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theautisticbarbie · 11 months

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A Bird of Praise

Act II

Chapter III: Fall into Chaos

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Word count: 8,642 (yeah this one is a DOOZY I apologise but it’s worth it! I promise!)

Chapter summary: When school starts again in the fall, things are very different for Tara with Billy around. Unfortunately, that’s not all for the best. When the two attend Tina’s Halloween rager, the night ends on a sinister note.

Warnings: abuse, domestic violence, mentions of police intervention, cheating, RAPE (No because Jason was literally giving Brock Turner the moment I laid eyes on him)

Tara had been fumbling with her makeup for a good 10 minutes. The Homecoming Pep Rally started in 5. First, it was making sure her eye shadow blended correctly, then she fought with her false eyelashes. All while dealing with a black eye that she worked hard to make sure nobody could see.

Oh yes. The black eye.

It started when Billy picked her up from ballet practise. Tara noticed a bra that was definitely too small to be hers under the car seat.

He had been cheating on her. Again. When she confronted him about it, he went on and on about how he had needs and now that she was cast as principal for the upcoming Halloween show, something which he belittled her about despite this being something she strived for since she started dancing, she was unable to satisfy them. The two argued and it came to a head when Billy asked Tara for a beer. Oh yeah. Tara’s mini-fridge was now almost exclusively housing his alcohol supply. When she refused to let him get drunk on account of the fact that she wanted to talk this out, he struck her across the face.

He got his stupid beer in the end. And when Tara woke up the next morning, she woke up to a sea of grovelling and how it was really Neil’s fault that he was like this and he loved her and never actually wanted to hurt her and that he would change.

He said that he was trying to get into counselling but that he had to do so behind Neil and Susan’s back since they didn’t believe in that sort of thing.

Tara, of course, didn’t buy any of it, but the first time she told him that she needed a break, she came home from work to see police cars lined on the street, Susan crying, an ambulance examining a very bruised and battered Max, and Billy and Neil sitting on the curb in handcuffs.

Tara, of course, asked Daniel what happened. Billy apparently blamed Max for Tara wanting a break and the two got into it, with Billy quickly making the situation physical. Neil walked in on Billy beating Max and decided to intervene… by physically wailing on Billy. Susan was terrified and called 911 when Neil started choking him, going on about how he should have “taken [his] sorry ass out of this world” a long time ago, and when the police arrived and saw what was going on, they quickly slapped the cuffs on them both.

Thankfully, or not depending on how you looked at it, nobody was ultimately arrested. Afraid of what Billy might do to Max if she tried that again, she stuck by him, for better or worse.

Once Tara got her makeup the way she wanted it, she got into her costume. Her and a few others were doing performances from the Ballet Team. Tara was doing Kitri’s Act I Variation from Don Quixote.

Because many of the other ballet team members were also either on colour guard, roller derby, the swim team or cheerleading, there weren’t a whole lot of dancers who were willing to toss their hats into the ring for solos. So stepping up for that was a great and very easy way to get into Ms McIntyre’s good graces, and your chances of making principal went up significantly.

Once it was Tara’s turn to perform, she gave it her all. Kitri’s variation was very intense, but the fact that she made her own costumes for competitions, which she could most definitely repurpose for solos, gave her that extra boost of confidence.

She blew a kiss at Billy at a moment that seemed appropriate and finished out her solo strong.

Tara walked off stage to catch her breath and heard that some girl named Irenia was next. Oh yeah. She had seen her in class but she only ever danced background. Never principal.

As soon as the music started, Tara immediately recognised it. Irenia’s variation was from La Esmeralda.

Immediately, she wondered if Billy was leering at her. Was she going to catch him making advances towards her? Was she going to reciprocate. All of these thoughts ran through her head.

And she hated it.

Tara was never a jealous person before Billy. He made her this way with his rampant unfaithfulness.

After the pep rally, Tara was approached by a male classmate in the hallway asking if he could copy her notes. She hurriedly told him to meet her in the library after class before fleeing. Because as many girls as Billy entertained, heaven forbid if he ever caught her interacting with another man.

Nobody cared about messing with Tara Newman’s man, but EVERYONE knew to stay away from Billy Hargrove’s girl. Despite it only being a month since he started going to school here, he VERY quickly made a reputation for himself. Though, the body language from the other jocks made it clear that his popularity came from fear. Not adoration. And Tara immediately felt the difference, which was the silver lining of all of this. The remarks that referred to Tara as “retarded” or other such things came to a near complete stop, and whenever she DID hear such occasional murmurs, all she had to do was look in the general direction in which it was coming from and their tune IMMEDIATELY changed.

Tara had to admit, seeing Jason Carver look like he was going to shit himself just because she raised her head was pretty satisfying.

She still sat by herself at lunch, but she didn’t have to go out of her way to find a spot like she used to. Usually, when she walked into the cafeteria, some group will quickly make remarks about how they were “just leaving” before hurriedly eating lunch elsewhere.

That was, of course, part of the few occasions in which Billy didn’t practically drag Tara to what he claimed as “his table” with the other jocks. Tara felt like a total stranger there, never spoke, never ate more than a few bites of her food, usually because Billy berated her for being such a “gross eater” anytime she tried to satisfy her human need for sustenance, and just generally didn’t want to be there at all. Especially since she was the only girl there not in a cheer uniform.

There was one table, however, that never made way for Tara on the few occasions where she was able to eat in peace, and these were people that absolutely nobody at school wanted to be associated with at any capacity. And it was a group that her brother was part of.

The freaks. Hellfire Club.

Their leader, who for some reason looked vaguely familiar, was not afraid of Billy AT ALL. In fact, he openly mocked him for seizing the top of the hierarchy through fear, something which his cohorts adamantly denied even though it was glaringly obvious. He sometimes even stood on top of their table to drive the point home. Shockingly, though, he seemed to go out of his way to keep Tara’s name out of his mouth. Perhaps he wasn’t as fearless as he touted himself up to be.

For some reason, though, this always triggered a thought in Tara’s mind. It could be much worse. Her old middle school bully, Eddie Munson, could be there making her life a living hell. He was definitely bold enough to do so even knowing that Billy would have crushed his windpipe without hesitation. She never quite understood what was going on in that buzzed head of his. Once in a blue moon, he was genuinely kind to her with no clear ulterior motives, but as soon as she started being nice back, he was right back to his erratic shenanigans.

After that Halloween prank, though, she went to great lengths to avoid him all together. If she was doing her math correctly, which she would be the first to admit she didn’t always do, Eddie graduated during Tara’s freshman year, during which she made sure to duck anyone with buzzed hair and skull t-shirts.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen ANYONE like that around town at all in a few years. She definitely saw Wayne every now and again. It was a small town, so it’s not as though she should have never seen him ever again, so that made her wonder what happened to make him drop off the face of the earth.

She had a few theories. One was that Eddie finally pissed his uncle off with his shenanigans and got sent to military school. Another was that he crossed the line of no return and got sent to prison. Or he picked a fight with the wrong person and got killed for his troubles. Or maybe he went off to college and didn’t come back.

The world may never know. Either way, Eddie’s replacement, whose name Tara never could quite catch, mostly on account of the fact that if word got out that she was poking around freak business, that could come back to bite her in the blubber, was definitely favourable to Eddie. Tara tried to get it out of her brother, but he was even more hostile about her butting into his personal life. Either way, whereas Eddie was indiscriminately destructive and menacing, especially towards special Ed kids, this new guy only went after people who deserved it.

A few days before the showcase, during which, her mother thankfully had time off to see, Tara got a call after rehearsal, on a cellphone which her father purchased for her and her mother explicitly told her was for emergencies only, stating that Daniel didn’t come home. That was definitely strange. Unless she got her days mixed up, which definitely happened from time to time, Hellfire club wasn’t meeting today.

“I’ll go to Gareth’s house to see if he might be over there!”

“Please do! I feel like I’m gonna have a heart attack!”

Tara pulled up to the Emerson household, only knowing it’s whereabouts thanks to that one time Daniel’s motorcycle needed the spark plugs replaced, forcing Tara to give him rides everywhere until that was done, and knocking on the front door.

“Oh hello there! You must be Daniel’s sister!” a woman started in a midwestern accent. “Oh I have just heard so much about you, but I don’t think I ever quite caught your name!”

“It’s Tara, ma’am. Is my brother here? Mom’s kinda getting worried.”

“Oh there’s no need for that! ‘Mrs. Emerson’ is just fine! My husband dropped them all off at the arcade not too long ago! They should still be there!”

“Thanks! I appreciate it!”

“Oh of course! You come back anytime, Tara! Don’t be a stranger!”

“Will do! Thanks again!” Tara called, getting back into her car.

The arcade. Of course. Everyone in her immediate circle, from the boys she chaperoned on occasion to her brother and his cohorts was flocking there every chance they had.

Tara had taken Max there a few times during Billy’s fits of drunken rage, and she took a liking to the place immediately, but now it seemed as though everyone and their mother wanted to be there.

Tara pulled up to the building to see a full blown argument already taking place. Not only was her brother and his party involved, but so were the 4 little troublemakers who now made it their business to be there on a regular basis.

“Hold on!” Tara said, quite literally inserting herself between the bickering parties.

She took the pause to asses who was present. Obviously there was Mike, Will, Dustin and Lucas, but her brother’s party was not only missing a member, the unidentified mullet man leader, but there was someone among them who she hadn’t ever seen at all. This man also had a mullet, but it was much lighter in colour, closer to an almond brown, and sparse. He was also very clearly too old to still be in high school. And then there was Keith. Because of course Keith started this because Keith’s general attitude of being an elitist, territorial nerd was always bound to cause conflict. Tara fondly remembers the day Daniel beat him within an inch of his life as though it were yesterday. Of course, Keith made it out to be a valiant duel and acted as though he only barely lost.

“Now, what is going on?” She finally asked.

“Keith knows who MADMAX is and won’t tell us!” Mike blurted out.

“Who?” Tara asked in confusion.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out!” Lucas said.

“Whoever this guy is, he keeps kicking our asses,” Daniel said, pointing to the Space Invader scoreboard.

The scoreboard went as followed.

81,978 MADMAX

53,431 DANMAN

“Woof!” Tara said, observing the scoreboard. “She whupped you good!”

“She?” Suddenly everyone was staring at her as though she had something they wanted.

“I’m just saying,” Tara began defensively, “if you presume MADMAX is a boy, you might not find him.”

“No way!” Dustin said. “You know something!”

“I don’t have a clue who this person is. I’m just saying that you should keep an open mind if you hope to find them,” Tara said.

“Girls don’t play video games!” Daniel declared. “Not like this!”

“So,” Tara said, trying to change the subject. “Daniel, were you courteous enough to make introductions?”

“Dude, we literally just got here! Cut me some slack!” Daniel said.

“Okay,” Tara inhaled sharply, “Mike, Lucas, Will, Dustin,” she gestured to Daniel’s party, “You’ve met my brother, Daniel. This is Gareth, Jeff and….”

“Rick!” The almond brunette introduced himself. “Pleasure.”

“Rick,” Tara repeated. “You know, I don’t think I ever caught your leader’s name. Crazy black hair. Denim jacket. Kinda on the wild side. Where is he, anyway?”

“What do you care, Tara?” Gareth asked, seeming particularly cross.

“He had to handle some business,” Daniel answered.

“Business?” Tara asked.

“Yeah. He owns a small business,” Daniel said.

“Oh that’s nice! What does he do?” Tara asked curiously.

“He sells… plants,” Daniel said hesitantly.

“Oh wow! I didn’t know you could make money off of that!” Tara said.

Jeff and Gareth literally could not help but chuckle out the sides of their mouths.

“Actually,” Rick interjected. “It’s quite profitable. I’m his business partner. I provide the plants and he sells them.”

“Oh so he’s like a middle man!” Tara said.

“Exactly,” Rick said.

“It’s pretty late, though. Who would want plants at this time of night?”

Jeff and Gareth literally collapsed to the floor with laughter.

“What’s wrong with them?”

The next day, Tara drove herself to school mostly because she was not in the mood to argue with Billy at all. Especially not so close to her performance of her number 2 dream role with dress rehearsal happening today. The Halloween showcase was a production of Giselle and she had the lead. Never, in a million years did she think she could shoot her shot and get her number 2 dream role. The only way this could have been better would be if it was her number 1 dream role. Odette from Swan Lake.

But number 2 would suit her just fine considering everything else going on in her life at the moment.

On her way to dress rehearsal, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see Tina holding an orange flyer.

“Tara Newman. Just the person I wanted to see.”

“Oh, hi, Tina.” Tara was confused. Her and Tina never had any kind of squabble but they definitely weren’t friends. So what would she want with her?

Tina handed Tara 2 flyers. “My Halloween bash is tomorrow. See to it that your boy toy gets the other, will ya?”

Oh. Of course. Because no girl genuinely wanted to be Tara’s friend anymore. Everyone who knew her boyfriend strayed was making it their business to get into his pants.

Still, it was nice to actually be invited to a party as allowed to people going out of their way to tell her she wasn’t welcome. It’s not as though Tina couldn’t have simply given Billy an invitation and conveniently forgot to invite his girlfriend, knowing he, being the cheater he was, would have simply not put up a fuss and gone with whatever girl was there whom was quickest to get into his pants.

Gosh, these trains of thought really had her questioning her life choices. Max. She was doing it for Max. Right. Max. Because Tara drove herself to school today, Max was stuck getting rides from Billy and being front and centre to whatever shenanigans he felt like doling out today. Hopefully Max won’t be too resentful of her for just needing a day off from that.

“Hello?” Tina asked, waving a hand.

“Oh!” Tara exclaimed, snapping back to reality. “Right! I’ll pass this onto him! Thank you!”

The dress rehearsal went relatively smoothly. For some reason, all the chaos she endured was excellent fuel for the mad scene.

“Wow!” Ms. McIntyre exclaimed through applause. “I don’t know where that came from, Tara, but keep it up!”

Immediately after dress rehearsal, Tara had a doctor’s appointment. The other and more pressing reason why Tara didn’t wanna deal with her boyfriend today.

Truthfully, after the debacle with Will’s disappearance, Tara was far worse off. Those Men in Black were quite adamant about forcing Tara to spend the rest of her life contained in cell the size of a king size bed. Especially because it didn’t take long to figure out that she indeed had psionic powers that she couldn’t control and was a survivor of the New Belgium Lab fire when official records indicated that there weren’t any survivors at all.

Thankfully, Dr. Sam Owens, who had worked with Tara during her stay in New Belgium, was on her side and had enough pull to convince the powers that be that her powers could indeed be controlled. It also helped tremendously that any files that indicated how dangerous her uncontrolled powers could become and what they were known to be capable of were destroyed in the fire.

What works against her, however, was that she had almost no memory of her stay at the lab. Just the burning building and a few phrases. That’s it.

When Tara arrived at the Hawkins Lab, her mother and Daniel were there waiting for her.

Once she got situated and they took her vitals and blood, they hooked her up to a heart and brain monitor.

Dr. Owens came into the room a bit flustered. “Sorry, my earlier appointment ran a little late. Why don’t we get started.”

They started with a memory exercise. It was a simple game of concentration. Afterward, Dr. Owens tried to see if they could work to bridge any of the gaps in Tara’s memory.

“Think of it like a puzzle. You have smaller pieces and you just keep putting those together. Then the bigger pieces will just naturally fall into place.”

It was no use. She was no closer to putting things together than when Will went missing.

“We all start somewhere. Before Will went missing, you had no memory of New Belgium whatsoever. By the time he was found, little bits came back. That’s something. We just have to work our way backwards.”

Tara’s body language indicated that she wasn’t convinced that this had any hope whatsoever.

“Why don’t we see where we are with control?” Dr. Owens offered to change the subject. “Have you been practising your exercises?”

“Yes, I have!” Tara perked up. “I know it might seem weird, but I’ve been practising on pointe shoes and it’s really been helping!”

