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marveldc-imagines-hub · 4 years ago

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Subtitles: Episode 4, We Interrupt This Program

Subtitles Masterlist

Summary: [Y/N] is still recovering from one of the worst migraines they’ve ever had and they have the scars to prove it… Wait. Those scars weren’t there before and they certainly weren’t from passing out on the sidewalk a few days prior!

Word count: 9,361

Warnings: Mentions of (not super graphic) death and mental illness. Also Reader being just a little horny on main, but what’s new; almost 9.5k words and they’re simping for most of them. Lots of dorky fluff and also talking about insecurities.

Tag list: @madamevirgo @ravennight41 @multifandomgirl16 @cyanide-mustard @badasspolygenderfriend

~~~

In the black void of otherwise dreamless sleep, voices were conversing.

“[Y/N] [L/N]…” one started.

[Y/N] [L/N]. Age twenty-five. Born to Killian and Alice [L/N] in [city, state] but Dad wasn’t in the picture. No siblings, no living relatives. They wanted to go to school for botany but Mom was diagnosed with early-onset dementia while they were still in high school, so they changed their career path to neurology in hopes of finding a way to help her. She still lives in their hometown.

“Oh, wait,” another voice chimed in, almost indistinguishable from the first, “I know this one. Oh, God.”

[Y/N] was an Honors student, at the top of all their classes. A degree in neurology with phytotoxicology on the side. They took an internship in Europe one year and somehow found themselves in Sokovia. HYDRA was still laying low at the time, caught wind of them.

“Wait,” a third voice, this one easier to differentiate from the other two. “They’re HYDRA?”

The second voice responded, “Former.”

[Y/N] had no idea what they were getting into. HYDRA, always good at hiding in the shadows; they brought [Y/N] in under the guise of an assistant job studying new forms of neural regeneration. A job that paid well enough to live comfortably and even send a little extra home, while developing something that just might solve all their mother’s problems? It was a dream come true.

Fortunately for HYDRA but unfortunately for [Y/N], they were very good at their job too. They helped HYDRA develop all kinds of nasty stuff. Nanobots that changed brain chemistry, near foolproof brainwashing tech— They even helped develop special toxins, one of the world’s deadliest poisons. All the while, thinking they were doing something good.

“How is that possible?” the original voice asked. “How could they have been so oblivious?”

“One-track mind?” the second voice offered, “Plus misinformation on HYDRA’s part and ‘routine health checks’ with something a little extra mixed in.”

“They were tested on?”

“A victim of almost everything they’d helped create, except the fatal stuff and anything that would disrupt business as usual. IVs and shots full of toxins, nanobots being released into their room while they slept.”

The third asked, “What changed?”

“Wanda.”

[Y/N] stumbled upon Wanda and her brother by pure accident. They’d been late that day and in their hurry, ran through a wrong door to where HYDRA was keeping Sokovian volunteers for testing. The twins were the youngest in their group, [Y/N] was only a couple of years older and the youngest in their division. It was a match made in heaven, really.

“Try hell,” the first voice suggested with a scoff.

The other voices offered their murmured agreements.

“So they knew each other,” the third voice said, “Before.”

That’s when [Y/N] started pulling at threads and HYDRA’s costume began to unravel; their one-track mind had switched gears. There was something too weird about the whole thing, these Sokovian civilians had stories that didn’t line up with [Y/N]’s own.

“And they believed them?”

They believed Wanda. She and her brother were just two more Sokovian citizens suffering at the hands of war and wanting to help their people. They had no reason to lie. They had more reason to be honest to [Y/N] than HYDRA ever did, actually. It was just a bonus that for Wanda and [Y/N], being around each other was like being a moth drawn to a flame.

[Y/N] may have been naive but they were far from stupid. When they figured out what was going on, they wriggled their way deeper into HYDRA’s ranks under their own disguise of loyalty. They became a full-fledged HYDRA agent, tasked with assisting in neural and poisonous weaponry. They weren’t able to protect Pietro and Wanda from testing, obviously—not that Wanda would have let them; she and her brother still believed they were being tested on for the greater good—but they did their best to stay nearby and keep the Maximoffs’ sanity intact for as long as they could. They even managed to save a couple of the other test victims by injecting them with temporary poisons that lowered their heart rate to the point of appearing dead. When the bodies were dropped off, the poison wore off not long after and some of the victims were able to escape. No side effects to be seen.

“I have a question,” Original voice said abruptly. “Why do we know this much information on one person? Like, this is some in-depth, intimate stuff. Why do we know that [Y/N] and Wanda had the hots for each other since day one?”

Second voice answered, “We’ve done extensive research on [Y/N]. The result of an investigation on the person who caused the apprehension of an entire faction of HYDRA after successfully poisoning them.”

The tests that were done on [Y/N] were not without their outcomes. They gained the ability to transform almost any matter into almost any other form.

“Huh,” Third voice hummed, “That reminds me of a series of disappearances a few years back. One house was replaced by rose bushes and another—get this—burned down because the roof had been turned to lava. Whoever it was, they either stopped on their own or died. What were they called?”

“The Alchemist,” Second stated simply, much to Third’s dismay. “And those were incognito HYDRA agents.”

After Pietro died and Wanda disappeared—not really disappeared, just left with the Avengers—[Y/N] had a choice to make. They were far too deep into HYDRA’s work now, the awful things that they had done were beginning to weigh on them, as Wanda and her brother had been just as grounding for [Y/N] as [Y/N] had been for her. After she was gone, they had a hard time dealing with the horrible business going on around them. So they did what they knew how to do; they mixed up a combination of poison and nanobots.

[Y/N] had fully committed to perishing with the rest of their coworkers but apparently, the poison hadn’t been quite strong enough. They’d made a miscalculation in a time of poor mental state and woke up the next day to hear that not all of the HYDRA agents had died either. At least the survivors had been taken in for the time being but that just wasn’t enough for them; they’d had a right to be concerned too because HYDRA had a habit of getting themselves out of sticky situations. This case was no different.

[Y/N] most likely felt responsible for having a hand in HYDRA’s dirty work, for not doing more, and they must have felt even more responsible when they learned that HYDRA was a much bigger problem than they could have ever imagined.

First blurted, “Well, what happened next?”

Second answered, “They went after agents until they got caught, the only way they knew how.”

The second miscalculation that they’d ever made got them caught. The agent put a gun to [Y/N]’s head and pulled the trigger.

“So are they dead too?” First asked. The voice seemed to quiver.

The third voice hemmed and hawed a bit before saying, “They must have, with the way all this weirdness had been going. Oh my god, poor Wanda, not one dead partner but two—”

Second spoke over the other two voices’ rambling, forcing them to calm down and listen. “They didn’t die, though, they—”

The voices started cutting out like the dream was a TV program being interfered by a poor connection and static.

“—Found by—Barely alive—Hospital—Braindead—Westview—Find a doct—”

Suddenly gunshots sounded, one followed by several more, and the darkness cracked and shattered, revealing blinding light behind it. A silhouette walked silently through the wall of light; it was Geraldine—no, Monica—poised with a gun in the outfit she helped deliver Maximoff twins in. As she walked forward, crossing from a plane of burning white to one of void black, the image of her warped and distorted until it changed. Monica, looking much more modern, in a uniform that included a bulletproof vest and a lanyard with S.W.O.R.D. printed at the top, moving carefully towards a broken and bleeding body on the ground with another in a heap behind her. The image distorted and changed again, and the first body was sitting on their knees and looking up defiant defeat. The person they were looking at was no longer Monica but a bulky figure in a dark outfit with straps in the form of an H across their chest, the body that had been laying in a battered pile behind Monica just a moment earlier. The H-adorned assailant held a still-raised gun to the kneeling person’s forehead.

[Y/N] could only spit at their feet before another gunshot sounded and the image disappeared to black.

You woke up sweating and choking on your breath. Your brain, throbbing with a pain that shot through it like a bullet, didn’t register fast enough that you were standing instead of laying down so when you flailed, you threw yourself off balance and fell forward. Catching a quick glimpse of your surroundings on your way down told you that you were somewhere outside and that it was the dead of night. You tried last minute to brace yourself for a concrete-laden impact.

You were instead greeted with soft fabric and arms wrapping tightly around you.

“Goodness, [Y/N], are you quite alright?”

You squinted at the striped sleepwear for a moment before looking up where Vision’s worried gaze and whirling irises were waiting for you; it took your eyes a moment to fully focus as the pain in your head faded but left a faint ringing behind. Then you looked around at your surroundings; not only were you outside but you were standing in Vision and Wanda’s driveway. Your gaze settled on a particular section of the house’s exterior where you vividly remembered a vaguely human shape exploding out of its walls.

You were standing in the exact same place you had been when it happened.

“[Y/N]?” Vision said again, drawing your attention back to him.

“Oh, cosmo, I’m sorry,” you said but your throat was too dry and you had to stop and clear your throat halfway through. Being in Vision’s arms, you were keenly aware of the fact that you were both in your bedwear and that yours had been sweated through. You slumped against him, partially to hide your embarrassed face but also because you felt like you hadn’t slept at all.

“Vis?”

“Yes, my favorite teacup?”

You snorted softly at that. “You don’t even drink tea.”

“Oh, I know,” Vision lilted back. Then he nuzzled his face into your hair. “I do like the patterns and the daintiness of them though.”

That time you laughed a bit. Feeling his warm breath against your scalp and his strong arms holding you safely in place against him, you almost instantly melted into the embrace. You wrapped your own arms around him and pressed your face into his chest. “What are we doing outside?”

“Ah, yes, about that. You appeared to be sleepwalking again.”

You groaned. “Again? This is a nightmare.”

One of Vision’s hands moved to run itself through your hair and down your neck. “That accident you had the other day certainly did a number on you.”

The accident. In other words, that time where you walked off in the middle of a conversation with Vision, Agnes, and Herb to mumble at a wall and then faceplant onto the sidewalk. Not only was your nose still recovering but your mind and dignity as well.

“The only time I’ve slept well since is when I fell asleep on your couch,” you whined. Then you lowered your voice and grumbled into Vision’s chest.

Vision chuckled. “What was that?”

You looked up at him and scowled. “The four of you are over here in your stupid, big, warm, cozy house. Meanwhile, I’m across the way, alone and uncomfortable, with only Bernard to keep me company. Bernard’s terrible company.”

“Truly,” Vision agreed, grinning slightly. He loved your strange, cute, not at all challenging struggles.

The both of you turned to give the lawn ornament in question a pointed look. Bernard seemed to glower back.

“Well,” Vision said as he pulled away from you a bit, “why don’t you come inside then? Wanda’s up with the babies anyway. You might as well join us, especially if it means you’ll be able to sleep better.” Not taking no for an answer, the synthezoid was already tugging you towards the lit-up porch.

You were too tired to argue and, quite frankly, you didn’t want to, so you allowed yourself to be pulled along as you admired the soft cotton of Vision’s matching pajama set.

“Oh, my.”

“What?” You looked at Vision’s face again only to catch him staring at a spot above your eyes. The porch light glinted off the gem embedded in his own. “What, do I have something on my face?”

“No,” Vision responded slowly, “but you must have done something to it. You have quite the scar.”

Your eyebrows raised. You moved away from him to look at your reflection in one of the windows and surely enough, you had a raised scar on your forehead, near your hairline. You gingerly pressed your fingers against it; it certainly wasn’t new.

A seemingly random thought popped into your head. Is that… a scar from a bullet?

“What on earth did you do to yourself?” Vision asked. Him walking up to stand directly behind you and press his hands to your neck, under the collar of your shirt no less, was more than a little distracting. “You’ve got one back here too.”

You reached back to where Vision was touching and when he removed his fingers, you could feel a similar scar at the base of your neck.

You thought again, Bullet… exit wound…?

Something about the dream you were having earlier called out to you but you couldn’t remember anything about it. When you tried to think about it further, the excruciating pain came back in waves and you had to steady yourself on the windowsill to prevent yourself from collapsing.

“Huh,” you said instead, “I have no idea.”

“They don’t hurt?” Vision questioned. “They’re not just… odd raised bruises perhaps? Welts maybe?”

“No, I don’t think so. They don’t hurt at all, though.” To make a point, you pressed down hard on the raised scar on your forehead, watched the skin turn a few shades lighter before releasing the pressure and dropping your hand again. Under the thick, stiff tissue, you barely felt the pressure at all.

Vision thoughtfully hummed, placing his hands back on the curves of your neck; you prayed to whatever deities existed that you didn’t make any sounds you’d regret.

“Well,” your partner said, “I suppose that’s better than nothing.”

A pause. Your eyes stayed trained on the window’s reflection, specifically where you could see Vision’s fingers gently cupping your neck.

Then he abruptly leaned down and pressed a kiss on the scar tissue, missing a pulse point by a hair. “We should head inside then.”

You had to take a solid minute to recover from the shockwave of tingles that briefly made your veins turn into lightning. Then you shuffled after Vision into the ever so inviting house.

