#whatever yall enjoy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

musings-of-miss-j · 6 months ago

Text

no rest for the wicked (nor the foolish)

part eight: in which you're forcibly removed from your comfort zone by none other than the resident ginger, and you meet a certain someone's alter ego(s)

a harbingers x gn reader series!! (includes dottore, childe, arlecchino and pantalone x reader. the rest of the harbingers will not be romantic interests)

notes: surprise surprise, the burn is still slow!! mentions of blood, gn reader with a dosage of snark that probably exceeds the recommended value

series masterlist

author's notes: *daddy's home plays faintly in the background, slowly but surely increasing in volume as i approach you on a hoverboard with a comically large witch's hat on my head and a ridiculous pair of sunglasses on*

word count: 4725

* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚** ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚** ੈ✩‧₊˚*

It was, by all accounts, supposed to have been a completely normal lab session. You were planning the reaction route you’d take to test the enzyme you’d synthesised and the various ways to ensure its effectivity other than the rate of the reaction and the yield as you waltzed through the door (the inscriptions were glowing a pretty purple-pink hue reminiscent of sakura blooms that day). The redox apparatus from two days prior was sitting exactly where you’d left it, nothing out of the ordinary there. The abnormality came in the form of a segment currently in the process of detaching the round-bottomed flask where your product had accumulated from the condenser; the first thought to register was the sheer audacity for anyone to even contemplate touching your experiments, while the second, this is my chance to study the constitution of these ‘segments’ up close, wasn’t far behind. Glancing up sharply, your flask still clutched in his un-gloved hand, (a voice in your head shrilly protested his lack of adherence to safety procedures) the segment began moving away, no doubt to disappear to wherever him and the rest usually stayed. With more agility than you thought you possessed, you rounded the workbench and grabbed him by his sleeve.

“You. What are you doing with my condensate?” You demanded, grabbing the flask from between his fingers and setting it down on a stand. Now that the imminent danger of your work going to waste was neutralised, you took the time to analyse this segment of your supervisor’s while you had him cornered. This version of Dottore was at least five years younger than the one you were familiar with, probably from his late Akademiya years. And he wore no mask, leaving two brilliant scarlet eyes on full display, rimmed with pale blue lashes and dark shadows beneath them. The segment coughed and fidgeted, trying to find a way to escape your clutches.

“Hold still,” you ordered, reaching up to touch his face. You were startled by the smoothness of the skin, having expected something cold and metallic. How in Teyvat did he pull this off? You tilted the segment’s face this way and that, looking for hidden wiring or steel plating or anything else that would belie machinery, yet you found nothing. You gave his cheeks an experimental squeeze, and were further surprised when your fingers dug into what seemed to be soft skin, then dropped your hands, stumped.

“Huh. You look very human.”

“Prime did tell me that was the intention,” the segment agreed, flushed in the face and still trying to discreetly push past you.

Even his voice didn’t sound robotic in the slightest, riddled with natural dips of tone and perfect inflection for the context. Your eyes took in every detail, every movement, still failing to spot anything that would’ve given him away as a machine.

“Incredible. Did he give you a name?”

“No. Prime wouldn’t waste a second thinking about something so inconsequential.”

If you weren’t mistaken, the segment sounded almost bitter, staring blankly down at the wall with those striking eyes. You felt a twinge of pity; being a clone for Dottore was probably a thankless task. “Would you like one?” You offered, not unkindly. “If your system permits that sort of input, of course.”

“I- I have no use for such things.” It was strange to think that your Doctor, impenetrable and unmoving as he was, had been capable of stuttering to the point where he himself recalled and implemented the trait.

“How about Theta? I’ll need to distinguish between you lot somehow.”

“It’s of no difference to me,” the segment- Theta- mumbled, before shooting you one last look, then disappearing in the split second it took to turn your head in his direction. You wondered where he’d gone, and why he was so wary of you.

Oddly enough, you didn’t see the Doctor for the entire morning and well into the afternoon. It was far from ordinary for him not to be in the lab the moment you arrived, (you suspected he slept there, if he even slept at all) muttering under his breath as he worked and occasionally ordering you to hand him the wrench or scalpel or graduated pipette in a tone so entitled it tempted you to bash him in the head with the very equipment you handed him. Still, you couldn’t deny his usefulness. Having two pairs of hands was always easier than one, especially when the other pair was as experienced as they came; you could bounce any question off him and receive a convincing answer, even if he could never resist throwing in a mocking remark about ‘how shameful it must feel to have such a rudimentary fact slip your mind.’

However, you had much better uses of your time than fretting over the location of your boss, such as extracting a sample of noradrenaline from the brain of a body so fresh you half expected the eyes to open in the midst of your operation. Even after such a time-consuming procedure, the Doctor had yet to make an appearance. You wrote it off, assuming he wouldn’t be present that day, and ate all the fruit tarts you’d brought while boring holes into your notebook with your eyes and trying to determine what exactly had gone so wrong amidst your calculations that the percentage error was at an unforgivable fifty seven percent.

“One hundred cubic centimetres of sulphuric acid sounds unreasonable,” a voice from over your shoulder remarked. You blinked, refocusing on the sheet of paper. A whispered curse slipped past your lips as you registered where you’d went wrong; the decimal point of the volume of acid was indeed one too many zeroes to the right. You twisted to see who’d given you the hint.

It would’ve been incredibly easy to mistaken this segment for Dottore himself, but he lacked the jagged scar spanning from above the mask to his chin and cutting right through the corner of his lip. This segment’s face also wasn’t as harrowed, unlike Dottore’s hollowed cheeks and deathly pale complexion. You probably would’ve missed the difference yourself, if you weren’t so accustomed to the tiny details of the Doctor’s countenance. The segment grinned lazily.

“Like what you see, sweetheart?”

Oh, for the love of-

You shoved him away with a roll of your eyes. Not quite as Dottore-like as his appearance suggested, then.

“You segments are rather friendly today. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Since Prime isn’t here to hassle us about disturbing you, we thought we might as well make use of the main lab.”

A frown formed between your brows as you mulled over his response, absent-mindedly scratching out the mistakes in your calculations.

“Main lab? There’s others? And why would the Doctor forbid you from utilising it on my account?”

The segment leaned over, resting his elbow on the workbench and his cheek in his hand as he watched you. “What do you mean why”- a delighted expression crossed his face, and his resounding cackle made you look up apprehensively from your notes. “Oh, what a scream. You mean you don’t know?”