“Well, that’s the idea! Let’s see what you’ve got, kiddo.”

A rubber bouncy ball and a row of glasses were brought out.

Tara used her powers to lift the ball and drop it in the first glass. Then she moved to the second glass. Then the next one over. Things were going over great until she got to the last few glasses. Once she got to the second to last glass, she slipped up and lost control of her powers again. The glasses broke and the rubber ball fell to the ground.

“No!” Tara protested. “That’s not fair! I had it! I did it perfectly at home!”

“Hey! Hey! Hey! It’s okay! You’re doing much better! Remember when we tried it the first time and the ball just flew into the opposite direction?”

Tara bawled into her hands. The silence among the others while they waited for her to calm down was palpable.

“I think,” Dr. Owens started, “what you need to understand is that recovery isn’t linear. And there are going to be bad days. And that’s okay. Why don’t we just take a deep breath.”

Tara inhaled and exhaled a few times.

“Good. Now, how are we doing on avoiding stress? Where are we at? Scale of 1-10?”

“Uhhh… err… well…”

“Tara, I can’t help you unless you’re truthful.”

Tara took a hesitant breath. “10.”

“Okay, do we know what might be causing that level of stress?”

“Well, I got a principal role in the Halloween dance show! We’re doing Giselle! It’s my number 2 dream role, but it’s a lot of work.”

“Let me guess. It’s about a girl named Giselle?”

“She lives in a village in the Rhineland with her mother, Berthe, and a hunter, Hilarion, whom she thinks of like a brother. She also has a weak heart. One day, a prince named Albrecht comes to the village disguised as a lowly peasant. He meets Giselle and the two fall in love.”

“Sounds like a typical fairytale. And you’re playing Giselle, I presume?”

“Yeah! I’m really excited, but it’s just a lot to memorise, but I’ll get used to it!”

“Well, that seems kind of trivial to warrant a 10, don’t you think?”

“Well… there’s also the fact that these kids that I babysit have been getting into more trouble than usual.”

“That’s all?”

“And… my boyfriend is being kind of a jerk.”

“Boyfriend?” Eleanor interjected, having not been aware of her and Jonathan’s short lived relationship at all, let alone the new one she started with Billy.

“He’s just going through a lot at the moment! He just moved here all the way from California! That’s 2000 miles away! He’s having a hard time adjusting!” Tara rationalised, quick to defend him.

“So I haven’t met this boy?” Eleanor asked, crossing her arms.

“Mom, you are literally never home!” Daniel quipped.

“Excuse me, young man, but I have a right to know what goes on in my home! Has your father met him?”

“No, but I can arrange that! We can have dinner at the house next time you’re off!” Tara offered.

Eleanor simply sighed in response.

“It won’t be hard to arrange,” Daniel added in. “They’re literally right across the street. You’ve probably already met them.”

“I see,” Eleanor said.

“Hey, Dr. Owens?” Tara asked, trying to change the subject. “Can I ask you a question in private?”

“Of course, kid.” Dr. Owens looked at Eleanor and Daniel. “Give us a moment?”

Daniel and Eleanor walked out of the room, closing the door behind them.

“What I wanted to ask,” Tara started awkwardly, “was… well… my boyfriend already told me that you can’t get pregnant if you’re a virgin. So I was wondering if you, as a doctor, had a better idea of how many times it would be before that’s a risk.”

Dr. Owens looked as though he was going to shit a brick.

“Well, Tara, to be perfectly honest with you, that’s not really my area of expertise. I’m a neurologist. My expertise is brains. That question might be answered more efficiently by a gynaecologist. You could talk to someone at Planned Parenthood. Or maybe your mother.”

Dr. Owens sat up. “Why don’t I give you some privacy to get dressed and we can talk with your mother and your brother about where to go from here?”

Eleanor and Daniel sat in the office across from Dr. Owens as he spoke.

“Eleanor, if I may speak freely, I feel like we’ve hit a plateau. Which I would like to emphasise is perfectly normal and DOES happen from time to time.”

“So what do we do?” Eleanor asked.

“Well, I understand that the nature of your job won’t make this easy, but I feel like strengthening your relationship with Tara is a good starting point.”

“I’m trying, but she’s not making that easy!” Eleanor retorted defensively.

“Well, I feel like the best thing you can do is make yourself approachable. She might surprise you if you give that a try.”

Eleanor folded her arms and gave Dr. Owens a glare that would have vaporised him if looks could kill.

The next day, Tara anxiously helped gather the costumes for the performance. She was being helped by Spencer Christiansen, her dance partner whom was playing the role of Prince Albrecht. Once all the costumes were loaded onto the bus, she took it upon herself to head over to the middle school and gather the junior troupe.

When she had all of the juniors rounded up, she spotted the 4 troublemakers decked out in Ghostbusters costumes. The four were very clearly embarrassed to be the only ones dressed up.

“Hey guys! I love your Ghostbuster costumes!” she called, hoping to make them feel better.

“Thanks!” Dustin called back.

“I gotta go, but have fun and get lots of candy!” Tara said, hurrying off with the juniors.

Between the middle school dancers and the high school dancers, there weren’t a whole lot of seats left by the time Tara got to sit down. It was pretty slim pickings.

“May I sit beside you?” Tara asked, spotting an empty seat next to Chrissy Cunningham.

“Sure!” She replied.

It wasn’t a long ride. Despite being called the Indianapolis Regency Theatre, where all of the ballet performances were held, it was right at home in Hawkins and only a 15 minute or so drive from the school. Apparently the mayor of Hawkins at the time that it was built saw the opportunity for city revenue and lobbied to have it built right in the city. The investment turned out to not be as fruitful as he hoped, though, because by the 1970s, it was being used almost exclusively for the dance showcases, school plays and high school graduations. Nobody else was interested in using that space. Because of that, it’s literally completely empty most of the time.

Once the bus started driving, though, Tara immediately regretted her decision. Not only was she awful at small talk, but she was sitting next to the queen of Hawkins High, who was going to know firsthand how socially inept she was. And once that happened, no amount of Billy being a brute was going to protect her from the hazing that would occur in dance class. Her one safe haven in this cesspool.

“Are you excited?” Chrissy asked, bringing her back down to earth.

“Oh! Y-yeah! I’ve never danced principal before!”

There was an awkward pause.

“So what’s it like?” Tara asked curiously. “Being cheer captain?”

Chrissy was confused by Tara’s questioning, but entertained her nonetheless.

“It’s fun! We have all sorts of fun routines and it’s always so exciting! Why? Were you thinking of trying out for one of the new spots?”

“I really honestly can’t see myself ever being a cheerleader.”

“I mean, I never imagined myself as Queen Myrtha, but I guess Ms. McIntyre saw something I didn’t.”

“Of course she did! You’re an amazing lead dancer! It only makes sense that you would be Queen Myrtha!”

“Well,” Chrissy started, “when I see you, I see someone who always tries to cheer people up! Whenever you’re with the younger students, you always encourage them to keep going! You would be a perfect cheerleader!”

“You really think so?”

“Try outs for the open spots are later this week! You should come!”

It wasn’t until act II began that Tara realised that this was real. That she was really dancing a principal role. Her number 2 dream role. When she walked onto the stage clad in her white phantom romantic tutu, the reality set in.

After performing the apparition sequence, her heart was pounding. It was such an out of body experience.

The rest of act II went amazing. The curtain closed with thunderous applause.

To start off the curtain call and bows, Principal Higgins came out with Ms. McIntyre at his side.

“Wow!” he started. “Every year, the Ballet Team blows me away. Every single year. And it’s all thanks to our amazing director, Lindsay McIntyre!”

Ms. McIntyre took a bow and Principal Higgins handed her the mic.

“Thank you! I’ve danced all over the world, but nobody amazes me more than my students!”

Ms. McIntyre handed the mic back to Principal Higgins, who continued.

“Lindsay wears several hats at the ballet program. In the morning, she teaches the high school students and the middle schoolers in the afternoon. And I know that might seem like a short drive, but believe me. If you’re walking, it’s quite the trek. But she does it all every day without complaint and we thank her immensely for it!”

Principal Higgins handed the mic back to her.

“Speaking of students, this night wouldn’t have ever been possible without them. They all put in a lot of effort to make tonight’s show great. I also want to thank our principal cast. They deserve a round of applause.”

Chrissy, Spencer and Tara entered the stage and took a bow.

“I wanna start with Chrissy Cunningham, our Queen Myrtha,” Ms. McIntyre started. “Chrissy juggles being cheer captain and dancing principal with the team and has never complained once. She always steps up. I’ve always been able to rely on her. And tonight was no different.”

Chrissy bowed again and stepped back.

“Next we have Spencer Christiansen, our Prince Albrecht. He’s been a real trouper. His dedication to the program shows. He’s easily one of the most talented dancers I think I’ve ever had. And sadly, we’re losing him soon because he graduates in June. But we’ll cherish him while we still have him! Give it up!”

Spencer took a bow and stepped back.

“Last but not least, we have our star of the show, our Giselle, Tara Newman.”

A stagehand came out and surprised Tara with a bouquet of red roses, surprising the girl.

“Tara has been with us since the very beginning. When she heard there was going to be a ballet program at the middle school, she was the first person to sign up. It started as a summer break program, but it blossomed into what it is today. And Tara grew with the program. I’ve seen her tireless dedication since day 1. And it’s all paid off. Give it up!”

Tara bowed and stood back.

“Let’s give it up for the rest of our dancers!”

The rest of the ballet team, both the middle and high schoolers, came out and took a bow.

After the curtain call, the dancers got dressed and waited in the foyer to reunite with their parents.

“Congratulations, Tara!” Joyce said, giving Tara a big hug.

“You really got the stuff! I didn’t know a teenager could dance like that!” Bob said.

“Thank you,” Tara said. “Both of you.”

“That was, uhhh… pretty bad-ass,” Jonathan said, nervously rubbing the back of his head.

“Huh. That’s an interesting way of saying it,” Tara remarked.

“Well, we have to go get ready,” Joyce remarked, “but it was great seeing you and we really enjoyed your performance!”

Tara waved them off when someone in a proper suit put a hand on her shoulder from behind.

Given Tara’s string of most recent experiences with men in suits, Tara nearly jumping out of her skin seemed pretty reasonable.

“Sorry!” the man said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He took out a business card. “I’m with the New York Ballet Company. You have some serious talent. Have you ever thought about living in the big apple?”

“Well, to be honest, it never really—“

Tara heard the roar of an engine. By now, she was perfectly attuned to it. There was only one car in the world that could possibly be.

“I’m sorry! I have to get going!”

“I understand! You have my information! Please, let’s keep in touch!”

Sure enough, Tara walked outside of the theatre to see a 1979 Camaro loudly blasting “Wango Tango” by Ted Nugent. The window rolled down and she was instantly blasted with the smell of cigarette smoke.

“What’s with the roses?” Billy asked.

“They were a gift. It’s a custom for principal dancers,” Tara meekly replied.

“All right, shitbird. Back seat. Move it.”

Max got out of the passenger seat looking like a nervous wreck and moved the the back seat without a single word, slamming the car door before Billy turned to Tara.

“You gonna get in or are you gonna keep standing there like a dumbass?”

Tara sighed and got in the passenger seat, fumbling the roses and her dance bag.

“I thought we were gonna meet back at my house,” Tara said looking at Billy with confusion.

“Yeah, well I changed my mind,” he responded flatly.

“So you got roses?” Max asked, clearly eager to change the subject away from whatever Billy was intent on confronting her about.

“I did! It’s customary! It’s a sign of a great performance!” Tara said.

Billy let out a hearty chuckle. “You hear that, Max? A great performance! We might have been able to catch it if you had brought your ass out sometime this century instead of making me wait!”

“It’s all right! There’ll be other shows! We still have the Nutcracker coming up!” Tara said as though Billy had any actual interest in seeing her dance and wasn’t just looking for more reasons to give Max grief.

“Ah! More of you grabbing Christiansen’s crotch? You gonna try to go home with him, then, too?”

“Is that what this is about? Billy, I’ve told you 1000 times! Spencer is gay! He has a boyfriend! You’ve literally seen them making out!”

“Yeah but the thing is, doll face, while I was waiting all of eternity for the little shit to grace me with her presence, I overheard Harrington say that he was going to your show.”

“Yeah! With his GIRLFRIEND! Who happens to be my friend!”

“Oh! You still believe that one-sided show of charity is friendship?”

“What are you even saying, Billy?”

“What I’ve already said 1000 times. Nancy isn’t really your friend. She just pretends to be because being nice to the retarded kid looks great on college applications.”

“What did you just call me?”

“Billy, stop!” Max interjected.

“I didn’t say it. Nancy did. You should hear all the shit she says about you behind your back. Especially to Harrington.”

“Nancy would never say that about me…” Tara said, clearly wrestling with denial.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, beautiful,” Billy said, taking a drag of his cigarette.

Tara fumbled her roses, unwittingly bringing the business card to Billy’s attention.

“Whatcha got there?” he asked, quite literally snatching the card away.

Tara tried to snatch it back as he held it up out of her reach to examine it.

“Would you please keep your eyes on the road?” Tara pleaded.

He held it up and read it aloud. “New York City Ballet” he turned to Tara. “You’re gonna leave me? Go fuck some New York dancer boy?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“You hear that, Max? Miss famous dancing star is gonna make it big in New York! The city that never sleeps! She’s gonna leave us in this shithole for some bigwig!”

“No, she’s not!” Max bit back.

“All I did was talk to someone from the company! We barely got in a proper ‘how do you do’ before you literally zipped into the parking lot!”

Billy only scoffed in response.

“Besides, I still have my sights set on the American Ballet Theatre. They tour across the country!”

“Ah! Of course! The cross country all you can fuck buffet! Because why settle for one man’s dick when you can have upwards of 50?”

“You’re the one with a different girl’s panties in your car every week!”

SLAP!

Max fell back in fear, watching Billy strike Tara.

“You said you wouldn’t do that anymore…” Tara quietly mumbled, rubbing her cheek.

“And you said you’d stop pissing me off, but here we are!”

“I hate you…” Tara said under her breath.

“What was that?” Billy asked, shooting Tara a death glare.

“I said I hate you!” she declared angrily.

“Well, tough shit, because I’m the best you’ve got!”

“You drink! You cheat on me! You call me names! You hurt me! The only thing you haven’t done is kill me, and I know that’s only because you can’t!”

Max fell deathly silent, looking as though she’s seen a ghost. Her face turned as white as a sheet.

“No?” Billy asked. “Who would stop me? We’re in the middle of nowhere. Plenty of places to hide a body.”

Tara looked at Max in disbelief, only now seeing the mortified expression on her face.

“Don’t look at Max. She’s 13. She’s not gonna help you. I could snap both of your necks and dump this piece of shit car in Lovers Lake!”

“Pull over and let me out.”

“Yeah, no. That’s not happening, sweet cheeks.”

“I said let me out! And I’m breaking up with you!”

“Jesus Christ! It’s a joke!” Billy laughed hysterically.

Tara fell silent, deciding to simply endure whatever else came out of his mouth.

“Wouldn’t last a fucking second in New York,” he said to himself, turning his eyes back to the road.

Once they made it back to Cherry Road, Billy popped out of the car with Max and Tara following suit.

“Why don’t you head on inside,” Billy told Tara. “I’ll be there in just a sec.”

Tara went into her house, cursing the fact that she gave Billy a spare key before she knew what a monster he really was.

Daniel was in his room getting dressed in his Halloween costume. He was going to Tina’s bash as Kaneda from “AKIRA” a new manga he’s been reading.

Tara put the flowers in a vase by the window sill, before turning her attention to her mother, who was washing dishes to get that done before she had to head back to the airport for the overnight flight she was scheduled to work.

“Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“You know how you can’t get pregnant if it’s your first time?”

“What??” Eleanor looked absolutely flabbergasted.

