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violet-moonvine · 3 days ago

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Hand in Hand

I stand at the threshold of Soli’s hab.

In front of me is an impossibility. Beautiful trees, cobblestone streets, and smiling faces all revolve on colossal rings around the radiant central axis of the Menara, a whole world in miniature beyond the reach of scarcity and capital.

Behind me is the hab where I’ve spent the two most important weeks of my life, and the kindest, gentlest person I’ve ever known.

It feels like I’ve stood here for hours.

Catching up with my old crewmates should be an easy thing. It hasn’t been long. The pub where we agreed to meet is nearby, and apparently it even serves the weirdass Viburnian pub food most of us remember from before the ships came down and took us from one hell to another. And judging from some of those screen names in the group chat, I might not be the only one there sporting a shiny new gender.

“Are you alright, Natalie?” Soli asks. “Do you need help?”

Natalie.

I’ve heard people complain that affini are too fond of using pet names to address people. It makes them feel funny. Demeaned. Personally, I can’t relate. Nothing makes my heart flutter like hearing “Natalie” in the angelic voice of Soli Actipsis, 2nd Bloom. It makes me melt every time.

“It’s fine, Miss,” I say. “Just nervous.”

A half truth. The prospect of meeting “The Lads” as I am now is a little intimidating, sure, but deep down, I’m terrified that what’s stopped me in my tracks is not who I’m about to meet, but who I’m about to leave behind.

She’s done so much for me. She’s the one who encouraged me to be honest with myself and with her about my gender, after keeping it locked up for so long. She’s the one who calmed me down after waking up with that weird medical implant. The one who medicates me every morning. Who helped me walk again, who helped me eat normal food again, and so on, and so on. If the Affini believed in debt, then mine is one I could never repay.

Which is why it sucks that I’m down bad for her.

I have been ever since I woke up, after the Punisher was boarded, and I still don’t know how it happened. All I know is that I heard her serene voice, I saw her gentle, honey-gold eyes, and Limb-Loosening Eros took me.

It’s not fair to her to feel like this, to want even more from someone who’s given me so much. To want to hear her call me Hers. To know what her flower petal lips taste like. To be surrounded by her, in ways only an affini can.

I see her perfect face on the inside of my eyelids. I hear her voice in the quiet of my mind. I smell the phantom traces of her perfume in every corner of her hab.

I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a volcano, and the part of me that holds me back from jumping gets weaker every day.

And it is a danger, at least of a sort. She’s given me a whole life to live, on my own terms, in a way that I could never have imagined even a month ago. A life free of poverty, free of mandatory work, and free of the pressure to exist for another. And I’m already daydreaming about giving it up. To be a floret is not a punishment, but it’s certainly a forfeiture of everything Soli’s given me.

And if even taking a step outside Soli’s hab is fucking me up this bad, I’m really in danger.

“Natalie, you haven’t frozen have you?”

Her voice finds its way inside my chest and coils around my heart.

“N-no, Miss. I’m not sure why, but…” I try to take a step outside. My foot crosses the threshold, then retreats like a bug scuttling back under a rock.

“It’s okay that you’re nervous, little Natalie. Maybe having some moral support would steel your nerves?”

It takes me a few seconds to piece together her meaning. She wants to come with me.

I turn to look at her. Her two gentle ambers pull my attention.

I almost say yes.

“S-shouldn’t I do this myself? I need to- to get used to being-”

“Nonsense.” She interrupts me. I let her. “Part of being independent is recognizing when you need help, after all. Let me come to the pub with you.”

That seems reasonable.

Soli stands up from her seat to join me. I watch her flowing, goldenrod hair bounce in time with her elegant gait. Her simulated high heel boots click-clack against the floor. Her form is mesmerizing, and the way her “boots” and her Lady Godiva hair contrast with her otherwise seemingly undressed body just makes me feel all the more sinful for it. I tell myself it’s like she’s wearing a catsuit. Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t help.

