#the idea of a section of a city walled off to let criminals and everyone branded as criminal

[pigeonliker420]

idk why i expected commentary on how we view and treat criminals/incarceration in arkham city thats on me but im a lil :/ anyway. i need to keep reminding myself this was made around 2010 by the most mainstream whiteboy tastes and opinions imaginable

[galactic-magick]

Gardens and Crimes: Poison Ivy x Reader

Request: Poison Ivy x female reader? The reader is a vigilante who has a soft spot for plants. They are trying to start a community garden for Gotham, and Poison Ivy takes notice. They bond over that, and eventually the reader reveals that they have to turn her in. Hurt/no comfort, please.

Summary: You start a community garden with Pamela Isley, but find out about her villainous alter ego and have to make a difficult decision.

Words: 1200+

Warnings: fem!Reader, lots of angst, hurt/no comfort

Author’s Notes: Present is in normal text and past is in italics

-

-

-

You didn’t want it to come to this, but as you stand in front of Pamela’s door, you know it’s the right thing to do.

You glance over at the beautiful gardens and flowers surrounding her whole house, vines running up the walls and moss on all the stone. Her greenhouse is full of even more plants, although you may never get to see it all again.

You sigh, knocking on the door, trying to remember all the good memories one last time…

-

You’re late. You can’t be late.

You’ve been planning this for months, and you can’t afford to screw it up now. You want to start a community garden in Gotham, but there hasn’t been one in years. Your only chance is to bring your idea to the attention of the city board members and get as many people interested as possible, even though most ideas from commoners get shut down no matter what.

Rushing into the room, you start passing out flyers down the row, trying to be as quiet as possible, but your efforts fall a bit short.

“Miss, is there a reason you’re causing a ruckus at our meeting?” one of the board members asks.

You sit down with a thump, shaking your head, “Sorry. Is the citizen suggestion time over?”

“You just missed it-“

“Oh, perfect!” you shoot back up, running to the front of the room. “I have a proposal for a community garden in Gotham. I’ve done all the math and drawn all the plans, it’ll barely cost any city funds and it won’t be difficult to build-“

“Ma’am, I already told you we’re done with suggestions. You may come back next month with you idea,”

“No you don’t understand!” you cut them off again. “Gotham needs something like this. Plants and community make people happy, and it’s so dreary around here most of the time. Have you ever considered that if people were happier overall, there’d be a little less crime?”

“I don’t think that growing some plants is going to solve our high crime rates, miss. I don’t see The Batman killing criminals with vegetables,”

You huff, placing your plans on the desk, “Please at least consider it,”

“Yeah, you should consider it,” a red-haired woman pipes up, strutting up to the front next to you. “I think it’s a great idea,”

“Me too!” someone else calls.

“We should do it!” a few other people say.

You’re overwhelmed by the amount of support in a short amount of time, and eventually the board has no choice but to accept your request and start work on the new garden.

“Thanks for standing up with me,” you say to the red-haired woman as you walk back out to the street.

“Well, ya know, sometimes it just takes one other person fighting for the right thing to inspire everyone else,” she smiles. “My name’s Pamela Isley. Doctor Pamela Isley. I’m an expert in plant life and I’d love to give you some tips on the community garden, if you’d like,”

“Oh my gosh, yes!” you jump in excitement. “Are you free right now, actually? I was going to grab some ice cream if the meet went well, or to cheer myself up if it went bad-“

“Of course!”

You thought you had a soft spot for plants, but Pamela is on an entirely different level. She’s extremely passionate about them, and she knows everything there is to know.

She tells you all her suggestions for the new garden, explaining how to balance the ecosystem best and what kinds of rules there should be for what should and shouldn’t be planted. She agrees with your choice of base soil and the dimensions for the different sections, and she asks you all about your favorite flowers and trees.

You spend way longer there than most people would at a casual ice cream outing, but you’re barely paying attention to the time. You enjoy talking to her more than anyone else in your life, and you might even be falling for her a bit.

-

That night, though, everything that happened during the day takes a back seat.

You have another job to do as well, and that’s helping the city as much as you can as a vigilante.

You may not be on the same level as the famous Batman, but you’ve put away your fair share of criminals. You know how to fight and defend yourself, and you’ve been able to save quite a few lives.

You’ve been hearing rumors of a supervillain who’s been using plant pheromones to control people, which is right up your alley in terms of interests.

You find one of the victims lying down on the street, and you help him sit up.

“Do you remember what happened?”

“This lady- she made me breathe something in- and next thing I know I’m out here,”

“What did she look like?”

“I couldn’t see her very well, but she was wearing green and had red hair I believe,”

It couldn’t be…

No. You’re sure there’s several redheads in Gotham who like plants. You’re overthinking it.

“Okay, sir, I’m going to help you get to a hospital, okay? They’ll check you out and make sure it’s all out of your system,”

You hoist him upright, calling an ambulance and trying to push away your questioning thoughts.

-

Within the month the community garden is built, and you and Pamela get to work on advertising and planting your first flowers.

You’ve bonded quite a bit over a short time, and a few of your get-togethers have even turned into dates. She’s introduced you to an entire new world of nature, and you’ve never adored the color green as much as you do now.

All is well and good until the one night on patrol that broke your heart…

-

“Oh, Y/N!” Pamela smiles, letting you in. “Hey! Did I forget about a meeting or something?”

“No,” you shake your head. “I just need to talk to you,”

“Okay,” she nods, motioning for you to sit down and sitting down herself. “Wait, before you say it, is it because we’re moving too fast? I don’t mind taking it slow if you’re uncomfortable-“

“No Pam, that’s not it. I actually really like you, might love you even-“ you stop yourself. You don’t want to make this harder than it has to be. “But I can’t let you keep hurting this city,”

“What do you mean? Why would I hurt anyone?

“I saw you last night, Pam. You were controlling and killing people in order to break into a lab,”

Her mouth hangs open, “I…I can explain-“

“I tried to stop you, but you got away. I can’t let you get away now,”

“You…you were her? That vigilante?”

“Yes,”

“Ah, I see now,” she scoffs. “You’re one of those stupid crime fighters who couldn’t care less about all of us. You think you’re on this high horse of elite morality so you can lock up whoever you want-“

“That is not true,” you glare. “I do care about you. I even agree with your fight for helping nature. But I can’t let you go about it like this,”

“Please, Y/N, don’t make me go to Arkham-“ she begs, but you’ve already handcuffed her.

“I’m sorry. I have to turn you in,”

A single tear falls down your cheek as she stares at you in disbelief.

“Maybe we’ll find each other again one day.”

[astraeass]

[4] start once again;

[cross-posted in ao3 • fem reader]

previous chapter

pairing: levi ackerman/reader

warnings: cursing, violence

words: 4018

Summary:

Erwin assigned your squad a rare inside-the-walls mission. Ending up being successful, you also try to end up successful on warming up your cold behavior.

You currently stood with Mike besides you in front of your captain's door office, who asked for your and some members of your squad assist's for a 'mission' inside the walls. You had no idea of what it could be about, never being apart of these type of unusual assignments that required the help of the Scouts, probably just some dumb shit the Military Police was either not able to do so or simply were too lazy to care of, at least that was Mike told you since he actually went to help Erwin with a pair of them.

"Hey [L/N], you there?" Mike's fingers snapping mere inches away from your face brought you back to reality. You blinked a few times and then looked up to the blond who was growing impatient "Don’t worry too much, you midget. It’s probably the same as always, a little thief that drunk Garrison members can’t get a touch of" Ignoring his little comment about - his enormous height - your height you sighed and nodded. You weren’t worried about that at all, it was just infuriating that the Scouts, the regiment that already has weight upon their shoulders are assigned for simple but annoying tasks that the two remaining regiments couldn’t take care of.

Mike knocked the door and without receiving a answer at all, he just opened the door and stepped inside with all the comfort as if he was the captain himself, you understood though, Erwin and Mike were almost always seen together attached by the hip and your own experiences with them said that they were pretty close. You didn’t like to include yourself, but you trusted both of them plus the members of your squad with your own life.

"Finally both of you came, we were waiting for you" Erwin said after releasing a sigh when he saw both of your forms coming from the door, he already knew it was Mike when he didn’t even had the time to reply the knock in his door, and knowing Mike, he probably brought you with him since you were still as forgetful as always "Take a seat, you’ll know what we’re about talk about, right?"

"Yeah, that infamous mission inside the walls, huh? Isn’t it [Y/N]?" Said Mike with a teasing smirk adorning his lips while nudging your side with his elbow, you were so close to hit his fucking face. Already tensed thanks to your thoughts before about the incompetent military. Erwin arched one of his physically surreal brows and looked up to your still standing form. Seeing how you looked away, Mike decided to annoy you a little bit more.

"Just this little midget who could make a Titan scurry away with her glare is a bit scared of an insignificant mission" He was starting to hit your more impatient nerve but with a deep breath you answered him "First, I’m pretty sure the mission is not insignificant if Captain didn’t ask for half of his squad's help. Second, you can’t call everyone a midget just because you’re a fucking tree and three, I’m not scared!" Your tone got louder for the more you talked, and your face was getting even more red than before. You could have continued if it wasn’t that Erwin were looking at your bickering with Mike in disappointment, so you limited yourself on sitting on a random chair.

"Now that everything is resolved, I’ll explain what are we doing inside the royal capital" Erwin finally was able to start. Bringing what it looked like three pieces of paper, he spattered them on the table so we were able to have a look at them. On the papers, it was written information of three different persons, their physical description, how the currently lived and a large list of antecedents. But what it caught your attention is that all of them were part of the Underground, the city that surrounded the Royal Capital beneath its floor.

You didn’t knew a lot about the Underground, jus a few things you remembered reading from David's various books. Humanity tried to live underground to escape the deadly threat Titans brought, however the exodus was called off and the ruins of the old attempt of humanity's safety is not populated and formed of criminals and vagrants. The deepest sections were now slums, abandoned by the royal government, David told you that even the Military Police were always hesitant to step inside and now you understood everything.

"Are we really doing the MP's dirty job by catching these thieves? That’s pathetic, we have better things to do Captain!" Your anger coming to get you back again made you complain and stand grabbing the end of the table with force. You weren’t someone’s maid to take their shit off by doing jobs like these. Erwin lifted a hand, palm facing your face, making you frown in confusion and growing irritation "You didn’t let me finish, [L/N]" with that, you just sat down again, looking away in embarrassment.

"Yes, we’re catching them, but not for the Military Police's benefits, but for our own" He pointed the three papers that were situated on the table, the sudden sound making you glare at them "We'll tell them that they’ll have to joint the Surver Corps if they want some type of freedom. If they’re refuse, that I doubt, we will turn them over the MPs, that’s all. So read the information in the papers carefully so we can start and end this assignment as fast as possible"

It was a group of three, two males and a young female. Furlan Church, a medium-sized male with dark dirty blond hair and bright grey eyes. The other male, Levi who was rather short is apparently their leader, has short black hair styled in an undercut curtain, pale grey colored orbs and the only female, Isabel Magnolia a young woman with light green eyes and shaggy auburn locks that were usually styled into two pigtails. For what the reports said, all of them were exceptional using the Maneuver Gear, Levi however stood out the most of the three. So that’s why Erwin wanted a bunch of us then.

"As you all know, Shadis' and my request of changing the expedited formation was approved not long ago. We’re planning to use them for the next expedition, so if we capture them soon, they’ll be able to try it out too"

"We’re going to the Underground tomorrow morning, be ready by then" Erwin moved his own orbs to your, deepening his glare "And I don’t want anyone to be late, got it?" Clicking your tongue, you nodded and stared at the floor when you felt his intense glare on you. Tomorrow's gonna be long day

;;

You currently stood - again - besides Mike, however, this time you weren’t in the usual boring walls of the HQ but walking down the dark streets of the Underground. You knew the journey to find those thugs wouldn’t be easy, but didn’t expect to be this complicated. Firstly, you learn that being woman here is not easy, you hated the disgusting looks filthy men were sending your direction. No, of course their glares didn’t scare a woman part of the Survey Corps, but you couldn’t help but imagine how a defenseless young woman could survive down here, and it send chills down your spine.

Then, there’s children literally starving begging for food or even fighting for it, you never heard that living in the Underground was this hard. Sadly you couldn’t help them at all and this for a reason left a feeling of guilt down the pit of your stomach and it didn’t help that the thieves you were supposed to catch could appear in any moment, right now is a perfect situation, when you’re lost in your thoughts.

Just then, a mysterious harsh breeze of wind made you jump in your spot, aggressively interrupting your thoughts and when you looked for what or who provoked the rush of wind inside a closed space like this your eyes widened when you met your objective "[Y/N], I’m pretty sure it’s them! Let’s just chase them with a low profile like Erwin told us, they probably saw them already" Mike said to you with a low tone and you just nodded and followed no far away from him.

They situated theirselves by attaching their 3DMG on the roof of the city and not far behind, you could see that Erwin was already keeping a track. Following Mike's movements, you regrouped with the rest of your squad. You were sure that the group of three already took notice of all of your squad so you just waited for Erwin's orders. About 50 meters separated your squad and the thugs so you weren’t able to hear if they were talking among themselves or not, but their rushed, annoyed looks and frantic mouths moving confirmed that they were planning something out.

Not long after, the shorter male of the group took the lead and attached his hooks to a bridge nearby and flew forwards the bottom part, passing through it with speed followed by his companions. It was impressive, to say at least, but not hard enough to keep the rest of us behind and actually, we were able to be nearer them this time. Once again, the leader this time decided to double back a rock pillar that was in front of us. You deduced they were trying to confirm if all of you were actually Military Polices, since usually your skill levels suppressed theirs.

Suddenly, the group of three separated themselves. Fortunately, Erwin always had a step towards and already assigned each of you other one of the thugs, with yourself chasing after the taller man, Furlan Church. He gave a sharp turn to your right. Erwin looked back to meet your eyes with determination, knowing what it meant, you just nodded and started to chase after the blond thug.

For the next two minutes, he didn’t seem to have the opportunity to escape at all. There wasn’t any type of obstacle that could slow you down and you already could feel the state of irritation coming from his presence when seeing that you kept coming closer. In desperation, he aimed his piston-shot towards a random house you hoped it was inhabited and fired the grapple hooks. You weren’t far behind so it wasn’t difficult to determine what he was about to do from your camp of vision. For the time you rolled inside the house through the glass-less window, the grey-eyed man was the near the other entrance that would lead to his run out.

However, you had other plans for him, and before he could even lift up his arm, you fired your grapple hook to the wall, mere inches away from his face. That apparently startled him and since he wasn’t far away from the other window, he fell backwards the ground outside. You cursed lowly, and ran towards the window looking down when you heard a loud crash downwards and eyes widening by the sight, a messy Furlan laying on heavy looking wood boxes, eyes tightly closed in pain, it seemed that the rammed into them when he fell down. Not wanting to lose this advantage, you quickly stepped down besides him and grabbed his much taller form by the hood hanging from his neck and ready to tie his hands behind his back.

"Ah.. I never expected to be caught like this" you just scoffed, ignoring his comment. When you were sure that the rope was tightly wrapped around his wrists, you forced him to stand up and began walking towards an uncertain direction. Uncertain until you heard various thuds and more crashes that sounded just like the infamous blades resting on your thighs. It wasn’t far away and by Furlan's irritated look, he seemed to recognize the other sounds as well. You just tugged his tied arms forwards and walked where you thought the sounds came from.

Minutes after, without barely blinking since you were keeping eyes open for any movement Furlan could make, you both finally reached the commotion and no far away another woman part of your squad, Lisa, managed to catch the younger girl, Isabel. You both crossed paths and saw that Mike and Erwin, both cornered Levi "Squad leader, are you alright?" You said with a loud to me once both of you were close enough. Erwin looked at our direction and just nodded "Yes. You both did well"

;;

The three thugs were captured, each of them had their wrists tied up with ropes plus sodden cuffs, to maintain their already blocked way to move and obliged to kneel in front of your squad leader. Erwin looked down, expecting o meet their glares, you stood no far away with Mike, in case any of them tried to do something, which right now seemed like impossible "I have some questions to ask you" He lifted the piston-shot of one of the maneuver gears you were able to detach from their bodies and started his interrogation "Where did you get your hands on this?" Silence.

"Your vertical maneuvering skills were excellent. Who thought you?" Erwin’s words meet even more silence, however, in you opinion their glares were more than sufficient. You sweared that if Levi's glare could kill, he really would have done it... for about six times already. Erwin walked towards the latter mentioned, and you certainly worried a bit about his safety "You are the leader, right? Have you ever received military training?" The deadly state of the grey-eyed man just deepened and that seemed that it was enough silence for Erwin, he looked towards Mike who just nodded in affirmation. You knew what he will do, using force is the only way.

Mike grabbed Levi's hair and yanked him towards the filthy floor slamming his face into a puddle of mud in an aggressive manner. His other two friends gasped in surprise, their already hateful gazes just increasing with worry for their friend. Levi just winced a bit and looked up to Erwin once again "I'll ask again. Where did you learn vertical maneuvering?" Silence just covered the ambience, and you noticed how Erwin was losing some of his massive patience, Levi didn’t seem way too well neither.

"We didn’t learn it form anyone! You think we’re gonna let a civil servant push us around?!" Isabel suddenly said. You jumped in surprise and moved from were you stood to walk near Isabel and Furlan, you would expect anything front those two "We figured it out so we could survive in this dump! Anyone who doesn’t know what sewage tastes like couldn’t understand!" You were keeping a somewhat low likeness towards the three of them, but Furlan's words made you remember how these people lived and growled up, how much of the kids starved to death before even thinking of having a childish dream and you felt compassion invading your body for them. Mentally slapping yourself about how heartless you have been, even if you never voiced out loud the thoughts lingering your mind mere seconds ago.

"My name is Erwin Smith. What are your names?" The blonde, satisfied by their answers, tried to ask Levi again, but he didn’t receive something much different. Mike taking the sign and repeated his last actions, this time you felt bad seeing how the raven struggled to catch his breath and how his ego is being broken in front of his own friends and strangers he didn’t want to know about "I applaud your determination. But keep it up, and we’ll move on to your comrades" you knew what you should do now, but still hesitated a bit. With shaky hands, you grabbed Isabel's shaggy hair softly and neared one of your blades into her small neck. You knew that you wouldn’t kill them, but it still left an uneasy feeling.

"If you’re gonna do it, do it!!" The girl exclaimed in anger, making your eyebrows frown, was your compassion that obvious? Was it that obvious to make Isabel risk her life knowing that she’s actually not doing so? Where is your usual cold behavior towards thugs like them? And Levi’s surprised and worried look that you were able to catch from the corner of your eye didn’t help at all however it lasted seconds since he moved his eyes to Erwin, hatred covering his orbs "You bastard..."

"What’s your name?" Erwin tried again. You still didn’t understand why he asked for it, when you remember he was to one that handled all of you their information papers. You just assumed that he wanted to keep a low profile and brushed the thought aside.

"... It’s Levi" His voice still sounded raspy and you could see how kept struggling when catching his breath.

"Levi, would you make a deal with me?"

The man looked up in surprise, eyes widened and confusion adorned his face. It was nice to see a different expression on his sharp features "Deal...?" Erwin nodded and continued with his proposition "I won’t ask about your crimes. In return, you will lend me your strength, and join the survey corps" Levi's confusion turned into a more incredulous one, and somehow, you understood dumbstruck state "If I refuse...?" He asked lowly, probably knowing what Erwin's answer will be "I turn you over the military police. Considering your crimes, I don’t think you or your comrades can expect decent treatment"

"Choose whichever path you wish"

Levi looked at his side, meeting Isabel's and Furlan's determination. His pupils looked up to you, and you felt your body freeze on the spot. He only growled moving his gaze down the puddle of mud with irritation only to meet Erwin back again.

"Very well, I’ll join the Surver Corps"

;;

Tray in hand, you stood in middle of the room. Eyes searching for a certain brunette and they’re usual companion to sit with, but finding no one instead. Alone, you sat in a random empty table, and waited for Hanji and their squad.

It wasn’t that you weren’t fond of your own squad. But as usual, they weren’t there neither. Erwin passing most of his time inside his office or training. Mike whenever the fuck Erwin is at the moment and the rest had more friends they are bonded with.

Hanji Zoë is an enthusiastic person, it was hard to not know or have talked with them. Is like they have a goal to befriend everyone joining the Survey Corps. And at first, you thought you would have never want to have any type of friendship with them since they’re way too loud for liking but look at you, impatiently waiting for their arrival.

Then there’s Moblit Berner who is a total sweetheart. You suppose that he’s a close friend of Hanji, since they spend most of their time time together and neither of them being here eating dinner with you, reinforces that question.

"They’re probably in that closed library where no sunlight hits and lost their control of time... again" you murmured. It wasn’t unusual that you are sitting alone by yourself, your hard capacity to maintain conversations with anyone is enough to make you give up on that. And the little amount of persons that managed to get on your heart are always occupied with someone or something.

You always stood like a sore thumb in any pair you went and spent your ridiculously large amount of free time with. Erwin & Mike, two tall as fuck blue-eyes blondes and then Hanji & Moblit, their conversations always being about trivial topics you barely knew about. However that didn’t mean you didn’t fully enjoy your time with them. Hanji always tried to make you laugh once a day, since 'you won’t be able to show any expressions if you kept having that resting bitch face' and somehow, they succeed every time.

But you really did want to have a larger comfort bubble with a larger amount of friends. You’ve been a scout for several years already, and haven’t found no one as close as your previous mentioned friendships, mayhap two or three acquaintances and a few talks with your squad companions but that’s all. You urged of human communication.

You waited for Hanji and Moblit with your cold and now empty plate under you for nearly an hour, you were growing impatient of the looks some new cadets were giving you since you literally had no reason to stay in the room if you finished your food or maybe is your R.B.F scarier than usual?

You sighed standing up and walked towards the headroom you shared with most of the women, ready to call it a day but stopped when you heard rushed and low voices down the hall. Moving your head slowly to take a peek, the thieves you captured a week ago were standing in the middle of the narrow hall with irritated expressions.

"I’ll go! You’ll probably make a mess if you even think about entering his office"

"Huh?! You’re saying I’m not capable to do so?!"

"..."

"Levi!! Who do you think will do a better job?"

"We don’t even know if that damn paper is there, but-"

"Levi's opinion doesn’t matter here, he’ll probably just say me anyways"

Paper? Office? Are they talking about the Commander’s office? Why would they enter though...?

"Hey! Of course it matters, if I wasn’t here you two would probably rip your heads off"

A silence with a deep breath.

"Furlan’s going"

"Aw, c'mon! I wanted to see if he used a comb to style his brows!"

Not the Commander’s, but Erwin's office

"If I found something like that, I would have told both you, dumbass"

You heard them walking towards your hiding position, so hurriedly you passed in front of them as if you didn’t heard nothing, just in your way to have a deep sleep in your hard as a rock bed.

They easily got startled by your presence, and you couldn’t stop feeling their sharp gaze on you "Everything okay?" You decided to ask, maybe showing a kinder side helps them feel more comfortable.

"Yeah, we just... just got lost!" Isabel said with a nervous grin, still looking stiff thanks to your surprise appearance second ago.

"Ah, really? I know the headquarters from head to toe, I can help you" You answered with sincerity, waiting for them and if they’re willing to ask you.

"Eh, uhm... yeah of co-"

"No, we'll manage" Levi interrupted Isabel's affirmation, irritation starting to form in his expression, narrowing his eyes in suspicion and cold eyes meeting yours. You would have lied if you said you didn’t feel chill down your spine but you just nodded, waved goodbye at them and restarted you walk to your now changed direction.

;;

Furlan huffed, closing the door behind him in a slow movement "Damnit... there’s nothing"

"Nothing?"

The young man standing in front of Erwin's door office jumped in surprise and for you amusement a high pitched shriek. But his scared expression didn’t last long "W-what around you doing here! Wasn’t it enough to make my caught pathetic?"