The notion of ‘not knowing’ made the scholar in you bristle. “Don’t know what?” You snapped, crossing your arms and turning to subject him to the full force of your glare.

“You’ll find out soon enough, lovey,” he replied with another laugh. You scowled.

Patronising piece of-

“I heard you even gave one of us a name,” he said, interrupting your furious train of thought. “I didn’t think you were so besotted.”

You clicked your tongue dismissively, waving him off. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s counterproductive not to know the names of one’s assistants.”

It was the segment’s turn to bluster. “I am no one’s assistant!”

“Mhm. Be a dear, Gamma, and pass me the dichloromethane so I can make some aspirin for the inevitable headache you lot are going to give me.”

Muttering and grumbling and secretly preening over his namesake being a highly dangerous electromagnetic wave, he slid you the bottle and even a measuring cylinder and pipette to boot. You rewarded his extra efforts with a small smile, and Gamma suddenly understood every nonsensical thought that Prime had experienced since you arrived in Snezhnaya.

Throughout the day, more and more of the segments appeared from Archons-know-where and took to hovering around you while you go about your business, or chattering and doing a fine job of distracting you from whatever you were reading, or even rushing to assist you. You didn’t complain; it was fascinating seeing these different facets of the Doctor. Most of the older segments are rather similar to him, although Gamma had a rather prominent flirtatious streak, while another you’d named Omega was more snappish and impulsive. The younger ones were unfailingly comical; Theta was so easily flustered and a little more apprehensive about explosive compounds than the rest, and Pi, whose name referenced the pastry that was such a direct contradiction to his character, was rude, arrogant and reckless.

(“Since you’re such a bitter pill to swallow, I’ll call you Pi.” You grinned at your own joke. “No other aspect of you is remotely close to sweet, after all.”

Pi scowled animatedly, shattering the beaker in his hands from how hard he’d gripped it. “I won’t answer to a name given by a simpleton.”)

“Pi, clean the mess you made in the fume cupboard! Some of us have organic lungs that can’t handle toxic fumes, you know!”

“I don’t see how that’s my problem,” he snapped back, then slunk off to do as you’d told him when you weren’t looking.

The youngest of the segments, who barely reached your waist and had yet to even speak in your presence, had taken to trotting after you wherever in the lab you went, weaving between your legs and staring up at you with wide eyes half-hidden by a mop of messy blue hair. You’d come immensely close to tripping more than once, but you couldn’t bring yourself to scold him at all, instead nudging him out of the way like a cat sitting in the middle of the hallway. The segments were helpful enough, even if you’d been talked back at more times that day than your entire career as a lab technician in the Akademiya supervising young recruits, and by the time you were contemplating the prospect of heading to the dining hall for a bite to eat everything was in order; reagents alphabetically stored in their cabinets, counters wiped and glassware washed, even the enormous, curved windows were polished to a high shine. You spared them an approving look as you walked past, arms laden with bottles of (carefully separated) acidic and basic waste, admiring the aerial view of the snowy forest below, draped over the mountainside like a shaken-out blanket. The young segment was still tailing you, a lollipop you’d fished out from one of your pockets in his mouth; his utter disregard for where he was stepping had put you on your last nerve, but every time you sat him down in a safe corner he’d stare dolefully up at you before reappearing in your peripheral vision a few moments later. It was a wonder you hadn’t lost your temper, really.

“Epsilon, I can see your reflection in the window,” you pointed out in an unimpressed tone to the segment who’d been on the verge of grabbing your shoulders in an attempt to startle you. He huffed and grumbled, shaking the hair out of his eyes and cheekily tipping the neck of one of the bottles you were carrying as though to let the acid milkshake within, so to speak, spill, then pranced away from your scathing glare with a merry tune on his lips. You didn’t know how the segments seemed so familiar with you, as though they’d known you all their lives; Pi somehow knew how much value you placed on your leather gloves, as he’d threatened to use them for chromium extraction when you didn’t let him take one of your fungi petri dishes, Gamma had off-handedly mentioned how it was a shame your ear piercings had closed up years ago because you couldn’t match with their fluorescent blue test tube earrings, and Theta wordlessly handed you a pile of the expensive cider wood parchment you preferred to use and hurried away before you could say anything. It was baffling, to say the least, but you appreciated the extra help. It meant you could skip off to have a rather overdue lunch without fretting over something or other you might have mistakenly left over a Bunsen burner, even if it was strange leaving the lab without the Doctor’s voice criticising your lack of commitment to your education as the door swung shut behind you.

You weren’t even surprised to find Childe outside, leaning against the doorframe and tossing a dagger through the air, letting it flip over itself before catching it once more. When you opened the door, he stumbled into you and the dagger slipped from his hands as he nearly knocked you backward; but in a rare moment of swift reflexes you jumped to the side to snatch it from mid-air before it could stab either of you in the leg, only for Childe to latch onto your cloak as he fell and subsequently landing you on top of him. For a long, drawn-out moment, you just stared at each other; one of your hands pressed to the floor near his head while the other gripped the knife a safe distance above you. You quickly noted two things. One: Childe was bony and being draped over him was overall an uncomfortable experience; the apex of each of his ribs dug sharply into your chest, and two: his eyes were a peculiar, beautiful shade, less like the sea and more like heavy velvet thrown over something that glowed bright and blue, dimmed by the weight of the fabric.

Childe was finding it difficult to process anything other than your closeness. Yes, you were even more breath-taking up close and yes he would’ve given anything to place his hands on your waist and pull you closer still, but he was even more enamoured by the dips and points of your knuckles where your hand gripped the dagger, the creases in your leather gloves around each finger and the oddly calculating look in your eyes as you appraised him. You could stab him, he realised with a rush, staring up at you. You could drive the blade down and lodge it between his ribs and he probably wouldn’t be able to react fast enough because it was you, and his blood would stain your cloak and blouse and a coppery taste would fill your mouth. He wondered if Signora was right, and whether you really would look better in red.

You cleared your throat, breaking the spell, and Childe suddenly noticed all the other tiny little things he probably wouldn’t get close enough to see again. The notion that such things would remain secret almost made him panic, and it took considerable effort not to clutch at you as you rose to your feet and dusted yourself off. You extended your hand to him, and he allowed himself a split second of self-indulgence, the liberty of seeing your outstretched hand reaching towards his collapsed body as something more than it was; he let himself believe that you, so bright and resplendent in your every trait you might as well have been the moon, were offering him, a creature writhing in the darkness, salvation or even just a moment’s respite.