Stepping out of chilly darkness and into a home of cozy furniture and warm light that turned the entire place a golden brown felt like walking into another world. An extra added layer of comfort to the usually perfect home was the slight disarray of baby equipment almost everywhere that wasn’t the floor itself, most of which you had gone out and bought during the babies’ day of birth and all of which Vision and Wanda appreciated; somehow, you had prepared for the babies’ accelerated growing on a panicked whim better than the Maximoffs. Tiny baby blankets and stuffed animals were strewn about and each visible part of the house—the living room, the dining area, and the kitchen, although the kitchen was partially blocked off by a drying rack of baby clothes and swaddles of various patterns and sizes—had a designated Baby Tray. These trays, perched on whatever flat surface had been previously free of decor or clutter, held bottles, nonperishable treats, diaper-changing equipment, teething toys, a mini first aid kit for each, and other useful trinkets; the new parents had apparently completely forgotten that almost all their house’s rooms were openly attached to each other and that, if one singular Baby Tray was designated to the dining area, it would take the same amount of about five steps to get to it from either the living area or the kitchen. It was almost comedic, the number of baby care items that were laying anywhere but the floor or in proper storage because, according to Vision, god forbid something gets a speck of dust on it and have to be washed or, according to Wanda, one of the babies be without their favorite toys easily accessible at every given moment. The only thing allowed to touch the ground, aside from feet, was a playpen that now replaced the usual coffee table in the living room area and a play mat in the babies’ room with its attached toys for the twins to play with. A final touch to the hominess was the soft light that you could see streaming out of the baby room’s open door, and the gentle voice of Wanda, singing a Sokovian lullaby, fluttering out of it.

It felt like coming home.

Vision stepped away from your side to clean up somewhat, picking up a few toys and folding baby blankets and onesies to move them aside in case you wanted to make yourself comfortable on the couch. Standing inside now, you could much better make out Vision’s dark blue terry robe over a pair of bright yellow pajama pants that no doubt had a shirt to match hidden beneath dark blue fabric. The yellow of his pants matched the yellow gem that was embedded in his forehead, glittering with an unused power that you had yet to experience and that felt warm whenever you went to place a kiss on it. Poking out from the hems of his robe and pants were perfectly human hands and feet, despite their deep red color that matched the rest of his body; you found the continued presence of fingernails when not in his human disguise—absolutely unnecessary to his design, he’d pointed out when you initially asked about them—weirdly cute and continuously felt the urge to grab nail polish and paint them to match either the color of the gem or the same silver as the plating that started at his scalp and trailed down beneath the collar of his shirt. You briefly wondered how far that plating traveled across his body before mentally kicking yourself.

The greatest thing about this still-fresh reveal of Vision’s inhuman identity—aside from the fact that he was no longer hiding something important from you, obviously—was that you now knew that he wasn’t just difficult to make blush but rather he quite literally couldn’t blush. You wondered what else he could and couldn’t do, only to mentally kick yourself again.

I can’t tell if I’ve gotten worse or better since I’ve started dating them, you thought.

Oh, your brain responded on its own accord, so much worse.

Shhh!

Vision was still puttering why while you stared and inwardly argued with yourself. At this point, he’d cleaned up most of the chaos and moved the stuffed animals and now-folded blankies to sit neatly on the dining area table.

“Vis,” you said.

Before you could continue, the man perked up and looked in your direction. “Yes, duck?”

You blinked. “You make my heart go rainbow-colored. Anyway—” You broke off into a laugh when Vision went flustered, his hands flapping about while he sucked his bottom lip between his teeth. “Did I win this round?”

Sometimes Vision got into the habit of ending all of his sentences around you and Wanda with a pet name. When you had first noticed this feat, you’d decided to start doing the same, just to see what would happen. He noticed and began purposely doing it back, where he had previously done it unintentionally, and now doing the occasional back-and-forth conversation that ended in pet names more than punctuation was somewhat of a competition between you two.

Vision scoffed at you, picked up a plushie, and tossed it at you. “Not fair!”

Being in the house that was beginning to feel more like home than your own, around your partners and their sweet baby boys, seemed to shield and reenergize you from the exhaustion you felt after first waking up that night. You caught the stuffed animal, a plushie of a wizard, grinned and tossed it back at him.

“Oh,” Vision chirped, catching the plush wizard again, “I see how it is.” He puffed out his chest and gave you a warning, albeit amused, glare, then picked up a couple more plushes. In a lower, sort of growling voice that made your heart leap out of your chest and into your stomach, he continued, “If it’s a war you want, it’s a war you shall get.”

You yelped as he started in your direction and dived across the front of the couch to get some stuffed animal ammo of your own. He nailed you in the foot with a cream-colored bunny and you returned the favor with a plushie of a witch in a red dress after taking cover behind the playpen. Now each of you was standing where the other had previously been, with you poking your head over the playpen’s sheer wall and Vision slowly pacing around the back of the couch for his second lap. You pulled the playpen with you with one hand as you moved away from him and the two of you began circling each other.

Oh, if Wanda could see her partners now.

“Oh, Wanda—” you started to stand, only to get smacked in the face with a blue teddy bear; luckily, it was of the very soft variety. You stared at Vision in disbelief.

Vision stared back, eyes bulging, unsure of whether he should apologize or prepare for an attack. He was too torn to do either, though, and had to scramble back to avoid an onslaught of stuffed bullets flying his way.

Still aware that it was very late at night, your war-cry was softened, “Revenge!”

Then your attack quickly diminished, partially because you were running out of ammo and Vision wasn’t throwing anything back and partially because Vision was now floating off the ground and heading towards you, arms full of said ammo.

Wow, didn’t know it did that, you thought randomly, eyes fixed Vision floating in general, before specifically fixating on the devilish grin he wore while doing so. He looked like a very handsome, well, vision.

A handsome Vision, if you will, your brain offered. You almost snorted before remembering you had not yet moved to avoid Vision’s floating plushie attack. You stumbled backward and scrambled out of the living room just as Vision started throwing.

“No no no no no nonononono—” You were choking between laughter and squawking as you got up and began running down the hallway to save yourself. “Not fair, not fair not fair, not fair—!”

You ran past the baby room and caught Wanda mid-turnaround, saying, “What on earth is going on out there?” You reeled back to pause in the doorway, caught a glimpse of the babies in their one large crib, smiled, went to pant out an answer—

Only to feel arms wrap around you and drag you back down the hallway. You started to shriek, then forced it into a startled laugh as to not disturb the babies, and flailed around in Vision’s arms as he lifted you off the ground. It was brief, though, because then your struggling caught Vision off balance and the two you tumbled to the ground. There, you both harmlessly pummeled each other until you both were out of breath and snickering, and you somehow ended up with his top half under you but his legs pinning down your own.

“You can fly?” you bubbled. You grabbed his face and squished his cheeks in your hands. “What the hell?”

He laughed and nodded, and one of his hands caught your own. He glanced up at you as he kissed your palm and replied, “Yes, just a little.”

“Just a little—”

“And his wife can move things with her mind, like the crib she just finished rocking to put the boys back to sleep, and if she has to do it again because of her partners’ roughhousing…”

You and Vision quickly disentangled yourselves from each other and looked up at Wanda, whose face said serious but whose eyes twinkled with amusement and who looked no less terrifying in a pale pink, puff-sleeved nightgown.

You got up and straightened your clothes, with Vision following closely behind. “I will very happily take over the next shift because I started it and I’m very sorry.”

“What? Nonsense, [Y/N], I threw the first stuffed animal.”

“I threw it back,” you pointed out.

“Neither of you better have thrown and hit something,” Wanda warned.

You glanced at Vision for confirmation; you didn’t exactly see much when you were chucking plushies aplenty and then running from your flying boyfriend.

Vision nodded. “Nothing at all, although I did make the evaluation that we do have a plethora of plushies and baby blankets.”

“I thought I was the one who pointed that out when you first gave me the shopping list, but okay,” you huffed under your breath, then grinned with Vision lightly bumped you with his hip. “So, the babies having a bad night?”

“Actually, they were apparently worried about you,” Wanda said.

That made your head do a confused tilt. “Me?”

“Ah, yes,” Vision nodded, “We fell asleep with them in the living room and Billy started crying. We woke up to figure out what was wrong and Wanda saw you standing outside.”

Wanda added, “Tommy started crying shortly after I walked to the door with him like he wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Aww,” you cooed, peering over Wanda’s shoulder to see the babies. She stepped to the side so you could walk in and shuffle over to the crib, and she and Vision stood nearby as you crouched down to brush a hand over their little sleeping heads. You continued, much softer this time, “Were the boys trying to make sure I was safe? Are they my little protectors? My little superheroes?”

Tommy gurgled happily in his sleep. Billy remained quiet but his head leaned into your hand.

You looked up at their parents with big, awestruck eyes to see them leaning comfortably into each other, watching you with the same level of affection you felt for them and their babies.

“Heroes indeed,” Vision said. He walked over as you stood up again and lightly rocked the crib; Wanda strolled over to join the group. He continued to the twins in baby-talk, “But no hero-ing until after college, my little honeydews. For now, leave the protecting to your parents.”

“Especially this one,” Wanda chirped, making her way over to your side and slipping her arm around your back. “They’re a handful.”

You faked a gasp, “I’m a treasure.”

“You’re a putz,” Wanda said simply, with a smirk and a light pinch to your hip.

You gasped harder and stared at her with utter betrayal.

“A goof,” Vision chimed in. He slipped his own arm around you, the final piece of your three-person puzzle.

You gasped harder still— and almost choked on air. Then you looked to the babies. “Bullies! Bullies, both of them! Billy, Tommy, you must protect me!”

Very enthusiastically, neither baby did anything.

“I’ve been betrayed yet again,” you cried, not too loudly, though. You slumped against Vision and Wanda’s waiting arms. “Betrayed by my own brood!”

“Your brood?” Wanda questioned, quirking a brow. Vision was giggling softly at your other side.

“Yes,” you whispered, looking at her with wide, distraught eyes, “My brood. My pack. My murder.”

“Your what?” Vision said.

“It’s a group of crows,” you explained under your breath, before slumping down farther and continuing your distraught monologue. “I’m all alone! Oh, the horror—”

“Well,” Wanda said, “We’re supporting you very well a family that has completely abandoned you.”

You flopped your head back in her direction. You were so far to the ground now that you were practically on your knees, only your arms and shoulders being held by Wanda and Vision. You traced fingers lamely across each of their arms. “So strong, those who once held me…”

The married couple exchanged an amused but mysterious look.

“Wanda, darling,” Vision said, “They seem to have gone delusional.”

Wanda nodded sagely in response. “Clearly lost their mind.”

You squinted, glancing between them. What were they up to?

“To the ward with you,” Wanda suddenly announced.

Then you caught a red glow by your feet, but not fast enough before you were swept up into the air on a cloud of red mist. You burst into startled laughter but quickly slapped a hand over your mouth so you didn’t wake up the children. Once you relaxed—enough to stop laughing anyway, not enough to not be freaking out about being magically escorted out of the nursery—you waved your hands through the red; it felt like waving your hands through the open air. The only thing actually felt was the pressure on the back of your body that was holding you afloat and carrying you out of the room, but when you tried to balance on it and move to a different position, all you did was squirm and twist awkwardly in the air before flopping back down. You craned your neck, mostly to make sure Tommy and Billy hadn’t woken up from your outburst, but you only caught Wanda, hands glowing red, following you out of the room and Vision trailing after wishing his babies a goodnight.

You looked back at the ceiling for a moment. After you heard the nursery door shut, you asked at a normal volume, “I’m not gonna fall, right?”

“Not unless I let you,” Wanda reassured you. You couldn’t see her but the teasing tone of her voice made you imagine her with a smirk. A smirk, narrowed eyes, her pretty nightgown floating around her, magical powers that she could definitely use to crush you if she wanted to and you’d probably thank her if she did.

Wow, okay, I either need to confess my sins or go to sleep.

“Why?” Wanda asked suddenly.

“Why what?” you choked back, heat rushing to your face. Surely, she couldn’t read your thoughts…

“Why ask if you would fall?”

Oh.

“Oh.” You started flopping around in the cloud of magic, testing the proverbial waters; you were being taken to the living area now. You heard both Wanda and her husband laughing from beneath and behind you when you settled again.

Vision asked through chuckling, “What could you possibly be doing?”

You suddenly flung yourself to one of the magic surrounding you, thinking maybe you would fall through, but the magic held. You huffed and laid back again but not before you caught a glimpse of the couch that you now hovered over. You grasped at the magic again, watching it wisp through your fingers but feeling nothing at all. “This is so cool.”

Wanda’s voice was softer when she spoke this time. “You think?”

You couldn’t hold back the disbelieving laughter that bubbled up. Suddenly breathless out of sheer excitement of learning more about the people you cared for most, you sighed, “Wanda, baby, you must know that you’re amazing.”

Then you squawked as the magic suddenly disappeared around you, but instead of falling straight to the couch below, Vision flew up to catch you. He held you bridal style as he gently dropped back to his feet next to the couch, grinning—he very rarely just smiled, it was always a big, happy grin when it was directed at you or Wanda or the babies—and giving you a peck on the forehead when you stared up at him, doe-eyed.

“Got my own Superman, too,” you said, “Damn.”

Vision plopped you down on the couch. “Who?”

“Comic book character,” you responded with a wave of your hand, “Doesn’t matter. You’re far better looking than him anyway.”

You shifted a bit to get more comfortable and watched as glowing red magic started swirling all around you. The magic was misty, red around the edges and glowing orange-white in the center, picking up the scattered toys from your and Vision’s scuffle and tossing them into the playpen, pulling said playpen out of the way and sliding the original coffee table back from its place against the wall, picking up any other stray blankets or baby items and placing them neatly out of the way; it also straightened out Vision’s robe and ruffled your hair. Part of the magic moved out of your line of vision, so you twisted to follow it and saw it taking the baby clothes off the drying rack to fold and put on the counter next to it, then continued watching as it folded the rack itself and moved it out of the way.

Wanda was now in your sight again too; she was standing still, palms up with magic flowing outward from the red clouds around them, and looking around to see if there was anything else she needed to put away. She was also blushing, from you calling her baby or saying she’s amazing, you couldn’t tell. After staring for probably way too long, probably looking at her with the same starry-eyed, dopey look that a teenager had at their first concert or after a first kiss, her gaze flitted to yours and made a nose-scrunching face at you before finishing her magical cleanup and making her way over to the couch as well.

