9. It’s canon, except Izzie and Casey have not made up. Also, Evan and Casey are close friends, not just awkwardly figuring out how to be friends. Excuse the roughness, this is a work in progress.

The timeline for this story is after Season 3, Episode 9. I felt like the time in between the party where Izzie kisses a random guy (E9) and the part where Casey and Izzie make up (E10) could have been longer. It wasn’t necessarily rushed, but there was lots of potential to add more, especially in regards to Izzie’s internalized homophobia. I thought it would be fun to flush out Izzie’s feelings, and show her coming to terms with being gay. She realizes it’s not worth hiding a part of herself, especially if it means losing Newton.

Everything is the same as canon, except Casey and Izzie have not made up. Also, Casey and Evan are close friends. I think S3 E10 ends on a note where they’re friends, but still awkwardly figuring out what that looks like, so in what I just wrote, they’re solid friends.

This is unfinished, as you’ll see (it’s too jumpy), but my plan is to continue working on it. There are some things about the beginning that I don’t like, particularly the student council scene, but I’m struggling to think of ideas on how to improve it. So know that things are a work in progress and subject to change.

With Izzie’s emotions on my mind, I considered how the show hasn’t written much about her home life, either (not yet anyway--cannot wait for S4). So, I decided to write about life at home, her siblings, and the weight of having an absent parent. I was inspired and struck by the scene where Elsa sits down with Izzie, and shares how her mother was absent, too, and how that impacted her parenting style.

If you’re wondering why Izzie is hanging out with a superficial, “mean girl” crowd, it’s because I think that’s the role she played before she met Casey. This assumption is based on how Izzie first treats Casey, like when she pretends she pushed her during the sprint and when she refuses to help Casey on her first day of school. I’m also considering Izzie’s intimidating presence, and how she seems to have influence over her nameless, pre-Newton friends. This influence can be seen when she shows up at Casey’s birthday party with their Clayton Prep friends. I’m assuming that Iz is the main reason why they’re all there.

Phew! Anyhow, that’s how this piece began. Thank you for reading. Reach out if you have ideas, suggestions, criticisms, etc., or if you write Cazzie or Atypical fanfiction, too.

Friday, two weeks after the party. Izzie.

Since the party, the only thing Izzie knows about her and Newton, is that Newton wants nothing to do with her. It makes sense, really. Right after they almost kissed, she bolted and made out with someone else. Sometimes, Iz thinks of how turned on she was when Newton leaned in to kiss her. The memory alone makes her feel alive. It takes her out of the daily havoc and chaos created by her mother, reminding her of better things. It’s not like she savours the memory of Newton, though, or uses it to make herself feel better, because it inevitably gives way to embarrassment. Izzie went all the way with Nate and never, not once, did her body to respond to him like that. How could she be so dense to not know something so obvious about herself?

Maybe she should be grateful she even knows someone could make her feel the way Newton does. Lately, though, it’s hard to feel grateful. Izzie is back to the ol’ numb-your-emotions-to-get-through-the-day routine. Her mum left again. No note, no nothing, just unanswered questions and disappointed kids. It’s been a long time since Iz held any hope that her mum would stop using. Her siblings are different. Sometimes they still wait for her, awake in their beds at night, hoping she’ll come home safe.

But her siblings are all younger than her. Jason, the oldest, is eleven. He helps out with Alysha, their seven-year-old sister, and Arya, their two-year-old sister. He is so unbelievably sweet and Iz has no idea where he gets it from. She tries not to place too much responsibility on him, though. He’s still a kid, and the last thing she wants to do is rob him of his childhood.

Iz walks up the stairs to Clayton Prep as the warning bell rings. She cut it too close today. Selena has been sick this week, so the usual morning routine was a slog. She’s fussy, so Izzie woke Jason earlier than usual to help Alysha get ready. Iz considered an earlier wake-up time for herself but Coach is particularly barky lately, concerned that she is not getting enough sleep. It’s annoying when Coach notices things, because she’ll ask if things are okay at home. And what is Izzie supposed to say, exactly? 

“My mum is an addict.” 

“My siblings need me to take care of them.” 

“I’m worried that I’ll have to quit track, because my mum is a mess.”

“At any moment, the floor could fall out from underneath me, and I live with that possibility every day. But yeah, things are okay at home.”

Anyhow, Iz knocked on Jason’s door and gently shook him awake. Waking Jase 20 minutes earlier than usual doesn’t count as ruining his childhood, right? His response is a groan and a loud, “Why!?” That’s how Izzie knew it was going to be one of those mornings.

Like usual, the rest of the morning was a blur as Izzie got Arya ready for the day, while monitoring Jason and Alysha. She fed Arya as they got on their shoes. 

“Where’s your coat, Jason?” Izzie asked in between scooping spoonfuls of mashed banana into Arya’s mouth.

“I don’t need one.”

“You wear your coat when you leave this house. Go get it, please.” She handed Arya their agendas and lunch, then kneeled in front of her.

“Love you, hon.” She said before giving her sister a big hug and a kiss. Jason returned with a blue jacket and gave Iz a quick one-armed squeeze before running out the door.

“Wait for your sister!” She yelled after them before the door slammed shut.

When Izzie’s mum is sober, she leaves the house at 7:30 am, promptly arriving 15 minutes before the warning bell. With her mum AWOL and Arya needing to be delivered to her grandparents, Iz gets to Clayton Prep 15 minutes later than usual--too late for somebody trying to get into UCLA.

Izzie rushes to her locker. Her pre-Newton friends, who’re her current friends, wave and tell her to “hurry up.” Iz turns her lock clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise in its familiar pattern, then opens the door. As she is switching out binders, her heart stops when she sees a folded piece of paper. A note from Newton? Not wasting a second, she grabs it and opens it. 

It reads, “Do you like me?” Two unfilled boxes are underneath, one with the word “yes,” the other with the word, “no.” There is no name indicating who wrote it.

Izzie’s heart pounds in her chest. Newton didn’t write it. This would, sadly, be the most exciting part of her school day. She stuffs the note in her pocket and makes her way to the library.

Student council is a new gig for Izzie. She has essentially reverted back to her pre-Newton self. Her old friends happily welcomed her back, inviting her to join student council in the process. There is Scarlet, who is like Regina George with less anger. She’s popular, bossy, mean, but she doesn’t mess with Izzie. Then there is Harmony, who is like Scarlet’s right-hand woman who does what Scarlet says. She probably has a personality, but Izzie hasn’t seen it, yet. Maybe Harmony will get a personality once she snaps. Lastly, there’s the new initiate who Iz is just getting to know. Her name is Mel, and she seems sweet. Why she’s hanging with Scarlet or Harmony is still a mystery to Izzie. 

Iz enters the room right before the bell rings, and pulls out a chair. Everyone is looking at her.

“So?” Scarlet mischievously smiles. “Any new news?”

“No.”

“No… notes?” Harmony jumps in. 

“Oh, yeah, but no name on it.” Izzie pulls the note out of her pocket, unravels it, and puts it on the table.

Scarlet snatches the note and examines it, while Harmony and Mel lean in.

“It’s from Brad. As in Nate’s friend, Brad.” Scarlet points to a previously unfolded piece with Brad’s name. The girls look giddy, all with wide grins on their faces. Well, at least Harmony and Scarlet are grinning, Mel looks uncertain. She likely has no idea who Brad is. Lucky girl.

Izzie sits on the other side of the table, not impressed. “Great. The best friend of the dickhead who lied and cheated on me likes me.” Iz starts fishing her binder and pens out of her backpack.

“Oh, come on, Iz. Chin up. This could be a great rebound for you. Also, it would totally make Nate jealous.” Scarlet and Harmony giggle.

Iz enjoys the thought of an angry Nate, too, but she mostly doesn’t care. “Can we not talk about Nate? I’d rather just get started.”

“Yikes. No help this morning, either?” Asks Scarlet.

Izzie shakes her head. Unfortunately, Scarlet and Harmony are very aware of Izzie’s home life situation. Iz had a moment of weakness months ago (pre-Newton), where she broke down and told them about having to look after her siblings. 

The girls are empathetic to Izzie’s situation, promptly starting the student council meeting. There is a school dance coming up that has Harmony and Scarlet’s attention. Iz zones out, thinking about how everything at Clayton Prep drags without Newton. It’s less interesting, less fun. She remembers the time she pretended Newton pushed her during their first sprint. Shame immediately rushes over her at the thought of the memory. Izzie was so certain Newton was just another over privileged rich kid.

“Iz?” Scarlet is staring at her.

“Yeah?”

“Wow, where were you? We’re voting on Mel’s idea. Should we ask for LGBTQ+ safe spaces in our next meeting?”

Izzie is caught off-guard. Usually, the conversations revolve around more trivial things, like dances and hem lengths on the girls’ uniforms. Her mouth moves before her brain catches up.

“Yeah, I support Mel’s idea.”

Scarlet raises her brow. “Okay, you two can brainstorm ideas for making safe spaces. Harmony and I will keep working on the dance.”

Mel turns to Izzie, “Thanks.”

“Yeah, well, Clayton Prep is supposed to be one of the more progressive schools, but I barely see any posters or anything saying it’s a safe space.”

Mel smiles and nods, “My thoughts exactly.”

Izzie feels her heart skip. Is that… excitement? Did something more interesting happen today than a jock’s secret love note? She tries to keep herself from smiling too wide while brainstorming with Mel, who is suddenly the only other person on her radar.

Later that evening

The first clue that her mum is back is the hunk of junk parked in the driveway. The second clue is the smell of pepperoni deluxe pizza that hits Izzie when she pushes open the door. Her mum always bought pizza as an “I’m sorry” treat. Iz walks into the kitchen with three large bags of groceries--groceries that she rushed to buy after school, so her and the kids could eat dinner at a reasonable time.

“IZZIE, my beautiful, gorgeous girl!” Her mum gets up from the table and gives her an exaggerated hug in front of Boyfriend Number… Six?

Iz doesn’t know if she’s high or not, and doesn’t care to find out.

“Hey.” She’s short as she puts away the food.

“This is Steve. Steve, meet Izzie, my oldest.” 

“Hi, nice to meet you.” Steve almost sounds like he means it. 

It’s never worth her time to meet her mum’s boyfriends, so Izzie ignores them and puts away some pasta sauce and beans.

“Hey,” her mum’s tone flipped remarkably fast, “I raised you better than that--don’t ignore people when they talk to you.”

Iz has also learned, over time, that it’s best for her to preserve her energy when it comes to her mum. This is one of those battles that wasn’t worth her time.

She turns to Steve, expressionless, and says, “Hi,” then immediately begins to put away canned corn and soup. “So Steve, were you in the picture before or after my mum left without notice for five days?” 

No answer from either of them, but it doesn’t matter, the situation is disappointing enough already. Iz slams the cupboard shut and leaves to check on her siblings. She numbed herself the moment she walked through the door, anyway. 

Saturday morning.

Iz wakes up the next day to a bright, beautiful Saturday morning. She groans, not wanting to deal with her mum today, so she decides to go for an early run. Leaping into her hoodie and track pants, she pads down the hallway and into the kitchen.

“Hi, beautiful.” Her mum is sitting at the table with a cup of coffee.

Iz frowns and fills her water bottle. “Did you sleep last night?”

There’s a scoff and a shuffling of feet. “What does it matter if I slept or not?”

“You know it matters!” Izzie’s raised voice even surprises her. Insomnia is one of her mum’s symptoms when she’s taking too many painkillers.

Her mum doesn’t say a word.

“Where did you go?” Izzie presses.

“I’m not having this conversation with you right now.” Her mum gets out of her chair and leaves the room. Other symptoms include hostility and mood swings. Nowadays, it was difficult for Iz to pinpoint her mum’s “normal” level of agitation. She always seemed sad or angry.

