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mt-musings · 1 year

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Bluebell

Chapter 34

After being abruptly transferred to the BAU at what she suspects was Gideon's request, Cassie Boann struggles to find her footing. Shy and solitary by nature, the transition is made all the more difficult when Dr. Spencer Reid seems to take an almost immediate dislike to her. Unfortunately for them both, their respective areas of expertise leave them paired off more often than not. But when Cassie's past literally starts hunting her, Spencer is forced to consider that he might, in fact, not hate her at all.

Quite the opposite, actually.

Spencer Reid x OC

Warnings: Canon typical violence, kidnapping, stalking, drug use, blood, injury, death, PTSD, eventual smut, more tags to be added

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34. Burden in my Hand

Cassie scanned over her presentation, ignoring the acidic note of anxiety rising in the back of her throat. She knew her thesis by heart, had practiced answering every possible question, every argument to every counterargument or dismissal.

Still the feeling didn’t fade.

It wasn’t as if she would be thrown to the wolves—she knew every professor on the panel, had already watched how they’d reacted to candidates in past years. She knew they weren’t out to get her, that they wanted her to succeed. She knew her thesis was solid, borderline revolutionary, if only she had the close rate to take it out of the theoretical realm. Hell, Dr. Garvey had practically been vibrating with excitement when she’d arrived at the lab to retrieve her samples.

She’d thought that would help—having her father there with her, even if, as far as anyone else was concerned, he was just an evidentiary number. She’d thought it would be reassuring, like he was there with her, watching over her during such a huge milestone.

She glanced at the small, white box and looked away. Instead of comfort, it just invoked a nauseating sense of shame—shame that she hadn’t yet found his killer, shame that she hadn’t found the remainder of his body, shame that she hadn’t been able to lay him properly to rest. She’d thought about trekking back to the lab to return him to his shelf, half-steeled herself to do so—there would have been just enough time if she walked fast, though it would be cutting it very close. She looked up at the sound of the door opening, hand twitching towards the shoulder holster that wasn’t present.

Spencer pulled the door shut behind him, giving her a soft, encouraging smile. He’d dressed up for the event—shoes freshly shined and a new, a violet tie he’d found during a layover they’d had in San Diego. She hadn’t realized how much he enjoyed fashion before—she should have, looking back. Perhaps she might of, had she known anything about fashion. She’d never thought much about it growing up, never needed to—she’d always just taken whatever bag of hand-me-downs the child services representative dropped off. She hadn’t put much more thought into buying her own clothes when she aged out—she only really cared that they covered as many of her scars as possible and were preferably in dark colors to hide wear.

Spencer, on the other hand, was particular. He always made sure his shirts and slacks were crisply ironed, collected academic inspired blazers and silk ties. He had a whole array of leather shoes, all polished to a high shine and set with wooden inserts to keep their shape and a handful of vintage watches he matched to the outfits he packed for each trip.

She hadn’t noticed any of that when she was just staying over as a friend—of course she’d never lingered the next morning, never stayed more than fifteen minutes after Spencer woke up. She’d been so worried about that hazy early morning softness blurring the line between what they were—friends and colleagues—to something more, something she refused to put a name to.

She’d been right to do so. There was no way she could have sat, crosslegged, at the end of the bed, watching Spencer lay out various options for the day based on planned activity, weather, and location, his hair still wild and mussed from sleep, and not fall head over heels for the man. It had become one of her favorite parts of days in DC, just listening him chatter on about whatever had caught his interest that morning, occasionally pausing to ask her opinion on a tie or a pair of shoes. She was rarely any help, simply saying that either of the options would look wonderful on him. Still, he kept asking and rewarded her whether she was helpful or not with a kiss pressed to her forehead, something that always left her flushed and giddy.

She’d spent more than a few layovers, now, poking through the airport mall looking for anything interesting, or digging through boutiques on their days off after raiding second-hand book stores. She liked watching him pick things, juxtapositioning patterns that shouldn’t work, but did. She like to listen to him ramble on about the history of this garment or that, or why a certain fabric was used. It made her consider her own wardrobe as something more than just bare practicality.

It was just another way Spencer had unknowingly opened up her world from the dark, narrow cavern it had been before she’d met him.

“Hey! I just wanted to see you before it started and tell you you’re going to great. I’m so excited for you,” he said, dropping into the seat next to her. She couldn’t help her smile at his words, despite her nerves.

“Thanks. I just want it to be over.”

“Don’t say that, you’re going to have fun! I loved my thesis defenses—it’s just about the only time it’s encouraged to ramble on for two to three hours about highly-specialized material with a group of people that actually care.”

“I suppose that’s true. I’m just—I’m nervous.” She dropped her gaze to the graying linoleum of the floor, attempting to hide the flush of her cheeks at the admission. It still felt unnatural, sharing feelings, moments of weakness. She still had the urge to just lie, to flash her practiced smile and brush everything off, but she was trying. Trying to be more open, more honest.

After all, he’d seen her at some of her worst, her most broken and pathetic, and still wanted her.

She was drawn out of her thoughts by the feeling of his hand cradling her cheek. She was surprised by the intensity of his gaze, the sincerity behind his eyes.

“You have nothing to worry about, I promise. Your thesis is rock solid and I’m almost sure you could field whatever questions they throw at you in your sleep. But if you get nervous, I’ll be right in the front row—just look at me and pretend you’re just explaining it to me, just like how you’ve been prepping the last few weeks.”

“How do you always know the right thing to say?”

“I’m a genius, remember?” He replied, smirking at her. She just shook her head, fighting the urge to roll her eyes, even as she huffed a laugh. She hesitated a moment before closing the distance between them, making sure to allow time for him to pull away before kissing him. She still felt almost shy initiating any sort of romantic affection, always worried that she might inadvertently overstep a boundary without meaning to. She was glad Spencer never seemed to mind, glad that he met her careful, chaste kiss with enthusiasm, following it with two of his own.

He beamed at her when they broke apart and she mirrored him, trying to ignore the heat flooding her cheeks. He glanced briefly at his watch before sighing.

“I should grab my seat. You’re going to do amazing.”

She smiled as she watched him slip out the door, the warm feeling left by his affection pushing aside some of the anxiety. Then her gaze fell back on the table, on her father’s box.

She glanced back at the door before scooping the box up, face falling. She wondered for a moment what this moment might have been like if her parents were out in the lecture hall, sitting next to Spencer. If her father would have been one of those fathers that gave boyfriends intimidating speeches the first time they met.

She turned the box over carefully in her hands so the label faced forward, not really reading it. Her voice was barely more than a whisper and thick in the back of her throat with emotion.

“I hope—I hope I can still make you proud. Even if it’s not in the way you wanted.”

She didn’t look up as the door opened again, just nodded when Dr. Garvey poked his head through to tell her it was time. She took one last look at the box before heaving a deep breath and getting to her feet to gather her materials and throw herself to the not-wolves.

---

It didn’t take Cassie long to find her stride.

It was almost jarring to watch her speak so freely and with such easy authority after listening to her deliver her findings to the BAU with such brevity and restraint. He hadn’t quite realized the extent to which she simplified her reports, or the level of minutia she regularly delved into with her samples.

He couldn’t help his smile as she explained relevant genetic markers to look for, epigenetic data that could give a more complete picture of origin, a multi-faceted approach to identification. She lit up as she spoke, her passion near-blinding as she spoke of her research in the lab, her successes and working leads.

It was hard to believe he’d picked her up from the airport a mere three weeks ago, sleep deprived and bowed under the weight of her discoveries. That it had been scarcely three weeks since they’d first kissed, since he finally admitted to what he’d been feeling for months. That the shift into something more had fallen into place so naturally.

She caught his eye and shot him a crooked grin before answering a question from the panel, pulling up a slide of relevant data on the projector.

They still hadn’t told anyone at the BAU they’d started dating. It was hard, at work, to keep his eyes off her, to slip back into the formality they’d once curated so expertly. To not slip his hand into hers on the jet, to not linger in her room, to not rush to her side when things got dangerous. He knew they’d have to turn in paperwork eventually, face the barrage of teasing and I-told-you-so’s, pop the little bubble where they existed solely in each other’s company. He hoped for a few more weeks without scrutiny, before the lecture they’d surely get from Hotch about professionalism in the workplace.

He was the first person to rise to his feet when she concluded, to thunderous applause. There was some whooping from the back, where her cohort sat, loud and absurd enough for her to duck her head to hide her embarrassment. She gave a stiff sort of bow and thanked the panel, grabbing the small white box from her evidentiary table before stepping outside the lecture hall to allow them to deliberate. He knew it would be the worst part of the whole process, remembered how those minutes dragged into what felt like an eternity, even though he knew he’d done more than enough.

He couldn’t help but wonder why Cassie hadn’t pursued a more purely academic track—she was clearly comfortable in the roll of a lecturer, clearly adored research and pushing the envelop on what was feasible in the field. Either that or a research institute the specialized in her discipline. Hell, even within the FBI it was odd that she’d push for analyst and field agent positions instead of something in the Laboratory Division. It had been clear ever since he’d first read her dissertation that her talents were being squandered at the BAU. Not that she wasn’t a valuable and integral part of their team—but that her knowledge and skill could be used for a much broader good than to the extent they were currently being utilized. He’d thought about asking her, had it on the tip of his tongue a half-dozen times in the last few weeks, but he held it back, not wishing to push a conversation he knew would no doubt be rooted in the trauma of her parents’ murders.

He looked up as Dr. Garvey rose from the panel table, beaming from ear to ear. He caught Spencer’s eye and winked as he practically skipped to the door Cassie had left through in order to retrieve her. She managed to keep her face schooled into neutrality, though her wringing hands betrayed her.

The other members of the panel stood as Dr. Garvey rejoined them. There was a beat of silence before he spoke, voice ringing out over the silent auditorium.

“Congratulations, Doctor.”

The rest of whatever he’d intended to say was lost in a wave of applause and hooting from the cohort in the back, Ayesh’s voice ringing out overtop it all with an all-suffering ‘Finally!’

Cassie didn’t react at first, merely dropping her gaze to the box in her hands. When she looked back up her eyes were shining, but there was a smile on her face, a quiet air of triumph. She clutched the box to her chest as she shook hands with each of the panel members, Dr. Garvey pulling her into a tight hug.

She pulled back, nodding at something he said before glancing around the crowd. Her face lit up as she spotted him and made a bee-line for him.

“Congratulations!” He said pulling her into a hug. She just laughed, the sound giddy and a little breathless.

“Thank you,” she replied, the sound muffled by his jacket.

“You don’t need to thank me—“

“I do. Really—I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Yes you could—“

“But I wouldn’t have. I’d have pushed it off again.”

“It was nothing.”

“It was everything. Thank you.”

“Of course.”

“Hey! Guess who’s finally graduating! You’re going to get the dumb little beret and everything.” Ayesh said, elbowing his way through the crowd, Owen and Georgie right behind. He could see Peggy and Tran still up by their seats, waiting patiently for the crowd to dissipate before making their way down. They were all beaming, though Owen was very clearly hiding something behind his back.

“You know, in Finland they get swords,” she shot back, eyes glimmering with mischief.

“I knew it! I told you!” Owen said, whipping out a neon green plastic pirate sword from behind his back. It was covered in thick, black-Sharpie letters that proclaimed ‘Doctor Dipshit.’

Cassie took one look at it and burst into hysterical laughter, doubling over. Spencer couldn’t help but laugh either, half because of the sheer absurdity of the gift and half at Cassie’s reaction to such a ridiculous joke. She was always so serious at the Bureau, even with him—he’d never really thought of her as a person with much of a sense of humor, or as someone who really appreciated one. If anything, it was a quiet thing, sarcasm and clever quips.

It was hard to reconcile with the woman brandishing the plastic sword before him, proclaiming through giggles that she was going to sneak it into graduation.

His mind once again flash back to the question of why she’d chosen the BAU, why she chose death and restraint and the cold professionalism of the work over this. He pushed it away, instead deciding to simply enjoy her glee.

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#spencer reid #spencer reid x oc #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #multichapter #slow burn

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wither-rose-circus · 2 years

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Imma be honest I found the finale really anticlimactic and like they were adding a bunch of stuff to make it unique but just ended up feeling unfinished in the most avoidable way possible

I didn’t want to tack my personal opinions on the summary post just so people could reblog it objectively, but honestly? Yeah I kinda feel where you’re coming from [disclaimer: I know nobody wants to listen to somebody rail on a series they enjoyed, so here’s your warning that I’m gonna be complaining a lot in this post and it’s all just my personal opinion, don’t take it too seriously]

Certain finales do feel a lot more complete than others, but all together? They feel very....disjointed and hollow. Based on the few details I’ve heard and the fates of certain characters, season 2 sounds like it’s going to be a hard reset, so I’m saying all of this under the assumption that this is where their stories end, full stop.

Scott’s death feels a bit unnecessary, he didn’t save anyone, they all still fell apart without him. I’m not sure if it was meant to imply that he transferred Xornoth’s soul with him? If he did, then I think it would’ve been more clear by having both of them confused, that way we could get Xornoth’s reaction to finally being free of Exor and getting to live a happy life. If that wasn’t meant to be the case and Scott is the only one who’s soul was transferred, well then. . . what exactly was the point? I suppose he theoretically saved everyone from Xornoth, but the world still ended in its own way. Scott’s death doesn’t feel like it saved anyone but himself, but maybe that’s the tragic point. That the cycle cannot ever be truly broken, just postponed.

Gem and fWhip’s endings feel. . . kind of selfish, honestly. And that is, to some extent, in character. I don’t have as much of a problem with fWhip’s as I do with Gem’s, though. I’m a little annoyed that they didn’t so much as mention or say goodbye to Sausage. Like if they met up and he insisted on staying behind to fix this mess, I would’ve been perfectly happy. It’s the fact that they didn’t even acknowledge leaving him, or anyone, behind. They spent so much of the series intertwining their trio that to just abandon him without a second thought doesn’t sit right with me. Sausage specifically made a point to emphasize how much his character cared and would sacrifice for his friends (going as far as to namedrop Gem!), so why they didn’t at least include some sort of goodbye baffles me. Gem’s finale especially bothered me because she treats her ending like this storybook, the wizard lives happily ever after in retirement, the Crystal Cliffs are fine, etc. It doesn’t fit. There’s not even a courtesy hand wave to anyone else, she doesn’t even acknowledge missing any of them, she’s just living happily ever after and that’s it. (Not to mention the dragon egg getting tossed away. They built it up like it was the only thing that could possibly stop Xornoth and then never touched on it. It’s just there! It never did anything, what was the point?)

Other than those two, I didn’t have nearly as much beef with anyone else’s individually. In a vacuum:

• Lizzie’s ending feels anticlimactic. I think if she had drawn out losing the blessing, it would’ve been perfectly fine. If we had gotten to see her panic and slowly begin forgetting everything she knew and loved, it would’ve been gut wrenching. The fact that it just stopped and she left without a thought makes it feel as if all her buildup, all these prophecies and developments, meant nothing. It all just falls flat.

• Jimmy’s ending is depressing as all hell and it sucks that when he finally tries to stand up for himself and take charge, it literally blows up in his face and ruins everything and he just ends it feeling miserable and worthless. That’s not so say it’s bad in an objective story telling sense, but it just leaves you feeling sad (once again though, not necessarily a bad thing, just not for everybody).

• Joey’s ending feels a bit vapid. It doesn’t feel like he got much character growth and he clearly never moved past Xornoth, but it was decently tragic and admittedly still in character.

• Pixl and Joel’s endings are whatever, honestly. It’s sad that Pixl didn’t get to make one but it’s understandable. Joel kept up the same energy throughout the series so his is at least consistent and I expected nothing less.

• Kathrine and Pearl’s endings are both fine in my opinion. Outside of the general idea of what could’ve been, neither leave me feeling particularly empty. (Pearl especially kinda got screwed over by real life events). All and all, I thing they’re perfectly reasonable sad endings individually, though I was not personally invested in them so Kathrine or Pearl fans probably have more so say than I do.

• Surprisingly enough, the endings I enjoyed the most were Sausage and Shubble, one I followed religiously and the other I did not actively watch! My only criticisms are pretty minor. I’m disappointed Shubble’s relationship with Xornoth wasn’t explored more, but damn she set a reasonable end goal and she went for it. I feel pretty content with her ending where she did. As for Sausage, aside from never saying goodbye to Gem or fWhip as I mentioned earlier, I’m only really disappointed that the clone arc was cut so short. There wasn’t much of an explanation as to what he was, how exactly he got there, and what he was even gonna do. I’m sad there was no confrontation, Sausage just tricked him and that was that. That particular story beat felt pretty anticlimactic. The actual ending of Sausage sacrificing himself felt fine, though. Outside of a few loose ends and missed opportunities, I think both Sausage and Shubble had the best individual endings.

All that said, Empires was unfortunately not a vacuum. All together, their endings feel like a bunch of loose ends. There was no final tie together, everyone just sort of faded out alone. A lot of us were disappointed with the initial Xornoth defeat because so few members actually participated, but this honestly feels even worse. The book of prophecies wasn’t very actively explored, it just said some things and then they kinda happened, it didn’t feel like it really built up, yknow? It feels like a lot of things they seemed to be building up to fell flat. Not all of these endings even feel like they were part of the same story.

Like you said, it all feels very disjointed and unfinished, which is really a shame. I still think it’s a good series overall and I enjoyed most of it, but a lot of the finales either felt disappointing or even a bit frustrating. Of course, I’m still looking forward to season two regardless.

#this wasn’t meant to start an argument or anything (these are just my personal opinions on each finale)#but I will still be tagging this as discourse for the sake of empires fans that don’t care to listen to some asshole tear down their show #mcyt #empires smp #mcyt discourse #asks #anon

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mandoalorian · 3 years

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Stay With Me [Maxwell Lord x GN!Reader]

Summary: What if Maxwell Lord died after renouncing his wish...

Warnings: major character death, grief, descriptions of blood, typical Wonder Woman violence, description of illness, food mention, nightmare mention.

This is the saddest thing I’ve ever fucking wrote.

Rating: T for traumatic teen

Word count: 2500

Masterlist

In a way, it was nice. Bittersweet, almost. Alistair was so much like his father, more than you had ever realised before. He’d often come out with bold comments. He’d point and wiggle his finger when he talked to you. He struggled to sleep at night, just like you did, so you’d invite him into yours and Maxwell’s shared bed. It was a welcome change-- Maxwell’s side of the bed no longer being cold and empty, but instead inhabited by his son. It felt like, as long as Alistair was by your side, part of Maxwell was too. Alistair was a fidgety sleeper, and you pinned it down to the nightmares he’d been having. It was horrible, for a six year old child to go through what he was going through. He never spoke to you about his bad dreams. You knew he was trying to put on a brave face for you and pretend like everything was okay. Just like Max used to do.

Maxwell’s ex-wife wanted to sell Black Gold Cooperative. It wasn’t making money anyway, but… you wouldn’t allow it. That was Max’s business, a business he dedicated his whole life to. He had worked so hard and there was no way in hell you were going to let her sell it just so she could keep the money for herself. So you did some brainstorming and opted to turn it into something else.

