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justauthoring · 3 years

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The Long Wait

Prompt: Eventually, the hoping became too much to bare. Requested by: no one.

A/N: This is basically a remake of this fic -- upon re-watching the GMG arc with my mom, I couldn’t help but look back at this fic and realize how much more I could’ve done with it. Thus, this was born. Pairing: Gray Fullbuster x F!Reader

“What do you mean you’re leaving?”

Keeping your gaze trained to the ground, you absolutely refuse to look up -- because you know that if you did, your heart would break all over again.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble, words jumbled together, voice quiet that if the guild hall was so completely silent, they definitely wouldn’t have heard you. But they do, and they falter at the way you sound so absolutely broken. And of course, all of them were, but there was something different about the way you sounded -- it was like you were defeated.

Macao steps towards her, you hear it rather then see it, and can imagine his hand stretched out towards you, trying to placate you. “Y/N, we understand--” and he halts, voice catching in the back of his throat. “We understand more then anyone how you feel, but--”

“It’s different.” You find yourself cutting in, voice sharp, and you wince at yourself because you sound so incredibly selfish and rude. Who were you to say that your pain was any different from theirs? Any worse? But, still, you continue, your emotions getting the better of you. “It’s just... different. I... I can’t be here knowing they’re... he’s gone.”

“Y/N-nee, we don’t know that they’re gone!”

Your eyes fall shut at the sound of Romeo’s voice.

“We have to keep searching for them,” he argues, defiant, adamantly shaking his head. “They’re somewhere out there, I know that. And Gray wouldn’t--”

“They’re gone,” you hiss, interrupting him and finally glancing up to regard your friends, your family. They rear back at your harsh words, and that guilt festers even deeper inside of your chest, with the way they’re looking at you. Jet and Droy look near tears, and you know they’re thinking of Levy. And Bisca and Alzack look in shock at your outburst, you’re usually so quiet and calm. Macao looks angry, and the rest just stare at you, varying reactions that all mesh together.

Because really, it’s the way Romeo looks at you, still so young, so full hope as your words basically slap him in the face.

But you’re too far gone now, and there’s no stopping you.

“It’s been two years,” you continue, voice softer but still cutting, still hurtful. “They’re not coming back. They’re never coming back.”

He’s never coming back.

They don’t respond. No one argues, even if some look like they might. Maybe they’re understanding, maybe they’re finally getting it -- it’s been too long now and no one from the island is coming back. You’d been hopeful at first, you’d been like Romeo -- you’d refused to lose hope. But your heart is broken and there’s no mending it and you can’t keep staring at those doors all day expecting, hoping, praying that he’ll walk through them only for him never to.

So, you turn, nothing but a soft, sorrowful, pathetic apology leaving your lips as you turn your backs on your friends and leave them.

And as you turn, you see his familiar face, the dark black of his hair, that drawling smirk on his lips, and his cold, but always soft when directed at you eyes looking at you, but when you blink, he’s gone.

You huff at the weight dropped around your shoulders, inhaling deeply when you see a familiar puff of blonde hair.

“Did you hear?”

You don’t need to ask what he means. It’s pretty obvious.

“Fairy Tail will be competing again this year.”

When you turn to look at Sting, he’s smirking -- all bright eyed and giddy, and you hold back your own snark as you regard him with a small nod. Sting was one of the few to know of the fact that you used to be part of Fairy Tail -- him and Rogue, given that they were the ones who recruited you, and then the master as well.

It wasn’t news you were eager for everyone to know. Fairy Tail was a laughing stock in all respects now, but Sabertooth seemed to have a particular fondness of mocking the way the guild had fallen. And it was easy to hide you’d ever been apart of it given you hadn’t been a particularly well-known mage back when you’d been a member. Your powers were relatively new, and with, regrettably, the help of the Twin Dragon slayers you’d definitely grown in aspects of strength.

Three years since you’d joined Sabertooth -- two years of training on your own, and three of being surrounded by much stronger mages had you adapting and constantly changing. You were practically unrecognizable.

You were known at Y/N of Sabertooth now, and it was like the Y/N of Fairy Tail never even existed at all.

“I’m surprised,” you hum, shifting as Sting moves to take a seat next to you, still whilst having an arm draped over your arm. You blink at the sudden arrival of Rogue, not having heard him, as he takes a seat in front of you, before continuing. “They weren’t in it last year, or the year before if I remember. After finishing last every year before.”

You hadn’t been apart of Sabertooth’s team, but you do remember watching.

It had been... hard, to say the least.

“Ah, well, this year they have a new team.” Rogue explains blandly.

“New members, you should say,” Sting smirks.

Brows furrowed, you shake your head at their words, confusion flooding at you at the particular gleefulness of Sting’s expression. He always got a kick out of embarrassing other teams, not even just Fairy Tail, but there was something different about the way his eyes sparkled.

Sting meets your gaze, and without wavering, adds; “or should I say, old?”

Your breath catches, and even as your mind starts spinning, you’re all too aware of the way both Sting and Rogue are watching you carefully.

You turn from Rogue to Sting, and absolutely hate the gleam in the latter’s eyes as he smirks down at you. Keeping a tight hold on you, he pulls you closer, leaning until he’s a breaths away; “it’s a good thing I managed to convince the Master to let you on the team this year, Y/N,” he grins widely, “you’ll get to reunite with your old pales.”

That... that couldn’t be possible.

They were--They were dead. They are dead.

“I... I need some fresh air.” Shoving Sting’s arm off of you, you ignore his calls and his merciless laughter as you stock out the guild doors, bypassing Minerva which you know will get you in shit later. You don’t really care in that moment, you can’t even think straight, you need air.

You need to breathe.

Sting must be lying. He has to be lying. There’s... they were dead, it’s been seven years.

Seven years.

How... why now? Why after all this time?

And you convince yourself he isn’t lying. You ignore Sting every time he tries to talk to you, and focus on training. It would be no good if you failed since you were on the roster this year -- Master would kill you if you failed to impress him and keep Sabertooth at the very top. And it’s easy enough to do, spend all your time training, pushing yourself to the brink, until it’s a few days before the games and you realize, Sting wasn’t lying.

You’d been trying to ignore it, ignore the urge, but eventually you give in and find yourself in the city of Magnolia. A place you haven’t been in a long time.

Fairy Tail’s location had changed, but you’d made sure to keep tabs on them. You never showed your face, mainly because you knew that in the end, you’d betrayed your friends. In their eyes, you assumed, you were the enemy, a traitor. You’d left them, left your guild in a time they’d needed you most, and almost instantly regretted it.

But every time you tried to go back, every time you made your way towards those doors, you’d remember the words you’d said -- “They’re not coming back. They’re never coming back.” -- and, like a coward, you were never able to face them.

From the moment you’d left, all you’d wanted to do was go back but it was too late for that now. And so you settled for keeping tabs, helping them where you could, always in secret -- you knew how they owed money, and you didn’t have a lot, but you always anonymously send some the guild’s way in hopes of helping. Sabertooth would kill you if they found out, specifically Sting, but it was your way of repaying all the hurt you must’ve caused them.

It’s why you know their new location. And, without even being there for more then five minutes, you see them.

A blue flying cat, followed by a white one, a tuff of pink hair, red hair, blue hair, blonde and most importantly, him. His dark hair, the fact that nothing’s changed and he looks exactly like he had those seven years ago when you’d wished him good luck on the S Class competition, and pressed a shy, chaste kiss to his cheek, the two of you blushing madly as he left, waving you goodbye.

But, they were there. He was there.

“And last but certainly not least, is the team that came first in the preliminaries... that’s right, you know them, you love them! Now, get on your feet and scream for the most powerful guild in all Fiore! The one and only, Sabertooth!”

You wince at the cheering, two steps behind everyone else as Sting makes his grand entrance, looking thoroughly most pleased and proud of himself then anyone else. However, even you can see the smirk on Rufus’ and Orga’s face.

If anything, it’s you and Rogue that don’t look all that excited.

And you, for a specific reason. One that stares you right in the face the second you walk into the arena.

Elfman, Erza, Lucy, Natsu, but more importantly, Gray all look at you the second your team arrives. You can even feel Fairy Tail team B, and the rest of the guild up in the stands watching you and only you. You also notice with disdain that Sting had purposefully made way for you to be seen, even if you hadn’t been that hidden, you would’ve rather remained in the shadows.

That, and you’re not exactly sure what to say as they all stare at you.

“Y/N?!”

It’s Natsu who yells it, but it’s Lucy who steps towards you, baffled and confused; “Y/N, what’re you...”

But you only lower your gaze, eyes falling shut as Sting pulls you into his side, laughing loudly. “What a reunion!” He cheers, pumping his fist in the air, before turning to you. “Isn’t it so great to see all your old guildmates, Y/N?”

You meet their eyes, just as the announcer calls out;

“What’s this? A reunion? Could it be perhaps that Sabertooth’s own Y/N Y/L/N was once a member of Fairy Tail? What a twist on her debut in the Grand Magic Games!”

“This is so not man...”

Turning your head at the sound of Elfman’s voice, your breath catches in the back of your throat.

“Elfman,” Erza says sharply, pulling your eyes back on her and thus the rest of them, noticing with a thick swallow the way her eyes have never left your own. “I’m sure Y/N has her reasons.”

But as she stares at you, waiting for you to say something, you simply turn, walking off.

“I didn’t know you used to be in Fairy Tail,” Rufus drawls to you when you pass him, and your shoulders tighten.

That’s right... now, everyone knew.

“You never needed to know,” you say simply.

“Y/N.”

“It seems Fairy Tail’s Team A Gray Fullbuster approaches Sabertooth’s own Y/N Y/L/N, and the crowd watches in anticipation at the clear tension amongst the two of them--.”

Everything freezes. Shoulders tensing, you slowly turn, meeting Gray’s eyes -- the one you’d been specifically avoiding.

“We won’t lose.”

I know, you want to say. I don’t want you to, you want to tell him. I want Fairy Tail to win, you want to plead. But instead, knowing the eyes that watch you, you simply say; “neither will Sabertooth.”

This had to be some cruel joke.

Your punishment, maybe.

Sabertooth’s Y/N Y/L/N versus Fairy Tail’s Team A Gray Fullbuster

That’s what the board said, that what that God awful announcer calls with clear joy in his voice -- your first battle, the second day of the Games, and this way the turn out.

There was no way you’d win.

Ignoring the fact that you had no doubt Gray was stronger then you -- you simply just couldn’t. You wouldn’t. Not against Fairy Tail and certainly not against Gray.

“Good luck, Y/N,” Sting calls as you move to make your way towards the arena. “Though I doubt you’ll need it.”

You hate his words, hate the way he knows, hate the way he seems to get such joy out of everything that had happened. This was his fault. His fucking fault that you were here, and that this was happening.

Though, of course, even you knew that was true.

“Sabertooth’s Y/N Y/L/N has never been apart of Sabertooth’s team, but we can expect something great from Fiore’s strongest guild, needless to say. Do you know anything about Y/N Y/L/N, Yajima-san?”

“I don’t know much about Y/’N now, but in her Fairy Tail days, she never really made a name for herself, but I do distinctly remember her powers being incredibly unique.”

“Ah! A mystery then. And of course, Fairy Tail’s Gray Fullbuster is a Ice Wizard, but after his performance in day one’s Hidden Competition, the crowd’s not too sure what to expect. Nonetheless, it should be an intense match between old guildmates now turned enemy’s.”

“Shut up,” you hiss to yourself, nails digging into the palm of your hands.

“Ah, I see you’re just as chipper as you used to be.”

Swallowing thickly, you inhale sharply as Gray comes to a stop a few feet before you. It’s closest you’ve been to him since that first day, and more importantly, then in seven years. You’d already known since that day, but he really does look exactly like he had that day. Hasn’t aged a day. You don’t know the story, you don’t know how he’s back, but you know you’ve heard the term ‘seven year blank’ echoing around.

That makes more sense as you stare at him now.

Still eighteen, you’re now older then him then a year younger like you had been before.

Remaining silent, your head tilts back, where you know Sabertooth is, chest tightening.

“Y/N.”

Turning to Gray at the sound of your name, your lips part when you noticed the way his eyes have softened, even if only a little, like he caught something in the past moment you’d turned away from him. He looks so much more... concerned then he had the first day, and that was only yesterday. When he’d called for you, he’d looked so angry...

Now, he only looked worried.

“What happened?”

Swallowing thickly, you try to appear unbothered. “I left.”

“There’s more to it, I know there is,” Gray shakes his head, “the others told us about the day--”

Eyes clenching shut, a simply jerk of your head has Gray flying back. It causes a roar of gasps, surprise and anticipation in the thought that the fight is finally starting. But you know, unlike them, that it won’t get farther then that -- at least not from your end.

Gray hisses, slowly crawling to his feet, before he smirks at you; “you’ve gotten strong.”

“It’s been seven years.”

“Still,” he shrugs, stopping before you once again. “You have control now.”

You shrug, mimicking him with a smirk, “it’s been seven years.”

However, the facade falls all too quick when he takes a step towards you. Your body tenses, fists clenching as he continues to make his way towards you until he’s directly before you. He eyes you for a moment, quiet, carefully, and you nearly break then and there.

“It may have been seven years, but I know you best,” he whispers, voice low, “I know you’re lying.”

You shake your head, pushing his words away from your thoughts; “attack me.”

And he blinks, surprised; “what?”

“I need you to attack me,” you repeat, keeping your eyes trained downwards, refusing to meet his eyes. “I... I just need you to.”

And part of you expects him to -- you deserve it, you know, after all you’d done.

But, a second later, Gray’s stepping back, pulling your wide eyes on him as he shakes his head; “Fairy Tail doesn’t attack their own friends, Y/N. You know that.” And your breath hitches when his hand moves to raise.

“No!” You yell, before you can help yourself, eyes flashing a bright gold, like they had seconds before, holding Gray’s arm in place as he blinks back at you. Letting out a soft whimper, one you hope he doesn’t hear, you hold his arm in place, eyes falling shut as your own arm raises, the crowd falling eerily silent.

“I give up.”

And you knew, even as you feel the glares on your back, that there really wasn’t any other outcome that could’ve happened. You’d never hurt Gray, you knew, and you refused to hurt Fairy Tail anymore.

You were destined to lose this match.

“What’s so special about those fairies, huh?”

Wincing, you gasp at the squeeze on your throat, trying to suck in air that won’t come as your eyes fall on Sting’s own narrowed ones, glaring down at you. The brick of the wall behind you bites into your skin, and you know his grip will leave bruises, but even as you gasp for air and it feels like your vision is closing in on you, you have no regrets.

You never would, even if it’ll get you killed.

“What’s so fucking special about them?”

You refuse to respond, even if Sting wasn’t blocking off your air way you wouldn’t. Even if you could easily knock him away, send him flying, you don’t -- you’ll only pay for it more later.

“What’s so special about him?!”

He drops you then, and you fall to your knees with a thud, a cry leaving your lips as he sends a sharp kick to your gut, causing you to double over. It takes you a moment, a solid minute to catch your breath, and even then you’re still gasping, voice raspy as you raise your chin, eyes narrowing as you say the words you’ve been wanting to say to Sting for years.

“Fairy Tail is the guild Sabertooth could never be,” you hiss, your voice pathetic but your gaze menacing. “And Gray is a better man than you’ll ever be. All of them are. You’ll never be as good as Natsu.” You hit him where you know it hurts, the words having been on the tip of your tongue for years but you’d always held back in fear of what would happen.

Well, you’re no longer afraid. You’re too far gone now.

Sting’s eyes narrow and his face twists, ready to explode, before he breathes, and a smirk curls onto his lips. “You’ll never be apart of your pathetic guild again,” he hisses, “you’ll be stuck in Sabertooth for the rest of your life. Only, Master will make sure your life is a living hell.”

He sends another sharp kick at your side, but says nothing more as he turns, walking off with a huff.

It takes you a moment to gather yourself, slowly pushing yourself up to your knees where you stay, chest heaving, the pain radiating across your entire body, fingers finding your neck and touching the offended skin gently as you hiss in response.

You didn’t regret surrendering, but you couldn’t help but be terrified of what would happen when you walked into the inn that night.

You never should’ve left Fairy Tail. It was a regret you’d probably take to your grave.

“We actually have points thanks to you.”

Blinking at the sound of Gray’s voice, you slowly glance up at him, arm still wrapped tightly around your stomach as you stare up at him.

“I’m glad,” you whisper, smiling gently, “Fairy Tail deserves to win.”

Gray sighs, and stepping towards you, he reaches a hand out; “here,” he says softly, voice a mere whisper. You meet his eyes, before glancing at his hand for a moment, slowly slipping your own in it. He helps you to your feet, holding you up as you waver, hissing in pain, and then, before you know it, before you can even help yourself, you fall against him, forehead pressing against his shoulder as you let out a whimper.

“You know,” Gray says after a moment, “I still remember that kiss.”

Shaking your head, you let out a quiet, somewhat forced laugh.

“What happened, Y/N?”

“You were gone,” you whisper, finally answering. “You all were, but you were too. And... And I couldn’t handle staring at those doors everyday waiting for you to walk through them, only for you never to.” Pulling back, you meet his eyes, “I love you, I wanted to tell you that day, and it crushed me that I never did.”

Hands falling on your waist, Gray shakes his head; “no one would tell me where you were when we came back. It’s like every time I asked, this look would come over them and everyone would fall silent. When I learned it had been seven years, I wanted to see you first and tell you... tell you, I love you too.”

Biting your lip, “it’s too late,” you whisper. “The others must hate me and I... Sting will never let me leave.”

Gray’s grip tightens. “They don’t hate you, Y/N. Everyone misses you. I miss you,” and then, he shifts, cupping your cheek to pull your eyes on his own again. “I need you to come back.”

“But... Sting--”

“We’ll figure it out, Master will figure it out,” Gray argues, shaking his head. “The Guild needs you. I need you.”

Lips parting, you try to find the words, only to realize there are none. So, instead, you simply fall into his arms, holding him tight against you and hold on to his promise.

#fairy tail #fairy tail x reader #fairy tail imagine #ft #ft x reader #gray fullbuster #gray fullbuster imagine #gray fullbuster x reader #gray imagine #gray x reader #imagine #imagines #my fics

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typewriting101 · 3 years

Text

you’re safe here.

pairing: tony stark x reader

warning: anxiety, abuse, fluff <3

word count: 2.5k

genre: fanfic romance

⟶ summary: your past is filled with dark hidden trauma, and Tony is right there when it get to be too much

a/n: i just watched the first avengers and i swear something about tony in that– so i came up with this :) I’ve had some personal things going on, and related to this in some ways so i hope if you’re reading it helps you too. xx

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The soft, nighttime, breeze fell through the open doors leading to your little balcony. It moved your white curtains elegantly around your bedroom, as you tossed and turned in your silk covers. Any other night this would’ve been perfect.

Any other night.

Tonight your head was filled with thoughts, too many at that. You haven’t left your room all day, The Avengers had a mission. You were only Tony Stark’s assistant, so you never went on those. You helped him with Stark Industries, so much he had asked you to stay at the Tower with him and his team. You accepted and the others love you. You sort of were a family, you always wanted a happy family.

A happy family. Your heart started beating fast, and you tried to blink away the thought in your mind.

Your real family.

You sat up, sweating. The Avengers didn’t know about your past, and to be fair, you didn’t want to tell them. Everyone considered their family the one right here.

The Tower family.

The Avengers Family.

But what about your real one?

You threw your head back and smoothed away the hair sticking to your sweaty forehead. You could feel it, the familiar inability to sit still, the circle of thoughts deep in motion, rapid heart rate, sweating, nausea.

Crap.

It was definitely an anxiety attack.

Your eyes began to fill up with tears. Why couldn’t you just control your thoughts like any other decent person? Why did you have to live the rest of your life like this?

The rest of your—?

You got out of bed. “The more I think, the worse I’ll be. Calm down y/n.” You said to yourself. You walked across your room in Thor’s old shirt, which despite being too small for him, fit you like a nightgown.

You opened the door and felt the coolness of the tower hit you. It grew hot in your room right under your nose. You shivered as it hit your bare legs and feet, and you closed the door behind you.

You walked to the kitchen and poured yourself some water, when you heard the echo of a clanking sound, followed by a cuss word.

“Tony.” You thought in your head with a slight smile. You felt the nausea creep up again and you slammed your cup, accidentally. It didn’t break thank god, but you didn’t want to wake anybody up.

“Whatchya doing, Rapunzel?” A voice asked behind you.

You spun around to see Tony, leaning against the wall of the open-spaced kitchen with a smirk.

“Rapunzel?” you questioned, knowing Tony has nicknames for everyone in this tower.

“Sure, you’ve got the most hair out of everyone here. Well, second to me of course.” He added, shoulders shrugging sarcastically.

You looked down and smiled slightly at the ground.

His smirk however, slowly worked his way off his face. “Why are you up? It’s witch hour you know. Better watch out, scary thing.” His voice dripped in a joking sarcasm, making you smile softly to yourself again. He waltzed over to the counter, confused, picking up your glass of water, holding it in his crossed hands over his chest.

“I just came for that.” You sighed, pointing at the cup he held. You felt him looking at you, as he set it down again, but you didn’t look at his eyes. “Why are you up?”

“Blueprints for a new sustainable energy program. Plus, I thought I’d repair some slight damage on my suit.” he said it like it was nothing, snapping his fingers while clasping his palms. He watched you nod, still getting no real personality from you. “Wanna see?” he asked.

You nodded, you’d take anything to get this weight off your chest. Your heart dropped at the thought, and your walk wavered. What was worse is Tony saw you.

“Woah there, you alright?” he asked concerned. You nodded at the ground and you felt his hand on your back, guiding you to the elevator without a word.

You hated when Tony was silent. It meant he was thinking way more than usual, or he was upset. You moved your eyes to him, he was dead staring at the elevator doors as you went down, his hand still on you.

You looked at the floor again and bit your bottom lip, he was definitely thinking, and that makes you nervous.