You just chuckled and smiled at him, Furlan just scoffed, but you were able to see the little light of confusion adorning his light grey-orbs "Shouldn’t I be asking that? Erwin is my squad leader after all" Furlan limited himself to blush in embarrassment after his realization "I just wanted to talk with him, is that wrong?"

"It is not, but you shouldn’t enter his office without permission" and before he could answer you back, you started to talk again "But it’s okay, this happened my first time too, y’know?" Furlan just laughed awkwardly and nodded "haha.. yeah"

"I gotta go but um, if are here to talk to Erwin you should go back" He said turning around and walking out as fast as he could without looking suspicious.

"They’re so awful at hiding it.. maybe asking Erwin to watch their training tomorrow is a good idea"

Next Chapter

[fitzs-trained-monkey]

Chapter Two: Wouldn't It Be Nice?

Rated: PG

~ Wouldn't it be nice if we were older? Then we wouldn't have to wait so long And wouldn't it be nice to live together In the kind of world where we belong? ~

It was 7:00 AM and the sun was up and out, and so too were the people. True to the fashion of only the grumpiest of bears, the bleary-eyed citizens of Copper Harbor were up and sleepwalking to work, falling asleep at red lights, and glaring into the black depths of their coffee as they tried to find a will to wake up or a reason to keep existing. Or both. Horns blared, children cried, people cursed, and that one guy slammed his head into a pole as he stared at a dude dressed as Batman who was directing traffic. (I don't think he had the authority to do that, but I wasn't going to challenge him.) All and all it was a fairly normal morning. At least in this town.

Like the entire population of Copper Harbor, a grand total of 100 or so permanent residents, I too hated mornings. But not for the same reason everyone else did. Sensory overload is my constant companion, but it's never worse than it is from 7:00 to 9:00 AM. That’s another reason I was staying in Copper Harbor. You could probably fit the town's entire population in the auditorium of the local high school. But even here, I could hardly stand the headache the morning rush gave me. I don't think I could bear living in a big city.

Although this time, things weren't as bad as they normally were because this time, I had a distraction. Engrossed in my conversation with my new friend, I managed to block out some of the noise. I found it rather strange that someone would be willing to keep chatting for so long, it had been hours and hours. I kept waiting for Jack to tell me that he had to go or something, but he never did. When I asked about it, he just said he couldn't sleep. Eventually, I knew it was me who was going to have to end the conversation. I had things to do, and I knew that, but I didn't want to be the one to say goodbye.

"Are you gonna get moving, or are you gonna keep talking to your new boyfriend?" A voice asked from above me. I looked up.

Perched atop a large green dumpster to my left, sat a boy who looked around the age of 18. He had fair skin and auburn hair that was long enough to show off its gorgeous natural curls while not being long enough to be annoying. (I was absolutely jealous of his hair. The guy's locks were heavenly!) He wore a playful smirk on his face and his hazel eyes flashed as they crinkled up at the corners, alight with mischief. He held his face between his hands and tried to flutter his eyelashes in an attempt to mock me. "Do you wuv him, Marty? Do you wuv your wittole Jack? Tell me how much you wuv him!" He teased. I rolled my eyes. I knew this boy well. His name was Isaac, and he was a royal pain in my behind.

"Isaac?" I addressed him, sweetly. Swiveling my head to peer up at him, I smiled the fakest smile I could muster.

"Yes, Marty?" Isaac asked, matching my level of false sincerity.

"Do the world a favor, sweetie, and shut your mouth," I told him. Isaac just grinned at me.

"No!"

I rolled my eyes.

"If I could throw a rock at you right now, I would," I huffed.

"But, alas, you cannot!" Isaac smirked and slid off of the dumpster. He landed on his feet before coming to stand over me. I didn't look up at him.

"One of these days I'm gonna find a way," I muttered.

"You've been saying that for five years and yet you've never made good on that threat. Are you ever going to put your money where your mouth is?" He taunted. I stuck my tongue out at him and he laughed.

Using the wall behind me as support, I pulled myself onto shaking feet. Despite every part of my body screaming for me to stop, I stretched myself out. Now, I looked up at the boy in front of me.

Isaac was just a little under six feet tall and scrawny like a twig. His good looks would have had all the girls chasing him. Isaac looked like most other boys his age in terms of physique. That is, if you excluded the massive gaping wound, red and raw, that decorated most of the right side of his neck.

The wound remained there, frozen, as fresh as the day he received it. It remained as fresh as the day it killed him. His pale, ashen skin and the purple rings surrounding his young, hopeful eyes bore the tell-tale signs of death by blood loss.

Isaac was a ghost.

"Don't you have something, anything, better to do?" I asked, glaring at him.

"Nope!" He replied, popping the 'P'. "But you do! So, tell your boyfriend bye-bye and get going!" I huffed at him but did as I was told.

Sent: 9:19 AM

Sorry, Jack but I have to go now. Thanks for talking to me!

Received: 9:20 AM

Okay, I guess I'll talk to you later. Have a great day and stay safe!

I smiled at Jack's simple kindness and tucked my phone into my back pocket. When I looked up, Isaac was standing there and tapping his foot impatiently.

"Ya done, lovebird?" He sighed dramatically. I gave him a prim little nod.

"I am indeed─" I used my arm to motion to the mouth of the alleyway with a dramatic bow─ "Shall we be off then, my liege?" Isaac grinned and rolled his eyes.

"Forsooth! Onward my fair servant!" He began marching dramatically to the mouth of the alley and continued out onto the sidewalk. I shook my head and followed after him, without the marching. I guess that was one of the advantages of being a ghost, if nobody could see you, you could do any of the weird crap you wanted to do, and nobody would ever stare.

When I caught up to my cadaverous companion, I pulled my phone from my pocket and pretended to be calling someone. That was the only way I could talk to Isaac in front of the public eye without seeming insane. I didn't think I was insane. But if I was, would I really know it?

"Isaac, I swear if you call me 'servant' again, I will kill myself just so I can beat your sorry, spectral rear end into whatever is after the after-life. Savvy?" I threatened. Isaac turned and started walking backwards, passing through several people that I then very-quickly had to dodge. Isaac could be a bit of a butt that way.

"Yes, Sir! I mean, Ma'am!" He exclaimed, sending me a mocking salute. I just groaned.

"Where were you last night anyway?"

"Watching the Lord of the Rings marathon in the theater, Sir! I mean, Ma'am!"

"Remind me, why do I let you hang around again?" I muttered, quieter than before. "Excuse me." I had to shove my way past a rather beefy guy who was smoking and blocking the entrance to the town's minimart. Isaac just walked through him. He waited until I got inside to answer the question that I had intended to be rhetorical.

"Because I'm adorable, cheerful, and useful to your criminal lifestyle. So, what are we stealing today?" I grimaced at his comment.

"First of all, it's not criminal for me to survive. Second, is it really stealing if I have no way to get money? And third, I need a hairbrush, some hair ties and a jacket because this cardigan is definitely not enough," I said through clenched teeth as I smiled and nodded at the teenage girl behind the counter. She was tall, blond, and I would bet 10 bucks that her name was Tiffany. She nodded back and resumed whatever it was she was doing on her phone. Isaac however was not done talking to me and ticked his reactions to my comments off on his fingers.

"One, true. Two, yup. And three, cool, but that last one's gonna be hard."

"Well in that case, I guess you better do your job really well. See, ya on the other side, mate."

Isaac grinned lopsidedly at me and I pretended to hang up the phone.

I walked further into the store and pretended to look at the hair care section. I gave Isaac the signal, scratching the back of my head. Isaac swept his hand along the length of a shelf, knocking all the containers of peanut butter to the floor. The girl behind the counter whipped her head around to look at me with wide eyes. She looked from me to the peanut butter and back to me. Gaping at the good 15 feet of distance between me and the fallen peanut butter.

"What was that?" She asked, apprehensively. I gazed back at her with wide eyes of my own.

"I have no idea. They just fell off. All by themselves!" I lied. Isaac snickered. The cashier raked a hand through her hair and hopped over the counter to pick up the fallen peanut butter.

While she was paying attention that, I scooped up some hair ties and tucked them into the hidden pocket I had sewed into the inside of my cardigan. Snatching up a brush, I stuffed it into one of my too-big, black, knee-high boots I wear specifically for this purpose. Then, I moved to help the girl with the peanut butter situation. I ducked down and grasped one of the jars that had rolled underneath the shelving unit and handed it to her with a smile. She then put it back on the shelf.

"Thanks for your help, sweetie!" She said, talking down to me. I struggled to hold my smile. I didn't like being talked down to. I don't care what I look like. Even taking that thing into account, she wasn't that much older than me!

"It's no problem, miss!" I raised the pitch of my voice to sound more chipper and innocent, adding in the 'miss' part to feed into her clear superiority complex. I then moved over to the section that held a bunch of jackets and coats hanging from hooks attached to the walls. I waved Isaac over to me with a quick movement of my head that most others would mistake for me flipping my hair. Isaac meandered his way through a few shelving racks and over to me. I pulled out my phone and started typing, letting Isaac read over my shoulder.

Big distraction this time. Make it mean. She called me 'sweetie'.

Isaac nodded.

"Aye, aye! ... Sweetie."

I shot him a scowl and went back to perusing the jackets.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Isaac push against one of the free-standing shelving units. It teetered and groaned before toppling to the linoleum floor with an ear-splitting bang. The head if the cashier girl shot up and she gasped before letting out a rather un-lady like stream of cuss words. Sprinting over to the fallen shelf, she desperately tried to get it back upright.

I took my chance.

I seized a fluffy black coat from one of the racks and booked my butt out of the mini-mart. The girl looked up as I pushed my way out the door.

"Hey! Stop! THEF! THEF!" She shrieked. I grinned and dashed down the sidewalk. When I reached the end of the street, I looked back and saw that cashier chasing me. I decided to show off a little. Scampering down a back alley, I boosted onto a convenient dumpster and sprung upward. The distance from the top of the dumpster to the first wrung of the ladder that led to the rooftop, was an impossible height for any normal person to jump.

My hands latched onto the freezing second wrung.

The cashier stumbled into the alleyway, gasping when she saw me hanging from the ladder. Like I said, it should have been an impossible distance to jump. I smirked at her disbelief and giggled, flicking my wrist in a wave before clambering up the ladder and to the top of the roof.

Sprinting across the roof top, I skipped to the edge and bounded over. I closed my eyes and pushed off with all my might. The wind rushed through my hair and past my face and then...

My feet crunched onto the gravel as I landed on the next rooftop.

The rooftop that had previously been twenty feet away.

An impossible distance for any normal person. Key-word normal. But that was just it. I wasn't normal.

I heard someone cheer from across the street and I looked up. Dan the Dope Man, our little town's resident dealer, was shaking his fist, hooting and hollering. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted to me.

"You go, Marty! Woo hoo!" He applauded me. I waved at him as I rushed to this roof's end. Reaching the edge, I did a parkour flip and touched down firmly on the next one.

The cashier girl was determined, I had to give her that. She chased me from the ground for about three more blocks before she collapsed, exhausted, onto a bench. I kept running along the rooftops, getting the occasional holler of encouragement from some enthused passerby. I leapt one last time onto the roof of Copper Harbor's town hall.

It was one of those really old town hall buildings. Like the ones in the movies. It was made of brick had a clock tower and everything. The whole old-timey shebang. Scaling onto the top of the clock tower, I grasped the spire and leaned outward over my little paradise town.

"GOOD MORNING COPPER HARBOR!" I shouted into the crisp morning breeze.

Even though it wasn't exactly pleasant, I let the few rays of sun light shine on my face as they peaked through the thick, gray winter sky. I could only take a few minutes of the direct sunshine, even as weak as it was, before I had to make my way back down the tower. I missed the days when I could lie in the sun for hours without feeling any sort of sting. Those days were now long past. When I got back to the flat part of the building's roof, Isaac was there, waiting on me.

"That was corny as Hell. You don't live in a frickin' movie." He criticized, smirking at me. I shook my hair out and brushed it back, securing it with one of my freshly nicked hair ties.

"Yeah, I know!" I replied cheerfully, feeling in a much better mood than I had been in earlier that morning. I always felt better after a run.

"One of these days I should push you off that tower just to see your face," Isaac said. I smirked at him.

"Well, if I fall, I might crush this." Reaching into my cardigan's secret pocket I extracted a five-inch Darth Vader figurine. Isaac glared at me, shaking his finger.

"If you so much as scratch Lord Vader, I swear I'll strangle you." Isaac was very protective if that figurine. Probably because his soul was tied to it. Yes, that's right. Isaac's soul was tied to a Darth Vader action figure.

"5 years you've been saying that. Are you ever you gonna put your money where your mouth is?" I jeered, quoting him from earlier that morning. Isaac frowned.

"You're not funny you know," he said.

"What are you talking about? I'm hilarious!" I scoffed with a wave of my hand.

"Let's just go home. We'll do the other thing later," Isaac sighed. I grinned at him and ran to the edge of the roof, gesturing to the snow-covered hills leading away from the town.

"And our hero sauntered off into the snow beside her trusty, albeit annoying, cadaverous compatriot!"

"Shut up."

"No!"

So the two of us left the main town and trudged over hills blanketed with almost a foot of snow. Isaac of course had no problems with the snow, walking easily over it, he made no footprints. When we came to the forest on the edge of the town, I quickly spotted the treehouse nestled between three trees about 20 feet from the start of the woods. We were home.

The tree house was built about 18 feet or so from the ground and the ladder that had once led into it was now long gone. It still laid where it had the day we’d found it, splintered and rotting under a foot of snow. Though we didn't know who had built it, Isaac and I both thanked them every day. Striding over to the thickest of the three trees the tree house was built into, I reached up and snagged the bundle of rope, thick and a little frayed we kept hidden inside a hallow knot in the wood. The other end of the rope was tied to a hook inside the tree house and I used it to climb my way inside.

I dragged the heavy wooden cover over the tree houses entrance hole then stood and surveyed my little home. It was fairly large, about 7 feet high, 20 feet long and 8 feet wide. There were blankets and pillows strewn about a mattress on the floor, a violin in the far-left corner, and a small table with a sketchbook and chess set sitting on it and two chairs set up to play. It wasn't much, but it was home now.

I walked to the shelf that lined the wall on my right and tugged this morning's spoils from their various places on my body, tossing them on the shelf. Carefully fingering Isaac's Darth Vader, I placed it gently next to my beautiful snow globe. A sudden feeling of longing washed over me, and I ached for the life I used to live. The life that I could never have back.

A silent tear slid down my cheek.

"It wasn't your fault, Marty," Isaac reminded me gently, appearing from thin air just behind me.

"I know." I turned back to him. "But that doesn't make it hurt any less."

"I know you wish you could go back and change things. I do too. But we can't, we just have to keep going. You'll find your place in this world, I know it!" He said, trying to be encouraging. I smiled at him weakly.

"Isaac, we're not supposed to be here. Neither of us belong in this world, and I wish we did. There's just no room for us. And I wish there was, that would be nice, but there's not. Not anymore. I'm gonna be stuck right here in this same moment forever. Just like I have been for the last 5 years. Deep down you know that. But at least you can move on."

"I'm not gonna move on until I can take you with me. I'm not gonna break my promise. We're going to heaven together, remember?" He tried. I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand but more just streamed down to take their place.

"Even when I do die eventually, I won't be going to heaven."

"Don't lose hope, Marty. Please?"

"I already lost it, Isaac. I lost it a long time ago. Thinking about it only makes things worse."

***

When Dean Winchester opened his eyes, he found that he was no longer in bed. Which was strange because he distinctly remembered falling asleep in the aforementioned place. He flicked his eyes about to try to determine where exactly he was. After just a few minutes, his foggy and sleep doused brain finally made sense of the information his body was feeding him.

Dean came to the unfortunate conclusion that he had fallen out of bed. Despite how unhappy he was with the results of his deduction; Dean was amazed that he had only woken up quite a while after the minor tragedy and not during the action of falling out of bed.

He must have been very tired.

But that was remedied now, and Dean felt ready to take on anything... In a few minutes. He'd have to get some coffee first. Peeling himself off the floor, he stumbled to the door and into the hall, making his way toward the smell of food wafting from the kitchen.

Now, whatever thoughts Dean had about his coherency when he walked into the kitchen and stuffed a bagel in his mouth, were not shared by the other two people in the room. If they hadn't known any better, Jack and Sam would have thought Dean was a zombie. A zombie who was hungry for bagels instead of a certain cognitive organ.

"Good morning Dean! Did you sleep well?" Jack greeted, chipper as usual. Dean frowned, snatching the entire pot of coffee, and sitting down with it at the table across from Jack.

"Mmmnhhaamuuuvggh."

"Understandable. Enjoy your coffee," Jack replied to whatever it was Dean had been trying to say. Sam raised his eyebrows at his older brother's lack of cognitive function but said nothing. It amazed Sam that he and his brother could be so different.

After a few silent minutes of nursing his coffee, the smallest bit of light began to shine through Dean's eyes. The waking process had begun. Just like the Windows 8 operating system, Dean's waking process was extremely and notoriously slow. But now Sam knew that if he were to begin a conversation with his brother, Dean would at least be able to understand it, if not participate.

"It's 10:45 Dean, just so you know, you slept for twenty-two hours," Sam informed. Dean's eyebrows flinched upward just a fraction of an inch. He clearly was yet to regain control over his facial muscles.

"Mumnnafubnna," He groaned. Jack held back a chuckle for Dean's morning state, he knew laughing out loud wouldn't go well for him. Dean wasn't someone you wanted to laugh at because Dean knew how to get revenge. A prank war was not something you wanted to entice Dean into. He would always win.

"Oh, and uh, Cas is back," Sam said. Dean looked up.

"Hm?"

"Woah, there. Careful Dean, that was almost a word!" Sam teased. Dean swallowed a piece of bagel he'd been gnawing on.

"Where?" He croaked out. Sam was about to answer but never got the chance.

"I'm right behind you, Dean." Dean jumped and spat some bagel out onto the table. Whipping his head around he glared at Cas. Jack couldn't help but snicker.

"Mmhn. Nah. Funny. Cas," Dean managed to grid out of his morning stupor. Castiel only shrugged and sat down at the table beside Dean.

"So, uh, Cas, how'd that thing go with the twenty bucks or whatever it was?" Sam asked their resident angel. Castiel frowned.

"The twenty tailed buck," He corrected.

"Yeah, that." Castiel sighed.

"No luck."

"Sorry to hear that." Cas nodded and shrugged again. Jack patted his arm.

"I'm sure you'll have better luck next time!" Jack encouraged.

"Next time is in seven hundred and eighty-two years," Cas sighed.

"Who's counting!" Jack tried to joke. Cas didn't laugh. Sometimes it could be very hard talking to Castiel.

"But I did find us a lead," The angel said, leaning forward and placing his hands on the table. The rest at the table looked up. "A very interesting one."

"Spill," Dean commanded, grumbling. Cas glanced at the bagel-eating zombie on his left and briefly wondered how Dean Winchester could be one of the best hunters in the world.

"There appears to be some extremely powerful ghost activity going on in northern Michigan. I was passing by a store and saw it on the news," Castiel told them, nodding seriously.

"You saw it on the news?" Sam asked, skeptical.

"Yes. The anchor woman said the video recording was 'going viral' or something like that," Cas answered, making air quotes with his fingers.

"Huh."

Sam pulled out his lap-top and began typing away. Jack briefly wondered how it was that Sam's laptop was always nearby when he needed it, but he quickly decided that he didn't want to dwell on that question and went back to his cereal.

"Cas, do you know where in Michigan this was?" Sam asked, looking up. Castiel nodded.

"Yes, I believe it was a Bronze Port- wait no. It was-"

"Was it Copper Harbor?"

Cas blinked before nodding again.

"Yes, I think that was it."

"Well, I think I found the video." Sam turned the laptop around for the rest to see.

Displayed on the screen was a video of the security footage of a minimart. Though it wasn't very mini for a mart. The footage was taken in black and white and although it was somewhat grainy, it was still clear enough to see the subjects. A young woman walked into the store, talking to someone on her phone. She nodded at the cashier and went to look for something in the hair care isle. Everything seemed normal, before a shelf full of peanut butter flew off the rack and crashed to the floor. Like someone had dragged their hand along the shelf and knocked everything off. But the young woman had been the only one in the store and she hadn't been anywhere near the peanut butter.

"Hey! Did you see that?" Jack exclaimed.

"What? See what?" Sam asked pausing the video.

"That woman stole something right when the peanut butter when flying. Watch it again!"

Sure enough, Jack was right. The woman had snatched some hair ties and a brush, stuffing them in a pocket and her boot, the second after the peanut butter tumbled to the floor. The four hunters kept watching. The girl who had stolen the brush and hair ties walked over to the cashier, who was picking up the fallen peanut butter. The camera never caught a glimpse of the thief's face as she ducked down and picked up one of the peanut butter jars and handed it to the cashier. Then the thief walked over to look at the jackets. She whipped out her phone and started typing something.

"What is she doing?" Castiel wondered aloud.

On the screen, the woman flipped her hair and leaned her phone outward, as if showing it to someone looking over her shoulder. But of course, there was nobody there. Then the woman tucked her phone away and went back to looking at the jackets hanging on the wall.

"Look, look, look! Right there! Did you see that?" Jack hastily pointed at a spot on the screen.

"I didn't see anything," Sam said, shaking his head.

"Rewind it and slow it down."

Sam did as Jack said. Rewinding a few seconds.

The thief on the screen went back to examining the jackets again. Jack pointed to that same spot as last time.

"Right there!"

This time Sam, Cas and Dean all saw what Jack was talking about. A face flickered into view by one of the shelves. Then, for a split second an entire ghostly form could be seen making a rude gesture at the camera, just before that shelf crashed to the floor. The thief grabbed a jacket off the rack and dashed out of the mini-mart just slightly faster than humanly possible. But the Winchesters and their two angelic companions didn't notice that part. They were too focused on the ghost. Sam sat back in his chair.

"Looks, legit. Should we check it out?"

"Yes." Jack and Cas said at the same time.

"No," Said Dean. The rest of the merry troop looked at him. "It looks legit. Doesn't mean it is." He shrugged, finishing the rest of his coffee.

"We've done more on less," Sam argued. "Besides," He continued scrolling on the laptop, "from what it says here, this isn't the only case in Copper Harbor. Crap like this has happened all over the town! Crazy, unexplainable disturbances followed by missing items. Reports go back for the last five years!"

"So that thief is using a ghost to help her steal stuff?" Jack asked, clearly exited.

"Yeah, and not just material items. Most of these reports come from the local hospital. She's stealing blood." Sam looked up at Dean who nodded.

"Sounds good enough for me."

***

"And that's checkmate, again!" Isaac shouted triumphantly. I moaned and slammed my head against the table.

"How?! How are you so good at chess?!" I shouted, my frustration at being beaten for the eighth time in a row was reaching critical mass.

"I have two words for you," Isaac smirked, counting the words off on his fingers, "Chess. Club."

"Uuuuggghhhaaa!!!"

"Wanna rematch?" I snapped my head to look back up at him.

"No!" I hurriedly shoved the chess pieces out of the way and brought out the checkers. "We're doing checkers! Lets see who's king now!" Isaac just shrugged.

"More humiliation for you, I guess."

"We'll see about that, pretty boy!"

"Mommy, mommy! She called me pretty!"

"I didn't mean it."

"I know."

"You're dead so it doesn't count."

"Well, that's just hurtful," Isaac pouted.

I smirked and pulled out my phone. Scrolling through the news and memes as I waited for Isaac to take his turn. He was always slow at checkers. As I scrolled passed a rather painful dad joke, I saw something that first caught my eye and then made my blood run cold.

"Your turn!" Isaac said. I didn't reply. I couldn't.

"Honestly, I don't know what makes you think you can beat me."

I tried to speak up.

"Isaac?"

He wasn't paying attention.

"I mean when have you ever beaten me?"

"Isaac."