A museum that was specified in geology. Maxwell always loved gems and stones.

Every Saturday morning you made pancakes because they were Maxwell’s favourite. You and Alistair weren’t too fussed on them yourself, both preferring waffles, but old habits die hard. He might not have been around anymore, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to break the tradition of making pancakes.

One Saturday morning, Alistair peppered on some frozen blueberries and syrup.

“Ali, I got you Nutella.” you furrowed your eyebrows together as you watched him decorate his waffles into a smiley face.

“Daddy always wanted me to eat more fruit.” Alistair mumbled as he concentrated on organising the blueberries to make a set of eyes.

As it turned out, financially, Maxwell didn’t have much, which didn’t come as a surprise to you. But what he did have, he left to Alistair. Obviously, Alistair only being six years old, the money was transferred to his mother, much to your dismay. Theoretically, Alistair should get the money when he turns eighteen but you knew it wouldn’t last a day in the hands of Max’s materialistic ex-wife. Luckily for you though, he left you the big house and the nice cars. Only-- was it really lucky? You never drove his cars and the house always felt cold and empty. Sometimes during the week, when it was just you in the house, you’d put on an Elvis vinyl and dance around the kitchen barefoot, pretending that Max was holding you in his arms.

It brought you comfort until it was time for bed. Time for you to cry yourself to sleep… sobbing into his pillow that still distinctly smelled like him. You couldn’t describe it but sometimes you felt like the ghost of him was still there… watching over you. Eventually you’d pass out, with tear stained cheeks and your hands bundled up in the blankets as you gripped them for dear life.

But in your sleep, you didn’t find solace. You only found more pain.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Max?” you cried the second you saw him on the floor, tears streaming down your face as you fell to your knees and grabbed his body. With all your strength, you pulled him into your lap and cradled him. His head was in the crook of your elbow and you began to smooth out his hair, just like you knew he loved so much. “Max can you hear me? Say something, please say something.”

His breathing was laboured and his chest was rattling. His brown eyes locked onto yours and he offered you a weak smile. “Hi,” he said meekly, raising a shaky hand to cup your cheek. His thumb grazed the height of your cheekbone and you found yourself subconsciously leaning into his touch.

Only, he wasn’t warm like he used to be-- he was very, very cold. His skin was pale and ghost-like, and his sparkling eyes were dull and blood shot. His white shirt was speckled with crimson blood and you began to rub your finger along to the stains. “Nose bleed.” he gasped out, as if the two words offered enough of an explanation.

You shook your head and felt another tear slip down your cheek, but Maxwell caught it in his hand. “Don’t cry.” he whispered.

“I don’t-- I don’t understand--” you croaked out, pulling his hand from your face and trying your best to squeeze some life into him. “I-- I thought-- I-- Max… what happ--happened?”

“I made a mistake.” Maxwell offered sadly.

“Can’t you-- fix it. With-- a wish. Or-- wait-- I didn’t make a wish-- let me fix it. Let me-- help you,” you sobbed, your grip on his hand tightening. “I have to touch you-- right? Okay… what do I say?”

“Nothing.” Maxwell said before erupting into a cough.

“No no no,” you chanted, and when he looked back up at you, his nose was bleeding again. You pulled down the sleeve of your t-shirt and wiped away the blood, even pinching the bridge of his nose to try and stop it. “Please, tell me how to fix it,” you begged him, but he just shook his head. You groaned in frustration, feeling completely annoyed. He always was stubborn. “I… I wish for everything to be okay. I wish that everything goes back to the way it did before the 4th of July. I wish for your health to be restored… good, strong health…” you waited to feel that familiar breeze gush through your hair. But nothing. “Why isn’t it working?!” you cried out once more.

“I renounced my wish.” Maxwell said quietly.

“Wh-- what? Why? Max… why-- but-- you’re still-- why are you--” Dying. Why was he still dying? But no matter how hard you tried to finish the sentence, you just couldn’t bear to say the word. “Can you stand? I can get you to a doctor. Come on.”

“No.” Maxwell said, his hand tangling in your hair.

“Stop saying no!” You screamed. “I can’t just-- leave you. I-- Max. We need to go now. We’ll get you to the hospital and they’ll make you better, okay? And then-- and then you come home and I’ll cook you your favourite dinner. And we’ll watch one of those black and white movies that I know you adore.” you tried cohersing but he didn’t move an inch. He just smiled.

“I love you so much,” he confessed. “I know I don’t say it much but I really do. I was always a skeptic when it came to love but with you… it was different. I’m glad I met you.”

“I love you too Max, I-- come on. Let’s go,” You said, trying your best to pull him up, but it was no use. Your gaze flicked across all the different televisions and broadcasting systems. “Is there a phone in here? There must be a phone. I can call an ambulance.”

With the last of his strength, Maxwell pulled you down on top of him. “Listen, you and I both know I’m not going to make it. So don’t spend my final moments crying, or panicking, or getting angry. Just stay with me. Please. All I want is for you-- for--”

“Max?!” your heart was hammering against your chest as you watched him splutter out a mouthful of blood. With shaky hands, he pulled off his gold signet ring that he wore everyday on his pinky finger, and slid it onto your wedding band finger.

“I love you,” he whispered, interlocking his fingers with yours. “You’ll make sure Alistair knows how much I love him, won’t you?”

“Like my life depends on it.” you promised, leaning in and nudging your nose against his.

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you when you tried to help me, I guess this is my fault…” Max sighed, closing his eyes. His breathing wasn’t erratic anymore… it was more shallow and quiet.

“Shh,” you hushed him, gently smoothing out his golden hair. You began humming his favourite song and you noticed his lips curl into one final smile, until after only a minute or so, he stopped breathing. His body stiffened up. The bleeding stopped. He was gone.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

He haunted you. He haunted you when you were sleeping, when you were awake, and no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t escape the memory of his death. The way his body felt in your arms. The way you saw him close his eyes for one final time, never to open them again. Ever since he died, nothing was the same.

His funeral stung. You didn’t expect it to be easy, but you had hoped that maybe by the day it finally came you had sort of numbed out. Alistair clung to your side the entire time, much to his own biological mother’s dismay. “Why don’t you go stand with your mommy?” you whispered, smoothing out his glossy black hair. “I’m sure she needs you right now. This can’t be easy on her.”

Alistair frowned and looked up at you, his shaggy hair falling into his eyes. “You need me more,” he acknowledged. He said it like it was the simplest thing in the world -- and in that sense, he was so much like his father. “Daddy wanted to marry you,” he admitted after a brief silence and you felt your blood run cold. “Remember the night you and him came to my piano show at the school, and saw me perform? Well, when he tucked me into bed, he told me that he was going to ask you to marry him.”

You shuddered. That was only a month ago. You knelt down to his level and flashed him your hand, the gold of his pinky ring sparkling under the sunset. “He gave me this before he…”

“That’s daddy’s pinky ring,” Alistair noted and you smiled, taking the hand of the little boy. You pulled the ring off your wedding band finger and slid it on Alistair’s pinky finger.

“Hm, small hands,” you giggled. “But when you’re older, I’m sure it’ll fit you. And then it can be yours.”

Alistair beamed in delight. “That ring was the first thing daddy bought with his paycheck.”

“I-- I didn’t know that.” you confessed and Alistair nodded along.

“Can you take me to McDonalds after the funeral?” Alistair asked and you couldn’t help but laugh at the sudden change of subject.

“Sure.” you agreed, as you took his hand and walked into the church.

You fought for Alistair, and you fought for him hard. It wasn’t an easy battle. You loved him like he was your own, and he loved you too. The courts granted you custody eventually, but only on the weekends. You weren’t mad at that. Maxwell only had him on the weekends too, so really, it was like nothing had changed.

You weren’t sure what was harder. The days or the nights. When Max was alive, you only really saw him on an early morning before work. He’d slip out of your shared bed trying his hardest not to wake you so he could get ready for another busy day at the office. So, you’d spend the days alone. Until of course, he’d come home in the evening, grinning the second he walked through the front door. You always had something cooking for him, and candles burning-- and the familiar scent just made him feel like he could relax. Like he was safe in your comfort.

People say ‘home is where the heart is’, but after Maxwell Lord passed, you found that wasn’t true at all. Home was where he was. So you visited his grave, every evening when the sun went down. You made sure it was clean and you brought him a rose. It was funny, really, because roses were the flowers he’d brought you on every single date when he tried so hard to win over your affection. You’d sit with him for about an hour and tell him about your day-- because when he was alive, he’d always ask. You told him about the simple things. Woke up at 8, done the dishes and the laundry, fed the cat.

But now he was gone, you noticed your routine had changed slightly. “Woke up at 1, done the dishes but dropped a plate and cut my hand, forgot about the laundry… I’ll do it tomorrow. No cat food but Lady was lucky there was a can of tuna in the fridge.” You made a mental note to stop by the grocery store on your way home for cat food.

“I still wait for you to come home every evening… but you don’t,” you sobbed, your fingers tracing his name in his grave. Lorenzano. “I miss you.”

When you got up to leave the cemetery that night, you noticed a cloaked figure standing under an oak tree, looking over at you. You passed her on the way out. “Can I help you with something?” you asked, clearing your throat and straightening your posture.

You noticed her smile under the shadow of her hood. Eventually, she politely pulled it down her revealing dark curls. “I never managed to get to the funeral.” she explained and you nodded understandingly.

“Were you a friend of his?” you questioned curiously.

“I must admit, I misjudged his character.” She confessed with a small sigh.

“Most people did.” you frowned, knowing just how bad the world had treated Maxwell Lord.

“I um-- was hoping to find you here, actually,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. She looked remarkably strong. “I know how it feels to lose a loved one.”

“Okay?” you shuffled your feet awkwardly.

“I never had a friend to get me through it, and I don’t know what your situation is like, but please know that you’re not alone. Give me a call, anytime, and I’ll be there.” She said, handing you a small card with her name on.

Diana Prince.

Before you could reply, she was gone. Just like that. You sniffed, shoving the card in your pocket and heading home.

You didn’t need a friend.

You needed Max.

Permanent taglist: @paintballkid711 @supernaturalgirl @phoenixhalliwell @ah-callie @stardust-galaxies @wickedfrsgrl @goth-topic @nerdypinupcrystal @wonderfulfluffer @kiwi-the-first @pedroepascal @castiel-barnes @honeymandos @rocketqueen @ladycumberbatchofcamelot @dybalalover10 @girl-obsessed-with-things @elena-myth @moth-guillotine @pedro-pascal-love @hayley-the-comet @pinkninja190 @maxiarapamaya @autumnleaves1991-blog @artsymaddie @harrys-stan @kennedywxlsh @cripplingmoon @cheekygeek05 @mrschiltoncat @rye-flower @theamuz @persie33 @sleepylunarwolf @martellthemandalor @pedro-pastel @steeevienicks @rrtxcmt

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#pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal x you #max lord #maxwell lord #alistair lord #maxwell lord x reader #max lord x reader #ww84 #diana prince #jose pedro balmaceda pascal

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lilover131 · 3 years

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Chapter 55 Thoughts

It’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to actually write down my reactions and thoughts about a chapter, but after a agonizing 3 month wait for a new chapter, I had a lot of time to think about a lot of things. The final day was certainly the most difficult, and I slept horribly trying to wait for this chapter to come out (it’d be nice if companies could regularly list like....a release time on a certain date so people aren’t literally refreshing the page every 5 minutes to see if it’s up. Or at least have some consistency!). My lack of sleep and constant thoughts about CCS though did manage to stir another CCS related dream, which I will talk about in a separate post.

But hot damn was this chapter worth the wait! It certainly wasn’t what I expected, but it was really great in a lot of ways!

ANYWAYS, I’ve rambled enough. My thoughts on this chapter are below the cut!

So I will start off by praising the hell out of Sakura for her quick thinking in using SIEGE. That was definitely a wow moment for me and really shows her growth as a magic user and as a person honestly. This action not only spoke to her skill but also to how quick thinking she is in such an uncertain situation. Surely, having never had any reason to doubt Kaito or question his abilities before, It is almost unbelievable that she managed to think of that and do that in the mere seconds she had to respond after Syaoran made his accusation of Kaito. I’ve noticed as of late that her instincts in particular seem to be really really on point. She starting to trust herself and her feelings, and because of this, she is able to act without hesitation, and I have a feeling that is going to be extremely vital later on.

Sakura starts off by asking the real important questions and things I would ask myself in her shoes having just met another magic user, especially one with unclear intentions like Kaito. She seemed like she was studying him to gauge him and the reasons for his actions or what he might do. What intrigues me about this part is she first asks him if he knows about her being able to use cards. He answers with a simple “Yes”. But when she asks about if he knows about Syaoran, his answer is far less simple, and that might potentially be telling. Kaito stated that he knows Syaoran to be a “extremely gifted sorcerer” and “the next head of the Li clan”. Now, perhaps I’m overthinking this, but he could have just answered ‘yes’ like he did with Sakura, but instead he listed specific details about him that shows Sakura he has done his research and knows a lot about him. Now, we already knew that he had this information of course, but why does he want Sakura to know this in that moment? I’m fascinated by this and what he was trying to tell Sakura by telling her he had this sort of knowledge. Additionally, why is it that when it pertains to Syaoran, Kaito behaves so much differently than he does with anyone else? I’ll probably delve into that in another post, but I have some theories on that.

After making this statement, Sakura and Kaito exchange some meaningful looks, though it’s unclear what the both of them are thinking in that moment. Sakura turns to look back at Akiho and Syaoran and appears nervous, like she’s concerned about something (I have a theory to that as well, but I’ll leave that for another time). Then, Sakura mentions Momo and asks where she went, indicating that she has not forgotten about the other person around earlier. Sakura seems to really be evaluating her situation with these questions she’s asking, but unbeknownst to her, Momo has been cut off from her tv drama and is pouting in the mansion. hahahaha!

Momo, while upset that she can’t see what’s going on anymore, praises Sakura for her for her quick thinking and mentions that neither she or Akiho’s mother accurately predicted how powerful Sakura would become. The implications of this are unknown as it is unclear what they are trying to stop to begin with.

The scene changes back to Kaito and Sakura’s ‘standoff’, and Kaito states that Sakura cannot stay hidden in SIEGE’s field forever. I believe he was trying to stir a reaction and speed things up as probably the longer he has his time spell up, the more it affects his body, so he cannot afford to waste any more time. In what appears to be his way of showing desperation (at least in my opinion), he points his staff in Syaoran’s direction and threatens Sakura by stating that “He will make the first move” if she won’t. My jaw dropped a this, and though I don’t believe he actually had any intentions of hurting Syaoran, just the implications and threat of it was enough to make my blood boil. Lmao.

BUT ONCE AGAIN, SAKURA IS QUEEN and reacts ridiculously fast to protect her man and uses one of her newest cards, TRANSFER, to switch places with Kaito and....well...she put him in a box. Hahahaha!! Seeing Kaito all crammed in that small space inside of SIEGE was honestly so satisfying and it was nice to see him on the losing side for once. I can’t imagine he was happy about it either. He’s used to things going his way, and in this particular venture, it has been anything but.

However, this unfortunately also becomes Sakura’s downfall. By switching places with him, she put herself out of the protection she had before and was now affected by Kaito’s time magic. She managed to take a few steps, running towards Syaoran, before she ultimately was stopped. Kaito makes mention of her progress. When you think about it, she’s gone from being able to move a pinky to moving as far as she did this time, so it’s a significant growth.

He goes on to talk, though it’s unclear if Sakura could hear him at all, about a phrase Akiho had learned in her Japanese dictionary one time about “growing leaps and bounds”. He seemed lost in a memory where Akiho spoke of how she wished to improve her Japanese so she could become even better friends with Sakura and the others, and how happy she looked when she spoke of this. Honestly, this sentiment from Akiho is super relatable and resonated with me. I am fortunate to have so many friends in so many different parts of the world, and I absolutely love learning about their cultures and words of their native language so that I can become closer to them. But what also makes this moment so meaningful is that in this particular moment, Kaito is thinking about Akiho and her smile. One may wonder “Why is he saying this right now?”, but it really does display how much Akiho is on his mind and how much he cares about her and his reasons for doing all of this.

Shortly after saying this, he seems to be in pain again, showing once again the deterioration of his body the more he uses time magic, and it seems clear that he really is getting closer to his own demise. He even says as much when he pleads to Sakura to please make the card he needs soon, before he runs out of time. I don’t think he’s necessarily displaying a will to live or anything yet, but more a “I have to get this done before I perish, or it will all be for nothing”.

Disappointingly, time is rewound once again, and he takes it back to before he and Akiho decided on a location for their outing. @meimi-haneoka mentioned this, and I agree with her, but he could have rewound to any point in time and could have completely undone their entire day, but he chose to still have that outing with her anyways. It was a conscious choice he made, though he quite casually made sure they changed the choice of location (for obvious reasons). Lmao!!!

Now we get to the really exciting part. So after Kaito rewound time, I gave a big sigh and thought “Well, here we go again”, but something was very different this time. Sakura’s serious expression standing in her hallway said it all, and she suddenly grabbed her phone from her purse and called Syaoran, saying “We need to talk. It’s important”.

So Syaoran, being the most adorable worried boyfriend he is, runs into her house literally in the next panel and immediately asks if Sakura is okay. I can imagine that he probably ran the entire way to her house too, and it’s just so wholesome I can’t even. It’s crazy how well CLAMP shows the strength of their love just through small actions like these, and it really is a work of art with its subtleties.

Kero and Suppi have not been told why Sakura’s behaving so seriously, as she was waiting for Syaoran to get there first, but soon enough she tells them all at once about how she remembers using SIEGE at the botanical garden. This understandably confuses Syaoran, since in his mind they haven’t even gone there yet. But, she goes on to explain that she remembers using SIEGE, but more importantly that she remembers seeing Kaito using magic. This is HUGE. Not only is this progress (have we finally gotten out of rewind hell?), but this means that Sakura likely will not be nearly as affected by any time magic in the future. And if Kaito cannot make her forget about him using magic, that makes every action he does in the future very precarious. It’s unclear what the implications are of this revelation, but it’s going to entirely change how she reacts around Kaito, perhaps how she reacts around Akiho, and the dialogue she has with Syaoran. Syaoran should theoretically be able to talk to her now about Kaito and what he’s done so far and what they know, and I’m so so curious to see what Sakura will do with this knowledge. Will she be upset? Will she be mad? Certainly she won’t be happy to know that Kaito’s been forcibly keeping Syaoran silent, but Sakura is a forgiving person in nature, so it’s hard to say what she’ll do.

Anyways, this chapter was incredible and I cannot wait to see how this develops from now on. I have a feeling things are going to get real intense here soon now that Kaito can’t control things like he’s been doing a majority of the series. Things are definitely different now, and honestly it’s about fucking time.