The doors opened. He led you with his hand over to his papers on his glass tech-table and his suit on display to the side. He stared at you as you looked his research and blueprints over. He watched as your skin got paler, and you tried to hide in your large shirt from the silence.

“It’s nice.” you whispered. You didn’t mean for it to come out like that, but you were too lost in your thoughts to even know what you were reading.

“Binary.”

“What?”

He sighed, sitting in the chair you were standing next to. “Everything is written in binary code right now, sweetheart. Bare minimum blueprint for the system. You don’t know Binary, it's computer language.” you could feel that gaze again, he was analyzing you.

“Oh.” you said softly, lost in thought. “Sorry.” You looked over your shoulder at the elevator, then turned your body to walk towards it.

You didn’t even take your first step and Tony’s hands were around your waist, slowly spinning you to his direction. “Hey now, don’t leave.” he whispered.

You looked at him for the first time. “Y/n, what’s going on up there in that cute little head of yours.” his one hand on the side of your head, thumb gracing your temple.

“What are you talking about?” you asked, knowing that he is a literal genius and would see through it.

He hummed a disapproving sound. “No, don’t do that. You’re paler than the moon and look more lost than a puppy, sweetheart.” your eyes slowly began to fill with tears, and Tony’s eyes widened.

You felt him tug at your waist and pull you close to him as he swooped you into his lap on his chair. Your legs hung off the side of his left one and your arms wrapped around his neck.

You couldn’t hold it in as you cried harder than you ever have in your entire life, you have never let your guard down. If you couldn’t trust your family, could you trust the world?

To be honest, Tony was terrified. He had never seen you shed a single tear, and he was desperate to know what shook you so badly.

“Honey–” he whispered, one hand on your back. The other went to your head, your soft hair surrounding it.

“I’m sorry.” you sobbed, almost inaudibly. He felt you lift your head out of his neck, and you were zoning out again, looking at god knows what behind him.

He rested his cheek on your damp one, his hand on the other side of your face. He kissed you at the soft skin he saw and could smell your delicate scent when he did. “Don’t be sorry, you didn’t do anything.”

You took a breath and slowly lifted your head, embarrassed. He moved your hair behind your ear, “Don’t think you’re going to leave without talking to me.”

He looked at you with such patience, as if he’d wait years to hear what you had to say. You took a deep breath and began slowly.

“I never knew how much I could be loved by people around me… until I met The Avengers.” you began slowly. You felt a tear grace your cheek, but Tony was quick to wipe it away.

“You've asked me about my family before, and I always shut it down, or laughed it off… because-“ you had to close your eyes and take a deep breath. Tony’s hands found your arms, his fingers feathering up and down along your skin.

“Because I’m scared of them.” you whispered.

You were sitting on Tony’s lap, so when you saw Tony tense, you could actually feel it. Every muscle in his body tightened, even his grip on you.

“What do you mean they scare you?” he asked, the octave of his voice lowering, dangerously.

“Tony I don’t think–“

“Tell me.” his grip tightened harder. It wasn’t painful at all, he’d never hurt you. It felt protective, you were feeling safe.

“They- they are-” your heart began to beat fast. Tony knew and grabbed your hand, and set it on his arc reactor so you could feel his heart, his other hand moving up your back to your neck, massaging it.

“It’s okay, I’m right here, y/n.” He whispered. He saw your breathing slow and he watched you talk as if you were the most extraordinary thing in the world.

“They were great growing up. Just, one day– one day a switch flipped. I’ll never forget it. I became their target, Tony.” Your voice cracked at his name, but you pulled yourself together.

Tony’s heart dropped when you said his name like that. It was almost a beg, or a desperate call for help. He was aching in pain and outrage as you spoke, his hands finding your waist and tightening them again.

“They would manipulate me. One minute they loved me, the next I’m the center of their games. They’d tell me how proud they were of me, and as soon as I let the pain go, they would start all over again. It would eat me alive, and the memories still do. They’d always end things with ‘I love you’ but they never did. They... they never will.”

You could feel the anger radiating off of Tony. You looked up and saw his face was even a little flushed and his jaw was tense. He wasn’t looking at you, his eyes were narrowed at the ground.

You both sat in silence. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Your eyes widened from his voice, it sounded guilty. “I could’ve done something.”

“Tony, you–“

“Y/n, you've only lived at the tower for months, not years. You’ve been dealing with this while you’ve known me?” his eyes staring deeply into yours, hoping to God you said no.

You only nodded.

“Oh my God. Y/n, that’s abuse. I- they’ve hurt you. Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I–“ he ran his fingers in his hair, frustrated.

“Tony, I didn’t want anyone to know. I’ve told people in the past, but people don’t understand. Some thought I was dramatic and others told me I was ruining my own happiness and I was lucky to have a family.”

“Families don’t do that.” he snarled, thinking of someone purposely shattering your heart.

“Which is why I told you, after all this time. I could have told you that my anxiety was bad, because it triggers it. But I told you the truth. I trust you, Tony.”

You took a breath as his features softened, making your stomach flutter.

“I just- i just wanna keep you safe, sweetheart. That’s all I want. The thought of someone coming at you–“ his grip tightened again. He leaned his head against your body, his head hitting your chest. You ran your fingers through his hair, as he locked his toned arms around you, squeezing you close to him.

You trust him. You could tell him.

“They tried to call me.” you whispered.

He sat up quickly, “What?”

“It’s why I couldn’t sleep. They are trying to get me to leave. They threatened me... with you.” you sighed, still playing with his hair.

“Come again?” he asked in fury, his hands subconsciously running up and down your back.

“They threatened to ruin your company. They’ve been trying to get me to leave. It started off with social media, liking all my things and trying to butter me up. Then messages saying hateful things about me, then they started calling and I never answered, their voicemails have been so brutal.”

You took a deep breath and expressed your fears, “Tony, I never gave them my number. I changed it when I left. I blocked them on social media, I don’t know how they are finding me. What if they end up here? What if they–“

Tony’s fingers traced over your cheekbones. “I’m not letting them anywhere near you. Technology’s my thing, sweetheart. I’ll get rid of them real quick.”

“But what if-”

He shushed you kindly. ”Nobody is going to hurt you ever again. You don’t have to think about it.”

He tugged at your waist again and pulled you into a tight hug. His hands ran through your hair as he felt your shaky breath. You were terrified, you wanted to love them. Every family practically loves each other, but you never got to be one of them. Tony’s stomachs turned, thinking how many nights you fell asleep alone and scared in your own home, how you felt heartbroken not being loved, how you even cried here and who knows how long that went on before he heard that loud bang in the kitchen you caused, and caught you.

He squeezed you tighter. “I promise y/n, you should be loved. You are loved. I’ll protect you from them, from anything. God, I promise you I’ll always be here. Will you let me love you?”

You felt his heart hammering against yours. You looked at him, his cheeks with a slight blush, nervous of your answer. A real but soft smile came across your elegant features, he smiled brightly as you played with his hair, and moved your hand to trace his nose, cheeks, and jawline. You let your hand rest there, and you leaned in to kiss him.

Tony Stark; Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist, was practically swept off his feet by the softness of your kiss. It wasn’t steamy, it was overly passionate. It was pure, and just right. The cushioned lips of yours against his. The softness of your hands still tracing his jaw. He wouldn’t trade anything for this moment.

You let go, to his great disliking. But a smile lit up his features when you spoke, “Yes. I’d love that very much, Tony.”

He saw a glimpse of fear as you looked towards the elevator. “Do… you want me to go?” You asked, timidly.

“No.” Tony said, with zero hesitation. He turned the chair with the two of you in it, flipping through his papers so he doesn’t blush again. “I told you I’m protecting you. You’re in no state to go anywhere without me.”

You look at him, eyes full of shock and realization. He looked at you, surprised at your cute expression. “What, you really thought I was going to make you leave?” he sassed. “Not that I’m mad, but why the cute face?”

You opened your mouth, and for a moment nothing came out. He set his hand on your back, “Y/n?” he said in a confused but cautious tone.

“So this is what it feels like to not be afraid anymore.” you said, a quiet tone of amazement and gratefulness lacing in your sentence.

Tony grabbed your head and kissed you quickly, a little harder than last time, and then instantly pulled you into him tightly.

“I’ll never let you forget that feeling. You’re safe here, y/n. I’ll always keep you safe.”

You relaxed into his warm body, your head on his strong shoulder. The glow of the arc reactor in his chest, just visible through the darkness of your now closed eyes. You heard him moving his papers and the sound of his typing on his tech-table, his one hand never leaving you. You opened your eyes and saw a holagram in front of you and recognized the image. He connected to your phone and was reading the messages from your family. You felt him grip you again, and he somehow found a location tied to the phone number that messaged you. You saw him type some strange numbers, and a satellite image of a house appeared. You knew that was your relatives house, and you knew he’d track them all down within seconds. It calmed you, knowing you were safe, so you close your eyes again. You heard the clicking of him gripping a pen in between his teeth, and the soft whirring of his suit beside you, as he scribbled something down. Then, you heard an approving ding from his table.

The soft sounds lulled you to sleep, and you felt one last kiss on your forehead before you fell into a real sleep, for the first time in a long time. You knew something real about your life for the first time:

You’re safe here.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

#fanfic #fanfiction #marvel x reader #tony stark #tony stark x reader #Tony stark x reader fluff #tony stark fluff #Tony stark x anxiety!reader #Tony stark anxiety #protective tony stark #Tony stark x depressed!reader #iron man x reader #iron man x you #Tony stark x you #fluff #abuse #avenger x reader #mcu fluff #mcu avengers

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simplepotatofarmer · 3 years

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technoblade: a takedown - pt. 1

(not clickbait)

aka i go over every argument people make against c!techno one by one and determine whether they’re valid, false, or a mixture of both. i rewatched every single stream/video, including those on his alt channel, so i could approach this with the most information possible. i’ll be breaking this up into parts because there’s just too much otherwise. all about the characters unless stated.

techno believes in a ‘dog eat dog’ world - false

this is an argument i see used a lot when people discuss techno so i wanted to address it first. luckily, the stream in which he says this is only his fifth stream on the server. there’s one major reason why this argument falls apart and one minor reason that isn’t objective like the first.

first and most importantly: techno has never acted on this. even at the beginning - which is when this comment was made - he was helping his allies, from building railings to keep them from falling, making a potato farm, and all the gear he grinded for to equip his allies in pogtopia with. moving forward, he’s also helped out plenty of people: giving tommy a place to stay and items, telling phil to reach out to ranboo after doomsday, as well as giving both tommy and ranboo food when asked. there’s more, of course, but the point is he’s never once followed up on this statement. he teamed up with quackity to stop the egg. he spoke to niki about how he was giving anarchy a bad reputation because of the violence and wanted to take a different approach which he has.

when people use this argument to insist that techno is the villain, it doesn’t hold up because it’s merely taking one statement he made and upholding it as a main part of his character when his actions and later statements have shown that he doesn’t actually believe in this randian view point. objectively, i can’t see how this argument can extend beyond ‘well, he said it’. regardless of what he said during the pogtopia arc, he’s said the opposite later - wanting everyone to live free with no oppression or imperialism - and has never acted on it nor brought it up later. this take honestly seems disingenuous and was in fact the driving factor of this post.

second and not as critical, techno mentions multiple times during each of his first streams that he’s not sure who all is on his side. this is a reoccurring point for him. he makes the comment about wanting a dog eat dog world during the red festival stream, while speaking to bad and sam. the first part of the conversation is techno asking about state secrets since they’re (as far as techno knows) on manberg’s side. bad mentions schlatt killing cats and techno launches into a spiel about massive anarchy and the weak being huddled in fear, asking them how does that sound. bad says as long as there’s no cat murder, perhaps. bad then asks techno what his ‘single issue’ is and techno responds that he wants to destroy the government. to me, the context of the conversation, who he’s speaking to and what his opinion of those people is, is an important thing to consider.

techno’s ‘we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it’ comment means he was always going to betray pogtopia/l’manberg - valid but not how you think it is

i’ve seen people say that techno saying ‘we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it’ is a clear sign that he was always intending to betray pogtopia/l’manberg which, yeah?

but i wouldn’t call it a betrayal.

he says the ‘we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it’ line at the end of the ‘eve of revolution’ stream while he’s talking to quackity, ponk, and sam. the conversation is as follows:

techno, to quackity: i’m glad we could get to know each other. i heard you’re on our side now. i heard you betrayed schlatt.

quackity: yeah, that’s right. are you betraying anyone?

techno: no. i would never betray my personal ideals.

[some chatter from ponk and quackity]

sam: what does that mean? what if the people you’re fighting along [sic] have different ideals than you, though? doesn’t that mean you’d betray them?

techno: listen... we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.

then techno states that he ‘said what he said’ when sam questions him about his choice of metaphor.

he actually uses the same malaphor at the beginning of the ‘revolution’ stream when they (quackity and tubbo) question him again and in that case techno definitely avoids the subject which isn’t a good thing but considering everyone was so worked up about the possible traitor, i can completely understand.

overall, techno is extremely upfront about his intentions. yes, there is definitely some miscommunication between all the parties because none of them were on the same page but that doesn’t make techno the bad guy here nor does it mean he betrayed anyone. he was upfront about his intentions from the start.

in his first two streams, he makes a joke that if they happen to set up a new government/president that he would just take that one down and it would be a never-ending cycle. over and over, he says that he wants to do destroy the government/manberg. when tommy mentions taking it back, techno says, ‘what do you mean, take it back?’ though this kind of gets lost in the middle of everything else - dsmp (lack of) communication strikes again.

the takeaway that i see here a lot is that techno always intended to betray them because he knew tommy wanted to take back l’manberg and knew that he would go against them if they set up a new government. and this is true to an extent! he did know that tommy wanted l’manberg back and he did know that he would go against them if they set up a new government. but wilbur was also telling techno that he was on board with the whole anarchy thing.

none of them were on the same page and that surely led to a big chunk of what happened and hurt feelings on both sides but that doesn’t mean techno betrayed anyone or that he was the bad guy for doing exactly what he said he would do from day one.

techno destroying (l’)manberg was wrong - it’s complicated

the first thing to address here is that for most anarchists, destroying a government isn’t a bad thing. in fact, taking down the government/state is basically our goal. now, i don’t speak for all anarchists, of course, but overall the general feeling is that violence in the name of overthrowing an oppressive government is not inherently bad. there’s no way to do a one-for-one here because it’s minecraft but the general sentiment remains. so while violence enacted against the state is a bad thing for people who aren’t anarchists, techno has no reason to and would not view it as inherently bad.

but it did hurt people and techno himself acknowledges that fact. he’s acknowledged what he’s done when confronted about it. he hasn’t said he was wrong because understanding that it was hurtful doesn’t mean he believes he was wrong. to him, he wasn’t. destroying what he viewed as an oppressive system was the right thing to do, even if it hurt people.

(also this isn’t any kind of meta but i think it needs to be pointed out that wilbur had already set off the tnt and techno summoned two killable mobs which did plenty of damage but he didn’t say wilbur was the great who came before them for no reason.)

again, this is going to be the most controversial part of this post because i don’t believe destroying government is a bad thing and i don’t believe techno is wrong for believing that as well. there are better ways to address the problem and techno is adjusting his tactics but if another government was to be established, i don’t believe he would be in the wrong to destroy it because he’s an anarchist.

the tl;dr of this section honestly could just be summed up with ‘watch less marvel, read more ursula k. le guin’.

‘techno is the villain because he called tommy the hero’ - so very false

this is a take i’ve seen that to this day i don’t understand.

techno calling tommy the hero does not mean he was setting himself up as the villain in any capacity. it was merely pointing out tommy’s habit of putting himself at the forefront of almost every conflict, trying to shoulder everything, no matter how it hurts tommy himself. the speech was directed at that and nothing else. it doesn’t mean techno is the villain, it doesn’t even mean there is a villain; there are more stories to be told than the classic hero-villain and the hero-villain narrative doesn’t always apply to stories. (i’d certainly argue that it doesn’t apply to the dream smp but that’s a different conversation.)

techno is to blame for tubbo’s death - false

i think this one has been done to death but what would a techno post be without it?

no, techno is not to blame.

he said over and over that he was outnumbered and believed that if he had done anything, everyone would’ve turned on him and ‘torn him to shreds’. even if that wasn’t the case, it is what techno believed. he had no reason to think that he could take the entire crowd out until he actually fired the rocket launcher. and remember, he tested the rocket launcher earlier during the festival on niki (who volunteered) and it didn’t kill her. when he realized the amount of splash damage it did, he gives a surprised laugh and then begins firing into the crowd.

as for saying he was under ‘mild’ amounts of peer pressure, techno has a habit of minimizing. not just the things he’s done, but often situations that he’s been in that were stressful. he stated that he deals poorly with high stress situations and one of the cognitive distortions that can come with anxiety is minimization. techno doesn’t actually believe it was ‘mild’ peer pressure - it was a situation that caused him enough distress that he brings it up later at doomsday - but it’s easier to deal with a situation when you downplay it, it’s easier for techno to keep up that calm façade when he’s acting as if whatever happened wasn’t that big of a deal even if it was. again, the way he speaks about it on doomsday was clearly upset and emotional.

the only person to blame for tubbo’s death is schlatt. he was the one pulling the trigger and techno was the gun.

if you made it this far, thank you for sticking it out! i spent so many hours rewatching all the streams, some of them multiple times, while taking notes to be able to do this. i’m extremely passionate about techno and i feel as if a lot of the arguments against him tend to miss the nuance of his character. this project is on-going and i’ll be going over the butcher army/retirement storylines next. feel free to submit any points you’d like to see addressed!

#technoblade #dream smp #dsmp analysis #dsmp meta #tommyinnit #tubbo #quackity #dsmpblr #dream smp analysis #loyal does meta #this......is a lot #i spent so much time on it y'all

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aimfor-theheart · 3 years

Text

COIN TOSS– PART III

(18+ MINORS DNI)

PART I → PART II

PAIRINGS: Tomura Shigaraki x Reader, a little Shouta Aizawa x Reader

SUMMARY: As you fall asleep, you wonder faintly, almost sadly, if you’re the first thing he’s fully touched without losing in a long time.

You are Eraserhead’s troubled protege with a Quirk that cancels out others the moment they touch you. Tomura Shigaraki takes great interest in you.

(Enemies to lovers, a lot of angst, some hurt/comfort)

WARNINGS: Unhealthy/complicated relationships, age gap/power struggle, violence, gore, Tomura’s trauma specifically, (in later chapters) murder, smut, some blurred lines, rough sex, a smidge of a spit kink, a smidge of somnophilia (let me know if I’ve missed anything!)

If you are under the age of 18, you should not be reading or interacting with this!

↳ A playlist I made for this fic, if you're interested!

A/N: here is your final part to this series! again, thank you @randomrosewrites for beta-ing this!! and thank you guys so so much for your support and comments, they mean so so much to me!! i had a lot of trouble with this last part, there was a lot of scenes i cut out and alternative endings before i settled on what is there now and i'm not even fully happy with it still lol. i have a lot of Thoughts about this, so feel free to reach out if you want to know more or just chat!! i hope you guys enjoy this!!

Read on Ao3

***

Shouta apologizes to you soon after. You sheepishly get out your own apology, even though you’d planned on holding a grudge a little while longer.

Still, Shouta confides that he also had his doubts and worries as a young hero and that he shouldn’t have dismissed yours. He talks in a soft, low voice for you, sits beside you on the edge of the couch.

You hate it because it’s easier to be at odds with Shouta lately, easier for your conscience. He put distance between the two of you, but you forced it apart further– if only to keep him in the dark. Maybe if only to spare yourself all the lying, all the pretending you’d have to do.

He says, “You know, you can always come to me. Whenever you need me.”

You have to swallow hard around the lump in your throat.

“I’ll always be here for you, despite everything.” he promises gently, trying to catch your eyes. Your gaze ducks away, out of his line of site.

Still, you hug him, tuck your face into his shoulder so he can’t see the guilt written across your face. Your secrets will constrict around you if you’re not careful. You know Truth is tricky and likes to reveal itself with Time’s help.

Once more, you become acutely aware of the clock ticking away on your relationship with Tomura.

But this time, you also realize how much trouble you could get in. You realize that you’re endangering Shouta now, too. You swallow hard, try to keep all of that down inside of you, but you feel nauseous suddenly. Bloated with guilt.

You wonder if you would’ve confessed to him then, if you would’ve spilled your guts the way you’d wanted to, if it would’ve saved you the heartache of it all.

Instead, you’d just clung to him, little fingers twisting in the back of his shirt, praying that you’d never need to make good on his promise. Praying you’d never need to test how far he’d go for you.

(It’s far– you’ll realize, further than it ever should’ve been. And you’re all the worse for it.)

***

Tomura thinks one of the troubles with heroes is their willingness to sacrifice anything for their greater good. He doesn’t think there’s anything noble in it, there’s nothing glorious or good in leaving their friend behind because they think it will save more. Nothing honorable in facing down a threat you know you can’t win against alone. What good is their world if they’re willing to sacrifice all that’s good to them in the process?

Everytime he watches you patrol, go up against other villains, maybe yakuza members, throw yourself in harm’s way needlessly, he realizes the Hero Commission uses heroes’ bodies as collateral damage. You are nothing to them. Even to other heroes; your sacrifice is expected. He knows it isn’t wanted, per se, but it isn’t surprising.

It doesn’t help that you have a streak of recklessness in you. You are quick to danger, just as quick to flash teeth and stand your ground, to fight mercilessly.

You struggle against large, powerhouse types. He watches you nearly get crushed or strangled some nights. Your Quirk doesn’t do much for you when your opponent has strength and weight to defeat you with a singular blow.

Your mentor is often pulling you out of danger with his capture weapon, yanking you away from a massive swinging arm or a curled fist about to smash you into the ground. But if it came down to you or the greater good, he knows what your mentor and your heroes would pick.