"And don't say that one time with the ping-pong because we both know that doesn't count!"

"ISAAC!"

Now he looked up.

"What?"

I swallowed.

"You know how you said you always wanted to be famous?" I asked him weakly. I felt sick.

"No, no! I never said I wanted to be famous. I said I wanted to be a meme. There's a difference," Isaac said, smiling.

"Isaac?"

"Yeah, that’s my name. Why do you sound like you're gonna barf?" I turned my phone to let him see what was displayed on my screen and apparently millions of others. The footage of me and Isaac in the mini-mart.

"I think we just hit the prime time..." I said. Isaac looked up at me, if his pale, dead face could have gotten paler, I'm sure it would.

"Well, crap."

~ Wouldn't it be nice if we were older? Then we wouldn't have to wait so long And wouldn't it be nice to live together In the kind of world where we belong?

You know it seems the more we talk about it It only makes it worse to live without it But let's talk about it

Oh, wouldn't it be nice? ~

Lyrics from: Wouldn't It Be Nice by The Beach Boys

[zenothemanager]

Axion: A Kortia Fic

If I write this, does it still make it a fanfic? Anyway, enjoy this short little thing I wrote about Gerald.

“Identify yourself travelers.” A voice came from a small open spot above the steel-like doors that looked about the width of a highway. 

“I’m Gerald Yori, and this is Dakota. She has no last name.” Gerald spoke towards the doors in a commanding voice I didn’t think he was really capable of. The slit above the doors quickly shut and a beam of purple light hit us, which tingled a lot.

“Gerald what the hell is this light?” I questioned, looking over my arms.

“They’re scanning our identities to make sure we aren’t known criminals.” He said cooly, just as the light turned off. 

“Entry granted. Queen Flore hopes you enjoy your stay at Astron, The Light of Vallauria.” A robotic voice said from the wall, seemingly from nowhere. After that, the doors began to open.

“The queen's name is Flore? Isn’t that a bit close to Florus?” I questioned with a bit of worry. After all, we had left the Princess to deal with the Dyclos problem by herself.

“You don’t need to worry Dakota, there's no relation there. From what I hear, the Queen is nothing like the Florus family.” He assured me, just as the gates finished opening.

And inside was more neon light than I had ever been exposed to in my life.

“Look at… all of the lights…” I muttered in sheer awe as my eyes darted across every little thing I was seeing. Purple, pink, and blue neon lights were shining from every corner of my vision. Cars were stacked in traffic high above the streets, thousands of people walked the sidewalks, and every bit of the city felt alive. 

“You like it?” Gerald questioned, a small smile appearing on his face. 

“This is better than I ever imagined it to be Gerald.” I smiled at him, the realized that for once, he was actually smiling.

“Wait are you smiling again?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you're talking about Dakota.” He said, his face going slack as he immediately began walking away from where I was standing. “You better hurry up and get your looks in now, or you’ll get left behind.”

“Gosh Gerald, you sound like a mother trying to get their kid to follow them.” I sighed, tearing my eyes away from the skyscrapers that seemed to cut through the very clouds themselves.

“What does gosh mean?” He questioned, shooting me a confused look.

“O-oh it's a saying where I’m from.” I suggested.

“Sure.” Gerald muttered in disbelief, but stayed silent afterward. This gave me time to actually take a good look around as we walked.

The vibe of the city was definitely cyberpunk. Futuristic flying cars, neon on every inch of the city, and the various ads for products that absolutely blew my mind. One thing I did notice that was odd were the people themselves. 

They all looked different.

I knew they were all Vallaurian, but not a single one had common features that everyone would normally have. Some people had crazy eye colors, some people had crazy hair colors, and some people even had wacky colors of their skin, or even more limbs than they should have.

“There's so many people here Gerald, how do they feed everyone?” I asked, realizing the lack of farms in the grasslands surrounded the giant walled city.

“You remember the floating farms we saw in Imperious?”

“Yeah.”

“That's what the people of Ventali do too. Sitting high up above the buildings is a huge floating farm that blocks out the sky during the day to feed the plants. Between dusk and dawn though, the plain splits itself up and sits on top of buildings around the city.” He said, looking around the neon city with even more awe in his eyes than even I had. I could tell he was really happy to be back here, and that in turn made butterflies fly around in my stomach.

“Well, where should we go first!” I asked in an excited tone, a bit louder than I expected too, but no one around us seemed to care. 

“We have to go to Axion, to deliver this letter.” Gerald said, pulling the white colored letter from one of his pockets and showing me it. It looked a lot more tattered and torn since the last time I had seen it… all that time ago.

“I thought Axion was destroyed?” I questioned, raising an eyebrow at him as he secured the letter back into his pocket. He sighed heavily and rolled his eyes, keeping his hands in his pockets. It seemed like he was worried about something.

“It was, but apparently they tried to rebuild it a year or so back. I think something happened with the funding or someone broke in, because they quickly stopped on the project.” Gerald explained as we turned a corner and entered an even bigger neon street. I wanted nothing more than to fangirl over everything I was seeing, but Gerald was right, we had a job to do.

“Even with that being said, who are we delivering it too? Who would be in an abandoned school?” 

“The Savior, I guess.” Gerald shrugged. He obviously didn’t know who we were supposed to deliver it too.

“You guess? I thought you had better information sources than that Gerald.” I teased. I was a bit nervous, however. Just who had told him that we should go to Axion? Could it be a trap?

“Apparently the person who wrote this sent another message to Lord Summerset and told him to ignore this letter. It also said that the message was going to be delivered to the ruins of Axion on… today.”

“So the time we spent coming here was just to stall then?” 

“You’re learning well Dakota.” 

“I swear, you are impossible sometimes.” I muttered, putting my hands in my pockets and walking closely next to him. It was an odd experience to be in a city again, after all the time I had spent away from Earth.

“Are you cold or something?” Gerald asked, turning to me with a confused look on his face.

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“You’re walking close to me like you’re cold or something.” Gerald pointed out, looking me up and down. My face immediately turned red, just as he looked away. Did he really have to call me out like that?

“Well I mean, I am a bit chilly…” I muttered, letting my voice trail off.

“It is a chilly night.” Gerald admitted, pulling his brown traveller coat off. This revealed his extremely toned arms and his amazingly tight shirt.

Oh god.

He then stopped walking, and draped the coat over my shoulders, adding yet another layer of warmth to my outfit. Instantly his smell struck my nose and it was intoxicating for all the right reasons.

“T-Thank you Gerald, but won’t you be cold?” I questioned, pulling his coat further around me and relishing in this moment.

“Not even a little. This is nothing compared to the nights in Deazure.” He said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Turn left here, down the side street.”

We quickly crossed the street as the flying cars whizzed above our heads effortlessly. It still baffled me, just how did these things work?

But I knew that wasn’t important right now, so I focused on the task at hand. Getting to the school.

“This...is the place? It doesn’t really look like a school.” I muttered as I took a look at the path before us. It looked like at one point the walk way had huge flowery trees, but all that was left were burnt husks, and long dead flowers on the ground. Further down the path I noticed a tower the distance that looked like it was almost falling over. Below the tower, was what looked to be a broken rectangular building, with all of its windows blown out, and two huge doors lying on the ground in front of it.

"It used to be one of the most populated places in the city, believe it or not." Gerald explained as he put his hands on his pants pockets. He then started walking along the path, his shoes crunching over all the dead leaves that littered the ground.

"I heard a lot of conflicting things about it, but what actually happened?" I questioned, quickly following him.

"You probably won't accept the answer ‘a lot’, will you?" He asked, glancing over to me.

"What do you think Gerald?" I question with a soft smile, which just made him feign being annoyed.

"The Savior destroyed this place with his power. It's said he betrayed the very friends he had worked with during his years at the school, then, in an odd twist, he killed one of them. Following that he blew up this section of the city, causing all of this that you see around you."

"One person… did all this?" I questioned as I glanced at the broken building once again. It was only one story, which already raised a lot of questions. Just how had so many people attended this school.

“The more impressive part is that the fight happened underground apparently. Yet all this damage still happened.” Gerald said, his eyes turning more towards sadness. 

“Weren’t you here when it happened?” I asked softly, just as we got to what looked to be a courtyard in front of the fallen doors. Giant slabs of broken concrete, twisted metal, and leaves were scattered over this area. It was sad to see that what once was a place full of hope, was turned into such ugly rubble.

“I was.” Gerald simply replied, with sadness now evident in his face. Sympathy flowed through my heart, and I knew that this once, I couldn’t be the shy person I had been.

“It’s okay Gerald.” I said, getting closer to him and pulling him close to me. I was surprised when he didn’t push away, or say something sarcastic, or refuse at all. 

Instead, he wrapped his arms around me and held me, as silent tears fell from his eyes.

“I watched… I-” He said, his voice breaking as he tried to tell me something. As he said it though, it looked as if he were in pain just trying to push out the words.

“It’s okay Gerald, you don’t have to explain this time. Just...let it go.” I said, reaching my hand up and running one of my hands through his hair. 

And then he cried.

He cried and cried and cried, and let out every bit of emotion I knew had been building up. Ever since the first moment I had met him, I knew he was holding back unimaginable pain. I had tried time and time to ask him when we agreed to run away together, but he just wouldn’t break down, and he wouldn’t tell me. But now that I was seeing this, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt in my heart for even asking him about whatever horrible tragedy had made him feel this way.

“I think we should go Gerald, there's no sense in putting yourself through this pain just for-”

“No.” He said with a shaky voice as his tears stopped. The expression on his face hadn’t changed, and the pain was evident, but I could see a shimmer of determination in his hazel eyes. “We have to go in, I need answers Dakota.”

“Answers for what Gerald? Is it really worth putting yourself through all this emotional pain?” I questioned, almost begging him to reconsider his decision. I didn’t want to see the man I loved put through so much-

Love. Love?

What did I mean love?

“Before, I would have said no. But with you by my side, I think I’ll be strong enough.” He assured me, grabbing my hand in a way he had never done before. A blush hit my face, but the look in his eyes completely drove it away. He needed me to be strong now, or else he couldn’t get whatever he wanted from this broken place, and he would never be complete again.

“Okay Gerald. Let’s go face these demons head on. I’ll be with you every step of the way.” I reassured him, trying my best to give him a strong smile, even if I was dying on the inside from seeing him like this.

“Thank you Dakota, I don’t know what I would do without you.” He muttered genuinely, then pulled me by my hand towards the two grand doors that stood before the extremely dark entrance hall. We passed the fallen doors, the very same doors that the artwork in the Byrathes mansion was based off of, and then we entered what used to be a grand hall.

But it was now only full of skeletons and cobwebs.

“Oh god these are-” I started to say, the very hairs on my arms rising in fear.

“The bodies of everyone, still never removed.” Gerald’s voice cracked as he stopped and looked upon the horror before us. His hand squeezed mine tighter as he shivered slightly. I quickly moved next to him and pushed his face to meet mine.

“Look at me Gerald, they are just skeletons. You can’t do anything to change what happened here. The best thing you can do for these people that died is to live your life. You survived for a reason, so don’t waste it by holding all this guilt inside of you.” I pleaded, as I pulled him closer to me. 

All that I wanted to do was warm his cold heart, and bring a smile to his face.

“You just don’t understand Dakota, I was-”

“Might want to reconsider what you’re about to say there Gerald.” A voice came from above, and immediately my senses went into overdrive. Before either of us could react however, a figure dropped onto the ground next to us and blew up a ton of dust at us. 

“Gerald, we have to move!” I yelled trying to pull him along, but he simply wouldn’t budge. I glanced in the direction the figure had dropped onto, and the first thing I noticed was two glowing yellow orbs about where I expected eyes to be.

And then the dust disappeared, and revealed a figure in pure black armor, with their face covered. But even through this cover, I knew the two orbs I was seeing were their eyes, something I had never seen before.

“Who are you!?” Gerald yelled, letting go of my hand and pulling two blades from his belt, getting into an attack stance. The figure laughed, then turned to Gerald, but still pulled out no weapons.

“I am The Savior.”

[wahbegan]

Me playing Arkham City when it first came out: What, so they give this complete rando full executive jurisdiction to just...to just wall off a huge section of Gotham’s slums and make it an internment camp for every prisoner and mental patient in the city and also anyone he says is a criminal? And anyone who protests the well-documented insanely inhumane conditions and general insanity of the idea is just tear gassed and beaten and tortured and thrown in there without a trial???? And then he just politely asks “hey can i pretty please have my private security force who operates with absolutely no oversight full-on massacre everyone inside? the inmates are super scary and violent and they have guns and they’re gonna kill everyone” and the government immediately gives him permission without even asking where all these military-grade weapons (that he gave them) came from???? And he’s thinking they’re gonna let him do this again in other cities??? This game is mad unrealistic. Breaking my suspension of disbelief all over the place. Has Hugo Strange been crowned king of the human race??? Is Gotham a third-world country?? That’s not how America works!!!

Me, replaying it circa June 2020: 

[spiderman-homecomeme]

Day Six - Quiet Hours

AN: I have been looking forward to this day all week, and I’m so excited to see what everyone’s done for this! I absolutely love College AUs, and would love to do more of them! Thank you @spideychelleweek​ for getting this all together for us! 

Prompt: College AU

Here is about 4k (oops i went overboard) of fluff, college, humor, and a teensy bit of angst

.

.

“Karen, I think I’m in love.”

Peter almost couldn’t believe it.

No, he really couldn’t believe it.

She’d actually said yes.

She— girl-of-his-freakin’-dreams Michelle Jones— said yes.

Yes to a date with him.

He honestly doesn’t know how it happened, how she was able to decipher the fact that he was asking her to coffee from whatever that jumbled, painfully awkward mess was that came out of his mouth when he’d asked. And he’s not sure exactly how many times he’d said the words “cup of coffee,” in the span of a minute, but if he had to make a guess, it’d probably have been in the low-thousands.

They’d agreed to Friday at 3:30 at one of those cute coffee shops just outside of the campus.

Two days from now.

Alone.

On an actual date.

He briefly contemplates pinching himself; this has to be some kind of a dream. The polar opposite of whatever a nightmare was. He feels lighter than air as he swings from building to building, the smile under his mask threatening to burn through the fabric. 

God, what a day. 

He’d only just met Michelle this semester. He remembers briefly seeing her on moving day, both of her parents helping her move into the room next to his. Her father had been grumbling about the idea of a co-ed dorm, her mother playfully smacking him on the arm as she chided him about the progressing times. 

And though they were neighbors, Peter only got to know her through their shared Psych 100 course. He’d nearly burst into the classroom on day one, having less than a minute to spare as he scrambled to the closest seat he could find. 

He would not be late on the first day again. No, sir.

He was starting this year off right.

The girl next to him— Michelle— had thrown him a fleeting side-eye glance, though not actually looking up from sketching all over the syllabus the professor had just handed out. 

Peter wished, hoped, prayed to God that she couldn’t hear him breathing like he’d just run up four flights of stairs.

(Which he had.)

He’d fumbled, the awkward energy radiating through his bones as Dr. Cabot called his name during attendance for the second time— the first he’d missed because he was too busy staring at the doodles on Michelle’s paper. The girl had snorted at his near-incoherent bumbling, disguising the huff of amused air under her hand, biting back the smirk. 

The shade of red on his face almost matched the pen on her desk, his stomach erupting in butterflies at the toothy grin that flashes across her features at the speed of light, almost missing it entirely.

Okay, maybe the embarrassment wasn’t so bad.

And it seemed to go like that the rest of the fifty-minutes; him finding himself unable to take his attention away from the girl next to him, even when his eyes are trained right on Dr. Cabot as she reads the most-likely plagiarized section that’s totally ripped from other professors’ syllabi, Academic Dishonesty.

Ever since that day, it was safe to say that Peter was smitten. Embarrassingly so. He had to contain every ounce of enthusiasm that threatened to explode from his body when he’d been paired with her for the first project of the semester. 

“Okay, so I figured one of us can talk about Vygotsky and the other can have Piaget. Sound good?”

Though he was making direct eye contact, listening as intently as he could, none of Michelle’s words registered, Peter way too caught up in how freaking enchanting she looked, back-lit by the hues of orange and gold provided by the early-evening sun.

Maybe working on the quad had been a mistake.

“Yo. Parker.” 

Oh, great. And now he’s been caught staring. Now she knows he’s a certified, grade-A creep.

And just like that, he’s snapped right out of his daydream. “Oh! Uhm— Uh…” He stammers, mouth hanging open as he tries to figure what the hell to say, feeling himself shrink back at her expectant stare. “Wha—What?” He asks, scratching the back of his neck.

She turns her head, eyeing him from the side, brow quirked. “I asked you if that sounded good.”

“If what sounded good?”

“If one of us talked about Vygotsky and the other talked about Piaget.” There was only a hint of exasperation to her tone, something which Peter’s pretty damn thankful for. “Theory of cognitive development? You know? The project we’re supposed to be working on?”

Though, he knew she was probably way more annoyed than she let on.

And he couldn’t really blame her.

There wasn’t really anything in either psychologists’ theories about the staring at pretty girls in the sunlight stage of life. 

“Oh, yeah,” he nods thoroughly. “Yeah. Of course. That sounds great.”

“Are you good?” 

He wonders if his skin looks as hot as it feels. “Uh, yeahyeahyeah. Yeah. I’m good.”

Judging by the look on her face, she can see right through that bullshit. But thankfully, she doesn’t press, either completely uninterested or just unable to find it in her to even bother. 

It takes a month... or two... or three, but he finally gets the guts to actually do something about his feelings when he sees her studying in the library one day, her nose buried in the pages of the textbook she’s poring over. 

The library’s normally about a thousand degrees, give or take, but today it seems especially balmy as he rocks back and forth on his heels, hands wringing together as he tries to come up with any kind of coherent sentence that isn’t this inane mumbling he’s currently doing. It only takes about another three seconds of panic before he mucks up just enough courage to ask her if she’d want to get coffee sometime. 

And, for whatever reason, one that is beyond him entirely, she says yes, a shy smile tugging at her lips as she stares back down at the convoluted words littering the pages. 

Honest to God, he feels like he could sing every octave of Beyonce’s Love on Top at this point. With choreography.

Patrol goes on without a hitch that evening, Peter having successfully stopped a poorly thought out break-in before it even happened, the criminals actually trying to use a crowbar in this day and age to open the backdoor of some guy’s place. A few thwip-thwips here and there, some well-timed kicks and punches, and boom. Taken care of.  

Easy-peasy.

Oh, he’d also helped a little boy get his balloon back after it had floated away. 

And he’d prevented a shoplifter from implementing their five-finger-discount on a set of particularly expensive purses outside of one of those designer shops. 

An actual car thief— he had made sure to check this time, not wanting a repeat of his early Spider-Man days— thought he was being especially sneaky before he found himself webbed to the side of the parking garage. 

Overall, it’s been a pretty successful night. 

And Peter can 100% account that to this new, magical, walking-on-air, invincible feeling that’s flowing through his veins, radiating from the top of his head to the very tips of his toes. The evening sun bleeds into night as he flips through the air, whooping and hollering with each leap and bound, the lights of the city twinkling around him. Maybe he throws in a few more aerial tricks and spins as he swings by a crowd, his smile growing exponentially when a chorus of cheers eggs him on.

This happy-go-lucky feeling carries him all the way back to campus, and his stomach does almost the same acrobatics that he’d done seconds before when he sees MJ exiting the library, eyes glued to her phone as she walks through the quad. He knows if he makes it back in time, he might get the chance to see her— talk to her again, for just a little bit, to catch her as she’s going into her room. 

McClain Hall isn’t that far from where he’s perched on the Student Union Building, just on the northern edge of campus, the slightest bit separated from the surrounding dormitories. His own room is on along the outside perimeter, perfect for when he needs to sneak back in from a night of vigilante justice. It’s definitely a step up from Freshman year, that’s for sure. 

Plus, McClain has suite style rooms, so he gets his own bathroom now, which is pretty sweet.

He lands perfectly above his window, internally fist-pumping as it slides open easily. There had been a few too many times where past-Peter had forgotten to unlock the dang thing before leaving, resulting in a very awkward, “Hey, RA, can you unlock my dorm for me? I forgot my keys in there. And yes, I also forgot… my… clothes… too…”

Since then, he’s been a lot more careful, both carrying a spare key in his utility belt, and leaving the window unlocked at all times. 

He climbs in, the dark surrounding him as he lands silently, pulling his mask off and throwing it haphazardly somewhere in the room without a second thought. 

Though something seems… off.

Almost instantly, he’s hit with the faint smell of perfume lingering on the air, and he briefly wonders if Ned and Betty had been here. He glances around, eyes adjusting to the light, seeing his grey sheets replaced with a deep navy. 

Oh, God.

Oh, good God.

He’s such an idiot.

This isn’t his room. 

Shitshitshitshitshitshit SHIT.

He doesn’t have any time to process the utter terror that starts to pulse through him, the hairs on his arms standing ramrod straight as the jingling of keys and as a soft voice is heard on the other side of the door. 

In a moment of panic, he debates on whether or not he should just web the doorknob, thinking it could buy him some time. But he takes a millisecond too long trying to decide. The lock turns, and he ends up hurling himself behind the de-lofted bed as the door opens, effectively trapping himself between the wall and the wooden frame. 

How he hadn’t noticed the difference in how the room was arranged when he’d first come in, he had no idea.

Never, ever, under any circumstances, was he to Spider-Man while distracted, he decides right then and there.

“—studying in the library all day. Felicia’s gone on some sisterhood trip, or whatever.” Michelle’s phone is tucked into her neck as she kicks the door shut with her foot, bypassing the main light switch and electing for the much more muted tones of her desk lamp and fairy lights. 

Peter’s lungs seem to be collapsing second by second, and he briefly wonders if it’s possible that he could be having some kind of heart attack. He can see her slightly through the thin gap between the mattress and the bed frame, his stomach lurching into his chest at the sight of her. 

Ohgodohgodohgod.

“Yeah… Yeah… Mhmm… Yeah, classes are fine… just three or four big midterms next week, and one of them’s a project.” She drops her backpack on the chair, her back to the intruder in her room as she puts her books back on her desk. “Yeah… Uh-huh…. Yeah…” Her tone is monotonous in response to the cheery voice on the other line, her own droning the same automated reply every few beats. “Uh, yeah. Peter’s fine… I guess?”

Instantly, the sound of his own name in a conversation that he’s not a part of in any way and kind of has no business hearing piques his interest. 

There’s a hint of hesitation to her tone as she continues, as if she’s not completely sure she’s willing to divulge any more sensitive information. “I mean… I’m kind of… getting coffee with him… like a date, I think.” She pauses, holding the phone away from her ear at the excited rambling on the other end. 

She thinks??

“Mom, oh my God, please stop...:” She lets out an melodramatic groan, running a hand over her face in exasperation. “I’ve told you before, I didn’t think he was interested, geez. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

She talks to her mom about me??

His insides are a mish-mosh of this weird concoction consisting of utter horror-panic and pure unadulterated elation. It’s ultimately a very confusing feeling, and he’s not sure if he’s going to end up barfing all over her carpet out of fear or happiness. If his mask was still on he’s about 105% sure Karen would have already called an ambulance for him. 

“Yeah… Yeah, okay… Listen, I’m gonna get ready for bed, take a shower. I’ll talk to you more about this later, I promise… Bye, Mom…. Yeah…. Love you, too.”

If at all possible, his anxiety seems to spike as she hangs up the phone.

MJ rolls her shoulders once, shaking her hands out as she releases a relieved sigh. 

He had to get the hell out of there.

Unseen.

And alive.

His chance finally comes when she steps into her bathroom, and he waits for the sweet, wonderful, holy sound of that door clicking shut. He holds his breath, listening for any movement on the other side of the door. He’s able to pick up on her faint shuffling as she (presumably) changes out of her clothes and into nothi—

He immediately decides that he absolutely cannot think about that right now. Very dangerous territory. 

When he’s sure that the coast is clear, he makes a break for it, snatching up his discarded mask as he leaps for the window. 