She walks up to me, towering above me, at probably twice my height. I wonder what it would feel like to curl up in her lap.

“Here, my little Natalie. Take my hand. Let’s go together.”

I nearly swoon. My little Natalie.

And then I register the rest of what she said.

The last time I let her touch me was the night I woke up. I was still exhausted, barely recovered from… everything. And I let her bathe me.

I dreamed about her touch for nights afterward.

She was perfectly respectful and quick about it, a consummate professional. A growing part of me wishes she hadn’t been.

I look up. Soli extends her hand down for me to take.

I shouldn’t.

I think it would end me.

It might actually break me.

My hand rises, in defiance of my will. My fingertips slide against hers. I feel the deceptively soft flesh of her fingertips against the swirling ridges of my own as they slide deeper into her, by inch by ruinous inch. My fresh, red nails disappear over the horizon of my knuckles, eclipsed by hers. The disparity in the size of our hands makes me nearly swoon all over again. It reminds me how small I am. How vulnerable. Soli could do anything she wanted to me, and it’s by the grace of her honorable character that she’s used this power for good. I almost wish she’d use it for evil. It’s not like I could stop her. I probably wouldn’t even try.

My hand tries to close around her fingers, but she continues her advance down my arm. Not content to merely hold my hand, in a chaste, finger-against-finger position, she swallows my whole hand in hers. She wants to take it, every inch.

I feel my heart race.

She engulfs me in her powerful hand, and she holds me tight. It’s warm. I feel the currents of hot sap coursing beneath the soft surface of her palm. I feel my own heartbeat in the rhythmic expansions of my fingertips against her. She must feel it too. Does she know?

I scrabble around the inside of her hand, desperate to somehow make this gesture symmetrical. To prove that I have at least a little agency in this arrangement. I fail, of course. The Affini don’t do symmetrical. She’s taken my hand as presumptuously as she’s shouldered the burden of my recovery, and in neither case is anything expected of me. My sentence is to be cared for, and to give nothing in return.

My hand submits to hers, and simply rests within its belly, palm-to-palm. I rub my fingers against her simulated palmar muscle. I can feel the strength in them.

I look at the verdant cocoon surrounding my hand, squeezing it tight.

I feel it squeezing my heart tight, too.

My eyes squeeze shut.

I’ve clung so hard to my coming independence. I should get to live a life of my choosing, on my own terms. The opportunity is right there for the taking. For the first time in my life, the only thing in my way is me.

And I still want it.

I just want Her more.

Something in me shudders apart.

I let go.

A tear meanders down my cheek. It’s warm and gentle, like her. My breathing slows. The static in my mind clears.

I look back up at Soli. She returns my gaze with nothing but love and patience.

I resolve to ask her the Big Question tonight, after dinner. I hope she says “yes.”

“W-we should get going, Miss,” I say.

“Lead the way. My little natalie~,” she says.

#handholding #hdg #human domestication guide #dubious consent

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quadrantadvisor · 1 month ago

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Pairing Off, in which the Waynes meet the Fentons, just not all at once. 2,443 words

Damian feels less than positively about the new girl in his grade.

Danielle Fenton has already garnered a bit of a reputation. Her uniform is clearly second hand, and rumors abound about whether she has joined them at Gotham Academy on a merit scholarship or as “one of Wayne's charity cases.” Neither is true; Father has offered no fiscal support to the Fentons, and yet both she and her older brother attend the Academy, leading Damian to believe they've somehow paid their own way.

Her lower class status and midwestern accent ought to make Fenton a target, but her response to being cornered or talked down to by other students was an unsettling combination of cheerful and aggressive. She is now mostly left to her own devices, despite her notoriety.

Damian has no interest in the girl. While it is true that she excels in both mathematics and social studies, her performance in English and science are unremarkable, and she poses no challenge to his rank at the top of the class. If he finds himself pushing harder in certain classes this semester in order to maintain the edge, it's no one else's business.

Now if only she would leave him alone.

