#yes i know we’re more than halfway through the year shhhhhh

[wallskeepshifting]

2024 WILL be the year of the slenderman renaissance WHO’S WITH ME

[joemazzhello]

You Matter to Me

joe mazzello x (female) reader

words: 2k

a/n: this is my first fic i’ve ever written so be nice i guess and i’m writing this because of a thought i had after seeing this (by @rogershamsandwich idk if you want to be tagged but this started with your idea) and writing out this. I hope I managed to capture Joe but again I don’t really know what I’m doing. Also I hope this isn’t too specific because it is very much based off of my fantasies but I hope you’ll enjoy it anyway. 

disclaimer: I haven’t been to new york in ten years so I don’t remember much about broadway. I also haven’t actually seen waitress but I love the soundtrack and I know the plot. (Also I freaking love Drew Gehling as Dr Pomatter he fits the role so perfectly.) Finally, I don’t know much about Joe’s family life, so again it’s based on my imagination.

background: i love dad!joe more than anything so this is based of my continuous fantasy of married with three kids, two boys, 6 and 4, and a newborn baby girl

tags: @marshzzellow

warnings: just fluff, babies, and broadway

intro thingy: Joe knew that the one thing you always missed about living in America was Broadway. Ever since moving back home to England for your job, you hadn’t been able to see any broadway shows, and having just given birth to your third child, you and Joe struggled to even find the time to visit the West End. Now that it was time to visit Joe’s family in New York, you hoped you’d be able to see your newest musical obsession, Waitress.

With three kids, one of them being a newborn baby, traveling halfway across the world wasn’t easy. However, as you placed your bags down in Joe’s family home and watched your boys run into their grandmothers arms, you could finally heave a sigh of relief. You looked up at Joe, who came over and took your baby daughter out of your arms, giving you a peck on the lips and a huge smile while doing so. Watching your mother-in-laws face as Joe hands over your daughter, reminds you of why you go to so much trouble to fly out. Her unbridled joy lifts all the tension and worry off you for a moment as you see her holding your baby girl tight.

“Y/N, she’s so beautiful! She has your eyes.” You made your way over to her, thanking her and taking her into an embrace. “Is that a little ginger hair I see?”

“Yes, I’m afraid she takes after her father,” You answered jokingly. Beside you, Joe raises his eyebrows and fakes a shocked expression. “Is that such a bad thing?” he replies, wrapping his arms around your waist. “Only a little,” you respond, turning your head to place a kiss on his lips.

The sun was close to setting by the time you finally managed to calm down your boys from the excitement of seeing their American side of the family. They were watching TV in the front room with their cousins, while you fed your baby girl in the room that would be you and Joe’s bedroom for the next couple of weeks. Apart from the crib in the corner, and a small vanity, a big queen sized bed took up most of the room.

“Hello gorgeous.” You raise your head to see Joe poking his around the door. 

“You talking to me or her?” You ask with a smile, beckoning Joe over to sit with you on the edge of the bed.

“Hmmm,” he ponders for a second, “I’d have to say both.” He takes a seat next to you, allowing you to lean your head on his shoulder, while you both stare lovingly at your daughter. You stay like that for a moment, surrounding yourself in the calming silence, only feeling the rise and fall of Joe’s torso and hearing the sucking of the milk from the bottle. 

“I have a little surprise for you,” Joe whispers in your ear. You turn your head to meet his eyes. Spotting an excited gleam in his hazelnut eyes, your mind runs over all the silly ideas Joe might have come up with. He gets up and makes his way over to his coat on the back of the chair, fumbling through the pockets.

“Joe, we can’t go to karaoke, you’ll just get too drunk and I’ll-”

“What? No, of course we can’t do that, that’s a stupid id- AH! Found it!” You can’t help but laugh as a big grin encompasses his face and he pulls an envelope out of one of his inside pockets. He quickly makes his way back over to you on the bed, plopping himself down next to you excitedly. Your eyes meet his again, his holding a lot less confusion than yours. “Here, open this.”

After placing your baby girl on the bed, you take the envelope out of his outstretched hand, keeping your eyes locked on his eager ones. “Come on, open it!” he urges. You unfold the flap on the envelope, pulling out two pieces of paper. Your eyes scan over the writing before looking up at Joe once again, your mouth slightly open and your eyes wide. His smile appears again, wicked this time, knowing what he had just done.

“I-I-I, we-, how can-, what?” You stammer, looking again at the paper in your hands. 