You slumped back in the pile of throw pillows behind you, covered your face with your hands, and flutter-kicked your feet few times. “This is so cool!”

You felt a nudge at your feet and you raised your legs so he could sit, then did the same with your head when you felt Wanda’s hand brush across your forehead. When they were both seated, you laid your legs and head on their respective laps and the three of you settled into the comfortable position that had been adopted long after your relationship had started.

That is until you quickly sat up again. “Is that how you unpacked your house so quickly?”

Wanda smiled and nodded. She rested a cheek in the palm of her hand, endeared by your wonderment towards her powers.

“Is that you unpacked my house?”

Another nod.

“And the magic show was real— Wait.” You scowled. “But all the pulleys and stuff.”

“That was, ah, my bad,” Vision offered with a raised hand.

“Covering for him actually using his powers,” Wanda explained.

“I knew the mirrors didn’t make sense with you putting your hat through your body!” you exclaimed. “So flight, super strong, and… not sure what to call that last one. What was with you that day, by the way? You acted drunk, but you can’t get drunk!”

“I swallowed some gum,” Vision muttered, glancing away and rubbing the side of his neck. His other hand waved towards his torso as he continued, “It got all… stuck. Gummed up my gears, if you will.”

Wanda rolled her eyes at the pun. You snickered at it.

“I had to magic it out of him,” she added.

Your gaze flitted back and forth between your two superhuman partners multiple times as you took in the information. Because you were sitting between the two, this involved the turning of your head various times, which made your head swim a bit. You almost wished that they were both sitting to one side of you.

Instead of suggesting this, you settled your gaze to stare aimlessly ahead and said simply, “I’m dating two of the weirdest, coolest, most stellar people in the world. How the hell did I manage that?”

“Charisma,” Vision offered, even though you and him both knew at this point how you’d weirdly creeped on him at the office the first day the two of you met.

“Sheer force of will,” Wanda suggested, but you guaranteed she was remembering how, for the few dates you went on with them, you’d had to be reminded that you were actually on dates and that they weren’t just casual friendly hangouts.

You looked between them once more and then you wished you had suggested they sit to one side of you. Despite their steady, comfortable voices, Wanda was in the process of hiding her flustered face behind the curtain of her hair and Vision was chewing on his lip and couldn’t seem to keep his hands and feet from tapping away.

“Okay,” you said after a moment, patting your thighs to do something with your hands. “I’m grasping that you guys don’t agree with me here. Wanda, go sit by him so I don’t get whiplash from trying to look at you both.”

You and Wanda quickly switched places. You sat cross-legged on the couch to face them and Wanda and Vision shifted around to sit in a way that allowed them to face you without one blocking the other. After a moment, you waved your hands at them; the cheery air has since faded into something more somber. “What is it? Tell me why you get all quiet like that when I tell you, with evidence, why you’re the actual grooviest people I’ve ever met.”

There were a few more moments of silence before Vision went to speak first, which surprised Wanda. She looked at him, eyebrows raised high on her forehead, and lightly grasped his wrist.

“Vis?” she murmured.

He sighed softly and placed his other hand over hers. “Oh, it’s really nothing dear, I promise. It’s just… Well, you’ve heard how the people of the cul-de-sac talk about us sometimes.”

“Mean girls,” you grumbled under your breath with a nod, “the lot of them sometimes.”

Wanda seemed to suddenly sag with sadness and both you and Vision reached over quickly to hold her.

“Oh, darling,” Vision said, “It’s not your fault—”

“That’s not true,” Wanda whispered.

“It is true,” Vision said, and this time he said it with a fierceness that was familiar to you, whenever Wanda was being treated poorly by people like the Queen of the Cul-de-Sac, Dotty, or when Wanda decided to get down on herself. He grasped her shoulders tightly, squeezed them until she looked up at him. “Wanda, darling, love, I didn’t exist before I meant you. I mean, I did, of course, I did, but I was just this strange, non-human, non-machine thing that was just… kind of… there. It was you that gave me an existence, Wanda. You made me human.”

Both you and Wanda stared at him, surprised. Wanda stared because she obviously didn’t fully agree with his opinion of her. You stared because of course, you were dating two of the weirdest, coolest, most stellar, and most romantic people ever.

Get yourself a man like that, you thought. Then after a moment, Wait, that is in fact also my man.

“And you—” Vision said, turning his head in your direction.

“Oh, I’m next?” you stammered. “I thought it was Wanda’s turn.”

Vision still held Wanda but also reached over to tightly grasp your hand and bring it to his mouth. “I just wished we could have confessed to you sooner. I just hate, hate, hated lying to you and now you’re involved with all this too—”

The synthezoid with the English accent looked up at you with eyes begging forgiveness as if he’d committed one of the worst sins imaginable. You let out a hoarse laugh and ran your thumb across the side of his hand.

“I’m sorry,” you said, still chuckling as you wriggled closer to your couple, “but as much as you might like to think you’ve subjected me to something I didn’t sign up for, I’d like to point out that I’ve been about a month ahead of you. I was here before you.” You felt a nagging urge to look at Wanda and repeat the last sentence, and there was something extra special about saying it that second time like there was a double and then a triple meaning behind it, but the way you both furrowed your brows afterward made it clear that neither of you really knew what those meanings were.

Not yet, anyway.

You cleared your throat and removed your hand from Vision’s grasp to place it on the back of the couch. “I moved into this town with no husband or wife, no family, nothing but a pile of letters and a new deed to a new house that happened to be the smallest in the neighborhood. My first week here I told one man in front of the entire night watch that I thought the joke he made about his wife was distasteful, and then the week after I tripped and spilled wine all over his wife. Agnes brought because she thought I’d be a form of entertainment and we somehow ended up becoming friends over a flask that she hid in a pocket sewed into the inside of her skirt.” You offered a look to Wanda again while you mentioned that Agnes never thought your “for the children” jokes were all that funny, though. “I’ve dealt with the comments and the rumors and the ‘what’s wrong with them, they don’t have no kids!’ People are weird and they’re mean and they’re fun and they suck. You want human, dude? You got it. If I was still bothered by comments that are nothing but a bummer, I think I’d be trying a little bit more than wearing clothes that I enjoy over the clothes that are expected of me, telling Dotty she needs to stop being awful before she gets frown lines, or, you know, pining over two people—a married couple nonetheless—until I somehow seduced them with my staring at them from around corners and just generally horrible, awful attempts at eye contact.”

The married couple in question chortled at that.

You used your hand on the back of the couch to hoist yourself up on your knees so you towered over Vision just slightly.

“Here’s the thing, sunshine,” you continued, “I’m not in your boat on this one, you dorks, you’re in mine. I was here first and I don’t give a fuck.”

Wanda gave a sudden laugh. “What language.”

“Has he not told you about the time I said ‘Fuck you’ to a plastic bird in my garden?” you asked. “Multiple times? His name is Bernard and he’s plotting to kill me, I swear.”

Wanda’s troubled expression was split by a wobbly smile.

You threw up your arms in the dramatic fashion that you knew the two people in front of you loved and hollered—then quickly quieted back down to not disturb Billy and Tommy in the other room—“All this for my rambling putz ass to say, who cares about what’s outside this house! You two, and your kids, and I are the only people that matter here. Here being the house, Westview, whatever! Everyone else? Nonexistent.

“Also, just to clarify,” you paused to wave your arms around, gesturing at the entire house, “Love it here. Love this shit.”

You suddenly caught Vision’s slacked jaw in your hand and gave him a peck on the cheek. “This face? Love it.” You moved to peck a spot of silver on his skull. “Love this too.” You pecked the gem on his forehead and swore it glowed brighter in response. “Love this.” You pecked one of his ear plates. “Love these goofy things.” You pecked the tip of his nose. “Love this and the fact that you have it even though you don’t technically even need to breathe. Oh, speaking of which!”

You lifted one of his hands with one of your own and tapped on his red fingernails with your other. You caught a glimpse of his face now that yours wasn’t directly in front of it and noticed him trying to hold back a giddy smile—and failing—while he watched you from underneath red lashes; your whole body would have tried to twist itself in knots under that look if you weren’t too busy swearing to kiss those eyelids and lashes too, at another time. Instead, you pecked each fingertip of the hand you were holding. “Love these ‘useless to my design’ things too. You know what, just speaking of hands—” You dropped Vision’s hand, which made itself to your waist as you went to grab Wanda’s; you were vaguely aware that you were practically leaning into their laps at that point but that could be dealt with when you weren’t trying to make a point.

When you went to touch her, she let you hold her wrist but quickly squeezed her hand into firsts before you could hold it like you had with Vision’s. She was looking away.

You pressed a kiss to her whitening knuckles. “Wanda.”

She looked at you, her perfect face distorted by a deep sadness that almost shattered your heart on the spot. She tightened her first further. The deep emotion appeared to make her slip back into her natural Sokovian accent when she spoke again. “You don’t know the pain it’s caused.”

“I’ve done my fair share,” you affirmed even though you weren’t quite sure why. Then you kissed her knuckles again. “And maybe I don’t, but I know what good it’s caused, that you have.”

Her face twisted into an ugly grimace. She asked hoarsely, “Like what?”

“The first time I saw your face, I wanted to go to space, grab the moon, shrink it down—so it looked like one of those cool little lava rocks, you know? But prettier—and get it put on a ring,” you offered, then kissed the back of her hand and whispered, “and that’s after I found out you were married to a very attractive man too…”

Vision snorted. Wanda cracked the smallest of smiles.

You whispered lower, “And I may or may not have even been interested in marriage before that…”

That time Wanda rolled her eyes; you smiled and grabbed her other clenched hand to share the attention with. You continued, “You’re also so nice, like so nice. You are so kind and care about what people think so much, it’s almost buggy—and bordering on self-destructive but that’s not what we’re talking about— And I sort of get it now, you know, but wow, making your magic show worse for the sake of people’s sanity? Wouldn’t even be on my radar.”

Another little smile.

“I’d be like, ‘Who wants to see me turn this entire table into a rosebush! Dotty’s rosebush specifically; Dotty, I stole your rosebush.’ I actually did steal a rose from her bush that day.”

Wanda blinked and you noticed the lines of her expression weren’t as deeply etched into her face anymore.

“That was Dotty’s?”

You grinned and nodded, then kissed both of her hands. “Also, I love your hair and the way it perfectly frames your perfect face, and I love your little nose scrunches, and I love your eyelashes and the way you look at me from under them sometimes, and I’d kiss all those things but I’m not going to because I gotta get these stubborn, always-working, never-wanna-take-a-break, always-somehow-perfect-nails-having hands to relax before they hurt themselves even though it’s very clearly hard enough to make who woman who owns them do the same. Oh, I did I mention that smile—hoo, Wanda, that foxy smile…”

Wanda was blushing now and bringing up her smile made it happen again, just slightly. You took advantage of the moment anyway and flung yourself back onto the couch with a hand over your heart. “Be still, my pounding heart!”

Vision, who was watching by your and Wanda’s sides, laughed a bit. Wanda herself rolled her eyes again; the smile didn’t disappear afterward.

You sat up again and pointed at Vision, now that he’d brought attention to himself again. “And I don’t know whether you heard any of the stuff this guy said! You made him exist? You made him human? What? You two also do this thing where you just look at each other and have a whole conversation, I don’t know if you guys know you do that or not. You do, though, and I don’t know if either or both of you are psychic but if you are and still love me? With my unhinged brain? Migraines and all? I wouldn’t understand, even if you explained it to me.”

Vision offered, “Neither of us is psychic but anyway, please continue.”

“Have anything to add?”

“You’re doing wonderfully.”

“Thank you.” You looked back and Wanda, noting that her face had almost completely softened now, as she was too busy being flustered to be sad at this point. You quickly scooped her hands before they could curl into fists again placed kissed on each of the crescent moon-shaped marks now dug into their palms. “Your magic rocked your babies to sleep. Your magic cleaned up all their and put it all in one nice, neat place. You floated me around the house with your magic and even protected me from falling when I was wriggling around up there; bet that was fun for both of you to watch. Vision said earlier that that was your job, to protect me, and while I don’t fully agree because I consider it the other way around, is that not what you did?”

“I thought it was cute,” Wanda replied softly to the second to last sentence you said. She watched as you gave her hands a few more pecks.

“So, you agree then,” you said, “that your magic protected me and also made me cuter?”

She laughed and the sound made your heart soared, performing an aerial performance in your chest. She tried to wriggle her hands free from you but then you scowled and tucked them protectively under your chin.

“Gotta say it. Gotta say your magic made me cute.”

“I’m not saying that.”

You shrugged and got comfy, laying your head in her lap with her hands still hidden. “Have to. Otherwise, no hands for you. Oh, did I not mention how good you are to your kids yet? You’re so good—”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Wanda forfeited through a wet laugh. Hearing said laugh, your head shot up in concern, but the woman was smiling as she snagged your hands back; what she chose to do with them next was grab your face and place a kiss directly on your mouth.

It was quick and soft and sweet and absolutely none of that prevented the fireworks that went off in your skull and your chest and your stomach and your veins that made tingles shoot all the way down to your toes. She pulled away as quickly as she had moved in and you blinked; your brain was still short-circuiting, like a robot—like a Vision with his gears all gummed up, and your dazed brain thought that was a very funny connection, so it repeated the joke verbally.

Luckily, Vision was close enough to the level of dork that you were and he laughed at it with you.

It took a deep breath and a head shake to de-gum your brain—if only Wanda could magic that—but after the excitement wore off, you felt sleepiness start creeping in and decided to make your final push. You curled a hand around both of your partners’ necks and brought their faces closer to nuzzle your noses together; they responded by each of them wrapping an arm around your waist and returning the affectionate action.