Feeling the familiar anger rise in her chest, Izzie calls after her. “Wherever you were for the last five days, I hope it was worth it!”

Friday, two weeks after the party. Casey and Elsa.

It’s a normal day in the Gardner household, whatever normal is when Casey’s autistic brother understands her relationship with her ex-girlfriend through the lens of two gay penguins who adopted an egg. And now Casey is not with her ex (hence the term “ex”), so she’s wondering if there’s another example of a gay penguin that Sam can compare her to that doesn’t have a partner. Oh, and then there’s her parents who are living together but not technically together, but they sometimes go on dates...

Anyhow, Casey is readying herself for a run. She wolfs down some pancakes made by Elsa, who is doing her typical mum thing and staring too long at her daughter.

“What?” Casey asks in between mouthfuls of fluffy, syrupy deliciousness.

“Have you talked to Izzie, lately?” She asks because for over a week, Casey hasn’t been looking at her phone with a goofy smile on her face, or laughing to herself while staring at the screen. Something is up.

“Nope.” It’s a firm “no,” denoting that there’s nothing else to say about the subject.

Elsa is not convinced, but letting her kids come to her for support has been not only rewarding, but extremely successful, so she doesn’t press further.

“Uhm.” There’s a beat as Casey wonders whether she should continue or not. “I saw grandma yesterday.”

Elsa stops washing the plate she’s holding, and turns to face her daughter. “Oh. Where?”

“Outside the hair salon. I crossed the street and talked to her for awhile.”

“That’s good!” Elsa nods a bit too vigorously to sound convincing.

“Why don’t we see her much? I mean, like, what happened between you two? For real.”

Casey knows that Elsa and her grandma don’t get along, but Elsa has held back on telling her daughter the full truth. Painting her mum as an alcoholic, absent parent wasn’t how Elsa wanted her children to see their grandma. And, even though those days are in the distant past, they still stir up difficult feelings for Elsa. 

Maybe she was unwittingly selfishly avoiding this conversation? She used to tell herself to wait for the right time, and now seemed like as good a time as any. Especially with Casey opening up to her recently about her feelings toward Izzie. She usually went to Doug for advice, so to finally have “girl” time together was really special.

With that thought in mind, Elsa pulls out a chair and sits beside her daughter. She takes a deep breath before speaking.

“I didn’t get along with my mum growing up. She wasn’t around when she should’ve been. She’d drink too much, come home too late, and there was a lot to do around the house, because she was absent. She was often around...physically, she didn’t go on benders or anything, but she was mentally gone. A lot. Even now, it’s hard for me to be in the same room as her, let alone trust her.”

Casey sucks in a quick breath. Elsa’s eyes are watery, but no tears fall. “Oh.” Casey’s short reply feels stupid and lackluster. Speechless, she hugs her mum. For once, she feels very grateful for her mum’s presence, even if that presence is often bothersome.

“Love you.” Casey says before pulling away. 

“Love you, too.”

“Thanks for not being a giant, meddling Elsa earlier.” She smiles wryly before leaving her seat, then leaving the house for her run.

Saturday. Izzie talks to Evan.

She loves the feeling she gets when she is running, like all her problems are somehow smaller, because she can think clearly. Izzie’s feet hit the warm pavement rhythmically, taking her further and further from home. Sometimes she fantasizes about running and never turning back. She could be free, free to go wherever she wanted and be whoever she wanted to be. But that’s all they were--daydreams. She could never leave Jason, Alysha, or Arya. One thing she could do, however, was let her feet take control, at least for a little while. Which is why she eventually found herself at… Don’s Pizza?

You don’t want to be here, she thinks to herself. Evan works here.

She stands looking at the entrance while families peer over at the strange, lone person on the edge of the parking lot.

Fuck it, I’ll just sit down and buy a slice. Just because Evan works here doesn’t mean that this has to be a big deal.

Iz lets her feet walk her through the front door. He is there, of course, standing behind the counter, wiping it down with a washcloth. He hasn’t looked up, yet. She could still leave.

“Evan, customer at the door.” Someone barks from the kitchen.

As soon as his eyes meet Izzie’s, his face hardens, but he walks over.

“Hey.” There is an awkward pause. “Would you like to sit at a booth or the counter?”

Iz doesn’t skip a beat. “The counter.”

“Uhhm… that’s where I’ll be.”

“I know.”

His eyes narrow. “Look, I don’t think we should talk about Casey.”

Iz raises her eyebrow. “Oh, are you suddenly uninterested in her? That didn’t take long.” 

Evan folds his arms and sighs. He doesn’t want to stand in the doorway any longer, and he is a little curious as to why Izzie is here. The last time he talked to Casey, she told him that Izzie didn’t want to date her, almost like she had cold feet or something.

“This way.” He says gruffly while walking toward the available spot at the counter.

She follows him and pulls out the bar stool. Iz looks at the table while Evan stands behind the counter, the two saying nothing. 

“I think I made a mistake.” Izzie blurts. Her chest rises and falls. Was she sweating? “I never should have got between you and Casey. She deserves...I can’t give her what she deserves. My life is complicated and I’ll just get in the way of her and UCLA.”

Evan is leaning against the counter, his arms outstretched with the washcloth in his back pocket. “For someone who’s smart, you’re really dumb.”

“I know.” Iz covers her face with her hands. She is overwhelmingly embarrassed by confiding in the one person who likely hated her, and unbelievably distraught over missing Newton.

“What is the problem?” He’s exasperated. “She left me because she likes you more. When I was with her, she lit up when she talked about you! Casey was different around you, like you two were in sync or something. You’re an idiot for throwing that away.”

Izzie feels her eyes warm up from the tears. Evan sighs and looks right into her eyes. “Just go to her.” He waits a beat. “Please? Preferably sooner rather than later, so I can get back to work.”

A grin spreads across Izzie’s face and she hiccups out a laugh. “I’m not ordering anything.”

“Yeah, I gathered that. I’ll still take a tip, though.”

She smiles wryly and puts the only bill she has on the table. It’s $5. “That’s for stealing your girlfriend.”

“That’s…” For once in this conversation, Evan is speechless. “You know what? I have actual work to do, so…”

Iz pushes in her stool, feeling lighter than she did ten minutes ago. “You know, I think I’m starting to understand your appeal.” She switches to a more serious tone. “Thank you.”

Evan nods and does, in fact, get back to work.

[itsbenedict]

Two-Faced Jewel: Session 7

A half-elf conwoman (and the moth tasked with keeping her out of trouble) travel the Jewel in search of, uh, whatever a fashionable accessory is pointing them at. [Campaign log]

Last time, Saelhen and Looseleaf continued their scouring of the evil torture wizard's evil torture tower for clues as to the identity of the murderer terrorizing the towns of Barley and Wheat. They found a bunch of mysterious documents of ominous character, but they've yet to check out the tower's hidden basement- and the ne'er-do-well lurking within...

The basement doesn't immediately contain any horrors, unless you're the type to get the jibblies from a messy room. There's dirty dishes (recently used), empty beer bottles from a Zeishus Brewery, and discarded clothes everywhere. It's very lived-in, and whoever lives-in here doesn't seem like they were expecting visitors.

Saelhen takes a look at the desk nearest the stairs, next to a well-used recliner and a recently-extinguished candle. She gets a nat 20 on her Investigation, and finds that the desk has been rotated to face the wall, concealing a drawer that doesn't look like it's been opened in some time, judging by the cobwebs.

What's inside is mainly more of the sort of thing they found on the sixth floor- technical notes on neurology and pain magic. With the critical success, she's able to piece together that the odd numbers on the abrasive letter found upstairs were some sort of pain measurements the letter-writer was providing to Lumiere.

They also find a less academic, more personal note, expressing frustration with his own research.

"Why would the Burnscreamer's rituals require Abyssal? Even a god like him shouldn't have any connection to the demons- what is he playing at?" "If I could just correct the sigil, I could bypass so much of this nonsense..."

Saelhen then gets a nat 1 on her Religion roll to know what that means, and assumes the Burnscreamer is the frontman for a metal band her dad likes.

As they search the rest of the room, they notice- at the bottom of the central shaft- a circular basin in the stone floor. It's stained red, but it's dry- not as much blood as you'd expect to see given the carnage on the sixth floor, so it seems like it's been recently emptied or cleaned out.

Oyobi, meanwhile, checks the locked door by the stairs, and finds it... cold? I wonder what that means vis-a-vis-

The extremely sneaky +9 Stealth person hiding braced against the walls of the central shaft fucks up right about then, and slips a little, letting out an involuntary "Gh- shit!", alerting the party to his presence.

Saelhen tries to chase after this person by parkouring off those same walls, gets a 9, and faceplants in the blood basin, leaving the issue to the party member who has wings. As the hider flees through one of the doors in the shaft, Looseleaf uses her darkvision and 24 Investigation roll to pick out the right door and give chase.

(Meanwhile, the rest of the party heads up the stairs normally- and Saelhen orders Orluthe to bust down the front door, so they can go outside and catch anyone trying to escape by rappelling down the side of the building. This turns out to be unnecessary, because when Looseleaf detected that the front door was magic and assumed it was a trap, this was incorrect.)

Benedict I. (GM): ("who knows what kind of trap could be on this magic door? better go up and through the window into the room full of traps, instead") (i was laughing so hard) (it's just an automatic door!) Looseleaf: Honestly, the people in town oversold this place. They made it sound like such a deathtrap and really it was just a bunch of spiky bots. And knives. And comfy pillows. Benedict I. (GM): Well, when they were there, there was a living evil torture wizard actively trying to take them prisoner and torture them.

Looseleaf botches her Investigation roll to search the torture lab she emerges in, but... that doesn't stop her from just checking each and every possible hiding place one by one, manually. She alights upon the correct solution swiftly- checking inside the broken remains of the iron maiden.

bBenedict I. (GM): Anyway, Looseleaf, inside the corpse of the iron maiden, you find. A rather heavy man, performing a downright heroic feat of contortionism to suspend himself inside the door without getting impaled on the spikes. Arnie: "Uh." "Can you pretend you never saw me?" Looseleaf: "That depends on what you're doing here, I guess. Who are you and what are you doing here?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: oh that is a nervous man Arnie: "No one. Nothing. I'm, uh, supposed to be like, dead, probably." "So I'm not here." "Yeah?"

Arnie Zeishus is the deadbeat husband of Cassie, the innkeeper from Barley, who fled town a while back. He explains that after fleeing his responsibilities in Barley, he tried to set up shop in Wheat running a brewery, but got in trouble flouting the brewing regulations of the Ecumene of Harmony. So after getting arrested there and breaking out of prison, he decided to sneak into the torture wizard's tower and lay low as a squatter in the guy's basement. He figured he might get caught and tortured, but it couldn't be worse than what the townspeople wanted to do to him.

Except, as luck would have it, the torture wizard was already dead when he arrived! So he's been making a home of the place with Lumiere's old animated housekeepers, using the torture wizard's fearsome reputation as a way to keep anyone from tracking him down and making him do stuff like clean up a distillery explosion or pay child support or what have you.

On the other hand, someone has been sneaking around his tower doing something sinister on the sixth floor that results in blood pouring down into the basin periodically, and he's stressed out of his mind wondering who the hell is doing that and how he's supposed to avoid getting caught and/or killed by them.

(He notes that the "KEEP SHOUTING" sign was his attempt to get intruders to at least give themselves away by making noise, after they were clearly ignoring the "KEEP OUT" sign he put up.)

Looseleaf also takes the time to ask if Arnie here knows anything about someone named Choss.