“I know it’s tonight which adds a little pressure but those are the only tickets I could get on such short notice however my mom promised to take care of the children plus my brother and sister are here too so it really shouldn’t be any worry if they have to look after the kids for one night-” You interrupt his rambling by pulling his face towards yours and putting your lips against his. 

“How did you know I wanted to see this?” You finally say, pulling away from Joe. He smiles.

“It’s almost like you’ve been talking about it for weeks and weeks, checking the website for information about the West End run every other day, and listening to the soundtrack on repeat,” he answers, raising his eyebrows at you. You feel your cheeks blush, you had been obsessing a little recently. “The car will be here in an hour and a half, I hope thats enough time for us to get ready.” He smiles at you one more time. “Don’t forget to dress fancy, we’re going to see Waitress on Broadway baby!”

The cold breeze of New York city wind hit you like a brick in contrast to the stuffy and cramped air inside the theatre created by the hundreds of people who were trying to leave at once. You shivered. You could feel Joe’s hand in your’s, pulling you out of the crowd. Looking up at him, you could see the determination in his eyes as he darted between the groups of people, trying to get you out of the masses. When you finally made it to a quieter area, the almost freezing temperature set in and you started to rub your exposed forearms to create some warmth. Noticing this, Joe quickly takes off his jacket and places it over your shoulders.

“I know I’ve already said it a million times tonight, but you really do look wonderful in that dress. It’s a shame my jacket covers it up.” He grabs your hand, pulling it up and twirling you around. Giggling, you lean into his arm. 

“So do you. Aren’t you going to get cold?” you ask. He wraps his arm around you as you walk, pulling you in tighter.

“Just stay right there and I’ll be fine.” Gently, he places a kiss on your forehead. “So did you enjoy it?” 

The time flies by as you and Joe walk hand in hand through the streets of New York, rambling about the show and the songs. 

“You know, I think you could make a great Dr. Pomatter,” you suggest. His eyes open wide.

“♪ You remind me of a girl I once knew, gah by now she’s well in middle age, probably 41 or 42♪” His silly singing voice filled your ears, he knew that singing one of your favourite songs from the musical could get you to laugh.

“No, seriously, I know you can actually sing you doofus. I think you’d be really good.” You smile up at him.

“Oh I don’t know, singing isn’t really my area of expertise.” He replies, glancing down at his feet. You love how shy he gets about his real singing voice.

“Just a thought,” you say, snuggling up closer to him. A quick glance at your watch reveals it’s getting pretty late. “Joe, as much as I’m enjoying this, I think we should head back.”

“Oh shoot!” he exclaims, “I didn’t realise it was so late. Ok, I’ll call a cab.”

By the time you finally arrive back, the house is encompassed in darkness. You fumble for the spare key Joe’s mum gave you in your bag, while Joe lightly bounces next to you, trying to fend off the cold.

“Come on Y/N, we can’t stand outside forever,” he whines playfully.

“Shhhhhh, I think everyone’s asleep.” Your fingers feel the sharp metal of the key, and you quickly pull it out and place it in the lock, finally opening the door and letting you and Joe into the house. You hold the door open for him, and he leans forward and kisses you while you wipe your feet on the mat. 

“Thanks for a great night,” he whispers.

“I think I should be the one thanking you. You’re the best husband I could have asked for.” You kiss him back, a little harder this time.

“Joe? Y/N? Is that you?” You turn around to see Joe’s mum appearing at the kitchen doorway. “How was the show?”

“It was incredible!” You walk over and give her a hug. “How were the kids? Did they behave?”

“They were fine. We tucked the boys into bed a few hours ago and, as usual, the baby was nothing but cute the whole time.” She smiles at you and you laugh.

“I wouldn’t say that’s usual, she’s not so cute when she won’t stop crying at three in the morning,” Joe replies jokingly. As if on cue, you start to hear a small whimper from the baby monitor in the kitchen. 

“Don’t worry, darling, I’ll get her.” He pecks your lips one more time before running as quietly as he can up the stairs. You smile to yourself, gathering up your stuff before you start to follow him up. 

“Are you heading to bed too?” you ask his mother, who was now heading into the front room. 

