#this is unhealthy i’m sure in some ways but it’s how my brain is wired

[zorosdimples]

as someone who was always praised for their intelligence growing up, i genuinely need to be reminded that i’m physically attractive (to some people) from time to time

[risebto]

Blood is Thicker than Ooze | Chapter Fifteen

Word Count: 6958 Warnings: Bad Parent Draxum, Hurt Donatello, Unreliable narrator, Psychological abuse, Separated Donnie AU, child abuse, murder Description: Purple is the son of Draxum, a great warrior alchemist. With his help, Draxum will eradicate the prophesied human threat, and restore yōkai to the surface. Purple doesn’t understand why these three turtles are trying to stop them.

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Shelldon knew a lot of things. It was the nature of his existence, after all. He’d been granted access to the entire internet by his creator, Purple (after he’d confirmed that Shelldon wouldn’t try taking over the world, of course).

This unlimited knowledge granted him the ability to understand, record, and research whatever he wanted. Monitoring the digital social lives of humans and yōkai alike was a pastime of his. Observing populations converse about a wide variety of topics-- whether it be in real-time or in the past-- satisfied his artificial mind. He never tried to engage. It was pointless and unnecessary to add his own infinitely superior input. 

Nevertheless, he learned many things this way. Studying the brain was particularly riveting, as he technically didn’t have one in the same fashion that organic beings did. His brain was circuitry and wires and a remote server that stored his memories. He was better than any living being, as he clearly surpassed their organic limitations. He was artificial and sentient. He was- by his own account- the ultimate lifeform.

And yet… he still found himself pondering over how normal beings managed to do all that they did with the limitations they had, especially neurologically. It interested him to note that both yōkai and humans had increasingly similar brain structures. Sure, there were some differences depending on yōkai’s subspecies, but they shared many conditions. Autism, ADHD, depression, schizophrenia… these were just a few of the many things yōkai and humans could both experience and observe. 

Another thing that was unfortunately common among both humans and yōkai was trauma. It could be caused by a number of things, such as neglect or abuse, and they were processed similarly in the mind despite the species’ numerous divides in other areas. Shelldon’s metaphorical heart ached at the accounts he’d processed online in medical journals and comment sections alike. People could be cruel.

But with each new account he read, with each new study he came across… it only made a horrifying realization increasingly apparent. 

With his words and actions serving as matches, Draxum was a metaphorical arsonist. And Purple was his evergreen- so eager to be set ablaze, thinking it to be a loving warmth rather than a painful burn.

Shelldon still couldn’t properly understand why Purple didn’t run away. As far as he knew, his creator had never tried. He seemed content with the life he had, despite Shelldon knowing that the relationship he had with his father was unhealthy and-- as he processed it-- flat-out abusive. 

He tried to make sense of it. He really, truly did. But Purple was smart-- smarter than most. How wasn’t he able to see the situation he was in? How had he not called someone by now? Why was he still so willing to be set ablaze over and over again each time he recovered?

Shelldon wondered if, soon enough, he himself would be consumed by Draxum’s toxic flames. He didn’t know if he’d blame Purple for when that inevitably happened. Was it his fault for trapping him in this situation? 

I’m not truly trapped, Shelldon admitted to himself. I can leave whenever I want. But Purple is more than my creator-- he’s my friend. I can’t leave him.

Shelldon decided that if Purple was to burn, then he would turn to ash with him. He loved Purple as much as a sentient robot companion could. He would kill for Purple if it ensured his safety and happiness because he knew the mutant turtle deserved that safety and happiness. He just wished Purple wasn’t so blind to his father’s wildfire. 

Shelldon was sitting on his charging port, needing to recharge his battery after another mission with Purple in which they had gotten an armor piece from an abandoned factory just on the outskirts of New York. 

Shelldon had tried to do his own research on the Dark Armor but came up empty-handed. It seemed that the only mentions of such a thing were from fantasy video games and DnD discussion boards. Nothing historical or even mythological.

“I don’t trust the Dark Armor,” Shelldon said, peeking an eye open as he watched Purple reorganize his small library. He had noticed that the turtle would do this often, and it was a task he did when he was too tired to work but still needed something to stimulate him. 

Books were strewn across the floor in stacks, with only a few left on the shelf. 

Purple hummed questioningly, letting Shelldon know he was listening. 

Shelldon didn’t like how Purple had changed in the past week. He’d had the muzzle on for a few days before Draxum removed it the night before for his “good behavior.” But even after he was free to speak, the turtle refused to. It was as if he was still afraid of the pain the muzzle might cause him, or maybe he just believed he shouldn’t talk. 

Fucking Draxum, Shelldon thought bitterly. “The Dark Armor is clearly evil. The Foot literally calls themselves an evil organization.”

Purple shrugged, putting a few more books into place. Shelldon waited a moment for a verbal response, but he didn’t get one.

“Can you talk to me?” Shelldon pleaded, moving off his charger to approach the turtle. 

Purple paused in his book organization, thinking over Shelldon’s question, before nodding. 

Shelldon sighed. “Will you talk?” 

Purple shook his head. He wasn’t looking at Shelldon. 

He doesn’t like eye contact, Shelldon observed. This wasn’t new information. He’d watched Purple talk to Draxum, Huginn, Muninn, and more. He’d always attempt to pay attention to the other’s face before his gaze began to wander. 

Trouble maintaining eye contact… Associated with Anxiety Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Psychopathic Personality Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and alexithymia. Shelldon’s memory buzzed with the surge of gathered information that came to the forefront of his mind. He was aware of Purple’s many quirks and how different he was from others, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about the turtle’s potential of having a psychological disorder before. But he ignored it for now. He didn’t want to discuss that with Purple, not when he was still in a hostile home environment. 

“Why won’t you talk?” Shelldon asked calmly. “You don’t have the muzzle anymore.”

Purple remained silent and continued to sort through the mess of books. He didn’t seem too fixated on the task at hand. He didn’t have the look in his eyes that told Shelldon he was on autopilot.

“I think Draxum is being abusive,” Shelldon said bluntly before clarifying, “to you.”

That made Purple freeze, his grip on the book he held tightening. He glared at Shelldon with eyes filled with fury. “How dare you accuse Father of such a thing. He would never.”

“He literally put a muzzle on you, my dude,” Shelldon pointed out. “He’s hit you.”

“It’s called corporal punishment,” Purple remarked. “Nothing he’s done to me is illegal. Nothing he’s done to me was wrong.”

“Corporal punishment has been shown to have the same psychological effects as stereotypical physical abuse,” Shelldon explained, trying to keep his tone calm despite his growing anger.

“I’m fine,” Purple denied vehemently. “Everything is fine. Father loves me. I’m his son-- how could he not? He said he’s even got a gift for me! Is love and affection abusive, Mr. Wikipedia?”

“For being someone so dead set on science and facts, you sure like ignoring it.” Shelldon rolled his eyes. “Trauma bonding. Cycle of abuse.”

Purple glared at him angrily, a dangerous blaze sparking in his eyes. “Like I give a shit about what those mean! I’m not being abused! I would know! I’m not stupid!”

“You’re right,” Shelldon snarled. “You’re worse. You’re smart, yet you blind yourself to logic.”

Purple went silent for a moment, clearly taking in his words. Shelldon wanted to apologize, but he didn’t feel sorry. Why should he? Shelldon knew he was right. He was sure Purple knew it, too. But the turtle had buried his head so deep in the sand that Shelldon wondered if he could ever get himself out.

“I wish I had never made you,” Purple said lowly, his eyes welling up with tears. “I should scrap you or--” he struggled to swallow, “or rewrite your code. You’re just a pile of junk.”

Shelldon’s rotors fell to his side at the comment, shocked and appalled by Purple’s words. “Take that back,” he demanded. “Take that back!”

“Make me,” Purple dared, his eyes glinting dangerously. “I am stronger than you could ever be. I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it.”

“You sound just like him,” Shelldon said before he could think it through. It was meant to be an insult, but the prideful look on Purple’s face told the robot that the turtle didn’t see it as such. 

“I’m going to sleep,” Shelldon decided, hopping back onto his charger. “Wake me up if it’s an emergency.”

He waited for Purple to respond, but the turtle ignored him and returned to his books. Shelldon sighed and powered off for the time being.

-

Raph and his brothers woke up early, having been called upon by Splinter. Ever since he’d told the truth about his past, and they’d explained the ever-looming threat of Draxum, their dad had been insistent on training them for real. Why he hadn’t done that before was beyond them, but Raph was just glad they were getting some formal training at last. 

Mikey and Leo were, admittedly, better than Raph at a lot of things their father taught them. After all, how could a mutant of his size stick to the shadows, hide in blindspots, or be lighter than a feather? It was impossible! But his little brothers, especially Leo, were so quick to learn these techniques. 

He felt disheartened if he was honest with himself. Would he be able to do anything Dad taught them? Was he destined just to be a lousy ninja? 

“You are too slow!” Splinter complained as Raph finally met them at the training deck. The rat’s tail lashed behind him in annoyance. “Ninjas must be quick! And on time!”

“Yeah,” Raph nodded, hoping that his tone didn’t reflect the insecurities he felt. “I’m sorry.”

Splinter softened, his eyes analyzing him for a moment before returning his attention to the three of them rather than just the snapping turtle. “Today, we will learn one of the most important skills any ninja must know: communication.”

“Do ninjas usually work in teams?” Leo asked, turning to his brothers with a curious look. “I thought they worked alone.”

“Ninjas work in teams!” Splinter assured him, ear twitching in annoyance at the interruption. “But you must remain silent- To speak is to give yourself away to the enemy.”

“How’re we gonna talk if we can’t talk?” Mikey questioned with a slight tilt of his head. 

Splinter grinned, eyes glinting dangerously. “Ninja Mind Meld. It is a skill each of you must master if you are to defeat Draxum together. Teamwork-”

“-makes the dream work,” Raph heard Leo whisper automatically, causing the smallest of the turtles to chuckle. 

Splinter gave them a stern stare, but Raph could see the fondness in his eyes. Splinter may have been hard on them, but Raph knew their dad loved them with all of his heart and would do anything for them. The only reason they’d even started ninja training at a young age was that they’d begged the rat after watching their first Lou Jitsu movie. Splinter had been worried for their safety and always stressed the importance of their wellbeing. If one of them was sick or had any sort of injury (including scrapes, bruises, and more from roughhousing), he would hide  their training weapons and forbid any of them from training.

“Teamwork,” Splinter continued, “is your most important tool. You must communicate, yes, but you must also be willing to listen.”

“This is gonna be difficult for Leo, then,” Raph smiled to his younger brother, who stuck out his tongue in response.

Splinter ignored them again. “You must be aware of your teammates at all times. I want you all to be quiet,” he shot a look at Leo, “and close your eyes. Focus on me. Focus on my being-- who I am, who you perceive me as.” 

Raph did as he was asked, closing his eyes. He took a deep breath and let it out. Who was Splinter to him? His dad, of course. But he was much more than the one who raised him. He was kind but strict. Caring and disciplined. He always seemed to know when something was wrong with one of them and was incredibly patient with them. Raph could remember how difficult Leo and Mikey had been as toddlers-- especially Mikey. 

Mikey was a mischievous kid but also strangely artistic for his young age. Whenever Raph and Splinter weren’t looking, he’d be painting the walls of the lair with crayons if he could find them or food he had gotten into. But whenever Splinter found him, he rarely-- if at all-- got angry or upset. Instead, he would praise Mikey for his artistic abilities and try to redirect them to pen and paper. 

Raph smiled at the memories. Dad’s pretty great. 

You are incredible, too, my son. 

The response to his thoughts made him jolt. It sounded almost like it had been spoken, but he knew it hadn’t been. He opened his eyes to see Dad smiling warmly at him, tears pricking his yellow eyes. 

I am so proud of you, Raphael. Splinter’s voice rang through his head, and Raph could almost feel the warm love coming from his Dad. An image of a younger Raph, big eyes peering out through a caged helmet and a football in his hands, came to Raph in an instant. He could see Splinter’s memory.

Can you accidentally mind meld with someone? Raph silently asked his Dad.

Perhaps, Dad responded, sounding unsure. I am sure if anyone could accidentally connect with someone on such a deep and personal level, it would be you. 

Raph nodded and recalled the dream from a few nights ago. He closed his eyes instinctively as the image of the monster that looked like Splinter and Draxum had monstrous baby cursed his mind. He shuddered and forced himself to push the image away.

I see who you mind-melded with, Splinter informed him. Purple lives a truly troubled life. 

He is my brother, the red-masked turtle responded softly. Is that why I could mind meld with him? 

Maybe, Splinter responded non-committedly. You have always had a stronger connection with your brothers than most. It is what makes you special, Raphael. 

Maybe I have some Big Brother superpower, he joked, smiling at his Dad. Both Mikey and Leo had stopped trying at this point and were just staring at the two of them as they silently spoke to each other.   

I would not doubt it, Splinter’s tone was fond. The rat blinked and turned his attention away from the large turtle, and Raph understood that the mind-meld had ended. Now, he addressed the three of them. 

“Raph has learned the art of mind-melding,” Splinter announced, pride and joy clear in his tone. “You will all need to work together to learn this skill. I know that you can, my sons. I believe you are capable of wondrous things, and I am so, so lucky to have you three as my sons.”

Raph smiled at his father’s praise, his chest warming with pride. His two brothers looked at him with large smiles on their faces, and Mikey gave him a small thumbs-up. Raph knew they weren’t immune to jealousy of each other, but they always tried to hype each other up. Splinter had taught them that the world would try to put them down, so they needed to build each other up. 

Purple needs that more than any of us, Raph guessed silently, looking down at the ground. That muzzle… 

Splinter had disappeared back into his room, most likely to sleep. 

“Go Raph!” Mikey exclaimed before barrelling into him for a hug. Raph returned it with a small laugh, hugging him tightly. “What’s mind-melding like?”

“Uh, well,” Raph chuckled nervously. “It’s like you’re talking to someone through thoughts? Kinda just mind-reading, honestly, except you’re communicating together.”

“Woah,” Mikey pulled away from him, his eyes wide with wonder. “What am I thinking? Tell me!”

“I don’t think it works that way, Mike,” Leo bumped against the orange-masked turtle. “Imagine how cool that is, though! We’ll be unstoppable!”

Raph smiled at his brothers’ enthusiasm but felt like something was missing. Someone was missing. And not April, who had been spending less time with them to focus on semester exams. 

No, he was missing his third brother. Someone he hardly knew, yet yearned to know everything about him. He felt that they’d been robbed of their brother and the childhood they would’ve spent together. Purple, especially, was robbed of the childhood he deserved. 

Raph knew he couldn’t give that back to him. He would never have a normal upbringing because that was already written in stone. But, as Raph pictured the scarred turtle in his mind, he could feel the sense of inferiority and self-hatred the turtle secretly held for himself. It angered Raph to know that he was plagued with these thoughts, and it made him furious that the cause was the man he called Father. 

“Raph?” Leo asked, pulling the large turtle back to reality. “You good, Hermano?”

“Yeah,” Raph nodded but knew from his blue-shelled brother’s face that he was unconvincing. The largest of the three sighed, feeling his shoulders slump. “I’m worried about Purple.”

“We all are,” Leo assured him, resting a hand on his upper arm, unable to reach his shoulder. “We all saw that muzzle. We all saw him get hurt by it. I feel so stupid for not realizing what it was earlier…”

“You couldn’t have known,” Raph said. “None of us could’ve known. We didn’t think that it could be that because… well, I never thought anyone could ever do that to someone else.”

“People can be awful,” Mikey agreed solemnly, averting his gaze from the two of them. “Why doesn’t he just… leave Draxum?”

Silence fell between the three of them as they thought about it. Raph, especially, was confused. It was clearly abuse- anyone in their right mind could see that. And Purple seemed smart. He’d been able to roll with the Purple Dragons, after all! So, why hadn’t he escaped? Why hadn’t he left the abusive situation he was born into? 

“Maybe…” Leo broke the silence, “maybe he can’t? If Draxum got him a muzzle that hurts him if he tries to talk, maybe he made like…” Leo waved his hand in the air, searching for a word.

“Shopping Cart protocol?” Mikey suggested. “Maybe if he disobeys Draxum, he gets a punishment. A-and the mask hurts him when he leaves a certain radius? Or it’s remote controlled by Draxum…”

“Why doesn’t he just disable it, then?” Raph pointed out. “He makes his own tech. He’s smart-- probably smarter than all of us combined.” Raph felt proud of Purple for that fact, just like how he felt proud of Mikey whenever he hung up another art piece in the lair. 

Leo perked up, his eyes large, full of wonder and fascination. “MAYBE IT'S MAGIC!”

“That would explain it,” Mikey nodded in agreement. “Maybe it's something magical, and only Draxum can undo it?”

“That’s… troubling,” Raph said slowly, eyes narrowed. “If that’s the case, how are we gonna get him here without him being hurt by Draxum?”

“We could ask Hueso for help,” Mikey suggested. “He’s gotta know something about magic Hidden City stuff.”

“Or we could head to Witch Town!” Leo perked up before beginning to flap his hands in excitement. “They’re bound to have a shit ton of magic stuff there! Oooooh, do you think I could get my own wand?”

Raph rolled his eyes in response, but his smile didn’t disappear. “Maybe. But let’s get some breakfast before we do anything else today. What’s on the menu, Mikester?”

“I’ve been craving ramen carbonara!” Mikey said excitedly. “I’ll get started on it now!”

Raph watched as his brother bounded away, a skip in his younger brother’s step. Love for his brother buzzed in his chest, happy to see him happy. 

“What if he doesn’t want to leave?” Leo asked suddenly, so quiet that Raph nearly missed his comment. 

Raph gave him a puzzled look. “Why would he want to stay? Why would anyone willingly stay with an abuser? It makes no sense.”

Leo bit his lip in deliberation before nodding in agreement. “You’re right. We’ll offer him an exit- and we’ll figure out how to free him properly.”

Raph rested a hand on his brother’s shoulder-- a gesture of comfort-- and crouched to meet his height. “First rule of the Mad Dogz; you take care of family. We’ll get him back. I promise.”

-

Purple wasn’t much of a fan of heights. He didn’t hate them, but it was something that always gave him some anxiety when he flew too high. But he’d learned to swallow his fears and ignore them in situations like this.

He was high up on a large bridge, using a grappling hook hoisted to his belt to stay upright. He was detaching a piece of mystic metal used in the bridge’s structure. He’d determined earlier that removing it wouldn’t cause a collapse, as it wasn’t an integral part of the structure and could be easily replaced by a human construction worker.

“You almost done?!” The Foot Lieutenant called up, his patience apparently running out. “We have a yoga class in an hour!”

Purple ignored their calls, his focus trained on the armor piece stuck in the pillar. He began to pry it out, gritting his teeth as he struggled to pull it out from its prison. After a few agonizing moments where his hands burned from gripping the wrench too tight, it flung out and began to plummet toward the ground below. Purple detached himself from the grappling hook, pushing off of the pillar to try and dive toward the piece. He reached out toward it, his fingers grazing it but ultimately pushing it further away from him.

Before he could snatch it from the air, a large, red transparent hand emerged and snatched both him and the piece. Purple struggled against the projection’s grasp before being dropped onto the sidewalk of the bridge just a few feet away from the Foot Lieutenant and Foot Brute. 

“Are you okay?” Mikey asked, moving toward him quickly. He was about to touch Purple before the softshell recoiled, using a foot to kick him away. 

“Dude! We’re trying to help you!” Leo explained, hand outstretched. “We’re gonna help you get away from Draxum.”

What are they on about? Purple narrowed his gaze, picking himself up from the ground. He pulled his bō from where it sat on his shell, readying himself for a fight. “Give me the metal, and no one has to get hurt.” 

“Okay, so he can talk again,” Raph murmured before shaking his head and raising his voice so he could be heard clearly. “Look, we know that Draxum’s hurting you. We can help you! We’ll protect you.”

“Father isn’t hurting me,” Purple snarled, the grip on his bō growing tighter. “Last warning. Give me the piece, or I’m gonna kill you. Which honestly isn’t a problem for me, but that would mean cleaning the blood out of my clothes, and that’s just a pain.” 

Why is everyone insistent on this? They don’t know him like I do! He loves me. Why else would he put up with me for so long?

“We can’t let you have it,” Leo said, reaching for his ōdachi. “We don’t know what you’re planning, but if Draxum’s involved, it can’t be good.”

“Not good for you,” Purple agreed, looking back for a second to the Foot members who had begun to rush toward them, weapons in hand. “But you’ve been brainwashed by Lou Jitsu to be sympathetic to humans. You don’t know any better.”

“We’ve been brainwashed?!” Leo laughed, unsheathing his ōdachi with a smile. “Dude, you’re working with a supervillain! Use your brain! We’re not the bad guys here!”

Purple rolled his eyes before lunging forward, clashing his bō with the red-eared slider’s ōdachi. Leo pulled back just to swing at him again, but Purple dodged the attack easily. Each time Leo tried to strike, Purple was able to either counter his movements or dodge, biding his time and waiting for the perfect opportunity to unleash his anger.

Soon enough, Leo’s stamina began to run out, and Purple used this chance to use the blunt end of his bō to push against his plastron, sending the blue-masked turtle tumbling backward. He made a swing at the slider’s head, but he was able to duck his head into his shell before contact was made. 

As Purple towered over him, he raised his bō, ready to sink the sharp spikes at the end of his weapon into the slider’s neck, effectively ending his life. But before he could land the finishing blow, Leo swept a kick at Purple’s leg, causing the softshell to come crashing down on top of the other turtle.

Leo pushed him off, readying his stance again just a few feet away from Purple, ōdachi in hand. “Why are you working for Draxum?” 

Purple snorted at the question, pushing himself up from the ground as he stretched his sore arms. “He’s my Father. I love him-- I’d do anything for him.”

“He put a muzzle on you!” Leo exclaimed in infuriation, lowering his guard and his weapon. 

Purple took this opportunity to charge at him, bō swinging in an attempt to strike Leo. Unfortunately, the blue-shelled turtle was too quick, able to dodge and block his attacks. It was like they were evenly matched. They were a fractured mirror, reflecting each other’s smooth and clear surfaces as well as their cracks. 

“No parent who truly loves their child would hurt them,” Leo shouted with confidence, clashing his ōdachi against Purple’s bō, his face close to Purple’s. “Listen to us! We’re trying to help you.”

“You’re trying to get me to betray my Father,” Purple spat back, pushing back against his ōdachi, causing both of them to stumble backward away from each other. He shook his head and charged once more at the slider, but his attack was countered by the other turtle.

“We’re your brothers,” Leo pleaded desperately. “Why would we want to hurt you?”

Purple drew his lip in response, snarling at the prospect of his words. They weren’t brothers. They had relinquished that title when they’d left him to die in a collapsing building. Lou Jitsu had disowned him when he’d left him in the flames. He was bitter toward them for their betrayal of their own flesh and blood, yet he was also grateful that he’d been allowed to be raised with Draxum. He couldn’t imagine a life without his Father, and he didn’t want to picture the unimaginable horrors he would’ve experienced if he’d been raised by Lou Jitsu.

A loud splash ripped the two of them from their fight, both of them looking beyond the bridge for the source of the sound. For a horrifying moment, Purple wondered if the mystic metal had been thrown over the edge. He rushed to the railing, peering into the deep, dark river. But as he flicked his goggles onto his eyes, he didn’t see the metal in the water. No, it was much worse. Mikey had fallen in.

An image infiltrated his mind, one he’d often found himself looking at for minutes at a time. One he held dearly and was part of a set of four. The image labeled #4 captured a moment in time before the turtles had been mutated. The young box turtle’s innocent face flashed in his mind, but so did the large, bold words at the top of the image. 

“CANNOT SWIM.” 

But surely Mikey had learned how to swim by now, right?

Purple turned to Leo, expecting anything but the panicked expression that painted his face. The slider began to climb the railing, but was caught by his bandana tails, and pulled back by the Foot Lieutenant to continue the fight for the mystic metal. 

Purple looked to Raph, who kept trying to run for the edge but was caught by the Foot Brute, who kept him from the railing. 

He knew he should follow the Foot Clan’s lead and continue the fight. He knew he should get the mystical metal and complete the Dark Armor. He knew he should let the box turtle sink away, maybe never to be found again. But as he imagined the young turtle’s corpse at the bottom of the river, anxiety ripped his heart apart and plunged it below with his baby brother. 

He couldn’t let that happen. He tore his battle shell off, tore off the gloves that hid away his webbed claws, threw his goggles aside, and removed the mask on his face. He climbed the railing with a determination he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before-- it wasn’t out of a need for approval or for praise, but instead, it was out of desperation to not let Mikey be swallowed by the water below. 

He took a deep breath, feeling the wind beat at his bare carapace, and dove into the river. 

As he was plunged into the water, his skin burned, screaming at him for his decision. But he ignored the pain that roared at him, instead choosing to begin paddling down. Down, down, down toward the faint figure of a box turtle that he could just barely see in the depths of the river. He tore through the water, clawing through it as if he was a toddler crawling toward its mother. 

Finally, he could see his brother unconscious and sinking fast. Purple wrapped himself around Mikey before he pushed up against the water and began to swim upward toward the surface. 

The relief that washed over him when their heads reached air again was immense and indescribable. He dragged Mikey’s limp body through the river and toward a small bank, their bodies collecting wet sand on their skin as the two of them lay there, Purple desperately trying to catch his breath, his lungs feeling as if they were burning.

Purple turned to the unconscious turtle and scrambled toward him. He searched for a pulse, anxiety making his own heart beat so loudly he was sure that even the yōkai in the Hidden City might hear it. Finally, after what felt like eons, he found the young turtle’s pulse. Because of his steady breathing, Purple concluded that he wouldn’t need CPR and hadn’t ingested too much water. He laid back, relief allowing him to finally relax.

Is he gonna die? Purple wondered, staring into the dark water. He knew, realistically, he should’ve been happy by the idea of the turtle perishing, but he wasn’t. Wouldn’t his death be a good thing? It would be one less obstacle for him and his father. 

But I don’t want him dead, Purple realized with a saddened heart. What kind of person am I if I’m afraid of the death of my enemies? 

A coughing fit tore Purple away from his thoughts, his attention now directed at the ornate box turtle that lay next to him.

“Oh,” Mikey coughed before sitting up and punching the air happily. “I’m alive! WOO!”

Purple winced at the sudden loud noise. “Ow.” 

Mikey turned to him, surprise written on his face. But regardless, he smiled widely. “You saved me?”

Purple nodded, keeping silent. He was listening to the waves ebb against the bank, the calm soothing his anxieties and giving himself something to focus on other than the building dread in his heart. I should’ve let him drown. Why didn’t I let him drown?

“Why’d you save me?” Mikey asked, scooting closer to Purple. 

The softshell didn’t move away, instead inviting the turtle into his space. 

You’re my brother. The answer was so simple, but the words died in his throat as if there were a curse binding him to silence. And if he spoke those words, if he unleashed the truth, it would unravel a collapse of his world that he’d never be able to rebuild again. And that terrified him. 

“Why?” Mikey asked again, his voice soft and kind. He laid a hand on Purple’s shoulder. Even with having been drenched in water, Mikey’s hand was still so warm. 

“You know why,” Purple murmured weakly, refusing to look at the turtle. His gaze was pinned on the waves. He watched as they pulled back and forth, dancing something serene and beautiful with each other. It was a secret the river kept to itself, and Purple was okay with not knowing the truth of its beauty. He was okay just being on the sands of the bank, cold and shivering as the winds blew on his face. His softshell was exposed too, and Purple felt more vulnerable than he ever had in his entire life.

Draxum had chosen him for a reason, despite his softshell. In fact, he was chosen because of his species. He could breathe underwater, the pores in his skin were able to take the oxygen from the water and survive even the depths. His soft shell was a flaw that Draxum had known about but ignored because of his species’ other abilities. Their claws, their teeth, their territorialism. That’s why he’d been chosen. Purple’s weaknesses lay in his soft shell, yes, but it wasn’t a fundamental flaw in his species. There was something wrong with Purple. Who he was as a mutant was offensive-- not just to his species or to his father, but to existence as a whole.

They could never love me, Purple thought, his eyes burning with tears. How Father puts up with me is a testament to his patience and love.

“I don’t know why,” Mikey said, wiping one of his stray tears away. “I don’t think you know, either.”

For a moment, Purple wanted to relax into the touch. To let him know why his skin was charred and scarred. To let him know the reasons why he, out of the four of them, was abandoned. And a part of him wanted the other turtle to tell him that it wasn’t true. To tell him that they weren’t brothers or maybe that Lou Jitsu had really wanted him. 

But he couldn’t get the words out. The possibilities were left as that- possibilities. And he let the silence between them re-establish their dynamic.

Michelangelo was the hero. 

Purple was the villain. And that’s all he would ever be.

“Why don’t you come with us?” Mikey suggested, his eyes full of so much love and compassion that it made Purple sick to see. “We can help you. You don’t have to get hurt anymore.” 