Arnie: He looks surprised. "You know Choss?" Looseleaf: "Let's say that Choss is a figure of importance in this investigation." "Anything you could tell us about how they arrived in town and what they did in town would be appreciated." Arnie: He shrugs. "Choss was there before I was- she's a real weirdo." "Knows how to party, but- gotta say, her stuff's a little too strong for me." "A crazy high at first, but it gets- whoof, intense." Looseleaf: "She's an apothecary of some kind?" Arnie: He laughs. "You could say that. She's got herself a little drug lab in town, always smells like burning. Don't know how she gets away with it- some of that stuff's gotta be illegal." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "And how old is she, approximately?" Arnie: "Eh? She's- hard to tell with lizardfolk, s'not like you can read the wrinkles..." Looseleaf: Ah, of course. Lizardfolk. Saelhen du Fishercrown: yep Arnie: "Seems youngish, though? Party girl through and through." "Just, uh, if she offers you a blend, don't take it unless you're ready to spend the next hour feelin' like fire ants are chewin' their way out of your skin." He shudders a little. Looseleaf: "Hm. Sounds painful." Arnie: "You have no idea," he laughs.

They also inquire about the locked freezer room- and why Arnie would hide out here, in dangerous torture tower, rather than just running off to a city, which is a little weird that he didn't do. Arnie claims there's just groceries in there, and no stolen wine bottles whatsoever, he certainly isn't a thief and he definitely hasn't been lying low out here because if he goes to a city some old pals from Thunderbrush might find him and want him dead, no sir! He would never ever commit a crime, ["wink wink" in hand-signed Thieves' Cant].

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Of course. I can't imagine we have any thieves here." [Nudge nudge.] Looseleaf: "In the meantime, Mr. Zeishus, you mentioned having done something that.. makes going anywhere where you might meet someone from Thunderbrush a dangerous thing?" Arnie: He fidgets. "Uh, well..." "I, I try to leave all that behind me." "You just... don't want to get involved with the ghost dryad mafia. Just a tip."

He drops a little bit of exposition about something that may be coming up- apparently, Thunderbrush used to have these huge skyscraper-sized trees, but they got chopped down in some sort of war or raid a while back, and now the Stumps are ruled by the necromancer ghost dryads of those trees who used the last vestiges of their power to cheat death. Apparently Arnie was strongarmed into doing crimes for various ghost dryad mafiosos and made too many enemies, so he fled to Barley to shake the heat.

Looseleaf also comes to a realization regarding some hints dropped earlier in the townsfolks' tragic backstories:

Looseleaf: (actually, wait, i just realized: choss is probably chitch's daughter, the timelines there line up perfectly and maybe this whole dragonborn business is a total red herring we invented for ourselves) (what the shit, lumiere, you kidnap a guy's daughter and raise them as your own child? that's fucked.)

Looseleaf occupies this Arnie guy by interrogating him about these things, while Saelhen slips downstairs to try to pick the lock to the freezer room.

Eventually, after a bunch of failed rolls and more small talk from Looseleaf to keep Arnie occupied, Saelhen pops open the lock. Inside, she finds a fairly large and frigid room. There are meathooks hanging from the ceiling, empty. There are shelves lining the edges full of frozen food.

And to her right, there's another door- this one out of place with the rest of the construction, made of a strange stone shot through with rivulets of glowing orange. There's a symbol on a stone circle embedded in the door:

Before she checks that out, though, she checks the darkened back of the room- which contains some tubs filled with ice.

And those tubs have corpses in them, with the four-pointed wounds.

It is not especially likely that Arnie had no idea these were here, in a room he claims to use to store groceries and has the key to.

Looseleaf, meanwhile, attempts to read Arnie's spirit to determine his alignment and general intentions. His Deception beats her Insight, but what she does manage to get is...

Arnie is afraid. He is filled to bursting with terror and desperation more intense than you've ever felt from anyone before. And the fear does not seem directed at you.

Meanwhile, Saelhen tries to get that door open. What's the deal with that thing, huh? There's no handle, so... she has the bright idea of slapping her mysterious god icon bracer (the one that when previously slapped against a magic thing opened a pit to infinite bats) against it, see what happens. And I get very excited, because ohohoho, I didn't expect that, I had to think through the ramifications of doing that, and...

...then I work through those ramifications, and what I realize is that, as far as the players would know, the end result is just that the door slides open, and nothing else of note occurs.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Why am I even here I just wanted to help a nice little girl show up her dipshit inquisitor mom now I'm in a pain room investigating pain machines..." Looseleaf: (looseleaf warned you about getting involved in the case, she warned you dog)

There's also a bunch of weird machines, and more of Lumiere's notes, which Saelhen goes and nabs as many of as she can. Then she beats feet immediately, not wanting to spend any longer than necessary in the hell lab. The problem is, she doesn't want to leave any sign she was in there, so...

Saelhen du Fishercrown: Does tapping the exposed bit of stone with the bracer again close the secret hell door? Benedict I. (GM): Nope. Saelhen du Fishercrown: hmm. poking it with her finger? Benedict I. (GM): Ouch. Nope. Saelhen du Fishercrown: physically pulling the stone upwards while muttering "fuck fuck fuck ow ow ow"? Benedict I. (GM): Oh, hm, yeah, that would work. At first there's no effect, but as you continue to pull and the pain gets worse and worse... Roll me a Constitution save. Saelhen du Fishercrown: 16 CONSTITUTION SAVE (3) Benedict I. (GM): That'll do it! Your pain feeds the door, and, satisfied, the mouth closes. Looseleaf: How extremely concerning!

Cool!

So Saelhen goes back upstairs, the party secretly confers and exchanges information, and... something has to be done about Arnie.

His expression changes, suddenly.

Arnie: "You don't know what you're talking about." "This doesn't have to happen."

Looseleaf continues to try to offer help to this guy, inferring that he's being forced to do someone else's dirty work. She rolls a 20 on Persuasion! So... what happens following them cornering and exposing the culprit is not the rolling of initiative. Still, though...

Arnie: Arnie... backs up a step. "You're morons." "You have no idea." "You're talking like you can help me?" "That's impossible. No one can help me." "I- I'm fucking cursed, dammit!" Looseleaf: is he? i have magic sense, he is clearly not actually magically cursed, right Arnie: "What are you clowns going to do about it? Nothing!" "What are you going to do, kill a dragon?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "You are entangled here. If Looseleaf says so, then I trust her intuition and her investigative prowess. This doesn't necessarily mean you're entangled in such a way that there is no way out for you." Saelhen shrugs. "Theoretically, the device on my arm is responsible for drowning a small city in vampiric monsters from beyond the stars. And yet there was a way out of that, and a genuine silver lining into the bargain." "I want you to understand that I am absolutely sincere when I say: There is always a way out." Arnie: "That's- there's no way! There's only one way out!" "He'll free me from the curse if I do what he says, and that's the only way!" Looseleaf: ...That is not how dragon-curses work at all. Benedict I. (GM): Not as far as you're aware, no. Doesn't seem like anyone's told Arnie.

They continue to try to convince him that there's hope, that he doesn't need to do what the dragon says, that they can help him. And Arnie just keeps pushing back, refusing to acknowledge any of it, weeping and shouting and doing whatever he can to avoid believing that he didn't have to do any of that, that there was any other way- because if there was, he'd be a monster, right?

Meanwhile, Vayen... is standing a ways away and staring at them all, as usual... but this time, he's smiling. No one here has ever seen Vayen smile before. He looks like his birthday came early. And as they're on the verge of a breakthrough...

Arnie: "Fucking- you don't think I know that?" "I know that! I know he's manipulating me!" "But what else do I do?" Vayen: "You could kill yourself," Vayen suggests. Looseleaf: "Vayen what the FUCK?" Arnie: "What the fuck- shut up, asshole!" "I'm not dying! Not here, not nowhere!" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...Vayen, you are placing a remarkable number of ticks in the 'leave you at the side of the road' column." Vayen: Vayen shrugs. "It's the most reliable way to neutralize a dragon's curse." "It's the sensible thing to do, if you don't want to cause collateral damage."

It's as though he deliberately picked the one thing to say to ensure that this argument would keep happening, and not reach a friendly resolution. The hell is his problem?

Still, the party keeps trying to talk this guy down.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "And -- Arnie, surely you don't think the dragon would hunt you down? Dragons don't go out of their way to punish us; they just use us to accomplish whatever it is they're planning. He'll make it someone else's problem." "I know the type. Arnie, it wouldn't care enough to hunt you down. What seems like a personal connection, like it caring about you -- if it tries that at all -- it's just an implement. It's a way of getting you to do what it wants. Go to ground effectively, and it won't bother to spare the effort." Arnie: "What are you, talking like some kinda dragonologist? The hell do you know about dragons?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...I am not a dragonologist, no," admits Saelhen. Looseleaf: "...Are you a dragonologist?" Arnie: "Of course it could hunt me down! Damn thing's got magic items out the ass and it flies faster than I can run!" "As soon as it saw me going somewhere it didn't tell me to, I'd get turned into a midnight snack!" "And then I go to ground, and the curse kicks in, and I end up dead or worse anyway. Sounds great." "Or, I stay here, gut a few self-righteous fucks who treated me like dirt for a while, and maybe the thing keeps its end of the bargain and lets me go!"

Yeah, that's a confession, and like, not one that makes him look great. Still, given this guy's weirdly high rolls on physical stuff, and his apparent aptitude for murdering people, they're not super sure they want to fight this guy- on top of just, not exactly wanting to fight this guy.

What are they going to do? They have to come up with a plan- and their plan has to take less than three weeks to pull off, since Arnie only has six corpses left in the bathtubs, and the dragon wants two corpses a week to prove he's still doing the job.

(And is it even worth going to all that trouble just to protect this guy from the consequences of his actions?)

Next time: a plan is hatched, and the party gets back on the road.

[llendrinall]

(1) Draco, Harry, Hermione & Ron (aged 23) all are working on a case. Harry & Ron are Aurors. Draco & Hermione are both Healers & Unspeakables. The case is something like a bunch of Death Eater wannabes trying to resurrect the dark lord. So while busting in on their ritual all 4 are transported to their younger bodies at different times. Draco (5), Ron (7), Hermione (9), Harry (11) (The day before Hagrid comes to fetches him.)

(2) Harry and Draco were married so they use a phrase to each other so the other knows that they're the other and then plan a meet in the Room of Requirements. After confirming that Ron and Hermione (Married) are who they are too they go to the meet too. While each playing the roles they had the first time around. They then work out a plan for the war (Since Draco hasn't found a way back they plan to change things).

(3) Draco needs to play the bully/death eater and work to save the lives of the war victims. While Harry, Ron and Hermione work out the horcrux ect. Befor and during the war they secretly work to make preperations and stuff to minimize the damage while also playing their parts as school rivals. And they manage to minimize the deaths and they manage to save a lot of familiar faces. Sirius, Remus, Tonks, George ect.

(4) So after Harry kills Voldemort (He had an argument with Draco cuz Draco was worried he wouldn't come back this time) they're in the grand hall and everyone just sees the golden trio going to Draco with smiles. Ron gives him a handshake, Hermione a Hug, and shockingly Harry kisses him infront of everyone (Draco's parents are like "WTF?") And says "Told you i wouldn't die." "Shut up you bloody git". (In my head its a long fic with a LOT of stuff added. I just wanna know how you'd write this)

 Mmh, yes this would be a long plotty fic, so I won’t detail the structure, just some of the elements I would use to build it.

First, I would have them go back to exactly one month before they turn 11. There is a very nice symmetry there and we avoid having Draco too long in his child’s body. An adult Draco in a 5-year-old body would be terrifying. Lucius would just flee the country.

So they go back to 11 minus one month. Harry and Draco have 1-2 summer months to get settled and start figuring things out, Ron gets around 7 months to think about family dynamics and draft a plan to contact his friends. Hermione has a whole year plus change to rage, study and come up with a definite plan to Get Things Right.

There is a beautiful tense scene as they board the train, because Harry and Ron don’t know if their friend is their old self or their young self. They are both very cautious around each other until Harry notices the way Ron looks at Scabbers and he knows. It just takes a couple of loaded comments afterwards to recognize each other.  