#cardcaptor sakura #clear card #chapter 55 #spoilers #chrissy talks a lot #theories #analyzation #summary #thoughts #kaito #sakura #syaoran #akiho #momo #manga #clamp

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theworldinclines · 3 years

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Title: any old tuesday Pairing: Pang/Wave Ao3 link Excerpt: He doesn’t want to wonder the malintentions behind someone’s kindness the way he used to; he doesn’t want to constantly worry that he’ll be left without warning. Like a wise — and infuriating — boy had said a while ago, the other shoe doesn’t even exist, and waiting for it to drop only serves as a waste of Wave’s time. He knows that, theoretically. And up until two weeks ago, Wave had had a real grip on that as his reality.

Wave’s parents die on a Tuesday.

He’s got his English notebook open for the quiet-work portion of the class as he follows the assignment, to print any passage from Charlotte’s Web by hand. Nothing had spoken to Wave in particular; the book was rather bittersweet and at this point, because he has to, he’s chosen a page at random to copy down lest he run out of time.

These autumn days will shorten and grow cold. The leaves will shake loose from the trees and fall. Christmas will come, then the snows of winter…

He takes his time because even if the quote doesn’t necessarily mean much to him, he can at least be sure that his handwriting is neat. The headmaster appears in the doorway, beckoning their teacher toward her, but Wave doesn’t spare them much attention as he goes on with his careful work.

…the days will lengthen, the ice will melt in the pasture pond. The song sparrow will return and sing, the frogs will awake, the warm wind will blow again. All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours —

“Wasuthorn.”

He’s asked to speak with the headmaster in her office, and the walk there is strange for a reason he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t think he’s done anything to warrant a scolding; for him to have somehow gotten in trouble when there’s only an hour left of the school-day would be unbelievably irritating.

His hands flex with nerves as he tries to keep in mind that he’s really only ever minded his business and done his best in class. Unless someone’s made up a story about him, or there’s been some sort of rumour, Wave can’t imagine what he might’ve done.

His certainty falters when their arrival at the office shows Wave’s grandparents already waiting there.

Wave can’t help questioning, “Did I do something?” as Headmaster Weerawatnodom ushers him inside. His grandmother’s flushed cheeks give her a look of perpetual discomfort, the buttons of his grandfather’s overshirt have one done incorrectly, like he had been in a rush. “Are you okay?” he asks them.

They’re perfectly fine, they assure him. Wave is whisked away to his grandparents’ house in a flurry of confusion as they refuse to tell him exactly what’s going on until he is planted on their familiar sofa.

As it turns out, his grandparents are fine, but Teep and Wipha Worachotmethee aren’t. Wave’s parents had been shot that morning in their duty as officers, Wave is told. The fact is spoken in such a tone that implies even a 12 year old mind should understand that this sort of death is more meaningful or less of a complete waste than another. He’s a smart boy and in a way he does understand, but that doesn’t prevent him from shutting down.

His interest in class dwindles to half, if that, of what it had been, and if it weren’t for his natural intelligence he would likely be out of luck. What little luck he retains is drained when his grandparents pull him from school into another, public instead of private and therefore more affordable for their lifestyle. Wave didn’t dare ask them to reconsider, not when they’d already sold their own house to move into Wave’s. His parents’ will had made such a request so that Wave, should he lose them, wouldn’t be uprooted from the house he’d grown up in.

With that sacrifice on his guardians’ end, Wave does what he can to stay out of the way and as quiet as possible. However, the change in schools does nothing to help Wave’s attentiveness in class, and his new teacher is judgmental and prickly, completely infuriated by what she takes as Wave’s disregard for her teaching. His parents only passed a year ago — 11 months and three days — and he’d transferred here less than four months ago. Did she never get the memo that maybe Wave’s inattention in maths doesn’t stem from rudeness, but from simply struggling to function as normal in a world he doesn’t see his place in at all, let alone something so dreadfully easy as maths?

He’s made to transfer for a second time after the Incident occurs. The woman responsible is fired from her position but Wave can’t possibly stay at this school, where the rumours about him have spread like a forest fire. It doesn’t matter that they’re all total falsehoods; if anything, the lack of clarity around the subject spurs their need to fill the gaps. So he moves again.

More than ever, Wave hides in his bedroom, and when he’s alone he often can’t help thinking of how the grandparents he’d known for so many years had seemingly died with his parents. He wasn’t their grandson anymore — he was the burden they’d had to sell their own years-loved home for, he was the troublemaking child whose every move was suddenly their responsibility for a lifetime instead of the occasional weekend visit. Wave came to recognise stress and disinterest toward him in place of where had once been hands helping him to stir pots and arms lifting him onto a bicycle.

He’s resentful, is what it comes down to. Still, after so long, he’s resentful, even though he knows it isn’t fair to them. But with so much of Wave’s recent life reminding him again and again just how unfair things actually are, he found it difficult to tamper that resentment. Why had losing his parents meant losing his grandma and grandpa too? Why did he have to hide away in his bedroom to avoid the fact that neither of them could really look at him anymore? They’re disjointed, a caricature of anything resembling a family, his grandparents at one end of the house and Wave tucked away in the other.

As though his final year of high school isn’t hard enough, his grandfather dies the week before the semester is set to end.

He knows how he’s supposed to feel, but it’s been nearly a fortnight since the elder’s passing and the feeling itself has remained elusive to Wave. His grandmother hasn’t cried so much as she’s been quiet, quieter than ever. After the death of his parents, her quiet had become something more resigned than calming, and he’d grown used to that too. She’s again in shift, and allowing her space to grieve is nothing new to Wave. Unwilling to be seen or heard, he’d spent years doing what he could to remain separate from nearly everyone, and up to becoming Gifted he had been content to remain so. Maybe content isn’t the word; it’s more likely that he’d been resigned as well.

With his grandfather’s passing, Wave thinks of the ways in which his grandparents had had a fair hand in cultivating his negative thoughts, even if they hadn’t been aware of it, and he just… can’t find it in himself to cry.

In the absence of tears arrives an all too familiar voice in his head, sounding remarkably similar to his grandfather, to inform Wave that the reason he hasn’t cried is because he’s self-centered, that Wave’s care for the world starts and ends with himself. In a correlated sense, those who claim to care for Wave don’t, when it comes down to it, because how could anyone care for someone so self-obsessed?

Wave knows that can’t be true, because how could it possibly be? But outward logic does nothing to help, and his final semester of high school’s arguably sour end finds Wave in a similar state to a friendless, bitter self he thought he’d left by the wayside ages prior. If not completely discarded, he’d maybe hoped that that part of who he’d been was buried deep enough down to never resurface, but like that incessant voice, Wave can’t seem to shake him.

He doesn’t want to wonder the malintentions behind someone’s kindness the way he used to; he doesn’t want to constantly worry that he’ll be left without warning. Like a wise — and infuriating — boy had said a while ago, the other shoe doesn’t even exist, and waiting for it to drop only serves as a waste of Wave’s time. He knows that, theoretically. And up until two weeks ago, Wave had had a real grip on that as his reality.

He’s been staring at his black laptop screen for the past hour. The battery bit the dust a while ago but he hadn’t had it in him to grab the charger from the floor. There’s an incredible tightness to his chest and he also feels like his head is wrapped in fish netting, so although he’s likely conscious, in no way would he bet his life on it.

Wave can’t sit here anymore. He walks right down the stairs and onto the street, stopping only a few steps off their property. He doesn’t have anywhere to go. He would go to the rooftop but the school is closed to students for holiday — besides which, he’s no longer a student, and that’s an entirely separate headache for another time. He just goes on walking, paying no attention to wherever it is his brain is leading his feet. It doesn’t matter anyway, really.

He trudges onto a grassy path and however long later comes to a stop in front of his parents’ grave-markers. Their photos smile up at Wave from their place right beside his grandfather’s.

He hadn’t looked at the newest addition to their family plot, hadn’t even lifted his eyes from the ground when he’d come with his grandmother. But there it is, a shot of him and his grandparents, Wave kept snugly between them as though he belongs, some fantasy world where neither of them had slapped Wave to bruising for lying or made him feel like an outsider in his own home. A sweeping nausea hits Wave and he turns around, unable to look anymore.

He presses his forehead and hands onto a nearby tree to steady himself, the bark digging hard into his skin. He knows he’s crying when he pushes weakly off the tree to rub at his tired eyes, only to have the palms of his hands sting from the tears. He shakes his head and sets off for somewhere else.

It’d been another hour of wandering around until he had to accept that walking all over the city can’t change the final destination. The surprise comes when he sees a certain someone with their back to the wall by Wave’s house, eyes on the sky. He’d even brought his dog, for whatever reason. Wave removes his glasses to wipe them down, quietly and ineffectually preparing himself for whatever this is going to be.

Even with Wave trying to be noiseless, Pang’s attention falls to Wave within seconds of his approach. Wave would ask what he’s doing here, but he doesn’t have to. They’d promised months passed that they would always reply to one another’s messages, even if that message was two or three words, so that the other wouldn’t worry. But Wave’s not responded to Pang in a week, his negative spiral not allowing him room to honour their agreement. He’d even silenced his phone because he knew that hearing his phone beep with any message from Pang would have cracked him, and Wave hadn’t wanted to allow that.

He knows the system is especially for situations like this, when either isn’t able to communicate like usual, but now that Pang is standing here looking all concerned, Wave has to wonder if they might need to entertain a Plan B.

Wave doesn’t want to see Pang though. Actually, he does. It’s just that the idea of facing him after six days of radio silence leaves a heavy anxiety in Wave’s gut that he doesn’t want to face right now. He isn’t sure that he’ll be able to handle the sympathy in his eyes, or how he’ll be extra careful in dealing with Wave. Always Wave with FRAGILE stamped across his forehead in blocky red ink.

He doesn’t try to walk past Pang. He just stands there some distance away, useless, while Pang holds tight to Dip’s leash to keep him close.

“It’s past midnight,” is the first thing Pang says. Wave gives a slow, meaningless nod. “You left your window open so I tossed a rock through, but… you didn’t answer.”

“What’s up?” Wave manages. It’s vastly inadequate a question, all things considered.

“I wanted to see you,” because he’s always been forthright and transparent when it comes to Wave.

“Well, you’ve seen me,” Wave says, because he’s notoriously dismissive and unable to let himself be vulnerable.

This mood Wave has found himself in is one that they’ve seen less and less, but if Pang is taken aback, he doesn’t allow it to colour his words.

“Ohm invited us to some karaoke thing tonight but I said we have plans already,” he says. Wave shifts where he stands and Pang is quick to assure him, “It was just an excuse to get us out of Claire’s typical solo and double encore.”

Wave sits on the ground. He’s tired and remaining on his feet feels pointless right now. Pang follows suit without hesitation, still talking as he rubs Dip’s head.

“I had to say I forgot Dip’s after-dinner walk just to get out of the house. Mae thinks he’s taking an extra long bathroom break. Not sure how much time I can buy with that one before she wants to call up the vet. And then Prae wanted to come so I had to promise a whole cake or whatever it is from that French bakery just to shut her up. I can’t even pronounce the name but of course the six-year-old has the menu memorised — ”

“Are you done?” Wave interjects. “It’s one in the morning, Pang.”

Pang nods slowly. He releases Dip’s leash and Dip scampers over to Wave, leftover excitement at seeing him for the first time in a week coming back fast. Reflexively, Wave runs a hand down Dip’s head to his back and the dog wags his tail. Prae loves that bakery. She’d become obsessed with France after a school lesson and already asks when their family can visit the country. Prae’s the one who’d convinced her parents to get Dip, so Wave has no doubt she’ll wear them down into Paris. She always includes him in that too, like they couldn’t possibly go on holiday if Wave isn’t going with them.

It’s dark enough that Wave doesn’t bother wiping at his damp cheeks. He’s a pretty quiet crier, so he just sits it out, Dip in his lap and Pang across the way.

“I’m sorry,” Wave murmurs after some time.

“I know. You were caught up again? With the bad thoughts?”

“I haven’t… I’m not doing well,” Wave says. There’s so much more he needs to say, but the words won’t come out. As it is, he’s speaking through partially gritted teeth.

His grandpa is gone, and the best memory of him is from before Wave had turned 13. His grandma is a living ghost, his parents are long dead. It’s all too easy for Wave to think that he has absolutely no one left to care whether he’s here at all.

It’s taken two weeks to cry at his grandfather’s passing and half the tears aren’t even for him. The remaining can be attributed to so many miscellaneous bits and pieces that Wave can’t begin to think about them, at least today. He just focuses on how soft Dip’s ears are.

“Since the funeral?”

“Mm.” Wave inhales. “I hear him, and the usual — and before I know it — ” Wave doesn’t go on.

“Will I sound like an asshole if I say you’ve been doing so good?” Pang asks a few moments later. “I thought — I hoped since it wasn’t happening as often, it might’ve meant — ”

“I know,” Wave says quietly. An afterthought, though he means it, “You’re not an asshole.”

“Wave, I… I love you, you know? I just love you and I — God, I hate how mean your brain is to you. Like, you’re supposed to be on the same team and it’s…”

“Yeah,” Wave scoffs, “you’d think so.” He sighs a little and shakes his head, eyes on the dark sky. “You came all the way here because I can’t answer a LINE.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Pang says immediately. “You should know by now I’d run cross-country to meet you; a couple blocks’ walk is nothing. And you are a pain in the ass, but I like that.” They both cringe and Pang says, “So that didn’t come out — ”

“Let it go.”

“Letting it go.”

Wave gets to his feet and adds, “I cried.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, I didn’t… cry at the funeral.” Pang knows this, as he’d been there too. “And I hadn’t up until earlier, and here, just now. Is that… Do you think that’s, like… weird?”

“Why would it be weird?” Because of course everything is that simple with Pang. “I didn’t cry when my parents told me my grandma died, and I lost it at her funeral. Cried the whole time and looked like a baby in front of my entire family. Brains are weird.”

Pang takes the hand that goes to relinquish Dip’s leash, giving Wave time to decline the hug, but Wave lets Pang hold him close instead. He always feels like precious cargo in Pang’s arms, but rather than feeling humiliated as he’d feared, Wave feels embarrassed but touched by Pang’s sweet disposition. How he’s still constantly surprised after years of living around it, Wave doesn’t know.

“Are you alright to go back in on your own?” Pang asks.

“It’s whatever,” because there really isn’t much else to say.

“We’re going to have our own place, you know.”

“Huh?”

“When we’re at uni,” Pang clarifies. “Like, I just think about how we’ll have a dorm-room to share, the two of us. And then we can get an apartment, if we want to.”

It isn’t shocking to hear that Pang has ideas for their future, seeing as they’ve spoken about it, but the same as it always does to hear it said aloud warms a place inside Wave, the furnace Pang started up when they met.

“I’ll be there when you need me and I won’t let you be lonely,” Pang goes on. “You can tell me to fuck off when you have to though; I won’t be mad.”

“I won’t tell you to fuck off,” Wave says, even if he very well might.

“Maybe we can have a precaution for whenever you can’t answer messages,” Pang says. “You were too stressed this time to message me but not messaging me added to the stress. We’ll come up with something to help.”

Wave nods a little against him. Satisfied, Pang gently ruffles Wave’s hair as they pull apart.

“I’ll get going,” he says. “Mae’s probably got the vet on hold by now. But I’ll call you.”

“Mm.”

“Sleep, okay? At least 10 hours.”

Wave rolls his eyes but nods. “Yeah, sure. You too.” Pang grins and tugs Dip along on the street with a hand raised in goodbye.

In bed that night, Wave takes his phone off silent. He catches the most recent messages from Pang, before Wave had been responding, but he tries not to look at them and focuses on the present.

let’s take Prae to the bakery tomorrow.

she already loves you more than me, stop this! but i love you more than *anyone so i get it

ugh gn love you

i love you too

He’ll be fine, even when he inevitably falls apart again. He’ll be fine.

God, if only he could bet on it.

#my writing #pangwave #ao3 #archive of our own #the gifted #the gifted graduation #tgg #mlm #thai series #pang x wave #fics

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x-wing-junkie · 3 years

Text

New fic for @karabastard! A modern restaurant AU that was a joy to write!