Purple pulled away from the orange-masked turtle’s touch and forcefully shoved him away. “You don’t know anything about me or my life.”

“Yeah,” Mikey agreed, sitting back up and edging closer to him again. “But I’d like to. I wanna know my brother.”

“We aren’t brothers,” Purple spat, raising a hand to Mikey. When he saw the small turtle flinch and cower away, he smirked, ignoring the guilt he felt. “We will never be brothers.”

“You’ve given up on us?” Mikey asked, still cowering slightly. The fear in the young turtle’s eyes only strengthened Purple’s pride.

“You gave up on me first,” Purple pointed out dryly. Can you give up on something that lacks worth? “It’s only fair, isn’t it?”

“I never gave up on you,” Mikey promised, no hint of deception on his face or in his voice. “I love you. Even if you don’t love me, even if you say we’re not brothers… I can’t stop the love I feel for you. I can’t stop thinking of you as my brother. I can’t- I won’t.”

“Try,” Purple told him with an unhappy grimace. “And if that doesn’t work, try harder. Forget about the blood that mutated us because it doesn’t matter. It has never mattered.” 

“No,” Mikey shook his head. “No, I won’t do that. You can, but I won’t.”

Purple hissed with his teeth bared before pinning the young turtle against the sand. One clawed hand wrapped around his throat, not tight, while the other was raised in the air, threatening to end his life. 

“Do you still think of me as your brother now?” He asked, anger boiling underneath his skin, daring to burst and explode. “Do you still love me?”

Purple saw the fear in the younger turtle’s eyes, but despite that, he smiled up at the softshell. 

“Yeah,” Mikey said. “You’re still my brother, and I’ll love you till the day I die.”

“Even if it’s by my hand?” Purple asked dubiously, his chest burning for some inexplicable reason. Maybe the tears falling from his face had something to do with it? “Even if I’m the one to kill you?”

“Mhm,” Mikey hummed in agreement. “And I’d forgive you.”

“Why?” Purple asked, his voice cracking from distress. “You’re not supposed to like me! You’re supposed to hate me!”

“Whoops,” Mikey chuckled. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

Purple pulled away from him, stumbling backward from vertigo caused by the box turtle’s kindness. He couldn’t understand it. He knew the most complex of formulas-- he could calculate things many professional mathematicians would struggle with. He could code in multiple languages and with very few errors. 

So why didn’t he understand this? What had he miscalculated? What variable had he not accounted for? 

“Mikey!” 

The voice that pierced the night air was undoubtedly from the blue-masked turtle, who was tumbling down the pathway to the small beach with Raph trailing right behind him. 

As soon as he was able, Leo, who was wet for some reason, swept Mikey up and brought him into his arms for a hug, swinging him around as he laughed joyfully. “You’re alive!”

“Yeah!” Mikey said, stumbling a bit when he was let go, clearly a bit dizzy.

“I gave the Foot the metal thingy,” Raph said, hovering over his brother with a worried look. “I thought… Leo jumped in and couldn’t find you, so…” 

“I’m okay,” Mikey promised before turning to the softshell who’d distanced himself from them. “Purple saved me.” 

Purple stared at the other turtles, aware that he was defenseless. He’d left his shell, goggles, bō… everything was back on the bridge. He bore his teeth and his claws, trying his best to look intimidating. 

But despite his angular appearance, the red-eared slider began to approach him. Purple wondered if Leo was stupid when the turtle looked as if he was going in to give the softshell a hug. When Purple decided that the slider had gotten too close, he tightly grabbed Leo’s arm and twisted it, his claws piercing his green skin and drawing blood. 

“Christ-- what the hell?!” Leo yelped in pain, stumbling away from him as he held onto his arm. Raph pulled Leo by his shell toward him and stepped in front of the blue and orange-masked turtles. 

The large turtle looked conflicted, his brows furrowing in deliberation. Purple used this moment of hesitance to dive back into the water, pushing past the water and swimming as fast as he could to get away. He checked behind him every few moments, afraid that they might try to go after him. He was happy (and somewhat disappointed) that they hadn’t.

Purple climbed onto the opposite bank, shaking the water off. He looked across the water and back to the three turtles on the other side, who didn’t seem to be paying attention to him. He frowned deeply at their seeming indifference toward him. He didn’t want them to go after him, but he felt somewhat upset that they didn’t think he was someone worth going after. 

The Foot has the metal, he told himself as he began to climb up the path toward the road. 

He retrieved his stuff, putting everything back on, and only then did he realize how cold he felt without them. He sighed in relief at the comfort the prosthetic shell brought him, as well as the mask that covered his mouth and the gloves that concealed his claws. It just felt right.

No one could bring the same warmth his father did. No one could love him as Father did. No matter what anyone else said, he knew the truth.

Father was the only one he could trust, the only one who had his best interests at heart. 

The turtles only cared to know him to try and persuade him to betray his father. They only said the things they did to deceive and manipulate him, not to actually love him or treat him with the same kindness Father did. 

Repo Mantis, Shelldon, and the turtles would never understand the relationship he had with his father because it was so beautiful and lovely that he wasn’t sure anyone else had experienced the amount of affection Father held for him.

Purple owed Draxum everything. He could’ve been left in the fires of the lab, left to be burned to ash. But no. Draxum saved him, even though he hadn’t and never would deserve it. If Draxum wanted the Dark Armor, then he would get it for him.

It was the least he could do.

[complhexspace]

It’s my birthday and….

I can’t believe that I finally made a mood board for what I wanted out of 2023, but here it is and I’m gonna go ahead and walk you guys through it.

Every year I do use a notebook or try to plan out what I want out of that year. and include bite sized actions and to execute that plan. But this year, I really wanted to include a visual aspect to really give myself the idea of what I wanted out of this year.

I really want to make sure that I prioritize practicing mixing music this year. I realize that this is something one that I’ve always wanted to do to that. I’m kind of a natural that and I really want to explore this and see how far that I can take it.

And in doing this, I really wanna make sure that I push through my comfort zone and push through things that I find terrifying like public speaking, like putting myself out there and really give myself a good college try I’m doing something that I’ve always wanted to do.

I truly believe if I stop talking so much shit to myself that I would accomplish so much. If I stop telling myself that no one would care or I wouldn’t do this right or if I stop myself from over planning and just use the tools that I already have, that I honestly would be able to do whatever I want to do in life. It’s just I have to really truly believe in myself, and give myself that chance.

I’ve always been heavily focus on my creativity in my life, but in the past 2 to 3 years its magnified and I really want to keep that going. I think it’s so important as an artist in a creator to figure out my art style, my people, and what drives me as a Creator.

I’ve always known that creating music, art, film has always been my passion. It’s just I’ve never known how to grab it and go after it. And I’m not gonna lie to anyone and say that I do now, but I'm still going to actively go after it. 

I want to see how far my creativity and my passion for all things right now creative can take me. I want to golf myself into my creative passions, and become one with my creative visions.

Also want to make a few things possible that I’ve always wanted out of life that I’ve always always fell out of reach like having a body that I’ve always wanted. I know that sounds enormously superficial, but that’s probably the superficial part of me. Because of the way that I was brought up (the way that my trauma has wired my brain). Also, simply, because in this current moment, I am realistically unhealthy. I don’t believe that just because you are a fat person that you were unhealthy, but in my case I am. I want to feel good in my skin. I want to feel good in the way that I carry and present myself whether or not people perceive how I look as good or not as long as I feel good about myself.

I really want to do my best and make some obtainable significant change this year, even some changes that aren't on this board and that I haven't continuously talked about on here) without holding myself to high standards that end up burning me out or freaking me out in the end. Im just so tired of talking about what I want out of life. 

[wowzerwyrm]

Heyo! Ex-cult member here, and also someone who loved HPMOR. I’d have to go back and read it to decide if I still like it now like I did then, but as of the moment it holds a fond spot in my memory. The core idea that, while we may never be perfect, we can still strive to be Less Wrong, is definitely something I aspire to.

Is LessWrong a cult? I don’t know, I haven’t delved into it to really take a look. From my few forays into it, there are some aspects, jargon, and donation focuses that I find suspicious, but it also does promote some good things, and frankly I couldn’t say one way or the other without doing a lot of research, which isn’t really why I’m here.

Specifically, I just want to say a few things on how cults work, and how they are sometimes counterintuitive.

This got longer than I thought, so there’s more under the break.

For one, cults are not a determined “This is a cult and this isn’t.” There is no line where something suddenly becomes a cult, and there is no large community that can’t adopt cultish behaviors. Some groups and religions are more cultish, and some are less, and the less unhealthy behaviors the better.

Cults do not gather members by tricking irrational people into joining with bad arguments, (though this may be what appears to happen on the surface) and someone is not immune just because they are a rational person. In fact, it can be easier to fall for a cult when you believe you are too logical and rational to join one.

Cults gather members by bypassing the rational part of the brain, and making itself essential to the person in some important way. Through community, food, safety, friends, family. Especially community. Our brains are wired to find connections to people, and then fight to keep them, in order to keep ourselves safe in a group.

If you are lonely, and you find a community of people who seem kind, smart, and friendly, you might join them, and do service and read stories and talk about how to better yourselves. At some point, either through association or through blatant propaganda (or anything in between), your brain will associate them with Safety, and this is when the switch is flipped.

Now, the rational part of your brain, (the part that is good at making decisions) becomes turned toward defending the group/idea, because you are a part of the group, and thus you are defending yourself. It has become your group, your idea.

If something sketchy comes up, your brain will automatically make an attempt to rationalize it. If it’s bad enough, you might realize “Hey, something is up,” and be able to recognize the danger. But if it’s a small enough thing, and the dissonance is weak enough, it isn’t too hard to think up a believable reason for why that bad thing is justified, or just not so bad. This is actually the part where particularly smart people are at a disadvantage, because clever people are more likely to find clever solutions.

From there, you have the foundations to justify the next thing, and the thing after that.

There’s a large range, as well. From your codependent book club convincing you to increase your monthly donation to the group fund even if you’re not sure you can afford it. To being convinced that people of a different color are lesser beings, because all your family and friends are a part of the group and they all believe it, and questioning this belief will mean questioning the scaffolding you built over the last 30 years that holds your whole life together, and because thinking about it involves thinking around the belief that you’ll go to hell if you do.

Even to drinking poison because you’ve been removed from society, and everyone you ever loved is doing it as well, and you’ve been told that if you stay and live you’ll be captured by an evil government that will torture you for the rest of your life.

These are not things that can be rationalized out of, because they were not rationalized into. The cult has tapped into fundamental needs of the individual, bypassing conscious thought all together.

When I left my cult, it felt like puzzle pieces slotting together, like I was finally figuring it out. In reality, I was just lucky. I always had the pieces to figure it out, but I couldn’t bring myself to think about them. I was eventually able to leave the cult because I had friends outside of it, I had no internal cult responsibilities, and I was confident that my family would not disown me for leaving, despite being a part of the cult themselves. Only when I felt safe thinking about it was I able to consider that my group could be wrong.

I say I was lucky, because the cult is very heavy on keeping their members busy, reducing outside contact and friendships, and pushing families to stop contact with ex-members. I just happened to get the right circumstances and the right family.

There’s a lot more that goes into it, regarding leaders, fellow members, and such. But that’s the baseline.

And the good thing is, it’s not hopeless, you can protect yourself against it. The best way is to simply make sure you have a wide variety of connections, in many groups, with many people, and many different points of view to draw upon in order to avoid tunnel vision. Acknowledge the human need for social interaction and connection, and don’t become entirely reliant on a single group for all your needs, (especially not your physical ones like food and shelter.) That way, if one group turns out to be high-demand and culty, you can leave and have somewhere safe to fall back on, or, even better, you can question the methods of the group aloud and possibly change some minds, without the fear of being ostracized if they react badly.

Of course, the cults that last longest and gain the most members are the ones that push their members to move deeper into the cult and avoid making connections to other groups. They may:

Teach their members that outsiders are sinners, or less than human, or confused.

Teach their members not to question the leaders, at risk of becoming one of those outsiders.

Encourage or require donations of time and money, making them a sunk cost.

Encourage all these through fear, either of ostracizing from the group or threat of a distant, often eternal punishment.

Instruct their members

LessWrong may not fall into any of those categories. I don’t know, one way or another. If it were to show signs of unhealthy cultish behavior, I would expect it to show up in ways like this:

Outsiders are seen as irrational, perhaps even stupid or without anything to add to a conversation. (I have some concerns about this, as I remember Harry had a rather low opinion of most everyone else in the book)

The leader(s) are seen as implicitly more rational than everyone else, and people are expected to not debate them at all or expected to ‘lose’ if they do.

Being not allowed to debate or find fault in HPMOR

And then.. well, this one I have cause to believe may be true, but there’s a thought experiment about an AI, called Roko’s Basilisk, I believe, where a hypothetical all powerful AI in the future will, in the interests of making sure it is created, revive the minds of anyone who didn’t help make it and torture them forever. (1) You can’t even think about it or risk the AI taking you (2) and, perhaps unrelated or perhaps not, there is a donation page where you can send your money to fund efforts to prevent AI from taking over the world. (3)

This one is… concerning to me.

But! I don’t know how much of this is misunderstanding, how much is true, and how much is just groupthink being groupthink. Perhaps, hopefully, things are actually going okay. Maybe members are encouraged to get many points of view from outside sources. Maybe moderators and leaders are quick to admit fault. Maybe the whole AI donation thing is just something I didn’t get the full picture for.

Regardless, the point was just to talk a bit about cults, and how anyone can find themselves in one, and how they can be found in unexpected places. If you’re in one, you won’t know till you’re not dependent on it, one way or another, and it’s painful even when you leave. Arm yourself with knowledge and it’ll be easier to avoid.

If I had a nickel for every big name Harry Potter fanfic writer who started their own cult, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.

[earnestly-endlessly]

hi! hope you're doing well :) do you have any domestic!cherik fics? or established relationship ones?

Hi anon, thanks for the ask. I'm doing very well, been super busy because I'm currently moving but it's all good. I have plenty of great domestic/established relationship cherik fics for you. I hope you enjoy!!

Domestic/Established Relationship cherik

Daycare ‘Verse’ – orphan_account, pocky_slash

Summary: A modern AU in which Charles runs a mutant daycare and Erik is his long-suffering engineer boyfriend.

Runs in the Family – Anonysquirrel (chibirisuchan)

Summary: Alex knew his own reputation. Hell, he'd started some of his own reputation, because it kept some of the smarter thugs off his back. Everyone knew Alex's reputation. There was no way Hank didn't know his reputation, but he'd brought Alex into a house with some really expensive things and a lot of innocent little kids and his too-friendly, too-harmless dad.

But clearly Hank hadn't told his family anything about Alex, just like he hadn't told Alex anything about his family. At least, not about the brain-breaking parts of his family.

"I didn't know where to start," Hank said, for the dozenth time.

Gift of the Magi, But Screw it Up – librata

Summary: He doesn't know if he's buying too much, too little, or even the right things at all, because he's never entertained a guest as important as Edie Lehnsherr.

Making perfect – aesc

Summary: As is the case with most trials in Erik's life, this one starts with Charles gazing beseechingly at him and asking him for a favor. Not that their going-on-three years relationship is a trial, even though it started with Charles giving Erik the full benefit of sad blue eyes and asking him if he wouldn't mind opening his car door since he'd locked his keys inside, but still.

Continue firm and constant – aesc

Summary: Moira hasn't seen her old partner in saving the world from threats human and intergalactic, Erik Lehnsherr, for a few years. When she finally does see him again, she finds a man different from the one who's been with her down in the dark and the dirt and the blood... or maybe he isn't so different after all.

After School Special – listerinezero

Summary: Charles was barely seventeen and Erik was his social studies teacher. But after almost fifteen years together, does it really matter how they met?

Terrifying Domesticity – ishipitsobad

Summary: Erik is the most dangerous and notorious mafia boss around for miles, and yet the strangest things terrify him.

For example: his children, and his very pregnant mate.

Trying is Half the Battle – Pookaseraph

Summary: Post-Cuba, no divorce, Charles and Erik are in an established relationship and when Charles gets sick with a random flu bug, they discover that Charles can get pregnant. They then try to get pregnant, and try, and try.

We’ll all be gone for the summer – pocky_slash

Summary: Charles and Erik's usual family beach vacation gets a little bigger when they agree to watch Erik's teenaged twins for the summer. Charles is looking forward to a chance to bond with his step-children. Erik is terrified of screwing them up even more.

A Summer Day So Late in Coming – helens78

Summary: Fifty years after they fell in love, Erik comes to Charles with a proposal that rocks Charles's world.

Still Going Strong – JackyJango

Summary: Speaking of forty-eight, Erik hates it. Hates it even more that others are aware of it. While he’s pragmatic enough to know and accept that aging is inexorable, the increase in number gives the people around him the freedom to pounce at him with questions, opinions and advice he'd fought to keep at bay all year.

Besides, Erik believes that youth is a state of mind, not a phase in one’s life.

You have a child’s mind in a man’s body, Charles constantly tells him.

But despite his age, Erik is healthy. He works out daily. His muscles are steel and he can dead-lift four hundred pounds. He can break bones without breaking a sweat. Most importantly, he can still carry Charles to the bedroom and fuck him senseless. And as long as Erik can do that, he’s perfectly happy.

Before You Attempt Me (Fair Warning) – kianspo

Summary: Charles helps Raven get ready for the prom. Surprisingly, that part goes well. The prom itself not so much. Erik cooks a lot of unhealthy comfort foods and is incredibly patient. Charles mostly frets about everything, until Erik does something neither he, nor Raven see coming.

And now you will not be alone any more – pocky_slash

Summary: Erik gives driving, sewing, and cooking lessons, soothes nightmares, bolsters self-esteem, and still can't figure out why Charles keeps smiling at him like that.

Some sense of touch and a melody – pocky_slash

Summary: On a day when Charles, for once, finds himself saying the right thing to everyone he sees, he allows himself to be talked into a field trip to a local orchard.

It’s kind of our whole thing – pearl_o, pocky_slash

Summary: After two years of best friendship, Charles and Erik thought they knew everything there was to know about each other. They're surprised, then, when their first summer as a couple reveals that they have a lot to learn about each other and themselves.

Indulgence – grim_lupine

Summary: “The children are still asleep,” Charles murmurs groggily, flinging an arm out as if searching for Erik beside him. “The house is still standing, this is a ghastly hour, and more importantly, I’m still here. Why do you insist on doing this every morning?”

Your Father’s Daughter – ConsultingWriter

Summary: Wanda proves just how much she takes after Erik.

Pietro reeled back before leaning back in "They didn't tell you what happened? Wanda got in a fist fight and totally wailed on this guy, I mean, on one hand I feel kinda embarrassed for him, but it was so epic."

Erik's eyebrows shot to his hairline. Wanda got in a fight? That was....surprising, to say the least. Wanda tended to take after Charles in temperament and preferred talking to violence.

This Crazy Game Called Life – chiasmus

Summary: Raven declares game night in the mansion. Sean finds an elephant, Erik inherits one hundred unwanted cats, and Charles scars Hank for life with misdirected dirty thinking. This is five thousand-something words of crack with a dose of schmoop. I'm not sorry. Written for this kink meme prompt: Raven is tired of the boys going off to play chess (if they're even playing chess!) and pulls out a load of board games from one of the closets in the mansion. Madness ensues.

To my roomba with love – sareyen

Summary: There are a lot of things that Erik loves about Charles. He loves all of the obvious things; Charles’s kindness, his intelligence, his laughter, his eyes. He also loves the little private things; the way Charles sneaks Erik his unwanted tomatoes, his warbled opera singing in the shower, that sensitive spot on his hip.

And he loves the silly things about Charles, especially the way the man has a habit of talking to inanimate objects when he thinks no one is looking. Charles has conversations with the kettle, the washing machine, and their roomba – and every time Erik eavesdrops on him, he falls in love with the man a little bit more.

Everything About it is a Love Song – pocky_slash

Summary: Erik's spent fifty years being a figurehead and he's ready to leave that behind. Luckily, so is Charles.

(aka Old Retired Dudes in Love)

A Very Xavier-Lehnsherr Christmas – zamwessell

Summary: Erik is discovering new things about Charles Xavier all the time. Charles sometimes talks in his sleep. Often about food. Occasionally in Latin. Charles has a scar on his left thigh from attempting to demonstrate relativity to a girl by sitting on a hot stove. Charles doesn’t mean to be so loud when they make love, but sometimes Charles can’t help himself.

Charles is a voracious reader. Charles has an unspeakably filthy imagination. Charles will try anything in bed twice to make sure he wasn’t wrong the first time.

Charles is unexpectedly fond of Christmas. Perhaps that is not the phrase. “Unhealthily obsessed” might be better.

The fluffiest holiday fluff you ever read in your dang life.

Of Crabs and Castles – flightinflame 

Summary: Charles and Erik take their children to the beach. Wanda builds a sandcastle, Nina makes some friends, and Pietro gets some exercise. Some family fun in the sunshine.

Bring Your Daughter To Work Day – listerinezero

Summary: Charles brings three year old Lorna to class with him.

Glasses – grim_lupine

Summary: Charles blinks at him bemusedly, but Erik barely notices because Charles is wearing glasses— wire-rimmed, and Erik can feel the metal humming, traces without touch the way they follow the curve of Charles’s nose and rest behind his ears.

Genetics Isn’t Sexy – pocky_slash

Summary: Charles lectures. The kids aren't very responsive. Erik, on the other hand....

Peanut Butter and Honey (The Fairytale Remix) – pocky_slash

Summary: Once upon a time there was a Princess named Anya who lived in a house with her Daddy and her wicked stepmother Charles. (A wicked stepmother is the person who comes and lives with princesses and their daddies after their mommies go away.) She had a best friend named Leroy, and one day he was lost.

The Bystander (The Consultant (aka A Westchester Telepath in the Avengers Tower) Remix) – Nanimok

Summary: When it comes to Professor Charles Xavier, telepath, SHIELD consultant and compulsive flirt, no one is safe.

Not even the Big Three.

[themandhoelorian]

Dincember - December 4: Hot Chocolate

summary: Mando has unique ways of showing his affection for his son, like getting him hyper on too many cups of hot chocolate, but it’s only after a long day of bringing the kid down from his sugar high that you realize Mando has similar ways of showing how much he cares for you.

pairing: din djarin (the mandalorian) x gn!reader

warnings: a caffeine addiction, sleep deprivation, the smallest sexual innuendo, Din being sweeter than hot chocolate, not super well edited ahaha

word count: 3.2k 

a/n: asdfghkldf this is so so late but this week has been long and exhausting (no this fic was definitely NOT me projecting), and I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to write :/. I’m not even really sure this makes sense, but that’s kind of how my brain works when it’s exhausted, so hopefully on some level that’s accurate ahaha 

***

You never understood the appeal of caf until you joined Mando’s crew. 

The first time someone offered you a cup, that one day you showed up to the tiny mechanic shop of your first job with bags under your eyes, complaining about how little sleep you’d gotten the night before, you thought you’d been handed a steaming cup of motor oil by accident instead. 

The dark liquid felt like lava on the roof of your mouth, leaving the taste of bitter ash on your tongue as you willed sip after sip down your throat. It did pull you out of the sleep-deprived fog, but it was more of a jolt in the opposite direction than a gentle tug, your body shooting into overdrive and hands shaking so intensely you burned your fingers on your soldering iron more times than you could count that day. 

After that, you tried to stay away from caf as much as possible. No matter how little you’d slept the night before, how often you were caught staring blankly at the wall instead of untangling a mess of wires, you always refused when you saw a mug of hellfire coming your way. The acrid taste, the jitters, none of it was worth enduring when you just had to make it to closing before you could go home and sleep away the fatigue. 

But now, your full time job is taking care of a child, and every night is a night with too little sleep. You spend your days trying to wrangle a warm, mischievous demon into compliance instead of just manipulating cold scraps of metal, and the kid doesn’t have “closing hours”- not with how violently he reacts to the notion of bedtime- so there’s never a sweet finish line to look forward to at the end of the day. 

You thought you’d known exhaustion before, felt it heavy on your shoulders those months you worked overtime to make ends meet, but that was light years away from what you feel now. The black hole of sleep consumes you as soon as you get the chance to lie down, and when you inevitably wake to the sound of cries a few hours later, it feels like the weight of the galaxy is crushing your lungs, making it nearly impossible to crawl back out of bed.

So after just a few weeks on the Crest, after that one day when you accidentally dozed off watching the kid play and woke to find him sticking a finger into the barrel of a blaster (thankfully Mando had the sense not to keep his weapons loaded on the ship or Maker, that could’ve ended badly), you bought a caf maker on the next planet and forced yourself to chug a cup every morning since.

The taste still sucks, no matter how much cream you’ve tried mixing in, but it doesn’t make you jittery like it used to, the caffeine just enough to keep you awake, and now you don’t know how you ever took care of the little womp rat without it, especially on the days when Mando returns from his hunts and the child bursts with energy to welcome his father home.

Even if it’s only been a couple days since Mando left, you’d think he’d been gone for months with the way they act at seeing each other again. The kid’s just downright ecstatic, dropping whatever part he’s playing with as soon as he hears the hiss of the hull opening and babbling excitedly as he runs into his father’s arms. He’ll follow Mando’s every move for at least an hour after he’s returned, and sometimes, you have to literally pry him from the beskar so Mando can retreat to the cockpit and set the course to the next planet.

And then there’s Mando. He’ll look stoic as ever as he takes the child into his arms, but you can feel how eager he is to reunite with his son, his affection all but spilling out the sides of his armored chest. He’ll never admit it, of course, you’re not sure he’d even be able to find the words to say it if he wanted to, but he finds other ways to show the kid how much he missed him, how deeply he cares about his little foundling.

More often than not, those methods include spoiling the child to no end, giving into the kid’s every desire and providing him with a few moments of pure, unrestrained joy. And more often than not, you’re left with the not-so-simple task of dealing with the consequences of giving the child his every wish, easing him down from the euphoric high and re-establishing that he absolutely cannot expect that kind of indulgence with anyone but his father.

Like one time, Mando stayed awake with him all night long, conceding five more minutes every time the kid whined when he was told it was time for bed. Five minutes quickly turned into hours as they watched the bright mosaic of hyperspace go by, the kid so happy to just sit in Mando’s lap while he spoke in the soothing tones of his people’s tongue. You were only able to pull the child from his father’s arms in the early hours of the morning, all three of you only half conscious at that point, and you spent several cycles trying to get the kid (and yourself) back on a normal sleep schedule.

Or like today, when Mando returned this morning while it was still dark outside, and you woke to the smell of cocoa and peppermint what felt like mere minutes after you’d fallen asleep. When you finally pulled yourself from the bunk, you found Mando sitting next to the child as they sipped on steaming liquid, his helmet tilted back just enough for him to bring the mug to his lips. 

He made the kid hot chocolate, you realized from the way the child threw back his bowl so quickly he left milky brown splotches on his face. Of course. Mando had made a habit of bringing sweets back for his son after he’d once gotten his hands on a chocolate bar you’d splurged on in the market, nearly bouncing off the walls with glee as he devoured the entire thing in seconds. That was a memorable day for all of you: the kid found his new favorite snack, Mando found another way to indulge the child, and you found out that when the kid has sugar in his system, you need caf more than water to survive the day.

So it’s no surprise that several hours and a couple more servings of hot chocolate later, long after Mando’s gone to the cockpit to fly to the next planet, you’re chasing the tiny ball of energy around the hull, running on nothing but an unhealthy amount of caf mixed with a little bit of spite, worried you might collapse before the sugar-fueled monster falls asleep.

You have half a mind to be mad at Mando for getting the kid so hyped up on the decadent drink and inevitably making your job that much harder, but you can’t get the image of them together this morning out of your head, Mando dabbing the mess from the child’s face as giggles bubbled from his tiny mouth. The memory’s shaded with the golden haze of dawn, like those dreams that feel warm and familiar, and you can feel your heart swell re-imagining that moment of perfect bliss, father and son so content just to be with each other and the sweetness in their cups.

And oh, you know you could never be upset at Mando for indulging the kid, creating those little pockets of warmth in a life filled mostly by cold, dead space, no matter how much more work it makes for you. Not when you know that he savors those moments as much as the child, that the days he’s back with his son are the only times he doesn’t have to be tough and menacing and deadly, the Crest the only place he doesn’t have to armor up his feelings just as much as his body.

You’re willing to reign in the kid, be the tough one on the ship, if it means Mando can show his son the softness that lies beneath the beskar, tuck away the sharp edges when he holds the little green menace in his lap. You’re willing to lose weeks of sleep course-correcting after each indulgence if it means he can let the honey of his love ooze thick and messy before he’s off to the next quarry and has to lock his affection behind iron walls again. You’re even willing to drink all the caf in the galaxy, let cup after cup burn bitter down your throat, if it means he can have a moment of peace sipping hot chocolate with his son at the break of dawn. 