But perhaps it would have been a better idea to listen if the shower had been turned on yet.

Before he can even get a foot on the windowsill, the bathroom door opens again, revealing his potential inamorata in nothing but a dark burgundy bathrobe. His eyes are immediately drawn to every patch of skin visible; her neck, her collarbones, her unfairly long legs.

He’s not sure who screams louder. 

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IN MY ROOM?!”

A fair question.

What the fuck is he doing in her room?

“I’M SORRY—”

“—JESUS CHRIST—”

“IT WAS AN ACCIDENT, I SWEAR— I THOUGHT YOU WERE IN THE SHOWER—”

“—SO YOU SNUCK INTO MY ROOM?”

“NO! GOD NO—”

“—HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN HERE?!”

Peter tries to lower his volume, hoping that she’ll follow suit. “Like maybe five minutes!”

“OH MY GOD—”

“I didn’t mean to— God— AH! I’m so sorry, MJ!”

She stops yelling, her chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath. 

“How did you even get in here?! Did you seriously climb all the way—” She immediately cuts herself off, her eyes flicking to the window before giving him a quick once over that makes him feel at least fifty-times more hot under the collar than he already was. It was a wonder the suit wasn’t burnt to a crisp at this point. 

He can practically see the dots as they connect in her head.

Michelle considers herself to be more perceptive than most people, which is why she’s known all along that something was up with this Parker dude. By their third or fourth week of knowing each other, she’d come to the deduction that this boy was either a crime fighting vigilante or a serial killer. Really, could have been either one. She was just glad to have at least something confirmed.

Though she would have preferred it to not be from Spider-Man himself sneaking into her room at midnight when she’s wearing nothing but a bathrobe.

“It’s not what it looks like!!” Peter immediately tries to derail her train of thought, hands held out in defense. “It’s uh— not mine.” He stares blankly at her, his expression wide in sheer terror as he scrambles for an answer. “Yeah.” He trails off, his eyes momentarily drawn the the trail of skin from her neck down to the valley between her—

No. No no no. Stop that.

She fixes him with a calculating stare, eyes narrowing as she quirks a doubtful brow. “Then who’s is it?”

His scoff is nothing if not a little over-the-top, his expression scrunching slightly as if the answer’s obvious. “Spider-Man’s.”

Her only response is a slow, deliberate blink.

“Who I am definitely not. I just make the suits,” Peter quickly spits out, and he starts to shrink back the longer her eyes are on him. “Just… Just test driving... the new model… Because I’m his suit… crafter… guy....”

He’s met with another blink. “Are you done?” She asks.

There really was no way out of this.

Peter sighs dejectedly. “Yeah…”

“Tell me something, Parker.” Her tone is a bit too casual for comfort. “Do I look stupid?”

“No! God, no!” He groans, running a tense hand through his hair. “You’re like the smartest person I’ve ever met! Just…” He brings his volume down even more, though he doesn’t seem to know what to say, mouth opening and closing as he struggles to form a coherent sentence.

He decides that there’s really nothing he can say, nothing that can convince her that he’s not a superhero.

A sharp exhale escapes him as he finally looks up at her, eyes pleading. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“What? That Spider-Man’s a creep who sneaks into girl’s dorms?”

“No!!” Peter shouts, voice cracking. “I mean, I don’t sneak into—Ugh! That’s not what I— God, I meant don’t tell anyone that I’m—” His mouth snaps shut, lips pressed together as he lets out a sharp exhale. He glances right and left, voice now barely above a whisper. “Spider-Man.”

She’d almost be amused if it weren’t for the way her ears and skin burned in embarrassment at being caught in just a bathrobe by the cute boy she likes. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever.”

He seems to notice her discomfort. “Michelle, I’m so sorry, I—” And it’s then that he starts rambling. “And I just got so excited about our date and I just wasn’t thinking clearly… like at all, and I usually sneak back into my room after patrol and since we’re neighbors and everything I guess I just got confused, which doesn’t usually happen, I promise this has never happened, and then I didn’t know what to do and all of a sudden you’re in here and I’m hiding behind your bed and— “ He takes a deep breath, hanging his head in shame. “God, I’m such an idiot!”

There’s a sharp knocking on the door; Peter nearly jumps out of his skin, and MJ seems just as jarred.

“RA on duty,” A firm voice calls from the other side of the door. “It’s quiet hours.”

“I should— I should, uh…” Peter stumbles over his words, unable to take his eyes off of the girl in front of him. “I should go back… to my room.”

“Oh, uhm— Yeah.” MJ nods awkwardly. She gestures to the door, eyebrows raising in question. 

Peter shakes his head, breathing out a shaky chuckle. “Oh, no… I’ll just go back the way I came.” He throws a thumb over his shoulder before planting his hands on his hips, giving a firm nod. 

It really stings how she doesn’t even look at him as she mumbles out another near-silent, “Yeah.”

And he leaves without another word. 

Man, he knew that Parker luck was something that had plagued his family for years and years, but he hadn’t expected it to hit so hard all at once. It had been quite a while since he’d fucked up that badly, so he thought he was in the clear. Maybe that had been his first mistake of many. Maybe he shouldn’t have let his guard down. 

A pit forms in his stomach, twisting and pulling in a vice-like grip as he returns to his own room. 

And now, the girl-of-his-dreams Michelle Jones, because he had been so lost in his own thoughts, because of his complete lapse in basic attention, probably wanted nothing to do with him. He knew he didn’t need to ask if their date was still on, and truthfully, he couldn’t really blame her, given that he’d invaded her personal space and embarrassed her. No, he didn’t expect her to want anything to do with him now. Especially not after the way she’d yelled at him. 

There’s been plenty of times that Peter’s fucked up, almost too many to count. But this… This was up there.

He doesn’t hear from her the next day, nor the day after, only seeing her when she comes to Psychology class that Friday. He can’t even bring himself to actually look at her when she sits in her usual spot next to him.

He mopes about the rest of the day, knowing full well that it’s his own stupid fault. Ned points this out, though he tries to remain sympathetic as he agrees that yes, Peter’s an absolute dumbass sometimes. 

But Ned also suggests actually talking to MJ about all this.

Peter immediately shoots that down. 

Instead, he decides to do the rest of his moping at the campus Starbucks, cheek resting against his hand as he reads the same sentence about the zone of proximal development over and over, his vanilla latte completely forgotten in all of his sulking.

“Why the long face?”

Her voice startles him out of his brooding state, and he immediately looks up, heart thumping in his ears as his eyes land on one Michelle Jones, two coffees in either hand.

“Uh—” Peter’s response isn’t his smoothest. He blinks in surprise, briefly wondering if he might be dreaming. “I—” His voice cuts off, finding that he can only stare up at her with this dopey, blank expression. 

“What? You thought I forgot?” She lifts her index finger from the side of one of the cups, pointing to her watch. “It’s 3:30. I’m right on time.”

A small smirk tugs at the corner of her lips, though she still seems to wait for his invitation to sit, the faintest hint of insecurity behind her eyes. 

Finally, Peter smiles back up at her, a breathless, shy chuckle escaping him. Her smirk turns into a full grin, and she pulls the chair out with her foot, setting both cups of coffee down as she sits. 

“I gotta say,” Peter starts, eyebrows pulled together in happy confusion. “I’m kinda surprised you still wanted to… get coffee with me. After… After, well, you know… I’m so, so sorry about that. Again.”

Michelle pushes one of the cups to him, taking a thoughtful sip from her own. “Eh, it’s fine.”

“Really?” Peter asks, pitched raised in minor disbelief. “I mean,” He pauses, huffing in amusement and slight embarrassment at his previous actions. “I’m kind of a dumbass.”

She shrugs, a playful glint in her eyes as she glances up from behind the cup. “Yeah,” She agrees readily after a moment’s contemplation. “You are.”

They both laugh quietly. 

No argument there.

“But… I’ve been thinking about it.” She puts her cup down, bracing both elbows on the table as she leans forward slightly, her voice incredibly nonchalant. “I think I kinda have a thing for dumbasses.”

“Oh? Really?” He breathes, butterflies in his stomach erupting. 

“Uh-huh.” MJ nods, eyes squinting as she fixes him with another sly smirk. “Especially ones that look that good in a skin-tight onesie.”

Peter’s sure his face could blend in with said onesie if he was actually wearing it, and he nearly chokes on his new latte. 

She tries to hide the snort that comes out of her, but fails miserably. 

“Well, don’t worry,” Peter lets out another, slightly less nervous, laugh, firing finger guns at the girl across from him, attempting a not-so-smooth wink. “There’s way more dumbassery where that came from.”

Her lips press together in a thin, yet incredibly cute smile that makes Peter’s heart soar, a welcome warmth washing over his body. “Good,” She says through a quiet laugh, shaking her head at him as she takes another sip from her coffee. 

Yup, he’s definitely in love.

[cruzrogue]

Worth Fighting For

#Fictober19 @fictober-event

————————————————————————

for fanfiction:

Prompt number: Prompt:28 “Enough! I heard enough.”

Fandom (AU if applicable): #arrow fanfiction #olicity

Rating:PG13

Warnings/Tags: exes clashing with one another

Roy Harper makes an appearance

Summary: Oliver vs Laurel (defending himself and his team) Very AU

Notes: Dedicated to Bluedove who supplied earlier prompts to Fighting Words (ch6) & Fighting Actions (ch20) This is for you… Worth Fighting For... Hope you like it. To everyone I hope you enjoy. Thank you!

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Worth Fighting For on A03

There has been a delicate air of balance amongst the team members slowly building up. Between Ra's al Ghul, the surge of criminals trying to make their name in the city, and still figuring out the deal with Sara’s death. With Laurel Lance in the mix there is a sort of resentment that’s creeping among the morale within the foundry walls. The lawyer still hasn’t found her niche within this group and now seems to belittle Roy who is trying his best not to snap. His annoyance best used to go out on patrol or beefing up on his training. He misses Oliver’s sister so when Laurel speaks to him in a matter-in-fact tone about knowing Thea so well it just pisses him off to no end.

Case and point is what she is doing right now. She’s sitting on a stool looking at an array of gizmos Oliver is working on. Little trick arrows that he and Felicity have measured and designed to fit properly. None of them yet properly tested. He’ll be doing that with Roy later on.  

“Does she know?”

Roy hitting the Wing Chun Dummy one last time before turning his attention to Laurel. “What?”

“I said, does she know?” Roy not having the slightest clue to what she is talking about gives her a blank stare. His thoughts turn to Felicity who he’s been hanging out with. She’s cool. Like a sister cool. “How dense are you?”

“Lady, I’m about to lose it if you don’t get right to the point. Are we talking about Felicity?” He’s in love with Thea and as much as he enjoys her company she’s already spoken for. She’s great in the sister role. Loves her to death. “Because I don’t get what you are hammering about?”

“Thea, but wait you hang out with Felicity? Oliver is okay with that?”

“Seriously? What is your problem?”

“Here I thought your every waking thought was on Ollie’s sister but…”

“Hey! Don’t go there!” He’s seriously giving her a scowl. She just smirks. The boy just admitted that Felicity isn’t so squeaky clean. She raises her hand to signify she’s done. Felicity not only has the eye for her new boss but spends her extra time with Roy. How convenient? How this girl got all these guys eating out of her paws.

“Actually I was in the midst of asking does Thea know of you extra activities?” Making sure to point to the arrows.

“No. Oliver isn’t keen on the idea.”

She just is bemused. “You’re really allowing the brother of the girl you supposedly love from the truth from a man who has perjured himself, cheated, and killed.”

“He has his reasons.”

“That’s it. You’re just going to allow him to dictate how you live your life?”

Roy grumbles lowly at her. He doesn’t need her to point out anything. He understands Oliver’s reasons after joining the crusade sometimes keeping people in the dark keeps them safe. He understands from John at least that Laurel finding out was never the intent of team arrow. Instead of Laurel trying to help people in a courtroom she’s here bothering him.

“You looked smarter than that.”

“Really?” He shakes his head. “Your using psychology on me? I’m out of here.” He grabs his jacket and books it. Leaving Laurel to just sit there and look at the empty foundry.

This is the first time that’s she’s really down here alone. With no other member of this ragtag group. She decides to really take stock of the place she has been hanging around more frequently as to show she isn’t going anywhere.

Its crazy how much work it seems it takes to make arrows. She gets the gest of why he uses that form of weaponry even though John using a gun seems more likely a better bet. She’s seen the petite blonde using this section it seems its her domain. She doesn’t like that this techie even has a domain. She learned her lesson to not underestimate Felicity. It seems the petite has a meaner streak. Sitting in the woman’s chair she takes the vantage point of what Felicity gets to see and notices the salmon ladder that Oliver always seems to not do when she is around.

She is about to start the middle computer when she hears a voice from the staircase, “I wouldn’t touch her babies.”

Her fingers pull back and she glanced at the computer monitors. “Oh God, she probably even named them.” Laurel looking disgusted.

“She might have but that is her story to tell. Why are you down here? Specifically, why are you in Felicity’s domain?”

“I was actually taking a look around everything and landed here. It is the focal point of the foundry.” She actually never really thought about it before but Felicity is the center of the crowed basement of Verdant.

“We don’t touch the computers or servers down here. Not without some sort of approval.”

“You are pulling my leg.”

“No! These aren’t your standard computers anyhow.”

“Wow! She really makes herself be indispensable. No wonder you guys bow to her.”

“Felicity isn’t like that and you know that well enough. The woman knows she’s smart but she is also humble.”

“What she stopped telling you she’s a genius?”

“As much as I’ve refrained from telling her I’m an archer. We both know each other.”

“She really has you wrapped around her finger.”

“She’s wonderful, she’s kind, she’s a real asset to the team. She’s just someone… She’s just special.”

“You sound like you were trying to sell her. Now that she is only your friend.”

“Her safety, happiness means the world to me. Even if I can’t be the one, I want her happy.”

“Yet, you say your friends but she barely has time for…” Her hands scope the foundry as she finishes, “For any of this.”

“She’s busy. She needs to work. I understand that.”

“Though she used to follow you around at QC.”

“Well we worked together. She would have been a better C.E.O.”

“Yea, I bet. Then the money would have trickled down into her pockets.”

“I’m not as rich but I still have plenty of money.”

“Well maybe that is why she isn’t here.”

“You know she’s at her job.” He gives her a funny look. “It is working hours. Unlike you I suppose she doesn’t make her own hours.”

“Are you inferring to something?”

“No, not at all. I don’t have a nine to five job so I can’t begrudge anyone.” He just shrugs.

“I was just pointing out that now that you need her the most she’s shacking up with someone who can buy her stuff.”

Oliver takes a deep breath he is actually expecting this from her. Felicity is a grown woman who isn’t bound to him. He is pushing the woman he loves away and as much as its making him miserable it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want Felicity to be happy. If Ray can give her what he surely lacks comfort, stability, and it pains him to say it but if the man can love her right he isn’t going to begrudge that relationship.

“Oliver she is a teammate. I admit she’s really good at this tech stuff but she’s doesn’t really know you. Like I do.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Deep in my bones I know that there is nothing that truly stands between us.”

He closes his eyes. This moment couldn’t get any worse. He’s losing the woman he loves. Seemly has a woman he can’t ever shake off. He knows there is something off about his sister. Ra’s al Ghul is a tremendous opponent. The SCPD is out to get him. Life just sucks all around.

“Laurel, I’m not into you.”

She shakes her head slightly amused, “Oliver, you know you need me. I’m the fixture in your life that has always been constant. It’s fate.”

“I really don’t know what I need to say or do for you to understand I’m not that guy. You aren’t in love with me.”

He gets taken aback when she screams at him. “You don’t know what you are saying!” Her finger points at him her voice rising in pitch, “I’m the woman who has been there for you. Always there. Don’t you dare tell me how I feel. You’re the one who doesn’t know how to feel.”

“You are right.” He pauses, “I don’t feel anything for you.”

“You lie.”

“I really don’t think we should…”

“Shove it! You and your indecisive tendencies to never commit. I feel pity for her thinking you’d…”

“Don’t!”

“Don’t what? Talk about how much of a jerk you are? You left with my sister. Disappeared and have the gall to waltz back and now decide what others can and can’t do?”

“If that is the case you wouldn’t be here. Your sister loved you. You have no idea the savagery outside these foundry walls. I get you’re mad at me. I can live with that. That is my guilt to carry.” With the look she gives him he continues, “I don’t love you Laurel, not in the way you deserve. That I will not apologize for… Ever!”

“You have got to be kidding me?”

“No. I beyond serious. If you want to stay. Fine stay. Just know that there is nothing between us but some past history that doesn’t define me anymore.”

“You are going to stand there and once again lie to my face.”

Oliver now beyond annoyed, “That’s the thing Laurel. I’m not lying, for once hear me tell you at face value that I’m totally over any semblance of an us.”

“Its because of Felicity, right?”

His hands go to his head. This woman is unbelievable. When it comes to him her brain short circuits. Then again, she always was around for the prestige and now that he doesn’t have the wealth, he hoped she’d move on. Finally letting him live his life unattached to a Lance.

“Laurel, let it go.”

“Like I let Tommy go?”

“I just can’t with you!” He just wishes she would stop. Tommy is dead. There is enough guilt to go around. She has her own demons to deal with and he told her he was done chasing after her. He meant it. It doesn’t mean he can’t be cordial because like she stated they had history but more important he wants to do right by Sara’s memory. “I really can’t. I can’t be any clearer that there is no us. I can’t be any clearer that you trying to walk in your sister’s shoes won’t end badly for you.”

“You just hate that I’m excelling in boxing under Wildcat’s tutelage and that Nyssa is showing me some moves.”

“Do you even listen to yourself?”

“How am I different than Roy? Or John and Felicity?”

“You know darn well John’s equipped and Felicity stays behind the scenes and yes you do have some parallels to Roy. The difference is Roy isn’t charging against league taught Merlyn. Like you insanely did. He could have killed you without blinking an eyelid.”

“Well he didn’t.”

“I don’t know his reasons nor do I care. You’re just lucky to be alive until the next villain.”

“Then train me like you are doing with Roy”

“No! Roy needs an outlet.” Oliver not moving in his opinions. “You need to step back and go back to using that law degree.”

“Like I said, you think you can make up the rules and every one follows I’m not like that I will honor my sister.”

“Fine, you are going to do what you want anyways. Sara’s sacrifice created the Canary Mantle, the discipline, attitude, honed skills from surviving which she had to do to stay alive.” He doesn’t need to add the obvious that some midnight boxing classes won’t cut it. That her pompous living style is far from reality of what’s in store. That he’d have his team and himself look out for her because Felicity would never let them live it down. She may have a chip with Laurel but she’d always do what is right. That is what being heroes is all about.

Laurel isn’t done yet, “Enough! I heard enough.”

Oliver not backing down is about to add more choice words when both Oliver and Laurel turn to Felicity that has both her hands on her hips.

“I heard more than enough! Both of you step away from this space or…” Looking at Laurel first, “I will knock you to kingdom come and don’t even try my patience.” Then looking at Oliver, “You better have more than a pint of ice cream to calm me down. You know exactly how much these babies cost and how much blood, sweat, and tears I’ve given to them.” Without any words both Laurel and Oliver move out of the designated Smoak space. “Now we are all adults here. We have a common goal. We don’t always have to like each other but let’s get something straight.”

“Felicity?” Oliver tries to interject.

Just as Laurel says, “Get what straight?”

“You want to be a part of Team Arrow?” She hears Oliver deject that team name but she doesn’t really listen or care right now to that objection. “Then figure how to work with us and not against us. We aren’t into power plays. We are a family...” She takes a moment to gaze at Laurel. For once the woman is taking in what Felicity is saying. Somewhat amazed that Laurel hasn’t said a word, she adds, “Worth Fighting For.”

That was the last time that there was a big riff with Laurel versus each member as they began to synchronize as a team. The Canary title changed as Felicity dubbed her the Black Canary, sweet homage to the original.

Nothing is ever simple in the lives of vigilantes there are always highs and extreme lows and somewhere in the middle there is a mending road that the past can stay there and a future of promises can make its footing. The old script that time changes things moves them all along. Some people believe in happily ever after. The notions that heroes deserve to flourish. Well in this case, Oliver Queen gets the girl. John Diggle gets to add two more little ones to his family. Laurel Lance is finally happy with her life choices. Roy Harper loves being an uncle with Thea by his side. Felicity Smoak loves bossing people in her own company… Unfortunately, she gets bossed at home by a few prodigy fair-haired angelic offspring that are more like their dad each coming day as archery truly is becoming a family trait.

[setepenre-set]

Temptress (Roxanne) chapter 3

Megamind/Roxanne, M rating

sequel to Temptress

The story of how Roxanne Ritchi became the supervillain known as the Temptress, her relationship with the superhero Megamind, and her eventual reclamation of herself.

AO3 | FFN 

chapter 1 | chapter 2

Roxanne goes to ground as thoroughly as she can, sleeps for a few hours huddled in a corner of an abandoned building.

A nightmare (the lab her collar pain no) wakes her up, sometime near dawn. She curls into a tighter ball, shivering, and tries to come up with a plan.

Options. She has to have some options. (think Roxanne, think)

She could go public. She could tell people what they did to her, in that lab.

(the people in the store, edging away from her, looking at her out of the corners of their eyes like she was a criminal, just because a smiling man in a white suit said she was)

God, and she didn’t do herself any favors, going crazy on him like that, panicking in the prison, escaping custody so dramatically. Shit shit shit.

No one’s going to believe her. No one’s going to listen.

(the people in the store just stood there and let Metro Man take her. they just watched while she screamed.)

She’s on her own. The only way anyone is going to help her is if she makes them, if she uses her powers and twists their will and forces them to help her.

No one is going to save her.

(the blood, all the blood, too much blood on the ground outside of her old house, after she’d finished with the team that the lab sent to collect her and she doesn’t deserve to be saved, does she)

Roxanne presses a hand to her mouth and tries to cry quietly.

She could run. Go somewhere else, anywhere else. A different city, or—god, somewhere without people? The idea of no people is appealing but—but if they find her again, she’ll have to have people around, people she can use her powers on, because without her powers to protect her, she’s entirely helpless.

And where is she going to go? She’s never lived anywhere but Wisconsin and Metro City; she doesn’t know anywhere else, doesn’t know anything about any other places. At least here, she has a sense of the geography, places to hide, places to escape to.

She can’t stay in Metro City though, surely she can’t—she’s already classified as a superpowered threat to society.

A thought—dances at the edges of her mind. Something about—

Roxanne takes a sharp breath.

Before her father left, he worked as a public defender in the city; he mostly dealt with ordinary criminals, but she remembers that once he got called in to defend a guy who’d had—some kind of superpowers—superspeed, maybe?

Whatever it had been, though, the guy had used his powers to commit crimes in several different cities before finally coming to live in Metro City. He’d committed crimes here, too, and he’d been caught and arrested.

What had been so interesting about that case, though, was the fact that the man hadn’t been trying to plead innocent—Roxanne’s father had been trying to get him classified as a Level One Superpowered Threat to Society.

Level One Superpowered Threats to Society who lived in a city with an official Defender cannot legally be extradited to another location.

(The logic, Roxanne remembers her father saying, is that the Defender who fights them regularly will be best suited to handle them, if they should escape.)

If someone is a Level One Superpowered Threat to Society, and they attach themselves to a place like Metro City—

—Metro City was the only place they can legally be held or serve time. Because Metro City will have jurisdiction.

The people at the lab had shot themselves in the foot when they’d gotten her classified as a superpowered threat to society, Roxanne realizes, hope dawning. They’d meant to keep her from escaping them, but if she manages to get her threat level raised to One—

Then they won’t be able to touch her.

She goes to the library.

She doesn’t really know where else to go.

Roxanne goes there when the library is open, stays until after it closes. She hides in a cabinet in the staff room, curled up into a tiny ball.

And when everyone else has gone, she climbs out of the cabinet and researches supervillains.