Here's a preview:

~~~

“Be nice,” Hera warned as soon as Zeb walked in the door.

“What?” he asked, holding his arms out in a wide shrug. “I’m always nice.”

The look that Hera gave him clearly said he wasn’t. “I hired a new manager and he’s here.”

Zeb slumped. He knew Hera needed to be home more lately; there was the baby coming in a few months and Kanan was still recovering from that nasty fall he took in the kitchen. Still, anyone other than the two of them running the place just seemed wrong.

Fántasma had belonged to Hera’s parents, a staple of Mediterranean comfort food in Lothal for years until they retired and transferred ownership over to Hera. They’d hired Zeb, who brought in some new flavors to the restaurant while still keeping the same staples that kept customers coming back year after year. And, Zeb thought, he��d been doing a good job.

“Tell me he’s just front-of-house,” Zeb said.

“He’s front-of-house,” Hera confirmed. “Your iron grip on the kitchen remains.”

Zeb grinned, feeling cheerful again. “He stays out here, we’ll get along.”

Before Zeb could head on back to the kitchen, Hera grabbed his arm. “Zeb, I mean it when I say be nice.”

“Okay, now I’m worried.” Zeb looked around the restaurant. No one he could see but the lunch wait staff. But Hera had said the new manager was there, which meant…

He was in the kitchen.

Zeb stopped in the doorway and stared in dismay.

Standing at his expediting station, examining the line setup, was his worst nightmare.

Alexsandr Kallus had been in his same classes in culinary school, until it became clear he didn’t have the creative talents necessary to be a true chef. Last Zeb had heard, he’d been working as maître d’ at some fancy place downtown, which let him use his theoretically much-more-developed people skills to manage the place.

Theoretically. Zeb had never found him all that pleasant, especially when they vied for the same scholarships and internships.

“Kallus,” he said blandly, trying not to let his disdain show.

The man turned around, one of his trademark pompous expressions on his face. Upon seeing Zeb, however, his face morphed into abject disappointment. “Orrelios.”

Hera pushed past Zeb, standing between the two of them. She gave them a stern look, one she usually saved for Ezra. “I trust that both of you are adults and professionals and won’t have a problem working together? I’ll be here when I can, but you’re still going to have to play nice when I’m not.” Looking at Zeb, she asked, “Got that?”

“Got it,” Zeb said grudgingly. He looked at Kallus, noticing that even though he’d combed it back, some of his blond hair had escaped and hung loose. “As long as you don’t mess with my fuckin’ kitchen or my fuckin’ menu.”

“I understood Fántasma needed managerial help,” Kallus said. “Or was I misinformed?”

“Alexsandr,” Hera said. “Fántasma runs fairly smoothly already. I need to know that’s going to continue while I’m away. I trust the two of you to make this a well-oiled machine.”

“Of course,” Kallus said, backing down immediately, though Zeb could just imagine him filing away that ‘fairly smoothly’ for later abuse.

Turning his back on the other two, Zeb put his things in the small lockers, using the top one that only he could reach, usually. It wasn’t that he had anything to hide. The other kitchen staff were simply shorties, compared to him, and he always let them all use the lower lockers. Pretending Kallus wasn’t there, he spoke to Hera. “I want to use that shrimp you brought in yesterday, so I was thinking a sorta jambalaya using orzo instead of rice. Some olives, too. How does that sound?”

“Like a mess,” said Kallus.

Zeb tensed, fighting every urge in his body to turn around and deck the man. In my kitchen…

“Sounds like the sort of thing everyone loves from you, Zeb,” Hera said.

Wondering if Hera was regretting hiring Kallus yet, Zeb acted as if he hadn’t heard him and smiled. “Good. That’s what we’ll do, then. I left some shrimp and sausage marinating; I’ll whip up a roux and see what you think.”

Turning around, Zeb saw the sour look on Kallus’s face turn to a smile when Hera glanced his way.

Point to Zeb, then.

#Susan writes stuff #kalluzeb #star wars rebels

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owl-with-a-pen · 3 years

Note

Nia getting hurt and brainy turning to team-flash for help because he feels hopeless. Ty <3

- I've never written for The Flash characters before, so I hope this is okay! Seeing as Cisco recently left the show, I thought it'd be nice to focus on him. Thank you for the prompt! x

From day one, Cisco had learned that being a part of Team Flash meant staying on your toes, always keeping vigilant for the next attack and always being prepared for the subsequent counterattack Star Labs’ resident tech genius – aka him - could provide. It also meant, expect the weirdest thing imaginable and, then? Oh man, you gotta triple that.

Still, even with all of that in mind, Cisco was in no way prepared for an alien super genius to swoop in from God-knows-where and systematically dismantle his lab, not to mention steal his thunder in the process.

All in the space of under twenty minutes.

"Hey, so I’m flattered you came to us for help,” Cisco finally called out from the lab’s doorway. “But, this might be easier if you actually, I don't know? Talk to us."

Cisco had been watching in bewilderment as Brainy ran around his lab, muttering under his breath as he picked up various pieces of experimental tech with both parts appraisal and derision before throwing them each none-too-gently aside. Cisco flinched when Brainy threw one of his most recent experiments – an advanced interdimensional extrapolator designed in theory to breach the new universes that had been created by Crisis – onto the countertop. And it’d stay totally theoretical if Brainy continued to pay the same amount of care to Cisco’s handiwork as one might a discarded candy wrapper. God, he really needed to start marking these things as fragile - especially when company was over. Then again, he hadn't expected a visit from the fourth kind today.

"Hey, dude, talk to us, c'mon, we won't bite," Cisco prompted, holding up his hands placatingly. When Brainy continued without so much as a word thrown in their direction, Cisco turned to Caitlin desperately, nudging her arm. "Tell him we don't bite," he whispered loudly.

"We don't bite," Caitlin repeated exasperatedly. She’d been watching Brainy with care since he’d barged through Star Lab’s front doors. Because, seriously, could anyone just walk into this place? "Brainy - I understand you're worried for your girlfriend, but we can help you. Just tell us what you need."

Cisco knew that something big was going down in National City, enough that Kara had called ahead last minute to inform Team Flash that they’d be getting a surprise visit from one of the Super Friends. Surprise really had been the understatement of the day. Nearly the second Caitlin had been off the phone with Kara, Brainy had decided to make his grand entrance.

"I don't need anything from you," Brainy said through his teeth, quite possibly the first coherent sentence he’d directed to anyone since his arrival. He continued to move restlessly, shuffling through another pile of technology. "I require your equipment,” he elaborated stiffly. “Since the DEO's destruction, we are rather limited on supplies."

Cisco cringed. "Ooh yeah, I heard about that. Some alien god, right?"

Bad call, Cisco realised immediately. The second the words had come out of his mouth, Brainy tensed, hunching his shoulders.

"His name was Rama Khan,” Brainy said, his voice strained. “He came from a race of ancient beings."

“So, not a god?" Cisco said quickly, glancing to Caitlin for support. When she only shrugged, he fumbled for something, anything, to lighten the mood. “I mean, figures, right? Out of every form of media out there, it had to be Ancient Aliens that was on the right track.”

Brainy made a disgruntled sound at that, dangling another piece of tech out into his line of sight before making to throw it over his shoulder.

“My tachyon filtrator!” Cisco lurched forward, eyes wide. “Hey, hey, stop that!” He snatched his experimental baby from Brainy’s hands seconds before disaster, pointing an accusing finger at him. “No more throwing my stuff, got it?”

"Cisco," Caitlin murmured in warning. "Don't."

"Easy for you to say,” Cisco shot back. “He's not throwing your stuff." Cisco strode over to his workbench, collecting as many of his unfinished designs as he could carry into his arms and very deliberately placing them as far away from prying Coluan fingers as was humanly possible.

Cisco could feel Brainy’s eyes watching his every move, though he wasn’t sure if there was even a hint of an apology in his expression. From the short time they’d worked together in the past, he remembered Brainy as being pretty unfiltered when it came to conversation, if not a little socially inept. Still, he got his nickname for a reason. Dude was literally a walking talking supercomputer, capable of calculating probability to such a high degree of accuracy, he might as well have been psychic. In any other circumstance, Cisco would’ve been eager to pick his brain, maybe even get his input on some of his more complex designs.

Right now, though? Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, especially when he was so clearly distraught with what was happening over in National City.

Cisco had never formally met Dreamer before, but he’d seen her on the news enough to know that she was incredibly powerful. If something had taken her down, he knew it had to be bad.

And so, when Cisco was certain his tech was safe, he turned back to Brainy, eyeing him expectantly.

Finally, Brainy rolled his shoulders, closing his eyes. "Dreamer was affected by a meta," he explained carefully, lowering his chin. "The DEO had stockpiled technology, archived files on known meta attacks and their countermeasures. We- no, I lost that."

Well, Cisco didn’t need to be a twelfth-level whatever to know what Brainy was going through there. The guilt in his voice was practically tangible. Cisco seemed to remember that the DEO had had a sudden change in management during Lex Luthor’s reign, and if the files he’d been able to hack during that handover were true, then it’d been Brainy who’d been heading operations before the organisation’s literal collapse.

And now, Brainy’s girlfriend was in danger, caught in the crosshairs of a situation that couldn’t be fixed because of his mistake. Cisco swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat; he knew he wouldn’t have fared any better if Kamilla had been in that kind of danger.

"We've all done stuff we've regretted," Caitlin said carefully, stepping into the room. She folded her arms over her chest loosely, her brow furrowed with concern. "Look, maybe we don’t know each other very well, and maybe we can't even help advise you, but you clearly came here looking for something in particular so, we can at least supply you, right?” When Brainy turned towards her, eyes glimmering, Caitlin offered a gentle smile. “No one knows this lab's layout like Cisco, and if you need medical supplies, I've got you covered." Brainy held very still as Caitlin crossed the room and, when she was close enough, she reached out, hesitantly patting him on the shoulder. For all the confidence she was boasting right now, Cisco was far too aware that this was the closest alien encounter she'd had since meeting Kara, and for a lot of that time she'd been fronting as Frost.

"It's an extensive list," Brainy said warily. He didn’t shrug away from Caitlin’s touch, at least, which Cisco took as a small victory.

"Hey,” Cisco said, puffing out his chest, “you’re talking to Team Flash, here. I think we can handle it.”

Brainy’s eyes darted away from them both for a long moment, scanning empty air. When he blinked back into reality, he nodded, bowing his head. "Very well," Brainy relented.

With that, he made a vague gesture towards his head, pointing underhandedly with two fingers towards Cisco's pocket. In the same instant, his phone buzzed twice against his leg, indicating a text notification. Cisco fished it out of his pocket in confusion.

"I have transferred everything I need to your phone,” Brainy said by means of explanation.

“Huh. So you have,” Cisco said, eyes wide as he stared at the list of tech, trying very hard to keep his cool instead of grinning like an idiot at that awesome display of alien superpower. Maybe once he’d finished locating this stuff for Brainy, putting together the right machine to help his girlfriend, he’d have a chance to actually ask him some questions.

For now though, finding all this stuff took priority.

Cisco bit his cheek, nodding firmly. “Alright then,” he said, cracking his neck. “Looks like we should get started.”

Even though Brainy’s returning smile was pained, it was still a smile, which was definitely progress.

And hey, maybe Cisco would see a genuine one once Dreamer was safe and sound. Because he was gonna make sure that happened.

After all, that was what Team Flash was all about.

#supergirl #supergirl fanfiction #the flash #brainiac 5 #cisco ramon #caitlin snow #brainia #brainy #querl dox #my prompts #my writing #anon #this is also another very old prompt i'm so sorry #slowly but surely i'll try to get through them #...veeerryyy slowly #but yes! i might be caught up with the flash but i definitely haven't studied them in the same level of detail as supergirl characters #so i do hope this is okay srsly xD #also don't ask me when this is set my answer is a very confident shrug

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sirowsky · 3 years

Text

The Flowers Always Know

Description: When a mad scientist uses you as an experiment while you’re on holiday, the Heroics only just manage to save you. And in your recovery you become very close to the leader of the group. (Slow burn)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Language, Angst.

Link to Masterlist

Comment: This was painful to write. If you don’t do well with angst, I recommend skipping this chapter. BUT - there is a happy ending!

Chapter 30

“Ah, there you are. We’ve been waiting. Now, before you try anything, I have fail-safes in place in case you try and stop me, and they all end in tragedy. Like this nasty little explosive underneath their chairs, for instance.”

You stood frozen to the spot, trembling with fear, and not an inkling of it for yourself.

“Don’t… Don’t do this.”

“Not to worry, my sweet. With the help of your data, I’ve been able to streamline the process. Theoretically, I should be able to directly transfer powered cells from Marcus into his daughter. The familial DNA should help alleviate any foreign-cell attacks. Though, I’m afraid it will still be painful.”

“My data? Someone’s been feeding you my medical information?”

“Oh, yes. I don’t think you realise just how many people in this world are interested in levelling the playing-field. I mean, how’d you think I got out of prison?”

While he spoke, he made the final calculations to start his experiment, and as the machines started whirring and clicking, your fear escalated into full-blown panic. They were both unconscious, for the time being, but you knew that once the pain started, they’d be forced awake. You didn’t actually remember that from your own experience with this experiment, but you still knew that it was true. You sneaked a ghost hand towards one of the machines and unhooked a tube that was connected to Missy’s arm, at the other end, trying to buy time. The machine started beeping to indicate that something was wrong.

“Now, now, sweetie. Don’t go sabotaging this, or your precious family might not come out of it quite as alright as both of us would like.”

As he walked over to reconnect the tube, he tapped on something on his belt, and you recognised an identical device to what the Inventor had used to protect himself against powers. Someone in HQ had betrayed you all, and the feeling burned through you with an aftertaste of hate.

“My family are not your fucking toys!”

The room shook significantly, and he looked around with real wonder in his eyes.

“That’s impressive. See, didn’t I give you a wonderful gift?”

“No. I would’ve preferred to stay ordinary and dull for the rest of my life if it had meant not having to live through that shit.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that? Look at where you are. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t taken you. You should be more grateful.”

“I do see where I am, and I would rather have never met them at all, if it meant they were spared from this.”

“People are inherently selfish, which is why I don’t believe you. Now, let’s get started. And a word of warning, my dear – if you disrupt the process once it’s already started, you’ll kill them both. And I doubt if you could bring both of them back from the dead without killing yourself.”

He hit a button on the computer keypad, and the Machine connected to Marcus came alive, and started siphoning out powered cells from his blood-stream. He woke up after just a few seconds, unable to move at all, and you could see the pain in his eyes. Helpless to do anything else, you reached out to him with your ghost energy, trying to let him know that you were there and that you were trying to save him. You could feel him trying to use his powers, but the machine disrupted it, and caused him even more pain.

“Please, stop!”

The second machine, the one connected to Missy, started whirring and moving, and your blood instantly flipped from freezing to boiling. You couldn’t stand the thought of her even knowing this amount of pain, much less being forced to suffer it, for god knows how long. And as she woke up, and that pain became visible in her eyes, something old and sure and endlessly powerful took over your mind. There wasn’t a single thought, not so much as an echo of anything rational or logical or sensible. The maternal instinct was all-powerful in a way that nothing else could compare to. And the power it created together with your abilities, was beyond belief. The house disappeared, and so did Dr. Prince and all of his equipment, and you could feel the moment that both Marcus and Missy’s hearts stopped beating. But it didn’t frighten you, because you were a healer. Moving up to crouch in between them, where they now laid on the bare ground, you took one of their hands in each one of yours, and exchanged your life for theirs. You had hoped to be able to stay alive long enough to see their faces one last time, but the energy required to heal them, combined with what you’d already spent, was too much, and you needed the single grain you had left, for one last thing. One small, but so very important thing. You fell away without seeing anything but the blue sky above you.

It was okay, though. They were worth it.

***

Marcus was working in his office when Missy came to find him. It had been a long day, and he was so tired he could have fallen asleep sitting up. But he knew that even if he were to lay down in a soft and cool bed right then, he still wouldn’t have succumbed to that blissful nothingness. He hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours at a time, since the incident, and he was long past exhausted.

“Dad, are you coming?”

She came to get him every day after school. She had for the past month, and he didn’t have the heart to ask her not to.

“Yeah. I’ll be right there, sweetheart.”

She turned and headed off to medical, and he got up to follow her. A part of him wanted to turn around and run in the opposite direction. A part of him wanted to never have to set foot in that fucking room again. But that was just the fear. The love was so much stronger, and it relentlessly dragged him back there, day and night, no matter how badly it hurt.

Missy was already hopped up on the bed, sitting cross-legged by your feet, when he walked in. She was so hopeful still. So positive. All Marcus could feel was pain. Every time he saw you, he saw those moments. Those short, few seconds that had taken everything away. He’d seen it in your eyes just before your power erupted. The complete lack of thought as your mind reverted to pure instinct, to protect your daughter. His daughter. He’d seen how you’d dispatched the entire house, and everything that threatened your family, into one of the dimensions that you had access to, a feat that had almost completely drained you. Then, he’d woken up to seeing you fall, and in his heart, he’d known that you couldn’t be saved. Not this time. But he’d still tried. He’d tried so hard that Missy had eventually been forced to be the one to beg him to stop before she lost him too. He’d never screamed so loud for so long before. And yet, somehow, that still hadn’t been the worst part. That had come the next morning, when medical had informed him that you’d been examined that day because of nausea, and that they’d discovered that you were pregnant. The timeframe had matched that day in his office, when your bodies had reacted so differently, and you’d cried out of pure love for him. It had broken parts of him that he had never even known before.

He walked silently to your side, and took your burned right hand between his. He tried not to look at your face, and the tube that disappeared down your throat, the slight blue tinge to your eyelids, and the way your skin hugged your collarbones. When the team had reached the disappeared house, they’d wasted no time in getting the three of you back to HQ, and you’d been rushed here immediately. They’d found residual brain-activity, and the decision had been made to keep you alive artificially, in case your powers had somehow been able to protect you. In case you could have found a way to cling to some thread of life and hold on until your strength could be returned. There had been no change in your condition since that day, and if it hadn’t been for Missy, he would’ve already asked them to just let you rest in peace.

“Hey, alma. We’re here. So, today’s story comes from Noodles. He managed to get out-witted by a squirrel, and it is too funny not to share.”

She told you one story every day. Something that had happened during her day that she knew you would’ve wanted to hear about, and would’ve listened animatedly to, before enthusiastically sharing your thoughts about it. Marcus didn’t hear the stories. He came and sat with her while she talked, because that’s what she’d asked him to do, but for him, being there wasn’t about hope. It was about survival. He didn’t want to hope, didn’t want to give himself that potentially crushing second wave of loss. But he also needed to see you. He needed you, and no amount of pain could crush that feeling. Since they didn’t have a home anymore, they were living at HQ during the weeks, because it was closer to Missy’s school than Anita’s house. But they still stayed with her over the weekends. Marcus made Missy dinner every evening, and sat with her to help her with homework or watch some show before she went to sleep, trying to keep her life as close to normal as these circumstances would permit. But as soon as she fell asleep, he came right back here, curled up next to you on the bed and cried until there were no more tears, and sleep forced itself over him.

