#the first place I viewed is still up.... I could spray really well for spiders and give it a super deep clean

[girlscience]

screaming crying blowing up

[fabricated-misslieness]

Peter Parker x gender neutral reader with powers

Y’know I asked for a part 2 because some parts of the moodboard weren’t utilized but I actually don’t have a plan for this… just like most fics I write.

Part 2 of Stunned

Requested: Yes, by several peeps

Word Count: 2525

Warnings: swearing (probably), Ted Bundy is mentioned (just the name, not what he does, though it is sugested)

Ever since you’d met Spider-Man, showed him your identity and all, Peter has been a little more awkward than he already was around you.

Though, of course, you didn’t know how those two things corresponded with each other.

It was still a bit suspicious though. Analyzing the situation you could come up with at least 5 reasons.

That last pick up line was bad.

That last pick up line was too explicit.

You’d rubbed off on him as a little too harsh or bold for his comfort.

Something happened to him that was entirely unrelated to you.

He’d caught on with your little crush.

The last two were the most probable ones. 

That was what you told yourself, but sometimes your friends told you that the pick up lines were bad. Most of the time, you just brushed it off because a. Your friends liked to pick on you, and b. You don’t utilize overused internet lines.

Either way, the pick up line from before this whole awkward dilemma had still gotten him to blush red. He hadn’t grimaced or giggled. Then again, this was Peter Parker, the smart and somewhat shy boy that you’d managed to fluster nearly every day since the start of the year.

You decided to confront him, get to the root of the problem. Speculating was useless in this situation.

“Hey, Peter.” You tap him on the shoulder.

It surprises him, as it’s lunch time and you’d usually sit with the popular kids. 

“H-Hey.” He stutters back. Out of your peripheral view, you could see his friend scooting away from you two ‘discreetly’.

“Can we talk? Alone?” You rub the back of your neck, which makes him slightly curious. You looked nervous, which you usually wouldn’t be. At least your constant smile was still there.

As you walked out the cafeteria, Peter thought about what you’d want to talk about.

Were you finally going to ask him out? It’d already been quite the year of pick up lines and he felt anticipation build up whenever you’d approach him. It’d do both of you good, though he assumed you liked him. He wasn’t so sure about it, even if all signs pointed to yes.

Thought right now you seemed a little too nervous to be asking him out. You were always so bold, a harsh contrast from him, so he assumed when the time came, you’d be just as confident as always. Then again, he couldn’t really judge.

You could also be telling him something else. What it was, Peter didn’t know, which is why his brain was exploding with possibilities.

When you were outside the cafeteria, you made sure the halls were clear. It confused him further. What were you going to tell him that required no witnesses?

Oh god, you weren’t going to Ted Bundy him, were you?

“Peter.” You start slowly, which makes him want to bite his nails in anticipation. “Why,” You take a deep breath. “Why have you been awkward around me lately?”

Peter can feel the blood heat up his cheeks as he scrambles for an answer. “I-I uh.. I always have?”

You laugh, and god does it make him feel like he’s exploding. “Well, you’ve been more awkward than usual.”

Peter tilts his head, feigning confusion, you can’t help but think it’s adorable. He knows the answer to that question, but you don’t know it correlates to him being Spider-Man. “I have?”

You nod your head, looking off in embarrassment. It seems you’d seen things wrong. “Right, right.” You laugh at yourself. “Sorry, I’m overreacting.”

“Yeah.” Damn it Peter, that’s no way to ease your crush. “I mean, no, no, no! It’s- It’s fine!” He waves his hands around in a panic.

You laugh at his embarrassment this time. “If you say so, darling. By the way, I haven’t complimented you today have I?”

Peter shakes his head timidly.

“Oh, really? Well then, you’re really cute with a blush. I’ll see you around, Pete.”

When you leave, Peter nearly melts to a puddle just from how flustered he is. Another big factor to that nearly happening is the fact that he had to hide his secret from you.

Of course, hiding it was a given, but hiding it from somebody you have a crush on is way different than hiding it from the general public.

Before he could let himself zone out in the hall, he walked into the cafeteria, mostly to tell Ned.

You’d always thought Spider-Man was uptight. So that day with him, where you let him stay with you to rest, had changed your mind.

Maybe he was still uptight when choosing which crimes he should stop, graffiti obviously being one of the ones you think he shouldn’t prevent, but you thought his personality was uptight. You could work on it though.

“Spider-Man’s here!”

You glanced over to see all your graffiti friends, most of them being stoners as well, bolt in the direction of the exit.

You didn’t know how he got there, seeing as you had to cross some train tracks, go down an ominous hallway, then jump a fence, though he didn’t need to jump the fence.

He’d probably followed you there, but for some reason decided to stick around, pun unintended, for half an hour before revealing himself.

Before he could catch any of them, you use your powers to dash over and hold him in place.

“Thanks (y/n)!” They shout at you as they run.

“Hey, no problem dude. See you later!” The nerve of you to reply like that with Spider-Man in your hold.

Speaking of which, the spider groans as he watches them leave. Even with his enhanced strength, he couldn’t get out of your grip. Maybe that was another part of your powers.

You only let go of him when they were all out of sight.

Spider-Man figured he could catch up to them, but it was useless. You were there to catch him, and you could even knock him out like last time. Although, last time was an accident, as you’d assured, he couldn’t trust you.

He groans and faces you, not expecting to be faced with your smirk.

“Come back for another kiss, Spidey?” You tease, leaning against the graffitied walls of the restricted area.

“Okay, this time, you broke an entry!”

You laugh at how pissed off he seemed. “I thought it was breaking and entering.” You joke.

He seems taken aback. “I--” He huffs out in frustration. “Alright, so what? You broke the law, you pay the price.”

“Spider-Man.” You tilt your head and give him an all-knowing look. “You’re a superhero. Don’t you got any other crimes to bust? Besides,” You shake your spray paint can. “What’s stopping me from running?”

Spider-Man groans with his head in his hands. You were really getting on his nerves.

He thinks of a plan for a few minutes. He could web onto you when you ran, but even if you didn’t break the webbing, it would turn into a wild goose chase.

“Your powers are overpowered.” He groans.

“It’s much worse than you think.” You mutter, thankfully he doesn’t catch it. “But imagine somebody with an insignificant power, something like tasting certain—“

He tunes the rest of your rambling out as he thinks about you, but that doesn’t mean he’s not looking at you either.

He thinks about how much he wanted that conversation today to be a confession from you. He didn’t dwell on it at the moment, but he certainly thought about it afterwards.

He was fantasizing about having a relationship with you. Hanging out on rooftops, art dates, not giving a care in the world about where you kissed... He’d done this so many times before it’s as if he was looking back on a memory.

“Earth to Spider-Man?” You snap him out of his thoughts.

He jumps back against the wall, startled. You snicker a bit, “Didn’t mean to scare you. I was going to ask, do you wanna hang out?”

Peter furrows his eyebrows, why would you suddenly ask this? “Uh..” He tries to think of an excuse. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” You retort.

“I guess.” Peter shrugged. “But I could be one of your teachers.”

You make your way to the exit, forcing him to follow you. “Hmm, don’t think so.” You take a glance at him as if to get a look at his face and then remember he wears a mask. “You sound like a teen.”

He should really have a voice changer in his suit.

“Ey,” Spider-Man calls with a finger pointed at you.

You put your hands up in surrender, dropping the spray can to the floor with a clang. “Fine.”

“This was your hideout spot?” He asks, looking around the alleyway. It wasn’t that far from the one where you injured him, but that wasn’t the point. It looked just like any other place.

“No, it’s up there.” You reply, pointing up at the rooftop. “ Race me up?”

He lets out a small laugh, forgetting what your powers allow you to do. “What’s the prize?”

“No prize, just friendly competition.” You pause for a moment, trying to remember something. It was on the tip of your tongue. “Oh, right! Also, bragging rights.”

“Alright.” He agrees, holding out his hand. “Let’s shake on it.”

“Shake on it?” You laugh, but oblige anyway. “Okay, on the count of 3.”

After a brief countdown, which surprised him when you didn’t pull a trick on him with it, you ran up the wall and got up there first. Granted, he did the same thing, but you were faster.

“Damn.” Peter complained, earning him a smirk from you.

He didn’t linger upon the thought, though, instead he looked at you. Your legs were glowing neon red, just like the rest of the times he’d seen your powers. “See something you like?”

He snaps up to your eyes. “Who admires legs?” He tries to play it off cool.

“Plenty of people.” You walk over to the edge of the roof, which was barely preventing falling with a half wall.

You sat down on the wall, gesturing for Spider-Man to sit next to you.

“Isn’t this dangerous?” He sits down either way.

You raise an eyebrow at him, “I’ve seen you do this before.”

“You have?” He didn’t think many people looked at him often, since he was whizzing past them everyday. Well, he was sitting stationary rather than swinging.

“Mhm.” You hum a yes, swinging your legs back and forth.

You both sit in silence for a few minutes. You fiddled with the light from your glow stick while Peter was trying to decipher if the silence was awkward or comfortable.

You were thinking about who Spider-Man was, despite saying it was a bit rude the last time you and the spandex clad hero talked. You couldn’t stop yourself from thinking about it, especially when you suspected your crush of being Spider-Man. Nowadays, thinking about how cute Peter was, or how your relationship would go, would usually lead to thinking about the possibility of him being Spider-Man.

If you didn’t have a plausible reason to forget that possibility, you would never even think about confessing to Peter.

You really did, but you weren’t sure if he reciprocated your feelings. You would feel crushed if he said he didn’t like you back. You’d been crushing on him for the better half of the year and you were sure it turned into more than a small crush now.

A lot of late night thoughts were about Peter, so of course you’d already thought of the reasons why you thought he was Spider-Man and narrowed down the way to approach him and ask.

You doubted he’d tell you, but it was worth a try if it’d help you get over it.

“Hey, Peter.” You were about to correct yourself but Spider-Man interrupted.

“Who-Who’s Peter?” He tried to sound confused, but it came out as if he were playing off a bad lie. He rubs the back of his neck at his mistake.

You raise an eyebrow but continue anyway. “Spider-Man. You’re.. Peter, aren’t you?” You’d thought about this so many times yet the execution was horrible.

“Peter who?” He gulps nervously.

“Parker.” He stares at you in the eye. Your face is full of hope, and he doesn’t want to crush it by saying ‘no’. But he can’t have just anyone knowing he’s Spider-Man.

What kind of things would you do with that knowledge? You wouldn’t spread it around, he was sure of that! Was he?

What if other people knew you knew who he was? You’d be in danger of kidnappings. Then again, you had your own powers, ones that certainly felt better than his. But he didn’t know what kind of tech supervillains carry around.

He decides on saying no, despite how hard it’ll be to handle, for the both of you. He can’t help but think his decision isn’t well thought-out though.

The denial and the way he says it is enough to convince you, despite the suspicious way he acted earlier.

You let out an embarrassed laugh, fidgeting with your fingers. “Right, sorry. Bit rude of me to guess, isn’t it?”

“No.” Peter breaths out. “It’s alright, you’re curious.”

You nod, continuing to ramble in order to ease yourself. “It’s just.. you really remind me of him. He’s just,” You smile at the thought of him. “really cute. The way the both of you act is similar. I kind of like the guy, can you believe that?” You wait for a response, but he doesn’t give one. “No? He’s… perfect. I’ve been pining over him since the start of school.”

He can’t handle it anymore. Call him selfish, but hearing his crush likes him back is too much to handle. “I’m Peter Parker.” He says in a rush.

“What?” You’re startled, furrowing your eyebrows. “But you said--”

“Yeah, sorry. At the time it seemed like I shouldn’t have told you, the cons outweighed the pros but…” He knew what he had to say, but he was nervous. “I-I.. I like you too.”

You smile, standing up from the edge and pulling him with you. You move further onto the roof, at an area in the middle where not many people are likely to see you. “Prove it, then.” You were beaming with excitement.

Peter slowly slides off his mask, leaving you stunned as you look at him. “Hey, I’m Spider-Man. I’m here for more kisses.”

You laugh at the reference from earlier on that night.

“Can I kiss you?”

“I literally just asked for a kiss.”

“On the lips.”

“Oh.”

He nods and you happily give him a kiss. He responds quickly and rather sloppily, it’s a miracle how your noses don’t bump into each other from how uncoordinated he is.

“First kiss?” You ask when you pull back.

“Yeah.” Peter replies, face flushed not only from the kiss but also from the fact that you took notice of it being his first too.

“Do you need lessons?”

Congratulations, you just killed Peter Parker.

[chickensarentcheap]

Never Gonna Be Alone- Chapter 56

Title: Visitors

Warnings: profanity, slight angst

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @innerpaperexpertcloud, @miss-smutty, @tragiclyhip, @ocfairygodmother, @ocappreciation

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28860450/chapters/80479972

He dreams of one of his tours in Afghanistan. Two years into his time with SASR and his platoon imbedded with local friendlies; two dozen militia members that hated The Taliban just as much as the rest of the world and wanted a hand in bringing them down. He’d only been thirty at the time and already considered a seasoned veteran; several deployments into active and heavy combat, scars left behind from gunshot sounds and where shrapnel from roadside bombs had embedded into his skin. He’d felt as if he were eighty years old; shoulders weighed down by the horrors he’d seen and the things he’d had to do. No longer flinching when he had to take the life of another, but still feeling nauseous and when confronted by the bodies of those tortured and mutilated at the hands of terrorists. The healthy, the disabled, women, children; no one was safe from the brutality and it wasn’t uncommon to pass corpses in the streets or drive through bombed out towns.

Threats were everywhere; he’d long ago learned to sleep with a gun underneath his pillow. His instincts and senses sharp and keen and always on high alert; ears pricking to the howl of the wind or the rustle of rocks or the stirring of sand. Actual rest was a rare commodity for younger soldiers, but he’d become used to bedding down in the earth; body accustomed to the hard surface beneath him and his head not minding his rucksack as a pillow.

Three days had been spent navigating through rough terrain despite brutal elements they’d been faced with, and on the fourth night they were able to find refuge in a cave carved into the mountainside of the Tangi Valley. On their way to Mazar-i-Sharif; a well known Taliban stronghold. There they and the Afghan friendlies would attempt to take back the city; hoping and praying that they’d have enough weaponry and ammunition to wipe the enemy forces out. And that their own death tally wouldn’t be too high.

It was the first time he’d been afraid while with the SASR; warned that even with success, the chances of getting home alive were extremely unlikely. His wife had been pregnant at that time. Three weeks away from delivering his son; experiencing difficulties because of her own stress and worries revolving around his health and safety and his whereabouts. There’d been close calls already; snipers in the mountains, ambushes with rocket propelled grenades and tanks. His hyper-vigilance had been on high alert; every strange noise or shift of the rocks jarring him awake and seeing him reach under his backpack for the handgun he’d hidden underneath it.

He feels it now; the presence of someone standing beside him. Hears it; the soft breathing and the slight rustle of clothes. And he acts on pure instinct; hand sliding under his pillow and waiting for his fingertips to come in contact with the barrel of his Glock. Its absence sending his fear into overdrive and immediately instilling panic; eyes snapping open as he bolts into a sit and both hands shoot out to grab hold of the threat.

“Hi daddy.”

He blinks rapidly. The dream quickly evaporating and the cavern of sand and rocks dissipating; replaced by the wall of windows that provide a view of the darkened backyard and the glow of the space heater located in the far corner. Swallowing down the bile that sits in his throat, he briefly closes his eyes; using a forearm to clear perspiration from his forehead.

“Are you okay?” Addie inquires as she stands at the side of the couch. Clad in her favourite pair of unicorn themed pyjamas; Franklin the stuffed koala tucked under her arm, dark hair mussed from sleep.

He finally manages to gain control of himself; senses registering the familiar surroundings. “What are you doing?”

“I got up to go pee and then I wanted to snuggle with you and mummy in the big bed, but you guys weren’t there. I know I’m not supposed to come downstairs by myself while everyone is sleeping, but I was worried and I wanted to find you.”

“Are you okay? Did you have an accident in your bed?”

“Nope. I made it in time. I was scared; when I didn’t find you and mummy in your room. I thought maybe you left us.”

“Why would we leave you? You guys need us. We’d never do something like that. We love you guys way too much to ever leave you.” Reaching out, he gently cups the back of her head in his palm. “You know that, right? That mummy and I love you guys so much.”

Nooding, she tucks Franklin under her arm and she balls her hands into fists; rubbing vigorously at her eyes. “Why are you guys down here? Why aren’t you sleeping in your normal bed?”

“Mummy and I were up late. Talking.”

“About what?”

“Stuff.”

Addie tilts her head to the side. “What kind of stuff?”

“Stuff that mummies and daddies talk about. That little ears don’t need to hear.”

“So scary stuff? Or stuff with lots of swears in it?”

“Just stuff you don’t need to worry about.”

“Were you talking about…” she taps a finger against her lips. “... my birthday party?”

“You have a birthday coming up?”

Giving a dramatic huff; both hands find her hips and a pout curves her lips. “Daddy! You know my birthday is soon. February thirteenth. The day before Valentine’s Day. How could you forget that? Your own kid’s birthday! Your favourite kid!”

“I’m teasing you. I didn’t forget your birthday. I could NEVER forget it. Ever.”

“Mummy said maybe we could go to the koala place again.”

“That’s where you went last year. And the year before.”

“It’s my favourite place in the whole world. Mummy said to ask you. If we could go there. She says it’s up to you because you’re paying AND driving.”

“If you want to go to the koala place, that’s where we’ll go. Or we could go to the one in Melbourne; fly down and make a weekend of it.”

“I don’t want to fly. I don’t like it. It’s scary. “

“Since when? You’re fine with it when we go to Disney World.”

“That’s because I know I’m going to see Belle and Ariel and Snow White and Moana. That makes it worth it; being scared to death and worried the plane is going to crash.”

“The plane is NOT going to crash.”

“You don’t know that. Can’t we just drive to the koala place we always go to? They know me there. The koalas. They’ll be happy to see me.”

“If that’s what you want to do, we’ll do it. Now….” he reaches out and clears messy strands of hair away from the sides of her face and out of her eyes. “...why are you still up?”

“Isn’t today when we go to the American Girl store?”

“Yeah, but not for a while. Not for a LONG while. It’s still dark out. What time is it? Grab my phone. Check it”

Snagging the item in question from the cluttered coffee table, she presses the button on the side to make the screen come to life. “It says it’s six zero two.”

“Addie….” he groans and presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. “...it is way too early to be up, Peanut. Sun’s not even out.”

“Can we have breakfast? And then when we’re done it’ll be time to go to American Girl?”

“Baby girl, we’re not leaving until eleven. So even if we eat really slow, it’ll still be hours away. Why don’t you go back upstairs and lie down. See if you can fall back asleep for a bit.”

“I don’t want to go back up there. It’s too dark and I used up all my courage coming to find you and mumma. What if something chases me up the stairs? And catches me?”

“Where’s your monster spray I made for you? You all out?”

“I forgot it. In my room. That’s why I had to use all my courage to come find you. I’ll go back up there if you come with me. And snuggle for a bit.”

“I got a better idea; climb in here and snuggle with mummy.”

“And you?”

“I don’t snuggle.”

“You do too. Why are you so embarrassed to admit it? Snuggling is nice. It feels good. It makes your heart happy. It’s never a bad thing when your heart is happy.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, and lightly ruffles her hair. “It does. Come on; get in here.”

“I’m too tiny to get in.”

“You can make it. I know you’re like a spider monkey; I’ve seen you scale the fridge and the cupboards trying to get to things. Come on, hurry up.”

Tossing Franklin over the top of the sofa, she glances around the room; a fingertip pressed against her lips as she considers her options for assistance in getting to her final destination. Electing to push the coffee table over; groaning and grunting dramatically as her tiny body puts all the effort and strength it can in getting the heavy wooden object into place. Climbing effortlessly onto it and then slinging one leg over the top of the couch and then another; sitting on top of it with a victorious, proud smile that spreads from ear to ear.

“I did it! Daddy I did it! All on my own!”

“I knew you could do it. You just had to think about HOW you were going to do it. You’re crazy smart, you know that?”

“Not as smart as Tanner.”

“Nobody is as smart as Tanner. Not in this house anyway.”

“Not even you or mumma?”

“Definitely not me. But your mumma comes pretty damn close.”

“Mumma’s pretty smart. I mean, she has to be right? She fell in love with you.”

He grins. “You’re smooth, you know that?”

“I learned that from you. I’mma lie with you for a bit, okay? Then snuggle with mum.”

Nodding in agreement, he pulls the sleeping bag back and then he places his hands on her hips, steadying her as she slides down the back of the sofa and then plants herself on his stomach. Both arms wrapping around her tiny body as she stretches out along him; lips pressing against her brow as he head settles on his collarbone.

“It’s like a nest,” Addie enthuses, as he covers them both with the sleeping bag. “I like it. Maybe we can do this at home sometimes.”

“Maybe.” A tiny hand reaches up to brush against his beard, and he turns his face into it and kisses the palm.

“You need to shave, daddy.”

“Last week you said you liked my face like this. What gives?”

“It’s getting TOO bushy. I can’t see your face. Why you want to hide your face? It’s a cute face.”

He frowns. “Excuse me? I let you into the nest and you treat me like that?”

Addie giggles. “Sorry. I know it’s worse than a swear to you. You let mummy call you cute.”

“Sometimes I let her get away with it.”

“Well, I’m a mini mumma so that means I should get be able to get away with it too.”

“Your logic is actually pretty sound. I can’t argue with it. I’ll clean it up when we get home; thin it out, get my hair cut…”

“Don’t shave it off though. I don’t want you to have NO hair. I don’t think it would suit your face. If you were bald like Grandpa Koen.”

“Short, but not too short. Sound good?”

“I’ll agree to it. Mumma would NOT like it; if you got rid of all your hair.”

“She definitely wouldn’t. Speaking of mumma, let’s not talk so loud okay? Mumma didn’t sleep well last night; she needs her rest.”

Addie lifts her head from his chest. “Is she okay? She’s not sick is she? I don’t want mumma to be sick.”

“She’s not sick. Just tired. She hasn’t gotten a good sleep in a while. So let’s help her do that, yeah? Help her get the rest she needs? So she can take care of you guys? Be the mumma she always is? Can you do that? Help her get some sleep?”

Addie manages a nod; chin tucked into her chest and tears sparkling in her eyes.

“Hey…” he brushes her dark locks away from the side of her face. “...what’s wrong? Why are you going to cry?”

“Are you sure she’s alright? Are you sure mumma isn’t sick? That there isn’t something wrong with her?”

“Peanut, I am one hundred percent sure there is nothing wrong with her. She’s just tired. She hasn’t been sleeping well and she’s trying to catch up on what she’s lost. That’s it.”

“Are you sure, daddy? I don’t want mumma to be sick.”

“Mumma is NOT sick. She’s just tired. Would I lie to you?”

“No. You don’t lie ever. Maybe sometimes for your job because you have to, but never to us. OR mumma.”

“You need to trust me, alright? She’s fine. Just really tired. And that’s why we need to help her; keep our voices down and let her sleep. Make sense?”

Addie nods.

“Don’t cry. There’s no reason. Come here…” Laying a hand on the back of her head, he presses a kiss to her forehead and then draws her back down to rest upon him. “....mummy’s okay. Just sometimes, she gets worn out. She does a lot. For you guys, for me. She just needs to recharge her batteries. That’s all.”

Addie frowns. “Mumma doesn't have batteries. She’s human. Like us. She IS human, right?”

“Sometimes I wonder if she is; considering how awesome she is and how much she loves and takes care of all of us. But yeah, she IS a human. It’s a figure of speech; needing to recharge your batteries when you’re really, really, REALLY tired.”

“You promise she’s okay?”

“I promise. I would never, ever lie to you, Peanut. Mummy’s okay. She just needs some rest.”

“Alright,” she relents, and once more lays her head upon his chest; her eyes closing as his fingers repeatedly comb through her hair. One of her hands finds his right ear; softly pinching the top before her fingertips begin a slow and repetitive caress of the outer edge. Both she and Millie had adopted the same self soothing technique when they were just babies; the thumb of one hand shoved firmly in their mouths while the fingers of the other either stroked his ears or twisted at his hair.

“Addie?”

“Daddy?”

“I need to ask you something, okay? About when you get upset. Like you did just know about mummy. Is that okay?”

“That’s okay.”

“When you get like that, does it make you feel any different? Is there a change from how you normally feel?”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Inside of you. Does anything different go on? When you get worked up like that, do you notice anything weird or funny or strange going on? Like in your stomach or your chest or your head or…”

“It hurts a bit,” Addie admits. “Like someone is squeezing my chest really tight. And my heart goes really, really fast and my tummy gets all butterflies in it. But not good butterflies; like when you meet someone beautiful and fall in love with them. Bad butterflies; like I’m gonna throw up. But I don’t.”

It’s the last thing he wanted to hear; yet another one of his kids showing telltale signs of mental health issues. Apparently running rampant through the family thanks to the combination of parental genes; moderate to severe anxiety issues, neurotic tendencies, feelings of panic and fear, episodes of mild to severe depression. He’d hoped that none of them would ever have to battle those kinds of demons; praying to whatever higher power existed -if any- that they’d be spared and their lives filled with nothing but love and light and the most trivial of problems. The guilt is quick to set in; blaming himself for the ‘fucked up, messy genes’ that have been bestowed upon them; a father with a lifetime of trauma and severe mental health issues that bears the titles of alcoholic and drug addict.

“Is that bad?” Addie inquires, and when he glances down he notices the worry that darkens her eyes and lines her face; deep furrows across her brow and the pout capturing her lips. “Am I sick? Am I going to die? I don’t want to die, daddy!”

“You’re not going to die,” he assures her, and tightens his hold on her. “And you’re not sick. It’s pretty normal. A lot of people feel that way. I know I do.”

Her face brightens at his confession; the joy of sharing something -even anxiety- with him and the relief that she isn’t alone in her struggles. “You do?”

Tyler nods. “Quite a lot, actually.”

“That’s part of your brain stuff? Feeling like that?”

“It’s one part of it. One of MANY parts.”

“Is my brain sick too? Is it sad like yours?”

“I don’t think so . I think it’s just something you’re going through. It’ll probably go away as you start growing up.”

She scrambles into a sit. “What if it doesn’t? Will I have to take medicine like you do?”

“You know what, how about we only worry about that IF it happens? Let’s see how it goes, alright? As you get bigger. But if things get worse and you start feeling like more and more and it’s getting stronger, you have to tell me or mumma okay? It’s important that you tell us. Will you promise? That if things get worse you’ll tell me or mumma?”

“I promise.”

“Good girl.” Laying a hand on the back of her head , he gently pulls her closer; pressing a series of kisses down the bridge of her nose. “Mumma and I need to know; if you’re feeling stuff like that.”

“I promise I’ll tell you. I won’t keep it a secret. Can I ask you a question now?”

“Can you lie down and ask it? Because it’s still really early and we still need to get some more sleep.”

Nodding in agreement, she once more stretches out along him. Side of her head resting on his collarbone and her fingers immediately reaching for the chain around his neck; rubbing the pendant -engraved with his and Esme’s zodiac symbols- between her thumb and forefinger.

One palm rests in the middle of her back as the other softly strokes her hair. “What do you want to ask me?”

“What did Austin look like?”

“What?” He gives an uncomfortable laugh; the mere mention of his son’s name tightening his chest. It’s creeping up on him; Addie’s sixth birthday and the anniversary -just three weeks later- of the death of his first child. Some days he doesn’t think of Austin at all; his past life nothing but a faded memory as he enjoys the new one that continues to play out in front of him. Other days the grief is profound; ripping at his heart and clawing at his throat and making his sorrow nearly unbearable. He wonders if it will ever go away; if he’ll wake up one morning and realize that years...decades even…have passed by without being haunted by his son’s demise and his horrible mistake leading up to it. “Where’d that come from?”

“I had a dream. He was in it. He didn’t say his name or anything and I don’t know what he looks like, but I KNEW it was. He was at our house. In Australia. And he was playing with us; chasing us in the sand and throwing us into the water and helping look for rocks and shells and sea glass.”

“Was he a little boy or…?”

“No. He was big. Older than Millie even. A teenager. He looked like you; he was tall and he had your eyes and muscles. Not as big as yours, though. Little ones. What DID he look like?”

“He looked a lot like TJ. Blond hair that was always kinda messy. Blue eyes. Same nose. Ears.”

“That means he was cute then. ‘Cause Tyler’s cute and he looks just like you and you’re cute so…”

“You realize you’ve called me that twice? In less than an hour?”

“It’s a compliment, silly. Mumma said you can be cute AND a bad ass. At the same time.”

“Well if mumma says it, I guess it’s true.”

“Austin was just little, right? When he died?”

“He was. He was six.”

“I’m going to be six soon. Does that mean I’m going to die too?”

“No, Peanut. It doesn’t mean that at all. It has nothing to do with turning the same age. Austin was sick and the doctors couldn’t fix him. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re healthy. VERY healthy.”

“If he was six when he died and you met mummy four years after that…”

“He would have been ten when I met your mum. And I met her almost thirteen years ago.”

“So he’d be…” her eyes narrow and she chews on her bottom lip. “...twenty-three now.”

“That’s pretty damn good; you figuring that out. You’re pretty smart.”

Addie beams. “Like mummy.”

“You’re like mummy in so many ways. And that’s a good thing. A VERY good thing.”

“If Austin never died, would he have lived with his mummy or with you and my mummy?”

He doesn’t have the heart to tell her that if Austin hadn’t passed away, the life she knows wouldn’t even exist. SHE wouldn’t exist. Had his first born son never been diagnosed with cancer and had lived a healthy life, he would have never gotten into the job; he would have stayed in the military and made it his career and would have never had a reason to even think about the ‘job’, never mind actually getting into it. And although his first marriage still would have fallen apart for many reasons, his path never would have crossed with Esme’s. Meeting her had only taken place because of his choice to become a mercenary; his enormous guilt and regret and immense sorrow pushing him in that direction.

