#went to the dr again and it turns out i may have an infection

[hmsmilkbone]

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[gumnut-logic]

Along the Way (Part 7 and The End)

Sweetapple | Dear Mr Tracy | Along the way - Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

It's finished! ::runs around the room like a loon:: Though I have to say that I doubt this will be the last we see of Mr Sweetapple as there are several threads that need a good neat tie up :D

All the wonderful thanks to @onereyofstarlight for staying up extra late and answering my poke across the Tasman Sea for a last minute read. I hope Alex gives you some nice sleep ::hugs tight::

Also, special thanks to all of you for supporting my geeky fanboy Alex :D There will be more as someone sent me some OC asks about Alex and I've realised that the only way I can answer them is by writing fic. (some other OCs of mine might pop up in fic at some point,too, for that exact same reason) ::so many hugs to all of you for being so kind to me::

But anyway, I will stop my excited rambling and present you with the last chapter of this fic....which has taken so long to write - so many apologies. Though I am excited that I'm writing again :D

I hope you enjoy this :D

-o-o-o-

Alexander Sweetapple’s head was spinning.

Not so much from the concussion he had no doubt he had, thank you, Mr Holographic Scott Tracy, but more from the fact that Virgil had just kissed him.

Not Mr Virgil Tracy, Head of Research and Development at Tracy Industries, no….more ‘ohmigod, I finally found you and you’re alive, I want to hug and kiss your brains out’ Virgil Tracy.

The man was covered in concrete dust and grime, there was more grey than blue on his uniform bar the scratched patches where his now discarded exosuit had sat.

Alex had proof Virgil had hugged him via all the dusty patches on his damp clothes, on his arms, and in his hair.

Virgil Tracy had hugged and kissed him.

For real.

Alex stood beside his mum while Virgil assessed the condition of her ankle and she went about embarrassing her son every way possible.

To be honest, it had been such a day that she was welcome to show Virgil Alex’s naked baby pictures for all he cared. She was safe and that was all important.

A glance over at the remains of the museum building prompted his heart to add a few extra beats per minute to its routine.

Alex let his jaw drop as he watched the roof float away.

Oh god.

“Alex?”

Virgil’s voice was so rich and deep.

“Alex?” And then Virgil grabbed him. Was he trying to hug him again. That would be nice. “Whoa! I think you need to sit down.”

Okay.

He folded himself smoothly down onto the pavement beside his mum.

“Hey, honey, look at me.��� Her fingers were suddenly in his hair. “Allie, how the hell did you do all that with a head injury?” She peered closely at him. “Virgil, what do your scanners say?”

And yes, Virgil was waving a yellow light over Alex. “Concussion, bruising…” He frowned. “You’re both wet. You’ve been in the river?”

“Nearly drowned. My foot got stuck and Allie pulled me out. Some water, possibly sewage, may have been inhaled. My recommendation is to watch for symptoms of infection. In both of us.” Dr Sweetapple was in the house.

He turned to Virgil only to find his friend’s eyebrows fully deployed.

They were very nice eyebrows.

Virgil caught his stare. “Thunderbird One, I need to leave the danger zone. Ten minutes there and back for patient transport.”

“FAB, Thunderbird Two. Make it quick, we need your help in the industrial sector.” A pause. “How’s Alex?”

“Concussion, but well enough…and safe.” Virgil still had his eyes.

“Good to hear. Thunderbird One out.”

“What are you doing, Virgil?” The words slipped out without thought.

Virgil looked down at his wrist control poking it. “You both need medical supervision. I’m providing it for you.”

A good hundred metres away, Thunderbird Two rose up on her struts and her module door slid smoothly open. Two hoverstretchers darted out across the road, gliding around obstacles until they reached Virgil’s side. He pulled out a control surface and reconfigured them into hoverchairs. “Sorry to rush this, but time is short. Alex, stay put while I help your mother.” He held up a gloved hand and Alex was forced to settle back and obey.

Besides, the world was spinning again, and after all, Virgil was technically his boss.

He let his head fall into his hand and closed his eyes, suddenly ever so tired.

So this was what an adrenalin drop felt like.

Ugh.

“Alex?” Virgil’s voice was soft and his gloved hand gentle on his arm. That was really nice. “Alex? You with me?”

He blinked. Oh. “Yeah.”

“Let’s get you up.” Virgil nudged him, both hands holding his arms to steady him.

The world wobbled, but a few steps and Virgil had him snug and safe, strapped into the hover stretcher…chair…whatever the hell it was.

Virgil was running, Alex and his mother beside him, until they were all swallowed by the green of Thunderbird Two.

At some point, Virgil must has triggered the chair back into a bed because Alex was lying down and Virgil hovering over him, once again with a scanner flickering yellow light. “You can go to sleep, Alex. You’re okay and you’re safe.” A gloved hand gently brushed away the hair from Alex’s forehead. He knew this should mean something, but he was so tired.

Thunderbird green danced as his eyelids drifted closed.

Somewhere something was roaring just like a Thunderbird launching, but he had no energy to care.

-o-o-o-

Jeff stepped into the elevator only to almost collide with his mother. “Mom?”

“I’m meeting Thunderbird Two.”

“Why?” Was Virgil hurt? Why hadn’t John told him?

A hand on his arm quelled the sudden panic. “Virgil is fine. We have visitors.”

“Who?” Did he have to draw the information out bit by bit?

“Do you remember Alexander Sweetapple?”

“Of course, I do. Gordon thinks Virgil might be…interested.”

“He is.” She held up a finger so close to Jeff’s face, his eyes crossed. “And you are not going to say a thing. Yes, he’s breaking protocol, but he has good reason.” She looked away and let her finger drop. “The poor boy has been terrified all day. Thank god, they finally found Alex. And I don’t blame him for not wanting to let him out of his sight.” His mother stared up at Jeff with all the fire he knew she possessed. “Your son is bringing home his first romantic interest ever and you are not going to spout security blather all over him. This is our house and we can have guests. Especially important guests.”

Jeff took a step back. “I wasn’t going to say anything!” Virgil was bringing home Alex? As a love interest? “What the hell happened?” He really needed to speak to John about keeping him updated. He knew his orbiting son was selective, but this was ridiculous.

The elevator doors opened and his mother glared at him. “Something good. Don’t ruin it.” She stomped off into Two’s hangar, detouring into the medical supply cupboard on the way, just as the hangar doors started their opening sequence.

Jeff stepped cautiously out of the elevator. He had no idea what warranted his mother’s ire. Okay, maybe he had had some words with his eldest at one point, but that was nearly a decade ago.

His priorities were a little different these days.

Two roared in, a little faster than the norm. Virgil was obviously in a hurry. She spun on her turntable and the moment she settled, her forward hatch was lowered, Virgil standing between two hoverchairs.

Jeff hurried after his mother, cursing his cane, as Virgil strode with the two chairs towards them.

“Grandma, this is Doctor Lolly Sweetapple. Doctor Sweetapple, this is my grandmother, Doctor Sally Tracy, she and my father will be taking over your care.”

The two doctors exchanged greetings and slipped into medical babble two seconds later.

“Dad?” Virgil gestured him over. “You remember Alex?” Why was there so much hesitation in his son’s voice?

“Certainly, the creator of Siliwrap.” The man was obviously asleep. “How is he?”

“Concussion, bruising, he and his mother need monitoring for possible lung infection. They were caught in contaminated water.” His son swallowed; his expression hesitant. “I wanted them here, Dad. Grandma has the skills and the tools.” He looked away. “I just couldn’t leave them to the system.” His eyes fell on Alex and Jeff’s heart clenched.

“We will look after them.” He dropped a consoling hand to his son’s shoulder.

Vulnerable eyes looked up at him. “Thanks, Dad.” His hand was squeezed and Virgil was again moving. This time running back to his ‘bird.

His mother immediately took over and bustled them all into the elevator before they could acquire new coiffures a’la rocket engine.

As the doors closed, Thunderbird Two accelerated out on to her runway and the elevator shaft roared as she took to the sky.

-o-o-o-

Alex rolled over in bed and sighed into his pillow. He was extremely comfortable. Temperature was perfect. Pillow was soft. “Mmmmm….”

“About time you woke up, Allie. You were starting to worry me.” His mother’s voice was always reassuring.

“He’s fine, Lolly. Concussion is healing and there is no sign of any lung infection. See, look at the scans.”

Alex frowned. That was a female voice he didn’t recognise. Also, why was his mum in his bedroom?

“You’re giving me equipment envy, Sally. My god, the science behind this is amazing.”

“Virgil has them in development, don’t you worry. A good percentage of our breakthroughs do get filtered down into the market. Unfortunately, there is a difference between the ability to make a device for International Rescue and making devices in efficient, ecological and economic mass production. Our teams do their best.” A snort. “And your boy is part of that team. His devotion to Siliwrap is all to his credit. Alex is saving lives as much, if not more, as any at Tracy industries. You should be proud.”

“Oh, that’s a given. He’s always been a little obsessive, especially regarding the Thunderbirds.”

Wha-?

Alex flung his eyes open to find his mother lying on a bed beside him, smiling. She had her ankle wrapped and raised and was obviously talking to the owner of the other voice, an older lady dressed in a purple jumpsuit.

Both were smiling at him.

“Where am I?”

Yes, that’s the first question out of any alien abductee’s mouth, no doubt about it.

“You’re on Tracy Island, Alex. You and your mother are safe and our guests.” When Alex didn’t respond as his brain automatically overloaded. “I’m Mrs Tracy, Virgil’s grandmother.”

“Watch it, Sally, he may combust on the spot.”

Thanks, mum.

His mother was grinning at him. “I swear he’s been looking for the location of this island since he discovered his first Thunderbird.”

“Mum!”

“Shhh! You’ll wake him up.” His mum was pointing behind him.

“Lolly, don’t worry, Virgil sleeps like the dead. Especially after a rescue like that.”

Virgil? What?

He twisted around and found a third bed behind him. Virgil lay sprawled face down on it, snoring softly into his pillow.

“Don’t worry, honey. He’s just tired. Our boys exhaust themselves and then wonder why their bodies shut down.”

It was only then all the events leading up to his current situation fully loaded into his brain.

Virgil.

Virgil had kissed him. His chocolate eyes held such relief and joy…

The scene played back in his head over and over, declaring that it had happened. That something Alex may have dreamed about but never really considered actually possible, had happened.

He stared at Virgil.

Gone was the uniform and in its place a simple black t-shirt outlining a lax bicep hanging off the edge of the bed. Alex’s eyes tracked down the length of Virgil’s arm to his hand.

Such strong hands.

The emergency responder had a blanket draped over him, obviously placed there after the advent of slumber, likely by his purple grandmother.

“Why is he here?”

Mrs Tracy walked around Alex’s bed so she could face him. “Now, don’t you start worrying your head off, young man. He is fine. He’s in the bed because otherwise he’d be asleep in a chair and that is not acceptable self-care. He wanted to stay here with you and it was the bed or out. Exhaustion did the rest.”

He stared at her a moment, his thoughts spinning.

“How are you feeling, Allie?”

Huh? He turned back to his mother. “Mum, your ankle…”

She waved him off. “Hon, I’ve done worse tripping over kids in the waiting room. Nothing to worry about.” She frowned at him. “How’s your head?”

How was his head? How was he in general?

There were aches, yes, now that attention had been drawn to them, but generally, considering that he’d just been through a major disaster, he felt okay. “I’m okay.”

His eyes drifted back to Virgil.

“Don’t you think of getting out of bed just so you can sit at his bedside, Alex. I know how you boys think, so don’t think you can pull one over on me.” Virgil’s grandmother was proving to be as bad as Alex’s mother.

“Don’t worry, Sally, he’s been very well trained from birth.”

“How did you manage that? I’ve been trying for nearly thirty years with the grandkids. Their father is just as bad.”

Alex’s eyes widened. Their father? Jeff Tracy. The Jeff Tracy who gave his name to Tracy Island. That Tracy Island that was ever so secret and Alex was currently resting his butt on. Well, the bed his was resting his butt on was on the Island. It was simple transference of molecular ownership.

Perhaps this was not the best moment to realise that he was wearing a black t-shirt very similar to Virgil’s and that it was not one he owned, nor was it one he was wearing the last time he was aware and conscious.

He pulled up the blanket and found black shorts. “Where are my clothes?” Perhaps the step up in octave was a little ridiculous on his part, but it had been a very stressful day.

“Your clothes were ruined, Allie. Jeff and Mrs Tracy were kind enough to supply and dress you in some replacements.” His mother was ever so matter-of-fact, as usual.

“Jeff Tracy saw me naked?!”

Okay, he had to admit, that was supposed to be inner voice and not shouted at the top of his lungs. In any case, it proved that it was possible to wake up Virgil Tracy, no matter what his grandmother said.

“Alex? What?”

He turned to find Virgil pushing himself up off the bed, hair sticking in all directions, obviously still half asleep.

“Honey, the man brought up five boys. One more is nothing new.” Mrs Tracy was as matter-of-fact as his mother.

Great. A team up.

“Virgil, go back to sleep.” Mrs Tracy bustled over to her grandson and attempted to get him to lie down.

But Virgil had caught sight of Alex. “Alex! You’re awake!”

Mrs Tracy actually rolled her eyes as Virgil threw off his covers and climbed out of bed. He closed the distance between them on bare feet. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

Alex couldn’t help it. “You look adorable.” Because he did. Big tough rescue operative with puffy eyes and hair sticking up all over the place, not to mention the black t-shirt and shorts that hid absolutely zero anatomical detail. And above all, he was smiling, as if ever so happy to see Alex…which was some kind of miracle and honestly how hard had he hit is head?

“You’re not bad yourself.” That smile turned to one of appreciation.

What?

His mother did mention a concussion…

“Okay, it’s obvious Virgil is not going to listen to his doctor’s advice, so Lolly and I will leave you two boys alone.” Mrs Tracy poked at his mum’s bed and it detached from the wall, hovering quite happily and easily nudged out of the room.

“Allie, take it easy, love. You are recovering from a concussion, after all.”

Yeah, yeah, mum, whatever. Virgil’s eyes were such a beautiful shade of brown.

Both women muttered to each other as they left the room, closing the door behind them.

Virgil was poking Alex’s bed controls with his fingers. “Good. You’ve rested.” His eyes were tracking over medical readouts. Alex’s medical readouts.

“I’m okay, Virgil.”

The man looked up at him again. “Good.”

Alex frowned as Virgil lifted a hand up and gently brushed Alex’s hair clear of his left temple and the abrasion there. “Grandma’s treated you well.”

Alex wanted to fall into that gentle touch. His eyes may have at least partially closed.

“Are we okay?”

Alex’s eyes snapped open.

“I mean…” Those eyes looked down and away. No, come back! “…we haven’t talked about-“

Alex was suddenly kissing Virgil. There had been space between them, but now it was gone, Alex had his arms around those truly magnificent biceps, and startled lips were pressed up against his, ever so warm, and god, Virgil was kissing him back…

There was a brain whiteout for a moment as Virgil’s arms returned Alex’s eager embrace…and then Virgil’s tongue was in his mouth and…

“Whoa! My bad.”

Alex pulled back.

“No! No, you two just keep doin’ what you were doin’ and I’ll just put this coffee down and-“

“Gordon, what do you want?” Virgil hadn’t let go of Alex, but his head did turn towards his brother.

Alex was busy dying on the spot. Why did he do that? Kiss Virgil? Him?

“I brought you coffee! You know, life blood and all that.” Coffee? “Uh, you might want to get back to that tonsil hockey you were playing. Alex looks like he’s might dump you for the coffee.”

“Go away, Gordon.”

“Going away, leaving, like a tree. Happy for both of you. ‘Bout time, Virg.”

“Gordon!”

“I’m gone!” And he was, the door sliding shut behind him.

Virgil turned back to Alex. “Sorry about that.” A slight shrug. “I have brothers.”

Alex blinked. “I have sisters.”

Virgil’s smile was a sight to behold. “So, we’re okay?”

Alex had had a very hard day, his head was a bit of a mess and there were several truths he was ignoring to keep his sanity. But right now?

He tugged Virgil closer. “More than okay.”

“You want some coffee?”

But Virgil’s lips were brushing his and… “No, I’m good.”

The coffee went cold.

-o-o-o-

FIN

[rogueshadeaux]

Chapter Twenty-Five — Fallout

It took me way too long to find my voice — I felt more disconnected from my body now than when I was freezing over. “When does it get easier?” I asked, voice croaky and barely there. “When do you stop feeling guilty over it?” 

5,555 words [teehee] | 20 min read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: violence, described spiraling, death, racism, illness

Brent pulled the sleeve of his sweater over the wrapping on his elbow as the phlebotomist, I’d discovered they’re called, filed away his blood samples in this tube holder, each one marked. 

“Stress to them that I need the results as soon as they can get them,” Dr. Sims was talking off to the side with some technician. “The full report, in email.”

The tech muttered some agreement, clearly awestruck at who he was talking to, and was gone with the vials the moment they were handed off. 

“So what’s a…microray?” Brent asked.

“Microarray,” Dr. Sims corrected. He was dressed differently today; business casual, collar of his dress shirt caught on the neckline of the wool sweater. “It’ll break down the sequencing of each individual chromosome and tell us if there’s any genetic malformations in your DNA,”

“And why would we need to know that?” Brent glanced over at Dad, who was sitting in the now-baren windowsill seats and looking out the window. Everything Dad and Brent had in this room was packed up, ready to go as soon as I got medicine from the in-hospital pharmacy. 

Dad sighed hard, staring at the sky like it had all the answers for a moment longer before turning in place to face us. “There’s something I need to explain to you both,” 

And then he began to tell us more about how Mom got sick. 

She didn’t heal immediately after having us, but the doctors brushed it off; a Conduit has to be in decent shape to heal and she simply wasn’t. She lost a lot of blood in the abruption, and the blood transfusion had to be from someone without the Conduit gene as the enzymes are dangerous to normal people, so she may have been beyond drained out. That’s what they thought, at least. “They told us to give it a week,” Dad said, “That we’d probably see progress by then.”

They didn’t. Instead, Mom was discharged, and then back in the hospital nearly two days later for MRSA. 

The Doctors contributed the infection to her weakened system, and brushed it off then as well. “When someone’s pregnant, their immune system is ass,” Dad tried to joke, with no real humor in his voice. “So they reset the healing clock on us. Told us to wait two weeks. Raising two newborns on my own when she was hospitalized was horrible, by the way,”

Two weeks came and went and her scar wasn’t gone. Her and Dad brought it up to her obstetrician, and they simply said to wait till her six week check-up. The amount of time it takes for someone normal to heal. “They did that again and again, a lot. Just told us to be patient and do it the human way,” Dad shook his head.

She began to bruise. She started getting bloody noses again. She had accidentally sliced a knuckle to the bone in a dishwashing accident and had to get stitches, which stuck around instead of dissolving almost immediately. “Healing was the first thing to disappear, and then her powers got weaker.”

Brent looked at me, fear in his eyes. “So does…does that mean Jean’s…”

“We aren’t sure yet.” Dr. Sims said. “That’s what the microarray is for. I was still in school when Fetch died — what was happening to her was what made me go in the first place. But that means we never found out what made her sick, and we’ve gotta rule out that it isn’t something genetic.”

“But didn’t you guys say it might be Augustine’s tar?” Brent asked.

“It might be,” Dad responded. “Which is where the second part of this conversation comes in.”

What the hell did that mean?

Dad took his jacket from his lap and chucked it on to the little backpack he had, hands going to his knees in its place. “Remember that holiday vacation I promised?”

What the hell did that mean? “Yeah?” I asked, glancing over at Brent with a cocked eyebrow. Was this like how people take out their dogs for the day before putting them down? Was I getting a ‘Best Day Ever’ before kicking the bucket? At least Brent seemed to be feeling the canine excitement; he was suddenly sitting perched at the end of my bed like he was waiting for Dad to ask him if he wanted to go for a walk. 

Dad smiled slightly — though it looked more like a grimace. “Have either of you ever wanted to visit New Marais?”

Brent immediately cringed, and I couldn’t blame him. New Marais was…bad. Bad enough that Theresa’s mom basically fled from there after her dad was killed. I’m pretty sure it was the world capital for place most likely to get stabbed at. There were literal robbers poised at bridges, shooting the tires of cars on the highway to make them crash so they could pilfer everything from the vehicle. The only people that’d thrive in New Marais were criminals, extortionists, and other sorts of bloodsuckers. It wasn’t a pretty place, hadn’t been in literal decades; after the flood and the fascists, it had no allure. Unless you liked French colonial structures and being assaulted. 

Even the architecture couldn’t convince Brent; he looked at me, and I knew we were thinking the same thing. “Why, uh…” I drew off. “Why New Marais?”

Dad wasn’t surprised at our apprehension — in fact, he seemed to agree with it. “There’s someone there that can help us out. Knows a bit about tar powers — but we have to be there to get answers. He’s outside of the city center, from what I understand, but it’s…”

“New Marais,” Brent said distastefully. 

Dad nodded. “New Marais.”

“That’s still Louisiana,” I said, “That’s gotta be a couple hour flight, right?”

Dad grimaced. “Actually, it’ll be a…three day drive…”

“I’m not allowed to fly.” Dr. Sims said from his place, yet again, by the sink. “Not in planes, at least. I don’t plan on flying that far with my powers, either.”

“You’re coming with us?” Brent asked, an undertone of astonishment in his voice. 

Dr. Sims nodded. “What’s happening to your sister is something I plan to see through. I didn’t get to…to help Fetch in time. I’m going to do it this time. It’s what she’d want.”

The way he talked, you’d think he and Mom were age-old friends. How well did they know each other?

The doctor came up with prescriptions, pain medicine and antibiotics and something else I couldn’t pronounce, giving directions I knew I’d forget the moment I left this room. Dad knew this too, saying, “I’ll put alarms on my phone — oh,” he reached down to the backpack, fiddling with the thing and pulling something out. “Put them on yours too.”

He tossed my phone towards my broken arm, forgetting I couldn’t exactly reach out and catch it with it held against my chest in the sling. 

Dr. Sims slipped out at some point on promises that he’d be right back — and he was. Almost within three minutes. He was a bit winded, looking past Brent and I as he helped me figure out how to put on my jacket to look straight at Dad, saying, “We’ve got an issue,”

Dad’s face immediately got steely hard, and he stood, shoulders squared. “What’s up?”

“Not that kind of—” Dr. Sims cut off, “Well, it could be. Protest.”

Dad growled. “How the hell do they know we’re here?”

“Someone probably slipped something to the media,” Dr. Sims crossed the room in a second and was at the window, looking down at the parking lot a few floors below. “Might have seen you. Looks like they’re congesting the main entrance though, so we can probably slip out back. Problem is, none of us can get to the parking garage without them seeing,”

“It’s just a few protestors,” Brent shrugged. “We can get past them.”

“It’s…” Dr. Sims trailed off. “It’s more than a few.” 

“One of us could go move the truck—” Dad started. 

“They’ll just chase us down.” 

“Is there a roof entrance?” Brent asked. “Maybe we can leave a different way, come back for the truck?”

Dad looked at him like he was an idiot. “I’m not letting your sister climb a hundred feet in the air when she can’t make the landing.”

I managed to balance the jacket on my shoulders, saying, “We should just go. Brent’s right, we’ve walked past them dozens of times before. There’s probably cops monitoring, we should be fine.”

Dad looked like he wanted to do anything, literally anything, except that. “If they get violent, Jean…” he warned. 

Oh, God. Don’t tell me he’s turning into this sort of parent. “I can still defend myself, Dad.” I insisted. He wasn’t going to start keeping me in bubble wrap, right?

Dr. Sims actually came to my rescue. “We’ll all be there, she should be fine.”

“We can even escort her,” Brent added, amused. “Like some c-list celebrity.”

Dad bit at his cheek, unsure — but also entirely out of options. “Fine, okay,” He said. “We’ll move quick. Eugene, think you can guard Jean while she gets in the truck? I’ll cover Brent.”

Well, at least I wasn’t the only one he was being overprotective of. “Sure,” Dr. Sims said. 

They found a formation when we stood in the elevators, just in case some people made it into the lobby of the hospital; Brent and Dr. Sims stood in front of me, flanking each side for space while Dad stayed behind me. A full cover of large, powerful bodyguards to make up for the fact that I was now weak. It felt so demeaning. I was some weak spot in the family now, a risk that they’d have to mind at all times. 

As the elevator doors opened up into a hallway, I could hear them, a dozen voices, maybe even bordering on a hundred, all chanting angrily — although I couldn’t make out what. Brent cast an unsure look over his shoulder, asking, “Maybe we should stay a while?”

Dad’s face was steeled. “There’s no point.” he said plainly, a sudden shift from his hesitancy before. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

Still, as we passed an electronic map in the hall, Dad’s hand came out and drained it of all imagery, matching Dr. Sims in power. 

The lobby was huge and fancy and white, with some big fountain fixture in the middle, its white noise barely doing anything to silence the voices. The windows, though, were big enough to show how many people there were. There were at least a hundred, all being forced to the sides by police so that the actual entrance to the hospital would be clear for patients and visitors, with three separate news vans recording the tension. “Fucking hell,” Dad muttered behind me. 

“At least there’s cops?” I offered, not entirely sure that was a good thing. Rarely was. 

“Stay looking forward, stay walking, don’t engage,” Dad listed off behind me. “You hear me, Brent? Don’t engage—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you,” Brent muttered, going a bit red. 

The foyer of the hospital had a line of police whose eyes I avoided; just gotta stay in step and keep moving forward. Easy enough. 

All of that assurance disappeared when we stepped outside to what was moments away from becoming an angry mob. But what I wasn’t prepared for was to be confronted with images of me; a grainy picture of me trying to get the huge concrete rock to not hit the helicopter, my Linus Pauling yearbook picture. The signs were all littered with words, accusations: Shot out of the sky on the ones with the footage, a sign with just the number 137 on it, the 7 written on a sticky note. An update on the death count. 