“So, in conclusion,” you stated, which caused Vision to laugh lightly and Wanda to grin just slightly, “I love both of these perfect faces.” You kissed each of their noses. “And these funky, magical brains.” You kissed Wanda at the base of her hairline, then Vision just below his forehead gem. “And these equally funky, magical hands.” You grabbed the hands not looped around your waist and kissed the back of them. “And both of those babies, and this house, and y—”

You sucked in a sudden breath to stop yourself so hard that you almost choked and you reeled back to the other side of the couch only to drag Vision and Wanda with you. The three of you tumbled into a flustered heap on the couch and over their shoulders, you could see early morning light filtering through the windows. This barely registered, though, as you were too busy focusing on the fact that you almost L-worded them on a silly, tired whim.

Despite the awkwardness of the moment and the unspoken words, no one made a move to remove themselves from the warm, cozy entanglement. One of both Wanda and Vision’s arms was pinned under your back, keeping them solid in place against you while simultaneously and successfully enveloping you in between them; your own arms, which had instinctively wrapped protectively around their shoulders in the tumble, kept them in a similar state. Wanda’s hair fanned found and covered the three of you like a blanket, and you were keenly aware of her breath softly wafting over the exposed skin of your neck from where her head now rested on your shoulder. Vision’s rested slightly lower, on your chest, and you felt a quickened pulse where his gem pressed into your neck, but you couldn’t be sure whether it was yours or his.

You stared past their shoulders and watched as sunlight shone through the curtains and dappled the ceiling. You tried to figure out whether you were stupider for stopping yourself from finishing that sentence or for not saying it at all.

Then you felt a kiss being pressed to your clothed shoulder.

“You’ve said so many things that you’ve loved tonight [Y/N],” Wanda murmured, her hot breath causing goosebumps to rise on your skin. “What’s two more?”

“I—” you started, then bit your tongue again. There was something about saying that phrase that made you worried; you felt like if you said it now, the happy little world you lived in would begin to crumble, like it would all end far too soon. You sighed softly and said instead, “I don’t know how I would live without you.”

There were a few moments of silence where you watched more sunlight filter in and wished you could take it back because what a way to talk a big game and then not follow through—

Then Vision’s head appeared above you and he pressed a dizziness-inducing kiss to your lips. When he pulled away, he nuzzled your nose with his own as he murmured, “I love you too.”

In almost the same moment, Wanda was mumbling the same phrase against your jawline.

Sleepy and hazy-brained you couldn’t do much else but stare at Vision like a lovesick puppy that struggled to say that L-word, then snuggle back down with both him and Wanda when they relaxed against you again. That seemed to be the last of what needed to be said, though, because everything was cozy and warm and golden brown in your home again and, one by one, the three of you fell into a deep, comfortable sleep.

In the black void of otherwise dreamless sleep, you heard the vaguely familiar First Voice finish chewing something and then go, “Aww…”

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winter-turtle · 3 years ago

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House Of Wolves - Chapter 1 - Winterturtle - Multifandom [Archive of Our Own]

Peter Parker has been raised towards villainy by his parents for all his life. After a mission gone wrong, he is captured by the Avengers.

Tony Stark is a mechanic. He fixes things and now he's determined to fix this teenager that doesn't know any better.

The problem? Tony is a walking disaster when it comes to emotions. Another problem? He has only two weeks to succeed before Peter is taken away by Shield.

@multiverse-irondad-july

Chapter 1: Tipping The Scales

“Okay, how about this one – Elliot? No? Then… Lucas?”

Peter kept his face perfectly blank, the cool mask not giving anything away. He glanced at his hands shackled to the table, then around the dull grey interrogation room. Everything was grey – this room, his cell, even his clothes!

Why grey? It was just shitty black. He missed his black costume.

“Hmm, what about Thomas? You kinda look like you could be Tom.”

The name reading has been going on for days and it was slowly but steadily eating away at Peter’s nerves. When no one was interrogating him for information – which he would never willingly give away anyway – Barton sat down opposite of him and kept reading from various lists in an attempt to figure out his name. Of course, his name’s been already read several times, but as always, he didn’t react.

“Nathaniel?”

Oh God, if he wasn’t chained to that stupid table, he would’ve hit the man with something long time ago just to shut him up! Where the hell were his parents?

“Remember your training.”

That’s what they’d told him as they retreated and flew away to safety when it was clear there was no chance of winning. So Peter remembered his training – say nothing and stall for time until help arrives.

“We’ll come back for you.”

That was two weeks ago.

He was left to fend for himself against the Avengers. Seriously, Peter knew better than to question his parents’ decisions, but what were they thinking, attacking the Compound like that? Neither of his parents bothered to tell him why they were there in the first place.

“Just do as you’re told.”

It didn’t mean that he went down quietly. In the end, it took two super soldiers, two men in armor and one ex-assassin pressing on his pressure points to stop his trashing and hold him down.

“Kama- what the hell is this name? Kamakanaalohamailkalani?“

Peter couldn’t help himself but raise one eyebrow at that, giving the man his best are-you-stupid? look.

“Yeah, that probably is not it either,” the archer sighed. “But come on, boy, work with me here!”

Ah, yes. That’s what he’s been called ever since he got here. “Boy” or “kid” as Stark liked to call him. But what was he supposed to do? Say – yes, my name is Peter Parker, my parents are Richard and Mary Parker and we’re a family of villains. Would you like their phone number and an address where you can find them? Well, not like they had any permanent residence, but still. For all he knew, his parents could be anywhere.

Anywhere but here, busting him out of this place.

“You know, this would be a lot easier for all of us if you just told us your name.”

Peter kept staring. He was told he had very expressive face, hence why he wore full-face mask, so he took pride in managing to remain impassive for so long.

Barton rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger, sighing. “I guess we’re not getting anywhere today too, huh?”

“This is the first smart thing you’ve said today.”

“Oh, so now you talk.”

Peter merely shrugged in response.

Don’t take him wrong, he did talk… occasionally. He just talked without saying anything important. Just empty words meant to get some form of reaction out of the group of heroes. And once they snapped… well, Peter could take it. He was trained.

The silence dragged on. It was Barton that broke it once again with another tired sigh. “Fine, let’s wrap this up.”

Besides slight rise of the corner of his lips, Peter didn’t show any other sign of satisfaction. They were getting tired, he knew. But on the other hand, the whole thing was wearing him down too. Even if not by much, there was more freedom back “home”. The thing he missed the most were-

Peter’s sense tingled.

The door opened and in walked Iron Man and Captain America. His entourage for today.

“You know the drill,” Stark said.

Peter knew the drill, he was good at following orders, but there was that look again. That stupid look on Stark’s face he couldn’t decipher even if his life depended on it.

He stood up. Three. Two. One. Stark pressed the button on his watch and the shackles fell from Peter’s wrists, granting him short-lived, though not complete relief. Invisible force pulled his arms behind his back, the ever-present bracelets on his wrists that he hated with his very being clicking together.

Yeah, the thing Peter missed the most were his powers. He’s had them since he could remember, so they were basically his second nature, yet these stupid bracelets somehow dampened them enough to reduce him to normal-powered teenager.

His stickiness was completely gone. His strength and physical abilities were rendered to that of any other regular fourteen-year-old. Well, at least his senses remained unchanged.

“Let’s go,” Rogers jerked his head towards the door. Peter moved and the three men got into the formation around him. Barton in front of him, Stark and Rogers behind him.

He didn’t really understand the necessity of three people escorting him to his cell. If he were to guess, he would say that they were trying to show him who’s in power here, which was pretty useless tactic in his opinion. It’s not like he could do anything with most of his strength gone.

Which was mostly his own fault anyway. He’d gotten impatient on his third day here and now he had to deal with consequences.

They just wrapped up another unsuccessful round of interrogation and were leading him to the cell, Rhodes and Wilson on the duty. Peter, confident in his memory of the place, decided to make a break for it.

He’d let them think that the handcuffs they slapped on him were strong enough to contain him. Peter glanced around, took a note of a position of the two men with him, as well as another two people that were in the room at the end of the long hallway.

It was now or never.

Out of his suit, Rhodes was definitely the weaker one because of his legs, which made him easier to deal with. Peter squashed down the feeling of guilt. He knew the man’s condition wasn’t his fault and honestly, it was impressive that he continued doing the hero work, but the young villain had to do what he had to do.

Explore any weakness. Show no mercy.

Exactly how he was taught.

Neither man had time to react as Peter spun to the left and hit Wilson strong enough to make him hit the wall, snapping the cuffs in the process. Rhodes had split second to react. It still wasn’t enough and Peter, though he would never admit it, hit him just enough to make him fall. Wasting no time, he took off running.

“Friday, sound alarm!” Peter heard Rhodes shout and sure enough, the alarm started to blare two seconds later.

He had to be fast.

The stairs leading to the exit came in view. So did another two people, blocking his path. Rogers and Romanov. It was easy to deduct by the body language that neither side would back down.

The fight was on.

Kicks and punches were traded and with the adrenaline coursing through Peter’s veins, he somehow managed to slip past the two. So close now-

“Out of the way, you two!”

Peter heard something click and the next thing he knew, he was curled on the ground at the base of the stairs, eyes squeezed shut and clutching his head in agony. He felt like he was submerged deep in the water and the only sound that reached him clearly was high-pitched ringing.

Someone was grunting and panting. Then he realized it was him.

Peter was vaguely aware of people approaching towards him as well as someone new running into the hallway. Then there were hands around his wrists, pulling them away from his head. Peter could’ve sworn that the next sound that left his mouth was a whimper. He curled into even tighter ball.

He really hoped he wasn’t crying too.

The hands let him go. “His ears are bleeding.” Even this up close, Peter could just barely make out Captain America’s voice.

There was more indistinguishable conversation around him and the last thing Peter remembered before passing out from pain – a blessing in disguise – was the sensation of cold bracelets clicking shut around his wrists.

And he’s worn those since.

Peter walked through the door of his cell. As much as he hated to admit it, all he could actually do now was to sit on his ass and wait for the rescue. Fighting them in his current state and with the stupid but amazing ceiling computer watching his every move would yield no results. The only time he fought them was when they didn’t respect his personal space and put their hands on his shoulders or back when they escorted him.

Thankfully, they’ve learned not to touch him quite quickly.

Peter stood in the middle of the cell, his back facing the trio of Avengers. His hands fell to his sides as the release button was pressed. Peter still didn’t turn around nor said anything. Two pairs of footsteps began to make the retreat. One stayed in place for five more seconds, then the door closed. That always happened only when Stark was with the group.

Interesting.

His eyes, more out of habit that anything else, roamed over the cell. Besides the cot built into the wall, the room consisted of a “bathroom” that was just a toilet, a shower and a sink hidden by a wall, a table with short bench bolted to the ground and a camera in top left corner.

His dinner, served on a paper plate as always, sat on the table, waiting for him. Peter sighed. There were only so many sandwiches one could eat before going crazy and Peter felt like he was reaching that point.

There was nothing for him to use. Perfect place to contain enhanced villain like him.

So, saving the food for later and with nothing better to do, Peter laid down on the cot, stared at the ceiling above him and waited.

For what?

He had no idea.

The kid – God, he was just a kid – looked at him with curiosity sparking behind those big brown eyes as Tony was making himself as comfortable as he could in the uncomfortable chair.

Time to commerce the plan.

As expected, the kid said nothing. And according to the plan, neither did Tony. Instead, he pulled out his Starkpad and directed all of his attention to the screen.

At least that was what it seemed like.

“Let me go to him next,” Tony had said on that morning. At his teammates’ inquiries about the reason, Tony merely shrugged. “We’ll never know until we try.”

Tony half-heartedly scrolled through various documents and the kid looked around the room every so often before returning his gaze to Tony. It felt like the teen was studying him.

The time he’s spent in the interrogation room hit fifteen-minute mark when Tony noticed the kid slightly shift in his seat. Twenty minutes and the kid shifted again. This was new development. Sure, when Tony’s watched older footage, the kid shifted every so often, but not in such a short span of time.

Twenty-five minutes and the kid released long, soft exhale through his nose. Tony was slowly getting where he wanted. Still, he kept scrolling.

Thirty minutes passed and this time the exhale was a bit louder. The shift was bigger too. Tony glanced up at the kid from underneath his lashes, then he returned his gaze to the device.

Throughout another thirty minutes, the kid grew more and more agitated, shifting in his seat almost every minute. He played with his fingers, soundlessly bounced his right leg, his jaw began to move as if he wanted to speak.

Which he will. Eventually.

“Aren’t you gonna say something?”

Bingo.

One hour and fifteen minutes. Huh. Not great, not terrible. “Why should I? Do you feel talkative? I’ve heard you didn’t say much in the past three weeks,” he said without looking up.

The kid pressed his mouth into thin line, clenched his jaw and scowled.

Baby steps but hey! It was progress.

“This is annoying,” the kid muttered.

“How so?” He knew very well why. Contrary to popular belief, he knew exactly what he was doing. Well… this time, at least.

“Why are you here?”

The pauses between speaking shortened. Tony shrugged. The kid scoffed.

“I can imagine someone like you surely has something more important to do than to sit here with me and waste time.”

“And you are correct,” Tony replied. He looked up, smiling, “but hanging out with you in this lovely room gives me perfect excuse to not do any actual work. So, thanks, you’re a lifesaver.”

The kid’s frown grew.

“Oh my God, just get on with it!” the kid shouted, the movement of his shoulders and the clang of the chains indicating that he wanted to throw his arms up in frustration.