Addie couldn’t handle hearing it; the cold, hard truth. Not even at fifty years old, never mind only five. She’s remarkably different from his other girls.; tiny and dainty and sensitive to a fault. Prone to easily having her feelings hurt and bursting into tears if someone so much as raises their voice at her or casts an angry or disappointed look in her direction. Millie and Brooklyn are ‘harder’. Boisterous and fearless and ‘rough and tumble’ ; never blinking under the often harsh teasing from their brothers and never flinching when they’re scolded or punished. They’d never needed the amount of coddling and physical contact that Addie craves; always needing cuddles and kisses and unabashedly seeking them out whenever she craves them. The others hate the idea of being ‘babied; fiercely independent and not needing the level of attention and reassurance that their sister does. And it’s a welcome change; the one little girl that he can dote on and spoil and treat like a princess. Something he -of all people given his sheer size and physical prowess and often intimidating nature- had never known he wanted; something so bright and beautiful that needs him almost as much as he needs them. She keeps him grounded and ‘light’ in ways the others can’t; her purity and her innocence infectious, her giggle and her smile and the way the word ‘daddy’ sounds coming out of her mouth doing wonders for his aching body, mind, and soul.

“He probably would have lived with his mum,” he says, fingers lightly dancing over her silky, dark hair. “And come to visit us.”

“He had a good mum? She was good to him?”

“She was VERY good to him. She loved him very, very much. And he loved her just the same; they were really close. Did everything together. Because I was away a lot.”

“When you were in the military?”

He nods.

“Was she as good as my mum?”

“Peanut, I don’t think there’s anyone in this world that is as good as your mum. Your mum is pretty awesome. She’s been through a lot of stuff in the past twelve years. Stuff that would have scared other people off. But she hung in there and she made things work even when I thought they might fall apart. And she had all you guys; all seven of you. That’s something. That’s a lot of babies.”

“No one is as good as my mum. No one. She’s pretty and she’s funny and she always gives us hugs and kisses and stops whatever she’s doing to pay attention to us. And she does fun things with us. Even when she doesn’t really have the time to do them. She just stops everything and gives us whatever we need. And she has fun doing it. Spending time with us.”

“Your mummy loves you guys so much. You know, there was a time she thought she wouldn’t even be a mummy. And I think that’s why she gives so much of herself. Why she’s always willing to put everything else aside for you guys. Because she never thought she’d have kids. And now she’s so happy she does.”

“But she had to have help, right? To have us. You had to help.”

“I played a little part in it.”

“What did you have to do?”

“Things that you’ll find out when you’re older. MUCH older.”

“How much older?”

“I don’t know…” he presses a kiss to her forehead. “...thirty? Forty?”

She giggles. “Daddy! That’s way far away! I need to know before that.”

“I’ll decide when you need to know those things. Until then? I’m going to keep you locked in your room. So no boys can get to you. Or girls, if that’s the way you wanna go.”

“Like Rapunzel,” Addie muses. “She was locked in her room. But her parents were mean and that’s why they did it. You and mumma aren’t mean. You just don’t want me meeting someone and moving away.”

“That’s EXACTLY it. I don’t want that. I want you to stay little forever. Exactly how you are right now. The one that still wants me to cuddle her and still likes to spend time with me.”

“I’ll ALWAYS want daddy cuddles. And to spend time with you. Why wouldn’t I want cuddles? Why wouldn’t I want to do things with you? You’re my daddy. I love you.”

“And I love you. So much. So very, very, VERY much.”

“If I’m going to be like Rapunzel, I better start growing my hair faster.”

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “You better.”

Abandoning the chain around his neck, her fingers move to the tattoo that graces the left side of his throat. “What was her name?”

“Who?”

“Austin’s mummy. What was her name?”

“Why so many questions? Especially about this stuff?”

“I’m just curious. What was it? Her name?”

“Her name is Sarah.”

“That’s a pretty name. Not as pretty as Esme, though.”

“No. It’s not. But you and I are a little biased, so…”

“Just a bit,” Addie agrees. “What does she look like? Does she look like mummy?”

“Nope. She’s totally different than your mum. She’s tall and heavier and more muscley. Blond hair. Green eyes.”

“She sounds pretty. But no one is prettier than mummy. NO ONE.”

“I have to agree there. I don’t think anyone else is either.”

“Was she nice? Austin’s mum?”

“She had her moments. And speaking of moments…” he lightly pats her bum. “...the moment is long past for you to go back to sleep for a while. So you’re not too tired to have fun at the American Girl store.”

“I’m not sleepy though. I’m too excited to be sleepy. I get to spend the day with you. All by myself!”

“And you know what? I’m excited about that too. But I’m also very tired and if I don’t get any sleep…”

“You’ll be really grumpy. Like a bear with a sore asshole.”

Laughing, he clasps her face in both palms and presses a kiss to her lips. “I think you sometimes listen to your mum TOO much. Do you think you could try? To get some more sleep?”

Addie nods. “I’m going to lie down on the other side of mumma. So she’s in between us. Then we can both snuggle her, okay?”

“I think that’s a great idea. Be careful though…” he lays a hand on her hip as she gets to her knees and begins the gingerly process of climbing over her mother without disturbing her. “...don’t fall on her, kick her, knee her, anything like that, okay?”

“I’m careful. And smooth. Like a ninja.”

Crawling under the sleeping bag, she settles herself on her side between Esme and the back of the couch. And he watches silently as the five year old’s hand begins softly exploring her mother’s face; gently fingertips moving across her forehead and over her eyes and along the bridge of her nose. So much love and adoration written all over Addie’s face that it brings tears to his eyes and causes a lump of emotion to settle in his throat.

Esme stirs; soft whimper followed by a groan of disapproval. And he rolls over onto his side and moves closer to her; lips meeting the back of her head as his hand rests on her hips. “It’s alright, baby. It’s just Addie. Climbing in with us.”

“Okay…” she mutters, and her eyes flicker open.

“Hi mumma,” Addie greets, her smile spreading from ear to ear.

“Hi little bug.”

“Daddy said I could sleep here. You’re in the middle so we can BOTH snuggle you. Alright?”

“Alright. I can’t think of anything better; stuck in the centre of a daddy and Addie cuddle sandwich.”

“Go to sleep, mumma.” Addie presses a kiss to her mother’s lips, then snuggles into her as tight as she possibly can. “Daddy and I got you. We’ll take good care of you. Right, daddy?”

“Right,” he agrees, as his hand slides to his wife’s stomach. Palm pressed against where he imagines his unborn child could be resting; safe and secure in the confines of its mother’s body. And he leans in to place a kiss on her cheek, whispering “I love you” into her ear before burying his face in her hair.

***** She busies herself with household chores; two loads of laundry to wash and dry, suitcases that still need to be packed, a sink full of dirty dishes. The house is oddly quiet; Addie and Tyler gone for their trip to the American Girl store, Desi taking the others out shopping and to lunch and a movie. It feels odd to have no commotion going on around her; no flurry of activity, no little voices all shouting for attention at the same time, no video games blaring from the television in the living room. And while the silence and the lull should fill her with a sense of peace, she finds it even more distracting; enabling her brain to go into overdrive and allowing her to dwell on the mountain of worries that are plaguing her.

It’s a welcome relief when she hears the front door click open and her sister’s voice shouts out in greeting. Both dogs snapping out of their naps and rushing towards the visitor; the loud jingling of their tags against their collars accompanied by their raucous barking. And she laughs just minutes later as Riley’s arm curls around her neck, pulling her backwards into her sister’s much taller frame.

“What are you doing here? I thought you and Shaena were playing tourists today?”

“Way too damn cold!” The red head grumbles. “And you can’t enjoy yourself when there’s that much white shit on the ground.”

“It’s kinda weird; growing up in Colorado yet complaining about the temperature and the weather here. New York City has nothing on Snowmass.”

“Are you kidding me? It’s a dry cold there. Here? Damp as fuck; you feel right into your bones! And the wind? Why is it always so windy here? Isn’t that supposed to be Chicago?”

“I think you’ve just become completely spoiled,” Esme muses, as she presses a kiss to her sister’s forearm and then turns her attention back to the sink of soap suds and dirty dishes in front of her. “Moving to Australia totally turned you from snow bunny to beach bum.”

“Was the lifestyle change I desperately needed and didn’t even realize it,” Riley admits, then plants a noisy kiss on Esme’s temple before stepping alongside her, fetching a towel from the countertop and starting on an already full rake of plates, bowls, silverware, and cups. “What happened? Dishwasher broke?”

“The dishwasher is full. Because we have been so caught up on laundry and putting Christmas shit away and packing to go home, that we never even gave it a second thought. So sadly, I have to do it the hard way. Like the pioneers did.”

“Well thankfully, you still have electricity, running water, and flushing toilets. You do, right? Have flushing toilets?”

“When Takota isn't shoving things that shouldn’t be shoved down them, they flush just fine.” Sighing, she drops her head to her shoulder; using the latter to push wayward strands of hair off her brow and away from her forehead.

“You sound a little...stressed.”

“You think? I’m just a little...oh I don’t know...overwhelmed. I’ve still got shit to pack, I’ve got to confirm our flight plans, I’ve got to somehow pick up the girls’ dresses for the wedding between now and Saturday morning, and I totally forgot to make a hair or nail appointment. So yeah, I am just a tad stressed.”

“Not to mention you've got a little Australian hot cross bun cooking in the oven.”

Her hands still within the soapy water as she glances over at her sister, both eyebrows raised. “He told you?”

“Well, I suspected and asked. He just confirmed it. Did you know he’s already got that goofy, proud as hell, daddy to be grin going on? For a guy that only had to put in five minutes of effort…”

“Don’t ever let him hear you say that. There’s no insult quite as damaging to his ego as that. And in his defense, he puts in more effort than that. A LOT more. He’s a very willing, extremely talented, and selfless participant.”

“I do NOT need the gory details, thank you. Bad enough I’ve come over and he’s been wandering around butt ass naked. Outside.”

Esme laughs. “That’s just the way he is. He has no fucks to give. Not to mention, we’re pretty secluded where we are and we’re not used to people just showing up. If you’d used the front door like a normal person and not come down the beach…”

“I thought I’d be perfectly safe. I wasn’t expecting to see my brother in law in all his naked glory.”

“You’re lucky it’s only happened that once. Tyler’s known to strip down when he’s out there. At least four to five times a week. He’s in his own little world and there’s no one around to bother him; if he’s dirty from working on the land or he’s been surfing, he’ll just whip his clothes off and use the outdoor shower. To be honest, he’d probably whip them off in front of a crowd of people. He literally does not give a shit.”

“Well, I’ll give credit where credit is due. Even though I do go for the ladies, I was pretty impressed. It’s only fuelled my all time burning question, though. How does he NOT break you in half? I mean, you’re so tiny and he’s so….not tiny.”

“We manage. Although sometimes I wonder if he IS going to break me in half. But in all fairness, that’s my fault. I’m the one who tells him to kick it up a notch and who likes it…”

“I do NOT want to hear this. I know you’re a kinky little thing, but I don’t need the details. If you say it’s fun, I believe you. And it MUST be. You’re still satisfied with the same dick after almost twelve and a half years.”

“I have zero complaints. Nothing but praise, believe me.”

“I remember the old Esme. The one that got bored of guys really quickly and sent them on their way. I mean, other than Tyler and he who shall not be named, you’re not exactly known for being a long term kinda of gal.”

“Never met anyone that could hold my interest long enough. People I dated? All they wanted out of me was purely physical and I longed for something more than that. They just weren’t the type that I could get that out of. Not everything is about sex, Ry. I don’t quite have the resume that you do.”

“I keep forgetting; you’ve always been more into finding someone that’s soul food and not just good for the body.”

“You make it sound like there’s something wrong with me. When you say it like that. I’m not some kind of freak because I didn’t bang everyone that showed interest. I was just looking for more than that. And the people I was with? They bored me. And if they weren’t turning me on in every way…”

“You wanted both clitoral AND intellectual stimulation.”

“I guess that’s one way of putting it.”

“Kind of funny Tyler fits that bill. He’s not exactly the intellectual type.”

Esme frowns. “He’s not exactly stupid, either. He happens to be very smart, Ry. Way smarter than anyone gives him credit for. Why do people think he’s not? I fucking hate that; people underestimating him like that.”

“Okay...that’s not what I was doing…”

“It’s like people hear what he does for a living or look at him and think he’s stupid. They see the size of him and the muscles and the scars and the tattoos and they think doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together.”

“Me-Me, I do not look at Tyler that way. I never have. I was just teasing. I didn’t…”

“He’s not a dumb ass, alright? I know he has his issues; with his brain. And I know things are starting to slip; his short term memory is getting worse and he’s got some cognitive things going on and he sometimes doesn’t make the best decisions. But he’s a good man and he’s a great husband and an even better father and he’s not stupid! He’s not...he’s….” She tosses the dish rag into the sink and brings soap covered hands to her face as she bursts into tears. “...fuck...these fucking hormones!”

“Hey...hey…” Riley peels her sister’s hands away from her face and uses the dish towel to dry them. “....what’s going on? What…?”

“I am so overwhelmed. I’m not doing well with this. At all. Accepting this.”

“Accepting the baby or…?”

“Everything. Everything is falling apart, And I’m trying so hard to keep it all together and I’m worried I won’t be able to do it for much longer.”

“Okay, you need to take a breath and start at the beginning. I know things are pretty damn scary right now and having another baby wasn’t exactly on your radar, but…”

“Things are getting worse. With Tyler.”

“What things? Between the two of you? With his mental health issues? Esme, give me something here. Please.”

“With his brain injury. I know the doctor said that things could start to deteriorate; short term memory, cognitive skills, temper. Even his handwriting is getting worse. And he gets confused so easily; even with the most simple things. There’s times when he’s talking and he just stops and it’s like he can’t come up with the words. Sometimes he manages to remember them, but other times it’s like his brain just won’t let him. And then I see it; in his eyes. How it frustrates him. And how worried he is.”

“Have you said anything to him? About all that stuff?”

“I’ve tried. But he doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s scared. I know he is. I know when to back off; when not to push things. And if I push it…”

“What about his doctor? The shrink. Have you talked to him?”

“I sent him an email. He said we’ll talk in the new year. He’s away on vacation.”

“Listen…” Riley places her hands on Esme’s shoulders. “...I know it’s hard not to read into things and it’s even harder to calm down when someone tells you to, but you need to calm down and not dwell. All those things you mentioned? They’re not necessarily signs that things are getting worse. I know I’m not a shrink, but I am a nurse and I would not lie to you about this. You know that, right?”

Esme nods.

“Tyler’s been under a lot of stress. The last five years have been sheer and utter hell. And the business is really picking up and yeah, he’s struggling with his bipolar and PTSD. He’s been overworked and overwhelmed and all those things? It’s very possible it’s just how the stress and the fight with his mental health are making him act. There is no guarantee this is a sign that things are deteriorating.”

“Really?”

“Really. And I think he realizes he’s in a little over his head and that he needs help so things DON’T get worse. Would he have called me if he wasn’t thinking right? Me-Me, his brain is working just fine. He went into protective hubby and daddy to be mode right away; he stepped it up and he admitted he needed it and he called me. That isn’t a man who’s losing it. Not by a long shot.”

“He actually did surprise me,” she admits. “When he told me he called you. I expected him to dwell on things, you know? Tyler has a tendency to do that; he always has. But he didn’t even hesitate. He outright admitted he needed help and went looking for it. And that’s a big step for him. That’s huge, actually.”

“It is. That shows he’s progressing, not regressing. And look how well he’s been dealing with other things; how well he’s been running that business. It’s like a well oiled machine. Look at the rep he has; he’s got clients pouring in, he’s got umpteen people wanting to work for him. He’s obviously doing something right or none of that would be happening. He’s doing so well, Esme. Especially considering everything that happened to him five years ago. And I know you love him; more than you love yourself. I also know you worry about him. But right now? You need to try and calm down and concentrate on yourself. And that baby you’ve got in there.”

“I don’t want to lose him to this. To his mind. I don’t…”

“There is nothing saying that is going to happen,” Riley gently interjects. “The things you’ve noticed? Stress can do all of that. Especially to someone whose brain is already vulnerable.”

“When I think of losing him, I think of the job. I think he’ll go out there one day and someone will kill him. I’ve almost kind of relegated myself to you, you know? That if old age doesn’t kill him, a bullet probably will. I mean, he’s a mercenary. I married into this life. And honestly, I’d rather lose him that way than his brain deteriorate and watch him slip away.”

“Esme…” Riley firmly clasps her sister’s face in her hands. “...listen to me. I would not lie to you. About anything. But certainly not about Tyler. I don’t see what you’re seeing, sweets. I don’t.”

“You don’t live with him. I see it. I’m not making this up.”

“I’m not saying you’re making it up. I’m saying maybe you’re reading too much into it. We all know that you can be a little neurotic…”

“I’m not being neurotic. I see these things. That’s my husband. The father of my kids. I see what’s happening to him.”

“I think what you’re seeing isn’t as bad as your brain is telling you it is. I think you’re stressed and you’re overwhelmed and your brain is making a bigger deal out of things than it needs to. Do you really think the business would be this successful if he was losing his mind? Do you really think he’d be able to step it up and take care of you and those kids? Do you think he would have recognized he needed help and called me?”

“No…” she sniffles. “...I guess not.”

“Sweets, you need to just try and take it easy, alright? I highly doubt things are as bad as your brain is making them out to be. Considering everything he’s been through and everything he’s been dealing with? Tyler is functioning very well. You have to admit that; that he has surpassed every doom and gloom bullshit those doctors gave you.”

“He has. He totally proved everything wrong. And he keeps proving them wrong. Every day. He’s so strong, Ry. He is the strongest person I have ever known. And when I think of a life with him being that way …”

“Then don’t think about it. You’re your own worst enemy, you know that? Esme, he is fine. Do you really think if something was going to go wrong with the brain injury, it would have taken almost thirteen years?”

She shakes her head.

“It would have already happened. You see how well he’s doing. How far he’s come. He’s fine, Me-Me. I think you’re overwhelmed and you’re tired and you’re worried and it’s just making things seem worse. You need to take it easy, alright? It’s not just you to worry about now.”

“This is the last thing I expected. Another baby. I mean, I’m forty-two years old.”

“That’s not exactly old. Women are having babies into their fifties these days.”

“Yeah, well they’re fucking insane. Number eight, Ry. EIGHT. Knowing my luck, nine too.”

“I highly doubt it’s another set of multiples.”

“What if there’s something wrong? Because of my age? What if…?”

“Then you deal with it. You’re not in this alone. You’ve got an incredible man in your corner. Who loves you so wholly and completely. Right to his very soul. If any couple can raise a baby with issues, it’s you guys. Look at everything you’ve been through together. Everything that would have destroyed weaker couples. You guys just kicked ass and kept going on. And that’ll happen again; if it has to.”

“I just worry I won’t be good at that kind of thing. Being that kind of mom.”

“Esme, you ARE that kind of mom. Look at Tanner. All his issues. Look how you’ve handled that. How you stepped to fight for what he needs and what will help him thrive. You’ve gone to bat for that kid over and over again and you and Tyler are raising him to be an amazing self advocate. You already ARE that mom.”

“I never thought about it that way,” she admits. “I guess I don’t think of TANNER that way. I don’t look at him and see his diagnosis. I just see him. I just see Nugget. And how well he’s doing. I mean, he struggles and we have to help him from time to time, but he’s done way better than we expected him to. And every day he gets more and more amazing.”

“Because of how you and Tyler are raising him. Don’t you see that? He’s doing that well because of the mom and dad he has. Because you two love those kids with everything you have. And there’s nothing that stands in your way when it comes to providing for those kids and making their lives incredible. Give yourself some credit, okay? You are a good mom. A damn good mom.”

“Sometimes I think I am; that I’m doing alright. But then Millie comes along and totally blows that out of the way and makes me feel like a shit mom.”

“Millie is also two years away from being a teenager,” Riley reasons. “An asshole teenager, at that. She is her father’s daughter; she’s stubborn and she’s tough as nails and she does not give an inch when she thinks she’s right about something. Hell, she doesn’t even give it if there’s proof she’s wrong.”

“She hates me. She’s hated me since she was six years old and I lied to her about Tyler being hurt and in the hospital.”

“She doesn’t hate you. You’re her mother. You know what she IS doing though? Holding a grudge. Because like I said, she’s her father’s daughter and she’s stubborn as fuck. Probably even more stubborn than he is. And I bet the old puberty monster is howling on the doorstep and that’s only going to make things worse.”

“She’s starting to develop. Told Tyler the other day she needed to get a bra.”

“Oh shit…” Riley can’t help but snicker. “...that must have gone over well.”

“I think he aged ten years in about thirty seconds. That was NOT what he wanted to hear. That’s his little girl. His first daughter. His miracle baby. The thought of her having boobs and getting her period and boys paying attention to her? He just can’t handle any of that.”

“Well, he doesn’t need to worry too much about the boys. They get out of hand? Millie will kick their asses herself.”

“Yeah,” Esme laughs. “She most certainly will.”

“Now…” Riley loops her sister’s hair behind her ears. “...your ever adoring husband called me about an hour ago and asked me to come over. Take care of the things in the house that you’re so worried about. Shaena’s out shopping and she’s going to get someone to come here and do your hair and your nails the morning of the wedding?”

“Really?” Tears well in her eyes once more. “She’s doing all that?”

“The girls’ hair too. It’s all taken care of, alright? And she’s going to pick everyone’s dresses up and bring them here. So that’s a few things off your list already. You know what else he told me? That you didn’t sleep well last night. And he’s worried. Already in protective daddy to be mode. So, I’m here, and I will cross off whatever I can on your to-do list. Alright?”

“You don’t have to, Ry. You don’t…”

“I want to. You’re my sister. This is my family too. And when things need to get done, we step up and we help each other out. How many times have you and Tyler done that for me and Shaena? When we’ve been working or we’ve gone away and the kittens need to be looked after? You guys always step up. So, we’re returning the favour.”

“Thank you. I really DO need sleep. And Desi won’t be back for a while; he took the kids and Alannah shopping and to a movie.”

“That means you have time for not just a nap, but a long, hot bubble bath. Unfortunately, you can’t have your usual glass or two of wine with it.”

“Glass or two?” Esme scoffs. “More like the whole bottle some days.”

“Sadly, you can’t indulge. I could make you a tea. Bring it up to you?”

She nods. “Tea sounds perfect.”

“Everything’s going to be okay,” Riley assures her, then pulls her into a tight hug. “Things happen for a reason, right?”

Esme laughs. “You’re sounding like Tyler.”

“Well what can I say?” She presses a kiss to her sister’s cheek. “The Aussie’s starting to rub off on me.”

[cutesuki--bakugou]

Sweet, Like Daisies

Pairing:  Usagiyama Rumi (Miruko) x Gender Neutral Reader

Story Rating: Teen

Genre: Fluff / Humor

Story Warnings: Some cursing and flirting, but mostly just cuteness that could rot your teeth.

a/n: This is my art of the bnharem Discord server SFW collab, with the theme of Flowers! I decided to base my part around Daisies, which represent innocence. Rumi can be a cute and fluffy bunny just as much as she can be super fierce and I love her to death. This story also marks my beginning of writing for characters other than Bakugou! I will be posting them on this blog. If there’s anything you’d like to see, lmk! (♡´౪`♡)

Thank you so much to everyone in the server for this wonderful experience! I had so much fun and I can’t wait for the next one! 

*｡Collab Masterlist *｡

--Full art piece--

“Let’s go, let’s go! Don’t tell me you’re all tuckered out already!”  

“Rumi, you gotta- oh damn, my legs are on fire! What is with this hill?!”  

Coming to a stop as you pulled yourself up onto a boulder jetting out of the hillside, you flopped to sit onto your butt, rubbing your burning thigh vigorously. It was a miracle that you had even made it this far, your body not exactly used to these physically challenging hikes that your girlfriend just loved to drag you on. They were easy for her, considering that she was not only one of the top pro heroes in the country, but her quirk gave her incredibly strong legs and just overall physical strength. Her bunny legs allowed her to hop over any difficult obstacle, but you? All you could do was drag yourself along, barely keeping up with her by the skin of your teeth.  

“Don’t be a wimp! You’re almost there!” Squatting down at the edge of her current perch, Rumi had that typical wicked and expectant grin on her face, a few loose strands of her white hair falling around her forehead and cheeks. “You got this, Carrot!”  

“Carrot… Out of all nicknames, why did you have to pick that one.” With a huff, you pulled yourself up to your feet, using the roots and rocks to help you up the steep incline.  

“Oh, because I could just eat you up, of course!” Rumi gave a teasing scrunch of her nose, one of her long rabbit ears giving a twitch in satisfaction of her response. You, however, immediately grew embarrassed, losing your footing. Scrambling to catch yourself, you got secure again before turning your glare up towards her, your face burning fiercely as she laughed at your reaction. She had a talent for making you so embarrassed you could barely stand it, but really, who could blame you?  

Rumi was witty and intelligent. Confident and strong. Beautiful and caring. There wasn’t an ounce of timidness in her, which is not what people would expect when they hear the word ‘rabbit’. They would think quiet, reserved, innocent, fearful, and adorable. She was adorable, to be sure, but none of those other qualities showed themselves. Actually, they showed themselves in you.  

Before you had met Rumi, you were very shy, easily overwhelmed and lacking in confidence. And still, somehow, this bright and extravagant woman had taken great interest in you, building you up higher and higher until you were finally beginning to see the sun for the first time in so many years. She pushed you to better yourself, to grow stronger and happier in your own skin, and although what she encouraged was hard, it was worth every moment and struggle.  

Even if she could make you so flustered you’d want to go hide under a rock sometimes.  

“Rumi! Stop that, don’t try to embarrass me while I’m climbing, I could fall!”  

“You dumbass, ya think I’d let you fall? Never!” When you finally got close, Rumi reached down and took hold of your forearm, waiting until you got your own grip on hers before she helped to hoist you up. Her effortless strength astounded you as always, but you didn’t have much time to admire it, as she began to move down the past the instant you were steady on your feet. “C’mon, Carrot, move that tush!”  

Sighing heavily in exhaustion, you forced your burning legs to walk forward, wiping your dirt stained hands on your similarly dirtied khaki shorts. “We’re almost to a resting point, right?”  

“Yes. There’s a nice little clearing here, we can take a break!” Rumi lifted her arms up over her head, giving a drawn out and satisfied groan as she stretched. Nestled at her lower back, her white fluffy tail puffed out and shook in the same moment, bringing a smile to your lips. She was just so incredibly perfect, and you couldn’t help but feel so lucky.  

After walking for a while in silence to enjoy the sounds of nature, Rumi came to a stop, starting to maneuver her way through the trees and brush. “We have to go off the path a bit. Watch out for spiders ‘n shit. And stinging nettle. I’m not gonna rub that ointment all over your body if you fall in it again!”  

Remembering the painful experience of falling face first into a batch of stinging nettle the last time you went hiking, you were sure to observe your surroundings thoroughly before following her. The brush and twigs scratched and poked your legs uncomfortably, but your thick hiking boots helped you to trudge through it without much problem. When you finally breached the edge of the forest into the clearing, you had to squint a bit from the brightness of the morning sun, bringing a hand up to shield your eyes.  

When your eyes finally adjusted, you found yourself standing at the edge of a large field of wildflowers and tall grass, which swayed with the cool spring breeze. It felt so heavenly against your hot and sweaty skin, and the brilliant view of the hills and trees in the distance brought a smile to your lips. Being out in the wilderness wasn’t exactly your favorite thing, but you could admit that it truly was beautiful.  

“How’s this for a resting spot, eh?” Rumi quite literally knocked you back into reality with a rough, playful nudge to your side, grinning up at you. “Will this do, your highness?”  

“Hey, don’t patronize me like that! I get tired, I don’t have thighs of steel like you do.” You took her hand tenderly in yours as she grabbed it, your fingers lacing instinctively.  

“Excuses! C’mon, let’s sit under that tree, it has shade.” Leading you forward as always, Rumi nearly had a skip in her step, her white hair bobbing in its high, messy ponytail. The tree that was chosen was a lonely one, growing out in the field alone. With all the extra room, the roots were large and snaked in and out of the ground like tentacles, and lush green leaves were at full bloom. It was comfortable and beautiful.  

Shrugging off your pack, you rested it up against the tree trunk next to Rumi’s, pulling your water bottle out of the side pocket to take a healthy swig. “This really is a nice area, Rumi. How’d you find it?” Sitting down in the grass beside her, you offered her the water bottle, which she took.  

“I’ve been hikin’ this trail awhile. It’s challenging, so not a lot of losers try to take it, only those that are strong enough.” After taking a sip of water, Rumi leaned her head back, squeezing the bottle so water trickled lightly onto her face and top of her head. “It is warm today, though! Especially for being spring.”  

“Ah, well I can relate to those losers, I shouldn’t be on this hill either-- ACK, hey!” Suddenly, you were sprayed in the face with water, perpetrated by a very annoyed bunny.  

“Don’t belittle yourself like that! Be proud, you killed that fucking hill!”  

Grumbling from defeat, you ran your hand down your face to wipe the water away, glowering at your lover as she glared right back up at you with a pout that boarded on adorable. Calming down, you smiled, nodding in agreement. “Ah, sorry, sorry. You’re right. I should be proud of myself.”  

“You should! My baby isn’t a loser.” Leaning up, Rumi placed a rough kiss against your cheek, her hand pressing against your other to make sure you couldn’t flee. You’d never want to, of course, so you let her punish you with the kiss, which was followed by a much more tender one before she set you free.  

Smiling, you turned your attention to the grass around your legs, which was peppered with daisies and dandelions. You felt so calm and at peace in the silence of nature, and with your lover by your side, you were feeling quite… soft. That’s the only way you could describe your current emotions, so you soaked in it for a while, leaning back and supporting yourself with your hands.  