“Well, Billy already told me about how it’s gotta be a few times before you actually can get pregnant. So I was wondering like when would it be good to start using condoms?”

“Tara, you should ALWAYS use a condom no matter how many times it’s been!”

“Oh…” Tara replied awkwardly.

Tara went upstairs to change. She was going as Lum from Urusei Yatsura. She made the costume herself with some yellow stretch fabric and a black sharpie. Once she walked into her room, she was instantly hit with the smell of cigarette smoke. She hated it. She tried to tell Billy to take it outside, which is what her brother did, but he all but gave her the finger. And now her room reeked of cigarettes because of it. His ash tray was right on her night stand. One that Tara purchased from Goodwill so he would stop putting out his butts directly on the wooden surface.

Across the street, Tara could see into Billy’s room. Specifically, she could see Billy arguing with Max while gathering the pieces for his costume. She then saw him slap Max, who flipped him the bird before running off.

Once Billy had his things gathered, he went back across to Tara’s house. Eleanor opened the door to see this man for herself.

“Well, I’ll be,” Billy said, flashing his charismatic smile. “I didn’t realise Tara had a cute older sister.”

“Billy, I presume?” Eleanor asked, not affected even in the slightest by his charm.

“So I see my reputation precedes me,” Billy said, trying once again to charm Tara’s mother.

“It certainly does. And I’m going to lay down a few ground rules with you. If you want to continue having sex with my daughter, you need to wrap it up. No exceptions. I also don’t want her drinking any alcohol. She takes medications that don’t mix with it. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Billy said, taken aback by Eleanor‘s no nonsense demeanour.

“Good,” Eleanor said, letting him pass.

“Sheesh! You mom’s a hard-ass!” Billy said the second he walked into Tara’s room without so much as a ‘hello’.

Tara instinctively gasped and covered her exposed chest.

“Babe, we fuck almost every night. There’s no need to cover yourself.”

Tara sighed and continued getting ready. Billy also got himself changed, occasionally fondling Tara while doing so.

Once the two were dressed, Billy looked her up and down. “Well hello there, sexy kitty.”

“I’m not a kitty,” Tara said matter-of-factly, “I’m an alien robot.”

“An alien robot,” Billy said, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s from a book I’m reading.”

“Right.”

“And what are you supposed to be? A sexy biker?”

“You’re kidding me, right? Are you really trying to say that you’ve never seen ‘The Lost Boys’?”

“Should I have?”

“Yes. And we’re fixing that tomorrow night.”

Once they pulled up to the party, Billy saw fit to immediately suck face with her before they could even get out of his car.

“Wait… Billy… maybe we should wait until after the party to do that…”

“Or we could find a nice quiet place inside.”

“To have sex in a stranger’s house?”

Billy condescendingly patted her on the head. “You’re adorable.”

It didn’t take long for them to start fighting at all.

Billy saw the keg, got curious and asked what the current keg stand record was.

Then he declared that was amateur ranking and could beat it no problem.

Tara had the nerve to remind him that someone had to drive them home and they both knew good and well that if she touched his steering wheel, there would be 2 funerals.

The argument ended when Tara quite literally walked away while he was in the middle of a sentence.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I’m going back inside! It’s freezing out here!”

“You wouldn’t be so cold if you would just juice up!”

Tara went back inside holding she would run into someone she knew. Her anxiety was really starting to kick up.

Her reprieve came when she felt something grab her arm and turned around.

“Nancy! Hi!”

“Tara, what are you doing here? And why are you dressed like that?”

“I was invited! And this happens to be one of my favourite characters in this new book that I—“

“I don’t care! Go home, Tara! And put some real clothes on!”

“Why do you always turn me away? I thought we were friends!”

“Tara, nobody likes you enough to invite you somewhere because they enjoy your company and nobody sure as hell thinks of you of all people as a party person! Someone is clearly setting you up! Go home! Now!”

“What the hell’s going on?” Steve interrupted, noticing the arguing.

Tara stormed off and made her way to the kitchen, grabbed a solo cup and decided to have at the spiked punch. After a few swigs, she definitely felt lighter on her feet. She approached Steve and Nancy, defiantly looking the latter dead in the eye and downed her entire cup before going back for seconds.

With the beginnings of alcohol coursing through her veins, she decided to make her way back outside, hoping that what he said about booze making you feel less cold held merit.

“Did you lose Ataru again?” she heard someone call to her.

She turned around to see the unnamed mullet man who led Hellfire Club sitting on the couch.

“You recognise my costume?” Tara asked.

“How could I miss Lum the Invader Girl?” he asked.

“And, I’m sorry who are you supposed to be?” she asked, sitting on the floor in front of him.

“Ozzy Osbourne. The man. The legend.”

“That’s nice! My brother listens to a lot of Black Sabbath! He’s actually where I got my costume idea from. I saw him reading the manga and I refused to believe that my brother would read anything for fun, so I had to see it for myself. And it turned out to be good!”

Tara took another swig of spiked punch.

“Not to be rude, but how did you get invited to this party? I thought nobody liked you!”

“Simple. I’m here on business.” mullet man said, gesturing to a black lunchbox which immediately wafted the smell of weed.

“Oh, so that’s what my brother meant by selling plants.”

“Business is booming.”

“Buy some drugs or beat it, skank!” a girl said, plopping herself squarely into mullet man’s lap. “He already has a girlfriend!”

“Brenda, chill. We were just talking.”

“And now you’re done talking! Get lost, whore!”

Damn, fumbled again before she could get his name. And she was this close, too.

She looked down and noticed her punch was nearly empty.

“Why don’t I top this off for you?” Jason asked, taking her cup.

“Oh wow! Thanks Jason!”

“Anything for Billy Hargrove’s girl!”

Of course Jason Carver was just trying to kiss up. It was fine, though, since Tara was reaping the benefits.

Once he came back with a full cup, Tara immediately took a sip. The taste seemed kind of off, but she was too drunk to really pay it any mind.

Right on cue, Billy came back in, having been crowned the new Keg King, kicking Steve off of his throne.

“Where’s my girl?” Billy called.

Tara immediately went for her boyfriend and drunkenly clung to him.

“Billy, you were right,” she slurred.

“No shit. I’m always right.”

Tara clung to him. “Nancy’s such a jerk. She tried to tell me to go home and told me nobody actually liked me.”

“You Nancy Wheeler?” Billy asked, having made a beeline to her with Tara in tow, ready to give her the mother of all drunken verbal massacres.

“My girl‘s got a bone to pick with you!” he said, bringing Tara to the forefront.

Little did they know that Nancy was equally as inebriated and without a filter.

“Tara, I told you to go home,” she slurred. “Why are you still here?”

“She’s with me!” Billy declared.

“Yeah right! As if Tara would EVER go for someone like you!”

“You know something, Nancy,” Tara started. “I thought you would be a good friend! But you just used me! You felt sorry for me! You didn’t actually want me around and you treated me like a baby! Well guess what? Everyone loves me now and I don’t need those kind of friends!”

“That’s right, babe! Tell the bitch off!” Billy cheered.

“You never wanted to be my friend! You just wanted to say you were friends with the retard so you’ll feel better about yourself!”

“You know something, Tara?” Nancy slurred, downing her spiked punch, “I’m fucking tired of constantly being your baby sitter! Like, you’re older than me and I’m the one who has to be more mature and responsible! It’s bullshit! And you’re bullshit! And everything about you is bullshit! And whatever you have with this douchebag is also bullshit!”

“Sounds like code for ‘I lost the argument and I just wanna say something back!’ to me!” Billy declared.

“Hey, man, let’s just take it easy,” Steve said, trying to diffuse the situation. Tara took a chug of the punch and went back to get more.

Elsewhere, some other dude got Daniel’s attention.

“Bro, you know that cute blue haired girl from the comic you read?”

“Are you talking about Lum?”

“Dude, there’s someone dressed as her getting absolutely shitfaced.”

This was a once in a lifetime chance for Daniel. If this wasn’t a set up, a cute girl dressed as Lum? He was definitely gonna shoot his shot.

Once he got to the kitchen, he turned put a hand on her shoulder, flashing his grin. “So what brings you here all the way from Tomobiki—“

He trailed off as soon as he realised who it was.

Daniel immediately bolted into the living room, absolutely livid.

“Who the hell has been giving booze to my sister?”

Daniel held up the drunk Tara.

“What’s your major malfunction, Newman?” Billy asked.

“My ‘major malfunction’ is that my sister can’t have alcohol! It mixes bad with her heart medication! She could get really sick! What the hell is wrong with you?”

Tara suddenly puked on the floor.

“Okay, okay,” Jason said holding up his hands. “Looks like I’m gonna have to play the good guy.”

He took Tara out of Daniel’s arms. “Come on. Let’s find you somewhere to lay down.”

Jason took Tara to an empty bedroom and locked the door behind them. He lied Tara down on the bed and began undoing his pants with a malicious smirk.

Time passed and Tara stumbled out of the room with blood stained panties, smeared makeup and bruises. She was in a daze, as though she couldn’t believe what just happened to her.

She passed by Nancy, who was being escorted home by Jonathan. Terrific. The literal last person on earth that she wanted to see right now was her ex.

“You know something, Tara,” Nancy said, drunkenly beelining towards her, calling attention to the giant punch stain on her costume. “I’m just trying to help you, you ungrateful bitch! You’re always looking for attention and you’re gonna end up getting it from the wrong person! And when that happens, don’t come crying to me because I warned you!”

“Nancy,” Jonathan gently grabbed her, “let’s just go.”

The earth was spinning. All Tara wanted was the comfort of her boyfriend. She looked high and low and when she finally found him, it was in another bedroom, making out with two girls at once and clearly intent on going much further than sucking face. She winced when she saw one of them undoing his pants and decided to walk away.

The hurt and betrayal she felt was momentarily overtaken by a sense of vengeance. She beelined for her assailant to accost him.

“Jason!” she called out, getting his attention. Once she had it, she extended her arm outward.

And that was it. Nothing happened.

Her psionic powers were being suppressed by something. Perhaps the alcohol or the roofie. Either way, all she did was embarrass herself.

“Holy shit! Tara is wasted!” someone jeered. People began to laugh and even mock her.

All she wanted was to disappear. She literally ran out of the house in tears.

Only the lord knows how Tara, in freezing weather, wearing such a skimpy costume while roofies and alcohol were in her system, managed to walk to the police station.

After explaining what happened, she sat in the lobby and waited patiently. She was told once the police chief got back in, he would take her statement and she would be escorted to the hospital to do a rape kit.

Once the chief arrived, however, he seemed pretty intent on getting back home. Of course. Jim Hopper was never one to take his work seriously.

“Hopper, this is serious!”

“What is it this time.”

“Tara Newman was raped.”

#stranger things #stranger things oc #tara newman #hawkinsona #stranger things fanfic #daniel newman #stranger things 2 #eddie munson #hawkins #hawkins high ballet team #hawkins lab #hawkins high

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filminvasion · 2 years

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Chip N’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers Movie Review

Here’s a movie where live action actors go to school with traditional and 3-D animated characters. Animated cars can talk, you can meet your favorite toon star in person, and where in a big bustling human city there are also smaller apartment buildings to house chipmunks.

“Chip N’ Dale: Rescue Rangers” is one of quite a few “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” imitators and in a way it works for younger viewers who aren’t quite ready for “Roger Rabbit’s” boldness just yet. And parents get something too; an unexpectedly smart showbiz satire looking at remakes, reboots, IP mashups, and other painfully “hip” updates Hollywood has tried to use in order to cash in on once beloved characters.

The film comes from the Lonely Island comedy trio, of which Andy Samberg is its poster boy. He also voices Dale, who along with John Mulaney’s Chip meet in grade school and become fast friends, moving to California to become a TV crime fighting group before Dale gets tired of being second fiddle and decides to start a failed solo career.

There are very funny touches here. A convention room featuring old, obsolete cartoons has some good gags, especially hilarious is an old version of a recently popular franchise character, and a joke about getting CGI upgrades was always there- this was just clever enough to make it. For reference, Dale got the upgrade while Chip remains traditionally animated.

Chip N’ Dale’s mouse friend Monterey Jack (Eric Bana) has also fallen on hard times- now so hooked on the cheese that it’s become a full fledged addiction. When he goes missing, a supposed victim of bootlegging, and the detective assigned to the case (J.K. Simmons, voicing a grouchy Gumby knockoff) has no clues, Chip and Dale decide to put their differences aside and team up with a human police officer (Kiki Layne) in order to find him.

What follows is a series of episodic vignettes- funny in the way they portray nefarious underworlds buried beneath a sea of joyous animation, or poke fun at animation styles that just never worked (motion capture takes some lumps here). Peter Pan (Will Arnett) as a grungy bootlegger is also kind of amusing.

For the kids the movie offers chases and close calls and the characters of Chip and Dale have an enjoyable friendship that works well enough. For parents, it might be a little sad to see characters they grew up with on Disney Afternoon reduced to reality show detectives but it fits the bill for nostalgia and movie callbacks and jokes at the expense of updating recent IP’s (making old cartoons hipper by rapping for example) should lead to a lot of enjoyment and laughs.

As a watcher of the old show there is a nagging feeling that more could have been done to honor that: a better villain and mystery and more time for Rescue Rangers Gadget and Zipper could have helped. Once the gags and the seamless world-blending start to wan, the story isn’t much to hold attention. Thankfully the film is also short, and mostly a very good time.

#chip n dale rescue rangers #andy samberg #john mulaney #Disney #movie review #Movie Reviews #Film Review #film #animation

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letarasstuff · 3 years

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Normal People don't know their IQ

(A/N): Inspired by me, who recently discovered normal people don’t know their IQ, while I was tested two or three times already...

Summary: A certain someone is the only way to get the UnSub. But there’s also something different that makes her special.

Warnings: Angst (fluffy end, I swear), language, mentions of rape and torture, mention of dead people, the usual CM stuff I guess Wordcount: 2.0k

✨Masterlist✨ _________________________________________

“Garcia, I need you to look into high school teachers, who are suspended or fired for inappropriate behavior towards students and live in the area of the kidnappings”, Hotch orders in a stern voice. But you can’t blame him, after all there are currently six dead teenage girls and one missing. One can only hope and work as fast as possible to get her back to her parents alive.

The team is working a case in Sacramento, California. Teenage girls get abducted on their way home from school, are held for exactly a week and are killed by a simple cut to their throat. The torture they have to endure beforehand isn’t as simple. The last two also show signs of rape.

The dumbing sites are different parks all over the city. The placing happens overnight only to have the girls found the next morning by a clueless jogger or stroller.

“Let’s go over the profile again, I feel like we are missing something”, Rossi commands. His gut feeling tells him only that much, he just has to find out what it is.

“It’s a white male in his mid thirties to late forties. He blends in, so he has to be or has been a teacher. Someone who looks like they belong into a school isn’t suspicious”, Spencer counts the facts.

“The victims all look similar, probably resembling an ex-wife or girlfriend”, Morgan adds. Before he can get into the depth of the torture a phone rings.

“My lovely crime fighters, I got an address. Charles Collins. philosophy and history. Got suspended for suggestive talk towards his female students. He is also said to stare at them and certain body parts for way too long and way too obvious. Gross. Annnd that- wait”

“What is it, Garcia?” Hotch asks after a moment of silence, which is unusual for the ever bubbly tech analyst.

“You got your profile wrong. Collins doesn’t take these girls because of an ex flame.”

The team looks at each other in confusion. Garcia always stresses how she isn’t a profiler and can’t judge over people, because she only wants to see the good in them. How is she able to tell that the profile is off?

“Shoot baby girl, we don’t have much time left”, Derek urges her. He wants nothing more than to have this SOB finally behind bars. The whole team wants that.

“He has a daughter. Technically it’s not his daughter, it’s someone else’s, but he is her foster father. Go and please save both girls!”