Me. They were protesting me. 

And as we stepped further into the light, the protestors zeroed in on me, and the general yelling became targeted insults that somehow melted into white noise and also stood out to me all at once. “Dirty Bio-terrorist!” one person yelled. 

“There’s over fifteen thousand unemployed, I hope you’re happy!”

“You killed my brother!” 

“We’re homeless now!”

“Someone oughta hold your head underwater!”

I didn’t realize I was frozen in place until Dad’s arm wrapped around me, and he began to roughly steer me through the slight divot in the crowd Dr. Sims and Brent’s bodies had made. “C’mon, Jean,” he muttered, voice as stiff as could be. 

There was no getting through the crowd here; the flow of the protestors followed us like what I imagine wolves hunting elk did. But was it fair to paint them as the predators when they were the real victims here? If the Big Bad Wolf was on trial for the murder of those pigs, could you blame other swine for wanting to swallow him whole? 

And that wasn’t an exaggeration; the crowd seemed to push closer in until they were claustrophobically close, until the heat of their insults warmed my skin. There was a shout, louder than the rest, and suddenly Brent was slamming himself into my side, arm steeled and shield up and I stumbled and yelled in pain. Something crashed against it with a musical ping, and a rather large decorative rock from the piles in the medians fell between his feet. 

“The fuck, dude?” Brent shouted, swiping the rock up from his feet. He looked about ready to chuck it back, trying to get a good eye on whoever threw it. 

“Things are getting out of hand,” Dr. Sims warned. 

Dad tucked me closer into his side and walked faster, repeating under his breath again and again, “Stay looking forward, keep walking,” as if he was moments away from also going after people. 

Brent stayed posted on my other side with his shield up all the way until we got to the entrance of the parking garage, people filtering around the entrance that was currently occupied by a few cars trying to either find parking or pay for it. Only protestors, though — all of those cops that had congregated the entrance? They were nowhere to be seen. The one running interference now was Dr. Sims, who stepped to the side, pushed us all into the stairwell, and then lifted his hands, blue light beginning to swirl around them. 

“Eugene, what the hell are you doing?” Dad asked, pushing me up a step. 

“Buying us some time. Go!” He demanded. “I’ll catch up.”

He waved those arms, and the air in front of him began to turn blue and solidify. Parts of it went silver like Brent, other parts stayed blue, and it began to take on a humanoid form when Dad pushed me again, forcing me up the stairwell. 

Brent was in the lead, taking two at a time and looking back to watch me struggle to climb. God, the cut in my side was throbbing with each rough breath. Dad stayed behind me chanting encouraging reassurances, like “You’ve got this, Jeanie,” and “Last flight of stairs, c’mon.” 

Thank god — I didn’t think I could go much farther.

Dad rushed us to his truck, opening the back door on the drivers’ side and forcing us both in there. “Brent, cover your sister for me. I’ll get us out of here,” 

“Shouldn’t we wait for Dr. Sims?” Brent asked, crawling in awkwardly after me. 

“He’ll catch up,” he reassured us. 

Wasn’t sure how someone was supposed to catch up to a moving vehicle, but okay. 

Brent’s shield was gone, but both arms were steeled now, covering my head and neck as he practically forced me to duck into his lap. I couldn’t see anything that was going on besides the shifts in light, but God, I could hear those protestors, louder than before and seemingly arguing with something. Did Dr. Sims…start a fight? 

I peeked up from Brent’s lap just as the light shifted to see the protestors trying to fight their way into the parking garage against…eight tall, armored, blushed-blue winged angels.

“What the fuck?” I whispered, watching these angels levitate a mere ten inches off of the ground, refusing to part for the protestors — and cars — trying to come in. 

“Get ready,” Dad warned us. Brent forced my head back down. 

Dad honked the horn twice and there was a sudden collection of shouts from the protestors before Dad revved the engine and peeled out of there, throwing the truck so roughly right that I left Brent’s lap and nearly flew into the floorboard. There were more shouts, insults and curse words thrown our way that were drowned out by the truck’s roar and distance as Dad sped out of the area. 

I stayed down for three minutes before Dad sighed hard and called back, “You’re good now, Jeanie.”

I could barely move. Those people, nearly a hundred people, came to the hospital to protest because I was there. Because of what I did. 

���You okay?” Brent asked me. 

I just stayed staring at the rock on the floorboard, the one aimed for me. How could I be okay? 

We were well on the highway and nearly to the connection bridge that crossed to the other side of the Sound when the truck suddenly lurched as something slammed into the truck bed. Dad cursed as we both yelped, swerving in his lane so hard that the people beside us honked furiously as Brent and I spun around to see what happened.

Dr. Sims was in the bed face down, the groan audible from where we were despite the ambiance of rolling down the highway at 65 miles an hour.

“What the fuck was that?” Dad demanded, head whipping back to look at us and looking straight just as quickly as he moved to the right lane, slowing down. 

“It’s uh,” Brent cocked his head. “It’s Dr. Sims? But he isn’t looking too good…”

He wasn’t looking anything. He hadn’t moved, face plastered in the lateral grooving of the truck bed.

Dad moved over until he was on the shoulder of the highway, putting the car in park and hopping out to check on Dr. Sims. “You good, Eugene?” he asked. 

“Had to…couldn’t find you. Made an angel…fly me around. Out,” I could hear him groan through the window. “You’d think…I’d know how to land by now,”

“Well if your powers gave out, you couldn’t exactly stop it.” Dad shook his head. “C’mon, get in the truck,”

This was met by a loud groan that lasted for at least thirty seconds before Dr. Sims even tried to move a muscle. 

Dr. Sims was now comfortably in the passenger's side seat of Dad’s truck, thanking him like a man parched when Dad sacrificed his phone for draining. “Does that not break it?” Brent asked. 

Dad shook his head, glancing at us in the rearview mirror as Dr. Sims recovered. “Nah. Kinda just makes it short circuit for a while, but it’ll work again soon.”

Dr. Sims leaned his head back on the headrest, gasping out at the relief of the drain. “Thanks Del,” 

“Sure. At least you have good aim,”

We were returning to Salmon Bay, but only for a moment; we were going to pack, maybe eat, and then start the thirty-nine hour drive to Louisiana. A multi-state trip that Dr. Sims and Dad began trying to plan as soon as Dad’s phone turned back on. “So it’s only a ten mile difference if we go right at Salt Lake City and take the highway to Denver,” Dr. Sims hummed. “Cuts through Wyoming,”

“We could make it a road trip?” Brent offered. “Yellowstone – could go to a Broncos game—”

“We’re…crunched for time, bud,” Dad said, casting a quick glance at me in his rearview mirror. 

Right — I was the ticking time bomb now, the arsenal no one wanted around ‘cause it’d ruin days and maybe lives. I was holding the cool rock in my hand now that was aimed for my head, if what Brent chattered off at some point was true. I couldn’t even blame whoever threw it, not if they were impacted by what I did. 

I was the cause of their discontent. They weren’t there to picket Dad or Dr. Sims, or Conduits in general with its two biggest leaders in the same place — but me. Not only for the deaths — people were screaming about losing their homes, their jobs. I may have killed one hundred and thirty-four — no, one hundred and thirty-seven, now — but I ruined the lives of so many more. 

How many people were homeless now? How many people would have to scramble to live, to make money? 

Salmon Bay wasn’t hurt, at least. That’s really all I could cling on to, was that they seemed relatively untouched. The Longhouse was roped off, and there were spots in the concrete that had been ripped up, but the wood chips and body were all wiped away. 

Betty’s baby blue Beetle was in the house’s driveway, and it seemed the moment we turned down the street she was already racing out of the house, at Dad’s driver’s side in an instant and nearly yanking me out of the truck. “Oh, Regina!” She cooed, missing how I winced in pain as she gripped me tight around the abdomen. “You’re alright!”

Dad caught the grimace, gently peeling Betty off of me like you would a bandaid off of a toddler. “Okay, give her some room,” he chuckled under his breath. 

Betty stepped back, shifting her hands to my shoulders and looking me over. She glanced over my shoulder at Dad with that look, that pathetically sad one that people reserved for children’s graves and oil-slick ducklings before wiping it clear off of her face and saying, “You need to eat! Come on, I made lunch.”

There was no convincing Betty I wasn’t hungry; she actually hovered near me until I took a bite of the grilled chicken she made before finally sauntering off, satisfied. The house was different; there was a new side table shoved in beside the couch, a television on the floor next to a propped-up mounting system. The kitchen had been entirely unpacked and had a bunch of unopened bulk cleaning supplies on the counters. 

“Your family was meant to be the stars of the Potlatch,” Betty chimed in at some point. “A Potlatch is to share fortune among the tribe, and that’s what we planned to do for you all so that moving in would be more comfortable. Furniture, linens, the like — there were so many in the reservation that found something in good quality to donate. While you were…” She drew off, hesitating before going with, “In the hospital, I called in some favors and had everything moved in. In fact, I want to show you your room when you’re done!”

“We’re practically all moved in, now,” Dad added. “‘Course there’s probably a bunch of little things we’re forgetting, but for now, this is gonna be home.”

Yet another big change. 

“Speaking of moving, though.” Dad added, taking a moment to chew on his food before continuing, “I found something when I was going through your stuff, Brent.”

Brent froze, fork midway to his mouth, and the blush from the cold outside almost immediately left his face as he paled. “Oh, really?” He tried to play cool. 

Dad snorted, not ignorant to what he was doing. “Relax, you’re not in trouble. Not big trouble, anyways. But c’mon, man, why did you think having weed in a lawyer's house was a good idea? You know how deep of shit you would have gotten into if I found it before all of this?”

Brent blinked. “You’re…not mad?”

Dad barked out a laugh. “You really think I wasn’t smoking weed at your age? But Brent, son — it’s legal. You couldn’t wait till you were eighteen?”

Brent was still absolutely baffled at how this conversation was going, and I’m sure if we could hear the cogs in his brain, they’d be grinding so hard against each other that the sound would make us all cringe. “I’m…sorry?” he asked, not sure where he was supposed to go with this. 

Dad shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t matter much, now. You have a higher metabolism, so getting high off of…regular stuff won’t be easy. That does not mean to try anything harder.” He stressed. “But if you plan on using dab pens, get ready to have to pull that fucker for a good eight minutes—”

“Delsin!” Betty chastised, Dr. Sims stifling a laugh from the couch. 

Once they wound down and Dad mumbled his apologies, I spoke up, asking, “When do we leave?”

Dad hummed, thinking. “Tonight, probably. Less traffic, less people. We can all take turns too, since you two have your permit — well, you probably can’t Jean, but you could,” he directed towards Brent. “Eugene and I are gonna finish deciding which route we’re taking, and we’ll go after everyone packs.” He looked over his shoulder at Dr. Sims. “You’re sure you have everything you need?”

Dr. Sims shrugged. “For the most part. My laptops are still in your truck, and my go bag has enough supplies for a week without access to, say, washers or something. I don’t need much more.”

“I think I’m done,” I said, standing and abandoning the meal that was barely dug into. “I’m gonna go down to my room, start packing.”

“Oh! Let me show you where everything is—” Betty began, but I shook my head. 

“It’s okay,” I assured her. “I can find it all. Kinda wanna lay down, too.”

Betty hesitated mid-step, shooting a look over to Dad, who seemed just as concerned. “You sure, Jeanie?” he asked. 

I hated how they all were looking at me. “Yeah, Dad. I’m sure,” I said as lightly as I could, trying not to let my annoyance come through. 

Dad slowly nodded, eyes not leaving mine. He was trying to analyze my poker face for something. “Alright. I’ll come check on you after we finalize a plan,”

Check on me. Like I couldn’t be left alone for too long without fear that I’d drop dead. “Yeah, sure,” I muttered, already turning around and heading down the hall. I ran away from their concern as quickly as I could, disappearing down into the basement and closing the door behind me, a small barrier between us all.

Betty really had put work into making the room feel less like squatting underneath a bridge and like an actual room; the mattress was now on one of those beds with storage cabinets underneath, my art chest sitting at its foot on the ground. There was a short, whitish dresser on one wall and a desk on the other, which I walked towards while pulling the rock from the protest out of my pocket, setting it on top of a bunch of random unopened school supplies. 

Right! On top of everything, I was still in high school. Because things couldn’t get worse.

Well, no, they could. I knew exactly how they could, and how I could avoid it — but I didn’t. Why should I? I plopped down on the bed, threw off my arm sling, wrapped myself up in that woven blanket with Salmon in the middle and pulled out my phone.

Was it responsibility, curiosity, or just self-loathing that led me to wanting to look up more about the flood in Seattle? Probably all three. I needed to see what I did, how it impacted everyone because…didn’t I have a duty of care here? Didn’t I have a responsibility to care?

It would have been so much easier if I didn’t.

There was some footage from the fight from that helicopter, and that was really the only place I found anyone in my defense; the reporter, cameraman and pilot all lived, thank God, and it seemed like there were people in agreement that that was my initial plan. That’s where it ended, though. 

There was a tag specifically for the tsunami everywhere, littered with people asking for donations to online fundraisers and if anyone knew which amnesty hotels still had rooms available. I hadn’t considered there would still be people missing too, unaccounted for in the chaos of recovery; .pdfs with faces and names and case numbers all littered the tag with family and friends begging them to come home. And the vitriol. 

Another Rowe, ruining lives, one said. 

There was a picture of my mom with a 289 above her, the image beside it of me at that art expo I won last year, side by side with the judges and Dad, 134 over it.  The entire thing was titled apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. 

There were already politicians using what happened as their campaign fodder, speaking of how Conduits cannot be trusted to keep civilization safe if they’re able to live in it. “One Conduit has a bad day, and the body count is in the hundreds. A juvenile Conduit just killed over a hundred people in Seattle, injured thousands, and disrupted the lives of over seven hundred thousand people. This is a child who goes to school with your children, who doesn’t have control over their powers yet — what are we supposed to do when the next Conduit with absolutely no control over their abilities messes up? How can we trust we’re safe when these people don’t even seem to have control over themselves?”

Gotta get a new car because Tiger Lily flooded my brand new Mazda, one complained. 

It’s gonna take more than identification, another tweeted. Pocahontas was stuck on a reservation and still managed to attack a big city. Biterrorists need to be carted off to some island.

He didn’t even spell Bio-terrorist right. 

I could barely find the energy to get angry at the racism — how could I when the next post would be one for a funeral, or a wake, or just begging for someone, anyone, to tell the poster if their family member was alive?

And God, the obituaries. There was something bleak and horrifying about seeing one for a child that knocked the wind out of me so hard I began to hyperventilate to get it back. This was worse than the seven year old at COLE. There were dozens of children, old people and middle aged ones and people my age, barely adults. So many people died. 

Waves began roaring in my ears as my breathing picked up, and while I was still looking straight at my phone screen, none of it made sense anymore. The words looked like nothing more than scribbles a child would do. That a child should be doing, not being lowered six feet into the ground or cremated or…

Oh, God, I couldn’t breathe. 

I drew my legs into my chest and squeezed my eyes shut until they felt welded together, struggling to get in enough oxygen to feel like it was reaching my lungs. Fuck. A hundred and thirty seven people. All of this, all of this, was my fault. If I didn’t get caught by that Akuran, none of this would have happened. No one would be dead, our lives wouldn’t have been upended, maybe I’d even be able to heal without worrying why it was wrong — because if I didn’t know I was Conduit, I wouldn’t even feel like anything was wrong! My cast pressing into my chest wouldn’t feel like the squeeze of an anvil threatening to crush me whole. None of this would be happening, but it was, and it was my fault. My fault. My—

The bed moved, and someone settled in behind me, hands wrapping around the wrist dug into my hair and forcing it down to my chest, crossing it and grabbing my other arm the same way. I was gently leaned back, straightened from my curled form and pulled into a chest, and could barely hear Dad through the tinnitus in my ears. “You’re having a panic attack, Jean. I need you to breathe,” he commanded softly. “Use your stomach, not your chest.” 

I tried to follow his instructions but it seemed to take two minutes just to get a neuron in my brain to spark hard enough to adjust how I breathed. Dad stayed there holding me, enveloping my little form, keeping me from doing anything else but concentrate on breathing. 

My ears stopped ringing but began to sound like they were stuffed full of cotton balls, everything far away. Even as Dad’s soothing voice broke through my harsh hiccups, it felt like I was listening to him from underwater. His arms slackened their hold on mine, one leaving to pick up my phone as he whispered, “Oh, Jean,” before closing out the picture of a 10 year old’s obituary. 

 It took me way too long to find my voice — I felt more disconnected from my body now than when I was freezing over. “When does it get easier?” I asked, voice croaky and barely there. “When do you stop feeling guilty over it?” 

He shifted to my side, pulling me in so my ear was just over his heart. “I’m not sure,” he sighed. “It hasn’t gotten better for me.”

[sharonrb]

Death is only the Beginning pt 13

Chapter Forty-Five

“Can anyone tell me; where the Queen and the Princess has run off to?” M'Baku had summoned the Doras and Midnight Angels’ generals to the throne room.

“I have no idea my King,” Ayo was the first to address him.

“Neither have I,” Aneka answered.

“I need to know they are alright; and considering the invasion, we are more on the UN’s radar than ever,” he sat down on the throne, taking a deep breath in and releasing it. He had a concern expression that adorned his face.

“I can try to call Shuri, if you would like me to do so?” Aneka told him. He raised his head to stare at her.

“You can, like yesterday,” his tone was slightly brash, but Aneka ignored, it seeing he was worried about them.

“My King,” Ayo came near to him. “If I may speak.”

“Yes, general,” he replied.

“You do know they are both capable of defending themselves, and quite savvy in detecting danger,” she reminded him, Shuri is the Black Panther, and protector of Wakanda. The Queen Ramonda, being a mutant; has the ability to commune with her surroundings.

“I am quite aware of this general,” he expressed. “I just do not trust the UN. They acted like they were not aware of the invasion.”

“Maybe not all of the UN would have known what was happening,” Ayo said. “But someone knew something.” M'Baku nodded in agreement.

Shuri left Wakanda to take a break; her heart was heavy. Ramonda her mother, had gone off the grid to parts unknown. She left a note, explaining she needed to find herself.

“Find herself?” That was the question resonating in Shuri’s mind. “Who does she think she will discover?” Once again, she had lost her and was alone. She thought, maybe the space and time, will heal the wound. Having her mother alive made it even harder. The mother she had known all her life was gone.

This new version just reminded her of the pain she felt; seeing her laying there. And Okoye performing aid to revive her without any results. Then when she discovered her mother hadn’t die, but was in a dormant state. And the ones she had come to trust kept it from her for months. Then seeing her alive again, she was so happy, only to have that dash. She had no memory, of her past or present; not any of her, as her daughter. Worst of all, she fell in love and married the very person who literally took her life.

Then with a potion she gave her mother, Ramonda’s memory was restored, and she no longer resembled the woman; she once had been. She became a variant; someone who looked, walked and talked like her, but not her. Shuri knew she had to finally let go, but with her mother was relentless for them to reconnect.

But she constantly rejected it, and maybe that is what caused her mother to give up. Right at the time she was willing, and ready to reconcile; her mother left, and sought out to find herself. What will that leave her? Who will she find in this journey of discovery? Freedom, to be whoever she chooses to be? Will she find acceptance or happiness? Even if it costs her.

Shuri unpacked her backpack she had put together on short noticed. This was a spur of the moment decision, with no plans. She left her room and went to take a look around the big city. The culture here was different from Wakanda. But the same as the city, T’Challa took her to; to show her the new buildings he acquired, for the schools he planned on building.  

“Shuri,” an unrecognizable voice came from behind her. She turned to see a young man running towards her, waving with a big grin on his face. “Shuri!”

“Do I know you?” She asked, causing him to stop his in his tracks. He stood staring at her, and then lowered his head in despair.

“It infected Wakanda too,” he said.

“What infected Wakanda too?” She repeated.

“The spell of Dr. Strange,” he said, then turned to walk away.

“Wait!” She touched his arm. “What spell did Dr. Strange cast, and why?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He said looking at her.

“Try me,” she told him. “Have you had lunch yet?” A smile crept across his face.

“Not yet,” he said.

“Good, then you can join me,” she suggested. “We can swap stories.”

“Okay, I like that,” the big smile he had when he came, resurfaced.

“You know my name,” she said. “But I don’t remember yours.” Peter liked the way she phrases that sentence. To say ‘I don’t know your name’, oppose to ‘I don’t remember’, makes a difference.

“My name is Peter Parker,” he revealed. Shuri smiled softly; it didn’t ring a bell. But then, Dr. Strange would be that thorough.

“Hello Peter Parker,” she extended her hand; he accepted it happily. At least, one person salvaged in his life; even if they had to be reintroduced. They went off to see what lunch will be like, and the beginning of a much-needed (new) friendship.

Shuri and Peter sat in the park by the lakeside; telling each the crazy story of their life after the blip. It was good to hear someone else with similarity. Peter lost his aunt; and Shuri lost her mother, even if she had been revised.

“But your mother is still alive,” Peter reminds Shuri. “Unlike me; I lost everything. My aunt, my friends; no one remembers me. Not even you; we’re just trying to start anew.”

“Is she though Peter?” Shuri responded. “My mother died that day, after while Wakanda was attacked. She is only a shadow of the woman I knew. A child of two worlds, a mutant and Wakanda. But can she ever be comfortable or feel accepted?” Peter thought in silence; then stared out over the water. It was true; their circumstances were identical; they both had lost someone or everyone.

“But again, I say,” he begins. “She may not be the person you recognize from birth, but she is what she has become; and still your mother. Just another version as you pointed out. And she’s not going to abandon you, because that essence of her remains. As you said, she did try to get you and her to go away to reconnect, right? You will always be her daughter, and that’s not ever going to change. So, please, be patient; she’s also had it traumatic.” Peter reminded her, having a semblance of her mother, was better than none.

“You’re right Peter,” she digested what he told her. “You lost your aunt, and probably wishing you had the chance given to me.”

“Yes, Shuri. I would,” he confirmed.

“I am sorry on so many fronts,” she said, then looked at the water. Her mother was out there somewhere and alone, trying to figure out who she is. And dealing with her rejecting her get away together. Then there was Namor, who declares they are no longer with each other. The love she has for him will not wither so easily. Whenever that urge hits her, it will be him, she goes to. She hopes wherever life takes her mother, she will be happy. Then she had an idea. “Peter, come back to Wakanda with me, and stay awhile? The getting away, helped me. Maybe it could help you?”

“Really?” He spoke. He had never been to Wakanda, but the Avengers had told stories of it.

“Yes, really,” she replied. She was beginning to see how they became friends.

“Alright,” Peter exclaimed. “When can I come?”

“What’s keeping you from going now?” She asked.

“School,” he said. He had forgot he had just started.

“Don’t worry, I got connections.” She told him. “But first, can you take me on a tour of the city, and to the different landmarks?”

“Sure, but it will take a couple or so days,” he informed her.

“No problem, I wanted to get away for a few days anyways. Now I can enjoy it more with a friend.” Peter liked that, friend reference. He is going to enjoy, being around someone from his past. But now in his present, and hopefully his future.

Chapter Forty-Six

Okoye got Attuma to bed, and stood watching him resting. She left him to walk about, investigating their new home. She found a rock to sit on, enjoying the tranquility this place emitted. Only thing that could be heard was the water nearby.

Her mind went to the beautiful wedding, but also to a friend, who was so devious enough to drug her. Just so she could be kidnapped by her ex husband, and losing her own life in the process. How could lust for someone; get you to lose your moral compass? Okoye shook her head.

Attuma could be dead right this moment. W'Kabi meant to kill him, and take away another thing from her. He took the love she once had for him. The life they had planned, the family they were going to create. That was everything, now his desire was to have her heart broken, and miserable with him. Her body shuddered at the thought. How could one person; singly destroy a love, as great as theirs were?

But he didn’t succeed. Her husband is right in there, right now; resting and recovering from the poison. And soon, they will make their wedding plans in Talokan. She was so excited to just be able to call him her husband, since her wedding in Wakanda.

“General,” Attuma called to her. She laughed; it was good to see he was in good spirits. “I need your assistance.” She jumped from where she sat, and made her way to where he lay.

“Yes, my love,” she walked to him. “What can I do for you?”

“Come lay with me,” he says. She was obliging and did so. She laid her head on his chest, he placed an arm around her and pulled her close. She rested her had on his midriff, and then realized something.

“Attuma,” she looked into his face, with this dimpled grin plastered on it. She slightly raised the cover, to confirm what she felt. “Where are your clothing?”

“I do not sleep with them, to confining,” he told her. A little perk of his revealed, and noted.

“So do you want to…?” She started to ask.

“Mate?” He finished the sentence. “No, you being next to me is enough for now. But if it’s too much for you, there is another room you can occupy; until we complete our wedding here in Talokan. She felt a little way with the ‘other room’ she could occupy.

“That will be fine, I can go prepare it for me,” she went to leave, then felt his hand; gently grasp her upper arm. She turns to look at him with tears in her eyes. He saw them, and an ache touched his heart. He pulled her over into his lap, holding her in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding back the tears.

“Please my Wakandan warrior,” he whispered in her ear. “Never leave my side, and I promise to do the same.” She pulled back gazing into his eyes, and nodded; overwhelmed with the love she saw in them. He captured her mouth with his own, kissing her until she had to breathe again.

“Wow, where did that come from?” She smiled.

“Just a preview of what’s to come,” he informed her.

“Oh,” she said, as he reclaimed her lips, intensifying the kiss.

Peter took Shuri around the city showing her the special places it was known for. Her getting to know him, went off as it did the first time. He knew it would, because he knew her. They had breakfast, lunch, and dined together. They talked about everything, but what they concealed. She was the Black Panther and he was Spiderman. She wasn’t ready for that conversation, since she didn’t know he was a super hero. And he didn’t want to put too much on her, since they were getting reacquainted.