After a while of peace, you leaned forward again to give your arms a rest, turning your attention back to the flowers around you. Carefully, you began to pluck the daisies out of the ground, making sure to keep their stem long. As if in a trance, you slowly began working on winding the stems of the flowers together, growing too focused on your work and the rustling of the wind to notice that you were being watched closely. In fact, you were so startled by Rumi’s voice that you jumped, nearly crushing your delicate flower arrangement in surprise.  

“What’cha makin’ there, Carrot?”  

“Erm… uh, a flower crown. I guess?” You brought both ends of the strip of flowers together to check the size, finding that it still wasn’t quite long enough to fit an adult head. “I used to make them as a kid. It’s been a while since I’ve been near so many daisies.”  

With another sly smile, Rumi leaned against your side, resting her head on your shoulder. “Oooh, how grossly cute and sweet! Should I start calling you Baby Carrot?”  

“W-what?! No, no, don’t do that, you’re gonna make me want to puke. Why don’t you call me something normal like… babe or hun.”  

“Oh, don’t be such a killjoy!” After giving you a playful nudge to the arm, Rumi turned her attention to the flowers around you both, plucking a daisy from its stem and bringing it up to her nose. “Y’know, for such a cute little flower, they have an awful smell. But damn, they’re tasty.” To your horror, Rumi chomped the entire bloomed flower head off the stem, making you yelp in disgust and cover your mouth.  

“Rumi! That’s a wildflower! You can’t just eat it!”  

“Hm?” Rumi looked up at you curiously, batting her long lashes in confusion. “I eat flowers all the time. I love their taste! They aren’t bitter to me at all. Restaurants sell them!”  

“Y-yeah, but baby, they wash them first at least…” You felt your stomach churn as she picked up another flower, dousing it with water from your bottle. “Rumi! Don’t be a smart ass!”  

“What, this one’s not for me!” Smirking, she held the now soggy and dripping flower up to your lips, making you cringe backwards with a sour expression. “Open up!”  

“No way!” You covered your mouth with your hand, knowing that she would shove it in at the first opportunity. “There’s no way I’m eating a flower! At least not one that hadn’t been cleaned or anything properly! You have the stomach of a rabbit, you can handle it, I can’t!”  

“What, you scared of getting worms?!” She poked you on the nose with the flower, leaning more against you. “You won’t get anything that’ll kill you!”  

“I would, I just know it!” With a final wave of your hand, Rumi took the flower away, tossing it over her shoulder and back into the grass. “You wasted it?”  

“Putting water on it made it soggy, I ain’t gonna eat that! Hey, show me how to make one of these!” Scooting around to face you, Rumi gazed down curiously at the still unfinished crown in your lap. “This shit is stupid; it has to be easy!”  

“Well, it’s kind of hard, you have to be pretty gentle with the flowers. Here,” You plucked four daisies with a long stem, handing them to her before you plucked two more of your own. With detailed instruction, you showed her exactly how to twist and wind the stems, but you could see that she was already struggling with the delicate procedure. The frustrated pout was permanently plastered on her fair face, nose scrunching and eyebrows furrowed. Still, she was trying and as focused as she could be.  

“How the hell are you doing that so perfectly?!” Rumi eventually snapped, leaning over you a bit to really see your almost finished crown up close. “Look at that! It almost looks fake!”  

Laughing softly, you finished off by connecting the two ends of the crown together, holding it up a bit to look at it clearly in the sun. “I told you, I’ve done this before. It’s not that big of a deal, babe. Here,” Turning to face her, you plopped the flower crown onto her the top of her head between her ears, making them flatten out backwards in immediate embarrassment and the tickling of the flowers against the sensitive skin.  

Cheeks flushing dark, Rumi scoffed, glaring up at you as she resisted the urge to reach up and rip it off. “Get this thing off of me, I’m not some damn fairy!”  

“Aw, but you look so adorable with it on.” You couldn’t resist the wide smile on your lips, especially as Rumi only grew more flustered, her ears snapping up in agitation and making the flower crown bend a bit, though it didn’t fall from her head. “It just makes you look so cute and innocent!”  

“I’m not!” Rumi scooted herself closer so that she was sitting right up against your crossed legs, letting hers rest on either side of your hips. “Call me cute and innocent again and I’ll make you regret it!” As if it were a punishment, Rumi reached up and plopped her sloppy excuse for a flower crown onto the top of your head. The instant it landed, it broke apart, showering you with crumpled daisies. Unable to help it, you began to laugh, which only grew harder as Rumi began to rage and stutter. “Dammit! Fucking flowers! This is why I just eat the damn things! Stop laughing at me, Carrot!”  

Covering your mouth, you gave a defeated shake of your head, holding your other hand up in defense. “I’m sorry, Rumi, it was just too funny! And so cute!”  

Before you could even find the time to react, you were tackled down into the grass, immediately smothered by the feral animal before you. Latching onto her instinctively, you were at her mercy as she gripped your face with both hands, squishing your cheeks and forcing your lips to pucker, even as your laughter continued.  

“I told you! You call me cute, you’re gonna die! I-” Suddenly, the flower crown slipped off the top of her head and onto your face, framing it perfectly. The shock silenced you immediately, staring up at Rumi in surprise. She was just as perturbed as you were, but after a moment her wonder broke into a grin, chuckling as she released your cheeks. “Look who’s all cute and innocent now! Ya dork.”  

Not bothering to remove the crown, you smiled softly, reaching up to caress Rumi’s cheeks tenderly. “No one in this entire world is cuter than you, baby.”  

“Says the person with a flower crown on their face and daisies stuck in their hair. Hey!”  

Rumi’s ears parted again as you took the crown off your face, placing it carefully on her head again to where it wouldn’t fall. This time, instead of getting angry, Rumi’s cheeks flushed again, and a cheeky smile stretched across her lips. “You aren’t gonna give up, are ya?”  

“Never. Besides, innocence is a great look for you. Just please don’t eat anymore daisies.”  

“Nah, flowers aren’t all that appetizing. I think I’m in the mood for some Carrot, instead.”

[softy-b]

The making of new friends.

On your way home you run into people.

Pirate People.

Oh no.

—

A fanfiction that highlights the crew a little. Eustass Kidd x Reader if you squint, maybe the beginning of something. Watch these hooligans tear themselves a way into your heart. 

It’s getting dark out, the wind was howling and you were pretty sure it was raining gently. Not actually rain but this weird sheet of wetness that pulled through the air as if it was to remind you that it was cold outside. All in all it was a pretty spooky looking night and you did not appreciate that, even though you were currently sitting inside a building.

That would be because you could not sleep in here. These were your evening classes you undertook to become a nurse. You had lacked the proper degree to give it a shot so now you had to take these extra classes alongside the actual ones to keep up with the others. At least you weren’t the only one.

There were other people in the classroom, staring with a tired intensity at the chalkboard. All of you were exhausted but had the motivation and determination to get this shitty degree to continue onwards in your career. You knew because coming here at this ungodly hour was not something people who didn’t feel like it did.

Everyone here was very serious about graduating, thus, evening classes. But man, the poor teacher. The old, round man with a moustache longer than his arms was currently talking about the pro’s and con’s to vaccine’s, about how the pros outweigh the cons by a very long mile, but he was clearly tired too. It’s not like you could blame him. What time was it, almost 10 pm. Your class ended in a bit.

Even though your thirst for knowledge was endless when it came to this sort of thing, your body needed to rest. Sleep was a curse.. and yet a curse you loved to live. Sleeping was probably one of your most favorite things to do.. if only you could mix it with something productive and you’d never get up from bed unless you had to.

Talking about sleep wasn’t helping, or thinking of it even. Your eyes drooped a little and you had to force your entire body to stiffen and cramp up to wake up a little again to pay attention to the teacher and his ramblings. He’s wrapping the topic up and people all around the room were giving off a collective aura of relief.

You? You wanted to be happy and somewhere you were happy for finally getting to go home but there was the fucking problem. You’d have to go through the forest near the pier to make it home. The.. fucking.. dark and creepy forest. Euuughhh.. You wiggle about a little on your chair just thinking about that horror story about to become reality.

You had evening classes three times a week, monday, thursday and friday so this wasn’t a new occurrence you suddenly had to deal with, you had to deal with it three times a week after all but somehow it never got easier and made your stomach clench so hard you were sure you could make diamonds with the pressure.

You had a flashlight in your bag, pepper spray, a pocket knife and your stuff you needed for school. You liked to say you were well equipped in case a wild animal tried to turn you into a midnight snack. You refused to go out like that. Stupid bears could munch some tree bark!

You combed with your fingers through your h/colored hair absentmindedly, thinking how you needed to take a shower once you got home. You think about you home, it was a nice spot, even if a bit isolated and creepy at night. It was just a normal sized cabin that had belonged to your parents after all.

They have passed away by now, both due to unforeseen health issues but the memories didn’t hurt so much anymore. It’s been years since then. At first you had thought about giving the house away, feeling not very safe all alone, out of sight from the city.. but then you kept it because it was your parents.

They build the damn thing and everything, you couldn’t just give it away. So you tried to get used to it. Kind of did over the years. The dark still scared you severely but now you could stand your ground and check if there really was someone in the living room or if you’ve been hearing the house doing it’s creaking noises.

It’s not like it was extremely big. There were three levels, the upper one, the ground one and the basement. The upper level consisted of four rooms and a bathroom, the ground level had a bathroom, a living room and a kitchen and the basement was a singular storage room.

It was kind of a hassle keeping everything clean, seeing how you were usually busy studying so cleaning was just a bit of a thing you did not wanna waste your time with.. but you had to. Once every week. A full wipedown to make sure there was not a loading of dust ready to pop out spiders.

It’s not like it mattered, seeing how you lived alone, had no pets and usually didn’t get visitors. You had some pals, here and there but they were mostly school friends. You guys didn’t hang out outside of classes and were just hooliganing it whenever you were together. You look up and see lightning in the distance, making a face.

It’s gonna storm and you’d rather make it home before the rain turned from a drizzle into an actual issue because you did not take an umbrella with you, the weather had looked fine when you left for school after all so you did not think too hard on the matter. Now it was a fact you regretted greatly, as you did not wish to be soaked while the wind was howling.

Then again, the wind would probably just blow the umbrella away. So maybe a raincoat would be better.. which you did not bring either. Damn it.

“Alright!” You blink at the teacher, smiling a bit to yourself as you watched him clap into his meaty paws. “That would be all for today! Please stay safe going home and until monday!” Right. It was Friday. The only plus side you had right now was that you could sleep in tomorrow.

People are shuffling to get up, put their stuff into their bags, chatter among each other about what they’d be doing on the weekend but it was pretty much just polite talk. At this point everyone wanted to go home and either sleep or go and party. The teacher sat down at his desk, supervising the people leaving.

You don’t waste your time staring around much longer, grabbing your stuff and shoving it into your bag, pulling out your flashlight and pepper spray, letting the pepper spray slip into the back of your pants. You fistbump gently to hype yourself and march to the door. “Miss L/N, ready for war as usual I see.”

You halt, looking at your teacher and smiling shyly, a little embarrassed that he saw that. “Ah, yeah. Can never be too careful these days!” The old man nodded, petting his moustache and giving you a kind smile that made wrinkles all over his face. You like him. He reminds you of a grandpa you never had. “Right so! Please do take extra caution going home.”

You give a nod and wave to him. “I will! Thank you and you too!” On the way out you ignore the feeling of dread settling within the confines of your body. Hnnhgf.. God this was just horrible on so many levels. You’re about to fricking piss yourself just wondering what creepy crawlers would await you tonight.

If you got lucky, maybe you’d see a hedgehog.. Something told you that you were not going to be getting much luck. The bad weather would probably make them hide in their burrows and what not to not get totally soaked. Like you were going to be if you didn’t hurry up already!

Once outside, you take in the town square that presented itself in front of you. The street lamps were lighting up the place but that was only within the town itself, sadly, the path leading to your home was left completely dark and empty. You swallow thickly at the thought and begin to walk.

Most stores were closed up by now, only a bar here or there still open, the noise of people laughing and singing filling the air. This was a happy place, usually. The people were nice to each other and often willing to help someone in a tough spot. You’re reminded of when your parents died and you were left alone.

Everyone had put some work into helping you support yourself. You’ve been fifteen at the time and since this was a small town there was no such thing as an orphanage. People kept coming by, giving you money and food and other stuff you needed to live until you managed to graduate.

You got a paid scholarship for the nursing job, which you were thankful for. You were still getting support from a lot of people, they were happy to help out until you could afford your own living. It was kind of something your parents left behind, didn’t they? Everyone had loved them. You being their kid probably made a lot of people feel responsible.

Maybe a bit shady but you would not fight their kindness. It was a gift from your parents, at least that is how you saw it.

Your footsteps carry you throughout the empty, dark streets, closer and closer to the forest. Once the treetops come into view you feel your heart sink all the way into your butt and hide there. ..You want to wait in a hotel or something but that’d be an expense you couldn’t afford. Hhff You’re so fucking scared.

There’s thunder rolling above you, a fat drop of rain landing right on your nose. Ah, snails and nails. Damnit! You pick up your pace as the sound of the wind howling got louder, the rustling of the trees shaking the giant branches, making it look like demons were growing out of them.

You do not like the look of it.. not like it would change anything, you still had to go home at some point and rather now than later because the rain was picking up now that it really got going. Your walk to your house is maybe ten minutes if you hurry so you tried and take comfort in that.

You do not wish to jog though, worrying about attracting the attention of an animal or whatever else was creeping around in that fucking forest. You remember you saw a boar there once. During this time of year they had babies and got even more aggressive than usually. Hnnghff.. it was tough to get around them once they blocked the path.

One time you had to climb a tree to hide from them after they hunted you for what felt like five minutes through this shitty fucking forest. Eugh..

You reach the edge of the woods and step onto the path that had formed over time from people walking along here. It made you feel only worse thinking about the next ten minutes of cold, wet horror. You’re tense, listening as you quietly sneaked along the middle of the path, unwilling to get too close to the bushes or trees lest something might grab and drag you in.

You could hear the ocean from here, the waves splashing aggressively against the stones that were poking out from under the surface. God, the water probably looked like a black nightmare of horror right now. Eugh, the thought of drowning in that mess was another nightmare of yours.

You didn’t like the ocean that much, seeing how you were not exactly a strong swimmer. You learned how to do it once and then after that you’ve been so often in deep waters you could count the events off on one hand not even using all your fingers. You’d definitely drown.

“-can you stop fucking pushing?!” You flinch and automatically click the light off from your flashlight. The thing was loud and the ‘click’ echoed almost in your brain, clearly signalizing.. surprisingly you didn’t get noticed apparently though. But those were the voices of people. Men, to be specific.

“I’m not pushing shit, you prick! Stop stepping on my toes. Can someone just try and relight a fucking torch this is ridiculous!” Travelers? You duck down as your eyes slowly started getting used to the dark. “Trying. No use. They’re soaked.” Yeah.. with the rain, no doubt. God, they’re so close to your home too.

Should you chance it and try and sneak past or maybe run back..? You didn’t really know the answer to that kind of question, you’re too worried that these might be robbers or whatever. Maybe bandits. Those were common since you guys were connected to the main lands which were full of mountains and what not.

“Boss- Boss your arm is slamming right into my side.” “Then fucking move!” You heard a loud crunching noise and then yelling and cursing as something whizzed past your head, gracing your hair actually and slamming right into the ground behind you. You’re frozen.. carefully turning your head and stare at the scythe lodged into the ground.

“Kidd, what the fuck?! Throw your own, goddamn weapons!” Oh god, was he coming closer? “Where did it even go? I can’t see it anymore.” Oh god, he was coming closer! You scramble to the side and press into one of the bushes to hide in it, ignoring the fact that there might be bugs.

They had weapons, they were definitely bandits and you were officially super scared, grabbing your pepper spray tightly and pressing it into your chest. You could probably make an escape if you ducked deeper into the forest and away from the path. You’d have to circle back and go back to town to tell the police department about this though.

Heavy footsteps walked past your hiding spot and you squinted your eyes with no luck. There was no way you’d be able to actually see anyone in this darkness. The trees were blocking out the little light from the moon that did make it past the clouds. It was basically pitch black..

You crawl backwards and through the bush quietly, trying to ignore the fact that these men were really fucking close and could probably see you if they had nightvision. Please, just let luck be on your side right no-ough!

You get a foot right into your side, but not because someone kicked you. “Ah- FUCK!” You hear someone cursing above you right before a heavy body fell right over you. You can’t help but shriek in panic and bolt forward, trying to scramble away. “Who the hell was that?!” Oh shit.

“Wasn’t me- sounded like a broad.” “A woman, here? I’m sure.” “Are you deaf? Of fucking course that was a woman! Someone fucking grab her!” There’s a few choruses of ‘yeah boss’ or ‘got it’ or, your personal favorite, ‘okie dokie’. The rest goes to chaos.

You heard footsteps everywhere now and you’re pressing against a tree to try and stay out of reach. You had to climb- climb! You turn around and begin to hamper your way upwards, only to feel a hand on your ankle. “Gotcha.” The angry growl of whoever had you made you tense your body as you got jerked downwards.

Your fingers dig into the bark and you kick out with your free leg, hitting someone in the shoulder but it only resulted in them catching that foot too and pulling down. Your grip slips and you slap like a wet piece of meat onto the muddy ground. “Ah! Stop- Get the fuck off of me!”

It’s no use. You’re overpowered pretty quickly and you felt the man lean over you, his breath on your face. He was probably trying to see you but good luck in this darkness. But you had the upper hand now. You reached out, grabbed blindly around and actually got the man by a well defined chin.

Then, with knowing where his chin was, you aimed your pepper spray where you assumed the rest of his face was and hit it. “Shit-“ You’re let go as the dude jerked back and yelled something in rage, you roll away just in time to not lose your head. You heard the ground crack underneath his boot. “You fucking cunt! Get the hell back here!”

Oh hell no. You don’t answer and just run into a random direction as chaos exploded behind you. You felt like something was right on your heels and you barely manage around a tree you felt with your hands, since you were running with your arms in front to not hit your face, when you felt the whole tree shake with the impact.  Oh fuuuck!

You flick your flashlight on because you needed to be able to see to be able to get away and you realize in horror you were running towards your home. Oh god- they’d see where you lived. Your thoughts are cut short, you slip and land in the mud. Gross. But then there are broad hands onto your arms, pulling you up. “No! Don’t kill me! I just wanna go home- Oh my god get off you’re wet!” The man sounding behind you had a deep baritone, suddenly he was holding your flashlight, shining it into your eyes. “Everything is wet. It’s raining.”

You’re dragged back by your left arm, fighting all the way until you were jerked forward and almost hit the chest of another man, staring up and not seeing anything until the blonde shined the light right at his buddy. Your blood runs cold.

It’s Eustass ‘Captain’ Kidd. The captain of the Kidd Pirates. Oh.. god.. His eyes were red and clearly strained, he’s drenched otherwise. Suddenly your life flashes past you as you stared at the man. You shot pepper spray into his eyes and now he was going to kill you.

“..You little bitch..” He growled lowly and grabbed you by your hair. “The hell was that about? You wanna fight?” Don’t say yes- you didn’t wanna fight this man. “N-No..” You swallow thickly again and just let him jerk you around a little bit until he was interrupted by one of his men.

“Boss. We’re freezing our nuts off out here. Can we find shelter first?” Yeah, you do not doubt that for even a second, it was very cold out here. But. Opportunity came knocking just at that sentence. “We can make a deal!” You feel eyes burning in your general direction. The dude who had caught you grunted. “A deal.”

It’s a question to elaborate. You talk quickly. “I live in a cabin not far from here! I’ll give you shelter and food and in return you won’t kill me or the townspeople?” It came out more like a question. “Hell no.” Oh god. The redhead was jerking your head around again as if he was going to break you neck- You felt the man behind you let you go and then Eustass Kidd got a flat palm to his face.

“We’re taking this, Kidd. I’m not sleeping in a puddle tonight.” The dude grumbled and handed you your flashlight. “Lead us there.” He sighed, forcing his partner to let you go, to which you stumbled pathetically before almost kissing the ground beneath you. “Killer, what the hell?! I said no!” You heard the men start to argue behind you but you’re too focused on your luck.

Oh thank fucking god they took that offer. “I’m not repeating myself.” Killer grunted, following you closely as you picked up your pace a little to get out of the rain faster. People were shuffling and bumping into each other behind you, talking about various topics you could hardly understand from the front.

Killer and Kidd were just arguing all out in the open now, almost at each other’s throat as they were shouldering each other with their massive bodies from time to time as if to make a point. “We’re not sleeping in the middle of the rain just because you need to let your ego out.” The blonde growled at his captain, shoving at him when Kidd gave him a pinch slap in the side.

“I’m the fucking captain, what I say should fucking go-“ “Cry me a river.” You’re surprised, honestly.

You thought for sure that they would be on the same page of murdering people, seeing how high their bounties were and everything.. but that wasn’t the case. They.. reminded you of an old, married couple. Bickering and yapping at each other like it was going out of style.

They were clearly comfortable with one another, they kept barking like dogs but underneath it was a layer of stubborn affection one would miss if you didn’t look for it. It.. surprised you was a bit of an understatement. Your home finally comes into view and you pray to every high entity that you would please, not die tonight.

“Just.. a moment please.” You mutter and unlock the front door, barely making it in and turning the light on and then suddenly you’re being overrun. You shriek as huge bodies forced their way into your home and you hit the ground, getting stepped on in the process. The weight squeezes all of your air straight out of you and the only saving grace you had was someone dragging you backwards by your ankle and then lifting you by your shoulder.

“I’m herding fucking cats..” It’s the Massacre Soldier. The man put you back onto your wobbly legs and waited until the rest had filed in until he closed your front door. You need to sit down a little. Taking in what the fuck was even going on an this point. Your gaze drifted around, spotting the awkward tension.

The dudes were soaked. Just as soaked as you were. Some were pulling their shirts off to dry off quicker, some just complained about it. Eustass Kidd looked like a poodle that went into a bath, his fur coat not nearly as impressive while it was sticking to his body as if it was a second skin he needed to shed. The man threw the thing over your couch, possibly ruining it in the process. What a fucking asshole.

“Found the food!” Oh great. They broke into your basement where you stashed all the preservable food and some meat. It had been a habit to stash this stuff in case people stopped helping you out. Now those pirates were cleaning out your basement..

Well, better your basement than your corpse, you suppose.

You were sitting on the staircase, just pressing against the railing to be out of the way was the men were making themselves comfortable in your home, so you didn’t notice it at first but then there was a huge man that reminded you of a zombie standing right in front of you. “Uh.” He sounds so awkard.

“Thanks for letting us in here.” Your mouth almost dropped open at the fact that you got thanked by a pirate. You swallow thickly. Technically.. you should be the one thanking them. They could have just killed you, taken the keys to your house and let themselves in. You suppose none of them came to that conclusion at the moment.

“No problem.. just.. please try to not break anything..” You get a thumbs up from the blue haired male before he sauntered off, probably to also eat. They were bringing everything to the living room and you’re already missing the blanket of security the food’s existence had given you. You’re going to have to start all over again, don’t you?

The idea of it doesn’t really irk you but some things can’t be changed with willpower alone.. like how they were currently tearing your curtains apart to use them as towels. You stared at the mess and just put your face into your hands.. Oh my god. This was just.. asking to escalate. Maybe you should slip out while they were eating.

You wonder if that was a smart move, seeing how armed they were and how fast the blonde dude was even in the rain. He’d definitely catch you before you had the chance to reach the town to warn everyone.. “Here.” You look up. It’s another dude you didn’t know. Orange Iro Haircut and black glasses. He’s holding a bottle of wine at you.

“We’re already taking all your shit, you’re gonna need this tonight.” You grab the bottle and pop the cork out after a bit of thinking, making a face at him. “Gee.. thanks..” You mumble and lower your voice. “How generous, you assclown.” His eyebrows went up all the way.

Then, before you could panic, he broke into laughter and slapped his knee. “Ah shit! First you spray the fucking captain and now you’re throwing insults! You have no bone in your body that wants to live, do you?” That was a very casual statement to make that sounded way too much like a threat.

“Lay the fuck off. She got lucky.” The dude turned and snickered at the oncoming figure, that you, to your dismay, recognized as Eustass Kidd who was currently rolling his shoulders and combing through his hair with his organic arm. The metal one loose at his side. His eyes looked better but he still seemed pissed.

“Give me that-“ He snatched the bottle out of your hand after shoving past his crewmate, proceeding to down the whole thing while establishing angry eye contact with you and just confusing the hell out of you. What.. Nani the fuck? Was this.. was he trying to establish dominance or something?

Suddenly you felt like a dog that was about to get a smackdown with a bunch of newspapers. “Boss, I just gave her that.” The mohawk cut murred and crossed his arms, giving his boss a blank stare before looking at you. “I’ll get you a new one.” How kind. But now he was leaving you alone with his shitty captain. Who still seemed angry.

He threw the bottle onto the floor, where it shattered and the pieces went flying everywhere. Oh god. Weirdly enough, he does not kill you immediately, just giving you an evil glare and leaning in, making you lean back. “..Scuse me. Please, personal space.” The space where his eyebrow would be twitched.

“The hell are you mouthing off for?” He’s looking for a fight, you faintly realize. The dude was probably agitated from getting pepper sprayed and was not looking for an excuse to go against what his blonde buddy had told him. Which would be to leave you be and not go ham on your home.

“..Sorry.” You grit out, now pressing fully against the stairs to stay the hell away but fuck, he just leaned in closer. By now the man was towering over you with his huge form, basically blanketing you completely as he continued to glare at you. He’s clearly trying to get you to shove him or something.

Fuck iiiit. You do not move and you hear absentmindedly the laughter of the other crew members. You can feel the dude’s breath on your face and it smelled like the wine that he just exed like a drunkard. Breath somewhere else! You felt like this were dangerous waters. If you didn’t watch out, he’d grab you and drown you… as in he’d beat the hell out of you.

“Say it again. Beg me to forgive you.” Oh fuck this guy. You can see a sadistic glimmer in his eyes as he grinned like a bastard at you. Something within you told you that no, you were not going to be begging this piece of shit for anything. Say something though, anything really. “..Your eyes remind me of gold coins..”

You were a fucking idiot.

The man recoiled from you and looked at you as if you were insane. Seeing what you just said, you might as well be. Both of you are staring at each other, ignoring the commotion that was going on around you from people drinking cheap juice and eating up your supply stash. Ah fuck.

The man stared onwards and then he actually let go of the railing from the stairs and stood back up to his full height, narrowing his eyes at you as if he was trying to analyze whether you were real or not. You felt unreal too, not gonna lie. “You think flattery is going to keep me from tearing you apart?”

Not what you were trying to do. His eyes were just so amber and cold, it reminded you of a cold, golden coin. No warmth there to be found except for now, but it was the heat that anger brought. “I was..” You cough awkwardly and just avert your gaze. “Sorry.” It’s not like you could explain your reasoning without making even more of an idiot out of yourself.

The man scoffed in disdain and, miraculously, he left you where you were sitting and to your own devices. His body easily parting the sea of men that was getting rowdy with each other. You’re kind of sweating just thinking about all the cleaning you’d be forced to do once they left.. on your own.

If you made it through the night. Who knew when one of them thought they could grope you or whatever and then? Then you could not guarantee for them to not get shoved. You wouldn’t actively dare to hit someone. Not right now where you were surrounded by pirates.

“What the fuck, girl.” Your solitude does not last you long, unfortunately. You’re faced with two men you do not, obviously, recognize. “You can’t tell me you only have this wine.” One of the scoffed at you and you just made a face. “..Sorry. I don’t really drink alcohol.” You were apologizing a lot today for no reason, weren’t you?

You’re being crowded, you faintly notice. First it was two, now it was four. “No booze for you? Are you.. like.. allergic?” There’s a collective groan going through them. “Idiot, she has wine, she’s not allergic to alcohol.”

“Seriously.”

“Getting smarter everytime we hit land, aren’t you?”

Now they were bickering among each other, throwing insults and shouldering people before settling again as you became the central point of their attention. The hell was with them? You felt like you were surrounded by a group of curious puppies.. Noo wrong example, try a bunch of pushy goblins.

“I just don’t like it.” You shrug, only getting deadpan stares. “So you’re like, all proper and shit?” The dude talking to you stuck his pinky out and some were jeering and laughing at the gesture. You resist the dying urge to roll your eyes. “Nahh.. Not really. I just, like, don’t enjoy hangovers.”

That seemed to be some common ground because the men were collectively groaning in agreement and nodding their heads like they were students and you were the teacher. “Oh yeah, those can suck my huge di-“

“No one would want to touch your baby carrot.” “Yeah, you’d have to pick a prostitute and pay her extra.” There they go, jeering and laughing again at the expense of one of their buddies.

“Shut your fucking mouths!” Now they’re back to bickering and shouldering at each other. You were so out of place right now. The railing creaked a little and you looked up to see a huge man.

And if you say huge, you mean fucking hugelicious. That dude was at least two heads taller than his captain, currently sporting a yellow cloak and black trident, his clothes, the little bit he was wearing, were also colored yellow and the dude just gave you a deadpan stare. “I see you found out what quality company we can be.”

“As high quality as my huge-“

“Shut up! You need to stop trying to sell that everytime we’re around a fucking woman!”

“It’s getting embarrassing.”

“Ridiculous-“

“Fuck you guys!”

The bickering was arting out a little. Now there were actual punches going around and you shriek and dodge a body hitting the stairs, scrambling up and out of reach as the guys that had been talking to you were getting into a semi friendly brawl. Semi friendly because no one was sporting any weapons. Until someone took a plate with potato puree and threw the damn thing from the living room.