He thinks it’s strangely unfair, for you to give them your loyalty over him. He’s more loyal to you, isn’t he? There is very, very little he wouldn’t destroy for you. They would sooner let you be destroyed for the sake of their world.

Destroying the hero society that is so careless with you now feels, in part, like his gift to you. Freedom from the world that only cared about you when they realized you could be useful–

There is a night you become not just useful to your heroes but imperative.

It starts with your sacrifice, just as you were trained to do. You shove a civilian out of the way of a villain’s Quirk– it’s something with tusks and teeth that jut out from his body, sharp and ready to gut you.

Your mentor is busy with this villain’s accomplice.

Tomura watches when he shouldn’t. He was supposed to meet with Kurogiri, but he knows you patrol in this area and when there’d been commotion, he couldn’t help but watch from the shadows.

He watches one of those tusks jut towards you, your hand reaching out in hopes of disengaging the Quirk. But it’s a physical Quirk, not something like Dabi’s fire or his disintegration. And he doesn’t know if this Quirk disengages with it’s user or if it’s just his body.

Tomura feels his heart drop, the trapdoor given way to all icy fear as he watches one of those tusks pierce into your stomach.

Tomura stops breathing.

You grab hold of it, a scream getting caught behind your clenched teeth. Your fingers are tight, near frantic as you press into them– hope with everything in you, in him, that his Quirk disengages with yours.

Your broken off scream is wretched from your struggling body when another tusk rushes to crash into your shoulder.

You’re the only thing between the civilians behind you and this villain.

Your other hand reaches for the tusk at your shoulder, digging fingers and nails into it desperately.

Your eyes are bright and feverish with the hot pink of your Quirk.

Tomura stutters towards you, before the villain let’s out a pained groan. Your teeth are bared, blood bubbling up in your mouth, but you’re still standing, vicious and undeterred.

The tusks begin to crack where you grip them, splintering apart–

A sudden fission of light through those crevices, same fire pink as your eyes, arcs throughout the villain. A flare of it that makes the villain almost see-through, the lines of his bones burned by light, an x-ray flash, as if you’d struck him with lightning for a moment.

Eraserhead shouts for you.

When the flare dies, there is a scream of pain and it’s not yours.

The tusks shatter, splinter apart into gleaming bone that flies through the air.

You’re left standing, blood oozing from your stomach, your shoulder, but still standing, your eyes crackling and too bright.

The villain, tuskless, crumples at your feet, smoking. A normal, Quirkless looking man.

Did you–?

“What happened?” he hears the distant voice of your mentor, laced with worry, whose already reaching to staunch blood, blood that seeps so dark out of you. Tomura’s stomach rolls, twists suddenly, but you’re still standing. You’re okay– you’re okay–

“I-I don’t know.” you manage, but you sway into your mentor’s arms and Tomura has to look away, jaw clenched tight, swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat.

He hears, “I need an ambulance– there’s a hero and villain down–”

But he’s already turning away, his mind churning, trying to keep the nauseousness from overcoming him. He feels suddenly furious, that it can’t be him at your side, that he has to watch, pushed to the outskirts. His fingers rush to scratch at his neck, his throat, desperate for relief from the pressure that has built in his chest.

He will try to call you– later, much later– the only time you’ll answer him. He is certain you will be okay with your healers and–

He thinks of the flare of light, the breaking of those tusks, the sudden heap of that man on the ground. If Tomura is correct about what you’d done, about what your Quirk actually is, the heroes won’t let you die now.

No, now you’re imperative. Now you’re trapped.

And the destruction of hero society will be his gift to you, an end to all the strings in place, the hands holding you both back.

***

“You destroyed his Quirk.”

“W-what?” you manage to get out, wobbly. You’re bandaged up, your torso and shoulder wrapped in fresh gauze after Recovery Girl healed the worst of your wounds. You’d been sleeping, hooked up to an IV to aid you in recovering. “That’s not possible, my Quirk only cancels–”

The doctor that has entered to give you this news shakes his head, “No, we’ve done scans, tests, the works on this guy. His Quirk is gone from his DNA. No trace of it.”

Shouta, who's sitting beside your hospital bed, speaks up, “Is it possible that it will eventually return?”

“I suppose, but we think it’s unlikely. It’s gone from him. There’s nothing left. She destroyed it cleanly. It’s like it was never there at all.” The doctor answers.

“I don’t understand–” you manage to get out, your head beginning to swim, giving a painful throb at your temples.

“It seems your Quirk isn’t so simple as cancelling out another’s. It’s likely that subduing other’s Quirks was just the surface of yours.”

“Is the man okay otherwise?” Shouta asks now, fidgeting in his seat when he senses your sudden distress. He leans towards your bed more and you have the sudden urge to latch onto him and not let go.

“Physically, yes. He’s fine.” the doctor answers, “However, mentally...he’s inconsolable at the moment. As you know, Quirks are incredibly– well, they’re a part of who we are, aren’t they?”

You swallow hard around the lump in your throat.

You think Shouta says something else, finishes speaking to the doctor for you. The moment the door clicks shut, the tears that you stubbornly had been holding back rush forward.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” you get out on just a hissed breath. “I-I didn’t know I could.”

Shouta shushes you gently, “It’s okay, this happens. Sometimes people don’t know the full extent of their Quirk.”

“I destroyed his Quirk, it’s not okay!” you respond, guilt thickening inside of you, dragging you down heavy, clogging your throat and chest. “I didn’t mean to do that– what if I do it again?”

“You were under distress,” he soothes, reaching out to brush a tear away from your cheek, “Really, you were fighting for your life.” And when he says it, something gets caught in his throat. Something hitches in yours, too.

His eyes rove over your face slowly, taking you in carefully, as if he hasn’t been by your side the entire time. As if it wasn’t him in the ambulance, or him kneeling beside your bed when Recovery Girl put you back together.

“I should’ve been there. It shouldn’t have happened.” Shouta admits, the confession filling the small space between you two.

You take him in now, too, tired and worried, his face finally displaying the fear and care he has for you. It softens out his features, turns his eyes gentle and dark.

You realize suddenly that you miss him. You miss quiet nights on his couch as he graded papers. You miss his clothes and his cats and the tenderness that blossomed in all your silent spaces to fill you both out.

You wonder if he misses you as bad as you’re realizing you miss him.

You think of him cooking for one again, eating alone, and it does something horrible to your heart– mangles it, twists it up horribly.

It’s made all the worse because you’re lying to him. And here he is, at your bedside.

“S’okay, Shouta,” you get out, reaching up to touch his cheek with a trembling hand. He leans into the touch, letting his eyes flutter shut for a moment. He savors your touch in a way that he hasn’t ever allowed himself to before.

But after a moment, he shakes his head fractionally, and he murmurs “I’m supposed to protect you.”

You don’t know why, but your bottom lip wobbles. Big, fat tears well up in your eyes, burn hot and put pressure on your already foggy head. You feel like you’re unraveling, your chest all swollen and tender, too, aching horribly.

You can’t decide if it’s because you’re lying and disobeying him so badly or because no one has ever bothered to say something like that to you, let alone mean it.

And you’re betraying him, your mind hisses.

When he notices, his face falls, his thumb moving to try and brush away your tears. “Don’t cry,” he hushes, “I’m sorry, don’t cry.”

You lean into his large and warm palm at your cheek, let him cradle and coddle you.

“I-I’m sorry–” you barely manage to choke out, for reasons far beyond him.

“No,” he coos, “No, sweetheart, don’t apologize.”

You choke on a sob and he grows more worried, leans over you more, brings his other hand up to stroke at your hairline, too.

He says your name softly, trying to soothe you, “Why are you crying, huh? What are you apologizing for?”

You shake your head, more tears loosening, your small fingers twisting themselves in the shoulders of his shirt. You think you’ll drown in all this guilt, it’ll fill your lungs with pressure, choke you out slowly as you struggle and thrash.

But for now, all you get out is a warbled, slurred, “Please don’t hate me–”

Shouta moves then, shifts to sit beside you on the bed. He’s painfully careful with you as he slides strong and sturdy arms beneath you, lifts you slightly into his lap, mindful of your IV, and cradles you to him.

You bury your face into his chest and try to hold back another sob as he murmurs, “Why would I hate you? I could never hate you.”

He strokes your hair, he hushes your cries, rocking you gently. Rocking you until you can stop crying, until you’re exhausted and aching and tender.

“I’ll help you with your Quirk,” he promises gently, holding you tight to him, “We’ll be okay, huh?” he murmurs, and it just forces another cry out of you, swallowed up by his chest that he cradles you to, “We’ll be okay, sweetheart.”

It’s the we’ll in that sentence that makes you squeeze him tighter. You wonder how willing he’d be to use it if he knew where you were every other night, who you filled your time with.

If he knew who called you late that night, when you’re alone in your room, aching and sore and alone. If he knew who you answered to, your voice hushed in the inky darkness;

“Tomura,” you exhale his name through the receiver.

“I saw what happened,” he answers instead, “I saw what happened today.”

You can feel the sudden jump of your heart, your nerves wringing themselves tight. “Oh,” you respond lamely.

To your surprise, Tomura rasps, “Are you okay?”

You don’t know why, but you cradle the phone to your cheek tighter, your eyes slipping shut for a moment.

“Yeah, I’m alright. Sore and tired, but I’m okay.”

“Good,” he responds, his voice softer than it usually is, just a breath when he asks, “What happened? What’d you do to him?”

You’re silent for a long moment. You can’t decide if you should tell him or not. You think of Shouta earlier and his voice like a hearth and the tender way he holds you, you think of his we’ll be okay.

But you can hear Tomura’s soft breath on the other line. You can see Ryuji in the patch of sun that splays out against the corner of the couch in the evenings. You think of him curled tight around you, like you’re the last good thing left on earth.

“I destroyed his Quirk,” you say, voice barely above a whisper, “With mine.”

“That’s new,” Tomura almost hums, but it nearly seems like he was expecting the answer.

“I didn’t mean to.”

A quiet snort from him, “What are you trying to prove to me?” he asks, “I’m not your heroes. I won’t look at you differently whether you intended to or not.”

The thought strikes like an arrow between the ribs, sharp, sudden. It stings, when you realize it’s truth. How hard have you tried to prove yourself to Shouta? How hard are you trying to prove your goodness to yourself?

“You could’ve killed him,” Tomura says, “And I wouldn’t think differently.”

You wince for some reason when he says that, “Don’t–”

“What would your heroes think then?”

“Tomura–” you snap, voice gaining some bite, a warning.

But for some reason he presses, “How badly does the Hero Commission want you now? With a Quirk like that?”

“What?” you ask, suddenly shocked.

“Don’t be naive,” Tomura says and there’s an edge to his voice. He sucks in a breath, “That’s a big Quirk. Destroying someone else’s? You don’t think they’ll be interested in that?”

You feel the pressure of tears work their way through your head, your throat. Your fingers clutch so hard at the phone that your knuckles are turning white and before you can think, you hiss out, “And how interested are you now?”

“As interested as I was before.” he returns, sharp and quick, and then with a vitriol he hasn’t directed at you in months, he says, “Don’t compare me to them.”

You bare your teeth, tears stinging sharp at your eyes, prepared to fight back when he hisses, “Mark my words, they won’t let you go now.”

“Stop it,” you spit, “You don’t know anything–”

And he laughs at that, caustic, harsh, a grating sound. Villainous. It slithers through the phone, down your spine. Your stomach twists. You hate this– your head is throbbing. You don’t want to fight. You want to stop crying, God, you wish you could just stop crying–

“I’ll be here when you realize it.” he says and there is too much heat behind his voice, simmering and venomous. You can feel the end of this conversation, the bitter goodbye in his words.

Your bottom lip trembles, and for some foolish, lovesick reason, you gasp, “Wait– don’t hang up–”

But you hear the click of the other line and he’s fallen away from you, leaving you with an empty, static silence that buzzes around in your head. In your heart.

You throw your phone across the room. You hear it clatter somewhere in the darkness. You turn to press your face into your pillow and let out a sudden, childish scream. It tears at your throat, before tapering off into this pathetic little sob.

It’s worse because he ends up being right.

And it’s ironic because it’s another string tethering you to him, the ability to destroy something with a touch.

It’s like some part of him knew all along, or maybe some part of you.

You scream into your pillow again, louder, kicking at your covers before it breaks off into a bitter cry.

***

The Hero Commission is very interested in the new discovery of your Quirk. They run tests and scans on you, over and over again, trying to find something interesting. They want you to practice with it, but there’s no way for you to practice without potentially destroying other people’s Quirks.

They offer up criminals to practice on.

It turns your stomach.

“I don’t want to do this,” you tell Shouta one night after another long series of poking and prodding at you by white coats from the Hero Commission.

Shouta is silent for a moment, “No one is making you.”

“But they want me to. It’s expected of me.” you tell him.

“They want to make sure you can control it,” Shouta answers, “And the only way to do that is practice, unfortunately.”

Or do they just want to be sure they can control me? The question bubbles up unbridled inside of you. It sounds suspiciously like Tomura’s voice.

You frown, “I can control it. I don’t go around destroying Quirks with every touch. I just mute Quirks still.”

“Under distress, too? Can you summon it completely calmly? Or stop it in an instant?” Shouta asks.

“I don’t know– no, I don’t think so.”

“Then you can’t fully control it.” he answers, which makes you ball your hands into fists.

“It doesn’t feel right taking people’s Quirks– practice or not. And it’s controlled enough.” you respond, gaining a sudden edge to your voice.

“Then don’t do it.” Shouta responds, almost impassively.

You try not to grow upset or so frustrated that you say something you might regret. You swallow tightly. “Will you be disappointed? If I don’t?”

Shouta tilts his head and in the quietness you fear he will be, but he eventually answers, “No. You’re right; you have it controlled enough that it doesn’t hinder your day-to-day life.”

You let go of a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding.

“Besides, if you’re under that amount of distress again, it probably flares for a good reason. It’ll probably save you if you ever need it again.” Shouta then says, “And if what they want you to do doesn’t feel right to you, then you shouldn’t do it.”

You stare up at him, a little surprised but–

Relief sweeps through you, sweet and cool.

“I trust your instincts,” Shouta says, the curl of his lips small but promising, as he reaches out to nudge your chin with his knuckle.

The guilt blindsides you later, so hard that it makes you lock yourself in your bathroom and keep a sob trapped behind the palm of your hands.

But for now, you smile up at him, the curve of your smirk playful, something he hasn’t seen from you in what feels like forever that you give to him again freely.

“Can I get that one in writing?” you ask and his answering laugh strikes you so suddenly it almost makes you dizzy and it’s like hearing the notes to one of your favorite songs that you hadn’t heard in a long time.

Like you couldn’t ever imagine forgetting it, now that you’ve heard it again.

***

Tomura wonders what it will take to make you leave your heroes.

Specifically, your precious mentor.

When he sees you again, you look like you did before nearly bleeding out in front of him and destroying the Quirk of another. It’s almost as if it never happened at all, almost like your argument never happened at all, either. In this little apartment where the rest of the world doesn’t exist, just you and him and sometimes Ryuji.

Except when he lifts your shirt there is a twisted, ugly scar from where they patched you up. Another at your shoulder. He doesn’t kiss it or run his fingers over it gently, he doesn’t make any sort of comment. He just thumbs at your waist and glares at it, wishes he could make it disappear like the villain who gave it to you.

(Not because he finds it ugly or unacceptable, only that it is now a permanent reminder of what he’d seen. Only that it reminds him that you are not guaranteed to him, not in life nor in loyalty).

You’re a little hesitant with him now. You feel more fragile to him now, too, like you’re holding something back, waiting for everything to finally fall.

The inevitable crash and break.

Tomura is gentler with you– he knows he needs to play his cards right now. It’s crucial. Something is building, even for the League of Villains. There’s more on the horizons.

And despite everything, he wants you there, when the sun is bloody and falling on a dismembered, new world.

He thinks he shouldn’t have pushed you now, when you’re so delicate, barely stitched together. But he had– he’d started another argument. He’d tried to convince you of the heroes’ lack of care for you, their greediness upon discovering the depth of your Quirk.

You throw it back in his face; isn’t that what All For One does to him? Isn’t that what he does for the League of Villains? Aren’t they all just pawns for him? Is that what he wants of you?

He seethes, digging into the skin of his neck desperately. You don’t stop him. He can feel the facade of this little apartment beginning to crumble, fall away into dust and he–

He knows he destroys everything he touches.

But you were supposed to be different.

(You are, his mind hisses, you are, you are, and that’s the worst part of it all).

You storm out that night. You leave him, no doubt to return to your precious mentor.

He thinks about destroying the entire apartment complex. He could now– he knows what’s coming. He won’t be staying here any longer. He has plans, so many plans.

You come back to him a week later, though. You’re bound to him in some way, returning again and again when you know you shouldn’t.

The make-up part is nice, with him buried so deep inside you that he’s trying to turn your stomach. Make you sick with him, the way he is with you. Your gasping moans, with the arch of your body far too pretty for hands like his.

And still, you lay on his chest afterwards, you let him run his fingers over the planes of your shoulders, the line of your pretty neck. He drags his knuckles against your soft skin, enamored with the feeling, with the way you soothe the haunting, sunken part of him. His Quirk submits to yours easily, dimmed inside of him. Maybe he should be frightened of your new potential.

But you’ve never been frightened of him, so he’s not of you, either.

You’re very bold, though, he thinks, for you to say, “Your parents were cruel.” After the argument you both had last time.

He tenses beneath you, grits his teeth. He’d thought you’d both learned your lesson, getting too personal in a place as sacred as here.

“You don’t know anything,” he says and it’s just a breath. Surprisingly toothless. He’d said it to you last time, in your argument. You’d said it to him before that. It feels almost ironic now.

You shake your head against his chest, your nose nudging into him, lips soft against his skin. You remain calm. “I know your name is Tomura. They were very cruel to give you that name.”

You say this as if it’s a fact, something as simple as the sky being blue. But it’s dark out now and the stars are dull, the moon just a scythe in the sky, caught in the window’s glare.

“What?” he demands quietly.

At least you have the guts to tilt your head up to find his eyes now. You look up at him through dark lashes.

“Your name–” you say again, gentle, “It means ‘to mourn.’ I don’t know why anyone would give their child such a sad name.”

He knows what his name means.

But this takes him by surprise, for some reason. Only because it’s not the name his parents gave him. You don’t know that, though. You don’t know anything about him, technically. He has the urge to tell you suddenly, that’s not my name.

He doesn’t, though. He stays silent. It’s his name now. And he likes the way you say it, the syllabus softened by whatever it is you feel for him.

(He won’t give it a name, he’s realizing now that names can be very powerful.)

Your fingers are gentle on him, rubbing strange patterns against a scar near his collar bone.

You have rendered him silent.

And eventually, as you begin to drift off to sleep, you murmur, “You were just a kid, you know?”

He doesn’t really know what you’re getting at, only that it does something strange to the tempo of his heart. He swallows hard, tries to keep his fingers gentle on you. Your breathing has slowed, the rise and fall of your back measured and even, but his has gotten tight.

He squeezes you against him, glaring at nothing, at darkness.

You were just a kid, you know?

It’s this part of you, the one that sees the human in him, that makes him think maybe you will be at his side until the bitter end of it all. Your compassion, the sympathy you have for the child he was, for the person he somehow became. Your unending ability to understand the worst of people.

He doesn’t dwell on the child he was, just has buried it in the cemetery of his chest– a part of him that only you have been able to reach through Quirk, through something too massive to name. You’ve soothed it, put it to rest like the dead, lit your incense in the spaces of his heart. Said your prayers along the notches of his ribs. Tried to appease that restless spirit that possesses him.

He doesn’t know why, but he starts to shake. He can hardly breathe.

And in the dark, when he thinks you’re asleep, and his secrets will be lost to your dreams, he admits for the first time in years what has always trembled inside him. He speaks the tragedy that has made a home of his body, the mourning that he was given name to;

“I wanted to be a hero– when I was a kid.”

***

Tomura thinks, for a moment, when you’re splattered in blood, that this will be your great turning point.

Your fall, the tearing and burning of your wings from your holy back. It will hurt, but he will be there on the ground with you, a hand extended to guide you. He will be there to cradle you into his chest, to hold you close when your world falls apart.

The way All For One was there for him.

The beginning of the end starts with you being a hero.

But you save the wrong person.

Toga’s been following him around as she does every so often, dogging in his shadow, skipping along beside him. You’ve become accustomed to her, too. She likes having you around. Something about not being the only girl. You’re kind to her in the same way he thinks you probably wanted kindness at her age.

The sky is mottled purple, bruised as the day sets into night. The sun looks like an open wound, violent and red.

When he thinks about it, he figures he should’ve been more careful, but then there’s a petty villain Tomura knows vaguely, someone they’ve clashed with before, who he’s pretty sure Dabi and Toga pissed off. He spots Toga first. Your back is turned to him.

“Uh oh,” Toga says, peering over your shoulder.

Tomura grabs your wrist, “Hide,” he hisses, and when you try to peer over your shoulder at what Toga is looking at, he forces you back around so the villain doesn’t see your face.

He doesn’t know why he saves you like that. Only that he doesn’t want you to get in trouble, doesn’t want you taken from him like that. He is not an idiot; if the villain recognizes you, if it somehow got around that you were seen with two of the most notorious villains, the Hero Commission would eat you alive.

And here’s the part that really gets him. You listen to him. You trust him.

You dart away, swift and fast like a fox, disappearing into the shadows the way you were trained to.

“Hey!” the villain shouts and he’s large, Tomura remembers now.

Stupid, too, he thinks, as he barrels towards them.

The glint of Toga’s knife in the sun makes him pause.

Better to not engage, Tomura thinks, not yet, not now. Too much on the horizon for something foolish to happen tonight. The apartment isn’t far from here. He hopes you’ll retreat there. He just needs to get Toga away safely now.

“Oh, I’ve missed fighting!” she sings.

“No,” Tomura rasps, “Don’t engage. We need to go, too.”