“Get some things together and meet tomorrow.” She wrote down where to come. Then she went to meet with his school administrator, and got him some time off; with the agreement he would keep up with his assignments online.

Peter woke up excited to go to Wakanda to actually see everything the Avengers had told him about this magnificent nation. But most if all, he didn’t feel that loneliness that had been plaguing him sent everyone he knew memories of him were wiped away.

And then there was his aunt Mae. He will never be able to hug her, or kiss her, as well as hold a conversation but everything or nothing at all. Tears welled in his eyes, he sat on his bed looking at the place he had lived these pass months. Being in Wakanda and Shuri, will take the edge off the pain. He grabbed his things and gave the room a backwards look, closed the door and went to join his friend, Shuri.

Peter came to the address Shuri had given him, and saw it was an abandon, empty private airport. He went into the old ruin hanger, with a couple of equally banged up planes. He searched for Shuri, and wondered if he was the first to arrive. Then as he looked around at the open field; right before him a strange jet appeared, and the steps lowered. Shuri came down them, smiling at him.

“Come on board, Peter” she laughed. Peter ran to her, and followed her into it.

“This is cool,” he said, admiring the interior and technology. “I have never been in anything that can cloak before.” He was ecstatic. Being in Wakanda is going to be a great adventure, he felt. They flew away, heading towards Wakanda, her home.

Ramonda had gone to a small island resort, she either heard or read about. She wanted to try every relaxing services they were offering. She met a nice lady, who was coming off a bad divorce; and needed a friend. She was from the Idaho in the US, they hitting off conversing while getting massages. From then they were inseparable, accompanying each other on their beauty treatments.

When she was Queen Mother and married to T'Chaka, he never had her join him on his visits, stating they were too dangerous. Yet he took their son, T’Challa; at an early age. Nor when she ruled as Queen during the blip and after T'Challa's death. Her only trips, were to the UN for political reasons. This was different, it was a soul-searching journey. This trip will have nothing but some fun, and pampering added.

After a couple of days, she laid in her bed; wondering how Shuri doing, but resisted calling her. She couldn’t deal with her rejection any further. She didn’t want to contact Namor to go and check in on her. They weren’t together any longer, by her choice. So, calling on him for anything was off the table.

No, it’s best to stick to the plan and not get in touch with any of them. No until she finds out what it is she wants and needs. She hopes, once she gets home things will be better. Even maybe, Shuri will be more receptive to them going away, just the two of them. Bonding with her is her up most desire, and wish she felt the same.

And her relationship with Namor, needs some clarity. She still can’t get pass him causing her death, and all that has occurred afterwards. Do she love him? Or because he is her husband, by no choice of hers. She was not in her right mind, and he took advantage of it. That is what is causing the riff between them. It’s him doing what he thinks is best, but never taking into consideration. Will it be the best choice for the other person?

It doesn’t sit well with her, that the only time she wants or need him. Is for the sex. He is a fantastic lover, and he is her husband; but it feels like she’s using him. She has to bring some clarity to their relationship. Because she knows, as well as him; if she called him now. He would be there, to give her what she needs.

This can’t continue this way any longer. A definite decision between them has to be made. And the main question she has to know. Does she truly love him, or is it the satisfying sex they have. She thought on that and already knew the answer.

“You hoo,” her friend knocking at her door. Ramonda rushed to let her in.

“Well, good morning,” Ramonda greeted her.

“And a good afternoon,” she informed Ramonda.

“Oh, yes. We were doing the hot spa this morning,” she said. “I’m so sorry, I got caught up in thoughts of home.”

“I thought we agreed not to think about our home lives,” she reminded Ramonda.

“You’re right,” Ramonda agreed.

“So, are we still going? We can make one in thirty minutes,” she informed her

“Let me get my things,” Ramonda told her.

“And I have a day planned that will take your mind off the family drama for the rest of your stay,” she said. Ramonda looked at her and smiled.

“Thank you, Valentina,” Ramonda expressed, as they hugged.

“Of course,” Valentina said. “What are friends for?”

Links:

Death is only the Beginning pt one

Death is only the Beginning pt two

Death is only the Beginning pt three

Death is only the Beginning pt four

Death is only the Beginning pt five

Death is only the Beginning pt six

Death is only the Beginning pt seven

Death is only the Beginning pt Eight

Death is only the Beginning pt Nine

Death is only the Beginning pt ten

Death is only the Beginning pt eleven

Death is only the Beginning pt twelve

Tag list

@abbyeliza28

@paracosmfantasy

[caendtowntrash]

More Marx? (Annoyed Groan)

It’s another one of these! Spoilers for the January Endtown Update just as a forewarning.

In my other Marx rant I went over a good amount of Marx but I feel the newest updates to Endtown really drive it home how horrific Marx is and how damaging his presence is on this story and how cruel a god entity he is just via context alone. I think I need to appropriately break it down so people can really grasp this with both hands rather than be dazzled by fancy art and faded memory.

More under the cut!

Marx is basically the creator, the author if you will, of the Endtown world. He chooses worlds which are slotted for destruction and manipulates the circumstances within them to seed a new sandbox for him to play around in. Multiple sandboxes even!

During the Ship Arc it’s revealed that the parallel worlds to Endtown’s world are dead. Nobody survives the apocalypse, which typically is caused by resource squabbling. Marx, horrible god that he is, sets up Endtowns in these worlds that shelter and preserve humanity which we see during the post-mortem Flask epilogue and again in Holly’s flashback where she and Doc Chase are sent to Endtown. He also gives Apex (Topsiders) means to survive the resultant Armageddon as well as evidenced by Amesworth’s Exposition segment of the Eden Arc:

Marx left his ‘clue’ about what was happening to the world and tampered with the biosuit’s plastics which allowed the Topsiders to persist when they would have all transformed or perished. This makes him responsible for the Topsider’s existence and their genocidal rampage on the mutated (grexed) humans. Now the cause of the mutations were revealed to be due to some thinning of reality’s walls which allow a completely unrelated universe, not parallel but cosmologically distant to this one, collide and infect it in a way where people turn into cartoon animals. This may, perhaps, be seen as a kind of accident if you are so inclined to believe so. Like a boulder crushing a sparrow’s nest it’s an act of nature the occupants never would have foresaw or anticipated until doom was upon them. But what if I told you that there was a man who pushed the boulder in the first place? Enter a brief but incredibly damning comment made by Dr. Amesworth in a quiet aside during the Exposition segment:

Isn’t this a really curious thing for her to say? Almost as if Marx chose the nature of what the universe collision was. Which, if you think about it, might be actually true. Marx has been shown to accomplish anything and has not faced something that actually stands as a challenge to his skills or will and expresses nothing but fawning adoration for Cardoodles. We have from his own admission that he’s been manipulating Wally’s ‘story’ to serve the purpose of feeding him to Eye and ultimately combining his soul with Cracked Cat and that he’s done this countless times. He’s admitted in this most recent update that he’s watched or been aware of Duffy committing suicide ‘8 million times’ but only now supposedly thought to stop him. And why?

Marx seems to have this happen where his outreach for characters not named Wally are curious larks rather than anything in his rigid five billion step plan to whatever endgoal he’s looking for with his sandbox. This happened much earlier for Flask too.

And in fact ONLY seems to happen when he’s ‘curious’ if that really is earnest and not another lie to get the circumstances of what he wants to happen, happen. He’s a master manipulator after all, privy to countless permutations of how a situation will go and pulling the strings accordingly. He doesn’t save Holly because the Ship reveals what her ‘deal’ was and deems her too fundamentally broken to fix (even though there could be opportunities to fix her, I feel like Marx cared more about Holly fixing Wally and getting him out of Endtown rather than Holly’s own wellbeing and orchestrated Milk Trial to break her fundamentally). He doesn’t save Walt because he knows exactly what happened with Walt, there’s no mystery to his actions because it’s a perfectly understood progression. How tragic but not anything he has to deal with, people die every day! And he doesn’t save Heather because, uhmmm...

He just doesn’t okay????????????? Endtown’s served its purpose! Who cares about the innocent people left behind in there, it’s fine and dandy to pull some parlor tricks like making your eyes bleed to scare the fascist you put in office or make a sad pose as Walt disappears from existence, maybe the audience will forget you’re actually the reason this all happened and give you a pass for not intervening when you did it for Wally and now Duffy. If the characters are not serving Cracked Cat’s ascension then they’re disposable. It might be neat to see what new thing can twist the story around for Marx’s point of view but each ‘tweak’ is fundamentally not important to his main goal. If something affects the main goal, like Holly, he’d gladly throw them in the garbage. And he has every right to do this in his eyes. Why? Because he made the world. Everyone’s lives were forfeit to his whims the second he ‘saved’ them from an apocalypse. Nobody in Endtown is supposed to be alive, absolutely nobody. So if this world was supposed to die he can do anything to it, can’t he? He can cross a cartoon universe over the one he’s chosen, make the inhabitants change into cartoons. Why? How else can he make the Cracked Cat he wants to see?

[jodilin65]

FRIDAY, MAY 31, 1991 I had a fantastic day. For starters, I went to this lake with Kim. Her grandparents live there as well as in Florida. They’ve been exactly where my parents live. We went in the paddleboat and I swam like hell, got some color. I have been dying to go swimming for ages.

From 8:00-10:00 this evening, Kim, Mark and I went to Interskate 91 and I had a blast there. I really skated up a storm, but boy did they play shitty music. I met an older man there who’s a dancer and he knows my uncle Marty. He also knows a lot of bands so he took my number.

After I gave him my number, Kim said she knew him and he’s super nice and does know a lot of people. I thought to myself, “Here goes nothing, once again.” I’m used to it, though.

My biggest and best news is that Dad’s coming up on June 6th! That’s my mom’s birthday. Ma’s not coming up, though, which is fine with me.

I haven’t forgotten about writing about past people and events in more vivid detail. I’ll get on with it, but not now as I must be up early to see Dr. Leitch.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 1991 Speaking of gay women, which I noticed I last wrote about, I never did go to Northampton as Kim was tired that night. I’ve also chickened out permanently, I guess. A lot of times when you put something off long enough, you never get back into doing it and do it.

However, I called that woman Tony told me about. I spoke to her but never met her. I don’t have to. I already know I won’t be attracted to her and she was a major turn-off over the phone. Not geeky, but someone perhaps insensitive and one of those “you better be calm, quiet, and stable all the time” characters. Someone who would only want to be there through your good times and run when you’re having a bad time.

I also met a butch, and I mean a butch, who by accident, dialed my number, and I didn’t like who she was either. She too, came across instantly as one who wants you to be what she wants and can’t let people be themselves.

Kim met her too, and before this woman came over, I made up a signal. I would shake my bracelet if she were pitifully ugly. Shake my right earring if she was so-so and my left if she were gorgeous.

Of course, I knew my left earring would never get a shake.

Kim agreed with me on her character and that she was a cross between the bracelet and the right earring. Tracy K was a 0. A so-so woman’s a 5. Beautiful is 10, but this girl was a 2.

I wish I had an electric typewriter so badly. I stopped typing these journals which I really wanted to do. I had to as the keys were sticking and jamming up, forcing me to make mistakes I wouldn’t have normally made. There were not tons and tons of mistakes, but a few per page. There should’ve been a few for every 5 pages. Maybe I’ll use Kim’s but it’s a huge one. One you can’t carry easily. I’d have to use it there. That’s ok with me, though.

I have tons and tons to write about. I mean, lots of stuff, but I’m exhausted. Also, my breathing’s not too good lately. I’ll be seeing Dr. Leitch Friday. Time for antibiotics again. Also, it’s causing my yeast infection to get worse. My nose is jammed up more and I’m coughing up shit and wheezing more. I’ll write tomorrow for sure.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 1991 Yes, I’ve been slacking off again with updates. Actually, I’ve been quite busy. I’ve been typing up my journals. It’ll be a long project yet a fun one. I’m already on number 2. I type pretty fast, too.

Last Saturday night Steve came up. We had a great time. He was here from 5:30 till 11:00 at night. We talked, watched a movie and he gave me $40! I was broke, too. He loved the apartment, of course.

It was weird too, as at the very beginning of May I had a prediction that May 19th was to be a great day. I had no idea at the time why and I saw blue and green. What that means is part of a new “prediction system” I’ve come up with. So far it works and here’s a list of the colors and what they represent:

Blue - calm, happy Green - money Red - pain Black - anger, irritability Gray - depression Purple - sexual desires, having sex, sexual frustrations White - nothing good, nothing bad, boredom Yellow - something new, new opportunity Orange - fear, anxiety, risky situation, bizarre adventure

When I saw blue and green for May 19th, the first thing that crossed my mind was a band, but I was doubtful. The blue really was my being happy to see Steve and the green was that $40.

Also, I described people and events at the ER. That’s right, I also told Kim there’d be a shooting in the next 24 hours. I was right.

So, the next night, Jai came up for an hour or so. That was nice, too.

Jai didn’t meet Mark, but he met Kim and they do know each other. Or I should say, they’ve seen each other here and there. Steve met Kim in Springfield before I moved, and when he was here, he met Mark.

I was up late yesterday afternoon and up all night so I don’t know when I’ll sleep. I doubt we’ll go to Northampton tonight to this gay bar. From what I’ve heard (Kim’s been there before) it’s gay night on Wed. and straight the other nights. You know how I feel and there’s no point in it. What’s meant to be is one thing and what’s not is another. I hate gay women and once you’ve seen one gay woman (butch) you’ve seen them all. I need to keep away from people and the stress they bring for a while.

FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1991 When I came out and told mom I was gay she really wasn’t too surprised. I guess a lot of people aren’t with all the “hints” a gay person drops when they’re younger. All the female idols I always had and never being enthusiastic about males. Mom, Dad, and Tammy have no problem with it. At first, however, Dad and Tammy suggested, like most people, that maybe it was due to being hurt. I simply explained that sexual attraction was one thing, and emotional is another. Also, I’ve known plenty of other girls hurt by men in the worst possible ways but they’re straight as an arrow. I told them, you don’t just go with women to go with them, you have to have attraction.

Mom, I know, was immediately thrilled. She never questioned my feelings or experiences with men. It’s obvious why, too. She knows most guys are assholes, especially in today’s world. She knows I do great at attracting losers. She also knows you can’t get pregnant from a woman. I’m not stupid. Even if it had been Tammy, they’d have gone along with it and handled it ok but they’d have been more shocked. If you gave them a choice a few years ago and asked them who they’d prefer straight, they’d say Tammy. Tammy’s not only their favorite daughter but she’s “good enough” to be a mom. That’s only in their eyes, though, cuz she’s got a rich Jewish husband. In my eyes, and many others have agreed, she’s too much like Mom.

THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1991 I got a little lazy last night so I never wrote. By 2:00 or 3:00 late last night I fell asleep. I woke up at 11:00 this morning and went grocery shopping with Kim a little later.

Right now, it is absolutely beautiful. It was horrible earlier. Too hot. My central AC took care of that though. The breeze in here is amazing. Funny how I freaked out over the breeze in my last place which is nothing compared to this. This is like my parent’s tropical island in Florida and it’s not polluted. It’s not a once-in-a-while breeze either. It’s every day and night.

Now, two more things before I get down to business. When Steve and I spoke the other night, I mentioned Kim and Mark moving out and getting a house this summer. I’ve already told him about the apartment and the town. Steve told me to talk to Peter M and I did. He sounded pleased about it. If Steve didn’t get in next door, he could afford to get a house or something else nearby. He despises Springfield too, and we miss each other.

The other thing is Tony, who I met roller skating with Kim. He was interested in me especially cuz I was shorter than him and he’s not more than 2 or 3 inches taller. He called and I told him, “I know Kim already spoke to you about my being gay and I have no problem with being friends as long as you understand that. But, I’ll make a deal and that is if I meet anyone who’s looking and who’s my height, I’ll let you know. Also, let me know if you meet any women who’re not butchy and drug-free.”

He agreed. The funny thing about it is last night I saw a vision of him calling me about someone and today he did. But guess what? I’ve really had it with second best and you know that’s all I’ll get. I’ve also had it with relationships and everything that goes along with them and I just need to be alone. I feel I’m better off, as I said before and that I’d rather fantasize about first best before I settle again and feel that great void. Realizing I was better off alone and saying, “Is this all I’m ever gonna get?” Also, she’s not into blind dates, which is understandable, so he said for me to go to one of their AA meetings.

If I speak to her, as Tony gave me her number, I’ll have to tell her no as I have no car. If she came to pick me up here, that’d still be a blind date. I would like to be friends if it’s a mutual possibility. I called and left my number with some girl who answered.

I guess Tony’s known her for quite a while and it’s funny how earlier I was thinking of all the people I’ve slept with or that wanted me that I said no to and most of them had one thing in common. They were ex-alkies. I really know how to attract ex and current alkies and a few good dope heads, don’t I? Why do half the people I meet have to be members of AA?! Well, anyway, no more stress, arguments or compromises. No more of my getting smothered by desperadoes or geeky shy wimps. No more sleeping with people I don’t feel “the spark” with and no more being dumped by the “decent” people I’m no good for.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 1991 I’ve read back in my first few journals and I’ve found not only that I’ve changed so much (I already knew that), but I’m not as good at spelling as I thought. Also, my poor punctuation which I still never bother to do correctly. What I noticed, most importantly of all is the lack of detail pertaining to certain events, people or places. An example is that in my first book, the first thing I mentioned about Nervous was, “Nervous is coming over soon.” I never wrote about how we met, where, who and what he is. How he got his nickname, although, that’s quite obvious after reading not even one page about him.

What I’m now gonna do is go back over the basics of life since I moved out on my own. That was December 3rd, 1985, the day before I turned 20. I’ll run through it as briefly as possible, but with all the essential details. It’ll be quite fun and adventurous even though I’d never want to relive it. It’ll make me laugh but that’s good that it makes me laugh as a reminder of how far I’ve come in life. How much I’ve grown and learned due to experience and of course my 6th sense. As, you know, I’ve been a victim of everything except child molestation as a kid, my parents weren’t alkies or druggies and neither was I. I, of course, experimented till that time I tripped.

Some of these people have been friends, lovers, neighbors or roommates. No person I’ve slept with whether it’s been for only 1 night has been left out, but many names of non-importance have been omitted.

I think it was around February of 1985 when I was hired at the Harley Hotel as a housekeeper. I’ve had other jobs which I’ve quit. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m sick of second best.

On December 3rd of 1985, the day before I turned 20, I moved out on my own to the first floor of Locust St. I still worked at the Harley where 2-3 months later, I took in a 17-year-old girl named Michelle L. She wanted out of her home fast as she says she was molested by her father. We got along ok till she met my brother Larry. It started as Larry and I having problems and him getting in the way of Michelle and I having a good friendship. He also was cheating on his wife Sandy with Michelle. Finally, I just wanted to be alone and in order to get rid of him, I had to get rid of her. She went to live with Larry and Sandy.

Shortly after I moved upstairs, around the corner on Woodside with the same landlords, I never saw them again. A few months after I kicked Michelle out, I was fired from the Harley. After suppressing my past, the impact of my past finally caught up with me. It all came out and very very hard and got in the way of my job.

A few months later, Dad got me on SS and SSI and got a back payment of $6,100. According to my dad, my disability checks were terminated when I was 18 and they shouldn’t have been. Of course, Dad lies by telling me it’s cuz of my ear. Even back then, when I was gullible, I knew it was cuz I’m supposed to be a nut head. An unbalanced joke of society. In a way I was, but my version of that is different than theirs.

I don’t know the exact date. All I know is it was late May of 1986 when someone began to knock on my bedroom window very late at night. I believe my brother was behind it. At first, I was scared, then I became furious. One night I vowed not to give this bastard the reaction he wanted and due to becoming so mad with fury, I planned to wait outside my bedroom window just before what would’ve been his third visit. I think it was his third. Anyway, right after the first incident with this sicko, I told Larry and John, the brothers who owned the building at the time, who had an apartment available on the 4th floor around the corner. I freaked when I saw it. It was so big and so much nicer, I had to have it.

Even though I forgot about the visit with the sicko and moved up right away, I knew from now on I’d never cower down to anyone again. I learned if you show fear to any kind of troublemaker or be naïve or vulnerable, you’ll be taken advantage of. So, I moved up there and Jenny, Jim and a friend of Jim’s helped.

Right after that, I met Nancy H next door. I also had met Emily B who lived down the street in a building also owned by the same brothers. Also, I became friends with an old couple on the 2nd floor, Jo and Eddy L. Jo was always sweet and sincere, but Eddy went out of his mind due to Alzheimer’s disease. I met a girl named Mary C, a few buildings down who had a young son. Whenever I could, I helped her out with food or by giving her things I didn’t want or need.

Jenny and I were friends since I was 9 and she was 10. Jim was her boyfriend.

I had discussed my being gay with only my brother and my therapist at this time, but wouldn’t act on it for a while. I was too young to know about gay bars and all the other stuff I know now. All I knew was that I had always been attracted to women, but would take whatever I could get for a while. Jenny also told me her sister Robin was gay and I found out Shelly R was too. Shelly’s the daughter of my mom’s best friend Charlotte. They go back way before Larry was even born.

I met Ron M in July of 1986. He was ok at first then changed as most people do. He was never brutal as he knew just what I’d do to people like that and he was patient in bed. The sex was boring and all the while he was “down there” I’d continue to fantasize about women. It took 3 months or so before he could get inside me without pain and he was small, too. Only 4” hard. His goal was to be married and have kids and when we went over to my parent’s house and he told them he wanted to marry me, I was shocked they didn’t say anything against it. I’m not shocked they told me to wait 5-10 years before I got pregnant and to get it medically approved. That was their way of saying, “You’re not rich and you’re not good enough to be a mother.” Of course, to them, money’s the number one thing. Not love. And they had said, “Do you want your kids to have the same problems you do? Or have no ear too?”

I said, “First of all, my kid won’t have the same problem cuz they won’t be raised the way you raised me. Also, I checked with a doctor and this ear bit is bullshit. You guys never had a missing ear. You were born with two normal ears. Yet you produced a child with a missing ear.”

This was around my 21st birthday and Dad said if we still felt the same by his birthday, April 5th, he’d set something up. Something small, they said, so we could be given the money that would’ve been spent on a big wedding. Mom said Tammy got a big wedding cuz Bill already had a home for them and a good job. Tammy, in some ways, was more screwed up than me, but could always get men with houses and money. 98% of the people I meet, males or females, are broke.

By the end of January, Ron and I were finished. He was just too immature, flaky, naïve, impractical, possessive and pushy. He was into pot and booze too which I was finished with. He may have cheated on me, but I doubt he did. I called Mom, told her why I kicked him out and laid it out on the line right then and there about being gay.

Later…

Just to quickly update you, I’m doing laundry now and had a nice chat with Steve on the phone last night. I guess he’ll be up this Saturday.

Other than that nothing’s really new. I’ve pretty much maintained a day schedule for the last week or so. However, I think I’ll be up most of the night. I was up till 6 AM yesterday but I got up at noon so that wasn’t too bad. No, actually I think it was 5 AM but that’s enough sleep, usually.

Now, let me go stop my VCR, get a cigarette, then I’ll continue with what I began last night.

MONDAY, MAY 6, 1991 Boy, sometimes I really feel like a complete waste product. Not only is the past depressing to think about, but the future is, too. The future is depressing and a bit scary. If I never become a singer or have a child or a woman (first best), what will my life be about? Will I be on SS forever?

I know I’ll never have the last two things up above in my last paragraph, as I know the difference between fantasy and a vision. For example, when I think of a woman, it’s a fantasy cuz I know it’s not meant to be.

As far as singing goes, I know it’d be easier to say “fuck it” and settle for some stupid job I hate. I feel helpless and like I’ll never get anywhere with it but the vision just won’t go away. When I picture myself as a singer, performing, rehearsals, traveling, studios, interviews, and Grammys, it just seems so real and so natural. I’m already 25 now and I feel like my voice isn’t a gift I can use. It’s more like a curse and a tease to me now even though I’d never stop singing. Could I ever make it by being poor, anti-drugs, and by having no car, no money, no sex, and with all the fears and lack of trust I have in people?

I know these bands, Free Press and Radiators, will never call me. If they did, they’d turn me down cuz I have no car, no experience, or maybe not the type of singer or person they’re looking for. Like I said before, some people get everything or some things they want, but I’ve never been granted one wish. I mean a major wish. A wish that really really matters. Yes, I have made more personal growth than I expected. Yes, I have gotten more of a voice and other abilities than I expected. Yes, I’ve moved to a great apartment in a nice town, but should I give up? Is it now really time to give in to a job I hate? A nothing-nobody job?

SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1991 I am currently on Kim’s bed and we are both writing in our journals. She says she’s been inspired to write by me.

Earlier, I spoke with both Tammy and Mom and I guess Dad’s not doing too well. They’re gonna keep me posted. Also, I spoke with Tony who I met while roller skating.

Yesterday I had a wicked bad day with horrible cramps. It went on and on for hours till I fell asleep. I shit my ass off and threw up twice.

I lost a couple of pounds. I weigh usually between 97-100. My measurements are as follows:

Waist - 26 Thighs - 21½ Bust - 32½ Hips - 33½ Lower gut - 29

Andy left a message two days ago saying he wasn’t moving till June 1st, rather than May 1st.

I also called that guy Kim and I met at Food Fart talking about bands. He gave my number to two bands that he says are drug-free. One’s called The Radiators which makes you think of a football team. The other one’s called Free Press which reminds you of a magazine or newspaper publishing company.

Since I’ve been here I’ve gotten quite a bit of editing done, but I think I’ll go listen to music now, then go to bed.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1991 Kim, Mark, and I went to Hampden Beach today and I got only a little bit of color. I would’ve gotten tons of color if we’d left earlier and if it was warmer. Mom was right about saying it gets easier to tan as you get older. Despite the bees which I hate to death, I’d like to lie out in the parking lot tomorrow, but they predict rain. When we left here, it was damp and foggy and at the beach, it was so chilly that I got to the point where I needed to put my shirt on. I was still cold after I did that, too.