It hits the man with the cloak, who’s eye twitched and he spun around. “You little shits!” Oh hell. This was escalating so fucking fast- Now there’s food going everywhere and not just food. There goes your wardrobe. Just flying away and kissing the world goodbye. You could hear that the brawling was slowly spreading from the living room and hallway to every other part of the house.

Not good. With a despairing inner mind you watch them tear your home apart as they went at each other like wild animals, throwing shit around as if it belonged to them, throwing each other around? You saw the Massacre Soldier walking through the mess, people avoiding him like a plague as he made his way to the stairs and came up until he could sit down next to you.

“THE HELL?! GET THE FUCK BACK HERE!” That was Eustass- a huge part of your wall actually bent suddenly before metal strings you didn’t even know where in there tore out and started wrapping people up like gifts. Now it’s raining into your kitchen. You grit your teeth..

“Sorry about that.” You didn’t expect anyone to give you an apology, so when the blonde man next to you did, it startled you into looking at him. “I’ll give you some money when we depart to help cover the expense as a sign of gratitude.” You do not know still why they are grateful. They could have easily taken this place by force..

You do not mention it.

“The house was old anyway..” You mutter to yourself, staring at the hole with a blank expression. Mom, Dad, please forgive this. You’re sure they’d be able to ignore this wreckage if only you’d be able to live another day. Oh god- there are gunshots coming from somewhere and the men were now jeering and yelling loudly.

“Y-You..” You halt and collect yourself a little, swallowing thickly. “You guys sure are lively.” You mutter and watch as Eustass tore through some people, having two by the necks and then throwing them at the dude with the blue hair, who dodged both bodies and kicked a chair at his captain, who got hit and yelled angrily.

Yet, among all the anger and aggression that everyone seemed to excel, no one was getting mauled to death. But there were loud gunshots and clear carnage going on around you and it was hard to think that no one in the town would notice them destroying your house.

They were loud. Extremely loud. The walk took ten minutes because you were a slow walker so there was no doubt that at least some of the people living at the edge of the forest would catch wind of this, despite the rain and wind. These weapons were loud. “Still, having your home destroyed by pirates..” The blonde hummed, putting his chin against the palm of his hand.

“..has gotta suck.” You grit your teeth. Because he was right. This fucking sucked and you wanted for them to go and take a fucking hike. Still.. People were laughing and screaming and oddly, it made you feel a bit better about this whole mess. As if this could be something you’d be able to look back on fondly in years to come.

Once they fucked off and all. So you and the massive man just sat next to each other, staring at the chaos below you in silence as you wondered if the police would come to check out the commotion. Hopefully. You did not want to get shot tonight.

As if on cue there was a row of gunshots sounding out. “Hank got shot!” You heard someone yell. “Doc! Doc get over here!” “Fuckers- I told you not to shoot these fucking-“ It’s drowned out by the noise of splat as a wet rag hit you right in the side of the face. You blink and cringe in disgust, slapping it away and robbing a bit further up the stairs.

Killer was following you with his face, tilting his head a little and letting his shoulders shake a little as if he was amused.

“Scared of water? That’s-“ And then slap, his whole mask is wrapped up in a towel and the dude froze in his spot. You glance behind him and see Eustass laughing his ass off, almost crumbling from the strain as he just shit himself over having hit his first mate with a wet rag.. That seemed really tame, seeing how the dude threw his men around like ragdolls otherwise.

“Fucker..” Killer hissed between, apparently, clenched teeth and pulled the rag off his head, getting up and then jumping over the railing like a lion on the hunt, tackling the redhead to the floor and getting into a grapple with the other man. God above, they’re aggressive. It was like violence was a turn on for these people.

And then suddenly there was the huge dude from earlier at the bottom of the stairs, heaving and covered in sauces and what not.. was that blood? He was clearly looking around for something he could be throwing right now and then his gaze landed on you. ..He’s grinning at you.. Oh.

Oh hell fucking no-

You shriek and try to dodge the large hand grabbing you by your ankle and yanking you down. “Scuse me.” He grabbed you under your back and butt, lifting you easily over his head. “Boss!” “No- Stop!” Both Killer and Eustass looked up and you could see their body posture tense comically at spotting what was about to be thrown at them.

Killer got onto his knees and Eustass’s eyes looked like they were about to pop from his skull, so wide he had them.

And then you’re flying and screaming your head off. It doesn’t take a second before you’re colliding with two warm, broad bodies and all three of you are send rolling around on the floor like toddlers. Eustass yelling and Killer cursing his head off- someone had his hand on your fucking chest and you slap out of instinct, hitting the material of the blonde’s mask.

“Ah, shit. Sorry-“ The dude actually seemed somewhat embarrassed at having grabbed you by accident but then you two are slammed down when Eustass used both of you as leverage to propel himself up. “You want my foot up your ass?!” He yelled at his companion, who flipped him off and just laughed out loud.

“Oh you little fucking-“ He cut up, jerking his head around and looking through the hole in your wall. The blonde groaned, sitting up and rubbing his neck but noticing the demeanor of his captain. “Kidd?” At first you didn’t hear it but now that you tried to listen closely, you did. There were voices.

It’s the fucking popo. You knew they’d notice the fucking ruckus if it went on long enough. “Twelve men coming over here. Guess we’re going to be killing townspeople after all-“ “No!”

Eustass had been in the progress of getting up but you threw yourself at him, wrapping your arms around his neck to try and jerk him back down again. “You promised! You gave me your word!” You point accusingly at Killer who seemed completely unbothered at how upset you were, yet, he did speak.

“I did kind of agree to her terms.” He supplied, looking up at Kidd, who was now trying to get you off of him by shouldering you roughly with his metal arm which, honestly, felt like you were being rammed by a bicycle. “I didn’t agree to shit.” “You ate her food and broke her home down.”

“You say that as if we don’t do that shit on a regular basis.” You remember something. ‘Beg me.’ To be specific. “Please! Whatever you want, just don’t hurt them!” Eustass’s head jerked down and his eyes bore into you. Killer put his face in his hands. There’s a moment of silence.

“..Fucking fine.” You’re surprised how easy that was, all until he grabbed you around the waist and lifted you over his shoulder. “Men! We’re fucking off! Gather at the ship!” You heard someone complain. “The ship is a day’s trip away though!” So that’s why they were here, to scout? .. No it didn’t make sense. You’re too confused to think about it.

“What are you doing, Kidd?” Killer grumbled, poking you in the cheek and making you stare at him like a frightened lamb. “Taking a souvenir.” The redhead grunted and then squeezed your waist a little. The blonde crossed his arms and huffed. “..Alright then.”

“What?! No! I don’t wanna go! I wanna live!” You shriek and struggle against the man’s grip, hearing a faint, familiar voice of a police officer you knew. “MISS L/N?” Oh god. “We’re not killing you, calm your tits.” And then the redhead turned around and bolted straight through one of your walls, busting it open like he was a jackhammer.

His men were hollering and laughing still as they scattered into the night. You’re wet again, the rain falling against your body as you were carried off. It felt like your life, the way you had known it, was over. You don’t know what to feel about it right now, it was too much all at once.

You did not know this at the time, but today would be the start of a life you never knew had been an option, or a life you never knew you needed.

A new adventure.

[lephilodi]

Settling In (D&D RP Ch. 3)

We set out shortly after I had gathered what was important to me, namely my books and the various pieces of literature I had...kept in my possession from home. I tried to get them to wait until dark, but they were rather insistent on leaving as soon as possible. I suppose I will have to come back for my aquarium, mushrooms, and other belongings.

It was today I learned that Luciel is actually a bard of the College of Creation, as he produced a parasol for me out of thin air. Very courteous of him. It was only a few hours to get to their town thankfully, but upon my insistence, they took me to a relatively safe place in the forest not too far away, where they had stashed some strange vehicle of theirs and covered it in vines. Then they were off to celebrate their victory, leaving me alone again in the ever-darkening wood.

I watched as the stars slowly began to appear from the skies. Some of my people despised them, but I always found them to be beautiful. After all, life has no color without light, leaving creatures pale and blind...

Pale and blind, just like the one who had ruined my life. Erebossk.

I truly try not to let my thoughts linger on him. I chose to leave that life behind, thanks to help from a friend. I try to reminisce on what he taught me, rather than what I had lost.

Thankfully, sometime after the midnight hour had passed, Kala and Luciel emerged from the shadows between the dark trunks. I floated down from the top of the vehicle to greet them, but something was clearly bothering them. <I didn't expect to see you back already.>

It was Luciel who spoke first. "Heyyyy Lephi. We have a question for you."

Something is definitely off. What happened in town? <Alright... go ahead.>

Luciel hesitates for a moment again before speaking. "What's a spelljammer?"

I immediately straighten up, rooted to the spot. <Well, I know you can't read or understand Qualith. And I doubt you knew that word before. Can you tell me where you learned it?>

Both the elf and the firbolg simultaneously answer, "No.”

Okay, this is immensely suspicious, and I don't like it. I'm praying to Ao that I won't have to wrestle away Luciel's bag of holding, as it currently had my books, star maps, and schematics inside. <Very well. Spelljammers are ships designed to travel between planes and through realmspace. Even to other crystal spheres. Does that satisfy your curiosity?>

Kala spoke, "For now, yes."

“We were also told some...things, some negative things about you. But we don’t believe they’re true.” Luciel looks up at me, but I can still see some uncertainty in his eyes.

<Well, in that case, it’s probably all true.> I won’t deny what my people are, what we do. What I did.

Kala steps forward again. “Well, we don’t believe them. Not when it comes to you.”

<I appreciate that young ones. But I can see you are tired. You should go and get some sleep.>

The pair eventually went back into town to rest after checking on me. I got as comfortable as I could in the seat on top of...whatever this device is, and decided to rest with one eye open tonight.

Thankfully the next morning, the whole party seemed much more chipper, though Galvar seems to be suffering from a bit of a hangover. Kala removed the plants and vines from the strange conglomeration of devices below me, revealing some sort of crab tank with a set of four ballistas attached to the top, and I realized with some concern that I had been sleeping in the hot seat. Luciel crawled into the tank portion to pilot it, while Kala crawled up to the seat where I was sitting and deposited herself in my lap. She had in hand what appeared to be two halves of a coconut and began clapping them together as we began moving, somehow accelerating the pace of the whole group. Must be some strange magical item. We set off before the sun gets too high in the sky, headed north into Neverwinter Wood.

By mid-afternoon we arrived at a very run-down manse in the middle of the forest. Pumpkin patches surrounded a large house completely covered in ivy. It looked certainly worse for wear, especially with a boar's head carved into the front door. I close my eyes and open up my psionic field to get familiar with the small region around the manse as the others go over their plan on how to get rid of the gulthias tree in the manse's well, sensing four beings of low intelligence within the manse, likely the vine blights they speak of.

I follow as they head inside, floating over the broken wood of busted down doors, and out into the courtyard of the manse. Before me was indeed a well, from which great, thick vines erupted, spreading out across the flagstones. I readied my whip just in case, as I could sense the creatures down inside the well.

Luciel created a great length of chain from thin air with his magic, slowly lowering it in a circle all the way around the tree. And... Ilsensine above, Crete is flying.

I look over to Galvar to see him grinning up at the minotaur. I suppose he learned a new spell. Kala has her flame scimitar at the ready, and they begin the attack.

Combat with the blights is mercifully short and swift, leaving only the tree in their wake. The caster's flame-based spells making short work of the tree, even if Crete's halberd sent blood-like sap spraying everywhere. Finally, Kala casts her own Blight spell, and the tree withers away to dust, leaving the well empty.

<Well, I think this place could use a serious clean-up.> I pull the dehydrated cleaning cubes from inside my sleeve, going to the kitchen to submerge them in water and set them to work.

I come back out to the courtyard to the other four discussing what to do next.

"I think it would make the most sense for Crete and I to go to Neverwinter, so we can sell our loot and see what we can have made with the dragon parts," Luciel explains. “And we’ll look for some builders to fix this place up and maybe set up some outbuildings. Plus I have this sweet stuffed winter wolf head we found to give to Falcon, since he seems to really like stuffed heads of sentient beings. Y’know, just a nice gesture from the new neighbors.”

Oh I really don’t like that. I’m all for keeping repurposed skulls for pots, but at least those were once my food. I lessened the amount of waste from my kills. But I’d rather not have my own head on this...”Falcon’s” wall.

Kala’s also speaks up, “And I’ve got that spider silk weave I commissioned at the Coster to go pick up in town.”

“Then I’ll get started on that secret room for Lephilodi that we were talking about at the bottom of the well!” Galvar says cheerily. “Is that alright with you Miss Lephilodi? We thought it would be the best way to keep you safe when the builders are here.”

<Oh, I see. Well, as long as I have a bed and some space, I suppose it can’t be much worse than Axeholm. And I prefer to be awake at night anyways.>

“Aye! And we’ll set up a hidden door as best we can so no one can bother ye!” exclaimed the dwarf.

<I suppose that will do for now. Thank you.>

“In that case, we’re off!” shouts Luciel jubilantly, as he turns Crete into a giant eagle in front of my very eyes.

Crete plucks up Luciel in his claws and they soon are out of view beyond the trees.

Well that was interesting...

Kala shape-shifts into a wolf and heads for town while Galvar lowers himself into the well to start excavating. I decide to make myself busy and check on the cleaning cubes. They’re not too far along yet, but this will give me time to look around the house.

Unfortunately, the roof of the kitchen is caved in, and the doors on the lower level are all broken for the most part. Most of the furniture is broken, so I do my part and toss all the unsalvageable wood outside with telekinesis. This feels like settling into Axeholm all over again. However, I am delighted to find a laboratory, a library, and a bathing room that still has warm, running water. That’s good, I’ll need a bath later once this room is cleaned as well. There is one master bedroom along with what likely used to be an apprentices’ bedroom, though the latter had a giant hole in the floor and was even more filthy than the prior rooms. Thank goodness the cubes work quickly.

Towards the end of the day, I sense Kala return from town, and I go out to meet her. Galvar comes back out of the well and goes inside to wash up for a moment. Good, I’ve been wanting to ask Kala about something.

I try to speak with my gentlest voice. <Kala, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Are you...okay? You seemed even more upset than Luciel last night, and...when we first met I could tell you were trying to hide a secret from me. But I did not pry because that is not my place.>

Kala looks up at me swiftly. “Oh! Yes, well...I’m not a firbolg. I’m a changeling. I’m fine now, I promise. It’s just that some things that we were told about you, I’ve also heard said about my kind. That’s why I was upset.”

Ah. So that’s what this one has been hiding. <I see. I know little of your kind personally, but I can assure you I have no qualms against you. After all, that would be rather hypocritical of me wouldn’t it?> I project some amusement to help put her at ease before Galvar comes trotting back outside.

With Kala’s help and her Stone Shape spell, they are able to work a bit longer. I decide to head up to that much needed bath as they do so. Thank Ilsensine, the cubes are finished in here. I draw the warm water and strip out of my cleric’s robes. Even with the ivy blocking the windows, I can still see just fine in the darkened room...and I can still see the scars that criss-cross my light skin. Some were accidentally self-inflicted, learning experiences on my body from my time studying how to use a blade-whip. Others...were not. I try not to dwell on them as I sink into the tub of warm water, and I let out a physical sigh of relief. It’s so hard to stay hydrated when you don’t produce your natural mucus anymore. A symptom of my strange diet, but maybe after eating the dragon’s brain, my skin will start slicking down again. But until then, lotions will have to suffice. I soak myself for a while, occasionally shifting to get everything in contact with the water despite my height, before getting out and doing my skincare routine. I put my dampsuit back on afterwards and then my robe, stepping back out of the steam-filled bathing room only to be met by Galvar.

He snapped and pointed his forefingers and thumb towards me, shooting me a wink before he drawls out, “Lookin’ good.”

I immediately feel my face flush white. Was that a compliment???

Galvar immediately started freaking out. “I am so, so sorry, it was supposed to be a joke! I didn’t mean to freak you out!!!”

<G-Galvar, it’s just blush. We blush white, it’s okay. I just...I think it’s time we all get some rest...>

[love-of-fandoms]

Cherry Blossoms (Hanzo Shimada + OC) Chapter 12

Chapter 12 of Cherry Blossoms (Master List)

Pairing: Alpha Hanzo + Omega OC

Word Count: 2489 words

The long awaited day had finally arrived. And Jack Morrison was surprisingly into Halloween. Not that he would ever openly admit to enjoying the holiday.

“Wow!” Danny gasped when she saw the alpha’s costume splayed out alongside the copious amounts of fake blood and costume makeup he had bought for the occasion. What looked like it had once been a t-shirt was now just a tattered cloth with sleeves and a hole to put his head through, and some cargo pants had been cut within an inch of their life. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack scoffed, waving his hand dismissively. “Just do my makeup, kid,” he commanded, and Danny sighed, motioning for him to sit in front of her. He did so, and Danny got to work. She first made his whole face pale with a powdery makeup he had gotten for the occasion, and then made the hollows around his eyes much darker. She added some purple on his cheekbones to make his face look more gaunt, and then stopped to study his face for a minute.

“Do you mind if I put the fake blood and gashes over your scars? They’d make good guides,” she asked, and Jack nodded, the corner of his lip quirking up.

“Go ahead,” Danny smiled at him and went to do just that. “You’re gonna be a badass zombie,” she muttered a couple minutes later, dripping some fake blood down his neck. He chuckled.

“I’m badass no matter what I am,” he countered, and Danny hummed in agreement, withholding her giggle so she didn’t shake and mess up his makeup. 

“Alright, you still want to be a tree?” Danny asked, and Bastion nodded. “Lovely!” Danny beamed, handing Bastion a paint bucket. “Can you open this? Be careful and try not to spill it!” she asked, and Bastion nodded again, grabbing the paint bucket and gently prying it open. “Thanks love!” she chirped, and Bastion responded with a series of happy beeps. Bastion handed her the bucket again, and Danny gently placed it down on a table, before dunking her hand in the bucket. She began spreading the paint over Bastion’s arms and chest piece, putting little lines to make it look a bit like tree bark.

A little less than an hour later, Bastion had been painted brown. The paint would be easy to take off, they just needed to wipe it off with a hot face cloth. Danny glued leaves around Bastion before having them heat up. Bastion could regulate their temperature, and so they could heat themselves up to dry the paint.

“You look great!” Danny beamed, and Bastion chirped, giving her a thumbs up. “I’m gonna go get ready, remember the party’s at six!” she called over her shoulder as she left down the hall. Bastion beeped an affirmative after her.

After Danny had finished helping Bastion with their costume, she retreated to her room to put together her own. She put some earrings on, she had made them out of the gears Hanzo had gotten her. Danny quickly did her makeup, which just consisted of some eyeliner and bright red lipstick on her face, but then she added some gold and silver shimmering lines along her chest so they looked like veins. Some of them went down her arms and stopped just at the crook of her elbow. After spraying some setting spray all over the lines, she slipped into her sleeveless black dress, which was fitted around the bust and flew out in a bunch of layers of fabric around her legs. There was a long slit going up to her upper thigh that she had initially been nervous about, but she was feeling herself. It was Halloween! Anything goes! She placed her witch’s hat on her head. She had glued tiny gears all around the brim and the base of the hat. She then hung some goggles around her neck, and slipped on her clunky brown boots she had chosen to go with the costume.

After doing a quick twirl in front of the mirror, grinning from ear to ear, Danny exitted her room, peeking around the hallway before crossing to Jesse’s door and banging on it.

“Jesse!” she shouted through the door. “Are you ready?” It opened a moment later, revealing Jesse in a wolf ear headband and a big black overcoat with rips along the arms where some fake fur had been shoved through. His face, which had brown makeup running down from his hairline to make it look like he was much more hairy than he actually was, sported a scowl as he itched at the fur peaking through the coat.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” he said, his face pinching as he adjusted the coat a bit, before it relaxed. “There we go,” he muttered, and Danny smiled, reaching through the doorway and grabbing his hand.

“Great!” she beamed, dragging him out and into the hallway. “Let’s go!” Jesse chuckled, allowing himself to be pulled down the hall towards the common area, where Danny and Lena had set up the Overwatch Halloween Party. They had kicked everyone out early that morning and denied anyone access until 6 pm, when the party started.

“Danny!” Lena called from in front of the large archway leading to the common area. It had been covered by two heavy red velvet curtains, they had Winston to thank for hanging them.

“You ready?” Danny asked excitedly, making her way over to the woman, who had been on guard duty. She was dressed in some white leggings and a waistcoat. A pocket watch was chained to one end of the waistcoat and rested in the pocket on the other side, and on her head was a headband with two bunny ears sticking out from the top.

“Ready, love!” Tracer nodded, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Danny nodded, and dove through the curtain with Tracer.

“Come on!” Danny called back, and the other members of Overwatch, who had gathered in the hallway, slowly made their way into the transformed common area.

Everyone’s jaws dropped as they saw what Danny and Lena had done to the space in less than 10 hours. The tables had been pushed to the edges of the room, with spider web table clothes covering them. Snacks were scattered around the tables as well as a punch bowl with what looked like eyeballs floating around in it. The couches had been moved more towards the center, set up in a relaxed semicircle. A coffee table with a crystal ball in the center lay between a couple of the couches, with eyeballs on a tray right next to the crystal ball.

(The eyeballs on the tray were really just buckeyes, chocolate covered peanut butter balls, that Lena and Danny had painted with some edible paint)

Jesse let out a low whistle.

“Quite a set up,” he said, going to tip his hat to Lena and Danny, only to remember it wasn’t there. Danny and Lena both beamed.

“Thanks!” Danny chirped, before spreading her arms wide and addressing the crowd. “Welcome to the Overwatch Halloween Party! We got snacks, drinks, and fun drinks, so go crazy!” There were some cheers and people dispersed throughout the room. Lucio, sporting a classic buccaneer outfit and a large golden hoop dangling from one ear, went straight over to a DJ table Lena and Danny had set up for him. He had begged them to let him DJ and they had agreed, though they had a list of required songs he had to play for them:

Monster Mash

Thriller

Cha Cha Slide

He had agreed easily to their demands.

Jesse, who had stuck next to Danny, elbowed her in the ribs lightly.

“What?” she asked, looking up at him, but he said nothing and just jutted his chin towards the door. Danny followed his gaze and had to clench her jaw to keep it from dropping at the sight.

Hanzo and Genji had walked in. Genji was wearing a stereotypical ninja costume with a red sash around his head, and Hanzo… 

Hanzo was wearing a nice black suit that was fitted perfectly to his body. A blood red shirt was under the suit jacket as well as a black tie, and over the knot of the tie was a skull. He was wearing a top hat with a sash around the base. The sash was covered in skulls, and two tails for the sash fell behind his head. In his hand he gripped a cane with a skull on the top. 

He looked good.

Danny raced over to the Shimada brothers.

“You guys look great!” she gushed, looking between the two, however her stare lingered on Hanzo a little longer than it perhaps should have. Jesse made his way over a little slower than Danny, much calmer. She tilted her head back so she could look up and meet Hanzo’s eyes. “You’re a witch doctor?” she asked, and Hanzo nodded, a bit of pink dusting his cheeks.

“Yes,” he said, and Danny beamed.

“So we’re twinning!” she held up a peace sign, and Hanzo’s shoulders seemed to relax as he let out a chuckle.

“Yes, we are,” he agreed after a moment.

All four of them jumped when the music suddenly started up, and the Monster Mash started playing in the background. Danny grinned, turning around and giving Lucio a thumbs up. He nodded at her and smiled back. Danny then looked around, and gasped when she saw Reinhardt.

“No way!” she muttered before bounding over to him. Jesse, Genji, and Hanzo all exchanged looks as they slowly followed after her. “Reinhardt!” Danny called, and the knight turned to look at her. He was covered in a brown furry suit, and a sash was over one shoulder while a crossbow was over the other. “You’re Chewbacca?” she beamed, and Reinhardt nodded with a laugh.

“Of course!” he said, before reaching behind him and tugging. Torbjörn begrudgingly allowed himself to be pulled into view by Reinhardt. Danny’s grin widened when she saw his Han Solo costume.

“Oh that’s awesome!” she cheered. “Is there a Luke and Leia?” she asked, and Reinhardt laughed, pointing to the side. Danny followed his finger to see Brigitte speaking to Lena in an all white dress, and her hair was in two gigantic buns on either side of her head. “Hell yeah,” she muttered to herself.

Before they could converse any further, Danny was gasping and racing over to Winston, who had just crouched down and through the doorway.

“No!” she shouted, running up to the scientist. “No way!” she laughed, and Winston gave her a sheepish smile. Jesse and Hanzo exchanged exasperated, but fond looks as they changed directions and headed towards Winston, giving Reinhardt and Torbjörn nods in greeting.

“Athena suggested it,” he shrugged, and Danny’s hand rose to her mouth, trying to contain her sniggers.

“Athena suggested-” she had to cut herself off with a burst of laughter. “Athena suggested you be a jar of peanut butter?” Winston nodded his head, the giant teal cap on top tilting down with it. 

“So, are you… chunky or smooth?” Genji asked, giggling, and Danny reached over to thwack him on the back of his head. “Ow!” his hand rose to rub at where she hit, and he shot Danny a dirty look. Winston just levelled them both with an unimpressed stare. He didn’t even grace Genji with an answer, instead turning and walking away to join Lena and Angela across the room. The blonde medic was wearing an elegant victorian dress, and her lips were painted blood red. Occasionally one could see two fangs peeking out from between said lips. Danny pouted at Genji.

“You jerk!” she groaned jokingly, heading towards one of the snack tables and pouring herself some punch,

“It was an honest question!” Genji shot back, and Danny rolled her eyes.

“Sure it was,” she giggled, shaking her head at him. She jumped when she felt a bit of heat at her back, looking over her shoulder to see Hanzo standing right behind her. He looked at her cup.

“What is that?” he asked, and Danny snorted.

“Blood,” she answered, only to be met with an unimpressed look by Hanzo. She pouted at his lack of response. “No fun,” the corner of Hanzo’s lips quirked up into a small .smirk.

“I’m fun!” he argued lightheartedly, and Danny narrowed her eyes at him.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart,” she said with a grin, pouring another cup of punch and turning to hand it to him. “Bet you’re more fun with some alcohol in you!” she chirped teasingly, shoving it into his hand. Hanzo sighed, raising the cup to his nose to give the red punch a sniff. Smelling nothing off, Hanzo took a sip of the punch, and let out a pleased hum.

“It’s good,” he said, and Danny grinned.

“Good!” she cheered. Hanzo smiled down at her, and Danny had the passive thought that he was quite handsome in a top hat…

“So this is something new, Casper slide part two…” Danny broke out into a grin, her free hand reaching out to grab Hanzo’s arm.

“Come on!” she cheered, dragging him over to the open space that they had allocated for dancing. Others were also lining up for the song, and Hanzo was staring at Danny, so lost. She giggled, and plucked his drink out of his hand, plopping it down on one of the coffee tables with her own. 

“Everybody clap your hands…” people began to clap to the rhythm, and Hanzo jumped, looking at Danny questioningly.

“It’s the cha cha slide! A group dance!” she cheered, and he just tilted his head.

“What?” he muttered, and Danny giggled.

“It’s self explanatory,” she said to him, and he continued to stare blankly at her. She rolled her eyes playfully, grabbing his hand in her own. “Just do what I do!” she urged him.

“To the left!” Danny stepped to the left, pulling on Hanzo’s hand so he did it with her. “Take it back now y’all!” she stepped back, again dragging Hanzo with her. She accidentally bumped into Lena, who grinned at her. “One hop this time!” they both jumped in the air, though Hanzo stayed firmly on the ground.

“What is this?” he asked Danny, who stomped with the command as it came.

“A classic party dance!” she said to him, beginning to do a silly dance as the actual cha cha part came on. Hanzo just stared quizzically at her, but she shook her head, reaching over and grabbing his other hand to try and get him to dance with her. “Come on Hanzo! Dance with me!” she pleaded, pouting and widening her eyes. Hanzo stared at her for a moment, unmoving, before he started to nod his head a little. Danny grinned, giving him a quick hug before pulling back “I’ll take it!”

[mindfulwrathwrites]

What Is This, An Elder God For Ants?

A story about a cosmic horror, told from the perspective of the cosmic horror.

Words: 1,937 Warnings: Animal death

View on main site

...

I used to have an ant problem in my kitchen. It's probably not what you're picturing—they didn't get into the sugar or set up camp in the coffee. I kind of wish they had. There's people who deal with that kind of thing for a living.

No, I'm pretty sure the ants in my kitchen found religion.

I don't remember exactly when it started. There wasn't any big event, any one moment I can pick out and say "this is Point A." At some point, ants got into my kitchen. It was probably spring, because that's when ants get into kitchens. They did ant things for a while. I didn't bother getting rid of them because I was in a really shitty place and just dragging myself out of bed in the morning was almost too much. The ants were just the shitty icing on a shitty cake, and I couldn't be assed to care about them.

Thinking back on it, that's probably why I didn't worry too much when it did start to get weird.

The first time I remember, it was early in the morning, probably on a Monday. I wake up before sunrise so I can get to work before rush hour hits, so my commute only takes an hour instead of two. That's not important, really, it's just that it was early and my brain hadn't turned on yet. There was only one ant on my kitchen counter. It wasn't running around, looking for food, following pheromone trails, or anything that ants usually do. It was just kind of standing there, waving its antennae, occasionally turning side to side like it was lost, or something. Waiting for something. It was tiny, I mean, all the ants were tiny, but it never really registered before then. Watching it, waiting for my coffee to brew, I started to feel kind of sorry for it.

Stupid, but what can you do. I might have let a little sugar spill off my spoon on the way to my coffee. I might have let it fall right in front of that tiny, lost ant. I might have done it on purpose, I don't know. I forgot about it ten seconds later. I didn't remember about it for another two weeks.

The next time I noticed something weird, there were a lot of ants.

Not a lot of ants in like, a swarm kind of way. Probably there were only about a dozen of them, but they were all just standing there, all just waiting—and all facing towards the edge of the counter. I don't think they were watching me. I did feel like they were waiting, probably for me to drop more sugar.