This night was no exception. He walked in on legs that were impossibly heavy, refusing to look at the machines and the tubes, focusing on your hands and the parts of your skin that were bare and unbroken by needles. It was so strange that your body was unharmed, that there wasn’t a mark on you to signify the violence and destructive nature of that incident. You were still perfect, even in death. Wrapping one arm over your chest, careful not to disturb the breathing apparatus, he took his usual place on your left side, burrowed his face into your neck and breathed in the familiar scent of your shampoo. He was so tired that the tears fell without the laboured breathing, or shockwaves of grief rocking his body, the way it usually did. He just laid there, completely drained of will and hope and desire, waiting for the restless, nightmarish sleep that would inevitably drag him under. A sudden incessive beeping of one of the machines, tried to gripe at his attention. He closed his eyes and burrowed deeper into your neck, certain that if he turned his head towards it, all it would tell him would be that the time had come. That your body had finally weakened to the point where not even artificially sustained organs was enough to keep you there. He hadn’t wanted to hope, and he’d thought that he didn’t have any left, but as he laid there and waited for the machines to declare your final departure – he realised that he had. A small part of him had clung to some imagined scenario where you could’ve somehow clawed your way back, and now that part was dying with you. It felt as though someone had shrunk his lungs. He struggled to draw in more than tiny gulps of air, and his arm involuntarily tightened around you, pulling you into his chest, as though your lifeless body could somehow free him.

A hand found his arm, and held it lightly, but he didn’t look up to see who it was that was trying to soothe him. He didn’t want to be soothed, he wanted to drift off into the nothingness with you. But then the doors to the room opened, and he could hear it. So, why hadn’t he heard the person that was holding his arm, when they entered?

“Oh, my god… Marcus, look.”

It was one of the twins, and the tone of her voice made something inside of him wake up. He pulled his head away from your neck, and the first thing he saw was your hand, holding his arm. The touch was light because it was weak, not soothing. Not daring to believe it, he moved his arm, so he could take your hand, and when you squeezed it, ever so faintly, he fell apart. He sobbed and hugged you, and tried to tell you how much he loved you and how grateful he was, but the shudders and trembles that kept coursing through him made it all garbled up and unintelligible. He never heard the twins working around you, never felt them change the equipment, after they’d removed the breathing machine, and made sure that you could breathe on your own, before pulling the tubes out of your throat. He didn’t notice Anita and Missy walk in, however much time later, but he felt them hug him, and he wanted to thank them, to tell them how much he loved them too, but the relief was so overwhelming that all he could manage was grunts and sobs.

They let him cry himself into absolute exhaustion. He was so tired that it didn’t take long. He fell asleep still cradling you to his chest, and they didn’t have the heart to lift him out of the bed.

***

A couple of days later, Marcus was sitting on the side of your bed, just staring at you while you ate. You had to eat carefully and slowly, since your throat was still sore from the tube, but you were already strong enough to sit up in the bed, and eat by yourself. You’d been expressly forbidden from trying to speak, until your throat was less swollen and irritated, or you might permanently damage your vocal cords. But it didn’t bother you. You and Marcus knew each other so well that your eyes and expressions were enough to let you know what the other was thinking. And Missy was enjoying getting the opportunity to blab incessantly without you being able to stop her with a well-placed quip. You knew that big conversations would have to be had, in the near future, and while you could feel how nervous and anxious Marcus was about that, you really weren’t. There were things you needed to tell him, things you needed to try and help him understand, but none of it was bad. Not from your perspective, at least.

You finished eating, and took a few long and slow sips of water. You could tell that there was something on Marcus’ mind, and when you put the glass down, you shot him a look to say ‘tell me’, and he sighed.

“It’s not… I don’t wanna talk about it until you can actually talk to me.”

You just kept giving him the same look, crossing your arms in front of your chest to let him know that you weren’t leaving the subject alone any time soon. Whatever this was, it was causing the wrinkle in between his eyebrows to deepen, a clear sign that it was something that hurt him, and he’d been hurting for so long already, it was time for him to start getting some of it out. He saw your persistence, and he knew you weren’t gonna let it go. His eyes dropped to his own hands in his lap, and he took a minute to consider how to phrase it.

“They told me… about the… baby.”

His eyes were still downcast, so he didn’t see your face soften, or your eyes turn warm. But you wanted him to keep talking, so you made no effort to get his attention yet.

“And I know that you did what you did to save us, and that you couldn’t have made it a priority right then, and I don’t blame you for doing what you had to. I just can’t help but think… what if that was it?”

His hands were trembling slightly, but you couldn’t tell if it was with sadness or fear. His voice seemed so small.

“What if that was our only chance? I’ve never felt the kind of… loss… that I felt when they told me that. The loss of what could have been, of the possibility. And I just…”

He took a deep breath.

“I had no idea how much I wanted that baby, until it was already gone.”

He finally looked up at you, and blinked a couple of times with confusion as he took in your expression. Because you weren’t sad. You were smiling. You picked up the notepad Amaire had left you for answering medical questions, and scribbled down the few words required to explain yourself, before turning it around to show him.

--The baby is safe—

You watched his eyes as he read those words, staring at them for several seconds as though he couldn’t understand them. And then his eyes snapped back to yours and there were a million questions in them, but he had no idea where to start or probably even what most of those questions were yet. So, he just kissed you instead, and the depth of emotion that he poured into that kiss, had you both in tears.

Authors’ Note: I love criticism, don’t be shy to let me know if there’s anything you like/don’t like/have questions about.

@blueeyesatnight @farfromjustordinary @allmyspideys @hrk-fic-recs @strawberryperegrine @lucrezia-thoughts @computeringturtle @sarahjkl82-blog

#marcus moreno #marcus moreno x reader #marcus moreno fic #we can be heroes #we can be heroes fic #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal characters

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couragehopelovefaith · 3 years

Text

Unexpected bonding

(The short fanfic based on the first proper meeting between Musa and Riven on “Fate: The Winx Saga”. English is not my first language, so apologies for the possible grammar- and spelling-mistakes.)

Musa walked across the yard, among training and chatting students, trying to calm her twirling thoughts by firmly holding the combat stick. Usually, she enjoyed the lessons and this place felt like a second home to her. But in all honesty, these last few days could've gone a lot better. For some reason, this complicated mix of excitement, worry and determination around her was harder to take than usual. Everyone was restlessly and impatiently waiting for something to happen, even though they didn't fully know what it was. But it was there, hiding in the plain sight. This was the time her help would be needed the most, but she had never felt herself so...damn useless. How she wished she could've already been in her room, put her headphones on, focused on the music and let the rest of the world keep turning by itself for a while.

The sudden flash of obvious arrogance and more hidden anger was an oddly welcoming change in the common atmosphere and attracted her attention. It didn't take long for her to figure out its source: one of specialists was training with a battle rope a few long steps away from her, clearly apart from the others. His technique appeared to be nearly flawless, but she didn't need her powers to notice that behind it there was a deep need to let his frustrations out.

Musa didn't actually know much about Riven. Of course, everybody had heard of him - other than being close with Sky, he had gotten quite a bad reputation in Alfea, and his questionable habits with drugs didn't exactly help on the matter. These "stormy and unbalanced"-kind of energy auras were often too much for an empath like her, and that fact alone put him among the people she had usually been avoiding.

Still walking forward, she answered his sharp glance nonchalantly – a neutral, silent hello, that didn't expect any kind of discussion. However, hearing quiet, out of the blue chuckle made her stop reflexively, full of doubt. They hadn't changed more than a few words with each other before and she had had no reason to believe it would change now. He stopped his training too and looked at her, estimating.

"You like holding that big stick?"

His slightly amused, undermining and suggesting tone after a long and exhausting day made Musa react quickly; with secure grasp, she rotated the stick swiftly and bent into an attack-position, holding the stick very close to his face – staying still, half waiting for some kind of anger or offended surrendering-movement. However, her intuition was wrong again: instead, the youngster touched the head of the stick lightly and lowered It, raising his eyebrows and smirking almost flirtatiously. "I'll take that as a yes."

Young fairy repressed her will to roll her eyes: sadly, Riven was also well-known for his narrow-minded, obnoxious and somewhat prejudiced comments and opinions. This year Terra and Dane had seemed to have gotten the worst blows of them. Even though Terra hadn't admitted it to anyone, Musa had lived with her long enough to know that some of the remarks had really gotten under her skin. And that was saying a lot, when it came to a generally happy person like her. Some people just couldn't take a hint of crossing the line, and the boy standing in front of her was definitely one of them.

To show him that she really wasn't in a mood for such behavior today, she partly leaned on her stick and titled her head. "I think I just threw up."

In spite of the loathing tone in her answer, Riven couldn't help feeling a tad impressed: this tiny fairy seemed to have more fierceness and spunk in her than the most of the well-trained Specialists. After the lackey-like, avoiding or somewhat fearful reactions he had faced lately, this strictness from someone else than his best friend or mentor – especially a girl - certainly was something new. There was no denying that Beatrix had offered him quite a portion of that as well in her own, seductive and slightly twisted way, but this lass had some exceptional gentleness, vision and different kind of honesty in her that Beatrix just... had not.

Still a hint of smile on his face, he came a little closer to her, unwilling to change the subject. "I saw you on the support rounds with Miss Dowling at training." His tone was trying to pursue neutrality, but even the fool could've seen that he wanted to prove his point.

Musa tried to separate her own feelings from all the other auras around her to process his new, startling attentiveness. Was she honored or bothered – and more importantly, which one was the right way to react? At the moment, even the Expert of Emotions herself couldn't tell. What was the catch here? It would've made more sense for him to keep an eye on assertive and strong people like Stella or Aisha. She stayed quiet, letting a little patient smile crack her poker face, wondering where he was going with this.

Being wise enough not to test her patience any longer, Riven decided to answer the unspoken question himself. Without fully meeting her eye, he let his gaze linger at her feet. "I wouldn't have expected a mind fairy to have such good moves."

Without an invitation or permission, Mrs. Dowling's task-orientated but friendly voice echoed in her ears again.

"Not all fairy magic is suited to combat roles. Support is equally, if not more, important. Your magic can help us assess the fragile states of minds and uncover hidden enemies."

It was a common knowledge that the Headmistress was encouraging to the core, cared for her students, and meant well. Still, Musa's speculative mind constantly found hidden subtexts in her words, which started with "too theoretic" and ended up at something like: "Insufficient" or "powerless when things actually go wrong."

"I used to be a dancer." The words escaped her lips, before she managed to stop them. Whether it was because of Mrs. Dowling, her own defense mechanisms against Riven's prejudices, his infuriating abilities to give compliments and offend at the same time, or just pure tiredness, she was surprised by her own transparency. She had told about this only to her very few close people in her life. Not even her roommates knew. And now she had blabbered it in front of a basically complete stranger! But on the other hand, it was really refreshing to talk to someone, who didn't pry or force their curiosity on her out of duty or responsibility. Unable to help herself, she admitted: "I kinda miss being physical."

When she had been younger, her mother had taught her to dance and they had made it something they shared. It had been wonderful to dive deep into music and focus on the movements and the different worlds, in which melodies had transferred her into. But when her mother had passed away, she hadn't been able to bring herself in that flow anymore. No matter how persistently she had tried, it hadn't felt the same. Now it only reminded her of everything she had lost.

Abruptly, she returned back to reality and noticed that Riven's gaze had found its way in her eyes again and his posture had returned to its natural defensiveness.

"Yeah, well, too bad", he spat out in a slightly husky voice. "You're a fairy. They don't care what you wanna be in this place, only what they want you to be."

Quite a nice reward for being honest! It would've been so easy and rightful for Musa to get mad at him. But her mother had always used to say that no one's story and melody should be shut out, and she had chosen to live through that code. Even with the douchebag like Riven.

Now that she looked closer, with a little help of her own, she was able to see the dark circles under his eyes – eyes that were actually really observant and sincere, like they were trying to convey her an important message. Under the arrogance and "know it all"-attitude, there was buried bitterness and sadness. This wasn't just a cocky boy fighting for his territory. It was a sincere warning, born by his own, long-term experiences.

When one really stopped to think about it, this guy had gone through quite a rough year. The first more hidden emotion Musa sensed – perhaps because it had been also her friend for the last couple of days – was the fear of not being enough. Mr. Silva had always been righteous and fair leader and mentor who wanted to treat everyone equally, but still there was a little...guess it could be called conflict of interest. Even though Sky’s bloodline had guaranteed him the place in this school, he had been motivated and trained himself to the top and hadn't expected any special treatment. But after his father, Andreas of Eraklyon, had passed away in a battle, Silva, as Andreas' best friend, had taken him under his wing and now saw him basically as his own son. Due to this fact and his carefree and rebellious stoner-history, Riven must have felt overshadowed and the need to prove everyone that he belonged here.

Obviously, there was also worry and complicated feelings about Beatrix on his mind. Despite her... interesting personality – kindly expressed – and her shady and threatening motives that were becoming clearer by the moment, they had been close. She had been one of the few people who didn't judge him in one way or another. And now she was imprisoned and not many people knew what the faculty was planning to do to her. He probably also wondered how big role he had played in causing the danger – partly by being nasty to Dane – that was now hanging above everyone. He clearly tried to act like it didn't have an effect on him, but Musa and Aisha had witnessed his lousily finished training this morning. All of this would've a lot to bear to anyone, and Musa couldn't help feeling a little sorry for him.

"You really hate being here, don't you?"

She hadn't even acknowledged she had used her powers on full force until she saw the look on Riven's face: it was disoriented, almost blank, and there was a hint of surprise in his eyes. Musa was fully aware of what her powers awoke in others: being mentally and emotionally exposed without their own control could be terrifying.

Suddenly, Riven snapped out of his slumber, obviously startled, and pointed his finger at her accusingly. "Stay the fuck out of my head!" His voice was loaded with as much poison as possible, but a tiny, unintended smile screwed his cover up.

Snorting, he shook his head a little and turned around, away from the control of her bright eyes. "Mind fairies..." Still somewhat confused, he started to walk away, mumbling something like: "Walking red flags..." Nosey even at their best, thinking of being know-it-alls because of their abilities... He had been a careless idiot for letting his guard down. There was no doubt that the girl would go straight to Dowling, perhaps Silva, too, to report that the school's unstable rebel should be watched under this big threat...

Annoyed, he lifted his gaze off the ground just in time to see Sam, Musa's boyfriend, approaching them. Personally, he had nothing against the lad: if anything, despite being a loner, Terra's brother always seemed to be nice to everyone. Truth to be told, there was nothing to complain about his fighting skills, either. Perhaps those traits ran in the family. Passing him by, he tapped Sam's shoulder heavily. "Good luck with that one, mate!"

Without his own will, the fairy had awoken something in him, something he both feared, wanted to forget and also secretly missed...things from last year, that almost seemed like another life... Needing his own space, he sped up his steps and headed inside, the image of deep purple eyes oddly and fascinatingly haunting him.

Musa couldn't help smirking to the different auras of these two boys: one reminded of the serene, sunny summer day, while the other one was pretty more like an autumn storm.

For a moment, Sam looked after Riven and then turned his confused gaze to his girlfriend. "What was that about?"

Musa came closer to him, smiling and enjoying his calming and innocent presence. "Nothing." Technically, she wasn't lying. She had no room in her heart to be offended; over the years, she had become quite familiar with those kinds of hostile reactions to her powers. Whatever that had been, she didn't have energy to analyze it now. Besides, she had more pressing, romantic and distracting matters on her mind right now. "Wanna head back to the suite?"

#fate: the winx saga #musa x riven #sam harvey #rivusa

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sword-dad-fukuzawa · 4 years

Text

duos I want to see in BSD

Manga spoilers!

There’s a tendency in Bungou for the characters to fight in pairs. This makes sense, as strategies requiring more than two people can get really complicated, really fast. There’s just less moving parts in a duo, with the added benefit that someone’s watching your back. We have the typical combinations of SKK and SSKK, but they’re not the only ones.

We’ve also seen Hawthorne and Mitchell, a duo that failed pretty explosively (ha, ha) seemingly because they just weren’t willing to work together. Atsushi and Tanizaki make a pretty good pair too, considering Atsushi takes the melee and Tanizaki provides support. There was the unconventional duo of Akutagawa and Kajii, which honestly sounds like the nightmare scenario (petition to call them “Emo Lemon”?). In the manga, there’s Tachihara and Teruko, which...was less of a duo who worked together and more “we’re fighting the same enemy but not really collaborating” kind of deal. There’s Steincraft, or the body horror duo, which I still think is less frightening than Kajii and Akutagawa. Most of these pairs work pretty well together.

But there are a bunch of pairs we haven’t really gotten to see, and I think they’d be exciting.

Teruko and Yosano This duo would make for absolute nightmare fuel. Teruko already uses Gasp of the Soul for torture and interrogation, but she probably has to stay alert to make sure she doesn’t push too far. Adding Thou Shalt Not Die would mean she gets to go all out, and we’ve already seen the effects of repeatedly being revived by TSND. It’s a psychological horror-fest, where death doesn’t mean escape.

Fukuzawa and Louisa So, we don’t know what the full extent of Fukuzawa’s ability is. We do know, however, that it increases the control of an ability user. Louisa’s ability could be ridiculously OP if she wasn’t limited by the need for an empty room, or if she could extend her ability to people other than herself. It’s stated that she slows down time itself in the room, rather than increasing her own perception so time seems to be flowing slower, which has so many battlefield capabilities. Hell, even increased perception has battlefield applications! She could become Dio.

Sigma and Katai Kinda seems like an odd combo, but there was an interesting aspect of Futon that I didn’t originally know. Not only does it give him power over electronics, but it also means he can process information several times faster than a normal human. Sigma’s ability has to do with information exchange, though it’s a very specific type of information. If Sigma could, theoretically, transfer memories and such very quickly, he and Katai could do some very big brain things. If we added Ango to the mix for his memory extraction ability, there may be a way to account for how he often suffers from information overload. Katai, after all, doesn’t seem to be able to get overwhelmed by information.

Natsume and Tanizaki Light Snow is a brilliant support ability, but I’m of the opinion that it’s one of the abilities with the most potential for assassination. I Am a Cat also has huge potential for assassination or just simple reconnaissance, if we’re being all moral and nonviolent. Seeing them work in conjunction, I think, would be very interesting.

What other BSD duos, likely or not, would y’all like to see?

#bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bsd #bsd meta #bsd manga spoilers #duos #sigma #tayama katai #natsume soseki #tanizaki junichiro #fukuzawa yukichi #louisa may alcott #teruko ookura #yosano akiko #theory #fic ideas

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consumeconstantly · 4 years

Text

Small Buff Girl Sightings Ch 4.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | ao3 ___________________________________________________________

Marinette is not surprised when she receives a text message from Lila two days after she speaks to Damian. She’s been expecting Lila to contact her.

After all, Damian refuses to listen to common sense and transfer, and since he hasn’t been brought into the fold with the rest of the class, he clearly must be against them. This causes the rest of their classmates agitation. Marinette is afraid that Damian might end up like the rest of the transfer students; pushed away and aggravated to the point of akumatization.