Halfway through the night, she gets up to take a break from reading and wanders around the library, exploring. She remembers it, of course, from when she lived in Metro City before, but mostly what she remembers is the children’s section.

Roxanne ends up there, at last, wandering through the maze of shelves, trailing her fingertips over brightly colored books of the children’s section.

There’s a door back there, behind the shelves, a door marked ‘Authorized Personnel Only’; Roxanne opens it curiously, climbs over the grate that’s set across the bottom of the doorway, and walks down the short hall to a stairwell.

For the first time since—since before the lab—Roxanne feels something like—

—it’s not happiness, exactly, more like—

—excitement.

An excitement that doesn’t have anything to do with fear.

She thinks of the books she read when she was younger, books about children who stepped through a hidden doorway and into another world to be heroes, and her heart flutters with excited wonder, as if she might be one of those children.

(as if she’s not too old and too damaged to be anything like a hero.)

She climbs the stairs and her sense of wonder only increases when the staircase ends with a landing—and a turquoise-painted door.

Roxanne touches the door, fingertips brushing across the wood. She takes hold of the doorknob, and twists.

It turns in her hand.

She opens the door and steps forward.

Roxanne gasps, one hand flying to her mouth, eyes wide.

It’s a house. She’s in a house.

There’s a house in the library.

Well, an apartment, anyway—Roxanne walks into the apartment and looks around.

It’s been abandoned a long time, she can tell; there’s dust on the floor, and the rooms are almost completely devoid of furniture—no beds in the bedrooms, no sofa in the living room. There’s a table in the kitchen, but nothing in the cabinet over the bathroom sink.

She sees her own reflection in the tarnished bathroom mirror, her face pale and thin and faintly green-tinged by the antique glass. Her hair has grown out, now; it reaches nearly to her chin, greasy and limp and tangled.

Roxanne runs her fingers through it, trying to work out some of the knots. She glances down at the sink, tilts her head, wondering—

Roxanne turns on the tap and laughs when it works. The water comes out in rusty-looking spurts at first, but after a few minutes it flows in a clear, steady stream. She ducks her head beneath it, lets the water wash through her hair, and then straightens up again, grinning. Her reflection grins back at her.

There’s a bathtub in here.

“I am going to live here,” she says to her reflection, her wet hair clinging to her cheeks, water dripping down her collar.

Leaving the apartment is difficult; she’s half afraid it’ll disappear as soon as her back is turned. But she does it, going downstairs and grabbing as many of her supervillainy research books as she can carry.

She has to make two trips to get them all, but the apartment is there both times.

Once she’s got all of the books upstairs, she takes a minute to think things through.

The apartment door wasn’t locked when she came up here the first time—there is a lock on the door, but if she turns it, will that cause suspicion? Do people come up here?

She chews on her lip.

Well, if people come up here, then they’ll probably think that they were the ones who locked it, or that—someone else working here locked it. Would they have a key? Someone will have a key, surely.

How can she stay here if people can get in?

For a moment, despair threatens, but she shakes it off. No. She’ll figure this out; she will; this is her home now; she won’t give it up.

Cabinets. Like she hid in earlier! The kitchen cabinets?

Roxanne goes to inspect the kitchen more closely, looks up at the cabinets speculatively. Sleeping in them all day sounds extremely uncomfortable, but she’ll do it if she has to. She—

There’s a trapdoor in the ceiling.

Roxanne climbs up onto the formica-topped counter, stands on tiptoe, and opens the trapdoor. Then she pulls herself up through it.

An attic.

There’s a kind of window set into the far wall—not a normal window, an octagonal hole with slanting wooden slats on the outside, layered overtop of each other so that light from the streetlamp comes through only in thin, indirect beams. Nobody on the outside will be able to see in; the wooden slats would have blocked their view even if the attic hadn’t been so high above the street level. Roxanne has seen the octagonal window thing before, from the outside. She’s always assumed it was just ornamental.

The attic is bigger than her cell at the lab, although the ceiling slants so that she’s only able to stand up straight when she’s in the middle of the room.

The room is empty, which is promising; if nothing is stored up here, there’s no reason for anyone to come up here.

Someone has drawn on the walls—no, Roxanne realizes, squinting closely, not just drawn, written, too. The walls are covered in what looks like—blueprints, formulas, equations…

She reaches out to touch one of the drawings—a sketch of something that looks like a kind of flying robot fish with long mechanical tendrils—arms?

Is someone else living up here?

Roxanne looks around the attic again. No, the dust is thick on the floor, undisturbed by footprints. Whoever drew on the walls hasn’t been here for a long time.

She looks at another of the drawings, fascinated. Some sort of—gun. A laser gun, all of the parts drawn in painstaking detail. There are diagrams.

Who on earth drew all this?

Roxanne shakes her head and steps away from the wall. She can look at the diagrams later.

She’s definitely going to sleep up here; it’s much safer than the apartment downstairs.

She should get something heavy to put over the trapdoor, to keep it closed, make it difficult for anyone to come through…tomorrow night, she decides. It’s getting late, now—or—early. Close to dawn.

Roxanne sleeps in the corner of the attic, curled up with the books, and for the first time since the lab, there are no nightmares.

...to be continued.

[khalilhumam]

‘The house search was the last straw': colleagues react to Russian journalist’s death

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/the-house-search-was-the-last-straw-colleagues-react-to-russian-journalists-death/

‘The house search was the last straw': colleagues react to Russian journalist’s death

Slavina's self-immolation has shocked Russia's journalistic community

Russian journalist Irina Slavina. Photo from Irina Slavina's Facebook account.

On October 2, Irina Slavina, editor of KozaPress, died in Nizhny Novgorod, after setting herself on fire outside an interior minister building in the city. In her last Facebook post, Slavina wrote: “I ask you to blame the Russian Federation for my death.” Slavina’s death has shocked many, with several groups calling for a criminal investigation into the actions of Russian law enforcement that may have contributed to her death. On 1 October, Slavina’s home was searched as part of an investigation into the Open Russia movement – local law enforcement broke down the door to her apartment and confiscated all her computer equipment. She is survived by her husband and daughter. Slavina’s website KozaPress covered a range of local issues — from public utilities and pensions to property development and the security services — and by 2019 was the second most-cited media in the Nizhny Novgorod region. In 2017 and 2018, Slavina wrote three articles for openDemocracy — about how people who migrate to Russia are targeted by the security services. This work included exposing a horrendous fabrication of an “Islamic State” plot in her home region. The Russian online publication Holod.Media asked people who knew her for their reactions, which was translated to English by oDR, openDemocracy's section on Russia and the post-Soviet space. RuNet Echo republishes this text with the permission of both publications. Alexey Sadomovsky, deputy head of regional Yabloko party in Nizhny Novgorod Irina was the founder, publisher and chief editor of the most popular independent media in Nizhny Novgorod — KozaPress. In recent years, she dedicated her entire life to working on this media. It’s clear that she was completely independent, because the security services pressured her constantly. They created several administrative cases against her — about insulting [a representative] of the authorities, the “undesirable organisation” law, for organising a march in memory of [Boris] Nemtsov, some other cases. She lived under constant pressure these past few years, in constant fear, anxiety. It seems she couldn’t take it anymore, the search of her apartment was the last straw. Before she entered journalism, Irina worked as a school teacher. She worked for different regional media in Nizhny Novgorod, then she decided to set up her own – she lacked space for self-realisation, she didn’t want to be limited by some kind of administrative barriers, she didn’t want to serve, she wanted to tell the truth. She built the outlet from the ground up. She collected money including via donations. I donated too, like other people here. When we first met, KozaPress had not been set up yet, but Irina was already a journalist. She loved Russia very much, her city, she wasn’t planning on emigrating, she wanted our society to become more civilised and for it to become a nicer place to live. She was always joking, and seemed happy. Now it’s clear that there was a lot of anxiety behind this, but she never talked about this publicly. As a journalist, she was marked out by the fact that she always tried to get to the truth, whatever it cost her. There’s no other journalist like her in Nizhny Novgorod. Public officials knew her well and were afraid of her. The last time I saw her was last week when deputies to the city council were receiving their mandates. There was nothing depressive, no strange remarks from her — we had a normal chat, then she asked me for some photographs to publish with an article. She never published any article that investigators could have had a go at. You have to understand that the case wasn’t started against her, but someone else who had a lot of administrative cases outstanding, enough to start a criminal case. We don’t have Open Russia in Nizhny Novgorod. She couldn’t have worked with them. I think that the pressure of the court, the house search led to her taking her own life, nothing else. As someone whose home was also searched yesterday, I can say that it’s a lot of pressure. Especially when it happens over a couple of years. This can totally lead someone to take their own life. It’s hard to live like that, it’s true. Stanislav Dmitrievsky, rights defender It’s very hard to speak. Ira Slavina is one of the best journalists I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. A person of extreme professionalism and at the same time very strong civic position. To many people, she gave the impression that she was like a stone wall, but actually she was a very sensitive person. People will say a lot of things now, that it was an act of weakness… What she did is awful, but it wasn’t weak. It seems it was a cry of desperation, to protest against the horror that is happening. I punish myself: today I was going to drop some money to help with the computer equipment… As soon as I saw her post, I wrote her, but she didn’t answer. And then news came. I spoke to her last yesterday, I asked what help she needed. She said that it was very hard for her to speak, that she hadn’t yet recovered from the house search. As far as I understand, it was her first experience of that. We’ve got used to it, you see – a house search, so what? They’ve taken your computer equipment… But Ira had not developed cynicism. Just like with Anna Politkovskaya — the more she encountered the horror of war, the more sensitive she became. There are people who cover themselves with an armour of cynicism, there are people who just take the stronger side, they sell themselves. Take a look at our propagandists on television — many of them used to be perfectly decent journalists and decent people. But then there’s regression. Ira was someone who was hurt, traumatised by what happened around here, she couldn’t make her peace with it. There are moments when you are filled with anger to the point where it’s hard to live. Some people develop their own armour against this, but she didn’t. For her, the ideal of a real journalist – independent, dispassionate, unbiased — was very important. Read her last reportage — it’s about the house searches. She doesn’t even mention herself hardly in the text. Just facts, just facts. For her, the idea of journalism as a part of civilised society was a very important value. After all, she hardly ever spoke righteously. Of course, sometimes she did get mad and was annoyed, but she never let herself express it. Sometimes it’s better to express it and say, you’re all rotten, but she kept it inside, and then it exploded. I knew she was an emotional person, and I was, of course, afraid – but not that she would take her own life, that didn’t occur to me. I was afraid that she would lose it, give it all up… She reacted very emotionally to injustice. Not towards her! She had an instinctive sense of following the truth as a fundamental part of the world. She wasn’t religious, we spoke about this a lot, but she had an incredible sense for truth — which comes from above, rather than a person. She was killed by that gap between the truth that should be, and what she had to constantly face. Everyone loves to say the right thing and look good, but not everyone’s ready to sacrifice something for the sake of the values that they live by. What happened is awful, but she remained true to herself to the end. I just punish myself that I didn’t see it coming. Perhaps, that’s a lesson for everyone. Perhaps if we were more sensitive in Nizhny Novgorod, then perhaps we would have been worried earlier. Unfortunately, I only became worried when I saw her Facebook post, and then a few minutes later found out she had died. Too late. We’re all guilty. Of course, the cops and the FSB will just wipe their hands. But we’re guilty. Arkady Galker, chairman of Nizhny Novgorod branch of the Memorial human rights organisation This news has knocked me off my feet. Irina and I were in touch yesterday about the case connected to the house searches. I sent her the case materials that we’d managed to get, she thanked me, wrote something on social media on the basis of those materials. We offered her legal aid via Memorial and OVD-Info. It should be noted that seven activists’ homes were searched yesterday and, as far as I know, only two faced nasty treatment – Irina Slavina and [Mikhail] Iosilevich both had large groups of security services, who used chainsaws to cut down their front doors. Iosilievich has a specific situation, he’s the main suspect in a criminal case. In Slavina’s case, I think this was most likely an attempt to scare her by the state. The goal was to demonstrate state terror, to show that she was vulnerable to the state. It’s clear that all these searches aren’t really connected to Iosilevich’s activities. It’s just the state has taken the opportunity to scare people and get as much blackmail material that they can take off people’s devices. They hit Irina Slavina as hard as they could. Obviously it was very difficult for her. Irina and I met at an event to commemorate Boris Nemtsov. She was a resilient and courageous woman. There was an episode with the fourth march in memory of Nemtsov, when she was brought up on administrative charges. She came to the gathering point and then went ahead of the column with a small portrait of Nemtsov. She was basically leading people. She had this capacity for leadership, courage. And of course, I didn’t completely understand how much she was traumatised by the state’s act of terror. We used to seeing her a certain way and didn’t understand how hard it was for her. I feel an enormous sense of guilt, we didn’t support her as we should have. Nikolay Rybakov, chairman of Yabloko Irina was a journalist who didn’t just cover events drily. She wanted to influence them. She was a very soulful, good-natured person. We even had to put out a fire once together: we came to a polling station where someone had set something on fire, and we put it out, called the fire brigade. She was someone who could not brush past some problem. Of course, the current government isn’t ready for these kind of people — they want people to keep themselves to themselves, to stay quiet. It’s completely awful and unexpected that she made the decision she did, because it’s not worth it. She just couldn’t withstand the pressure from the security services, the persecution that was going on in recent monhs. Of course, yesterday’s house searches were the last straw. Law enforcement thinks that everyone is made of steel around them. But not everyone is made of steel. And now it’s the responsibility of those who organised this, the people who created this atmosphere in the country. Svetlana Kuzevanova, legal counsel for Center for Defending Media Rights Ira was a fighter. She was never afraid to write and speak, she always refused to be more neutral and accurate in her texts. And she loved and believed in her KozaPress. On 17 September, we went together to a court hearing in Nizhny Novgorod — I represented the interests of her media. I didn’t know her well, but I didn’t see anything concerning. Yesterday I offered the help of our centre, to appeal against the house search. We had a normal chat, I’m in shock at what has happened. Askhat Kayumov, director of Dront ecological centre This is a gigantic loss for the city and a huge sadness for people. Irina, it goes without saying, was one of the few honest journalists in Nizhny Novgorod. We were in touch on ecological issues connected to protecting the environment in the city, citizens’ environmental rights. And she always wrote about them honestly. Dmitry Mitrokhin, blogger Irina was a journalist with a capital J — a clear example for all the city’s journalists of how to work. Over the course of several years, she made her own news agency, which successfully competed with larger media companies. A news agency based on one fragile woman. I was always in awe of her capacity, her speed, the amount of information she could process to then produce quality texts. Honestly, I never saw this in Russian journalism – that one person could set up a serious news agency. And she was principled — most likely, this is what caused the tragedy. She could never give up those principles that she believed in. Pavel Miloslavsky, cultural manager Irina was an incredibly honest person. Perhaps inside she was afraid of something, but she was always fearless in what she did. And if she was completely sure of something, she either got it, or made other people understand what her point of view was. Of course, she represented the kind of person that’s hard to find today — someone who has a concept of honour. The fact that she took her life, I think she thought this through. Judging by the Facebook post that she published yesterday, she was in her right mind. There’s our swamp — we make some movements, we express dissatisfaction with our country. But real acts, like those by Nemtsov or Navalny now… She probably decided that she had to do something to draw attention to what is happening in our country, in our city. But what kind of act? Examples of self-immolation are well known. I think she decided that this would be a serious event that could bring people together, people who are not happy with what’s happening in the country. And the country is a piece of shit, we can see that already. Dmitry Gudkov, politician I knew Irina very well. In 2013, in Nizhny Novgorod, we set up a nationwide office for returning direct mayoral elections. Irina was one of the few journalists who actually covered it. I gave her interviews often — there’d be situations where everyone was banned from covering a press conference, and she would come along with a few local journalists. She knew Nemtsov. She was an independent journalist with opposition views, she always helped all the protest groups, always covered their protests. I heard the following: they constantly humiliated her, the security services constantly pressured her, the counter-extremism officers tried to frighten her. She was very concerned about this. She brought these problems to me when I was an MP [2011-2016]. I’m shocked at what’s happened. They did this to her. They pushed her to take her own life. And that’s a crime. Interviews conducted by Mikhail Zelensky, Liza Miller, Sofya Volyanova, Maria Karpenko, Olesya Ostapchuk, Yulia Dudkina. Editor: Alexander Gorbachev

Written by Holod Media

[marvelous-heroimagines]

The Bronx: Part 6

Pairing: Reader x Peter Parker Word Count: 2.1K Warnings: Angst, fighting, torture

A/N: I tried to make this the last part, but there’s too much to wrap up! SO one more part! 

Feedback is always appreciated. Let me know if you want to be added to the tags list.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

You and your friends split up, half of you taking on the terrorists and the other half head for the machine that was sucking up the city. Warpath and X-23 fall into line with your old teammates - Steve, Bucky and Sam - and begin fighting against the terrorists. You, Cyclops and Blink move as fast as possible towards the machine, and try to avoid getting sucked up into it. White Queen was changing between your group and the others, helping to shield everyone from the terrorists bullets, with her diamond form, as well as helping the team communicate with the ex-Avengers.

Blink concentrates on diverting the debris that was being dragged into the machine, and out of everyone’s way. You try your best to help her, using your wind to push things out of the machine’s path, until Cyclops’ voice sounds through the communication bud in your ear.

“Korra,” his voice is strained and forced, he was struggling, “I need a little help dismantling this thing,”

You glance at Blink, who gives you a nod of approval, before you rush over to help Cyclops. You make a wrong turn around a pillar and suddenly you’re in the machine’s path. You plant your feet, but it’s useless, the machine is too strong and it’s dragging you closer. Using your wind, you direct it at the machine in an attempt to counteract the vacuum-like pull. Your powers help to slow you down just enough for you to bring up various concrete platforms from the street. With your left hand pointed towards the machine, your wind continues to keep you from being pulled into it; while your right hand is directed downwards, allowing you to use fire so that you can propel yourself from platform to platform. You ascend high enough so that you escape the machine’s vacuum. Water streams from both palms as you leap off the last, tallest platform and you safely descend. The moment your feet touch the ground, you run as fast as your feet can carry you. Cyclops was standing a few metres behind the machine. He stops blasting his lasers at the machine’s frame when you enter his peripherals.

You’re frozen for a moment as you get your first glimpse of the back of the machine. None of the debris that it was dragging in is exiting. ‘Portal?’ you ponder.

‘Everyone thinks so,’ White Queen’s voice answers your unspoken question,

“I’m trying to break it apart,” Cyclops explains to you, “But my powers aren’t enough... What is this thing made out of?”

“How do you know that breaking the frame will work?” you shout at him over the loud whirring noise that was coming from the portal machine. He only shrugs. It was the best idea that anyone had so far, so you’d have to follow his lead and hope for the best.

You and Cyclops work together, both aiming your powers at one section of the machine at a time. You were allowing your fire to burn hotter and hotter, and your heart starts to race as you realise you’d never gotten your fire this hot before. The last time you felt this kind of heat pulsing through you was in that alleyway, when you’d lost control.

You hold your powers for so long that your arms start to shake, and you start to feel light headed. But you don’t stop. You force yourself to keep your intensity, chanting to yourself, ‘It’s about to break, it’s about to break,’

As if by fate, the machine’s frame breaks, bringing it crashing down, at the same time the others defeat the terrorists. You slump over, your hands grasping your knees to keep you somewhat upright as your chest heaves, desperate for more oxygen. To say you were exhausted would be an understatement.

“Good job,” Secretary Ross’ voice sounds through your comms, “Now, complete your second objective before the criminals escape,”

Your stomach drops as you remember the order you’d been given before the battle. With all the pressure of saving the city, you had practically forgotten that Steve, Sam and Bucky were also enemies. The metal shock collar around your neck feel like it ways a million kilos, reminding you of Ross’ ultimatum.

Your enhanced friends don’t give the next objective a second thought. Cyclops starts jogging over to where Warpath and X-23 are, and probably where your old team mates still stand.

“Come on!” he urges when he notices you haven’t moved a muscle.

Fighting the men that used to be your team mates, and were still your heroes, is the last thing you want to do right now. But the memory of how painful the electric shock from the collar is gets your feet moving. Your stomach knots as you catch up with White Queen, Blink and Cyclops; all of you jumping over motionless debris to get to the next fight.

You round a corner and see that Steve, Sam and Bucky are already facing off against Warpath and X-23. X-23′s metal claws are glistening in the sunlight, but she doesn’t move; only staring at Warpath for the go ahead. Warpath has his guns trained on Steve; who looks to be trying to reason with your friends while Sam and Bucky aim their weapons.

The moment Warpath spots you and your friends, the fighting begins. X-23 launches herself at Steve, who can only use his shield to hold off her deadly claws. Everyone else is forced to take cover as bullets start firing.

“White Queen!” Warpath yells, grabbing everyone’s attention. She knows exactly what he wants and weaves her way to him. Once she reaches him, she transforms and helps to shield him. Warpath peaks his guns over her shoulder and starts aiming at Sam and Bucky as he and White Queen inch closer. Bucky is forced to take refuge behind Sam’s Falcon wings to avoid getting hit.

You’re frozen as you watch the two teams fight, an internal war waging inside you. You didn’t want to see either side get hurt, they were all your friends.

“Y/N,” Ross’ voice shouts in your ear, “Get moving!”

Before you can even move a muscle a short, sharp electrical shock courses through you. It only lasted a couple of seconds - a warning - but it hurt like hell. The pain forces you to join your enhanced friends, and attack your old team mates. X-23 seems to be holding her own against Steve, so you focus your powers on Sam and Bucky.

Fire bursts from your palms, and curls around Sam’s wings. You hold it there, the guilty knot in your stomach tightening every second, and soon the wings become too hot for Sam and Bucky to stay behind. They are forced to expose themselves, and that’s when you see Cyclops readying his glasses.

You knew the power that he could emit from him eyes; it wouldn’t just injure Sam or Bucky, it would kill them.

“Look out!” you yell a warning at your old teammates just in time for them to dive for cover from Cyclops’ lasers.

“What was that?” Ross’ voice barks in your ear, immediately followed by an electric shock that makes all your muscles seize.

Secretary Ross wasn’t holding back. The electricity flowing through you is so intense that you collapse, your limbs ridged and screaming in pain. You cry out, just as the electricity stops, leaving you gasping for breath.

By the time you recover, the battle had completely changed. Cyclops and Blink were now attacking Steve, who was barely staying alive. White Queen was shielding Warpath as he took shots as Sam, who was using a, still glowing hot, wing to cover himself while he fired back. And X-23 was facing off against Bucky.

Bucky raises a steady arm, and fires a bullet at X-23. The bullet meets its target, and the force of the bullet hitting her in the middle of the forehead sends her falling backwards, and falling to the ground. He stares in disbelief as she stands. She was visibly seething with anger, and lets out an animalistic growl as she launches herself at Bucky. He blocks her claws with his metal arm, and throws her off.

X-23 was tough, but Bucky seemed to be holding his own; which worries you. The two of them weren’t the type of people to take it easy in a fight or walk away from one.

Bucky takes another shot, hitting X-23 in the head again. Knowing that one bullet wouldn’t take her out, Bucky holds the trigger, letting a hail of bullets tear into her.

You rush forward, and use your wind to push Bucky backwards, throwing off his aim. Before he can recover, you use your powers to pick up a small boulder of concrete and throw it at the super soldier. The concrete slams into Bucky’s chest and he crashes to the ground. 

You glance back and see X-23 still on the ground, her body pushing out the bullets and healing itself.

“Y/N?” Bucky calls, drawing your attention to him, “What-?”

“I’m sorry,” you say, your voice breaking, “If I had a choice-” your voice is cut off by a cry of pain escaping you. Ross had sent the electricity coursing through you again. Bucky’s eyes flit to the metal collar that controlled you, and his face softened. If anyone knew what you were dealing with, he did.