You’re more than willing, happy even, to do all that and more for him, especially if it means you can catch glimpses of the man behind the guise of “Mando” in the process, a man whose heart you’ve found yourself wondering more and more about lately, wondering if it might one day beat strong and steady for you the same way it does for the kid.

So no, you’re not mad at Mando, not in the slightest. It’s more that right now you’re worried you might not be physically able to do those things for him, the shorter than usual night of sleep catching up with you faster than you can fight it off with caf. You’re pretty sure it stopped working after your third cup anyway, the additional caffeine just making you dizzy and no more energized, and you don’t know how much longer you can keep up with the child’s pace. You’ve played peekaboo and thrown around his favorite silver ball and even tried to show him how to rewire an old generator (not that you had any luck with that), and he still hasn’t crashed from his sugar high. 

You have no idea what else to do to keep the child busy, and Maker, you’re just so kriffing tired right now, so you’ve resorted to leaning against the door of the weapons closet, floating in that hazy space on the brink of consciousness, using what little of your energy remains to make sure he at least won’t get his hands on a blaster again. 

You’re not even completely sure what the kid’s doing right now, just know he’s somewhere on the other side of the hull, and you can only hope that Mando doesn’t come down here and find you and the kid like this. The last thing you want to do is make him worry, doubt how much you care about his son’s well being, but it’s like he can feel your exhaustion radiating through the ship because the next thing you know, the heavy echoes of his boots fill the hull as he descends the ladder from the cockpit. 

You will yourself to sit up straighter as you hear his footsteps getting louder, locate the child before Mando can, but your body is working on a little bit of a lag, and by the time you actually open your eyes, Mando’s walking past you, the child snoring softly in his arms.

Of course he fell asleep as soon as you took eyes off of him, the little monster.

Mando doesn’t say anything as he tucks the child into his makeshift bed before striding back to the other side of the hull, and some faraway part of your brain tells you to explain yourself or apologize or say kriffing anything at this point, but the inky gravity of sleep is pulling you in deeper with each passing moment, and you can’t be bothered to speak when your eyes are threatening to droop shut again. 

They must have at some point because you don’t remember seeing Mando approach you, but somehow he’s in front of you now, holding a mug out in front of your face. Maker, you must’ve drifted off, long enough for him to decide you needed some help staying awake and make you a cup of caf, and as you reach for it instinctively, bringing the cup to your lips in the trained motion, you can’t decide if it’s just as a thoughtful gesture or a thinly veiled warning for you to actually do your job.

You hum as the warm liquid coats your tongue, deliciously silky and slightly sweet, and it’s only when you swallow, the milky substance gliding down your throat, that you realize-

“This isn’t caf,” you mumble, looking up from the mug to meet Mando’s gaze.

“I never said it was.”

You just stare at him wordlessly, trying to figure out why he made you hot chocolate when it’s not going to make you any more functional. You have no idea how long you sit there thinking, too far gone to even understand the concept of time right now, but it must be a while because he breaks the silence first with a sigh.

“Cyar’ika, you have to stop drinking that crap. It’s not good for you.”

“Need it,” you respond, almost too quickly considering how long it took you to answer him before. Apparently the only thing you can understand in this groggy fog is your caf addiction. “Gonna fall asleep if not.”

“You’re about to anyway. Come on, you need to sleep.”

For some reason you giggle at that, unable to stop the laughter rising through your chest. He’s right, of course, but it just seems so damn funny right now that Mando, who has told you he rarely sleeps when he’s away, who you’ve never seen rest for more than an hour at a time, is telling you that you’re the one that needs sleep.

“You sleep even less than me, Mando. You can’t talk,” you accuse.

He jerks his helmet back in something like disbelief, and you can’t stop yourself from giggling again.

“Well I’m not the one falling asleep on the floor right now,” he counters.

“That’s fair,” you admit. You take a few more sips of the hot chocolate, closing your eyes in pleasure as the warmth floods your veins. Maybe it’s just because you’re so used to the sharp bite of caf, but the sugary drink feels so good, like something comforting and familiar though you can’t quite place your finger on where you recognize it from. It’s almost like you’re wrapped up in the thickest blanket or, even better, by strong arms as you’re lulled to sleep, and you’re not sure that’s what you were thinking of, but you realize that’s exactly what you want right now. 

And then your stupid, half-conscious brain decides to ask for it in the worst way possible.

“How about this, I’ll sleep if you sleep with me.”

You only catch how kriffing suggestive it sounds as the words come tumbling out of your mouth, but then all at once, you’re utterly aware of how much you’ve been embarrassing yourself. First getting caught falling asleep on the job and then accidentally making a very blunt pass at your boss, and Maker, you’re just a whole ass mess today aren’t you? Suddenly you feel very awake, your eyes going wide as you stumble over your words trying to backtrack as quickly as possible.

“Oh stars, I didn’t mean sleep with me, that’s definitely not what I, well, not that I wouldn’t…no, I just- I do need sleep but so do you, even if you’re not actually falling asleep right now, so I was just gonna say that we should both-”

But then your rambling is cut off by a chuckle coming from the modulator, his voice light and playful in a way you’ve never heard before.

If you weren’t so kriffing worried about what he was thinking about you right now, you might’ve thought it was the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard.

“I know what you meant, cyar’ika,” he says. 

Oh, thank Maker, you think, waves of something like relief washing warm over your body. You’re not quite sure how he can understand what it is you want when you can’t even articulate it yourself, but your brain is still too foggy to care, deciding it doesn’t really matter how he knows you so well, just that he does.

Mando eases the mug from your hands, the worn leather of his gloves brushing lightly over your knuckles. You whine in protest as he steals the liquid comfort from your fingers, but it’s quickly replaced by his hands wrapping around yours to help you off the ground.

“I’ll make you more tomorrow,” he assures you, his voice as velvety as the drink he just took from your grasp. “But now, we need to sleep.”

We, not you. 

You barely catch the distinction as he leads you to the bunk while his thumb rubs soothing circles on your lower back, but it just leaves you even more confused in your sleepy daze. You didn’t think he was actually going to entertain your suggestion, even if he did take it in the more innocent way, and when you crawl into the bunk and he doesn’t follow, you think maybe you just misheard him.

But as you close your eyes, your exhaustion starting to pull you away from reality again, you hear the clang of metal on metal behind you, and a gentle tap on your calf halts your descent into the stillness of sleep as Mando climbs into the bunk next to you.

It’s only after he shuts the door, when your body is pressed to his so you both fit in the tiny space, that you realize he’s taken his armor off, the first time he’s ever done so in front of you. You can’t see him at all in the darkness of the bunk, you’re not sure you could even open your eyes again at this point anyway, but even in your delirium you can grasp the weight of how vulnerable he’s making himself right now, letting you run your fingers lazily across the tight muscles of his bicep and rest your head against his broad chest.

And once again, you’re overcome by the feeling of something pleasant and vaguely familiar, your heart swelling the same way it did when you first saw Mando and the child this morning, the same warmth in your veins as the first sip of hot chocolate. You couldn’t quite place it before, but for some reason, as you listen to the way his heart beats strong and steady against you, you think you finally recognize it, the way Mando’s been making you feel all day, the reason he knew exactly what you needed before you could even realize it yourself.

It’s just a hazy flash in the moment before the black hole of sleep finally consumes you, an inkling of a breakthrough you may or not remember tomorrow, but you think this feeling, the acrid taste of caf replaced by smooth chocolate on your tongue, a strong body turned soft as it’s molded to yours, has a four letter name you thought you and Mando only saved for the child.

Maybe that’s why you’re learning to use it for each other too.

[river-bottom-nightmare]

Nightwing 83 Review

guess who isn't weeks late this time. my opinion of the series is going up a little bit. it's still not great, but i'm not actively put off by it anymore the way i was after 81. not going to tag as spoilers, but be warned that they are under the cut

i’m sure you all are well aware of this but now, but dear god i love bruno redondo’s art. like, an unhealthy amount. the pink and blue is getting to be a theme with either him or just this run, but i am definitely enjoying it. the movement in this cover is clearly obvious, but well done. you recoznize right off the bat that the cover was drawn to drag your eyes down the page until you get to the bottom, but you enjoy the whole ride there. 

also, redondo’s way of drawing a character in stages of action so we can see just how much they’re doing in a split second of movement is quickly becoming something i like to see drawn with dick, and any other character that has that sort of ease of movement and body sense, like cass or sin or maybe a super. 

and he’s in action the entire time! there’s shot drawn just to show off a shirtless comic book character, the way nightwing is so often subjected to. he’s shirtless because he’s changing his clothes, and that’s all we see, no more and no less. very practical, very well done. i like it.

he looks so cute right here oh my god. the little squint, the hair curls. it’s adorable.

but also like. unless melinda has specifically outfitted the door spyhole so that the person on the other side can’t see dick looking through it (and in all honesty she might have) then everyone on the other side can see dick looking through that door. 

bringing your attention back to the “i can’t see melinda’s fbi file oh no!! it’s redacted!! whatever can we do!!” stupidity. redacted files are child’s play for oracle, and definitely doable for both dick and bruce. so that’s bullshit.

now, melinda apparently grew up with the maroni family, then took down part of the family from the inside. the maroni family is a large and notable presence in gotham, one that bruce pays a respectable amount of attention to. he definitely would have grown suspicious when two members of the maroni family were taken down, and with some investigation, he would have discovered melinda’s plan. and it should go without saying that the majority of things you see batman doing? dick can do it too.

it’s not so much that i don’t like how clever the villains/antiheroes are getting. i don’t like how dc heroes are increasingly written as less intelligent. they seem to be relying on pure fighting skills or luck, which may be the case for a couple heroes, but has never been the case for most of dc’s big name heroes, the bat family included. it’s irritating to me to see this sort of stuff pop up as a major plot point when i know that, if dick or bruce had been written with the amount of skill and power that they canonically possess, this entire mess would have been sorted out years ago.

unrelated but dick and melinda have the same hair

this may just be me, but i was always under the impression that dick doesn’t really have a “double life???”

yes, he’s talented enough to create enough differences between robin/nightwing and dick grayson’s mannerisms, way of movement, voices, and speech patterns so that it’s very difficult to put the two together.

but nightwing has never been separate from dick grayson, not the way bruce and batman is. he’s always leaned more towards clark in that aspect: his hero persona is an exaggerated, stately, larger-than-life version of who he really is. there’s no second persona, no real “dick grayson identity” and “nightwing identity.” they’re the same person with the same goals, ideas, and skills. one just pretends to abide by the law, and one gives up pretense of that.

oh good thank god. if he’d trusted her right off the bat (hehe. bat.) i would have slapped him upside the head. at least he’s still got instincts.

gosh the colouring on this is cool. the red has enough purple and pink tones to it that it doesn’t abruptly ruin the tone of the artwork. but it’s definitely glaring enough to take the reader outside of this personal moment they had slipped into between dick and melinda, to put them back in the present where they’re reminded that oh yea there are people hunting dick down. 

the next panel keeps this up too, in a less severe way. melinda’s bodyguard shows up (i forgot her name sorry :[ ) and subtly places us in the middle of an action scene rather than a private, personal scene.

laughing so fucking hard have our little vigilantes grown so accustomed to breaking into places that it doesn’t even register as a crime anymore??? tim coming in through the fire escape to pick bernard up for their date and being very much confused as to why bernard is freaking out.

i really like melinda’s shirt and now despite all the work i have to do and the fucking conference i have to host on monday i want to spend hours scrolling through clothing shops online trying to find this shirt. the mock neck/neckline is so cool i want it

so roland just assumes that a very dangerous vigilante who is highly talented in combat and a very dangerous bodyguard who is also highly talented in combat had a fight that ended with this very dangerous bodyguard being tied up and she looks completely fine? roland just assumes that her having no visible wounds or bruises means that they got into a fight and she lost that easily? uh. aight then

dick what are you doing. legitimately what the fuck are you doing. why are you posing oh my god. you are injured and tired and in absolutely no position to go hand to hand with one of main enemies. jesus christ run away or head to lower ground or something. don’t just stand around letting the floodlights show exactly where you are.

i don’t understand what he’s trying to do here??? blockbuster fully bought the story that dick fought them both, won, tried to get info out of them and failed, then hightailed it out of there. he didn’t have to draw roland out for a fight.

but it does look cool. the way the light just highlights his silhouette and the blue parts of his costume does look badass. he does get style points in my book for this.

w h a t  d i d  i  f u c k i n g  t e l l  y o u ,  d i c k ?

very classic superhero line and it does sound like something dick would say in a fit of righteous rage but also it makes me laugh so hard because all vigilantes think they’re so powerful that the law doesn’t apply to them. dick vigilantism is illegal. you’re acting above the law and pretending it doesn’t apply to you. hypocritical much?

it happens so often in superhero movies, tv shows, comics, whatever and it makes me giggle every damn time.

pretty decent comeback but before i start seeing people writing blockbuster as a thug i’m going to remind you that he made a deal with a demon for genius level intellect. if this turns into another bane situation i’m going to be a little miffed. he’s a smart man, which makes him a dangerous and infinitely more interesting enemy for nightwing.

this is so horribly in character i want to scream. (or. at least. it lines up with one of the versions of nightwing i have in my head.) he’s running right towards the bullets, miraculously doesn’t get shot, while making a sort-of pun. i hate this so much. i love him.

this is cool. this art is really really cool.

he leaped from a building right towards a helicopter that’s actively shooting at him, but none of the bullets are touching him. none of the corruption of the city can touch him no matter how hard it tries, because he’s too good to be corrupted. Comic Book Logic Can Be Good Sometimes Actually.

batman’s belt what??? swiss army knife who?? sorry, i only know nightwing’s bright blue escrima.

this is one of my favourite things about heroes with exceptional abilities, even more so if the hero is human. the things they can do are so far beyond the realm of normal human abilities that it’s equal parts terrifying and awe-inspiring every time they act.

he just used modified grappling wires to hook to the door of a moving helicopter, swung around the helicopter safely without hitting the blades, gained exactly the right momentum to swing upward again right through the opening of helicopter, then fought and tied up the men before they had any idea what was happening. that’s near impossible to do.

it’s stuff like this where i just sort of sigh in contentment. no matter how many times they leave out dick’s detective skills or conveniently forget that he’s actually a master planner and team leader and make him out to be this forgetful dude who makes everything up on the fly because of his “circus roots,” at least they won’t ever take away dick’s sheer physical ability honed to perfection. 

the art, too! in a few panels, dick’s drawn a little lightened or blurred. he’s moving so quickly and fighting so efficiently that he can barely be seen by the enemy. he’s got perfect form all the way through.

and THIS!

there was a helicopter that had five men shooting at him with what looks like machine guns. most people would be dead. some would run away, and be nimble enough to survive without fatal hits. there are very few people, even in fucking comic books, who can look at that hopeless situation and turn it around so quickly and thoroughly that he benefits from it instead.

i just. love nightwing.

it was funny the first time as a comic reader aware of the meme. it’s really not anymore. why the hell would you, in universe, be wearing a shirt that has a picture of your boyfriend being hit in the face by his father. 

okay that was funny. 

look at lil bitewing, so concerned for her human!!! love her sm. 

also a question as to the timeline of things. is nightwing happening before or after urban legends? 

i was so distracted by dick wearing a robe and briefs and nothing else that i didn’t register the second part until later. he slept for two days?? babs, baby, he recently had a very traumatic brain injury. why do you sound so nonchalant?

@TIM X COFFEE SHIPPERS GET FUCCCCKKKKEEDDDDD

ngl i totally forgot about that dude oops

this comic is giving so many reaction pictures. you know how you always use the worst possible picture of your friend for your friend’s contact picture? i’m just getting so many of these.

leslie!!! the titans!!! lucius!!! dick going to go see old friends!!!! the titans!!! this part made me so irrationally happy it really did. gar being the one to just. offer dick solutions with open arms. this was the best

i wish i could just copy and paste this entire scene, but that would take up way too much space, so i’m just going to talk about it instead. 

you gave me my name, nightwing, and you gave me some of the best advice i’ve received in my life: beautiful little throwback to nightwing’s origin. you’d be surprised at the amount of people who don’t know where the name came from, or who don’t know how much clark means to dick. and the fact that dick still looks up to clark as a hero, recognizes that clark isn’t always perfect and yet continues to hold him in such high esteem, and still looks back on advice that clark gave him fondly just warmed my heart so much.

for a man who has fearlessly stood up to darkseid, bruce will do a lot to avoid a conversation: “grrr. i’m the BATMAN. i’m so DARK and MYSTERIOUS. nobody knows the true me. no one ever will. i will be LONELY for the rest of my CURSED LIFE. such is the price of a hero. ignore my farmer himbo husband in the background”

but i don’t think there’s anything heroic about being a billionaire: another nod to how much dick follows clark’s example rather than bruce. yes, this was a very poignant and important criticism, and i think it’s wonderful that this was published in a pretty popular comic book. but the thing is, there is a way to be a heroic billionaire, but only in fictional universes. the way bruce, ollie, t’challa only ever use their wealth to help people. they donate massive amounts of money to charities that they themselves create so they know exactly how the money is being used. they hire people who aren’t likely to get jobs anywhere else and pay them much more than what a base living wage is. they use their power to help push progressive laws and social change. they are helping. 

dick doesn’t fully see it that way. he spent more than half his childhood the son of a billionaire, but still believes that one could be more heroic when one doesn’t have obscene amounts of wealth. whose example do you think he followed to come to that conclusion?

superman looked up to alfred pennyworth?: i mean yea alfred may have been a wildly irresponsible guardian and one hell of an enabler but goddamn if he didn’t love his kid.

you don’t need my input. you’ve thought it all through: ooooooh this line made me grin. for so long, dick’s treated clark as a mentor and a guiding figure. he’s still seen as a kid, an up and coming, snot-nosed titan with dreams of a better world. clark still thinks of him as a kid, despite watching him grow up. but this little line was something i think dick needed sorely to hear. he doesn’t need anyone’s guiding hand on his shoulder, he doesn’t need to ask for permission. he doesn’t need clark to support him the way he did when he was a teenager. he’s all grown up now, and he doesn’t need clark’s help. i imagine it was a bit of a surprise for dick to hear that. 

honestly, i couldn’t think of a better role model: ohhh but it doesn’t stop there. clark just straight up turns the tables on dick. imagine you’re dick, and you’ve looked up to this one hero your entire life, and then one day he turns to you and says that he thinks you’re so kind and smart and worthy of a person that he wants you to mentor his son!? goes to show just how much clark trusts dick.

i swear to god dick probably cries every time he hears clark compliment him because bruce is so rare and sparing with his praise that clark giving him the slightest hint of approval is just a dopamine rush.

also, now deathstroke and superman have both asked nightwing to mentor their kids. the juxtaposition is fuckin hysterical. imagine either of their reactions when they realize what kind of company they’re with

lets talk colours for a second, because i absolutely adore how classic colour tropes have been subverted in this comic, and in this general run really.

warm tones have usually (usually, not always) been associated with light and comfort and friendship and,,,,,well,,,warmth. whereas cool tones are usually used to unsettle, or make a scene seem colder and put the reader on edge. this varies if a comic only uses cool tones, or only uses warm tones, but if a comic uses both, this is generally well-used.

that isn’t the case in this run.

dark red, orange, and other warm tones have been used to symbolize danger, action, attacks. hot pink isn’t usually included in this colour group, but it’s definitely part of it in this case. in contrast, scenes that have cool colours give us the impression of slipping into a comfortable, calm scene with babs, tim, the titans, and other allies. even the beginning scene with superman has this blue, but then it transitions into something more golden coloured. dawn broke over dick, as his new idea came to light, and that was reflected in the art (and the sunrise setting.)

have there ever been times when dick’s longed for the comfort of his mask because he didn’t feel confident as dick grayson? i can’t think of any. i may be wrong, but this struck me as pretty ooc.

am i just??? gay and reading this all wrong??

cause i was under the impression that when someone says they are grateful for your friendship you don’t immediately kiss them. 

or is this like. normal straight mating rituals.

i mean he’s smiling afterward but still babs aren’t you supposed to at least make sure it’s okay first? you guys broke up a while back after you said something along the lines of “i want to be coworkers with you and nothing more because i don’t trust you or feel comfortable around you as a civilian anymore.” like lmao after you say something like that to someone i would assume that you don’t have the permission to just kiss them whenever you want.

show of hands who else got real sad when they realized dick was talking about himself in this.

sure, he could be referencing the things he’s seen blockbuster pull, and the children on the streets. but “i’ve seen money used for enforcement,” sounds a little too close to dick’s entire life being destroyed by one man threatening the circus to pay protection money for me to completely ignore. and “i’ve seen the poorest and most vulnerable blamed and punished rather than assisted” becomes a lot worse when you remember dick was thrown in juvie for a couple months until bruce was able to obtain legal guardianship, and in there, not a authority figure believed him when he told them his parents were murdered.

he’s lived this before.

a. mother. fucking. typo.

fucking why

i mean i’ve stated my distaste for the batfamily groupchat before but like. this is reaching new levels of ridiculousness. jason sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. tim sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. steph sounds like she was written by someone who doesn’t know the first thing about steph and wanted to include her for “family points!!!!!” damian’s supposed to be completely off the grid, and everyone’s searching for him. i do love the way cass texts tho.

well god fuck now i’m crying

dick got a phone call, a sorry, and a thank you out of bruce. i feel so much secondhand happiness for him, if that’s a thing. we’ll just ignore the way bruce looks ugly af and focus on the good parts okay?

and again with the colour symbolism here!

i’m either going to love this or hate this. who knows, we’ll see.

something something hearts something something pink is an evil colour something something. i need to know more about this guy but there’s definitely symbolism there. 

is it just me or does this dude look like the backstabbing traitorous absolutely motherfucking piece of shit villain that killed tadashi hamada in big hero 6?

~~

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[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Another One?!, Part 2

First > Next

Years passed them by. It’s funny how that happens when no one in the house has a distinct schedule to follow. 

The hours blending together was actually really good for them as vigilantes. People couldn’t just plan around their normal patrolling hours.

Also, it meant that they could take days off without anyone thinking much of it.

Like today.

He glared at his reflection, touching his hair for the millionth time in an attempt to fix it. Or, rather, un-fix it. He was going for a messier look, why couldn’t he just get it to cooperate?

He gave his wife a pleading look. “Help?”

She clicked her tongue and looked him up and down a few times to get a gauge for his outfit (which he had purposely made too vague for her to get an idea of what they were doing) then rested her hands on her hips. “Well, I’d love to help…”

“But…?”

“But I can’t use my expertise unless I know where we’re going. There’s certain looks for different occasions, after all.”

He sighed. “C’mon…”

She bit her lip. “Fine. Just tell me how formal I need to be.”

“Casual…” He hesitated as he mulled it over. “But not jeans casual, more like day-dress casual. And wear darker colors, you could get stains on it.”

“There, was that so hard?”

He raised his eyebrow at her. “Considering I’m sure you’ve now guessed the surprise, I’m going to say yes.”

She gave him a cheeky grin and a wink.

He pouted. Man. He’d been so careful about keeping everything a secret from her. It was their tenth anniversary, he’d wanted to surprise her. He’d pulled out all the stops, even using cash for the tickets so she wouldn’t have an easy way to trace the payments.

Only to have it spoiled because of his hair.

Dang.

Then, she laughed and he thought that maybe it wasn’t so bad that she’d found out. The smile was worth it.

She reached up and started running her fingers through his hair. “As always, your problem is that you use too much hair gel… you never learn, do you…?”

“Maybe I do it on purpose to make you mess with my hair.”

She gave him a skeptical look and then pulled away. “Done. Time to get ready for… a carnival…? No… a circus.”

He pouted.

Marinette gave him another one of those laughs before slipping into the bathroom to change.

Two hours later they sat in a circus tent. Front-row seats, of course, they weren’t stingy.

She rested her head on his shoulder as they waited for everything to start. He stole some of her popcorn and smiled at the halfhearted glare he earned. His smile dropped when she dropped some onto his head. He pulled away from her to try and pick the pieces out.

“C’mon, Mari, my hair took so long. The paparazzi always checks on us on our anniversaries. I’m a model, you can’t do this to me --.”

And then the lights dimmed. And the ringmaster walked out.

The both of them tensed. The crowd was buzzing with excitment, but the two vigilantes gave each other wary looks. The ringmaster seemed almost anxious, his knuckles white on his cane.

Still, he gave a brilliant smile to the crowd as he announced the first act.

They relaxed the longer they watched. Nothing seemed to be going wrong, the contortionist was absolutely fine. So was the person doing aerial silks, and the clowns, the snake charmer…

Maybe the ringmaster was just new. He seemed to be growing more and more confident with each act. False alarm.

But then the trapeze artists came onstage.

Marinette murmured something about their outfits that he didn’t catch but knew was insulting.

The young performer smiled and waved to the crowd, then started climbing the opposite ladder as his parents.

The mom grabbed ahold of the trapeze and smiled as she hooked her knees over the bar, then held her hands out for her husband. The man jumped out and caught her hands.

And then the wire snapped.

The couple barely had a chance to scream before they hit the dirt.

The tent was completely silent.

And then the chaos started. Parents rushed to cover their kids’ eyes, people stumbled over each other as they ran, others surged forward to see better.

He could feel Marinette hop the railing in front of them to go check their pulses. There was no need, everyone could see it plainly, but she still tried.

Adrien didn’t move, his eyes locked on the kid.

He was standing there. He was hugging himself tightly, shaking, tears spilling over his cheeks.

He needed help.

A hand wrapped around his wrist. Marinette was pulling him out of the tent. He didn’t want to leave the kid alone but he couldn’t do that as Adrien Agreste. They needed to transform.

It took way too long to find a hiding place because people were already hiding in every obvious place they could think of. After a while they just broke into a trailer and dropped some money on the counter as an apology, unable to waste any more time.

They ran back into the tent and found that, to their horror, the police were there already.

Marinette mumbled a curse. “You deal with the kid, I’m going to steal some evidence before they get rid of it all.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek and then practically disappeared.

Adrien found his way over to the child, who had been covered in a shock blanket. They flinched when he got closer and he gave his most award-winning smile as he held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, I don’t want to hurt you, I promise.”

They looked kind of skeptical, but they did scoot over a little on their bench so he could sit down.

He sat as far away as he could, setting his baton at his feet carefully. “What’s your name, kiddo?”

His eyes never wavered from the front of the tent. It was like he was waiting for something or someone, but Adrien couldn’t guess what.

“Dick.”

“Well, Dick, do you have any family that I can take you to?”

Maybe that was what he was waiting for --?

“No.”

His smile disappeared. Ah. Not great.

He followed his gaze to the door and mulled everything over.

The kid didn’t seem to be in much of a rush, the shock was wearing off but it would still make the passage of time kind of weird for him. Adrien could take the time to think his next words through.

He’d met kids who had lost their last remaining family members before. Sometimes Marinette and Adrien just couldn’t get there in time and she wouldn’t be able to bring them back. It was an inevitable and unfortunately common part of their jobs. But every single time felt like a punch to the gut.

But he couldn’t let that show, not really.

He watched the kid out of the corner of his eyes. You always base your approach on how the kid is reacting in the moment. Some wanted open comfort, but this one didn’t want that if the way he’d flinched when Adrien had come close was any indication. Others wanted to just talk, also not going to happen considering the short answers he’d been given thus far. This kid seemed to just want to be left alone, but leaving a child in a vulnerable state was never a good idea.

So, what was he supposed to do?

He sighed. “I’m really sorry about what happened, these kinds of accidents --.”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

Adrien blanked. “Sorry?”

“It wasn’t an accident.” Dick hugged the blanket tighter around himself. “There was two guys. Mean-looking. Tried to get Mr. Haly to do some… protection payments? Left all mad and stuff. Said they would get paid or get payback.”

He was so shocked that the kid had given an answer with more than a few words in it that his brain buzzed right past the information he was given and he had to backtrack to actually process it.

And, when he did, his fists clenched.

“Did they mention any names?” He asked quietly, fighting to keep his voice level. This was still a kid who needs help, he couldn’t allow his anger to mess that up.

“Zucco.”

Adrien filed that information away for later and then gave the kid a once-over. They were no longer staring at the door, instead just fidgeting under their blanket. It was good that they were coming out of shock, but he doubted that Dick would see it that way. The numbness would be wearing off soon, and the feelings that would come to take its place would be painful.

He did the only thing he could think of: try and distract the kid. Good to see he’s passing on the unhealthy coping mechanisms.

“Hey, are you going to stay in the circus?”

“Can I?” Said Dick. He didn’t seem all that excited, just confused. As if he hadn’t thought that an option.

Adrien shrugged. “I mean, there’s that whole thing about ‘running away and joining the circus’. Even if they force you into an orphanage, you can probably just come back here.”

“I hear orphanages suck.”