Before we left I had an appointment with my asthma doctor, and he also agreed I’m getting much better. I was so incredibly tired today as I had only two hours of sleep when I got up this morning. Also, I slept an hour and a half in the backseat on the way back home. I hate long rides and man did it seem like forever getting there and back. Surprisingly enough, though, my schedule’s been fairly normal since I moved here.

I can breathe so much better and my skin looks better, too. I no longer wake up so congested and I don’t get one cold after another anymore. Cuz of my lack of sleep I figured I could sleep but I can’t yet.

There’s a fitness center next door and a woman from this place left a message while I recorded Unsolved Mysteries and tried to sleep. I’ll wait for her to call back as she said she would.

Now, for a quick update on what’s gone on since I last wrote:

Andy’s moving into his new apartment today.

I got a musical mobile from Kim which her grandmother gave her. Quarter notes, eighth notes, and G-clefts hang from it.

Kim also bought me a beautiful spring jacket, a dress, and a bracelet.

I went skating with my new roller skates and what a grip! They feel and handle the rink like heaven.

This girl at the mall who I “felt” was gay never called about the signing lessons she wanted. Was she ever so flattered when I told her how nice her figure was!

That cop with information for me never called Kim.

That guy that Kim and I spoke to that works at Food Fart in Greenfield never called about band information.

God never failed to have that guy who hit on me at the skating rink call twice. He got the machine, though.

That cop Jamie’s real name is Laurie. I called her at home one night and her voice sounded manlier than I remembered, and she was a snotty bitch, denying she was gay. Although she tried her best for it, she never got any information connecting my call to me or Kim.

[clives-archive]

There are different theories around, and I'll just talk about one (okay, two), but one thing you always need to keep in mind: Season 4 is full of unreliable narrators, especially Brenner (who is essentially editing El's NINA experience by jumping ahead, we know that from his conversation with Owens) and One/Vecna. Eddie's entire storyline is about someone who is falsely blamed for horrible things, because he looks a certain way and likes certain things, and he's most likely not the only one.

Which brings us to my theory about Henry, which is really very simple, but contains a few spoilers for the Stranger Things play, The First Shadow. If you don't want to see these, stop reading, okay?

Still with me? Good. Here goes: as TFS tells us, roughly one year before Henry and his family moved to Hawkins, he got lost in a cave system, and when he got back, he was completely changed in behaviour and personality. Now, just by chance (actually, probably not by chance), a certain Dr. Martin Brenner was conducting experiments close by, to create a gate to a place he calls Dimension X (there is a reason, which is mentioned in the play). He figured that during his disappearance Henry went to Dimension X, and came back with some baggage - he got infected by the being we've come to know as the Mindflayer. Which... is a bit different from what Vecna told Eleven when they meet again: he claimed that he first encountered this being in a peaceful landscape untouched by any human interference, with perfectly docile demogorgons, and shaped it into it's spider form, implying that he created the Mindflayer in the first place.

But... how is that possible, if Henry had already met the Mindflayer when he was thirteen? Well... two possibilities, that could even go together.

One, Vecna is manipulative. He distorts things, rips them out of context. Even when he shows the truth, it is turned inside out, giving you the worst version possible. So, he might either be fuzzing the circumstances of the first meeting between MF and Henry/One/Vecna a bit, or he is quite simply lying.

And two, Eleven may have thrown One not only through space and dimensions, but also through time - we know that there are time anomalies in the Upside Down, we know that One - or Vecna or Henry or the Mindflayer - can potentially manipulate time, we certainly know that whoever is speaking when One holds his ever crazier monologue really doesn't like the way humans structure time and hates them specifically for it. So maybe, One was thrown back to a time where the Mindflayer didn't exist yet, met the particle cloud, and infected it with his rage (and with the Mindflayer, all of Dimension X, which according to the play is definitely pretty vile by 1943).

And this infected cloud, which we know is a hivemind, this Mindflayer then met a little boy in 1958, and infected him... you see where this is going? One, Vecna, whatever his name is, basically created himself, again and again, with a little help from Brenner and Eleven. It's a time loop full of nasty, black goo and tiny dust particles.

But even if that isn't the case, if we don't have a time loop that needs to be resolved, I don't think that Henry is the bad guy, because IMO, the being we hear talking in the monologue, to Max and Chrissy and the other kids, to Nancy, and finally to El again isn't Henry. That's the Mindflayer. He simply uses Henry's body to communicate and use powers in the kids' dimension, which he cannot reach in any other way. Which, and I can't emphasize this enough, he would have done to Will, if Will hadn't been saved by his family and friends.

What happened to the original Henry? Who knows? He might still be in there. If they're lucky.

no because.. why are people on TikTok and Instagram so sensitive about an “ evil “ character having a redeemable backstory? WHY ARE PEOPLE MAD THAT HENRY IS BASICALLY INNOCENT?? like oh my gosh I’m sorry your hate for everyone turned out to be incorrect I’m such a party pooper wawa.

( I got literal death threats because I put a silly comment in a TikTok video asking who their favorite st character was and DARE I SAY Henry creel and I get RAIDED.

anyways I will be educating these people from now on but please newer or st fans that haven’t heard of the first shadow please just look up the plot or atleast a video explaining it?! If anybody needs help there’s a video in dept explaining everything that happens in tfs

anyways rise Henry defenders, RISE !!!

[averagewriter-inthedark]

Endgame I | Dark Phoenix Series P.3

Takes place during the first act of Avengers: Endgame

Read parts 1 & 2 -> Series Masterlist | Marvel Masterlist

Characters & Pairings: Dr. Evelyn Alice Stark (OC)/The Eagle/Host of the Phoenix Force, Wanda Maximoff/The Scarlet Witch (platonic), Doctor Stephen Strange (implied romance), Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (implied romance), Tony Stark (platonic/Nephew), Howard Stark (Platonic/brother), Steve Rogers (platonic/best friend)—a lot of the marvel characters will be involved in this series since it take place during phase 3 & 4.

Content Warnings: angst, aftermath of near-death experience, profanity | Female OC (she/her) | Read time: roughly 15 minutes

Premise: Following the defeat against Thanos, Evelyn Stark is stuck in a coma after absorbing an unknown entity on Titan when she was on the brink of death. 22 days pass of being stranded before they are safely brought to Earth, where they face the catastrophic aftermath of Thanos’ victory. The remaining Avengers are at a loss, unsure of how to go forward, and the only one who can give some insight of what may have happened to Eve, is the God of Thunder.

—————————————

Space. The ‘final frontier’ as Star Trek would say. The endless void of darkness and silence. Where the light one sees from the neighboring stars and galaxies are actually glimpses of the past.

There, thousands of light years from Earth, a lone spaceship glides away after losing the last bit of power it had.

“This thing on?” A whirring sound of the helmet powering up gives Tony some satisfaction. “Hey. Miss Potts. Pep. If you find this recording, don’t post it on social media. It’s gonna be a real tear jerker.” He leans against the wall of the ship, groaning a bit. “I don't know if you're ever gonna see these. I don’t even know if you’re still……..Oh, God, I hope so. Today is day twenty-one—no, uh, twenty-two. You know, if it wasn’t for the existential terror of staring into the literal void of space, I’d say I’m feeling a little better today.

Tony thinks back to earlier in the day when Nebula helped him patch up the stab wound on his side. “Infection’s run its course. Thanks to the Blue Meanie back there. Oh, you’d love her. Very practical. Only a tiny bit sadistic.”

He then relays the update on their situation, grimacing and glancing briefly to his right out the window. “So, the fuel cells were cracked during battle and we figured out a way to reverse the ion charge and bought ourselves about forty-eight hours of flight time.” He pauses to sigh, “Uh, but it’s now dead in the water. Thousand light years from the nearest 7-Eleven.”

“Oxygen will run out tomorrow morning and that’ll be it,” Tony doesn’t mention how they’ve also run out of food. Nebula refused to have her half of the last bag and encouraged Tony to finish it. The man turns his gaze to his left, eyes falling on the figure laying still on a table. A shaky breath leaves him, “Eve is….Eve’s still comatose. I’ve had to shock her a few times with what little power I still have. She’s still breathing—which is a relief, but I honest to God don’t know how. Whatever she absorbed—whatever went in her, is keeping her alive.”

The image of Eve on Titan flashes in his mind. The sight of her bruised and bloody body impaled on a rock by her own wing. The horrified look on her face when she realized the flare-like force was coming at her. The explosion that shook the ground.

And her screams. The gut-wrenching screams.

Tony could still hear them, often waking up at night in a sweat because they would ring in his ear. “When she wakes up—,” he brings his hand to his face, rubbing the scruff along his jaw. “If she wakes up, I-I don’t know what we’ll find. If she'll still be our Eve.” He casts another look in her direction, “But then again, I don’t think at this rate we’ll ever know.”

“Pep, I know I said no more surprises but I gotta say I was really hoping to pull off one last one. But it looks like.. well, you know what it looks like.” He leans forward, looking into the eyes of the helmet. “Don’t feel bad about this. I mean, actually, if you grovel for a couple weeks and then move on with enormous guilt….” The words fall flat as exhaustion overtakes him. “I should probably lie down for a minute. Go rest my eyes.”

Tony rubs his face before glancing back at the helmet, “Please know, when I drift off, it’ll be like every night lately. I’m fine. Totally fine,” he assures, as if she were right in front of him. His fingers then tap the helmet right between the eyes, “I dream about you. Because it’s always you.”

Reluctantly, Tony brings his hand around the device to power it off. It clicks, the eyes dimming to signal the recording ended. Pulling his around his arms and bidding Eve one last glance, Tony leans onto his side before slowly letting the exhaustion take over. He almost feels a sense of peace.

That if this was his last night breathing, at least it would be in his sleep.

Some time later when Tony finally succumbed to sleep, Nebula approaches to check on him. She nudges him onto his back before gently helping the man into a chair. The action makes him shift, and Nebula give a light squeeze his shoulder. She made no sound as she walked away, passing by Eve with a solemn expression.

It was unreal how Nebula could literally feel the heat radiating off the woman. It made her flinch, remembering the burning sensation she felt when she and Tony attempted to move Eve onto the ship. Her one flesh palm was badly burned and Tony had to use what little juice he had in his iron glove to give to her.

They eventually had to skid Eve onto the broken wing of her suit in order to carry her. They feared the metal would melt, but luckily it held. Then there was the matter of getting her on the table. So far it was withstanding the woman star-like temperature—no sign of the steel weakening. Tony had run one last thermal scan and it appeared by the day it was slowly decreasing.

It was as though Eve was adapting to it.

Some time had passed before a brightness pooled behind Tony’s eyes. The sleepiness faded away at the sound of a distant boom, Tony lifting a hand to shield his face. The glow grew stronger causing the man to become fully awake. That’s when he saw something approaching the ship.

At first fear consumed him. It looked very similar to the orange flare on Titan, though this was visibly smaller. The bright light came closer until it was directly in front of Tony and the only thing separating them was the glass windshield of the ship.

Tony stayed frozen as the light began to fade before the form of a woman took over. She had glowing eyes which then dimmed to human-like and blonde hair fell down to her shoulders. There was a golden diamond-like star on the chest of her suit.

Within seconds that fear and dread of an untimely end disappeared when from Tony when she smiled at him. Hope replaced it, and he let out an exhale full of immense relief.

They were going home.

The mood at Avengers compound was a mix of grief and unease. The world as they knew was it shambles and the total of missing persons was still counting. Bucky, Wanda, Sam, T’Challa, Shuri, Vision, and many many more. Their worst nightmare had came true.

Thanos wiped out half of the universe.

Steve Rogers stood in front of the mirror of his old room, towel in his hand to wipe away the moisture and residue of shaving cream. There was a haunted look in his eyes. That’s what came with being a soldier. A soldier stuck in time that is.

A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. The small side mirror attached to the main one was shaking, and Steve brought his hand up to stop the movement. But when he pulled away it continued, and that’s when he heard the sound of rumbling throughout the compound.

He dropped the towel onto the counter, racing out of the room and down to the main level. He found Natasha, Rhodey, and Bruce all huddled. All three were look around with worried gazes. “What’s happening?”

Natasha shook her head, “I-I don’t know.” Rhodey pulled up a projection of the outside perimeter. In the corner of the screen, he saw a very large object flying down with a glowing source at the bottom.

“Something’s landing outside,” he announced causing all eyes to widen. Together they all ran out to the front lawn where they found Pepper standing with clasped hands as she watched the ship descend from the sky.

They’re running slowed to a walk, all eyes drawn up before they stopped behind pepper. The woman they recognized as Carol Danvers, who had arrived to Earth demanding to know where Nick Fury was a week prior, was holding the ship and safety brought onto the grass.

The glow around her faded, and she turned to greet the group just as the latch of the ship opened to reveal a stair case. Steve rushed forward the second he saw Tony limping down, holding onto a blue lady for support. But a sense of dread filled him when he saw no sign of Eve.

Tony takes his arm, bidding a look of gratitude to Nebula before stumbling down the remaining steps. He panted, “Couldn’t stop him.”

“Neither could I,” Steve replied, holding tightly to Tony’s arm.

“Hand on,” Tony stopped them from walking, catching his breath. He locked eyes with the Captain, tears filling at the brim, “I lost the kid.” Steve makes a sound of defeat, his expression mirroring the older man.

“Tony, we lost.”

Nothing they could do would change that. Strange saw nearly 15 million possibilities and all of them ended with them losing. All but one. It was bound to happen.

Tony swallows hard, licking his lip before glancing at his savior. “H-Hey!” He called out causing her to look at him. “There’s one more of us inside,” he ignores the look Steve was giving him. It was a mix of shock and hope. “—you may be the only one who can carry her without burning to death.”

“What?” Steve asked, glancing between the two for an answer. Carol nodded to Tony before entering the ship. They all waited with concern, the others moving closer to see what was happening. In the mix, Pepper runs up to Tony causing him to let out a sound of relief, “Oh, good.”

“Oh my God!” She cried before embracing him. “Oh my God.” He hugged her close to him, relishing in her warmth and patted her back gently. When she pulled away his lips pressed to her cheek.

A sound from the ship drew back their attention. Behind him, Tony could hear the others gasp at the sight of Carol walking down the steps with an unconscious Eve Stark in her arms.

Steve starts to move, but Tony lightly pushes against his chest. “Don’t,” he warns. “You can’t touch her.” At Steve’s confused expression, Tony pulls his hand away to reveal the state of his palm. It was scared with light redness to it. The blisters had went away, but the damage was done. Tony would need to get a doctor to look at it, but he already accepted there was some nerve damage to his hand. It still felt numb even 22 days later.

Steve gazes at Tony’s hand, shock filling his eyes and Pepper gasps. Behind him, Natasha leans over to see and her hand comes up to her mouth. They both glance to Nebula, noticing how her one hand was similar. Steve looks back to the man, “What happened?”

He doesn’t answer initially, his attention on his aunt who was unmoving in Carol’s arms save for the slow pace of her breathing. Eyes closing, the memory once again playing in his mind, Tony let’s out a shaky breath. “It—it’s hard to explain,” he pauses to open his eyes to see everyone was watching him, “but I can show you.”

The remaining Avengers and their new allies all gathered in the main room of the compound. Tony sat in a wheelchair, IV drip attached to his side while Eve laid in the next room over hooked up to a variety of machines. It was a sore sight to see the once strong and willed woman so helpless. Her brain waves and vitals were still alarmingly abnormal, but relief came with the knowledge her heart rate was slowing and body temperature had decreased.

She was still hotter than all of them except Carol—the blonde being the only one who could physically touch Eve without any harm. She had to be the one to attach the tubes and machines with Bruce instructing her. As they worked, Steve watched from the doorway with his arms crossed.

“Is she going to be okay?” He asked Bruce, glancing up to see the doctor looked worried.

“It’s hard to say, Cap,” he spoke with unease. Stress coated his expression. “I’ve never seen anyone with readings like this. I-I don’t even know what’s wrong with her—do you?” Bruce turned the former Kree. She shook her head, moving to place the last syringe in Eve’s arm.

“I can’t determine anything until we see what Tony has to show us.” With that the three leave the room, giving one last glance to the Avenger before making their way to where everyone else was. When every one was settled, taking their place on various corners of the area, Tony weakly called out to F.R.I.D.A.Y, “Pull up Mark L footage from twenty-two days ago.”

“Right away, sir.” Within seconds a projection appeared and their eyes locked on the reddish-orange hue of Titan. Tony has F.R.I.D.A.Y skim through bit where Quill snapped, focusing it on the moment Eve was incapacitated.

Everyone was rendered speechless when the witnessed the Avenger impaled by her own wing. It was so graphic Pepper had to look away, her hand coming to her mouth to cover the gasp she let out. Rhodey also had to turn away, the image of his friend too painful to see. Both Natasha and Steve flinched, the soldier clenching his jaw.

The next thing they saw was the glowing orange flare. It blasted Eve through her chest before the rest swarmed around her. They saw her lift off the ground, the metal pieces disintegrating and the look of horror on the Avenger as the flare consumed her. She was screaming and in that moment they were grateful Tony had muted the recording.

Seconds ticked by before Eve was no longer visible and a bright light erupted from the force of the explosion. They lived it through the eyes of Tony. Dust filled the air and rocks rained from the sky. The anxiety Tony must have felt was swarming through all of them. The last thing the recording showed was Eve lying still in the middle of the crater.

“And you said she’s been unconscious ever since?” Steve asked after a minute of silence passed. He was rubbing his jaw, a habit of his when things became tense. There was a mixture of emotion flooding him. He wasn’t the only one however, everyone had to take a moment to process what they had seen.

“Twenty-three days and counting,” Tony replied, “I’ve had to play doctor and shock her because he heart rate is beating too fast for a human to withstand—even with that super juice.” Tony winces, adjusting in his chair. “There’s also the concerning matter she’s taking on a body temp enough to rival our own sun yet somehow manages to not melt and become Freddy Krugers long lost sister.”

“It was like—like that thing,” Natasha shakes her head, “was targeting her. Why would that be?”

“Beats me,” Rhodey sighs, letting his hands fall to his side. “My question is why didn’t it blow up Thanos. He was right there—could’ve saved us a whole lot of trouble.”

Steve clutches the back of the chair in front of him, his head dropping to glance at the floor. “Whatever it was and why Eve was targeted…,” he paused before looking back up,. “We’ll get that answer when she wakes.”

“If,” Tony corrected, grimacing at the thought. “If she wakes up you mean.”

“Tony—.” Nat tries, but he holds a hand up.

“No need for optimism, Romanoff. We’ve got more important matters while we wait for whatever fate has planned for my aunt.” He sniffs, ignoring the looks he was receiving. “Give me the stats.”

Though hesitant to change the subject, Steve sighed and pulled up all they had currently on the situation. Images of those vanished took up the screen, most notably their friends and allies. Rhodey was the one to start, “It’s been twenty-three days since Thanos came to Earth.” Stephen Strange and Bucky Barnes’ face appeared, followed by Sam Wilson and Erik Selvig.

“World governments are in pieces,” Natasha continued, the images of Hope Van Dyne and Wanda Maximoff taking over. “The parts are still working are trying to take a census and it looks like he did,” she paused, noticing the broken look of Tony when Peter Parker stared back at him. He had to look away, chest constricting at another wave of emotion.

“He did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent of all living creatures.” The room fell silent once again, everyone taking in the information. Sadness was evident on all of them. Carol, who’d been very serious and stoic since the moment she arrived, even showed emotion at the sight of Nick Fury’s face.

“Where is now?” Tony asked suddenly. “Where?”

“We don’t know.” Steve replied, leaning on the table with his arms crossed. “He just opened a portal and walked through.” His answer makes Tony sigh, wheeling his chair a tad forward.

“What’s wrong with him,” He pointed to Thor seated far away from the group, looking just as bad as him.

“Oh, he’s pissed,” an unfamiliar voice sounded. When Tony turned in it’s direction, the man was in complete shock when the voice belonged to a raccoon. “He thinks he failed. Which of course he did, but you know there’s a lot of that going around, ain’t there?”

Tony was at a lost for words, but somehow found them. “Honesty, until this exact second I thought you were a Build-A-Bear.”

“Maybe I am,” Rocket fired back, his body slumping in defeat.

Steve brought the conversation back before it got sidetracked. “We’ve been hunting Thanos for three weeks now. Deep space scans and satellites, and we got nothing. Tony, you fought him.”

“Who told you that?” he tilted his head, finding humor in the assumption. “I didn’t fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while a solar flare inhabited my aunt and the Bleecker Street magician gave away the store. That’s what happened. There was no fight—.”

“Tony—.”

“—‘Cause he’s not beatable.”

“Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?”

“Uh..” Tony sputters out, making a motion of his hand against his head. Steve and Natasha exchange looks of distress. “I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision-I didn’t want to believe it. Thought I was dreaming.”

Steve starts to stand, “Tony, I’m gonna need you to focus.”

“And I needed you,” Tony cuts with off harshly. “As in, past tense. That trumps what you need. It’s too late, buddy. Sorry.” The last thing Tony felt was sympathy for the soldier and Steve knew that. The thin line of friendship they had at the beginning of the Accords fiasco had snapped.

The older man sniffs, moving to stand from his chair. “You know what I need?” He pushes the bowls on the table away, making the contents spill. “I need to shave. And I believe I remember telling all yourselves—.”

“Tony, Tony!” Rhodey moves forward when Tony removes his IV from his arm.

“—alive and otherwise, that what we needed was a suit of armor around the world. Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not. That’s what we needed.”

“Well, that didn’t work out, did it?” Steve’s words only anger Tony more.

“I said we’d lose. You said, ‘We’ll do that together, too.’ And guess what, Cap? We lost. And you weren’t there.” Tony pauses, pointing his finger at the room where Eve was laid. “And now the only family I have left is fighting for her life and may never wake up. Your so called best friend,” he emphasized with malice, aware how Steve flinched. “You weren’t there to save her.”

The super-soldier tried not to react. He didn’t want Tony to know how badly the words were affecting him. Guilt had flooded him knowing the state Eve was in. It pained him at the thought she could never wake up. All he could do was pray she did so they could finally resolve everything. So Eve would know he was sorry.

Steve remained silent as Tony continued his rant. “But that’s what we do, right? Our best work after the face? We’re the ‘Avengers,’” Rhodey had to help steady Tony when he started to stumble. “We’re the ‘Avengers,’ not the ‘Pre-vengers.’”

“Okay,” Rhodey calmly said.

“Right?”

“You made your point. Just sit down, okay?”

“Okay. No, no,” Tony tugged away from his friend. “Here’s my point, you know what?” He pointed to Carol, “she’s great by the way.”

“Tony, you’re sick,” Rhodey said with more force, trying to push him back into the wheelchair. “Sit down.”

“We need you. You’re new blood.” When he successfully broke away from Rhodey, Tony marched straight up to Steve. “Bunch of tired ole mules. I got nothing for you, Cap.” He stood before him with only only an arms length between then. “I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust, liar.”

The word cuts into Steve and leaves a lasting effect. Pain fills his expression as Tony removes the device from his hallowed chest. With shaky breath, he takes Steve’s hand and places it firmly in his palm. “Here, take this. You find him, you put that on….” His starts to stutter, the air becoming hard to inhale. “You hide.” His knees give out causing Steve to rush forward.

“Tony!”

“I’m fine,” he pants. He pushes him and Rhodey away, “Let me…” The words fall as darkness overtakes him. He falls on his side, head nearly hitting Carol’s feet and everyone moves to the rescue. Together they get him in one of the rooms close to Eve. Pepper, who had been in the kitchen making tea, rushes in and moves to Tony’s bedside.

Rhodey, the caring friend he is, practically tucks Tony in and hooks him back up to an IV drip. He gives Pepper one last nod after placing Tony’s glasses on the table and exits. Steve, Nat, and Carol are waiting for him. “Bruce gave him a sedative. He’s gonna probable be out for the rest of the day. And I feel it’s safe to assume the same goes for Eve.” Like clockwork, the four all move their heads to glance into the room where the woman laid.

“You guys take care of them,” Carol says causing them to turn to her. “And I’ll bring him a Xorrian elixir when I come back.” She uncrosses her arms and begins walking away.

“Where are you going?” Steve asks curiously.

“To kill Thanos.” Both Nat and Steve exchange looks, before hastily chasing after her.

“Hey,” Nat calls, making Carol stop and turn around. “You know, we usually work as a team here. And, uh, between you and I, morale’s a little fragile.”

“We realize up there is more your territory,” Steve says from behind Nat, “but this is our fight, too.”

“You even know where he is?” Rhodey asks, leaning against the entryway with his arms crossed.

“I know people who might.”

“Don’t bother,” Nebula cuts in, drawing everyone’s attention. “I can tell you where Thanos is.” Her revelation had everyone on edge. They gathered in the conference room, focused on what Nebula had to offer. “Thanos spent a long time trying to perfect me,” she begins, trying to ignore the anger in her as the painful memories resurfaced. “And when he worked, he talked about his Great Plan. Even disassembled, I wanted to please him. I’d ask, ‘where would we go once his plan was complete?’ And his answer was always the same.” The woman pushed off the wall and approached the table, letting her head drop between her shoulders. “‘To the Garden.’”

Rhodey raises his eyebrows, not really impressed with the name. “That’s cute. Thanos has a retirement plan.”

“So where is he?” Steve walked over and around the table so he was in front of Rocket. The raccoon pulls up a projection of the Earth.

“When Thanos snapped his fingers Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculous cosmic proportions. Something similar happened just before on Titan which we can assume involved your friend,” They all stiffen at the mention of Eve. “No one’s ever seen anything like it. Although the type of cosmic energy on Titan was different than Thanos snapping.”

“How so?” Steve asked, tilting his head.

“Not really sure. Haven’t seen anything like it my travels of our universe. But then two days ago,” the image changed from Earth to another planet. “On this planet, the same power surge occurred.”