I smushed one of them. I'd had a hard week, and the last thing I wanted was my stupid sleep-deprived empathy attracting a shitload of ants. The other ones freaked out, started running around in circles, trying to find their pheromone trails. I think I smushed all of them. Certainly most of them. If I'm honest, I was a little creeped out at that point. I don't know why. Maybe I thought the ghosts of all those ants I'd killed would come back to haunt me. They didn't, of course. For a long time, there were hardly any ants at all, and so I forgot about it. I got back to the drudgery of living my life, one day at a time. It wasn't like I had anything else to do.

The next time I noticed, there wasn't any getting around how weird it was.

It was right around dawn again, and I was making coffee. At first, I didn't even notice the ants—or I didn't notice that they were ants. They were standing around again, very still, except they were in a circle. A really neat, really perfect circle. They were all moving their antennae, in a way I'd never seen ants do before. It looked coordinated, somehow. It was probably my eyes playing tricks on me. They were so small, it would be hard to make out that kind of detail, especially with sleep-blurred vision.

I dropped some sugar into the middle of the circle, just to see what would happen. The ants didn't move. I shrugged and got on with my day. When I got back that night, the sugar was gone, and so were the ants. Fine by me. I decided I must have dreamed the part with the circle. I didn't really believe it, but I pretended I did.

Couple days later, they were back, circled up again. There was one ant in the middle this time. I smushed it, still don't really know why. The others ran away. I felt bad. I left some sugar.

I think that's how it all went so wrong.

The next time I found an ant-circle, there was an ant in the middle again—only it was a different species of ant, much bigger, and it was already dead. Well, that was pretty weird, but at least it wasn't alive. I got my tweezers and I put it in the trash, and then I left some sugar for my tiny ant buddies. When I got to thinking of them as buddies, I don't know. I didn't really have any friends, and everything was such a damn struggle, and I actually kind of liked the little guys. They weren't hurting anything, they didn't eat much, they didn't get into anything but my kitchen counter. They were buddies. I didn't mind them.

Over the next few days, they brought me more dead ants. I took the big dead ants away and left sugar. The next week, they brought me a dead cockroach. I loved these ants, these ants were the best! My place had had a roach problem for years, and nothing I'd done had taken care of them, so if my little buddies wanted to do it? Awesome! Good arrangement! Have some sugar, little fellas, you did good.

A couple more roaches. A centipede. I didn't give them anything for the centipede, because those are useful predators and they'd never bothered me, really. Another roach, sugar. A spider, no sugar. A really big roach, a lot of sugar. Was the circle of ants getting bigger? Who knows. It was better pest control than my landlord could be assed with, and it cost me less than a teaspoon of sugar a week. It was such a cool little arrangement that I actually started feeling less shitty—I washed dishes regularly, cleaned (most of) my living area, did laundry, fed my ants. I started thinking of them like pets.

At some point, the ant-circle became a double ring, then a triple ring. They brought me a dead wasp. I was impressed, although a little bit unsettled. I think it was the wasp that lived over my patio door, which—sure, it was a nuisance, and I'd been meaning to kill it, but it was weird that the ants knew. I tried to convince myself that the ants didn't know, they'd just found the wasp when it got inside, or something. It was fine. I gave them lots of sugar. They did good. My little ant buddies, doing nice things for me.

Sometime around August, they brought me a dead frog.

I couldn't even tell it was dead at first. My kitchen is dark in the mornings. It was sitting on the counter, four rings of ants around it. It was very, very still. I was scared it was going to jump away. I turned the lights on. It didn't move. It was covered in bumps, so I thought it was a toad. It wasn't a toad. It was a dead frog, gone gray and dry and very, very still. Covered in ant bites.

I probably stood there for five minutes, just trying to understand. I got a couple of unopened credit-card scams and kind of swept the dead frog up. It was stiff and it was heavy and it was still dead. I put it in a ziplock bag and put the bag in the trash. I put the mail I'd used to sweep it up in the trash, too.

I smashed every ant I could find.

They ran, they broke like a panicked crowd and ran, but I didn't stop until I couldn't find any more of them. I was sick to my stomach for days. Anytime I saw an ant, I killed it on sight. I couldn't stop thinking about that dead frog on my counter. I sprayed the whole kitchen down with lysol, and then bug spray. I caulked up every crack I could see. I had no idea how the little bastards had gotten the thing inside. It must have taken hundreds of them to kill it, hours to drag it inside and onto my kitchen counter. I got new weather stripping for the doors and windows. I didn't go out much. I killed every ant I saw, but there were always more ants.

I decided that I needed to kill the whole nest, and that would be the end of it. Once I'd killed the nest, maybe I could sleep again.

It took me a while to find it, a lot of hunting around outside. I figured it had to be near my kitchen, and it was. It wasn't a big nest, or at least it wasn't a big mound. Maybe it went deep, or sprawled, but I wasn't thinking much about that. I wasn't thinking much about anything except the dead frog on my kitchen counter. I filled up my tea kettle and set it to boiling. It wasn't a long wait, comparatively. It felt like it took hours.

By the time the kettle whistled, there was one ant on my kitchen counter.

It was right up on the edge, holding very still, waving its tiny antennae. It was facing me. It was so small, they'd always been so small, and it was looking at me. Huge me, towering me, boiling up the apocalypse for its tiny, tiny world.

The ants didn't know. The ants couldn't have understood the difference between a roach and a wasp, a wasp and a frog. I wasn't sure I understood what the difference was. I'd trained them, really. I'd trained them to kill things and bring me the bodies. It wasn't their fault that they didn't know where the line was.

But I didn't want any more dead frogs.

I picked up the kettle. I opened the lid. I started pouring boiling water on my kitchen counter, slowly. I wanted to know if the ant would run. It did run. I kept pouring. It ran all the way back to the molding, up the backsplash, behind the electrical socket. I kept pouring until the ant was gone. My hand was wet and stinging with steam. I put the kettle down. I cleaned up the water. I caulked up the spaces around the electrical socket.

I haven't seen an ant in my kitchen since.

At the start of spring this year, I went out to check on the nest. I've been feeling pretty shitty about the whole thing, and I wanted to know if the ants were still there. They are. It's weird, though, the nest doesn't look like it used to, and it's the kind of thing that convinces me I didn't imagine the whole thing like one big stress dream.

It's hard to tell, because the perspective is awfully weird, but these days that anthill kind of looks like a frog.

[starkercrossedlovers]

Road trip to Paradise

—————————

In a world where Peter is Spider-Man but isn’t part of the Avengers and Tony is still Iron Man, they have a fateful encounter on the side of the road as Tony leaves everything behind for a much needed road trip to clear his head. Peter is looking to escape too, and though he knows better, takes the ride Tony is offering.

——————————

Tony tosses another bag into the trunk of his car, ignoring the protests Pepper is still trying to make. He’d told her a week ago that he was going away, for how long he didn’t know, until he was ready to come back probably, but she hadn’t taken him seriously until he had handed off team leadership of the Avengers to Steve and told the SI board not to contact him unless the company was in imminent danger of collapse or hostile takeover.

Given that neither of those things are likely, he’s looking forward to a couple of weeks of silent bliss.

“I just, Tony, what if something happens?”

Tony shoots her a wry look, “Like the end of the world? Pep, we already did that. Got the shirt and everything,” he drawls before slamming the trunk closed. When he looks at her more closely he sighs, seeing the fear in her eyes always makes him hurt. She’s never quite forgiven him for going to space and almost dying, and it’s him leaving now that hammers the final nail in the coffin for their relationship.

He loves her, always has and always will, but she can’t accept him for who he is, and he’s not sure there’s anyone who ever could. Steve couldn’t, and it had very nearly destroyed them both.

So he was leaving. Taking some time to heal, leave the weight of Avengers and Iron Man behind and find out who he was without all the trappings of that life surrounding him.

He takes one of Pepper’s hands in his and squeezes, smiling gently at her. “I have to go Pep. After Thanos and the end of the world and almost dying, I need space. I’m sorry I’ve hurt you, believe me that’s not what I wanted, but I can’t stay. I’ll be back, and if you need me, you can call me.”

He squeezes her hand again when she sniffles, eyes lined with red as she nods and leans in to kiss his cheek softly. Her forehead presses into his temple and they stand together for a long time, quiet and steady and he almost asks her to come with him, almost thinks they can fix this thing, but he knows deep down, it won’t be fixed this time.

Gently, he turns his chin and kissed her, soft and fleeting and nudges her nose with his. “I love you. Always will.”

She makes a soft wounded noise and nods, pulling back so he can see the tears gleaming in her eyes, the grief in her face like a punch to the gut. She cups his cheek and sighs, nods, and lets it trail away.

“Call me every few days?” she asks, voice hoarse and low.

“Of course,” he agrees—it’s easy enough and he knows eventually he’ll miss her and want to hear her voice, so it’s a smart agreement for them both. He swings the car door open and gives her one last smile, “See you when I see you,” he murmurs before sliding in and closing the door.

She watches him as he pulls away, her figure impossibly small in the rear view mirror before he looks away, turns his gaze forward, to what lies ahead.

———————

Peter hauls the backpack onto his shoulder and stuffs the last of his belongings into a duffel bag, glancing around the empty apartment with a heavy heart. When the world had unexpectedly ended, May had turned to ash right in front of his eyes, and when everyone else had come back, she hadn’t.

He’d gone through most of the savings May had left behind trying to pay bills and stay ahead of rent, but with school and patrolling, he didn’t have time for more shifts with Mr. Delmar, and eventually he’d fallen so far behind he’d received an eviction notice.

He’s got nowhere to go and no one to help him, so he’s sold everything of value in the apartment, stowed the cash in various pockets and bags, and with nothing more than one look back, leaves his whole world behind.

He walks, for hours and hours, with no real destination in mind, only the idea that he has to find somewhere new to start over. The city holds too many ghosts—MJ and her family are gone, moved to Connecticut, and Ned is just gone, ashes in the wind.

He heads west, hitching rides with families and walking when he can’t find anyone who doesn’t look serial killer-y. He wonders if he can walk the whole way to the other coast, hands in his pockets as the sky darkens overhead and thunder rumbles. He imagines reaching the shore and kicking off his sneakers, toes in the sand as the water washes over him.

He’s somewhere outside Indianapolis and his sneakers are starting to wear thin, his socks squishing grossly as he tries to avoid the largest puddles along the road. He hasn’t seen a car in hours and he’s shivering, soaked to the bone despite his jacket, hungry and exhausted, when in the distance he hears a car approaching.

He glances back and sighs, it’s an expensive looking Audi which means the owner definitely won’t stop for someone as bedraggled looking as Peter. He hunkers down, waiting for the rush of wind and spray of water as it goes flying past, but instead he hears it slow and then in the periphery of his vision sees the the sleek silver vehicle following him slowly.

A window rolls down and a deep voice calls out. “Hey kid, you need a ride?”

He hesitates and then turns, bends to peer into the car, heart lurching at the familiar face peering at him.

Tony Stark

His crush and idol and what the hell is he doing out here in the middle of nowhere?!

He realizes he’s standing there with his mouth hanging half open when Tony raises a brow and smirks, “Well? You gettin in?” he asks, “Last call.”

Peter glances back at the empty road and the lonely one ahead and then back to where Tony’s dark eyes are watching him. Nodding slowly, he opens the door and slings his backpack into his lap, wincing as his wet clothes squeak against the leather.

“Sorry, I’m going to ruin your seats,” he murmurs, hunching to try and make himself as small as possible. Tony scoffs and reaches back, digs for a moment and then passes him a warm flannel blanket.

“Bundle up kid, you look frozen.”

Peter takes the blanket and wraps it around himself, glancing up in surprise a few moments later when the seat under him grows warm. Tony shoots him a grin and then refocuses on the road ahead, hands draped casually over the wheel.

“Where you going?” he asks, glancing over at Peter quickly.

“I don’t know. Thought I’d try and make it to the west coast,” Peter admits. “Maybe go and see the Grand Canyon, some national parks.” He shrugs, “I don’t really have a plan.”

Tony nods and taps his fingers on the wheel, “Running to or away from something?” he asks, far too insightfully for Peter’s comfort.

He turns away and peers out the window, breath fogging the glass slowly.

“I don’t have anything left to run from or to. It’s just me.”

With that, silence falls, deafeningly loud in the small confines of the car as the wipers slap against the windshield, steady and monotonous. The rain patters against the glass and Peter’s eyes flutter as he warms and falls asleep slowly.

————————

The kid is a mystery, Tony decides. Unwilling to talk about his life before the moment he picked him up on the side of the road, he knows little more than his name and age—Peter Parker, 18.

He resets his GPS for the Grand Canyon and points the car northwest, avoiding well used roads in favor of side routes and scenic winding highways. The landscape changes slowly in places and abruptly in others.

When he’s too tired to drive he pulls to the side of the road and nudges the kid and rouses him from his sleep, biting back a grin when he looks up with sleepy eyes and mussed hair, cheeks pink and lips parted around a yawn.

“You have a license?” he asks, humming appreciatively when the kid nods. “Good your turn,” he mutters before getting out and stretching, groaning as his vertebrae pop and strain. He leans against the car as Peter stumbles out, blinking and glancing around curiously.

The air is wet and warm, and in the distance he sees mountains on the horizon. They’ve still got a few days till they’re at Yellowstone, but he finds himself enjoying the way the kid looks around in curiosity, a small smile curling up his lips.

Peter glances over the hood of the car at him and blinks; “Where are we?”

“Good question. Somewhere in Illinois. Got another day or so till we’re at Yellowstone.”

The kid blinks in surprise and then frowns, “You don’t have to take me to Yellowstone, I’m sure you have other places you want to go.”

Tony just shrugs because he really doesn’t. That’s the whole point of this trip—no end goal, just wandering and letting himself relax for the first time in a decade. God, has it really been that long? Has he really not been able to breathe for so many years?

Something in his chest loosens at the thought that he doesn’t ever have to go back if he doesn’t want to, that he can just keep driving, leave all of it in the past.

“I, uh, I don’t have a plan kid, don’t have anywhere I need to be, and frankly, I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon either. So if it’s ok with you, I’d like to go.”

They stare at each other for a long moment before Peter nods uncertainly and crosses around the vehicle to stand by him, peering up at him for a moment before grinning and holding out his hand for the keys.

“I can’t believe you’re letting me drive a car this nice,” he jokes as Tony drops them into his palm.

He rolls his eyes and saunters away, feeling the kid’s gaze still on him and then shoots him a grin, “It’s equipped with an AI and a baby monitor protocol for anyone other than me driving. It has a steel reinforced body and protocols that make it nearly impossible to crash. FRIDAY literally won’t let you crash or go over 80 miles per hour.” He laughs at the disgruntled look on Peter’s face and slides into the seat, still warm from his body and pulls his seatbelt on while the kid does the same.

He fiddles with the seat for a minute and then glances at Tony before checking his mirrors and pulling back onto the road, blinkers going despite the empty highway around them. Tony smirks at his obvious adherence to the rules and files it away as another piece of the mystery that is Peter Parker.

So far he knows the following:

Peter snores when he sleeps

He likes pop music over classic rock

Won’t ask for, but will accept rides from near strangers—Tony’s not sure this counts since he’s literally one of the most famous men in the world, but still, the kid doesn’t actually know him

Hasn’t seen the Grand Canyon

Is from Queens

Likes Starbucks and matcha tea

Follows the rules

He watches the scenery pass by as the kid drives, some pop xm radio station playing in the background while fields of wheat and herds of cattle flash past. When he wakes up it’s dark out, well past midnight and the kid looks as exhausted as he still feels.

After a quick search by FRIDAY he finds a bed and breakfast in twenty miles and has the gps reset. It’s late when they pull in but to his surprise there’s still someone at the desk—a grey haired woman who smiles pleasantly at them and offers them the last room she has—“You and your son will have to share I’m afraid,” she tells them, rambling right over their protestations as she points out the amenities along the way.

When the door shuts behind them the silence is nearly overwhelming before Tony glances around and spots that there’s just one bed and a couch, which the kid is already heading towards with slumped shoulders and a weary air.

“We can share,” he offers, before he really has a chance to think about it. Peter stills and turns to stare at him, wide eyed and scared looking and shit, yea, that sounded like the opening line to a bad porno, so he tries again. “We’re both exhausted and need to sleep in a real bed. I’m not trying to seduce you, I promise.”

Peter stares at him for minute before laughing shyly and ducking his head with a nod, “Yea, okay. Mind if I shower first?” he asks softly, waiting for Tony’s nod before he heads into the bathroom and the door shuts with a soft click behind him.

Tony kicks off his sneakers and flops onto the bed, groaning at the firm support on his tired spine. Maybe he and the kid can take a day tomorrow...today...whatever...and just walk around, see what this little town holds in store for them. He has FRIDAY run a search to see what’s interesting in town and is surprised to find three places to eat with four stars and a local museum on aeronautics and engineering that looks mildly interesting.

Tossing his phone aside, he curls on his side and closes his eyes—just till the kid is done in the shower he promises himself—and for the first time in days, relaxes to the sound of another person in his space. He can hear the rush of the shower and what sounds like Peter singing to himself, and the wind outside rustles the branches and he’s asleep before he has a chance to realize it’s happening.

——————

When Peter steps out of the bathroom he stills, staring at Tony where he’s fallen asleep on top of the covers fully dressed. The older man’s face is softer in sleep, unlined and open—so different than the public face he’s worn in the news clips he’s watched over and over again.

Dressing quickly in an oversized sweater and briefs, he shoves his dirty clothes into a bag and grabs his phone and charger. He turns off the lights and uses his enhanced senses to make his way to the bed, biting back a groan of delight at how good the bed feels to his weary body.

“Kid?”

Peter startles for a moment and then nods, “Yea?”

“You okay?”

He frowns, “I’m fine, why?”

He senses Tony’s shrug as the older man sighs, “Jus checkin’...get some sleep,” he urges before rolling off the bed. Peter can see in the faint gloom his outline as he strips off his clothes till he’s down to his briefs too, the par moonlight falling across his shoulders and hip in a sharp slash, revealing the numerous scars he’s earned over the years as Iron Man.

When he turns and Peter sees the arc reactor containing the bleeding edge armor he’s famous for, his heart skips a beat. There’s more scars here too, painful ones, and he remembers seeing the video of his captivity in Afghanistan a few years after it happened.

Tony’s gaze meets his in the dark and there’s a long moment where neither say anything and then Tony grins grimly, spreads his arms and gestures at himself, “Take it all in, the glory of being Iron Man,” he says bitterly, “is it what you thought?” he asks, “Do you wanna touch them too?”

Peter sits up and leans forward, frowning deeper, “I’m sorry,” he murmurs—

“What? Why?”

“Because, people have made you feel like you’re only valuable because you’re Iron Man. You bleed too—nearly died to save the universe, and they treat your scars like some fetish to be petted and drooled over. They’re your pain and you deserve to keep them private, to deal with them how you want. So I’m sorry.”

Tony stares at him, hands falling to his sides as his gaze darkens, then turns away.

“Most people don’t see it that way.”

“Most people can go suck a dick.”

Tony looks up at him sharply and then bursts out laughing, the weary, lonely look washing away in a tide of relief and amusement. “Kid, I couldn’t say it better.”

Peter grins, happier now that he’s made Tony smile and laugh. “Well, I’m happy to tell you that as often as you need,” he offers, leaning back against the pillow as Tony slides back into bed beside him.

“You’d tell me to go suck a dick?” Tony teases, eyes crinkling around the edges as he grins at Peter. The bright look in his eyes, playful and warm, has Peter blushing and avoiding his gaze.

“N-no! I mean, I’d tell you that other people should...god, sorry, let’s go to sleep,” he mutters, hoping Tony can’t see his embarrassment in the dark. To his unending gratitude, Tony hums in agreement and they shuffle around for a few minutes before settling.

It’s oddly intimate, even though there’s a good foot of space between them. He can feel Tony’s warmth behind him, sense his shoulders rising and falling with each breath, smell the warm scent of his skin...

When he shifts and realizes he’s hard he flushes harder and buries his face in the pillow. Ignore it and it’ll go away he reasons, counting slowly backwards from three thousand.

By the time he’s at fifteen hundred he’s too tired to pay attention to his dick and by the time he hits a thousand he’s falling asleep.

——————

Warm. Blissfully, deliciously warm.

That’s the first thing he notices as he wakes. The second and third are his dick(hard) and Peter(in his arms).

Fuck

Rolling away carefully, he dislodges himself and heads to the shower, letting the water pour over his head as he tries to ignore his body’s reaction. It’s not Peter, he tells himself, it’s just because it’s morning....but a small part of his brain helpfully supplies the fact that it’s been months—almost a year actually—since he’s woken up hard.

He’s clean and there’s no excuse not to get out except he’s still hard. Gritting his teeth and bracing a hand against the wall, he wraps a hand around his cock and strokes, slow and firm like he likes. His thumb scrapes along the edge of his head, foreskin pulled back so a wave of heat rushes up his spine at the touch.

Unbidden, images of Peter blushing in the dark, gazing at him intently flash behind his closed eyes. He recalls the sound of his laughter and the way his eyes sparkle when he gazed up at him, longing and sweet sorrow shining in their depths.

He strokes faster and twists his wrist at the top, groaning as he pulls harder, recalling the weight of Peter in his arms, the scent of his hair and skin, the hot brand of his stomach beneath his palm where he had shoved a hand beneath that bulky sweater in the night and then he’s spilling against the tile, panting and shuddering, and oh god, he’s fucked.

——————

They head out for breakfast, a small diner that smells like bacon but has vegan options, so he orders both and calls it balance. He watches the kid debate before trying to order and nudges his ankle with his foot, drawing those wide eyes up to meet his.

“Get what you want kid, I’m paying.”

Peter tries to protest and he smirks, shakes his head, “You drive and I’ll pay, cool?” he offers, grinning when the kid mutters no, but lets the topic lie.

To his surprise Peter orders pancakes, a green smoothie, sausage and eggs, and black coffee. What’s even more impressive is the fact that he manages to eat it all.

They do end up going to the museum, and he’s a little blown away by how intelligent Peter is—he hauls Tony around the museum, babbling excitedly about the inventions and the inventors and what the modern day applications have yielded...

And it’s the nicest day Tony’s had in a long time. Peter is sweet and eager and so goddamn smart that he’s half tempted to hire him on the spot and send him back to Pepper so he can change the face of the world with that brilliant beautiful mind of his—but he sees the grief in the kids eyes as he stumbles over names(MJ and Ned) and clams up when he tried to get more details—so he knows that like him, the kid has scars, he just isn’t ready for them to be bared to the world.

——————

They stay another night and then get up early, Peter behind the wheel again as they get closer and closer to Yellowstone.

“Favorite food” Peter prompts him, taking the easy route in this game of 20 questions they’ve been playing for fifteen minutes.

“Shawarma.”

“I heard the Avengers had shawarma after the battle of New York, is that true?” Peter asks eagerly, glancing over at him with a grin.

His hands tighten on his knees as he recalls the aftermath of that day—panic attacks, extremis, Thanos—and shudders.

“Yea, we did,” he answers as evenly as he can. “Why’d you leave Queens?” he asks quickly, turning the tables with a question he knows the kid doesn’t want to answer.

Peter stares out the window at the road ahead, face stoic and blank, silence settling uneasily between them. Tony sighs and turns to look out the window, wondering if he’ll ever be able to ask the right questions and stop hurting people.

———————

Tony pays the entrance fee to Yellowstone and they drive in campsites and trees and mountains rolling past. It’ll take five hours to get to the south rim of the Canyon so they decide to get a camper for the night and go out hiking—the Audi horribly conspicuous next to trucks and suvs splattered in mud and dust.

A few people notice him but don’t take photos, and when they head out for a hike, he’s got a ball cap and sunglasses on against the glare of the setting sun. Peter is still quiet—after their game of 20 questions ended abruptly, he’d kept quiet through the drive.

He’s a little out of breath when they reach the Lake Butte Overlook, and then he’s breathless for another reason entirely. He’s seen a lot of amazing things in his life, but this, this is astounding.

They stand together, watching the sun slip over the horizon so the clouds turn a bruised blue in some places and a burnt pink in others.

“My aunt died.”

It’s abrupt, and when he glances over, Peter is staring out at the lake intently. He nods and turns his gaze away, waiting to see if he’ll say more.

“When everything ended? When Thanos murdered half the universe? He took my aunt.”

He hears Peter’s breath hitch before he continues and fights the urge to reach out in comfort, hands clenching by his sides.

“My parents died when I was a kid so my aunt and uncle raised me till he was killed by muggers, and then it was just me and her.”

There’s a long moment of silence and then—“Then it was just me.”

His eyes fall shut as grief swells within him and it tastes like copper and gags him, he swallows hard to try and push it back, deep uneven breaths until he can open his eyes and calmly speak.

“I’m sorry. It took too long to get everyone back, some people just didn’t come back, I’m sorry kid.”

Peter looks over at him finally, brow furrowed, “I don’t blame you Mr. Stark, you did everything you could. I just wish things were different,” he says with a sad little smile and Tony’s heart breaks.

“Me too kid, me too,” he murmurs, smiling just as sadly back at him.

God, how he’s wished things were different.

———————

The camper is quiet that night, the small space leaving them bumping into each other and apologizing, the awkward air growing with each minute. Eventually Tony heads outside, builds a fire and stares up at the stars overhead. Peter lingers inside for a few minutes before joining him, wrapped in a blanket and shivering, but smiling softly.

It’s so dark here they can see the Milky Way overhead, and the sight of the stars sends a shudder over his skin—it’s too easy to recall how they look up close, how cold space is, silent and empty and lonely when you’re dying.

He tears his gaze away and breaths slowly, trying to calm himself. When he looks up again Peter is watching him with a curious, knowing gaze.

“I almost starved to death in space, actually, oxygen deprivation would have gotten me first, but yea, can’t look at the stars without feeling it again.”

Peter just nods and pokes the fire with a stick, silent for the moment.

“I left Queens because I was evicted and I knew I couldn’t survive there. There’s nothing left for me there anyway,” he mutters, shadows darkening his face.

Tony bites back the urge to offer to pay for an apartment, knowing that throwing money at the kid won’t actually solve the problem—money can’t bring back the dead—and that’s what the kid needs more than money, is family.

They sit in silence until the fire burns down and he throws water on it and rakes it for a few minutes to make sure the embers die before he follows the kid into the camper. He shivers once the heat of the fire bleeds out of his skin and glances over to where Peter is curled in a ball in the sleeping bag on the opposite side of the camper.

He strips his jeans and replaces them with a soft pair of cotton pants before he crawls into his own sleeping bag, shivering as he shuts off the lantern. The fabric of the sleeping bag whispers as Peter rolls over and he can see the pale skin of his face in the gloom, staring over at him.

“Do you...”

He trails off and Tony hums, “Do I?”

“Believe in god?”

That’s a surprise—but then, given what they’ve been talking about, it isn’t.

“I dunno kid. People say Thor is a god, but he’s not, he’s just an alien with fancy technology and science we don’t understand. If there is a god, I’d sure as fuck like to know where he gets off letting Thanos destroy the universe he created.”

His voice is bitter and Peter nods, face softening with something that looks like relief. He sees the shudder that runs over the kid and counts to ten as he weighs the cost/benefit ratio of inviting the kid to come slee next to him and share body heat.

Fuck it, he decides—“C’mere kid, we’re both freezing and we don’t have to be,” he murmurs, sitting up so he can unzip his sleeping bag and wave Peter over. There’s half a moment of hesitation from the boy before he’s hurrying over with his pillow and sleeping bag, murmuring a quiet thank you.

They curl close under the warmth of the flannel lining of the sleeping bag and after a few moments Peter’s icy feet press against his shins, eliciting a sharp curse and a breathless laugh from both of them. When Peter edges away with an apology his arm shoots out to grab his hip, pulling him closer without thought.

“It’s fine kid, c’mon,” he whispers, chest tight as he tries to stay calm. Peter nods and edges back, the curve of his back pressing into Tony’s chest slowly. They both still, stiff and wary, and then Tony’s hand at his hip slides around his waist to band him against his body, every inch of them pressed together searingly hot.

“This okay?” he asks hoarsely, breath whispering out against Peter’s neck. He doesn’t miss it when the kid shivers and his stomach tightens beneath Tony’s palm—he’s unconsciously slid it beneath the sweater the kid is wearing, so it’s skin to skin and he can feel how taut his body is.

“Y-yea, s’fine,” Peter murmurs breathily, curls shifting as he adjusts his head on the pillows, a waft of his scent filling Tony’s nose. He bites back a groan and wills his cock to behave, thankful he hasn’t gotten hard—yet.

They’re both stiff and uneasy until Tony starts to fall asleep and then Peter rolls over and nuzzles into him and his hand curls in his hair, pulling him closer as he falls asleep.

——————

Peter wakes early the next morning, warm and snuggled into Tony. His thigh is hitched around Tony’s hips, and to his horror, he’s hard. Tucking his head under Tony’s chin, he takes slow, steady breaths and tries to will it away, praying Tony stays asleep so he can deal with this.

He isn’t so lucky though, because just a few minutes later Tony is waking with low, sleepy noises that only serve to make him harder. It’s not fair really; anyone would be aroused if they were in his position, pressed against Tony Stark, the object of his affection since he was seven and arguably one of the most attractive men in the world.

He’s petrified still, breathing as slow and steady as he can to fool Tony into thinking he’s still asleep. The hand at the base of his spine slides up and he loses control, shudders and whines brokenly, trying to keep it in, and failing. He can feel it when Tony stills, hand pressed to the knobs of his spine, heart beating rapidly beneath his cheek.

He wonders if Tony will say something, try and play it off, or maybe, he’ll touch him again. He wants it, badly, and then it seems like Tony’s heard his though because his hand slides down to the small of his back and then back up, but this time his nails drag over Peter’s skin and he can’t help the broken gasp that shudders out of him, nor the instinctual stutter of his hips.