True. He doubted that Dick would get the mental health treatment he needed (if he got any at all) and the money at those kinds of places were always stretched thin, especially in Gotham. He didn’t like the idea of sending the kid there, but what other choices did he have?

Before he could really think of an answer a hand clapped itself over his shoulder.

He barely even looked back. He knew who it was going to be. He fought back a groan.

“Ross,” he said, the smile on his face becoming more strained. He wasn’t going to fight in front of Dick, the kid was already stressed enough. “Nice to see you again.”

The cop didn’t seem all that concerned about niceties, his grip tightening on Adrien’s shoulder. “Get away from my witness.”

“He has a name. And he doesn’t know anything. Leave him alone.”

Dick frowned. “But I --.”

Marinette popped up out of nowhere, arms crossed over her chest as she openly glared at the officer. “You guys should keep better track of the evidence you actually do have, someone might take it.”

Officer Ross went pale and then ran to his partner to ask where the evidence was.

Adrien was also pale, though for different reasons. This kid didn’t know that the police were corrupt and that telling them anything would likely end in him getting killed? He couldn’t let that happen. Where could he keep him that they wouldn’t check? An orphanage or the circus wouldn’t work, those would be the first places they’d go…

He brought a smile to his face as he carefully leaned towards the kid. To his delight, he didn’t flinch or lean away. Progress!

“Hey, I’ve got some friends that I think I can give you to. Good people. They’ll take care of you until we can find something more permanent, sound good?”

Dick looked a little skeptical but he nodded.

Adrien carefully scooped the kid up in his arms and looked at his wife. “I’m going to take him, you can go home for the night and relax.” He sent her a discreet wink.

She smiled faintly and gave Dick a tiny wave before slipping out of the tent.

Good. She’d understood.

~

She had definitely not understood.

You see, winks are ambiguous.

Adrien’s wink had meant ‘Get home and brush up on your acting skills because we need to sell this’.

She had thought his wink had meant ‘It’s our anniversary and we shouldn’t be working anyways. Go ahead and head home, we’ve already done too much and I want to relax with my darling wife’.

So, when she’d gotten home she’d detransformed and slipped into some comfy pajamas and plopped herself down on the couch to watch some TV.

And then the door had opened.

She’d smiled and poked her head up. “Back already? That was quick --.”

Adrien was still holding Dick to himself.

Tikki gave a quiet gasp of surprise and zipped between the couch cushions.

Her husband smiled. “Hey, can I cash in a favor?”

Marinette opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, and then pursed her lips tightly. She couldn’t exactly say ‘no’, because now that she thought about it they really didn’t have any other options (kids have a tendency to have no filter and this one seemed to lack any common sense at all if she was judging by his outfit)...

Didn’t mean she couldn’t be bitter. They should have had more of a conversation about this than a wink, and she was going to tell him that:

“I don’t know, Chat, my husband isn’t here right now. This is the kind of thing you’re supposed to discuss with your partner.”

Adrien winced almost imperceptibly and had the decency to look sheepish. “I’m sure he’d be fine with it. Please, I have nowhere else I can take him.”

She bit her lip and looked at the kid, then squeezed her eyes shut.

There was a more selfish reason that they both wanted to do this…

They wanted kids. It had just never really been an option for them. If she wanted to get pregnant, she would pretty much have to give up crime-fighting for those nine months (and possibly permanently, that stuff has long-term effects). They couldn’t really bring themselves to adopt, either, because their lives were hectic and every single book in the world says that adoptees need a stable home.

She couldn’t let their wishes cloud their judgment. She was supposed to be the rational one. They would certainly mess this kid up, taking him wasn’t an option…

But leaving him wasn’t an option…

And it was kind of like the universe was dropping Dick into their laps…

Dick started to sniffle, bringing a hand up to wipe his eyes. Damn. She’d taken too long and now he felt rejected.

Her heart clenched. The kid didn’t deserve this...

“I… we can take him… but only temporarily. We need to find a better home for him eventually.”

It was best that none of them got their hopes up. This wasn’t a good solution, just the only one they could think of at the moment. At some point they’d think of a better one, and they’d have to do that.

Adrien and Dick both nodded.

Marinette slowly walked over and leaned down slightly to be at the kid’s eye level. “I’m Marinette Agreste. What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Richard. You can call me Dick, though.”

Listen. She wasn’t proud of what she’d said. But she’d never heard it before -- she was far less social than Adrien was -- and, really, how do you get the name ‘Dick’ from ‘Richard’?

“I don’t think you understand how much I cannot do that.”

Adrien had had to set Dick down, he was laughing so hard.

~

When he came home (as Adrien, this time), he was surprised to see Marinette stress baking.

He wasn’t sure why he was surprised, adopting a child is a stressful situation even if you had been expecting it. And they definitely had not been expecting it.

He watched her bake for a moment in the doorway.

She clicked her tongue. “Are you just going to watch me bake or are you going to come inside? Or do I have to make a ‘look what the cat dragged in’ joke everytime I see you, now?”

He smiled and took a seat on the counter. “What’re you making?”

“Cookies.” She turned around for some flour and then sent him a half-hearted glare when she saw him sitting next to it. “I was using that counter.”

“Unfortunate.”

Marinette clicked her tongue again and then moved to another spot. “When...” She grimaced a little. “When… the kid wakes up from a nightmare -- because there’s no way that he wouldn’t have one after tonight -- I’d like to at least have something sweet ready for him. I know we’re not his parents or whatever, but he should at least feel welcome while he’s here.”

He sobered a little, pulling a knee to his chest. “The whole vigilante thing… we’re going to have to put it on hold for a little while, you know…”

“There’s no way we can properly take care of a kid and be Chat Noir and Ladybug. Or, at least, we’d need to make some changes.” She procured a whisk out of seemingly nowhere and started whisking the batter.

He raised his eyebrows. “Changes?”

“We could take shifts. I’d take night shifts as Ladybug and day shifts parenting the kid. You do the opposite.”

“We’d burn out,” said Adrien with a sigh.

“Well, what are we supposed to do? Give the city over to Superman? Guy is shady enough as it is.”

He rolled his eyes. “He’s not shady, you just can’t handle people being nice to you.”

“MY POINT IS that we can’t just stop protecting the city. Especially not if the mob is going after circuses of all things.”

“Yeah, why are they doing that? Is there really money from circuses? Aren’t they all going out of fashion because of that whole ‘animal abuse’ thing most of them have going on?”

“As they should,” she murmured. She finished whisking and started searching for something in the drawers. She procured a scoop and started making rows of cookies. “But, probably, smuggling. No one bats an eye when circuses cross borders, that’s kind of their whole thing.”

He nodded slowly. “Fair enough. Still seems like a hassle, especially now that they’re probably going to be more heavily regulated because those people died.”

“Well, hopefully their sacrifice won’t be in vain. The bit of trapeze wire I stole from the police might give us some leads on the guy’s pseuds.”

“Are you calling up Nygma?”

She shrugged and set the cookies in the oven. “Kinda. He hasn’t done anything in three months, so he’s due any day now. I’ll talk to him about it after saving whoever he captured this time… unless you want to talk to him instead?”

He grinned. “No, I could never go instead of you. You like making fun of his outfit too much.”

“Awwww, thanks, Chaton,” she cooed. She took a seat next to him and pressed a short kiss to his lips. “You know me so well.”

“Well, we’ve been partners for fifteen years. You’d hope I’d know you by now.”

She smiled faintly and leaned into him. She watched the timer tick down for a little while in silence, biting her lip.

“What’s wrong?”

“I mean, even if the trapeze was sabotaged, what are the chances that the acid is something special that we can trace to him? One of us is going to have to go undercover.”

He raised his eyebrows. “And leave Dick alone?”

“There’s no way Zucco is only going after this one place. We can’t take back what’s happened to him, but we can at least make sure he’s the only one to have to go through this.”

Adrien frowned. She was right, though he hated it. While they had given themselves the obligation of taking care of Dick, they couldn’t just drop everything for him. Especially considering their jobs.

“Okay, M’lady, what’s the plan?”

“Well, I hear that the circus is looking for new trapeze artists.”

~

She smiled as she set the last of the cookies in the Tupperware and started heading towards Dick’s new room.

Her conversation with Adrien had gone a lot better than she was expecting, honestly. She’d explained her reasoning for why it would be safe now and he’d, however reluctantly, agreed that she’d made sense.

She decided she’d wait a few days for everything to end up in the news properly before asking to join the circus. After all, it would be suspicious if she called just a few hours after a tragedy.

She stopped outside the former guest room and considered knocking… and then decided she’d better not. On the off chance that Dick wasn’t having a nightmare, she didn’t want to wake him.

She pressed the door open and then stopped cold when she saw that the kid was crying.

Marinette glanced behind her, wondering if she could get away with just walking past and acting like she was going to the bathroom or something. She wasn’t good with emotions, not with people close to her. Random people on the street were fine, people she’d never have to interact with again were fine, but this…

She was not nearly as good as Adrien… but Adrien was asleep, the fucker...

“Miss Marinette?” Said the kid.

She winced mentally and reached along the wall for the light. “Yes, sweetie, it’s me.”

The light flicked on and she saw Dick duck his head so his hair would hide his face.

“I brought cookies,” she said awkwardly as she walked over and took a seat on the edge of his bed. “I didn’t know what you’d like, so I just went with chocolate chip.”

He nodded slightly and mumbled his thanks as he took the Tupperware from her.

She bit her lip as he nibbled at her cookies, and then couldn’t help but smile at the way his posture relaxed a little.

“These are good.”

“My parents were bakers. I’d have been disowned if I couldn’t make chocolate chip cookies.”

He cracked the tiniest of smiles.

She floundered again in the new silence. There’s a difference between comfortable silences and awkward ones and this was definitely feeling more on the awkward side.

“I could teach you to bake, if you’d like. I doubt you had time to learn on the road.”

He hesitated. “I’d burn the place down.”

“That’s okay. If I could teach Adrien to cook then there’s hope for anyone.”

She had not, in fact, been able to teach Adrien to cook. He had set the entire kitchen on fire in what they now called The Brownie Incident… but Dick didn’t need to know that.

He smiled a little more and leaned back against the bed frame, still eating cookies. He had to be on his third one by now. She wasn’t going to call him out on it, though.

She glanced him over. He was no longer really hiding his face, and the tears had stopped sliding down his cheeks. He seemed content. She didn’t want to drag any feelings back, but...

“Would you like to talk about your nightmare?” She asked quietly.

“No.”

She winced internally. “Okay. Would you like me to leave?”

“No.”

Marinette let a little bit of surprise show on her face for just a second before slowly scooting over to lay next to him. She took a cookie he offered her and closed her eyes, relaxing a little.

“Are you going to sleep again?”

“No.”

“That’s okay. Do you want that baking lesson now?”

Dick giggled a little. “But we already have cookies…”

“Well, we don’t have any cakes, now, do we? Or brownies. And there’s other types of cookies!”

She peeked an eye open and couldn’t help but smile a little at the grin on the kid’s face at the mention of all the possibilities.

Then he gave her a suspicious look. “Are you trying to fatten me up like an evil witch?”

“Yes,” she said gravely. “I adopt little circus kids and fatten them up to eat. The entire house is actually made of candy.”

To her surprise and slight horror, he actually brought the corner of his blanket to his mouth. Then he spat it out. “Liar!”

“I…” She trailed off. She didn’t know how to respond to that. Moving on. “So, about that baking thing, how do brownies sound?”

He grabbed her by the sleeve of her pajama shirt and pulled her out into the halls with a bright smile. She had to do a half-jog to keep up with him.

“Shhhh, Mister Adrien is asleep!” He stage-whispered.

She scoffed. “Me?! You’re the one running!”

“Shhhhhhhhh!”

Marinette clicked her tongue once and allowed him to pull her into a full on jog as they raced through the house. Really, it was a testament to how tired he was that Adrien didn’t wake up.

She grinned and offered him a hand to get up on the counter, and then was reminded of the fact that he was a literal trapeze artist as he vaulted off of her hand and jumped over her head to get to it.

She whispered a quiet “holy shit” in English, then covered her mouth with her hand. She and Adrien had a sort of unspoken rule that you can only curse in English, it’s just a weird thing that bilingual households do where cursing in the second language just doesn’t count, but now this was an actual kid who spoke (as far as she was aware) only English. She can’t teach him curse words!

But he didn’t seem to hear it, instead smiling as he reached towards the sink and started cleaning his hands.

She washed her hands after him and then started pulling down things to make brownies. Should she do chocolate chips or just cocoa powder…?

She remembered The Brownie Incident.

She shivered.

Cocoa powder. Definitely cocoa powder.

She put some butter in the microwave.

“What does ‘holy shit’ mean?”

She wheezed. “Uh-- I-- um--.”

“I’m just messing with you. I already know.”

Oh thank fuck.

Well, maybe not. She was kind of glad that he was feeling comfortable enough to joke around with her, but… the idea of him secretly being a little shit, while not necessarily surprising, was a bit worrying.

“Okay… good? Just… don’t swear in front of Adrien. I don’t really care, but if he hears you he might think I taught you… so it’s just our little secret, okay?”

He smiled and made a zipping motion across his lips. She copied the motion.

Aw, she’d almost forgotten how cute kids were when they weren’t in dangerous or sad situations.

The microwave beeped and she hummed as she combined the butter, cocoa, and sugar. She stirred a bit and then handed Dick the eggs.

“Here, you can crack three of them into the bowl. Do you know how to do that?”

He huffed. “Yes!”

He, in fact, did not know how to do that.

She watched in open-mouthed horror as he attempted to just pull the egg open without cracking it.

“N… no, sweetie. You need to break it on the counter, first.”

He nodded and then slammed the egg on the counter.

Marinette wiped some egg off of the front of her shirt and then took a few breaths to steady herself. Now that the shock had worn off, she was very tempted to laugh and she was not going to do that to this poor, confused kid.

“I think I did it wrong.”

She snickered and then coughed to cover it up. “I… yes. I’ll show you how to do it.”

He gave a tiny smile as she took his hand and taught him how to crack an egg. He repeated the process with the other two eggs and she worked at cleaning up the mess he’d made.

… how the fuck was there egg on the wall? That was a good seven feet away from the island they were cooking on. Sure, he had to be strong to be an acrobat, but what the fuck?

She sighed and set the napkin done now that he was done and smiled as she added the vanilla, salt, and flour.

She handed him a spatula.

“Stir. Go wild, kid,” she said, 

Big mistake.

Dick took her words to heart, and she watched as he stirred madly, batter flying everywhere.

She laughed, only to get splashed with the batter.

She managed to stop his hand and sent him a tiny glare.

“I'm starting to think you’re doing this on purpose.”

“Whaaaat? No.”

She narrowed her eyes slightly, and then gasped when he lobbed a tiny bit of batter at her shirt.

“Oops,” he said, giving her a feral grin.

Marinette couldn’t help but smile back… then she reached past him and grabbed a handful of flour. She flicked her fingers and smiled when it got on his face.

He pouted and started rubbing his eyes. “Ow…”

Panic.

“Oh, sorry, did I get it in your eyes?” She leaned down. “Let me see.”

He nodded and slowly brought his hands away from his face and she checked his eyes with her fingers carefully --.

Only to feel an egg smash itself on top of her head.

She wiped some egg from her face and narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll get you for that one, you traitor!”

He squealed and set the batter down, then did a backroll away from her.

Marinette and Dick grabbed their weapons…

An hour later, they were both breathing heavily.

“Truce?” She said, lowering her flour-covered arm.

He nodded slowly… and then threw an egg at her.

She dodged it easily and glared at him, her hand already reaching for her flour again —.

“Now truce! Now truce.”

She hesitated, then clicked her tongue as she let herself relax.

They looked around the mess that was the kitchen... at the batter still somehow untouched on the counter… the oven, which hadn’t even been preheated yet…

“Do you just want to eat the batter?”

“Let me get some spoons.”

A few hours later, Adrien walked in… only to stop short when he saw his wife and new kid there, covered in cooking ingredients. Dick had fallen asleep with his head on her shoulder. She was fine with this, there was still some batter left.

“Um…?”

“Brownies are cursed,” she told him, then she took another spoonful.

“What?” Said a bewildered and still half-asleep Adrien.

She looked her husband dead in the eye as she pulled the spoon from her mouth with a tiny ‘pop’.

“Brownies are cursed.”

~

Adrien felt bad homeschooling the kid.

Really, it had brought him a lot of grief growing up. He hadn’t known anyone besides Chloe and Kagami until he was twelve years old.

But, as it turned out, Dick really needed to be homeschooled.

On top of just… having no formal education whatsoever and his general knowledge being a toss of the dice, it was also the middle of the school year and everyone knows you can’t just dump new kids into a class halfway through.

Adrien tipped his head back against his chair and closed his eyes.

Dick was taking a test to see what he had to teach him, but he wasn’t concerned about the kid cheating. What was he going to do? Sneak away, grab a textbook, and start flipping through it without him noticing?

He sighed.

The kid was… weird.

He was always smiling, always in motion, always affectionate. It was something they’d figured out quickly, but it had taken longer to notice that he was only like that when he was talking about things he actually wanted to. If they asked how he was doing, because it had only really been a week since it had happened, he would clam up and start semi-subtly shifting the conversation away.

He was avoiding his problems. And Marinette and Adrien really didn’t know what to do. He had stolen their unhealthy coping mechanism and now they were forced to stand back and watch as the kid destroyed himself the same way they did. And they knew it was a terrible coping mechanism, even Dick might have known it, but what were they supposed to do? They had been around much longer and they hadn’t found a better mechanism, what could they do for Dick?

He peeked an eye open and looked at the kid, who was chewing on the end of his pen as he thought through the question he was on.

… damn, he was actually going to have to learn how to cope, huh?

So, that afternoon, he passed Dick off to Marinette like a baton in a relay race and took a bus to the bookstore.

The psychology section was huge and filled to the brim with case studies. It was honestly daunting to look at. Instead, he made his way to the clerk.

The woman looked him up and down once. “Rough week?”

“You have no idea,” he muttered. “Can I have some recommendations for books on adoption, parenting, and coping with trauma? And also a highlighter, that would probably help.”

He skimmed through the parenting and adoption books. He and Marinette had already done this a few years back when they had first been considering kids, he was mostly just getting a refresher.

And then he turned to the five books on coping mechanisms he’d bought.

He took a deep breath and started looking methodically reading his way through it, highlighter in hand.

The next day, he found Dick, who was drumming his fingers on the table as he glared at the textbook in front of him.

Adrien had some suspicions about the kid in front of him, though he wasn’t absolutely sure yet. Still, he figured he should test his theory.

Besides, it would also help keep the kid safe and physical activity was one of the things a book on coping mechanisms had suggested.

Multi-tasking!

Or maybe it was just efficiency…

Whatever!

He smiled. “Hey, kid, want to try something different for today’s lesson?”

Dick looked up, frowning. “Like what?”

“Well… how do you feel about learning self-defense?”

~

“Where are you going?” Asked Dick with a tiny frown as she started bustling around the living room in search of her shoes.

“Uh… work!” She said.

They’d both agreed that telling Dick that she was going to go do the exact job his parents had just died in was a terrible idea, so they’d thought up a cover story… too bad she couldn’t think of it at the moment. She finally saw her shoes tucked under the couch and dove down to grab them, then sent her kid a smile.

“Have a good day, sweetie, I’ll see you later,” she said, walking over and pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

She ducked out the door and started running all over again. Her eyes found their way to her watch. It was a tryout and she was going to be late…

But she wasn’t.

Barely.

She stumbled inside with one minute to spare, panting, and it took everything in her not to slump over the nearest bench and die.

“Hi,” she wheezed at Haly, who raised his eyebrows slightly at her.

“You’re really cutting it close, here. Have anything to say for yourself?”

She rested a hand over her heart as if that would somehow bring it back to normal. “I need a fucking car.”

Haly paused, then nodded. “That explains that. I’ll let you off with a warning that you should try not to be late again.”

“Oka --.” She stopped, and then looked at him. “I got the job?”

He shrugged and pointed around at the empty tent. “You’re the only one here.”

Wow. She’d suspected that people would be less than eager to take the job offer, but to be the only person…

Well, she figured that she should just be thankful. That made things much easier.

She smiled faintly. “Cool. Should I still show you my skills and everything?”

He motioned to the trapeze. There was a net under it. The man had learned his lesson, at least. “Please.”

It turns out that being Ladybug is really helpful when you want to be a trapeze artist.

Actually, she found that being a trapeze artist was actually easier in some ways. Instead of having to hold tight to one thin string when swinging around, she was able to get a proper grip on a bar.

It was a lot of fun. Recently, she’d been using her cane more. Having a yoyo was impractical as a weapon when people were firing guns, so she’d more or less stopped using it. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to feel the wind in her hair. It was calming...

Also, she got to show off, which was always fun.

She stopped after a few minor tricks and gave a bow to Haly, who seemed to just be glad that she actually had an idea of what she was doing.

“You’ll need about a month of training before you do any shows. Do you have any other expertise?”

She shook her head. It was a lie, she would probably be good with aerial silks or contortionism, but she felt some weird need to do the trapeze…

Just then, her phone buzzed.

She glanced at it and read the news headline.

She groaned and turned to Haly. “Can I have a minute? I need to take this.”

The man nodded.

She scowled as she stepped out and dialled a number.

“NYGMA.”

“Ladybug!” Riddler said cheerfully. She could hear a woman sobbing in the background. “What’s up? Did you see the news?”

“Yes, I saw. I’m at a job interview!”

The smile in the man’s voice disappeared as he spoke next: “Oh, I’m sorry. I can reschedule the death trap.”

“YOU CAN, CAN YOU?”

“Yep! How does tomorrow sound?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to relax. “I can do tomorrow. Thank you. And let go of the poor lady, will you?”

“Fiiiiine.”

She hung up on him and then stepped back inside, giving Haly her brightest smile.

“I can start working in two days, if that sounds good to you.”

~

Adrien hesitated.

Really, he should be getting Marinette to train Dick on self-defense. They had similar movement styles…

But his hunch had been right. This kid seemed to learn a lot better when he was multitasking and, as much as he loved his wife, he didn’t think her English was good enough to teach someone else.

And, besides, he wanted to spend time with his kid, dang it!

He stopped Dick before he could throw another punch at the dummy to fix his form. “I know putting power into it is hard when you’re so little, but you need to rotate your hips so you can get at least some kind of force behind it.”

The kid pouted. “But this is so boooooooring. It’s just the same thing over and over again! I want to do cool stuff!”

“Not yet. You have to understand the basics before you start messing with it.”

Dick gave another pout, this time adding puppy-dog eyes, but, unfortunately for him, Adrien had never been fond of dogs. He raised his eyebrows, unimpressed.

The kid groaned and started punching the pads again.

“I before E, except after C, or when sounding like A, as in neighbor and…”

~

It didn’t take long for Marinette to notice The Guy.

She had a pretty good vantage point from the ladder to her trapeze. She would stop at the top, her hands up in a salute, and pause for ‘dramatic effect’.

Her eyes flicked over the crowd and locked on the face of The Guy.

He was at every show, his face pulled into a bored frown as he rested his head on his hand. He’d sit there the whole time, watching the same performance over and over again, and then leave the moment the show was over.

She pursed her lips for half a second before bringing her face back to its smile.

She’d brought a camera this time. This time she’d be able to get his face so she and Adrien could get information on him.

But, for now, she concentrated on making the first jump to the trapeze…

She sat down after her act, still breathing heavily. She was in shape… but, kwami, that kind of stuff is hard! Still, she couldn’t help but smile. She hadn’t been challenged in a while. It was kind of fun.

She wondered, vaguely, if this was what she’d be doing if she hadn’t gone back into crime fighting.

Marinette pushed that thought from her head as she downed her water. It wasn’t the time. She only had a few more minutes before she was on again for the outro. She needed the picture now.

She grabbed her camera from her locker and snuck her way to the stands, and pointed her camera --.

The Guy had spotted her. He looked directly at her camera, his face set in an even deeper frown than usual.

She quickly snapped the picture, then darted back behind the curtain. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. Shit! Shitshitshit --!

Okay. Breathe.

He wasn’t going to just kill her. If the way they’d offed the Graysons was any indication, they didn’t want to draw too much attention to the circus. It was unfortunate what had happened, but not suspicious. However, the trapeze was new and there was a net. An accident like that couldn’t happen again.

No, they’d probably wait until after the show. That would be fine. She could deal with that. At least then she could stall until she had energy by waiting with someone.

She felt a hand tap her shoulder and looked over at the contortionist. “Time?”

“Time,” he said simply.

She hid the camera and ran out with him, smiling like she wasn’t about to face off with a mobster.

Two hours later, she stepped into her train car and crossed her arms over her chest. “Right, I know you’re in here,” she said quietly.

Or, at least, she hoped so. Because otherwise she would be looking a little silly --.

Wait, a knife pressed to her neck. Maybe she wished she was wrong.

She clicked her tongue and leaned into her attacker, closing her eyes. “You Americans still say ‘yo’, right?”

The Guy tensed a little under her, and then whispered a confused, “No…?”

She huffed. “Damn. Why do you change your greetings so often? Whatever. Kaalki, a little help would be nice.”

“Who --?” Began The Guy, but he was quickly cut off.

Because a portal opened under them and dumped them into a back alley in Gotham.

Marinette grinned and grabbed his arm, using his confusion to lean forward and flip him over her shoulder. He cursed as his back hit the ground and the blade clattered to the floor.

She grabbed it nonchalantly and her eyes flicked over the hilt.

A name was engraved there.

Zucco.

“You mob people make this too easy. Now, tell me everything you know.”

He glared up at her. “They’ll kill me!”

“And what gave you the impression that I wouldn’t?” She twirled the knife in her fingers. “Quickly, please, I have a kid to get back to.”

A half hour later, he had spilled everything he knew.

And his guts…

She rolled off of him and glanced at the bloodied dagger in her hand. Her nose scrunched up as she dropped it beside him. There. Now it looked like a mob hit.

She pushed herself to her feet and dusted herself off, only to groan at the sight of the blood staining her front.

She gave the corpse a kick as she cursed him out:

“Asshole. I liked these clothes!”

~

He smiled as he pulled his wife into his side.

Dick had finally gone to bed, so it was just them two. For once.

Marinette had a show in an hour that she needed to portal back for, and Adrien needed to go out as Chat Noir soon, but they didn’t want to get up just yet.

She yawned and curled closer to him. “I guess…” She yawned again. “I guess I should tell you what I found out. Which is basically nothing. Apparently, hardly anyone has ever seen Zucco in person, just the higher ups. He just sends people to do his bidding.”

He groaned and buried his face in her hair. “Great. Did you at least give the sample to Nygma when you saw him yesterday?”

“Obviously.” Her watch beeped and she mumbled a curse. “Alright, I have to go.”

“Nooooooo.”

“Yeeees,” she said, gently pushing his chest until he let go. She stretched out a bit and then walked to the bedroom door.

It swung open before she even touched the knob.

Dick was standing in the doorway, hugging a Chat Noir doll to his chest. “I had a nightmare. Can I sleep with you guys?”

Marinette glanced at her watch and then at the kid and then at her watch again.

“Or are you guys both going out again?”

Adrien winced. “You noticed that?”

“It’s, like, every night,” he said irritably. He sighed and wiped his eyes a little bit. “Fine. I’ll just go lay down again.”

She bit her lip and then leaned down to look him in the eyes. “I’ll be back in four hours, okay, sweetie? Can you handle that?”

Dick looked at the ground. “Sure.”

Marinette grimaced. “I’m sorry.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I’ll be back soon.”

They could hear the coatrack hit the ground in her hurry to grab her jacket and get out the door.

Adrien sighed and looked at Dick, who was still standing in the doorway.

He really should be going on patrol. The people of Gotham had begun to notice that Chat Noir and Ladybug had been showing up less frequently. Crime rates were rising…

He laid back in bed and opened his arms. “I won’t leave. Come here.”

Dick gave a tiny smile, though it seemed a little forced. Still, he got into bed and curled up in Adrien’s arms.

“Would you like to talk about it?” He tried.

“No.”

He sighed. “You’re going to have to talk about it, eventually. Avoiding it is just going to make it harder to deal with later.”

“Nope.”

He gave a tiny laugh. Dang. This kid really was just them but younger. Now all he needed was a miraculous and he’d be a perfect mini version of them…

“Where do you guys even go?” Asked Dick, his voice muffled in Adrien’s chest.

“Work,” he said after a few minutes’ deliberation.

“I thought you didn’t really have jobs.”

He laughed quietly. “Marinette has a million jobs, and I have my one. Though we don’t really get paid for what we do most of the time.”

“Why do you do it, then?”

Adrien raised his eyebrows slightly, then gave a tiny shrug. “Why did you do the trapeze?”

He’d meant for it to be a rhetorical question, meant for it to be something that would make Dick change the subject, so it was a complete surprise when the kid whispered: “It was all that I knew.”

Internally, he was screaming. It was happening! Finally! He had opened up a little bit!