She whines a long and drawn out, “Why?” just as the hulking mass of a person swings at her. She ducks away easily, quickly.

However, then his Quirk bursts to life and it’s far worse than what Tomura had hoped for. He doubles in size, his arms in particular growing longer, and fill out with what seems to be rushing water.

“Dammit, Toga,” he hisses, shoving her out of the way as the villain blasts a large cannon of water at her.

Tomura takes the hit hard, black coloring his vision when he hits the ground.

In truth, he thinks he is out for at least a full minute, because when he’s come to, you’re shouting at the villain. You’re tugging desperately at his massive shoulder, clawing and screaming. You’ve canceled his Quirk, but he’s still too big, even without it.

Toga is pinned beneath that arm, choking and spluttering, drenched. It actually looks like she’s choking on water. She can’t even scream, too garbled, too water-logged. She looks like a doll, she looks horribly small. Her face is turning a deep shade of red as she struggles for breath. Her little hands claw at his wrist, too.

Tomura tries to stand, his vision swimming, swaying so bad that for a minute everything goes sideways.

Fuck, he curses, just as he watches you get tossed away by that villain’s other hand like you’re nothing. His Quirk suddenly ripples back to life and he blasts Toga with another bout of water, plastering her to the gravel, the onslaught of it unending.

You’re up in an instant, throwing yourself onto his neck, trying to wrench him off. His Quirk disengages again, and Toga heaves and gasps for breath, coughing up large amounts of water.

“You’re going to kill her!” Tomura finally can catch onto what you’re saying, what you’re desperately screaming. His ears ring.

You get thrown off again. More water. Toga is being blasted so hard that she can’t even choke or struggle.

Tomura thinks you’re trying to rationalize with them, you’re trying to explain you’re a hero. And to disengage. Stop, please stop, please stop–

He’s not listening, though, of course.

And he’s too big. You tried knocking him out, tried putting him to sleep with the grip of your elbow. You’re trying everything, even to crush his Quirk beneath yours. Tomura catches the flutters of pink, your inability to summon your destruction when you need it.

It wouldn’t matter anyways, not with how big he is. You struggle against powerhouses.

Tomura stumbles.

But you’ve always been gritty and sharp and determined, if nothing else. You have always fought so desperately for your life, never mind law or honor or glory.

He thinks he catches the glint of your knife, the desperate threat to let her go, leave her alone!

The villain grabs you with a massive hand around the throat, lifts you clear off the ground.

Toga has gone slack against the pavement in a puddle of water, face colored a strange shade of red and blue. A little like the way the sky blurs before his eyes.

You kick and thrash, a horrible growl wretched from your throat. You don’t think, just lash out.

And then there is blood. So much blood. It’s all over Toga now, seeping into the water– did she cut him? She managed to cut his throat? Because that’s where the blood is pouring out of–

Tomura sways.

You’re dropped.

You stumble away.

Your blade– the one you used to threaten him with, is bloody.

“Fuck!” you shout, raw and so sudden that it jars him a little. He forces himself over to the scene. So much blood. His stomach rolls.

He looks at you, your shell-shocked face. You’re looking at the knife, at the blood. At Toga, who's still not moving.

He goes to her first, tries to shake her a little, fingers held away from her shoulders carefully. For a moment, she doesn’t respond, limp and lifeless and something inside of him threatens to overwhelm him. No, no–

Her eyes flutter, though, and she wheezes for a breath, suddenly turning over to vomit up far too much water.

“I-Is she-?” your voice, so small and lost, cuts through his thoughts.

He looks at you again, blood splattered and terror caught in your eyes. Pale and slack faced and half-mad. You look like a ghost, standing there in the aftermath, in your gruesomeness.

“She’s fine,” he says, just as she wretches up more water, “You saved her.”

Toga falls limp again. He checks frantically for a pulse at her wrist with two careful fingers. Still there. She needs a doctor, though. He stands to face you.

You make a noise, high pitched, trembling. You cover your mouth to keep it in, it’s something like a sob, an animalistic noise.

“I didn’t mean to– I didn’t, I didn’t– she was just–” you’re trying to get out, almost doubled over now.

Tomura doesn’t bother to check if you killed the villain. He knows the dead when he sees it. And he won’t lie to you now, he won’t soften this blow or shield you from it.

But he also knows what he needs to do.

You keel over, about to scream more and– no, that won’t do you any good.

He grabs for you, hauls you back up and you’re shaking so hard that he fears you’re going to split apart. You’re about to lose it.

“Listen to me,” Tomura hisses and you choke on a cry. He shakes you a little, tries to force you to look at him and not the body behind him. Your eyes, feverish pink, meet the wildfire of his, “Listen to me.”

“I– I don’t–��

“Sshh,” Tomura hisses, palm going to your cheek, a little too rough, forcing you to look at only him. “Sshh, listen.”

You try to swallow and he continues, “You’re going to call reinforcements. You’re going to tell them there’s a villain down.”

“W-what?! I’m going to– they’re going to–”

He shakes you again, harder, your teeth click together with the force of it. He needs you to understand this– needs you to hear this if he wants to keep you safe and out of jail.

“Tell them I decayed him. And before that, tell them Toga cut him, and it splattered onto you. Say you heard commotion and like the good hero you are, you ran to help.”

“Tomura–” you sob.

“Do you understand me?” he snaps instead, grabbing you harder, his fingers curling against your cheek to press desperately into you. “Answer me!”

“Yes–” you gasp, wide-eyed and terrified. “Yes!”

“Good,” he hushes, wiping blood from your cheek, “Good. You saved her,” he tells you, “You saved her, do you understand?”

You nod, jerky, and he continues, hand petting your cheek, messily pushing your hair from your face, “You did everything right.”

Your breathing is still labored, but you’re quieting with the praise. When he thinks you can handle it, he breathes, “Now, are you ready? I’m going to decay him and the knife, then I’m going to leave with Toga. You’re going to call for help.”

You glance at the villain, lying lifeless, in his own pool of blood and Tomura ducks his head to force you to look at him. “Okay?” he asks, “Answer me.”

“Okay,” you exhale slowly.

“Good,” he murmurs, “Good. Now give me the knife.”

You press it, trembling, into his hands. It’s slick with blood. He forces himself to stay calm for you.

He steps away, let’s go of you. The knife turns to dust.

“Look away,” he commands then, his voice a rasp.

And you– you listen to him. You trust him. You turn away. He sets his hands on the villain. And just like that, his body breaks down, gore at first, until it is nothing but dust. It blows away easily.

And then he goes to Toga and he lifts her carefully. She’s like a ragdoll in his arms, soaked and cold. He’s certain to keep his hands away from her, fingers lifted away, but she lolls into his chest.

When you turn around, Tomura says, “Thank you for saving her.” And he means it.

You swallow hard. You look to where the villain was. He’s gone now.

“Now call your heroes, just like I said.”

You nod, eyes filling up with tears. That’s fine. They’ll have more sympathy for you, for what you’ve witnessed. They’ll believe you more. Your mentor will protect you, with those tears in your eyes.

Tomura’s eyes burn crimson as you pull out your phone, “Do what I said and you’ll be okay.”

And you do, just like that. You lift the phone to your ear. That semblance of calm that he had coaxed you into shatters the moment someone picks up on the other end.

Your voice goes high, near hysterical, “T-There’s a villain down–”

He turns away from you as you stutter and cry into the phone about what happened. You give them the lie he told you to feed them. You make Tomura out to be the villain, you make yourself out to be innocent. He holds Toga close to him.

He tries not to smile, a dizzy slip of a thing, as you do exactly as he told you to– as you lie and lie and lie through your teeth.

Toga stirs in his arms. Police sirens are heard in the distance. An ambulance for a pile of dust. The sun sets, darkness blanketing the world, shielding it from the light.

And as he stalks away, with Toga alive and in his arms, he thinks maybe he’ll make a villain of you yet.

***

The police believe you. It’s hard not to, when there is so little evidence otherwise. Tomura destroyed it all for you. It’s hard not to believe you, when you’re crying and terrified, as you should be for witnessing the death of another person at the hands of Himiko Toga and Shigaraki Tomura.

Shouta, however, is not as easily convinced.

Not after so many strange occurrences with Tomura.

When he brings you back to his apartment, when the door is shut tight, and you still stand in bloodied clothes with your teeth chattering, Shouta eyes you warily.

You want to shower, burn yourself beneath the spray of water, like you could wash away what you’d done. You squeeze your eyes shut.

You saved her.

You swallow down the lump in your throat.

“What really happened?” Shouta asks, almost tentatively, standing in the middle of his living room.

You turn and you don’t– you don’t know how you should react. Should you be offended that he’d doubt you? React in outrage after all that’s happened? Should you act confused? Play dumb?

You can’t stomach any of it. Not when someone’s dead at your hands. But someone is alive because of them, too.

Your eyes well up with fresh tears.

“I-I told you.” you choke out.

Shouta’s jaw ticks. He draws in a slow breath, “Something isn’t adding up. You have had more contact with Shigaraki Tomura than anyone has been able to have.”

Your stomach drops. Your tears fall harder.

“What’s going on?” he asks and the distance between you two feels massive. It feels continental in the small space of his living room. He seems suspicious.

The lie comes out on a sob, “I–I think he’s been stalking me.”

“What?” Shouta asks and any uncertainty he has in you evaporates as he watches your face crumple.

You let your guilt overwhelm you into choking on another cry, cover your mouth as if you could catch it in the palm of your hand. Shouta doesn’t know the truth of it, so he believes it.

He crosses that distance like it’s nothing now. He stands tall in front of you, reaches to try and brush tears away from your cheek.

“I don’t know–” you gasp, filling out your lie, “I think he's interested in me because of my Quirk. Because he can’t– I can’t decay, when he touches me.”

Shouta tips your face up towards his but you can’t look him in the eyes, let your eyes squeeze shut when he asks, “Why wouldn’t you tell me that?”

“I don’t know–” you choke out, “I wasn’t sure.”

“Did something else happen?” Shouta prods gently and you grit your teeth to keep back another sob. More tears cut tracks down your face, right into Shouta’s waiting, gentle hands.

There is a long moment where you think of giving everything up. You think of telling Shouta everything, if only to lift the weight that has settled onto your chest. Surely, it will crush through your sternum, surely your heart will burst with it’s pressure.

“It’s my fault,” you whisper, “It’s my fault he’s dead.”

“No,” Shouta says then, gentle but firm, shaking his head, “I know it may feel like it–”

“He was going to kill her.”

This stops Shouta. He goes very, very still.

“What?” he rasps softly.

“He was drowning her– he wouldn’t stop. I tried to get him to stop and he started choking me–and she saved me by–” It’s a fabrication to save yourself. That’s not how it went! Your mind screeches, that’s not how it went– you saved her by killing–

Toga was turning blue, she didn’t help you. She didn’t save you. She was drowning. She didn’t kill him. You did.

“You saved Toga Himiko, a notorious villain, one of the most wanted–”

“He was killing her!” you hiss, “She was turning blue–”

“She’s a powerful villain, too, you should’ve tried–”

Something inside of you fractures, bursts apart the way glass does when thrown against a wall. You think there are a million, shining pieces of you now lying on the floor.

“She’s Shinsou’s age!” you snap, hoping one of your shards cuts him, suddenly half-furious through all your tears. “She’s Shinsou’s age, do you know that?!”

You break now, wrenching away from Shouta’s touch and rushing to double over the sink to dry heave again, body squeezing painfully. You threw up everything in your stomach already at the scene, when recounting the story to the police, to Shouta. You claw at your stomach, trying to stop it, to keep it all down inside of you. You curl your fingers into the divots of your ribs, try to force them to give you air, but they won’t– betrayers that they are, they squeeze and squeeze until there’s nothing of you left.

Your knees buckle, head spinning when you turn away from the sink and crumple into a heap on the floor,“She’s just a kid,” you wail desperately, “That’s all I saw when I tried– when I–”

Your head bows forward, body folded in on itself, forehead digging into the ground as you cry, “I didn’t mean for him to die, I didn’t mean it– I didn’t, I swear I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

Shouta moves again finally, drops to his knees down beside you. He cradles your skull in his large hand, pushes your head into the crook of his neck to hold you, “It’s alright,” he breathes, curling his other arm tight around you, “It’s not your fault,” he hushes, “It’s not your fault.” You sob hard into his chest, fingernails digging into him, clawing at his biceps, “Sshh, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

And he holds you, buries you in the bulk of him, like he always has when you need him. Your constant, the love you never once deserved. Especially not now. Especially not here, with blood stained on your clothes, sunk to the floor with nothing but the anchor of your guilt.

He strokes your hairline, gentle, cooing softly to try and calm you.

He murmurs, his voice so deep and soft and earnest, “You’re a good hero.” When you make a strangled noise against him, he presses on, “You are. You’re compassionate. You see everyone’s humanity and that’s a good thing.”

He hushes more of your cries, fingers gentle in your hair, and you try not to throw up again when he tells you;

“You’re a good hero, I promise. I promise.”

The beginning of the end starts with you being a hero for a villain.

***

The next time you see Tomura, he questions you about what happened, if you pulled it off. You tell him you managed it, somehow. You don’t tell him anything else. You don’t tell him you haven’t been sleeping, that you can hardly keep food down. You don’t tell him that you take too many showers, trying to wash away the phantom blood.

You remember when it was Tomura’s blood on you, so long ago. A beginning that now seems so hazy. You hadn’t minded blood, then. You had never been particularly squeamish but now–

Now it could make you sick on your best days, downright hysterical on your worst.

Your guilt tears chunks out of you, bites down and shakes the meaty, soft parts of you until you’re all torn up.

It is easier to be with Tomura than Shouta now.

We have more in common, you think, and it makes you want to laugh, empty and wobbly.

You look in mirrors and hardly recognize yourself, wonder if this is really your body. If this is really your life, or if it’s someone else’s. Maybe you are possessed, maybe that explains how you got here.

You don’t tell him any of this. You stay silent.

And that’s okay because Tomura seems strangely quiet after that, pulling you to lay on his chest. He doesn’t let you put the TV on. You can tell he needs to think. You let your eyes drift close as he runs his fingers through your hair with a surprising amount of gentleness, compared to his usual petting.

But eventually he says, so soft that you fear you almost imagined it, “A yakuza head visited the League recently.”

Your eyes flutter open and in your surprise, you sit up a little, looking down at him. “Tomura–” you start, almost a warning.

He knows he isn’t supposed to talk like this here, in this little slice of another world.

But he continues anyways, his voice just a rough scratch, “He killed Magne.” And then, “And Compress no longer has an arm.”

Now you really pull away to look at him. You can feel your eyes widen out, your shock, then the stomach-turning sadness. His face is unreadable, but his jaw is tight. His eyes are simmering, so red, even in the low light like this.

“It was a set up.” he hisses, “I failed them.”

He doesn’t cry, but you can feel the slightest tremble in his body.

You hurt for him, you realize, your heart falling into the pit of your stomach. Those are two of his closest, some of his inner circle.

He looks shaken.

He looks young, with the weight of his world on his shoulders, with the crown of thorns placed on his head. Heir to a monstrous throne. All For One’s successor, boy prince to inherit an underground empire.

You just see him, though, just Tomura who's twenty, who likes sour candy and video games.

He swallows hard. He looks angry and hurt.

“Nobody mourns us,” he says eventually, looking away from you, somewhere in the darkness of the apartment.

Except you, you want to say, with a name like Tomura.

You lurch forward, throwing your arms around his neck, hugging him tight to you. “I’m sorry,” you tell him, soft, the way Shouta speaks to you, “I’m sorry.”

And then you think, I’d mourn you, and you squeeze him tighter, I’d mourn you, oh God, I’d mourn you–

He doesn’t hug you back, but you can feel the shaky breath he exhales, and the way his fingers tighten in the fabric of your shirt.

***

Tomura thinks it should be you, at his side, when he takes Overhaul’s arm. You are everything Overhaul wants. Your Quirk is what he has tried to bottle.

Tomura thinks you could’ve been useful, to switch off his Quirk, to destroy it in an incredible twist of irony. It would’ve been the ultimate power move, to have you at his side by the end of all of this.

But you’re not there, no, not with him.

You’re with your heroes, Toga had told him.

It shouldn’t, but it feels like a betrayal. It stings hard and sharp inside of him, like a livid bee that jabs at his heart.

He seethes about it. Hadn’t he done everything right with you? He’d played this game slow, knew that the rewards would be worth it.

You’re still walking away from him, though. You’re still not his.

And you’ve still got one of his ribs, left a gaping wound inside of him.

He wants it back. He wants it back.

***

Eri looks up at you with watery, red eyes when you first introduce yourself to her. You crouch to be on her level. She has silver hair. She’s timid, wobbly bottom lip and flushed cheeks.

You almost start crying, looking at her now. You wonder if this is what Tomura was like as a child– small and terrified of his Quirk, round red eyes pleading with the world. All you see in her is every other forgotten child.

“Hi, Eri,” you hush, half for her, half because you’re scared your voice might break.

“H-hello,” she trembles.

You try to keep your smile in place, but it’s a weak, sad thing.

Still, you say, “I’d like to be your friend, if you’ll have me.” And you extend your hand to her, palm up and offering. “I have a Quirk like Mr. Aizawa’s.” you tell her gently, “If you touch me while using your Quirk, it’ll stop.”

She brightens at this, not smiling but, surprised, “Really?” she asks, just a breath.

You nod, swallowing around the lump in your throat, “Really.”

She takes your hand then, eager, tightening with her small fingers, despite her Quirk still being off.

Then she looks up into your face and offers you a tentative smile. Small, just the corner of her lips lifting up.

“I’d like to be your friend, too.” she murmurs bashfully and you close your hand around hers. It’s small, almost fragile. She’s all bandaged up, arms wrapped in gauze.

You look at Eri and her red eyes and silver hair and see a coin toss, see it up in the air, spinning and spinning, catching in the light. A twist of fate like the flip of a coin.

But you think you could call it now, with her hand in yours, and the heroes that hover protectively around her.

***

There is a morning shared in blush light that isn’t the ending but feels like it could be one. In truth, you’d prefer to remember this as the ending, more of a whimper and less of a bang. The night before had been one of your better ones, too– you’d only woken once with a nightmare. Tomura had already been awake and he’d soothed you with a careful hand that drew patterns across the bare skin of your back.

That night, that morning, was gentle in the wake of all that violence, love taken root, finally bursting through your veins to make a mess of your insides.

Dawn is too mellow a place for the two of you.

(You have come to the conclusion that Tomura looks best in dusk, saturated, sharp and rich in color. Bold and vivid. You didn’t know it, but he thought the same of you.)

You never told him you loved him.

You think about that a lot, wonder if it would’ve made a difference in anything. You wonder who was the last person to tell him that, if anyone at all.

He’s still half hoping that you’ll follow him, but you think he knows he’s losing you. You are not content in fuming misery, cannot stomach to leave the mentor that has loved and cared for you with such perseverance and softness. You cannot stomach to turn away from the boy with violet hair, or now the girl that reminds you of him.

You wish you could keep him, too, despite it all, but all you see in the future with him is rubble.

In the least, you’ve always had a sense of preservations, survivor that you are, scavenger that you are. You know when to move on, can’t linger too much longer now or you won’t live through it.

You sleep better with Tomura, though, and that’s the cruel part. You wake with less nightmares. You sleep more soundly, wound up in him, so tight that you two might just grow together. Palm to palm, your Quirk quieting his, lulled and softened.

And that morning, you wake slowly, twisting around fitfully with the warmth that has blossomed gently inside of you.

Consciousness creeps to you, fighting against the pull of sleep, being coaxed awake by the fluttering of your heart, the slow roll in your core.

Your eyes lift, heavy with sleep, finally awake. You blink blearily before a sudden, sleep soft cry escapes past your lips.

You glance down the line of your body to find Tomura nestled between your legs, tongue tracing messy patterns into where you’re most sensitive. Your stomach swoops sweetly, flares into a spark of heat.

The light is soft on him. He cracks a ruby eye open to gaze at you, to open his mouth so you can watch the flash of glistening pink as his tongue laves against you slowly.

“About time you woke up,” he gets out, voice still morning-rough, a little grating. His fingers squeeze your thigh, pulling you apart further to be at his mercy, spread open all for him.

“Tomura–” you gasp, your hands finding their way into his hair, fingers gentle and weak with sleep.

He sets his mouth to you, sucks on the bundle of nerves in a way that makes you keen, almost arching away from him. He fixes his eyes on your face, watches as your expression twists up.

You can see the way his hips are twitching into the mattress. Sometimes you think he does this more for himself than you, takes pleasure in rendering you down to your most basic, most desperate.

Pleasure coils warm, simmers on the inside of you. Your fingers flex, tighten in his hair until he groans against you. When he pulls away for another moment to admire you, his lips are spit slick, a string of translucent spit and slick bridging between the two of you.

It makes you flush darkly, makes you throw your head back and whimper.

He takes you apart with the savagery and viciousness that he has always carried. Dawn spills over the bed sheets in rays of peach and honeysuckle, lovely for the impending destruction. You shatter like glass, pretty and ringing beneath his hands.

And then he’s flipping you onto your stomach, letting you claw at your pillow as he sinks deep inside of you. He hisses when he fucks into the crux of your sweet, supple thighs. Your hair is messy with sleep. He presses his chest to your back, presses you into the mattress.

You fist at your pillow, whining at the burn and stretch, and you can feel the sickle cut of his smile against the arch of your shoulder blades. He leaves sloppy kisses, scattering them, sucking at your skin until he has claimed and marked and branded you.

He nudges his nose against your cheek until you tilt your head back to his, to rub back affectionately, nudge into him like a cat. He hums in satisfaction, in pleasure, the sound of it rumbling against your back.

You feel like he’s trying to savor this. He doesn’t pull your hair, or speed up his hips. No, he waits until you arch your back for him, until you’re near begging.

He likes you weakened, maybe delirious, maybe like he’s giving you a dose of your own medicine. He’s trying to make you as addicted as he is, but there’s no need.