Tony ignored him, which fueled the kid’s frustration more. Good. Frustration led to anger, and angry person is more likely to spill something without thinking.

“Why don’t you just get Black Widow down here if you’re not going to ask anything? You clearly have no idea what to do. She will know, she was an assassin after all. Still doesn’t mean her methods will work though.”

Now this got Tony’s attention. “What do you mean?” he asked as he set the Starkpad down on the table.

And there was the kid, scoffing again. He sure did that a lot. It was… actually kinda nice to see that there was a normal teenage attitude underneath that villain layer. “Come on, do you think I don’t know how this works? You’ll keep trying to make me talk, nicely first, but you’ll get tired of it eventually,” the kid leaned forward, his voice lowering with the next words. “And that’s when you go for different approach to get what you want.”

Tony’s brain screeched to halt. There was no time to school his expression back into neutral one fast enough; the kid already noticed, pleased smile spreading across his face. Like he just got it confirmed that he was right.

“What?” Tony managed to somehow say out loud, the task of forcing out the single word around the lump in his throat nearly impossible.

The kid rolled his eyes and leaned back into the chair. “Don’t play dumb.”

“No, seriously, I think I just misheard you.” This time, it was Tony’s turn to lean forward as he tapped his ear. “Because that sounded like an implication that we’re about to torture you for information.”

“And you won’t?” the kid asked, obviously not believing him.

“No! Geez, we’re heroes. We don’t do shit like that!”

“Everyone gets tired of the nice act over time. It’s practically human nature. You might as well get on with it,” he said matter-of-factly, waving his hand as much as the chain would allow. “It won’t work anyway. I’m trained.”

The way the kid seemed to treat it like some everyday annoyance made Tony sick to his stomach. Just what kind of environment did he grew up in? Tony could imagine only one way how one could be taught how to resist physical torture.

“Okay, hold on. Let me get this straight – you’re saying that you’re trained to resist torture.”

“Yes.”

“I assume your parents trained you?”

The boy in front of him smirked. Nobody should look that proud about something like that. “Kid… that’s called abuse,” Tony said carefully.

“Jesus Christ, Tones, what the hell did you hit him with?”

“I- just a sonic blast. I had no idea he would react like this. It was supposed to daze him, not make him bleed.”

Now it all made sense. The kid was clearly in incredible pain from the sonic blast, and yet he barely made a sound. No screaming in agony, just choked grunting and panting.

Tony’s had his fair share of torture. First in Afghanistan, then when he returned and his arc reactor was ripped from his chest and then several times he’s been captured since the beginning of his hero career. That didn’t mean he was used to it. And this kid had it done to him by his own parents.

The thought of Obadiah, someone he trusted, torturing him directly while saying it was for his own good was enough to cause his anxiety rise.

Dread began to seep into his body with a sudden yet simple realization; Tony’s been hurt so much, been through so much, it was a wonder he didn’t turn to villainy. He had the perfect set up. It would have been so simple to choose to do harm with his tech instead of good.

For a moment, he saw himself sitting in the kid’s place.

The two of them were so similar, yet so different.

“Abuse?” The kid snorted. “Yeah, right. Me. Abused.”

Tony sighed. “Kid, I don’t know what kind of life you’ve been living, but hurting their own children is not something normal parents do. At least the loving ones.”

That statement set off an unforeseen reaction. The kid puffed out his chest, anger dusting his cheeks with red. “They care about me,” he hissed, “and they’ll come for me any day now.”

“Same as they came for you in the past three weeks?” Tony snapped without meaning to.

The kid didn’t have an answer to that. Instead, he glared down at the table. The sight sent a painful pang into Tony’s heart.

“I believe it’s been enough for today,” he said, the softness in his voice surprising him. “Come on.”

Surprises kept on coming because the kid went without any resistance. Tony half hoped that since he didn’t call anybody to help escort the young villain, but there was none. The kid kept his head down, unreadable expression on his face all the way until they got to the cell. Then he just stood in the middle of the room without doing anything.

Tony turned to leave.

“Peter.”

The word – spoken so silently Tony would have thought he had imagined it – made him stop just before he could fully close the door. “Come again?”

“Peter,” the kid said louder, still not facing him.

“Peter…” Tony repeated, drawling the word in clear way that he was waiting for more. For a moment, he expected the kid to remain silent, that he already said enough, but then-

“Parker.”

Tony smiled softly at the kid’s back. “Nice to meet you, Peter Parker.” This time the kid, Peter, didn’t reply. Tony took it as a cue to leave. “See you later, kid,” he said and closed the door behind him with a soft click.

Tony, sprawled across the couch with his hands behind his head, grinned at his shocked teammates. “Yep,” he said, popping the p and doing his best to shove the other horrific revelation to the back of his mind. That can of worms could be opened later. “You heard that correctly. I got the kid’s name.”

“Well?” Sam gestured with his hand for him to spill already.

“His name is Peter.”

“What?!” Clint called out.

Natasha sighed. “Clint—”

“No, don’t take me wrong, but really? Peter?” the archer threw up his arms. “I read that name in five different lists. Five!Nameberry was my best friend for the past three weeks. I already started with lists of names from different countries. So far I went through German names, all Scandinavian names and I was about to move to Slavic—” Clint suddenly cut himself off, sat down and buried his face in his hands. “How did you managed to get a name out of him in only one session?”

The question came out more like a whine.

Tony shrugged. “Maybe I just know how to talk to him better.” And maybe he said nothing at all, but nobody had to know that. “But hey, if it makes you feel any better, I think you already cracked him. Like that technique where CIA plays the same song over and over again and then you start skipping the parts, kicking the brain into overdrive.”

“All right, but did you get his last name too?” Steve asked.

“Oh yeah!” Tony said, snapping his fingers. “Parker.”

“I read that one too.”

“Oh, hush.”

Rhodey nodded to himself. “So, Peter Parker, huh?” he hummed to himself.

Bucky stiffened.

Sam’s brow furrowed. “What’s up?”

Bucky remained silent, staring at the wall with wide eyes, but seeing right through it.

Steve leaned closer, gently nudging his friend. “Buck?” he asked softly. “You know something, don’t you?”

“He was supposed to be dead,” Bucky replied as if he was in dream-like state. “All three of them were all supposed to be dead.”

“Okay, Barnes, that’s freaky,” Tony said. “You clearly know him.”

Bucky nodded. He swallowed thickly, then again when the lump in his throat refused to go away.

“Take it easy. Deep breaths,” Steve coaxed.

It took a minute, but eventually the man pulled himself together with one last inhale, his features set in determination. “About ten years ago, Hydra was working on one project. They were trying to recreate supersoldier serum, but with countless failures before, they decided to try something different.”

The room was completely silent, everyone listening to the story in interest.

“Cross-species genetics.”

“What species?” Steve asked.

Bucky looked Steve in the eye. “Spiders.”

“That would explain the powers,” Natasha muttered under her breath.

“Anyway,” Barnes continued, “Parkers, Richard and Mary, they showed up at the base one day to help with the research. But they didn’t come alone.”

The atmosphere in the room thickened.

“They had this little kid with them. A little boy with brown eyes and brown curly hair. He couldn’t be older than three.”

Even if it was expected, it didn’t make the revelation any easier. They all saw how Barnes started to behave when his time as the Winter Soldier came to haunt him.

Clint‘s face twisted into horrified grimace. Sam looked on the floor with somber look. Natasha, though her face betrayed nothing, slightly shifted on her feet. Steve’s chest rose with soundless inhale, his eyes closing.

Tony’s jaw set, anger burning in his chest. Another horror the kid went through.

Bucky let out pained chuckle, shaking his head in almost manic way. “I guess they wanted to start young since the previous test subjects, adults, all failed. They succeeded. And then… Parkers just disappeared a few days later, along with Hydra’s biggest success since me. They sent me after them.”

“I remember all of them.”

Those words spoken in Siberia echoed in Tony’s mind. In the end, the whole situation got resolved with words before anyone could get seriously hurt, but the bunker was completely trashed. To say that Tony had been angry would be an understatement. He’d been downright livid. It’d been a long couple of days, and with Ross breathing down his neck, that damn airport fight, Rhodey… it was a miracle he’d stopped himself before killing either Barnes or Rogers.

The relationship between him and Barnes was still strained though. The same went for his relationship with Steve. Luckily, both of them knew to give Tony space and not to push him.

“No survivors. That were the orders.” Bucky let out humorless laugh. “I tracked them down to this airport and… I brought the plane down. The wreckage wasn’t a pretty sight. Literal chunks of that plane were never found, same with the bodies. Hydra found traces of human blood, their blood, where the wing used to be, so they were satisfied.”

“They didn’t want Peter back alive? As much as I hate to say it, he was what they wanted,” Steve said.

“I agree with Spangles,” Tony nodded. “Seems pretty counterproductive.” Jeez, there was already a lot to unpack, but Tony would rather throw the whole suitcase away at this point.

“Hydra thought that since they were successful with Peter, the process could be easily recreated. Little did they know that the kid’s parents destroyed every single file that had anything to do with the experiment.”

“I can imagine they were pretty pissed.”

Bucky smiled at the memory. “They were furious. Several search parties were sent out in an attempt to find Peter’s body. Obviously, the search proved to be fruitless.”

“The question is,” Rhodey said, “what do we do now?”

Tony was expecting more heavy silence. He didn’t expect Steve to speak.

“Fury called and asked about our progress. He said he will take Peter into Shield’s custody. I think it will be for the best.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Tony stood up abruptly, “you want to send him away?”

“Tony,” Steve sighed like he was expecting the protest. “He’s a villain.”

“He’s a child!”

“He’s also product of Hydra,” Steve countered.

Clint frowned. “Steve, he’s—"

“Stark—” Sam joined in as well and all of a sudden the whole room was buzzing with words, everyone talking over everyone.

“Do you know what he said to me during our session?” Tony raised his voice and gestured to the vague direction of the kid’s cell. The room fell silent. “He downright admitted to being trained to withstand torture. You can make a pretty good fucking guess on who trainedhim. I told him that it was not okay, but he saw nothing wrong with it!”

Tony chest rose and fell with each heavy breath. “So yeah, he might be a villain and a product of Hydra, but he is also a kid who doesn’t know any better!”

Steve looked at him with genuine pity. “Tony, I still think Fury—”

“Two weeks,” Tony rushed out. “Give me two weeks to try and show the kid how normal is supposed to look like. If he doesn’t show any redeeming quality, then… then Fury can come and take him.”

Tony knew two weeks weren’t nearly enough to make someone have a change of heart, but he’ll be damned if he didn’t try. He was a mechanic. He fixed things. And he will try to fix this kid that probably knew nothing but pain his whole life. There was no space for mess-ups. Not this time.

And… he might be a mess when it came to emotion, but maybe that’s exactly what the situation called for.

“I say let’s give him a chance.”

Despite how softly the words were spoken, they felt almost deafening in the quiet room. Tony was surprised by his unlikely ally, but assumed it made sense.

“Buck?” Steve asked carefully.

“I was a product of Hydra too and I was there way longer that Peter. You gave me a chance. I say he deserves the same,” Bucky said, determined.

“I second this,” Clint stood up. “No kid deserves to live like that.”

“If Barnes and I could change, then so can he,” Natasha said.

“They’re right,” Sam said and soon everyone was on Tony’s side.

Steve’s eyes roamed over the group, each person determined to spark the change in Peter. To help him.

“Fine,” Steve relented. “Two weeks.”

“Thank you,” Tony said gratefully.

“So, do you have anything specific in mind? When do we start?” Rhodey asked.

Tony smiled. “Right now.”

#marvel fanfiction #peter parker #tony stark #villain peter #villain peter parker #irondad #spiderson #irondad and spiderson #villainous july 2021 #the avengers #protective tony stark #tony stark has a heart #peter parker needs a hug #tw past abuse

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royalreef · 3 years ago

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@biteyourcrush inquired: 🐶 Feesh time....... for Ravi.............. Muses as Merfolk - NOT Accepting

(( I think Aaravi would be a hybrid of an Abyssal merfolk and a Pacific-Migratory merfolk!

The thing to remember about merfolk and their various species is that I’m basing them off of the various species of human. That is — when there was more than one species with the genus Homo, there have been multiple occasions where those species successfully interbred, and those hybrids were also able to have kids of their own. This is the braided stream concept of evolution, of multiple closely related species being able to add to each other’s gene pools successfully, to the point that there are people today who still have some fraction of Neanderthal or Denisovan in their DNA to act as genetic fossils of that trade. So, when different species of merfolk get together, the resulting hybrids are much like their parents beyond the genetic quirks. Most extant species of merfolk actually do have some traces in their respective gene pools of this mixing, because if you put any two populations close together you will get kids out of it, but their phenotypes fully reflect what’s standard of their species. Time goes on, the kids look more and more like one species because it’s not a perfect and even split between the two, and at the end they’re usually fairly indistinguishable from the more standard mer.

That said, any Abyssal hybrids in the modern day within the Merkingdom are... taboo.

The exact politics isn’t the same for every hybrid — it very much depends on who the parents are. If they’re both essentially just your average person but different species, then usually it’s not a big deal. It varies based on location to location and culture to culture, but overall, the closer match in lifestyles and positions within society means the greater the chances that a hybrid won’t be an issue.