Externally, he nodded and rubbed circles into the kid’s back. “Hopefully, we can make it so it’s not all you know. Help you branch out a little bit while you’re here.”

He felt tiny hands clutch the back of his shirt. “Can’t do that when you’re always gone.”

“I know,” he mumbled, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

They stayed in silence for a long time. Adrien was pretty sure that Dick had fallen asleep, but he wasn’t going to move. The kid had noticed that they were gone often, but the two of them had always made sure to wait until he had fallen asleep to leave. He had to be waking up at least once a night, so…

He held the kid close to his chest.

A few hours later, the door creaked open.

Adrien opened an eye blearily and saw Marinette get into bed. He lifted an arm for Marinette to join the cuddle and smiled faintly when she actually did.

He let himself drift off.

~

A few days later, Marinette and Adrien came back from patrols to find Dick talking to the kwamis. All of them gave sounds of surprise when they saw the two vigilantes in the door and disappeared except for Trixx, who turned and fixed their purple eyes on them.

Marinette pursed her lips tightly for a second, considering what to say, and then decided on: “What the fuck, guys?”

Adrien removed his arm from around her waist so he could bury his face in his hands.

Trixx smiled. “It’s not what it looks like. He found us.”

“He…” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “So… you’re telling me that this kid pushed our bed aside, pulled up the exact right floorboard, and pulled out the miracle box...”

“... yes.”

“Forgive me for being skeptical, but I’m not buying it.”

Dick pouted and hugged the tiny fox to his chest. “Are you mad at her?”

Marinette hesitated.

Before Dick had known about the kwamis, they had a chance of giving him back. They would have been able to find better parents for him, been able to give him a genuinely good life. But now… they couldn’t risk giving him up. The reason they’d taken him in in the first place was that he was relatively loose-lipped. Now that he knew something so important, there was no way in hell that they could risk him ever telling anyone.

Of course, she doubted they would have been able to give up Dick anyways. She’d grown annoyingly attached to the kid, he was sweet and generally made her life a little more fun, but now there wasn’t an option at all.

Still, this part of their lives… beyond needing to keep things a secret, it was extremely dangerous to involve a kid in this kind of thing.

Adrien answered first: “No, we’re not mad. Just… this wasn’t exactly the plan.”

“And what was the plan? Never telling me that we have a bunch of… what did they call themselves? Kwamis? Whatever, they’re gods. There are just gods living in our house!”

Marinette shrugged. “We weren’t telling you because we didn’t want you to get dragged into this part of our lives, sweetie.”

Dick huffed. “And are there any other secrets that I should know about?”

“They’re Ladybug and Chat Noir,” supplied Trixx.

“TRIXX?!”

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY’RE CHAT NOIR AND LADYBUG?!”

The fox kwami laughed and disappeared.

Marinette scowled. “I know you’re still here, Trixx, where are you? I will hunt you.”

“Please, Mari, you don’t need to do that. Just get the fox miraculous and summon her here, it’s much easier.”

“Smart.”

“WHY HAVE YOU STILL NOT DENIED IT?!”

Marinette and Adrien looked at each other awkwardly.

Well… the secret was out.

She opened her purse and he opened his jacket, and their kwamis slowly poked their heads out to look at Dick.

Poor kid was not prepared.

He covered his eyes with his hands and took a few deep breaths. “So… I… wow…”

Well, she supposed there could be worse reactions.

“Wait, so are you investigating what happened with my parents?”

Like that. That was a worse reaction. Fuck.

Marinette carefully took a seat on the floor by her kid. Adrien sat down as well.

“We’re working on it,” she said carefully. “I’m following a lead and I got help from a… an associate of ours.”

Adrien nodded. “It will take a while. It’s just the two of us -- and Nygma, I guess -- so it’s not going to be done quickly.”

Dick removed his hands from his eyes and looked at them both. “I want to help.”

“No,” said both adults instantly.

“But --.”

“Nope,” said Marinette.

“I --.”

Adrien held up his hands. “Not allowed.”

Dick pouted and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why not? They’re my parents.”

Marinette shook her head slowly. “It has nothing to do with that. You’re a kid, we can’t just let you fight crime.”

“Oh? And when did you start fighting crime?”

“Eighteen,” said Marinette, which technically wasn’t a lie…

Which means it was unfortunate that Adrien gave a more accurate answer: “I was twelve, she was thirteen.”

She groaned and rested her head in her hands. “Damn it, Adrien.”

“So, when I’m twelve, can I join you guys?”

Marinette pursed her lips tightly. She didn’t want to be a hypocrite, but she also didn’t want to let an actual kid fight crime. She had fought crime as a kid, it had messed her up. She wasn’t eager to pass that on to someone else…

But…

“Fine. How about this: if we don’t solve it by the time you’re twelve you can join us for that case specifically.”

Dick pouted a little, but seemed to understand. “Okay.”

She and Adrien met eyes. They had three years to solve this case before Dick would get involved, and they couldn’t let that happen.

But it was three years.

How hard could it be?

~

He and Marinette sat on the floor in front of the miracle box, sorting the miraculi into two different piles: ‘Will Protect’ and ‘Can’t Protect’.

Once that was done, they started sifting through the ‘Will Protect’ pile.

“Turtle?” Marinette said.

Adrien shook his head. “Doesn’t fit his fighting style. Bee?”

She shuddered. “Don’t need another Chloe. Snake?”

They tipped their heads from side to side as they considered it, but then Trixx piped up: “I’m right here, y’know.”

The two vigilantes jumped out of their skin. Then they glared at the kwami.

“Must you always sneak up on us?”

“Yes. Anyways, I’m the best fit for the kid and you know it.”

Marinette pursed her lips. Adrien raised his eyebrows.

It was true. From the moment they’d started considering giving Dick a miraculous (because, even if they doubted he was ever going to get to that point, they figured they should at least make sure he was safe), they’d both been eyeing the fox miraculous…

Thing was…

“You’re just going to tell him more of our secrets,” he complained, sighing.

Trixx crossed their paws over their chest. “Do you really have any other secrets you care about?”

They considered this for a minute, before Marinette clicked her tongue.

“Fine. Fine! Adrien, you’ll need to train him on his powers, your secondary powers are closer than mine. I’ll take up sparring to teach him a fight style that better matches his circus training.”

Adrien pouted and fell back until his head hit her lap. “You don’t think I was teaching him well enough? Because our fight styles and training were completely different? I’m wounded, M’lady. I’ll never recover.”

She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his lips.

He smiled. “I’ve been cured.”

She clicked her tongue.

Adrien smiled…

And then her watch beeped. He groaned and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her stomach. “Nooooo, don’t gooooooooooo.”

“I can’t just not go, Chaton.”

“Why nooooot? It would be so easy.”

She slowly peeled his arms off of her, smiling fondly. “Relax. I’ll be back later. Hang out with… with Di --... Nope. With the kid. Maybe train him a little in his powers or whatever.”

He laid on the floor with a pout as he watched her leave, and then looked down at the necklace in his hands.

Well, he supposed he might as well. What else could he do? Protect the city? Nah.

He walked to his kid’s room and rolled his eyes when he saw the kid standing with his ear pressed to the wall.

“Hello?”

Dick’s face reddened and he turned to Adrien with a bright smile. “It’s not what it looks like.”

Wow, he really was a good fit for Trixx.

He sighed and offered the necklace. “You’re not in trouble. C’mon, we’re going to teach you to use these powers.”

Trixx floated over to rest on Dick’s shoulder and Adrien waved him along to the training room.

Adrien held up a hand before walking to the window and quickly shutting the curtains.

He smiled as the kid transformed.

Adrien stretched lazily. “Right, on your back right now is a flute. It… works like a flute. You can play music with it if you want, and also hit people with it if you want. It also summons your power.”

Dick nodded and pulled it off his back. “What can I do?”

“You play a note and envision an illusion of some sort. The limit is just your imagination.”

“Like a Green Lantern?”

“I… kind of. You just have illusions, if you touch them they disappear.”

“That sucks.”

“I guess. Alright, so you’re probably going to have side-effects.”

He watched the kid’s eyes widen and rushed to explain: “It usually isn’t bad. Just weird. It’s why I like to sit on counters and why Mari’s always so cold. It also changes looks a little. Like… Mari has a lot more white in her eyes and my hair has those two little tufts that I have to gel down.”

Dick’s shoulders relaxed a little. “Okay. So… powers.”

“Yep.”

He pulled out his flute.

Adrien smiled. “Right, let’s start simple. The main thing you need is a clear vision. I’m going to close my eyes and you’re going to make something appear in the room. If you’re doing it right then it should appear real, if not then we’ll figure out what’s going wrong.”

He closed his eyes and waited for a few seconds after he heard the shrill note of the flute. Then he opened his eyes.

And came face to face with a giant, bright pink inflatable elephant.

“I…”

Dick grinned. “Think we should address the elephant in the room?”

He blinked once, then broke into a matching grin. “You’re what’s been missing from my life. Oh my kwami. That was beautiful.”

Then he actually went to inspect the elephant. It was pretty good. The lighting was a little off but it wasn’t plainly obvious it was fake, if he wasn’t paying attention he doubted he would’ve noticed. That made sense. Powers were usually pretty instinctual.

He nodded slowly. “Now try something that makes sound.”

Dick brought the flute to his lips and played another note.

He had expected the elephant to disappear and get replaced by something. Instead, it let out a high whine as the air in it slipped out of a new gash on its side.

Adrien smiled.

“Nice.” He sighed and let his smile lessen. Now for the reason they had thought the fox miraculous could be used for protection: “Okay. Make yourself disappear.”

He got a frown for that one. “Sorry?”

“It’s… you’re still a kid. You need to know how to cloak yourself so you don’t get hurt. We can’t really stop you from coming with us in an ethical way, but we need to at least make sure you’ll be okay if you come along.”

Dick frowned. “I thought you were going to let me help.”

“In three years. If we haven’t already solved this case yet. And if we think that you’re going to be able to handle it.”

“But --.”

“We were heroes at a young age. True. We weren’t ready for it, though, and we don’t want to screw up a kid in the same way we were screwed up. That’s the whole thing about having kids, we want you to have a better life than we did.”

The kid gave an annoyed expression before bringing his flute to his lips. With a shrill note, the annoyed face disappeared.

Adrien tipped his head from side to side as he considered this. He was pretty sure that he could sense something off, but he wasn’t sure if that was just his mind messing with him because he knew that Dick was there…

He walked towards where he’d last seen him to make sure and then stopped short when he realized what was off. His feet weren’t making any sound.

There wasn’t any sound at all, actually.

“You’ve done too much. You got rid of all sound, not just your own.”

Dick appeared, a grin on his face.

“This is boring. Can we make it into a game? Like hide-n-seek?”

Adrien hesitated, then shrugged. “Don’t see why not.” He brought his hands up to cover his eyes. “Thirty… twenty-nine…”

~

She hummed absently as she and Dick stretched to warm up.

She was a little jealous, if she was honest, he was way more flexible than she was even though he was out of practice and she wasn’t. She’d been stretching before this kid was even born. How dare he still be more flexible than her.

Still, she rolled to her feet and offered him a hand up.

Dick’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly and he did a backhandspring from the floor.

How the fuck?

But she wasn’t going to act like this was an amazing thing. She was already bitter enough about his flexibility, admitting that he was also better at gymnastics would be even worse.

Instead, she grinned. “Hey, kid, what should we call you?”

He thought for a minute, taking his flute out and twirling it in his hand like a baton. “Robin?”

“I…” She held up a finger to say ‘one minute’ and then pulled out her phone. After a quick google search to make sure they were talking about the same animal, she gave her kid a confused look. “You’re a fox.”

“Yes.”

“Robins are birds.”

“Yes.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She really didn’t know why she asked a kid who called himself ‘Dick’ to name himself. Really, she should have expected this.

Marinette shrugged to herself. “Fine. I’m just gonna keep calling you ‘sweetie’.”

“Okay!” He stopped twirling his flute and pointed it at Marinette. “So, you’re going to teach me to use my circus training for fighting?”

She sighed and pulled out her cane, leaning against it. “Right. I’ll need to check to see how well you know the basics, first, though.”

Dick groaned. “I’m ready. I feel like I’ve been ready for ages!”

“I know, I know, but I need to make sure, okay?”

He gave her an annoyed look.

Marinette pursed her lips tightly. “Okay. Fine.” She dropped her cane. “Spar with me.”

Dick’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Yep. You’ll have first swing and I won't get a weapon.”

True to her word, she let him have the first swing. She dodged and grabbed his arm, then pressed her foot to the middle of his back. He hit the ground with a groan. She pulled the flute from his hand and sent him a tired glare.

“You got lucky,” said Dick, his voice muffled against the floor.

She pulled him back to his feet. “No, you’re a child and I’ve been fighting for years. Like pretty much everyone else you’re going to fight. Which means that we can’t rush your training, okay? You have years before we let you into the field, if we do, so…”

He brushed himself off with a bitter expression.

“Fine. We drill basics.”

~

Riddler grinned, spinning around in his chair.

“Ladybug and Chat Noi --.” He stopped short, his eyes widening as they spotted something behind them. “What the heck? You guys brought a kid to this?”

He glanced behind himself and cringed lightly. He reached out and gently pulled Dick behind himself a little. Nygma had never been one for random attacks, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to make sure that this kid was safe.

And why had they brought him?

Marinette clicked her tongue once in annoyance. “Hey, sweetie, show the nice man your powers for a second.”

Dick brought his flute to his lips. With one high note he was gone.

Yep. They were really regretting giving him that miraculous right about then. They hadn’t even realized that he was coming along until Adrien had missed a jump and realized that his bones hadn’t audibly cracked like they usually did when he messed up like that.

He reappeared with a fox-like grin playing across his thin lips.

(Or maybe they just thought it was fox-like because he was currently dressed as a fox. Who knows.)

Riddler considered this for a minute, then nodded. “I understand now.”

Adrien sighed. “Yep.”

Marinette pulled out her yoyo and summoned a coloring book and some crayons. Dick beamed and plopped down on the floor to color.

The parents smiled fondly at their kid and then turned to Riddler.

“Now, you have news?” Adrien said.

“Good news and bad news.”

The adults looked at each other and gave tiny shrugs.

“Good news first,” said Marinette.

“Good news is that there’s only one person who supplies that specific acid.”

Adrien’s eyebrows knit together. That sounded good, but…

“Bad news is that she’s pretty popular. Over two-hundred customers popular.”

Ah. There it was.

Marinette covered Dick’s ears so she could curse.

Adrien, however, shrugged. “Do you have a list of her customers?”

Riddler nodded slowly. “Of course. I’ll forward it to you guys.”

“Thanks for the help, Nygma. See you in a few months.” With that, Marinette picked up Dick and held him to her hip.

“I’ll get you with the next one!”

“Mhmm. Sure.”

Adrien gave an apologetic smile and a friendly wave as he hurried out after his wife.

~

Marinette hummed absently as she pulled her jacket on, then froze up when she heard a gun click behind her head.

“Turn around. Slowly.”

She pulled a smile to her face and held her hands up in a kind of surrender, then turned around.

Wow. This man looked exactly like how gangsters looked in movies. She probably would have laughed if he wasn’t pointing a gun at her.

And, even with the gun pointed at her, she had to suppress a smile.

“Who are you?” He asked.

She frowned. “Shouldn’t I be asking that of you, sir? You’re the one attacking the random trapeze artist.”

“You’ve killed every single man I’ve sent in here to make sure everything was going to plan.”

“Maybe you should’ve sent a woman. We apparently get the job done better.”

“Who. Are. You?”

“Marinette Agreste, but I’m sure you knew that. Otherwise you wouldn’t know that I’ve killed ‘every single man you’ve sent here’.”

He scowled. “That wasn’t what I was asking and you know it.”

“Do I? Maybe you should be clearer,” she said. “Or, you could just tell me your name and I promise I would be much more compliant.”

The man seemed to consider this for a minute, his face tinged red with annoyance. She tried to push down the twinge of satisfaction. Even if this wasn’t Zucco, he at least had to be pretty high up and was likely the person who had ordered the goons to kill Dick’s parents. This bitch deserved all the hell she gave him, in her not-so-humble opinion.

“Giovanni,” he said carefully.

She smiled. “See? Was that so hard? Now, who am I...? I don’t know. I sometimes fight people. What else is there to say?”

He didn’t seem amused. “Why are you killing all my men?”

“I wouldn’t have to if they didn’t notice me noticing them every time. It’s getting very annoying. Send less observant people.”

Her eyes caught Kaalki’s. The kwami was hiding in a duffel bag that had been left open and she gave a tiny shrug to say go.

The man gave a scream as a portal sliced his hand off.

Marinette hummed absently and leaned down to pick up the gun. She pried the hand off of the gun and tossed it aside.

“WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK --.”

“I know, I know, it hurts, but could you be quieter?” She rubbed the side of her head. “Right, I have a few questions about Zucco.”

“He’d kill m --.”

“Yes. Yes, he would. But maybe you should concern yourself less with him, who has already made up his mind about killing you, and more about me, who’s still mulling it over.”

An hour later she stepped out of the changing room, humming as she tossed the gun back over her shoulder lazily.

“Haly?” She yelled, and smiled when his head popped out from his train care.

He looked stunned for a moment before he pulled himself together. “Yes?”

“I’m quitting. It’s been fun, though!”

She bit her lip as she strode out into the night.

Well, if she wasn’t already on Zucco’s radar she definitely would be now.

Greeeeaaaat.

~

It’s hard to look into people when you’re on the run from the mob.

They’d done everything they could think of. Marinette had withdrawn everything from their accounts, Adrien had altered all their appearances, Dick had... come along.

And it turns out tracking down 237 people is hard or something. Who knew.

You have to:

Figure out whether or not the person you’re after has pseuds. In order to do this you have to track their income patterns. This requires pretty high tech stuff, which they were generally trying to avoid because of the whole ‘mob out to get them’ thing.

Then, if they do have pseuds, you have to find all their assets. Then you have to go and check every single safehouse to see if it is, in fact, Zucco or someone working for him. It’s not fun. Most people in the mob are trained to not tell secrets no matter what, and getting to the point where you can get that information is… time consuming.

And they didn’t have time.

They glared at the remaining names. Dick was turning twelve tomorrow. They hadn’t even realized it because time was getting fuzzy again, but then they had come home to him hanging upside down from one of the lights on the ceiling and chanting about how close his birthday was.

After checking to make sure their kid hadn’t somehow gotten high or drunk, because what the heck, they had flown into a panic about how much work they still had to do.

“What’re the ethics of killing all 92 people tonight?” She asked, leaning back against her husband as he clicked through files.

“Even if we could, I’d say it’s probably frowned upon.”

She groaned and closed her eyes, then opened them again to glare at the papers in front of her. “How much you wanna bet that the very first one we choose after the kid joins us is going to be the right one?”

“Knowing our luck? That’s definitely going to happen.”

She gave a bitter laugh before pushing herself back up. “I’m going to break into a bakery to make a cake.”

“Cupcakes. You know he’s going to want to spend the day out in the field looking for answers, we might as well have food we can travel with.”

She clicked her tongue but nodded.

He fell back on the bed and glared at the list. He should have said they started at eighteen...

~

Well, at least it hadn’t been the first person that they’d looked into with Dick.

It had been the second.

After… ‘interogating’ the guy they’d found, they’d been given the name of this cruise ship and where it often docked. Then Dick had given them all cover so they could sneak on undetected.

And now night had hit. The three of them sat, perched on a railing as they observed the goons below them.

She watched Adrien send a wave before disappearing to take out the captain and destroy anything that could be used to contact land.

She turned to the kid next to her and reached out to ruffle his hair. “Ready, sweetie?”

Dick gave a slightly nervous smile before pulling out his flute.

“You’re only allowed to get involved if I’m dying, remember?”

He nodded, though she got the feeling that the kid wasn’t listening. Or, rather, he was listening and just opting not to take the words to heart.

She clicked her tongue once. Then she began walking along the outer edges of the ship, Dick trailing along behind her. She twirled her yoyo absently. They needed to get to the private quarters, as she was pretty sure that Zucco wouldn’t be anywhere else (he sent people out to do all his work, there was no way he was doing any work on his ship).

Then she heard laughter.

She looked up and scowled at the three henchmen who were leaning over the side of the railing above them.

“Oh my god, Ladybug has a kid!”

Her yoyo came to a stop. “Hilarious, I know.”

“Kinda! I mean the most deadly vigilantes in the world have a little kid trailing around like a lost puppy! That’s so good!”

She pressed her lips together tightly. “Mhmm. Please, tell me more...”

“Gonna say ‘or else’? Or else what? You’re going to change our diapers?”

She nodded slowly, then turned to Dick. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head. She opted to ignore the way the three roared with laughter above her at the action, instead concentrating on him.

“Sweetie, I want you to cover your eyes for a second, please. I’ll tell you when you can look again, okay?”

He nodded and brought his hands to his eyes.

She wheeled on the criminals, whose laughter was quickly dying.

“Oops,” said one of them, his voice so quiet she’d barely heard it.

But she did. And she fought off some laughter of her own. “‘Oops’ is right.”

Three minutes later, she smiled and pulled Dick’s hands away from his eyes.

“Hey, sweetie, how’re you feeling?”

He glanced behind her and she winced, expecting him to become horrified, but then he suddenly tossed his flute.

There was a satisfying ‘thunk’ as it made contact with the guy’s head and he fell over the side.

Marinette looked at Dick and gave him a tiny smile. He beamed in return.

“Thanks for the save.”

“No problem.”

She tossed her yoyo and recovered his flute for him, then took his hand. She led her kid through the ship.

~

When he caught up with them, Adrien smiled and rested a hand over the top of the kid’s head. “I found out where the private quarters are.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Follow me.”

The three of them went along in silence. Whenever they passed someone they’d casually knock them over the side. They might live that way.

But probably not.

Still, it was relatively easy.

They walked along the private quarters, poking their head in doors and then closing them.

Eventually, they came to the most grandiose-looking cabin. Really, they should have checked it first, but whatever. Marinette, Adrien, and Dick all gave each other wary looks before Adrien kicked the door open.

The poor guy had been asleep. Sucks.

Zucco looked up slowly and then gasped, reaching under his pillow and pulling out a gun.

Ah. Now that sucks for them.

Dick gave a high-pitched whine.

Marinette and Adrien instantly reached for Dick to push him behind them, only to stop short when their hands passed through clean air. They turned to look, confused expressions on their faces, only to find that the kid was gone.

Uh…

They frowned slightly and looked around. Their faces drained of color when they found their way back to where Zucco was.

Or, rather, had been. Because he was missing, too.

Marinette cursed beside him and Adrien felt like punching a wall. Dick hadn’t been making that noise because he was scared, he’d been making that noise because he’d been creating an illusion.

They had to stop Dick before he did something he would regret.

Their eyes searched the room desperately, their ears strained. There had to be something off. Dick and Zucco hadn’t left, Marinette and Adrien were covering too much of the door for both of them to squeeze past without the illusion breaking, so they were still in the cabin.

Marinette pursed her lips tightly and pulled the door shut, then lopped off the doorknob with her yoyo.

Adrien nodded and they began to shuffle through the room.

It was needlessly huge, but there was a lot of stuff in it. A bed, a mostly untouched kitchen area, a bathroom with a jacuzzi, a possibly real treasure chest, a vanity…

He knocked his staff against things absently. It should reveal illusions…

Where was this kid?

He kicked some jewelry on the floor in irritation and then blinked when they hit the wall nearby without a sound.

Wait a minute…

He swung his staff in a large circle around him and couldn’t help but wince when he hit something that he couldn’t see. The illusion shattered and Dick groaned in pain as he stumbled off of Zucco, holding his side where Adrien had hit him.

But, for once, Adrien wasn’t looking at the kid. His eyes found their way to the floor, where Zucco had curled up. He was beaten and bloody, bruises starting to form on his pale skin.

“Robin…” He whispered, looking at Dick.

Dick was crying, the blunt end of his flute bloodied.

Adrien walked over and carefully pulled the flute from his hands and then drew him into his chest. “You can’t kill him.”

“But --!”

“No buts.” Marinette gave Zucco a kick to the head to make sure he was down before joining the hug.

“But you kill people!”

“And we’re also adults. When you’re an adult you can kill people, too.”

“M’lady…”

She winced a little. “Yeah, I hear it. But… anyways, sweetie, we can’t let a kid kill anyone. Killing… it messes with you. We don’t want that life for you.”

Adrien sighed. “You’re a kid. You can’t kill someone, it’s not good for your psyche. Leave that kind of thing to us.”

Dick took a shaky breath, and then nodded.

They’d been right to not want to include him in this. Vigilantism wasn’t healthy for kids.

And they especially shouldn’t have brought Dick along for this part, they should have expected that something like this would happen. He was too close to the case.

He swallowed thickly and hugged him closer.

Marinette pulled away carefully. She hummed, grabbing Zucco by the back of his nightshirt and dragging him away.

He gently rubbed circle’s into the kid’s back. “You want some ice cream? I think there’s still some at home…”

Dick giggled a little. “That ice cream is so expired.”

“You don’t know that!”

“It’s been, like, three years.”

Adrien sighed. “Okay, maybe, but hush.”

He pulled away slightly from the kid and wiped some stray tears from his cheeks.

“Want to go home anyways?”

Dick smiled faintly and nodded.

~

She dropped back on the bed and smiled as she curled in the blankets. The night had been… interesting… but at least she was home now.

She felt tiny hands wrap around her and her smile widened as she felt a face bury itself in her stomach.

But then her smile lessened. She slowly combed her fingers through the kid’s hair.

“I need your miraculous back, sweetie.”

“No. I want to keep doing it.”

She gave Adrien a pleading look and he sighed, slipping into bed and wrapping his arms around them. “She’s right. We don’t want —.”

“And what about what I want?”

It definitely wasn’t an angle they’d considered. They’d been very concerned about the kid ending up like them (they had given up on trying to fix themselves a long time ago, but they were still self aware of the fact that they didn’t cope healthily). But… what if they were too late? The kid had already been exhibiting signs of their bad coping mechanisms, had been since the start, had they accidentally encouraged it just by being around him?

She didn’t know.

What she did know, though, was that they’d messed up by letting him come along. He’d had a taste of the adrenaline, and there was no going back.

She flinched. “I… are you sure?”

Dick nodded against her stomach. “I want to help people.”

She bit her lip. Dick was one of those kids that would sneak out and do it anyways, the least they could do was make sure he was safe.

Adrien seemed to come to the same conclusion, because he sighed again and squeezed them both tighter.

“As long as you make sure to always be with one of us while you’re doing vigilante work…” he said reluctantly.

“I can do that.”

Oh, thank kwami. 