Hermione barges in their compartment in her usual way and they have to drop some very heavy hints to remind her they are not alone. They can’t spook Pettigrew.  Draco comes by, stares at Harry in silence for a whole minute and then passes him a note saying he can’t find the diary and also he ordered Dobby to go serve Harry, he should be waiting in Hogwarts. It is unclear whether Draco knows this Harry is the old Harry because Draco is, and has always been, kind of odd. It took them a while to discover it, but Draco is just a bunch or random powerful ideas held together with anxiety and fire. Harry loves him so much.

They go to Hogwarts. You would think that in this timeline Harry would be the most belligerent/hostile of them, but it is actually Hermione. Hermione is a nightmare student. She has a list of one hundred and fifty names and she is going to save all of them (except maybe Dumbledore and Snape). She has no time nor attention to waste in silly classes telling her what she already knows. She only comes to class sporadically, aces all her tests and hands out beautiful neat homework that barely took ten minutes out of her day to complete. Teachers hate her (or heavily dislike her), but they can’t expel her. It’s beautiful. The twins develop a crush on her.  

Harry waits patiently until Christmas so Dumbledore can gift him the Invisibility Cloak and then announces that he is not going back to the Dursleys. Dumbledore insists. Harry says softly “by Jove, I will not” and Dumbledore thinks about that exchange for a week. He forgets about it when ten days later there is an incident in Transfiguration class and McGonagall discovers that Ron’s pet rat Scabbers is actually Peter Pettigrew.

(They were going to wait until Quirrell tried to steal the philosopher’s. Hermione insisted they couldn’t deviate too much of the original timeline or they would lose their advantage of knowing what was going to happen. If something was going to change, it was better to attach it to some other important event.

But Harry pointed out that it would be much easier to keep Sirius alive if he had some extra months of freedom and he didn’t have to live as a fugitive and Ron was certain that they would be fine even if they changed everything. It wasn’t just their knowledge of the events to come, it was their knowledge, period, their experience.

Ron is a man now, and adult, and he is kind of freaked out at the shenanigans they did when they were merely children. What were they thinking? Was there no competent adult to point out that were kids? It shouldn’t be up to them to rescue Sirius or Buckbeak, what in the seven hells.)

Anyway, Sirius is freed and Dumbledore is forced to explain everything about prophecies and love magic and blood protection early, because Harry insists he is going to live with Sirius. Harry agrees to go back to the Dursleys for two weeks, but Sirius has to come with him and no, he will not come as a dog, that’s demeaning. He will spend his time at the Dursleys as a human, thank you very much.

Sirius is the first adult to realize that there is something not quite right about Harry. The others had noticed that Harry was… special. But Sirius is the first one to see through, although he doesn’t know what he is seeing exactly.

Lucius still uses the Diary against the Weasleys, but this time Ron picks it up. Their first week back in Hogwarts, they all go for a nice excursion down to the Basilisk lair. They bring the Diadem, too. Harry speaks to the Basilisk and both horcruxes are destroyed.

The rest of the year is spent plotting. Draco takes on the role of the bully and plays it up to hilarious heights. He picks on everyone, and that’s everyone, except Neville and Luna. Funnily, Cedric Diggory is a big fan of him and always answers to Draco’s banter.

Draco suggests having a Duel Club to Lockhart. There has been no student attacks, of course, but Lockhart loves the idea and Draco wants the opportunity to fight Harry and make ridiculously sexually charged comments. They have five very nice duelling sessions until the curse of the DADA post acts up and professor Lockhart is unavailable the rest of the year.

(Harry tutors everyone in his year so this time people will actually now how to cast a protego. Ginny comes to the classes too and is by far his best student).

That summer, Ron has a very long chat with Percy explaining everything. Ron is now eight years older than Percy and understand why his brother fell to the Ministry and rejected his family. The Weasleys had pushed him that way, hadn’t they? Ron also understands that suddenly being nice to Percy and giving him recognition won’t work. It’s too late. But telling Percy they come from another timeline in which Fred died gets Percy’s attention immediately. Percy spends a whole weekend freaking out in silence (nobody notices, of course, and boy is Ron appalled at his family dynamics). Come Monday, Percy emerges relatively calm, all things considered. He has given himself a haircut and is resolved to infiltrate the Ministry.  

The locket is destroyed that summer. They let Sirius and Kreacher do it.

They were hoping to have all horcruxes down before Voldemort rose back, but Pettigrew escapes Azkaban and Voldemort comes back a year ahead of schedule. (Early 4th year).

Dumbledore locates the ring. Despite warnings from all of them (and Snape) he still puts the ring on and gets a curse for it. Hermione says if he is going to be like that, she will take him from her To-Save list.

Barely eight months after Voldemort comes back to power, the Ministry is full of his followers. For now, Voldemort is happy with acting from the shadows, but soon he will want more and the four of them want to avoid open war as much as possible.

Percy sends Ron Helga’s cup, broken. Ron asks how he did it in case they ever find themselves in a similar situation (new timeline and all), but Percy only says that he asked politely. That means there are only two (two? Or is it one?) horcruxes remaining. Draco decides to speed things up, before Voldemort stars his terror campaign. He tells his father than Dumbledore has a mysterious ring with an interesting crest and that’s enough to have Voldemort attack Hogwarts with all his might.

It may not seem like a good idea, but if you think about it it’s much better to have dark wizards try to take over a castle than over a cottage where a half-blood family lives. Plus, now they don’t have to sweep Britain looking for Nagini. They can see her perfectly well down in the grounds trying and failing to eat Hagrid.

The battle draws on and almost becomes a siege. The Ministry comes to help, only they help Voldemort’s side, what with being infiltrated and all.

It’s still preferable to the years of the war.

Sirius has been put under a careful and insistent treatment of “Sirius, no”, so he actually stops when he is told to, he doesn’t follow Pettigrew to a trap and he isn’t killed by Bellatrix. Well done, Sirius! Another advantage of Sirius surviving, beyond the fact that he survived, yay, is that he gets to save Snape when Voldemort decides he might not be a good double spy after all. Snape hates the idea of owing his life to Sirius. It is very entertaining.

Neville kills Bellatrix Lestrange. Luna kills Nagini (and feels bad for it, and cries, sweet Luna, may she always have a soft heart). Peter Pettigrew dies in a freak accident in which both the giant squid and the twins are involved. Cedric Diggory bullies seven Ministry wizards into switching sides.

Things are going good. There are many wounded, more than the last time, but no dead, not on their side.

Harry knows he will have to die, again. And it will have to be Voldemort. He can’t risk having anyone else cast the curse (would they even meant it?). They have changed so many things… They can’t be sure that all those changes won’t coalesce in this one instant in time. They can’t be sure that Harry will make it back.

But Harry still goes, because that’s what he has to do. He tries to make things as similar as possible, act the same way, say the same things. Maybe having Sirius and Moody and Tonks and Lupin alive and well and fighting won’t matter if Harry just follows the script on this.

But just in case it will matter, just in case Harry doesn’t come back this time, he throws some ad lib.

“Hey, Tom,” Harry says, holding his thumb between his index and middle finger. “I’ve got your nose.”

Well, at least he can be sure that Voldemort means it when he cast the curse.

 The honour of killing Voldemort falls on Hagrid this time. It isn’t pretty.

And Harry comes back. Draco forgives him just for having said that line.

[russian-romanova]

barefoot

title: barefoot 

pairing: dad!tony stark x reader

word count: 4.7k

warnings: mentions of cancer, sketchy timelines, major + minor character death, angst, spoilers for the whole mcu, me not knowing what twelve-year-olds do in school nowadays

notes: this is based on ‘forest fire’ by brighton. i literally had the original idea for this over a year ago and it’s so fucking cheesy. 

summary: tony has never been the best father, he knows that, but he sure as hell spent these years trying to raise you right. it took you years to realize how much he really meant to you, and it seems a realization that comes too late. 

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 2 0 0 9

“What’s it like?” 

At your words, your dad looked up. The two of you had been hiking as part of his Iron Man work out in some trails. You had been only nine when your dad became Iron Man, but you had been all for it. It was the coolest thing to you, and Tony had a hunch that you would have been excited even if he wasn’t Iron Man. You were just the sweetest daughter he could have ever asked for, he was sure of it. 

Tony didn’t stop walking before responding, “What’s what like, bean?” 

“Being Iron Man.” You answered casually. “A superhero.” 

Now Tony stopped walking. He was behind you in some trail in a small forest. The hike had actually been your idea. He had been avidly adding assorted workouts to his day-to-day schedule, which was just another side effect of being Iron Man. As an eleven-year-old, you were still the definition of codependent. Tony hadn’t expected anything else, really, but he hadn’t expected juggling Stark Industries and Iron Man and fatherhood to be so difficult. 

You were two when you met Tony. He and your mom had a very quick thing after some party and never planned on talking to each other again. However, what had been planned as a ‘let’s-bang-and-never-think-about-this-again’ became ‘holy-shit-I’m-pregnant.’ After a few months of going back and forth, your future mother decided not to tell Tony. It was no secret that he probably wasn’t the best parental figure, and it was hard for you to understand those little things. 

It was all working out. She had you smoothly, and you grew up a shining success. She hated to admit it, but she could see some of Tony in there too. 

Currently, you had noticed your dad stopped walking and paused yourself, turning around to look at him. He was looking down at you, thinking. You were so smart, and his constant confirmation of this fact was the multitude of questions you seemed to ask. 

“It’s different,” He answered cautiously. “But super cool, you know?” 

“Yeah,” You squeaked out, looking up at your father. “I know.” 

“I get to fly around, which is really-” Tony paused, looking for the words to describe the feeling of flight to a child. He chuckled for a moment before responding, “It’s freeing. Like running really fast but also swinging super high.” 

You nodded slowly, processing the comparison that your father had given you. Your mind worked quickly, and if he squinted Tony was positive he could have seen gears moving just beyond your eyes. You were his daughter, there was no doubt about it. 

Really, the parts of himself were the first thing Tony saw of you. 

Your mom and you had arrived at his doorstep and he instantly knew who you must have been. It was unmistakable, really. You had the same face shape, the same slope of your nose, the same curious sparkle in your eyes. Your chubby hands held onto your mom’s fingers the way one might hold onto a rope or edge of rock — without thinking of anything but the unknown fear of letting go. 

“Hello Tony,” Your mother hadn’t been in the best of moods, but she kept up the facade for you, even in front of Tony. “This is Y/N.” She was straight to the point; she always had been. Tony found a smile tug habitually at his mouth. 

“Hi, Y/N.” She squatted down and gave you a little wave. Your hands had moved from your mother’s fingers to her leg, arms clinging to whatever bits of denim you could get from the tight grip of her jeans. Your eyes stared back at him, and he was surprised at how long someone who seemed so shy held his eye contact. “Um, is she-” Tony trailed off, looking towards your mother. 

“Yes.” She looked away from you for a moment, only to look at Tony with eyes that were, for the first time during the meeting, filled with the same fear of the unknown as yours were. “We need to talk.”

It went without saying, really. Of course, they needed to talk, she had shown up at his door — he didn’t even question how she had gotten all the way to the front door without him knowing — with a small child that was most definitely his. 

“I wanted her to meet you.” Your mother spoke softly, picking you up as she walked in after him. “And you can, definitely.  You should, Tony.” She added. It was reasonable for her to assume he would be uninterested in your existence, but he was the opposite. Childbirth and the internal formation of children had always been a secret fascination of his as the one thing his science couldn’t recreate or even do, not really. Even though he was a genius, Tony Stark wasn’t a woman. 

“Yeah,” He breathed out his response. He wasn’t really listening to her, but the whole of his mind was focused on you. 