Penelope doesn’t have to say it twice. After a brief thank you and goodbye the team is on their way to the given address. As soons as they get there, everyone notices the absence of a car in the driveway. Hotch sends Spencer, Emily and Derek through the back door, the rest goes in from the front.

“FBI! OPEN UP!”

It’s needless to say that nobody opens up. There is no other way than kicking the doors down.

After entering the house and clearing the first floor, Rossi points towards the stairs that leads to the first story. There are only two rooms. A bathroom right hand and a closed door left hand.

Morgan counts quietly down before also kicking this door down and screaming “FBI!” But he seemingly talks with air, because there is no one to be found. Once again the team swarms out to look for evidence or clues.

As Spencer looks through the room they cleared last, he sees various things that make him smile. Several bookshelves are flooded with all kinds of genres, authors and covers. At first he can’t make out in which way they are sorted. But a closer look makes him realize that they are sorted by the author’s birth year. The doctor is kind of impressed, because that means the person knows when they are born in order to find a certain book. He likes the idea, it is a nice little challenge.

While he investigates further a sound makes him stop. He sends a text to Emily and waits for her. When she enters the room Spencer gestures to her to keep it quiet. Then he points to the bed.

They lower themselves down to the floor at the same time on each side of it. A girl, no older than 14 years, lays there shivering in angst. With big doe eyes she looks at Spencer and whispers:

“Please don’t hurt me.”

A while later the team is back at the station with the girl sitting in one of the interrogation rooms. The temperature is already set down, though Hotch feels really bad for it. Still there is another girl out there waiting to be safed.

“Baby girl, what can you give us on her?” Morgan sets his phone in the middle of the table and switches the speaker on.

“Our little girl’s name is (Y/N) (Y/L/N), fourteen years old. Parents were deemed to be unable to look after her since they are both heavy drug addicts and didn’t even register her crying for two hours straight. Since the age of six months she bounces through the system with nobody wanting to keep her longer than two years. They claim she is too smart for them and want somebody to look after her, who can challenge her intellectually.

“Collins took her in one and a half years ago. He got her signed up in several activities after school, like chess and academic decathlon. As of right now she is a junior with an opportunity to graduate next year. Her teachers describe her as incredibly bright with a complicated way of thinking.”

“Complicated way of thinking? Her intelligence was neglected for years, so she gave herself her own challenges. I found her books sorted by the birth year of the authors. She found ways of making things more difficult for herself, that’s why she fabricated strange ways of thinking. This is often found in children with high intelligence, who are not boosted enough by their environment”, Spencer explains, getting more and more furious.

His colleagues feel that this is a sensitive subject for their resident genius. JJ comfortably puts a hand on his shoulder, making the tense go away.

“Emily and Dave, I want both of you to interrogate her. We need to know where he hides the girls. JJ, try to hold the press off for a bit longer. Morgan, Reid, I want you to watch and look for tells or anything else”, Aaron orders.

Everyone works on their given task immediately.

You don’t need to be a profiler to see that (Y/N) is scared out of her mind. She has her feet on her chair and her head lies on her knees. When the two agents enter, she tries to at least fake some kind of composer. But she fails miserably at it.

“Hello (Y/N), may I call you that?” Emily begins in a soft voice. The teenager nods shyly. “Good, (Y/N). My name is Emily Prentiss and this is David Rossi. We are agents from the Behavior Analysis Unit from the FBI. Do you know why you are here?” The teenager shakes her head.

“Ok, let’s cut the chase”, David's voice booms through the small room. “You know exactly why you are here. From what we saw in your room you are an incredibly smart girl. How high is your IQ? 130? 135?”

“147 a-actually”, she nervously corrects the agent, never meeting his eye. The team notices this fairly quickly.

“Even better, normal people don’t know their IQ. So you know what your forster father does. You saw the news, you read the papers, you heard your classmates talk. In addition to that, the girls look alarmingly similar to you. And all of the sudden Charles is more often out than usual. So do us a favor and come clear.” Then he pulls out a picture from a manila folder on the table. Emily tries to intervene.

“Rossi, don’t. She is not the UnSub. (Y/N) is just unfortunate to be at the wrong place.” “She might as well be another UnSub if she doesn’t do anything to help us. Do you know how long you are going to jail for helping hi-”

“I don’t know anything. I- of course I saw what is h-happening. A-and I connected the dots a long time a-ago. You know, Charles lost his job and that’s a stressor. T-then Child Service was investigating him, because of the suspension’s reasons. I-I couldn’t do anything. I had no evidence, the police wouldn’t believe me. I asked him once wh-what he thinks about, you know, what’s happening. He slapped me and told me to not talk about it again. I’m so sorry, I wanna help. The only thing that comes into my mind is an old cabin he once mentioned when I first arrived at his. B-but I don’t know if it helps you. P-please, I don’t want to go to jail or juvenile, I-” Then (Y/N) breaks down into tears.

Emily is in an instant by her side trying to calm her down, while Hotch gives the information to Garcia. As soon as she finds the location, JJ takes a seat next to (Y/N) and the rest of the team flies out.

“You don’t have to be scared of him anymore, Sweetheart. My colleagues will find him and he will be tried and convicted. He will never be a threat to you again”, the blonde tries to comfort her.

“Whenever I leave an abusive home, there will be another one that’s exactly the same. The only difference with Charles was that he seemed to understand me. He helped me. There’s nobody who is willing to do what he did for me”, she admits sadly.

It breaks JJ’s heart, because her words are true. Even though he is a killer, Collins did help her. But she is also determined to show the young girl that he isn’t the only one who can do that. That there are more people out there, who are kind and as helpful if not more.

Not long after this the team brings the man into the station, Morgan guiding him with a deadbolt-like grip.

Rossi spots (Y/N) in a break room with a hot drink in her hands. While making his way over there, Spencer follows him. He wants to talk with her as well.

“(Y/N) I’m sincerely sorry if I hurt you earlier. I didn’t intend to scare you, we just had to act quickly and you were the only source of information available. I also wanted to tell you, that your achievements are astonishing and I guarantee you a bright future, maybe even at the FBI”, he winks at the end of his last sentence.

“I understand, Agent Rossi. But doesn’t everybody know their IQ? I assumed everybody gets at least tested once in their life in some way”, she asks with surprise in her voice.

At that the older man is speechless. Of all things she could accuse him of legitimately, (Y/N) goes with the most innocent question.

“Actually, not everybody gets tested. A reliable test has to be done by a psychologist and most people don’t go to one. Furthermore there has to be a valid reason to do one, that’s why a great part of the population doesn’t know their IQ”, intervenes Spencer. He has to infodump, since the last time was over half an hour ago.

“But you also have to differentiate between the several kinds of intelligence, because intelligence is way more than being good at math. There…”

Rossi stopped listening to the excited interaction between the two geniuses. Instead he watches their body languages and facial expressions. He hasn’t seen both of them more at calm than they are now.

After all there might be a way for (Y/N) to get a little Happy End.

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jasmine-the-fox · 3 years

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Her sweet bunny villain

I thought about it for a while and decided that I wanted to do a fic where Mari is dating Izuku Midoriya who is a villain... Hope you all like it!

Mari always wondered why her boyfriend decided to do crime, she never really asked him but she does wonder about it at times, Izuku Midoriya entered her life when she went to Japan for a week to destress from what her class was doing by believing Lila to this very day, she was only walking around when she found him in an alley injured, from the way he dressed it was obvious he had a terrible taste in style and it was all bad quality so after taking care of his injuries she helped him get back close to his home before making him promise to contact her for clothes.

Since that day she had been designing his clothes and then it began there long distance relationship, Izuku who decided to go by the name Usagi when he’s working was happy to have her call him Deku... And while she knows it means useless and worthless, the way she says it makes him happy and not mind it at all, she also did meet through video calls the rest of his team, like Dabi who has a blue flame quirk, Himiko Toga who when she drinks someone’s blood can look like them... And many more after that, she does worry about him at times but he always calls once a mission is done with so she knows he’s alive.

One day, Mari came to school to overhear Lila claiming that she’s dating Katsuki Bakugo, son of fashion designers Mitsuki and Masaru Bakugo, she talks about how she used to model with him and all kinds of things but Mari simply ignored it and headed to class... This was the new normal for her now, no longer was she greeting her classmates, no longer was she invited to things, no longer was she making them free things... It didn’t really matter to her that they were mad at the fact she wasn’t making them free things anymore, she had a website where she sells her designs and is happy to having good paying customers.

Lila claimed that her designs were cheap looking and claimed that Mari was being a brat by demanding money, miss Bustier even tried to make Mari bake and design for free again and when she refused she and her parents were called to the principals office where he was chewed out by her parents for trying to drain her by forcing her to spend her well earned money to buy fabric, threads, buttons and baking ingredients to make free things for a class who doesn’t even help or thank her anymore.

Needless to say... He and Caline were threatened with being put to court if they made such a demand on Mari again...

After that, the class simply glares at her whenever they bring up wanting baked goods or new clothes... And she would ignore them the whole time, it made them angry because they would then need to spend money on new clothes that even though they show it off she doesn’t react, they also need to spend money to buy baked goods and then complain at school because it was expensive and Mari doesn’t say anything, instead she focuses on her homework and designs for her paying customers to get there approval... And prepare to message her boyfriend about some clothes she was sending his way.

Alya was just about to stomp over towards Mari to demand free stuff but Caline had just walked in to reveal to everyone that the trip that Mari had prepared for them to go to Japan for two weeks was approved “Now I just need everyone to get there parents signature for this try by tomorrow so I can confirm who will be coming” she explained as she handed out the paper for the signature of a parent, Alya squealed and pointed out how Lila would see her boyfriend while the liar internally winced as she would need to have the class avoid anything connected to Katsuki.

Mari smiled as she packed the paper and then began to listen and take notes in class like Adrien and Max were doing... While the others were either on there phones or doing something else then listening to the lesson, when the day ended Mari walked into the bakery and handed the paper to her mother who quickly signed it for Mari to hand it to her teacher tomorrow, she then took back the paper and went straight to her room to get to work on sending pictures of the designs to her clients, then as she waited for there replies she took the box of clothes to mail while sending a message to Izuku about how she was sending the clothes now, then once she was told how long it might take she estimated the delivery date for him.

All the while she was seen by Lila sending the box...

By the time Mari got to the bakery, the delivery company she dropped off the box at called her, they said that a girl with tanned skin, green eyes and hair tied in three sausage style came claiming there was an error with the box she dropped off and asked for her to explain “I don’t know why she’s lying to you, I brought the box over because I wanted to get it delivered so she’s lying to you simple as that” she replied making the man claim he would take care of Lila and then hung up making Mari smile as she went up to her room... To find Alya there rummaging through her things “What are you doing in my things!?” she demanded loudly making her parents hear and dial for the police.

Alya glared at Mari as she focused on her task, Lila had claimed that she had gotten a dress from Katsuki and brought it at school to show... But Mari had taken it, she described it as a lightly ruffled white dress with light blue flowers flowing on the dress, Alya promised to get it back so after picking the look of the house door she snuck into Mari’s room to look for the dress, after a while the police arrived and forced her outside with questions while waiting for her parents to arrive, but Alya refused to answer the whole time when her parents arrived as they promised to bring her down to the police station for questions... And claimed she wouldn’t be going to the Japan trip in the end.

Alya went pale and the revealed what Lila claimed, her mother lost it and asked if she ever asked Mari about it, the pigtailed girl then said she had made a dress of that style for Manon... The girl she would babysit, Alya was shocked at those words as Mari then pulled out her phone to reveal a picture of the little girl wearing the exact dress Lila claimed was her’s, her parents took her home for a bit to make sure that Nora could watch the twins before taking Alya to the station to answer further questions, Mari with her parents then walked back inside and up to her room to clean up the mess Alya had made of her clothes, she also checked on the responses of her clients and reply from her boyfriend making her smile in excitement.

The next day, Mari arrives at school to be glared by her classmates, turns out Lila was told by Alya what happened and Lila decided to hide the fact that she lied about the dress and claimed Mari got the police on Alya for no good reason, so when in class and class was surrounding her in anger she revealed the lie about the dress Lila claimed with a picture of Manon that her mother Nadja sent her... It made them all turn to look at Lila in shock, Caline then walked in and asked for the paper signed... Everyone but Adrien and Alya handed there’s, it turns out that Gabriel had a few things set up for Adrien to do so he refused to let him go to Japan while Alya was banned from going on the trip by her parents... This angered Lila as she called the man during class break to get him to sign the paper and have it brought at lunch.

He just had to make sure that Lila is happy during the trip...

A week later they arrived in Japan, they quickly got to the hotel to rest but the class decided to listen to Lila and walk around while Mari being smart decided to stay in her room to sleep a bit... Adrien decided to do the same and ignored Lila, she woke up a while later from a text from her boyfriend asking if she was awake so she replied that his message woke her up, he felt bad which he wrote but asked her to come outside of the hotel making her smile and walk out, Adrien had been awake for a while and heard her room door open and close so he decided to follow her outside to see her talking to a guy wearing a hoodie with green eyes, curly green hair and freckles.

Adrien wasn’t sure what to do at the sight, as he watched them walk away... All he could was stay at the hotel and hope nothing bad happens to her while she’s out there...

Mari smiled towards her loving evil boyfriend, Izuku smiled as they walked around before slowly entering a coffee shop and heading to the back... Where the LOV team was living, to hide who they really were the team opened a coffee shop and used Mari’s work to hide and look different and to blend in like it was nothing, right now Himiko and Dabi were working at the front while the other’s were in the back “It’s great to see you all again” Mari smiled making them smile in return, they prepared her a cup of coffee making her smile and thank Kurogiri who was happy of the praise he gained as they spoke together until Himiko and Dabi walked in as they closed just now... Meaning Mari would need to head back.

By the time the class came back, it was with the police, turns out that the hotel had not been informed that the class would leave all of a sudden to go around unlike Marinette who did before leaving so they called the police to get the class found, the police found them after a while and gave a stern talking to miss Bustier about how she needed to be an actual adult and have the class follow the plans... And not allow them to leave the hotel all of a sudden outside of there plans, because of that it was decided that another teacher will come to assist on watching over the class... While Adrien watched in shock from the hall.

The next day a lady named Nemuri Kayama arrived to assist in watching over the class, she was supposed to be teaching at the prestigious school called UA but instead was asked to help with a class who decided that leaving the hotel without telling someone was a good idea, so with that they got going, Adrien did watch Mari as he was worried on where she went yesterday but with Lila keeping close to him... He wasn’t able to ask her about it, Nemuri began showing them around and correcting things each time Lila tries to spin a tall tale about something... And then glares at Caline for allowing the girl to lie like that and does nothing to make her stop.

Slowly they walked over to UA making the class get excited to see the place as then class 1-A comes to view as there training, Mari then noticed a certain blonde named Katsuki Bakugo... Her boyfriends bully who told him to take a swan dive off of a roof and pray that he get’s a quirk in the next life, because of that she hated him but acted like she knew nothing about him at all... But she was planning something, she and her classmates got to meet them and then watched as Katsuki yelled at Lila for lying about them dating and swore he would sue her for that... Which led to all of her lies being uncovered making Mari smile at the sight as none of her classmates or even her teacher thought about there actions towards her and went to apologize.

She also didn’t notice Katsuki watching her with a faint blush...

The day continued like that, her classmates angry at Lila for lying, forgetting about the fact that they bullied Mari because Lila claimed she did something to her, nor did they remember that they would get mad at Mari because she wasn’t making them free things anymore, there was also the fact that Katsuki was keeping close to her... She didn’t like it and decided to ignore him, her plans couldn’t start just yet of course so instead she was going to relax and enjoy her time in Japan, she did have a few things planned with her boyfriend already during there free days so that was a good thing of course, when lunch came she sat alone at a table away from everyone while texting Izuku with a smile.