She smiled and ruffled his hair. “I guess it would be kind of cool to have a whole family of vigilantes...”

~~~

As it turns out, I am unable to write pure fluff. It eludes me.

On the other hand, I managed a Christmas update!! Go me!!

~

Taglist

@i-am-ironic @nathleigh @mialuvscats @golden-promises @sassakitty @deathwishy @toodaloo-kangaroo

[the-fallen-blue]

This came up again recently cuz of Suicide Squad, so digging an old one out of my drafts:

Ok, for context, since it’s been a minute: this was about how Harley originally bounced back and forth between these two abusive relationships, Joker and Ivy, over and over again. Ivy was emotionally abusive, though mostly because she herself is a broken, antisocial person who doesn't know how to have a relationship. Whereas the Joker physically and mentally tormented Harley for fun, because it entertains him to be intentionally cruel to a vulnerable person. So Ivy was better for Harley, but more in the way that being shot in the leg is better than being shot in the chest than like, actually good for her. The current (comics) dynamic is very different: Harley has just permanently left the Joker and is in a committed relationship with Ivy, and they’re both super supportive of each other and happy and healthy at all times.

So I have two connected issues with modern Harley and Ivy. One, that their relationship is all fluffy rainbows now; two, that outside the bounds of the relationship, they’ve also been pushed more and more into harmless antiheroes who only hurt bad people and actually frequently help good people and are not in any meaningful way an actual menace to society anymore. Both are annoying, in and of themselves and because of what it means that they’re linked together.

I mean, first and foremost, there is real value in portraying toxic relationships. It pushes back against the meme that “abuse isn’t love”, which is both irritatingly popular and fucking dangerous, frankly, and it gives the gift of familiarity to people who are themselves unhealthy and prone to unhealthy choices. It’s normal to go from a very abusive relationship right into a slightly less abusive relationship, or to be someone who’s smart and aware and Knows Better and still fall repeatedly into that trap. People who live that should get to see their stories too. There’s value in the ability to see that in literature and therefore notice it in your own life, value in seeing it in popular myth and realizing that it isn’t just you, you’re not uniquely dumb and fucked up.

Meanwhile, I would argue that there is anti-value in portraying toxic people in un-toxic relationships. Broken people who can’t relate properly to the world also can’t relate properly to each other. How deeply ingrained in our culture is the fucked-up concept of “this shithead who’s mean to everyone is nice to me, that means I’m special and he really loves me”? It’s a fantasy. If he’s a shithead to other people he’s gonna be a shithead to you. If Ivy’s default response to some dude annoying her is to feed him to a carnivorous flower, if that’s her baseline for fair retaliation, then her brain is not even wired to have an actually appropriate reaction. Pretending that she could have that as her mindset with some subset of actual humans and still be wise, calm, and mature when Harley annoys her is deluded at best, dangerous at worst, and the same goes for Harley herself, who is an equally terrible person and who we’d thus expect to be equally terrible to Ivy.

Of course, that rolls into the general fluffening of them both - “Blue, they’re not that toxic to other people anymore!” Listen that does not make it better! I mean who’s even left as a female bad guy in the Batverse these days? Talia wasn’t a particularly good bad guy from the start, and is even less so in the Damian era. Selina, ditto. Take Harley and Ivy out of the running and we’re left with. fkcung. Shiva? Ventriloquist II? Who has anyone heard of who hasn’t been semi-redeemed by now? Meanwhile, what male Bat rogue ever has, at least and had it stick like this? Like, maybe it’s not that deep and I’m just a salty nostalgia brat who doesn’t like change, but it sure smells like a trend, y’know? Also like. Bad guys are fun. Stop taking them away from us.

And as suspect and irritating as it is that every female Bat rogue is an antihero now, it’s even more suspect and irritating that the Sirens in particular are overwhelmingly also the queer representation in the Bat universe. Like, while there’s arguably something pretty bullshit about making the first Big Canon Femslash a supervillain pairing, it’s frankly even more bullshit to decide that that means you’ve gotta make them some kind of healthy great couple. DC prides itself on being on ossified mess of masturbatory nostalgia where people don’t get to grow or evolve or move on, but we make this one exception by distorting a couple of bad guys instead of giving Diana a girlfriend or letting Babs and Dinah finally hook up? It’s safe and cowardly in the same way as giving a female hero a rape backstory: here’s your rep, look how positive it is, and if a homophobe doesn’t like it, we have the safety valve of their past to make it not actually scary to him. As an alternative, how about we just let them be a couple of broken toxic shitheels, and actually give us enough other queer rep that that’s okay, instead, maybe.

[botwstoriesandsuch]

casual anon checkup how you doin

Let’s see, well we just breached 4am, and the sense of urgency to complete some school work has finally kicked in. I got my laptop propped up on the kitchen counter, and I just finished making some houseblend coffee that I loaded with milo powder for “health” purposes. Gotta finish up this AP Stat quiz while pretending I have some semblance of what the hell is going on in the class that I don’t pay attention to. I got my fancy bluetooth headphones that I connect with the wire anyway because I don’t like using up the battery, and I’ve had this acoustic cover of Solitary Warrior Revali looped for a few minutes now--I need those soft vibes to distract me from my thoughts about how the only reason I’ve been so sluggish with my work overall is probably due to years of ingrained perfectionism and inability to adapt my standards to the currently circumstances of the world along with my slightly declining mental health so you know--music’s nice. 

Oh! And my dad got me this electric coaster (as pretentious as that sounds, I know. Leave me and my not-cold drinks alone ok) for the holidays and it matches with my favourite mug that I’m drinking from right now so, it’s the little things :3 Plus, not to derail myself from my school life intentionally, I’ve been working on this sheet music for one of my songs for a few weeks now and it’s starting to actually sounds pretty decent so yaay!! Probably won’t share it for a long time though...I’ve really been only working on it on and off again when I have “free time” [which may or may not just be my online class gym period hey you can’t prove anything to the cops]

Uhhh what else can I shove in here...”How you doin” pfft, I don’t really know how to make this ask funny or entertaining. Well I’ve nearly finished up this zine piece about the Royal Tech Lab so that’s fun (shameless plug for the Memorabillia Zine) aaand, I’m picking my kalimba again to learn Mipha’s theme. About time, cause I have to record shit for the [REDACTED] project I’m working on >:) heh. Oh fucking SHIT now that I think about it I have like three different secret projects I’m working on huh...haven’t even finish the script for that damn au...OK what it, right, “how am I doing” well, I’m doing everything and nothing currently, if that makes any sense. Your possible regrets about sending this to me aside, it feels good to just lay everything on a plate, shit out a post, and then never talk or acknowledge it ever again. It’s like birds, you know how they just take a ten pound shit in the mourning and never look back? (That way they don’t need to go during the rest of the day) That’s what this is, just a giant load of bullshit that I’m gonna set out at 5am and then never look at again. 

You know as unhealthy as it sounds I really do dedicate a lot of time to this blog and this fandom. I mean sure not all of it (arguably any of it) is productive, but hey it’s something. The fuck else am I gonna do with my time...you wake up, you slam your keyboard awake to show up to online class, you take a nap, you spend a few hours keeping up the cishetallo gifted student appearance to your parents and then spend the rest of your time finding enough serotonin on the internet to make your brain work. Hell if I’ve talked to another human being in real life all year. Even my parents just kinda talk about the news and “how was class” during dinner which lasts like 10 minutes. My dad just kinda pisses off to work as soon as breakfast is made, and my mom just kinda stays in her office until everyone’s back and she makes dinner. Wait, that’s a lie, she does talk to me on Sunday mornings when she informs me of how I’ve ruined her day before church. So you know I do prefer it that way anyhow, why the hell would I want to talk with them when I got perfectly entertaining internet companions. What’s a “what scholarship programs are you doing?” to a *checks notifications*, “why are Rito fingers like that if they molt to they just lose the ability to--” god fucking dammit...

So! What were we saying--how am I doing? Welp. Guess it’s up for interpretation cause I sure as hell don’t know the answer to that. The hell would you do with the answer anyway. Pity points, praise points? I don’t particularly care for either. God I just realized you introduced yourself as “casual anon,” HA....apologies this is the opposite of casual isn’t it. Or, well maybe it isn’t. I’m the one just having a nice little chitchat with myself as I sip through my mug o’ caffeine. I might have to add a keep reading bar to this so I don’t blog up the dash, but also that would be ironically humorous to see for such a stupidly small question huh. Idk, contrary to popular belief I don’t have a spine so I’m probably not gonna unload all this shit on my followers like that out of the blue. Hell I’d be surprised if I actually posted this. Then again...5am and vibin with bad decision making.....plus the sentiment of putting something out to be seen is always nice.

You ever watch Bojack Horseman? Fantastic show, it’s just on a whole ‘nother level when it comes to writing. And yeah, I probably should have been watching it in the first place, BUT.............yeah ok there’s real excuse I probably shouldn’t be watching it/have watched it. But there’s this one episode in Season 4 I think? It’s where Bojack gives a eulogy for his mother’s funeral and the entire episode is just that, it’s just this giant monologue of him giving his eulogy. And that episode always facinated me because it is probably the most interesting episode in the entire show and one of my favourites, and like...how did they do that?? How did they make twenty minutes of talking so engaging and entertaining? I mean, yeah, I could probably analyze the pacing and structure to find the answer, and hell if I’ve watch my share of youtube video essays on the subject. But like, just the entire concept that someone had the idea to make 20 minutes of talking an entire episode....that’s just insane (forgive the language). 

It’s one thing to want to talk about yourself for a long time and be interesting, but to pour all kinds of energy to make some made-up fictional character talk about THEMselves for a long period of time...is that sad? Or maybe it’s respectable. /to make an audience care more about something that’s not real rather than you. Well, perhaps that’s selfish thinking. 

Oh! You know what, I just got this super nice message from someone the other day about a Raybands giveaway. Obviously, I’m not in the need for sunglasses during this day and age so I kindly declined and ignore the offer, but it got me thinking: how liked to you have to be in order to sway someone to clicking a random link. Like I’m talking about your friends or something, but like, if you opened your door oneday and Mr. Rogers was there selling clementines, would you buy them? Or if Lin Manuel Miranda offered you a vaccum, would you buy it? What’s the standard of known niceness that constitutes to you complying with what they’re asking? I sure would like to know....not for manipulation purposes but just for...idk, just having that tangibility of something. 

Ah well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw how am i doing. Well I’ll tell you what I’m doing, I’m procrastinating. Procrastinating on work and wips and conversations and dilemmas. You don’t fail all the shots you don’t take afterall *wink wink* aaand for legal reasons that was a joke. Idk, you tell me how I’m doing, fuck if I know. According to this empty mug, I’m doing well, but I also will be doing a piss in the bathroom probably.

[britishchick09]

my little pony: a new generation livewatch

what’s even better than livewatches being back after 2 months? mlp g5 being here!!! i haven’t watched g4 since the midway point of season 6, but i’ve kept up with all the pony news on equestria daily. at first i wasn’t too excited about g5, but since more clips and info have come out, i’m pumped to get the party started! :D

the orchestra is beautiful! very disney :D

IZZY BALL!!!! :D

HOLY FRICK TWI??????? :O

YAAAAAS!!!!! :D

i bet this is the show sunny watched as a foal! :D

twilight: “we’re the guardians of friendship! with the power of our friendship we will...” pinkie: “spread love!” flutters: “give hugs :)” rarity: “FRY BRAINS!” this is so sailor mo- WAIT WHAT DID RARES SAY????

did this just turn into a pony.mov video? or propaganda?

aww they’re playing!! :D

i didn’t expect sprout to be here!

OMG HITCH DEFEND SUNNY GEEZ

sprout wants to play pegasus bbq WUT

sprout kicked the rainbow dash doll RUDE

phyllis: ”you’re brainwashing their minds!” argyle: “it’s called research, phillys. and by the way, i leave all the brainwashing to you!” OHHHH NOT YET DEAD DAD JUST ROASTED HER!!!! :D

sprout wants to ‘keep everypony in line’ when he’s sheriff BOI

aww sunny wants her dad to see the unicorns and pegasi with her! :’)

OMG THIS IS SO CUTE!!!!!! :D

not even 5 minutes in and there’s feels!

twilight is ‘as bright as the sun’! :D

besties! :D

SUNNY SAID ‘PEGASUSES’ AWWWW!!!!!! :D

beautiful! :D

argyle: “one day, we’ll figure it out... together :)” OMG FEELS :’(

OMG THEY SAID ‘HOOF TO HEART’!!!! :’(

argyle: “good night, my little pony :)” roll credits! :D

sunny to her mane 6 toys: “good night, friends.” OMG!!!! :’)

things have changed around here! :o

sunny’s hair is like anna’s bed head! :D

:(

argyle’s death is sadder than most disney parent deaths and it’s just implied! :(

awww sunny said ‘wish me luck!’ to her dad’s photo! :)

ooh she’s a skater! :D

and this song is pretty cool! :D

sprout’s still alive :/

GEEZ HE JUST STOLE SOMEPONY’S DRINK!!! >:(

izzy? :o

;)

yay! :D

OMG THAT LONG NOTE THO!!!! :o

hey it’s hitch! :D

he’s sheriff! :D

aww he’s a critter magnet! :D

hitch: “give me some space.” the critters: *move half an inch* lol! :D

aww sunny and him have a hoofshake! :D

oh sprout’s a deputy :/

sunny tries to sneak into a show every year! :o

;)

canterlogic guy: “got any questions?” random pony: “where are the smoothies?” guy: “can’t answer that one.” lol! :D

it’s the show with propaganda devices! :o

rip balloon guy :/

hitch: “yikes, that’ll be a lot of paperwork.” omg lol!

THIS ISN’T YOUR DAY SUNNY

sunny: “let’s lend a hoof-“ *machine locks her in* “...that’s not what i meant.” lol :D

sunny trying to speak her mind while being trapped in a device tho!

DID SUNNY JUST SAY ‘EAT MY AAAAAAASS?’ :O

phyllis: “how do you think we should solve this? with hugs and cupcakes?” crowd: *laughs* pinkie pie’s about to go into a rage with that one...

omg sunny broke too many laws to count! :o

yeah sunny’s right hitch could be a good pony influence! :D

hitch: “all that unity stuff was just a foal’s bedtime story made up by your dad.” and a best selling tv show for foals in our world! :)

aww poor sunny! :’(

sunny: “...i wish you were here dad.” SAME :(

omg running ponies! :o

IZZYY!!!!! :D

izzy: “is everypony playing hide and seek? i see you!” aww! :D

hitch: “your kid is safe now ma’am!” pony: “...this isn’t my kid!” lol! :D

izzy’s never seen the sea! :D

sunny: “earth ponies hate unicorns!” izzy: “really? that seems a bit harsh!” yeah it does!

aww izzy’s skipping! :D

oh no she was captured in a box! :o

SHE PRESSED THE RED BUTTON! :o

izzy: “bye! it was nice to meet you all!” aww :D

hitch: “to the lighthouse!” sprout: *locks himself in the box* “oh no, i appear to be trapped!” hitch: “you’ve got to be kidding me.” lol :D

a smol bean! :D

aww sunny’s fangirling! :D

:)

she has so many questions! :D

izzy’s a great balancer! :D

hitch: “you’re completely surrounded!” *he and sprout are the only ponies there* lol! :D

izzy: *sniff sniff sniiiiiiff* sunny: “what are you doing..?” izzy: “you don’t smell!” sunny: “thanks! ...wait what?” lol! :D

izzy’s so cute!!! :D

ooh izzy and sunny have a song! :D

besties! :D

this sounds so 80s! :D

pretty scenery! :D (and balloon guy in the background!)

aww!!! :D

don’t arrest sunny, hitch!

sprout has pizza! :o

unimpressed :/

THAT SMIRK THO

hitch wants sprout to ‘keep the peace’ while he’s gone... hans much?

HITCH HAS ABS AND A PAID OFF MORTGAGE???

phyllis called sprout ‘sugarcube’! :o

sprout a literally foal child :/

omg sunny and izzy are in trouble! :o

and they’re in az! :o

zipp fab af! :D

wait how is she flying without magic?

she sounds kind of like rainbow dash! :o

zipp: “don’t tell them you saw me.” izzy: “there’s no way we couuuld we don’t even know your naaaame!” lol! :D

cuties! :D

so many moods! :D

the guard collects sneakers?

:D :D

check out the sony, cbs and t-mobile parodies! :D

ooh a royal celebration! :o

news host: “an excursive vid from pipp!” a news anchor saying ‘VID’???

look at those emojis! :o

aww izzy saying pipp’s slogan! :D

the queen’s...

a fluff ball???

there’s FAB, FAB AF and... fab phone addict!

cutie pipp! :D

aww cutie izzy! :D

zipp’s like ‘no no!’ and izzy just wipes her smile away lol :D

queen haven sounds like rarity!

queen haven: “nopony must know they’re here!” pipp: *INSTANTLY LIVESTREAMS IT* BOI

the guard took sunny’s book! :o

sprout calls his mom ‘mommy’... :/

sprout: *flings open the door* citizens! *door close* “AHHH!!!” lol! :D

somepony: “we want a real sheriff!” same!

ew sprout has a song :/

WITH HEAVY METAL YO

and NAZI IMAGERY WTF

BE PREPAAAAARED!!!!!!

PIPP PERFUME AD???

wowza! :o

and it’s playing on a big tv in the jail room! 101 much??

more like room 202 wowza! :o

zipp is here! :D

sunny: “i’m sunny!” izzy: “and i’m izzy moooonbooow!” lol! :D

the unicorns losing their magic ‘changes things’! :o

zipp has the journal! :D

their smiles though! :D

aww it was sunny’s dad’s journal! :/

zipp recognizes the star! :o

here comes pipp!

pipp’s here ‘for the content’ BOI

only royals can fly? zipp doesn’t seem so sure about that...

yay zipp unlocked them! :D

eyyy! ;D

aww hitch is beloved! :D

hitch is such a detective! :D

cutie bunnies!!!!! :D

BELOVED!!!! :D

hitch LOOK BEHIND YOU AT THE AWESOME MUGS!!!!

hitch: *smirk* “gotcha ;)”

zipp: “watch your step!” sunny and izzy: *fall* lol! :D

zipp found maritime bay and bridlewood maps! :o

wonderbolts! :o

zipp’s been faking flying? :o

WIRES AND LIGHTING???

wheee!!!! :D

she’s so happy! :)

omg twilight! :o

sunny: “oh my stars!” oms! :o

there are crystals!

beautiful lighting! :D

izzy: “we’ve gotten, like, a bazillion crystals in bridlewood!” wowza! :o

queen haven sings her own version of the mlp theme in the shower! :o

zipp is a spy at a pasta store! :o

press: “princess zipp! are you wearing-“ she’s not wearing anything tho...

press 2: “where’s the bathroom?” lol! :D

ooh a crown swap! :o

zipp: “swapping the crown will be easy breezie!” breezies! :o

zipp is gonna be queen since she’s older!

lies = safety in modern equestria... :/

pipp sounds like a modern pop star!

oh no the doggie suspects something! :o

OMG HITCH! :o

pipp’s song sounds like a blackpink song now! :o

aww hitch is wiggling! :D

oh no the power flickered out! :o

i think pipp was lip syncing since her voice cut out a bit!

lol hitch is singing! :D

oh no the wires have been exposed! :o

save her zipp! zipp: *doesn’t save her sis* ...oh :/

izzy: ‘her mom is the queen!” hitch to zipp: “you’re a princess?” zipp: “oh so the sheriff just became a detective.” lol :D (and how does she know he’s a sheriff?)

QUEEN HAVEN’T BEEN ARRESTED FOR BEING A PHONY PONY BALONEY!!! :o

and they lost the crown? NOOO-

oh thanks pissed off pipp! :D

oh no the princesses are gonna be arrested! :o

pipp’s voice crack is so cute! :D

the mane 5 is here!!! :D

hitch: “but i’m a sheriiiiff!” but you’re a mr. whiny pants!

construction isn’t going well in maritime bay...

OMG SPROUT SOUNDS LIKE DARTH VADER WHYYY

oh he’s just sipping a soda :/

phyllis: “oh dear. somepony’s getting a big head.” yeah you think?

zipp and pipp aren’t going through a good time right now but at least the scenery is beautiful! :D

hitch lost his badge! :o

izzy: “if you ask me, that badge was creating an unhealthy power dynamic! *sings guitar music*” lol :D

omg! :o

sunny: “once we find the crystal, you’ll get your magic back, you’ll have your fans and you’ll put me in custody!” lol :D

izzy knocked down a tree and saved the day! :D

it’s him! :D

zipp: “need some backup, sherrif?” hitch: “i’ve got it!” *barely makes a spark with some twigs* lol :D

cuties! :D

zipp called hitch ‘dude’! :D

aww izzy doesn’t want to leave her friends :(

OMG IZZY FOUND SUNNY’S MESSAGE!!!! :D

aww ‘hoof to heart’ :’)

hitch wants to do his part! :D

hitch: “the unicorn forest sounds pretty magical!” the forest: “is dark and scary* lol!

izzy’s house is stunning! :D

aww she calls it ‘la villa izzy’! :D

what a cool house! :D

the music machine plays the mlp theme!! :D

woah! :o

pipp: “i so wish i had livestreamed that!” sigh... :/

izzy’s song!!! :D

cutie!! :D

this song is so catchy! :D

smiley gals!!!! :D

lol! :D

hitch tho! :D

izzy rap!! :D

epic! B)

‘if we fail we’ll go to prison’ is really a line in the song lol! :D

the scenery! :D

izzy: “crystals! crystals! cryyystals!” lol! :D

people are depressed af around here! :o

british foal: “yoooou said a bad word! bing bong bing bong!” lol how random! :D

why is mayo a bad word tho?

they’re doing to a crystal dealer!

rubik’s cube! :o (it was also on the sheriff’s desk in maritime bay!)

and that pony is named alphabittle!

alphabittle: “deep talk for a little pony.” sunny: “you’ll find i’m average height,” lol! :D

omg he wants a dance off! :o

pipp: “feel the rhythm take you over! you feeling it?” sunny: “i’m feeling it!” DO YOU FEEL IT NOW, MR. KRABS???

epic! :D

yay she won! :D

OMG NO SHE DOESN’T GET THE CRYSTAL???

OMG hitch just said mayo! :o

they escaped tho! :D

QUEEN HAVEN???

and hitch’s badge! :D

queen haven wants them to ‘spin the story’ BOI

oh no queen haven and alphabittle are fighting over the crystals! :o

alphabittle threatens to use his powers but he doesn’t have magic?

sunny: “stop! you don’t have magic!” random pony: “bing bong!” lol! :D

omg...

aww cuties! :D

aaaaand......

it doesn’t work :/

maybe because there needs to be an earth pony crystal or a twilight star?

aww poor sunny :(

she’s about to cry!!! :’(

:’(

hitch: “i guess this is goodbye... friends.” zipp: “better hurry... sheriff.” :’‘(

sunny didn’t fix the crooked photo of her dad!!! :(

no she put her mane 6 figures away!!! :(

circle??? :o

the lights!!!! :D

CIRCLE??? :O

!!!!!!!!!

maritime bay hasn’t been treated too kindly i see! :o

oh no evil fireworks! :o

everyone has the unicorn mind hats on! :o

sprout is being treated like royalty now GREEEEAAAAT

and there’s more nazi imagery with that big mural of him!

sprout: “citizens of-“ *mural of him falls* lol! :D

the citizens didn’t want to fight in the first place! :D

OMG HE HAS AN EVIL LAUGH NOOOO

OMG ROBOT???

even phyllis thinks this is overdone! same mommy!

yay they’re reunited! :D

queen haven: “we need to get home!” alphabittle: “before we’re all jinxed!” queen haven: “excuse me, do you see my mouth still a-talking?” lol! :D

queen haven called sprout a ‘big robot pony’ lol :D

they need to stop it with magic! :D

sprout: “OH NO YOU DON��T” sassy man!

aww zipp has hitch’s back! :D

OMG SPROUT CRACKED THE LIGHTHOUSE??? :o

omg pipp and izzy fell! :o

queen haven saved alphabittle! :D

phyllis: “sprout! let’s put the toy away!” sprout: “mom, i’m in the middle of something!” lol! :D

HE WAS ABOUT TO RUN HIS MOMMY OVER!!!! :o

OMG THE LIGHT HOUSE IS CRUMBLING!!!!

omg! :o

aaaand it didn’t work! :o

magic of friendship it’s your tur-

OMG THE CRYSTALS ARE FALLING!!!! :o

THE LIGHTHOUSE IS FALLIIIIING!!!!!! :o

:(

everyone’s still alive though!

sunny: “it’s not the crystals that need to be brought together...” it’s us?

“it’s us!” knew it!! :D

yay choose friendship and love! :D

aww queen haven fixed the picture!

and so did alphabittle!

and phyllis!!! :D

uh guys what’s that over there...?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YAAAAS!!!!!! :D

SONIC RAINBOOM!!!! :o

magic is back!!!!!! :D

they can fly!!!! :D

sunny’s flying with the princesses! :D

the unicorns are back! :D

the pegasi’s wings have such a pretty glow! :D

beautiful sunny! ♥

alphabittle says ‘hi there buddy’ to a little foal! :D

sprout: “mommy, was i a good sheriff?” phyllis: “oh look a flying dog!” lol! :D

hitch: “you did it sunny.” sunny: “no... we did it... together!” yas!!! :D

the gang’s all here!!! :D

izzy: “now we never have to be apart!” yay!!! :D

aww they all did ‘hooves to hearts’! :D ♥♥♥♥♥

balloon guy is back! :D

balloon guy: “hey guys! what did i miss?” *turns around and sees the mane 5* *SCREAAAAM!!!!!* lol! :D

and that’s the end! :D

besides the end credits scene...

;)

so that was the mlp g5 movie! i loved it a lot more than i thought i would and it wasn’t kiddie like g3. it was a lot like g4! the connection between that and g5 is awesome! the characters were fun and the story was really interesting despite it being a typical hero’s journey. it reminded me so much of disney! i can’t wait to see what adventure sunny and her friends have in store! :D

[yandere-society]

au where yn and yandere of your choice are childhood friends, and when they meet each other again as adults the yandere gradually becomes obsessed with them? thanks 🌸💕

New Hire

Admin: 💖 @mintedmango

Words: 1.7k

Warnings: Yandere themes, stalking, mentions of potential murder/ death, obsessions/ obsessing over someone, unhealthy thinking and possessive thoughts.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

“Hi,” you grin to the young host as you cheerfully enter into the restaurant fifteen minutes before your first shift was about to start. 

You’ve had kind of a shit day so far and you were hoping that your night only got better from here. Your car was having trouble and not starting until you jumped it with your neighbor, you spilled coffee on your blouse on the way over (which was fine though, your apron should cover it, it was just the principal of the manner), and there was something unusual about your apartment that you couldn’t put your finger on. Every time you keep waking up, all the lights were on, even though you’ve made sure that they were, in fact, turned off. You’ve convinced yourself that it’s faulty wiring but you couldn’t shake the way that this was unnerving you. 

You sigh, trying not to think about it more than you usually do. 

Focusing your mind back to work you walk up through the waiting area toward the young host. Usually, Wednesday nights at EatJin were pretty simple and the staff were mostly the ones you have trained so you know that closing would run pretty smoothly. “Afternoon Chenle.” 

“Y/N!” Chenle’s eyes nearly pop out of his head. You yelp as he swiftly pulls you behind the podium by your elbow. Not that he hurt you, oh gosh no. Chenle was one of the newer staff so you didn’t know him very well, but you knew he would never hurt a fly. You were just caught off guard is all. 

Luckily it wasn’t too crowded or too busy this evening so you weren’t concerned about him acting so unprofessional. But you had a soft spot for his infectious laughter and his kind brown eyes that sparkled every time you spoke to him. 

“Is something wrong?” You say in a hushed voice, eye sockets expanding as they quickly roam the room to locate the jerk who was giving little Chenle trouble. 

Fine dining was so exquisite and such an experience but sometimes the people who sat and enjoyed the chef’s meals were not kind. You were surely not cut from the same cloth, but everyone deserves to be treated with respect and you made sure your staff knew that the customers came first in many aspects but your team were not pushovers. 

The young blonde shakes his head. “Nothings wrong, it’s just that…” he trails off, looking toward table three. 

Was it just you or did you feel like there was another set of eyes watching you for some reason? 

With a flare of your nostrils, you give a quick, sharp dagger-like glare up to the table in the corner of the dining room only to find it empty. Your brow furrows as you turn your attention to Chenle again with whom you’ve noticed hasn’t let go of your arm at all. “Chenle. What is wrong?” 

His eyes nearly bug out of his head with your direct, professional tone that you’ve never used on him. “We just have a-a-a new hire today that-t I d-didn’t kn-know about is all.” He drops the hold he has upon your arm as he stands in front of you, shell-shocked and looking like he was losing color in his face. His rich amber gaze flickers over your shoulder and you can’t help but follow his gaze behind you.

Your brows nearly touch your nose, furrowing so deep. You’ve never seen Chenle so nervous, it was making you, in turn, itch with anxious energy. 

A prickly, throat running incredibly dry, your blood freezing into a thin ice-cold feeling creeps over your senses as you turn and look over your shoulder. Time moved like sticky molasses as you glance behind you. Something isn’t right but you are ignoring the way all the little hairs on your body stand up at attention. 

Your eyes open slowly, mouth parting as your sockets expand. No way! You know this man! There’s no way you couldn’t! You admittedly did have such a crush on him up until the day you moved away, staring at him in the back of your mom’s minivan. Your mom’s were friends since before you were both born, growing up down the street from each other. It was ingrained in your brain that you had to be friends with the little boy with the soft eyes, protecting him from schoolyard bullies and that of the like. Though, it was surprising since you moved away from your hometown a few states away when you were very young. 

But, even though he’s older and immensely more attractive since you were little you’d know that jawline anywhere. 

You point, mouth agape and eyes wide as you rake in the taller frame of your childhood friend with his hands stuffed into his khaki pants that were already in uniform. His light brown strands softly curl around his face, making him look like a sweet cherub. Just as you remember him.

“Park Jimin!”

His eyes that look a little tired crinkle, becoming little half-moons, puffy lips curving into a beautiful smile that was brighter than a thousand of the sun’s rays. “Y/N.” He nearly purrs, nodding his head with his one-worded reply. 

“It’s good to see you!” You cheerfully state, enveloping him in a warm embrace. Jimin’s eyes pop out of his head as you dive in for a tight hug. His hands barely caress your back as you catch him off guard, nearly squeezing the life out of him whilst he stands there completely shell-shocked. 

He smells like sweet musk and a clean man wrapped into one and you try not to inhale in his ear too much. God, you were lonely, weren’t you? How long has it been since you were with a man? 

You gulp and pull away, shaking the self-pitying thoughts away. “Le, is this our new hire?” You ask looking over your shoulder, continuing to drape your arms over your childhood friend. 

You miss the way Jimin deadpans looking over your shoulder at the young host, making him go wide-eyed and nearly jump in his skin. The atmosphere was stiff, but you again don’t pick up on the way your body was still tense around Jimin. You are just thrilled to catch up with Jimin when you have the opportunity to. 

“Y-Yes.” Chenle whispers, not taking his eyes off Jimin.

This one has to go too. Jimin thinks, watching the way Chenle’s gaze flickers to and fro to Y/N. He noted the way he kept his hands on her arm for far too long earlier too. He shouldn’t even be around her. He shouldn’t be touching her. He shouldn’t even exist. 

“Perfect, okay, well usually Seokjin lets me know when there’s a new hire in,” You sing-song, taking his hand and lead your buddy to the back room, “but this is a pleasant surprise!” You beam at him, taking off your coat and purse and hanging it up in your favorite spot. The wait staff all says hello as you pass by and you nod happily as you make haste to start your shift. 

“I was just brought in last night by the owner.” His voice was as soft as a cloud and as clear as a mountain stream. 