“No dear, I’m going to finish watching my programme, but I’ll see you in the morning.”  You say goodnight to her and head upstairs to see your little boys. The door into their room was slightly ajar, the calm light of the star nightlight bouncing softly off the walls. In each bed, your young boys were asleep, their duvets wrapped around them. You lent over each one, giving them each a kiss on the forehead and whispering goodnight. Heading back into the hallway, you close the door behind you and start towards you and Joe’s bedroom. As you get closer, you start to hear a gentle humming. Quietly, you push the door open and spot Joe in the corner cradling your baby girl.

“♪ could find the whole meaning of life in those sad eyes They've seen things that you never quite say, but I hear Come out of hiding, I'm right here beside you And I'll stay there as long as you let me

Because you matter to me Simple and plain and not much to ask from somebody You matter to me I promise you do, you, you matter too I promise you do, you see? You matter to me♪”

Joe’s delicate singing whispers through the room as you watch him rock your baby back and forth in his arms. Leaning against the doorway, you start to tear up, remembering the song from the musical and how much it means to you. You recall looking across to Joe in the theatre when they were performing this song and seeing the emotion in his eyes. In his arms, your daughter looks up at him, her blue eyes staring lovingly at your husband. 

You stay there for a while, just watching him sing softly to your baby, something you hadn’t seen him do before with your sons. Joe loved to put on a crazy singing voice and scream with the boys, but moments like this, where you could hear the vulnerability in his voice and see the love in his eyes, were the truly special moments.

Going to shift your bodyweight against the doorframe, you accidentally step forward, the floorboard creaking underneath you. Joe spins around, your daughter now asleep in his arms. Your eyes catch his, a gentle smile appearing on your face. He glances down, his usual way of showing embarrassment. However this time, he sees his little girl in his arms sleeping peacefully and looks back at you, gleaming proudly. 

“You sound wonderful,” you whisper as you approach him, placing your arm around his waist. You catch eyes again before pulling him into a kiss. Separating, you both look down at your baby in his arms. She looked so peaceful when she was sleeping. Joe bent down to place her in the crib, kissing her softly on her forehead as he did so. He stood back up. For a moment, you stood there in silence, just watching your daughter sleep. Joe encased you in his arms, he didn’t pull away, didn’t look at your face, didn’t try to kiss you but held on tight without an ounce of selfishness. To this feeling, you were addicted.  

[miraculouspaon]

Where Have All The Heroes Gone And Where Are All The Gods?

Chapter Thirty: Emma

AO3

“Mermaids?” Emma asked.

“Not as far as I know,” her uncle replied.

“Dragons?”

“Never seen one personally, but yes.”

“Zombies?”

“Not any kind you need to worry about.”

Emma raised an eyebrow. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“There are certain branches of magic, mostly originating from the Caribbean, that can pull off reanimating dead corpses rather elegantly. But you're not going to die from a bite, or turn into one yourself. Fighting a zombie is like fighting a sick, disoriented person whose head and limbs are over-inclined to drop off. You're more likely to get seriously hurt fighting a house cat.” Not looking up, Jonathan handed Emma the sheet of paper he'd been writing on. “Check that.” He began working on a fresh sheet as Emma started plugging numbers into her calculator.

“Werewolves?”

“Nope.”

“Are they impossible, or have you just never heard of them?”

“I'd never say anything was impossible, after everything I've seen,” Jonathan said, “but logistically it’d be a nightmare.” He wrote a few more numbers down, then paused. “Well…” he said slowly, “shapeshifting spells are a thing, sure. I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to link one to the phases of the moon. It'd be very patchwork, but in theory… no, but making it contagious wouldn't work, you'd need an external power source every time a new person was cursed, it would count as a re-casting whenever a new person was bitten. Being able to pass it on indefinitely would violate the second law of thermodynamics.” He went back to working, then stopped again a minute later. “I mean, I guess it could work if each new werewolf was powering the transfer with their own energy, but you'd have to limit the pool of werewolves to people who generate enough magical energy of their own to-”

“Jonathan, have you seen-oh, there you are, Emma,” Emma’s grandmother said, poking her head in. “What are you doing in here?”

“Checking math,” Emma said. “And Uncle Jonathan’s teaching me how to make werewolves.”

Adele’s eyebrows shot up as she looked at her brother. “You're what?”

“I am not… okay, maybe I was a little,” Jonathan admitted. “Emma was grilling me on what is and isn't real, instead of double-checking my math like she said she would.”

“I can do both. Is that a one or a seven?”