“Thanos is there,” Nebula confirmed.

Natasha leaned foward, the glow of the projection illuminating her face. “He used the stones again.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Bruce nervously chuckles. “We’d be going in short handed, you know.”

“Look, he’s still got the stones so—.” Carol cuts Rhodey off.

“So, let’s get ‘em.” She nods at the potential plan. “Use them to bring everyone back.”

“Just like that?” Bruce doesn’t look convinced. He was right to feel hesitant. They already lost one battle, why repeat that so soon.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees with the woman. “Just like that.”

Natasha adds in on the topic. “Even if there’s a small chance that we can undo this, I mean, we owe it to everyone who’s not in this room to try.”

“If we do this, how do we know it’s gonna end any differently than it did before?” Bruce finally asks what he’d been thinking the entire time.

Carol places her hands on her hips, “Because before you didn’t have me.”

“Hey, new girl?” Rhodey gets her attention, not really enjoying how she’s taking full change on the matter. “Everybody in this room is about that superhero life. And if you don’t mind my asking, where the hell have you been all this time?”

“There are a lot of other planets in the universe,” she tells him. “And unfortunately, they didn’t have you guys.” Steve’s lips curl up and the look on Rhodey’s face. She just owned him big time.

The sound of Thor skidding his chair back to stand has Carol turning. The two lock eyes and he comes to stand right in front of her. Keeping their eyes locked, Thor raises his hand—just inches from Carol’s face. Blonde hair flies and falls back in place by the force of Stormbreaker flying past her and into his grip. She gives no reaction, remaining stoic at the God.

Thor brings the ax down in front of him, before slightly nodding in approval. It makes Carol smirk. “I like this one,” he tells the others. They share another look, one of mutual respect.

Steve turns back to the image of The Garden. Determination in his eyes as he says the words everyone was thinking. They were gonna find him, and they were gonna bring everyone back. “Let’s go get this son of a bitch.”

After everyone suited up they piled back into the room. Thor was the first to enter. And when the rest arrived they found him replaying the footage of Eve. When Tony had showed them earlier, Thor had paid no mind. Now the God’s eyes were concentrated.

When the recording replayed, this time focusing on the moment where the flare swarmed Eve, Steve approached. “Thor,” he called, eyes shifting back and forth. “What do you know?”

Behind him everyone’s ears perked, all thinking the same. The footage played for a third time before the man finally spoke.

“On Asgard,” he started, voice lowering as a feeling of emotion swarmed him. “My father once spoke of immortal and immutable manifestation of the universal force of life and passion.” Mix matched eyes trained on the screen. “A ‘cosmic entity’ he called it. The spark which gave life to the universe and all it’s creation. And the flame that will ultimately end it.”

By now everyone had gathered closer to the God. “This entity then traveled the cosmos. It would create and destroy all in it’s path—not even a Celestial could tame it.” The recording was now on auto reply, once again showing Eve’s bloody figure moments before the flare. “It’s said to be powerful than the Celestials.” The eyes of those who knew of Celestials widen in surprise. Thor didn’t add the fact the Infinity stones fell into the category.

He didn’t want to tarnish any last bit of hope for the team if his theory of Eve was proven false.

Thor thinks back to the conversation on Asgard. The memory of a young Loki and him sitting by the fire as Odin relayed the story while Frigga conjured illusions of a solar-like flare moving through the universe. Awe and wonder in their eyes. The thought of a being so powerful it was hard to believe. “My father said it was a myth. A legend passed down from generation to generation. Many civilizations worship this entity—they see it as a God.” He pauses the video on Eve moments before the explosion. Before the ball of light took form.

“Why are you telling us this?” Rhodey asks suspiciously when Thor finishes. Thor rubs his jaw, but doesn’t face the group. His attention remains on the screen.

“There’s never been proof said being exists. Although, it’s believed it takes the manifestation of a flare,” he zooms in on the projection. Eve was hovered over the ground with her arms spread out. Her head slightly tilted up and they could make out that her mouth was parted. All around her was glowing orange. If one looked closely, they could see tiny cracks in her skin.

It was almost a beautiful sight…..If not for the fact she was now laying in a coma because of it.

“Sort of like what we see here,” Thor trails off. The words bring a silence so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Steve steps closer, understanding what Thor was implying. His eyes move between the God and the image.

“What are you saying, Thor?”

He turns to Steve, a flicker of realization in his eyes. “I’m saying, if my theory is correct, our Lady Stark may never be the woman we once had.”

The conversation ends there with no explanation to follow. Steve remains frozen as Thor takes his leave, Stormbreaker in his grip and exits the compound. The others followed after him, many with expressions of worry and unease. Rocket, Nebula, and Carol were just as anxious despite not knowing Eve well. Just the thought of it being true was enough to spark an eerie feeling.

That their friend, ally, and teammate, who was unresponsive, had been targeted by a cosmic entity. ‘What did it want with her?’ was the million dollar question. They wouldn’t until Eve awoke.

If she awoke.

Seconds passed in silence until Steve eventually spun on his heel and joined everyone. The only ones who remained in the compound were Tony, Pepper, Eve. Happy had been called and would arrive shortly to give them company.

The projection still showed the paused image of Eve. Trapped in a fiery swarm of energy. In all the times they played the video—even freezing it, no one noticed how the flare, just seconds before conforming into a ball of light, was in the shape of a bird.

It had been roughly a week after the team returned to Earth following the mission to The Garden. Another failure had dawned them. This one the worst because it sealed the deal for the fate of their universe.

Half of all living creatures were gone forever.

Thanos had destroyed the stones, making his snap irreversible. He must have known they would try to come for them, so the Titan made sure they’d never get the chance. And then Thor cut his head off.

The second the returned everyone had scattered. They needed to deal with the hard loss in their own way. Thor went off to help his people find a new home. The guardians and Carol were back in space. Bruce and Steve took off to God knows where, although they remained in touch with Natasha.

And the former Widow? She settled in the only home she knew. The Avengers compound.

The elixir Carol gifted Tony helped tremendously. He was back on his feet the next morning feeling refreshed, but nothing new from Eve. Becase of this, Tony stayed longer at the facility than planned. Pepper was in the process of making arrangements for them, the two debating if they wanted to even stay in the city or find someplace quiet. It was common sense to push back the wedding—neither wanting to go through with it until they knew Eve was okay.

So here they were stuck in the compound with Happy, Rhodey, and Nat. It was almost comical how the atmosphere was. The last time all six were together like this was 2010. Natasha busied herself with the idea she could continue the Avengers, even if it only made up of herself, the Guardians, Okoye, and Carol. Rhodey did agree to help which relieved a lot of stress for the redhead.

She was the first to hear the choked gasp and beeping sound coming from the monitors. The chair she was sitting hit the floor from how hard she pushed off it. Natasha was running, calling out to F.R.I.D.A.Y to alert the others when Eve’s screams started. She wasn’t the only one to have heard the monitors, Rhodey was cutting the corner of the opposite direction at the same moment.

“Is she awake?” He said, oblivious to the ear-piercing scream.

Natasha gave a small glare, yelling over the screams, “What do you think?” They both entered the room to find Eve covered in a layer of sweat, hunched over the bed and holding her head in her hands. “Eve!!” Natasha ran up to grab her arms, but then remembered she couldn’t touch her. “Eve, look at me!”

“My head,” the woman whimpered, eyes squeezed shut. “It’s in my head!” She let out another scream as the pain pierced her.

“What’s in your head, Eve?” Nat asked, then turned to Rhodey, “Get Tony, now!” He spun on his heel and ran out. When she turned back to Eve, Nat could hear here mumbling in a frantic speed, “It’s too loud—it’s too loud. I-I-I can’t—-I can’t—AH!” Eve’s ears were ringing, her head pounding.

The monitors were beeping so loud it drew Nat’s attention—her eyes widening by the numbers showing. “Eve,” she calmly said, looking away from the deathly high heart rate showing. “Eve, you need to calm down—listen to my voice. It’s me, Natasha.”

But Eve couldn’t hear the redhead. Fire was consuming her. Her body, her mind, all of it. The voice in her head was almost like an echo. It was breaking apart the walls in her mind, with Eve unable to hide. A constant pressure to let her know it was there. “Evelyn.”

New voices entered the room, and Eve’s eyes snapped open when cold metal hands grabbed her shoulder. Her vision was blurry at first, but then it cleared. Tony was kneeling in front of her in a state of shock and relief. “Eve,” he said, but his voice shouted afar.

“T-Tony,” she whispered. That’s when Eve finally looked around the room and realized she was in the compound. “This—this is the compound. W-what, what happened?” Her eyes landed on Nat standing behind Tony, the drifting to the doorway where Rhodey was. Finally she could see Pepper and Happy behind the glass window. They all were wearing the same expressions.

Shock, relief, and worry all in one.

“T-Thanos,” Eve turned back to her nephew, noticing how he was gripping her with just the hand portions of his suit. “Thanos. Titan. The others— where are the others?”

“Eve, what was the last thing you remember?” Tony asked hesitantly. It was a good sign she remembered the fight on Titan, but now the questioned remained on whether she could recall what happened after.

“I—,” she swallowed, thinking back despite the constant pounding in her head. “Thanos he—I was on the rock. My wing—,” she gasped, hand coming to her stomach only to find there was no bandage or visible wound. “I was dying. I was dying And then, there—there was a bright light coming from the sky.”

When she didn’t add on, Tony thought, “Okay, that’s a start,” glancing at the floor. Eve, who was looking at the wall and didn’t see his mouth not move instantly said, “What’s a start?”

Tony’s head snapped up so fast it made her flinch and turn back to him. “What?” The expression he was giving worried her.

“I-I didn’t—,” he stuttered, eyes slightly wide. “Eve, I didn’t say that.”

“Yes you did. I heard you.”

Tony shook his head, loosening his grip on her. “I didn’t say it aloud, Eve.”

“What?” As the ringing in her ears stopped, more voices filled the silence. “Did she just—.” Nat’s tone rang out, despite Eve looking straight at her and no movement from her lips. “That’s impossible,” Rhodey was next. Faintly she could hear Pepper and Happy, but they weren’t in conversation either.

There was a spike in her heart rate as the realization filled her. She pushed away from Tony, inching further onto the bed. “Eve,” he tried to say calmly, but it just scared her more. “Eve, you need to calm down.”

“I—I can hear you—all of you,” she felt her lungs constrict. “Evelyn,” the echo called to her again. It made her whimper, tears brimming her eyes as she looked around her to find the voice, but nothing was there. She could feel everyone’s eyes on hers, unsure of what to do. “What’s happening to me?”

“You’re gonna be okay,” Tony leans forward. “Now that you’re awake, we’re gonna do everything to figure out what—-.”

“How long?” She cuts him off with a gulp. “How long ago was Titan?” Tony clenches his jaw, not wanting to reveal the truth. But the number of days flickered in his mind and it was enough for Eve to catch it. He hadn’t even realized it happened until she gasped. “No…”

“They’re gone, Evelyn.” The voice told her and the pounding returned. It was strong, making her clutch her head again and wince. “He won. Your friends failed.”

“No,” she cried. “No!” Lights began to flicker, causing everyone to freeze as fear filled them. Eve could hear their thoughts among the echoed voice. ‘What the hell?’ “What is she doing?’ “Oh my God.’

“Get out of my head,” she hunched over in a whisper. The flickering continued, becoming more and more frantic. The monitors were going crazy, the sound sending her into a frenzy. “It’s too loud—It’s too loud.” Her words had Tony and Rhodey moving to unplug the monitors, but it did nothing for the woman.

Just the sound of their thoughts were becoming too much. Eve didn’t know how to stop listening. And she was slowly starting to lose control of whatever was flowing through her. “Get out of my head.”

“I’m part of you now, Evelyn.”

“What are you?”

“You’ll know soon.”

“Eve!” Tony shouted, but it got lost amongst the wave of noise. Happy moved Pepper away from the room despite her protests, worried for her friend and fiancé. Natasha was slowly backing away, coming to stand by the door with Rhodey. Neither could form words at what they were witnessing.

“Get out of my head.”

“Evelyn.”

“Stop.”

“Evel—.”

“No!” She cried out and a light fixture exploded. A tear escaped her right eye. The others flinched and fear pooled at the sight. The whispering echo continued—a mental battle in the Avengers mind. And then all hell broke loose, when Eve’s voice took a tone none of them had ever heard of. “Get out of my head!”

The monitors closest to the window flew into the glass window—shattering it causing everyone to react. Tony nearly tripped on his own feet when he jumped back, avoiding the one nearly hitting him. Nat let out a gasp, hand clapping over her mouth. All the lights exploded causing them to run out to avoid being hit by the fluorescent glass.

When it was over, Tony ran back in to find Eve laying unconscious on the bed. This time, he could see the glowing orange cracks in her skin. They covered her hairline—going down her jaw and onto her neck. He didn’t dare touch her. If those cracks were visible then it surely implied her body temperature was high.

“Are those..is her skin cracked?” Rhodey said from over his shoulder.

Tony lets out a defeated sigh, not answering. The last thing they wanted was to be back at square one. It gave him hope she would wake up again, but now they had a new battle in their wake.

And if Tony was being honest with himself, he didn’t want anyone other than the people in that room to know.

“No one else knows about this, understood?” He says and waits for a response. When it doesn’t come he turns around. Both Rhodey and Natasha look hesitant at the idea. He narrows his eyes, “I don’t need her having any more stress added on to whatever the hell is going on. You heard her didn’t you?” They both nod and he swallows hard. “There’s something inside her—in her head, that we don’t know and it’s scaring her. This stays between us. I mean it.”

Nat rubs her arms, frowning as she glances to her friend. It didn’t feel right leaving the others in the dark, but understood it would be better for Eve. “Okay.” Rhodey shakes his head, but agrees anyway. Tony didn’t need to convince Pepper or Happy, they would support whatever he had felt was right.

After a few seconds Nat asks, “What do you want me to tell him?” The ‘him’ being Steve, “If he asks why she’s gone?” Tony didn’t know how Natasha knew he was planning on taking Eve away from the compound, but didn’t speak on it. He gives a shrug, looking over his shoulder to his aunt. The cracks had faded and her skin was back to normal.

“As far as Steve Rogers is concerned, Eve’s still in a coma—I know what you’re thinking,” he lifts a hand when Nat looks like she’s about to protest. “but give me another month to figure this out. She needs to be somewhere away from the chaos where it’s quiet. That should relieve some of the strain this new…power is putting on her.” The man was having trouble coming to terms with this new reality. It worried him to the point he was starting to feel a headache by what the future for his aunt had in store for them.

“She can read our minds now, Tony,” Rhodey couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“I know,” the man replied, scratching his chin. “We’ll take it one day at a time.” He moved to the bed, hands covered and brought Eve’s body more to the middle. He didn’t bother with the blanket since she was still drenched in sweat. He made a mental note to have the AC turned up in hopes of bringing her body temperature back down.

Part of him felt he needed to shock her, convinced her heart rate was high, but felt it would do nothing. All he could do now was wait again until she awoke. In the meantime, he and Pepper would find somewhere quiet and out of the city for them to settle.

Just when he was about to leave the room, something on Eve caught his attention. It was so small he almost didn’t notice if not for the little light coming in from the window. He leaned closer, his face directly over Eve’s—focused on the hairs framing her face.

“What is it?” Natasha asked, tilting her head around him to see what he was looking at.

“Get me a magnifying glass—or better yet,” he places his glasses on and shines a light on Eve’s forehead. Squinting, he makes out the discolor at the root of her scalp. “What in the hell?” It couldn’t be possible—there was no way. Even after blinking several times to see if his mind was playing ticks on him, it was still there clear as day.

The roots of Eve’s dark—almost black hair, so small one could miss it if they weren’t looking with a magnifying glass,

was a deep blood red.

……………………………

Tag list: @todaywasafairytale07, @ohholyaphrodite

[writing-for-marvel]

Can’t Leave You Behind

What if!Peter Parker x Fem!Zombie!Reader

< < Prequel: For Me, It’s You (you can read either fic first, there are no spoilers in the prequel)

Summary: Peter does his best to adjust when you get turned into a zombie, but when there’s hope for a cure, will he be able to save you?

Requested: @oyasumimosura​ - original request here. 

Warnings: SPOILERS for What If... Zombies episode 5, zombies, canon level violence, character death, sad ending 

Word count: 3.6k

A/N: I hope I have done your request justice and you like the finished product! 

Dividers by @maysdigitalarts

Masterlist | Ask me anything! | Library

Time seemed to move in slow motion, as if to only hurt Peter more, that he had to endure what he was witnessing for an excruciating amount of time. He watched as you grimaced in pain, face contouring with the discomfort. When you opened your eyes again the pain seemed to have dissipated, but the whites of your eyes had changed to a sickly yellow colour and your cheeks had hollowed. Your skin now had a green-grey tinge to it, like that time Peter had taken you onto Mr Stark’s yacht for one of his infamous parties and you ended up being seasick. 

“Y/N?” He asked tentatively, ignoring the frenzy around him.

No, not you too. He had lost so much - too much, he couldn't lose you as well. You were the one constant in his life, the one person besides Aunt May he could rely on being there for him after every bad day, rubbing circles gently on his back as he prattled on about the events of the day. You were the steadying force in his life when everything else was chaotic. He had been naïve enough to think that with all the bad guys and darkness this world had to offer, he would be able to keep you safe forever. 

Not that you needed protection - your magic could rival even Wanda’s, but Peter wanted to keep you safe from the harshness of this world, from the evils he knew lurked in the shadows, from the suffering he himself had been through. But he had failed you. 

Peter watched you as you cocked your head to the side, staring at him with blank eyes. He could sense something was about to happen, but he didn’t want to leave you. His mind couldn’t accept what his eyes were seeing - you looked like you had been infected, but he could still picture you as the witty and kind-hearted girl he fell in love with in the labs of the Avengers compound. 

Wind gently swirled as you raised your arms, the golden glow of your magic filling your aura around you. Even now, as a zombie, your magic was pure. 

“Y/N, it’s me, Peter. I won’t hurt you.” Peter said cautiously. He was familiar with your magic, intimately familiar, he knew the devastation you could cause if you wanted to hurt someone, but you only ever attacked people who were a threat to your safety or wellbeing, if he could show he wasn’t a threat, Peter was sure you wouldn’t injure him. Taking off his Spider-Man mask so you could see his face, Peter put his hands up in surrender. “I won’t hurt you,” he reiterated, “I love you Y/N, I’d never hurt you.”

You slowly lowered your hands, your golden aura fading into the night. The air between the two of you was thick with tension. Peter took a step forwards, reaching out tentatively for your arm. Flinching, you grunted and stepped back, not allowing him to make contact. Peter had always craved your touch, holding you close so he could feel your chest rise and fall with each breath, feel your fingers run through his hair while he kissed you. Now, he feared he would never touch you again.

Peter had been so wrapped up in you that he had been ignoring the scene around him - other Avengers fighting off a swarm of zombies, his friends also becoming infected. Mr Stark, Cap, Dr Strange, the list went on. Peter couldn’t think, he was completely overwhelmed. What should he do? He knew he couldn’t just stand here, letting the fight continue around him, but he couldn’t join the contest - he didn’t want to kill anyone, he wouldn’t kill his friends, even if they were infected. 

“Let’s get out of here, Y/N. Let’s get away from all this.” Peter urged. It didn’t make sense, he didn’t have a plan, you were a zombie, but all he wanted was to protect you. He stepped away from all the action, hand out to you, imploring you to follow him. 

Peter stared at you, waiting for you to make a move, to step towards him, but your yellow eyes were looking over his shoulder to something beyond him. Turning around to see what you were glaring at, he heard the bang of a shot being fired through all the commotion. 

“No, Bucky! It’s Y/N!” Peter yelled, hands flying up to protect you from the man’s aim. Bucky paused, finger hovering over the trigger. Peter could have sworn the daggers in Bucky’s eyes could have killed him themselves.

“Peter, she’s gone! She’s a zombie. You need to let her go - she wouldn’t want to live like this.” Bucky argued, trying to find a clear shot over Peter’s shoulder. Peter’s breathing was quick, he could hear his heart beating in his ears. 

“You don’t know her! You don’t know what she’d want!” He screamed, knowing full well Bucky held a loaded handgun pointed at his forehead and could pull the trigger at any time. Protecting you was worth his life. 

“She could infect other people!” Bucky argued. Peter knew it was selfish, keeping you alive even if you ruined the lives of others, even his own, but he couldn’t bring himself to kill you, you meant far too much to him. 

“She won’t hurt anyone - she could have hurt me, but she didn’t!” Peter protested. He knew Bucky wouldn’t believe him, but Peter knew your gentle soul better than anyone. 

“That will change once someone poses a threat to her.” With these words Bucky finally lowered his gun, but his eyes still held no sympathy. 

“Then I’ll keep her away from anyone who poses a threat.” Peter argued, knowing that he probably sounded foolish. 

“You can’t keep that up forever Parker. She’s a zombie, she needs to eat, she’ll infect others - maybe even you, it’s only a matter of time.” Bucky took a couple steps forward, a move intended to intimidate Peter, but he wasn’t backing down, not when your life was on the line.

“I won’t let you do this Barnes.” Peter said, readying his fingers on his web shooters, sensing Bucky’s next move. There was a pause between the two men, suspense hanging in the air. 

Bucky was the first to move, his metal arm swinging for Peter’s head. Ducking just in time, Peter managed to get off a couple shots with his web shooters before Bucky regained balance. His metal arm cutting through the webs with ease, Bucky took another swing at Peter, this time making contact with his cheekbone. 

Peter was knocked out before his body hit the ground. Bucky cursed under his breath, Peter was just a kid, and he certainly hadn’t intended to hit him as hard as he did. Shrugging the feeling of guilt off, Bucky turned to you, pulling out his weapon again. 

He had observed the way Peter looked at you, the way he always had an arm wrapped around your waist or draped over your shoulders, always held your hand in his, as if letting go of you would mean his own demise. Bucky’s own hopes for a love like that had died 75 years ago, but there was a part of his stone cold heart that melted at the thought of breaking such an innocent and pure love. 

Aiming the gun at your head, Bucky hesitated. You were a kid, just starting out in life - no, your life ended the moment you got infected. You were a zombie, nothing could change that, and now you needed to be eradicated. 

You stood there, brow furrowed, but an otherwise blank look on your face. There was a quick pang in Bucky’s heart as he pulled the trigger - that was replaced with apprehension as you raised your arm, and with a glow of gold, deflected the bullet from its original path. 

Grunting loudly, you staggered towards Bucky. Even with yellow eyes, your expression changed - Bucky had angered you, he posed a threat, and now you were going to hunt him down. 

The golden light of your magic radiated out of you as you approached. Bucky rushed at you, metal arm extending to grab your throat, to choke the life out of you. With an effortless flick of your wrist, he was sent flying with a ray of light, crashing to the ground with a thud. As you hobbled over to Peter, Bucky shouted from where he sat. He thought you were going to infect Peter, to take a bite out of his flesh. Instead, you crouched down next to him, careful not to touch him, and examined his face as he lay unconscious on the ground. 

He stared at the moment between you two, as Peter hazily blinked his eyes open, Bucky was sure he caught a glimpse of a relieved look wash over your face. He cocked his gun again, taking a precise shot which was intended to hit you. Turning around, you hissed as your golden magic deflected the bullet again. 

Turning back to Peter, you inclined your head to the left, indicating you wanted to make your way out of the situation. Peter understood you without words, even with his head ringing. Standing as quickly as his concussion would allow, you both stumbled away from Bucky and into the night. 

* * *

“Here, try this.” Peter suggested, handing over some rabbit meat. You had already turned your nose up at a mouse and squirrel, but Peter was determined to find a type of animal meat you would enjoy - maybe then your zombie desire to infect other humans would subside. You looked at the meat skeptically before taking a bite. You didn’t immediately spit it out as you had done with the other two animals. 

Peter smiled, he was making progress - maybe everything was going to be alright after all. Maybe the two of you could still have a life together. Not the one he had pictured every night before he went to sleep - a white wedding on Christmas Eve, hearing the cries of your child for the first time when they were born, Easter egg hunts where Peter would have to lift your youngest up so they could reach the egg sitting on the highest kitchen cupboard, dressing up in cute matching family Halloween costumes - it wouldn’t be a perfect future like that, but it would be some kind of future nonetheless. 

“You like it?” Peter asked, as you took another bite, seemingly enjoying the taste. You looked up at him, and after swallonging, nodded towards him as if to say ‘yes’. “Would you like some more?” He asked, scooting slightly closer to you. 

“Nghhh.” You attempted to articulate, however the words would not form properly in your mouth. “Nghhh.” You tried again, the distress evident in your face when you couldn’t even say a basic one syllable word. 

“Hey, it’s okay.” Peter tried to soothe you, reaching out to caress your arm, before thinking better of it and pulling away. “It’s alright, it’ll take some time, but I’ll teach you.” He said, and he meant it. It would be tough, making things work with you now was going to be difficult, but it wouldn’t stop him from trying. He had always believed you were the love of his life, that he would marry you someday, till death do us part, and technically, you weren’t dead.

“Ughhh.” You uttered frustratedly, standing up and walking away from Peter. He decided not to follow - you were always the one good with words, not him, and the irony hit him that he was the one who maintained the ability to talk.

That night Peter cried more than he had ever cried before. He had lost everything, you were his everything, and you were gone - not completely, but in all the ways that it mattered. He would love you until his heart stopped beating, but he asked himself, could you love him back? You weren’t much more than a corpse, your heart had stopped beating, and as much as he loved you, he couldn’t bring you back. 

Over the course of the next couple days Peter tried to put on a brave face. You were making slow but steady progress, mostly with your eating habits, you liked the rabbit meat, you hadn’t tried to attack Peter since the day after you turned, but you were still struggling with your words. 

“Peter.” He said, pointing his hand at his own chest to indicate that it was indeed his own name. “Pe… ter…” He repeated, sounding out the syllables. 