You hauled him up from the floor with a grunt of effort (he couldn’t possibly be as bony as he felt. All that weight had to come from somewhere), then took off your glasses and held them to one of the wavering white lamps, handing him the dagger.

“Hello, Eleven.” You frowned at the new scratches on the lenses and started rubbing them with the hem of your blouse, even if you knew it was a fruitless endeavour. “How long were you waiting out here?”

“Long enough,” he all but whined in response, slinging an arm around your shoulder and ruffling your hair. Your only protest was a half-hearted grumble as you shoved your glasses back on, and his chest warmed with the thought that you no longer instinctively rebuked his touch. “C’mon, Trixy. I didn’t think you were the type to ghost someone after a date.”

“What are you talking ab- oh, for heaven’s sake,” you said exasperatedly, shooting him a look as he walked towards the stairs with you in tow. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

He beamed so widely you nearly stumbled on the steps, blinded by the intensity of his glee.

“So you’re not denying it was a date?”

You sighed out an incredibly inappropriate curse, drowned out by Childe’s hearty laughter.

“You are an incorrigible man.”

“Well you went on a date with this incorrigible man,” he countered cheerfully and not without a healthy dose of smugness. That earned him a withering look, and you detangled yourself from his side as you walked down the corridor.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” you said with a shrug, laughing slightly when he let out an indignant splutter. Childe bristled, trailing after you with an exaggerated pout.

“You should apologise for hurting my feelings, Trixy.” “If I were to apologise every time I bruised your fragile ego I’d never have time to say anything else,” you teased, linking your arm with his and pulling him along. “Now come on, they serve an exquisite pumpkin soup on Wednesdays.”

You wondered at what point you’d become so friendly with the Harbinger, to feel relaxed enough to so casually poke fun at him. Maybe your self-preservation instincts were decaying. Maybe it was worth it.

“I don’t want to see that… Arlie again,” Childe protested. You looked at him sidelong.

“Oh?” You asked, feigning surprise. “Why not?”

Because she outranks me and I don’t like having to share your attention, he thought. “She beat me in a fight once,” he admitted grudgingly. It wasn’t even a lie; that bitter defeat was indeed part of the reason he felt less than ecstatic around her, though the atrocities she’d carried out to become the fourth Harbinger were impactful too.

“Infighting between members of the same organisation should not be the norm,” you stated, shaking your head. “You Fatui are ridiculous.”

Childe laughed, tugging you closer by your linked arms to elbow you in the ribs. “You’re one of us ridiculous Fatui now, remember?”

“I am not!” You protested, affronted, before sighing at the self-satisfied expression on his face and changing the subject. “Tsk. So you refuse to speak to her just because you lost to her once? That’s immature, even for you.”

“No, no, defeat is all part of the battle. I don’t like that she refused a rematch.”

You hummed thoughtfully, chewing over his response.

“So you believe you’d win this time?”

“Maybe,” he replied with a shrug, steering you past the dining hall’s entrance. “It doesn’t matter though, does it?” He continued, as though the idea of combat for the sake of combat was the most normal thing he could possibly conjure. “Sparring with a strong opponent is the real goal. Say, Trixy. Are you any good in a fight?”

You snorted. “I’m a scholar, Eleven, not a warrior. And even if I was, I wouldn’t spar with you.”

His face took on an almost comically wounded expression. “What? Why not?”

“Because I know when I’m outmatched,” you replied dryly, letting him drag you along. A dejected expression you felt compelled to ease fell over his face. “Although I do have passable aim with a bow and arrow,” you reluctantly offered, and the change in his demeanour to unadulterated ecstasy was laughable.

“Really?! You’ve got to show me.”

“What? No, absolutely not.” Your reply was swift and decisive, but Childe was nothing if not meddlesome and persistent.

“No, no, no, you’re not getting out of this,” he jubilantly exclaimed, tightening his hold on your arm as if to prevent you from running off. “We’re going to one of the training grounds right now, and you’re going to do some target practice.”

“I’ll use your bloody head as a target if you don’t drop it, Eleven,” you threatened.

“Great idea, let’s try that too!”

Even as you lamented his utter insanity, Childe steered you to the west wing of the palace where you’d never been before. Upon looking around, you concluded that all forms of combat training happened there; the sound of crashing steel and muffled gunshots, interspersed with the occasional crackling, sloshing or rumbling from what was probably from Vision holders practicing how to utilise their elements in battle. The silver in the walls was twisted into different patterns from what you’d become familiar with, abstract depictions of battles long-past and a whole wall of solemn, important-looking text gleamed almost menacingly, commanding the attention of any who walked past it. From your passable fluency in the Snezhnayan tongue, you deciphered it to be an oath of sorts where the reader swore to carry out a myriad of jovial things such as turning the snowy landscape into a ruby’s facet with the enemies innards or their own, and wreaking havoc within the heavens until it rained scarlet. All in the name of Her Majesty the Tsaritsa.

Wow. Bloodthirsty much?

You eyed the oath distastefully, missing how reverently Childe mouthed it as he led you into an empty archery range. Rows of targets stood on the other side, pockmarked and their paint scratched, with a few of them sporting an unfortunate red-brown stain. You were grateful that there was no one there, at least; if you were a little rustier than you remembered then there was no one to witness your mediocrity other than Childe, who was presently looking through the extensive selection of bows and chattering about the various advantages and disadvantages of different models. You riffled through one of the many quivers of arrows scattered haphazardly about, admiring the high-quality steel of the heads. Some of them even had meticulous patterns along their shafts, no doubt hand-painted, and you appreciatively traced a particularly striking golden dragon with tiny, methodical scales spanning the entirety of the arrow, ending at the head where the dragons jaws were open in a roar.

“Well, Trixy? What bow are you going to use?”

You glanced up from the quiver, twirling the dragon arrow between your fingers, eyes skipping over the countless bows laid across the stands. You noted the ones tossed carelessly across them with a disapproving glance, and eventually picked the one that was the most similar to what you remembered using, long-limbed with a straighter taper and made from wood you recognised as Yumemiru from the distinctive diamond-shaped whorls.

“Why that one?” Childe asked, mesmerised by the sight of you in his element with a weapon at your fingertips. What were you thinking about when your hands reached for that particular bow? Did you have any specifications, preferences in regards to size or even the type of wood it was made from? Were your eyes drawn by the faded blue leather wrapped around the handle? Would you prove to be better, smarter, quicker than he was? The thought sent his heart racing and his brain spiralling with the prospect of having you as a competitor, an opponent.