No one from her class tried to go over to talk to her, she did faintly notice Adrien looking at her but she decided to ignore the look as Katsuki walked over and sat at her table “Can I help you with something?” she asked while not looking at him, instead focused on her phone, Katsuki didn’t say anything and simply began to eat his spicy curry making her then begin to eat while texting Izuku before she had to join the class once more to look around the school before they would need to head back to the hotel to either relax or to enjoy the rest of there free day walking around or shopping... Mari couldn’t wait to go on a date with Izuku for the afternoon.

Katsuki still followed until they got to the hotel, Mari never spoke to the blonde and instead focused on the tour of the school and going to her hotel room without a word to get cleaned up before waiting for Izuku outside the hotel for there date, Katsuki waited for a while before sighing and heading back to school... He could tell he didn’t do something right with Marinette so all he could do was wait until tomorrow to try again, once Mari was ready, she walked down to the lobby and then informed the lady at the counter that she was going to walk around before heading outside to wait for her amazing boyfriend.

Without knowing that Lila was watching her from afar with a glare...

Even though she worked so hard to destroy Marinette's life, that everything she told them wasn’t true but she worked to make them believe everything... She still believed she should win somehow against Marinette, because of that she decided to try and confront the girl once they get back to the hotel about it but the pigtailed girl was to fast for her and she was gone to her room before she even noticed, now she watched as the girl walked out of the hotel alone making her angry as she rushed of to tell there teacher about it, Caline was a little angry and the two went to the counter to get the police involved but the worker refused.

“Your student informed me of her using her free day to tour around Japan, she has the right as I was informed” she explained and then went back to work while ignoring them, Lila was furious about that as Mari smiled while holding hands with her boyfriend as they enjoyed there date together, Izuku was actually claimed dead, after Katsuki told him to kill himself and All Might telling him that a quirkless person can’t be a hero... He jumped to end his life, it was then that he was found by Tomura who promised him a better life, so he was claimed dead, even though his coffin had no body, Izuku was trained to be the best in combat even though he didn’t have a quirk.

Then he became friends with Himiko and Dabi... He also met Mari and then slowly fell for her and ended up dating her, the girl didn’t even care about the fact he was a villain, instead she helped when she could by making them clothes, she did however did something different, clothes Izuku would wear will have her signature, but the clothes he and the league wore didn’t and instead looked different enough from her usual work that no one would notice unless they saw her working on clothes and were with knowledge in fashion designing, so with that she was safe, Izuku also needs to be careful since even though he is claimed dead... Someone might figure it all out at some point.

Slowly there trip to Japan got to the last few day of there second week, some complained that time went by too quickly while Katsuki felt anger because he failed with Mari every time he had a chance to talk to her, so he decided to try and simply ask her out on a date, but he failed horribly, when they got to pick up the class from the hotel to go to the mall, he tried asking Mari out and she flat out rejected him and then walked away from him to do some shopping alone, his friends were a little surprised at that but still believed that things would get better so they helped him by encouraging him to try again at a later time.

And it still failed... But it was worse because he felt like he was going through déjà-vous all of a sudden...

She was alone heading back to the hotel early so he walked her back, once at the door he asked her out once more until she spoke “Why don’t you take a swan dive off of a roof and pray in the next life that i’m single when you ask me out... Or even interested in a bully like you” then walked back into the hotel while leaving him outside frozen in place... Those words... To kill himself... Were the same last words he told Deku before he killed himself, it made Katsuki slightly sick as he ran back home and into his room while ignoring his parents to curl up in his bed, his mother walked in to try and get gently some answers but all he said was “She said the same words I did” and it made no sense to Mitsuki so she simply left the room.

After that, he kept away from her because of the pain he felt in his chest when her words echoed in his head, she then went back to Paris without another word from him for two months before he and his class came to visit for two weeks... And Katsuki saw a living and breathing Deku holding her hand and being happy with her as they walked around Paris... She was dating him, he faked his death to escape him and now he was living the life he wanted but away from his bully.

All the while not knowing that Deku is Usagi... The same villain he has a hard time in capturing.

So there you go guys! Another BNHA crossover to miraculous ladybug! I’m hoping you all enjoy it and are excited for my next fic with these two universes!

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous salt #lila salt #lila gets exposed #alya salt #class salt #bnha #my hero academia #villain!izuku #marixizuku #no miraculous au #Quirkless marinette

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solastia · 3 years

Text

The Dragon’s Lair - 7

- SEOKJIN’S POV -

Pairing: Kim Namjoon x F!Reader (although she’s kinda OC now huh?)

A/N: Kinda on the short side, I apologize. But I wanted us to get a quick peek into Jin’s side of things and where his mind is. Any guesses on who his mate might be? ;)

*****

He wasn’t sure what had woken him up. The house was silent beyond Namjoon’s snores that he could hear coming through the old walls. He waited a few seconds to see if he could hear anything else or catch a scent, but it was all clear. There was just something pricking at his mind - something making his instincts go wild. He’d blame the fact that he was in a new house but this wasn’t a new feeling.

It had begun when his ride here had traveled past the sea. He’d gotten a whiff of fresh ocean air and his fur had instantly bristled up. His claws had lengthened involuntarily and he’d had to exercise every scrap of self-control he possessed so he wouldn’t leap out of the moving vehicle and run full-shift towards whatever that scent had been.

Seokjin groans and cracks open his eyes, still heavy with sleep. He might as well take a trip to the bathroom while he was already awake. He yawns and forces himself out of the comfy bed, scratching his belly sleepily. Even now, the scent was clear to him. There had been the smell of the ocean, yes, but...something else. Something other like him.

The realistic part of Seokjin’s brain said maybe his exotic side had simply found a scent it liked and that’s that. But when he allowed himself to be more fanciful, like now when it was three am and he was still half asleep, he listened to the Sphinx screaming, “mate, mate, MATE!,” and he didn’t hate the idea.

He’d been alone for so very long that it sounded like a dream. A fairytale ending for his Cinderella story.

Not that Namjoon was any sort of evil stepsister, nor his mate that exuded naivety and goodness from every pore. If anything, he knew that he was particularly blessed to have Heechul hyung looking out for him and talking this human into taking him in. He would have dealt with having to be in the shelter again, but quite honestly he was too old to do well there. He was a grown Sphinx used to independence and being at the top of his hierarchy.

He finishes in the bathroom and sighs heartily, deciding sleep was going to be impossible now. Might as well help himself to the kitchen. He shuffled quietly there and peeked inside the fridge, horrified once again by the contents. How have these two been keeping alive? The fridge only contained very basic ingredients like eggs and milk, a bottle of soy sauce, and not a single vegetable in sight.

He settles for making a couple of fried eggs, using them to top off the bowl of instant rice he pilfered from the cupboards. He gives it all a splash of soy sauce so it’s not completely flavorless and sits at the kitchen table, eating his little meal slowly.

It always seemed like nights were harder for some reason. Like the dark vastness of the sky reminded him of how empty his life had become - of how much he missed his parents.

He’d seriously lucked out when the two had walked into the shelter all those years ago. He’d been a bit older than the usual desired age for hybrid adoptions so he hadn’t expected much when Heechul had escorted the couple towards the exotic section. He’d stayed in his corner of the room playing his video game, but he’d kept an eye on them as they smiled and shook hands with all the desperate little ones crowding them. They seemed genuinely nice, with smiles that lit up their eyes and the man always making his wife laugh.

When they finally got close enough, Seokjin greedily scented the air, thinking if he ever had someone pick him he hoped they smelled as good as these two. The man - though obviously old for a human - smelled strong and healthy. Faint hints of cigar smoke and old books clung to him almost as much as his mate’s scent did. And his mate - the wife - smelled exactly how Seokjin had always thought a mother would. A light hint of expensive perfume couldn’t cloud the endorphins that were coming off of her in waves from being surrounded by the little ones. She was older too - perhaps younger than her husband by no more than a handful of years - but she too seemed to be in good health. She smelled so comforting to Seokjin that he stopped paying attention to his game and let his little avatar get killed three times in a row as he glued his eyes on the woman.

Heechul actually herded the pair towards him and he set down his controller and bowed formally, wanting to make a good impression despite the fact that he knew they would never pick him. He’d thought they’d merely shake his hand and move on, but the man had kept asking him questions about his hobbies and what he wanted to do when he grew up. The woman kept staring at him with her hand held to her chest like she’d been shocked by something.

It wasn’t until a half-hour later when Heechul had called him into his office with the pair that he realized she’d decided she wanted him. A mere few minutes and she’d decided she was his mother and no one else’s. “You’re so handsome I fell in love at first sight, my Jinnie,” she’d always say.

He’d had nineteen wonderful years with them before pneumonia took them both within days of each other. Nineteen years filled with happiness and laughter with two of the most loving people he’d ever met. He missed his routines with them - the fishing every weekend with his dad, cooking with his mom, the Sundays all three of them would sit around with face masks and watch movies.

When they’d passed away, his heart had broken. He’d known it was inevitable - they were both getting old and frail - but he’d thought he’d have just a little more time with them. After the funeral, he waited with bated breath for someone to storm in and drag him off to be put down somewhere. When nothing had happened, he’d grown steadily more careless, often forgetting he wasn’t supposed to be on his own with the big house and vast wealth. He’d carried on with his life like he knew his parents would have wanted him to. He kept going to med school since his dad had pulled so many strings to let him attend, he tried going on dates that never went anywhere, he hung out with his friends whenever he had the time. Life went on.

Trying to stop the robber had been stupid of him - he knew that now. He should have just let the man get away and then never reported him so he’d be left alone...but once he spied his mother’s favorite pearls in the man’s hand he’d lost his shit. He’d fully shifted, letting his wings out and knocking over a couple of vases with their width, and his nails expanded until finally he’d roared and the robber had screamed and thrown the nearest item at his head in his rush to escape. Unfortunately, that item had been his mother’s bird statue that was made entirely of gold, so he’d been knocked out cold. His friend had found him after he hadn’t shown up to their gaming session and called the police and an ambulance, where they took his blood and found out that he was a hybrid with deceased owners and proceeded to shove him in the nearest pound while they contacted his mother’s very distant cousin.

He’d never even gotten to meet this so-called cousin before the fat lawyer that smelled like fried chicken rushed him out of his own home, making him leave behind even the belongings that were his. He had no idea what use the cousin had for his manga or video game collection. Let alone the used sports jerseys or his hamper full of dirty clothes.

Thankfully Heechul existed and he’d been able to contact his old caregiver before he was sent to the state center. He knew that place was a death sentence. And now here he was, in a strange home with barely anything besides his small suitcase. He missed his dad. He missed his mom. He missed feeling loved and hopeful for the future. He missed the way his dad always knew what to do. He missed the way his mom would brush his mane and groom his feathers while she sang.

Seokjin cleared his throat and swiped at his suddenly wet cheek. He hadn’t even realized he’d been crying. He shook his head and went to the sink to wash his dishes, heading back to his room when he finished for another sleepless night.

****

Life in the ‘Dragon’s Lair’ (as he’d taken to calling it, despite said dragon’s constant eye-rolling) began to take on a new normal the longer he was there. Days began to blend into each other as he struggled to adjust himself to his new reality, but Namjoon and his mate were a great help.

Luckily, his tuition had been prepaid by his father and the cousin had no way of taking his education away from him, so he still took his classes - albeit mostly online because he wanted to stay in his room most of the time.

Money was thankfully of no immediate issue. There was more money in the book than he’d felt comfortable sharing with anyone, enough that he could still go years without a job if he needed to. He also knew that if he needed it, he could always ask Heechul for help, although the other would make him work in the cafe for it. He might do it anyway just for something to do.

Namjoon and his mate were simply wonderful. His old friend had grown up into a great person who was sweet and intelligent, good to the people he cared about, and strong in ways that he probably wasn’t even aware of. His mate Star was just as good. She was funny and kind, with just enough sass to be interesting. And they were both sickeningly in love with each other to the point that Seokjin had to leave the house quite often to get some peace. Not that it upset him - he was incredibly happy for Namjoon. It just sometimes emphasizes how alone he was.

But yes, Star was great. There was just...something about her. Something that drew him to her. Not in a sexual or attraction kind of way...more like - primal. Like the animal side of him saw her as a protector. Which, he supposed she kinda was since she was housing exotic hybrids, but still. He couldn’t figure it out. He was certain she was completely human, but sometimes underneath the frankly nauseating amount of reptile musk that she was constantly covered with, he could catch hints of the forest in her natural scent. Sure, there was a forest nearby, but why would the scent cling to her like that? There was something there and luckily for him, there was nothing he enjoyed more than a good riddle.

Beyond that, there was still one other pressing issue. His mate.

He knew they were out there. He knew he’d caught their scent. When he’d passed the sea he’d been certain they were there. He just needed to find them. He didn’t want them to be alone too.

“Jin, we’re about to head to the mall. Do you want to come shopping with us? The weather’s clearing up and I promised Namjoon we’d go to the ocean,” Star asked with a bright smile as he exited his room.

“The ocean?” he responded, his brain halting for a second. Fate was working her magic, was she?

“Yeah, he’s been wanting to go for a while but it’s been too cold. I thought we’d rent a small beach house and spend the weekend. So you’ll need swim trunks and towels, stuff like that. If you’d rather stay here, that’s fine too. It’s up to you.”

“No,” he rushed, feeling his ears go red with embarrassment as he let his eagerness show. “It’s fine. I’d love to go.”

“Great!” Star grinned, threading an arm with his as she leads him out to the yard. “We’ll have so much fun!”

He nods silently, his nose trying in vain to catch that salty scent on the air again.

I’m coming. Just wait for me.

#bts #the dragon's lair #solastia #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #hybrid au #hybrid!au #hybrid!bts #hybrid!namjoon #hybrid!seokjin #dragon!au #sphinx #bts au

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everlarkficexchange · 3 years

Text

Keeping the Peace

Writer: JHsgf82

Prompt 45: Peeta works security (peacekeeper? police?), Katniss is a protester (rebellion? BLM?) or a civilian (rebel?) or a local translator in her village. Do they know each other at all? Work together? Fight on opposite sides or meet at common ground? What threatens them? Are their feelings real? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Rating: T

Author Note: Due to lack of time (and taking on too much, lol), this will only be snippets of the fic, a sneak peek. I do plan on continuing, though, and I’ve really enjoyed developing this and writing what I have of it. I hope you’ll enjoy it and that you’ll continue to read it when I post the rest on A03 in the near future. Will be alternating First Person POV, Peeta and Katniss. Edit by @mrspeetamellark. Thank you!

Peeta

“You got a girl, Peet?” Darius asks from his usual spot beside me in the mess hall.

“No.” I smile a little and shake my head.

“Why not? Every woman loves a man in uniform, right?”

I glance down at my snow-white fatigues, then to my helmet beside me on the bench. “Not around here, D.” I don’t say it with bitterness, just matter-of-factly.

Darius slaps me on the back. “Hey, they may act like they hate us, but it’s only because we enforce the law. They don’t like it, but they respect us for it.”

I’m not so sure about that. I think my good friend is a little deluded.

I’ve been a Peacekeeper for going-on-three years now, stationed in good ole’ District 12. I got into it to protect the people and keep them safe, and of course, to keep the peace, but more often than not, it seems like I’m just ordering them around. Or worse.

And now, with the riots happening and the new commander, Commander Thread, in place, the district only seems to be deteriorating further. The residents are frequently whipped in the square, for one. I’ve never had to do it, thankfully, but I know others who have. Even stricter rules are being enforced, tariffs and quotas on every little thing, and we’ve shut down their Hob. The people, at least those from the Seam, have even started moving out of town, into the woods, forming their own little community of sorts. We break them up and force them back sometimes, peacefully as we can.

I hope to God they don’t reinstitute hangings.

I don’t like the way things are, but I can’t leave. I’m sworn in. I belong to Snow and his Peacekeeper organization. I’m literally branded. Still, I refuse to be a piece in whatever game he’s playing. And I’m guessing I’m still hoping I can make a difference, somehow.