“Puh… duhhh...” You tried for what felt like the hundredth time that day. He was proud of the progress you had made in less than a week, but the irrepressible feeling that he couldn’t maintain this forever was bubbling in his chest. 

He could feel the searing tears at the corners of his eyes and the lump growing bigger in his throat. As much as he tried, he couldn’t swallow the sorrow which had rained upon him. 

“Sorry.” He managed to sputter, standing up and moving away so you wouldn’t see him crying. Collapsing onto a seat in the next room, tears flowed steadily down his cheeks, and he didn’t know how to stop them. 

“Pudd… duhhh?” Peter heard from behind him, feeling a cool hand press against his shoulder blade. This was the first physical contact he received from you since you turned. Not wanting to show you his tear stained face, the sadness that his eyes held, he asked you to go into the next room, that he would join you in a minute. 

You sat behind him, hand circling his back, before resting your head between his shoulder blades, arms snaking around his midriff in a hug. Peter was surprised by the intense contact - he didn’t think zombies were even capable of any complex emotions, yet there was a remarkable amount of tenderness in your touch. 

He remembered a night a year ago, on the anniversary of his parents death, where he had broken down like this, uncontrollably sobbing on his bed until you took him in your arms and soothed him to sleep. When he closed his eyes, for a split second, he could imagine he was back in that moment. 

Nights got easier as Peter’s brain had time to adjust to this new normal. That all changed when he got word that there was a potential zombie cure in New Jersey - Camp Lehigh. Bucky had informed Sharon Carter about your condition, and she managed to contact Peter regarding the camp.

“Y/N, we need to get going - there could be a cure in New Jersey!” He tried to control his excitement. It was a potential cure, not a definite one. But there was hope, actual hope. Peter might actually get the perfect life he had always dreamed of with you. It was a beautiful concept, but it’s always that belief that ruins you in the end.

* * *

After finding a train that would take you both to New Jersey, Peter’s heart was drumming in his chest, twiddling his thumbs and biting the inside of his cheek nervously. This might be the one chance, the only chance, for you to be cured, for the two of you to have a normal life together, that perfect life Peter had always dreamed of. 

When you both arrived at the camp you could immediately tell that something was wrong - a horde of zombies surrounded the camp, unflinching at your arrival. A commotion inside the barracks told you a group of survivors were having an argument. 

Peter cautiously poked his head inside to see what events were unfolding, only to find Vision in a heated discussion with Bucky and T’Challa. 

“Her name is Wanda, and while your anger is predictable, I can assure you my actions, although unsavoury, were nevertheless born of logic.” You could hear Vision’s flat voice through the open door of the building. “Her powers are too strong, they’ve resisted the treatment, the only course of action is to contain her, and her hunger.” Peter’s heart sank at these words - he had brought you all this way, only for the cure not to be effective for powerful mutants like yourself. 

“We need to get out of here, Y/N. This was a mistake.” Peter turned to you as there was a rumbling from deep within the barracks. Crashing and screams came from inside, and although he wanted to protect you, Peter couldn’t leave innocent people inside if there was a chance to save them. 

But before Peter had a chance to go inside to assist, a bright yellow light bore through the concrete wall to his left, other superheros he knew, including Bucky, climbing out of it. 

“Peter, you made it. We need to get out of here now!” Bucky said, holding Cap’s shield as if he was already used to the weight and expectation that came with it. Once everyone was outside of the barracks, Vision used the power of the mind stone to destroy it. 

“We haven’t much time, there’s a quadjet in the hangar.” Vision said, pointing at a large building behind the group. Before Peter could question why Vision would not be joining them on the quadjet he said “I must atone for what I have done, but I cannot bring myself to leave her.” With a shiver running down his spine, Peter watched as Vision seized the infinity stone in his forehead and with a flash, pulled it from its resting place. 

A roar came from the zombies outside of the compound, spurring to life now that the mind stone was free. Dispatching Bucky rather quickly, Wanda then turned her attention to Peter and T’Challa. With a grunt, she directed rubble from the collapsed building to where they were standing. 

Peter attempted to shield the debilitated T’Challa from the rocks soaring towards them, but they never came. Looking up, the golden glow of your magic filled the air as a projected force field stopped the debris mid air. He knew deep down that the only person who had a chance at stopping Wanda now that Vision was gone was you. 

“Pe… tah…” You croaked, your eyes meeting his deep brown ones. In this moment Peter could see his life flash before him, all the moments he treasured with you - the first time he saw you in the lab at the compound, running tests with Mr Stark, your first kiss in a booth at the local diner he had taken you to so you could enjoy their world famous milkshakes, the first time he told you he loved you while you stood in the pouring rain outside his apartment building, hair drenched, yet he didn’t want to be anywhere but in the rain with you. 

“Go… goddah go…” You managed to pronounce. He reached out for you, knowing that this was going to be goodbye, and wanting to hold you one last time, but before he was close enough to take your hand in his, a familiar wash of warm magic flooded his body as you pushed him towards the quadjet, further away from you. 

“Y/N!” He yelled, struggling against your magic pointlessly - you were much too powerful, you always had been, and in this moment he cursed you for it. Peter watched as you turned your back to him, your golden aura filling the sky as you levitated in the air to meet Wanda. The combination of your magic with Wanda’s made the sky shine a bright rose gold, almost like looking at the most beautiful sunset you had ever seen. 

Peter stumbled into the quadjet with T’Challa, finding Scott in the cockpit. Out of the windshield he could see the battle between you and Wanda develop, your magic swirling around you like a storm, fighting to fiercely protect Peter as the jet roared to life.  

The last Peter saw of you as the jet soared into the sky was the flash of bright red magic, followed by dark nothingness. He was too far away to tell for sure, but it seemed as though Wanda had won the duel. Peter sank back in the captain's seat, hands covering his mouth which let out a whimpering cry. After everything he had done to try to protect you, now you were just… gone. 

Peter cried well into the flight to Wakanda, the other two men not daring to interrupt the cries of a person having just lost their one true love. Moments with you replayed in his mind as if on tape. Moments that at the time he noted to commit to memory, as if he knew one day he would be without you and he would need these memories as souvenirs of your time together. 

As they flew towards the rising sun all Peter could think about was your laugh. The beautiful, soft sound that distracted him from classes at school because it was all he could think of. On tough days when he didn’t feel like himself all he wanted was to see your gorgeous face and hear that mesmerising laugh which would make him feel like he was floating. 

Peter was going to get the mind stone to Wakanda if it was the last thing he ever did - you had given your life for this cause, and it was only proper for him too as well. He knew he would see you again someday, on the other side of a rainbow, on top of a cloud where your golden aura shone brighter than the sun. 

[prismartist]

Ponk’s discoveries and what they mean

Y’all haven’t been paying attention to Ponk and it shows. /lh

He has made many discoveries in his recent streams that are just begging to be talked about, and I, as the resident maker of farfetched theories, will take up the job of compiling and connecting them to the current lore.

For those who don’t know, Ponk recently built up the lore of Not A Very Good Town Town, aka the village that went mad, through a book he found in the basement of Jack’s (the potato farmer, not Manifold) Ye Old Farmhouse, written by Jack himself. And it reveals some interesting information.

There’s going to be a few sections for this post: first, breaking down what is in the journal, then theories as to what exactly happened to the village, and how these discoveries can tie into the current storyline.

The journal

For one, Jack seems to have interacted an entity that’s eerily similar to Foolish. In the first page there’s an entry that reads:

“Day 790 The strange man is back, his body made of straw but eyes of emrald.”

On the second page as well, it mentions:

“Day 800 A NEW LAND! A land that uses sand as stone! Gold.... GOLD EVERYWHERE!”

Which, of course, probably pertains to Foolish’s desert home, which also has a significant amount of gold due to the Egyptian theme.

But why would we get Foolish lore from Ponk of all people, instead of the totem god himself? Well, Ponk was the first person Foolish interacted with on the server aside from Dream, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they talked more after that and collabed for lore.

But anyways, now we move on to the more interesting section:

“Day 840 The Strange man has returned his name still unknown... BUT! he has brought a caravan of good! he talks about ancient magic and gifts 21 statues transported in make shift boats.”

Jack then goes on to describe that the statues are “calming” for him, before the next entry, written ten days later, show a disturbing shift in attitude.

“Day 855 CATS I HEAR CATS, CATS IN THE WALLS IN THE WALLS”

And another one five days later:

“DAY 900 murder... the cats murder ,,, the people I showed Shrimpy my satues he seems too intrested BUT THEY ARE MY SATUES”

Now those who saw the episode know that Jack and Bob (Shrimpy) turned out to be the murderers of the “canon round”. Seeing as those two people were the only ones exposed to the statues as we know, it’s logical to assume that the statues were the reason they went mad.

And this is backed up by the next entry:

“Day 905 SUDDEN URGE TO MURDER, THAT HELGA WOMEN IS TEMPTING BUT DAMN HER HUSBAND NEEDS TO GO BY ANY MEANS NESS…..”

Then there are two blank pages before the journal concludes

“Day 1040 Just me and Shrimpy and the cool statues life is good go od goo d g ood go odgood g oodg ood go odg good goo dgood goo dgood g ood good good good goodgoo d go od g ood go od dgo od g oo go od go o d - JACK”

It’s creepy as shit. But moving on.

There’s a lot of questions to be asked here. Why did Foolish–if it is Foolish–visit the Town? Why exactly did he gift a bunch of statues that drove Jack and Shrimpy to madness and murder? Why are there cats in the walls?

(Well, cats are very significant to Egyptian culture, even to a cult-like status, but that’s for another post.)

There are a few possibilities.

What exactly were the effects that Foolish had on the Town?

(Here’s the farfetched theories part lmao)

The simplest (and let’s be honest, the most likely) theory is that the statues probably had way too much power that caused people to become overprotective over them. Foolish just didn’t realize and wanted to give some nice gifts, but the statues drove Jack and Bob to insanity after being exposed to them for way too long. So they killed everyone.

However, considering certain factors, there is another possibility, specifically surrounding:

The “non-canon” round.

Did Karl say that it was a practice round and thus not canon? Yes. Am I suggesting it’s canon anyway for the sake of this theory that probably won’t be true? Also yes.

Besides, Karl probably also didn’t plan for TVTWM to be influential to the storyline, but because of it his character’s now a time traveler and Ponk is pulling out more lore so.

I think Foolish came by and gifted the statues, the first round did happen, and he brought them back to life after the first game. But the resurrection affected Jack and Bob, driving them to madness à la gothic horror lit character that just saw something they weren’t supposed to. Perhaps their attitude became cult-like, praising Foolish, thus the overprotectiveness over the statues as they were connected to the god, or they were of the opinion that “Hey no, everyone’s supposed to be dead,” and then sought to make that true once again.

“But then what about the first round, where everyone also died?” You may scoff at the ridiculous theory, poking my chest accusingly. “Why were the killers different?”

Well, I have a simple answer for that.

Egg.

“What, the egg again-“ I know, I know, it may seem tiring tying everything back to the egg, but hear me out.

In another one of Ponk’s streams, “Dreams of potatos?”, at 58:15 (correct me if wrong) Ponk had a dream where Mayor Jimmy was saying disjointed sentences to Jack, scolding him, telling him to stay away from Helga, and also something about burning Miles Memeington being burned at the stake for being a witch (????). At the end of it, Jimmy turned to the camera.

And his eyes were red.

Which, of course, is a telltale sign of being infected by the egg.

The egg being the main plot right now, seeing as it can easily be connected to the “Red-Eyed Village Wars”, and the fact that it is known to control people to murder, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to point to it as being the cause.

It also helps that Jimmy was only a character from the first round; in the “canon” round, Bad had changed his character to some sort of constable or something.

So the egg may have controlled Jimmy and Cornelius, the murderers in the first round, to kill everyone, Foolish then came along, resurrected everyone murdered in the first round, gotten rid of the egg’s influence, and then left. Then whatever effects the statues had on Jack and Bob took affect.

Alternatively, the statues may have been the ones to resurrect the dead, or have been given as protection from any threats, but became haywire for one reason or another. They influenced Jack and Bob to protect the statues at any cost, and they took it too far. Which may seem a little hypocritical as the egg literally does the same thing, but fire fights fire and all that.

And, just like with Karl, if Foolish has had to deal with the egg before, it makes sense why he’s so averse to it now.

Current lore

Now, how does this tie into the current storyline?


Aside from the egg, if resurrection and items do affect one’s psyche, then maybe that’s the same reason why Schlatt and even Dream–the only other two who know how to resurrect–acted the way they did, becoming apathetic to the wellbeing of other people.

Also, it is worth noting that in the basement where Ponk found the journal, there were 21 villagers in boats, the same amount as the statues. Thus Ponk concluded that they are the statues. And Foolish does have an affinity for villagers, if King Toad is any indication. This implies that Foolish can not only bring dead people back to life, but can also grant life to objects that never lived in the first place. Or, they were once living, but had their life taken away from them before getting it back for one reason or another. If Foolish really has this much power, it could be foreshadowing for future events where those powers will be utilized.

About the bloodvines, if Foolish has defeated them before, there’s a chance he may do it again. Unless something goes wrong and he accidentally drives a few people to madness.

(or maybe they were predisposed to madness, who knows-)

TL;DR

Foolish may have interacted with Not A Very Good Town Town before to save them from the egg and resurrect the dead, driving Jack and Bob to insanity as a consequence. Thus he could have a lot of power and will be the one to potentially defeat the egg once again.

[misaverawrites]

Never (Mark Sloan x Reader)

*NOT MY GIF*

A/N: I WROTE THIS BEFORE 17x10, I- THIS IS THE BEST,,,

warnings: death mention, angst

summary: You and Mark Sloan have a long talk after a fling in an on-call room. It just may have been the thing he’s needed.

AU: literally just that Mark hadn't died in the plane crash. this is taking place in like S16/S17.

You vowed you’d never, ever do something this monumentally stupid. Yet you did, and you couldn’t find it in yourself to regret it. It was great, the best sex you’d ever had in your life, but now that it had happened, there was more tension in this intern locker room than in any operating room you’d ever been in.

You grab your bra off of the floor first, putting it on as Mark hands you your shirt from off of the locker room floor. Your hand brushes against his just slightly, causing your skin to warm up as if you and Mark hadn’t just fucked you within an inch of your life. You pat your thighs nervously as you look up at him, “So, Dr. Sloan… I just wanted to say thank you… for that.”

Mark sighs, “Yeah, it’s… it’s no problem.” He grabs his black boxers up off of the ground, pulling them back on, his pants coming back on just moments after, he turns around to see you, staring off into space, practically watching him.

“Yes, Doctor (L/N)?” He says, chuckling quietly as he pulls his scrub top back on.  “It’s just that you… You fascinate me, Dr. Sloan.” He laughs softly, handing you your underwear and pants in a small bundle, “And why is that?”

“You just… No offense, Bailey said it first, whore yourself out.” Mark looks at you, dumbfounded for just a moment before laughing hysterically, “I Whore myself out? Wow… I- I really don’t know what to say about that.” You roll your eyes as you pull your underwear back on, punching his shoulder playfully, “That’s not what I mean… Well, I just mean that you don’t date, which is what everybody else here at least does when they’re sleeping together. You just… It’s you and your daughter with her lesbian moms.” Mark’s face has transformed during this analysis, a look you could only place from a bit earlier, he’d faltered for just a second, you’d barely noticed, now the look stayed for longer and he just seemed off, “Mark, I know it’s none of my business but… what happened?” 

He’s silent for just a few seconds more until he starts talking, barely above a whisper, “There… was a plane crash, it must’ve been 8 or 9 years ago, Wilson’s class was the entering class after it… It’s been old news by the time your class got in.” You remembered them mentioning it, barely years ago. The story of the Seattle Grace Five. Six went up, and five survived, you place a mention of Meredith Grey being nicknamed ‘Medusa.’ He sighs, “Her name was Lexie Grey. Lex… Meredith’s half-sister. Died in the crash… We were meant to be. One of those things.” Mark’s voice can’t help but crack, his eyes water and you wrap your arms around his waist.

“Shit, Mark, I’m sorry…” He leans into your body, resting his head on your lap, as he sobs, the tears staining your light blue scrubs, you run your fingers through his salt and pepper hair, listening to his breathing as it heaves unevenly. You wipe the tears from his cheeks with your thumb, hearing him chuckle through the tears as he reminisces on his lost lover.

“Lex she was a damn fighter, she was one of the smartest women I’d ever known. Showed me the way that I should be loved. Fuck, Lexie was the sweetest but if she saw me right now… The way that I haven’t moved on… She’d come back just to kick my ass. Everyone tells me that I should have moved on but, I proposed… It’s like… It’s like she infected me. I think that I could love someone else like that, just can’t be right now.” He stares up at the ceiling, head still lying still in your lap.

“But, maybe someday.” You whisper to him, as he nods, breathing unevenly again, still crying just a bit, “Maybe someday.”

[the-broken-truth]

Donna meeting a doctor/field medic who manages to reduce/eliminate the cadou parasite growth on her face- 👨✈️

Broken Truth (Holding a Granny Smith Apple): An apple a day keeps the doctor away...(Throws it over my shoulder and walks off to find some granola & yogurt)

It had been half a year since he arrived in the small Romanian village with nothing but a small bag of clothes, a leather doctor's bag, a pouch of Lei, and the smile on his face. For an outsider - he was well versed in the language and asked if there was any property that he could buy; he was given 2 small plots of land that were completely bare.

One the first month of his stay - he cleared the land of any imperfections and started to build. Upon his first plot - he made a home, a firm structure of wood and stone. The villager watched as he broke the stone into pieces and combined them with clay before sculpting them into a kind of paste and filled a strange wooden mold he made on the flattest area of the ground he owned. They watched as the man stabbed long wooden posts in each corner of the paste and some in-between of others. After a day of waiting - the pasta hardened into something as strong as the castle's stone.

Then began making the bones of his house to ensure it would be sturdy in the most unforgiving of winters and it would remain warm in the hardest of rains. Once the bones were placed - he built the rest of his house and used the remaining paste to fill any possible crack. His home was done but...empty. He went into town the next day and did business with a rather fat man who didn't wear shoes and his hands were drowning gems.

Upon the next 2 months - he built a business upon his second plot - a business that most residents of the village appreciated for he was a man of medicine and he was very good at his job. He spent a lot of time familiarizing himself with the land and the forest, along with the plants and berries to make different kinds of salves to relieve anything or...could he really heal everything?

The sound of the bell above the door made the man look from the clipboard he was writing on - he was taking inventory on which salves he was running low on. He looked upon a veiled woman in a black dress with a doll in her arms.

"Good Afternoon," He began as he placed the clipboard back on the hook attached to the wall beside the dresser, "Welcome to the [L/N] Clinic. What can I do for you?" The man asked with a smile but instead of the woman speaking - the doll did.

"This is Mistress Donna Beneviento - The Head of House Beneviento, 2nd Lord of the Village." The doll said.

"Oh, so this is Lady Beneviento? A pleasure to meet you." The doctor bowed before looking at the doll. "And what about you, Young Mistress?" The doll looked confused for a while.

"My name is Angie - Lady Donna speaks through me as she isn't very...trusting of humans."

"Understandable. I am Dr. [Y/N [L/N] - The owner of this clinic. What has caused the Second Lord to bless me with her presence?" The doctor asked with a smile.

"Have you heard of the Cadou?" Angie asked.

"Vaguely. I hear some whispers around about the word but I never really investigated much into it." [Y/N] said.

"The Cadou is a kind of living parasite that infects its host with incredible abilities but it changes its host in some of the worst ways," Angie explained.

"Allow me to assume - Lady Beneviento is infected with one of these Cadou and you wish for me to do something about it." The doctor said.

"Yes. The Cadou in Lady Donna's Link to me - it's the reason I am a living doll but it has caused a horrible scar upon her face that she wishes to be removed or at the very less, reduced in size; we're hoping it won't affect her abilities though." Angie explained.

"I think I might be able to craft a represent for the Cadou but I need a sample of it first." He looked at Donna. "Lady Beneviento, may I see the scar? If I can collect a sample of this Cadou, I can craft something to aid you." The doctor explained. There was a moment of silence before Angie spoke again.

"She shall remove her veil but she warns you - it is not good. Please, do not judge." Angie warned. With a firm nod from the doctor, Donna removed her veil and the doctor's eyes widened before a blush crept upon his face.

"Lady Beneviento...you are...radiant."

'What?' Donna thought.

"What?" Angie asked.

"Forgive my forwardness, but, My Lady, you are a marvel; a true masterpiece, even with your difference. You shouldn't hide such beauty." The doctor praised her with a blush on his face before he looked at the ground like a nervous child talking to his crush.

"You...You really think so?" The voice of the Second Lord asked.

"Most certainly!" The doctor reassured.

[Y/N] went into the back and retrieve two empty syringes and walked over to Donna - slowly piercing it through the skin of the Cadou that took her right eyes and pulled back on the injector to collect the blood infected with Cadou Cells before using the second syringe to take a sample of Donna's blood from her arm unaffected by the Cadou. He promised to find something and call them when he found something and gave them a bow before they left.

He was sad when they left.

[A Few Nights Later]

[Y/N] had not returned home as he looked through the two microscopes - the one of the left was a small sample of the Cadou Cell Blood while other one held the blood of Donna unaffected. [Y/N] had been working for 3 days straight - making sure to tend to his clients but he hasn't slept or really eaten a full meal. He wanted to help Donna.

This was this 5th Attempt at the Cadou repressant - he was sure to document any kind ingredients used in case his memory failed him. He dripped the dropper into 2 nliquified ingredients and plopped it on the slide of the Cadou Sample and his eyes widened as the cells reacted, changed, and began to shrank until they were nothing but small cells - the same as T-Cells. He looked between the 2 microscopes and was pleased with his results and made a note to call Donna in the morning.

'I can't wait to see them again.' The doctor smiled before he walked over to his office chair and fell asleep - his dreams filled with images of the Head of House Beneviento.

[The Next Morning]

"Lady Beneviento and Angie! I'm glad you both got my call!" The man said with a smile as the veiled woman and her doll entered his shop.

"A pleasure, Dr. [Y/N]. When we received your call this morning, we rushed over. We assume you've made promise." Donna said.

"Better than that! I constructed a Cadou Shrinkage - it will shrink the Cadou down to cellular level while still remaining within you so you won't lose your link to Angie." The Doctor smiled.

"And...you are certain that this will work?" Donna asked with slight fear in her voice but soon her hands were taken in the doctor's - they were warm and comforting.

"I swear upon my life, My lady, this will work." He said as he brought her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles; making the dollmaker blush under her veil.

"O-Okay..." Donna whispered and the two of them went to the Operating Room.

[Hours Later]

Donna looked at her face in the memory - her complete human face. The Cadou Shrinkage was successful but due to it consuming her face for so long, her right eye was blind but [Y/N] assured her that he would be able to contrusct something to restore her sight; in the meantime, he gave her an eyepatch to cover just the eye. She thanked him and processed to gather living doll in her arms before turning to the door to leave when...

"Wait! Lady Beneviento..." She turned to look at the blushing face of the young doctor.

"Yes, Dr. [Y/N]?" Donna asked with a raised eyebrow - his blush darkened.

"I...Um...Have you eaten Breakfast, yet?" He asked as he scratched his cheek with the tip of his finger.

"No. I have not." She answered.

"Then...May I have the honor of taking you out for a late breakfast?!" He asked with a bright face and she smiled.

"I would love that." She nodded.

"Oh...Just fuck already." Angie groaned in Donna's arms.

"ANGIE!!!" Donna and the Doctor blushed before he closed up shop for the day and the 3 of them walked into the light of the sun with smiles on their faces.

[dreamersdreamloud]

Please Help My Daughter

Lena Luthor x Lena’s Daughter x Doctor Reader 

Lena was running many yellow lights and ran more than two red lights to get to the hospital. Although she was so focused on the road ahead, she glanced at her 5 year-old daughter in the passenger seat to see if she’s holding okay. 

A bomb went off at L-Corp and no one knows how it happened or who did it. Many paramedics came to the scene and attended the most wounded. Supergirl was busy directing everyone to safety and looking if there’s people who needed the most help from the explosion. The option that Lena took was to personally take her daughter to the hospital with her sports car. 

Her daughter was carrying a few deep cuts and oncoming bruises. Lena thinks that her little may be suffering a concussion due to both of falling to the ground from the impacted explosion. 

Arriving at Luthor’s hospital, Lena gently but hurriedly grabs her daughter and throws her keys to the security guard. A few steps into the entrance, a nurse was already rushing towards her. The nurse recognized her and immediately placed her inside the ER and gave her a private area. The nurse mentioned that a doctor will see them very shortly and leave quickly to attend other injured patients. 

The hospital became hectic that you had to cut your lunch break short. Many patients were coming in from left to right that all doctors were needed on the floors. Nurses were running all around and doctors would pull from one place to another. 

“Dr.(Y/LN)! You’re needed in room 205!” A nurse shouts at you while finishing up someone’s broken arm. 

You’re one of the top doctors in this hospital and sometimes it was just tiring. In types of emergencies like these, the nurses know that they can only grab your attention if someone is badly injured, if someone is dying, or if a family emergency has come up. 

You didn’t have the time to question the nurse’s request but you honored it and head to room 205 to see what the fuss was all about. The door was wide open and you could see a little girl sitting on the medical bed and you thought that she was alone until a woman literally jumped in front of you when you stepped inside. 

“Please help my daughter!” The young looking raven-haired nearly shouts at you. You know she didn’t mean to be so demanding, she just cares for her little girl’s wellbeing. 

“That’s what I’m here for ma’am. Please, just sit over there and I’ll see what I can do.” You say in a calming tone. She quickly nods and sits. 

You approach the little girl. By looking at her hair and the small features of her face, she looks like the woman who jumped her. Must be her daughter you thought to yourself. 

“Hi, sweetheart. Do you mind if I can check your arms and your head?” 