“Does it matter?” You replied with a shrug, testing its weight in your hands. “I’m no expert when it comes to the craftsmanship of weapons. The bow I learned to shoot was probably older than me with a string practically on its last life.” You frowned slightly, looking up at him. “Why do you ask? Is there some sort of technique or guideline I should follow?”

“No, no, don’t worry about doing something wrong,” he reassured, his back to you as he assembled a quiver of arrows. You lowered the bow to stare at him, flabbergasted that he’d so quickly and accurately read the involuntary hesitation in your answer.

“Usually we have beginners start with a compound bow, but you probably have your own inclination by now,” Childe continued, oblivious to your astonishment. “What you’ve got there is a longbow,” he added, tossing you an archery glove. “They’re generally more difficult to master and harder to use.”

You pulled off your glove after making sure his back was still turned before replacing it with the one he gave you, and then picked up the bow again with new interest.

“I see. And yours?” You asked, nodding towards the one he had picked, white wood gracefully curved and narrowed at the tips.

“This one’s a recurve bow. They’re better at close range and generally need more strength to draw.”

Childe couldn’t help but be entranced by your contemplative expression, all furrowed brows and a distant gaze as you took in the new information. He had to agree that you really were a scholar before all else; the pensive look you so often sported might as well have been made to be worn by your features. In your eyes, even an archery range became an experiment, a mystery to untangle. You sighed and turned to face the targets, nocking the arrow and drawing the bowstring back to touch your chin. Childe watched as you adjusted your aim, mentally evaluating your form, then let the arrow fly. He let out a low whistle of appreciation when it hit the centre with a satisfying thunk.

“Clearly your aim is more than just passable,” he remarked with an excited glint in his eye that you didn’t quite like.

“Accuracy is all I have,” you replied with a shrug, lowering the bow and gently pressing your fingers into the indent the bowstring left in your chin, perfectly aligned with the barely-visible scar there. You’d forgotten how tender the skin could get. “I doubt I can still hit a moving target, for one.”

“But you can get the bullseye every time?”

“Not every time,” you corrected, making your way to the target to pull the bow out of the wood. The painted dragon really was a masterpiece, and you took a moment to admire it before heading back to the archers’ stand. Childe grinned and followed after you, bow temporarily forgotten.

“So most times then?” He pressed, trailing closely behind you.

“Where are you going with this, Eleven?”

“I still think we should spar,” he replied brightly, so close he was practically breathing down your neck. “We’ll make it so that if you manage to shoot me even once, I go down, or we could”-

You twisted around to poke his chest with the fletching of the arrow, cutting him off. “No.”

“Please?” He implored, rounding on you whatever direction you turned to avoid him. “Please, please, please?”

“No!” You repeat, louder and with the full force of your irritation. “I’m not dying before I get this damned certificate!”

There was a beat of silence as he stared at you, slightly aghast. “You think I’d kill you?”

“…I don’t think you’d do so on purpose, no,” you conceded, taking out your pocket watch. “But your strength exceeds mine to the point where fearing for my life in a duel wouldn’t be unreasonable.”

“It is unreasonable to assume I’d ever hurt you,” Childe groused, continuing to block your path every time you tried to move past him. “Stop trying to get away,” he added, bending over to pinch your cheek. You stared at him, utterly at a loss for words, then quickly smacked his hand away with an irate grumble.

“I need to get away, I still have lab work to do.”

Childe flapped his hand as if physically shooing away the idea. “You work too hard, Trixy. Take a break.”

“And what do you think this little exercise was?”

“A chance to impress me with your archery skills, of course,” he replied without missing a beat, wiggling his eyebrows teasingly. You rolled your eyes with a quiet huff of laughter, pushing past him, and he dutifully followed after you.

“You’re not very difficult to impress, are you?” You teased back.

Only when it comes to you, he thought wistfully.

* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚** ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚** ੈ✩‧₊˚*

taglist:

@viridian-coffer, @vvzhyxx, @darifes, @whore-of-many-hot-men

@aenishas, @lovel3tter, @randomidk-123, @autistic-deer

@luvenus702, @zoriaisasimp, @ra404, @crownohomo

@diamondcookie45

if i missed you somehow please message me directly, bold means i’m having trouble tagging you! to be added or removed please comment on the masterlist post of this series <3

184 notes · View notes

thetomorrowshow · 4 months ago

Text

intruder

backstory of why jimmy and scott moved out of the super neighborhood in my empires superpowers au!

cw: murder (in SELF-DEFENSE) of an unnamed character, blood/violence, like a decent bit of it, injury, dissociation

Scott’s been missing for two days.

Scott’s been missing for two days, and Jimmy isn’t going to wait around doing nothing.

The news had come in the form of a knock on the front door, around 3pm on the first day. Jimmy doesn’t officially live at Scott’s house, but he spends a fair amount of time there, and now he pushes back from the kitchen table and heads to the front door, snapping on the mask that hangs on a hook by the entrance.

“Oh, hi, TJ!” Blossom says when he opens the door to find her on the step, flowers actively winding around in her hair. “Is Major around?”

Jimmy frowns, checks his watch. “Um, he left for work this morning, around eight? He shouldn’t be back until four, at the earliest.”

Why would Blossom be asking him this? Don’t they all have some sort of hero group chat?

“Are you sure?” Blossom’s smile drops. “Did he say he was headed somewhere else?”

“Just to work,” says Jimmy. “Why? What’s up?”

Blossom bites her lip, the flowers in her hair wilting. “He never showed,” she says. “He isn’t responding to messages.”

That’s enough for Jimmy to shut the door and run back to the table, grabbing his cell phone. Then he returns, pulling it open again. Blossom is still there, looking a little surprised.

Jimmy pulls up his contacts, clicks on the one labeled ‘scott :) - super’ and hits call.

“You’ve reached Major, I’m probably winning a battle right now. Send me a text and I’ll get back to you when I have a moment.”

Straight to voicemail.

That can’t be good.

“Try the Mad King,” Jimmy tells her. “I’m still working until four, but keep me updated. Do you have my number?”

But Blossom never texts him any news.

And Joel tells him, that night, that Scott’s officially missing, and they’re moving Jimmy to a safehouse.

So it isn’t even 8pm when Jimmy finds himself in a small apartment downtown, the dim light of the setting sun half-illuminating the single room.

And Jimmy stays there all night, staring at his phone, as his worry crescendos over and over again, blowing out lightbulbs and spoiling food can by can.

They still haven’t found him in the morning.

Jimmy can do nothing but sit, alone, in this cheap, unused apartment of Joel’s, waiting for some message that his boyfriend has been found.