Your mom looked at Tony, smiling a little. “Is there somewhere she can be that’s somewhat child safe? So we can talk alone.” 

Tony nodded, breaking eye contact with you to look around. “Yeah, I can have my assistant Pepper look after her for a while.” You watched him as he yelled out the word that you recognized to be a seasoning, looking in constant fascination as a child does. Slowly, you let your eyes look away from the man in front of you to look at your mother. She was looking at the man with a look she used often on you, and you silently wondered if your mom was here to put this man in a time out or give him a scolding. 

At once, a new face entered the scene. She had long hair which was tied back and up in a ponytail, and you looked now to her. She seemed confused, looking from your mom to you to the man. 

“Ms. Potts,” Tony began, holding a hand out to gesture towards your mom and you. “This is Mira and Y/N.” 

“Hello,” Your mother nodded politely, her hands too full to offer one to shake.

Pepper turned towards Tony, squinting a little as she whispered words of confusion. The two spoke in whispers they thought she couldn’t hear as your mother’s eyes fell upon you. 

“Mommy, I’m hungry.” Your small voice complained in words likely only your mother could understand. 

She glanced down at you pitifully. “Oh, honey. I don’t have any snacks.”

“We have plenty of food,” Pepper spoke up, having moved on from her discussion from Tony. “I can take her if the two of you need some time alone.”

Your mother nodded, pausing to explain the situation to you. You were shy, and looked towards the floor, choosing to steal glances of Pepper through your eyelashes rather than direct contact. 

“She’s so shy, I’m sorry.” Your mother gave an apology accompanies by a breathy laugh. That was one thing, Tony noted as he watched the situation unfold with slight amusement, you did not get from him. “Here, do you want to just take her? I promise she’ll warm up to you.” 

Pepper smiled warmly as a confirmation, walking closer to grasp you out of your mother’s arms. You didn’t fuss, simply looking at your mother for as long as you could before silently turning your head up to Pepper as you left the room. 

Tony and your mother stood in silence for a moment, before Tony spoke up. “Would you like to sit down?”



“Yes, thank you.” Your mother followed Tony to a set of armchairs where they took seats across from each other. 

“She’s really cute,” Tony said, unsure of what else to say. And it was true. Tony had already fallen for the two-year-old girl who hadn’t said but half-a-dozen words, none of which were directed to him. 

“I know.” Your mother laughed a little, looking down as she crossed her legs. She was a little thinner than Tony had remembered. He tilted his head, trying to read her. 

“You look good,” He added, pushed a little for confirmation that something was different. 

“I have cancer, Tony.”

Tony froze at the sudden words. Cancer. How had he been so dumb? He hadn’t even seen your mother in three years, but he instantly felt heartbroken. He had liked her a lot, even if it had been for such a short amount of time. 

His eyes drifted once again to her frame, the way her long grey shirt seemed too big for her body. Her long arms were wrapped around her stomach in a self-comforting motion, and Tony felt this sudden and overwhelming need to give her a hug. 

“Nothing treatment wise is working, so far. I wanted to tell you because Y/N has nowhere else to go. It’s a horrible burden to suddenly place on you, but I think you need to know. To be there and prepared in case…” She trailed off. Tony nodded slowly, unsure of what to say. 

“I’m so sorry, Mira.” He looked at her.  

Your mom shook her head. “Don’t give me that look. And don’t apologize, Tony. It’s not your fault.”

He looked down for a moment before letting his eyes drift up to the door that you played behind. “Does she know?”

“Y/N? No. Not yet.” Your mom shook her head as she followed his gaze. “I’m sorry, this is a lot for you, isn’t it? I gave you a lot at once.”



“No, no.” Tony lied, shaking his head a little. “I will try my best, I swear. You’re gonna be okay, Mira, but if anything happens to you-” Tony searched for the words. “You can trust me.”



She nodded, forcing the lump in her throat down as she looked at Tony through watery eyes. “I know.”

Thinking of Mira’s face in so much detail while looking at your face, a little red from the hike and eyebrows furrowed as you listened to his answer, he realized that every bit of your face that he didn’t see in the mirror, he could see in your mother’s face. 

“Can I fly someday?” You looked up at him, swinging your arms back and forth. Tony smiled at you, walking closer to ruffle your hair before wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

“You can do anything you want. C’mon, kid.” 

2 0 1 2 

Tony Stark looked down at the small device that was essentially warning him of his death. He knew his health had been declining, but between the Expo, Stark Industries, being Iron Man, and being the father of a stubborn twelve-year-old, his own well being had really been the least of his problems. 

It was a little scary, sure, but he found it was easier to ignore and push it to the back of his mind. That’s how the Starks seemed to work the best, after all. Howard had been that way, and Tony hated it but he saw that in himself every struggle. He hoped it wouldn’t move to you either.

You were twelve and happy often, with friends and family that loved you, and the ignorance that adults still lent you. He couldn’t tell you that he was sick and probably close to dying, because he couldn’t let it come to that. God, there were some days he felt like giving up, just staying in bed or running away to Hawaii by himself and never coming back. But then you would come home from school with some rambling story about your day at school, other students’ antics fresh in your mind. You would get this excentric look in your eyes as you spoke, inspired and excited. Those were the times Tony thought you would become an author, spinner of words.

Or else he would have a particularity harsh day, only for you to send him some crazy text that made sense only to the two of you, filled with unnecessary emojis and too many adjectives. 

Your face or your words would return him back to life then, and he would feel okay again. He had done this for you for almost ten years now, and there was no reason to give up now. It was hard, yes, but he would fight this and win just as he had fought and won Obadiah, and just as he had seemingly fought and won Whiplash. He would do it because he had a little girl to return to at the end of the day and because he couldn’t let himself forget that.

“Hey Dad, how do you find the slope of a line?” Your voice met him as he walked into the kitchen, the small device tucked away safely. You were bent over the kitchen table, eyes not leaving your red notebook you had laid out for math. The eraser of your pencil bobbed up and down as you tapped out a steady rhythm on your paper. Maybe you could be a musician, Tony thought for a moment.

“Uh, rise over run.” He pulled open the fridge door. 

There was silence from you for a moment. “In English?” 

“Do you have two points? On your graph?” 

He could practically hear you searching. “Yeah. This one is at three and two and this one is at six and three.”

“Okay, so you’re gonna subtract the first y value from the second y value-”

“Three from two.”

“Right,” Tony found the yogurt he was looking for in the fridge and pulled it out before walking over to you. “That’s rise. You do the same with the x values for the bottom and cancel out the negative signs.” 

“So…” You paused, catching up in your work. “Three.” It wasn’t a question, the answer came with a Stark’s confidence. 

Tony nodded. “Regular genius.” 

“Thank you, dad.” You smiled at him teasingly. The happy look on your face seemed to make the pocketed device weigh twice as much as it had. 

Tony forced a cheery smile in response. “Anytime, kiddo.” 

2 0 1 8

The compound had been quiet for what was close to a month.

Thanos had happened, and it had been so painful. A total loss, devastating and monumental. You had been in Wakanda when it happened, left behind by your dad as he flew after young Peter Parker in an attempt to save him. Bruce had called Steve Rogers and the group of you had slinked off to Wakanda. 

There was more to it than that, but details bled together and none of them really mattered at this point. You had lost to Thanos. He had succeeded in his goal of finding the six infinity stones -- not that you really understood what those were either, you just went along with it -- and had snapped. The simple action had made 50% of the universe’s population disappear, plenty of them before your eyes. You were lucky in many ways -- your oldest friends seemed alright and you survived it all. The bad news rung deep and more clear than the happy, however. Your father had not returned, and all of the Avengers were left to believe he was dead. 

No transmissions, no news. Nothing from space no matter how hard you tried. If he hadn’t vanished in the snap, your dad must have died some other way up there. You were alone, and it was too hard to face as a truth. 

You had been lying awake in bed when a noise began outside, something loud and obnoxious. For a moment, you thought it would pass by and fade out again, but it only seemed to get louder -- and brighter. 

“Hey, Y/N, I think you’re gonna want to see this.” Rhodey knocked on your door, his voice coming out rushed.

You groaned. “Rhodey, I just wanna sleep.” 

“Y/N,” The man whom you thought of as your uncle paused, letting silence fill the air as he searched for words. “It’s your dad’s ship.” 

You were barefoot in the rush to get outside.

 You were faster than Rhodey, who let you pass him in your mad rush to meet the other Avengers outside. The wind was pressing against your back, raging as if it was a hurricane. “Oh my god,” Your breathy words were lost in the wind. “It’s Dad.” You needed no confirmation. It took a moment before he finally came into your view, but your heart shattered the moment you saw him. He looked horrible. 

“Dad!” Your voice came out in more of a relieved scream than a shout, and you stumbled towards him. 

He looked up as best as he could. “Hey, kid. You get taller?” 

The words were so much like your dad, yet you didn’t care about what he said in the least. You were just so overwhelmingly happy to see him that words seemed pointless and trivial. Still worried this might be a dream, you crashed into Tony with a hug. Steve, who had been helping Tony stand, gave you the warning to be careful. None of this mattered, not anymore. You gripped the clothing on your dad’s back, tears already bubbling out. “We thought you were dead, dad. I thought you were dead.” 

2 0 1 4 

Your dad shot up in bed, his ears perked up naturally as he listened for what awoke him. 

A blood-curling scream — your scream, he quickly would realize — echoed through the walls and bounced to his room. He didn’t even have time to think as he threw off the covers, his feet hitting the cold wood of his bedroom floor. “Y/N!” Your name escaped his lips as his hands hit the door frame, tired fingers making wild grabs for the doorknob, remembering mostly from memory as his eyes were making slow progress adjusting. 

Your scream continued, and Tony ran faster than he could brake as he skidded towards your room. He hadn’t shouted your name again, but once his mind had cleared he had figured out what was going on. 

The doorknob to your room was cold as Tony grabbed it, slowing down to calm his own breathing as he walked in, his eyes landing on you. His speed quickened again, walking over to you and placing his hands on your shoulders. It wasn’t even something he really had to think about anymore, and your name came out of his mouth like he had to help you like this every night. 

It took a few seconds, but your eyes finally shot open. There was the momentary panic of waking up, not knowing where you are or who’s with you, but it quickly faded into familiarity as your dad rubbed a hand on your arm. You were okay because he said it; you were awake because he told you so. 

After a moment of silence to steady your breathing, Tony asked, “What was it? The usual?” His words were hushed in a tone of voice he reserved only for you. 
You nodded slightly, causing your dad to pull you closer. “Well then, I guess that calls for the usual treatment.” 

To anyone else, Tony was not a touchy-feely kind of guy. He gave handshakes at most, and one would wonder if he hugged his family or simply high-fived them. The answer: Tony Stark gave the best hugs in the universe. 

You were lucky he was your dad, you realized this as he held you after every one of these nightmares. He loved you, and he cared so deeply for you that sometimes nothing else mattered. These nightmares were the worst things to happen to you then, but somehow your dad made them so much better. Even if he wasn’t Iron Man, he would have been a superhero to you.

2 0 2 3

You had lost. Jesus Christ, everyone else around you was saying they won, and that he won it for them, but you didn’t believe them. Thanos was gone, yes. The rest of the Avengers had returned and for the most part, everyone was okay. You should have been happy, at least a little relieved. 

Tony Stark was dead, so how could you feel as though you won? Your father, the one person you felt you could always relate with was dead. He had died in that goddamn Iron Man suit that you had spent years admiring, and he had spent years out of. When you had discovered that Pepper was pregnant five years prior, your dad had come up to you and sworn that he would never step foot in that Iron Man costume again, that he wanted you to lock it with a code you kept secret so he couldn’t get into it. 

Of course, when the time had come you had bent to his will and given up the code. There was hope for the first time in years, and it was a foreign feeling that delighted you. The possibility that you could keep all you had now and somehow fix what had been broken in the past made you drunk with the hope, giddy with the idea of joy. 