Damian preemptively slams his sketchbook shut, just as a brash, inconsiderate, annoying girl hops up to sit on his desk. “Hey Dami, what're you drawing?”

“It is none of your business,” Damian seethes. “Remove yourself from my personal space before I-” he isn't allowed to threaten classmates with bodily harm, imply that he has brought weapons to school, or use words that are derogatory to women “-do so myself. By force.” He would avoid her altogether if he could, but Fenton is annoyingly (suspiciously) sneaky. He can only ever seem to sense her when she's just about on top of him.

Fenton merely laughs, high, bright, and joyful, and Damian grits his teeth. “Did you draw me yet?” she asks, and doesn't move an inch.

“No, I have not drawn you. I never said I would, and I have no plans to. Stop asking me.”

She shrugs and kicks her feet. “Maybe you'll change your mind. Can I see what you're working on?”

Damian pulls the sketchbook a tad bit closer to himself (a protective reflex that shows his weakness, he should be better than that by now.) “Never, imbecile.”

Fenton sticks her tongue out at him like a child. “Mean,” she says, still smiling. “I wanna see your art. It's so good!”

Damian tilts his nose up at her. “Of course it is, plebeian, I have standards-” he starts, but is cut off by the teacher entering. Fenton slides off his desk and heads to her own seat. Damian stows his sketchbook in his bag and tries not to think of the unfinished work inside, featuring a girl with dark hair, light eyes, and a mischievous grin.

There's this brownstone on the outskirts of Crime Alley, an old townhouse recently converted into commercial space. There's a coffee shop on street level, a tattoo parlor down the stairs, some sorta wine emporium on the second floor, and on the third, a little second hand bookshop

It's outside the border of Jason's territory, but he feels sorta responsible for it, given that he frequents the place.

It's a little out of his way, but the atmosphere is nice, alright? Clean, with soft lighting, but not sterile or corporate like the bigger places downtown. The owners are an older couple who Jason has met a couple of times, and they seem pretty happy with the new location. They're collectors, really, who run the shop to make ends meet.

Mostly, Jason talks to their employee. Jazz.

Jazz works in the afternoons and evenings, after her classes. She goes to Gotham U, double majoring in pre-med and psych, on top of a full time job, because she's almost as insane as a bat. She assures Jason that she does alright, gets a little downtime to study on her shifts.

She always makes time to talk to Jason.

Jazz is an interesting person to talk books with. She cares less about plot and literary themes, and more about diagnosing every character with their own personal malady of the mind. She dissects their thought processes and behaviors, ruthless in her analysis.

She's gonna be a brain surgeon someday, open people up and see what really makes them tick. Jason doesn't doubt it for a second.

So maybe Jason is a little bit in love with her.

It's not a big deal. Obviously it's not going anywhere. It's just nice to have something normal, to talk to someone normal, about normal stuff like books and college and sibling antics.

Jazz's stories about her sibling, Danny, rival Jason's own, and his family is fucking disastrous. Jason isn't actually sure if Dan is older or younger than Jazz is, or, for that matter, what pronouns he should use for them, since Jazz mixes it up pretty regularly. He knows that Jazz absolutely adores them, though, and it's heartwarming, the way she smiles as she talks.

All of that to explain why Red Hood is keeping an eye on a brownstone that technically falls outside of his territory.

There's a girl inside that he needs to keep safe.

“Hey bud, late night?” Dick asks the man lying prone in an alley, a block away from the Iceberg Lounge.

The response is slurred with sleep and muffled by a cheek pressed hard into asphalt. “S'at you, Dick?”

“Sure is. We've got to stop meeting like this,” Dick tells him, and means it.

The guy's name is Dan. No last name offered, which was fair, since Dick hasn't mentioned his.

What was weird was that Dan didn't give Penguin his last name, either, when he signed his employment contract. Just Dan.