Jonathan looked at where Emma was pointing. “Seven.” He looked back at Adele. “Look, now that I actually have an account of someone casting something like the Order’s spells, I can figure out how these parameters correspond to real-world locations. But backing out the latitude and longitude ranges is a little involved, so I'd feel more comfortable with a second set of eyes checking my work, okay? Actually I wouldn't say no to a third set, either, if you want a go.”

Adele shuddered. “Pass.”

“It's not that hard, Grandma, we’re just plugging these four-dimensional vectors into a couple of multivariate polynomials and then converting from polar to Cartesian-”

“Your brother needs you,” Adele interrupted. She glanced at the papers on Jonathan’s desk and made a face. “And I need to be as far away from whatever you're doing as possible, before I get roped into it.”

~~~

“What's up?” Emma asked, entering the study her brother had taken over. Louis and Dani looked up from the couch as Emma took three steps into the room before stopping. “What are you doing with Mom’s Miraculous?”

“Wayzz has been teaching me this advanced technique,” Louis explained. “Actually, it’s… it’s really advanced. Guardians don’t usually even attempt it until they’ve been doing trance states for a few years. But we thought it might be helpful, and we don’t have a few years. So I wanted to test myself, make sure it’s accurate, and I figured you’d be good for that. Don’t you think?”

Emma sat down across from her siblings and looked at the earrings lying on the small coffee table in front of her. “You haven’t said what it is yet,” she pointed out, and Louis’ face turned slightly pink.

“Right. Sorry,” he said. “I’m just… nervous. Um. It’s basically a way to see anything the Miraculous has borne witness to while active.”

Emma’s jaw dropped slightly. “Anything?” she asked. “You could… you could spy on any moment in Mom’s life since she was, what, our age? Since she got those?”

“Up through last August, anyway,” Louis muttered. “But yes, that’s the idea. But because I’m not experienced with trance states yet, there’s a risk that I just wind up imagining what I expect to see. Since you know way more about Ladybug history than I do, I thought you could give me a test. Ask me something I don’t know, some question about… I don’t know, an old akuma attack or something like that, from before we were born. And I’ll try to see what happened. If I get it right I’ll know we can trust anything else I see, too.” He paused. “Like the night Mom and Dad got taken.”

Emma nodded silently, then thought for a few minutes. “Do you… do you know how they defeated the Dark Cupid akuma?” Louis shook his head, then reached forward and gently scooped up the Ladybug Miraculous. He folded his legs under himself, took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Five minutes later, Emma looked at Dani. “Did Louis say how long-”

“Shhhhhh,” Louis interrupted, his eyes still closed.

“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t-”

“Stop. Talking.” Dani and Emma exchanged an eyeroll, then did their best to wait patiently. They were both starting to nod off when Louis opened his eyes about half an hour later.

“Did it work?” Emma asked.

“First of all,” Louis said, “gross, you did that on purpose.”

“She did what on purpose?” Dani asked.

“Picked an incident where Mom and Dad kissed,” Louis told Dani, who snorted.

Emma grinned. “Traumatized?” she asked.

“I’m more traumatized from knowing exactly how good Dad looks in black lipstick. Anyway. The akuma was in a brooch, Dad tossed it to Mom, Mom stepped on it and broke it, then cleansed the akuma inside. Is that right?”

Emma nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. Are you going to look at when they got taken now?”

Louis glanced down at the earrings resting in his upturned palm. “Um… no, I think you’d better give me a few more tests first, just in case. I want to be absolutely sure we can trust this technique.”

Dani reached for Louis’ free hand and squeezed it comfortingly. “You’re doing really well,” she said, and Emma wondered how much insecurity Louis was hiding. She wondered if Dani was just always going to be closer now to the two of them than Emma and Louis were to each other. Dani glanced up at her, concerned, and Emma mentally shook her thoughts off.

“Another test sounds fun,” Emma said. “How much do you know about the Reflekta incident? If you liked seeing what Dad looks like in black lipstick, you’ll love seeing him in heels.”

~~~

Halfway through breakfast the next morning, Dani suddenly screamed. Emma jumped in her seat, startled, then got up and rushed to her sister’s side. Dani was grabbing her head now, still making incoherent noises, breathing heavily, and tears were streaming down her face.

“Louis. Louis, what’s wrong with her, what is it?” Emma asked, trying to suppress her rising panic.

“I… I don’t know,” he said, his eyes wide with horror. “I can’t see any spells on her.”