But there’s nothing, and Jimmy isn’t going to wait around doing nothing when Scott could be getting tortured right now.

Because that’s it, really. When Jimmy went missing, it was because some horrid, insane villain kidnapped him and ran experiments on him and treated him like an animal—

One of the blades on the floor fan comes off, crashing to the bottom of the fan cage.

Jimmy takes a deep breath.

He can’t continue to sit here on the ragged carpet (because there’s no furniture other than a single folding chair and a mattress) while Scott could be going through the exact same things that he had been subjected to.

Or worse, he thinks, pushing back a sickening memory.

So Jimmy packs up his little backpack that he hasn’t actually unpacked yet except to get his toothbrush, grabs the mask he’d left on the kitchen counter (which he balls up and shoves in the pocket of his jeans), and leaves, ready to find Scott.

Where does Scott usually go first?

He covers all of the city, but rarely ventures away from the most densely populated areas. Downtown is one of his favorites to frequent, as well as the pier.

Good thing Jimmy knows downtown like the back of his hand.

He catches the bus like it’s second nature, the schedule practically tattooed on the inside of his eyelids (despite the fact that he rarely rode the bus for fear of causing an accident. He learned it in case anyone ever asked him the bus schedule). He hasn’t spent much time out and about on his own, but he can get around and he’s lived with Lizzie long enough to know how to go somewhere by himself. That doesn’t mean he isn’t careful: he sits at the back of the bus with his back pressed against the window and watches everyone, careful to sort them into threat categories and keep tabs on everyone.

It’s exhausting. It always is.

It isn’t long at all before he leaves the bus at one of Scott’s favorite places—right across the way from the elementary school. Scott heads here first thing most mornings, keeping an eye on the children as they arrive at school.

The mask is scrunched uncomfortably in Jimmy’s pocket. He wishes he could put it on. He hates going out in public—not without at least a baseball cap.

It feels like everyone at this park is watching him.

Any of them could be in league with whoever took Scott. Any of them could have been one of the thugs that worked for Xornoth. Any of them could be someone he hurt in the past.

Every time someone walks past him, Jimmy automatically tenses. That woman could attack him. That man could crush his skull. That child could be a distraction. That man could grab him and pull him into an alley.

Jimmy shoves his hands in his hoodie’s pocket so that he doesn’t have to look at how they tremble. This is why he doesn’t go places alone. This is why he works from home right now.

This is why people need to not get kidnapped. Specifically the people that can help him not panic about being kidnapped.

Right, now, does he usually patrol around the school? Or just wait out front and watch the kids go in?

If he was Scott, what would he do?

Scott would probably patrol. He likes to be moving, likes to show off his skills.

So Jimmy hikes out of the park and crosses the road to the school, following the sidewalk all around the building.

On one side is an alley between some run-down apartments, and Jimmy passes through, keeping a close eye on anything out of place. Any knocked-over trash cans, any smears of dirt or dried blood on buildings, anything that could be the signs of a struggle.

He feels more and more anxious the further down he goes, swallowing back the thrumming of his power within him, the scar at the base of his skull burning.

He can’t cause an accident here. He's next to an elementary school, he can’t risk it.

Can he?

What accidents can he cause here?

Jimmy’s never really reached out with his powers before on purpose—not in a long time, not in a searching way.

But his powers can cause terrible things to happen, things as far away as inside the school, and if his power can know that there’s things that far away to ruin, then can’t he know, too?

So he reaches out into the surrounding buildings.

There are a lot of people here.

That’s the first thing he feels.

There’s hundreds of children in the school, and one of these buildings is an apartment complex, and Jimmy can’t see them or even really sense them? He just . . . knows that they’re there, in some kind of . . . sixth sense?

There are so many other things that he knows are there, but can’t verbalize. He simply knows, to an overwhelming degree, the contents of everything around and maybe there’s a reason he’s never done this before because he thinks he’s going to be sick—

“TJ!”

Jimmy flinches, hears something crash in the distance. He wheels around—this could be it this is the moment he’s kidnapped—, only to find fWhip standing at the mouth of the alley.

“Why are you out and about?” fWhip asks, moseying over, hands in his pockets. “Don’t you usually stay home from the cool parties?”

Right. He knows fWhip. Kind of. fWhip is nice, right? He helped save him.

Jimmy isn’t wearing his mask. Which is fine. It’s fine to not be wearing it, because fWhip recognized him anyways and his secret identity isn’t contingent on a mask anymore.

“Um, I’m looking for Major,” he says, head still spinning a bit. “He usually goes here every morning, and nobody saw him for his whole shift, so if he got kidnapped it was probably near—”

“Wait, Major’s missing?”

Jimmy frowns. “Yeah, did you not hear? He disappeared yesterday.”

fWhip checks over his shoulder, adjusts his goggles. “Okay. Not good. And if Major’s missing, why aren’t you in a safehouse?”

“Well, I was,” Jinmy says, looking down at his feet. How has he been caught already? He just barely left!

“But you couldn’t stick around when Major could be . . . being tortured?” guesses fWhip.

Jimmy shifts uncomfortably. “Yeah,” he says dejectedly. “But I can go back. The Mad King would—”

“Nah, don’t do that. I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to. Do you need help looking?”

And before Jimmy can so much as process what he’s said, fWhip is reaching up to the window in the building beside them, testing the latch and finding it open.

“Let’s check out this place,” he suggests, shoving the window open and grabbing the sill, pushing himself up and into the window in an impressive show of upper-body strength.

Jimmy blinks.

He didn’t expect to be joined in his search.

Let alone by fWhip.

“Okay, nobody’s here,” fWhip calls out the window. “You coming?”

“Is there a door?” Jimmy asks halfheartedly.

fWhip shrugs.

Jimmy sighs, grips the windowsill (a bit lower for him than it had been for fWhip), and heaves himself up, legs kicking for purchase on the wall and arms trembling under his weight.

He falls back once, arm scraping a bit against the sill, then manages to pull himself up the second time, his ribcage pressed in painfully against the windowsill, where he hangs for a moment before tipping over and landing in a heap on the other side.

“Try to roll when you come in,” fWhip advises as Jimmy picks himself up. “It’s easier. And way more cool.”

“I’ll remember that,” Jimmy grumbles, brushing the copious streaks of dust off his hoodie.

“So we’re looking at an abandoned first floor of some office building, I think,” fWhip says, flipping a switch on his goggles. “See anything?”