A growl sounds from beside you, and you see a flash of X-23 as she launches herself onto Bucky. You’re frozen as you watch the battle that was waging around you. People who had no personal vendettas were forced to fight each other, and it was looking like it wouldn’t end until someone died.

Bucky throws X-23 off and you see an opportunity to end the fight in a way that everyone lived; and hopefully would allow your old teammates to escape.

Taking a deep breath, you let your powers sweep into the broken street below your feet. With a slowly, tenses movement of your arms coming upwards, a slab of concrete, 50 metres long starts ascending out of the ground. You pull the concrete up and push it to over 10 metres high before letting your arms collapse. You’d erected a wall between the two groups, making it impossible for either to attack.

The moment the wall is up, the pain that overcomes you is unlike anything you’d felt before. It forces you to collapse again, but it doesn’t stop. Through the pain, you see the jet that had dropped you and your friends off land nearby, and the cargo door lowers to reveal Secretary Ross, looking extremely angry.

“They got away!” he barks, looking as though he might explode with anger, “Get in the jet!”

If you hadn’t been writhing in pain, you would have let out a sigh of relief. Steve, Sam and Bucky had got away, and no one you cared about had to die. The pain gets so intense that your body gives up, and unconsciousness swallows you.

~~Peter’s POV~~

Peter swings into the scene of the terrorist attack, his eyes immediately searching for you.

“Karen,” Peter calls to his Spider-Man suit A.I., “Find Y/N,”

The screen that was built in his suit highlights a figure, slumped on the ground, “She appears to be unconscious,” the A.I.’s feminine voice informs Peter as his stomach drops.

Peter starts to rush over to you, but is stopped in his tracks as he sees Secretary Ross saunter over and stare down at your motionless body. He flicks his wrist and two agents pick your limb body off the ground and carry you back into the jet.

“Peter,” Karen’s voice sounds, “I suggest that you hang back. You aren’t supposed to be here, you shouldn’t be spotted,”

Peter feels horrible, but he knows the A.I. is right. There wasn’t anything he could do for you this very second, not without getting thrown in the Raft. His shoulders slumps as he watches the jet fire up and take off, leaving the city blocks in ruins.

Peter had let you down again. He only wanted to make things better, but he couldn’t get it right. A heavy hand comes to rest on his shoulder, and Peter glances up to see the Iron-Man suit staring down at him. The Iron-Man mask slides up to reveal Tony.

“I was too late,” Peter mumbles, looking away to avoid his mentor’s stare,

“Me too,” Tony sighs, “But we’re going to make it right,”

“What?” Peter’s head snaps up to look at Tony,

“We’re going to bring your girl home,” Tony announces.

Final Part

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Tags that didn’t work: @mo320

[onceuponanolicity]

When summer rolls around again, Oliver has plans that do not include being near Felicity, only once she lands into trouble, there is no other place he wishes to be than by her side. 

                                                                                                                       Oliver landed at his mother’s Alma Mater for the spring semester. There Oliver had been determined to keep on the straight and narrow for one reason alone. His peace of mind.

           He shoved thoughts of Felicity aside and buckled down to actually get some school work accomplished. Not that he didn’t still party and make out with a large amount of beautiful women. The fact that he joined a fraternity pretty much guaranteed the last two.

           So, it was with a changed frame of mind that Oliver landed back in Starling City for the summer. He was ready to spend some time with Tommy and just relax. Maybe go out with Laurel for their planned weekend away in Costa Rica. The one they planned after they spent the week in Ibiza for their spring break. As it was, it looked like their time this summer was limited since Laurel planned to intern with some law firm over the summer.

           The first thing on Oliver’s agenda was to hook up with the model he met at the last fraternity party before the summer. She was supposed to be having a layover in Starling City tonight and Oliver planned to wine and dine her in style before Laurel came home. Maybe if he was lucky, he’d spend the night wrapped in long legs and blonde hair.

OQFSOQFSOQFS

           Felicity was so ready for the summer. Starling City was beginning to rub her raw. She no longer fit into what her mom wanted and Felicity refused to conform to the norms of society just because they thought that an almost fifteen year old should be all girly and rocking out to Destiny’s Child and No Doubt. She’d much rather brood and pound out the tunes from Death Cab for Cutie and Linkin Park. That didn’t exactly make her popular and even Sara had shied away lately from who Felicity was turning out to be.

           It felt wrong to be away from the girl who Felicity still considered her best friend, but they had less and less in common. Sara became really popular over the past year. All the while Felicity faded into the background in her own little technical world. It was where she was discovering who she was. Online, Felicity felt powerful. She could create code that even some adults were amazed by. It was liberating to find her niche. Hacker extraordinaire.

           In that world, Felicity could be whoever she wanted to be. As strong as she wanted to be. Not the girl who was a freak or the one who people whispered about at school. Not that it made much difference what people at school thought about her. She wouldn’t be there much longer. MIT had accepted her into the summer program, allowing her to begin her college classes sooner than she ever dreamed. By the fall, Felicity would be a college student, not just a high schooler. So, all of those kids who made fun of her could go screw themselves. She was going to make something of herself. And it all started with the keyboard under her fingertips.

           “You ready to do this?” Seth asked her from the darkness of the corner where he set up his own system.

           Felicity cracked her knuckles and smiled at him. “You bet.”

           Seth smiled over at her. “Then let the hacking commence.”

OQFSOQFSOQFS

           Oliver Queen had no plans to see Felicity. After talking to Sara, Oliver wasn’t even sure if he would have an opportunity. She was supposed to head over to Massachusetts for school in a week or so for summer session. Yet, he never pictured the worst situation he could land in would also cause him to do just that.

           “You peed on a reporter?” Moira sounded incredulous as she signed the paperwork that would get him released from jail. “And a cop?”

           “The reporter deserved it,” Oliver said with very little remorse. The guy was an asshole and Oliver had been drunk. The guy wanted to grab a dick pic as Oliver leaned on the wall to relieve himself after a long night of drinking. As far as Oliver was concerned, the guy got just what he had coming to him. “As for the cop,” Oliver said with red staining his cheeks, “it wasn’t on purpose.”

           “Oliver Jonas Queen, I’m disappointed in you.”

           Glancing over at Tommy, Oliver noticed his friend was having the hardest time trying to keep a straight face as his mother dressed him down. Oliver glared at him wishing he could shoot him the finger without his mother seeing. It was Tommy’s fault he was in this situation to begin with. In fact, Tommy had been there when the whole incident went down, but he managed to get away without being nabbed by the cops. Bastard.

           “You realize this is on every news station.” It was not a question. “Your father is fielding calls while meeting with our lawyers in an attempt to keep this from going to court.”

           “Excuse me, Mrs. Queen,” an officer addressed her apologetically. “We have another person ready to fill out paperwork for release. We… We need the area. It involves a minor.”

           “Of course.” Moira graced the young officer with a smile. She signed the last of the papers with a flourish and handed him the paperwork.

           The officer accepted them, glancing at them with a critical eye to make sure everything was correct. When he looked up, he nodded at Oliver’s mother before addressing him. “Mr. Queen, you are free to go.”

           Oliver jumped off the table he sat on and went to grab the door handle ready for his escape. When he did, he found Donna Smoak standing there nibbling at one of her precious fingernails. She never bit them. She never looked this frazzled before either. It made Oliver worry. Reaching out, Oliver captured her shoulders in his hands. “What happened? Where’s Felicity?”

           Tommy rushed over to Oliver’s side and the two of them shared a concerned look. This could not be good. Donna was there and there was supposed to be a minor in the room. Felicity was a minor.

           “Ms. Smoak,” the officer called out from behind them. “You can come in now. They were just heading out.”

           “Who was that?” Moira asked as she joined the two boys and Donna swept into the room.

           “Felicity’s mom,” Oliver threw over his shoulder as he tried to push his way back into the room. The officer blocked his way with a stern look on his face.

           “Donna,” Tommy called out, once the officer began to close the door. “Can we help?”

           She turned and nodded. “You can let them in.”

           The officer did not look happy at this turn of events. “Are you sure, Ms. Smoak?”

           “Yes. Please. They are practically family.”

           Oliver didn’t know about that, but if that meant that he could be in that room, he would admit to being a purple elephant. Leveling a look at the officer, Oliver challenged him to not let him and Tommy back in.

           The officer finally stepped back and allowed them entry. Oliver let Tommy go in first. He needed to talk to his mom so she wouldn’t worry. “Tommy will drive me home. I promise I’ll come as soon as this is finished.”

           “I’ll expect you by dinner, Oliver.” She gave him a stern look that said that she refused to have him show up one minute later.

           Nodding, Oliver shut the door. He found that the officer had left the room through the door they had brought him in. The one that led off to the jail section of the building. How had he not seen Felicity before now? Especially after spending the entire night in a jail cell. But that did not bother Oliver half as much as his other question. What had Felicity done that would cause her to be arrested in the first place?

           “What happened?” Tommy asked the top question on their brains. “And how can we help?”

           Donna swiped a tear from her cheek. “All I know is I received a call from some detective that said that Felicity and a group of kids were brought into the station earlier this morning. They refused to tell me why over the phone. I rushed right over here.” She waved down at her cocktail dress. “I didn’t even have time to dress. Not that I have any idea what one would normally wear to a police station to pick up their daughter.”

           “Mom!” Felicity came into the room and threw herself into her mother’s arms.

           “Baby.” Donna hugged her tight and then pulled her back to search her face. “Are you okay? What happened?”

           “Sit, Miss Smoak.” A man dressed in a suit came through the door and glared at Tommy and Oliver. “Oh, look. The criminal brigade.”

           Tommy seemed taken aback by the man’s attitude while Oliver stood there clenching his fists. The two of them had dealt with jealousy, intolerance, and hatred before but never with such vehemence from someone they had never met who was supposed to be an upstanding member of the city they lived in.

           The black man held out his hand to Donna. “I’m Detective Franklin Pike, Ms. Smoak. I was the arresting officer.”

           “Arrested?” Donna glanced down at Felicity who had taken the chair Pike had indicated. Her face was laced with concern. A much different look than the anger and disappointment that Oliver had seen on his own mother’s face. “What did you do?”

           Detective Pike took a seat across the table from Felicity and laid out some papers he had gathered inside a file folder. “Miss Smoak and her friends decided to hack into the police radio frequency and create chaos. It resulted in a miscommunication with the local fire department.”

           “Felicity Megan Smoak,” Donna placed her hands on her hips and waved toward the paperwork, “did you do this?” When Felicity let out the briefest of nods, Donna threw her hands up in the air and spun around on her heels. Her hands came up to her face, holding it, before going back down to her hips while she faced her daughter. “How stupid of me. Of course you did this. Were you with this new group of friends of yours?”

           “Mom, I…”

           “No, it’s my turn to talk, young lady.” Donna pointed at her daughter, a disappointed frown lining her features. “First, you are going to apologize. To everyone. Then you are banned from every electronic until you leave for school next week. And you are no longer allowed near this,” Donna made air quotes with her fingers, “group of friends.”

           Detective Pike shuffled some papers. “I’m afraid it is a little more serious than that. But,” he glanced at Felicity and frowned, “I did speak to Judge Cross regarding her school.” Pike rose becoming more intimidating. “He was not happy. What happened could have cost lives.” At Donna’s shocked gasp, Pike’s eyes fell on Felicity’s mom. “Luckily, it did not. He also took into account her age. He agreed to thirty hours of community service without her having to come to court.”

           Tommy stepped forward. “Can it be postponed until she returns this fall from school?”

           Detective Pike nodded. “Yes. So long as she puts in at least ten hours of it before she leaves, the Judge was willing to wait for her to finish the rest.”

           “Did you hear that, young lady?” Donna’s voice was sharp, sharper than Oliver had ever heard it. However, the smile that she graced Detective Pike with was vastly different than the tone she had just used on her daughter. “I think it might be possible for her to be able to complete most, if not all of it, before she leaves.” Once more Donna turned to her daughter and the smile dropped. “Because she is going to find herself bored out of her mind over the next week.”

           Oliver walked over and placed his hand on Felicity’s shoulder, but she shook it off. “I’ll work with you.”

           “While community service is an honorable occupation, Mr. Queen, I don’t think it will help with your own situation. Don’t expect that it will sway a judge with your charges,” Detective Pike said with derision.

           Damn. Oliver was really beginning to hate this man. “I’m doing it for her, not a judge.”

           “I’d rather you didn’t,” Felicity mumbled just loud enough for him to hear.

           “Felicity, if I were you, I’d thank Oliver and begin to figure out how you are going to apologize to the entire police and fire department,” Donna said with her arms crossed and a six inch heel tapping on the hard concrete floor.

           “Yes, mom.” Felicity appeared defiant more than compliant despite the words that came from her mouth.

           Detective Pike held out a hand to Donna again. “I’ll have an officer come in with the papers for you to sign and then Felicity will be free to go.” He turned to Felicity and snapped his fingers to get her attention. “I advise you to be more aware of what you are doing, Miss Smoak. Hacking can get you into very serious trouble. You were lucky this time.”

           Tommy jumped into the chair that Pike vacated after he left and placed his hand on Felicity’s arm that laid across the table. “Hey. Things are going to be okay.” He nodded up at Oliver. “Ollie and I are will help you get through community service. We’ve done it enough times.”

           Felicity jerked her arm away and jumped up from her chair knocking it over. “I don’t want your help. I didn’t ask for it. I don’t even know why you’re here.”

           “Felicity Smoak, apologize right now.”

           “No.” Felicity crossed her arms and glared at the two guys.

           “Uh-uh.” Donna waved a finger in Felicity’s direction. “You may have inherited your father’s smarts, but this sass? It will end right now, young lady.” Donna’s eyes flashed with anger. “Your friends are here because they wanted to help you after you got yourself into trouble.”

           Felicity waved at Oliver. “Seems he gets into enough trouble all on his own. Are you sure that’s the influence you want for me?”

           Donna’s eyes shot between the two of them. “You know, I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but I advise you to fix it if you don’t want to lose the friendship forever.”

           Oliver walked over and placed a hand on Donna’s arm. “Do you mind if I talk to her for a minute? In private.” He pointed to the mirror in the room. “You can watch from outside.”

           “No,” Felicity spoke up. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

           Donna nodded. “Five minutes.” She turned to her daughter and leveled a look that spoke volumes. “I expect you to behave yourself. I will be back in when they bring in the paperwork.”

           “Me?” Felicity spewed in disbelief. “He’s the one who peed on someone. Two someones.”

           “It’s not nice to spread rumors, Felicity,” Donna reprimanded.

           “But…”

           Oliver noticed that Tommy bit his lip to smother his laughter as he came over to lead Donna from the room. “We’ll be outside.”

           The door closed behind them leaving Oliver alone with the one woman he had no wish to see. The same one that he couldn’t forget no matter how much he tried. The one who looked ready to spit nails if that meant Oliver’s death.

           Oliver rested back on the table and studied her. Her hair had grown down past her shoulders and her clothes had gotten darker. Not one bit of color resided on her unless you counted the dark purple lipstick. The only reason at all Oliver could tell it was purple was because of the harsh fluorescent lights overhead.

           “So, I take it the computer works well,” Oliver said with just a small level of levity. “I’m assuming that is, that the computer I bought you is the same one that was confiscated when the police arrested you.”

           “Yeah, so?”

           “I bought that…” Oliver was going to say because he had hoped to make her happy, but decided to change tactics. “I bought that computer so that you could use it for school.”

           Felicity shrugged. “It was a Computer Club thing, so technically it was for school.

”             Oliver tried to hide his smile. “Am I right in assuming that Starling City High School has yet to hear about this little incident? Because I have a feeling that the club will be disbanded pretty quickly.”

           “It’s summer,” Felicity said with a slight shrug as she leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms.

           “I wouldn’t expect the group to still be there come fall.”

           “Neither will I.” She shrugged again. “Sort of.”

           Oliver jumped down from the table and approached her. “Let Tommy and I help you. It’s what friends do.”

           “Friends?” Felicity’s eyes rimmed in heavy dark eyeliner hit his. “From the moment we met we have never been friends. Not really. No matter how much we tried.” Her finger came out and slammed into his chest, something that she would have never done before. Felicity usually shied away from touching him. “So, the way I see it, you’re not my father or my brother, so stay the hell out of my business. And stay away from me.”

           Oliver tried not to flinch. Not from her finger which would probably be leaving a permanent bruise on his skin, but from her words. “I guess I’ll leave you alone then.”

           “Good.” Felicity pulled her hand back nodding. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

           Oliver stood there for a moment lost. It had finally happened. He had lost Felicity. There was a permanent fissure between them. Not only that, but she kicked the remaining piece of his heart out the window with her words. He opened his mouth to say something, but there was nothing that he could say. There was no fixing this.

           Turning, Oliver went to the door and pulled it open. Walking in a straight line, Oliver made his way over to Tommy’s side as Donna scurried back inside.

           “Whatever she said, I’m sure she didn’t mean it, Ollie,” Tommy told him when they reached his car.

           “She meant it.” Oliver knew that for sure.

           “She’s upset,” Tommy tried to qualify as if that made a difference.

           Oliver pounded the roof of the car and stared over at his friend. “She’s was right, okay? Let’s just leave it at that.”

           “Never stopped you before,” Tommy told him with a glance back at the precinct. “Not with her.”

           “It’s probably time to start listening then.” Oliver shook his head and slid into the car. “She’s smart enough to know what she wants and that’s not me.”

           “Right now,” Tommy said.

           “What’s that supposed to mean?” Oliver turned to his friend in confusion.

           “It means that I have seen the two of you together,” Tommy said as he started the car.

           “And?”

           “And nothing.” Tommy shrugged and pulled out of the parking lot. “You’ll both figure it out eventually. If you don’t mess it up like you do everything else.” Tommy glanced over at Oliver before made a turn. “Give yourselves some space. More like time, since you’ve already had space with you at college. When the time is right, I have no doubt that it will hit both of you hard.”

           “Shut up, Tommy.” Oliver diverted his eyes out the window. Time and space were already commodities that Oliver had allowed himself. Neither seemed to help. Because the second that his back was turned, Felicity ended up back into his life.

           Tommy laughed. “Got it. Shutting up now. But in case you wanted to know, I set up Felicity’s volunteer work with Donna. We are going to be at my mom’s clinic in the Glades tomorrow through Tuesday. And then Wednesday we’ll be working at the women’s shelter down the road.”

           “You just told me to give ourselves space.”

           Tommy smiled and winked. “There’s space and then there’s space.”

           “Okay,” Oliver said still confused as to where his friend was going with this. “Let’s just assume I’m too stupid to figure out the difference.”

           “If you should just happen to run into us when I suggest that we get lunch, then you might be allowed to join us.” Tommy turned down the road that lead straight to the Queen Mansion. “Or if Wednesday night after we’re finished I suggest to Felicity that she come back to the mansion with me for dinner to keep me company and my best friend just happens to show up… I can’t turn a buddy away, if you know what I’m saying.”

           Oliver considered this for a moment. He shook his head. “Tomorrow Laurel and I are flying to Coast City. I promised her a beach day before she starts her internship on Monday.”

           “Wednesday it is.” Tommy winked as he turned down the Queen’s driveway. “I’ll tell Ingrid to keep an extra place setting hidden until you get there.”

OQFSOQFSOQFS

           “Please, Tommy,” Felicity pleaded as they entered the Merlyn Mansion on Wednesday night after a hard day of working at the women’s shelter.

           “No,” Tommy told her sternly. “I am not going to let you use my phone.”

           “I just want to tell the guys bye. My mom won’t even let me call them. They don’t deserve radio silence.” Felicity pulled her hands up to her lips and tried to bat her eyelashes like she had seen her mom and Sara do. “Please.”

           “No.” Tommy turned to her and crossed his arms, his expression cross because she had been going off on this since they left the shelter. “Your mom doesn’t want you in communication with them and part of your punishment is no technology. You can just wait until you’re at MIT to communicate with them.”

           “But, I’ll be a whole country away then.”

           “Here.” Felicity turned toward the new voice in just enough time to catch the phone that was tossed to her.

           No sooner was it in her hand than Tommy swiped it back out, glaring at his best friend. That apparently was not enough for him because he took the few steps that separated them and slapped the phone against his chest. “You’re not helping.”

           “Funny. I thought that was exactly what I was doing,” Oliver said with a wink over Tommy’s shoulder at Felicity.

           “What are you doing here besides being a pain in my ass?” Tommy asked him.

           “You too?” Felicity asked because she was wondering the same thing. She thought for sure that she had seen the last of Oliver Queen. She had a trash can full of tissues to prove it.

           “Hey,” Oliver said as he pointed at her. “And here I was the one who was willing to give you the phone that you asked for.”

           He did have a point. Damn him.

           “I decided to have dinner with my best friend,” Oliver finally said with an underlining bit of anger. “But I didn’t realize that all I was going to get was crap.”

           Tommy let out a sigh and turned to Felicity. “What do you think?”

           Felicity gave him a shrug. “It’s your house.” Waving at the door, Felicity began to move towards it. “You two can share dinner and I’ll just catch a cab back home.”

           Tommy snagged her arm and drew her back. “Uh-uh. Your mom would kill me for putting you in a cab, which you will not get outside my house since you are a good fifteen minute walk to a main street. Plus, if you head home she’ll kill me again since she’s not there to make sure you stay on your no technology ban.”

           “I hate you,” Felicity spat at him. Tommy was being a real prick about this whole thing. It was like her mom had hired him as her own personal babysitter.

           “Were we this stubborn at her age?” Tommy asked Oliver with a sigh.

           “Worse,” Oliver told him with a laugh. “We had the money to get away with all the crap that we set our minds on.”

           “Says the man who pissed on a guy not five days ago.” Felicity crossed her arms and glared at him. Both guys’ eyes landed on her. Neither looked very happy. Yanking out of Tommy’s hold, Felicity leveled them with her own disapproving gaze. “I’m going to go find Ingrid and see if she needs help with dinner.”

           Before she had gone too far, Oliver caught up to her. He towered over her and Felicity backed up and ended up smacking into the wall of the hallway. Oliver followed her and ended up blocking her. There was nowhere to go. So, Felicity went with the only mechanism she had left. Sarcasm. “What?”

           Oliver continued to stand there staring down at her. It made her feel uncomfortable. Not because she was scared of him. She never had been so there was no reason to start now. It was more because of his hypercritical study of her. It caused a piece of her to react in such a way that she never felt before. For the life of her, she needed him to touch her and she didn’t know why.

           Her thighs clenched together to keep herself together. When he reached out, she wanted to have it run across the puckered nipples that pushed against the fabric of her cropped off sweatshirt. Instead it touched a piece of her hair and smoothed it behind her ear.

           His other hand jerked her forward and she felt something slide into the back pocket of her jean shorts. She was certain it was his hand until she was able to see both and still felt it back there.

           “It’s a burner,” Oliver told her as he stepped back. “Be good or else I’ll tell Tommy about it. Got that?”

           Felicity reached back and pulled the phone from her pocket, nodding. “Thanks.”

           Oliver jerked his head in the direction of where they had left Tommy. “Hide it if you don’t want him to find it.”

           Felicity lifted her gaze so she could study him. “Why are you doing this?”

           He shrugged and shoved his hands into the back pockets of the shorts he wore. “Call it a going away present.”

           She did not plan to do it, but before her mind could register that she was, Felicity leaned up on her toes and pressed her lips to his cheek. “Thank you.”

           “Yeah.” Oliver blushed and backed away. His eyes drifted down from her and he shifted his feet for a moment before he fully turned to go.

           Felicity did not know what to think of the whole interaction. Oliver swung hot and cold so often that she strained to keep up. And with him away at college she had gotten out of practice. This new Oliver who was willing to confront her and then turn around and help her confused her even more. She hoped to find out more about why at dinner, but it seemed after giving her the phone he had left to go home.

OQFSOQFSOQFS

           Tommy came home later that night after dropping Felicity off at home to discover Oliver up in his room spread over the bed with a glass of Scotch in his hands. “How many of those have you had?”