No need when he covers your hand with his, slots his fingers between yours. All five of them, squeezing at your hand.

“You were made for me,” he gets out, giving you a rougher thrust, his eyes flashing to your hands, “See?” he groans, fingers digging into your wrist, your knuckles, “Made for me.”

You moan, too, all wobbly and pitched, with all the pressure, with the squeeze of his hand. With the stretch of him inside where you’re vulnerable and soft and slick.

He drags everything out that morning, fucks you both into oversensitivity, until you’re both shuddering and gasping. He breaks you down, until there are tears streaming down your face, until he’s gripping you so tightly that he’ll leave a bruise in the shape of his hand.

He fits his hand against your throat at one point and your eyes roll into the back of your head. You end where you began, with the violet petal bruise of his fingertips into your skin.

You linger in bed with him that morning, letting him pet and stroke and touch you. You stay gentle, even when he gets rough.

You make cheap, bad coffee for the both of you.

You feel twenty something with a boy and his tiny apartment. A cat chirps at the window and you’re smiling when you let him in. The breeze is cool. You don’t put on clothes because you feel like an adult, with a lover.

You feel normal for a fraction of a moment after everything that’s happened.

You feel sated and tender and saddened. Your chest fills with aching as you watch Tomura drift in and out of sleep in the sunbeams.

You were made for me, he’d said and you reach out to brush a strand of hair from his face. You were made for me.

You swallow around the lump in your throat, the one that feels like needle pricks and the hard truth. You don’t have the heart to tell him that he may need you, but you don’t need him.

You want him, though, your fingers trailing down the lines of his face, you want him so badly that it hurts. Your fingers travel over the hitch of his scars, his body as familiar as a home.

You want him, but you don’t need him, you try to tell yourself in this moment. You want him, but you don’t need him. You will survive this.

Still, it’s going to hurt. You’re bracing for impact, can feel the free fall rush up to the ground, can feel your stomach swimming up where your heart is.

You’ll survive it, you think, breathing hard, trying to keep back your tears as you look at him. But it’s going to hurt, it might tear out something very precious inside of you.

You’d rather he just break your arm again. At the thought of it, you try not to choke on the bitter, furious laugh that splits from your aching ribs.

***

You get to know Eri, try to spend more time with her and Shouta and Shinsou like you’re trying to fix something you broke. The pieces aren’t quite matching up right, though. It can’t be fixed, not really, not fully.

You can’t close your eyes without seeing that villain in a pool of their own blood. Or Toga’s face made blue. Sometimes in these dreams, it’s Shinsou who is drowning. Sometimes the villain in blood is Shouta. Tomura is always the one who saves you.

You can’t look at yourself anymore. You can’t stomach to. Your lies explode out of you when you catch a glance of yourself, haggard and exhausted and beaten down.

Shouta takes you to a hospital after your fist collides with the mirror in your bathroom. Glass shatters into hundreds of reflections of your warped and terrible image. They’re not as pretty, when the sun isn’t setting in a warehouse with a boy that you think you love.

Your hand bleeds the way that man’s necks did–

Your world spins as you lean over the bowl of the toilet to throw up your lunch. You’d made it with Eri earlier, before Shouta had gotten home from class.

Shouta finds you on the floor, sitting in all that glass, with your hand clutched tightly to your chest. He must’ve heard the commotion next door.

“What happened?” he asks, voice flooding with concern. He doesn’t hesitate to step carefully over the glass to you.

The question feels too large for you.

I did something horrible, you think, that’s what happened.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter weakly, lifting your chin from its place on your chest. “I didn’t mean to.”

(That isn’t true and you know it.

(But you’re always trying to prove you’re good. Especially now. Especially to Shouta– trying to prove you’re worthy of his love.

You suddenly crave Tomura. You didn’t have to prove anything to him.)

Shouta lifts you carefully, cradles you to his body to carry you out to his car to bring you to the hospital. He treats you like you’re fragile, made of glass yourself. “What’s going on with you?” Shouta murmurs gently, but there's almost a plea in it, concern that is so transparent it hurts, “You’re scaring me– I’m worried about you.” he confesses, almost desperate, “You know you can talk to me, don’t you?”

The laugh that sputters out of you is hollow, a grating noise that gets choked off. Shouta looks at you warily, uncertain and fearful.

The hospital keeps you for three days. Eri asks Shouta about you, apparently. She misses you. Shinsou helps her decorate a card for you.

Get well soon! Is written in her poor handwriting with far too many colors, and in Shinsou’s messy scrawl at the bottom;

Miss getting my ass kicked by you.

The doctors tell Shouta you’re struggling with a lot of survivor’s guilt and you have to fight back another absurd, off-kilter laugh.

Part of you thinks you’d be better off with Tomura at this point (your coin uncertain, hanging suspended in the air), if only to relieve you of this guilt, when Shouta tends to you and cares for you and loves you so steadfastly that it makes you feel rotten and horrible and monstrous. He has no idea who he’s loving. And you don’t deserve any of it–

But you think of Eri and the way she clings to your sleeves. And how you and Shinsou share granola bars during training.

And mostly, you are terrified to be without them.

None of it’s the same, though, and you think it’ll eat away at you until you’re nothing at all but the empty lies you kept feeding them.

You want to be better, you realize, when Eri draws you in pictures, holding her hand. You want to be better, you realize, for kids like you, like her–

(Like Tomura–)

So you decide one night, with your hand still bandaged, with Eri sleeping peacefully on the couch in the crux of your arms, and Shouta at the opposite end of the couch, that you will stay with them. The easy thing to do would be to leave, to not look back. But you have always been nothing if not determined, if not a fighter.

You will become who they want you to be, who they believe you to be, even if it tears you apart from the inside out.

Which means giving up Tomura, which feels like giving up a rib.

***

You had hoped you’d be able to slip away from Tomura and leave your secrets in a rundown apartment in a part of the city you grew up in. You had hoped that you could get away unscathed, without Shouta ever knowing more.

But Dabi mentions you to Hawks.

Offhand. Something about another traitor hero. Something about Shigaraki’s bitch.

Tomura also mentions Hawks to you.

And here is your trouble, what you were hoping to avoid by never allowing him to speak about his plans; you now know that the Number Two Pro-Hero is a traitor. However, the only reason you know that, is because of your secret relationship with the leader of the League of Villains that you have been slowly, painstakingly trying to sever yourself from.

(It doesn’t help that he’s latched on tighter–)

So, if you go to Shouta to warn him that the Number Two Pro-Hero is a traitor, you have to also conveniently come forward with your own truth. And what if he thinks you’re a traitor, too?

Surely, it looks that way.

Truthfully, you might as well be– you killed someone.

You killed someone.

Your stomach squeezes tight.

You think of Shouta and Shinsou and Eri and the loss of their love, when you’ve been trying to earn it back.

You don’t get much time to mull this over, though, because while walking back to your own apartment at U.A., a shadowy span of wings fall over your form.

Your heart falls into the pits of you, the drop of it sharp, horrible.

You think running will make it look all the worse.

Besides, he’s fast.

You can’t decide how this will go. Maybe he’ll only want to speak with you, traitor to traitor. But then you will be confronted with the undeniable truth that you now need to share with Shouta, with the Hero Commission, for the sake of people’s safety. You will have to come clean. Maybe it will be worse. Maybe he’s not after you at all, but just in your neck of the woods because–

All other thoughts are cut short when he lands in front of you.

You try to think of a proper reaction. Should you be expecting him? On guard? Should you act surprised?

His wings flare and you realize quickly how massive they are. They throw you into their towering shadow, make you feel like a mouse.

His eyes glint when he pushes up his visor, the gold of them sharp, his pupils a pinprick. The eyes of a predator.

You try not to cower. You stand your ground, lift your lips a little like you might bare teeth in warning, your hackles raising. Backed into the corner, you feel half wild, too.

But Hawks beats you to any form of a greeting, his smile a menacing twist of his lips, like he’s trying to be pleasant but he wants you to see all of those sharp, white teeth of his. You think he doesn’t look like much of a hero in this darkness, with the way his wings look thorny and maroon. His voice is barbed wire, the drawl of it stinging.

You know you’re in deep trouble now;

“You and I need to have a little talk.”

***

You are kept in a steel room that the Hero Commission tells you is not a holding cell, but you definitely think is a holding cell.

Your mind has not slowed since you got here.

You scramble for a story to tell– for lies to sew.

Hawks is not a traitor. Not to the heroes’ at least. He is a traitor to the villains and you know, logically, that this is for the greater good, but something about it bothers you. Villains aren’t people to the Hero Commission. You feel strangely protective of Tomura’s league of outcasts, even if you know you shouldn’t.

But they’re young, with feelings and thoughts and lives and pasts.

Nobody ever mourns us.

No, they don’t, you think, trying to keep away bitter tears from springing to your eyes. They don’t bother trying to see the big picture, they don’t bother to try and figure out why villains are on the rise.

They can’t stomach the idea that maybe their precious hero system has given birth to their villains.

Or maybe they can and they just don’t care.

They need heroes for their charts and money and power, don’t they? So they need villains. A never ending cycle, forever going around on this carousel. You’re dizzy with it, you’re sick of it, caught up in it’s riptide.

You don’t look at Tomura Shigaraki and see the most dangerous, wanted criminal in the country. You see a twenty-year-old pawn, a chip in a bigger game. You see someone as starving and desperate as you were.

You see a coin flip.

(You see the person you fell in love with–)

Shouta enters silently and the moment you see him, you have to try to keep from bursting into tears. Your lip wobbles.

He approaches slowly, cooly, but when he gets near you, his eyes are livid and searching your face, like maybe he could finally find the lies you’d kept buried so deep inside of you. They’ve finally blossomed, you think, all of them sprouting from your body, creeping through your lungs and up your throat to choke you out.

“Tell me the truth finally.” Shouta says, sharp and icy. He speaks like he’s speaking to a criminal, “Now.”

You suck in a shaky breath, try not to flinch when he leans across the metal table and snarls, “And if you are a traitor, at least have the decency to tell me now, before they come in here and interrogate both of us.”

Tears catch in your lashes.

Through the throbbing of your head, you realize you have jeopardized Shouta in the way you never wanted.

“I’m not a traitor.” you get out, voice quiet but firm, barely above a whisper.

“No?” Shouta clips and you can see it now, the hurt in his eyes. He feels betrayed, deeply so, and you can’t even blame him. “Hawks says differently. Says you’ve been working with Shigaraki.”

You rub furiously at your cheek to try and keep the tears from falling, shaking your head quickly, “No–”

“Then what happened?” he snaps and through the blur of your own tears, you catch the way his own eyes glisten.

“I didn’t tell you everything, when I said I thought Shigaraki was stalking me.” you say, having readied this lie the moment that Hawks brought you to the Hero Commission’s doors. You give them the story they want to hear of you, not the one where you fell in love, but the one where you jeopardize yourself for them. You are careful to peer up at him through damp lashes, “I–I got close to him, because he let me, because he was interested in me.”

Shouta goes very, very still. All you can see is his chest rising and falling, quick, as he slowly begins to walk the path you’re leading him down.

“And I thought he might tell me his plans, I thought that I could help–”

“No,” Shouta says in disbelief as it all begins to connect, leaning away from you in shock, “Please tell me you didn’t–”

You lurch towards him slightly, naturally, your hands coming up to the table like you’re reaching for him. “I wanted to prove I could do this–” you choke out, voice breaking, “I wanted to prove I could do undercover work like you wanted– like they wanted!”

“What were you thinking?” he hisses in return.

“You never would’ve let me do this!” you snap, almost plead with him, and it must strike true because he looks away from you momentarily, “I-I saw an opening so I tried to take it– I was perfect for it. Shigaraki was interested in me. I used to be a thief. I would’ve fit in.”

The moment you say it, you realize how true it rings. It startles you, maybe, with how close you were. Almost, but didn’t, your coin doing an extra rotation in air. And why didn’t you? Why not be with Tomura now? Why not be where you fit in most? Where hero society wanted and expected you to be?

“I’m not a traitor,” you cry, tears tracking down your cheeks freely now– you think you’re trying to convince yourself as much as Shouta now, “I promise I’m not a traitor– I couldn’t do that to you. O-or Shinsou. Or Eri–”

And there is your reason. The truth to disguise your lies. You look at him, across from you, his face almost unreadable, with his furrowed brows and tense jaw. His eyes shine, though, gleam with unshed tears as he listens to you. The man who gave you everything, who has cared for you since the moment he found you– perhaps the sole reason your coin has flipped in their favor. All because he did more than what was asked of him, because maybe he just saw someone starving, too, like the way you did with Tomura.

Believe me, you plead, believe this.

There is a long stretch of silence after that, where all you can get in is hiccuping breaths.

Finally, Shouta asks, “Did you find anything out about him? Or the League of Villains?”

You exhale hard with relief, your shoulders finally falling. You collapse somewhat, exhausted, folding in on yourself.

You hang your head, then shake it slowly, “No,” you sniffle, wipe at your drippy nose, “He didn’t tell me anything. He didn’t trust me.”

Shouta eyes you warily.

“So that’s why you encountered him so much. That’s why you were there with Toga Himiko when–” Shouta cuts himself off when he sees your wince, the shuddering of your features at the mention of that incident. But he finally put all of the pieces together. All the pieces you’ve given him, at least.

You nod, stray tears falling quick, dripping off your chin, “I’m sorry for lying,” you get out, “I hated it— I hated lying to you.”

Truth.

Shouta throws you a hard look, “You shouldn’t have. It was dangerous and irresponsible. And now look at what you’ve done–”

Your stomach knots up tightly.

“I thought I could handle it.” You breathe and there is another truth, sprinkled throughout your lies.

But you were so horribly wrong–

Shouta is about to open his mouth again, but the door swings open and a man in a suit enters slowly. His gaze is cool as it falls on you and Shouta. You know this isn’t the end of your conversation with him, you know he wants to know more. But now, he focuses on the higher up that encourages him to sit, too.

He says, because Shouta has been such an upstanding hero and teacher, they are allowing him the courtesy of explaining everything now.

And then you watch as Shouta opens his mouth and lies and lies and lies for you.

He tells them that it was his idea to allow you to get close to Shigaraki. He knew, every step of the way. He tells them he bypassed speaking with a committee at the Hero Commission’s because it would’ve taken too much time. He says that they needed to act quickly and accordingly.

He takes the brunt of it, saves you from far more trouble. He’s a trusted hero. You’re an ex-thief in the eyes of the Hero Commission with a too-big Quirk. They won’t believe you and truthfully, if they did more digging, if they pried more, there is a chance that the truth might leak out of you, open like a wound.

Shouta protects you, the way he always has. You don’t deserve it and you can feel your heart tearing itself to shreds.

You know you can’t go back to Tomura, not after all this.

You watch Shouta lie for you, speak for you, get you out of the grave you have dug yourself. For the second time in your life, Shouta saves you. You try to hold back more tears, you try to hold back from throwing yourself onto him, clinging to him.

And finally, they ask, “Did you learn anything, then? About Shigaraki Tomura?”

He likes sour candy. He has trouble sleeping. He drinks too many energy drinks. There is a scar at the corner of his lip. He has a beauty mark on his chin. He is desperate and starved of love. He let’s a kitten sleep in the sunlight of his apartment. He tries to take care of the League to the best of his ability– he cares about them more than he will admit. He is not heartless. His hands are often cold but seeking, longing for what he can’t have.

Your eyes well up with tears but you take a slow, steadying breath. They don’t want those pieces of him, the human, messy ones. No, they want to know how evil he is, how diabolical his next plan is going to be. But you don’t know any of that, just that he holds you as if he never wants to let you go when you fall asleep at night.

So you’re not lying when you say;

“I don’t know anything about Shigaraki Tomura.”

Only that he wanted to be a hero– when he was a kid.

***

The days following are the worst between you and Shouta.

He doesn’t trust you anymore. You can’t fight him. You have nothing to say, which is perhaps worse than if you tried to fight with him.

There’s no defending you, especially if Shouta even knew half of the truth. He barely speaks with you some days.

He wedges the distance between you two wide, forces it apart further.

He does not comfort you, he does not hold you when you cry this time. He’s not there with soothing, hushed words or the gentle touch of his hand to your cheek.

A piece of his trust is broken, now so severely that it’s just a jagged edge, something you don’t think can ever be soothed.

(And you’re right, in some way– there’s a deep shift in your relationship with him, changed and scarred. It never returns to what you once had, when your life was very simple and all you knew was him.)

He doesn’t ever say, I forgive you. I will trust you again, in time.

But he eventually will make dinner for you again and you will sit beside him, shoulder to shoulder at his table with a respectable, lonesome distance between his heart and yours.

Nothing is ever the same again.

You think about running– from Shouta, from Tomura, from all of it. It would be the easiest option, where you never have to look either in the face again.

But the Hero Commission looks at Eri the same way they looked at you when they discovered you could destroy Quirks and you can’t stomach the idea of leaving her to them.

(Tomura was right in a lot of ways.

And when there’s a war on the horizon and the Hero Commission seeks to use you as a weapon, you will think of him again.

I’ll teach you, if that’s what you want, he’d said to you once. And he did.

You hate the system, the endless cycle, Prometheus chained to his rock, the need of villains to have heroes, the creation of heroes to make villains. The endless bodies, the using and discarding of real, human lives for a greater good. You wish you could destroy it.

But there is more than only destruction, too. What good is rubble and ruin and death?)

You stay so you can do what you can, so you can protect a child with red eyes, with silver hair, and a Quirk too big for their own body.

And you think maybe if you stay with her, it makes up for leaving Tomura.

***

You go to Tomura one last time, walk the distance to his apartment with your hands shoved into your pockets. It’s a familiar walk now. The pavement is wet from rain. It’s cold out. You don’t know what you’re going to tell him. You wonder how he’ll react– for a moment, you’re fearful. Will he lash out? For a moment you wonder if he’ll try to kill you.

But you know, deep down, he wouldn’t. Won’t.

And you won’t pretend you’re scared of him now. You won’t play the innocent hero, not in front of him.

The moment Tomura sees you, he knows something has changed. You are too expressive and now you look at him with a sense of foreboding. With a sadness that he feels uncomfortable gazing at.

You tell him, “I got in trouble with the Hero Commission.”

For a moment, he lets his hope grow and stretch inside of him. Maybe this is finally your turning point, your fall from grace that he will catch you on. But no, your lip wobbles and your eyes dart away.

“I can’t see you anymore,” you whisper.

At first, he wants to snap at you, hiss out something cruel between his bared teeth. Maybe if you had done this a few years ago, a few months ago, he would lash out, try to tear into his neck or you or the world. He thinks about hurting you, slamming you against a wall or–

The thought is unfortunately repulsive to him. He doesn’t want to hurt you, not like that.

His anger and resentment wells inside of him, swarms his chest viciously. He wants to argue, to point out every way your heroes have failed you. The world feels so absurdly unfair suddenly, to give him you– you who quiets his Quirk and touches him gently and winds your arms around him in the way he likes so much– only to then take you away, too. You who destroys with a touch, too. Who is perfect at his side.

But for all his work and care and strategy, he can’t get you to stay.

You will run back to your heroes.

You don’t need him, he realizes now. But you have his rib, tucked away inside of you. He wants to dig into you, pry it out, rip it from your body and take it back for himself.

But you’re crying.

And you’re pretty in the dark, like you’ve always been. This time, though, you’re not looking for a fight, there is no viciousness in you now. Maybe you’re too tired to fight.

So instead of erupting, instead of lashing out, Tomura steels himself. He’ll play the longer game, then. You don’t want to go, but you will. You’ll go back to your heroes and they will disappoint you. As they always do, at some point, eventually.

You will come back to him again, he tells himself.

And he will be forgiving, the way All For One has been with him. He sees it now; you, needing his hand, needing him to take you back. He will welcome you back into his arms, as if you hadn’t even left, and you will know then that you were right to leave.

He gazes at you, red eyes smoldering, “Then don’t.” he rasps and he’s trying to remain dispassionate, but his voice has a trembling note in it, the hidden fear underneath the harsh coolness.

Your eyes flicker back to him, your lips parting in surprise. You wipe at your eyes.

“So that’s it?”

And this makes him angry, the sharp tug of it like a dog at the end of it’s leash. He lurches forward threateningly, like he might hurt you.

(You don’t flinch. And he stops himself before he gets too close.)

“What?” he snaps, “Did you want me to beg for you to stay?”

He wants to, he realizes, he wants to howl and scream and tear apart everything in sight. He wants to say don’t go, don’t go, don’t slip from me, too.

He wants to bargain with you– what is it he can’t give you that they can?

Your heroes only love you because they don’t know you, they don’t know what you’ve done. Your heroes only love you as far as truth and justice go. A hero would sacrifice you for the greater good and you would agree with them, even if you were shaking and crying, even if you burned with all that liveliness.

But he’d sooner sacrifice the world for you.

You have his rib, he wants to scream, of course he wants to beg.

You shake your head, though, more tears falling free, “No,” you say, voice surprisingly strong, “No, I never made you beg.”

The truth of it burrows beneath his skin. He knows. The itch squirms beneath his skin. His hand reaches up, digs into the crook of his neck to scratch at it.

It’s Dabi’s voice in his head that says something about getting too distracted with this braindead hero. He has bigger plans than hiding in an abandoned apartment with you. More to do. You were nothing but a side quest.

His pause screen.

Besides, what’s there to be upset about? You’ll come back.

He won’t even punish you for leaving, he promises. He promises.

“Then that’s it.” Tomura tells you, a bitter curl to his lips.

There’s no goodbye, just the breeze between the two of you, the empty space that he always hated. The nothingness between that he always sought to destroy.

Eventually, he just turns away from you. He can’t stomach looking at you any longer. He can feel your eyes pressing into his retreating form– he imagines you rushing for him, crashing into his back to throw your arms around his middle. You can’t do it, you’ll cry, burying your face between his shoulder blades. And he’ll freeze, but eventually he’ll wrap his arms around yours and bow his head with the strength of your feelings for him.