Darius talks about women a lot, wanting to fall in love, get married. As for me, I’ve never really considered marriage. I was always married to the job. After the way I grew up, I was so glad to have an important job, something that mattered, but more and more, my thinking’s been changing…

***

The first time I see her, she’s standing calf-deep in the lake. She’s wearing a green, threadbare slip of a dress, and her long, dark hair is braided down her back. Her skin is a flawless olive, shimmering in the sunlight. She bends down and digs up some sort of plant growing on top of the water; it has white flowers, green leaves, and long roots with tubers hanging from it. The bottom of her dress, her legs, and now her hands are covered in mud, but she just looks down at the plant, and she smiles.

As for me, I’m frozen, staring hard with probably the goofiest grin on my face. She’s just so…ethereal. I definitely need to paint her later, at least get a quick sketch down before I forget what she looks like. Nah, I’ll never forget. She’s too unique. Too…mesmerizing.

Her ears seem to prick, and she catches sight of me. And although it’s hard to tell from this distance, I swear her eyes are silver. Stupid and enraptured as I am, I wave. She merely tugs up the strap of her dress, which has slipped a little, and stares at me.

My god, she’s stunning.

Who is she? This silver-eyed, braided vision before me. Is she real, or some kind of earth goddess? Hell, I might consider marriage, if I could be married to her.

Wait, what am I saying? She’s a local. Most likely a Seam girl. We’re from two different worlds; it’d never work. Mainly because she probably hates my guts.

***

A couple weeks later, there’s a ruckus just outside of town that I’m called to, a small dispute of sorts. When I get there, three of our guys are surrounding a local man and…the girl from the lake! I rush over.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

Right away, I’m told by my superior officer to fall in line. Darius is there, too. He quietly explains the situation while we look on from a few feet away.

“She’s been hoarding goat’s milk rather than turning in her quota!” exclaims the man, spitting a little when he says it. He must have been the one who turned her in.

For crying out loud. I groan. All this over a little goat’s milk.

“You’re just hoping they take Lady away from us, so you can have her back free of charge!” the girl from the lake growls.

I don’t know what comes over me, but all of a sudden, I’m stepping up to stand between the girl and her goat and the rest of the men.

“Let the girl keep her goat,” I demand.

“Peeta, what are you doing?” asks Darius, concerned.

“Just…go on, D. I got this.”

“Look, there’s no use crying over spilled goat’s milk.” I joke. Darius turns to me, and I can tell the face he’s making beneath his helmet.

“What the hell are you babbling about?” my superior officer snarls.

I don’t even know. Really I’m just trying to distract him and get him to forget about the girl and let her go. I’ll persuade my superior, and the local man, because that’s what I’m good at.

But that doesn’t happen. Things get out of hand when the girl tries to sneak off with her goat while we’re talking, and all but Darius and me point guns at her. I lose my cool and shove the two guns away from her. “Hey! Back off!"

…

***

“Where’s Lady?” the girl from the lake demands.

“Who?”

“The goat. My goat, dammit!” She starts rapidly firing off words in a native tongue, probably cursing me out. “She’s my sister’s goat! She was a gift; she’s important, and I need her!”

“Okay, okay, calm down. I saved the goat. Sent it back to the village with my most trusted friend.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to escort you back home.”

She eyes me skeptically.

“I haven’t been ordered to or anything. It’s just, you took quite a blow, and I want to make sure you’re okay.”

She studies me a moment; then, apparently, she decides she believes me because she nods.

I smile. “So, you’ll allow it?”

“I’ll allow it."

***

I wake up in a cave, not knowing how I came to be here. All I remember is the riot getting out of hand, me taking off my helmet and something bashing me in the back of the head, and…the girl!

I turn to my right with a groan, and I see her beside me.

I try to sit up, but she tells me to lie back down. It’s just as well, for the entire cave is spinning. She takes a cloth out of a small, brown bowl of water, rings it out, and places it on my forehead, partially obscuring my eyes. I move it so I can see her better.

I moan a little when the pain hits.

“Shh, you’re alright. Just a nasty gash. But you’ll live. I’m sorry that I’m not a healer, but my mother is, and I’ve picked up a thing or two.”

“You. What’s your name?” I need to know.

“Katniss.”

“Oh. Pretty name. What does it mean?”

She seems amused by this, probably thinks I’m off my head from delirium.

“It’s a plant. An edible water plant with white flowers and tubers.”

“Oh, like the ones you dug up from the lake that one time?”

Shit. Now she knows it was me watching her.

“Yeah, like those ones.” Her pretty lips upturn slightly.

I study her a moment. “Uh, so I assume you knew I was watching you the whole time.”

“Yeah, I knew. I have…heightened senses, let’s just say.”

I nod. “And how did you know it was me back there?"

“I saw your tattoo,” she replies plainly, “and your face.”

“You know about my tattoo?” I quirk a brow.

“Yeah. It means you’re a Peacekeeper, right?”

I nod.

"Why are you doing this, then?” I murmur.

She presses her lips into a thin smile and says, “Because you helped me once.”

***

“If you’re gonna blend in and be one of us, Peeta, you have to pass the initiation,” says Katniss.

“Oh yeah?” I cock my head to the side. At this point, I’m ready for anything. “And what’s that?”

She grins. “Milk Lady.”

Except that.

Katniss is screwing with me, surely. She wants me to milk a goat? No way. I can’t milk a goat. And yet, I also can’t resist those eyes or that sexy little smirk-smile of hers, so I poke out my chest and clap my hands together. “Alright, lead the way.”

“Really?”

"Absolutely. Lady is practically famous. I’m ready to get up close and personal with her.”

Katniss laughs so hard she snorts. “Um, I think maybe you’re not quite healed from that head injury.” She raises her hand to touch the spot, stopping just short. I catch her wrist and place it on the side of my face, and I hear her breath hitch.

“I’m fine, Katniss. But thank you for being concerned about me.”

#JHsgf82 #567inpanem #prompt 45 #Springtime Edition 2021 #submission

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fullbushfemme · 3 years

Text

Meeting the Mayans

word count: 1,804

summary: You thought you were prepared for anything. Growing up with four brothers, you had been bitten, beaten, thrown out of trees, concussed, stabbed, practically any violent act you could possibly think of, you had endured. For a kindergarten teacher, you were tough. You had the scars to prove it. That was, of course, until the day you met the Mayans.

unnamed mayan x fem!reader

warnings: brief mentions of blood, hostage situation, and a shooting.

author's note: I've had this idea in my head for ages now and I'm tempted to make it a series. The only issue is that I can't decide which Mayan I want to star (since they aren't named in this fic). I'm tempted to use this as a jumping off point for multiple fics, writing different stories from this initial incident involving different Mayans, but I'd love to hear any thoughts y'all might have :)

-I also haven't written anything outside of academic works in years so go easy on me <3

Santo Padre Septembers were always your favorite. It was sticky and hot, enough to make anyone want to jump into a pool fully clothed, but school was back in session, which meant you got to meet a new hoard of bright-eyed, eager five year olds. You had spent the last month preparing your classroom for their arrival. Nine am to one pm every day for four weeks was dedicated to decorating your classroom, making name cards, making sure every student had all the supplies they needed. Inside every desk you placed glue and markers and pencils and workbooks and scissors...everything a little kid would need to express themselves. And all of it out of your own pocket. You took it upon yourself to spoil these kids rotten.

Two weeks into class, you already knew everyone’s names, their favorite color, their pets, and whether or not they were allowed to watch TV after six o’clock. You knew who was friends with who, who couldn’t eat peanut butter, and who was most popular. This year’s class was going to be great, you just knew it.

It was a humid Friday afternoon. The room smelled like Elmer’s glue and pencil shavings, with stray scraps of construction paper strewn about the floor after the kids decided this week’s art project was going to be making dinosaurs out of construction paper and glitter. You were staying after class to clean up and vacuum, and to take the class rabbit home with you since no one had signed up to care for him this week, when you heard a knock at your door.

You looked over to the open door, squinting into the sun, trying to make out who it was. But no one was standing in the doorway. “Forget something?” you called out, thinking that a student must’ve left a lunch box or notebook and was feeling shy.

“Not exactly,” a deep voice responded, sending a twinge of fear through your body. You knew that voice. “I was hoping my baby sister could help me with something.”

A lump had formed in your throat that you tried to swallow, to no avail. “What are you doing here?” you choked out, standing from where you were picking up paper scraps.

“I need you to help me hide. Quickly.” Your older brother stepped into the classroom, gun in hand, pupils wider than you had ever seen them. He must’ve been high, you thought, panicked. What had he gotten into now? All four of your brothers were known to be trouble-makers to varying degrees. A few had been to prison for petty crimes, but the brother that stood before you had gotten wrapped up in drug trafficking years ago. He scared you the most. They had all promised your parents that they would keep their lives separate from yours, that they would never put you in harm's way. But it didn’t last. It felt like every other week you had a bruised or beaten brother on your doorstep, begging for help or a place to stay. And today, it was to ask you to hide them.

Your eyes flitted to the large windows overlooking the grassy courtyard where a few children sat waiting for their parents to pick them up. Hide. Hide from what? Who was coming after him? Would they hurt the kids?

“N-no,” you stammered, taking a step backwards. You couldn’t risk putting any kids still on campus in danger. “You can’t hide here. You have to go. You have to go right now.” You could feel a pit in your stomach begin to form as your brother took slow, long strides toward you.

“No?” he spat, completely dumbfounded by your refusal to help him. You had never turned him down before. He was family. You never said no to family.

You swallowed hard before repeating yourself. “No,” you responded, with more conviction this time, although you knew he could see right through you.

You took another step back, but ran up against your desk. Your phone was in the top drawer. Could you reach it fast enough? If you even could, who would you call? The police? That was a good way to get murdered and leave a teacher-shaped stain on the floor for the kids to come back to on Monday. Gripping the edge of the table so hard your knuckles turned white, your brother broke the ominous silence before you could.

“I’m not asking you again, hun,” he spat, now so close you could smell him.

“I can’t,” you whispered, your eyes welling up. “The kids…”

He furrowed his brow for a moment, shocked at the idea that you could actually turn your own flesh and blood away. You had always helped him, no matter how many times your parents told you not to, no matter how many times your life was put in danger. He couldn’t grasp the idea that you would put your foot down when it came to endangering other people, when it came to endangering your kids.

“They’ll kill you, you know,” he seethed, looking back over his shoulder towards the open door. There was a low rumbling growing louder and louder, but that wasn’t to whom he was referring. He was talking about your other brothers. “I told them I’d go to my baby sister, that she’d help me. She always helps me. Why would she flip on me now? Why wouldn’t she help family?” His grip tightened around his handgun as he leaned in to threaten you. “If anything happens to me, they’ll know to come to you first. They’ll know you couldn’t protect your own family.” His breath was hot against your neck. “Now,” he sighed, “Help me hide. And tell them you haven’t seen me in months.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” a man shouted from outside, causing your brother to grab hold of your arm. Those tears you had been holding back finally fell down your cheeks as your brother pulled you in front of him, placing you between the stranger and your brother. You could barely make out any details of the man from outside because of the blinding sun, but you could tell he had a gun. And that gun was much bigger than your brother’s. As the man moved into your classroom, at least five more men appeared and followed him in, all with guns pointed at your brother.

At this point, you were frozen. The lives your parents had so desperately tried to keep apart were crashing together, their worst nightmare coming true. The two of you were stuck, with only one way out. And he knew it. He gripped your arm tighter, making sure your body could be used as an effective human shield. The barrel of his gun was shoved into your ribcage, his face buried into the back of your hair.

“See what you’ve done?” he seethed. You looked at all of the men placed around the room. Leather-clad men on top of a backdrop of crudely painted rainbows and dogs. You hadn’t brought these men here. You didn’t anger a group of gun-toting men. And yet somehow, this was your fault.

“We’re only here for you, kid,” a low, rough voice called out, a different one than before.

But he wouldn’t let them take only him. He was bringing you down with him. He was willing to sacrifice his own family to keep from going down alone.

The seconds ticking by felt like hours. Your heart pounded against your ribcage, desperately trying to break free. But you could do nothing besides stand still. All you could do is hope and pray that these men that had followed your brother here had enough decency not to kill a kindergarten teacher caught in the crossfire. But your brother refused to give them that opportunity.

“If I go,” he yelled, raising his gun to your temple, “she goes too.”

These words would haunt your every thought for the rest of your life. But in that moment, all you could think about was the weapon pressed against your skin. Your brother wasn’t just willing to bring you down with him, he was willing to kill you himself. And the thought of it made you sick. It made you want to curl up into a ball and scream on the top of your lungs. You opened your mouth to cry out, but your brother hit you across the head with the butt of his gun before you could.

The men opposing your brother yelled, harsh words were exchanged, but all you could hear was a ringing in your ears. Tensions rose. Guns were raised. Blood dripped down your face and mixed with your tears. Your senses were betraying you, one by one, blending every sensation into one incomprehensible nightmare.

And then, a single gunshot rang out, making you acutely aware of the severity of the situation once more.

A scream escaped your chest as you fell to your knees, free from your brother’s death grip. You brought your hands up to your ears and squeezed your eyes shut, hoping it would all be over.

But it wasn’t over. It wouldn’t end. No matter how hard you prayed, you were still on the floor of your kindergarten classroom. Your brother was still prepared to kill you if he felt threatened. Someone was shot...someone was shot but you couldn’t bear to look. You wanted to look, you had to look, to see if it was your brother that was shot. But before you could muster the courage to open your eyes, two arms wrapped around you and pulled you into an embrace. It couldn’t have been your brother, it was much too gentle. But if it wasn’t him, then who?

It took a moment to open your eyes, but when you did, you looked up to see who was holding you. His face was kind, with dark brown eyes filled with worry as he looked down at you. He opened his mouth to say something to you, and he probably did, but you couldn’t hear him over the pounding in your head. He was a stranger to you, and yet he clung to you to keep you from seeing the mess behind you. Like he truly cared for your wellbeing. He pulled you in closer to him, placing his chin on top of your head the way your father did when you were young. It felt...safe. And all you wanted to do was collapse into him and allow yourself to feel safe. You let your head fall into his chest. You let your head fall into this stranger’s chest. And just as you did, two white patches on his left breast caught your eye. Two patches that read: Mayans, Santo Padre.

#mayans mc #bishop losa #michal ariza #riz ariza #taza #taza romero #angel reyes #ez reyes #mayans mc fanfic

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drabbles-of-writing · 3 years

Text

Reverse Au! Dump

Don’t mind my idea dumping here. Brain decided to have fun while I was at work and I have too many wips as it is, so… Thought I’d ask before I dumped, experience. Used morningmark’s comics as a base, so if you want reference. Now this isn’t all that well compiled, but here it goes.

Magic in the Other World is varied as it is crazy. So many styles over the generations and not a lot of organization. There are some that try to categorize it all, but that works as well as you’d expect. Some were lost, some erased, some weren’t passed down/recorded because “the power is all mine! Ahahaha!” It took a lot of time and collaboration, but eventually a sort of system was installed to help out. Still a lot of work to do, but its a step forward. Nowadays the term Wild Magic is generally reserved for those that aren’t all that well documented and understood.

Some Magics are very powerful and desirable, but also tend to be very high risk/high reward, kinda pass/fail, pretty literally Do or Die most times. So not a lot of people can use those or are even willing to. Story says this one guy named Odin hung himself on a massive tree by his own spear for nine days, no food water or rest in constant pain before he could unlock the secret of Runes. But it’s also said he gouged out his own eye to drink from the Well of Wisdom so…

There are lots of different ways to channel magic too: wands, staves, jewelry, certain gems, familiars, potions, enchanted armaments, chants, scripts, etc. Each tool has its own advantages and disadvantages and play into a Witches’ style. Every Witch has at least two methods of spellcasting. Only children have one. Haven’t thought of how Luz gets her Palisman though. Maybe its one of those magic Artifacts like Dr. Strange’s cloak, Elder Wand, Thor’s hammer, or a Green Lantern’s Ring. Something that can’t be recreated because the secret is lost, materials no longer exist, too hard/dangerous to make, accident that can’t be recreated, etc. Happens more often than people like.