Penguin has been trying to expand his influence into Bludhaven, and Dick's been trying to figure out why. Cobblepot is a very Gotham sort of gangster, all wrapped up in the city's ideas of style and respectability; Dick honestly would've thought that Blud was beneath him. He needs to figure out who he's contacting and what they're offering him, and he needs to do it before Penguin can get a foothold on his turf.

Running into Dan was a side effect. Dick didn't mean to keep doing it. It's just that Dan has this weird habit of completely disregarding trivial concerns such as his own health and safety, and doing weird shit like, as a random example, getting tired, laying down, and passing out. In the middle of the street. In Gotham.

The main part of Dan's job seems to be bouncing at the club. It makes sense—if you wanted to hire a guy as muscle, you couldn't do much better than Dan. He's at least 6 and a half feet tall, with a chest wider than Jason's.

But Dick has also seen Dan traveling with Penguin before. Add in the fact that it's almost impossible to dig up info on him, and that tailing him is somehow even harder, and a picture starts to come together. A very vague, very suspicious picture.

It's too bad that Dick sort of likes him, and that he's incredibly hot.

Dan has removed his face from the alley floor, and is in the process of pushing himself up. “Not your business, man,” he retorts. “What are you, a cop?”

Dick can't help a wry chuckle at that. “Not anymore.”

“No shit?” Dan asks, hauling himself to his feet. He towers over Dick like that, but it's hard to be intimidated by a man whose cheek is red and pockmarked by little bits of gravel. Dick is legitimately embarrassed that he finds it charming. He needs to get better taste in men. “Yeah, no, that makes sense,” Dan continues, looking Dick up and down. “No way they could keep your ass on the force.”

“Oh yeah?” Dick asks.

Dan snorts. “I can smell the idealism on you from here.” He starts walking, heading straight past Dick, who falls into step beside him. “You remind me of this kid I know.”

Dick gives an interested hum, hoping that if he doesn't interrupt, Dan will elaborate, but no dice.

“So, where're you taking me this time?” the big man asks, still leading, and Dick stifles a grin at how silly the whole thing is.

“Maybe if I take you out for coffee, you won't faceplant onto any more concrete,” he says, reaching up to brush off some of the little rocks. Dan stutters to a stop as Dick touches his cheek, letting him, then strides off again as soon as he's done.

“Don't care, as long as you're paying.”

Dick stops him with a tug to his arm. “Coffee shop's this way,” he explains, pointing, and Dan doesn't hesitate, pivoting to take the lead once again. Dick rushes to keep up with his not-date, a criminal who he literally picked up off the street and who has no idea where he's going. He can't see his own smile, but he knows from experience that it is both delighted and a little manic. He admits to himself, begrudgingly, that he likes his men with something wrong with them.

The biggest reason that Tim played so much Doomed with Ghost_Boy, a couple of years ago, was that they were the only player he knew who kept hours as weird as his were. There were worse reasons to form a friendship. Ghost_Boy was a great player, and was always funny in chat. They were upbeat when things went well, and they were sarcastic but not bitter when things went poorly. Playing for the game's sake eventually changed to booting up the game to hang out with Ghost_Boy. They talked about how different their lives were, with Ghost_Boy in the midwest and Tim in the crime capital of America, and they talked about the things they had in common, like falling asleep in class. It was Tim's favorite form of stress relief, back then, when being Robin was new and overwhelming.

Then Tim got busy. No, that wasn't true—Tim had always been busy. More like, Tim's life fell to shambles, over and over again, and he stopped making time for stress relief when the very concept seemed out of his reach.

That was over dramatic. Tim fell off the game, and didn't keep in contact with his friend. That's all there was to it.

That was all there was to it, until a few nights ago, when he booted up his old Doomed file for nostalgia's sake and found a message from Ghost_Boy, sent a couple months back, that said he was planning to move to Gotham and, if Tim wanted, he'd be happy to meet up.

Tim immediately replied in the affirmative, and then he freaked out that he'd done that and started cyber stalking the guy. He couldn’t be bothered to pretend to be embarrassed by this behavior. He knew who he was.