And you had been close, so close. Natasha hadn’t returned in the search for the soul stone, but then you saw it as a sacrifice that needed to happen. It crushed you and you cried for three hours straight, yes, but at the end of the day you saw how someone needed to do it, and Natasha was too nice to let anyone else even think about it. But there was no way to rationalize the loss of your dad.

The funeral had been busy. He was respected and loved, Steve had read off of a prepared speech, and the words echoed through the crowd. There were faces you saw every day, faces you hadn’t seen in years, and a few people you hadn’t even met before. That was so wonderful, you would realize years later, but at the time it seemed nothing could be wonderful at all.

The dock was empty by now. People had lingered for a while, some longer than others, but everyone went back in the house sooner or later, to reminisce or calm down. Everyone but you. 

You squatted down at the edge of the dock, carefully of your tight dress and black heels. Your hands couldn’t quite reach the water from the edge of the dock, and you were reminded of the times your dad would sit you on one of his workbenches and would have to help you down. You felt so small and helpless all over again and just needed someone to help you down. With one hand dangling towards the water, you used your other one to cover the noises coming out of your mouth at the thoughts. 

“I’m so lost, Dad,” you admitted in a choked sob. “I’m so lost without you.” 

You bent your chin towards your neck in an attempt to hide your tears. From who, you weren’t sure. Perhaps you felt, somewhere deep down, that the piece of your dad that was floating away was watching you as your father would have, and you didn’t want to feel small in front of him. You had never been worried about that, but you were different now. Even if your dad had gotten out okay, you would have been different. Almost losing him the first time had made you sadder, those five years had made you more mature, and the final battle against Thanos has made you harder.

Maybe, you realized, crying meant he was really gone and you would rather give up than admit that he wasn’t ever coming back. 

2 0 1 6

You were thirteen when you saw your dad the most vulnerable he had ever been. 

It wasn’t unusual for screams of your own to wake your dad. As you became older, the nightmares became less frequent and you were able to be your own comfort. Your dad had taught you how to wake up when a dream was becoming a nightmare, and Pepper made sure you always had a stash of candy and a flashlight in your bedstand for comfort. 

You woke up to screams tonight, however. Thinking at first that it was you, panic and embarrassment washed over your body. You shot up instantly, your hands flying to your mouth in a habit to quiet yourself. As your hands brushed your closed mouth, however, you realized you were silent. 

Quickly, you connected the dots as your feet brought themselves out of bed. Pepper wasn’t home, so you needed to be there for your dad. There was a selfish moment of debating — you were tired, and maybe there was a threat that he wouldn’t want you there for anyway so you should just stay in your room — but you quickly erased them from your head. He was your dad, for Christ’s sake. He would do the same for you. 

Both of your hands gripped the doorknob as you pulled open the door, eyes scanning the hallway before walking out. 

You weren’t sure what would make your dad scream so loud, but you had an internal hunch. Your steps were barefoot and swift, quiet against the dark wood floors. The hallway was quiet now, the scream seeming to have been single. Pausing a second time at your dad’s door, you wondered if you had maybe imagined it, and going in now would just be dumb. 

From inside the room, breathing filled the room. Not a steady pattern of sleeping breathing, no, this was the post-nightmare quick breathing that you recognized so well in yourself. Knocking on the door only brought the breathing to a brief pause, but no answer followed. You let yourself in.

Your dad sat in bed, his face damp and red. His eyes were already free of any potential sleep that had been in them just minutes before, and the bedsheets were thrown and pushed in all directions. “Y/N? You okay?”

You nodded. “Yeah, Dad I heard you-” Scream. You trailed off, unsure if he wanted to hear the word out loud. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Tony nodded, motioning for you to come closer. The small action spoke what you knew was the truth, that Tony Stark was not fine. 

You moved closer, sitting next to him on the bed as he steadied his breathing. There was silence for a moment, your presence helping Tony in itself. “Do you want to talk about it?” You asked softly, head leaning against his chest. 

Tony paused for a moment, memories running like a television program behind his glossy eyes. “Not really,” He admitted, in part because it was the truth and in part because he didn’t want to put you in that position. He was the dad, the parent. He was supposed to take care of you and be the strong one, he had promised to Mira what felt like centuries ago. God, he couldn’t imagine what the years before you felt like. How did he survive without you?

“Okay,” You nodded, unsure of what to say next. “I love you, dad.” 

Tony’s heart melted at the words. God, you had him wrapped around your finger and dangling there. He was so proud of you it almost burst out of his chest like a ray of light. 

“I love you too, kid,” Tony said softly, a smile on his lips. Pausing in thought, Tony finally added, “I’d be so lost without you, kid.” He planted a soft kiss onto your head, his arm moving slowly up and down yours. “You’re my home.”

[inawickedlittletown]

Walking The Wire - Bonus Chapter

Summary: 

“I knew your mother,” Tony said, figuring it was the right way to start. “You know this. She used to work for me and I liked her a lot. We were friends and she sort of reached a part of me that very few people could in those days. I think it was partly because she was brilliant and because she didn’t bore me like most people did. I didn’t love her – not like that, but I cherished her friendship.”

“Mr. Stark why are you telling me–”

“She left when she found out she was pregnant,” Tony said and had to glance up, “and didn’t even bother to tell me about it.”

-

It was a one night stand and Tony had a lot of them, but this one changed everything. Tony always knew Peter Parker existed. He had no idea that Peter would become Spider-Man, but he kept tabs on his son, even when he couldn’t meet him. Peter Parker grew up unaware of his superhero father, admiring Iron Man from afar and unaware that one day he would too become a super-hero - an Avenger. Spanning the entirety of the MCU , this fic covers a canonical view of what it would be like if Peter was Tony’s biological son dwelving heavily into the canon. AU post-Infinity War with an AU version of Endgame. Stony endgame.

As of 8/12/19 this fic is complete. 

-

Bonus Chapter: A look forward at life after Morgana joins the family. 

Pairings: Pepper/Tony, Tony/Steve (endgame), Tony/Mary (past), Peter/MJ

Notes: This is a bonus chapter. One of hopefully a few more that I plan to write. (don’t know when) I’ve been wanting to revisit this verse for a long time and so here we are. This is a bunch of snapshots of what happens after the adoption goes through and this was completely self-indulgent but also meant for every single person that still thinks about this fic and that loved it the whole way through or that just read it recently because I do appreciate all of you and your kind words. 

I do want to remind everyone that the Morgana of this verse is not quite Morgan from canon as Morgana is not Tony and Pepper’s daughter so I do want that slight distinction although of course it is up to the reader how they view it. 

I hope you guys enjoy this new addition to Walking The Wire. 

I used Collider’s MCU timeline to stay canon and the title of this fic is an Imagine Dragons song that is just so fitting for Peter and Tony. 

Masterpost

On Ao3

-

Bonus Chapter - Morgana 

-

Her hair was dark, not quite black but a deep brown and it fell right past her shoulders, messy and clearly tangled. She was on the floor, her small hands putting blocks together and ignoring anything around her to keep working. She didn’t even seem to notice that she was being watched. 

“That’s her,” Steve said from next to Tony. He sounded awed. 

The social worker nodded. “Yes. Morgana.”

Morgana stood up once her tower was complete. She walked over to a chest of toys and Tony noted that everything looked just a little worn down and well used. Then again, it was a children’s visiting room. 

“Do you want to meet her?” 

“Yes,” Tony said at once. Steve nodded next to him and gave Tony’s hand a squeeze. If all went well, they’d be meeting their daughter. 

The social worker laughed. “I figured as much. Come on.” 

Nerves hit him, then, and he had to stop. 

“Tony?” Steve asked. 

Tony took a breath and then he nodded and he followed after his husband and the social worker and then they were walking into the room. Morgana looked up when they entered, frowning a little, which just made her look even more adorable.

“Hi,” Tony said. 

“Morgana, this is Tony and Steve,” the social worker said. 

“Hi,” Morgana said, her voice low and shy. She looked at them, but then her eyes were focused on her toys again. 

Tony stepped forward and Steve was close behind, bending down to her level. 

“Do you mind if we play with you?” Steve asked. “We can help you build something.”

Morgan took a moment to think about it and then she nodded. It was easy after that. She let them sit with her and she instructed them on block placement and Tony knew that she belonged with them. It didn’t take long for her to warm up to them and for her to move closer . Morgana spoke a little often too low for Tony to catch what she was saying, but he wouldn’t change anything about her. 

“I love her already,” Tony told Steve later when they were leaving. 

When Steve smiled at him, eyes a bit watery, Tony knew that Steve agreed. 

—

It was entirely possible that they had all gone a little crazy when setting up Morgana’s room. Peter would forever remember the way that Bucky had taken one look inside and just broken down into laughter. It was worse because it wasn’t even going to be her room for long considering the move although Peter figured Morgana would need a room at the tower as well as at the farm. The social worker hadn’t said much when she saw it. 

He didn’t go with his dad and Steve to pick Morgana up in part because he didn’t want to deal with his dad and Steve acting so nervous — he’d already dealt with all that in the hours before they left to pick her up — but because Peter also had a small welcome home party to get together while they were gone. It included banners and balloons and K-9 getting in Peter’s way due to all the excitement. 

Bucky and Sam were instrumental in getting a lot of the party planned without Tony and Steve knowing about it. Pepper too for that matter. Peter had also invited Aunt May, MJ, and Ned along with any Avenger that was around. Their family. Morgana’s new family. 

Friday warned them when his dad and Steve were back, so they were all ready and waiting when the elevator doors opened and they stepped out. 

Steve was holding his little sister. She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked around and her brown eyes seemed to take everything in before a curtain of her dark hair fell over her face. 

“Who — we didn’t need this,” Tony said at once. 

Peter stepped forward. “Morgana needs a welcome party,” he said with a shrug.

Morgana looked at him, then, and smiled. 

“Hi,” Peter said. 

She didn’t respond. 

“She’s a bit shy,” his dad said with a grin and then ran a hand down her arm. “Hey, Morgana, we have someone we want you to meet. This is Peter.”

Her lips moved but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t say much to anyone and it made Peter wonder if maybe the party was a tad overwhelming for her. He didn’t have to worry long, though, because as soon as Morgana had gotten a bit more used to the new environment, she was more interested in meeting everyone. 

“She’ll fit right in,” Pepper said to him. 

“I think so,” Peter said. 

—-

Peter realized fairly quickly that it wasn’t all fun and games, having a sister. She was cute. And when he first saw her he’d known right away that he was going to love her, but none of that had prepared him for what it meant to have a toddler in the tower. Or what it would do to Steve and his dad. At first it had been a bit funny and he and Bucky had gotten a kick out of it. 

It was just that Morgana had started off quiet and shy, but as soon as she had gotten used to them — which had happened only after a few days — she had shown her energetic and mischievous side. She was curious and brave and willing to get into anything and everything. The baby proofing did it’s job at keeping her safe, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t get into trouble in other ways like how she’d managed to somehow detach K-9’s ear or how she’d snuck into Peter’s room and gotten into his webbing and gotten stuck to the foot of his desk. 

Worse than keeping up with her and someone needing to watch her all the time was that she was a difficult eater and even worse to get into a bath or into her bed — even when tired. It was just a little bit funny to see his dad and Steve so defeated by a little girl. 

Still, she brought with her a joy that made their family whole. Peter loved the moments when he could sit with her and play with her legos or when he could get her to sit still long enough to watch a Disney movie. Morgana loved The Little Mermaid best followed closely by Mulan. 

Sometimes, Peter caught Steve looking at Morgana like he was shocked to see her there. It was a happy shock, the surprise that nothing had truly troubled them since Thanos.