“By Seokjin?” You query to him, tying your apron around your waist. “He hired you on last night?” That’s odd you think handing him a fresh apron off the adjacent hook for the regular wait staff. You were up late texting him about menu changes and what could be improved on with the new year already flying by. He never mentioned a new hire nor was it really time to hire a new person on the team. Not that you were complaining that Jimin was here, no. But it was just…strange, to say the least. 

“Yes by… Seokjin.” You miss the way he watches you rifle through stacks of paperwork and forms to pull things out for Jimin to sign. The curve of your body, the hem of your blouse rising just enough so he could get a glimpse of your skin under the white fabric. Jimin wants to look away but he can’t, seeing the smooth flesh of your stomach as you reach for the box on the top shelf of the cubbyhole space. You mean that heavy son of a bitch that he dragged out of here last night, then yes. 

“Great!” You say standing, handing him a clipboard and a pen as she fiddles around on the manager’s computer, clocking herself in. She then writes a note to herself to remember to set Jimin up with a password and username and then the time. She stands with a smile, eyes lit with passion behind them. “You can have a seat here and fill out this information,” you point to the clipboard, “and I’m going to make sure it’s running smoothly here and I’ll be right back. Alright?” 

Jimin can only nod, watching her pink lips form words. He didn’t like the idea of her being out of his sight, but he was doing this to be closer to her so he complies. 

“I’ll be right back, Minnie.” She giggles as she slips out of the back room. 

Jimin plops down in the swivel chair his mouth slightly parted and his eyes wide. My nickname. She remembers my nickname. Jimin is stunned, holding his breath, heart nearly pounding out of his sternum, the image of her smile ingrained into his brain. She remembers me. It’s been so long since he’s seen you, held you, touched you. Well, all of that since you’ve been awake and conscious. Jimin’s dominant hand shoots to his pocket, feeling the plastic ring you gave to him before you left. I thought you were gone for good, he thinks in his head as he thumbs the worn plastic in his fingers, turning it over and over again until he makes a resolution in his head, hearing her giggle outside of the door to the backroom. 

His eye twitches and his breathing hitches. 

She’s never leaving again. I won’t let her. This time, she’s not going anywhere. 

She’s all mine. 

[drake-the-incubus]

This is a gift for @striderhell from the Homestuck Secret Santa 2020 (@homestuckss). I was aiming for 3000 words but uh, Dirk as a muse didn’t want to continue exploring the concept of gender given his rigid but philosophical nature.

I hope this was good, and if not just gimme a shout and I’ll try and come up with something better. 

Word Count: 1521 Fandom: Homestuck Characters: Dirk Strider, Roxy Lalonde Relationships: Dirk Strider & Roxy Lalonde (Platonic/Friends)

Additional Notes: Roxy uses He/Him and They/Them, I’ve never finished the epilogues but I love NB Rox. Dirk uses no pronouns in this, as I wanted to try that out. 

Please enjoy Dirk exploring his gender. 

Sometimes in an effort to define ourselves, we feel trapped to conform to some rigid aspect or label in hopes to reach an understanding of who we are. At times this process can be frustrating and dissatisfying. Other people take weeks or days, and some of them take years or never figure it out. 

Perhaps gender, as a construct, can’t be fully understood, but we can understand ourselves as people without it. The tale before you, is only a short of someone who wishes to take a journey many end up doing, and most have never encountered.

Dirk was sitting in a cafe on Earth-C, sipping on a coffee in between tinkering with another pair of shades. The goal was updating and adding a better set of graphics, hoping to add some additional features to make things easier.

It had been a while since the Prince of Heart had seen the rest of the gods. Jake would visit once in a while, and they would have a friendly spar or talk. Roxy would message once in a while, letting Dirk know any spicy news about the rest.

Dave would randomly show up, they would stare each other down before both Striders would give a thumbs up and go their separate ways.

Rose would often come by, trading witty banter and wisdom. Both of them struggled with the massive impact of their god tiers and would often talk about it to one another.

Today though, Dirk decided a change of area would suit this project best, specifically needing to leave the workshop and enjoy some caffeine. Recently a problem developed that would continue to nag at the Prince even through the night. Lack of sleep was the reason why Dirk had picked a coffee shop. It made the most sense.

Gender did not.

Dirk had been going through a lot lately, and when Roxy had come out as trans, it had been taken pretty well by most of them. Not that it would be different if Dirk came out either, but rather that would take knowing what was going on.

This was a laughable moment, since they all had beaten the game, made it out and enjoyed their own little home in the midst of nothing. Creating entire worlds and civilizations with the help of their space and time players, but Dirk was sitting there, in a cafe, trying to figure out what gender even was and how it related to the god’s own identity.

Pronouns were hard, but so was even figuring this shit out. Making a copy of your brain at thirteen was much easier than figuring out if you’re cis or not, and Dirk didn’t know.

The more it was thought about, the more the thought cropped up, what if it turned out the being Cis wasn’t the result. Dirk was absolutely sure about not being a chick, nothing really appealed about that, but then again there was a very similar feeling over the current gender.

Man, agender or woman. Those were the categories that presented themselves currently. Working harder to connect the shades to the newly built chip, Dirk jolted when suddenly Roxy sat down across the table.

“I called out to you, but you didn’t answer.” He said leaning over and looking over the project. “I was wondering what made you change location, you’re pretty adamant to work in your workshop Dirkie.”

“I needed to think, which I was doing when you were calling out to me. Thinking so hard about creating a new line of orange pop with more caffeine than this cup of coffee that the world died out and I was left to only the one set of thoughts for once.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, and crossed his arms. “Really now? You think that I can’t tell something bigger is going on in that Strider head of yours? You’ve come up with projects while having a philosophical discussion with Rose and texting Dave a rap battle. You’re the king of multi-tasking, which also means your attention is usually divided more, and you’re attempting to put a wire on the wrong side of that.”

Dirk frowned and sighed, putting the project down. “Well, I can’t get nothing past you I suppose. I guess one thing that’s on my mind is how much I miss AR, since he was a good source of introspection, then again I have no idea if that would have helped in the first place.” Tapping fingers filled the space between them as the Prince looked outside at the billions of humans and trolls walking over the streets.

“I’ve been contemplating what gender is and how I relate to it since you came out as nonbinary. It’s been making me think about what is my gender, and I’ve come to the conclusion none of them really fit, but that’s also something to worry about since that means I don’t relate to any of the options-“

“Before you go on a long tangent, I want to ask, what are the options?” He interrupted Dirk while cocking his head.

“Agender, man and woman.” Dirk said bluntly, staring at Roxy. The laughter that resulted made the god tip the iconic shades down to stare at Roxy with deadpan orange eyes.

“I get greeted by your eye colour, score! But no, you got it all wrong, gender isn’t rigid categories, it’s a spectrum. You can’t define it by strict labels and there’s too many to count. So you don’t fit in three, there’s millions of genders. Some might not have a word for it right now. I’m nonbinary, but that’s because I’m not a man or a woman completely, I’m somewhere in the middle, closer to a man if I were to describe it as like, a sliding scale. So don’t be in a hurry, and don’t worry if you don’t figure it out.”

“I need to. Not knowing makes things difficult. I know it might be unhealthy to obsess over, but ever since I made Auto Responder, I had the need to understand myself fully and everything about myself.” With an elbow on the table, Dirk took a hand and raked it through the mess of hair. Having done so more than a hundred times earlier, the Prince was sure it was a complete and utter mess at this point, and would need to be taken care of at home.

“Well, I have a list of some of the other more known ones, maybe one of them check out for you?” He offered a tablet.

Dirk took it, and looked over the list of options and each description of it, mumbling under breath before placing the tablet back down with a definite, “I’m going to use Genderless for now and see what happens.” It looked interesting, the excerpt specifically outlined not having a gender at all due to neurodivergence, rather than lacking a gender or having no gender, different from agender. It didn’t feel much different from everything else, but nothing did. Having several of the entries be defined by one’s neurodivergence was weird, but the more thought placed into the concept, the more it felt real to Dirk. Rather it meant that the Prince would have to take Rose up on her offer to get a fully evaluation soon, even if both of them came to the conclusion Dirk was probably neurodivergent and that it wasn’t impactful with how the god had lived life before the game. 

“Are there any pronouns I should use for you?”

Pursing lips, Dirk gave a shake of the head. “None preferably. I think I need more time to actually think everything over. I have no positive or negative feelings for anything on there, and so I’m debating on if I’m everything or not. I can figure out how to make an exact replica of my own brain as a teenager, create robots, plot out the exact way I can kiss Jake and even save everyone's lives getting into the game. I’ve designed complex interactions to lead to the outcome I desire, and I can’t even pick a gender. This is quite frankly, ridiculous.”

“You don’t gotta. Dirk, it’s not about just picking a gender, it’s about figuring out a big part of yourself, and something most people don’t do for yours. You figured out you’re gay, now you’re figuring out what else you could be.” He placed a hand on Dirk’s and gave him a smile. “Whatever your result, I’m here for you. Even if you later think you’re a Cis man I’ll still be here for you. We might be siblings but we were friends first and that matters the most to me.”

Dirk gave a snort. “This is so fucking corny, but thanks Rox. I appreciate the love and support. Maybe I can treat you to another coffee since I feel like if I don’t buy one soon I’m going to be kicked out for making a mess of a window table.” Motioning towards the table, and standing up, the god stretched out. “What are you in the mood for?”

“Caramel Macchiato please.”

“Gotcha.”

[persephonesfill]

oh! darling

a/n: I wrote this because I was sad over stony, and if I have to be sad, so do you guys. Be aware, Steve does have panic attacks throughout this fic, so if that's something that might trigger you, please take care of yourselves. I don't want any of you to seriously hurt yourselves. That being said, I cried four times while writing this. Enjoy! Also, friendly reminder that I don't own Marvel or anything related to it. This is all just for shits and giggles.

summary: Steve Rogers was no stranger to pain. From birth, he had dealt with a whole slew of illnesses ranging from asthma to scarlet fever. Chronic colds that left him bedridden and trembling. Heart palpitations that stole the breath from his lungs...But the pain of seeing Tony slumped against a stray bit of wreckage that had once been their compound—their home—outclassed every wound Steve had ever received. No stab wound, no gunshot, no repulsor blast had brought him closer to death than this moment.

ship(s): steve rogers/tony stark

rating: teen and up

warning(s): canonical character death, grief, unhealthy coping mechanisms, panic attacks

—————

Steve Rogers was no stranger to pain. From birth, he had dealt with a whole slew of illnesses ranging from asthma to scarlet fever. Chronic colds that left him bedridden and trembling. Heart palpitations that stole the breath from his lungs. 

One particular moment was forever ingrained in his perfect memory. The Great Depression had just kicked off. Steve had been 12 when his mother took on extra shifts at Mount Sinai, treating tuberculosis patients just to make ends meet. She had never meant to bring it home with her. 

The same disease that had taken her life six years later had first tried to take her son. 

He remembered feeling like he was in Hell as the fever and chills swept over him in excruciating waves. Each breath felt as if someone had wrapped his lungs in barbed wire. When his mother had seen the blood he had coughed into his handkerchief, her face had paled. 

One night as the fever burned its way through his body, taking what little strength he had with it, Steve finally heard her. During the few hours he was awake, Steve had only been allowed to see his mother; she had already been exposed to TB. Each hour he spent with her, not once did she fall apart. She would smooth back his sweat-soaked hair and press cold compresses to his forehead to break the fever as much as she could. She had stood tall, a pillar of strength, just for him. 

But at night, Sarah Rogers let her suffering show. 

“Not my son,” Steve had heard her say, and he could see her then, even though he barely had the strength to open his eyes.  Her frail shoulders wracked with sobs, her arms wrapped around herself as if it would keep her from crumbling. “Please, God, don’t take my son.” 

The inferno in his lungs paled in comparison to the pain that had erupted in his heart that night. 

His mother didn’t deserve to sound like that. She didn’t deserve to sound so broken. As the fever ravaged his body, Steve vowed that he would fight. He would fight this disease and anything else that tried to knock him down, to make sure his mother never sounded like that for the rest of her life.  

The serum had been his ticket to freedom. His mother may have been long gone by that point, but part of Steve hoped that when she looked down on him, she could rest in peace knowing that her son wouldn’t be on death’s door anytime soon. Steve remembered the first breath he had taken after the serum went into effect. He had reveled in the rush of air that swelled in his lungs. Gone was the tightness in his chest, the lightness in his head. He had been reborn, devoid of every scar, bruise, and ailment that had troubled him for 25 years. Not even the war and HYDRA and all of their enhanced weapons could leave a mark on him, although they did hurt like a bitch; wounds that would have killed any other man, Steve recovered from within a day. 

But the pain of seeing Tony slumped against a stray bit of wreckage that had once been their compound—their home—outclassed every wound Steve had ever received. No stab wound, no gunshot,  no repulsor blast had brought him closer to death than this moment. 

For the first time in over a hundred years, he couldn’t breathe. A long-dormant part of his brain thought “asthma attack,” but that couldn’t be possible. Why would the serum fail him now? After serving him dutifully all these years? So why couldn’t he breathe? Why, with every intake of breath, could he only taste ashes and blood and smoke? 

Tony’s dead eyes, black and unseeing, bored into him, and something inside of Steve’s chest snapped. Bile rose up, searing his throat. This was wrong. Everything was wrong. Tony wasn’t dead, he couldn’t be dead. Men like Tony couldn’t just die. 

“Not him,” he thought. His heart stuttered in his chest. The cut on his arm twinged as he lowered the remains of his shield. “Please, God, not him, too.”

The light in the arc reactor flickered once, twice, before fluttering out completely as if to mock him. 

“Mr. Stark?” a boy who could only be Spider-Man, given his spider-themed suit said, his voice wavering. 

“I lost the kid.” The memory slammed into him with all the force of a freight train. A half-dead Tony with his skin pale and stretched taut over his bones. They had lost that first battle and with it, Tony’s child in all but blood; it had nearly killed Tony.

The kid’s—and that’s what he was, God, how could they bring a kid into this—shoulders started to tremble. 

“Mr. Stark, please.”

It was the “please” that twisted the knife into Steve’s heart. The “please” that brought fresh tears to his eyes. After Natasha’s death, Steve thought he had cried them all away, but apparently, his body had made more. There was always more. 

Did the kid even know what he was begging for? But how could Steve judge him when he had done the same? 

Theirs was the pleading of children, scared and confused and desperate for the hurt to stop.

Pepper kneeled next to Tony, her head bowed in grief over the love of her life’s chest, and Steve remembered that this wasn’t his wound to bear. He willed himself to stop hurting, to stop feeling altogether, but he couldn’t. 

“He’s not yours,” his brain supplied as if that would help him. “He was never yours.” 

Steve’s shoulders sagged. The pain didn’t go away.

                                                       *************

Steve stood tall and rigid like a column at the funeral. Like a soldier. It had been two weeks since that final battle that had taken everything from him. He had tried to make his peace with it. He had tried to go on with his life. But that night before the funeral, he had broken, leaving his apartment a wreck. In public, Steve had always been silent in his grief. Reclusive. He hated feeling weak around others and only let go when he was by himself, raging at the cruelty and the injustice of the world with a fury that scared even him. 

He had screamed until his voice was hoarse, thrown furniture, and even tried getting drunk despite knowing it was in vain. He remembered begging at some point, just like the kid had, with bitterness in his blood and hard liquor on his breath. 

“Why did it have to be him?” he had said. No one had answered. 

By morning, Steve had been entirely devoid of all emotion, aside from shame at the state of his apartment. At least that’s what he wanted to project. Because the alternative...the alternative would have caused him more harm in the end.

So he stood there and paid his respects in a way that had suited his role in Tony’s life; an acquaintance. A stranger. 

The only one who had noticed something was amiss was Bucky, who had stared pointedly at Steve’s hands, which he had buried in his pockets. They had scabbed over in time for the funeral, but just barely. Steve had said nothing. What was there to say?

When the boat carrying Tony’s heart floated off into the distance, hugs and condolences were exchanged, and slowly, almost reluctantly, their group of mourners began to peel off one by one. Soon it was just Pepper and Steve left standing in the yard. Happy and Rhodey had left with Morgan to feed her. “Hamburgers,” Happy had said. 

Steve wasn’t sure why he had stayed. He had no business intruding on their home. But he couldn’t bear the thought of going back to that little Brooklyn apartment that felt more like a tomb than home these days. Part of him feared that if he went back, it would all start to feel real; Tony was dead, and there was no bringing him back.

Pepper pulled Steve aside, taking his head in hers, sitting on the wood and rope swing affixed to her front porch. A stray breeze carried the scent of sweet-smelling violets their way.

She looked beautiful, devastatingly so, and Steve was reminded of everything that Tony had sacrificed. She leveled him with a smile, although this close, he could see that her eyes were puffy. 

His suit was too tight around his neck. Steve was hot, too hot, and the sudden urge to tug it off was overwhelming. Hadn’t there just been a breeze? Why was he hot? The damper on his emotions loosened—there was the familiar pinprick of tears welling in his eyes, the tightness in his throat—before he got a grip. 

He shouldn’t have stayed. He had no right. He had no right to Tony. He had thrown that away the day he had decided to drive his shield into Tony’s chest.

“I’m glad you came, Steve,” Pepper said. 

At first, Steve figured she was lying, just for the sake of being polite, but no, this was Pepper Potts—“Stark,” his mind hissed—if she had an issue with him, she would let him know. 

“I’m glad I was invited,” Steve said, his voice coming out steady, much to his relief. “Thank you, Pepper.” 

Pepper’s tilted her head. Her hair shifted with the movement, flashing like copper in the evening sun. “There’s no need to thank me, Steve. He would’ve wanted you here.” 

The disbelief must have shown on his face. 

“Oh,” Pepper started. “Oh, Steve.”

Why was she comforting him? When he was the one who took her husband from her? When he was the one who killed Tony Stark? The tightness in his chest was back. He wasn’t sure if it had ever truly left him. 

He tried desperately to clear his throat, to wrestle some kind of control over his emotions before they broke through his carefully constructed walls, but goddamn it, he couldn’t breathe—

“Steve, you’re okay,” Pepper said, her hands gripping his shoulders. The contact grounded him, brought him back to earth for a moment; Steve sucked in a gust of air that rattled in his chest.

“That’s it,” she said. “You’re okay. You’re home.”

No, he wasn’t. This cabin wasn’t his home, and neither was that lonely apartment in Brooklyn. Home was...home was…

“You are home,” Pepper said firmly. “You’re with family. That’s your home.” 

“I’m not—we’re not—“

“Later,” he had promised himself earlier as he had gotten ready for the day ahead of him. “You can fall apart again later.” He didn’t want anyone to see him like this, let alone Pepper.

“We’re your family. Tony was your family.” One of her hands left his shoulders to smooth his hair back, just like his mom had done when he was a child. Steve found himself leaning into her touch, letting her words soak into his skin like ink. 

“I killed him,” he said, his voice cracking. Steve was cracking. He could feel the fissures in his heart, spider-webbing their way through his chest, his arms, his legs. One more blow and he’d shatter completely. “I took him from you, and I killed him.” 

He was so selfish. Pepper was the one who’d have to go on without her husband, her soulmate. She’d have to look after Morgan all by herself, and once again, he had made it about him. 

“You didn’t take him from me,” she said. Her voice had taken on a brittle edge. “And you didn’t kill him. I let him go.”

She let him go. She made it sound like it was the most natural thing in the world. How good of a person did you have to be to release lightning after you caught it in a bottle?

“You should hate me,” Steve said. 

Pepper shook her head. “I don’t. Tony didn’t. I can’t hate what he loved. And he did love you, Steve.”

His mouth opened, but no words came out. 

Pepper pushed on. “He loved you. Maybe it wasn’t like he loved me, or Rhodey, or Morgan. But I do know he loved you.” 

There was no way. Tony was the type who had seen what he wanted and went for it no matter what anyone else said. He would have said something... wouldn’t he? But this was Tony Stark, Steve remembered. The same man who had kept the fact that he was slowly dying a secret for nearly a year. If he did love Steve, that secret had gone to the grave with him.

There had been a time before the Accords, before Ultron, when Steve had thought...he thought there might have been something building between them. Slaps on the back that had lingered too long. Their heads bent too close together for two colleagues, pouring over a file. And those late nights…those late nights when Steve couldn’t stay warm no matter how many blankets he piled onto his bed. When Tony couldn’t close his eyes without seeing exploding stars behind them. On those nights, they had found each other. And they had talked. About anything. Everything. Just because they could. Anything to make the nightmares stop.

And then Ultron had happened. The Accords. Siberia. And here they were eight years later. One of them dead, and the other halfway there. 

“I,” Steve began, but he didn’t even know what he was going to say. “He,” he tried again. “He was mine,” he finally decided. It was the worst possible thing to say to a grieving widow, but Pepper didn’t seem to mind. She had an eerie way of understanding him. “He was mine. He was my—he was my person.” That didn’t sound any better.

“I know,” she said. Steve’s resolve turned to water. His arms left his sides and engulfed Pepper in his embrace. “He was mine,” his voice broke on the last word, and so did the tenuous control he had over his emotions. He had always been prone to silent tears followed by hiccups and raging headaches that left him bedridden. The serum had taken care of the hiccups and the headaches. All that was left for him was to cry. So he did. He held onto Pepper, buried his face into her soft, long hair, and let himself die. A wet patch grew on his shoulder; Pepper was crying too. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. He knew it was useless. It did nothing to ease the godawful ache in his chest. The serum refused to cure that. Not even time would heal it. For as long as he breathed, he would carry this with him. Maybe eventually he’d be able to grin and bear it. Smile through the pain. 

Steve Rogers was no stranger to pain.

[exalok]

whaddup my dudes!!!

i am tired and wired and this means brain no writey but brain VERY focused on absolutely all the fic i have going on at once that aren’t prompts (prompts will be incoming, no worries dissociation anon)

and THAT means y’all get to hear about my many. many. MANY projects, or at least the ones that make my heart go pitter patter when i think of them

a few examples: demon!corvo and priest!daud with extra worldbuilding ; the naptime cuddles AU ; corvo doesn’t come to dunwall so jess and daud end up arranged-married for profit (more info..... under the readmore..... i’m gonna get rambly)

also feel free to ask questions, i love questions and they get me thinking even more in depth about the world and specific instances of characters and that is the entire POINT

LIKE OKAY SO MY BRAIN PRETTY MUCH CONTINUOUSLY THROWS IDEAS AT THE WALL AND ABOUT 95% OF THEM STICK BECAUSE I’M A HOARDING RAT BASTARD i love my ideas they are my precioussss

i might have about. 25 fic more or less active at the moment? which sounds like a reasonable number but those are the ones i have an actual plot for as well as the will to get them out into the world

let’s put aside the ones i have actually posted on tumblr or ao3 (teen!daud, domestic zombie apocalypse, bondageverse, knife!corvo) in favor of those you have either no or little idea exist. begin:

I MEAN OBVIOUSLY I MADE FANFIC OF MY OWN FANFIC or as i call it parallel/companion fic, because at some point in the past a prompter inspired me and i was deep in the prince!daud fic at the time and i thought what if high chaos. what if void monster corvo? what if horrifying yet human creature of the depths!!! what if EVERYTHING was TERRIBLE and daud killed corvo as a last ditch and vain attempt to get his people out of burrows’ clutches, and it all went to shit from there??? also they’re bound by marriage contract and the vagaries of magical intention and daud becomes corvo’s life battery, in essence, which you can imagine leads to a very unhealthy relationship i think it’s not spoilering much to tell you it does NOT end well, and i’ll be writing it as a sort of foil to low chaos prince!daud

i have quite a few high chaos fics actually. high chaos is depressing to play but the story outcomes are DELICIOUS and the degrading world and character motivations are a lot of fun to play around in

weirdly enough another one of these high chaos fics is the naptime cuddles AU!!! i won’t lie it’s the one i am currently on and i want to talk about it to everyone so bad constantly. in short, corvo doesn’t kill daud and the whalers because he’s trying to get out and currently too fucked up to fight, and when he doesn’t manage to save emily despite his best efforts he comes back to daud for some kind of symbolic execution. meanwhile thomas convinced daud to take a goddamn nap with him there because daud, despite his paranoia, does sleep better with people around, and this is entirely an excuse for semi-platonic daudthomascorvo cuddles in bed followed by whaler puppypiles when the gang catches on that this is a thing they can do now I LOVE PUPPYPILE WHALERS I LOVE NAPS I LOVE REDEMPTION THROUGH THE POWER OF RESTORATIVE SLEEP please i’m so tired and i can’t actually fall asleep next to people let me live my dream vicariously additionally: this will be my contribution to the absolutely wonderful whaler vineyard of old fanon

there is also what i feel should be a classic and ISN’T though a couple of fics were written around the concept and one in particular is /chef kiss, and the concept is: high chaos corvo meets low chaos corvo!!!!! i made it a threesome with daud because no one can stop me and i fucking LOVE the idea of daud ending up capable of telling them apart through tiny details even when high chaos corvo, bastard that he is, tries to impersonate low chaos corvo, who is a bastard in much more subtle ways and would probably be better at impersonating hc!c than the other way around but finds it distasteful; also i added intense body horror because that’s how i roll and there are eventual magical CONSEQUENCES to hc!c being in the low chaos world and regularly in contact with what is essentially his narrative double when he doesn’t belong there, probably ends in a tragically bittersweet way, i’m not completely clear on it yet though i do have ideas

and oh man......... the time travel corvo fic.... the one where high chaos corvo ends up in his own seven-year-old body........... fuck i hashed out so much of the general worldbuilding for that one and ended up going way too far and imagining a sequel like i always do where corvo learns how to walk universes and gathers people he cares about from places where he can actually save them from their eventual tragic futures and the dissolution of their timelines once the outsider is ousted from the void and a new void avatar is made and SHENANIGANS YO!!! SHENANIGANS AND CAMPING!!!! SELF-CROSSOVERS!!!!!!! I COULD HAVE HIM MEET HIMSELF IF HE HADN’T TRAVELED BACK I’M CRYING I HAVE SO MANY EMOTIONS

the one where corvo is a fae child is probably a lil bit high chaos though it isn’t determined yet, and he has all of these instincts with regards to possessing and exchange and deals, and assumptions as to how other people must work approximately the same, and he is so wrong. then there’s the really creepy bad touch possible sequel that i won’t get into unless someone specifically asks because it’s a lil bit much really

oh MAN oh SHIT speaking of bad touch there’s another dead dove do not eat one where i grabbed an entire handful of granny rags’ apparent fucking around with magical arrays and rune creation and general spellery and threw it at corvo post-interregnum and he sees “ghosts” and doesn’t understand what the FUCK is going on and things go really badly for him, and one ghost, soon the only ghost, is daud, and corvo doesn’t know if he’s real, if he’s seeing things, if he’s NOT seeing things but daud is some kind of void demon, if he is and also having psychotic breaks he doesn’t remember because he ends up with some hellish bruises, but the real daud is actually still out there just hiding out and corvo will eventually meet up with him and real daud will meet fake daud and even more shit will happen

god, the demon!corvo AU gets pretty fucked up as well if i remember right; corvo is both some dude with a wife and kid and the demon that inhabits him, jess is his wife and the demon that inhabits her (to be clear, separate characters but both based on either jess or corvo oh my GOD what if i switched the demons that would be amazing but no, calm down, maybe for a short what-if scenario that will inevitably turn into its own thing), daud is the overseer with the really good exorcism record trying to get the demons to fuck off except he thinks there’s only one of them and the other takes him by surprise; cue daud being hunted by that demon, furious that daud shattered his favorite pupil, and some revelations about what exactly lives inside the abbey and also under it

on a somewhat lighter note, the one where corvo never comes to dunwall (i think his mom gets sick and he doesn’t win the blade verbena at sixteen?) is also where jess keeps losing her royal protectors to assassination attempts because the first one was decent and died protecting her and the second one was decent and had an accident and people start believing there’s a curse on the position or a curse on her, and she’s like okay so how do i make sure i don’t die now that no one is willing to become my protector since it’s pretty much a death sentence, and she arranges a meeting with the best assassin in the city and suggests an alliance -- protection and some commission overview, all secret, versus funding and housing -- in the form of a marriage and daud ends up agreeing; then later duke abele visits and corvo is among his personal guard and he gets to meet the empress, and the assassin, and there are ot3 shenanigans