The little girl is shy and just nods her head for approval. You see dry blood all over and a little on the side of her head. You gently hold her head and look around for any more intrusion. 

“What’s your name sweetheart?” 

It took her a little awhile to reply, “Lori.” 

“Lori? That’s such a pretty name for a pretty girl.” You smile at her. Making small conversations to children helps them feel comfortable. You want her to feel comfortable with your actions and reassure that you’re not a threat in any way. 

“Okay, Lori. So I’m going to patch up these cuts and then I’ll take you to the CT room to scan your head to look for internal injuries. So far you seem good since you haven’t passed out or vomited.” 

You look towards the raven haired woman, “is that okay with you Mrs.Luthor?” 

She looks surprised that you knew who she is, “I - yes! That’s totally fine with me.” 

You got to work right away by cleaning up the dry blood and patching up the little girl. Then you directed the two to the CT room and let your colleague do their work on the little girl. Lena stands next to while you two wait on the other side of the window. 

“How did you know who I am?” She questions you. 

“You’re very well known Mrs.Luthor. You own this hospital, it’s only right that I know who my boss is.” You simply replied. 

She blushes but then realizes something, “it’s actually Miss Luthor. I’m not married.” 

You turn to face her, “Oh! I apologize! I’m sorry for assuming such things-“ 

“Oh no! It’s not your fault. I was never married actually. Lori was unplanned but she’s a blessing.” 

She looks like was going to have a breakdown. It was unprofessional of you but you gave her a hug. She was a bit surprised but she clings on to you. She needed the hug so you let her take her time and just waited for her to let go when she’s ready. 

“I know you’re my boss but it seems like you needed that.” You smile at the short raven-haired which she also gave back. 

“Thank you.” 

The three of you went back to the room. Next, you help assist Lena’s wounds and check for any serious injuries that she might not notice due to all the adrenaline. You didn’t see it before but you realized there was a blood

 spot on her shoulder. 

“Miss Luthor. May I check your shoulder? It seems like you’re bleeding there.” 

“Oh! I didn’t realize. No wonder my shoulder feels a bit sore.” 

“No worries. Do you mind taking off your shirt? I need to clean the wound and patch it up.” 

Lena complied and watched you do your thing. You can hear her breathing in deeply as if she was trying to control herself. It was hard to tell if she was trying to suppress her pain or that she was just feeling nervous. Lena was actually trying to control her heart from racing so much from the light touches you were doing to her. 

She then stares at you instead of your working hands. Her eyes focus on your eyes then your lips. She wants to inch forward and seal those lips with hers but that would be inappropriate for her daughter to witness. 

“‘Mommy! I’m hungry!” Lori interrupts the moment and breaks off. You both laughed at the child’s complaint and proceeded to finish. 

“Ha. I’m hungry too, kiddo. I wished my lunch lasted longer but I don’t mind helping both you and your mommy out.” 

“Oh god. I’m so sorry.” Lena feels bad. 

“Oh no. You’re fine Miss Luthor. I love helping people. We can’t help when there’s an emergency you know.” 

When you’re done with Lena, you’re idiot gay ass was caught staring at the woman buttoning up her dress shirt. You look down at your tablet and finish up the digital paperwork. 

“Um you’re all done Miss Luthor. I just need you to sign here.” 

You guide the mother and child to the exit. You honestly didn’t want them to leave. You wanted to ask Lena on a date but you already assume that it’s not a great idea for you to date your boss. 

“Alright you two. Please take your care of your wounds and make sure to change the bandages to avoid infections.” 

Lori hugs your leg, “thank you, Doctor.” 

You equally hug her back and Lena smiles at this affection you’re giving to her child. 

Lori makes a request, “Will you like to come and eat dinner with us?” 

“Oh I um-” you back up to Lena to see that you need help replying. 

“Lori, I’m sure Dr.(Y/L/N) may be busy tonight.” 

“Please join us.” The little girl begs to you. You gave into the puppy look of he daughter and agreed to join them for tonight. 

“I’m sorry that I’m taking you away. Maybe I can talk to her in the car and say you can’t-“ 

“Nonsense! It’s fine Miss Luthor. I don’t mind. I just think she needs me to be around a little more due to the event that happened today. Maybe this is her way to cope.” 

Lena totally agrees but at the same time it was a benefit to her that she gets to spend more time with you. 

“Since you’re going to have dinner with us. You must call me, Lena.” 

“Hmm. Then you must call me, (Y/N).” 

“Can we please go now. I’m really hungry.” Lori interrupts again. 

“Okay!” You gently carry the little girl up and start walking towards the exit to get to the parking lot. Lena can’t help but giggle. She was having a good feeling about you. She’s planning ahead on how she wants to keep you around for not just herself but also for her daughter. 

[lucky-sevens]

mechs deep lore compilation post

so! maybe you’ve read the other compilation post i made of basic lore/how to get into the mechs! maybe you want to know more! or maybe you’re a fan already and want to see how deep down this rabbit hole you can get!

well, good news for you: i have gone down the rabbit hole and hit bedrock only to find maki yamazaki standing by my side with a pickaxe! it is time for mechs lore part 2: electric boogaloo also known as ‘wow blue have you considered sleep’

rest under the cut!

i’ve tried to organize this, but given how many random facts there are, it’s hard! decided to start off with lore for each character (in order of them joining the mechs in-universe), including all the carmilla lore at the end; then move into general world lore/a bit of album lore, and finally more obscure/unknown facts, such as explaining the whole scuzz thing! also, citing the sources has been difficult, as a lot of things are from, say, old twitter posts and the like. there might be less links here than you all would like, but bear with me- compiling all this lore is quite difficult!

disclaimer: unlike stuff like the wiki, this includes a lot of my own theories and red stringing, and while i’m noting if something’s fanon or canon, the fanon may occasionally make its way into my theories!

links to the songs will be mostly TheVoidSings’ youtube lyric videos, as i don’t want to find the links to all the different platforms they’re on and the videos are lovely and accessible!

also- i’ve done some significant editing on the mechanisms wiki, as have other talented people- go check it out! it’s a good source of lore!

now on w/ the actual post!

crew

jonny d’ville

his lore is fairly concrete, but since he’s an unreliable narrator, we don’t know what bits can be trusted! his backstory song is one eyed jacks, which gives a pretty clear picture of events, but here in his crew bio he says that he made up new texas, and doesn’t have a very good memory of events in general. (it’s implied that he didn’t lie about killing his father, but we don’t even know that for sure.) a note: unlike the others, we don’t know what happened to his heart in order for him to be mechanized.

the aurora

the aurora’s lore is a mess. here’s what we know for sure, which is an edited version of what i have on her wiki page, (where i have also given a list of her known physical attributes);

she started off as a moon, but was weaponized and turned into a ship. she initially was a navy ship, but mutinied and joined the rebellion, participating in the october revolution, in which nastya died and was mechanized. this may have been her choice, but it is more likely that carmilla and/or jonny forced her into it, as they are the ones who won her from the cyberian navy.

when they stormed the ship, a woman was trapped inside- specialist 278 tereshkova, presumably aurora's programmer. What her and aurora's relationship was like is unknown, but aurora did not make any attempt to save her, so it may have not been positive. before dying, tereshkova managed to program a final distress message into aurora, as well as coding the mechanisms' blog.

she’s likely to be based off of the historical battleship aurora, like nastya is based off of the historical russian princess anastasia.

now, it’s time to get into the main theory about her: that aurora used to be briar rose! i’m collecting all the evidence on it, as well as all the evidence that can disprove it.

here’s a refresher on briar rose’s whole deal, taken from ‘the aurora strikes’-

The Rose Reds were the most effective of the soldiers created from Rose's genetic material, but they were not the first. Rumours spoke of an early prototype, known as the Briar Rose, that had malfunctioned and slain everyone on the desert moon of Briar, where she was being grown. But she was not dead. As the Mechanisms discovered, instead, she slept, at the heart of the defence grid that surrounded New Constantinople. The grid was composed of Thorn-class gun emplacements and was virtually impenetrable. And in its centre, the Briar Rose slumbered, plugged into the system, her anger, her rage, her hatred and her fear, fueling the machines, and focusing their gun turrets.

the main support for the theory here is that over time, briar rose could have fused to the moon, which is one of the very few conditions in which a biomechanical weaponized moon seems plausible and not just like a collection of vaguely cursed words. however, in the fiction ‘by any other name’, which is some collected lab research on briar rose, there’s this line- “During transportation and integration of the specimen, take all precaution and care.”- key word here being transportation. so she must have been moved off the moon.

the fiction i cited to disprove the theory actually has something that further supports it, though- the presence of a mysterious woman in king cole’s lab, who could be carmilla. hood, the revolution’s hacker, notes on a picture of her ‘[No idea. The others I’ve been able to find evidence of, but she’s a fucking ghost]‘. the description is a bit off, though, as she’s described as a short, pale, woman with hair long enough to be pulled back and carmilla is quite tall and has short hair- as well, in a later part of the fiction, the woman is killed and does not revive. however, there’s also another who could plausibly be her, noted here- ‘A tall woman sits opposite Prof. Root with a tray of her own. From her stature, it is conceivable she was one of the figures in the chemical suits. They talk sporadically, but the audio is heavily corrupted.’ she isn’t one of the ones killed later on, either, so that’s possible.

we know carmilla knew aurora when she was a very young moon and raised her practically from birth, so if she is one of those two people, it would make sense.

in ‘the aurora strikes’, aurora pushes to save briar rose- nastya explains this as ‘she can not bear to see another biomechanical organism in pain’. in my own writing about aurora, i interpret that as her having very high empathy, but there could be a more personal connection here. this is also notable as the only time aurora is mentioned in-album beyond jonny calling the mechanisms ‘the crew of the starship aurora’.

nastya rasputina

nastya’s backstory song (cyberian demons) was only performed when they were still dr. carmilla and the mechanisms, so it’s harder to find! thevoidsings has made a lyric video of it here, though, and it gives another very clear picture of her backstory! there’s also the fiction of the same name, which i didn’t understand upon first read-through but is basically a nastya character study, covering different points in her immortal life.

her performer went on hiatus for a while, and as an in-universe explanation, the cyberian sequence was written! in which nastya flies aurora to cyberia, infects herself with a computer virus, and transmits it to the entire planet, causing it to explode. this is all in the cyberian demons fiction i linked above, and with it are two other tangential fictions- one presumably just before those events, and one that’s an outsider pov.

there’s also out, which i’d suggest reading rather than just looking at my summary; basically, nastya has a crisis over aurora changing so that it’s harder to recognize her love, and ends up leaving the ship to float away into deep space- this is presumed to be her death, but that is never confirmed and nastya seems to assume she will wake up at some point.

ashes o’reilly

ashes’ whole deal is quite straightforward, which is a nice break from aurora and (to a lesser extent) nastya! their backstory song is lucky sevens, and it’s elaborated on further in their crew bio; interestingly, ashes was the one most into the idea of immortality at first, and also gave clear consent to carmilla.

ivy alexandria

we don’t know that much about ivy, which is fitting, as she doesn’t either! the most clear information we can find about her is in her crew bio, which can be summarized as: she grew up in a library!

archive footage explains more about her memory situation. she has no memories of anything before she was mechanized, according to this line ‘[...] she can tell you dates, and places, and body counts, she can list for you the exact circumstances of each event of her long, long life (at least, every event since that time, long ago, among a maze of bookshelves in a library that, awake, she can no longer describe to you, though once she knew its every turn by heart, when a woman stood over her and offered her eternity: before that, there is nothing at all).’ she also processes her memories differently than most people- they’re more like records, instead of things that affect her emotionally. (archive footage is also beautifully written and very much worth reading!)

the toy soldier

would say it has concrete lore, but it’s also almost solely responsible for fucking up my timeline and the album lore, so i’m rather angry at it. nevertheless, its entire backstory can be found in the fiction ‘the story of the toy soldier’. additionally, there’s a short story about its time fighting in the revolution of once upon a time (in space); presumably, this is the first time it did so, though it was likely in the war at least twice and possibly even three times. the mechanisms were only watching the second time, though it’s not out of character for it to have participated in the war again, and there’s also the dr. carmilla song, eleven, (which is about a war and uses a lot of rose symbology so it’s likely the revolution) where it is present. notably, carmilla had left the mechanisms by the time once upon a time (in space) takes place on their timeline, and the toy soldier is the only one there. at first, i interpreted that as carmilla meeting the toy soldier before it had met the mechanisms, but there’s two inconsistencies there: firstly, it doesn’t recognize her when it joins the band, and secondly, in the song they leave together. this increases the likelihood of it having been in the war three times.

we actually have a recording of the toy soldier’s first time joining the band- the mechanisms @ lashings! (part one / part two / transcript) there’s also a note of that show in the story of the toy soldier! they bought it because jonny was in jail (x). interestingly, that show is the first recording of rose red, and it’s later noted jonny was in a rose red prison!

now it’s time to get into the main theory regarding it, which also will factor into the write-up of ulysses dies at dawn later! i personally subscribe to this theory, or at least, most of it.

here is frankie @byron-von-raum‘s post- the theory here is that the toy soldier is the rebodied mind of the widow’s fiance. i’m not going to get too into that part, as i don’t personally incorporate it into my lore and more importantly frankie already has a post on it! read that if you’re more interested!

the most important bit here is the evidence it collects regarding the toy soldier living near labyrinth; in one of the pictures from the toy soldier’s backstory, there’s a dionysus brand wine bottle. the consensus he comes to is that the toy soldier lives in a colony of earth that trades with labyrinth, and while i think that’s possible, the all-encompassing nature of the city makes it more likely that they would have a minimum of outside communication, so the toy soldier would just be from the city proper. i will get into the impacts of this/expand on it more in the world lore section!

another thing: the angel has an out of character explanation! if you look at photos of old mechs gigs, jessica law looks similar to the drawing of the angel in the story of the toy soldier! their voice being stolen was most likely a reference to that.

drumbot brian

brian’s backstory is laid out in his crew bio! i’d summarize it, but to be honest, it’s already a summary, so i’d suggest just taking a second to read that! sadly, this is all of what we know about it. the priest from his backstory was apparently made almost immortal in some twisted form of mechanization, and has never forgiven brian for it/is still trying to hunt him down (x).

his bio is also where his morality switch is introduced! (interestingly, it takes a far lower role/is mentioned far less in canon than in fanworks.)

there was originally going to be a backstory album about him called indistinguishable from magic. this never happened, but ben below is working on a new one called the wanderings of drumbot brian! no more knowledge on this currently. 

the main theory about him is that he had some kind of alliance/is lying about something to do with carmilla! we know from maki that carmilla didn’t go out of the airlock (more on that in her section), and when brian is questioned on what happened to her, he doesn’t give a concrete answer. this is in contrast to all the other mechanisms, who assume she fell out an airlock. here’s what he said:

I will not point fingers and lay blame. I do not know how it came to pass that Dr. Carmilla left this vessel, whether by fair means or foul, and so I will not engage in this painful discussion. I hope she did not suffer, and that we may forgive the perpetrator of this deed.

he’s speaking very formally here. (fucking nerd). well, no; legitimately, this is not the normal way he speaks in other contexts. he could be masking something. we know that even when he’s lying, he’s not good at it, and this comes off as clearly odd. in support of this, i believe one of the songs on his unwritten backstory album was called ‘the doctor’s demise’ (though i could be remembering incorrectly).

there’s not much more evidence we can draw on here to come to a consensus, though!

something else to note- i’ve written this other meta about his prophetic powers! feel free to read if you’re interested in that aspect of his character!

gunpowder tim

of course, tim already has a whole mini-album to himself (gunpowder tim vs the moon kaiser), but there’s a couple more niche things about him, though not as much as aurora and ts!

mainly, the implications that he destroyed the sun. there’s an old mechanisms tweet that states he 'was floating in the wake of a detonated star’. additionally, there’s this old blog post, which turned into a bit of a fiction! the figure speaking is not named, but given the other mechanisms who speak (therefore knocking them off the possibilities list) and the fact that the post was made around the time tim joined, it’s likely that it’s him. now, he says this:

“It wasn’t the deep space that drove me crazy,” he said, his voice low, calm and polite.  “It was the sudden realisation that I was entirely responsible for the destruction of my entire civilisation, and happy for it.”

though destroying the moon and his other actions in gptvtmk could possibly count for this, it would fit more if he had destroyed the sun.

both those posts also imply that he was floating in space for an incredibly long time. i don’t know how he survived if so, but it seems very likely that’s what happened.

i considered these posts being too early/having a changed canon now, like the odd use of different pronouns for some characters in the earlier fiction, but they seemed to have gunpowder tim vs the moon kaiser mostly worked out by the time tim ledsam officially joined, as they perform it at the only recorded gig from that year with him (port mahon 2011), which was around when the second blog post was made!

marius von raum

we don’t have a written backstory or backstory song to go on for him, but kofi young (his performer) is working on a full album about him called ‘the death of byron von raum’!

the blog post kofi made about it as a summary is the main source of marius lore that we have! i’d highly suggest reading it, but the main points are:

1. it’s going to be very dark and tragic, and shows that marius at heart isn’t really the kind of comedic figure that he comes off as in the band! ruth @thedreadvampy (the mechanisms’ official artist, as well as morgan’s sister and kofi’s partner) has also made a tumblr post that connects to this!

2. the world he’s from used to be high-tech, but has devolved over time into 18th century levels of technology! what this boils down to is; what we assume is marius and an unknown friend (more on this in raphaella’s part) manage to discover ancient technology and attempt to use it! all we have here is this quote om the blog post- ‘In the middle of this, two kids hiding from the soldiers discover an army of ancient mecha and use them to fight back, but only end up plunging the world into further chaos.’.

3. anime protagonist marius!

we also have this small piece of writing, screenshotted here (monogoggle...)-

[image id: a screenshot of writing, most of it out of view/hard to make out. it’s also in the middle of the line, so the breaks are off. however, it looks to say ‘at the controls of RISML/cockpit is cramped and d[...]/has his monogoggle over his/controls are uncomplicated/the neural interface. They [...]’ end id.]

raphaella la cognizi

i’ve been very deep down the mechs rabbit hole for over a month now, and yet i’ve found hardly anything about her!

there’s a small theory i have, though it doesn’t have too much supporting evidence! in marius’ backstory, it mentions two kids, and raphaella and marius joined together (first mention of either of them is together, in this facebook post!) when questioned about marius and raphaella, nastya says a story instead of stories (x). (that post also clarifies that carmilla was not involved in either raphaella or marius’ backstories!) this could potentially point to raphaella being the other person from marius’ backstory. the evidence against it is that if raphaella featured that heavily, r. l. hughes would have said something about the album as well instead of it just being kofi talking about marius, but it’s still interesting to think about!

there’s also a theory that she was the preacher’s daughter from brian’s backstory, but the only real evidence there is that she could have used his tech to mechanize herself (which her doing is only fanon!) and that she performs ‘lost in the cosmos’.

dr carmilla

this is most likely going to be the shortest section, as it’s basically another crew member; that being said, there’s a lot of lore here!

if you haven’t listened to the carmilla albums, i’d really suggest doing that! there’s two- exhumed and (un)plugged and ageha prototype edition! the story there is harder to put together than in the mechs backstories, especially because the songs are mostly out of order, so i’ve decided to just straight up summarize my interpretation, along with what we have to go on from maki, instead of framing it like a theory, as that’s the easiest way! still, please bear all this with a grain of salt- it’s most likely to be contradicted in the new album maki is working on.

carmilla and her girlfriend loreli lived on a planet called terra. for their childhoods, it was a fairly okay place to live (though i elaborate on this a bit in the world lore section!) however, it was bombed; most likely taking the role of an alternate universe hiroshima, as the blurb on her bandcamp says ‘Dr. Carmilla tells the twisted tales of a dystopian future following WWII having ended very differently.‘ after this, the planet sunk into a nuclear winter.

loreli got sick and died; or, she should have, but carmilla saved her by turning her into a vampire as well. this resulted in loreli losing her morals and becoming abusive towards carmilla. carmilla was too deep in love to see this, and stayed in the relationship for several years.

we don’t know what happened to make her strike out on her own, but eventually she did, and created the mechanisms. while with them, she recognized her own failures with loreli, and left the mechanisms (which they all believe was caused by jonny d’ville pushing her out an airlock, rather than her own volition.)

from there, she traveled back in time to the point where loreli was dying, and let it happen- potentially burying herself and loreli alive, which she survived due to her immortality and loreli did not.

however, she was trapped underground for a hundred years. when she is finally found and dug out, she starts enjoying herself (i.e. committing murder). for some unknown reason, she clones herself multiple times, creating the in-universe version of maki yamazaki.

the mechanisms assume she pursued them after she was pushed out of the airlock, and that that was what eleven was about, but i’m not sure why she would do that, given that she left them of her own volition. because of time shenanigans, it could have been far later on her personal timeline; maybe she simply wished to reconnect with them after all those years.

that’s all we have; we don’t know if she died, or anything like that!

world lore

all the folktales and normal history the irl mechs work off of also exist in-universe! (for an example- the toy soldier and ivy start reciting the walrus and the carpenter together in lashings, and the mechs also do alice in wonderland as a song.)

we know the alternate universe theory is correct, mostly because of this piece in the fiction on kofi’s blog-

In those burning instants, he’d feel the weight of it all, and know it was true. The golden age that never came; the city that stood at the dawn of a world instead of in its dying embers. And beyond – to a myriad of Camelots and a thousand thousand Arthurs, unfathomable worlds apart, each different, each fighting the same hopeless battle.

He’d feel the burden of that task pressing down until it felt like it’d crush his chest, and he’d wake every day gasping for breath, feeling older than he ever had, older even than Ector.

And as he screamed inwardly, Galahad would meet his gaze with those crazed eyes of his and grin, and Arthur would know again that whatever had spoken to Galahad was moving him too.

the mechanisms are most likely traveling between several alternate universe versions of folktales, and occasionally alternate versions of earth! (cyberia, tim’s earth, terra...) this is likely why everyone in their stories is human, and is actually low-key evidence against drawing them as aliens (though ofc feel free to have fun!)

i was initially going to put all the album lore in its own separate sections, but a large amount of it is how it intersects with other pieces of lore, and the rest isn’t necessarily niche enough to cite here? my personal advice is that if you want to learn more about the albums, read the fiction! i have a compilation post of all the fiction up on this blog, and you can find it on the website here!

let’s start with the mechanisms’ roles in ulysses dies at dawn, though! we know for sure ashes is hades, brian is the oracle of delphi, and the toy soldier was a nymph (which is actually quite worrying, considering what that means and the inherent issues with consent there, but i digress.) tim most likely took on the role of achilles (more on that here). then, we know some of the mechanisms’ activities and can guess their roles from that. raphaella was helping athena on her research, marius was psychoanalyzing the olympians, and jonny was committing mass murder. it’s a common theory that one (or three) of the mechanisms was cerberus, but sadly i couldn’t find any evidence towards or against that.

i said in the toy soldier’s section that i would talk more about the implications of it being from labyrinth here! the main thing is the fact that, for it to join the rose red war, the city must have interacted with king cole at some point. it’s a risky thing to pose a theory on the toy soldier’s allegiance towards a certain group, but the fact that it seemed to stick with the rose reds here might also mean that the city was, in fact, under king cole’s power. this fits in nicely with the greek mythology aspect of it all; king cole, in that universe, could have been a stand-in for the figure of kronos/saturn!

a few other theories on how the lore intersects:

1. high noon over camelot takes place after the bifrost incident! in terminus, we see communication breaking down, and that could have been the reason the station was isolated. the mechanisms go from it to the bifrost incident, but as they canonically travel in time, that’s not enough to disprove the theory!

2. arthur becomes king cole eventually! this is mostly going off of the fact he’s called ‘the once and future king’, but also the fact that cole used to be considered a good king.

a few loose pieces of worldbuilding:

people from new constantinople seem to be longer lived, and their culture is built around age as a concept. the older you are, the more wise and important you are. specifically, in this fiction, snow is dismissively noted as ‘barely fifty’ and king cole’s age is held up as evidence to why he’s a good ruler.

terra, carmilla’s planet, has two major languages; high terran and low terran! high terran is a more regulated, formal way of speaking, specifically something that only the rich and privileged tend to know. there are many dialects, but the grammar is dictated by the capital. low terran is a creole language formed from several others, including high terran, that most children are taught in school as the baseline. (though they might speak a completely different, less widely spoken language at home!) carmilla speaks low terran but not high terran (although she pretends to know the latter.)

the mechanisms were all (or mostly all) at fort galfridean at one point; don’t have the source to hand, but marius apparently became a prophet to the saxons for staring into the sun for a very long time.

if you’re looking to draw album fanart, there are a few things i know aren’t as widely known; the ones i can think of off the top of my head is orpheus having a ‘foppish haircut’ (the type of thing that falls under that definition is narcissus’ undercut), and snow’s disfiguring scar. there is also official album art; i, personally, have not seen much of it, and i’d encourage coming up with your own character interpretations.

one last theory- it’s highly likely carmilla was involved in the events of the bifrost incident. in the mechscord (sadly, invites are closed due to the difficulty with handling the boom in the fanbase) maki yamazaki has mentioned that part of the criteria for picking a mechanism is ‘good friend for lyf’. at first, i assumed that she meant good friend for life, but when asked on that she was worryingly cryptic (as tends to happen), and she made a joke earlier in character as doc c about accidentally calling odin. though immortal lyfrassier edda most likely became fanon just so they could become a mechanism, this is a piece of evidence towards them actually becoming immortal.

my personal headcanon is that to gain true immortality (which maki has said king cole and the olympians do not have) you have to have some kind of eldritch component, so carmilla had to go to odin for aid. this is supported by the fact that in drive the cold winter away and cyberian demons, their mechanisms are noted as having a rainbow sheen to them!

other lore

scuzz nishimura

scuzz has built up a bit of a reputation for being the ‘cryptid mech’, but her lore is really quite simple! she was a member of the band back when they were doctor carmilla and the mechanisms, but left before they became more popular, so there’s not too much knowledge about her. she appears in this fiction and the only two recorded gigs from that era (lashings and homesick). she’s also visible in several photos!

i know i’ll get people in the notes asking for photos of her if i don’t include any, so have this;

[image id: a cropped picture of scuzz nishimura, looking tired and resting her head on her hand. she looks to be wearing white gloves and some kind of sweater or waistcoat, and her hair is cut short. her cello is also visible, as is someone else’s hand. end id.]

we don’t know too much about her; all we really have is that she was their cello player!

assorted things with no explanation

there’s this old piece from the wayback machine-

[image id: a screenshot of what looks to be the fiction page from a old site for dr carmilla and the mechs. the writing reads;

Writing

( The Aldwich Horror } A short story in which Dr. Carmilla attempts to solve the mysteries of the Aldwich Horror, the strange appearance of a new crew memeber and several zoologically dubious pets.