The issue comes in with Abyssals. Abyssal merfolk started out mostly restrained to a few locations, but not every abyssal was in a position of power and most were still laypeople. But, as the Modern Merkingdom formed, there came a bias towards Abyssals and especially those from those initial populations, and they got placed into more and more powerful positions, and the new royals ( who were Abyssals to begin with, solely because that was just the species of that initial family who started it first ) began inbreeding and having issues associated with it, and pulling from the outside Abyssal population, which pulled them up in power, who began inbreeding again, and so on and so forth. Eventually you get to the issue today, where being an Abyssal is synonymous with the Low Royals, and Abyssals in the wider population is unheard of, similarly reinforced by how heavily the Crown prefers to be seen as the only Abyssals in existence. Therefore, by Merkingdom standards, Abyssal genetics should not be out in the wider population. Either the hybrid was from a marriage between a Middle Royal and a Low Royal, in which case they would have a title, or, if they lack a title, they’re a bastard and a stain on a Low Royal’s bloodline.

In terms of Merkingdom law... It’s an unwritten rule that bastards should not ever occur. They can severely mess up a royal’s inheritance, and it’s seen as dragging a commoner into a position which they are entirely unfit to have. If a bastard is born, but they’re claimed at birth and brought into the title, then there’s still an issue, because it can be seen as a betrayal to the marriage to their intended partner to continue their royal line and thus proof that they aren’t taking their commitment and their duties seriously. To know that a royal has a bastard is a point of blackmail that can be used to extreme effect, even capable of labelling a royal a traitor.

Unfortunately, royals also like to sleep around, and sleeping around with commonfolk is still common, particularly since it’s seen as a no-strings-attached bit of fun, whereas sleeping with another royal means they cannot avoid the inherent politics of the matter. If a royal discovers they’ve contributed to the creation of a bastard in some way, then they are almost guarenteed to try and destroy them. The easier they can dispose of them without anyone knowing, the better, and this makes any bastard meeting their royal parent a major risk. Particularly so, because in effort to cover up the existence of a bastard, the royal will often have the associated family killed or destroyed in one way or another to get rid of witnesses.

In terms of Pacific-Migratory merfolk, on the other hand, they are... fairly ordinary. They were one of the species that existed in the Pre-Modern Merkingdom, and for that, they were already fairly used to the Merkingdom and the Merkingdom to them. Quite a few were grandfathered in and even occupy positions up to being a Middle Royal with fairly little note, but most are fairly ordinary and still tend to the same routes and patterns that they always have. They often tend to shoals of fish livestock that they tend to as they follow those routes, or form thriving trade systems, and are heavily associated with leviathan hunts, as they’re often those best-suited to managing them.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t exactly make having an obvious bastard in their mix any easier. In a way, it’s seen akin to harboring a fugitive, and while there are communities that will work to hide them, there are also communities that are afraid that, by having them around, they’re also in danger. They’re potential witnesses and accomplices, and for that, the royal who sired them would very much want the community destroyed as well. While turning in a bastard doesn’t exactly go well, it’s also sometimes still seen as the better option.

On a biological slant — hybrids come in two varieties. Much like hitting the randomize button in character creation, you get the hybrids that look mostly like one species but a little weird, and you also get the hybrids that look bizarre and are very obviously hybrids. Facial proportions often look odd, as do fins and coloration, and they might be the worse version of what either parents are adapted to do.

In this case : another merfolk would be able to immediately tell that Aaravi has the body of a migratory species of some kind, but her tail isn’t shaped right to reach those higher speeds, as well as heavier plating and scaling to weight her down and produce drag. Fins are too small to be an Abyssal’s and pointed, but they’re also not fused and frilly in a way that no migratory species has. She has the teeth of an Abyssal, but her face is too thin to have the same skeletal and muscular reinforcement Abyssals do to make full use of their teeth. It’s covered up by her fins, but she has four gill slits like a Pacific Migratory and with extra inner lining like an Abyssal, but one gill slit is sealed and improperly formed which makes it unusable. She’s also a VERY obvious red, connected to Abyssals, but the Pacific-Migratory genes both dilute the color down to a nearly metallic sheen, as well as give her markings that Abyssals lack, such as countershading and unique patterns on her tail. She has bioluminescence on her face, shoulders, fins, and tail, but far less than a true Abyssal would.

There’s also other things she’d get from a Low Royal lineage, but it’s not the type of trait that you can see, unfortunately.

#Most secret royal advisor || OOC #Dreaded rumors || Asks #biteyourcrush #Every time I catch a little break I'm dying to escape || Aaravi x Miranda ( biteyourcrush )#Given by Divine Right || Headcanons #The Parasitological Museum || Mun Art #(( she also has very lovely eyes like a pacific migratory but. quality will NOT show them.#(( also the wild moment when this is what an underweight mer looks like #(( high muscle bc thats natural for them but low body fat #(( miri is kinda. Real Rough.#(( also think it would be funny if meravi also got the abyssal gigantism #(( be 6ft and looking down on itty bitty full abyssal miranda

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seventfics · 3 years ago

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Blind Owl

Written for @witcher-rarepair-summer-bingo

Prompt: Temporary or permanent blindness Relationships: Triss Merigold/Philippa Eilhart Rating: M Content Warnings: None (Mild Gore, Blood and Injury) Summary: It's hard, but Triss finds a way to help Philippa.

Read on AO3

* * *

“Philippa.”

At the mention of her name the sorceress turns, her head held high. Too high, Triss notes, to be facing her directly.

The edges of the blindfold over Philippa’s eyes are stained red.

“Triss. I must say, of all the things that have happened today? I didn’t expect to meet you.”

Triss quirks a smile at her. “Disappointed?”

“No, never,” she says with a graceful wave of her dirtied hand. “Surprised. I overheard that all the mages had dipped from Novigrad. I should have known you would stay behind.”

“I wasn’t going to, to be honest. Geralt convinced me.”

“Yes, he’s good at that, isn’t he?”

Triss’ portal had taken them from Sigi Reuven’s bathhouse to her small room at the Rosemary and Thyme. It’s not her room, really, but a kindness of Geralt’s friends, and one she immediately took up. Better than the Bits, where she lived in tight quarters on a lopsided building. Now she has actual furniture she picked herself, a full bed that can support her weight without sinking, and a lock on her door. It is much more to her liking.

Philippa would hate her decor, if she could see it. They’ve always had different taste in furniture.

“Circumstances aside…I’m glad you’re with us, Phil.”

Philippa hums. She walks the room carefully, a hand tense with magic held forward to sense for objects. “And what are the circumstances, exactly?”

From her pocket, Triss brings out an agate.

“Geralt stumbled upon this, some time ago.” The stone glimmers from old traces of Philippa’s magic. “You want the Lodge back together. Well, so do we.”

“Ah. Our interests align.”

Though she is blind, Philippa props herself neatly on the lone bed’s edge as Triss explains the looming threat of the Wild Hunt. In all things she is flawless artistry. Her hands cross over a hip, as she lifts her legs to lounge over Triss’ bed—and oh, how familiar, the sight of her like that. It distracts her mid-speech more than once.

“In my state,” she drawls, gesturing to her blindfold, “I am not much help.”

Triss is less artful, but just as coquette with her lilting voice. “You are, Philippa,” and more seriously, she adds, “You were the best of us.”

“Quite. You understand that this is a matter most crucial for the survival of magic.”

After a moment’s pause, Philippa sits upright against the half a dozen pillows Triss hoards at the back. She presses a hand to her temples, sighing as if displeased by something.

It is the closest sign she’s going to give to her exhaustion. Her pain.

Triss’ heart aches to help. But Philippa is proud. She is strong on her own, and protective of that right. She would not accept an ounce of pity nor mercy, no matter how well-intended.

Years of her acquaintance have taught Triss how to work around that.

“We need you at your best. Phil,” she says, sitting by the weary sorceress to take one of her hands between her own.

Philippa tilts her head up then. Again, too high, and slightly left of Triss’ ear.

“Tell me what I can do.”

* * *

The wet stones under her fingertips harbor the cells of Philippa’s experiment. It’s grotesque, she knows. Some sections have grown beyond control, eye-masses with mutated pupils, multiple irises, some even larger than a megascope’s crystal. But as Philippa does her best rebuilding the Lodge, reforming allyships, and planning the Wild Hunt’s defeat, Triss must do this unpleasant work. For Philippa.

She nearly slips and falls down to her doom twice. The stones are at such a precarious altitude, at a precise distance from the cavern waterfall to promote cell growth without washing off the results. What was Philippa thinking? Growing eyes in such a dangerous place?

But here she is, carefully extracting the cells from the stone with her magic. She suspends them in a sterile magic seal, to store in her purse. For some reason, that makes her laugh, a sound that echoes back to her ears three times. She has Philippa’s eyes in her bag. Philippa’s beautiful eyes that had been gouged out by an angry and paranoid king. The amber of them is now indistinguishable from moss.

There is no time to rest between quests, and yet, once she is finished gathering the most that she can, Triss climbs to safer ground on shaky hands and knees, needing a second to breathe. Just a second. She cannot spare more than that to mourn, or cry, or remember how Phil used to tease her with just a stare and a raised brow.

It will be fine.

She will have new eyes. They won’t be the same, but Philippa won’t care. It’s just Triss who needs a second.

Back when they were a powerful Lodge of Sorceresses, and not the tattered survivors of imprisonment and war, Triss had mooned over the proud advisor to the crown of Redania. She didn’t make her attention obvious, but nothing goes under Philippa’s notice. The woman had made herself friends among spies and, like in all things, absorbed some of their skills.

They spent many nights in each other’s company. Sometimes, it was just to forget the cruelty of war, the greedy men who broke what they could not claim. Triss was lucky to be considered important. A sorceress has more worth as a power to be wielded than a woman to be abused.

And after the Battle on Sodden Hill, Triss had little trust in men.

Maybe that’s why she started this...liaison. And maybe it had been a shallow, poor excuse at first, but. Somewhere between disillusionment and distraction, her heart stole away in the owl’s nest of Philippa’s making.

“Do you think one day we could be happy?”

With a single candle to illuminate the room, Triss braves the words. This world is not made for them to find happiness, but they are powerful. They could make it so.

Philippa doesn’t move from her limp, careless spread over silk red sheets. The dim firelight paints her skin bronze. Nothing covers her, and it is beautiful.

“Happiness has never been my dream,” she says, her back to Triss. “My vision remains on the future of the Northern Kingdoms and the conservation of magic. A sorceress’ dream.”

That is Philippa. Sturdy. Focused. Her hedonist streak is a sparse creature, easily ignored.

Still, Triss hopes. That is who she is.

A long pause ebbs the nervousness buried in Triss’ chest. No one disturbs them, which is rare. No megascope call. No xenovox. No letter from either of the kings they serve.

Triss nearly dozes off, warm and content with things, when she hears a quiet, “Do you see me, in your dream of peace and leisure?”

“I do.”

She opens her eyes to the jostle of movement. Philippa has finally turned around to stare at her, her dark hair a wild fan over her shoulders and breast.

“Perhaps,” she says as she brings up fingers to play with the loose fire-red strands over Triss’ ear, “perhaps one of us should keep that possibility in our mind.”

* * *

“Ah, you’ve returned.”

The surprise lilt in Philippa’s voice tells her that she did not expect Triss so soon. She understood the hard undertaking of retrieving her growing eye cells from the deepest caves of her most secret hideout.

But where Philippa is clever, Triss is eager. Of course she would go as quickly as possible. The Wild Hunt does not wait. The witch hunters of Novigrad will not cease their chase. There is no time to be dallying.

“Well darling, hand them here," Philippa starts, her palms opened to receive Triss' hard-earned work, "so I can get to the matter of fusing them in.”

“Let me.”

She pauses at the plea. If she had eyes, Triss imagines she would have blinked.

But it’s only a short lapse in time, her mind running through a million scenarios.

Eventually, she nods, deeming the offer acceptable. “If you insist. But do not take too long, I hear our brave witcher is to return soon with our esteemed Cirilla, and I have much to talk with her about the future of our Lodge.”

Slowly, Philippa undoes her blindfold, unknowingly as Triss goes to kneel in front of her.

She does flinch at the sight. It is a nasty healing wound, dark and sunken where eyes should be. The skin around the sockets is black. But her own chest, glamored to hide snarled skin, bares worse scars from battle.

The cells take time to transfer from her purse, and they are not yet fully nurtured. They will have to grow into place. With Philippa’s magic to amplify sight, it would be enough to maneuver buildings and streets on her own. It is not by any means a perfect resolve.

Triss puts great care in choosing the healthiest cells. She tries not to cause too much discomfort—any sort of magical procedure that modifies the body would be painful, at the very least uncomfortable—but if it is unbearable, Philippa bears it.

When the last sliver of magic dissipates, Philippa voices a tense but honest, “Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me.”

There, still knelt between pale thighs and gazing up at the newly-healed flesh around mossy eyes, Philippa kisses her.

A wound Triss did not know she still had in her heart opens. Fresh blood pounds through her body like a blaze set free on a forest. It burns, the kiss like a match against her lips, and the world narrows down to them, now, together after everything. Her arms cannot hold onto Phil any harder as she kisses back with all her being. All her fire and pain and love that never waned.

When they separate, Phil whispers, “Do you still see me in your dream of the future?” like a secret that should not be named in fear of shattering it.

“I do.” They don’t have time to second-guess their dreams or the choices that got them closer to achieving them. Just a second is all they can spare, to doubt.

One day, Triss hopes they can finally stop running, stop fighting, scheming, surviving, and simply be.

It will be fine.

They stay in each other’s arms, breathing each other’s air. Philippa’s fingertip lingers above Triss’ lip, almost playful in its upwards tug. This time, when Triss stands up and Phil raises her head, it feels like she is looking at her.

“Well, then we better stop this world-ending business first.”

Triss gives her a smile through her eyes.

One day.