oh my GOD also the kids in karnaca AU. obviously. fuck you may have seen the (dis)armingly charmed notefic but this would be them meeting as actual kids, in karnaca, just tiny babies, daud recently kidnapped and corvo doing his best to make this cool older kid into his friend and also maybe hiding him from the people who want to train him to do Illegal Things, and there are dumb childish arguments and daud goes on the run to avoid capture and there is an exchange of letters that at one point stops and corvo is Devastated and there is a REUNION and they are ADORABLE but also INCREDIBLY STUPID, AS IS RIGHT AND CORRECT, and i don’t know what happens later but it gives me warm fuzzies okay

then i have a NUMBER of oneshots that are more or less plotted out, like the one where jess has a kind of groundhog day because Heart reasons but over months and starts out not quite remembering what happened in past attempts and OF COURSE it ends with royal ot3; and there’s the one where Daud becomes the Outsider and is very temporally confused and OF COURSE it ends with corvodaud who do you take me for (including Very Perplexing arguments where daud doesn’t know at what point in this relationship’s development he is and corvo is angry or very patient depending on where he accidentally time travels to, and i make some assumptions about the non-linearity of the void avatar’s existence); and there’s the one where corvo catches the plague and gets through kingsparrow to get emily out then to people he trusts, ie the curnows and sam beechworth, then crawls away to die, but daud finds him and sighs and rolls up his sleeves and sends whalers to the Tower and emily thinks the Tower is haunted then, when it becomes very clear the Tower is not, demands one of these assassins teach her how to stab a bitch; AND THERE’S THE ONE WHERE CORVO AND JESS ARE GHOSTS AND DAUD IS A REAL ESTATE AGENT AND THE WHALERS ARE THE KIDS HE TRIED TO HELP OUT AS A SOCIAL WORKER and yes it’s ot3 and yes he buys the ghost house and ends up being filmed by the whalers to do cooking videos and fancy knife tricks and asmr because his voice is insanely soothing when he’s not being ornery; oh fuck and there’s the one where i wrote an unrequited corvodaud prompt and my brain grabbed it, smelled it, and decided that corvo very reluctantly falling for daud was necessary to the health of my feelings, and there is at least one (1) sleeping beauty coma while corvo yells at the outsider about the Heart; also there’s the one where in D2 billie was evasive about the old guy living with her on her boat and em finds daud rather than sokolov in jindosh’s basement and they have long, emotional discussions; and for the character building hell of it one that would span the outsider’s beginnings and growth and how the void tries to welcome him in

okay........................ i think i’m done rambling now

i love fanfic y’all

[starman-john-tracy]

Radiation Poisoning | Chapter Seven

by @starman-john-tracy and @asteria-star

In which John Tracy gets exposed to uranium and nearly dies, The Hood is evil, and Star generally freaks out a lot.  

Chapters: [One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Eight]

Star’s not entirely sure how she makes it through her shower without passing out entirely, but the black dots in the edges of her vision are doing their very best to swallow her whole. There are clothes of hers on Tracy island, but Star emerges with her limp hair in a wet plait down her back, in one of John’s sweatshirts and a pair of sweatpants that just about fit around the waist, but have to be rolled up half a dozen times to free her feet.

Honestly, Star almost throws up within her first step into the medical room. But Virgil’s hulking figure is beside her, and he looks like he’s feeling much the same way. Star’s not sure what he has or hasn’t told his other brothers to get them to leave her alone, but she’s not yet seen hide nor hair of any of them... until now, that is.

Because Scott Tracy is sitting backwards on a chair at his brother’s bedside. His legs either side of the backrest and his arms folded heavily over it. His mouth is pressed into a tight white line and, as he drags his eyes up to them from where they were fixed on John’s still shape, he looks less than pleased to see the pair of them. Maybe it’s just the tension. Maybe it's something more. Virgil, as if sensing Star might bolt, takes her wrist and guides her into the room, clearly hoping that she’ll be too preoccupied with John to worry overly about his oldest sibling’s presence.

“My shift.” Virgil shoos the older man from the chair, “Do us all a favour and go get a shower Scooter.” Evidently this is part of their taking turns. Scott shakes his head low and weary, but he makes his way toward the door with little other protest.

“Thanks Virg, see you in twenty, yeah?”

“Sure thing.” Virgil guides her into Scott’s vacated chair by John’s hospital bed, safe to be so close now that she’s been scrubbed raw of outside germs, watching him sleep. Sleep… isn’t the right word. He’s not peaceful enough, minute tremors and twitching muscles plaguing his form, as if his subconscious wants to writhe in discomfort. His arms are more black and blue than pale, his heart monitor is beeping an uneven tempo, the oxygen mask looks sore against his irritated skin.

“You alright?” Virgil checks, from where he’s leaned on the back of the chair behind her. He doesn’t think he’s alright, after all. A warm chin comes to rest on the top of her head. He sighs heavily, watching the silent shape of his brother just breathe. John looks thin and fragile under the white sheet, with the oppressive quantity of bleeping machinery clustered around him and all the tubes and wires and the bulky shape of the oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, dwarf the lithe young man almost entirely. Virgil’s just glad he didn’t have to intubate him. His arm raises, almost brushing against Star’s cheek, as he pinches the bridge of his nose hard, trying to stave off the edges of a tension headache.

“Geez…”

After several moments of restless watching, Star shifting anxiously in her seat, she tilts her head towards Virgil, like she wants to look at him but can’t drag her eyes up to his face. “You’re going to want to ask the GDF to send someone up there to pick up the uranium,” she murmurs sullenly, “John was concerned about the leaking canisters in the vault, and then there’s a second lot in an officers lounge. I think I hid them well enough.”

“I’ll get Scott on it.” Virgil sets himself a reminder on his fancy, high-tech wristwatch, ready to prompt him when his elder brother returns from his shower. “Do you think The Hood is likely to come back for them?”

It’s at that moment that John makes a low sound in the back of his throat. Star’s hand twitches towards him, reaching for the bony wrist that’s the closest limb to her, wanting to do anything to make home feel better, even if it’s just a comforting hand, but she freezes.

“I’m not… am I going to hurt him?” She asks Virgil softly, blinking back those stupid tears she hasn’t been able to keep under wraps all day. “Can I even be in here? It’s not going to make him sick?”

“You’re alright.” Virgil pats her shoulder reassuringly, then moves away to go fiddle with some settings on a screen, topping up his brother’s painkillers, “You’re freshly showered and there’s little chance of you transmitting any germs to him, even with his wrecked immune system, but I’m glad you’re being careful. Alan wanted to jump right on him soon as we let him back in.” He laughs, but the warm sound trails back off into silence again shortly after.

Quiet, Virgil watches the fresh 20ccs of tramadol run down the new line he’d replaced the cannula at his wrist with, mixing with the supplementary immunotherapy drugs and blood regulators that are already feeding into his brother’s veins. The replacement peripherally inserted central catheter, or PICC, is a thinly-tubed line that runs from the entrance point at the crook of the John’s elbow, and finishes snugly near the heart muscle, designed to deliver the medications much more quickly and effectively. Virgil hopes that John won’t be able to feel the microscopic, wire-stiffened tube threaded through the peripheral veins in his right arm when he wakes.

John’s nose wrinkles in his sleep, eyebrows crinkling like something is disturbing him.

“Does it hurt?” Virgil whispers, more to himself than his unconscious brother, “Shhh Johnno, the meds will kick in soon.” He smooths a big, warm hand across his siblings shoulder. “We’re gonna take good care of you, ok?” 

Star almost tips herself out of the chair leaning forwards, gripping Johns free-er arm at the elbow, so their forearms are lying flush on the bed. She lets her fingers trail along the soft, bruised skin there, and instinctively forces a watery smile to her face that he’s never going to see.

“Hey Johnny,” she murmurs, tracing the delicate patterns over and over again. “You’re safe now. Got to Thunderbird Five, just like you said to. And you’ve got your brothers. Nobody’s going to hurt you here.”

She still can’t quite bring herself to say the words you’re okay, but she keeps talking, just in case he can hear her. She just keeps telling him about this and that and everything in between in a low, wavering tone that seems to almost just fall out of her. It’s not until the drugs must kick in that she stops, keeping a hold of his arm. It’s like drowning, watching John’s lax face through a haze of angry gravity.

“You know what, Virgil?” Star tells him, not moving an inch from her position up against the bed. “I really fucking hate space.”

There’s a soft, suspiciously wet sounding laugh from Virgil over her shoulder. 

“Don’t let him hear you say that.” He says, scrubbing a hand hard over his eyes, “He’d be so upset.” 

Star snorts. “Oh, he knows, don’t you worry. I tell him every time something goes wrong. Like one time, we ran out of coffee? I almost staged a mutiny.”

Virgil laughs again, louder this time: more genuine and less startled.

The pained scrunch of John’s brows has yet to smooth out, Virgil’s top up dose or otherwise. There’s a slight curling of his fingers, the muscle of his forearm under Star’s palm bunching noticeably as he does. The burned red of his face has bleached to an unhealthy grey save for the two spots of feverish crimson high on his cheeks.

“John?” Virgil’s noticed the pick-up in his brother’s heart rate, the boost of O2 to his brain on the monitors. “Hey buddy, you waking up there?”

Even with the fogginess of a head that feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool, a haze of drug-induced numbness, John knows without opening his eyes that he’s in the medical room down on Tracy Island. There's just something that just makes the space instantly recognizable, whether you’re actually in control of your full cognitive capacity or not. It could be the weight of gravity, or the sharp, clean smell of antiseptic, or the constant bleep of monitors, but it’s altogether too familiar to be anywhere else. 

There’s a headache pounding his eyes and John notes that, despite the fact he’s only just woken up, he’s incredibly exhausted. He figures it must have been the pain that woke him: his chest sears on every exhale, a tight, awful stabbing sensation burning in his midriff. There’s a sharp, localised piercing feeling in his wrist, and a headache behind his eyes, and he feels so sick, curling and hot in his stomach. 

Blue-green eyes chance a peek and John registers, squinting against the bright white lights above his head, the presence of an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, cool air replacing each hot, rough breath he struggles to take.

“V’rgl?”

Star goes very, very still, hardly even daring to breathe. She leaves her arm where it is, pressed against John’s but stops the absent tracing, as if afraid he’ll notice she’s there. Her wide eyes track Virgil’s as he rushes over to check John over. She’s waiting for the dark haired Tracy to call false alarm, tell her she’s imagining things, but he never does. 

John doesn’t look particularly happy about it, but his eyes are definitely open, and Star is willing to take that. Her heart jolts in her chest each time his fingers curl by her elbow, blue eyes squinting around the room. John tries to fidget uncomfortably, an impossible feat, and Star stumbles uncoordinatedly upright, nearly landing on her ass, to place gentle hands on each side of his hips to keep him from moving, mirroring Virgil’s hand on his shoulder. Eventually, his eyes come to land on her.

Star startles like a deer in headlights. “Hey.”

“Star.” He breathes her name out like it tastes of pure, heady relief. “I…” Golden ginger lashes flutter, his eyes roaming the room again and lingering the sight of Virgil scrubbing at his eyes with the hand not holding down his shoulder. “Wh…?” His voice is thick and hazy with sleep, and he’s genuinely surprised by what a struggle it is to keep his eyes open. His focus narrows to the dark braid over Star’s shoulder and the feeling of small hands pressing down on his hips. He shifts a little, testing the reason for the holding him in place, and he’s rewarded by a hot, fiery sensation across his stomach and through his insides for it. He breathes out hard through his nose, O2 mask fogging. “Ow…” He manages weakly. “What…?”

“Stop moving,” Star admonishes lightly, taking her hands away now that he’s got the idea himself. “You’re fine where you are, okay? Just relax.”

She slouches back in her chair like a marionette who’s strings have been cut. She didn’t realise just how much she’d been expecting him to never wake up again until he said her name.

Someone’s taken the time to clean him up, wiping fever sweat from his skin and combing out his hair so that it feels soft against the pillow, curling, still just that little bit longer than he likes to keep it, around his ears. His lungs ache on every breath. Asphyxiation. His brain fills out from him, though he’s not sure where he got that idea from. I couldn’t breathe. He feels almost cold, the heat of the fever tricking his body into shivering, and stiff fingers bunch in the sheet over him, unconsciously trying to warm them. Star leans back forward when she sees the trembling fingers, taking his hands in her own to rub some warmth into them. It's a placebo and she knows it, his skin almost physically burns to the touch. 

“Hi John.” Virgil sounds tired right through, his eyes liquid with apology. “So, uh, I’ve got good news and bad news.” The wince at the cliché phrase must show on the spaceman’s face, “Ack, sorry.” He sits heavily on the edge of his brother’s bed, settling beside Star, “You’re probably confused. How much do you remember of what happened?”

John goes to shake his head, only to pale like he regrets the motion, the world spinning round him like he’s sat on the outside of the gravity ring. He squeezes his eyes shut once more with a groan.

“Still nauseous?” Virgil guesses, wisely, “I’ll up your antiemetics. I… Do you know where you are?” 

“Med room,” John croaks, his voice raspy with exhaustion and the damage to his lungs. “Tracy Island. Th’ gravity gives it away. Crn’t tell you the date though.” He looks to Star at his side, eyes scanning her skin and the very familiar sweater she’s wearing, as if checking her for injuries. “Y-you ok?” 

Star closes her eyes, very slowly, swallowing thickly. It takes her a moment before she opens them again, and when she does it’s on the promise of I’m fine. 

“I’m fine, John,” she gives his hands a little squeeze, “nothing happened to me. I’m completely and utterly, perfectly fine.” 

She gives him a little smirk when he does a disbelieving double take. “And it’s Thursday, just in case you were wondering.” Everything about her softens. “You’ve been asleep for a little while.” 

“What day was it when I went to sleep?” He sounds concerned. “If it's Thursday now?"

“Good lord,” Star smirks, “I’m going to buy you a calendar for Christmas.” John snorts at that, the rough laugh pleasant. 

“When’s Christm…?” He goes to say more, amused, but Virgil rests a distracting palm against his forehead, gauging his temperature.

“What’s the last thing you’ve got memories of?” Virgil doesn’t seem bothered that he’s interrupting, his voice soft, still trying to gauge John’s cognitive function. 

“I…” There’s a flicker of fear in John’s eyes, as he struggles to put the blurred, patchy fragments he’s got of his memory over the last twelve hours or so back into some kind of order. It’s like trying to make a jigsaw without all the pieces. “We were responding to a situation, a parallel station in orbit. Star and me.” He pauses to take a breath. “There was… uranium on board.” His mouth shuts in a tight, white line, as if it’s dawning on him exactly why he might be lying in a hospital bed. “Things are patchy but there was a man… The Hood.” The name sounds like it causes him pain, “He took my helmet. Star got it back and… we were heading for Five…? After that I’ve got nothing.” Virgil can’t help but be relieved about that. “How’d we… get home?” He brings a hand to where his stomach is a throbbing, tender ball of ow. “What hit me?”

Star smiles slowly, sadly, aware Virgil can’t fill the gaps John wants covering, but not entirely willing to do it herself.

“I used the grapples to get back to Thunderbird Five, good job you made me take extra, then called Thunderbird Three for a lift. Figured since it was up to me, we could do without the damned space elevator.” She tries to smile like Virgil had done, or like John does on a call mid-rescue, with scared civilians on the line and nothing but him to steer them away from pure panic. It doesn’t quite have the same effect. Star considers herself a lot of things, but a Thunderbird isn’t one of them. That, and the heavy insistent tug of full gravity and near death experience at the hands of her nemesis space, have left her reeling and shaky and not entirely sure she’s all there.

“Nothing wrong with m’space elevator.” John complains lightly, trying to stifle a yawn, “Everything Brains builds is way over-engineered anyway.” His fingers squeeze hers, as if even doped up to the eyeballs he can tell something is wrong with her.

“Nothing hit you, John,” she lets go of a hand, making another move to cup his face only to fall short. She rests the hand against his shoulder instead, thumb against his collarbone. “The Hood was stealing uranium. He cornered you in the vault, and he did take your helmet off, so you had a couple of minutes out of atmosphere, but we got it back for you. Unfortunately… you were in there with some broken canisters, so you’ve had some…” Star’s brain doesn’t seem to want to supply the words, as if not saying them will steal the truth of it from right out from under their noses, “exposure to radiation. Virgil’s much better at explaining all the medical mumbo jumbo, so I’ll leave that to him, yeah?”

John is looking at her a little shell shocked, and she grimaces.

“How you doing there, sweetheart?” She gets a small groan in response.

“Feels like someone landed the Space Elevator on me.” He jokes, evidently trying to make light of the ominous you’ve got radiation poisoning that’s hanging over his head. “Glad t’hear that’s not what happened. Damage report Virg?” He sounds eerily calm in the face of it, but the heartbeat racing on the monitors spells out a different story. “What was the bad news?”

Virgil looks hesitant, and kind of miserable to follow up on his earlier offer. It’s hard to know where to begin. There are a lot of potential side effects of radiation poisoning: tumours, loss of kidney function, pancreatitis, permanent immune diseases, diabetes, and those aside John’s going to be in it for the long haul with the more immediate effects.

“When Scott and Alan got there,” Virgil begins to explain, “you were presenting with nausea, a high fever, erythema, purpura, dizziness and disorientation, cognitive impairment and haemorrhaging from your damaged blood vessels. All symptoms of accurate radiation syndrome.” He takes a breath. “We had to perform a Laparotomy to correct the internal bleeding, so, uh, you’re going to be pretty sore around the waist for a while.”

“A what?” John blinks sluggishly, trying to work out just what that means. The headache really isn’t helping his cognitive processing. He can feel the pull of the line of neat stitches across his abdomen as he shifts. It feels like there’s something heavy resting on his chest. His fingers tighten around Star’s again, just a little. She can feel the fine tremble that’s started in the digits.

Star catches his heart racing away in the monitors, feels the tremble in his hands, and hooks her free arm around his chest, as though she would give him a hug if she weren’t so scared of breaking him.

“We sealed your leaky blood vessels.” Virgil confirms, worried about how much of this John is actually taking in, “Surgery went well, and we’re hoping you’ll be free of any secondary infections. Tests indicate that there’s been a severe decrease in your number of blood cells though, as is common with radiation exposure, including leukocytes.” The notices the lack of recognition in John’s eyes. “Uh, they’re the white blood cells, they’re the body’s primary defence against infection, so we’ve got to be really careful to keep you from getting any germs or small cuts for a while.” Virgil looks kind of sheepish about it, like he knows it’s going to be a rough road for a little while. “Your lack of red blood cells is gonna make you anaemic and your lack of platelets could make even a little bleed severe.” He cards a shaky hand backwards through his dark hair, glad he’s telling John these things to forewarn him, but feeling horrible that he has to. “We’ve got you on a PICC line to boost your cell count and correct the dehydration, iron levels and electrolyte imbalance. Brains is in his lab working on what the ideal balance of meds is gonna be.”

“That… sounds good?” Anything Brains is working on always comes round for the best sooner or later. John’s aware he’s never seen the man with a medical qualification though. He’s got a strong suspicion he’s soon going to become a human guinea pig. 

“It’s gonna be a pretty slow recovery I’m afraid. You’re going to be tired a lot more than normal and you’re on a course of immunotherapy and blood clotting medications. We’re expecting you to be nauseous a lot and have very little appetite, but you’re gonna have to suck it up a bit and eat what you can or else there’s gonna be a whole lot more IV fluids in your future, and really, we’ve got you on enough already.”

“If things don’t improve on IV alone, we might need to find a suitable match for an allogeneic stem-cell transplant, and possibly,” He hesitates, “a marrow transplant, from a donor, depending on the overall state of your red and white blood cell counts." Virgil pauses to let that sink in. “I’m going to test the boys and Grandma to see if any of us are a match, but I want to place you on the list at the Royal Melbourne in order to have the greatest chance of getting you a donor, should the need arise."

“And the good news?” John chuckles weakly, struggling to absorb all that.

“You’re alive.” Virgil offers him, fairly miserably. “And we’re gonna do our best to keep you that way, alright? I hadn’t finished the bad though,” He winces, apologetic, “I’m gonna have to take a sample of bone marrow, so we can check if the radiation has reached it. Scans have been inconclusive and you… well, you might need a transplant. Sorry John.”

“Does the sample have to be taken today? Like, now?” Star asks Virgil over her shoulder. Star can see John struggling, his brain going a mile a minute and still not entirely believing all the ways Virgil had just listed that could kill him. His brow is still pinched with pain, and he’s frowning slightly at his brother, lost in whatever the hell had stuck out of all that.

“Ideally.” At least Virgil has the grace to sound sorry about it. “The sooner we have the sample of your stem cells the sooner we can analyse it for abnormalities and, if needed, start our search for a match. And, honestly John, it’s probably gonna be better to get it over with. You can go back to sleep after, ok?” If he can.

“Is it gonna hurt?” John asks, his voice smaller than either of them have ever heard it. Virgil doesn’t offer him an answer.

“Hey,” she leans on the bed with her elbows, drawing one of his hands up in both of hers, pressing her mouth along the back of his knuckles. “Look at me.”

She waits patiently as he does, holding the captured hand up against her cheek. Hazy eyes do finally meet hers, she nods slowly, as if to say it’s alright without having to voice the traitorous lie. Speaking of traitorous, her eyes are getting hot and wet again, and she fights the tears back.

“Don’t think too hard about it, it’s not all important right this second. Just tell me what you need right now.”

“I… I don’t know.” John’s mouth shapes the admission, but his voice doesn’t sound at all like his. It’s smaller than Star has ever heard it. He sounds so overwhelmed, maybe even scared. “Sorry,” He mumbles, “I… I’m so tired and it’s a lot and…” He turns his head into his pillow, pressing his cheek down hard and hiding his face from them. The motion reveals a pockmarked trail of red purpura marks all up the side of his throat. They watch him take a long, ragged breath, then another. It’s a second or two before he pulls himself together.

“Don’t apologise,” Star murmurs into his hand, letting him have his minute to hide in the pillow. “You’re doing great.”

“Right.” John swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing, “Let’s get this over with then shall we?” He looks up at them with liquid eyes and Virgil nods, the motion tight and controlled.

“Think we can get you onto your side?” It’s not really a question, but the illusion of choice seems to maintain some of John’s dignity in the situation. Too weak to help himself roll over, John, blearily, feels Virgil manipulating one of his arms to tuck it up by his cheek, and moving the other one straight out to the side, toward Star.

“It’s ok to cry Star.” He tells her softly, finding a weak smile for her beneath the oxygen mask even as Virgil folds back the covers and bends one of his knees for him and rolls him onto his side. The other leg gets bent to match, leaving him curled on his side with his knees tucked up to his chest. “It’s been a hard day, right?” A monitor bobs red somewhere above him, a drop in respiration. Virgil makes a displeased sound through his teeth.

“Yeah, I know,” she knows exactly what he’s talking about, there’s no way to even pretend not to, but she’s not about to give in that easily. No amount of showering and electrolyte complexes could scrub away the residue of having completely and utterly lost it, but John doesn’t need that right now. Star captures the hand that comes looking for her, bracing the other on his thigh to keep him from rolling over, or flinching away from Virgil. “No ones going to be upset or you do. It’s been a rough one.”

“Keep him talking to you.” He requests of her, trying to keep his brother’s anxiety down. “It’s alright John.” Virgil’s rolling up the thin blue cotton of his brother’s t-shirt, exposing the big adhesive pad stuck to his middle, hiding his perfect stitches. The medic rubs a quick hand soothingly over his brothers bare, red-pocked waist. “Hang tight, I’m just getting set up.” There are twin snaps as he pulls on IR blue latex gloves. John has to admit to himself, vaguely, that he’s very lucky his brother is brilliant.

It’s also lucky that John is turned away from him, being placed on his side having left him facing Star, and that doesn’t see the massive size of the weird, capped needle that Virgil’s setting up.

In a moment of stupidity, Star's eyes track Virgil’s movement and come to land on the needle. She hopes they don’t widen too obviously and snaps her gaze away, hunkering down close to John. Her heart is racing pounding painfully in her chest because that is going to hurt, and it’s going to hurt John.

“Ah,” she fumbles on a topic of conversation, everything seeming woefully insignificant for this. In the end, she plucks the first thing that comes to her mind that doesn’t start with an apology or include radiation poisoning. “So I have some complaints about the spacesuit, because that has got to be at least the third time I’ve had to wear it and ended up running around in my underwear when I’ve taken it off.”

She knows she’s not supposed to even be wearing her giant shirts when she’s got it on, she’s been told about the electrodes needing to sit flush against her skin more than once, but that isn’t the point. “We need to get some underclothes for them. Like the black in Star Trek. Imagine how slick we’d look? Speaking of, I’m renaming Thunderbird Five the Enterprise. I’ll change the label for your birthday.”

John snorted at her again, a touch of amusement joining the strain on his face.

“I thought I was getting a calendar?” There’s a weak smile, though it flickers as he feels Virgil’s cool hand land on his hip.

“No, no, calendar is for Christmas. I’m spray painting your Thunderbird for your birthday.” 

John looks like he might laugh again, or make a mock-offended complaint, only Virgil gets started.

"Okay, John…” He carefully cleans a small area of his brother’s lower back with a cold, sterile wipe, then rubs in a topical anaesthesia, his gloved fingers massaging the muscle of John’s back, trying to get him to lose the tension. “This is it… just relax as much as you can for me. You might feel a bit of pressure… A slight burn…"

Everything about him stiffens, grunting in pain, and Star just gives him something to hold onto, and holds onto him. Despite it, John can’t seem to help the whimper that escapes him at the feeling of the oversized syringe as it slides home. Punching through skin and muscle to pierce the back of his pelvis beneath, sliding unsettlingly easily into hard bone. A hot, bright flash of nausea almost makes his legs spasm, the need to curl further into his stomach strong, but Virgil’s got a steady hand, the one not holding the needle, on his brother’s hip and it luckily keeps him still while the thick needle sucks out his marrow. Being held still doesn’t mean he’s not very nearly sick then and there though, because it’s a close thing. John’s face screws up, his breathing short and sharp. He’s embarrassed to realise he’s shaking.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” She murmurs somewhat desperately, clinging on. “You’re doing great, baby. It won’t be long, we’ve got you, Virgil’s almost done.”

John’s teeth clench, and he screws his eyes even tighter shut at the sensation of the needle now retracing its route as Virgil carefully removes it. His muscles tense automatically, making Virgil’s job harder and leaving the spaceman gasping in sharp, clinical air like his abused lungs can’t quite cope with the shock. His stomach muscles are quivering.

"All done, John." Virgil’s gentle voice. “You did great.” A sticky pad gets pressed firmly into place, Virgil’s hand remaining there to apply pressure, while the other leaves his hip to hide away the needle device and it’s precious, extracted cargo - sealing it in a small, labelled bag to be sent to Brains lab for testing.

"Geez Virgil." John just about manages, breathlessly. "That hurt …"

"Sorry.” Virgil sounds just as deeply sincere for his tenth apology as he had for his first, “Just sit tight and rest, John, and then after about fifteen minutes, we can pop you on your back and you can sleep some more." Blue gloves are peeled away and discarded, the man doing so clearly more than slightly distraught. Trying to calm himself, Virgil settles on the side of the bed at his brother’s back, pulling down John’s rucked up T-shirt and tucking the covers up around his waist.

John hasn’t stopped trembling yet. The monitors are squealing his body’s displeasure, even if John can’t bring himself to vocalise it further. Star’s still there, in his space, smiling softly whenever his dazed eyes swing past her. Her own hands are sweating, throat tight against the tears that are threatening. She can feel the hysteria buzzing beneath her clammy skin, but she’s going to keep a lid on it in front of John if it’s the last thing she does. And Virgil… She's worried about Virgil too. The lot of them don’t need her mess as well.

“Close your eyes.” Virgil advises, “For a start.” He smooths his fingers through the curling strands of his brother’s hair, trying to be calming and fiercely hating, right now, with all his heart that his brother is going through this. The world can be just so damn unfair sometimes. Downright cruel. John doesn’t deserve any of this at all. Not for the first time today, Virgil kind of wants to break down in tears but John, sleepy, soft, in-pain John, still needs him. Scott isn’t due to be back for his shift for another five minutes and even then Virgil’s not actually sure he can leave him.

John does do as he’s asked though (a model patient compared to the fuss the rest of the Tracy brothers like to put up) and closes his eyes, hoping to doze until Virgil says it's time to move. There’s a hot, low throb going on in his lower back, spreading as an awful ache right through his back muscles. Hell if he’s not glad for the drugs Virgil’s pumped him full of. If he didn't have those right now, he’s pretty sure he'd be howling in agony… Rest sounds really, really good.