Or he imagines later, when it’s the end of the world, and you emerge from the rubble to reach for him. It’ll be like his dreams, when the sky is falling, and you only want to hold his hand in yours.

He imagines you shouting to him, changing your mind, saying his name like it’s a song to sing, not mourning bells, not a curse or an affliction.

But none of it happens.

And when he turns around, you are gone.

You leave his life as viciously as you entered it, suddenly there, all furious and beautiful, and now gone, like a lightning strike, like a lifetime.

***

You tell yourself you’re going to be fine, but you spend random days weeping over a villain. You spend long nights awake, missing him, replaying it all in your mind. You cover all your mirrors. You try to be different. You wish you could say you regret ever getting involved with him, but it would be one more lie. You wish for the time before the worst of it, the strange honeymoon you never should’ve had.

You wish you’d remembered to slow down, to savor it all a little more. You try to remember what your first kiss was like and the shade of his eyes through the evening light of an abandoned warehouse.

You try to remember when you didn’t feel so heavy, so corrosive and lost.

It doesn’t help that you’re suspended from heroing; a choice made by both the Hero Commission and Shouta. There’s nothing for you to do some evenings.

Shouta lets you train with him and Shinsou still. Shinsou tries to cheer you up, though he doesn’t know what’s wrong with you. Still, it hurts because he’s trying. It hurts because he cares so much, even about you.

You don’t deserve it, after everything.

You take care of Eri more, too, now that she is nearly in Shouta’s care. You babysit her while he’s away. You grow close with her, fiercely protective of the young girl, careful to keep the Hero Commission at a distance from her. She settles in your lap on the couch in Shouta’s apartment most evenings, watching TV and movies, while he grades papers at the opposite end.

Sometimes she falls asleep tucked into your side. You stroke her silver hair and try to bite back tears.

She catches you, sometimes, perceptive as she is, and asks very gently, “Why are you sad?” even if a tear hasn’t slipped free yet.

And you always shake your head, trying to dispel the thought of Tomura and the parents that gave him such a tragic name as a child. You force a smile for her and you tell her something silly to distract her, “I’m not,” you promise, “I just think there’s an onion nearby.”

She wrinkles her nose at this, “No, there isn’t!” but she’s easily distracted with tickles or the promise of painting her nails or having a tea party with Shouta.

Miraculously, your relationship with Shouta begins to heal, despite your betrayal. You think he can tell something worse happened to you during your time with Tomura, you think he can tell that you’re hurting, so he ends up gentler with you. He doesn’t trust you, though, keeps you on a tight leash. He looks at you some days like he isn’t quite sure he knows you.

Nothing is the same. Part of you wants to regret it. The part of you that loves Tomura can’t stomach the idea of regretting it. Someone is dead because of you. Someone is alive because of you, too.

But Shouta doesn’t ask and you don’t tell, can’t seem to speak the words.

You can’t even say, I fell in love, can’t speak the truth because it is so horrible.

And you know what everyone would ask; who could love the likes of him?

Me, you think, vehement and grief-stricken, me, you think defiantly. Why couldn’t you? He was a child once–

Shouta lets you burrow into his chest, wraps his arms around you. He sways with you in the kitchen until you can keep back your tears, until your heart has slowed to the tempo of his. He kisses the top of your head.

And it’s Shouta who is with you, when you return from training, and open the door to your apartment to reveal a scruffy, mangy looking grey kitten that wasn’t there when you left.

Ryuji chirps happily at you, rushing to the open door.

For a moment, you’re so shocked that all you can do is stand, startled, as he rubs himself against your legs.

“Don’t tell me you found another stray–” Shouta starts, but all you get out is a small, choked noise.

And here is the impact from the fall, you think, looking at that little cat that is excitedly winding itself around your legs. You can feel the shattering of your heart, like he’d lobbed it against the wall. You wonder if it catches light the same way glass does, all stained with color and broken into shards.

You drop to the floor with the weight of it all, with the clean splitting of your heart.

The moment Ryuji climbs into your lap, a sob finally ruptures out of you.

Shouta is fast, coming down beside you, you think he’s asking what’s wrong, why you’re crying, but you’ve already gathered the kitten into your arms, cradling him to your chest as the tears come quick and furious down your cheeks.

You think maybe you should be more concerned as to how he got Ryuji here, in U.A. dorms, you should be worried about security and safety but all you’re thinking about is that little apartment that you hid from the world with him in.

No, all you’re thinking about is the way light fell through the lone window to turn him hazy and soft in your memory. You’re thinking about how he never denied you affection, so long as you gave it tenfold in turn. The drawl of his voice. The pressing of his fingers into your skin like you were a miracle.

To him, you were.

Another sob spills out of you, from somewhere deep inside you.

What a lonely life, to only be able to touch one person in certainty. You wonder who will be the next person that will lay their hands gently on a body that has known too much pain. You wonder if you will be the last person to do it.

The thought hurts, opens up a part of you that is tender and shaking and desperately furious.

When Shouta can’t figure out what’s wrong with you or why you’re crying, he gives up, and sits on the floor with you. He gathers you into his lap so your back is pressed to his chest, pushing your head beneath his chin, Ryuji still cradled in your arms.

You cry harder when Shouta tries to comfort you, when he hushes softly, so sweetly, only because you don’t think there’s anyone to comfort Tomura like this.

You think of Tomura alone, even without Ryuji and it just–

Crushes you.

You squeeze the kitten tighter to your chest as you cry and cry and cry. You let Shouta hold you against him, but there’s no comfort in the aching hollowness that is growing in the pit of your chest.

You want to scream at the world that tossed the coin.

But all that comes out is a garbled, misery struck, cry.

You never told him you loved him, never gave word to what consumed you. And you realize, sitting on the floor with a kitten in your arms, that you won’t ever be able to tell him now.

It will live and die inside of you, never spoken into existence.

And even though it’s too late and Tomura Shigaraki is readying for a battle with a giant without you at his side, you still whisper the words you never got to speak into the top of Ryuji’s head.

Your lips barely move with it, the quietest, most desperate, “I love you– I loved you.” that escapes you with a trembling breath.

Shouta doesn’t even hear the confession.

Ryuji nudges your cheek with his, though, purring softly, keeping your secret safe.

And in the least, you are able to twist into Shouta’s arms and bury your face in his chest to cry as hard as you need. There’s no distance between the two of you now, like you always wanted.

Always here when you need him, even now, when it’s not him you want.

The irony isn’t lost on you.

You mumble incoherent apologies into his shoulder, try to hide in him, like he might be able to shield you from all the hurt and ache of your first love. He doesn’t ask, but he tells you very gently, his voice like the hearth of your home, “If you ever want to talk, I’ll always be there for you.”

You keep Ryuji, clean him up, fit him with a new collar, a new life. Shouta helps you care for him.

Eri adores the kitten, hugging him to her smiling face every time she sees him. Thankfully Ryuji is even-tempered, eager for affection. Almost desperate for it.

Ryuji is like proof of another world, proof that it all happened.

Sometimes you rub between his ears and ask, “Do you miss it, too?” but all he does is peer at you inquisitively, eyes large and fixed on you.

You sleep with him, though, let the kitten curl up in your lonesome arms, hold tight to him the way you used to hold tight to Tomura.

***

In the middle of the night, your phone wakes you with its insistent chime and buzzing. You blink awake sleepily, slowly and blindly paw for your phone.

You turn the screen towards you and squint at the bright light, making out the word that flashes on it;

Unknown Caller.

You grimace, rubbing at your eyes. You debate putting your phone down, letting it ring and go to voicemail. Why should you answer for an unknown caller in the middle of the night?

And yet, something in you squirms, urges you to pick up. You have no idea who it might be— maybe someone needs your help. Is it possible it’s Shouta? Shinsou? What if it’s—

You answer finally, groggy voice slurring out, “Hello?”

You’re met with static.

“Hello?” you say again, voice hushed with sleep.

Still nothing.

Tomura sits on the other side, with the phone pressed desperately to his ear. He holds everything inside of him, barely allows himself to breathe on the other end.

He doesn’t know why he’s done this, only that he is on his way to proving himself with the League and he wishes you were still at his side.

He swallows, hears you call again, “Hello? Anyone there?”

He tightens his four-finger grip on the phone, squeezing his eyes shut at the sound of your voice, sleepy and soft in his ear, wrapping around the jagged parts of his heart.

He exhales and you must hear it because you say, “Is someone there?”

He bites back an answer, feels his lip tremble slightly.

He hears you huff, indignant little thing that you are and his lips pull into a shaky, painful smile. “I’m going to hang up now,” you say, all prickly, the way you’d get if he woke you too soon.

He used to soothe you with lips and teeth and tongue, run diligent fingers over you until you were sighing and arching into his touch. Until all your hard, vicious edges softened with the flattening of his palm on your body.

And for some reason you try, one last time into coaxing him to answer, “C’mon,” you say, almost like you know, “Nothing?”

Nothing, he wants to echo, but doesn’t.

His heart pounds an uneasy rhythm, a haunted tempo. He feels himself shaking again.

“Okay,” you exhale, slow, like you’re giving him a chance to stop you, “Goodbye.”

A beat passes, before he feels his heart lurch painfully in the hollow place of his chest at the thought of not hearing your voice again like this, so near. He doesn’t want you to go, wants to listen to you until it coaxes him to sleep.

“Wait– don’t hang up–“ Tomura hisses into the phone at the last moment, unable to decide if he wants you to hear him or not.

He gets his answer in the buzzing silence, long and drawn out, that fills his head. His heart.

And he sits there with his phone still in hand and his heart still on the line.

***

Tomura shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be watching you from afar, in the park that he thought you’d looked like a painting in. You’re beautiful.

But what does someone like him know about beauty, anyways?

The fireburst leaves are nearly gone, barely clinging to lone and stark branches. They claw up into the sky now, but the sun is shining. It’s mid-morning. You’re in the park with your mentor, with the violet haired boy he’d seen you with before, and the little girl with silver hair. The one that was in Overhaul’s care, with the devastating Quirk.

She tugs excitedly at your sleeve now and you give her your undivided attention, your face lighting up with whatever it is she tells you.

You scoop her into your arms and her echoing giggle is like wind chimes, melodic and childish and care-free.

You look happy, he thinks, with your mentor’s hand on the small of your back, looking down at you and the girl fondly. The violet-haired boy says something that makes the girl laugh, it makes you smile as you watch her.

You look back at your mentor with a look that Tomura has come to know; one that begs of attention and approval and affection. He can see the desperate glint to your eyes, hungry for his love.

He swallows around the sharp bitterness he feels. Jealousy floods him in a way he has never fully known. But it’s more than just jealousy for you and your attention, for the way you’re looking at your mentor.

No, it’s something greater, far worse.

He’s jealous of your mentor, with the easy way he gets to touch and look at you out in public. But he’s also jealous of you and your life.

He doesn’t realize it at first, but he’s begun to shake.

Because you were saved– isn’t that it? You were saved. And he wasn’t.

Maybe he’s jealous of the boy with you, too, with the possibility of his life so much brighter already. He has more of a chance than Tomura ever had.

Or maybe it’s the girl in your arms, with eyes like his, who he is most jealous of now. He has never allowed himself to ask;

Why couldn’t it be me?

But now he does and he can feel the pit in his chest grow with a livid sort of despair. Grief for a life never lived. Didn’t he deserve to be saved, too? Like the girl in your arms? Like you? Didn’t he deserve a life like this, too? What’s the difference? He wants to demand it, what’s the difference?

You were just a kid, you know?

His fingers dig into his neck. There is no one to stop him from breaking skin, for drawing blood on his own body. His chest festers, angry, like a blister. His stomach turns, his body trembling harder, like he’s a child, like he’s going to shake apart.

He looks at your smiling face, the curve of your lips, and wants you so bad it hurts. He wonders if you ever dreamt of him as a hero, the way he dreams of you as a villain. He wonders why it feels so unfair suddenly, the turning of your lives, the coming together and falling apart.

He shudders, feels the sudden lump in his throat. He tried not to mourn you, when you left him. He told himself that there was nothing to mourn; either you would be back or you weren’t worth it. He feels the pressure of tears now, though, much to his frustration. He feels his lungs burn for breath as he watches you hand the little girl off to your mentor, who props her onto his hip easily.

He watches you throw your head back and laugh, the sound of it distant, but he catches it, the outskirts of it. He used to feel that laugh against his throat, against his lips.

But now he watches you live a life he apparently never deserved.

His bottom lip trembles, a furious scowl marring his face.

He could scream or shout at a world that wouldn’t listen. The fact of it all, the helplessness of it all, burns beneath his skin like wildfire, like acid.

Tomura takes one last look at you; the expressive glimmer of your eyes, the flash of your teeth. He lingers on you, commits you to memory as if he could ever forget you. Maybe someday he will. Maybe he won’t have to, if you come back to him.

But he won’t wait on it, in an apartment that still has traces of you in it’s corners and crevices. No, he has more to do, bigger than him. Bigger than you.

Even if the horrible tempo of his heart begs differently, even if the shaking in his shoulders is an indication otherwise.

One last look of you– you’re talking, saying something with your hands. The little girl laughs again, her red eyes crinkling up happily.

Tomura turns away.

He walks a familiar path to the apartment, the wind tries to slice through his jacket, kicks up leaves and litter in shadowed alleyways.

He enters and there is no one trailing behind him, your hands twisted into the back of his hoodie, or his sleeves. It’s quiet. Empty. He surveys it once, the bed with unmade sheets. The window that let in beams of colored light, that Ryuji would sit at.

And then he sets his hands on the wall, all ten of his fingers down, the way he used to touch you.

The wall begins to decay, cracks and crumbles beneath his hands. It spreads, and spreads, and spreads like a disease filling out the body of the apartment. Dust begins to fall like early snow.

His heart squeezes painfully, his eyes suddenly flooding with pressure, with tears he tries to keep back. His head throbs, feels like it’s going to cleave apart. His ribs ache– hurt so bad it’s like he can feel the one you took from him, the gaping part of his chest.

His Quirk flares hard and hot and fast. It burns through him, floods his veins in a way that makes him cry out, suddenly shaking, suddenly pained.

He destroys the apartment, disintegrates the tiny world he created with you that existed outside of the real one. He unpauses the game. He takes apart what the world should’ve been, when he was here, with you. He sees now that a world like this cannot exist.

The peace, the ideal, the way you had understood him. Your unending compassion. It’s rare. Not enough to save the rest of them.

So he tears it all apart, pushes at his Quirk in a way he hasn’t been able to before, nudges at its strength to test it. It flares outward, eating away at the entire space, at the furniture, at the floor. Everywhere.

He seethes, blooming, finally allowing that livid and vicious thing inside of him to burst forward. It’s explosive, wrenching out of him in the form of terrible destruction.

He’ll grow into what he was supposed to–

I wanted to be a hero– when I was a kid.

The only option he ever really had, the hand extended to him a villain’s, gentle when he’d taken it.

He destroys the boy inside him, the one that was naive and hopeful and weak. He let’s that boy inside of him fall apart, split open and leaks gore before turning to dust, too. He kills the part of him that he had only ever shared with you, in the blue-dark of night, when you were lulled to sleep with just the sound of his heart.

He swallows down his anguish and his jealousy and his bitterness, keeps it safe inside him, like All For One always said to do. He’ll nourish it, let it grow, fester inside of him until the only thing it can do is explode out of him to tear the world apart, too.

When he’s standing in the rubble of the tiny world you’d made with him, the apartment complex demolished, the people inside gone, he knows what he has to do.

And he has so much work to do in order to achieve it.

He tries to forget you, to destroy your memory, too. He will not carry the weight of you around inside him.

(But in his dreams, you sit cross-legged in front of him, serene and beautiful, like a painting he knows nothing about.

In his dreams, you ask for his hands to have, and he gives you them to hold.)

#shigaraki x reader #tomura x reader #shigaraki tomura x reader #shigaraki x you #tomura x you #shigaraki tomura x you #shigaraki x y/n #tomura x y/n #shigaraki tomura x y/n #tomura shigaraki x reader #tomura shigaraki x you #tenko shimura x reader #bnha x reader #bnha x you #shigaraki fanfiction

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i-am-distressed · 3 years

Text

The one that (almost) got away

Character: Noritoshi Kamo x reader

Warnings: MILDLY SUGGESTIVE THEMES, not really cause I don’t write NSFW, but I did put a lil spice for tension and plot reasons, it’s really more just mentions of making out, fighting/sparring, mentions of injuries, exes to enemies to lovers, both parties being mean, Exchange Event Arc spoilers!!, I wrote this on a whim and very early in the morning, LONG

“Hey, L/n, you’re participating this year too? I thought the 3rd years were suspended?” You sighed as Maki’s face held her questioning gaze. “Well, since they did whatever it is that got them suspended while I was elsewhere on a mission, I got left out of the punishment. I’m here for the exchange event if you’ll have me.” The second years nodded, Maki and Panda giving you high fives while Inumaki gave you a thumbs up and a ‘salmon!’ Fushiguro giving you a little bow that you returned.

You, Y/n L/n, are a 3rd year student at Tokyo Jujutsu High, you’re also a semi-first grade sorcerer. You yourself didn’t come from an impressive lineage, but your cursed technique was nothing short of useful, and you had become a master at using it.

You briefed Fushiguro on your technique and you all decided which group you would be fighting in (it was decided you’d join Fushiguro and Maki) while you waited for the other school to show up. Not long after you came, Nobara arrived, and as she had her scuffle with Panda, Mai’s voice cut through the air. “You guys actually came to greet us? How lame.” You turned to see the rest of the Kyoto Jujutsu High second and third years walked up the stone staircase, naturally filing into a sort of line that stood parallel to your own group, you finding yourself towards the back.

“Hello, Y/n. It’s been awhile.” You felt your face heat up at his voice, you sucking in a quick breath before plastering a fake smile on your face, “Hello, Noritoshi.” Maki’s eyebrow raised as she looked between you and the Kyoto 3rd year, and it didn’t take a genius to see that there was an obvious tension between the two of you, she just had no clue what. “Do you two know each other?” Your gaze never left Noritoshi’s, his dark gray gaze never leaving yours as you found yourselves in the middle of an intense stare down. “We’re acquainted.” You watched as Noritoshi huffed, to most it would’ve been a trivial gesture, a simple sign of irritation. But you knew much better than that, you knew him much better than that. “Quite well, isn’t that right, Y/n?” You narrowed your eyes at the tone he used, he was testing you, you knew that, and you knew exactly what he was referring to.

Before you could respond, Gojo came barreling in, with a...box? He stopped between the two groups of students. Seeing as how you were ignoring the young clan head and he kept stealing glances at you, Gojo knew you two had interacted, and by the puzzled look he saw on Maki’s face, he figured it had gone poorly. ‘Poor kids...these stupid higher ups just don’t know when to quit..c’mon guys, I know you’re both smarter than this..’ Frowning for a moment Gojo shook it off, as a teacher and a passionate one at that, seeing his student (and someone he’s known for a fair amount of years) obviously suffering really rubbed him the wrong way but...there was nothing he could do. They’d have to fix it themselves.

After the...surprise of Yuji Itadori A.K.A Sukuna’s Vessel being alive was revealed, Y/n took a glance over to Noritoshi, seeing the obvious surprise on his face, she knew he was with the higher ups on this one, that Itadori shouldn’t be alive, that he shouldn’t count as a real person. It stung how much he had changed in a short period of time, and it stung even more knowing he was far too stubborn to listen to anything you had to say. Which, now that you think of it, isn’t all that different from you declining his calls..

You groaned as you splashed the cold water on your face. Shortly after the reveal of Itadori, the two schools had a good 3 hours of free time before the event, some students used it to train, others to socialize. You had already determined your role with the others, so while they sorted things out with Itadori you took your leave to the bathrooms to have some peace and quiet, and to try and snap yourself out of the headspace seeing Noritoshi had put you in. Getting a bunch of paper towels you thoroughly dried your face off, taking a deep breath before walking out of the bathroom and into the hall, but the minute you exited the bathroom you were met with none other than the man of the hour himself, Noritoshi Kamo.

You attempted to walk past him, go back to the room where your classmates were and avoid a confrontation all together. But before you could get far, Noritoshi had grasped hold of your forearm, forcing you to turn to face him before he (albeit reluctantly) let your arm go as his own returned to his side. “We should talk, we haven’t spoken since the fight and it’s clearly not doing either of us any good.” You crossed your arms over your chest, more out of unease rather than out of sassiness. “Is there anything to talk about? I thought we made it clear how we both felt the last time we talked.” Noritoshi frowned, leaning against the opposite wall as his arms mirrored yours as they crossed over his chest.

It was silent between you two, neither one knowing exactly what to say, it was funny really. You both have spent the last 3 months wanting nothing more than to talk things through, but now that the opportunity is here neither one of you have the courage to say the thoughts that have been plaguing both of your minds. “I just- I don’t know what you want me to say...you know how I feel about..everything..you know why I feel that way. And there’s nothing we can do about it anyways.” Noritoshi wanted to correct you, tell you that you were wrong, that there was something you both could do to get around the pressure of the higher ups, but there really wasn’t.

Well, there was, but that was out of the question. He couldn’t just up and tell his family they were wrong and he disagreed with them, not now anyway. 3 months ago, Y/n and Noritoshi’s relationship was very different. At the beginning of their second years, they had both been placed for promotion to semi-first grade, and to solidify their ranks they would be ‘interning’ with a grade 1. Usually they would do their ‘internships’ separately, since they were a fair amount of distance apart, but when the summer came both of them were sent to a sort of summer training camp to train together under the same roof.

Despite being different in personality and different in background, the two got along really well, and somewhere between exorcising curses through the day and training together at night, the two found themselves growing feelings for the other. And after a specific practice when one of them let a confession slip from their lips, the two found themselves becoming the Romeo and Juliet of the Jujutsu world. They started dating, dating in secret because neither of their families would be thrilled about it. Even after summer ended and the two returned to their respective schools, they kept their relationship intact.