“What? Louis, this has to be magic, it-”

“Get your sister out of the city,” Emma’s grandfather interrupted. Startled, Emma looked over at the other side of the table. Her grandparents’ faces were both ashen, her grandmother looked sick, and her grandfather had a decisive look on his face.

“Do you know what-”

“Now, Emma,” her grandfather snapped. Nodding, Emma transformed as quickly as she could. A second later, she’d grabbed her sister’s shoulder and whisked them both to a bedroom of their grandmother’s country manor.

“Are… are you okay?” Emma asked. Dani straightened slowly, then nodded.

“Yeah,” she said, brushing her hand under her eyes, wiping tears away. “Yeah, I’m fine now.”

“What the hell just happened?”

“I have no idea. It was just… sudden, excruciating pain. I’ve never felt anything like it.” She looked around. “What are we doing here?”

“Grandfather told me to get you out of the city. I guess he knows what’s going on somehow.”

“Oh.” Dani sat down on the bed. “I guess you’d better get back there and find out what it is, then.”

“Right.” Emma hesitated. “Are… are you going to be okay here alone?”

Dani nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I, uh, think I’ll lie down a bit, actually. Call me and let me know what’s up, okay?”

“Sure.” Emma squeezed her sister’s shoulder before teleporting back to the kitchen in Paris. Her grandmother still looked slightly ill, holding her head in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, Louis and Gabriel on either side of her. All three looked up as Emma reappeared.

“How’s your sister?” Adele asked immediately.

“Fine now, she said,” Emma told them. “What’s going on?” Before Adele could answer, Uncle Jonathan walked into the kitchen.

“Where do you guys keep the aspirin?” he asked. “I’ve got this killer migraine all of a sudden, and-”

“Aspirin won’t help,” Adele told him, sounding miserable. “There’s tea, though, or coffee.”

Jonathan frowned. “Why won’t aspirin help?” He looked at the four of them and narrowed his eyes. “What’s going on?” Adele sighed.

“Do you remember that artifact the Louvre had on loan from the British Museum in ���97?” she asked him. “It was… Māori, right?” she asked, looking at Gabriel. He nodded.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “That can’t be it,” he said. “Sure, my head hurts, but I’m not trying to claw my eyes out of my face like you practically were back then.”

“We’re both much weaker empaths than I was back then,” she said. “Dani, on the other hand, well. Emma got her out of the city right away, but before that… trust me, that’s what this is.”

“What are you talking about?” Emma asked. “I told Dani I’d find out what was going on and tell her as soon as I could. Is she going to be okay?”

“There’s nothing wrong with Dani,” Adele reassured her granddaughter. “This is something we’ve seen before. Back a few centuries ago, there was this artifact in New Zealand, the people of some small island had used it to identify psychics, to choose their next… shaman? Is that the right word? I can’t remember. Anyway, the thing eventually wound up on display in London, where it sat harmlessly until they loaned it to the Louvre about a year and a half into our superhero career. The curator decided it would be fun to activate, and wouldn’t you know it, whatever it is that it does to identify psychics does not agree with empaths.”

“Oh,” Emma said. “Well… okay, that’s good, you’ve dealt with it before, you know how to defeat it.”

“Defeat it?” Jonathan asked, leaning against the doorway. “We politely asked them to turn it off. They spent like a week publicly apologizing for the trouble. Something tells me that the people who turned it on this time aren’t going to be quite as accommodating.”

Emma blinked. “Wow,” she said lightly, “I cannot imagine how relaxing it must have been to be a superhero in a city run by people who actually want to help you, instead of people who are actively trying to kill you.”

“Yeah,” Louis agreed. “Sounds like a vacation or something.”

Adele sighed. “Yes, I’m certainly starting to appreciate how easy Gabriel and I had it back then.” She looked at her husband. “What are we going to do?” she asked. “It could be anywhere in the city, and-”

“It’s gotta be back in the Louvre,” Jonathan interrupted. “The pyramid was amplifying its signal. If it were anywhere else it would only have a radius of a couple of blocks.”

“Emma and I can check it out,” Louis said. “I bet if I get close enough I’ll be able to see whatever magic field it’s generating. And then once we know exactly where it is, Emma can get us in and we’ll shut it off and take it so they can’t turn it back on.”

“They must have some defenses around it,” Emma said. “But I guess step one is scoping it out either way.”

Adele nodded, then sighed. “This isn’t good,” she muttered. She slumped down, burying her head in her crossed arms on the table.