It doesn’t matter that Marinette brushes off Damian’s attempts at conversation. All it matters is that there is one (1) Very Attractive Boy that is not under Lila’s thumb and is associating with Lila’s supposed enemy. Surely, the Italian girl knows that the current situation holds all of the possibilities for a disaster.

Marinette isn’t sure how Lila has her phone number, but she supposes it doesn’t really matter. Since Marinette didn’t run for class president this year, Lila was elected because of everybody’s adoration for her. Being Class president is a good resume boost, so Lila accepted, and appointed Alya as her Vice Deputy (and of course, allowed the faux reporter to do all of the legwork for her.) So, it’s highly likely that Lila just looked up her number in the class registry.

7:45AM | Unknown number: it’s lila. i’ll meet you at the corner cafe near the louvre at 4 today. we need to talk

8:05AM | Marinette: okay

Unknown number: youre not going to ask why

Marinette: we both know why

11:02AM | Unknown number: be on time

On his part, Damian isn’t the kind of person who is heavy handed in conversation, which is good for Marinette. He makes snide comments when annoyed and asks questions about assignments that reference lessons he wasn’t there for, but is quiet otherwise. He doesn’t bother much with pleasantries and also doesn’t bother asking to hang out after school, which Marinette is very glad for. Hawkmoth is sending out akumas more frequently than he has in a while, and she has a lot of work to do with commissions-- mostly received through word of mouth-- and homework. She does want to get into a good college, after all, and it’s not exactly like she can put I am the superhero, Ladybug on her admissions essays. Or maybe she could, as some sort of joke?

Still, his obvious denial of Lila’s advances is all too apparent to the class, and even without Lila’s instigation, gossip spreads like a wildfire. In fact, it spreads despite Lila’s desire for it not to. The class doesn’t talk about it when Lila’s in earshot, but Lila knows what’s going on. Lila sees the pitying looks that are thrown her way, the whispers in her ear about the bully, Marinette, getting her claws into another, poor transfer student.

At first, Lila attempts to divert the class’s attention by pushing her relationship with Adrien. Lila gets even closer to Adrien, who, weirdly, smells like some sort of old cheese, especially when she gets close to his breast pocket.

“Oh, Adrien, I think it’s so sweet that you’re going to be taking me to dinner tonight!” Lila finds that Adrien’s forearms are surprisingly muscular. Not that there’s anything wrong wth that-- she likes her boytoys to be strong, but sort of stupid.

It’s a pity that Adrien isn’t stupid, just a pushover. The two of them have an agreement, just like she and Marinette do; Adrien will play along with Lila during class time so her empire remains as strong as ever, and Lila gives Adrien an out for model related things. She doesn’t know where Adrien continually disappears off to during photoshoots, but Gabriel trusts her for some weird reason she hasn’t figured out yet. Which means that Lila is the perfect, ever constant excuse. Occasionally she goes out with Adrien on a “date” to keep up appearances, but it’s hard to date someone who doesn’t follow her every whim. Lila also doesn’t know anything about gaming, or anime, or anything that Adrien has interest in. In return, Adrien dislikes fashion, manipulation, and lying. Really, they have no common ground.

When the American transfer showed up, Lila had been hoping that he would be dumb. He is wonderful eye candy-- more muscular than Adrien and definitely more filled out, that’s for sure. Lila knows that Gabriel has Adrien on some god-awful model diet, but that boy can metabolize like there’s no tomorrow. But it’s not Lila’s place to intervene. That’s family matters-- that’s show business.

Damian Grayson is not stupid, which is either a blessing or a curse, because that means theoretically this man is the whole package. He’s tall, dark, and has a sharp tongue. Exactly Lila’s type. But nothing that’s actually good ever comes her way, and the moment she meets him, she can tell that he dislikes her. Not for the first time, Lila regrets telling such bald-faced lies her first year. Prior to that year, her mother and she hopped countries nearly every year. Apparently, her mother decided that having Lila in the same school throughout high school would be beneficial. Maybe if Lila hadn’t made such a huge mistake in her first year at Francois Dupont, she would be friends with Marinette, who has more of a spine than the rest of the class combined.

Lila knows a losing battle when she sees one. Damian doesn’t like her, though she’s not sure why. She gets the feeling it’s not just because of her past lies. She’s good at telling what people feel about her, has been trained to since a young age. Since her mother is a diplomat, business dinners and charity galas have been her playground since childhood. Figuring out people’s relationships started as a game, at first. Then Lila learned she could turn her knowledge into a tool. As she bounced around from school to school she got more and more adept with manipulating the relationships that she saw. But she’s seen her mom lose before. She miscalculated, thought that she could change somebody who was too headstrong. It hadn’t been pretty-- and it was high stakes, too. That’s why her mom and dad are now divorced.

She recognizes the same bullheadedness in Damian that Marinette has, and Lila knows that with Damian and the class at odds like they currently are, things will go south. Unlike the other transfer students, Damian looks like he will not be easily cowed and will not transfer just because his classmates say mean things to him. They certainly won’t be able to hurt him physically. Which is why she needs to meet up with Marinette. Do damage control. Make sure that she is safe, and that nobody can hurt her. Nobody in this stupid class can hurt her, really. Except for maybe Marinette, but she is too kind to do so. And now, Damian. Which means Lila needs to get a lock on him, and Marinette is her way to do that.

That’s why Lila is here, now, at this cafe near the Louvre, far, far away from anybody who goes to Francois Dupont. None of her dogs will find her here, and she can work something out with Marinette.

Marinette slides into the seat across from her after ordering something, and Lila begrudgingly admits that the girl is pretty and fashionable. She has a fluid grace to her motions, as well, which is why Lila found it weird that she had been so klutzy when they first met. Puberty, maybe?

“So,” Lila starts. She doesn’t really know how to talk to Marinette. Marinette is not one of her dogs. Marinette is smart, and loved, and good at what she likes; she is, at the very least, Lila’s begrudging equal. “Damian Grayson.”

“Damian Grayson,” Marinette repeats, knowingly. She smiles and jokes, “It almost sounds like we’re meeting up to talk about who we have a crush on.”

There are times when Lila wishes that Marinette took her up on the first option of the truce she presented. She wouldn’t have minded a partner in crime, and Marinette is everything that Lila lacks. That’s why Lila offered it in the first place. She knew that Marinette wouldn’t take it-- she was far too morally inclined too-- but it was worth a try.

“I’ve tried talking to him,” Marinette says, “But he’s not the type to listen.”

“He’s smart.” Smarter than the rest of the class, Lila thinks, so of course he won’t ally himself with her. People who follow who are always disillusioned dreamers who don’t have enough common sense to use Google. “I don’t mind if he’s not on my side. He just can’t be against me.”

Lila doesn’t care much about her classmates at Francois Dupont, but she can’t give them up, either. She still has the rest of this school year and the next, and it’s easier having her classmates fawn over her and drop everything at the flick of her wrist. It makes being class president very easy. If Damian exposes her lies, the end of her lycee years will inevitably end in an unpleasant altercation with Gianna Rossi, her mother. And while her classmates are inarguably dense and too trusting, their attentions aren’t altogether unpleasant. They invite her to go to mundane places and she agrees to, when it’s not too much of an inconvenience.

Marinette nods, sagely, then sips her Cafe au Lait. “There’s nothing to worry about there. He doesn’t like dealing with classroom politics, so as long as you don’t mess with him, he’ll stay away.”

“Good.” But also-- Lila hesitates. She doesn’t think that Marinette will agree with this, but she’s a little bit desperate. As useless and unthinking their classmates are, Lila doesn’t want to lose them. They’re all that Lila has. And they’ll think it weird that Damian isn’t on her side. They might start messing with him, and by extension, Marinette. On Lila’s short list of who she has tried and failed to take down is Marinette. The girl is slow to anger and has seemingly unending patience, but she’s unquestionably talented and charismatic, which means Lila does not want to see her mad. She’s been accepting of the new classroom dynamic in which her classmates ignore and ocassionally insult her because the whole school knows the two of them have bad blood, but some days Lila catches Marinette looking at Alya, Nino, and Adrien with a distant fondness. If they totally turn on Marinette, it won’t end well.

Apparently, Marinette can see the hesitation on her face. Lila is surprised at how good the other girl is at reading people. She definitely should not have the same experiences that Lila does. She has too bright of a disposition to have experienced a life constantly embroiled in politics and poor personal relations. But somehow, Marinette is almost as good at reading people as Lila is.

“If you think the rest of the class is going to do something, I’m pretty sure that Damian will be fine with you shunning him. He doesn’t like liars, but as long as it gets him out of dealing with the rest of the class, he’ll be fine.” Marinette knows how little Damian cares for their classmates. She can ask him for permission after talking to Lila, and then act accordingly.

This is surprisingly easy. Though, most things with Marinette are. Even the first time that Lila confronted her, they only needed to speak a few words before everything was resolved neatly.

“I’ll let you know what I decide to tell them.” Lila figures that it’s easier for her to tell Marinette what she’s planning and not get an unexpected surprise at the last second where the girl opposes her.

“Sounds good.”

Marinette’s phone is on the table, and it buzzes itself to life. Lila sees her lockscreen: a picture of Marinette and her family. Lila thinks of her own lock screen. It is much less personable. A lock screen that is one of the many that are preinstalled.

Marinette picks the phone up, which comes off as uncharacteristically rude. Marinette doesn’t seem like the kind of person who is constantly attached to technology, and she does have better manners than most of her classmates. Lila doesn’t think she’s ever seen Marinette pick up her phone when talking to somebody, and Lila wonders if Mariette picks up the phone because she thinks so little of her.

But Marinette looks pale and worried. She says, “Sorry, but it looks like I have to cut this short. If there’s anything else, just text me, okay?”

Then, Marinette dashes out the door, wide-eyed.

Lila wonders if Marinette’s statement extends to things outside of their classroom situation. Maybe she can get Marinette’s opinion on Gabriel’s Spring line.

“What’s wrong, Renee?” Marinette is worried. Renee never calls without texting, first. Normally, he calls when it’s nighttime, right before he goes to bed. He’s calling in the middle of the day, and something feels wrong.

Renee is taking shuddering breaths on the phone, and Marinette feels her stomach drop. “M-ma-maman,” he wails.

“Did your maman do something?” She’s making her way to Renee’s grandparent’s residence. Marinette visited Renee once in the past week, and he was settling in fine. His grandparents really love him. They said that after their son died, they were rarely able to contact Renee because his mother always had him so busy.

“Maman, she, she hurt Nonna.” Everything that Renee says is punctuated by sniffles and held-back tears.

“Is Nonna bleeding? Can Nonno come to the phone?”

“N-no, I don’t know, Mari, I’m scared, Maman, she’s never been this angry before, Nonno made me lock the bathroom door, I can’t hear them anymore, she’s not going to hurt them, is she? She can’t hurt them, Mari, what am I supposed to do? I’m sorry, I’m sorry for being so bad, I’m sorry. Please--”

“Stay right where you are, okay Renee? Can you use your phone to call the police to Nonno’s house? I’m going to be right there. Nonno and Nonna are going to be okay.”

Renee lets out a shaky, “Yes,” and then Marinette hangs up the phone, darting into an alleyway to turn into Ladybug. She thinks that this might be the fastest that she’s made her way through Paris, and her heartbeat is so fast, Marinette feels like she’s about to vomit.

Ladybug swings to the suburbs where Renee currently resides, detransforms, and sprints into the house. The door is left wide open, which is a bad sign. It signals to Marinette that Celia was violent from the start, and that the elder Monsieur and Madam DeVries did not even have time to close the door.

She is unfortunately right; Madam Devries is on the floor with her arms over her head, body in a fetal position. Celia is barely restrained by Monsieur DeVries, who has deep scratches on his arms.

“You,” Celia snarls when she sees Marinette come through the door. “You bitch! Your stupid intervention made me lose my chance at a promotion. Now I’m on probation! I could be demoted, all because you thought that you could teach my child.”

Celia’s stiletto heels slam onto Monsieur DeVries’ bare foot, and he flinches from the pain. It gives Celia just enough slack for her to escape his arms and storm up to Marinette. “Everything I do is for Renee. I work so he can go to school, so that he has a roof over his head, and so he can go to all of those stupid lessons that his father wanted him to do. And what do you do? What gives you the right to take him away from me?”

She tries to claw Marinette, but misses. All Marinette has to do is sidestep, sweep Celia’s already shaking legs from underfoot, and then pull Celia’s arms sharply and backwards. Marinette’s shin is locked over the back of both of Celia’s knees, and Marinette contorts the woman backwards so Marinette can speak directly into Celia’s ears.

Marinette is glad that there are no cameras rolling here, though she has gathered so much evidence against Celia for charges of child abuse and corporate fraud that there is no way that Celia isn’t going to jail. Sine there’s no video evidence, if Celia wants to bring this instance up, she can just claim self defense.

“You starved Renee when he didn’t want to go to the lessons that you arranged. You beat him if he did anything wrong. You made him think that it was normal for kids to go weeks without seeing or hearing from their parents, prevented him from contacting other family members and from making friends, and humiliated him just because he wanted to hug you in public.” Marinette pulls Celia’s arms back even more sharply, so that her spine was over Marinette’s other knee. Celia let out a gasp and a muffled cry of pain. “You can’t pretend that you did all of that for Renee. You certainly can’t pass off the laundering of Silverstein and Company’s money as something necessary for you to take care of Renee.”

Marinette abruptly pushes Celia onto the floor, letting the leg that wasn’t restraining Celia’s knees onto the woman’s lower back. It’s a lot easier to restrain somebody who’s unconscious, but Marinette wants Celia awake to realize how quickly her life is going to go down the drain. So that Celia knows how much evidence she has stacked against her.

It takes Marinette longer than it usually does for her to restrain her victim with zip ties, but she gets it done well before they even start to hear the police sirens.

“If you think you can use your late husband’s name as an excuse for what you’ve done to Renee, you have another thing coming. I will see you in court this Thursday and not only will you be out of a promotion, you will be out of a job. I’d like to see you try to get a job in France when you have charges of child abuse, violence against a teen and family, fraud, and money laundering on your record.”

“But I love Renee! He is my and Jean’s child. The last connection that I have with Jean. How could I ever hurt him intentionally?”

This only makes Marinette feel more disgusted. How twisted Celia’s vision of love is. Is this how Gabriel feels towards Adrien? Does he also delude himself into believing that his constant isolation of Adrien is a form of love?

“Sometimes, intent doesn’t matter.” Marinette says softly. “The consequences of your actions make you accountable. If you truly love Renee, let him be happy. Let him be safe.” Maybe one day, Celia will learn to be better. To love better. Marinette isn’t sure if Celia should ever be let back into Renee’s life, but that isn’t a decision she can make. That’s something that Renee and Monsieur and Madam DeVries must decide. She hopes they wait on it.

Celia cries, and Marinette can feel the woman’s shudders underneath her fingers. Her face is to the ground now, but she’s lost all color and Marinette can almost believe that she is ashamed and doesn’t want to look at anyone. But as good as Marinette is at partial and half-truths, she’s never been good at lying. Not even to herself.

The police come, and Celia is escorted out in a solemn procession.

Madame and Monsieur DeVries do not thank Marinette, but the way they look at Renee with such concern and affection as they embrace him is all she wants, anyways.

The trial is a quiet affair. There is little to no media coverage because Monsieur and MadameDeVries want it that way.

Since Celia’s physical assault on her son, the case was expedited. Instead of testifying Thursday next week, both Renee’s grandparents and the Silverstein and Company insisted that the date be moved up, and somehow, they managed to get the case to be heard on Friday of the same week.

Renee attaches himself staunchly to Marinette and Damian at the trial. After they visited him at the DeVries house last week, Renee never stopped talking about the best big brother he could hope for. Now, after he has seen his mother launch herself at his Nonna and Nonno, he only has his grandparents and the two of them.

Monsieur and Madam DeVries take this in stride. They are thankful that they helped in getting Renee away from his mother and supportive of Renee forming an attachment to the two of them.

“Damian,” Renee asks when his Maman is on the stand, “Is Maman a bad person?”

Damian is not sure how to answer this. He is no expert on people and his experience with parents is limited and unusual. His mother is an ambitious assassin who raised him to be cold-hearted and brutish. There is little love lost between the two of them. Still, Damian can’t bring himself to think of his mother as a bad person. A villain, maybe, but she had her moments--as brief and few as they were-- of kindness. As far as Damian can tell, Talia really thinks she is doing right by the world. All she wants to do is make the world a better place, though how she goes about doing that is... less than savory.

He shoots a look at Marinette. She shrugs and says, “Just tell him what you’re thinking.”

“People aren’t bad.” The words feel shaky on his tongue. Talia and Bruce both have very different ideology that they’ve espoused to him, but neither feels right to say to Renee. It’s weird to say there are no bad people in the world, when he is a vigilante who fights villains on a daily basis. To say that people like the Joker are not bad, when he has so much blood on his hands. He looks at Marinette, and she’s giving him an encouraging smile. It makes him feel like he’s saying the right thing. “Misguided and twisted, yes. There are also people who are bad for you. Their decisions and actions can be bad, and they can be hurtful.”

Marinette smiles, and it makes Damian feel good. He’s never really expressed his feelings on the dichotomy of people being good or bad, but he thinks about it often enough. His siblings and father all have pretty varying views on the matter, so he can’t claim that he is right, but if Marinette agrees with him, he can’t be all that wrong.

If this view isn’t wrong, perhaps he’s needs to reevaluate his relationships with the people surrounding him, and his feelings towards himself. Dick has tried for a very long time to make Damian believe that he is not a bad person, but Damian has never really believed him. Dick says Damian was just misguided in his youth, following the instructions of someone who should have known better. That so long as Damian tries to be a better person and do better things, that he will be a good person.

Being a good person has never sounded right to Damian. He knows that his hands have taken lives and if he’s being honest, he’s not that unwilling to take more. Father believes killing people is a bad thing and refuses to do it. When Todd went off on his own and killed people, Father said it was unacceptable, and that it didn’t matter that the people he killsed were doing bad things. Thus, if Damian killed in the past, Dick’s logic simply doesn’t make sense. He cannot redeem himself from the lives he has taken; they cannot magically resurrect themselves.

But if people aren’t good or bad and only their actions are, then maybe Damian is a hero, as Dick has continually tried to convince him. He has faced consequences for his past actions, and though he’s not sure that the consequences will ever be enough, the decisions he makes now are better. As Robin, he goes out of his way to help people. As Damian, he ocassionally tries to mediate.

“Still, even if people aren’t good or bad,” Marinette whispers into Renee’s ear and squeezes his hand, “That doesn’t mean you have to be with them. If they’ve hurt you, it’s your right to avoid them, and you shouldn’t feel bad for doing that.”

Celia shivers on the stand and the few times that she brings herself to look at Renee, Marinette can see the beginnings of remorse on her face. Realization and remorse are the first steps to change. There is a future out there that will let Renee and Celia be together again, though Marinette personally doubts that it will ever happen.

After the trial, Renee is released to the custody of Monsieur and Madame DeVries, and Celiaa is sentenced to 14 years in jail, with a possibility of parole in 7 years. Many of the scandals th Silverstein company has under their belt was pushed onto Celia. Marinette can’t say she’s pleased with that, but it’s not as though she’s willing to fight for a shorter jail sentence for this woman.

The five of them go out to celebrate the result of the trial filled with quiet joy.

One week after the trial, three since Damian arrived in Paris, and Marinette and Damian are engaged in a wrestling match in Marinette’s living room.

“Come on Marinette, don’t be such a sore loser.”

Marinette finally manages to flip and pin Damian onto the ground. “I would not have lost if you didn’t knock the controller out of my hands with thirty seconds to go!”