Burying his face in Tony’s neck, he burns with shame and arousal until the hand at his back slides down to his hip and tightens. “‘S it feel good sweetheart?” Tony asks, voice low and hoarse and another shudder runs over him.

Nodding, he gasps against his neck wetly, “‘M sorry, it’s wrong, I didn’t mean to,” he pleas, hoping Tony won’t hate him for rutting against him like an animal in heat.

Tony hushes him softly, free hand reaching down to wrap around his thigh, the strength in his grip and the callouses on his fingers making him tremble, imagining the way they’d feel on the rest of his skin.

“Shh sweetheart, it’s okay,” Tony murmurs, his voice low and rough in Peter’s ear. “You want me to keep touching you?” he offers, and yea, Peter wants that, but he’s scared, so scared that Tony’s going to think he’s just some kid, that he’ll tire of him and leave him behind when he gets bored of him or finds someone better.

He doesn’t know what to say and now he’s frustrated and aroused and he shakes his head and presses it into Tony’s throat, breathless. “I don’t, I don’t know,” he pants, “I don’t...want you to, to see me as some kid. I don’t want you to go,” he whimpers pathetically, tears burning in his eyes.

“Hey, woah, why would I go?” Tony asks, shifting so he can stare down at Peter in confusion and concern. He lifts his hand from Peter’s thigh to cup his chin and tilt it so their gazes meet, “What’s wrong Pete?”

A tiny sob hiccups out of his chest and he clings to Tony, “Everyone goes! Everyone! I just found you—don’t go!” he begs, tears blinding him as they finally fall. Tony curses and rolls toward him, gathering him into his arms and hushing him gently.

“I’m not going anywhere kid, I promise. I’m staying with you.”

————————

They don’t talk about it.

They talk about everything else; engineering, biomechanics, the Avengers, his aunt May, which Godfather movie is the best (the second, obviously), where to get the best slice of pizza in manhattan, and on and on until they finally arrive at the south rim of the canyon, just as the sun is setting.

They climb up from the car to the overlook and watch it together, sitting in the red dust as the sky turns crimson, silently leaning into each other as Mother Nature puts on a fiery display. As the sun sets further Peter’s head falls onto Tony’s shoulder like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and maybe it is, because he enjoys the weight of it, soft scent of Peter’s hair in his nose, the way Peter sighs softly, like he’s finally happy and relaxed.

“Where do you wanna go next?” he asks softly, not wanting to break the tranquility of the moment. Peter sighs and shrugs a shoulder, breath warm on Tony’s neck.

“Wherever you’re going,” he finally answers, “I want to go with.”

Tony nods, sliding an arm around his shoulders to hold him closer, turning his chin so he can inhale the sweet scent of the boy next to him, comforting and familiar. Before he can question the action, he presses his lips to his temple and hums softly, happier than he’s been in a very long time.

———————

Weeks pass.

They spend a few days at Yellowstone, swing down and visit Yosemite, then back up to Portland, Seattle and keep going down through California wine country.

Tony pays for everything and Peter drives, and slowly, they come to know each other.

The list of things Tony knows about Peter grows and it gets easier to share his own life with the young man. He tells Peter about Howard—the abuse, the emotional manipulation and neglect, and in turn Peter tells him about watching his Uncle Ben die right in front of him.

They’ve stopped in Monterey, renting out a house that overlooks the ocean, taking a break from living on the road, sleeping in hotels and eating shitty diner food at 3am. It’s a nice break, and both men are grateful for it.

Peter stares out the wide bay windows to where Tony is on the phone with Pepper—his one time assistant and fiancé, now his....well, Peter isn’t sure exactly. Tony’s said she’s his best friend and someone he’ll always love—but where that leaves them, Peter isn’t sure.

Tony glances up and smiles at him, eyes crinkling around the edges, handsome face tanned from the sun, hair shot through with silver in places and Peter shivers, blushes, and ducks his chin.

There is this aspect to their friendship that hasn’t been addressed; how they sleep in the same bed despite it no longer being necessary. How Tony pets his hair when they’re sitting or laying together.

Most days one or both of them wakes up hard, and usually when it’s Peter, Tony holds him close and runs his hand over his back, murmuring soft sleepy words of assurance and affection till he’s coming in his boxers, untouched.

It should be weird, or awkward, but it’s not. If anything it’s comforting. He knows Tony will take care of him, and in return Peter gets to make sure Tony sleeps, eats full meals and joins him for runs and yoga. The stress lines around Tony’s mouth and eyes have disappeared in the last two weeks, and everyday he smiles more.

His hands move independently from his busy mind and when he hears the patio door open, he glances up to find Tony leaning on the bar across from him with an amused smirk on his face.

“You know you’re better with those knives than some chefs?”

Peter nods but doesn’t reply—he hasn’t told Tony yet about being Spider-Man and the advantages that come with it—namely, enhanced senses that allow him to handle weapons with ease.

“Looks good,” the older man muses and reaches out to steal a cherry tomato, a little dribble of juice turning his lips red. Peter stares at it for a moment, heat building in his stomach before he turns away and shoves the kebabs into the fridge, letting the cool air wash over him.

“How’s Pepper?” he asks, turning back around to hand Tony a sparkling water, mimicking his posture and leaning forward onto the granite of the island.

“Good, I think she’s surprised by how good she is when I’m not there to fuck everything up,” Tony says, smirking as he sips his water. Peter frowns reproachfully at him and shakes his head.

“You didn’t fuck everything up. You made mistakes, like every other human does. Even Captain America made mistakes, so don’t hold yourself to some ideal that no one can actually meet.”

Tony stares at him for a long moment and then exhales slowly, looking away as he nods. “I...thanks kid. I guess I still need to hear that every once in awhile.” He looks up in surprise when Peter’s hand covers his where it’s resting on the counter, smiling softly in return at the warm affection in Peter’s gaze.

Peter’s stomach flutters and he nods nervously, peeling his hand away from Tony’s with a sense of loss. “Are you uh hungry?” he asks, turning half toward the fridge, “Dinner is ready whenever we want.”

Tony stares at him a second and then nods, straightening with a carefully neutral smile, “Yea sure kid, let’s eat.”

—————

They eat on their little strip of beach, skewers charred from the open flames of the fire. The waves crash further down the beach and Peter sips from a glass of sparkling water, seated beside Tony in deck chairs, watching the sunset.

It’s a comfortable silence stretched between them and as the sun slips lower, Peter finds his gaze on Tony more and more. For his part, the older man doesn’t seem to mind, meeting Peter’s gaze with a warm smile and soft eyes that make his stomach flip.

He’d be lying—has tried to lie—if he said he doesn’t want Tony, but he’s not sure what Tony wants from him. He picked him up on the side of the road and taken him on an extended road trip, bought him new clothes and shoes and paid for everything he’s needed, and hasn’t once asked for anything in return except for friendship and company.

So maybe, maybe this is something he’s allowed to ask for.

Tony stands and smiles down at him, “Think I’ll head to bed, you enjoy the fire a bit, hmm?” he murmurs, and before Peter can do more than gape at him stupidly, he’s walking into the house without a glance back.

—————

Tony scrubs a hand over his face as he leans against the shower wall, picturing the look on Peter’s face when he had left him, sitting by the fire, alone.

Hurt didn’t even begin to describe it.

It killed him to do it, but he’s started to wonder if the kid even has any interest in him, because despite their continued closeness and the odd morning hard on pressed against his hip, the kid hasn’t tried anything.

Shutting off the water, he towels at his head as he walks back into the bedroom, pausing, wide eyed when he finds Peter sitting on the bed, gaze fixed on his naked body before he looks up and blushes spectacularly.

“I uh, I want you,” Peter mumbles, blushing harder as he runs a hand over his arm nervously, “Um, I don’t, do you?”

Tony stares at him dumbfounded because, yea, this is apparently happening right now, and it’s not a dream, the kid is actually looking at him with wide hopefuls eyes and a nervous smile.

He takes too long to respond because Peter shoots to his feet, head bobbing anxiously, “Right, no, of course not. I’ll uh, ok, I’ll be down the hall,” he babbles, making for the door.

Tony’s brain finally catches up and the towel slips from his fingers as he strides across the room and grabs Peter, yanking him back around and into his chest with a soft huff. He kisses him, graceless and hungry, desperate to prove how much he wants him. When he pulls back, Peter’s got a dazed expression on his face and he smiles softly, thumb caressing his jaw.

“Stay, Peter, please.”

Peter nods slowly and gazes up at him through his lashes, “Are you sure? You don’t have to do this just because I want to,” he assures Tony and it hits him then, that Peter doesn’t realize how much he likes him. So he kisses him again, deeper this time, fingers tangling in his hair as he tilts Peter’s chin so he can devour him.

“I’m sure baby, you’re all I want,” he whispers against his lips. “That good with you?”

Peter makes a strained high pitched noise and nods, “Y-yea, very good,” he agrees before surging up to kiss Tony.

They fumble back towards the bed, stripping off Peter’s clothing till they’re skin to skin and trading hot, hungry kisses. The kid moans as he bites and kisses his throat, beard leaving a burning sensation as he goes and before he gets a hand on his cock, the kid struggles away and blurts—

“I’m Spider-Man.”

————

Part two coming soon!!

@sluttystarker @starkerchemistryy @pantastic-peach @thebadthingshappen @ciel-mio @hpspazz @starker-4ever @w1nters-stark @foof-a-loof @confused-trash-kitten @panicdotexe @stqrker @honey-honey-darling @mariketa12 @itsmeryshipper @dramione90 @starker-flame @pretzelpoetry @seriouslystarker @starkerthanreality @ikneelbeforemygod @professional-fangirl75 @virgilismypoorshadowling @godlovesstarker @sapphicfreak @veronicashipsit @the-dark-obsidian-princess @ikneelbeforemygod @laughing-oreo @sensei-sans-sugoi @ruelukas22 @tom-starker @yourlittlemelody @sbiderslut @legless-fish-on-rollerskates @sw111452 @yaoi-secret-s @tomanyfandomss101 @delicateavenuenacho @the-mad-starker @sbiderslut @dreamingstoriesinoursleep @severelybitchychild @is-it-avideo @heyheyheymymemeydudes @depressedbitch5 @gypsy-witch-fangirl

[lemonsandstrawberries]

I am Iron Man

fandom: Stony (Steve x Tony), MCU

characters: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts, James Rhodey Rhodes, James Bucky Barnes, Peter Parker

summary: When Tony used the Iron Gauntlet and erased Thanos and his troops, Steve thought he would have to watch his boyfriend die. Thanks to quick thinking of their team, Tony got a chance to live and the healing process starts.

length: 3 781

warnings: MAJOR AVENGERS ENDGAME SPOILERS

a/n: this is my last fic from the ones I planned to write after Endgame. the happy ending. totally self-indulgent and from a Stony shipper point of view! also, it doesn’t have to make sense if it makes me feel better. hopefully, it will make you feel better too!

——————–

I am Iron Man

He was looking at it, but he couldn't believe it. Alien troops fading away and turning into dust, just in front of his eyes. In the middle of it all, he saw Thanos taking his last breath, before he turned into nothing, vanishing from the face of the Earth.

They did it. They won. How did they win?

And then Steve saw how.

Tony. In the midst of a broken world, among dust that was left of the compound, his back leaned against some rubble, supporting him. Right hand covered up to the elbow with gold and infinity stones shining on knuckles, above from that dark and charred, black marks stretching all up to his face, covering half of it. Tony's gaze was unfocused and his breath was so shallow, it was almost gone.

Tony did it. He did the snap and defeated Thanos and his army. They won.

And yet...

Tony was dying. His Tony was dying.

The whole world around Steve slowed down, draining out of color and sound, eyes focused on his boyfriend's almost lifeless form.  

Tony was dying. His Tony was dying.

He couldn't move, his body not listening to him. His whole body felt heavy and there was a painful silence ringing in his ears, stretching and consuming everything.

Tony was dying. His Tony was dying.

Rhodey was the first one to get to Tony. He opened his faceplate and leaned over his best friend, reaching to him, eyes wide and terrified.

Tony was going to die.

Steve couldn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it. The weight of grief and pain smothered him, his knees buckled and Steve fell, digging his hands into the dry ground, hot tears blurring his vision and falling down.

Tony was going to die. His Tony was going to die.

It wasn't supposed to end like this.

It won't end like this.

A bullet of fire and energy cut the air. Steve raised his head, watching Captain Marvel landing between Tony and Rhodey. Rhodey said something, gesturing to Tony and the glove, and Carol leaned down. Something snapped, just like a piece of wood snaps in two, dry and loud. Then a metal clank when the Iron Glove with infinity stones was thrown away, landing few feet in front of Steve, discarded like something toxic. Steve looked at the stones and gold, eyes wide and not understanding. There was another person flying past him and he recognized the silver and blue armor, belonging to Pepper. Carol and Rhodey moved aside when Pepper stopped, her hand reaching to Tony, a thick, foamy substance Steve had seen before spraying from her fingers and coating Tony's right side with a shell resembling frost. Tony's mouth moved, faint and weak, but Steve read the words.

'Hi Pep.'

Tony wasn't dying.

He was alive. Barely, but alive.

They still had a chance.

Feeling new energy coursing through him, Steve got back on his feet. He pushed his emotions aside and acted on instinct, falling back into the line of command. Time was crucial and they had to act quickly.

"Queens!" Steve called in a strong voice when Spider-man tried to make his way past him. The teenager stopped, hearing the call. "Go and find the wizard! Bring him here!"

"But- but Mr. Stark-" Peter hesitated in a broken voice, face pale and dirty and with droplets of dried blood near his nose and mouth. He kept looking away, torn what to do and just desperately needing to get to Tony.

"Go!" Steve yelled. There was no pleading note in his voice, just a rough, cold command. The kid was smart, he would understand. Peter took a last glance at Tony and turned around, searching and calling for Doctor Strange.

"Sam?" Steve put a hand to his ear, relieved to find that he still had the communication device on himself. "Sam, if you can hear me, find T'Challa or Shuri, we need to get Tony to Wakanda, now," he gave more orders. He didn't get an answer and his eyes scanned the battlefield looking for anyone he could turn to when the device crackled.

"Copy that," Sam said, cutting the connection.

They had a chance. There still was a chance.

Steve rushed forward, giving coordinates where Tony was, trying to organize everything as quickly and smoothly as possible.

Tony was not going to die. His Tony was not going to die.

***

It was taking forever. Why it was taking so long?

Steve couldn't find his place. He was pacing back and forth along the corridor, his shoulders squared and jaw tight with worry. Pepper and Rhodey were sitting in the corner on the couch, their thighs touching, Rhodey's arm slung over Pepper's back. They were silent and exhausted and worried. Steve looked around. Peter curled on the chair, holding knees close to himself, trying not to break. Bruce, Thor, and Clint remained silent, avoiding everyone's gaze. Even Nebula stayed, leaned against the wall with arms crossed and closed eyes, waiting for news.

The door to the surgery room opened and a female doctor approached them, everyone focusing on her.

"We couldn't save his arm," she said in a thick, Wakandan accent, "but he will live."

Everyone breathed out in relief, but it was Peter who uncurled and yelled out in excitement, getting a scolding look from the doctor and amused ones from the team. Pepper started to smile through her tears and Rhodey hugged her close, not even trying to hold back his own emotions, laughter mixing with sobbing. Steve felt a huge boulder lifting off his arms and the painful grip on his lungs and throat loosening.

Tony would live.

***

"I am sorry about your arm, Tony," Helen said, busying next to Tony's bed, examining his damaged right side. His arm had to be amputated at the shoulder and the damage from using the gauntlet spread all over to his face, leaving a network of scars and damaged tissue. Helen gently examined Tony's face, looking at his jawline and temple area. "After all this radiation exposure, you are still lucky the nerves on your face are intact."

"Yup. Lucky," Tony repeated, nodding to the words. It took days before he got well enough to do basic activities and still was on bed rest, confined to a small and bright room in the medical sector in Wakanda. His tone was light and optimistic and he even smiled at Steve, trying to lighten the mood and not deepen the frown on soldier's face. Steve tried to not look so worried, but it was difficult when he saw the dark network of scars on his boyfriend's body, not even imagining the pain Tony had to endure when he had slid the gauntlet on his arm. He tried smiling back and to match Tony's smile, but it came out as strained and forced and not genuine at all.

"Drink this," Rhodey handed Tony a green smoothie, some special blend of herbs and nutrients to nourish him and help to clear his blood. Tony took it with his left arm and sipped through a straw, not even protesting at the earthy taste. Pepper was also in the room, changing the display of flowers and balloons and 'get well soon' cards that were flooding to Wakanda from all over the world. Iron Man, Earth's best defender. Steve liked that title much more from the famous 'genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist' that stuck to Tony for years.

"I think we can fix this," Helen said, creasing her forehead before smiling and gesturing to the damaged half of Tony’s face and Steve looked hopefully at her. "It will take a long time and a number of sessions in the cradle,  but I think we can get a good result with synthetic tissue."

Tony didn't say anything and quietly finished the smoothie. When he was done, he pushed the straw out with his tongue and turned to Helen. "Yeah, great. Maybe except that, let's not do it?" he asked, his voice waving at the last words. The room fell silent and Steve looked in shock at Tony, Pepper, and Rhodey pausing their work.

"Tony, what are you talking about?" Rhodey was the first one to break the silence. Maybe it was the painkillers speaking and Tony was just dazed and not thinking clearly.

"I am thinking that this," he said, using his left hand to point at the scars on his face, "is not lethal. It is not spreading and is under control. Improving this would be just for cosmetic reasons."

Steve stared at Tony is silence. The whole room was silent, and Pepper and Rhodey exchanged worried looks.

"Road accidents. Acid. Burning," Tony listed, not addressing anyone in particular, more of having a conversation with himself. "It all happens all over the world, all the time. And people have to live with it," he touched the damaged skin on his cheek. "Why I should be the one privileged asshole who can get healed while millions of people can't?" he asked, not really waiting for anyone to answer and let the question hang in the air. Then, he turned to Helen. "Your cradle is amazing and will revolutionize the medical industry. Please keep working on it and once it will be available to the public, I will sign in line. And until that happens," he faced Steve on his left, "you will have to get used to me looking like this," he said, sounding minimally sorry and a whole lot sarcastic.

It was the first time Steve had smiled for real in many, many days.

***

Thanks to T'Challa's hospitality, Tony and Steve stayed in Wakanda until the clearing after the battle and rebuilding of the new Avengers compound had been finished. Tony kept healing under the watchful eye of Wakanda's medics and kept working on projects, forming a bond with Shuri and welcomed to used her lab for the time being. Steve trained and sketched and organized a new life for the Avengers and for himself and Tony. The Guardians and Thor left to space, Doctor Strange and Wong retreated to Sanctum Sanctorum and Peter resumed his education, attending school once more like a regular teenager and swinging by the compound whenever he had a chance to visit Tony. Sam went back to VA, and Steve helped him during lectures from time to time, while Bucky enrolled in the group. Soon, Pepper shared the news that she and Happy were expecting and awaiting the birth of their firstborn, Tony calling dibs on being the godfather and Pepper accepted it with a smile, not seeing a different possibility. Slowly, everything went back to normal, the missing pieces falling back in their places.

"You know," Tony yawned, spread comfortably on the couch in the new compound, his missing arm hidden under a black shirt, "if they would put us together, one healthy dude would come out of it," he said, gesturing with his left hand between himself, Rhodey and Bucky.

Steve looked at Tony with a confused expression on his face, the same look mirrored on their friends' faces.

"He would have two pairs of legs, Tony," Rhodey said calmly, closing the fridge and holding a plate with a sandwich on it.

"Kinda like a human centaur," Tony mused out, nodding to himself.

"That is not a thing," Rhodey answered and grinned at Steve, catching his shocked expression. Tony was still on a high dose of painkillers and did tend to say the most random things from time to time.

"Hey, you, one armed bandit!" Tony called, sitting up on the couch. Bucky turned to him, eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Come here for a sec, I want to look at that arm Shuri made for you," he said, calling Bucky over.

"It is your arm that is missing, not your legs, come here on your own, Two-Face," Bucky retorted, and Steve gagged in panic, trying to scold Bucky solely with a look. Bucky only shrugged, not remorseful at all.

Tony seemed more amused than insulted and turned to Rhodey, hungry eyes focusing on the sandwich before flipping up to his friend. "Sandwich me, Rhodes," Tony said, sounding as flirty and dirty as he just intended to.

Rhodey grimaced, because no, painkillers or not, this just sounded wrong. "Get your own sandwich, Tony," Rhodey replied before Steve had the chance to jump in and offer to make a sandwich for his boyfriend.

"Un-freaking-believable," Tony said, raising his one arm up in a dramatic gesture, that admittedly looked a lot less dramatic. "How many times do I have to almost die for this planet to get some respect around here, not mentioning getting a sandwich-"

"Okay, okay!" Rhodey went back to the kitchen isle, opening the fridge and taking out some deli meat, cheese and mayo, putting it all on a slice of rye bread.

"Don't forget the pickles," Tony called, smiling sweetly when Rhodey send him a sour look.  With two plates with sandwiches on, Rhodey walked to the couch, handing Tony one of them.

"Thanks!" Tony beamed a smile and grabbed the sandwich, standing up from the couch and walking away, Rhodey looking after him with a scoff. Tony made it over to Bucky and set next to him instead, too close and not having any issues with barging into Bucky's personal space. He put the sandwich in his mouth and used his free hand to urge the former soldier to put his bionic arm closer for inspection.

Steve put the end of the pencil to his lips and chewed it in thoughts, watching everyone in the room. Rhodey took Tony's place on the couch and bit into the sandwich, while Tony ran his hand delicately over the vibranium lines in Bucky's bionic arm, asking questions in a sandwich obscured hum, Bucky answering the best he could, trying to decipher the words. Steve kept looking in Tony's and Bucky's direction, his heart happy with seeing his boyfriend and best friend being on speaking terms. Still, he would prefer if Bucky was nicer to Tony, who still was in a delicate state and was recovering. Then he realized that Tony would absolutely hate if someone took pity on him and maybe sarcasm responding to sarcasm what was he needed, and not doting over.

***

In front of the team, Tony was coping remarkably well with a missing arm and scarred face. Just sometimes there were situations that gave him more troubles.

Steve heard a thud, when something heavy fell into the sink, a curse following. He waited for another sound and soon heard another thud.

"Babe?" he called in the direction of the adjoined bathroom. "You okay?" he asked, deciding to stay in bed for the time being.

"M'fine…"

Somehow Tony didn't sound fine. It was hard for Steve to accept, but he had to learn to not barge in whenever he suspected that Tony had troubles with everyday tasks. Tony was still capable of taking care of himself and rarely asked for help, unless it was absolutely necessary. Just something in the tone of his voice told Steve that he could use some help... Throwing the covers away, Steve got out of the bed and peered into the bathroom, leaning over the door frame. Tony was turned away from him and saw Steve in the mirror and smiled weakly. In his left hand, he was holding an electric shaver.

"I have some troubles," Tony admitted in a defeated sigh.

Steve clicked his tongue sympathetically, entering the bathroom. No matter the circumstances, Tony Stark had to keep his trademark goatee impeccable. In the last days, Tony had become nicely scruffed and rough, but it was time to get back to his usual look. Just it turned out to be more difficult than he expected.

"Can I do it?" Steve asked, holding Tony by the chin and examining his face. He didn't want it to sound like he was suggesting that Tony couldn't shave on his own. Steve felt that he needed that moment of closeness too. Just to feel connected to Tony again.

"Yeah," Tony agreed, handing him the electric shaver. Steve took it and put away on the shelf.

"Let's do it the traditional way," he smiled gently at his boyfriend, reaching for a disposable razor and his shaving soap in a ceramic bowl.

"You won't get a sharp cut using that thing," Tony grimaced.

"Try me," Steve kept smiling, almost challenging. How Tony could say no to that?

Tony watched Steve dipping the shaving brush into water and shaking it to get some of the excess water off. Then he rubbed the brush in a circular motion over the soap, creating some paste on the tips.

"Give me your hand," Steve asked and Tony reached his hand out, palm upwards. Dropping a few more droplets of water on his skin, Steve pressed the brush in the middle of the palm and swirled it around until the foam became dense and heavy, almost like whipped cream. With long strokes of fingers, Steve applied the foam over brunet’s jaw and neck and anywhere his face became too scruffy. Tony closed his eyes when the razor slid down his skin, getting the hair off and shaping his beard and mustache. Quiet, clinking sound when Steve rinsed the razor in a bowl of clean water from time to time, resuming the process. Steve took his time, trying his best to recall the shape of Tony's goatee. Tony was leaning into his touch, not wincing even once, putting all his trust in Steve and Steve felt a serene, full of love feeling taking over him. It was so domestic and comforting. When Steve was satisfied with the result, he used a damp towel to wipe his boyfriend’s face clean and patted it dry.

"All done," Steve said proudly. Tony opened his eyes and looked into the mirror.

"Huh," he mused out touching his smooth cheek and jawline. Steve even remembered to leave a thin strip of facial hair there, just like he liked it. "Looks good," he smiled at his reflection, turning around. "Thanks."

"Welcome, babe," Steve smiled, leaning down for a kiss. It wasn't aimed at any spot in particular, but Tony still turned, making sure that it would fall on the left side of his face. When Steve kissed his cheek and straightened up, he looked admittedly a little irritated and a lot heartbroken.

"Sweetheart, you know I don't mind it," Steve whispered, meaning Tony's scarred face and neck. Steve really didn't care. Tony seemed to not care either, just in their intimate moments he seemed a bit more self-conscious.

"I know, I know," Tony grimaced, looking back at Steve, a sorry look in his eyes, "I am just not ready yet," he admitted in a quiet voice.

"Okay," Steve smiled softly, agreeing. "I will wait for you to be ready."

After all, there was no rush.

***

"Tony, lunch is ready, we all are waiting for you -" words got stuck in Steve's throat as soon as he entered Tony's workshop and saw his boyfriend. It seemed almost wrong, after months of living and getting used to one-armed Tony, here he was, standing in front of Steve, one arm flesh and bones, other shiny metal.

Tony smiled brightly, pleased with the stunned reaction. He moved his right arm and spread fingers and closed his fist a few times, showing that he had full control over it. "It is enhanced with vibranium," Tony said and Steve remembered the long talks his boyfriend had with the princess back in Wakanda. "Shuri helped. She gave me the blueprints for Bucky's arm so I went through the design, creating something new. Took a few tries before I was satisfied with the result."

Steve walked closer. He was still in awe and looked at the artificial limb attached to his boyfriend, completely stunned.

"So, I think this is what I will be doing in the nearest future. Creating prosthetic limbs. Of course, not vibranium for safety reasons and not as flashy as this one, or maybe flashy, all depends on the wearer-"

"It is amazing," Steve said breathlessly, wanting to touch it, but not daring to. Luckily, Tony understood the need and reached his prosthetic arm in Steve's direction, making the move slow enough to give him time to move away, if he changed his mind. Steve didn't budge and Tony rested the mechanical palm against his cheek, fingers touching his ear. It felt hard and smooth, but not unpleasant.

"It is warm," Steve said, not expecting that.

"It is temperature controlled. It is set to match my body temperature, but I can make it hotter or colder, up to a point where it can change into a weapon," Tony explained.

Steve put his hand on the artificial wrist and slid his hand down, cupping the elbow. It was smooth and flawless, its dimensions matching Tony's left arm perfectly.

Just…

"Is this your everyday arm?" Steve asked carefully, unsure if he worded himself correctly. The prosthetic was hot red almost up to the elbow, inner arm was gold and the part near Tony's tank top was red again. Almost like in Mark 3. Iron Man classic armor.

"Yeah," Tony laughed, "because I am -"

"Iron Man," Steve finished, smiling with joy. "You are Iron Man."

"I am Iron Man," Tony confirmed a proud note hearable in his voice, before it was gone, replaced by hesitation, "but I was thinking that maybe for a while I could not be Iron Man and you could not be Captain America? That maybe we could settle somewhere calm, maybe in a secluded house near a lake or something-"

And Tony didn't finish, Steve already pulling him into a kiss. He was carried on the moment and cupped Tony's face with both hands, lips meeting long and sweet. When he drew away, his gaze was soft and full of love, but the look was quickly gone when he realized where his hands were.

“Shit, sorry-” Steve said quickly, withdrawing from the touch. To his surprise, Tony stopped him and held his hands in place with his own hands, one palm pressed to healthy skin held by a warm hand, the other to his scarred cheek and ear held by the prosthetic arm. It was a new feeling and a bit confusing, but Steve focused on Tony’s brown eyes and soft lips instead. After all, it was still Tony. His Tony.

"So, that's a yes to my idea, right?" Tony asked after the kiss ended, just to be sure.

Steve only smiled and kissed him once more, whispering 'yes' over and over again.

[mst3kproject]

Tarantulas: the Deadly Cargo

 I tend to associate this movie with Killer Fish – probably because I originally watched them on consecutive days, but they’ve got many other things in common.  Both feature dull 70’s actors facing off against small animals that aren’t nearly as dangerous as pop culture would have us believe.  Both go out of their way to avoid showing us anything genuinely exciting or cool.  Both have boring, contrived climaxes, and both have titles that are technically accurate but dismally forgettable.  If this one had dropped the Tarantulas and just called itself Deadly Cargo, that would be ten times better already.

A couple of crooks fly out of Ecuador with no idea that their cargo of coffee beans and illegal immigrants is, for some reason I cannot even begin to fathom, infested with spiders.  A bad engine and the aggressive spiders lead to a crash landing in Finleyville, California.  This is a sleepy little hick town that depends on the citrus industry, and they clearly haven’t had an emergency in about twelve years but they do their best to rise to the occasion.  Unfortunately, their attempts to help only unleash the deadly arachnids on their community.  Eventually, the townspeople find that the spiders have made themselves at home in the town’s fruit warehouse.  If they cannot be somehow removed, the oranges will be unsalable, and Finleyville will go broke without a crop.