Jimmy looks around. It’s a fairly large space, the concrete ground scarred by the torn-up carpet (some of which still lies in an awkward heap against a wall), a single dead office chair sitting in the middle of the room. Otherwise, there’s some brightly-colored papers in a corner, and—

The front door slams open.

“TJ,” comes a suspicious and familiar voice.

The Mad King is standing in the doorway.

“Rats,” fWhip says, frowning. “Did you follow me?”

“You and Mythics are always up to no good,” Joel tells him dismissively, before turning back to Jimmy, arms crossed. “Why are you here?”

“Um . . . looking for Major?” Jimmy tries.

Joel raises an eyebrow. “With fWhip? Come on, TJ, if you were going to break house arrest it should’ve been with someone respectable.”

“Hey!”

“Come on, back to the safehouse.”

“But—”

“TJ,” Joel says firmly. “We aren’t arguing about this. I’ll keep looking for Major, yeah? You need—”

“But I, I can help!” Jimmy insists. This isn’t fair, he shouldn’t be locked up when his boyfriend could be going through the worst experiences of his life—

“Jimmy,” Joel grits out. fWhip makes a ‘yikes’ face, turns to start going through the neon papers in the corner.

“Since Major has been kidnapped, they will want to get the people he cares about the most—you,” Joel stresses. “They will want to hurt you to get him to give up whatever information they’re looking for. That’s why—”

“I know, I know, but I can defend myself,” argues Jimmy. “It’s—it’s Sc—I mean, it’s Major. I have to help. And I know—”

“You’re helping by staying safe,” says Joel. “I’m not arguing about this, okay?”

“Who would have a bake sale and then put the signs in an abandoned building?” fWhip murmurs, examining one of the said signs.

Which is stupid.

This is stupid.

How does Joel expect him to just sit there?

How can he tell Jimmy to go hide and let Scott get hurt?

But there’s no point in fighting this.

“Maybe there’s some way you can help from the apartment, okay?” Joel says placatingly, and Jimmy rolls his eyes.

“Sure. Fine, take me back, officer.”

“Don’t get an attitude with me, young man,” Joel warns, sputtering jokingly, but Jimmy’s stomach squirms just the slightest bit.

He’s not a child.

“fWhip, I’ll be back here in half an hour, okay?” Joel says. “Let me know if you find anything.”

Then he strides out the door, Jimmy reluctantly following along behind.

Joel finds Scott the next day.

It’s a small place, a closed mechanic shop, near the East side of the city, where this particular gang of villains decided to keep him.

Joel finds him by checking the security footage of the elementary school. He sees, in the corner of one of the cameras, a couple of neon signs hanging on the side of the building fWhip and Jimmy had broken into.

Backing it up a little bit, Joel finds the car that carried the people who hung up the signs (something they did several hours before dawn).

And when he tracks down that car, he finds Scott.

Jimmy receives the text that Scott’s been found and instantly calls Lizzie, begging her for a ride home. Lizzie agrees, and when Joel and Scott come through the front door, Jimmy is there waiting, a frozen pizza in the oven.

Jimmy drops everything, his stress releasing in a little burst of power that crashes his phone and knocks all the cushions off the sofa, hurrying toward Scott.

Scott looks absolutely exhausted. His suit is torn here and there, his hair tangled and greasy, his eyelids drooping. But he gives Jimmy a small smile and acquiesces to a gentle hug.

“Glad you’re safe,” Scott murmurs. “I was worried.”

Jimmy chuckles, pitched a little high with nerves. “You were worried? Imagine my state!”

Scott pulls away, plants a small kiss on Jimmy’s lips before tugging off his mask, mouth twisting in a grimace.

There’s a large bruise on his cheek, and a small line of them down his jaw, but he otherwise doesn’t seem to be in very bad condition. Still, Jimmy frets, hands twisting anxiously.

“Where are you hurt? Do you need to get checked out? You really should go to the hospital, just in—”

“I’m fine,” Scott cuts him off. “Just some bruises. It’s all right.”

Even so, Scott stands there patiently, as Jimmy takes in every part of him.

He seems to be telling the truth. Nothing looks broken or like it’s bleeding too badly. He’s holding himself a little gingerly, though, that could be a broken rib—

Jimmy prods at his chest and Scott steps back, hands over himself.

“It’s not broken,” Scott says, teeth gritted. “Joel already tried it. Just a deep bruise.”

“Probably the worst kidnappers I’ve ever seen,” Joel calls from the kitchen, where he’d gone after pushing past the two of them in the hall. “Didn’t even know how to torture him properly.”

Torture? “Scott, I’m so sorry—do you need anything? Should I schedule you a therapy appointment?”

Scott bursts out laughing. “Thank you, baby,” he says. “I’m fine. I promise. Just tired.”

“And an idiot,” adds Joel. “How’d you manage to get kidnapped by such an incompetent lot?”

“Their signs said homemade croissants,” Scott moans, walking into the kitchen as if nothing ever happened (though his arm is still wrapped around his ribs). “You know I love supporting small local businesses.”

“’Twas your downfall,” Joel intones, snickering. “Sorry, mate.”

Jimmy follows awkwardly, not entirely sure how to behave.

Scott’s . . . fine?

He hadn’t even considered that as an outcome. He hadn’t dared to think that Scott might return without severe injuries, without being traumatized by the torture and greatly needing help returning to the real world.

Like Jimmy had been.

He doesn’t know what he can even do.

How can he help Scott when Scott doesn’t need help?

So Jimmy just kind of hovers, near Scott, as he sits there and eats pizza and jokes a little with Joel.

Then Scott leaves to go shower, and Joel shoots Jimmy a sympathetic smile.

“He’s fine,” Joel assures him. “He may be a bit clumsy for a while—his hands were zip-tied pretty tightly together—but he’s really fine.”

It’s hard to believe him.

But Jimmy just nods and resolves to not treat Scott strangely. He’s fine, after all.

If he’s fine, then so is Jimmy.

That night, there’s something wrong.

Jimmy wakes up quite suddenly, the odd sixth sense that he’d probed at the other day ringing with the notice that something is off.

He doesn’t know what. He doesn’t know what’s changed in their surroundings, but he knows that it’s not quite right and he needs to be aware of it.

Jimmy blinks open his eyes, glances over to Scott to reassure himself that his partner is safely there.

And leaning over Scott, a knife gleaming in their hand and poised above Scott’s chest, is a person dressed in black.

Jimmy reacts immediately.

He dives over Scott, knocking the man’s arm just as he sinks the knife down—Scott wakes with a cry of pain, the knife carving a jagged line in his chest and up his shoulder as the man is knocked off course.