Camilla is sometimes called the Blue Witch. She’s a healer by heart and trade, but push her and she will become a one Witch Battleship. Bismark who? Aaaaand she just deleted a whole battalion. And the fortress behind them. Hide me. There are the very rare occasions, like count on one hand rare, when someone near and dear to her heart is in trouble that she takes up her other job. She’s especially terrifying when she decides to torture, those who know how to heal the body know best how to break it. Many shades of Blue, some are very close to Black. She doesn’t necessarily hate Humans exactly, but doesn’t have the highest of regard from past experiences.

Luz has training and is a proficient Witch for her age. Camilla and her father were adamant about having a general knowledge/skillset alongside her specialized skill. Jack of all trades and a master of none, still better than a master of one. She has gone through the system for her magic with varying success. Oracle magic? Zero talent. Bard classes? She can play an instrument, but can’t sing at the same time. When she does sing she tires too hard and messes up. It’s only when she doesn’t try, like absently singing along with a song or playing by her heart, that she’s good at it. Beasts? Can use them, but would rather play with them. Bleeding heart and all that. She does have a good handle on healing magic partly due to Camilla drilling necessary skills into her and partly osmosis. Her father arranged for some CQC lessons from an old friend of his which the girl loved. You get the idea. It wasn’t until she discovered Glyphs that she found her niche and her skills took off. Glyphs are one of those ‘eccentric’ or 'archaic’ styles since they haven’t been used in so long after being lost and are barely understood. She still has a long way to go, but she is on her way.

Luz never really had much in the way of friends, partly cuz of high profile parents which leads to certain pressures and a target on her head, partly because of her magic style and personality, and partly because of the trouble been going on. Luz grew up her whole life with this tension of a group of anarchists trying to burn society that’s just trying to do the right thing. The anarchists started small, but have been a growing problem the past few decades with talk how to 'reshape the world’ in not a good way. Anyone with critical thinking skills can tell this is a bad idea, but they are too brainwashed to notice. They harass anyone who doesn’t follow their rhetoric and attack anyone who even questions them. Luz’s parents put a real kink in a lot of their plans for years, which makes Luz guilty by association.

Luz got caught in one of those sudden larger scuffles and was accidentally chucked/blown through a portal created by an attempted tactical retreat that went off course. Hence why she can’t go home because she hasn’t learned how to do portals yet. Those are high level anyway so how did these guys pull it off so easily? Luz has a hard time blending in obviously. Learning how to use a phone was a fun endeavor. Internet was a trip. Luz is amazed how these people can do all this cool stuff without magic. Keep a low profile sure, she can pass off as a weird out of town kid. Keep the beanie on, underperform in gym and stuff because some things don’t change, like genetics. Someone sharp eyed will see discrepancies. The Beanie has a small Glamor spell built in that covers her witchy traits but she forgot the ears which is why it sits like it does. Luz can erase memories in case she has an accident, but it’s less of a 'remove my face from this picture with a scalpel’, and more of a 'lemme just hack off the past hour or three from your brain with an axe.’ If she tries to take any more then she starts burning into some more dangerous territory and those Wiped are groggy and disoriented for a while after already. Then the magic attacks start happening and her heroic instinct/anti-bystander complex kicks in and there goes that. It runs in the family so Camilla isn’t surprised in the slightest when she finds out.

“Oh titan, why did you curse me with another me?” “I’m right here Mami!”

Eda has a shack very akin to Grunkle Stan. Lots of junk that Lilith can’t believe that people are dumb enough to buy. She’s also involved in some not so legal dealings on the side. Well, Eda isn’t actually hurting anybody and the tax dollars she should be paying would only go towards some politicians’ next yacht or another pointless overseas 'investment’ instead of where it’s supposed to go so. Eda does give some good intel on occasion and a place to vent so Lillith overlooks her. Lil’s more of the secret police for witches and a petty crook isn’t part of her job anyway. Eda understands Luz’s predicament and is willing to help. The cover story is that Camilla work in hospitals and has to work crazy hours while her dad passed away so is living with Eda for a while. King is that kind of critter that grew up weird and acts like ten different animals all the time.

Gus is the nerdy kid who infodumps on everybody, even if they’re not listening. Loves anything fantasy/sci-fi related and plays Minecraft too. A good kid at heart, but needs some social skills. Keep him away from anything more sugary than tea. Luz learned a lot listening to him. Not all of it is entirely useful, but still. Some of his ramblings give her some good ideas for magic and stuff, like putting Glyphs on cards.

The Blights are the cool rich kids obviously, and have some discipline and social issues. Big family name makes them intimidating for normies and a meal ticket for the unsavory. These kids need real friends. They decided to act out to get some attention from the parents who then decided to ignore them. “If you’re going to act like a child tantrum, get treated like one.” Ed is perfect for Drama classes, if he were allowed to partake. Can’t decide what Em is great at, hacking perhaps? Amity’s car is an inheritance from the only family to treat her as such Twins aside, even if she’s too young to remember it. She only remembers that she has feelings surrounding the car. All three of them were pretty impressed with Luz for standing up to them, calling them out on their shit, and not giving a crap about their family name. Being treated like a normal person is pretty weird. Can we get her to do that again?

Amity tried dating Boscha once, didn’t work out very well. Boscha is still hurting over Amity’s comment of “I’d rather go date the new weird kid (Luz) than go back to you.” It’s one of the reasons she goes after Luz. She has that kind of Bud personality from Spider Man, feels lesser and so acts out so much.

“Wow, this new Witch is amazing. Not as cool as the original Witch.”

“What is it with the Witch with you?”

“Oh, she’s a hero. Looks out for the city and the little guy. She inspires me. Makes me want to be a bigger person. *sees Luz* What’s up Luz-er?”

And that’s what I got right now. I know there was more, but it’s lost to the void right now. Might come back later, maybe not. Lemme know what you think.

............

DAMN you weren’t lying when you said you had an info-dump this is *chefs kiss* you got me intrigued now

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jonghours · 3 years

Text

ATEEZ ZERO : Part 2 Diary

finally got around to make an analysis of the [ZERO: Part 2] Diary. These were all presented in chronological order, however blended Yunho and Mingi’s stories together since they are easier to understand that way. I’ll add some references I’ve found through it but it’ll mosty be a recapitulation of the ATEEZ storyline.

also never thought I’d say this but: death tw and.. drugs tw.. I guess?

INTRO

the intro starts where we left it last time. Hongjoong mentions that The Cromer shone but he and the members were still in the hideout. they are actually in an almost identical alternative universe now, but they don’t know that yet. then the Giants In White enter the hideout looking for The Cromer. we all know who that is

now, two things about this

1) even though we’ve only seen one man in white in every MV, here it’s said to be many of them

2) I’m not sure if they are supposed to be littleral giants or just.. big guys and they just gave them this cool name in translation. the term used is 거구 which is just a word for people with a very big build.

we’ll get back to these in a while tho

01 Hongjoong

Hongjoong has a “think fast moment” that let’s be honest, he’d never be able to pull off in real life so 0 for accuracy, and tries to find a way to keep The Cromer away from the giants, since he already knows they can’t go back home without it. Hongjoong then notices a piece of glass under his feet which he throws through a window, making the Giants believe it’s The Cromer so they can run away.

now I know that a lot of people’s minds went immediately to where mine did

I’m not sure about San’s scene, but Yeosang’s secene in ANSWER has always been a glimpse of something we were supposed to remember for later, so this might finally be it.

02 San

after they escape the hideout, ATEEZ manage to find their way through the dark since the surroundings are identical to their original world. he notices one thing that I just.... here we go again

“Visible palces were similar to the reality we knew, but also sligthtly different. Under the cliff where Wooyoung saved our Bobo in the past, there used to be a valley and a gigantic rock on top but there, no sounds of water could be heard nor could the gigantic rock be seen”

there it is, ladies and gentleman we got a Bobo update that has told us literally nothing. now I guess Bobo is an ATEEZ thing instead of an exclusive San thing, even though it belongs to him? I’m starting to think this is a pet, most probably.

03 Wooyoung

here the story goes from 0 to 100 really quickly so to summarize in order: while ATEEZ are resting, the Giants find them and start dragging Wooyoung by his anckle. the members rush to save him and so they lose the Cromer, which is taken by the Giants who run away after some rocks ?) start falling from the cave (I seriously need a map) A girl comes from between the rocks and tells them to follow her. she’s described as “matching the moonlight” whatever that means.

05 Seonghwa

the girl has a brother and they are.... sigh... the Grimes siblings...... anyways

the brother tells them the White Giants stole his sister’s voice, so she can’t speak anymore. and here is where we get the whole backstory and I mean the Whole backstory of this world completely dumped on us, so I’ll try to summarize it:

the Central Goverment blamed human emotions for war and crimes and terrorism so they stared a series of AI simulations to control them. they created a way of policing human emotions and banned the arts. then, a group of men in Black Fedoras appeared out of nowhere and started performing publicly, inspiring people to fight against the goverment and rebel against it, creating a group named the Black Pirates. The goverment tried to capture them but since they have a Cromer, they are able to escape them every time. However, after the goverment started using the Android Guardians (or the White Giants) the goverment finally caught them.

my theory is that the HALAteez that visits Hongjoong and gives him the Cromer, is a member of the Black Pirates that gave it to him before getting arrested.

I thought it was funny how at the end Seonghwa says “the Black Pirates don’t matter, what matters now is that we need The Cromer to go back home” like king that is literally you.

on the topic of the giants, this could be interpreted as two things:

1) The Man In White or White Giant we’ve seen until now can’t be any of the ATEEZ members, as they are just androids

2) we’ve seen ATEEZ in white before, so who knows. maybe the goverment created an exact copy of ATEEZ but given the fact they were never caught before creating them, that doesn’t seem possible

for the moment I’ll stand on the idea that they are not ATEEZ

05 Yeosang

this is just a big ass letter he’s writing to his dad. like ATEEZ are going though a big time crisis and Yeosang is here telepathically telling his dad he’s fine here and doesn’t want to go back home because he sucks big time. this is so in character 100/100

this is also the full version of the text hidden in his AR photocard. here we find out that ATEEZ were kicked out from their hideout and separated by Yeosang’s father

06 Mingi / 08 Mingi

ATEEZ decide to find the Android Guradians to take back The Cromer, but the only person who knows where they are is a man called Left Eye who manages the Strictland (seriously?) dump. this man used to have a daughter that was run over by a car, and because this is a world without human emotions, no one came to her aid and se passed away. this turned Left Eye into a broken lonely man that purposefully inhales the toxic fumes at the dump he works at because he can meet the illusion of his daughter while he’s under its effects.

Yunho feels sympathy towards him because it reminds him of his brother, while Mingi is a little bit more worried that their lives are in the hands of a man that can barely function and is intoxicated 24/7

ATEEZ have split into two groups now:

members who will go into the “pile of trash that looks like a cave” to find the girls voice (Jongho and Yeosang)

members who will convince Left Eye to find the location of the Android Bunker (Mingi is here)

now, this Left Eye has kind of finally helped me to make sense out fo some clues we were given a long time ago

1. the eye sticker on WONDERLAD

2. Hongjoong’s signature eye gesture

and if we assume AURORA is part of the ATEEZ universe, this shot of Hongjoong’s (left) eye in which he can see himself and the other members lost in the woods at night, just like in the Diary after they arrive at the new world

07 Jongho

Jongho, who is in the group that decided to find the voice, enters the cave with the toxic fumes wearing a (useless) gas mask and a rope tied around his waist. However, the moment he enters the cave the fumes filter through the mask and he finds himself in the basketball court, playing like he used to before he permanently hurt his leg. he forgets about what he’s supposed to be doing, and even convinces himself that all the memories he has after he stopped playing basketball are all a lie or a bad dream.

OUTRO

after Jongho’s rope stops moving, Yeosang goes inside the cave to help him. Left Eye starts attacking the members, so they lure him to a fume-free space, which only infuriates him even more after the illusion of his daughter disappears. then Yunho literally yells “your daughter is dead” in a very “she doesn’t even go here” moment, which prompts Left Eye to swing a bat at him while saying he’s gonna kill him

finally, once Yeosang finds Jongho, he’s so intoxicated with the illusion that he runs towards a cliff

the end

I do believe that the fumes that create the illusion are the ones causing.. well, ILLUSION, which we’ve all known was just a dream for a long time. it also fits with the cave seen at the end of the MV, which now can be interpreted as all of them running towards the cliff I guess.... fun!!

we’ve also seen the mist which now we could interpret as “fumes” in other MVs that have an.. otherwordly feeling

the strange hallway in SMN

the entire UTOPIA MV

and Mingi’s scenes in ANSWER

#finally.. have this askjdfhksda #ateez #ateez theory

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 3 years

Text

Another One?!, Part 2

First > Next

Years passed them by. It’s funny how that happens when no one in the house has a distinct schedule to follow.

The hours blending together was actually really good for them as vigilantes. People couldn’t just plan around their normal patrolling hours.

Also, it meant that they could take days off without anyone thinking much of it.

Like today.

He glared at his reflection, touching his hair for the millionth time in an attempt to fix it. Or, rather, un-fix it. He was going for a messier look, why couldn’t he just get it to cooperate?

He gave his wife a pleading look. “Help?”

She clicked her tongue and looked him up and down a few times to get a gauge for his outfit (which he had purposely made too vague for her to get an idea of what they were doing) then rested her hands on her hips. “Well, I’d love to help…”

“But…?”

“But I can’t use my expertise unless I know where we’re going. There’s certain looks for different occasions, after all.”

He sighed. “C’mon…”

She bit her lip. “Fine. Just tell me how formal I need to be.”

“Casual…” He hesitated as he mulled it over. “But not jeans casual, more like day-dress casual. And wear darker colors, you could get stains on it.”

“There, was that so hard?”

He raised his eyebrow at her. “Considering I’m sure you’ve now guessed the surprise, I’m going to say yes.”

She gave him a cheeky grin and a wink.

He pouted. Man. He’d been so careful about keeping everything a secret from her. It was their tenth anniversary, he’d wanted to surprise her. He’d pulled out all the stops, even using cash for the tickets so she wouldn’t have an easy way to trace the payments.

Only to have it spoiled because of his hair.

Dang.

Then, she laughed and he thought that maybe it wasn’t so bad that she’d found out. The smile was worth it.

She reached up and started running her fingers through his hair. “As always, your problem is that you use too much hair gel… you never learn, do you…?”

“Maybe I do it on purpose to make you mess with my hair.”

She gave him a skeptical look and then pulled away. “Done. Time to get ready for… a carnival…? No… a circus.”

He pouted.

Marinette gave him another one of those laughs before slipping into the bathroom to change.

Two hours later they sat in a circus tent. Front-row seats, of course, they weren’t stingy.

She rested her head on his shoulder as they waited for everything to start. He stole some of her popcorn and smiled at the halfhearted glare he earned. His smile dropped when she dropped some onto his head. He pulled away from her to try and pick the pieces out.

“C’mon, Mari, my hair took so long. The paparazzi always checks on us on our anniversaries. I’m a model, you can’t do this to me --.”

And then the lights dimmed. And the ringmaster walked out.

The both of them tensed. The crowd was buzzing with excitment, but the two vigilantes gave each other wary looks. The ringmaster seemed almost anxious, his knuckles white on his cane.

Still, he gave a brilliant smile to the crowd as he announced the first act.

They relaxed the longer they watched. Nothing seemed to be going wrong, the contortionist was absolutely fine. So was the person doing aerial silks, and the clowns, the snake charmer…

Maybe the ringmaster was just new. He seemed to be growing more and more confident with each act. False alarm.

But then the trapeze artists came onstage.

Marinette murmured something about their outfits that he didn’t catch but knew was insulting.