#merihart #triss x philippa #rarepair summer bingo #myfics #tt

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henlp · 3 years ago

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Most anime is bad.

It's fair to say anime's success in the West, starting in the 80s-90s but gaining mass recognition and appeal in the 2000s, mostly comes from a wide range of premises for stories told, and how emotional payoffs are (for the most part) earned by the writing, be it hype moments, shocking scenes, or the often-expected bittersweet finale.

However, in spite of these positives, it's very frequent that the story for an anime/manga/novel/game/etc. ends up being bad; and for the longest time, I couldn't figure out exactly why. Even a decade ago, when I was far more lenient and forgiving to the content I consumed (because I had yet to achieve the jaded, joyless state I find myself in <current year>), I could tell something was amiss.

Think I first took notice of this when the era of the Big Three was coming to an end, with One Piece carrying on as Fairy Tail instead took the shovel to the head. Alongside Bleach and Naruto, these three manga series all suffered major issues in their final arcs, so blatant that it became too difficult to accept. Something stank in Denmark Japan, and it made no sense why these (supposedly) good series where floundering as they neared the finish line.

A few years later, with more media under my belt, out came Black Clover. Both my weeb cousin and a good friend had spoken highly of the series, alongside many of the places I used to check for animus, so I watched the OVA... and hated it. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with the pilot for the story, mind you, at that point it was only the screeching from the protagonist that bothered me. When the series proper began, I made the conscious effort to try and power through in spite of the awful first impression, to see what the hype had been about... and I still wasn't seeing it. In fact, the story's erratic and hyperactive pacing, alongside its cheap animation, made it almost impossible for me to watch. Only by virtue of the previously aforementioned hype moments on occasion and the catchy OPs did I stick around long enough for the story to get interesting and for me to have any investment in the characters. It didn't get good, but it had at least become tolerable. Lucky for me AND it, I was still at a point where I wouldn't drop shows as easily.

It wasn't looking good for my outlook in regards to japanese entertainment. Even if I would end up consuming more anime than any western shows (at least animes don't fucking despise their audiences), my eye kept getting more critical, and I kept getting less adventurous, due to several shows disappointing. But I still couldn't figure out why this was. If anime and manga were appealing to me still, why was I less inclined to give 'em a pass, why was I more and more dissatisfied. And then I got my answer in 2021, thanks to two shows: Jujutsu Kaisen and the second anime adaptation of Shaman King.

A story's quality can generally be quantified based on three things: characters, world, and plot. Each informs the other two, and a good story never has one of these working against the others. But it can also happen that all three work in their own right, but not in tandem. A fourth, rarely-considered factor for evaluating story is EXECUTION. So when it comes to anime, manga, novels, games, etc, the problem usually is in execution. You could argue that there are different cultural sensibilities for storytelling in Japan, or corporate factors interjecting themselves in the process; but that would be an explanation, not an excuse. And nowadays, enough japanese creators quote some of their influences as not just being other japanese creators, but also creators from around the globe (past and present). There's not this magical bubble keeping the Land of the Rising Sun ignorant of other types of storytelling and development processes.

So how did I arrive at this conclusion thanks to Jujutsu Kaisen and Shaman King 2021? Both shows suffer terribly when it comes to execution of their stories, although in different ways:

-With Jujutsu Kaisen (at least the anime, I've not read the whole manga), there were several instances where I found myself asking "Did I miss an episode or something?", because you frequently had characters reacting and conducting themselves with one another as if there was a deluge of development between them off-screen. No better example than EmoBangs McGee, who becomes BFFs with the protagonist in less than 5min, later having a fight that was probably meant to be very heart-wrenching, except there was no development for their relation (and powers), so it made no sense for them to act in that fashion (if this is different in the manga, by all means let me know);

-With Shaman King 2021, meanwhile, I was well-familiarized with the characters, the world, and the plot. I knew the main elements of the story, I had in fact rewatched the show in the past decade, and in spite of filler content and Black Sabbath cameos, still remembered it strongly. But as I am watching the new show, the word that comes to mind is "cheap": cheap animation and rushed pacing. Maybe this is due to certain events, or the studio trying to rush past the initial stages of the story, but still. All it had to do was clear the filler, give each scene and character the love and care they needed to make their moments the best they could, and let it go from there. It's been twelve years since FMA Brotherhood, if you're going to be a greedy bitch and redo an anime adaptation, there's no excuse for it to be of such low quality.

As you can see, both failed in execution, with the latter in its new adaptation and the former (possibly) in its original format. When I realized this, suddenly the fog dissipated, and I could see why all those stories had failed: Bleach failed because its power creep and character conflicts were executed horribly; Naruto's atrocious pacing (in both manga and anime) was done solely to extend the story needlessly; Fairy Tail's final arcs (although not only that) dropped the ball because Hiro Mashima was actively trying to ensure there were no sad elements to the story or the end of his characters' arcs; Black Clover‘s poor execution came in how its first few arcs play out, trying to speed up through the world-building, which left most characters too anemic and underdeveloped until far later into the story.

But of course, this is an issue that exists in far more IPs than just the ones I’ve mentioned so far and others of the same caliber. It happens with the cream of the crop as well: Boku no Hero Academia's more recent decisions have been executed very poorly, when they were just a single step away from being done very well; post-timeskip One Piece has relied too heavily on characters having skills and forms that we aren't familiarized with, and fights that don't resolve in a smart fashion, but due to nakama power fueling Luffy; season fucking 2 of One-Punch Man is the poster child for terrible execution of anime adaptations, considering the original webcomic, the manga, and season 1. This issue is (almost) everywhere, and yeah, I get it: anime and manga are produced through such a hellish process, that a lot of times the authors or production staff don't have the time to go through their stories to make sure everything's on the up-and-up. Yusuke Murata is not exactly a common example, of someone that's allowed to go back to both redraw and rewrite entire chapters; and I am somewhat glad that, at least when it comes to JUMP, they seem to be getting slightly more lenient with the talent and their teams if it means better results in the long run.

However, the issue persists. I neither know nor think that anything can be resolved even if the extremely demanding workload of manga/anime production were to be alleviated (we've had plenty of examples in the West, of media that has all the time and money in the world, still imploding and salting the earth around it), but at the very least, it can be something that creators who are not under those retraints to take into account, so as not to make those same mistakes.

Do not try to subvert conversations that SHOULD be happening, just because in anime there's a stereotype of scenes where everything stops in its tracks just so characters can have a conversation, be it executed well or poorly (an aspect I'd wager stems from when the source material is manga or a novel). Don't think that because a character's power level let's them blow up the moon from orbit, that immersion can't be broken if you don't justify how they might struggle against another on the same tier. Be wary of the very common issue with 'Wanime' (Western animation using the anime style), where creators completely put aside depth for spectacle, to the point that it becomes indistinguishable from a parody show such as Megas XLR.

Always remember, execution is the be-all and end-all to every character development, emotional payoff, hype moment, world building, and plot progression. Think about every scene, and if it actually informs the audience of what should be happening. If it doesn't, then you'll have to try and fix it before, not after. And if you can't do it (which is fine, most of us are fucking dumbasses), now you understand why even a lot of shonen action series have a bunch of slice-of-life, semi-filler scenes interjected in-between big events, so that you can have context and weight to what will transpire.

#anime

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burgerpocalypse · 3 years ago

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Back 4 Blood Beta

It's not good. I don't recommend buying or playing this game. Avoid it. If you like it, you're actually wrong.

I'll be directly comparing Back 4 Blood to Left 4 Dead because it's the same development team (supposedly). I'm also in an especially unforgiving mood, so this will be an outwardly hostile discussion of this terrible product. If you think I'm just being overly negative and want the game to fail because I'm an asshole, well, yeah, I am, but this shoddy product deserves considerable ire and I won't be convinced otherwise.

Some publications and individuals are calling it good, a worthy successor to L4D. They're wrong. L4D was a charming, polished, streamlined game. B4B is passionless, janky, and complicated. It makes mistakes that L4D solved or cleverly avoided, and introduces critical issues that ruin the experience.

Game Feel

Shooting feels weak and unresponsive, slows your movement speed, and requires aim-down-sights to have any accuracy.

Basic movement is slow and plodding. Sprinting drains stamina almost instantly, and is barely faster

Melee attacks rapidly drains stamina and has dubious reach; shoving enemies provides almost no benefit unless you have a specific perk card.

Zombies (or Ridden, a terrible, thoughtless name for zombies) shumble at you like they're competing for the Jank Olympics. One zombie can drain your health bar in seconds through sheer jankitude.

Players will regularly be yeeted, and it will seem like you just experienced an unintended bug or glitch rather than a deliberate force.

You're constantly taking damage from random, unidentifiable sources.

In summary, the game feel of this particular game is woeful.

Characters and Monsters

I hate the player characters. Well, that's a lie. HG, the prepper guy, or whatever his name is, is the only one I don't hate. He doesn't say cringeworthy lines, and he has a definable personality beyond broad emotional traits or bog-standard tropes. Player animations are also jank

The Ridden, which I will reiterate are named terribly, are indistinguishable from each other, players, and the environment. The common zombies are of the same color and height as players, so you're gonna probably be shooting teammates a lot, especially when everyone's covered in blood effects. Special zombies are awfully designed, to the point that I have to complain about them for the rest of this section. They:

are unpredictable, in a bad way

have entirely too much health with easily missed weak points

do far too much damage from unreasonable distances

move faster than the player's default speed, and can charge for extended distances

often appear in multiples and crowd chokepoints

The Hocker operates like the Smoker from L4D, but can lock down multiple players at once, chunk your health from great distances, and repeatedly jump from vantage point to vantage point at random. Its name is also stupid.

The Snitcher calls more zombies if you shoot it, which isn't obvious at all until you end up shooting it and call more zombies. It's also a key mistake that the developers of L4D avoided through rigorous playtesting, which allowed them to see that a similarly designed enemy was completely unfair, resulting in it being cut from the final release. Its name is also stupid.

The big fat guy can douse you in health-draining bile from 50 meters away, is difficult to kill, and has a variant that charge you and explode. This like they took the Boomer and made it worse in uniquely awful ways, just to see if they could. I don't remember the name, but its probably stupid.

The big arm guy can thwack you for 50% of your health bar, pin you in place, is also difficult to kill, and has a variant that is even more difficult to kill. I don't remember his name either, bu its definitely stupid.

The final one I can remember is the one that sits in a flesh pod and ambushes a player that gets too close, pinning them exactly like the Hunter would. The flesh pod blends into the environment in an especially egregious way, and the enemy itself looks stupid. Its names is also probably stupid.

Difficulty

I've cut my teeth on L4D and other coop shooters. I've beaten all the official campaigns on Expert. This game is stupid hard and unforgiving to such a degree that I fully believe that the developers do not understand at all what made L4D fun.

As players lose health, they also accrue trauma, which reduces maximum HP, potentially down to 40 HP. This cannot be recovered, even after respawning at a safe room or midround, unless you find a special medicine locker, which costs copper to use.

Levels are far too long, and there is never, ever any room to breathe. Players are constantly assaulted by zombies from all angles with no sense of rhythm or dramatic tension.

Levels also have no flow. Players will feel as though they are randomly wandering with no sense that they are being led in a particular direction. In L4D, the player characters would constantly be making observations about the environment (i.e. "Up that ladder!" or "We can use X to get across"). While L4D used tooltips to point out important objects, B4B relies entirely upon them.

Players have an elaborate inventory and currency system that is confusing and unreliable. Instead of providing healing and ammo at the start of each level, players have to buy it with copper. Like, literal in-game microtransactions. Each player has a unique wallet, though any copper picked up is given to all players equally. The copper system is an unnecessary addition that serves to slow down the start of a round.

Players can hold one offensive, healing, and support item. Medkits are not given a specific item slot, but instead compete with bandages and pills for inventory space. Guns and melee weapons also have tiers and ranks that are ill-defined. I have an extensive list of gripes I could go on about with this system, but I'll list some key issues:

There are too many items of each type, and they are too plentiful in the environment to be worth spending copper on

Ammo is broken into 4 types, which can leave you with lots of ammo for a weapon type you aren't using and no ammo for the gun you're actually using

Weapon attachments and ammo upgrades do nothing but provide confusion and force you to stop and stare at a stat screen to understand what it is you're adding to your gun. You also can't transfer them between guns, so you'll eventually have to swap a lower-tier gun with great attachments for a higher-tier gun with no attachments

Some offensive items do not behave in the way you expect them to, or provide so little value that they aren't worth using

Bandages and medkits operate identically, offering no interesting decision-making opportunities

The efficacy of healing items in general is needlessly reduced by players being able to heal by killing enemies, as well as trauma reducing max HP to the point that they don't provide any value

The Legacy of Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead provided a tightly packaged experience that nearly anyone could pick up on, and has a satisfying core loop that kept me coming back for years in spite of its many obvious glaring flaws. It was not bogged down by unnecessary progression systems or overly complex mechanics.

Since Valve allowed the series to shrivel and die, there has been no refinement of the mechanics that give L4D its magic, only inferior imitations that do not understand why things were they way they were.

Warhammer: Vermintide fails by being too complex, with vast differences between player characters, and an awful gear system that locks players out of higher difficulties with an arbitrary power system and random lootboxes

PAYDAY has zero polish, an unfathomably dull progression system, uninspired characters, awful artificial difficulty, and generally wastes the player's time with crushing amounts of busy work and waiting around

Back 4 Blood could have been great, but it completely misses the point. I'm going to try and play more of it while the beta is open, since I'm a miserable masochist, but also because some small part of me still wants to like it.

I'm sorry that this was so long and uncoordinated. I also apologize if you do enjoy the game. I just hope that I was able to provide a unique perspective of some small value to someone.