Jimmy rolls off of Scott, faces the intruder for a brief second.

The intruder spits out a curse, then barrels into Jimmy, brandishing his knife.

Jimmy moves on instinct. He grapples with the man, twists his wrist with the knife—the man slashes at him, but Jimmy twists further until his grip loosens on the hilt, and then he takes the knife.

He spent hours and days and weeks training with Xornoth in knife work and he knows exactly how to attack to injure, which spots are the most painful without being fatal. He stabs the knife into the attacker’s upper arm, then into his side when he howls and twists away, and Jimmy can’t help but show off a bit as he flips the knife to his other hand and drives it into the man’s knee.

The intruder falls to his knees, and Jimmy’s head is pounding with the adrenaline, and he can’t move his focus from taking this man out entirely because he tried to kill Scott—

Jimmy spins around to be behind the man, hands on his throat—the man grabs at his wrists, nails scrabbling against his skin—and sends a burst of power out.

Under his sweaty palms, knife still tucked between the fingers of his right hand, Jimmy feels the man’s neck break. Not just the bone: his vocal cords snap—his muscles fall loose—his throat collapses, and so does the man, falling heavily to the carpet.

Jimmy stands there, panting.

Scott wheezes in pain.

Jimmy fumbles on the bedside table, grabs Scott’s hero phone with fingers slick with blood. He presses the emergency button on the side, holds it down for a solid five seconds.

Then he drops it back on the table, opens one of the drawers to pull out Scott’s mask.

“Jimmy,” Scott gasps, sitting up, clutching his arm over the slash in his shirt. “Are—are you okay?”

Jimmy nods, then he clicks on the bedside lamp, bathing the room in low, yellow light, and surveys Scott.

There’s a sheen of sweat over Scott’s bruised face, his eyes pained and confused (and concerned, and very very worried), but Jimmy barely registers that as his eyes find the wound.

His nightshirt is soaked in blood, spreading out from the slash, and it only takes one glance at the wound for Jimmy to know that it needs a professional to take a look at it. He doesn’t know near enough about injuries to know anything other than that it looks bad.

He leans over Scott (Scott flinches back) and pulls the mask over his face, carefully holding the knife pointed away from him. His hair catches a bit in the eyeholes and Jimmy doesn’t do anything about it.

"Major?" calls a voice from below, and Jimmy spins around, knife held out, as he hears the stairs creak with running footsteps. Was there back-up? No matter. There won’t be, soon.

A pajama-clad Blossom pushes open the door from where it's half-open (Scott always closes the door when they go to bed), her hands flying to her mouth when she takes in the scene. "Oh my gosh—Major, TJ, what happened? Should I call an ambulance? I'll call one—"

"Hello? Is everything okay?"

More footsteps, then Gem appears, mask pulled over tangled hair.

"Hi, we need an ambulance—the address—"

"What happened?" Gem says, echoing Blossom's words as Blossom turns away, one hand covering the ear not pressed to her phone.

Scott pushes himself up further, grimacing. "Intruder," he manages, nodding toward the body on the floor. Gem glances at it, before her eyes fix on Jimmy.

"TJ, sit down—where are you hurt? Where do you guys keep your first aid kit?"

"It's not my blood," Jimmy says, his voice too loud in his ears. He gestures with the knife toward the motionless body, the neck appearing kind of . . . squashed. "I'm fine. Check Major."

"Shoot, the attacker," Gem mutters. "Blossom, tell them that there's two or three people that need—"

"He's dead," Jimmy interrupts. "Don't worry about him. Check Major."

Gem blinks.

Meets Jimmy's eyes.

"Okay," she says after a moment. "I'll check Major. Did you kill him?"

Jimmy swallows.

"He was attacking us," he says stiffly. "He stabbed Major. I acted in self-defense."

Gem moves around and climbs onto Jimmy's empty side of the bed, still keeping an eye on him even as she checks out Scott, pulling away his shirt and asking quiet questions (to which Scott responds, his breath shallow and words faltering).

"The ambulance should be here soon," Blossom says, moving toward the foot of the bed. "TJ, you're covered in blood—set that knife down, let me help you."

"It's not my blood," Jimmy says again. "I'm fine."

"Okay, then—"

"You help Major," Gem says, slipping off the bed and coming back over. "I'll help TJ wash up. C'mon."

Numbly, Jimmy follows her out of the room, checking over his shoulder to make sure Scott is okay. Scott waves him on with the hand that isn’t held to his chest, and Jimmy continues down the hall, into the bathroom.

"We'll have to make this quick," Gem says. "Sit down. And give me that knife."

Jimmy doesn't want to give her the knife. He pulls it back to his chest when she reaches for it, thumbs the blade protectively.

"I need the knife to give it to Major, so that when the police get here we can have a convincing story without you in it. Make sense?"

After considering, Jimmy nods. It makes sense.

And that means he needs to not be here.

He hands over the knife. "I killed him," he says. "If they ask, Major stabbed him three times. Then he fell and broke his neck."

Gem shakes her head. "Okay. Wow. Okay. You know we don't normally kill people, right? Never mind. I'll go give this to Major."

Jimmy glances in the mirror as she steps past. There's blood spattered across his face, more in splashes on his nightshirt and shorts and arms. His eyes, cold and wide, peer back at him out of his pale face.

He needs to get out of here.

Gem returns after two or three minutes, handing Jimmy a jacket (one of Scott’s, he distantly notices).

"Zip that up over the blood, rinse off your hands, and let's go," she says. "We'll head to my place. Blossom will ride with Major in the ambulance. It doesn't look too bad, so he should be okay."

Jimmy obeys, letting Gem turn on the water so he can stick his hands under the cold spray.

For a moment, he's back there—just trying to scrub the blood off his hands from his first intentional murder in the sink with the broken handle.

Then he blinks, looking down at the sink, at the red running off his hands.

"Good enough. Let's go."

Joel joins them in Gem's dark kitchen after about two hours, stripping off a pair of gloves. He's fully dressed in his supersuit, his hair unbrushed and his posture stooped, looking more exhausted than ever.

"Gem, you have anything caffeinated?" Joel asks, opening a cupboard.

"Yeah, there's a pot of coffee already made. Mugs are in the left cupboard."

Jimmy watches as Joel finds a mug, fills it up with coffee, and then takes a swig of it black.

"Thanks," he says, face scrunching up at the taste. Joel doesn't like black coffee. Jimmy knows that. He always adds cream and sugar.

"Major's okay," Joel informs them, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table to sit across from them.