“That was just poor strategy on your part. You could have knocked my controller away too, instead of chasing after yours.” It’s surprisingly difficult for Damian to get himself out from under Marinette, and it’s even harder for him to flip her back and cage her. “Besides, it’s not my fault that you have such sweaty hands. Should keep a better grip, Pigtails.”

Marinette sputters. “Don’t insult my hairstyle choices!”

“I wasn’t insulting them. It’s a--” nickname. But Damian doesn’t give people he’s not close to nicknames. When he doesn’t know someone’s name, or doesn’t care for them, he calls them by distinguishing features. But Damian knows Marinette’s name and thinks that she’s a decent person. The way Pigtails rolled off of Damian’s tongue feels more like an endearment than anything else. He thinks that her pigtails are pretty cute, after all. They fit her childish persona when she is relaxed.

Sabine comes up the steps from the boulangerie and smiles at the two of them.

“You two are getting along well,” she says so nonchalantly that Damian feels a flush growing. He lets his weight off of Marinette, and she bounds up, onto her mother’s arm.

“Maman, tell Damian that my pigtails are great. He’s insulting them!”

Sabine smiles lovingly at her daughter and shakes one of the pigtails with her hand. “Definitely the tails of one very cute pig.”

“Maman, you can’t call me a pig. I’m your daughter.”

“I said a very cute pig.” Sabine looks at Damian and winks, and his flush grows even more. “Now isn’t it about time for the two of you to go back to school?”

Marinette groans. “Don’t remind me. Madame Mendeleev is going to give a physics test today.”

She grabs another pastry and her bag before kissing her Maman and heading out to the streets with Damian.

“Bye Maman, we’ll see you after we go visit Renee!”

“Bye, Sabine.” Damian inclines his head as Marinette’s mother waved them goodbye from behind the bakery counter.

It’s nice being friends with Marinette. The days go by quickly, and there’s rarely a dull moment. Somehow, the two of them kept meeting each other after akuma attacks, and between all of their accidental run-ins and their scheduled visits with Renee, Damian finds that he’s more often in the presence of Marinette Dupain-Cheng than he is alone.

At first, Marinette is prickly, but after Lila spreads the lie that he doesn’t speak French well and feels anxious when in big groups, and oh, did she mention that he wants to leave and not be friends with any of them, the class doesn’t really bother with him much. She’s much more willing to be around him once that occurs.

Surprisingly, what Lila said isn’t even that much of a lie. He wants-- or at least wanted-- to leave Paris because he thought that Hawkmoth wasn’t that big of a deal. He certainly doesn’t want to befriend anyone who is imbecilic enough to believe Lila. His French is a little bit rusty, but it’s definitely passable.

Now that Lila is not constantly trying to hold Damian’s forearm, he relaxes a lot. Marinette is a calming, level-headed person who balances out Damian’s doom and gloom with cheer and optimism. She’s good at catching him up on the classwork, though not the best ad science, and is a responsible person that Damian trusts with most things.

Lately, he’s been thinking of trusting her a little more and fishing for information on Hawkmoth, Chat Noir, and Ladybug. For some reason, Damian thinks that she will be a very good source of information if he approaches it the right way.

He aces the physics test. It’s a good day.

They’re walking back to Tom & Sabine’s Boulangerie when they come across Nicolette, the girl Marinette saved from Fraser.

“Marinette! Damian! I’m so glad I ran into you two. I never got a chance to thank you guys for saving me.” Nicolette looks infinitely happier than when they had first met her. She’s so different than when Damian first met her. He’s never been good at reconciling people in extreme situations of stress with how they are normally, so Damian supposes this is just par for the course.

“Can I get you guys coffee? It’s really such a relief that Fraser’s finally off my back. He was hounding me for a long time.” Nicolette’s voice trails off towards the end. She’s ashamed.

“I’m free. I’d love to have coffee with you. Damian?”

Damian doesn’t have any real reason to refuse. Research on Hawkmoth is important, but he’s hit a dead end as of late, and stressing about the lack of information-- Damian curses magic, for the umpteenth time-- will do nothing. It doesn’t help that he can hear his older brothers in his head, telling him that he needs to get a life.

“How’s your new job going?” Marinette falls into conversation with the girl, and the two of them manage to drag him into the conversation as well. Having a rapport with someone he barely knows is unusual, but surprisingly pleasant. There’s no need to go into depth over things he doesn’t care for, and anything that a party doesn’t seem interested in or doesn’t like is glossed over immediately.

Perhaps his brothers are right, and Damian does need to get a few more friends his age.

“My boss says that if I keep performing the way I am, I’ll get a promotion before the end of the year! Can you believe that?”

“That’s amazing! I’m so happy for you. And your coworkers?”

“They’re pretty amazing. I’m so glad that I decided to work for Dior instead of Silverstein and Company. Silverstein was what really sent Fraser off, and they’re not even in fashion. They’re in real estate or something. Dior always reminds me how valued I am, and that’s something I really needed after dealing with Fraser for so long.” Nicolette looks around the cafe and lowers her voice. “There’s not a lot of information out about it in the media yet, but I’ve heard that Silverstein is going to be in pretty hot water soon; someone high up in their Paris branch really messed up. Apparently she was doing all sorts of illegal things under the table, and let a lot of those who were under her get away with the same thing.”

Marinette and Damian exchange looks. They know exactly who she’s talking about, but they come to the joint decision that they don’t need to talk about it. Because talking about how they know means talking about Renee. And even though Nicolette is friendly, there is no reason to expose another person’s life story. Especially not when they’re as vulnerable as Renee is. Marinette gently redirects the conversation back to fashion.

“Oh, I love Dior! Their ready to wear line was to die for this year.”

“Definitely, a lot of my friends like Gabriel better, but I simply adore the way that Dior emphasizes femininity. I don’t think that women need to emulate men in their fashion; we’re amazing the way we are, and should be appreciated.” Nicolette looks Marinette up and down. “Speaking of, I love your outfit. It doesn’t look like it’s something from a ready-made store.”

“I like to design my own clothes from time to time,” Marinette waves off the compliment. “Both Gabriel and Dior’s original missions are founded on principles that I greatly admire, though I have to admit that I’ve had some personal run-ins with Monsieur Agreste that have reflected poorly on his recent choices, and I am no longer the biggest fan of his work. It’s sad that he’s deviated so much from what he originally wanted to do-- give his wife and women the power to be treated as an equal.”

Marinette isn’t exactly sure how Gabriel treats Adrien in his entirety, but what little she does know is enough for her to despise the man. For the past year, Marinette has wanted to emancipate Adrien, and that desire has only gotten stronger in the past few months. In her gut, Marinette knows her initial suspicions are correct: Gabriel has to be Hawkmoth. More recently, even their moods seem to be interconnected. Gabriel has been hounding Adrien more than usual-- more photoshoots, late nights, less correspondence with his friends, more of a diet, and those are only things that Marinette has observed. And Hawkmoth has been coming after her and Chat Noir with a vengeance. He’s released an akuma every single day for the past month, and it’s taxing on her, though Marinette can’t say that his newest strategy is any weirder than the other ones he’s been trying out during the past half year. At least the akumas aren’t that strong, but it’s worrying because Chat Noir feels more obligated to come out to at least half of the akuma battles, and it’s clear that he’s too tired and too busy to do so.

“What about you, Damian? Do you have a favorite courtiere?” Marinette smiles sheepishly. They’re talking about fashion, and she’s not sure that he enjoys the subject all that much.

“I don’t know much about fashion, but all my brothers can talk about is this new designer that’s been working with Jagged Stone and Clara Nightingale. They’re completely obsessed, but I can’t remember the name.” Damian thinks the designer’s name had an M in it, but he’s not sure.

“Oh, MDC! They’re so elusive, but their designs are stunning. I’d love to work with them, if I ever get a chance. It’s a pity that they’re so secretive.” Nicolette whips out her phone. “I have a whole file on all of the designs that they’ve released so far. They have a great eye for color, and their construction is flawless. I even have a few designs that they haven’t claimed, but I’m pretty sure they made it. All of them have a pretty distinctive--”

Nicolette narrows her eyes. “Wait.”

Marinette looks down at her cup, and then back up into Nicolette’s, calm and steady. “I love MDC too. Since I’m an aspiring designer, I reference everything she makes pretty often. I based my jacket off the one she made for Clara, with a little bit of Dior Spring 2017 for flair.”

“No. Way.” Nicolette’s eyes set themselves on the lapel of her blazer. “No, no, no, there’s no way.”

Damian raises an eyebrow, looks at Marinette and then Nicolette. Nicolette’s mouth hangs slightly ajar while Marinette holds her cup of coffee. He feels like he’s missing something here, but he’s not exactly sure what. MDC. Marinette. MDC. Marinette.

He pauses. What is Marinette’s last name again? He thinks he’s heard it at least once before-- must have, because they needed to state their full name for the court records-- but what?

Nicolette squeals and takes Marinette’s hands. Still, she knows when to keep things a secret; since Marinette hasn’t revealed her identity yet, there must be a reason why she wants to keep it a secret. Marinette saved her, so there’s no way that Nicolette is going to betray her trust. Plus, this might give Nicolette a huge break if she plays her cards right.

Apparently, Nicolette deems Damian either to be nobody important, or somebody who’s already in confidence with this secret that Marinette is keeping, so she lowers her voice just enough so that the three at the table can hear. “I cannot believe that I’ve met you. I can’t believe that you saved me! Do you know how kickass that is? Half of the designers who are working for us look like they’re fragile enough to blow away if one more needle stabs them. Oh my god. I can’t believe this. This is one of the best days of my life.”

For her part, Marinette looks confused, with an underlying current of either amusement and possibly anxiety. “They are pretty new to the industry. It’s rare to meet another fan!”

“Don’t play me like that. I got my job for a reason. I was one of the top scorers in business school and might have been hired for my background in technology, but the reason why I had an emphasis on fashion is because I am obsessed with couture. And when I get obsessed, it’s pretty easy for me to see when it’s one of my favorite designer’s styles.”

“Thanks for thinking that I copied them so well!” Marinette smiles, and Damian almost doesn’t catch the hint of tension in her shoulders. “I do have a lot of free time on my hands though. High school student and all.”

Marinette has learned to lie very well. After years of hiding life-altering secrets, she has to be. There’s a lot riding on her ability to keep silent. Paris, for example.

Unfortunately for her, the two people at the table aren’t fooled by her act. Damian pieces it together from context clues and a quick glance in his contact list, where Marinette is listed as “Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” Nicolette, on the other hand, is very well versed in MDC’s past designs, and also has the conviction to follow through with her beliefs.

Marinette’s denial of her alter-ego is not outlandish. She’s a teenage girl, and perhaps not ready to face the media storm that would come after outing herself to the public. So Nicolette drops the issue, and Damian doesn’t comment. She hums, pulls out a business card and says, “Well, your construction on your blazer is much better than we see with interns usually. If you’re ever interested in coming to Dior, just shoot me a message. I’d be glad to give you a referral or help in any way. It’s the least I can do.”

“Wow, that’s amazing! I’m not sure, but I’m thinking of trying to intern this summer.” Marinette isn’t sure that she can, what with her duties as Ladybug that will inevitably pull her away from her internship and will not reflect well on her work ethic (she really needs to take down Hawkmoth before she gets into college, or at least before she gets into the working world), but it would be nice to intern for one of the biggest fashion companies. And honestly, after knowing how awfully Gabriel treats his own son, she’s not sure she wants to find out how he treats his interns.

“Please Marinette,” Nicolette says, eyes twinkling. “With your skills, I can land you more than an intern position. But it was nice catching up. We should do this again, sometime.”

“It was nice,” Damian says, and he finds that he means it. More than nice, actually. Damian knows more about Marinette now, and he’s sure that there’s even more for him to discover. She certainly keeps things interesting, that’s for sure.

“Definitely.”

“Eugh. Damian, would you please throw out that shirt of yours?” Marinette wrinkles her nose. “Mustard yellow is not your shade. How is it that the one colored shirt that you have in your wardrobe is also the ugliest thing you own?”

Since they now see each other on an almost daily basis and Marinette’s proclivity for fashion has been outed, she voices her distaste with Damian’s limited fashion sense more often than not. The boy knows how to work a good black t-shirt and jeans, but not much else. She asked him if he was trying to go for the emo look, yesterday, and when he said no, she demanded that he wear something with color the following day, So, Damian flipped through the clothes that he brought with him to France, and found that the only colored clothing he brought was a t-shirt he doesn’t even remember packing.

“I’m wearing something colorful,” he says. “You told me to.”

“If I knew that this was the only thing that you owned in color, I would have gladly let you remain in your emo phase.” Marinette sighs. “Now that I know this is your only option and that you are not an emo, I have no choice.”

In the time that has passed since the two of them met with Nicolette, Marinette has not acknowledged the elephant in the room. She has said nothing of her relation to MDC, but it’s not hard to figure it out. Damian spent the night after they met up with Nicolette looking at a collection of all the things that MDC has designed and found a very distinctive logo sewn into each. This logo is also found on all of the things that are up in Marinette’s room, but he hasn’t mentioned it. Thus, the two of them pretend that she is just an aspiring designer, rather than one who already has high-end clientele.

With a dramatic swoon and an intake of breath, Marinette says, “I suppose I must help you with your wardrobe. The reformation of one Damian Grayson has now been entrusted to me, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

The mention of Damian’s fake last name makes him bristle more than the jab at his clothing colors.

“My wardrobe is fine. I don’t see anybody else complaining.”

“Damian. You interact with maybe five people on a regular basis in Paris. Renee doesn’t think you can do a single bad thing in the world, and his Nonna and Nonno aren’t going to say anything about your fashion choices. The barista at the cafe is head over heels for you and clearly doesn’t think about anything but your pretty eyes and the muscles under your t-shirt. Maman and Papa just think that you’re a teenager who doesn’t have more than one outfit, and that you’re possibly emo.” Marinette pauses. “You do have more than one outfit, right?”

Damian scoffs. He may not know fashion, but he can certainly afford more than one outfit. Still, Marinette doesn’t know much about him in terms of family or finance. They’ve kept everything very surface level, though he’s sure that she has her own assumptions. He has his own about her, though he does have more information to work with. He can’t shake the feeling that he’s missing something big, though. The way they keep meeting up after akumas and the way she’s able to take people down so easily when Damian knows that she doesn’t actually go to the martial arts class down the street from Francois Dupont. But every time he tries to think about it for too long, something else draws his attention. His train of thought always slips away.

“Don’t you scoff at me young man. I am now obligated to help you, you poor, misguided soul. I am going to dress you to impress.” Her grin broadens. “I bet that I can get that barista to ask you on a date. What would you prefer; for her to leave her number on a cup, for her to silently drool over you, or for her to try to work up the nerve to ask you out directly?”

“I don’t want her to ask me out at all.” He leans back onto the armrest of the sofa and assesses her.

“Come on, Damian. You need to make more friends. Go out. Live a little!”

“This, coming from you,” Damian says amusedly. Marinette and his brothers would get along splendidly, if they ever met. Not that they will.

Marinette huffs. “I certainly have more friends than you, and I definitely interact with way more people than you do.”

“That’s what you get for working in customer service. And also for having some sort of moral obligation to save the world.”

At this, Marinette almost stutters. Her mind instantly goes to Ladybug. But Damian can’t know. All of the times that she’s seen him on scene after an akuma attack, they were all coincidences. They have to be.

“I don’t know why you feel the need to save everyone and their uncle from stalkers and continue to intervene in random street fights, but where I’m from, that certainly doesn’t happen very often.”

Oh. Oh, he is talking about her civilian form. He doesn’t know. It’s fine.

“Funny, because you always seem to step in to help whenever you see me.” Marinette frowns. “Say, where are you from, anyways? I know you’re from America, which explains why you have such horrible fashion sense, but where?” Marinette cracks a smile, thinking of Damian in American stereotypes.

“So what was it? A surfer? A cowboy? Oh my god, a skater boy,” she cackles. She can totally see it. The slightly rebellious slightly punk combo. There’s no way that Damian wasn’t a skater boy back in the states.

Damian looks insulted. “I was not a skater boy. If you must know, I’m from Gotham.”

Is that too much information? He regrets it almost as soon as the words are out of his mouth, but he has gotten too relaxed in her presence. That isn’t good. He can’t let things slip like that. He should have redirected her, let him think that he was from New York, or that he was a skater boy. If Marinette decides to look up Damian and Gotham, there are a good number of photos of him alongside his real last name. Then she’ll wonder why he lied to begin with. That will be bad. That can’t happen.

She considers him. “You’ve really got it rough, don’t you? Moving from one crime infested city to the next. Gotham’s worse, though. At least here, we’ve only got two overpowered villains and a bunch of victims. Over there… the likes of the Joker and Two-Face? They hurt people, and there’s no Miraculous Cure from Ladybug to fix the damage they’ve done. Honestly, I’m surprised that you don’t avoid danger at every turn.”

Gothamites do tend to avoid danger much more than their Parisian counterparts. Gothamites walk with purpose and are rarely out on the streets longer than they absolutely have to be; they’re a smart bunch, who don’t want to get involved if they don’t have to. Most people keep their cards close to their chest, and don’t let people know that they care.

Damian doesn’t think it’s bad, though he does have to admit that Paris is less dangerous. Frustrating, because he can’t do much when a situation arises, but it’s almost nice how normal he feels in Paris. That’s something he hasn’t gotten to experience much of, and while the first few days were weird, he’s settled into a sort of routine. He gets along with Marinette a hell of a lot better than any of his classmates back in Gotham, except for maybe Kent, but he and Kent rarely see each other during school hours.

Marinette breezes back to talking about fashion, almost as if she knows that she’s getting into territory that neither of them are quite ready to go into, and Damian gladly accepts it.

She claps her hands and says, “We’re going shopping. Let’s get you a wardrobe that makes your loved ones proud.”

It doesn’t escape Damian’s notice that she says loved ones instead of parents, and wonders if she knows more than he thinks she does. He wonders if she already knows that he’s Damian Wayne. Somehow, he doubts that she knows or cares that he is the son of an American billionaire with mommy issues. But it does feel good to have someone that doesn’t assume things about the state of his family. She’s been incredibly noninvasive and patient, backing off as soon as she thinks there’s a possible limit if he ever says more than he means to. Damian wonders if this courtesy is because she doesn’t want her own secrets to get out. It doesn’t matter, whatever the reason.

He’s glad for it.

They’re in her bedroom.

Damian lies on her chaise, tossing a stress ball that he finds on her desk. Marinette sits in her rolling chair, working on a commission.

“Ever thought of opening up a website?” Marinette’s room is nice. It has a feminine charm to it, but nothing overwhelming. Very different from Barbara’s chaotically organized room that has cold cases and theories lying around on every open surface and Cassandra’s weapon filled one.

Marinette hums. “I’ve thought about it. I don’t know if I want to. I don’t really have the technical expertise to make it happen.”

“You’ve got Nicolette. I wouldn’t be opposed to helping you with the technological aspect, either.”

At her desk, Marinette’s hands still. “The commissions I get just from word of mouth are pretty amazing. They’re also pretty time consuming.”

Damian can’t tell if he’s pushing too hard. If she’s uncomfortable with what he’s saying. Not for the first time since he’s been around Marinette, Damian wishes that he could read people better.

“But you want to be a fashion designer. You can only do so much with word of mouth.”

“I’ve got plenty of time,” Marinette counters. “I’ve got years before I can even think about making it big.”

This… annoys him for some reason. Marinette doesn’t have to wait for years before making a splash in the fashion industry. She already is. And she can make an even bigger one if she just makes a way for people to contact her reliably.

He sits up. “You are perfectly capable of achieving your dreams now.Why are you putting what you’re passionate about on hold? It makes little sense to limit yourself when there are celebrities around the world vying for a piece of yours. Even my brothers like your designs, and it’s difficult to catch their attention.”