Daniel Fenton was, in fact, a real teenager from a real midwestern town (Amity Park, Illinois.) He had moved to Gotham right when his message said he would, and lived with his older sister, Jasmine (who had custody over him,) and his younger sister, Danielle.

And that was where Tim was planning to stop his research, for the sake of his friend's privacy. Once he confirmed that he wasn't being catfished by either a supervillain or a run-of-the-mill creep, he was going to stop looking.

But Danielle Fenton's situation was incredibly weird.

Apparently, she had never lived with Daniel, Jasmine, and their parents before. Instead, after she was born, she'd been adopted by the kids’ godfather, eccentric billionaire Vlad Masters, and he was still her legal guardian. It was only after the Doctors Jack and Madeline died that she moved in with her siblings and started attending Gotham Academy, states away from her adoptive parent.

Vlad Masters was a man of eclectic tastes. The stories about him in the news were always covering some weird investment he had made, like purchasing a cheese castle in Wisconsin, or buying up property in Green Bay just to have a stake in the Packers, or pouring money into experimental forms of alternative energy. He was always refined in his public appearances, but he had the desperate edge of new money wanting to fit in with the old. Tim knew of him, but had never given him much thought before. He'd never made a move into Gotham, after all.

But the whole story was bizarre. Masters had gone to college with the Fentons, the three of them creating their own field of study in “Ectology,” before Masters had been contaminated in a lab accident, bedridden and unable to finish his degree. Jack and Maddie had continued their research, garnering just enough interest in their work to receive the funding needed to keep afloat, until some sort of breakthrough a few years ago added validity to their theories. They were practically celebrities in the niche forums Tim skimmed through. Masters, meanwhile, stopped working directly in the sciences and instead turned to networking, gaining some generous help from the friends he made and playing the stock market like a fiddle, until he was one of the most well known and lucrative investors in the world. He owned a few companies publicly, and managed some others under the table (Tim had to snort at the ridiculous naming of Dalv Co.)

And then the Fentons had kids, and they raised two of them (seemingly quite happily, if the photos on their memorialized facebook accounts meant anything.) And then, for some reason, they named the third one nearly identically to their second child and gave her straight to Vlad. Masters raised the girl in Wisconsin, until suddenly relocating to Amity Park and becoming the town's mayor. There he stayed, until the Fenton's recent passing in a lab accident of their own.

Tim doesn't know what it all adds up to. But there was something going on, with both Vlad Masters and the Fentons, and if there's something nefarious in Masters’ actions or his wealth, it could be entirely possible that Daniel was a plant—a way for him to get an in with the Waynes. Tim has to be cautious, and he has to get to the bottom of this.

That's why Tim is waiting in a coffee shop, pretending to be engrossed in his laptop while keeping an eye on the door, waiting for the appearance of a teen with black hair and blue eyes.

Tim idly thinks that Bruce had better not adopt this one.

#i wanted to write the next section before posting this but it's been sitting in my wips for months at this point so #hopefully I'll get to it and there will be a part 2 with an introductory segment like this for each of the fentons #because i think it does work better with their context also #I have Dan's done and I love it so much #Damian calls Dani 'Fenton' or 'Danielle' but please know that for the purposes of this au she's 'Dani' because it makes the situation funny #speaking of which if anyone didn't get what jason was going on about #Jazz talks about Dan Danny and Dani to him but has never bothered to specify that she has three siblings #Leading Jason to assume that they are all one person who is gender fluid because he's heard Jazz use he/him she/her and they/them #yes this is relevant to the hypothetical future identity shenanigans #this au is such a mess lololololol #oh shit right I should add actual tags and not just commentary #danny phantom #dc #batfam #dpxdc #dp x dc #damian wayne #jason todd #dick grayson #tim drake #danny fenton #danielle phantom #jazz fenton #dan phantom #oh boy time for ship names #anger management #brain dead #double edged sword #first failures #my writing

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