Jimmy's been here more or less in silence for the past hour and a half, staring at the wooden table. When they'd first come in, Gem had sent him to wash his hands and arms and face better than he had before, but there's nothing they can do about his sleepclothes, so he's just been sitting here in a blood-spattered t-shirt for a while. Gem had joined him after pulling a hoodie over her pajamas and starting the coffee maker, and has since sat beside him, working on a crossword puzzle.

"Major's okay, he and Blossom are at the hospital now. The intruder was pronounced dead on site. Major identified him as one of the men who kidnapped him."

Jimmy doesn't feel anything.

No sense of satisfaction at knowing that the man truly deserved it, no fear at how close they had been to getting killed, no guilt for his actions.

Nothing.

"TJ," Joel says hesitantly, "how are you doing?"

Jimmy shrugs.

He's still covered in the blood of the man he murdered.

"They say killing is like riding a bike," Jimmy says after a long pause. "You never quite forget how to do it."

Gem sighs. Joel winces.

"Right. Well, we don't really kill people, as a general rule. It's kind of, like, against the law."

The law.

As if the law applies to heroes and villains.

Jimmy's not really sure which one he is right now.

Neither, probably. Which means the law should apply to him, even if it hasn’t stuck in the past.

"I've never really been one to follow the law," Jimmy says.

"Sure, but as a person—"

He isn't a person. If anything was to prove that fact, it would be tonight. He hadn’t thought, he’d just acted, and even now the first feeling that he can even register is the feeling of not feeling. He isn’t a person.

He's a weapon.

He's a pet.

That's the word that triggers his therapy brain.

"I'm in a bad headspace," Jimmy interrupts Joel, using words that he'd rehearsed with Nora. "I don't feel like a person right now. I might be dissociating."

"We have to talk about this," Joel insists. "We can't run away from hard conversations—"

"I promised I would never kill again," Jimmy whispers, and, ah. There’s the panic. Detached and not quite real, but panic nonetheless. "I can't escape it. I'm not—I can't. I'm a weapon, I was made to be a weapon, I—"

"Stop that right now," says Joel firmly. "You are a person, and you just saved someone from being killed. It was self-defense, not mindless."

Jimmy almost laughs, because to some extent, it was mindless. He acted entirely on instinct, following the training Xornoth had given him, whether or not it was self-defense.

He doesn't like hurting people.

He never wanted to go back to being a villain.

It's not even that he's upset about killing that specific man. Screw that man, he tried to kill his boyfriend.

He's really just afraid that now that he's killed one person, he'll keep doing it. It isn’t like anyone can stop him. Nobody can stop him, not even himself, and he wouldn’t even care if his current state has anything to say about it.

"TJ," Gem says carefully, "why did you kill that man?"

Jimmy frowns. Why? "To protect Major."

"Do you have any desire to kill people outside of defense?"

Does he?

He's never had the desire to kill.

Not even when he was getting rewarded for it. Killing was something he did to survive, to escape severe punishment, or accidentally.

And here, he killed to protect. To save his boyfriend. He didn't get any satisfaction out of it. He certainly didn't enjoy it. He doesn't want to do it again.

That cuts through the foggy panic in his mind, the fear that he might keep going, that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.

"No," he says, then stronger, "no. I never want to kill. I hate it. I only do it when I have to."

Joel lets out a breath of relief. "Thank goodness. Okay, next issue. You and Major clearly aren't safe here. Do you want to try to stick it out, or should we start moving you two as soon as possible?"

Jimmy hadn't even thought about it.

Of course they aren't safe here—he hadn't been safe alone, when Scott was kidnapped and he had to be moved to the safehouse. Why did he think that things would magically change just because Scott was here? Every villain in the city knows where they live. The rest of the gang that kidnapped Scott could show up on their doorstep at any time, even more angry than before.

Anyone could show up at any time.

Jimmy doesn't feel as secure as he used to feel, surrounded by superheroes as they are.

"We'll move," Jimmy decides. "As soon as Major is back, we're moving. It just isn't safe here."

They’ll move.

Then he’ll deal with this numbness.

"Hey!" Jimmy calls, running into the kitchen. "No! You aren't allowed to lift anything more than ten pounds, put that down!"

Scott sighs with an over-dramatic roll of his eyes, sets the box back on the counter. "It's not that heavy. And it doesn't even hurt right now."

"Just because it doesn't hurt doesn't mean it isn't injured, Mister," Jimmy tells him. "You don't want to pull out your stitches."

"You haven't let me help at all. Pearl already handled the actual heavy stuff, let me do something."

Jimmy shakes his head and picks up the box. "That's your own fault for getting stabbed right before we moved."

"We're moving because I got stabbed," Scott points out. "It's not like any of this was planned."

"You should have thought about that before you got stabbed, then."

Scott groans, then reluctantly laughs. "I guess I should have. Can I at least drive?"

Jimmy lets out a very put-upon sigh. "I suppose, since I don't have a driver's license, you can be allowed to drive. But only if you behave yourself."

Scott giggles again. "You're adorable," he says fondly. "You know I'm the Primary Protector of the city, right? I don't think you'd be able to stop me."

"And I killed a man last week," counters Jimmy. "I don't think you want to be on my bad side."

"Oh," Scott says after a moment. "Are we joking about this now?"

Jimmy shrugs. "We're in the laugh-or-cry stage. I'm trying to laugh about it right now."

Scott looks at him. Really, truly, looks at him.

Then he laughs. Just a little bit, but still a laugh.

"I love you," he says. "I'll help you hide the body next time."

Jimmy laughs a little, too, but Scott pauses.

"There . . . isn't going to be a next time, right?" he asks uncertainly.

"Oh, absolutely not. Not unless it's entirely necessary."

Scott nods several times. "Good," he says. “Yep. Cool.”

Jimmy turns back toward the door, box in his arms, and waits until he’s out of the house to huff, shaking his head (though a smile plays on his lips).

They’re okay.

He pushes away the numb feeling that threatens to seep into his brain and thinks and remembers and knows that they’re okay.

That’s good enough for him.

#empires smp #empires smp fanfic #jimmy solidarity #scott smajor #flower husbands #mas writes #empires superpowers au #esh au #this one is a fun one ngl #like it sounds angsty on the tin but it really isn't that bad #anyways shout out to jimmy for working a from-home customer service job during this fic #he has worse problems than whatever this is. and those problems are ppl yelling at him on the phone :(#ummmmmmmm enjoy #lmk what yall think #love you guys

70 notes · View notes