           Oliver glanced down at the amber liquid in his hand and frowned at it. “Not nearly enough.”

           Tommy threw his wallet and keys on the nightstand and shoved his best friend over on the bed to make room for him. “Things seemed like they might be okay between you and Felicity. Why did you bail for dinner?” Tommy snatched the glass and threw back the remaining liquid. “More than that, what’s with the pity party?”

           Oliver snagged the glass back and leaned over to grab the bottle to refill it. He took a large sip from the bottle before he returned it to its original position by the bed. “The pity party was in the shower while you were enjoying dinner.” Oliver held up the glass. “This is the follow up. I needed to forget about the pity party that I had in the shower.”

           “Okay, and I can’t believe I am saying this, but what are you talking about?” Tommy scooted over so he could stared at Oliver.

           “She kissed me.”

           Tommy studied him. His expression grew more and more confused as he sat there. “How? When?”

           “On the cheek.” Oliver drowned his drink and poured some more. “I wanted more. How sad is that?”

           “Thus the pity party,” Tommy noted nodding at the drink.

           “Thus the pity party,” Oliver repeated nodding toward the in-room bathroom Tommy had. Oliver handed Tommy the glass and decided to settle on what was left of the bottle. He tugged it over hugging it for a moment before taking a long drawl of the soothing liquor.

           They sat there in silence, drinking. Eventually, Oliver rose from the bed and went for his phone.

           Tommy stood also and asked him, “What are you doing?”

           “I’m calling my driver,” Oliver told him calmly. “I’m in no state to drive.”

           “Are you going home?”

           Oliver shook his head and began to dial only to have Tommy push the phone down. “I need to get laid. Fast.”

           “Once again, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I hope you’re heading to Laurel’s.”

           Oliver knew exactly why Tommy was pushing for Laurel. Laurel would talk him down from whatever insanity had set in. Oliver shook his head again. “I don’t want Laurel when I’m thinking about Felicity.” Oliver had already been down that road. It wasn’t fair to either of them.

           “Then I’m coming with you,” Tommy announced as he went to go grab his keys and wallet.

           “You don’t have to,” Oliver told his friend. “I’m fine on my own.”

           “It’s not up for debate,” Tommy said closing Oliver’s phone and pocketing in Oliver’s polo. “Walker can drive us.”

OQFSOQFSOQFS

           Oliver woke up the next morning with his head pounding and his mouth drier than a desert in the middle of summer. Cradling his head he pushed himself up in bed only to crack one eye open enough to realize it wasn’t his.

           A sidelong glance had him notice the red hair spread across an adjacent pillow. It brought a swift moment of mirth into his hellish existence. He hadn’t done a red head in years.

           “Where are you going, handsome?” A naked Asian woman entered the room carrying a tray laden with a few large glasses of water and three steaming coffee mugs.

           An Asian and a red head? They weren’t even his usual go to types. He must have been on a real bender the night before but Oliver couldn’t remember why. Snagging a glass of water that the woman offered, he also notice there were some aspirin. Taking one of those as well, Oliver swallowed them both back.

           The woman took the empty glass from him, setting it aside. Then she handed him one of the coffee mugs, smiling at him. Oliver was not in the mood for small talk, but she seemed of the same mind because she circled the bed and nudged the other woman awake with a hand. Oliver rose quickly setting down the mug of coffee he did not want. While the women were distracted with good mornings, he grabbed his shorts from the floor. What he needed was a bathroom.

           Turning to ask where he could find one, Oliver discovered the two women kissing. The red head pulled the Asian woman down on top of her. Right, Oliver thought. Now was the time to leave. Hell with the bathroom. He could find one somewhere else.

           Oliver ran around the room gathering his things and almost tripped heading out the door. He stopped momentarily to dress and make sure he had his wallet and phone. He would need to call his driver to come pick him up. Swiping a hand through his hair, Olive opened the door of the apartment. The second he shut the door behind him, he stopped short wishing he hadn’t locked it behind him.

           “Oliver?”

           “Ms. Smoak.” Oliver nodded at her. Then he wanted to melt into the ground as Felicity stepped around her mom. “Felicity.”

           “Rough night?” Ms. Smoak asked with a twinkle in her eye and a small smile at the edges of her lips. She reached out and captured Felicity’s ears in her hands before she whispered. “You’re shorts are unzipped.”

           Shit. Oliver turned and fixed his pants. When he faced them again he was blushing. “Sorry.”

           “You’re an adult, pumpkin,” Donna assured him.

           Felicity didn’t look quite as agreeable as her mother and he was pretty damn sure it had nothing to do with the look she was trying to portray with her Gothic look. She stood there arms crossed over a black mesh crop top over a black sports bra with her usual black shorts and fish nets inside combat boots. Boots that looked ready to make their home up his ass. “Did you have fun?”

           “Felicity, what a horrible thing to ask,” Donna admonished. “Sorry, Oliver.” Donna turned and glared at her daughter. “You and I should get going. We’re already running late.” Donna began to push her daughter down the stairs that they had been descending. Donna smiled over at him and waved. “Bye, Oliver.”

           “Bye,” Oliver told them. The second they were gone, he grabbed a hold of the wooden pillar nearby and rammed his already aching head into it repeatedly. Fuck! What the hell were the chances?

@almondblossomme @miriam1779 @1106angel @lovethishealthylife @sunshine0977

[olivay-official]

Spiderman: Bad Breath and Bad at keeping Secrets

Peter Parker x Michelle (MJ) .... sort of

@tomllholland Thank you for the amazing prompts!!! :D I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I enjoyed writing it!!

Was too excited/lazy to edit please excuse grammatical and spelling errors.

1. we have to stop meeting like this.

7. there’s only room for one hero in this city and it’s not you

24. I just have to outrun you

Peter loved being Spiderman- why wouldn’t he? The chance to be the hero was almost too good to pass up. Other than the late nights, and the lies, and the inconvenient scheduling of criminal activity, Spiderman hardly ever interfered with his school life. Peter was confident he could keep the two lives separate, after all he had Ned and Tony Stark to help him. The more Peter thought about it the more he thought that he had it all together- what could go wrong?

“Alright everyone, we’re going to be running laps around the gym. Now I don’t want to hear any whining- it is a requirement for this course to be able to run the mile in under twelve minutes,” The gym coach was going over the agenda for the day, much to everyone’s dismay it required a lot of running. Peter looked towards Michelle who was happily (he assumed) reading at the back of the bleachers. He idly wondered what she was reading this time. Last week it had been the Feminine Mystique.

“Now pair up we are going to start with the relay!” The groups organized themselves for the race. Peter wasn’t particularly worried about gym class anymore. Since becoming Spiderman gym class was a cake walk for him. He knew he was stronger and faster than everyone else there. Of course just because he had special abilities didn’t mean he could be out showing them off, his sudden athleticism might look a tad suspicious, so instead he just skated by with ease putting almost no effort into the class.

The whistle sounded and the relay started. Peter was in the last group of the relay standing next to his ‘biggest fan’- Flash.

“You scared Parker,” Flash taunted. Peter knit his brows together as he looked at Flash.

“Scared? Why would I be scared?” Peter asked.

“Scared I’m going to beat you Parker! Let’s face it you’re not the athletic type.” Flash smirked. Peter simply rolled his eyes- he had no idea who he was dealing with.

“Flash why does it ma—“ a loud rumbling erupted from behind the bleachers effectively cutting Peter off and silencing the rest of the students. All was still for a moment. A roar tore through the air as a giant golden dragon man came crashing through the bleachers slicing them into silver shards (Thank goodness no one was sitting on them). Immediately people began screaming as they ran from the field back towards the gymnasium. Bad this is very very bad, Peter thought as he remembered his spidey suit was still in his bag in the locker room. Flash and Peter turned on a dime as they began running for their lives. They had been the closest to the dragon man unfortunately and due to his large size he was gaining on them quickly.

“He’s too fast,” Peter shouted. Even if Peter were to run at full speed (and leave flash behind) it still wouldn’t be fast enough.

“I don’t have to outrun that thing,” Flash huffed.

“Huh?” Peter glanced back his way and was unnerved by the look in Flash’s eyes. Uh-oh.

“I just have to outrun you! (24.)” With those words Flash stuck his foot out and sent Peter stumbling to the ground. “Nothing personal Parker! Just survival of the fittest ya’know!” Flash called back to him as he ran for his own life. Typical, Peter thought bitterly. A low growl and a hot swoosh of air reminded him of where he was. Slowly Peter turned to come face to face with Dragon Breath himself. Foul air assaulted his nose as the beast breathed on him.

“Ever heard of a breath mint buddy?” Peter muttered, more to calm his own nerves than anything- humor was a great defense for fear. The dragon man’s eyes began to glow a bright terrifying red. Peter froze uncertain what he could do at such a close range without his web shooters. As Peter tensed his body for an evasive maneuver a large book crashed into the beast’s head. The monster reeled back roaring in anger as he and Peter both turned to see Michelle standing her ground.

“Hey get away from my friend!” Michelle commanded. The monster angled his body away from Peter his eyes now set solely on Michelle as they grew a deeper brighter shade of red. Peter leapt to his feet sprinting into action.

“I. Am. The. Dragon. King!” The beast called out as beams shot from his eyes leaving flames in their wake. A dragon that shoots lasers from it’s eyes- well that’s new, Peter thought as he grabbed Michelle’s hand and dragged her out of the way and back towards the gym where his spidey suit awaited him. The Dragon King was chasing after them with frightening speed. Peter picked up the pace half dragging Michelle along with him.Once through the school doors Peter shoved Michelle towards where everyone else seemed to be holed up- the weight room. In hindsight that seemed like such a terrible plan but Peter was simply grateful they hadn’t chosen the boys locker room. Peter tore the door open and hastily shoved Michelle through it before slamming it shut. He could already hear everyone’s questions- was she okay? what happened? How did she get away?

Peter skid into the locker room rapidly spinning in his locker combination as the gymnasium walls shook. Looks like the monster had finally made it inside. In seconds Peter was decked out in his Spidey suit, Karen greeting him cheerfully. Peter took a deep breath to calm his nerves before he heard the screams. Without missing a beat Peter swung out the locker room door and towards the weight room to check on his fellow classmates. He could already feel the Dragon King’s footsteps reverberating through the building. Peter, or rather Spiderman, opened the door to find his terrified peers.

“Is everyone alright in here?” Peter asked. A few nodded in response.

“We will be as long as you stop that thing out there!” Their gym teacher sniped.

“Glad to hear you’re all okay,” Spiderman suppressed a chuckled.

“Wait no,” Michelle spoke up, “where’s Peter?” She asked looking around frantically. Uh oh.

“Probably got too scared and ran home to mommy,” Flash piped up. You little- Peter didn’t bother finishing the thought, no word would actually encapsulate what he thought of Flash. 

“I haven’t seen him since the monster showed up,” Someone from the back of the room chimed in.

“I was with him a minute ago before Spider-“ Michelle started.

“He went to the bathroom!” Ned shouted over Michelle.

“And he chose now to do that?” Michelle asked in shock.

“Uh yeah! He has a sensitive… bladder,” Ned covered. Aw Ned we gotta work on your excuses buddy, Peter sighed internally.

“You have to find him.” Michelle looked desperately towards Spiderman.

“Uh yeah sure I’ll check up on him before I go fight the evil monster thing. In the meantime you guys stay here and whatever you do don’t leave,” Peter commanded them. Another roar shook the halls sounding a little too close this time. Peter quickly slammed the door and ran towards the gym. Sure enough the Dragon Kind was making a mess of the gymnasium, tearing pipes from the walls, throwing portions of the bleachers against the wall, one basketball hoop ripped down, a portion of wall leading to the outside field was left with a gaping hole.

“Someone’s having a temper tantrum,” Peter taunted turning the beast’s attention towards him. The beast let out a mighty roar before letting loose some more fiery beams from his eyes. Spiderman leapt out of the way swinging up and onto the lone basketball hoop still in place.

“What’s your vision like with those things man?” Another beam crashed into the hoop. Peter leapt to the wall nearest him. “You got 20/20?” Peter leapt onto a portion of bleacher as another beam sailed by him. “Can you only see in red?” He leapt onto another section of bleacher to dodge a beam. “Wait, am I only partially visible to you right now?” Peter asked excitedly before being swatted to the side crashing into a solid wall. “Nngh- I guess not,” Peter mumbled as he pried himself from the now damaged wall.The Dragon King raised it’s arm to strike again. Peter let loose a torrent of webbing attaching the monsters hand to the ceiling. The monster let loose a frustrated roar as Peter swung up around his head doing his best to securely cocoon the Dragon King’s hand. A laser beam barely missed Peter’s leg.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s not polite to stare?” Peter asked sending a shot of webbing into the beast’s eyes. The monster hollered immediately moving his arms to rub his eyes. Peter laughed up until the Dragon King pulled it’s other hand free and swatted him. Peter went sailing through the air with a human sized ball of webbing from the Dragon King’s hand. Peter crashed through the gymnasium wall with a puff of dust and a loud crash. Peter shook off the daze of the hit finding himself tangled in his own webbing high on the wall of the boys bathroom and in front of him stood… Michelle?

“We have to stop meeting like this (1), “ Peter chuckled dazedly. He expected Michelle to laugh but she said nothing as she moved closer to him their faces maybe only an inch apart. unable to move very much Peter’s heart began to thrum in his chest. Her hands gently grabbed his face her fingers edging towards the masks end. Peter’s mouth felt dry. She was so closer to him now and he was trapped.

“Now’s your chance Peter- kiss her!” Karen cheered. Peter cursed her silently. Karen insisted he kiss any and every civilian he got close enough to. Of course in this position Peter worried Karen might finally get her wish, not like he could do much to stop it. Peter could never recall a time Michelle fangirl-ed over Spiderman so why-

Very suddenly Michelle turned his head from side to side rather roughly.

“Your head is shaped weird,” she muttered.

“Yeah well that’s what radioactive spider venom will do to a guy,” Spiderman laughed nervously. Michelle looked up at the webbing wrapped all around him. Reaching up with a quick snap Michelle sent Peter crashing into the floor. Peter groaned as he shook his head.

“Where’s Peter?” She asked as Spiderman pulled himself to his feet.

“He uh- he um already went back to the weight room which is where you should be,” Spiderman explained.

“I never saw him in the hall,” Michelle stated skeptically. A roar pulled Peter’s attention towards the hole in the wall where he could see the monster making his way towards the hall. Not good.

“Look um I’m sure he’s fine Michelle alright?” Peter blurted out.

“You know my name?” Michelle asked stunned. No no no no no! I did not just say that!! Peter’s head spun.

“No I don’t!” Peter said too quickly.

“You just said my name,” Michelle stated slowly.

“I don’t know you!” Peter’s voice squeaked.

“You know who I am?” Michelle asked, eyes widening slightly.

“What? No! I gotta go! Bye random stranger!” Peter shouted turning to run towards the monster who he was looking increasingly forward to battling again.

“You know who I am!” Michelle shouted.

“No I don’t. I’ve never met you before! You’re a stranger! I don’t know you!” Peter called back before swinging out into the gym and (thankfully) away from Michelle.

Spiderman swung back into the gymnasium kicking Dragon King right in the jaw causing the beast to stumble away from the doors leading to the hall. Landing in his own classic pose behind the beast he couldn’t help but belt out another taunt. One day his big mouth was probably going to get him killed.

“Do you have to have the doors specially made at your house?” Peter asked. The Dragon King roared in outrage letting loose red rays from his eyes. Spiderman leapt out of the way swinging back into the air. This time swinging behind the Dragon King and right into the back of his head causing the beast to stumble forward. He grumbled before whipping around to meet Peter. Red lasers followed Peter’s movement creating lines of fire throughout the building. If Peter didn’t put a stop to this guy soon the whole building would collapse.

“You know four out of five dentists recommend webbing for bad breathe,” Peter started. The beast let out a roar in response. “There you go!” Peter snickered as he sprayed the monsters open mouth. The Dragon King opened and closed it’s mouth rapidly in an attempt to free himself from his web caged mouth. As the Dragon King reached his arm up to rip the stuff free he was greeted with more webbing attaching his hand to his webbed mouth. Peter zipped around the room rapidly wrapping what he could to secure the monster in place. Maybe if he could keep the thing here he could make a call to Mr. Stark to have the thing picked up and sent to a facility. They had to have super villain facilities right? Peter was like 75% sure they must have a special prison for super villains. Peter landed on the gymnasium floor and smiled at his handiwork.

“You have done an exemplary job containing the beast Peter!” Karen cheered. Peter was feeling more than a little proud of himself as he admired his creation.

“Thanks Karen,” Spidey beamed.

“Webbing is almost effective! I’m sure if you had better materials it would hold him!” Karen said cheerfully.

“Wait what!?! Karen are you telling me-“ Peter was cut off by snapping sounds. The webbed mass was beginning to shake. “Not good.” Peter swallowed hard beginning to back away.

“Peter!” Michelle called stepping out of the hole Spiderman had left in the wall earlier. Her eyes scanned the room searching for him.

“Oh this is really really not good!” Peter ran his hands over his head looking between the shaking mass and his friend. Looking towards Michelle Peter broke out in a sprint towards her. All at once there was the sound of snapped webbing and a loud growl that gradually grew to a roar.

“Michelle!” Peter screamed. Red beams raced past him. Fire lit up the floor. Peter scooped a wide eyed Michelle into his arm as he swung them both away from the flashing lasers. The beast thrashed around wildly, lasers going everywhere, as he freed himself from his restraints.

“You said my name again!” Michelle panted.

“We’re about to die and that’s what you’re worried about?” Peter asked incredulously.

“You know who I am!” Michelle shot back. Peter landed on the lone basketball hoop balancing himself and Michelle with ease. He took a moment to look at her.

“I am going to get you out of here. You run and don’t come back got that?” Peter instructed her. She looked at him skeptically and didn’t respond. Peter shook his head as he swung towards the gaping hole that led out to the field. Feet first he was going to land her safely outside until a thick mass wrapped around his arm and yanked him backwards. He released Michelle, the continuing momentum sending her rolling across the grass outside. She looked back inside desperately. Please don’t come back in here to save me, Peter begged.

The Dragon King slammed Spiderman into a wall making him dizzy. He held Spiderman there in his large scaly hand. Hot breath puffed into Peter’s face.

“Yeesh! Urinal cakes are not a substitute for breath mints dude,” Peter coughed out. The Dragon King growled in response his eyes beginning to burn. Peter kicked his legs out pushing the monster’s hand away and letting him slide down the wall before the lasers could make jerky out of him. Peter quickly swung up behind him the beast turned letting his laser eyes follow him. Peter looked to the ceiling wondering how well it would hold. Then an idea came to him.  Peter swung wildly in a circle around the bast but his eyes were already dimming his anger ebbing. Well that won’t do! Peter thought. A golden coin hanging from a cord around the creatures neck stood out to Peter.

“Ooh shiny! What’s that?” Peter asked shooting a web onto the coin. Before he could pull the necklace towards him the creature let out a maniacal screech before ripping the web away. The lasers came back in full force.

“Someone’s testy about their jewelry,” Peter taunted. Keeping the beast angry. The roof was beginning to burn making web placement increasingly difficult. Peter shot another web towards the necklace. More burning lasers greeted him.

“The necklace! You need to take it from him! It’s a talisman!” Michelle shouted up to him edging back inside the building. Peter could already hear the ceiling growing above him.

“Get out of here! Now is not the time!!” Peter shouted towards her.

“No! You don’t understand! That’s Mr. Lupti’s!” Michelle shouted.

“You mean the janitor?” Peter asked barely dodging another swat from the Dragon King.

“It used to sit in his closet. He’s obsessed with dragons! He was preparing the coin for show, I think that’s him,” Michelle explained. Peter looked up towards the horribly damaged ceiling.

“You’re going to kill him!” Michelle tried desperately.

“Urghh! Damnit!” Peter muttered to himself. Michelle darted towards them. “Michelle No!” Peter screamed.

Too late. The beast turned its attention to Michelle who was frantically running through the gym barely avoiding being smashed and or burned to death. The creature was distracted but Peter didn’t have long before Michelle became roasted and the building came toppling down on top of them. Peter jumped onto the things shoulder who began to violently reach for him. With a snap Peter ripped the necklace free. A large hand sent him flaying against the wall. The building began to shake. Peter shook his head vision unsteady. The coin hit the floor with a clink. The beast was shrinking now becoming more human until Mr. Lupti lay unconscious on the floor. The building groaned as the flames continued to grow around them. Peter hobbled towards Mr. Lupti putting the man over his shoulder and dragging him to the hallway door closer to them. The hallway was safe from fire and collapse and outside the weight room he was bound to be found. Darting back through the gymnasium doors he saw Michelle looking for the coin on the floor. The building creaked. It was going down any second. A loud crack over head kickstarted Peter’s heart. Peter shot a strip of webbing around Michelle’s waist and yanking her through the air and over to him. Peter leapt back through the hall doors as the gymnasium went crashing down. Peter landed protectively around Michelle into the hallway. Smoke and dust filled the hallway as the building shook. Alarms were going off and students were racing into the hall now all shouting and screaming. Michelle looked up at Spiderman in shock, both panting heavily. Before she could speak Peter leapt to his feet and ran. He had to get out of there. He couldn’t risk anyone finding him changing out of the spider suit.

***

Despite the fact that a monster terrorized the school the day before and their Janitor was put in prison for nearly killing half the student body, Peter still had to go to school the next day. Of course Ned was teaming with questions most of which Peter didn’t want to answer that is until he brought up Michelle.

“Any idea why Michelle has a magazine with you on the cover?” Ned asked quizzically.

“I may have uh called her by name in the suit yesterday,” Peter whispered looking away from Ned.

“Dude are you crazy! She already watches you like a hawk now she’s going to be watching Spiderman too! How are you going to keep this from her?” Ned asked.

“I don’t know man I-“ Peter froze. The hair on his arms stood on end as he swiveled around in his chair. There was Flash and he was taunting Michelle. Peter grit his teeth together as he saw flash rip the magazine from her hands and begin rifling through it. Michelle didn’t move but rather simply glared at Flash.

“Peter don’t do it. It’s gonna look suspicious,” Ned tried to warn him.

“Flash!” Peter shouted as he stood. He approached him unsure of what he was actually going to do to Flash. Peter couldn’t very well fight Flash, not without seriously injuring the guy. Peter hoped it wouldn’t come to that after all Flash wasn’t one to get into an overt fist fight.

“What’s the matter Parker? Jealous your ‘friend’ is getting more of Michelle’s attention?” Flash snickered.

“Just giver her the magazine back Flash,” Peter said sternly. Flash just shook his head as he laughed at Peter.

“There’s only room for one hero in this city Parker and it’s not you (24),” Flash mocked as he ripped the cover of the magazine off. “After all Peter,” more ripping, “where were you when that monster was here?” more ripping, “Oh that’s right you ran away!” Flash laughed before tossing the remnants of the magazine at Peter. “Don’t try to be a hero Peter, it doesn’t suit you,” Flash spit before walking away. Peter looked apologetically to Michelle.

“I can uh buy you a new magazine if you-if you want, that is,” Peter stuttered out. Michelle looked him up and down and let a small smile cross her lips.

“I’m okay, I think I know enough about the guy already anyways,” Michelle smiled coyly before getting up and walking away. Peter swallowed hard. Did she- No she couldn’t possible know his secret…. could she? Peter stared down at the remnants of the magazine noticing the ink scrawls made along the margins. Maybe Michelle didn’t know but she was certainly determined to find out.

[crazyartdad]

I’M Better With A Pen.

Stuart Leaves England to pursue a writing career in Paris despite a disruptive illness eating him away. But honestly? Nothing could truly be better

It's been two months, Two months dragging on in a crappy factory-turned-duplex housing. Two months of being the starving artist he always dreamed about, bidding his parents farewell before packing off to Paris with nothing but a dream of writing the perfections of love and beauty.

But reality isn't what you always hope to be.