No shit.  The greatest threat presented by the spiders in this movie is to the town’s economy.  I don’t know why I find that so funny.  Most spider movies present us with the horror of a slow venom death, often while playing up the omg, it’s touching me! angle. Giant spider movies give us huge monsters that can entangle and devour us. Tarantulas: the Deadly Cargo threatens that not only might we be bitten by spiders, we won’t be able to afford health insurance afterwards!

The economic angle is the key to what this movie is.  It’s trying to be something, and the first time I watched it, I wasn’t paying enough attention to pick it out.  On the second viewing, when the owner of the orange-packing plant refuses to shut down operations because of a few spiders, it clicked – this was a Jaws ripoff!  It’s got the shark and the Fourth of July Weekend and the whole thing!  There’s even a Little Alex Kitner, in the form of a kid who climbs a truck to see one of the spiders after the driver assures him it’s perfectly harmless.  Deadly Cargo has changed enough details that it could have been an interesting variation on this formula, but by the time the movie’s over its choice of shark stand-in has pushed it into a couple of corners it just can’t get out of.

I’ll come back to that – first, it’s Spider Nerd time again, and I actually do have to give Deadly Cargo some points for research.  Characters present a dead spider to some sort of scientist, who identifies it as a Brazilian Wandering Spider, Phoneutria nigriventer.  This species can be dangerous to humans, but usually only to small children, and they’re one of the few spiders capable of delivering a ‘dry’ bite that’s intended to scare rather than to kill. They’re sometimes called banana spiders because of a reputation for hanging out in shipments of fruit, but I don’t think they’ve ever been found hiding in coffee beans.  Why would a spider hide in coffee beans?  Spiders like small spaces to crawl into, such as those you find in between bunches of bananas or oranges in a box.  Coffee beans are too small to create spider-sized hidey holes!

The Nondescript Scientist also notes that Phoneutria isn’t a tarantula – another reason why the word Tarantulas should not have been in the title.  It also got a snort out of me because almost all the spiders we see in this movie are in fact Mexican Red-Knee Tarantulas (there are also a couple of Chilean Rose-Hairs).  These are the same spiders we saw in Ator: the Fighting Eagle, and are the spiders of choice for horror movies because they are docile, easy to handle, and don’t bite.  So yeah, if you ever actually see one of these in real life, you can just push it the hell over.

As long as I’m talking about the spiders in this movie, I’d like to know how they got into town so fast.  One minute the spiders are at the crash site in the middle of empty fields, the next they’re harassing the faculty at the School for Autistic Children (are you already cringing?  Wait until you see the kids marching in lockstep to an obnoxious whistle).  Spiders move at like one mile per hour.  Did the plane explosion just spray them across the entire state?

Plane explosion?  Yeah, of course there’s a plane explosion in this movie, and it’s fucking annoying because they came so close to not having one. After the crash the plane develops a fuel leak – but the town’s fire chief immediately notices it, and directs people to dig a trench the fuel can flow into so it won’t pool.  He goes around making sure nobody lights a cigarette or anything, and for a moment I really thought this might be a movie in which common sense prevails… but then some jackass on a motorcycle drives straight into the trench.  Seeing a giant fireball in a movie has never left me more disappointed.

I have digressed, though.  Let’s talk about the climax of the movie, which is one of the places where it most strongly resembles Killer Fish.  Killer Fish had the whole cast trapped with piranhas all around their boat.  Tarantulas: the Deadly Cargo has them all in a warehouse full of spiders, as a power outage simultaneously shuts down the noise that had paralyzed the creatures and locks the doors.

This situation is so forced that it probably requires more explanation.  The spiders must be removed from the oranges so that they can be shipped, but the townspeople cannot just spray the fruit with insecticides, because their buyer specifically paid for chemical-free (somebody does try to argue that he didn’t pay for spider-free, which amuses me more than it should).  Therefore they paralyze the spiders with the sound of angry wasps and go around shoveling them into buckets of booze.

Like Banana Spiders, Spider-Wasps are actually a thing – the family pompilidae lay their eggs inside living spiders so that the larvae will hatch surrounded by something they can eat.  What I can’t find when I looked these up is any reference to the spiders being paralyzed by terror when they hear the wasps coming.  This seems pretty counter-productive from the spiders’ point of view – if you hear your deadliest enemy closing in on your, wouldn’t it be far more effective to run and hide, rather than roll over and present your belly to be ovipositored?

So that’s all ridiculous, and then we don’t even get a real sense of anybody ‘winning’ at the end.  The supposed moment of triumph isn’t the spiders being out of the oranges, it’s the trapped people escaping through the roof.  In Killer Fish the piranhas ate the human villain and Kate escaped with the jewels. Deadly Cargo doesn’t have a human villain – the greedy plant owner looks like he might be able to fill this role, but no, he’s later treated as vindicated when they almost lose the orange crop!  This means the only ‘bad guys’ here are the spiders, and dropping their helplessly paralyzed bodies into poison just doesn’t feel like a victory. Neither does watching boxes of oranges go out on a train.  It’s just lacking something.

It doesn’t help that the end of both movies also just leaves the killer animal problem lying there.  In Killer Fish the whole area is still infested with piranhas – what does that mean for the tourism industry?  Is there any way to get rid of them?  In Deadly Cargo we can’t possibly be a hundred percent sure all the spiders are gone. Some might still be hanging around in somebody’s fruit bowl.  Someone in another part of the country might find a hairy leg in their organic marmalade. We never knew how many spiders there were, so we can’t be sure they’re all gone and not out invading ecosystems where they have no natural predators.

Another big part of why Deadly Cargo is so unsatisfying is not only does it lack a villain, the good characters are never well-defined enough for us to really identify with any of them.  There’s a young couple and a fire chief and the plant owner, but I can’t remember any of their names.  The only people we get a sense of are the spider victims, who are introduced just enough to tell us that they either deserved to die (Mrs. Beasley, cheating on her husband) or didn’t (Little Alex Kitner).  We can’t even feel for the girl weeping over her dead brother.

There’s a heap of other silly bullshit in this movie. Like the guy who opens a trapdoor in the ceiling and then just stands there screaming like an idiot as three or four spiders fall on him – a shot that probably looked way cooler in the director’s imagination.  Or the straight-faced implication that the spiders could sense the warehouse full of oranges from four miles away and headed directly for it.  Most of this is just mildly amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny.  I’m sure Jonah and the bots could make a diverting episode out of this, but I don’t know if even they could make a memorable one.

[12freddofrogs]

Gotham Crusaders - A Batfamily TV Show

I am currently writing a surprisingly long description of how the Batfam could potentially be adapted into a TV show. It’s on Ao3 here, and includes detailed character arcs, dialogue, fight scenes, jokes, and emotional moments.

Particularly in Chapter/Season Four, an extract of which you will find below. This is Tim’s Robin era part two, aka the Under the Red Hood season. Season Four involves a heavy focus on both plot and characterisation, with fun family crisises for everybody. 

Episodes include the new crimelord Red Hood making a name for himself in Gotham; a cupcake selfie that leads to broken bones; Steph’s brief run as Robin; Jack Drake making an effort to be a better father that he doesn’t necessarily succeed at; why rogues should not leave hackable robot armies in the open; and a mixture of heart-warming and heart-breaking moments in quick succession. And two people get hit with a crowbar, only one of whom deserved it.

Read it on Ao3 here.

Chapter one here

Season Four, Episode One - Worst Nightmare 

Batman and Robin have a case.

Scarecrow is planning something.

His research discovered a promising new strain of fear gas. A delayed reaction.

Unfortunately, he needs money to create this new-and-improved fear toxin.

So Scarecrow robs a place.

A bank is traditional, if cliché, and doing it in the middle of the day almost guarantees no Bat presence.

It works.

He escapes fairly easily, leaving a cannister of fear gas behind him for the police to hesitate over.

There’s a storm growing as Batman, Robin, and Spoiler go deal with Scarecrow.

They track him to a new lair, dark and creepy and with the appropriate weather outside for dealing with the Master of Fear.

As fitting the theme, they split up to search for clues.

Meanwhile, Dick and Cass are at the manor for a more domestic situation: teaching Cass how to bake cookies.

It’s a much lighter B-plot with very little screentime. For them the storm outside makes the warm kitchen seem cosy.

 The biggest conflict is convincing Cass that the white powders of flour/salt/baking powder/sugar aren’t interchangeable.

Dick teaches her to lick the spoon and Alfred’s lesson is further derailed.

Across the city, Robin triggers one of Scarecrow’s boobytraps.

He realises a gas is being let into the room almost immediately, has his rebreather clutched to his face within moments.

 When he doesn’t react he assumes he was fast enough.

He reassures the concerns over their comms he’s fine, his yelp was just being startled.

Spoiler is the first to find Scarecrow.

 He’s working in his lab, mixing together chemicals.

When she arrives, he throws the half-finished concoction in her face.

She’s doubles over, choking, as Scarecrow grabs his mask and pushes past her. He picks up several vials on the way out.

The gas that hit Spoiler was incomplete and not designed for an instant effect. Together, those facts mean she has a comparatively minor response.

She’s nervous, she’s jittery, she’s hallucinating her memories lucid.

A young Steph, maybe seven, peeks out around the door.

 “You have to run,” tiny Steph says.

“I… what? Why?”

“Dad’s not happy with us.”

Spoiler flinches, but stands up. Her knees are shaky as she grips the table. “Well, I’m not happy with him, either. I’m not afraid of Da — wait. Dad isn’t here.”

Her tiny self has vanished.

As has Scarecrow. And Spoiler is left disorientated and afraid.

Batman finds Scarecrow’s research.

He learns what the audience already knows, that Scarecrow wanted to create a time-delay.

He also finds a collection of syringes labelled ‘antidote’.

 He destroys the research, keeping a sample of the fear gas.

Meanwhile, Robin is starting to react.

A rumble of thunder make him jump, needing to bite his hand to stop himself from screaming.

He’s increasingly frightened of the world around him.

For a moment he sees spiders crawling along his arms. Robin frantically starts to swipe, but they disappear before he touches them.

“Spoiler, Robin.” The communicators crackle. “I discovered what Scarecrow’s working on. It’s a design that means that if you’re hit, you won’t start showing symptoms for almost an hour.”

“Really?” Robin asks, his breathing coming quick. “That could… that could explain it.”

“Are you implying the trap you set off is impacting you?”

Robin closes his eyes tight, trying not to look at the shadows reaching for his legs. They vanish when he ignores them. “Yep.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m…” He turns around. The walls start to drip blood. “I… don’t know. Batman, I’m scared.”

“Just remember it’s not real. Spoiler, stay where you are. You got dosed too, and it could come back any minute. I’ll find both of you.”

There’s another crack of lightning.

The power goes out. Robin flees into the nearest room.

His panic is not helped by finding Scarecrow.

“Oh, Boy Wonder. Good.” Jonathan Crane isn’t wearing his mask, is merely sitting on the table. “I was hoping to see the effects of my new toxin. You were sprayed forty-five minutes ago, was it?” He pulls a notebook and a pen from his labcoat.

“Are you real?” Robin asks, hating the tremor in his voice.

“Now that’s a promising reaction.”

Behind the scientist is a swirling mass of bats. Robin ducks as they fly overhead and shatter like glass when they hit the wall, shards showering to the ground.

Scarecrow laughs.

“Okay, okay.” Robin gets to his feet again unsteadily, pointing his staff at Scarecrow. “I’m going to go with the theory you’re real. That or I’m about to punch a hallucination in the face. Either works.”

“You’re not in any condition to fight anyone.” Scarecrow picks up a bladed sickle from the desk.

The audience is watching from Robin’s perspective as the sickle shifts, grows bigger with another hundred attachments and blades appearing, before snapping back to a simple blade. Robin shakes his head.

The fight is told almost entirely from Robin’s perspective, high on fear gas.

The full effect hasn’t totally reached him yet. He’s still aware of most of what’s going on, knows that it’s not real. He’s able to fight off the hallucinations with a little effort, but he can’t afford the distractions.

He dodges Scarecrow, and has to jump to avoid Bane. At which point he twists around, confused, and Bane’s gone again.

He jumps to the side of the blade, a perfect somersault away, and springs into a crouch.

He falters when he notices a corpse in a similar costume with different colouring lying beside him. Jason Todd, face greyed out and starting to rot behind the mask.

For a long moment he stares at his predecessor’s body, before the second Robin sits up and lunges at him.

Robin scrambles away. He closes his eyes for a moment and the image of Jason vanishes, to be replaced with Joker, crowbar in hand and Harley Quinn on his arm.

There are shadows moving on the wall, silhouettes of thugs creeping towards him, and the floor is cracking into pieces. Lightning flashes again.

“Not real, it’s not real, it’s not real.” Robin closes his eyes.

When he opens them, everyone is gone — including Scarecrow. The lights have switched back on.

Tim stands up slowly, looking around suspiciously. Even the storm has vanished. “This can’t be real.”

 As he says it, the edges of the room start to blur, fading into white. The blankness spreads fast until Tim is standing in an empty expanse of nothing, just him in the world.

“No, no, no, this isn’t real.” He sinks to his knees. “This can’t be real don’t leave me alone don’t leave me—”

The audience’s view changes back to reality.

The room goes back to being darkened, night-time in a storm. Robin is still curled up on the ground, begging for someone to find him.

“Fascinating.” Scarecrow takes the time to put down his scythe. He writes down notes about Robin’s condition, before lifting the blade again.

Batman, always one to arrive at the last moment, breaks into the room.

Within moments Scarecrow is defeated.

Crane might be a formidable opponent against a heavily drugged teenager, but a clear-headed Batman is out of his league.

Batman shoves him against the wall. “Explain. Now.” He holds one of the ‘antidote’ needles in front of Scarecrow’s face.

“Surely you understand how to read, Batm—ow, ow, ow!” Crane winces as he’s pushed harder.

“Will it work on whatever you hit Robin with?”

“Yes, yes, those are the ones designed for this formula.”

“If you’re lying, I will break every one of your bones piece by piece,” Batman warns, letting Scarecrow slide to the ground. “Don’t move.”

He kneels in front of Robin, who doesn’t seem to comprehend what’s in front of him. It does mean he doesn’t fight when Batman lifts his arm and injects the syringe into his skin.

Camera switches back to Robin’s perspective as the white blankness starts to implode. He blinks, frowns up at his mentor. “Batman?”

“Robin. Can you walk?”

Robin blinks again, looking sick. Batman helps him to his feet.

They leave Scarecrow handcuffed for the police.

Spoiler is still sitting in the room.

Her younger self has come back, and they’re discussing life.

“Do you know we’re doing here?” Spoiler asks. Tiny Steph shakes her head. “We’re here to fight the Scarecrow. With Batman. And Robin. We’re here to help people.”

“We can’t even help ourself,” tiny Steph murmurs.

“Sure we can.” Spoilers smiles at her. “It gets better once you get bigger.”

Their conversation is a calmer hallucination than anything Tim had to deal with. It’s also a way of delving into Spoiler’s psyche with the literal embodiment of her fears in the room.

“When I get bigger?” tiny Steph repeats. “You mean, when I grow up like you? Don’t make me laugh. You think you’re a hero? You think you can make a difference in Gotham? You’re nothing.” Tiny Steph leans forwards, her baby teeth bared. “You’re going to get yourself killed and no-one is going to mourn you.”

Spoiler blanches.

The door opens and Batman is there, still supporting Robin.

The hallucination vanishes.

“Spoiler. Let’s go.”

 He tells her that he has got an antidote, but since not even Scarecrow knows what she was doused with he doesn’t want to use it on her without further testing. Spoiler agrees to the wait, a little reluctantly, but her hallucination remains gone.

Robin is already picking up a sample from the dropped glass.

They all return to the Cave.

Bruce has Tim and Steph thoroughly tested and given antidotes.

Cass comes downstairs with a plate of fresh cookies.

Steph and Tim try them, not noticing Dick frantically shaking his head, and nearly choke.

Despite Alfred’s best efforts, she had mixed up certain white powders — one teaspoon of sugar and a full cup of baking powder.

Alfred’s cookies, however, do wonders for helping them recover from the last of the fear gas.

The night finishes kind of cheerfully, with everyone joking and eating cookies and making a valiant-if-pointless attempt to sneak Cassandra Cain’s baking into the bin without her noticing.

Entire Fic Here

Season One Episode Here: In which Dick Grayson, 17-year-old ward of billionaire Bruce Wayne, gets kidnapped. He is very bored.

Season Two Episode Here: In which Robin!Jason trades himself for a hostage, proceeds to spend the subsequent car chase taunting Two-Face as much as he can.

Season Three Episode Here: in which Gotham high school suffers from a musical episode. Tim really wishes Dick would stop laughing.

[lockyle-and-skull]

Oblivious George

Lockyle fic

I posted this on AO3 but decided to put it on here too

Description: A one-shot for Lockwood and Co, focusing on Lockyle. I tried for some humor but idk if it came through. Basically just a typical day at Lockwood and Co and KIPPS PUT DOWN THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER!

aka Lockwood and Lucy have been dating for a while and George finds out only after they’re engaged because of a certain Relic-woman taking up all his time, and when he finally does find out a lot of shit goes down.

The first time I noticed the new weight on my hand, it was when we were fighting a particularly humorous shifter. This Visitor, whether consciously or not, was taking the shape of three animals at once. Currently, it had the head of a lion, the belly of a hippo, and the legs of a kangaroo.

     “Liohipparoo!” A disembodied voice came from my rucksack.

    That would be the skull. As opposed to giving advice, as was requested by both Lockwood and myself on multiple occasions, it instead opted to provide a great number of sarcastic comments and ridiculous names for the creatures the shifter changed into.

    After throwing an annoyed glance in its general direction, I returned my attention to the ghost and the nuisance on my finger. The item in question was a large silver ring with a square emerald in the center, surrounded by writing that had long since worn away as to now be illegible. Lockwood had said his parents brought it home after their trip to Peru, and estimated it to be over 200 years old. He had given it to me the night before, having finally asked for my hand after two months of dating (or an agent’s equivalent of it). This was my first case as his fiancé, and the ring made my grip looser and kept digging into my finger, and was heavy enough that, after nearly an hour of playing cat and mouse with a Visitor, my blade was slowing and my arm was beginning to lower.

    My train of thought was broken by a shrill cry of “MERMACOW!”

    Indeed, the Visitor now had the body of a mermaid and the head of a cow. Lockwood ducked a spout of ectoplasm and continued twirling his rapier, keeping the Visitor penned in. I jumped in to help him, slicing at the bits of ectoplasm that were trying to escape.

    “Lucy, look out!”

    As a last attempt the shifter had swung its tail around, but both Lockwood and I dodged it easily. It was obvious it was loosing strength, but we had seen it do this before. On each occasion the ghost had disappeared into a different wall, which gave us no clue as to the location of the source. This time it went past us into the kitchen and slipped through the cupboards.

    Lockwood sighed. For the fourth time that night, we dug out our crowbars. Mrs. Poward wasn’t going to like us very much when she returned the following morning. There were already piles of paneling and wood chips in half the rooms in the house (not that it was a very large house, but still).

    We began hacking at the newest wall, with encouragement provided by the skull, which I had placed on the table out of harms way.

    “Put your back into it, woman! I can hit harder than that and I don’t even have hands."

    “Ooh hit it again there! I almost saw the board jiggle a little bit.”

    “Tell Lockwood to shift a bit to his right, I want to have a clear view when he falls on his behind.”

    Unfortunately, this was the norm for me. Sweaty excursions at odd hours of the night with a skull jabbering in my ear.

    Finally, Lockwood called for me to stop. We had been at it for ten minutes, and had found no source, no clue as to its whereabouts, nothing to help us contain the Visitor. All I had gotten was a more persistent throbbing in my finger.

    “Aren’t you going to ask me for help?”

    “We have. You've been useless.”

    Lockwood glanced at me. I gestured distractedly at the silver glass jar sitting on the kitchen table.

    “Well you haven’t asked nicely,” the ghost in question replied. “If you had I might have answered.”

    “Fine. Could you please give us any insight to the nature of the ghost, location of its Source, or any other useful information?”

    “No.“

    I groaned in frustration and lobbed a sliver of wood at it. It bounced off the jar with a very unsatisfying noise.

    “I can tell you that there is a secret room behind that wall."

    “That would be considered useful information!”

    We didn’t know much about the history of the house, or the ghost because George was out for most of the day, as was becoming increasingly common. No one knew what he was doing, but our suspicions were that he spent more time with Flo than recommend if you wanted to remain healthy, as he often returned to Portland Row caked in river mud and reeking like, well, Flo. Whatever the reason, he seemed to spend more time away from our house than he did in it, and as a result we were going into this case blind, so all we had to go on was the news that there was a secret room, and that was delivered by a talking skull, but it was enough for me.

    "The skull says that there's a secret room!" I told Lockwood, who wasn't able to hear its half of our exchange, as I began poking at the wall, hoping to find a board with a pressure release.

    Lockwood quickly joined me, starting at the other end of the wall. We worked our way in towards each other until our hands were on the same panel.

    "On three." Lockwood said, grinning at me. "One, two... three!"

    We pushed, and I felt something click, and a moment later a door that had been invisible a moment before creaked open.

    I stole a glance at Lockwood, who was already examining the passageway, checking for traps. I went back and picked up the skull, placing it back in my rucksack before squeezing past Lockwood, who was bent over poking at a pile of rat droppings as if it might be hiding a Raw-Bones, trailing my hand on the stone wall, hoping for my Touch to give me a glimpse of the past. I got nothing until I rounded the corner and found myself in a small, square room. The psychic residue was strong, and I was thrown into a vision of the past so hard that I backed into Lockwood, who was coming up behind me, having decided there was not a ghost about to jump out at us from the rat droppings, and only got a glimpse of a woman standing by the desk in the corner before my hand jerked away from the wall. I tentatively replaced it, and was again struck by the vision's strength, but this time Lockwood was there to support me, and I didn't flinch. I saw the same woman I had seen before, but this time I was closer. She was holding a large wooden box engraved with carvings of people along with what looked like hieroglyphs. She was standing by the same desk, and as I watched put the box in a drawer.

    When the scene began to repeat I wrenched myself out of the memory to find Lockwood on the other side of the room, leaning impatiently against the wall. That was the problem with Touch, you couldn't control it. You were just standing there in a trance while everything happened around you. When Lockwood saw that I was back, he raised his eyebrows questioningly.

    "The desk," I said, "Some sort of Egyptian box."

    He calmly pushed himself off the wall and strode over to the desk, pulling open the drawer. It was at that moment the shifter decided to reappear.

    Lockwood felt the psychic disturbance and left the desk, instead taking up guard duty while I located the Source. We had done this so many times in the time we've worked together that we didn't even have to speak. I just walked over to the desk and stuck my hand in the drawer. I moved it from side to side, ring scraping on the wood, until I felt the stickiness I had grown so accustomed to, the one that meant I had found the Source. Tugging out the box I had seen, now wrapped in layers of spider webs, I turned around to check on Lockwood. He was holding his own, darting in and out, faking to the right then thrusting up into the head of a dolphin. This form resulted in very high pitched clicking noises echoing around in my head, so I decided to wrap this up (pun intended).

    Pulling a silver chain net from one of my pockets, I draped it over the box, causing the ghost Lockwood had cornered to flicker, then disappear completely.

    Lockwood pulled me in for a celebratory kiss before pulling me out, back into the kitchen. I was glad for this, because I think we were both getting a bit claustrophobic.

    "Nice work in there, Luce."

“What, no kiss for little old me?”

    I ignored the voice, choosing instead to focus on Lockwood. "Thanks. Think George would like this one?"

    "Oh, he would have a field day. You know how much he likes shifters, always trying to figure out what lets them change shape."

    "Good," I said with a yawn, "didn't really want to take a trip to the furnaces."

    "Let's give it to him in the morning, we need a good night's sleep."

    We exited the house, locked it, and hailed a Night Cab. I fell asleep on the ride, and have a hazy memory of Lockwood carrying me up to his bedroom.

    When I awoke the next morning, Lockwood was already up and downstairs reading on the couch in the library. He glanced up when I walked in, and flashed me a smile, the one he reserved just for me.

    "Morning, Luce. Sleep well?"

    "Very well. Did you give George his gift yet?" I asked.

    "I thought you might want to do the honors." he responded, holding up the silver chain net containing the Source from last night's case.

    "You thought right." I said, taking the bundle from him. "Is he back yet?"

    "Yeah, he's in the kitchen."

    I turned around and made my way over to where George was writing something on the thinking cloth.

    I held my hand out to George, and was about to tell him about the shifter from last night, but was cut off by a very high-pitched squeal.

Holly came running in from where she was dusting the skull lamp in the front hall.

    "What is it? What's wrong? Is someone dying? Is there a fire?"

    Kipps, upon hearing the word 'fire', came running through spraying a fire extinguisher and screaming something nonsensical (we know not to joke about fire when he's around, apparently Inspector Barnes told him about the client's house I set fire to, and he now lives his life in fear that we will do it again (...again)).

    George's mouth was moving, but no words were coming out, and Holly had already started cleaning up the foam made by Kipps' fire extinguisher, before rushing out of the room to stop him from doing any more damage. Lockwood still remained in the library, even though the house was falling into chaos. But why was the house falling into chaos?

    My question was answered when George finally found his voice. "LuCY, WHAT IS THAT ON YOUR FINGER???"

    "LOCKWOOD, HOLLY GET IN HERE, LUCY'S GOT A RING!"

    "LUCY WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US YOU WERE DATING?"

    It was at this moment Lockwood finally appeared, with a bemused smile on his face. Holly came rushing in after, grabbed my hand (still holding the very heavy source), examined the ring, then glanced at Lockwood.

    "So you finally got around to asking her?" she asked him.

    He just nodded in response, because George had resumed his inhuman screeching, making talking impossible. When George finally calmed down, he asked, "So, who's the lucky guy?"

    I just nodded at Lockwood. George still looked confused, so Lockwood strode across the room, cupped my face, and kissed me. It would have been one of the best, but it was cut short by George screaming louder than before, and a shout from Holly.

    "WHAT ARE YOU DOING GEORGE NO DON'T TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF!!!!"

    This got our attention, and we turned around just in time to see George running out of the house in his underwear with Holly giving chase, and Kipps setting up a video camera.

    We later learned three things; one, the box we found contained a canonic jar containing the organs of a dead guy, two, that Kipps made a bunch of copies of the video he took and will use it as blackmail, and three, that George is very bad at dealing with emotions.

[thewildheroine]

Fly Away |Two|

Warnings: None

Words: 1857

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

A/N: I’m so glad people are enjoying the story so far and I can’t wait to keep on writing it. This chapter we’ll get to see our main character really interacting with Peter. Enjoy!

 I’ll be posting part three super soon seeing that it’s already done.

|Masterlist|

|Prologue| |Part One| |Part Three|

My head tiredly leans into my hand. It takes so much energy to even keep my eyes open to understand what our Algebra two teacher is teaching us. Not that I even care at this point in terms of this class or in general. I’ll just look up online videos online. The rest of me, however, is seemingly in shambles.

This morning I was forced to put on a stained sweatshirt and loose jeans that smelt the way that all dirty clothes do when they lie around for too long. I had just sprayed the whole outfit with the most pungent perfume in my room. Not even waking up on time to catch the train I was forced to ride my bike most of the way which let the rain that I hadn’t even noticed until stepping outside drench me.

I can say pretty confidently that our main janitor hates me now after I walked into school dripping wet. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was out to get me. Especially after I slipped and fell into one of the recently repainted walls, leaving a weird wet splatter.

“Y/N,” someone next to me whispers for my attention. I barely turn my head enough to see all of Peter’s face.

“Hmm,” I hum with an annoyed tone.

“Are you okay,” he asks me with a nervous and unfamiliar, worried smile. I cock an eyebrow at him. My head begins to nod unsurely and I glance back up to the board when I hear Mr. Tiller coughs loudly. I wait to see if he’s pointedly glaring me and Parker down before returning my attention back to the shy boy.

“Really,” Peter laughs and lifts his pencil a little to point at my still wet sweatshirt, “because you’re soaked and look like you haven’t slept in forever.” I stare numbly down at my clothing before shrugging.

“I had a tiring day yesterday, so I woke up really late and had to ride my bike in the rain.” I turn myself all the way back to the lessons. “No biggie.” Next to me Peter shuffles and twists in his chair the most awkward and distracting way possible. I sigh and turn my head towards him again since he’s obviously still seeking a conversation with me.

“Oh- uh- did you hear about that huge fight yesterday?” he asks while pushing back his hair. My eyes immediately narrow at him as I try and figure out what he’s doing. It makes sense that it would be on the news, but why is he bringing it up to me about it. Ned is right by him. Usually, they’re the ones who talk about all the crazy things that happen in New York. Maybe MJ, but other than that he doesn’t go up to anyone else.

I look past him and glare at Ned who seems to have been watching me for god knows how long. Suddenly. Peter plops his elbow down on his desk, leaning on it an ruining my view of his friend.

“Pretty- pretty wild huh?” Peter manages to even make me feel awkward from what he says, and it isn’t because of the topic. “I guess someone got a video of what went down and there’s this super cool girl who like save a kid and…,” his voice drops off for a second as his eyes concentrate on me completely. “Stopped the guys since Spider-Man wasn’t there yet.” Peter quickly shakes himself from whatever trance he was in and finishes his sentence.

“Yeah…” I murmur. “Wild.” The bell abruptly rings overhead, dismissing the class. As quickly as possible I grab my notebook, throw on my backpack, and rush outside of the classroom.

Someone got the fight on video? Does it show my face?