“It’ll be fine, Grandma,” Louis said. “I know we usually need Dani to take care of teleportation blocks, but I think Emma and I can handle-”

“This is the tip of an iceberg,” his grandfather interrupted, as he put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Perhaps dealing with this will not be difficult, but it signals more unseen problems to come. The Order is finally doing its homework. They’re finally doing actual research, instead of just attacking you children with their own brand of magic. They’ve figured out that your powers and the powers of Butterfly and Paon are one and the same.” He looked over at Jonathan. “Can you think of anything else the Order might have learned from researching that time? Any other weaknesses the children might now have?”

Jonathan shook his head. “Not off the top of my head. That was one of the few incidents that actually made it into the paper accurately back then. But… we should go through everything, just to make sure.” He crossed to the table, grabbed an unused mug, and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Now, I guess, since I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to get any real work done until you kids take care of this headache.” He sat down across from Adele.

Emma turned to Louis. “Guess we’d better get going, then.” Nodding, Louis got up and joined her.

“That first supernatural incident, with the amulet, that one messed with your powers,” Jonathan said to Gabriel, as Emma and Louis started to leave. “Did that part ever make it into the papers?”

Gabriel shook his head. “No. There were no witnesses, and we managed to keep the official account…” Emma didn’t hear the rest. It was tempting to linger, to listen to the three of them go through the history none of them ever seemed to want to discuss with the triplets, but Emma and Louis had a job to do.

~~~

The walk to the Louvre was long, but pleasant. The route lay mainly along the Seine, and Emma and Louis took it mostly in silence.

“Did you get a look at Mom and Dad disappearing?” Emma asked, after about twenty minutes of walking.

“Yeah,” Louis said. “I’m gonna look again, though. It cuts out the second they actually disappear, when their Miraculouses go dormant. And it happens so fast, it’s over in a second. It’s hard to get a good look.”

“So you didn’t get anything out of it yet?”

“I… I think they were pulled south. Or maybe southwest.” He sighed. “I know that's not exactly specific enough to be helpful-”

“Sure it is,” Emma said. “Uncle Jonathan’s working on narrowing down a range of possible locations. Knowing they’re south of Paris could cut the possible area in half, maybe more. Every piece of information helps.”

“Sure,” Louis said. He said nothing more, and Emma tried to think of something else to fill the silence.

“Do you ever think about…” Emma started, then trailed off.

“Think about?” Louis asked.

“Well… Grandma and Grandfather, at the start. Back in the nineties. I'm sure it must have seemed crazy at the time but overall they had a pretty easy beginning, right? They were adults, they didn't have any serious villains. Then Mom and Dad, they had it way harder. They were teenagers, they had to fight like three magical villains a week. But compared to us… we’re even younger than they were, our powers aren't as strong, and we're fighting an entire occupation run by people that, unlike Hawkmoth, are actively trying to kill us. They had all of Paris behind them, and we… I mean, we do in spirit I guess, but seeing as how helping us is a crime punishable by death there aren’t a ton of people lining up to do it. Anyway, it all just makes me wonder…”

“What?”

“How fucked are our kids?”

Louis’ had a split second of shock, of wondering if he’d heard his sister correctly, and then he burst out laughing. Emma grinned a moment later. “I’m serious!” she said, laughing a little herself. “If you look at how things have been escalating from generation to generation, I mean, jeez, our kids are just going to be straight-up fixing the apocalypse at thirteen, aren’t they?”

~~~

“Can you see it? The field?” Emma asked in a near whisper as they entered the pyramid that served as entrance to the Louvre.

Louis nodded, looking around. “Yeah, it's way more concentrated here.” His gaze wandered up, to the apex, and then down. “It’s a few floors down, right under the point. We can come back tonight, after closing, when everyone else is gone.”

“What about defenses?”

“The usual. Anti-teleportation field. I think I can rig something up to deal with it.”

“That’s it?”

Louis shrugged. “They’ve never seen us take one down without a Champion. I guess they think that’s enough.” Emma frowned. “What?”

“It’s just… after this they’ll know more about what we can do. They’ll know we can handle this kind of thing without Dani.” Emma bit her lip. “Every time the Order learns more about our abilities, it’s another advantage lost. We both remember what happened when they figured out my invisibility.”

“Yeah,” Louis agreed. “But I don’t think we have a choice here, Emma.”

“I know,” Emma sighed. “I just don’t know how many more advantages we have left to lose.”