They’d make trips to meet half way between Kyoto and Tokyo, one would drop in on the other if their mission was nearby, and they kept in constant contact. And they had managed to keep it a secret, neither one telling anyone about it and keeping their affections private and out of the watching eyes of the higher ups and other sorcerers. All was going well, until a certain first year student by the name of ‘Yuji Itadori’ became Sukuna’s vessel, and you and Noritoshi found yourselves on very different sides of the argument.

“I just don’t see why you can’t understand this Y/n, he’s dangerous. Sukuna’s vessel needs to be taken care of, how can you not agree with this?!” Your hands came up to rub at your eyes, you sighing with frustration before returning your hands to your hips. You and your boyfriend, Noritoshi, had been arguing for almost half an hour. You had been in a meeting with your teachers, Gojo and Utahime, when Gojo brought up his new student Itadori, and the power and potential Itadori held. You, after hearing he could control Sukuna, was all for Itadori joining Jujutsu High. I mean, Gojo would be watching over him, and his situation really wasn’t all that different from Yuta’s. But Noritoshi didn’t agree, he saw it as the higher ups saw it, he saw it as his family wanted him to see it. That’s what started the argument.

“What is there to understand about wanting him dead! He’s 15!” You two stood across from each other, both of you were breathing heavily, and your emotions were running wild. You didn’t want to fight, you didn’t want to damage your relationship, but with how sure both of you were in your decisions on where you stood, it was clear you weren’t reaching a compromise, not this time. He was frustrated because you weren’t looking at it objectively, you were upset because he was acting like the higher ups. And neither of you was willing to back down from your convictions, both of you being just a little too stubborn to put this disagreement to rest and move on.

“Then what does that mean for us? It’s clear we’re not reaching any sort of agreement, why can’t you just accept this when you clearly don’t know what’s best.” You shook your head in disbelief, a bitter chuckle cutting through as a few tears had begun to fall. “Good question Noritoshi, Are you going to ask your family what to decide on this one too?” Too far, you knew you had crossed a line, you knew his family was a touchy subject, but rationality had been thrown out awhile ago. His lips pursed in a straight line, his steel eyes narrowed and his gaze became cold, “I don’t have to confide in them, I think we both know what’s best for both of us.” It went silent, you were crying and he was seething, there was no rational thinking, you both were acting out of emotion and quite frankly not like yourselves. You shakily sighed, wiping the tears that had fallen while you shook your head, “...fine...goodbye Noritoshi..we should’ve known it wouldn’t work.” With that, you turned around and left, both of you wishing you had stayed and fixed it.

In the end, a petty argument was what ultimately drove the two of you apart. A stupid argument neither one of you were personally involved in, but the politics and ideals behind it were what drove you both to your wits end. You weren’t even mad at Noritoshi, you were more upset that you both let some stupid conflict be the reason you two broke up! I mean, words were said on both sides, but you were both rational people, you knew neither one of you meant it. And you both really just missed each other on top of all of that.

But like I said, it was a messy situation, and in order to make any progress, you’d both have to let go of your pride first and foremost. And as of right now, neither one of you really wanted to do that. Your stare down was interrupted by the sounds of Miwa and Mechamaru walking down the hallway, you both looking away from each other when the two second years rounded the corner. “Oh, L/n, Kamo! I was looking for you both, but if we’re interrupting, we can always come back later…” As they spoke, you both watched as a few more of the first and second years rounded the corner. “It’s fine,” Noritoshi briefly looked at you as he spoke, a silent ‘we’ll finish this later’ to which you covertly rolled your eyes before turning to your underclassmen with a smile. “We were finished talking anyways, what do you need?”

Miwa looked to you both, “Me and a few others wanted to get stronger with weapons we don’t usually use, me and Kugisaki wanted to try a bo staff so we asked Mai’s older sister but she said to ask you two, since you trained a lot together using them.” Your eyes widened as you stole a brief glance at Noritoshi before returning your gaze to the younger students. “So, if you don’t mind, could we observe a sparring session? Maybe get some pointers on how we can improve?”

“I don’t see why not, that is unless Kamo has a problem with it?” His eyebrow twitched at how you said his name, becoming that more irritated since he knew you knew it ticked him off. Nonetheless, he never was one to turn down a challenge, and especially not when you were the one really putting it up to him. “Don’t complain too much when you lose, L/n.”

And that’s how you found yourself in a man made ring in one of the training rooms, most of the underclassmen sitting on the sidelines as the two of you got into your stances, both of you trying not to acknowledge just how nice and nostalgic it felt to be in that position again. Panda acted as ref, reminding you and Noritoshi of the ‘rules’ before stepping back and yelling ‘start!’ Noritoshi attacked first, you blocking him and ducking to move to the side. You charged him next, him barely getting out of the way in time before spinning around and hitting you right on your backside, smirking when he saw how your jaw dropped before you spun around and caught him in his side.

“That’s pretty unbefitting behavior for the future Kamo Clan head, don’t you think?” He scoffed, and at this point the tension between you two had gotten so obvious even the most clueless were starting to get an inkling as to how exactly you two had known each other beforehand, and why you weren’t friendly to each other. “Ghosting me and blocking my number wasn’t exactly proper either.” You jumped just in time to avoid him sweeping your legs out from under you, but you weren’t expecting him to then use his staff to knock yours out of your hands. Not one to give up, you kept sparring without the staff, both of you slowly becoming oblivious to the watching eyes that were still very much engaged watching this all go down.

You narrowed your eyes at his last comment, and you used your legs to first kick his staff out of the way, and second to sweep his legs out from under him and straddle his middle. You both sat there, breathing heavily as you looked at each other intensely. In a low voice, not quite a whisper, but not too loud either, Noritoshi spoke. “Well this is new, I recall the last time we were in this position, our roles were reversed. Can’t say i’m complaining.” You felt your eyes widen as your cheeks heated, leaving you vulnerable to him flipping you over and aiming the staff at your neck.

You narrowed your eyes at him, “I specifically remember you telling me off for using underhanded tactics, a little hypocritical don’t you think?” Noritoshi feined a look of innocence, setting the staff to the side as he stood, “I don’t know what you could be referring to, I was talking about our sparring sessions, don’t tell me you were thinking of something else?” You hated how fast your heart started beating, you trying to hide how flustered you were by standing up only to freeze when you remembered why you two were sparring in the first place..and that your underclassmen had just saw and heard that all happen.

“Okay~ well as much as I love a good old enemies to lovers, we’ve got about 30 minutes until the event so both schools need to split up and talk tactics!” You and Noritoshi both tensed up at the voice of Gojo standing in the doorway, Panda and Mai both respectfully snickering at the two of you as you both went your separate ways.

It was time for the event, both sides had taken the time to strategize and figure out how they would work together to win. You would be going with Maki and Megumi when the group split, which was fine with you. You may have been a semi-first grade, but you weren’t keen on fighting Todo one-on-one. After Gojo had embarrassed poor Utahime, the buzzer sounded, signaling the start of the event.

When the group was interrupted by the arrival of Todo, you ran off with Maki and Megumi as planned. You jumped backwards when Miwa took on Maki, eyes widening when you saw Megumi get stopped by Noritoshi. “I’ll be fine, you go help Megumi.” You nodded as you ran ahead, only to be stopped by a grade 2 cursed spirit. It wasn’t super powerful, but it most certainly wasn’t weak either. You took a glance ahead of you to see Megumi and Noritoshi fighting, you grimaced, knowing his intentions behind going after Megumi were no doubt clan-influenced. Shaking your head free of distractions, you focused your efforts on taking down this pesky cursed spirit.

Unsurprisingly, your weapon of choice was a bo staff, you had found yourself falling in love with it (amongst other things) during the summer you and Noritoshi had spent together. Using a mix of strength and cursed energy you knocked the cursed spirit a fair amount of distance away from you, using the time the spirit took to charge you to cover your staff in cursed energy. And with one final swing you had successfully exorcised the curse. Unfortunately, the four that were fighting had all gone off to fight other places. Bringing your staff to your shoulder you continued to walk through the woods, searching for cursed spirits as well as your fellow classmates. You hadn’t gotten too far when you noticed the sky had started to get darker, your eyes narrowed as you looked up, watching as what you guessed was a veil slowly started to cover the sky. You continued walking, feeling a sick feeling in your stomach start to form which was only amplified by the yellow hue that coated your surroundings.

You continued walking along what seemed to be a path when ‘isn’t that Miwa…?’ you picked up your pace, and after finding out that, she’s just sleeping, you picked her up and carried her on your back, keeping on your so called path while you continued your search for others. Not long after that you ran into Mai and Nobara, who were unfortunately as clueless as you were. Continuing on you all managed to stumble upon Utahime, who was about to face off with some...guy? Thankfully the veil dropped, and the 5 of you were able to get back with the others.

You were now walking down to the infirmary with a still unconscious Miwa sleeping while you piggybacked her to Shoko. “Hey, have room for one more? We’re pretty sure she’s just sleeping but, Utahime wanted to be sure.” Shoko sighed as she nodded, leading you to the room where the medical beds were. “You can set her down on one of these.” You nodded and carefully setting her down and getting her situated. After Shoko did a quick check and yes, she was just sleeping, you walked back out to the main part. “Uhm, who else got hurt?” Shoko looked to you, “Well, Fushiguro got hit with some kind of bud but I was able to remove it, Maki got impaled in her shoulder but it didn’t do any lasting damage, Inumaki went over his limit, and Kamo hit his head really hard, there was some minor fracturing but he should be okay.” You already felt nauseous hearing about your classmates and friends, but hearing about the man you were still very much in love with included in that group made it all so much worse.

You gulped, hands shaking as you took in a shaky breath. “Is- is he- are they okay?” She gave you a sad smile, nodding as she picked up her clip board. “They’ll be okay, he’ll be okay. If you want I can tell you when he wakes up?” You nodded, showing your nervousness with how quickly you responded. “Y-yes please.”

And that’s how you found yourself sitting in one of the chairs waiting outside the room Noritoshi had been put in after his surgery, heart racing as your mind went through the ‘what ifs’ and ‘why didn’t you’s’. Dread consumed you as you thought of the worst case scenarios. Realistically you knew he wasn’t going to die, he had a minor concussion and a few broken bones, but he was going to make a full recovery. But it was the unrealistic part of you that was in control right now. The part of you who was berating yourself for never picking up his calls, the part of you who was yelling at yourself for ever walking away from him, the part of yourself that hated how things ended between you and Noritoshi. The part of yourself that knew just how in love with him you still were.

“Y/n? He’s awake. You can go in now.” You sniffed, wiping the tears that had fallen before standing up, thanking Shoko as you entered the dimly lit room. You crossed your arms over your chest as your heart raced and you felt your breathing get labored. You had spent the past 4 hours wanting nothing more than to see him, but now that you were walking towards him, your legs itched to turn around and run back to your room. But thankfully for both of you, that unrealistic part of you was still very much in control. You walked further into the room when you saw Noritoshi, sitting up in his bed, with bandages wrapped almost all of the way around his head, one of his eyes completely covered while his own remained closed. You sucked in a quick breath, but continued to walk closer to him.

“How are you feeling?” Noritoshi looked towards you, a tired smile appearing on his face as he watched you come beside his bed and sit down in one of the chairs. “All things considered, not too bad. Apparently my injuries were minor compared to Fushiguro and Maki.” You hummed, “I don’t see any of their heads wrapped in bandages Noritoshi. You always have to be an overachiever, huh?” He chuckled at that, shaking his head as you smiled, desperately trying to blink away tears before they could fall. “...” it was quiet, for maybe only 30 seconds but it felt like eternity.

You took a look at him, and even though he was here, he was fine, he was okay, the only thoughts that were getting through were ‘if you had lost him, what would you have done?’. Noritoshi’s eyes widened as he watched the tears fall down your face, your body fighting sobs as your elbows rested on your knees and your hands clutched at your eyes, water flowing down your cheeks and arms. “Y/n? Y/n it’s alright, i’m oka-” “It’s not! This- this isn’t about that it’s just- I don’t know what I would’ve done if you had...you had- I can’t lose you Noritoshi!” He shut his mouth as you continued to cry, his stomach churning at the sight of your tear soaked face as you tried to stop them from coming.

You sat up, looking up to the ceiling as you tried to regain your composure. “I just- there’s still so much I need to say to you- a-and too much...too much I have to fix,” “Y/n,” “A-and what if you were gone? A-and I couldn’t say goodbye?I ignored you for months, I can never forgive m-myself for tha-at,” “Y/n,” “I would’ve hated myself, cause I never got to tell you I still love you and I don’t hate you and-” “Y/n” You looked down to see Noritoshi leaning to the side of his bed, watching as his hands guided your face towards his, you still very much delirious as he gave you a half-smile, thumbs wiping the tears from your face as your sobs died down.

“Y-yes?” You choked out, he leaned in, thumb brushing your bottom lip as he whispered, close enough that you could feel his breath fanning your lips, “Stop talking.” You nodded, taking a deep breath as your hands came up to hold his, his forehead now resting against yours as your cries effectively died down. “I was never going to leave you, and certainly not without making sure you didn’t believe any of that. We both made mistakes and did things we regret. We let a silly argument get between us, and I didn’t let myself see it from your perspective. I’m sorry.” You shook your head, “I should be the one who’s sorry, I walked away and avoided you because I was too scared to fix things...i’m sorry Noritoshi.”

He smiled, “We’re both sorry, but I think it’s time we fix this too...I’ve hated not having you with me these past few months.” You laughed as you nodded, “Yeah, me too...but you’re going to have to put your number in my phone, I deleted your contact…” He pulled away, eyebrows furrowed, “You deleted my contact?! I can accept you blocking me but deleting my number?!” You laughed, “I wasn’t thinking straight! I was mad and I didn’t handle it well...but don’t act like you’re innocent after humiliating me this afternoon...all those inappropriate things and in front of our underclassmen...you should be ashamed.”

He smirked as he shook his head, “Absolutely not, I was simply telling the truth, you’re the one who made it promiscuous.” You rolled your eyes, and for the first time in awhile it wasn’t condescending, but rather endearing. “Whatever, I know what you meant.” He smiled, his smile coy and sly, a perfect display of the mischievous part of Noritoshi not many people got to see. “Y’know...it really hurt having you ignore me like that for months...and now that I know you deleted my contact and avoided me, i’m rather hurt by your actions…” You narrowed your eyes as you could hear the teasing tone he held in his voice.

“...What are you up to Kamo?” He shook his head, leaning back in closer to you, his closeness causing your neck and face to heat up as your heart beat started to pick up its pace. His lips grazed your own before they slid to your cheek, all the while his hand dropped to your side where you had haphazardly left your phone when you sat down. “Getting my number back in your phone.” Your eyes widened as your face got impossibly hotter, watching as he tried and failed to suppress his smirk as he did what he ‘intended to’ and re-entered his contact. “There, all better.” He handed you your phone, you shaking your head as embarrassment started to set in.

“Well, now that you’re obviously feeling better, I’m going to go check on the others.” You didn’t get far before his hand had caught your wrist, and instead of letting go, he pulled you towards him, lips crashing on yours as his other hand steadied your waist. One of your hands wrapped around his neck while your knee propped itself up on his bed, his hand that was on your wrist now sat securely on your hip. He kissed you with what seemed to be the most love-filled and intense kiss the two of you had ever shared, and there had been quite a few kisses shared between the two of you. You moved to sit more on the bed as he pulled you closer, your kisses becoming more intense as the moments passed, and your surroundings began to blur.

“Well this is interesting.” You gasped as your head whipped around, finding not only Gojo, but half of the Kyoto school, Panda, Maki, and all 3 of the 1st years standing crowded in the door way watching with round shocked eyes at seeing two of the most respected and potential filled students making out like their lives depended on it. You felt your face get hot with more embarrassment when you heard Maki yell “ahA! I told you! Fork over the 20 Megumi!” You gave Noritoshi one last smile as you stepped down from his bed, bowing to everyone as you walked out and to your room. “I’ll see you all later, bye everyone, bye Noritoshi.” Before you made your way to your room to scream into your pillow, your steps increased as you heard the parade of ‘nice one y/n!’ and ‘lock the door next time!’.

You got to your room and fell face-first onto your bed. To say you were exhausted would be an understatement. Eventually you got up and did your nightly routine, changing into some comfortable pj’s before getting under the covers of your bed and setting your phone to charge. Just as you set your phone down, it dinged with a notification. Furrowing your eyebrows you picked you phone up to see it was a text, picking it up you read it. ‘Sorry for the interruption, but don’t worry, apparently we get the day off tomorrow so we can talk things out then ;)’ you laughed at Noritoshi’s use of an emoji, remembering that it was you who had taught him to use them in the first place.

You wrote out and sent your response, smiling uncontrollably at the ‘goodnight❤’ he sent before returning it and going to set your phone down. You paused when you noticed he had also put his ‘name’ into your phone. ‘Boyfriend’. You turned your phone off and screamed into your pillow, knowing it would be awhile before you could sleep with your head and heart filled to the brim with the one that (almost) got away.

#noritoshi kamo x reader #noritoshi x reader #noritoshi kamo #jjk x reader #enemies to lovers #exes to lovers #jujutsu kaisen #jjk oneshot #POSSIBLE JJK SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE EXCHANGE EVENT ARC #idk but i wanted to tag it anyway #ngl i almost didn't post this...#but rye is a bully and made me </3 #jk jk love you bestie<3 hopefully you don't hate this if you do i apologize and thank you for your support</3

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sugarcubetikki · 3 years

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The Scarf - Mr. Pigeon 72 Endcard

@8unnix2 pointed out the huge presence of the scarf in the endcard.

It's funny how they particularly featured Adrien wearing that scarf in most of the posters out of all the gazillion pictures they could have used. They pretty much threw it right in our faces. Foreshadowing? Symbolism?

I have an own idea of my own. It may be a bit of a stretch.

Umbrella Scene 2 created a turning point in terms of Marinette expressing herself.

It reflected her growing and becoming more direct with her feelings.

A big obstacle in previous episodes was her inability to express her feelings, she'd never be able to express her feelings clearly. She kept sending Adrien mixed messages throughout the seasons.

However, this scene presents her taking a step forward, and clearly expressing what she wants. Instead of creating a complicated scheme or doing something stupid like saying the opposite of what she actually wants like she would've done previously.

No complications. No schemes. She straight-up asks him whether he wants to walk home with her. And that's what drives their interaction in the scene.

That conveys a shift in status quo. It reflects her learning to express her feelings clearly.

Despite her still struggling, despite her stammering, she's taken a step forward to clearly express her feelings.

And that's important to note.

I want to go back to an essential scene in the NY special.

The one where Nino and Alya discuss why Adrien and Marinette can never get closer.

Nino: Yup. I love Adrien, but he's like a baby chick that's just started cracking out of his egg. He has a hard time understanding the signals people send him.

Alya: What signals? Marinette isn't exactly sending them clearly. I mean, look! What is she doing with her arms? Telling him what to do in case of an emergency landing or something?

Nino: If only this trip could help Adrien finally come out of his shell.

Alya: And if only it could help Marinette be more honest with herself and clearer about her feelings!

The two problems that Alya and Nino highlight here are:

Marinette being unclear about her feelings.

Adrien's difficulty in "cracking out of his shell".

These are the reasons every time why Marinette and Adrien can never seem to get closer.

Marinette keeps sending Adrien mixed signals and this poor oblivious boy who's been confined to his home his entire life faces difficulty in understanding her, he's not very good with social cues in the first place, she confuses him even more. That's what contributed to miscommunication/lack of communication between them.

NY didn't really resolve this problems. It's intention was never to resolve. It's intention was to address them and build on them but never to completely resolve them. As these issues have existed for a really long time, and it takes a lot more than one special to solve them. It's part of their character arcs.

However, for Obstacle Number 1, Mr. Pigeon 72 was the turning point. Umbrella Scene 2 depicted Marinette being able to clearly express herself and carry a conversation with Adrien. It reflected that Marinette's is the closest to overcome that obstacle than ever! Which is really really good.

What about Obstacle Number 2...

Adrien's difficulty in "cracking out of his shell".

The way I interpret this phrase is that Adrien really needs to open up to his surroundings more. He's been in his little reserved shell for too long, and therefore faces difficulty in opening up to who he really is.

This was even addressed in Lies. Adrien's many masks to conceal his "real self".

His model mask and his Chat Noir self.

These are all sides to Chat.

His model image is who is father wants him to be.

Him as Chat is who he wants to be.

But is it who he really is?

His model image is to be an image of perfection.

Him as Chat is meant to be his cheerful side.

But they conceal his insecurities, his awkwardness, his deeper feelings in most cases.

They conceal his trauma.

They conceal his desires.

They conceal how scared he actually is.

He maintains these images to everyone. He doesn't want to open up to who he really is. He doesn't want to show anyone that shy, awkward, broken boy. And that is reasonable. Because that's not something you want everyone to see. But Adrien masks himself to people who want to help him. He masks it completely. It's really important that Nino mentions him cracking out of his shell.

Because Nino is the first person who saw that awkward boy on their very first day.

He saw how bad he felt with the whole incident. He saw how bad he wanted to fix things with Marinette. He saw how much it hurt for him that he felt like he messed up on his first ever day of school, and how he was clueless with what to do, with how socially incapable he is.

Adrien doesn't how to present himself. He can't open up to his surroundings. He's wears too many masks because that's what he's used to, that's what he's comfortable with. He hasn't interacted with people enough to know that it's okay to open up and express some sides to yourself that you'd think people wouldn't like (screw Gabriel for raising him to be a perfect child).

Obstacle Number 2 hasn't had its turning point yet. It still exists. The reason why it's important that Adrien opens himself up more in terms of Adrienette development is to prevent miscommunication and misunderstandings between them. Things that have been happening for the past few seasons. They need to be able to interact and understand each other better.

Coming back to the actual reason I made this post: the scarf.

The reason why the scarf is such a strong symbol to the audience is because Adrien is oblivious that Marinette is the one who made the scarf.