Thanks for reading. Sorry there's no interesting art to look at. I only put that comically small cover image there because it made me feel slightly better.

#back 4 blood #turtle rock studios #left 4 dead #video games #review #sorry for the rant

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realityinteractive508 · 3 years ago

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Fragment Expecting and Augmented Reality Interactive

I was approached to clarify the course of Fragment Expecting just as the course of Augmented Reality. These cycles were made by Abraham-Hicks. To comprehend these cycles you should initially understand the mechanics of the Universe. We are actually incorporated on a vibrational level with our current circumstance. The fundamental part some portion of all things is energy. The construction of energy is vibration. Our current circumstance is developed from this vibration. Every individual piece of the Universe vibrates at various frequencies. These frequencies are energy marks. Energy marks connect with one another making the figment of an actual reality moving in a direct timetable.

Our energy marks begin from our higher self, source self, or over-soul as some might call it. This over-soul is a piece of the Heavenly Energy, God, or Universe. We control our current circumstance through the agreeable communication of our energy marks and the vibrations around us. Comparative energies are drawn to one another. So to change your conditions you need to change the energy signature you are putting out.

Our energy marks match our convictions, musings and sentiments. It is through the most common way of realizing that appearances happen. We need to coordinate our current circumstance not respond to it. This is handily refined by the course of Portion Meaning and Computer generated reality interactive. Fragment expecting is a solid centering strategy that is utilized to deliberately control our current circumstance while Computer generated Reality is a cycle that sets up a progression of occasions pre-clearing what's to come.

Section Aiming

Section aiming is an essential method that we can return to as we would a confided in family formula. Inspirational orator let us know the significance of having objectives separated into sensible pieces. At the point when we talk about showing our cravings we will in general contemplate long haul objectives and ignore the straightforward everyday cycles. If I somehow managed to ask you what you need to show you might react by referencing wealth, marriage or recuperating. Having a protected outing to work is an appearance. Meeting another companion today is an indication. Being on schedule, having some good times, partaking in the gathering are altogether indications.

Getting up toward the beginning of the day is a section. So is running, preparing for work, having breakfast, driving, working, playing, discussions and so forth Every snapshot of your day is a pristine section. Zeroing in on these minutes is the key. This is the thing that is named; Living in the At this point. It might generally appear to be drawn-out however this Now Second is all we at any point have. Set a goal for each new Now Second. A speedy petition, confirmation proclamation or thought is everything necessary.

This will turn out to be natural inevitably and is certainly worth the underlying work to learn and apply. There will consistently be minutes that are undesirable for ourselves and this basic procedure will save you a ton of superfluous disappointment.

Augmented Reality

At the point when we were kids our creative mind was clear and reasonable. It was simple for us to stray in pretend for quite a long time at a time. This is the spot in our brains where we should return. Our bodies and our current circumstance can't differentiate between the energy we make through Computer generated Simulation or our actual faculties. For our psyche mind, there is no distinction. It makes inside our bodies the indistinguishable reaction. Studies have demonstrated that competitors who envisioned rehearsing were similarly just about as powerful as the individuals who really rehearsed. All of a similar muscle filaments terminated as though they were being used.

Augmented Reality is just the method involved with fantasizing. Guided creative mind to deliver and passionate reaction. It just takes a couple of seconds to be exceptionally powerful. I for one think that it is generally valuable to do cardio practice simultaneously in light of the fact that my body and psyche are producing energy together.

Whatever you can envision has in a real sense been made for yourself and is hanging tight for you to arrange your energy signature according to it. When you become familiar with these basic cycles results come rapidly, simultaneous occasions will reflect back to you where you are comparable to your indication. Yet, that is another article.

#Reality Interactive #Game Development Studio #augmented reality apps

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midnightactual · 4 years ago

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@mysteriousshopkeeper submitted:

“Yoruichi-san! I’m glad I caught you. I… thought you might be on a beach somewhere by now, since you just hosted a significant holiday party. In any case…” His fingers were idly tapping on something clasped between them as a subtle change came over his demeanor, like curtains being drawn open. “There are some… things I’ve been meaning to say. And considering my track record… I thought it best to let someone else say them.” His hands moved forward, and before she could object, he’d captured one of hers and pressed his gift into it.

Once she’d unwrapped it, she’d find herself holding a vintage, authentic Sony Walkman WM-D6C, in perfect working order, pre-loaded with a cassette – not just any commercial label, no, no – but a genuine, bona fide, old-fashioned mixtape. He’d invested considerable time and effort in selecting songs that suited his sentiments, first building a playlist on Spotify. He hadn’t even known all of them before he started searching, but he certainly did know them when he heard them. A tentative smile encroached on his lips. “At first it didn’t have tangible form, but as you can imagine, it proved difficult to wrap, so… I made this.”

The exercise had presented him with a delicate balance to maintain. His relationship with Yoruichi was… complicated. Lately, he’d come to the reluctant realization that what he’d been giving her was not what she needed from him, at least not here, not now. But disillusionment had proven a sticky, time-consuming process. Would-have-beens and could-yet-bes clung like lint to an old sweater; every time he looked, he found more, and some were nearly indistinguishable from the knit. He’d begun the process at the outset of what had become an unexpectedly eventful couple of weeks, but it had been time well-spent; the effort had had a clarifying — and surprisingly calming — effect. Each day was a process of refining and crafting, loosely following a rubric laid out in a movie he’d seen once. As a finishing touch, he’d even added liner notes, just to arrange specific lyrics into a unified narrative. The result was a musical, emotional journey that moved through a spectrum of humor, introspection and encouragement.

Because there was still, at the base of it all, that deep and abiding foundation of their friendship. The pedestals and shrines he’d erected in her honor weren’t serving either of them; it was time for a little iconoclasm, a little restructuring. Perhaps they could begin afresh and he would, again, be dependably her friend. He was aware that this playlist may not reflect her musical tastes, but it wasn’t so much about winning her heart as revealing his —she’d long deserved that much from him. Besides — at this point, what had he to lose? He’d quit castles in the sky for solid ground.

“Happy birthday, Yoruichi.” His face met hers with a soft, bright smile. “If you go, you’ll have something to take with you. And if my company would be welcome…” And here, the smile grew a bit dubious. “—I’d offer to go with you. I’d even make the arrangements; I could use a change of scene myself. You’d get good massages given on good behavior, with no lip service—” He smirked grimly, realizing how difficult it was for him to suggest without selling. “That is to say, I’d enjoy giving them. Quietly. But should you choose to stay, and celebrate your birthday here with us this year, I wouldn’t min—" Again, he caught himself; his face clouded for an instant, then cleared, transparent and a bit wistful, as he half-turned to make his graceful exit. “Rather, I would very much like that.”

Liner Notes

Listen on Spotify!

We Go Together / David Tennant & Catherine Tate - Lyrics We go together like the news and the weather / We fit like hand in glove! It’s All Been Done / Barenaked Ladies - Lyrics And if I put my fingers here, and if I say / “I love you, dear” / And if I play the same three chords, / Will you just yawn and say ‘I’m bored’ / It’s all been done Partners in Crime / Arkarna - Lyrics As I feel, we are, we must go on, I will stand, with you, forever / Ever more / But without you it’s a bore, It’s no fun breaking the law / Anymore, anymore, my partner in crime True Colors / Justin Timberlake & Anna Kendrick - Lyrics Show me a smile then / Don’t be unhappy, can’t remember / When I last saw you laughing / If this world makes you crazy / And you’ve taken all you can bear / You call me up / Because you know I’ll be there Paradise Valley / Honey and the Sting - Lyrics Take what you want from me / I bring it willingly / The paradise valley Got Your Back / Mike Taylor - Lyrics If you need a friend to party - I got your back / If you wanna get naughty - I got your back / Just tell me where to hide the body - I got your back

Somewhere Only We Know / Keane - Lyrics And if you have a minute why don’t we go / Talk about it somewhere only we know? / This could be the end of everything / So why don’t we go / Somewhere only we know? We Belong / Pat Benatar - Lyrics We belong to the light / We belong to the thunder / We belong to the sound of the words / We’ve both fallen under / Whatever we deny or embrace / For worse or for better / We belong, we belong / We belong together

I Won’t Give Up / Jason Mraz - Lyrics And in the end, you’re still my friend at least we did intend / For us to work we didn’t break, we didn’t burn / We had to learn how to bend without the world caving in / I had to learn what I’ve got, and what I’m not / And who I am Clear the Area / Imogen Heap - Lyrics You find your way back down. / And I’ll keep the area clear…please clear the area. / When you find your way back down…in one piece / Then I’ll just be waiting here…right here. / Slowly…darling…nobody means any more to me than you. Fortress Around Your Heart / Sting - Lyrics And if I’ve built this fortress around your heart / Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire / Then let me build a bridge / For I cannot fill the chasm / And let me set the battlements on fire

Undercover / Pete Yorn - Lyrics And we held and we tried / There was hardly lust between us / I will love you / I won’t let go / ‘Cause we are one inside these walls / Undercover

Black Heart Inertia / Incubus - Lyrics You’re a mountain that I’d like to climb / Not to conquer, but to share in the view / You’re a bonfire and I’m gathered ‘round you / Set this old black heart inertia aflame Invincible / Muse - Lyrics ‘Cause there’s no one like you in the universe / Don’t be afraid / What your mind conceives / You should make a stand / Stand up for what you believe / And tonight / We can truly say / Together we’re invincible

Yoruichi was actually a bit surprised when her hand was taken and the classic piece of audio kit was pressed into it, not having expected such a forward approach. For want of any other recourse—it was her birthday, and it was a gift, apparently given very sincerely considering his affect… what else could she do but take it?—she willingly grasped the Walkman and heard him out.

She was in for another surprise at how little he had to say, comparatively. Sure, some of the usual banter and salesmanship eventually filtered in, but the facade was cracked and the underlying sincerity streamed through the act like sunlight through mist, burning it off right before her very eyes. It was striking, and she stared at the spectacle of it, growing increasingly uncertain.

And then, just like that he… left? She was sufficiently taken aback by what he’d said—and how he’d said it—that she hadn’t yet had time to formulate a reply when he was turning and departing. Her mouth opened, but no sounds came out of it, and by the time she thought of something to say—even just, ‘Wait’—he was gone.

She stared after him for long seconds before shutting her mouth and looking at the Walkman that’d been handed to her. She considered it for several moments more before going to a closet drawer. She already owned a pair of vintage Walkman headphones with orange foam earpieces; they seemed the most appropriate thing to use to listen, and listening seemed to be the only thing to do.

Considering both components, she put the headset on, plugged it in, and clicked play. There was a delightfully mechanistic moment as the button sank in, giving that chunky, electromechanical experience you simply couldn’t get with fully digital electronics. It made her nostalgic as the first song began, and she listened, at first just standing where she was. The first song was a bit cornball, and she wondered if the whole mixtape would be that way, eventually sitting on the edge of her bed. But by the third song she was up and pacing about as she listened, a pit growing in her stomach.

By the seventh, she had retreated from her bedroom entirely, going to her bathroom almost on autopilot. Some part of her knew it was even farther away from scrutiny—harder to reach, harder to be heard from, even if her rooms and the building itself were very well soundproofed. Some other part of her felt almost ill. And then there were her eyes.

Crying had never been acceptable. That had been made abundantly clear to her from the very beginning. She didn’t cry. She hadn’t since she’d been a toddler. She’d watched her kōhai have a breakdown without crying. She’d torn off her own arm without crying. She’d cradled her little brother after he’d been shot through the heart three times without crying. As she leaned on the wall beside the tub, she almost didn’t recognize the pressure around her eyes. Her motions were automatic, and she clambered into the dry basin while she fought to keep herself under control. Things started getting blurry as a titanic clash raged within her.

Yet the music kept going, and she refused to stop it. Trembling with held in sounds, she finally punched the stone tiles before her. The strike wasn’t very hard by her standards, although it pushed her gigai—but it wasn’t enough to even chip the rock. Her arm stayed extended and she ground her knuckles into the rough surface, before retracting and striking again. And again. And again and again and again, until the stone was smeared with her blood and her hand throbbed and ached in protest.

The pain wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to compete with what was already filling her, and she gasped as it became overwhelming, hot tears spilling down her cheeks as she lost and it became entirely impossible to see. Her sobs were silent at first, wracking her whole body, before she smacked the bottoms of both fists against the wall, leaning forward to put her forehead on it as she finally let out a noise, something between a growl and a low wail.

She beat against that wall ineffectually, clenching her jaw as she still tried to keep it all in, trying to refuse this, but it was no use. ‘Volatile’ was wholly inadequate to describe the mixture of emotions flowing through her—it was a hypergolic cocktail that was already ablaze and demanded venting. And so, finally, she tipped her head back and screamed. Agony. Frustration. Despair. Self-loathing. Rage. Sorrow. Regret. It had all built and built, not just lately but for far, far longer, and she had no choice but to let out all the fruits of her failures at once now, like some kind of ravening nuclear death beam rendered in sound.

What her reiatsu did in response, she had no idea and no care to know. Presumably the gigai kicked in to contain it, but she was caught up in the maelstrom, a billion light years away from such concerns. She cried out and pounded at the wall until there was nothing left, until she was hoarse, until she was empty, until she was panting from the intensity of the chemicals unleashed, until her tears carried away enough of their torrent that she could breathe.

Spent and dazed, she slumped back, then outright toppled back against an edge of the tub, sinking down and shivering. Still, the music played, and it drew her back to the moment. She could think of doing nothing but flopping onto one side and curling up in a fetal position, desperately hugging herself and simply trying to be small, wishing to just disappear entirely. She stayed that way for a long time.

#In Character #Long Post #Music #submission #mysteriousshopkeeper #Identifier: MERCURY GREEN #Verse: BLEACH MAIN #Era: IMPERIAL

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