The smog and stench flooded his imagery of the city. Leaving his hope to decay in a jar on a shelf, nothing but the harsh reality to keep his empty stomach company.

Sitting at his typewriter he realized spending all his money on buying on this hovel wasn't one of his best ideas. A mistake made from excitement had now shown its grave outcome, A penniless writer on a quest for God knows what anymore.

He could only imagine what his father must feel. It still felt like yesterday when he told his father of his plans, the argument still fresh in his mind.

“Your wasting your time, what do you expect when you go across the ocean in this fairy-tale land of yours Stuart?! You’d worry your mother sick- You're still sick Stuart, what’s to happen to you if something happens? If you don't have enough care!? You’d be wasting your life hunch over a typewriter!”

He could still see the redness in his face, could see the harden eyes as his fingers trembled along the keys. Tears threatened to slip from his black out eyes as a dull ache forms around his temples. He grows frustrated by the sloppy mistakes of his nervous hands, banging the keys in a fit as the paper is ripped away from the device. He sat, watching as white shreds fell to his feet while trying to catch his breath, pleading for nothing more than to rid the obnoxious voice from his memory.

He was sick. Ever since the accident he was well away of the threat on his mortality, the excessive coddling and careful whispers of relatives, everything made him all to aware of the actuality of his treatment being nothing more than a way to cope. But he couldn't be hospitalized in his house for the rest of his life. He stole enough insulin to dull whatever pain, he should be fine, though it's something that settles in the back of his head.

He’s old enough to care for himself, It was a good- no, a great decision to leave no matter what anyone says. Life's short and despite the shitty circumstances, he's willing to put in the effort to do what he wants and damn it! he’s gonna be happy about it!

Running his hands through his brown locks he’s suddenly all to aware of the page he has to redo. Stuart curses silently as he reaches across to the steadily declining stack of paper, ringing the single sheet through the roller and adjusting the knob.

It takes awhile to fall back into his steady rhythm, with all the noise that could be heard through the paper thin walls, it was a miracle anything could be done. It was only when he tries to recall the next line of the torn masterpiece at his feet is when he goes in search of the written draft.

The constant rumble of noise suspiciously grows louder as he searches under his bed for his notebook, paying no mind until yelling start to ensure.

“Maybe it's just the couple from 103” He tells himself, pushing up his sleeves as he flipped through rumbled pages, but when a shrill voice of a whistle shot through the hall he knew something wasn't right.

Especially the male that hurled himself into the room.

Both males locked eyes in fright, one more clear on the face then the other as Stuart clung close to the wall.

The man's eyes harden as Stuart catches a glimpse of them through his fringe, His breath hitching as the other opens his mouth to speak. Another blow from the whistle cuts his sentence to a small curse as he darts to the closet, throwing aside Stuarts small collection of clothes, knocking on sections till he find, to Stuart's surprise, a false wall.

“H-hey!, You can’t jus-” Stuart didn't know what he expected from himself as he pipes up from across the room, watching the stocky frame hide away a suitcase of God knows what. As the criminal in question places the false wall back on he scrambles over to the towering Brunette, closing his firsts around the collar of his shirt.

“Listen freak and listen good!” he starts in an angry whisper. “My plan’s already shit now that you're here and i'm not gonna sit and let you fuck it up any more” He pulls a knife from his pocket and holds it steadily close to Stu’s neck in warning as the door knocks.

“I'm going to the fire escape and if you say anything, i'll have my way of getting back at you- ya hear?” The Stranger watches his black orbs glisten as his Adam's apple bobs in a nervous gulp.

“This is the police!”

His grip tightens as he waits for Stuart's response.

“J-Jus, Just a second!” Stuart calls out to them, relieved at the absence of pressure at his neck as the mug leaves to scutter out the window. Anxiety swells as the knock echoed through the complex, making his hands sweaty as he reaches for the knob.

Three men in uniform pool into his room, Two men of bulky frame,seeming to be brothers by the similar features they shared start to short though his room. Completely ignoring him as a tall blond with a sharp nose stares him down with icy eyes.

“Where is he?” He says with deadpan knowledge.

This is it, I'm dead. I can't fucking lie what made me think I could do this, shit what do I do What do I DO. Fuck I should've listened to my dad.

“He’s on the s’cape” Stuart says, choking on his own words in fright. The icy glare softens with a sigh and the two men groan, shaking their heads in shame.

“Nice to know I can trust this side of the building, Typical fucking English” The man in question croaks from the window, climbing though with disappointment in his bagged eyes.

Stuart stands by the door, as the headache builds even more noticeable to not only him but everyone else as he tried to piece together exactly, what the hell was going on.

“Hannibal” The criminal reveals himself as he makes his way to the closet, pulling back out the suitcase. “That's, Louis, Hugo and pretty one’s Dan” Hannibal finishes introducing as he brings out a bottle of scotch from the case, only adding more questions to the poor simple minded writer.

“I still, I don't, how-”

Searching around the cupboards he finds himself some glasses and pours one for Stuart and himself. “I'm gonna be talkin so shut yer yap and listen up” He signals the dismissal of the three men and proceeds to make his way over. Shoving the man to a sitting position on his bed as he presses the glass to his palm.

Stuart looks to the glass in question, quickly shutting his mouth as it was no use to form sentences anyway.

Hannibal struts back to Stuarts desk and shoots back a deep gulp of the burning liquid before speaking.

“Now- back to business.” He pauses, making a face from the drink. “This ‘s a test for newcomers, which you horribly failed might I add, but you're in a special position that's keeping your ass from being kicked to the street.” Hannibal pauses to watch the scared look distort to one of confusion. “Ya see here, not many come with full cash to- Completely buy the place, they mostly take up a shark offer, ya know? Pay rent much like a bully stealing lunch money, but lucky you, you don't gotta go through that process. I like that”

“I should be throwing your ass out” He says, chuckling at the quietness from Stuart. “But you seem to follow rules pretty well so imma keep ya around. But this int no free ride kid, I still run this place and I need Caches time ta time, got it?”

He leans against the desk taking another drink of his scotch.

“Whats up wit the eyes?” He asks after getting a full look at the man

“8 fra’tures…?”

“Freaky...And the papers? What are ya? Detective, Business guy?”

“Writer...Poetry..”

“Pfft, Lemme guess Bohemian Revolutionist? Hoping to make the world beautiful with the freedom of Beauty and Love?” He says waving his hand around in emphasis

“y-Yeah” Stuart says with a smile, “Finally someone gets it” he tells himself

“Well good luck, only thing beautiful here is a good drink and the closest thing to love is cheap proposition” He watches the face fall with a smile as he reads over a rouge paper from over the brim of his glass.

“.....” Hannibal halts his drink, continuing to look over the flowing words stretched along the stark parchment.

He was never one for a musical taste, let alone poetry but something about the bold ink on white made a melody in his head, each syllable, every vowel, all the words seemed to fit. Telling a story while simultaneously making no sense at all. It was oddly perfect

Just then, an idea starts to form.

“....But never say never, am I right?” he adds, hopping away from the desk with a strange new attitude.

[myselfinserts]

“Would it be possible to continue where we left off?”

This wasn’t the worst night of his life, but it certainly wasn’t the best either. When L had him to join her that evening he’d expected just a simple walk through the city. Nothing too flashy. A simple talk. A bite to eat. A pleasant enough date before going back to the dorms for the night.

He hadn’t expected to be pulled into the alleyway so forcefully. L dragged him over to the darkest corner, using his scarf to pull him closer. His heart skipped a beat as his hands instinctively came to rest on her waist.

“You sure about this?” he asked softly.

“Just shut up and kiss me already.”

He smirked and pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her as her arms wrapped around his shoulders. Their lips met in a soft, tender kiss. They started slow. Light movements, languid, deep. His hands slowly moving lower as her back met the wall. He lifted her up, chuckling as her legs wrapped around his waist for support. 

“Someone’s bold tonight,” she teased between kisses.

“As if you’re not enjoying this.” He started kissing her neck, trying not to grow bothered by that sound she’d just made. He could feel her skin growing warmer with every touch. He felt a shiver roll through his spine as her fingers danced along the base of his neck. “I think you’re enjoying it more than me.”

“Maybe,” L whispered. “Not as much as him though.”

A strangled scream came from just above them in the fire escape and Aizawa let L down, both of them readjusting themselves as the mood was effectively killed. 

For some reason, this annoyed Aizawa more than anything else.

L held onto him as he used his scarf to pull them up the escape, quickly wrapping the villain up before removing the mask he wore. In his hands was a back, whose contents were a selection of knives and a couple of guns, along with an instant camera and a photo album filled with photos of couples that had been attacked on the streets over the last two months.

“Looks like we caught one,” Aizawa grumbled. “He has two accomplices, right? Reports said some of these happened at the same time.”

“We’ll know for sure when we have Ceri look at him again,” L said, taking a photo of the villain in question. “In the meantime, we can take this guy to the police then head back to the dorms. Hopefully the others will be back by now.”

“You want us to what?!”

No one could believe their ears when Midnight suggested the plan. No one could believe it when Nezu and the police actually agreed to it. 

After nearly two months of reports from across the city of a “Couple’s Ripper” terrorizing the streets, the heroes had finally gotten enough information to concoct a plan of attack. They’d all get a section of the city and pretend to be couples fitting the standart of the villains targets. Their M.O. was targeting all couples between 20-40 years of age, killing one partner and leaving the other gravely wounded. There were three culprits at least, and they don’t show their faces.

So Midnight proposed a date night. Everyone would be paired off and go to places the villains would most likely hit. They’d do whatever they could to make themselves ideal targets, and when the villains appeared, they’d go on the attack.

“You sure about this?” Luci asked. “What if something happens? I...I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“It’ll be okay, Luci,” Regi assured. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“It’s you I’m worried about, ya dingus.”

Midnight nodded. “I understand everyone’s concerns, but this is the most effective way to catch them. We can’t let them continue to terrorize the world of love!”

Aizawa rolled his eyes. “This is a stupid plan.”

L raised her hand. “Do we get to pick our partners?”

“I’ve already maid assignments with Midnight,” Nezu explained. “We went with pairings we thought would draw the most attention in public. Some of you all might not get who you’re expecting.”

Mic finished passing out the assignment envelopes. “Inside is your partner for tonight. We’re expecting everyone to dress in a way where you won’t be recognized by the villains. Shouldn’t be too hard for some of you. I hear Renegade is a master with contact lenses.”

L and Aizawa opened their envelopes, rolling their eyes as they saw they were paired up with each other. Regi jumped into Luci’s lap, wrapping his arms around them happily. Phoenix blushed as Midnight shot her a wink. The strangest pairing probably had to be Vlad and-

“Okay!” Nezu said. “Now that you all have your assignements, please prepare for tonight!”

“Makeovers at the cabin!” Regi cheered.

“I’m not letting you anywhere near my wardrobe,” Phoenix groaned. 

“What? Why?”

Luci shook their head. “Regibyte, darling, love, sweetie. You’re wearing a sweater with giant purple cat heads on them right now.”

“Pretty cool, right?” He squeezed the paw on one of the cats. “And they sing too!”

“I’m out of here,” Mic groaned. He got up and hurried out of the room.

“I concur,” everyone replied. They had dates to plan. And the sooner they took care of that and got as far away from Reginald’s ugly singing sweater the better.

They turned in the criminal and headed back to U.A. in silence, the plan having gone off rather smoothly. They’d made it back not long after Midnight and Phoenix, who both looked a little disheveled and red in the face. And if Aizawa didn’t know better, he’d say Phoenix looked like she was having trouble standing.

“So,” L giggled. “How’d it go?”

“Didn’t catch one,” Midnight sighed. “But I think it was a perfect date night.” She shot her partner a coy smile. “Right darling?”

Phoenix hid in her scarf. 

“Well, we caught someone,” L said. “Didn’t take too long after we found a good spot.”

“Oh really?” Midnight looked to Aizawa. “And how exactly did you-”

“LUCI I SAID I’M SORRY!”

Aizawa turned around, quietly thanking whatever spirits decided to be kind and save him and L from Midnight’s snark.

Luci came walking up to the others, completely covered in white fire as they had their crook on their shoulder. Regi was dangling from it in capture tape. It reminded Aizawa of how he’d strung up Todoroki some time back for exams. Everyone was staring at the happy couple in shock. This was most unusual for them to be like...

Well, this.

“You two okay?” Phoenix asked.

“Yeah,” Regi chuckled nervously. “We managed to catch one on the other side of town. Went well if I do say so myself.”

“Then why does Luci look like they’re about to roast you like a rotisserie chicken?”

“Because Regibyte is an ass,” Luci whimpered. The fire disappeared, revealing Luci’s face was so red it was almost purple. They had a low cut shirt, black jeans, and a lovely blazer.

And their neck and chest were covered in love bites.

“Oh my goodness,” Midnight cackled. “Regi, I didn’t know you had it in you!”

“Did you not want the bites?” L asked cautiously.

“I don’t mind the bites,” Luci mumbled. “And I’m okay with him giving them most of the time but...”

Aizawa raised an eyebrow. “But?”

“But he forgot to bring a scarf and everyone at the station laughed at me!”

Regi looked at them, his face making it clear that he regretted going overboard. “I’m sorry Luci.”

“You’re sleeping in the dorms tonight,” Luci pouted. “Time out for you.”

“You carried me through the city like this. I think that’s punishment enough.”

“And I’m sending Étienne your singing cat sweater.”

“Luci no!”

“Give me the sweater,” Phoenix said. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Come on you guys, this is cruel and unusual punishment-”

Luci smirked at him. “I won’t destroy the sweater if you can assure me you don’t have 15 more of the exact same one hidden in the cabin somewhere.”

Regi clammed up.

“Thought so. I bet you hid about 30 in the lab alone.”

“102, actually.”

“I’ll have Phoenix take care of the one in the closet and you can keep the rest.”

“Okay, that’s fair,” Regi admitted. “Would it be possible to continue where we left off? Start over and stuff?”

Luci pondered this for a moment. “You have until we reach the cabin to convince me.”   

They continued on their way to the cabin, carrying Regi as the techie started showering them with compliments and praise. Midnight and Phoenix continued on their way to the dorms, laughing their asses off at the Amaregi drama. L and Aizawa lingered by the gate, watching their friends.

“Promise me we’ll never go as far as those four did in public,” L sighed. 

“Trust me,” Aizawa said. “If we ever go that far, it’ll be away from prying eyes and alleyways.”

L smirked. “Is that so?”

Aizawa said nothing as L dragged him back to the dorms.

Me and my big mouth.

[ges-sa]

New Post has been published on https://ges-sa.com/marvels-spider-man-review/

Marvel's Spider-Man Review

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A big thank you to Sony South Africa for providing an early review code of this game.

“Living on the edge; fighting crime, spinning webs; swinging from the highest ledge he can leap above our heads. Villains on the rise and the city’s victimized, looking up with no surprise, arriving in the speed of time. Making villains fall, webbing rivals to a halt, racing up and down the walls, bringing justice to us all.”

These lyrics to the ‘Spectacular Spider-Man’ nicely encapsulate a day of the life of everyone’s favourite wall crawler, and also nicely sums up some of the thrill that players can experience from controlling Spider-Man in the character’s newest video game offering.  There have been no shortage of Spider-Man games over the decades, but it always felt as though there were some areas lacking from a complete overall experience in capturing some aspect of the character and his world. Insomniac Games, as published exclusively by Sony Interactive Entertainment, set out to write the ultimate love letter to Spider-Man fans (gamers and non-gamers alike) and they’re love and attention to detail have shone through here in the most robust and satisfying video game portrayal of Spidey to date.

Without a doubt, one of the major highlights is the game’s most advertised feature, the ability to web swing around a faithfully recreated Manhattan, New York, with some Marvel flavour here and there. Now while web swinging has been in every game since ‘Spider-Man’ on PS1, with mixed results each time and arguably reaching its peak in ‘Spider-Man  2’ in 2004, the team at Insomniac Games I think have outdone themselves here on their first attempt at the character and deliver and amazing and engrossing web swinging experience. Its relatively quick to get the feel of and swing around with confidence, using the R2 button to shoot out a web to a nearby building or object and from there jump out at the right moment with the X button to further increase your momentum and speed, and the same R2 button allows you to run up the side of building and parkour your way around the island. Before long you will be swinging around with the greatest of ease, running along buildings, sling around the edge of buildings like a boss, and using the L2 and R2 triggers to zipline into a nearby rooftop of object, or through water towers, etc, and bounce off for further momentum. You will likely find yourself spending considerable time, just swinging around, taking in the breathtaking New York skyline from the highest perches and even running around on street level to read Daily Bugle headlines or just randomly interact with random citizens. The level of detail found throughout the city is mind boggling and more impressive still is that it feels alive and not a desolate empty open world sandbox for you to play around in. The street are always backed with vehicles and the sidewalks with people going about their day which gives you greater satisfaction saving the day and taking it all in, and feeling like you are a part of this living city. As time goes on you’ll be able to navigate by New York subway as well if one want to cut down on some time getting from one end of Manhattan to the other. How often you use this though will depend on how much one enjoys swinging around as Spider-Man or listening to the dramatic hero that starts playing in the background as you swing off into action and past iconic New York as well as Marvel landmarks.

Combat is another area of focus, taking cues from the Arkham series combat system, mostly requiring a single button to chain a series of moves together allowing you to hit button combos and drop enemies with slow-motion finishers from a variety of positions. Unlike combat found in the Arkham games though is the further ability to mix things up with Spider-Man’s innate agility and webs, taking combat to the air if one feels like and using web attacks in a variety of ways from simply trapping enemies, sticking them to walls, swinging them, their weapons or nearby objects around as projectiles to take out multiple enemies and give you a chance to go for the kill. And while Spider-Man in the comics does not kill, the video game version is a little more liberal, sending enemies flying off rooftops, intentionally and by accident sometimes to their certain doom. While this would be a major no-no in a movie or cutscene, during the flow of combat, it does make for some satisfying action or unintentional comedy sometimes so can’t get too upset about it. There are certain sections of gameplay that will require a stealthier touch and allow you to perch on girders and objects above, picking off enemies silently to whittle down the numbers or prevent hostages from suffering. IT is very satisfying to web up unsuspecting enemies and deliver knock out blows from out of nowhere. Some sections can be completed either through stealth or straight up combat so players have plenty of choice on how you wish to play much of the time.

Another major strength of this game without a doubt is the cinematic cutscenes throughout the main missions of the game. The level of detail going the appearance (some classic and some newly tweaked) of the different characters and settings is remarkable as so many little details go a long way to selling the immersion, the world and as things develop throughout, the stakes as well. Subtle facial animations and mannerisms, to seeing individual textures in some clothing and fabrics, to the pores on character’s faces and even design of the interior and exterior locations and set pieces these characters appear in; this game is gorgeous to look at no matter if you have a regular PS4 or PS4 Pro. Spanning over 20 hours easily, you’ll want to advance to the next main story missions quickly to be treated to an epic narrative beginning with a 23 year old Peter Parker waking up and quickly rushing off to stop Wilson Fisk, aka The Kingpin, as him and his thugs have stepped out of line one time too many for police captain Yuri Watanabe and Spider-Man to let slide. However, they’ll soon realise that the power vacuum created will result in threats far more dangerous than Fisk ever was, as a new menacing gang of criminals known as the Inner demons rise up, lead by the mysterious Mister Negative. Through it all, you’ll feel the pull on Peter as he has to balance his time between saving the city as Spidey, as well as his work and personal commitments as Peter Parker. With a story taking bits and pieces from many decades and other media of Spider-Man’s history; writing duties have been handled by veteran TV and Spider-Man comic writer Christos Gage, along with consultation from Dan Slott who’s written the character in the pages of ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ for a decade, and we it’s clear to see why the story aspects of the game are in solid hands and they manage to strike and maintain the right tone.

To emphasis a feeling of partnership, some story related missions allow you play as Peter’s on-again off-again girlfriend Mary Jane Watson. A Daily Bugle reporter in this version of the character, you will be able to sneak around certain areas and take photographs, collecting some crucial evidence and later on, having a few other abilities as well. These missions do help add some further elements of diversity to the gameplay and can be very effective in increasing tensions and suspense, especially as MJ starts going around places she shouldn’t be. Not to be left out, players can take control of Peter Parker as well at certain points and make use of Peter’s other strengths, his scientific genius (a major area of focus during the Dan Slott run of comics) and good heart; whether completing scientific project mini-games like researching compounds or fixing complex circuits or walking around the F.E.A.S.T. shelter and talking to Aunt May or the New York homeless, this game makes good use of integrating many of the defining characteristics and elements of both of Peter Parker’s regular and superhero life.

Not to sound like a boring game, this is anything but with an engrossing story that quickly picks up steam and very entertaining boss battles with some longtime and fairly recent Spider-Man villains. Many of these make use of the standard game mechanics, but are presented in such a way that make each one feel fresh, along with certain quicktime button events thrown in for good measure. The only gripe about boss battles is that there appears to be no option to replay them once you have advanced, aside from maybe replaying the story all over again.

In addition to the main story mission, there are numerous side missions that become available throughout the game that range from tracking down a copy-cat Spider-Man, spying on thugs in Central Park and following leads on the live-streaming Screwball.  Things don’t stop there as there are additional side quests that continue to appear as you progress such as collecting backpacks around the city with different Spidey easter egg’s that flesh out some of the character’s past prior to the events of the game, racing and catching pigeons, looking out for the Manhattan environment at different research centres around town, taking photos of different Marvel New York landmarks, stopping petty crimes and much more. While some of these, most notably the different varieties of street crimes have been done in past Spider-Man videogames, there’s an extra level of polish here; although as fun as these can be, some at times can start to feel a little monotonous and repetitive after a few dozen crimes, especially if you’re a completist who wants to finish everything the game has to offer. The scope of the creativity of the ideas for some of the side quests was rather refreshing and made me feel more like Spider-Man tackling some of the mundane goings on around the friendly neighbourhood in addition to the bigger stakes of the main story.

The game builds in opportunities throughout to stop and swing around the boroughs and seek out some these activities. Not only as brief palette cleansers between the story chapters but also by completing the different side missions, quests (as well as main story missions) you will earn a variety of tokens that can be used to craft and unlock around 25 new suits for Spider-Man to wear (easily accessible from the map menu) and switch at any point in your gameplay. Even better is that these suits come with their own powers and abilities that can later be mixed and matched as you prefer between any of the available suits, some of these suit powers will prove invaluable at different points, especially when surrounded by waves of armed enemies at once. The earned tokens also help to craft gadgets like impact webbing, electrical webbing, web bombs, a spider drone and more that once can easily integrate into combat and stealth situations.

From the care taken with the story (which may one of the best and most impactful ever outside of the comics, and some of the movies) the pacing, characters, most of the voice acting, gameplay mechanics, presentation, shout-outs and easter eggs, it’s very obvious to see the love that Insomniac Games has for Spider-Man and his history and delivering a game that justice to a character with such a long history and legacy. What the Arkham series of games did for Batman, this game has clearly done for Spider-Man and delivers the overall best gameplay experience of being both Spider-Man and Peter Parker to date. The hype was clearly real and will not disappoint fans of any interest level of the character and even regular gamers as well. With a story good enough to play through many times over and an added photo mode on the day of release, as well as many collectibles and side goals to complete, one could very easily spend upwards of 40 hours and more with this game and still be satisfied, which I’m sure will only further continue with the release of future DLC. This is definitely not one to be missed.[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”31487,31494,31488,31489,31490,31491,31492,31493,31495″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Additional Information

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Reviewed on: PS4 Available on:  PS4 Genre: Superhero, Action Age Rating: Pegi 16 Publisher/Developer: Sony Interactive Entertainment / Insomniac Games Estimated RRP: R889 Release Date: 7 September 2018[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Likes

Gameplay makes you feel agile and powerful as Spider-Man

Great story with the right tone and mix of humour, drama and stakes

Dislikes

Repetitive nature of certain street crimes.

No apparent way to replay certain missions or boss battles once completed.

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