His under the illusion that the scarf is from his father, not Marinette.

The scarf represents his obliviousness.

Firstly, that connects with him being unaware of Marinette's feelings, which is mainly reliant on her unclear form of expressing herself, but it also shows that they're more obstacles between them than what's in their control.

Secondly, the illusion that it's from his father does build on how eager Adrien is for his father's affection, and how much he wants to believe it. But he's oblivious to his father's true intentions with this mindset, he's chasing after something that's bound to break.

Thirdly, being under his father's arm, conveys him being in his shell. He has to live up to a perfect image. Restrict himself from the world. All whilst blindly believing in his father despite his intentions. It shows that Adrien can't carry on like this. He needs to break out of this shell. He can't be perfect anymore. He shouldn't restrict himself. And he shouldn't blindly believe someone who's doing something horrible.

The massive presence of the scarf in the endcard could foreshadow a similar/sibling scene to Umbrella Scene 2.

The scarf reveal.

It's really important as this happens because it destroys everything that prevented Adrien from opening up.

He's made aware of Marinette's intentions. Causing him to see her in a much brighter light. A different life. And he's drawn to open up with her even more. It pulls them closer. She did this to make him happy. And that'll strike a chord within him that'll make him want to open up with her.

But it'll also hurt Adrien. That illusion is broken. That illusion where he thought his father actually did something affectionate and nice for him once. He's been believing and treasuring that illusion since the very beginning. He can't trust it anymore. Hope for his father, the prime reason for him being in his shell, is going to crack a little, and so is his shell, and it'll make him want to strive out of it more.

If Umbrella Scene 2 fixed Obstacle Number 1 with a turning point of Marinette striving to clearly express herself, let loose and dance in the rain for Adrienette development and Marinette development.

A Scarf Reveal will fix Obstacle Number 2 leading to Adrien to open himself up more (especially with Marinette), try to become more aware of his surroundings instead of being trapped under illusions of oblivion. Paving way for another turning point in the Adrienette dynamic and contributing to Adrien's character development.

It's a lovely win-win situation.

#sugar analyses #ml spoilers #mr pigeon 72 #ml speculation #ml analysis #ml season 4 #ml meta #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #adrienette #ml love square #gabriel agreste #miraculous ladybug #miraculous #umbrella scene #scarf reveal

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ieattaperecorders · 3 years

Text

May You Find Your Rest

Somewhere else. Two men who were not born in this reality lie in bed together, hold one another and unpack a few things. (Just 4k of cuddling and talking about feelings, really.)

Read on Ao3

---

It's dark in the small, quiet room where they sleep. Not completely, neither of them feels entirely safe in the dark anymore, so the curtain is always parted to let a sliver of light in.

Curled against Martin, Jon is warm and still and finally thinking of nothing. He's just starting to drift off when he feels him reach over and plant light, careful kisses on his cheek, on his temple, on the top of his brow. He sighs with pleasure. It would be so easy to keep drifting, to let himself sink into sleep as the one he loves kisses him softly and sweetly. But instead he opens his eyes, not really knowing why he does it.

Maybe it's the way Martin moves, slow and deliberate. Maybe there's a subtle a hitch in his breathing, something Jon senses without seeing or understanding. Something that tells him he shouldn't go to sleep. Not yet.

So he lies listening to the silence as Martin's hand moves over his side, outlining him. It nudges itself under the hem of his nightshirt, tracing the softness of his waist. Then, as if this hadn't been its destination all along, it brushes the wide, ragged scar over his stomach. A twinge (not sharp, not much more than a tingle) runs through his body. His breathing barely changes – it's not a gasp, just a slightly deeper inhalation. But Martin notices, hand hesitating, drawing back.

"Does it hurt?" he asks, and he sounds so horribly solemn.

"Not really," Jon says quietly. "Just a little sensitive. Scar tissue."

Gently, he places a hand over Martin's and presses it down into his abdomen, until it's covering the center of the scar. Jon has scars that are sensitive in other ways. Martin has learned to be careful around the thin line that cuts across his throat. Knows there are days when the chewed circles that pockmark his body itch uncontrollably, when he'll scratch himself bloody if he isn't thinking.

(In the safehouse, Martin had pulled the hand from his face and whispered don't. Had kissed his scars over and over, until he couldn't feel the itch, could only feel the gentle pressure of his lips and his kindness and love.)

He wants to say, it doesn't hurt when you touch me here. To show Martin that his body won't flinch from his touch. It wouldn't be his fault if it did. It wouldn't be either of their faults. But it doesn't, and he needs him to know that.

The hand relaxes against him. It moves in a slow arc, finding the edges of the wound, mapping and knowing it. Jon keeps his own hand in place, letting it move with his.

"I'm sorry," Martin says.

Jon brings a hand to his cheek. "So am I."

He wonders what Martin is apologizing for. For cutting the tether, letting them out? For the wound that could only be made by his hands? For not being able to let him go? No . . . Jon doubts he would be sorry for that.

Maybe it isn't an apology at all . . . maybe he's just sorry. Sorry he had to be hurt again.

"So am I," he repeats. "But it's done. We're here, now. Together, and alive. Despite it all."

Martin's head rests on the pillow, gaze turned to the side. He's subdued in a way that feels meaningful but that Jon can't identify. So he says nothing, lies still and lets his hand trail up the side of Martin's face, over his temple, around his ear. Affectionate touch, easier and less confusing than the jumble of words and questions swarming in his brain.

After a long silence, Martin says, "I wish you had trusted me."

" . . . What do you mean?"

"In the Panopticon. I just wish you'd trusted me enough to go along with the plan."

Jon frowns. "I . . . don't know if that was about trust."

"Wasn't it, though?"

"I didn't do what I did –" he pauses, rephrases. "I didn't kill Jonah because I thought you were lying, or going to betray me, or – or controlled by spiders. I didn't think your intentions were anything other than what you said. But I couldn't bear the thought of what we were doing . . . or I thought I couldn't. Clearly I could. In the end."

"Yeah. Well. Turns out both of us did things we didn't think we could," Martin says bitterly, thumb still tracing the scar.

"Funny how often that happens."

"You could have trusted that I knew what I was doing."

"But you didn't. None of us did . . . no one could in that situation."

"That includes you, you know," Martin frowns. "You kept going on about all you knew, but even you said you weren't unbiased. You don't think maybe the idea that the only way out was global euthanasia had anything to do with your own baggage?"

Another twinge, sharper this time. Without realizing, he'd pressed Martin's palm down harder than he should have, in where the nerves were still healing. He eases off.

". . . Maybe," he says eventually. "Probably. I doubt any of us were unbiased. How could we be?"

"But it was your biased plan you decided to go with. Like you always do. You always think you know better than everyone else--"

"I don't think that's entirely fair."

"It's not entirely unfair either."

He feels something stirring defensively in him. Then he stops. Assesses. "No," he says eventually. "I suppose it's not."

The hand is warm against his stomach, and he can feel the dampness of sweat just forming between their skins. It's not pleasant or unpleasant, just something he can feel, and he focuses on it for a while.

"You didn't trust me either, you know," he senses an objection coming, and he heads it off. "You were right not to. I wasn't trustworthy. You thought that I would go behind your back, and I did."

The tension that was rising deflates a little at the admission, and Martin's voice is gentle when he says, "you did."

"But I don't think you were lying when you said you trusted me." Jon adds. ". . . Do you?"

" . . . Fine, I get it. Trust is complicated and all that," Martin sighs, "it just. It hurts."

". . . I'm sorry."

Martin nods, is still for a moment, then leans forward and kisses him once. He kisses back.

"Do you regret it?"

"Which part?"

"Killing Jonah. Not waiting for us. Trying to go the other way."

Jon thinks of the hours before it happened. Of whimpering into Martin's chest, almost pleading, begging him to see. Horribly aware that Martin was as deeply set in his feelings as Jon, that there would be no budging for either of them.

He thinks of the moment he spent watching Martin's sleeping form, just before he climbed those stairs. Seeing his brow creased with unquiet dreams, and knowing that he was about to hurt him. He thinks of the terror, the dawning horror that fell over him as he saw what it all had been leading to.

"I don't know," he finally says. "I regret the pain you went through . . . I regret making you feel that."

There's a curved line trailing over Martin's forehead, just above his eye, which Jon follows with the edge of his thumb. The one on his shoulder is larger, took ages to heal, and there are more that travel down his back and arms. Places where the rubble struck him, before they both unraveled.

The scars aren't really what Jon is referring to when he talks about pain. But he supposes they're a part of it too.

". . . Do you?" he asks.

"Do I what?"

"Regret any of it?"

"I'm not sorry that I didn't let you stay in that tower and kill the entire world, if that's what you mean," he says firmly. "I'm sorry, but I'm never going to regret that."

"No . . . I wouldn't expect you to."

"I wouldn't have told the others to start if I'd known you'd already done it. But if I'd known that . . . that would've been it, right? We'd be stuck there."

"Unless the others went behind both our backs."

"What, you think Melanie wanted to stick a knife in you that badly?"

"I don't know about wanted. But I think Basira could have done it."

"Yeah . . . maybe."

". . . I'm sorry that I went behind yours."

Martin breathes into the space between their bodies, a long and expressive exhale. "I know. . . And I know you were hurting. And scared. I do know that."

"We both were."

"Yeah. Yeah . . ." he sighs. "I forgive you for it. I do. I don't want to hold onto that."

Jon finds Martin's hand in the dim light, pulls it closer to himself and kisses it. He hesitates – not sure if he should say this, should even acknowledge it – before linking their fingers together and pulling the hand back to his stomach, over the place where the knife went in.

"I don't need to forgive you for this. That is – I, I don't believe there's anything to forgive? It was what you had to do, and it was what I asked for. But . . ." he pauses, hesitates. "I know guilt can be an insidious emotion--"

"Oh, do you?" the lilt of sarcasm does not go unnoticed. Jon ignores it.

"–And I want you to know . . . if you feel like you need to be forgiven for it, you are. Entirely and unconditionally."

Martin nods, moving his hand off the scar and over around Jon's side. As he leans in for another kiss he grips him a little more firmly, his touch seems less hesitant and Jon is glad that he said something after all.

"Anyway, I was right, wasn't I?" Martin says after a moment. "We're here. We're in another world, and things are fine. It's normal. Maybe the fears are here, but it's not an apocalypse. Maybe it never will be."

That makes Jon frown. "You don't know that."

"Neither do you."

"And we never will," he says firmly. "We won't ever know the cost of what we did. Maybe it balances out. Maybe it doesn't. Either way, you and I won't have to feel it."

"At least it's normal here. You're not even an avatar," Martin says, and Jon nips back the impulse to quibble about the nature of that term. "You haven't been having the dreams, and you haven't needed a statement since we got here."

". . . I'm still feeding the Eye." It isn't until he sees the look of confusion on Martin's face that it occurs to Jon he didn't already know. "I don't have the power I once had, or the same needs," he explains. "But I feel it sometimes, using me as a conduit. It's as if the signal's fainter, but the receiver is so much more sensitive."

"Do you know it's happening, though, or are you just guessing?"

"I'm not sure how it happens, exactly. Maybe it just grazes off the fear I witness when I see something terrible on the news, or pass by someone in distress. Maybe in time it'll push me to seek out more, to force myself into other peoples' tragedies in service of the Beholding. Or maybe it never will, and I'll stay this way for the rest of my life."

Martin's brow furrows, and his voice is insistent, pushing back with some need Jon can't quite understand. "Okay, but it's not like you're actually hurting people--"

"No . . . I am," he says firmly. "And I am certain of that. It might be more subtle now . . . a lingering feeling of invasion, or paranoia. Or a trauma that would have otherwise passed leaving a decades-deep mark." He stares thoughtfully at his own thumb. "It feeds through me, and I give it strength. On some level, my existence still depends on the suffering of others. That's one consequence we can't avoid."

Martin is quiet for a long while. ". . . Guess it doesn't matter, right?" he finally says. "It's done. Can't undo it."

"No. Not any of it." He shakes his head. "It's funny, really. All my paranoia and suspicion, all my worry that the Web would slip an agent in under our nose, and the whole time I was looking in the wrong place. Seeing and seeing and never understanding."

"What do you mean?" Martin fidgets, and Jon wonders if he's said something he shouldn't have, though he can't guess what. "Looking in the wrong place?"

"I mean myself. The mark when I was a child. The lighter I could never remember. Even the tapes they sent to press on my wounds, keeping that anger fresh. All of it leading to that moment."

". . . Oh." Martin sighs. "Yeah, Jon. They manipulated you, that's what they do. They manipulated all of us."

"They did. And I was more theirs than I ever realized."

He feels Martin's fingers tapping against his side, thoughtful. After a moment, he speaks. ". . . She said that about me, too. Annabelle. That I was suited to the Web, or something."

"I imagine she'd say anything she knew would rile you up."

"She was right, though. At least a little bit . . . ." he takes the edge of Jon's sleeve between his fingers, twisting and fidgeting with it. "When we were down there, waiting, I could feel you coming through the web. The vibrations just spoke to me, I knew Basira was with you even before I saw her."

That surprises Jon. Startles him, even. He feels Martin fidget again, and in his mind he plays back what do you mean, looking in the wrong place. Notices the quiet nervousness in his voice. Considers how deep and old Martin knows his hatred of the Mother of Puppets to be.

"I always knew," he says, voice light and casual, "that there had to be a reason you'd defend anything as vile and repugnant as the common house spider."

Hearing Martin laugh, feeling that tension release in a sudden startled lungful – it's beautiful, it's a victory, and he smiles as Martin nudges into his shoulder. Halfway between a gesture of affection and a headbutt.

"Arsehole," he mutters. "It's not just that. I know I'm . . . well, I'm not always great at being direct. And maybe I can sometimes be passive-aggressive . . . ."

"Well—"

"You don't have to agree with me."

". . . Right."

"But that's sort of Web stuff, isn't it? And I – I was always good at telling Peter what he wanted to hear. I know why she said what she did."

"Mmm." Jon lifts Martins' fingers from where they're worrying at his sleeve, rolls them between his own. "You've learned that it's safer to nudge and suggest than to be direct. To make yourself look smaller than you are. I can see the . . . thematic overlap, I suppose. Imagine it drawing the attention of the Spider."

". . . Does that bother you?"

"Well I'm not worried you're some spider-controlled double agent," he says, then adds something under his breath.

". . . What was that last bit?" Martin lifts his head.

"Nothing."

"Did you just mutter ‘anymore?!"' he asks incredulously.

"My point is, we call to them in countless ways, often without knowing or wanting to," he sighs. "Besides . . . I'd hardly be in a position to judge. They had their strings on me from the start."

"That makes you a victim of them. Not an agent or an avatar."

"Martin . . . ."

"Don't ‘Martin' me, I'm right."

"Do you really think the two are incompatible? Being a victim of a power, and being a channel through which it feeds on others? After all you've seen?" his voice softens. "After all you've been through . . . after the Lonely?"

Martin goes quiet. Jon runs his fingers over his shoulder, absently stroking.

"In the end, I chose to be theirs. With it all falling down around us, I saw what they'd known I would do from the very beginning. I witnessed my fate laid out for me and instead of defying it, I ran towards it."

". . . You still regret it, don't you? Letting them out."

"I don't know, Martin. Truly, I don't," he says. A smile starts, then dies on his lips. "There's so much I regret nowadays, it's honestly hard to keep steady how I feel about most things."

A vague, hmm sound, an expression of some emotion that Jon can't guess at, though he suspects that wasn't what he'd wanted to hear. He brings both his hands up, cupping the sides of Martin's face between his palms. Martin startles, but says nothing.

"Most," Jon says, looking back at him seriously. "But I know how I feel about you. That doesn't change. And I don't regret staying with you."

The beginnings of tears form in Martin's eyes, and there is quiet in the room as Jon brings his face to his. Brushing a soft kiss over his mouth, the trails on his cheeks, the space above each closed eye. He doesn't stop until Martin shudders, swallows, and speaks again.

"I love you," he whispers.

"I love you too," Jon says. "And I'm glad that I'm here. I'm glad we're together and alive . . . whatever else comes with that."

Martin shudders again, a weak and pained sound coming out of him. It's all Jon can do not to pull Martin's face into his chest and let out a thousand desperate apologies, to self-flagellate, to beg forgiveness for ever allowing any pain to come to him. He sensibly quiets that urge, because he knows it's the last thing Martin needs. It's the last thing either of them need.

"Do you promise?" Martin whispers.

"Promise what? That I love you?" Silence follows, and Jon frowns, confused. ". . . I do promise that, if that's what you mean."

Instead of answering, Martin silently reaches between them, fumbling for Jon's hand and squeezing it tightly.

"Some nights I pretend to sleep," he says after a pause. "Or, well. Pretend's too strong a word . . . I just lie quietly in bed. But I'm waiting for you to fall asleep first."

Jon's fairly sure he lost the thread of this conversation, and he doesn't know where or how. ". . . Why?"

"Because I'm scared I'll wake up and find you gone."

"Oh. Oh, Martin . . . ."

"I don't-- it's not that I really think--" he shakes his head, "just sometimes can't let go of the thought of it, and it scares me." A wry smile crosses his face. "Which power feeds on that, you think?"

"I mean –"

"Not actually looking for an answer, Jon," he sighs, a mixture of affection and irritation. "Anyway, I think we both know which one it'd be."

He nods. Holds Martin's hand, rubbing the knuckle of his thumb. "I don't know what I can say . . . I can tell you that I won't leave, that I'll be here when you wake up. But I don't suppose that helps unless you can--" he hesitates, not wanting to say trust. It's starting to feel like a deeply troublesome word, both imprecise and emotionally weighted, the sort Jon tends to despise. ". . . believe me?"

"I don't actually think you're going to just vanish in the night someday. It's hard to explain."

"It's unlikely that we'll live to see another ritual for me to be the apocalyptic tipping point of."

"There's still more . . . ordinary things."

"Don't tell me you think I'm going to run off with one of the locals?" He raises his eyebrows, smiling, lets a teasing superiority into his voice. As if he considers the people of this reality to be below their station.

Martin doesn't laugh or smile. He gives him a look, like he's being stupid on purpose. Jon half wants to tell him it's completely involuntary.

"You don't need a bottomless coffin or an all-seeing eye to run off and martyr yourself. People do it with their own hands every day."

And now he understands. Now the thread comes back, winding itself directly around his throat.

". . . Come here," he says, though there are scant inches between them. Martin does so anyway, fitting himself into the space between Jon's arms, head tucked into his collar, legs twining with his. Jon's hands run over his shoulders, through his hair, down his back. He kisses the crown of his head over and over, pouring it all into touch and action until he can find the strength for words again.

"I love you," he whispers. "I'm not going to leave. Not that way . . . not in any way I have control over."

"Seeing his body there next to you . . . it felt like when I was coming back from the shop, and the sky went dark, and the ground started reaching and –" he swallows. "E-everything had gotten so horrible but we finally had a way out, a chance to start over. And then it was just gone again."

And Jon's heart is breaking, and he's afraid if he speaks he's going to start crying, but he can't be silent after that. So he tries.

"I'm so sorry . . . ."

"I know . . . I know." Martin sniffs. "It's not . . . I'm not looking for that. Honest. I just . . . ."

He goes quiet for a while.

"I know you were in pain," he continues. "The night before it all happened. I know – I knew that it was killing you, what we were about to do. It wasn't that I didn't care. But I told myself that someday – even if it wasn't right away, someday you'd be glad we'd done this. Because there'd be a someday."

". . . Maybe I would have been."

"And maybe you wouldn't have. I didn't know. I don't know. We'll never know. But I know you were hurting, and that's just it. Because I also know it . . . s-still hurts."

"I couldn't do that to you."

"We've both done things we thought we couldn't do," Martin says humorlessly.

"Right . . . I take your point."

"I know you feel guilty," Martin whispers, "and you – you just said that while you're alive others are suffering –"

". . . Yes."

"I know how tempting it can be. To just give in to it."

"I know you do."

"So . . . ."

Martin trails off, helpless. Jon feels helpless too. He clumsily feels for Martin's hands and brings them up against his own chest.

"Whatever else I feel, I promise you that I'm glad I'm alive," he says, holding their hands over the place where his heart still beats, steady and warm and living. "Even when it's difficult to bear it all, I'm glad that I'm alive and with you. I want to build a life together, here and now, more than anything. To take whatever chance we've got."

He wonders what Martin is looking for as his eyes trace over his face. Whatever it is he seems to find it, or maybe just trusts that it's there, because he takes a shuddering breath and nods.

". . . I believe you," he says.

"Thank you," Jon breathes deep, feeling the sharp heat behind his eyes fade as he blinks his own tears away. "And . . . I can hope that we made the right choice. Really it's all either of us can do, anymore."

"True."

They lie together in the silence. Martin slides his arms around Jon's sides, resting his head against his chest, and Jon feels the rhythm of his pulse next to his ear. His body is heavy and real, meat and bone, tangled up together with one that he loves. He feels the heat of Martin's breath as he sighs, the gentle weight, the tickle of hair, the hard ridge of skull beneath it. Abject, bloody systems of life.

". . . Martin?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you . . . for coming back."

In the dark he feels a smile against his body. ". . . Which time?"

"Any. All."

"I always will," he whispers. ". . . Thank you for staying."

"That's the deal."

"Yeah. . . yeah." Martin lets out a long, steady sigh. "That's the deal"

Jon feels Martin's limbs relax around him, grip loosening as eyes tiredly close. He twines his fingers through Martin's hair, stoking softly and sweetly as his beloved drifts. Jon doesn't close his eyes just yet, instead watches the face that rests against him slowly go slack in the moonlight. Thinking that maybe tonight, Martin will fall asleep first.

#jonmartin #tma #tma spoilers #tma finale #tma fanfic #me every time i post a new fanfic:#oh no THIS is the most self-indulgent one #every other *cuddling and talking about feelings* fic was dignified and okay #but THIS ONE oh nooooo

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