His dad was full of warmth when it came to Morgana. He was just so much lighter and so much happier and at peace even if sometimes it did seem like all the nights when he’d spent not sleeping had done nothing to prepare him for how wearing it could be to take care of a child. 

“You’ll be happier when we’re not in your hair, won’t you, kid?” Tony said one day while they were down in the workshop. 

Peter was working on figuring out how to get marker off of K-9. K-9 had been programmed to give Morgana free reign which meant that Morgana did whatever she liked with the robot dog. Peter was glad the dog wasn’t a real dog that could actually get hurt although he doubted that Morgana would have hurt an actual living animal. She thought of K-9 like a toy. 

“Who even gave her markers?” Peter asked. 

“Steve was giving her an art lesson,” his dad said. “But that’s what I’m talking about. You’re ready to go off to college and not have me and Steve around, aren’t you?” 

In truth, he was probably going to miss all of them. 

“And, well, your sister is a handful,” Tony added. 

“Clearly meant to be your daughter,” Peter said. 

Morgana even kind of looked like Tony a little and Peter supposed that meant that she also sort of looked like him since he took after Tony in some respects. 

“Yeah, well,” Tony said. 

“I’m always going to need you,” Peter said eventually after trying acetone on the scribbles that Morgana had proclaimed to be flowers earlier. “And this is not coming off. I think she used permanent marker.”

“So give him a new paint job,” his dad said. “Well, I expect a lot of visits. At least once a week.”

“Might be pushing it with school and Spider-Man.” 

“Well as often as you can come, then? Steve will get lonely if you don’t come around.” 

Peter laughed. “Sure he will.” 

—

On the day of the big move, Peter and Steve did the bulk of moving things into a Quinjet while Tony watched Morgana. There wasn’t actually a lot moving over since his dad had elected to just furnish the farmhouse with brand new everything. The lab in the tower was staying at it was and the one in the barn had already been outfitted. Mostly, the things moving were Steve’s art things, their clothing, some of Morgana’s toys and a few other odds and ends for which a replacement or double wouldn’t suffice. His dad was taking a singular suit over seeing as he really had stuck to his retirement — other than that whole incident with the field trip and Beck — but it was still always a good precaution to keep a suit around. 

His dad seemed pretty confident that he’d be returning to the tower from time to time despite his wish for the quiet farm life. Part of it, Peter knew, would be because of SI and because of Peter.

Peter flew with them in the Quinjet and between him and Steve they unloaded everything but didn’t bother to get any of the unpacking done. 

Morgana was excited about being outside near grass. She ran around squealing and pointing out things like butterflies and had even somehow gotten ahold of a ladybug that she ran up to Peter to show off before it flew away. 

“She loves it here already,” Steve said, a hand landing on Peter’s shoulder. 

They watched her together as Tony picked her up and spun her in the air to a new round of giggling. Sometimes, watching his dad with Morgan gave him a bitter taste in his mouth that made him wish that he had gotten to be raised by him. As if sensing what he was thinking, Steve’s hand squeezed his shoulder. 

“It took everything in him. In both of us to not steal you as a baby. Not that it actually would have changed anything for you with the way time travel works.”

“I know,” Peter said and he let Steve pull him into a side-hug. 

“We love you, kid.” 

Peter chuckled. It wasn’t something he didn’t already know. “I love you too, Steve.” 

—

Tony didn’t know how people had more than just one kid. He really had no idea how they handled it because just the single one was a handful — more than that, she required two hands at all times. Morgana had endless energy. It seemed, even, that she could tire Steve out. Nonetheless, Tony didn’t regret for even a minute adopting her. She made the change from superhero to civilian life worth it. Tony was also finding himself understanding Clint a hell of a whole lot more. 

“She’s out,” Steve said. “She likes hearing about her big brother.” 

“Better Spider-Man than either of us,” Tony said with a grin. 

Steve rolled his eyes and dropped into the bed with a tired sigh. “It’s not even nine,” he said. “How am I so tired?”

“I told you not to go on a run this morning.” 

Steve just groaned and Tony couldn’t help but laugh, but he still moved to sit next to his husband and he reached for Steve’s hand. “Mrs. Hawkeye says they’re energetic at this age.” 

“Mrs. Hawkeye,” Steve repeated. “Since when do you have conversations with Clint’s wife?” 

“Since she’s the only person I could think of to call when Morgana had that fever a few weeks ago.” 

Tony had been freaking out that day. Steve had been off at the Avengers Compound meeting with Carol, T’Challa, and Rocket about something Tony didn’t even want to know much about so it had been Tony on his own at the farm with their daughter. Thinking about Morgana as his daughter, it always warmed his heart. On that particularly day, though, with Morgana spiking a fever and Friday offering him help that Tony couldn’t help but feel just wasn’t enough, he’d called May but she wasn’t picking up and so he’d called Bruce who told him everything Friday had already told him to do. Somehow, Tony had ended up calling Laura. Mrs. Hawkeye. 

She was the only one that got it, how it felt to have a sick child and the not knowing what would happen next. Since then, they’d started texting and she started giving him parenting advice or just talking about the whole experience of raising a young child. It was nice in a weird way. In the way that he could have a whole hour long video call with Shuri about any of their projects and then a few minutes after it was over get a call from Laura Barton and have a whole completely different kind of talk. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here for that,” Steve said. 

By the time that Steve had gotten back to the farm, Morgana had been mostly better, if less rambunctious. She’d gone back to normal a few days later. 

“You didn’t miss much,” Tony said. “Anyway, I’m gonna let you rest, old man. I have a few more things to get done in the lab. The new suit for Peter is coming along and I’m hoping to finish it before this weekend.” 

Steve sat up and pulled him into a quick kiss first. 

“Don’t stay up too late. The little miss will want you up early for breakfast.” 

“The rooster will hopefully be up after her,” Tony said. 

Steve let out a tired sigh. “Remember when I didn’t want chickens?” 

—

No one knew for sure how or when Morgana decided to start calling Tony dad, but Steve was pretty sure that it was somehow related to Peter. Morgana looked up to him, loved him in a different way. It was a sibling thing, but it was also because Peter came and went but was still very much a part of their family. Peter also tended to just have endless energy and time for Morgana when he came to visit. 

It still came as a surprise to him and Tony when on a Monday after Peter had gone back to the city for school, when they were sitting down for breakfast, Morgana just said:

“Dad, can I have more juice?” 

They must have stared at her for a long moment before her face twisted with confusion. 

“You are my dad aren’t you? Like you’re Peter’s dad?” Morgana had asked then, looking at Tony. 

“Yeah,” Tony said then, his voice gruffer than usual and full of emotion. “Of course I am.” 

“Can I have more juice?” Morgana asked again. She didn’t realize the effect she had on them. 

Steve got up to get it and refill the cup for her. When he sat back down, Tony shared a smile with him and then looked at Morgana as she took a few sips of her juice. 

“Hey, kiddo,” Tony said, “do you know that Steve is your dad too?”

Morgana scrunched up her face in confusion and Tony just grinned. 

“But...I can’t call him dad too,” Morgana said. “Can I?” 

They had never actually discussed the whole thing. With Peter, Steve had always just been Steve and Steve had never minded even though Peter may as well have been his son. He loved him that way. They were family. 

It didn’t surprise Steve when a few days later, Morgana was calling him, “papa” although it did make him choke up a little. That did surprise him. 

“Why didn’t you tell me if would feel like that?” Steve asked Tony later that night. 

“What?” 

“Her calling me papa,” Steve said. “Felt like it wasn’t just us that chose her, but that she was deciding that it’s true. Deciding she’s ours.” 

Tony kissed him. 

—

The weekends when Peter managed to go to the farm were some of the best ones. A few times, MJ had gone with him and other times Ned just to get out of the city for a while. It was nice to retreat and to go to a place where things were just different. It wasn’t exactly peaceful at the farm. His dad had gone ahead with the plan of getting chickens and a few cows. Steve had called him in a panic at one point when he saw that Tony was looking at alpacas. So far no alpacas had appeared at the farm, but it was likely that they would soon. 

“Peter, be the voice of reason,” Steve had said over the phone. “We can’t house more animals here.” 

“Technically, you have plenty of space,” Peter reminded him. He still wanted to get a real dog for the farm.

It always seemed like there was something going on there, but then Tony Stark needed to be entertained and kept busy and having a toddler wasn’t enough to do that. His dad still worked on a lot of the tech for The Avengers and he helped in any way that he could as long as it didn’t mean leaving the farm. Peter suspected that his dad was convinced that if he went over to the tower or to the compound that he would get pulled into whatever the team was dealing with hands on. He wasn’t opposed to any of The Avengers visiting. He would even happily take visits from The Guardians. 

Steve was still more involved and Peter wasn’t too surprised the couple of times that he’d actually run into him when he joined The Avengers when something was going wrong in the city. Peter didn’t do a whole lot of work with The Avengers unless he really needed to. Being a college student, he hardly had the time but Peter was unwilling to give up being Spider-Man. 

He didn’t get to visit his dad and Steve every single weekend, but he did go as often as he could. Sometimes, his dad would just show up at the tower because it’d been too long between visits and Peter loved getting those surprises. Sometimes it was just his dad, but most of the time it was Steve and Morgana too which was always fun. 

So, it was a nice surprise for his dad when Peter managed to do two weekends in a row. He’d managed to finish up all his papers early and other than some reading, Peter didn’t have any school work for once and he hadn’t planned to go to the farm, but then it turned out that MJ was too busy to see him. He had considered going to see Aunt May but she was scheduled to be at work all weekend. So, Peter had made the choice to go back to the farm. 

Morgana had been the first to see him arrive because she was outside playing in the playhouse that he and Tony had built her before the semester started. At first the plan had been for a tree house until Steve pointed out that Morgana might fall if she decided to go up there without anyone watching her. Which, knowing Morgana, was likely. 

“Peter!” Morgana yelled when she spotted him and threw herself at his legs. He let her crash into him, but then grabbed her under the armpits and swung her up into the air, before he brought her down into a hug. 

She laughed and squirmed in his arms. “Dad’s working,” she told him. “But Papa is making lunch.” 

He raised an eyebrow at hearing her call them dad and papa. It felt new and right at all once. It did make him wonder what had finally made her decide to call them that. Peter had done a bit of research about adoption and the kinds of things that adopted kids went through. Morgana, so far, didn’t seem to be struggling with it. 

“Well, come on, then, we’ll sneak into the workshop first.” 

She grinned at him. 

Later that night, Morgana insisted that Peter read her a bedtime story. He read to her from one of the many children books that she had accumulated on a bookshelf and it was after he’d finished one story that she grabbed his wrist. 

“Peter, why do you call papa, Steve?” 

“Uh...that’s his name,” Peter said. 

“But he’s your papa too,” Morgana said and then yawned. 

Peter decided to ignore the question. “So one more story, you said?” 

She nodded and settled into her bed again. 

Peter read to her, but his mind was elsewhere. The thing about it was that Steve was his other dad. There was no denying that and they all knew it. It was just that there had never needed to be any label put on that. Peter did remember the one single time when he’d come close to calling Steve “dad”, back right after the field trip when it had been him and Steve and hot chocolate and Steve had been there for him through the whole mess. He’d come close to saying it then, but it just hadn’t happened and Peter didn’t think he ever needed to call him that. 

He thought it over, over the next few days especially since Morgana tended to glare at him every time that he called Steve, Steve. 

“It’s nice seeing you around here more often,” Tony said on Sunday when Peter was preparing to head out. 

“Yeah...I don’t know if I’ll be back before Spring Break, now,” Peter admitted. 

“We’ll visit,” Steve said. “I’ve been craving some apple crostini so there’s lots of reasons to go.” 

Peter laughed and Steve nudged his shoulder. “So, Morgana stopped calling you guys by your names.” 

Steve smiled in such a pleased way that Peter almost felt like he should be congratulating him. 