Hastily I yank my phone out of my sweatshirt’s front pocket and begin typing something into the search engine. Immediately, the video of me pops up over everything else. My body moves into the lockers so that people go around me. I tap on the play button and watch the fight like I’m seeing it for the very first time. Surprisingly enough, it really does feel like this is my first time.

The girl in the video moves around and flies off the ground like a graceful dancer. When she throws out the golden blades in her hands and controls them to fly towards each of the criminals it’s captivating. I gasp at the sight of her hovering like an angel in the air, controlling her magic perfectly. The only thing that isn’t in the video is a clear image of her face.

I don’t even remember this. Doing this. Of course I know that I had the fight and I know the basics of what I did, but I had no idea I did them so well.

“She’s pretty cool, don’t you think?” My head twists around, showing my shock, and I find myself nose to nose with Peter. A startled expression spreads across his face from the closeness of our bodies. Even feeling uncomfortable in the situation myself I back away a little bit.

“Yeah,” I mumble.

“Everyone’s trying to figure out who she is. There have even been rumors that the Avengers are trying to find her identity.” I have to look away from him and down at my water filled boots to hide the sudden fear in my eyes. “Her powers are amazing.” When I look up at him Peter’s eyes show an intensity I’ve never seen anyone ever look at me with. His dark brown irises are soft though.

“Do you-,” he stops as if he’s thinking if he’ll be wording this next phrase right. “Do you believe in magic Y/N?” My heart stalls for a second in my chest. The only time any person ever asked me that question was on the playground when I was young and my friends and I were playing stupid, pretend games with moms and dads and annoying teenage sisters that pretended to have a giant wad of gum in their mouth.

That was fun though. Just them purely being curious and not motivated to ask because of videos of sorcerers. I hope that for a second Peter may admit to being joking and just drop the topic. He’s not though. His eyes are glued to mine and he wants to hear my answer. An honest answer.

I swallow and look at the clock telling me we still have three minutes of passing period left. My father would tell me to keep it vague. To not let Peter know the truth about my magic and just say that maybe it is.

The thing is the world is changing though. I saw the sanctions falling on the news and felt the change when the Sorcerer Supreme passed away. Then Strange began fighting alongside the Avengers. People with enough sense should know by now that there is magic in this universe just as there is magic in others.

“Well, of course I believe in magic. Haven’t you seen the stuff that Doctor Strange does?” For a moment Peter smiles at me, but then it turns into a frown when I finish my thought. “Why are you asking me this stuff anyways? Aren’t you and Ned supposed to be best buds or something?” I begin walking down the hall again before I risk being late to another class like this morning. Peter automatically starts following.

“Yeah, but I don’t really talk to you much,” he replies, tucking his hands into his pockets.

“That’s exactly my point Peter,” I clutch my books to my chest. “You don’t socialize with me at all. The only time we ever talk ever is when we’re paired up for projects, and even then we are barely talking-talking to each other. I’m pretty sure you even rush to finish early so we don’t have to spend any time together after school.” The hallways have cleared up except for the few students who are jogging to their classes on the other side of the school. Peter grimaces a little.

“I have stuff I’m always doing after schools, that’s why,” he explains. I roll my eyes and step in front of our class’s door.

“Like what?” I retort. Peter lifts his hands defensively and moves closer.

“Like the Stark internship,” he answers after making an incomprehensible noise. I scoff and open the door. We both walk into chemistry together, ignoring how our peers glare at us. My body loosens a little when I see that our teacher hasn’t come in yet.

“I thought you lost the internship,” I scoff. I remember that day vividly. For the first time in weeks, he had actually been focused on school, but that didn’t change the fact that I could tell that he was devastated. He dedicated a ton of time to Stark.

“I- I got it back,” Peter stutters. “I just thought- you know- maybe we should spend more time together since we both have the same classes.” I twist my body around so that I can stare him down. That’s not the only reason he wants to hang out with me. I know it, but a part of me tells me just to go along with him.

Defeated, I sigh and rub my eyes. “Fine Peter,” I say begrudgingly. A wide smile spreads across his lips as Peter pulls his hands out of the pockets they were once hidden in. The whole class looks over at us as he claps them together excitedly. With a laugh, I roll my eyes.

“Peter, Y/N, can you please take your seats,” our teach asserts to us as she enters. I look back at Peter’s smiling face.

“Wanna hang out after school?” he wonders.

“I thought this was only going to be a during school thing?” I question curiously. Peter shrugs off his bag and throws it next to his stool.

“I only ever said I wanted to get to know you. I never said how.” Before I get the chance to turn down the offer or even ask how I’m going to know where to go he walks away from me and goes to his seat.

“Y/N,” the teacher shouts at me. I mutter a quiet apology and take a seat. Even though I somehow have regained my energy I can’t focus on the lesson. My eyes are still caught on Peter. Luckily he hasn’t noticed my confused staring.

I groan to myself and drop my head. My soft hair drops in front of my face, caging my eyes and keeping me from studying him anymore. The only time I look through the strands is when someone quickly places something on my desk.

A little rectangle piece of paper sits patiently by my calloused fingers. Hesitantly, I pick it up by the corner and inspect it. On the front is a phone number with Peter’s name messily written at the bottom. I glance back really quickly and catch him staring at me as he grabs a tissue from the box lazily before tossing it in the trash without using it. My hand goes up to my mouth to cover up the grin as I pocket the paper.

[madness-of-madi]

Finding a Constant: Part Two

Word Count: 2,070

Main Characters: Peter Parker, Ned Leeds, Michelle Jones, and Amrita Delport (student at Midtown High)

Warnings: attempted rape, not graphic; some PTSD

Setting: After Spider-Man: Homecoming, after Peter tells Tony Stark that he wants to postpone being an Avenger, but before Infinity War...obviously.  *muffled sobbing*

Summary: Amrita Delport has been moving around her whole life, but when her parents relocate to New York for some mysterious project, she is unexpectedly sucked into the life of Peter Parker, otherwise known as the neighborhood-friendly Spider-Man.

A/N: Please look at the warnings before reading. Thanks!

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Peter's POV

    I would be lying if I said it truly took me that long to slide a few books into my backpack. As I picked up each item, I’d fiddle with it or flip through the pages before carefully placing it in the bag, organizing things as I went⸺very slowly. Amrita was standing at Mrs. Han’s desk and I was doing my absolute best to look as if I wasn’t eavesdropping.

    “Even so, Miss Delport, you might find some of my points to be quite interesting…” Mrs. Han was saying. “And quite helpful for the upcoming test.”

    I discreetly looked over to see Amrita smile and nod before saying, “I understand, Mrs. Han. I'll do better.” Mrs. Han raised her nearly-invisible eyebrows, so Amrita added, “I promise.”

    Mrs. Han beamed at her.  “Alright, go on then,” she dismissed her. I quickly brought my gaze back to my books as Amrita waved and turned. Right before she walked out the door, I thought I saw her pause in my peripheral vision. But then she left.

    I zipped up my bag and threw it over my shoulders. “See ya, Mrs. Han.”

    “Goodbye, Peter,” she called as I made my way out of the classroom. Once in the hallway, Ned caught up with me and jostled my shoulder with his own.

    “Hey, Peter,” he greeted. “Where ya headin’?”

    “I dunno, Ned, I’ll probably just walk around and see if I can find…” I trailed off, not sure how to word it.

    “Crime?” Ned asked enthusiastically. “Are you gonna go fight crime? I can come with if you need some surveillance or back-up or⸺”

    “No, Ned,” I cut him off. “I’ll be fine, and I’ll just see you tomorrow, yeah?” I didn’t mean to sound so...condescending and callous, but I couldn’t put him in harm’s way. I would always be grateful for his help...that night, but I couldn’t put his life at risk. My priorities would always be the same: keep Ned and Aunt May safe.

    “Come on, Peter. I really think I can help you out! You need a guy-in-the-chair!” He gave me a pleading look, but I only shook my head at him.

    “Look, man. Just go home, and I’ll talk to you later.” I patted his shoulder and offered him a brief smile before turning and walking towards the front door.

    “Alright, see ya later, Peter!” he called from behind me. There was a dejected undertone to his voice that I tried and failed to ignore.

    I navigated the teeming cluster that was funneling through the doors and managed to make it out in one piece. The second I broke away from the crowd, I took off in the direction of the alley I normally swung by to change into my suit.

    I flung my backpack to the ground and pulled my spider-suit out of it. I stripped, discarding my clothes on the ground next to my backpack, and shrugged the suit on, the high-quality material hanging off my thin frame awkwardly. I pressed the spider emblem on my chest and the suit immediately form-fitted to my body.

    “Good afternoon, Peter,” Karen’s voice came from inside my mask.

    “Hey, Karen! Ready to go kick some criminal a—” She cut me off before I could finish.

    “I should warn you that my language protocol dictates that I shock you at the use of any unsavory words.”

    “Of course Mr. Stark installed a language protocol,” I muttered to myself. “Let's go, Karen.”

    Grabbing my backpack from the ground once again, I stuffed my school clothes into it and threw it over my shoulders again. I leaped at the wall next to me, my feet coming into contact with the bricks and sticking. I sprinted up the side of the building and vaulted onto the roof. It was instinct now, scaling walls and jumping hurdles, but I could remember a time when it wasn't so simple. I'd stumbled, tripped, and fell all over the place just like anyone else. Being able to move like I could now still took me by surprise sometimes, giving me an inexplicable thrill. It coursed through my veins and pounded in my ears, begging to find release through movement.

              I returned my attention to the present long enough to throw my bag down by a large air conditioning unit. I used to leave it down in the alley, hidden in the dumpster, but I’d quickly learned my lesson when it had been stolen. That had been the night Ned had discovered my secret identity. Most of the time I wished he hadn't been there to witness me crawling on the ceiling, but I couldn't deny the relief it gave me to not have to hide it from everyone anymore. I knew that was selfish though. Ned being aware of that sort of fragile information could get him killed—which was exactly why I tried to keep him out of it all.

    “You're doing the right thing, Peter,” Karen interrupted my reverie. She knew about the Ned situation because I'd talked with her about it before, but sometimes I swore she could read my mind. How else could she know that I was dwelling on the subject right now?

    “Thanks, Karen,” I responded before pushing the thoughts aside and sprinting to the edge of the roof. I jumped across the space separating the roof and the next building over. Clutching at the walls with my fingers and toes, I began my ascent and made it to the top in no time. This building was much larger than the one before it. I took in the view of countless brick buildings and, farther away, steel skyscrapers. Once I decided where I wanted to go, I hopped off the side and let my instinct take over. My hands shot webs of their own accord and I grasped them, using them to swing from building to building. It was freeing.

    I was flying through the air over an alleyway when my senses started to tingle. Instead of propelling myself up onto the roof like I'd planned, I intentionally collided into the brick wall and perched there. Not a second later, a scream pierced my ears. I moved silently along the wall, heading in the direction of the outcry.

    Peering around the corner of the building, I located the source. There was a small brown-haired girl struggling with a much larger man, who was gripping her by the shoulders and pushing her up against the bricks. I saw one of his hands go up her shirt and though the woman tried to stop him, his strength overwhelmed hers. With one fist, she attempted to fight him off while her other was frantically patting the bag at her side. But the man paid no attention to either of them as he tore her shirt in half with his bare hands, eliciting another scream from her.

    “Would you like to activate instant-kill m—”

    “No, Karen!” I hissed. I heard the girl yell once again and I didn't hesitate any longer.

    Springing off the wall, I landed in a crouch behind the man. My arrival remained unheard and unseen, so I straightened and tapped the man on the shoulder. I could see him jump a bit in shock before he whirled around to face me. Without a second thought, I punched him in the face as hard as I could, sending him reeling and colliding with the girl behind him. She surprised me by wrapping an arm around his throat and pulling herself onto his back. As soon as her face appeared over his shoulder, I froze. Even though her expression was pinched in concentration as she cut of the man's airway, I recognized her.

    The man almost regained his composure and might have thrown her off if he had, but she didn't give him the chance. Her other hand appeared in front of his face with a small bottle clutched between her fingers. She pulled the trigger and pepper spray erupted from the container. The man howled—as best as he could with her arm still wrapped around his windpipe—and brought one hand up to protect his skull from the metal bottle, which she had begun to beat him over the head with. His other hand was attempting to pry her death grip off his neck.

    Finally, I snapped out of my frozen state and grabbed her wrist, pausing the bottle’s descent to the man's skull. She looked up in horror, as if this was the first time she'd realized I was there. The man used her moment of distraction to shake her off and she fell to the ground. Before he could make another move, webs shot from my hands and shrouded his face, effectively blinding him. I aimed a punch at his ribs and finally he fell to the ground with a heavy thud. He must have hit his head as well, because he instantly grew silent and still.

    I knelt down and felt his pulse—he was only unconscious. I sighed a breath of relief and looked to the girl. The girl that was Amrita. Her brown hair that had been up in a neat bun earlier today was now falling around her face in disarray. The wild, desperate look in her green eyes from before had been replaced by one of wariness and terror. She was leaning up against the wall, panting and clutching at the two halves of her shirt, trying to cover herself. I refrained from scanning her body for injuries, knowing that she could misinterpret my scrutiny for a hungry leer. Thinking about what that man had tried to do made my blood boil.

    “Miss? Are you ok?” Amrita flinched when I spoke, but didn't answer. I took a step closer in a crouch, but she immediately scrambled to get away. I put my hands up in the air to convey that I meant her no harm, but that didn't seem to calm her either—every nerve appeared to be on end, her eyes darting around the alley as if looking for another attacker.

    “Miss, it's alright. You're safe now,” I assured her in what I hoped was a quiet, soothing voice. After one more sweep of the alley, Amrita slumped against the wall, the tension bleeding out of her bones. I took another cautious step and when she didn't move, I got closer. I was about to place a hand on her shoulder, but thought better of it. She wouldn't want to be touched right now.

    She lifted her head to look at me and for a panicked moment I thought she could see right through the mask. But I was just being paranoid. “Thank you,” she breathed.

    You did most of the work, I thought to myself. I might've told her as much had she not been in such a delicate state. Instead, I just nodded.

    “What's your name, Miss?” I had to keep up pretenses that I'd never met her before. My only vulnerability was my voice—I was keeping it quiet and husky so that it didn't carry its usual pitch. I just had to hope she wouldn't recognize it.

    She looked at me for a few moments, slowly processing my words. “Amrita,” she finally answered. “Amrita Delport. And you're Spider-Man.” It wasn't a question, but I nodded anyway. “Thank you,” she repeated.

    “Amrita—”

    “Rita,” she interjected.

    “Ok, Rita, I'm going to go get you a new shirt. Just stay right where you are.” She gave me a fearful look, bringing her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around them. I couldn't blame her for not wanting to be left alone, but I couldn't walk her home shirtless. “I'll only be a couple minutes, Rita. I'll be as quick as possible, I promise.” I waited for her to nod again before I took off down the alley.

    “The nearest location selling clothes is approximately one minute away,” Karen informed me, also rattling off an address. I absorbed the information and plotted a path in my head.

    Right before I rounded the corner, I casted a look back at Amrita to make sure she was alright. She had put her head down between her knees and I could see her gently rocking back and forth.  This was the first time I regretted not bringing Ned—at least she wouldn't have had to sit there all alone.

[the-mf-bread-babies]

28/7/2020

— TRUE VOLUME ONE —

VOL 4, ACTUALLY, BUT WHATEVER.

R. W. NORTH

i dedicate this volume to no one except for me bc i was the only one who wrote this. self love ok

_________________________________

CHAPTER ONE

“Halle Berry Did Two Movies Like This”

Damon was kidnapped. This is bad. Oh, there should probably be some explanation behind this. Sorry.

_________________________________

CHAPTER 0.5

“Short × Backstory × Summaries”

After four years of the most iconic event the universe had ever experienced, The Sixth Augmentation, also known among the locals as The Fusion, Doomsday, and several other names, one particular group of people had formed a good family amongst themselves. This family had three human members and several other non-human members, including, but not limited to, cats, banshees, ghosts in general, reptiles, and beings our planet couldn't invent through biology and even through thought.

This family's main members were Dennis and Aaron, and Damon and Sawblade. Their whole lives were completely changed after having to stick together in a ghost town and raise chickens and cows and plant crops for food. That sounded like a description for a rom-com or something. This is not a rom-com. Well… yet.

The family had settled down in the 74th district of the third Earth that joined the Amalgamation. The district had possessed a variety of… everything, really. The Eiffel Tower was a few blocks away, there was an upsidedown barn there, half of a condominium building, a quarter of a Tesco, and god knows what else. This diverse array of resources had been responsible for new buildings in the area that combined specialties from around the world, and while they were mostly fusion restaurants, there still existed things like Tesco cosplaying events and such. Apocalypses bring odd things to the world, and some are worth trying… for example, otherworldly foods.

This subject was a difficult topic to tackle among the residents there. Mainly, the dangers and morality of doing such a thing– you'd have to consider the effects it would bring to your health, if you're harming their ecosystem, if you're harming the people who lived with the beings before it was introduced to you– it really had to be quite challenging to negotiate a good compromise.

Well, except for Aaron. Meet Aaron… again, this time, since he's changed a lot after what happened. Aaron Russell is a simple man; most of the things he does in life are things a normal person does– eat, sleep, have companions– everyone does that, but not the way he does.

Even before he entered the amalgamation, he was always trying new things, mainly foods, but also things like video games and hobbies. Yes, the sight of the contents of his fridge could bring a stroke to someone from a hundred years ago, because goddamn, is he dangerously experimental.

The reason Aaron doesn't enter discourse on things as insignificant as what one eats is because while he does acknowledge the fact that the opinions of the natives on who should consume their resources should be very much respected, he also knows that it's human nature to hunt, to explore, and to be curious, as long as it isn't endangering oneself. He would eat risky foods, but anything that sets off his fight-or-flight instincts if he saw it live is definitely a no-no. Even though he's an adventurer at heart, he follows the rules and does what's right. But goddamn it, if he gets disappointed at a failed experiment, he's never touching anything resembling that. So, in his opinion, the safest route to an entertaining journey is…

Video games.

His library of games range from first-person shooters to slime rancher, from dating simulators to… well, a majority of video games nowadays have dating in them. But yeah, Assassin's Creed, Metal Gear, Borderlands, Spider-Man, Life is Strange, Smash Bros, and Luigi's Mansion are just some of the many franchises he's into. And then the companions, God, I mean, the man lives in a haunted house with his co-worker, some random kid and, like, thirty cats. He's friends with mythical beings, now. If anything, the amalgamation changed his life for the way better.

Dennis, on the other hand… is sort of the opposite. While escaping from certain clearly bad conditions is something he absolutely loves, he doesn't really know where to go after that, since he didn't really think it was possible. His family was bad, he joined Aaron's. Then? What was he supposed to do, cut them off after decades of living with them? Thankfully, the augmentation came along. Dennis is a man who daydreams about living a life he couldn't possibly achieve, but when he does, he didn't plan ahead. To get to this amount of joy in his life was unfathomable for him; back before he moved out of his hometown, he was essentially living a lie.

His life was planned out for him– move out at 20, get a stable job at 22, marry his old high school girlfriend his parents keep bothering him about at 25, and forever dread his life starting at age 27. Then, kids at 30. Even though this life seemed to be nice, and even to him had its benefits, he still hated it. Sure, he would be open for a very short-term relationship with Chloe from French 2, but jeez, is she super republican.

Dennis's views on life differed significantly from his family's, and even though he disliked seeing anything that reminded him of them, he still moved around in the Midwest, and stopped when…

he saw a certain someone at Krispy Kreme.

Now, everything is history. He and Aaron renovated the old family workshop into a pet store, and thankfully, business was way better. Not only did Gabriel start up a traveling psychic service and Lan, a plant store, but even Dennis sold a lot of art. All thanks to the Krispy Kreme store at the end of the street that was…

… crushed by a condominium building. See, this is where it all gets messed up. The Russell family surely had enough members for now, Gabriel and Lan didn't want any grandchildren in the near future, and so did Aaron and Dennis, but, well, something, or rather someone, came along.

Here's Damon Eddmil Ameakfen, or “Nomad Middle Fakename,” after unscrambling the anagram. He, like Dennis, also couldn't really care less if he, or his family, suddenly disappeared out of nowhere. Outside of having a number of inconveniences, the thought of it doesn't bring any emotional distress to him.

Instead, Damon finds joy in finding out practically everyone he's ever known could've died as soon as he arrived on Eris-6, knowing those unlucky dumbasses don't deserve… well, not exactly ‘they don't deserve to live,’ but really, it's what they all believed, except directed towards Damon and others like him.

If Damon stayed on Earth-3 forever, and in that same, depressing place, he'd be dead by now, really. He's not exaggerating or whatever, he'd probably either kill himself or get killed. Whatcha gonna do.

But, obviously, he's still living, and it's all thanks to Aaron and Dennis for their acknowledgement and appliance of common sense when it comes to living. That sounds like he came from a family of very dangerous carpenters, but really, if anyone important in his old life had even a speck of common sense in analysing people and knowing what's right and wrong about someone, he probably wouldn't have been so suicidal.

So thanks, Aaron and Dennis.

CHAPTER 0.75

“What's Going On Now, Though?”

Moving on to the present, the Russell family now are the only living inhabitants of [town name.] The others were tragically moved into NULL by their forceful officers. Now, they live in stealth, their identities changed. After years of searching, NULL had classified them as deceased and had closed down inspections within the town. However, they still had to be very cautious about their actions– they never went outside the city, and they always preferred to travel in tunnels and alleys, always moving around in the shadows.

For months, they believed NULL was no longer their biggest concern in living there, but unfortunately they were proven wrong.

Apparently, surprise inspections are a thing.

This story's true beginning takes place in March of 2025. Even though it was supposed to be spring, winter still ruled the other seasons because of the location of the district. After years of only experiencing the same season, the family got used to it– except for Damon…

Damon hailed from Malaysia, which, by the way, doesn't have the luxury of experiencing four seasons. Although he did visit Cameron Highlands once as a kid, living somewhere where the temperature was constantly below zero had proved to be a very difficult struggle to him. The unforgiving climate constantly cursed him with fevers and frostbite. Despite that, he absolutely loves the gloomy, cold weather, and wishes he could spend his entire life there, cozily wrapped up in three blankets.

This problem had a butterfly effect on him being kidnapped, though. Snow was one of Damon's favourite things about the climate, and that meant he went outside a lot. He usually made it home safely, except for one unlucky day.

CHAPTER 0.875

“The Abduction”

It was a normal day for the Russell family. They followed their daily routines, but unfortunately, NULL intervened.

“Hoodie, other hoodie, three scarves, watch, bracelets, mittens, metal bat, pepper spray, water, keys, backpack, hockey mask…” Damon muttered to himself, “I think that's all.” He walked over to the dining hall, meeting Dennis and Aaron. “Hey, I'm heading out,” “want anything?” He asked, his face almost covered to protect him from the cold. “Uh, not really. We're outta cereal, though,” Dennis replied, petting Sawblade, who was laying on the dining table. “Moisturizer, if there's any.” Aaron requested, eyes unmoving from his year-old newspaper, annoying Damon slightly. “What brand… what kind… which outlet… how much… just moisturiser, or a whole set?” Aaron pondered for a while, “Two,” “from Wal-Mart.” he teasingly replied. Damon rolled his eyes and stomped out the door. “Heh…” Aaron smirked.

Damon walked outside and immediately jumped facedown into the snow, making a snow angel. “hheheheheheeeheheh” “snoww” he giggled, rolling around. “Okay, enough of that. You're 19, dude,” the man muttered to himself disappointedly, dusting off the snow from his clothes and readjusting them. “Moisturiser… cereal… um…” he thought. “Yeah, that's all.”

Damon continued walking before realising something he forgot. “Camo! Shit!” He yelled, completely disguising as a snowman, carrot and all. He bounced along the street, as it was the least sketchiest way to go to the shops there. As soon as he reached the grocery store, he dropped his empty backpack onto the ground and faced the other way, ignoring the store.

Damon noticed the usual sound of rustling leaves, followed by the backpack being swiftly dragged across the pavement. Chittering, and after that, the bag was thrown back at him. It was packed with the groceries he wanted, and a bottle of shampoo. “Hey, my hair's not that bad.” Damon commented sadly, facing the store again. A small, teasing chitter shot back, making him narrow his eyes. “Sure, yeah, whatever, man,”

Damon hopped back home, questioning what the being, or beings, running the grocery store were, but eventually accepting that he'll never know that. Suddenly, loud squeaks grabbed his attention. It sounded like it came from the store, but why? Did he get the wrong order? Did he steal something on accident? What's going on? Damon anxiously thought of all the horrifying possibilities until he saw what he never thought would terrorise that city again.

NULL agents.

Despite his efforts to escape and hide as fast as possible, an agent caught him and chased him. Damon, seeing this, scuttled underneath a passageway they never used. It lead to a tunnel that they tried to develop for the past year, but ultimately failed to do so. Luckily, it was the perfect opportunity to block himself in with the remaining dirt pile next to it, thanks to Dennis's unwillingness to throw it out.

Except it wasn't.

Frogs hopped everywhere in panic, scaring Damon enough for him to stumble over. Ah, he remembered this. Aaron turned the dirt pile into a froggy apartment. Whoops.

Swatting the amphibians away, Damon was trying his best to cover the hole leading to the tunnel, but…

A NULL agent grabbed his arm and used a stun gun on it, leaving him helpless and screaming in pain. Suddenly, an idea sprang to mind.

Damon sprayed the living hell out of the agent with pepper spray, but sadly, their helmets had proved that idea to be useless.

Then, he was left with no choice but to whack his arm to death with a metal bat. So long, watch he had from 2014. You could've taken the UPSR exam next year…

Well, except he couldn't chop it off, there were frogs on the bat, and he just put on hand cream this morning. That means they could die at his touch, and that would be more tragic than his death. Damon was now running out of ideas, begging for some ghost to hear him and come kill the bastard, but no one came.

Oh, nevermind.

D: “I'LL F**KING KILL YOUR ASS, MOTHERF**KER!!”

A: “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

Dennis and Aaron came rushing in, with Aaron unsheathing a katana and Dennis loading a rock salt rifle. How they got those weapons, Damon really doesn't know, but thank God they're here.

“DAMON, ARE YOU OKAY?!” Dennis yelled loudly, his voice cracking and tears streaming down his face. “DO I LOOK–” “ARM!!!” Damon shouted back, “OTHER THAN THAT, VERY, BUT I HAVE FROGS!!!” Aaron signalled to Dennis to split up, with both of them on either side of Damon. “TRY NOT TO DIE!!” Aaron wisely advised, grabbing Damon's arm and getting into a fighting stance. “HOLY SHI–”

[squelching sounds]

[gunshot]

[heavy breathing]

[gunshot]

[gunshot]

[loud yelling]

[gunshot]

[splattering sounds]

[gunshot yet again]

“Okay, don't freak out, I sterilise this baby every day,” Aaron softly assured amidst Damon's screams of pain. Dennis aimed the rifle through the dirt, shooting it again. “HOW MANY FUCKING BULLETS DO YOU HAVE??!!” Damon shouted angrily, continuing his screaming shortly afterwards. “Okay, we're just gonna carry you,” Aaron said reassuringly, although Damon felt like he was in walking distance from the grim reaper.

“Herhehsjjdnfbdjs” Damon cried. “YudhrhuYduYdudh” Aaron looked at him sadly. “Okay, there ya go.” Damon thought he was engulfed in the flames of hell by then, but thankfully, it was just the operating table from the old pet shop.

“Hey, this is okay. You can be like Junkrat now.” Aaron said softly, somehow successfully calming Damon down. “Yeah… Junkrat…” “Or like… Iron Man… or something…” Damon responded slowly. Dennis watched them worryingly before realizing something. “Shit!” he muttered before running back to retrieve the arm. Sadly, it was gone and probably under NULL's hands now, so there was no getting it back.

Aaron looked at Dennis while he was treating the wound, hoping for him to retrieve the limb. Alas, the man shook his head, sweating in fear. “Oh, that's okay, I can, like, staple a stick here or something…” Damon assured. “If anything, having a gnarly scar and a fake arm is way cooler than just the scar, guys.” he said calmly as his arm stopped bleeding.

“Is that bad?” Damon asked confusedly at Aaron. “What? No! That's a really good sign!” he said happily. “That makes it sound even worse…” Damon confessed sadly, sending Aaron into mega-reassuring mode. “NO!!! NO!!! IT'S GOOD, DAMON!!! YOU'RE ALIVE NOW!!! ALIVE!!! PLEASE DON'T DIE!!!” Damon just stared at him in further confusion.

“If it helps, you'll see Brendon Urie in hell later.” Dennis said softly. “I'd rather die infinite deaths.” Damon shot back, disgusted in the offer. “What's wrong with Brendon…” the redhead asked. “He's racist, Dennis,” Aaron replied, examining Damon for any other wounds. “Jesus, that's a lot of bacne.” “Brendon Urie's racist? I thought he was g*y.” “G///ay people can be racist.” Damon replied. “I thought you liked the guy?” Dennis asked in confusion, looking at Damon. “Dennis, that's Gerard Way,” “What the hell!”

“Sorry,” Aaron apologized. “just some bandages so it doesn't get infected or anything.” He explained, gently wrapping Damon's… well, what used to be his arm, in bandages. “I'm Rick Sanchez… no wait… Deckard…” Damon mumbled happily, forgetting Rick Grimes' surname. “Yeah,” (Rick Grimes has his arm cut off in the comics, they didn't do this in the show due to budgeting concerns)

A short while later, the three joined Dennis in boarding up the windows and doors to keep NULL out. However, due to Damon's injury, he instead helped carry around tools and other equipment with his healthy right arm.

The house was now the most secure it had ever been, with no direct contact to the outside world. Gabriel had organized shifts for the house ghosts to surround the house and guard it. Dennis and Lan moved the farms into spare rooms, and Aaron distributed weaponry to the whole family. Note to self: Gabriel and Lan are still alive and you should put them in at the beginning.