Briefly, Damian wonders if his words would mean more to her if she knew he is a Wayne. That his brothers are Waynes-- the impossible to please, highly irritable Waynes. He shakes away the thought. Thanks to her everyday hero attitude, she’s gotten to meet a surprising amount of famous people or people on their way to fame, and she treats them no differently when she finds out.

What goes on inside the brain of Marinette is far beyond him. Every time he thinks he has her pegged, she does something that makes his assumptions wrong. It’s frustrating how little he knows about her when he is supposed to be one of the world’s greatest detectives. The one thing that doesn’t change, the only common thread that he can follow is that Marinette cares for people far better than most care for themselves.

It’s only been one month, but Marinette is passionate about everything she does, from helping out her parents at the bakery to all of the random acts of kindness she does around town. The good will she shows people on the streets, whether they’re down on their luck that day or are going through a rough patch is unconventional and awe-inspiring. Anyone she meets who’s in a really bad situation is immediately swept up into endless love and affection and she always continues to meet up with them when they need it. If she comes across a situation where she can help,Marinette always follows through. She drops everything for complete strangers that she meets.

So why can’t she take a stab at her own dreams?

“I don’t have time,” Marinette manages. Damian doesn’t think that he’s seen her breathe since they’ve started this conversation.

“Marinette. Look at me.”

She turns to him, eyes downcast and mind clearly elsewhere.

“Marinette.”

She looks at him. Damian is taken aback at the kind of blue her eyes are. Layers of different shades of blue with flecks that almost look silver surrounding her pupil. Even her eyes have freckles.

“You need to make the time.” And then, she looks so helpless, her eyes full of regret and confusion and anxiousness.

Damian wants to do something. With his hands, or feet, or something. He wants to move, he wants to hold her. He settles for running a hand through his hair, a highly unusual action. He likes his hair neat and doesn’t like tics. They make him feel weak. But if running his hand through his hair can stop him from reaching out to Marinette-- for what, Damian thinks, a hug?--then he’ll do it.

“I’m busy, Damian,” she says plaintively, like she’s begging him to believe her.

Why, though? Damian doesn’t understand. Why can’t she just make a website? God knows his brothers would be all over it. The only reason Tim hasn’t figured out her identity is because he respects the fact that MDC clearly does not want to go public. He’s been trying to hunt down an alternate way to get an MDC commission for months now and has only just stopped short of reaching out to Jagged himself. Damian doesn’t understand why he feels so frustrated at her lack of effort, either. He’s seen plenty of people around him in Gotham give up on their dreams in favor of more practical ways of life. People he knew that were talented and could make it, and he never, ever pushed them. Because it was their life. Their decisions. So why?

Why does it hurt so much when Marinette doesn’t follow her dreams?

“I see. Then if you’re so busy, maybe I should stop taking up your time.” The words taste like blood in his mouth. What is he doing? Being with Marinette makes him feel good. Like he’s worthy of being Bruce Wayne’s blood son and that he’s a good brother. Why should he give that up just because Marinette doesn’t want to grow up?

He drops through the trap door and closes it behind him. He goes back to the apartment his father bought him for his stay in Paris. It is empty, cold, and impersonal. For the first time since he’s met Marinette, Damian desperately wishes that the Justice League would give him permission to be Robin.

2:02 AM | Marinette: Damian?

Marinette: hey im sorry for

Marinette: honestly i don’t even know i

2:06 AM | Marinette: will you help me make a website?

2:10 AM | Damian: ok

Damian: i’ll come over tomorrow after school?

2:12 AM | Marinette: yeah

Marinette: that sounds good

3:30 AM | Marinette: im sorry i don’t really know what for but i’m sorry

Marinette: i felt really horrible

Marinette: im sorry

3:37 AM | Damian: you need to learn how to take care of yourself before you take care of others

Damian: please.

#miraculous ladybug #dcu #mlb x dc #maribat #daminette #damian wayne is robin #sbgs #original content #adrien agreste #lila rossi #marinette dupain cheng #damian wayne

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47-shades-of-hitman · 3 years

Text

In Your Likeness | Chapter 4 - So it begins

Your nimble fingers fiddled with the small folding knife, twirling it around in between your fingers, barely grazing the sharp blade. Your index finger hooked into the small metal loop on the hilt, giving it a firm twist around your digits, building speed. Then, with a firm movement of your lower arm and wrist, you hurled it into the dummy – right into the artery, buried deep within the neck.

Agent 47 sat a little away, observing you. The training outfit he wore was a bit too tight to be comfortable and the band-aid they insisted for him to put over his tattoo itched terribly. His blue eyes scanned your face – calm and collected, something he could find himself in. However, something else shimmered in your eyes, and he was unsure of what it represented.

“You’ve attracted yourself quite the audience.” he stated, referring to the group of teenagers, who had gathered to gape at you from the glass wall, a few meters away. You shrugged, waving it off.

“I’m the best Assassin the Brotherhood has, of course they’ll watch. They need to train to be like me one day.”

You looked over at them and smiled a little. When you winked, they shyly scurried away, like bashful toddlers hiding behind their mother’s leg upon eye-contact.

“You frighten them.”

“No.” you countered. “They imagine themselves in my stead.”

47 kept silent, eyeing you with slight interest. “So, you can throw these knives pretty well.”

“Thank you.” you said. “Mind showing me some of your skillset? We need to get familiar after all.”

He stood and walked over, leather of his garment snug against his skin. It unpleasantly creaked upon movement.

He drew his ICA Silverballer and aimed it at the dummy.

Before he could take the shot, however, you deeply sighed next to him.

“Long range? How dull.”

He raised an eyebrow before gunning three – four – five dummies clean in the head.

“You were saying?”

You walked closer to one of the dummies, inspecting the bullet hole freshly ripped into the plastic doll.

“Long range combat can be dangerous. There is no way to silence the target in case you miss, impact by missed bullets can be heard, if the bullet passes through, who knows where it will end up. And, you cannot quickly pull them behind a corner, immediately out of unwanted sight…”

“It’s critical, though. You carry a firearm on yourself, too. Unsilenced, not to mention.”

Unholstering your revolver, you handed it to him. “Small, convenient, hardly used. Almost obsolete with those bad boys on me.” You flicked your wrists in the air, revealing your hidden blades.

“One quick stab, silent and effective.” you concluded.

Agent 47 nodded at the dummies.

“Care to show me?” He walked over to them and readjusted their positions. “Let me sketch you a situation.”

You agreed, standing on the place where he wanted you to be. Within a minute, he had shifted all mannequins around.

“Imagine this. You’ve just eliminated a target and want to slip away, but the only way to do so is through the door, where a lot of guards are watching closely. They have noticed some ruckus, so they are on high alert. Think fast.”

“Six enemies… Fifteen seconds, how’s that sound?”

“Try it.” Agent 47 stated, stepping back. You deeply inhaled through your nose, crouching as if you had indeed been sneaking around to kill a target, and began your dance.

Thwack! One of your throwing knives buried itself into the head of one of the dummies whilst you grabbed the other around the throat, slashing your hidden blade across its neck before pushing it to the ground.

Then, you jumped on forward, kicking one straight in the back, making it topple over. You used its body to propel yourself into a flying kick, moving your wrist forward in the gesture. The heel of your boot hit one doll on the right spot to knock them out.

Upon landing, you burst your blade through the throat of the dummy you had used to launch yourself. Another throwing knife into the one you had theoretically only knocked out.

At last, you ran towards the final practise doll, sliding down to the floor to sweep it off its feet by using the force of your arm, blade slamming into the chest as you turned your body.

Slightly out of breath, you stood up, dusting down your attire. 47’s eyes were focused on you, slightly narrowed. “That took you twelve point twenty-eight seconds. Hardly leaving a chance to react and there’s barely room for error on your part given that you’re a skilled killer. Overall, I must say that it’s impressive.”

You smirked, putting your hands on your hips. This compliment coming from the strange hitman in front of you caused an inexplicable tightening in your gut, but you didn’t pay it any mind. It was probably the fact that he seemed to stare right into your soul, and he could either read your mind or your deepest secrets.

“So, what about you, now?” you suggested, breaking the silence. He blinked, flexing his fingers at his side.

“Of course. Give me something – Anything.”

You hummed and went to work. After a few minutes, you had made up a scenario.

“So, this dummy right here is our target.” you placed your hand on the shoulder of one of the dolls.

“In order to get to it, you need to get past guards. However,” you continued, “The door is locked. What will you do?”

Agent 47 scoffed. “Within fifteen seconds? That’s impossible.”

“I don’t care about your speed, Tobias. I want to see your approach.”

He was reminded of the other Assassins training in the same room upon your usage of his alias.

“What do I carry on me?”

“No lockpicks, crowbar, or keys. How about this…”

You tapped your chin as you looked around the room, walking over as you spotted what you had been looking for. You pulled a chest towards the set-up and found a long plank soon, too. You positioned in such a way that it was resting against the long side of the chest.

“This is an open window… And you have to scale the plank to get to it. You start right there.” you pointed at the area which you had designated to be the starting point, “I’m curious to see what you will do.”

Agent 47 took place where you had wanted him to and stretched his muscles.

“Ready?” you asked, adjusting a stopwatch to a counter of zero.

“Always.”

“Right, go.”

And off he went – knocking out a few dummies, subduing another, hiding effectively behind an imaginary wall consisting of a wooden bar to stay out of the enemy’s line of sight. He used coins to distract a few guards, if there had been any, and you moved them around to pretend that they were actually going where 47 wanted them to go.

When he eliminated the dummy by using a fibre wire, your stopwatch told a minute and a half.

“Nicely done, I must say.” you praised.

A sudden presence next to you made you momentarily tense – you had heard her approach, but her voice was so sharp that you shuddered.

“Well, well… I didn’t know we had a new recruit!”

“Hey, Sigrid.” you greeted with a wry smile.

“You seem like you know what you’re doing…” Sigrid spoke to 47, voice sickly sweet.

Agent 47 remained neutral. “Yeah. I transferred from Romania per experiment.”

“Romania… Interesting.” Sigrid twirled a lock of her black, dyed hair around her finger. “What’s your name, handsome?”

You rolled your eyes, shaking your head as you turned to the training ground in order to put everything back in place.

“Tobias Rieper.”

“How wonderful to meet you, Toby! My name is Sigrid Andres. I originate from Finland. They had me transfer here ten years ago when (Y/n) and her brother proved not strong enough. And now I need to fill in for even more empty space, since he died and all.”

Your body immediately tensed up even more than it had before – anger swelled in your chest and you had to resist the urge to punch her in her face. “Otherwise, (Y/n) wouldn’t have been able to keep up with the work Mr Howard throws her way. She’s a bit slow, if I’m honest. I believe it’s… A family trait.”

Agent 47 replied: “I’m sure that she can manage just fine on her own. She is a very capable Assassin.”

Your humourless smile was rueful and you fought the tears blurring your vision, turning to Sigrid.

“You, of all people, have the least right to speak ill to my family after everything you’ve done.”

Your voice was sharp like a blade and contained unspoken fury.

“Go take a chill pill, (Y/n). You seem a bit agitated. You should get yourself checked out because you’ve been acting strange lately.”

A scoff built in your throat and came out louder than intended. You poked a gloved finger at her forehead, pushing her back. “A chill pill , is that what the teenagers are saying these days?”

“Not keeping up with modern-day media, old nag?”

“Want me to break your nose again?” you proposed with a scowl.

Sigrid turned away from you and towards Agent 47.

“You’re wasting your time, handsome… Come train with me instead. (Y/n) is an amateur. Perhaps I can show you a few… Massage techniques while cooling down. The showers are very spacious.”

She smiled, disgustingly sure of herself and her caked-on beauty.

“I’m not interested.” 47 deadpanned.

“I’m sure you will be eventually, handsome. All the men around here long for a taste of Sigrid and you’ll soon find out why…” She bit her bottom lip, winking at him. “Hope to see you around.”

She swayed her hips with every step of her departure, attempting to be sexy and hoping to hold his attention. You facepalmed, sighing deeply.

“Sorry about that. She’s always like that.”

Agent 47 hummed, looking at you, blinking a few times. “I figured that you didn’t really like each other.”

You laughed humourlessly, scowling. “That won’t even start to describe it. I loathe her.”

Pacing over to one of the dummies, you continued tidying up the training floor.

“We need to brainstorm a technique. We have a few more days to prepare, so I suggest we meet later, after washing up.”

The idea of taking off the tight training outfit was liberating to 47. “Sure.” he agreed, following you to the locker room. Gathering your belongings, you looked at him. “I always shower in my own quarters, and I suggest head for your own. The young recruits always shower here after training or school, and trust me, you don’t want to know how much hair is clogging those drains.”

You halted at the flight of stairs – one went up, where he had to go, and one went down, where your quarters were. “Meet me here at eleven-thirty.” you said.

“Noted.” Agent 47 said, ascending up the stairs to the room he had been assigned.

You went down to your quarters, rushing over to your bedroom to take a clean set of clothes.

Since you were one of the top-tier Assassins of the Brotherhood, you had been given private living quarters. It resembled more of a dorm, with just a few basic pieces of furniture and a small bathroom on the side. The kitchen area was adjacent to it, shared with a few other staff-members. The lower ranked members, like Sebastian, Miranda and Sigrid, had to deal with shared bedrooms.

Taking a lukewarm shower, you cooled down your body, scolding yourself for not taking enough time to do a real cooling down while in the training area. The whole run-in with Sigrid had you on edge and you wanted nothing more than to relax. Sighing, you washed up quickly until all sweat had made place for the soft rosy scent of your soap.

Your casual attire was fairly simple, and you threw your hair into a bun. Knowing that it was warm outside, you put sandals on your feet.

“Hey (Y/n).” Sebastian greeted. “Care to have lunch with us?”

Miranda and he sat at the kitchen table, a whole tray of sandwiches in front of them.

“It’s not like we can finish all of these on our own.” Miranda tried to convince you.

You smiled and shook your head. “No, thank you. I need to go upstairs, I have some unfinished business.”

After taking two sandwiches and stuffing them into a brown paper bag, Sebastian threw himself into the doorframe you were about to walk through.

“(Y/n)!” he said with feign hurt. “Won’t you tell us about that new Assassin, the transfer from Romania?”

“What about him?”

“Well,” Seb continued, “You and him seemed to have fun during training.”

You shrugged. “You probably read in the report that it’s an experiment. We need to observe each other the next few weeks. Also, why were you watching me during my training? Actually, don’t answer that. I need to file a report about this first training, so if you’ll excuse me.”

Brushing past a protesting Sebastian, you made your way to the hall where you had agreed to meet Agent 47. He wore a black suit combined with a red tie, the one you had seen him in during your first encounter.

“You may dress more casually outside of mission and training, Agent 47.”

He blinked. “I prefer this outfit.”

“Alright, your loss. It’s searingly hot during this time of day. Follow me.”

You lead him through a few halls, going through several doors and finally, ascending a ladder.

“Where are we going?” he quizzed.

“The roof.” you said, “Come on.”

Pushing open the trapdoor, you climbed through with 47 following closely.

The sun stung immediately and you worried that Agent 47 might get terribly sunburnt, opting for a place in the shade, against a broken air-conditioning unit.

47 stared at you for a second as you sat down, opening the small box you were holding.

“Sit down.” you urged, patting on the spot next to you. “Trust me, you’d rather eat lunch here than downstairs. Sebastian won’t stop talking.”

“Sebastian?”

“My friend. Come on, sit. If we’re not allowed to kill each other, let me at least try to become your acquaintance.”

A bit hesitant, Agent 47 took the place next to you and you held out a sandwich. He looked at it for a few seconds. “I don’t really eat all that much.”

“It’s just one sandwich. It’s good, take it.” you said, “You need to eat. Muscle building and all.”

He took it, and for a minute, you sat eating in silence, looking over the scenery of Jerusalem.

“Beautiful city, isn’t it?” you commented, immediately unsure if 47 would find beauty in such things.

Gesturing towards a spot in the distance, you explained. “See the golden dome? That’s the Dome of the Rock, built on the Temple Mount. Well, a mount… It’s more of a hill, really, compared to the rest of the city. Gorgeous building, especially if the sun shines on it. Behind it, not in our sights, is the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

“I believe the Wailing Wall is near there, too.” 47 added.

“Correct.” you said, “The epicenter of Judaism. There’s very strict security around all of those places.”

You shifted, finishing your sandwich, wiping the crumbs off your hands.

“Jerusalem is the epicentre of religion and politics. I can’t think of another city deemed this holy by so many cultures. I sometimes wonder how it is, though. To be able to hold onto something divine.”

47 hummed to acknowledge that he had heard you, though not certain of what to make of the comment.

“But it makes for a great cover-up, too. I don’t believe any other city is as strictly guarded as Jerusalem. Guards on every corner and in between. Tension.”

You rubbed your chin thoughtfully.

“Inside the walls the religions tolerate each other provided that they all stay in their own quarter for as far as they can, and then, only to a certain degree. Outside of here, however, they’d kill each other in a heartbeat. You’d be good to stick to my side. I know this place like the back of my hand. It’s my turf.”

Agent 47 huffed. “Still, you hadn’t noticed me roaming about those days?”

You rolled your eyes. “I have superiors who handle things like that. I just do the field work. A bit like you, actually. You take the ICA’s orders. Or your Handler’s.”

He was silent, staring at the distance. The sound of civilization was drowned out by the distance you had from it, the noise of cars honking only faint. The mosque’s call for prayer was audible from far away.

“We’re not alike.” 47 said. “I’m genetically modified.”

“You go by the name of Agent 47. Where does that come from? What’s your real name?”

“I was born at the hands of a man named Ort-Meyer, and he gave me that name. Five men funded his project with both money and their DNA in order to create a superior army of killers. The Five Fathers, they’re called. I’m one of many clones, several types before me. Needless to say, it didn’t succeed, since I’m here, and I’m the only one left.”

Your heart climbed into your throat. “You… You really have no name, then?”

He shook his head.

“Oh.”

He shrugged. “Nothing to be done about it.”

You folded your hands on your lap.

“When I was a teenager, I was briefly informed of rival organizations. The ICA, the Magpies, the Guild of Apache… We never learned about Ort-Meyer, though. We were always told that we were the ones in the right, at all times. Our motto is after all, ‘we work in the dark to serve the light’. But I still believe in what I serve is the truth.”

Looking over your shoulder, you eyed 47. “You, however, are void of emotion, are you not? Just what I heard from the rumours about you.”

“More or less.” 47 said.

“Do you stand for whom you serve? I know you’d die for the cause, but do you know why you would?”

Agent 47 looked at you, narrowing his eyes. “They give me purpose. I owe them that much.”

You shook your head. “No, 47, I don’t think so. What I think is… That you know nothing else. You were created to be a killing machine and that’s all you’ll ever know how to do. Also a bit like me.”

His jaw tensed and you stared at him for a moment before continuing, “I was created to be a killing machine, too. Born from the seed of one of the Masters, born out of my father’s love for my mother, but still, in the end, it was planned out for me. I knew how to kill before I knew how to speak. It is all I’ve ever known, and I will never know anything else. Outside of this, I’d be lost, like an orphan abandoned at the side of the road in the slums.”

You stood up, dusting down your pants before grabbing the paper bag you had brought with you, shaping it into a ball. You pressed it against you, feeling the sun in your face as you eyed 47. He still sat on the ground, gaze fixated upon you.

“It might seem miles off, but you and I are alike.”

When he didn’t reply, you started to walk away towards the door again.

Upon hearing footsteps behind you, you halted, smiling a little before casting a look over your shoulder.

“I need to know more about the Brotherhood of Assassins.”

You hummed. “I can tell you more. But under one condition.”

“And that is?” he quizzed.

“I want to learn more about you.” you said.

“There’s not much to tell.” was his answer.

“Then tell me everything there is to tell.”

He gave you a small nod. With that, you headed back inside.

#agent 47 x reader #agent 47 x female reader #Assassin's Creed X Hitman crossover #Agent 47 #Hitman #In Your Likeness #reader insert

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