( Disinterration } A cautionary tale about exhuming corpses.

end id.]

‘disinterration’ is most likely a reference to the carmilla song exhumed, but i’m unsure about ‘the aldwich horror’. the most intriguing bit there is ‘the strange appearance of a new crew member’. i’ve researched the other aspects in an attempt to figure this out. aldwych is a closed london tube station- it served as a bomb shelter during the blitz, which is interesting as both carmilla and tim have backstories involving the world wars (though only carmilla’s is world war ii specifically; tim’s is wwi). the zoologically dubious pets are most likely the octokittens, which we know the toy soldier brought on board, so it would have to be in a place on the timeline after ts joined and before carmilla left. the only mechanism that joins in that space is gunpowder tim, so it’s possible that he is the new crew member.

the mechanisms blogs have a lot of incidental lore, so if you’re this deep in i’d suggest looking at my compilation post of some of my favorite posts of theirs!

and that’s it! we did it! i can finally go to sleep now. i’m so tired. please. i am going to die. i have homework. thank you all so much. please consider coming to my funeral service.

[bluerose5]

The Ghost of Paradise (Exile AU)

Chapter 1: Exiled

Rating: M

Word Count: 3,791

Tags: Mass Effect: Andromeda, Reyder, Exiles AU, Pre-Relationship, Drinking, Mentions of Recreational Drug Use

[Read it here on ao3.]

If there was one thing Scott used to his advantage, it was the fact that people always seemed to underestimate him. They thought him to be that sweet, lovable guy that almost everyone got along with. To them, he was simply a normal, everyday soldier who bought the Initiative's pitch like everyone else and took the leap across galaxies on a hunch.

Granted, most of that was somewhat true, but not entirely.

Like the other exiles, Scott didn't exactly wait around for someone else to come swooping in to save the day when the Initiative went to shit. Given that he was part of the original Pathfinder mission team —sent ahead on the Nexus to help prepare for the ark's arrival— he was supposed to have more say, should worse come to worst.

Yeah, because that turned out so well.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. When it was clear that the arks were delayed, it fell to Scott and the others sent ahead by their Pathfinders to call the shots on that end. That was what they had agreed upon per protocol before departing from the Milky Way.

Of course, Nexus leadership had something to say about that. They backtracked hard, citing inexperience and the lack of SAM as reasons to keep the Pathfinders' Nexus representatives from gaining power.

All Tann seemed to worry about was maintaining control over the populace, even when his choices didn't seem to be in everyone's best interests.

One after another, every attempt to establish an outpost failed. Naturally, hope began to dwindle over time, as would be expected after so many failures. It was brutal to watch, especially since Nexus leadership absolutely refused to send any of the Pathfinders' designated representatives. Scott didn't fully understand that decision. Maybe Tann thought that if he gave them an inch, then they would take a mile. Perhaps he was intimidated by the very thought that they might vie for the Pathfinder position yet again.

In the end, it didn't matter.

Scott didn't leave because they refused him the fancy title and its accompanying throne.

No, Scott left because of the utter incompetence. Kesh could handle her own as superintendent, but Tann and Addison were both a piece of work in their own right, making idiotic decisions yet never owning up to their mistakes. Making decisions that affected everyone yet never listening to the opinions of the public.

It was maddening, and Scott's eventual departure was inevitable.

Joining up with the uprising was one thing he couldn’t bring himself to regret. Scott fought to get innocent people off that station and to safety. Not everyone who left was a criminal, and they deserved better than what they got.

By the time they made it to Kadara, Scott was already tiring of Heleus. He helped take down the kett, didn't really get any credit for doing so, and jumped ship as soon as he could.

After Sloane took control of the port, Scott escaped into the badlands every now and then, only returning on occasion. She might have had good intentions in the beginning, but Scott didn’t like the direction her leadership was taking in regards to their future.

Besides, with trouble brewing between the Collective and the Outcasts, it seemed like he took the right step in venturing out on his own.

At first, he kept to himself, but it was impossible to ignore the people in need of help.

Seeds of corruption were already planted in the Outcasts' organization. Not that the Charlatan and their Collective were much better. Everything about the two factions' activities spelled trouble for all of the "little people" getting caught in the crossfire.

Scott had to do something. Ignoring the problem would only make it worse, leaving it to fester and spread like an unwelcome infection.

The gangs could beat each other up as much as they liked, but Scott was determined to make the planet safe for those who merely sought shelter from the madness. It took weeks of scouting out areas with a decent enough bedrock, weeks of surveying the angaran filtration systems, to even have a blueprint for a working water filter.

Of course, being an engineer had its perks.

Eventually, Scott managed to rig his tactical cloak for prolonged use and infiltrated one of the angaran hubs out in the badlands. He made it out with no collateral damage, taking off in the dead of night with scans of their systems. It gave him enough of an understanding to integrate their design into his own plans.

Did he feel bad for stealing as he did? Yes. Could he afford to linger on the guilt, knowing that those angara were denying the Milky Way species access to their plans? No.

Not when survival was on the line.

It was either keep giving them insane amounts of credits and supplies in exchange for a measly cup of water or take it for himself.

Scott was only glad he got in and out undetected. He would fight if he had to, but he wasn't bloodthirsty to the point that he actively sought out confrontation.

Building and perfecting his own filters took time and resources, even more so than usual since he was careful to keep any transactions out of the port under the radar. It was worth it, though. Before long, Scott had a working filtration system under his control.

And on Kadara, where there was fresh water, people soon followed.

Any exiles without gang affiliation were welcome. Most were wary to move to the area at first, understandably so, but Scott didn't force the matter. After all, it was difficult to verify whether or not this new town was a trap or the real thing. How could the exiles guarantee that it wouldn't turn out like all the other towns trying to get a start in the badlands? There one day, and burned to the ground by the next.

Hell, Scott didn't even attach his name to the place . Taking a page out of the Charlatan's book, Scott preferred a more discreet approach to leadership.

However, even Scott knew that, if he was ever going to get the place functioning properly, he would need to win some people over to his side.

Dr. Nakamoto had been the best person to off start with, and Scott didn't regret choosing him for a second. In exchange for retrieving his formula for Oblivion, Dr. Nakamoto promised his services as Scott's resident physician.

Luckily, his patients were more than happy to follow. Some even stayed, and word soon spread.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The locals started calling the place Paradise. A cheesy enough name, but it came down to a vote so Scott allowed it.

Compared to the surrounding cesspool that was the badlands, Scott figured he could understand why they would call it that. It felt like an oasis in an otherwise desolate wasteland, a place where one could go and catch their breath.

As for Paradise's "elusive leader," there was just as much speculation around their identity as there was around the Charlatan's. Although, unlike the Charlatan, all of the residents under Scott's care have met him, and all remained tight-lipped about who he was.

He was grateful for their loyalty. He never asked for it, but he was grateful nonetheless.

It prevented the gangs from painting a target on any one person's back. There were the occasional attacks on the community, but their people were stronger and smarter than the outlaws gave them credit for.

As stories of Scott's ventures spread, infiltrating and sabotaging both the Collective's and the Outcasts' operations to provide for his own people, Kadara Port started to buzz about this mysterious third party that joined in on Kadara's power play.

Truth was, Scott wasn't looking for power or influence.

He was simply looking to protect and provide, no matter the cost.

The Ghost, they called him, known for sneaking in and out without a trace.

And any time he was detected, there were never any witnesses left to tell the tale.

Those at Paradise always got a kick out of the nickname, refusing to let him live it down.

That was fine, though. Scott would rather be the people's boogeyman than to let their opposition think that Paradise will just roll over on their backs and let everyone else fuck them over without retaliation.

On Kadara, it was a dog-eat-dog kind of world. Any sign of weakness will be quickly taken advantage of.

But Scott played his part well.

Nowadays, he lived in the port more often than not, putting up with Sloane's ridiculous protection fees in order to keep the suspicion off himself and those around him.

At the slightest hint of trouble, Paradise had an emergency beacon equipped that would ping Scott's omni-tool at a moment's notice. He had the utmost faith in their capabilities, but he would be there at the drop of a hat, should he be signaled.

For now, it was time he sat back, kicked up his feet, and listened.

Crazy all the things you could find out just from listening to a conversation here or there.

As soon as Scott sat down at the bar in Kralla’s, he asked Umi for his usual.

“Starting a tab?” she asked as she wiped down the bar.

Scott was almost afraid to ask if that was blood or wine staining the rag that she was using. Then again, ignorance was bliss.

Such was the way of life on Kadara.

Scanning the area, Scott eventually nodded.

“Might as well.” He gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “I’m meeting with Reyes soon. Cheap bastard never pays for his drinks.”

“Yet you keep letting him get away with it,” Umi noted.

Scott chuckled.

“Best not to burn bridges over a few drinks,” he said, “especially when this bridge in particular filters a large majority of the goods coming in and out Kadara.”

“Whatever floats your boat, Ryder.”

While Umi continued to mix his drink, Scott tuned into the conversations around him. One caught his attention right off the bat, focused on the latest topic of discussion that was making its rounds throughout the Port.

“I’m tellin’ ya!” the human griped, words slightly slurred. “That damn place is a cult. All exclusive-like. I swear, that lot would rather sacrifice their firstborns than give up the name of their precious leader.”

“Hmph, doesn’t matter,” their salarian companion muttered. “If the outlaws in the badlands don’t take care of that group soon, chances are that Sloane or the Charlatan will, leader or no leader.”

Heh, Scott would like to see them try.

Speaking of the devil himself, Scott tensed the second he felt hands upon his shoulders, only to relax once he heard that familiar voice whisper in his ear.

“You look like you’re waiting for someone,” Reyes breathed, his lips brushing lightly along the shell of his ear.

Without missing a beat, Scott brushed him off with a playful glare.

“You’re late,” he scolded. He tried his best to sound indifferent, unimpressed. His relationship with Reyes has always been complicated at best. “As always.”

Releasing Scott from his hold, Reyes claimed the spot at his side, pretending to look properly chastised.

“I swear, it won’t happen again,” he said. He even made a show of crossing his heart. “I promise.”

“And yet, I don’t believe you.”

“Well, that’s because I was lying.”

Scott snorted, “At least you’re honest about something.”

That’s not even taking into account the whole Charlatan business, something that Reyes seemed to hold extra close to his chest with Scott around. Scott couldn’t tell if it was because Reyes had his own suspicions about him, or if he withheld that information for some other reason unbeknownst to Scott.

Either way, it took Scott a while to put the pieces together himself. Not too long, considering that the majority of the port was still puzzled over the Charlatan’s identity, but it was long enough for Scott to be as certain as humanly possible without having Reyes spell it out for him.

It was simple, really, once Scott knew what to look for. How Reyes slipped up one time about where the Collective’s base was, only to brush it off as mere rumor. How, on any job they took together, Reyes was the first to volunteer to follow up on any Collective leads. Or, better yet, how he seemed so certain whether or not an incident coincided with the Charlatan’s MO if the Charlatan was the one being implicated.

Safe to say, spend enough time with the man, and it became rather obvious over time.

As Keema was all too eager to point out, Reyes liked to think he was so subtle when, in reality, he’s not. Well, not as much as he assumed, at least.

On the other hand, maybe the Charlatan’s secret identity only became apparent to Scott because Reyes wanted him to figure it out.

If that was the case, then Scott would have to open that can of worms another day.

Right now, he needed to focus on why they were here.

Clearing his throat, Scott waited until Umi passed them their drinks and left, moving on to serve her other customers.

Scott grabbed ahold of Reyes’s sleeve and tugged. He waited until Reyes met his eyes, then jerked his chin in the direction of a nice, secluded table.

“Shall we?” he asked.

Reyes hummed, eyes twinkling mischievously.

“Trying to get me alone, Scott?” Resting against the bar, Reyes leaned in close, but Scott refused to move a single muscle, holding his ground. “You need only ask.”

“I’ll keep that in mind then,” Scott said. He gave Reyes a blatant once-over, sparing his lips an appreciative glance. “It’s not every day that I get the great Reyes Vidal all to myself.”

“Keep buttering me up, Scott,” Reyes teased, “and I might just give you that discount after all.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Scott huffed.

Picking up their drinks, they soon settled in at the table that Scott had pointed out. From where they sat, they had a whole view of the bar.

Scott took a swig of his beer, and Reyes instantly followed suit, unable to take their eyes off of each other for even a second.

They sat their glasses back down with a solid thunk.

“Okay,” Scott started, “let’s get down to business.”

“Just like that?” Reyes laughed.

“Just like that.” Shuffling in place, Scott reached into his pocket and removed a small pouch filled with seeds. At Reyes’s curious expression, Scott explained, “My payment. A rather generous one, if I do say so myself.”

After Scott tossed the pouch onto the table, Reyes picked it up. He let its weight rest in the palm of his hand for a moment before loosening the ties to sneak a peek.

His brow furrowed in confusion.

“Seeds?” he questioned, cocking his head to the side.

“Yep,” Scott said, popping the ‘p’ for emphasis. “Seeds for a ‘medicinal herb.’ My scans confirmed it. It develops antibiotic-like properties as it matures, along with some other, more recreational effects.”

And by scans, Scott meant Nakamoto. Their resident doctor was quick to jump at the chance to study the plant’s effects, especially if it could help fight off future infections in Andromeda.

Scott had started off by “borrowing” a few plants from some of their local cultivators, returning the samples to the greenhouse that they had established in Paradise.

Their latest harvest yielded a surplus, so Scott figured that any leftover seeds would be a profitable bargaining chip for trade.

Turns out, he was right.

Reyes tightened his grip upon the pouch and pocketed it, now that he knew what he was getting out of their exchange.

“A valuable product,” Reyes acknowledged, “if what you say is true.”

Smirking, Scott leaned back in his chair, hand over his heart in mock offense.

“Now, Reyes, would I ever lie to my favorite smuggler?”

“True enough. You do have a soft spot for me.”

“You’re that certain, huh?”

“As a betting man, I would say that I’m confident in my chances of being right.”

He even had the gall to throw in a wink for good measure.

Scott’s face warmed, but he ignored the sensation, trying to calm his racing heart.

Of, if only he knew…

Clearing his throat, Scott returned their focus to the topic at hand.

“Also, with that herb, you don’t have to worry about any of those nasty addictive effects like with Oblivion,” Scott continued. “I guess the high you get from it could be considered slightly addictive in more of a mental sense, but it’s relatively harmless on a physiological level.”

Reyes raised an eyebrow at him.

“Sounds like you know from personal experience.”

“I, uh—” Scott stammered, caught red-handed. “Well, what kind of salesman would I be if I didn’t sample the product for myself?”

“A poor one, indeed,” Reyes agreed. “I’m only offended that you didn’t think to invite me to the party.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time I feel the urge to smoke the space weed,” Scott deadpanned.

“Please, do.”

“Okay, okay.” Scott did his best to hide his laughter. His lip quivered at the corner. “Back to business, mister. You’re not taking my goods and leaving me with nothing again.” Reyes had charmed his way out of one too many deals with him in the past, but not anymore. “Where’s the goods?”

“Scott,” Reyes gasped. “I am offended you would think that I would stoop so low as to steal from my favorite exile.”

When it was clear that Scott wasn’t buying it, Reyes surrendered.

“Alright, here. One long-ranged scanner, ready for use.” Taking out a small package, Reyes pushed it pointedly across the table. Scott took it instantly, unable to express his gratitude in that moment. “Sorry that I didn’t have a chance to giftwrap it. My best only deserves the best, after all.”

Scott felt his heart skip a beat.

“Don’t think anything of it.” Scott shook his head, clutching tightly at the package. “This should be enough.”

“Glad to hear it.” Reyes paused, hesitating before coming out with it. “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s it for?”

“What else would I use a scanner for?” Scott countered. “I wasn’t on the Pathfinder’s mission team for nothing. We have a whole bunch of unexplored ruins scattered all over the surface of this planet, and I plan on getting some readings.”

To be more specific, he wanted a reading on their turrets if he could examine one at a safe distance. Even the beam technology from the Observer bots would be useful in formulating a defensive matrix for the t—

“You what?”

Uh-oh, someone was upset.

Scott grimaced. He carefully avoided Reyes’s gaze, filled with heat and disapproval.

“Reyes, come on,” Scott sighed. It was weird to see him so fiercely protective, to see him act like he cared about anything other than the next job he had lined up. “I’m a big boy. I’ll be careful.”

“Kadara’s most experienced scientists were careful,” Reyes snapped, “yet that didn’t stop the Remnant from butchering them like animals. Scott, there’s a reason why even the angara avoid those areas like the plague. The security measures alone…”

Could be what kept Scott’s people safe.

Sitting up straight, Scott held his head up high with renewed purpose, meeting Reyes’s eyes with a stubborn glare.

“I’m going,” he stated, “whether you like it or not. The information stored there might be vital to our continued survival. We can’t pass up an opportunity to learn the Remnant’s secrets.”

Reyes pursed his lips, but eventually acquiesced.

“Fine, but I’m accompanying you when you go.”

“That’s not your decision!”

“You’re not changing my mind.”

They stared each other down, caught at an impasse.

After a moment of tense silence between them, Reyes grumbled. Since that argument was obviously far from being over, he was more than willing to change the subject.

“I have another exchange for you.”

Now, that got Scott’s attention. Setting the scanner aside, he would make sure to install the upgrade into his omni-tool later, curious about this second trade-off.

They didn’t have anything else planned for today, and Reyes wasn’t usually the type to drop something like this on a client at the last second.

Whatever he found, it had to be huge.

“What is it?” Scott asked, wondering what the Charlatan himself had up his sleeve.

“A little bit of intel,” he offered, keeping his reply as vague as ever.

Still, if Reyes was offering the information, then it must be important. As shady as he could be at times, information was his forte. When Reyes used it as a bargaining chip, he meant business, and chances were that it was reliable.

Scott simply wondered if he actually wanted the news that Reyes had to offer.

“What’s the catch?” Scott asked, because nothing on Kadara came for free.

Reyes shrugged.

“My shuttle needs some repairs, and I only trust one person to fix her up. Mind coming by tomorrow?”

Scott pretended to consider his offer for a moment, but in the end, he could never say no to working on that old bird.

“Name the time and place.”

“I’ll send you the details later, but don’t make me wait up.”

“And deny you of my presence for even longer? That would just be cruel.”

“Glad we can agree on something.” Reyes’s smile soon twisted into a frown. That solemn expression certainly didn’t do any favors to ease Scott’s nerves. “As for that intel, you’ve heard of Vehn Terev, right?”

“The poor, unfortunate soul whose head is next up on Sloane Kelly’s chopping block?” After all, she couldn’t afford to upset the angara, not after word spread of Vehn's betrayal. That would threaten the balance of power too much, at least in her eyes. “I might have heard a thing or two.”

“Well, you’re about to hear much more in the coming days,” Reyes explained, watching him closely for any sign of change. “I recently received a message from Evfra. Apparently, Vehn has some useful intel of his own, intel that could potentially cripple the kett’s operations in all of Heleus for good. Evfra has arranged for me to meet with one of his contacts about securing Vehn’s release from prison.”

“A difficult feat if Sloane won’t comply,” Scott noted, “but I still don’t see why this information would be of any use to me.”

“Scott—” Reyes hesitated.

For once, he seemed genuinely nervous, which in turn caused Scott to panic a little on the inside.

What he said turned Scott’s entire world upside down.

“The contact is Pathfinder Ryder.”

[fatiguing-thoughts]

“Sick” - Jacob Black x Reader

Request:  Hey, I don't know if you're accepting an request, but here's one; Embry or Jacob inpriting about the reader who has cystic fibrosis. something sadder, as a reader being on his deathbed or something (it was very funeral, sorry)

The day that I met Jacob Black was one that I would never forget. It was one of the best days of my life. Though, all good things must come to an end, right? 

I went to La Push for the first time since moving to Forks. I had heard it had a nice, quiet little beach from my doctor, Carlisle. 

I sat on my sheet, drawing in my sketchbook. Though, a soccer ball kicked from the distance invaded my personal space, hitting into my leg. 

“Damn it, I’m so sorry.” A handsome man says, jogging over to me.

“It’s alright, accidents happen.” I smile softly, handing him the ball. 

“Thank you.” He smiles, but his expression quickly changed as our eyes met. 

As our eyes met, I felt something inside me shift, it was if there was a force putting a pressure all around me, though it was serene-- it wasn’t unpleasant. His face changed, his mouth hung slightly agape, his eyes widened, and his overall his entire expression turned to mush. 

“Do you mind if I take a seat with you?” He asks.

“No, of course not. Come sit.” I smile awkwardly, patting the sheet I was sitting on. 

“Thank you.” He smiles, taking a seat after he threw the soccer ball to his friends. 

“I’m (Y/N).” I smile, holding my hand out to him. 

“I’m Jacob.” He takes my hand gently for a handshake. 

I place my sketchbook off to the side, interested in getting to know the man sitting in front of me, there was something pulling me to him-- something that I couldn’t describe. 

“You draw?” He asks, pointing at my sketchbook.

“Kinda.” I giggle. 

“May I?” 

“If you want to.” I blush, handing the sketchbook over to him. 

“This… these are all amazing! You’re an incredible artist.” He smiles at me with wide eyes. 

“Thank you. I think I’m alright.” I shrug. 

“No, you’re far more than alright.” He chuckles. 

“Well, what about you? What’s your talent?” 

“I have a few tricks up my sleeve. But my favorites would be mechanics and woodwork.” His bright smile lit up every fibre of my being. 

How could a stranger have such a hold on me?

“Oh so you’re artistic, too. That’s awesome, I’m sure you make beautiful work. As for mechanics, I’m jealous. I’m at the mercy of any mechanic whenever something goes wrong with my car.” I joke.

“Well, I could always help you out, if you need work on your car.” He smiles. 

“That would be great. Or you could show me some of your work, too.” 

“I’d love to. Could I maybe get your number?” He asks, his hand scratching the back of his neck nervously. 

“Yeah, of course.” I smile, taking my phone out to swap phones.

And from that day on, we were inseparable. He eventually explained to me everything in his world, it was a lot… but the feelings that I felt were too great to stay away; though if I were to be honest, staying away was the last thing I ever wanted to do. I wanted to spend whatever time I could with Jacob. He was my rock. 

He quickly learned about my illness. I could no longer keep it from him after he watched me continuously get sick. Especially when he was finally able to ask why he smelled “leech” all over me-- which was Dr. Cullen. I came all the way to Forks to receive treatment from Carlisle, I needed his medical expertise if I wanted a chance to extend my life. Cystic fibrosis was no joke. 

As time went on, Jacob took it upon himself to do everything together, especially everything I wanted to do in life. We did minimal traveling in the five hour radius, as I couldn’t go too far, we would go camping, we went sight-seeing, and just enjoyed everything that nature had to offer. He took me to places I would’ve never been able to go to without him. Jacob was truly the light in my life. 

He came to every doctors appointment. He held my hand through it all. Though as time went on, my condition progressed far more aggressively than any of us would have anticipated. I was getting sicker as the days went on, growing increasingly weaker. 

Jacob was handling it horribly, completely unraveling. 

As I laid in the hospital bed that Carlisle set up in his home for me, Jacob was sitting next to me. I had fallen asleep earlier out of extreme exhaustion but I was beginning to stir. 

Carlisle walks into the room to check on us, asking Jacob how he was doing. 

“It’s not fair.” Jacob’s voice cracks, as Carlisle places a comforting hand on his shoulder. 

“I’m so sorry, Jacob. It really isn’t fair.” 

“They’re twenty! Twenty is so young. I can’t lose them.” He begins sobbing. 

“I know, I know. There’s always another option, if you guys want to do that.” Carlisle suggests. 

Were they talking about immortality? Jacob was so against the existence of vampires that I assumed he’d rather me be dead than one of them. 

“It’s their decision. I can’t choose for them. I think we can talk about it when they wake up. How much time do they have left?” He asks. 

“I can’t see them making it past tomorrow, Jacob. There’s an alarming amount of cysts and infections in their lungs. We’re looking at the end-stage now.” Carlisle says solemnly. 

“Carlisle, will they even wake up?” Jacob panics. 

“Yes, maybe once or twice more Alice said.” 

“I’ll have to talk to them as soon as they wake up.” Jacob’s hands hold his head. 

“I’ll leave you alone for a moment.” Carlisle murmurs, walking out of the room and shutting the door behind him. 

“(Y/N), please. I love you, I love you so much. I can’t lose you. I’d do anything to keep you here. I love you more than I could put into words. Don’t go. We were supposed to get married.” Sobs racked through his entire body, his voice breaking the entire time he spoke to me. 

Despair filled his voice, so desperate to keep me around. The love of my life was unable to accept my fate, and who could blame him? We were so young. 

I had a lot to think about over the next few hours. My life was coming to an end, and I had accepted it long ago; but that was far before Jacob Black came into my life. Things were different now, there was beauty in existing-- not only pain. 

“Please.” His voice breaks once again, tears spilling from his eyes. 

_________________________ Word Count: 1113