“We think it’s a good sign that she really sees us as her family,” his dad said. “Oh...and before I forget. I have some web fluid for you.”

Morgana appeared then to say goodbye to Peter before she returned to chasing the chickens out of their coop. 

“You know, he got those chickens and I never see him out there collecting eggs or cleaning out that coop,” Steve said. 

“I think he’s trying to get U or Butterfingers to do it,” Peter said. “Or maybe he’ll build a whole new robot just to take care of the chickens.” 

At that Steve laughed, but they both knew it would be a real possibility. 

“Papa! Look...there’s an egg!” Morgana yelled to them and sure enough she was holding a brown egg in her hand. 

Steve took it from her before she dropped it. 

“Missed one,” Peter said. “But it’s nice to know she’s settling in with you. And I guess. Well maybe it’s a sign I call you something other than Steve,” Peter said. “She kinda mentioned it to me...that you’re my dad too.” 

Steve sort of froze. “Peter, you don’t—”

Peter just smiled at him. “She’s right. Kind of. As right as a four year old can be.” 

“Morgana is never wrong,” his dad said when he returned carrying a bag with the bottles of web fluid. 

Peter grinned at them both. “Well, I should get going.” 

He hugged his dad and then Steve and as he was walking away he turned and called out to them, “I’ll miss you, Dad. Pops.” 

Steve chuckled and Peter turned away from them. 

—

Morgana’s birthday was a big affair. It was her first birthday with them and what Tony had originally intended to be a small party became something much bigger when word got out to Natasha that there was going to be a party. She managed to invite everyone. 

Morgana didn’t have any friends her age because she didn’t go to school yet or go to any childcare places, but she was fond enough of all the adults in her life as well as Clint’s kids that she didn’t seem too bothered by it. Tony thought that maybe they did need to socialize her more. A kid couldn’t spend all their time with chickens. Then again, she would be starting school soon. Most kids made friends there. 

It was nice to have everyone around for something happy, too. Rhodey had elected to be the one in charge of the grill with Bucky helping him out so at least Tony didn’t have to deal with that. Instead, Tony got to sit and catch up with his friends. They didn’t talk about Avengers business much but Tony got caught up on a few of the things that had happened recently. Nothing as bad as Thanos. Still, the universe was ever throwing things their way. 

Natasha filled him in on their newer recruits and how they were considering having a second Avengers team situated on the West Coast and Tony figured it was probably a good idea. 

Tony also got to catch up with Laura in person for once. Morgana was enjoying her time with Laura’s kids even if they did keep going to disturb the chickens. 

Tony spotted Peter around with MJ and Ned at his side. Somehow, his kid was still starstruck by Thor. He did see MJ making fun of him with the help of Shuri while Ned tried to defend him. Peter was grown up. It was weird to think about him that way, but it was true. He was in college and thriving and he was Spider-Man and that was working out well for him. Tony was proud if maybe less willing to just let him go. It would be the same with Morgana one day, he knew. It just meant he would need to cherish all his time with her. 

By the time that it was time for the big birthday cake that Happy had gone to pick up and that Pepper had ordered, Tony had managed to have a few minutes with everyone that had come and he’d realized that the last time he saw everyone was the wedding. 

“Nice to have them around,” Steve said. 

“It is. Although, Thor already broke the chicken coop. And...I think there was a minor fire in the living room.” 

Someone laughed loudly and when Steve nudged him, Tony was aware that he really didn’t mind. 

The cake was brought out with a few candles adorning the top of it. Morgana clapped her hands while they sang to her and she leaned forward and blew out her candles, getting cake on her hair in the process.

“Remember, you have to wish for something,” Peter told her. 

Later, Tony saw Peter asking her what she wished for, but she wouldn’t answer him. “It won’t come true if I tell.” 

“Is it a dog? Because I want a dog and I know you probably want a dog.”

Morgana refused to answer and Peter kept pestering until she ran away from him. So, Tony went to sit next to him. 

-

Notes: I really loved going back into this world and into these characters. It’s strange because having been removed from this fic for so long, I don’t quite remember all the details. But I did want to explore a bit more of this world even if there is no concrete plot. I hope anyone reading this enjoyed it. 

Also...look, I managed to do this about 11 months after the epilogue was posted which is insane because I wanted to have something up maybe a month or two after the epilogue was posted. But less than a year still so there’s that. lol. 

And I do still have plans to write at least one more bonus chapter focusing on a version of Far From Home. (I hope it won’t take me 11 months to do so). I have a lot of it written, actually, but it needs a lot of plot related polishing. So do expected it eventually. 

Thanks again to anyone reading and I’d love you hear your thoughts on this bonus chapter. :)

Tagging: @findmeinthestarss

[stay4stray]

Map for Broken Compass and the Stray Kids Timeline

Recently, Stray Kids have been displaying a lot of performances with literary and/or cinematic themes - often 2 in one (Dead Poet’s society, Game of Thrones).  In the Intro to Levanter video, Chan mentioned inspiration from a book and also a poem, and of course we have the Road Not Taken, referencing Frost’s poem (oh and of course Kung Fu Panda!).  I think these are hints for us, that their MVs have similar allusions - namely, they allude quite a bit to Maze Runner.  After realizing this I did some more research and found that someone else had reached this conclusion long before I did, so watch their video here!  This really makes me want to reread the whole Maze Runner series ‘cause it’s been a while but that’s irrelevant.  Obviously I’m slow catching onto this so I’m not really gonna argue for this as its argument is already established, lucky me!  But understanding this allusion does help with how I’ve come to understand the SKZ storyline through the Map for Broken Compass that was recently released.

The main connections to Maze Runner that I’m concerned with:

dystopia

man vs. society; themes of manipulation

the plot set up as a series of trials, hidden one illusion inside of another (maaaaAAtryoshka? 👀 I kid I think)

the very beginning of the Maze Runner movie has extremely strong parallels to the Hellevator MV)

Note: This isn’t to say that the SKZ storyline is the same as Maze Runner!  It very obviously isn’t, in my opinion.  The villains seem completely different and the overall conflict is likely different (in MR if I remember correctly the overall issue was that the world had suffered from solar flares so it ended up being an environmental conflict?).  I don’t know what the overall conflict of the SKZ storyline is just yet but from Miroh they seem to be setting up a rich vs. poor conflict... Though that might not be the overall issue, just like how MR has multiple layers.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let’s go back to the Map.  At 3 am two nights ago, I made a super chaotic post about how I think it’s meant to be read, so check that out for details if need be but the main idea is that the motifs from different MVs and the way they reappear in different eras and places on the map is how we can find our chronology.

So in the map image above I’ve labeled various things.  The numbers are the motifs, in no real order, but vaguely in order of their visual placement on the map.  Some have letters, a and b, which are when motifs repeat on the map.  The circles draw attention to some things that I think are likely important but am personally still very confused about.  And then I’ve added some translated lyrics that I think are important to the storyline.

I don’t think Hellevator is the start of the timeline.  I think, like MR, it’s the start of the timeline the boys’ remember.  At that point, I think they’ve already entered their first “trial” or “illusion” - that being, they’ve been given a place to live “happily,” but they’re isolated from anyone except themselves.  The reason they haven’t left is because their way out is labeled Hellevator - in other words, they’re convinced to stay through a combination of contentedness and fear.  However, when they eventually leave, they end up in a field of flowers, which doesn’t exactly scream “Hell,” does it?

In my opinion, My Pace and I am YOU are directly connected and in that order - they almost have to be, based on the MVs, I think.  I believe My Pace is the start of the timeline as we know it - I think it is where the conflict between the boys and society starts, as the boys decide to do their own thing, go their own speed.  This is further confirmed when Jisung takes down the camera in I am YOU, which may be the significance fo the broken camera that I’ve circled in red on the map - even though it’s by the My Pace tunnel, it’s not actually broken until I am YOU!

Similarly, Miroh seems to lead to Side Effects/Yellow Wood based on the MVs.  What’s confusing is there’s a possibility that Side Effects actually happened more than once - that the part where the kids get on the bus did actually happen, but somehow they eventually ended up at the same crossroads and took the other path.  On the map, the elevator connects the two of them, which leads me to believe that Hellevator leads directly to I am NOT/District 9.  

Based on motifs, namely the shopping cart and the couch (both of which are in both IAY and the Hellevator MVs btw), Hellevator is up next.  Notably, the Hellevator motifs are placed near the District 9 bus, so we could reasonably say that I am NOT comes next, based on that as well as the elevator.  I mentioned before that their hideout in Hellevator is a place meant to make them complacent, which is supported by the fact that some of their things, the shopping cart and the couch, were taken from their initial I am YOU hideout.  It reminds me of when you move a pet from one place to another and keep their toys with them so that the new place still feels like home.

Based on the 1.5 moon motif, though, Yellow Wood is up next!  Either that, or Yellow Wood came before I am YOU, which I don’t think is the case.  My thought is, Side Effects represents choosing to blend with society or choosing to rebel, so perhaps at one point they chose to go with society, but they eventually realized they were unable to fit in and rebelled, ending up at Hellevator in the end either way.  That’s also why I think the I am NOT part of the map has the Side Effects drone - it’s another point at which they had to make that choice between society and freedom.

From Hellevator, as I’ve mentioned, we go to I am NOT, video-wise this means the I am NOT trailer and the District 9 MV.  From there, we have the bottle of flowers and the field of purple flowers from Hellevator replicated near Levanter... which we can’t say too much about until tomorrow!  But it should lead to Miroh based on the eagle motif and the walkie talkie motif there-- which, people have probably said this already, but the eagle itself likely represents SKZ while the lion represents society (think Young Wings for the eagle and for the lion, it’s attached to things like the City Jungle and the bus driven by the Miroh dude so that checks out imo for more than one reason).  My suspicion is that the use of so many previous motifs in Astronaut represents Hyunjin getting lost and having to remember the way back to where the rest of the group is... This could mean literally having lost his memory or it could be a more figurative form of losing his way.

Anyway, from Miroh we end up at Yellow Wood, based on the elevator on the map as well as the MVs, and this time it’s more literal than the previous encounters with YW - this time they chose a path and throw away the key, never looking back.  They won’t go back to Yellow Wood again because they’ve made their final decision to truly rebel, there’s no going back (which I think may be why Hyunjin was so stressed in SE).

We find ourselves once again at the Levanter part of the map, with the eagle representing running from Miroh’s City Jungle.  And that’s pretty much all I’ve got, at least until tomorrow!

I will say that I think it’s possible that SKZ infiltrates society a few times before fully rebelling, in order to free more people like themselves and build up their forces.  I think something similar happened in Maze Runner as well.  A part of me wonders if SKZ plays themselves, but also other like them in a sort of metaphorical way (if that makes sense?).

It’s also possible that someone else helped them escape from District 9 - the drone that broke in that Chan found, for example.  Where did it come from?  It could have been their past selves, who anticipated their being stuck with wiped memories!  It could also have been other “stray kids” who’ve already escaped.  Maybe it’s I.N’s “twin?”

Okay yeah I think I’m really going off the rails here so I’m gonna wrap up really quick with one final section here!

Things I don’t know what to do with:

keys - my suspicion is that they are part of yet another illusion set up by society (meaning, society wants them to think that the keys will help them escape but it’s all just another trick/trial), and that’s why SKZ has discarded some of them - for example, taking down Miroh will probably not grant full freedom, because freedom is outside of the map, so maybe they discarded the key to return there.

marbles - I’m guessing they have to do with memories somehow but thus far they have only showed up in Astronaut so it’s really hard to see patterns with these just yet.

elevators - I mentioned that they might show direct connections between MVs, but I’m very uncertain about this, actually.

“ghost” I.N who stayed behind in Astronaut - though I will note that he seemed to have a clone or a twin or something in District 9 so that could explain how one I.N went with SKZ and another stayed behind?