The young performer smiled and waved to the crowd, then started climbing the opposite ladder as his parents.

The mom grabbed ahold of the trapeze and smiled as she hooked her knees over the bar, then held her hands out for her husband. The man jumped out and caught her hands.

And then the wire snapped.

The couple barely had a chance to scream before they hit the dirt.

The tent was completely silent.

And then the chaos started. Parents rushed to cover their kids’ eyes, people stumbled over each other as they ran, others surged forward to see better.

He could feel Marinette hop the railing in front of them to go check their pulses. There was no need, everyone could see it plainly, but she still tried.

Adrien didn’t move, his eyes locked on the kid.

He was standing there. He was hugging himself tightly, shaking, tears spilling over his cheeks.

He needed help.

A hand wrapped around his wrist. Marinette was pulling him out of the tent. He didn’t want to leave the kid alone but he couldn’t do that as Adrien Agreste. They needed to transform.

It took way too long to find a hiding place because people were already hiding in every obvious place they could think of. After a while they just broke into a trailer and dropped some money on the counter as an apology, unable to waste any more time.

They ran back into the tent and found that, to their horror, the police were there already.

Marinette mumbled a curse. “You deal with the kid, I’m going to steal some evidence before they get rid of it all.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek and then practically disappeared.

Adrien found his way over to the child, who had been covered in a shock blanket. They flinched when he got closer and he gave his most award-winning smile as he held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, I don’t want to hurt you, I promise.”

They looked kind of skeptical, but they did scoot over a little on their bench so he could sit down.

He sat as far away as he could, setting his baton at his feet carefully. “What’s your name, kiddo?”

His eyes never wavered from the front of the tent. It was like he was waiting for something or someone, but Adrien couldn’t guess what.

“Dick.”

“Well, Dick, do you have any family that I can take you to?”

Maybe that was what he was waiting for --?

“No.”

His smile disappeared. Ah. Not great.

He followed his gaze to the door and mulled everything over.

The kid didn’t seem to be in much of a rush, the shock was wearing off but it would still make the passage of time kind of weird for him. Adrien could take the time to think his next words through.

He’d met kids who had lost their last remaining family members before. Sometimes Marinette and Adrien just couldn’t get there in time and she wouldn’t be able to bring them back. It was an inevitable and unfortunately common part of their jobs. But every single time felt like a punch to the gut.

But he couldn’t let that show, not really.

He watched the kid out of the corner of his eyes. You always base your approach on how the kid is reacting in the moment. Some wanted open comfort, but this one didn’t want that if the way he’d flinched when Adrien had come close was any indication. Others wanted to just talk, also not going to happen considering the short answers he’d been given thus far. This kid seemed to just want to be left alone, but leaving a child in a vulnerable state was never a good idea.

So, what was he supposed to do?

He sighed. “I’m really sorry about what happened, these kinds of accidents --.”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

Adrien blanked. “Sorry?”

“It wasn’t an accident.” Dick hugged the blanket tighter around himself. “There was two guys. Mean-looking. Tried to get Mr. Haly to do some… protection payments? Left all mad and stuff. Said they would get paid or get payback.”

He was so shocked that the kid had given an answer with more than a few words in it that his brain buzzed right past the information he was given and he had to backtrack to actually process it.

And, when he did, his fists clenched.

“Did they mention any names?” He asked quietly, fighting to keep his voice level. This was still a kid who needs help, he couldn’t allow his anger to mess that up.

“Zucco.”

Adrien filed that information away for later and then gave the kid a once-over. They were no longer staring at the door, instead just fidgeting under their blanket. It was good that they were coming out of shock, but he doubted that Dick would see it that way. The numbness would be wearing off soon, and the feelings that would come to take its place would be painful.

He did the only thing he could think of: try and distract the kid. Good to see he’s passing on the unhealthy coping mechanisms.

“Hey, are you going to stay in the circus?”

“Can I?” Said Dick. He didn’t seem all that excited, just confused. As if he hadn’t thought that an option.

Adrien shrugged. “I mean, there’s that whole thing about ‘running away and joining the circus’. Even if they force you into an orphanage, you can probably just come back here.”

“I hear orphanages suck.”

True. He doubted that Dick would get the mental health treatment he needed (if he got any at all) and the money at those kinds of places were always stretched thin, especially in Gotham. He didn’t like the idea of sending the kid there, but what other choices did he have?

Before he could really think of an answer a hand clapped itself over his shoulder.

He barely even looked back. He knew who it was going to be. He fought back a groan.

“Ross,” he said, the smile on his face becoming more strained. He wasn’t going to fight in front of Dick, the kid was already stressed enough. “Nice to see you again.”

The cop didn’t seem all that concerned about niceties, his grip tightening on Adrien’s shoulder. “Get away from my witness.”

“He has a name. And he doesn’t know anything. Leave him alone.”

Dick frowned. “But I --.”

Marinette popped up out of nowhere, arms crossed over her chest as she openly glared at the officer. “You guys should keep better track of the evidence you actually do have, someone might take it.”

Officer Ross went pale and then ran to his partner to ask where the evidence was.

Adrien was also pale, though for different reasons. This kid didn’t know that the police were corrupt and that telling them anything would likely end in him getting killed? He couldn’t let that happen. Where could he keep him that they wouldn’t check? An orphanage or the circus wouldn’t work, those would be the first places they’d go…

He brought a smile to his face as he carefully leaned towards the kid. To his delight, he didn’t flinch or lean away. Progress!

“Hey, I’ve got some friends that I think I can give you to. Good people. They’ll take care of you until we can find something more permanent, sound good?”

Dick looked a little skeptical but he nodded.

Adrien carefully scooped the kid up in his arms and looked at his wife. “I’m going to take him, you can go home for the night and relax.” He sent her a discreet wink.

She smiled faintly and gave Dick a tiny wave before slipping out of the tent.

Good. She’d understood.

She had definitely not understood.

You see, winks are ambiguous.

Adrien’s wink had meant ‘Get home and brush up on your acting skills because we need to sell this’.

She had thought his wink had meant ‘It’s our anniversary and we shouldn’t be working anyways. Go ahead and head home, we’ve already done too much and I want to relax with my darling wife’.

So, when she’d gotten home she’d detransformed and slipped into some comfy pajamas and plopped herself down on the couch to watch some TV.

And then the door had opened.

She’d smiled and poked her head up. “Back already? That was quick --.”

Adrien was still holding Dick to himself.

Tikki gave a quiet gasp of surprise and zipped between the couch cushions.

Her husband smiled. “Hey, can I cash in a favor?”

Marinette opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, and then pursed her lips tightly. She couldn’t exactly say ‘no’, because now that she thought about it they really didn’t have any other options (kids have a tendency to have no filter and this one seemed to lack any common sense at all if she was judging by his outfit)...

Didn’t mean she couldn’t be bitter. They should have had more of a conversation about this than a wink, and she was going to tell him that:

“I don’t know, Chat, my husband isn’t here right now. This is the kind of thing you’re supposed to discuss with your partner.”

Adrien winced almost imperceptibly and had the decency to look sheepish. “I’m sure he’d be fine with it. Please, I have nowhere else I can take him.”

She bit her lip and looked at the kid, then squeezed her eyes shut.

There was a more selfish reason that they both wanted to do this…

They wanted kids. It had just never really been an option for them. If she wanted to get pregnant, she would pretty much have to give up crime-fighting for those nine months (and possibly permanently, that stuff has long-term effects). They couldn’t really bring themselves to adopt, either, because their lives were hectic and every single book in the world says that adoptees need a stable home.

She couldn’t let their wishes cloud their judgment. She was supposed to be the rational one. They would certainly mess this kid up, taking him wasn’t an option…

But leaving him wasn’t an option…

And it was kind of like the universe was dropping Dick into their laps…

Dick started to sniffle, bringing a hand up to wipe his eyes. Damn. She’d taken too long and now he felt rejected.

Her heart clenched. The kid didn’t deserve this...

“I… we can take him… but only temporarily. We need to find a better home for him eventually.”

It was best that none of them got their hopes up. This wasn’t a good solution, just the only one they could think of at the moment. At some point they’d think of a better one, and they’d have to do that.

Adrien and Dick both nodded.

Marinette slowly walked over and leaned down slightly to be at the kid’s eye level. “I’m Marinette Agreste. What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Richard. You can call me Dick, though.”

Listen. She wasn’t proud of what she’d said. But she’d never heard it before -- she was far less social than Adrien was -- and, really, how do you get the name ‘Dick’ from ‘Richard’?

“I don’t think you understand how much I cannot do that.”

Adrien had had to set Dick down, he was laughing so hard.

When he came home (as Adrien, this time), he was surprised to see Marinette stress baking.

He wasn’t sure why he was surprised, adopting a child is a stressful situation even if you had been expecting it. And they definitely had not been expecting it.

He watched her bake for a moment in the doorway.

She clicked her tongue. “Are you just going to watch me bake or are you going to come inside? Or do I have to make a ‘look what the cat dragged in’ joke everytime I see you, now?”

He smiled and took a seat on the counter. “What’re you making?”

“Cookies.” She turned around for some flour and then sent him a half-hearted glare when she saw him sitting next to it. “I was using that counter.”

“Unfortunate.”

Marinette clicked her tongue again and then moved to another spot. “When...” She grimaced a little. “When… the kid wakes up from a nightmare -- because there’s no way that he wouldn’t have one after tonight -- I’d like to at least have something sweet ready for him. I know we’re not his parents or whatever, but he should at least feel welcome while he’s here.”

He sobered a little, pulling a knee to his chest. “The whole vigilante thing… we’re going to have to put it on hold for a little while, you know…”

“There’s no way we can properly take care of a kid and be Chat Noir and Ladybug. Or, at least, we’d need to make some changes.” She procured a whisk out of seemingly nowhere and started whisking the batter.

He raised his eyebrows. “Changes?”

“We could take shifts. I’d take night shifts as Ladybug and day shifts parenting the kid. You do the opposite.”

“We’d burn out,” said Adrien with a sigh.

“Well, what are we supposed to do? Give the city over to Superman? Guy is shady enough as it is.”

He rolled his eyes. “He’s not shady, you just can’t handle people being nice to you.”

“MY POINT IS that we can’t just stop protecting the city. Especially not if the mob is going after circuses of all things.”

“Yeah, why are they doing that? Is there really money from circuses? Aren’t they all going out of fashion because of that whole ‘animal abuse’ thing most of them have going on?”

“As they should,” she murmured. She finished whisking and started searching for something in the drawers. She procured a scoop and started making rows of cookies. “But, probably, smuggling. No one bats an eye when circuses cross borders, that’s kind of their whole thing.”

He nodded slowly. “Fair enough. Still seems like a hassle, especially now that they’re probably going to be more heavily regulated because those people died.”

“Well, hopefully their sacrifice won’t be in vain. The bit of trapeze wire I stole from the police might give us some leads on the guy’s pseuds.”

“Are you calling up Nygma?”

She shrugged and set the cookies in the oven. “Kinda. He hasn’t done anything in three months, so he’s due any day now. I’ll talk to him about it after saving whoever he captured this time… unless you want to talk to him instead?”

He grinned. “No, I could never go instead of you. You like making fun of his outfit too much.”

“Awwww, thanks, Chaton,” she cooed. She took a seat next to him and pressed a short kiss to his lips. “You know me so well.”

“Well, we’ve been partners for fifteen years. You’d hope I’d know you by now.”

She smiled faintly and leaned into him. She watched the timer tick down for a little while in silence, biting her lip.

“What’s wrong?”

“I mean, even if the trapeze was sabotaged, what are the chances that the acid is something special that we can trace to him? One of us is going to have to go undercover.”

He raised his eyebrows. “And leave Dick alone?”

“There’s no way Zucco is only going after this one place. We can’t take back what’s happened to him, but we can at least make sure he’s the only one to have to go through this.”

Adrien frowned. She was right, though he hated it. While they had given themselves the obligation of taking care of Dick, they couldn’t just drop everything for him. Especially considering their jobs.

“Okay, M’lady, what’s the plan?”

“Well, I hear that the circus is looking for new trapeze artists.”

She smiled as she set the last of the cookies in the Tupperware and started heading towards Dick’s new room.

Her conversation with Adrien had gone a lot better than she was expecting, honestly. She’d explained her reasoning for why it would be safe now and he’d, however reluctantly, agreed that she’d made sense.

She decided she’d wait a few days for everything to end up in the news properly before asking to join the circus. After all, it would be suspicious if she called just a few hours after a tragedy.

She stopped outside the former guest room and considered knocking… and then decided she’d better not. On the off chance that Dick wasn’t having a nightmare, she didn’t want to wake him.

She pressed the door open and then stopped cold when she saw that the kid was crying.

Marinette glanced behind her, wondering if she could get away with just walking past and acting like she was going to the bathroom or something. She wasn’t good with emotions, not with people close to her. Random people on the street were fine, people she’d never have to interact with again were fine, but this…

She was not nearly as good as Adrien… but Adrien was asleep, the fucker...

“Miss Marinette?” Said the kid.

She winced mentally and reached along the wall for the light. “Yes, sweetie, it’s me.”

The light flicked on and she saw Dick duck his head so his hair would hide his face.

“I brought cookies,” she said awkwardly as she walked over and took a seat on the edge of his bed. “I didn’t know what you’d like, so I just went with chocolate chip.”

He nodded slightly and mumbled his thanks as he took the Tupperware from her.

She bit her lip as he nibbled at her cookies, and then couldn’t help but smile at the way his posture relaxed a little.

“These are good.”

“My parents were bakers. I’d have been disowned if I couldn’t make chocolate chip cookies.”

He cracked the tiniest of smiles.

She floundered again in the new silence. There’s a difference between comfortable silences and awkward ones and this was definitely feeling more on the awkward side.

“I could teach you to bake, if you’d like. I doubt you had time to learn on the road.”

He hesitated. “I’d burn the place down.”

“That’s okay. If I could teach Adrien to cook then there’s hope for anyone.”

She had not, in fact, been able to teach Adrien to cook. He had set the entire kitchen on fire in what they now called The Brownie Incident… but Dick didn’t need to know that.

He smiled a little more and leaned back against the bed frame, still eating cookies. He had to be on his third one by now. She wasn’t going to call him out on it, though.

She glanced him over. He was no longer really hiding his face, and the tears had stopped sliding down his cheeks. He seemed content. She didn’t want to drag any feelings back, but...

“Would you like to talk about your nightmare?” She asked quietly.

“No.”

She winced internally. “Okay. Would you like me to leave?”

“No.”

Marinette let a little bit of surprise show on her face for just a second before slowly scooting over to lay next to him. She took a cookie he offered her and closed her eyes, relaxing a little.

“Are you going to sleep again?”

“No.”

“That’s okay. Do you want that baking lesson now?”

Dick giggled a little. “But we already have cookies…”

“Well, we don’t have any cakes, now, do we? Or brownies. And there’s other types of cookies!”

She peeked an eye open and couldn’t help but smile a little at the grin on the kid’s face at the mention of all the possibilities.

Then he gave her a suspicious look. “Are you trying to fatten me up like an evil witch?”

“Yes,” she said gravely. “I adopt little circus kids and fatten them up to eat. The entire house is actually made of candy.”

To her surprise and slight horror, he actually brought the corner of his blanket to his mouth. Then he spat it out. “Liar!”

“I…” She trailed off. She didn’t know how to respond to that. Moving on. “So, about that baking thing, how do brownies sound?”

He grabbed her by the sleeve of her pajama shirt and pulled her out into the halls with a bright smile. She had to do a half-jog to keep up with him.

“Shhhh, Mister Adrien is asleep!” He stage-whispered.

She scoffed. “Me?! You’re the one running!”

“Shhhhhhhhh!”

Marinette clicked her tongue once and allowed him to pull her into a full on jog as they raced through the house. Really, it was a testament to how tired he was that Adrien didn’t wake up.

She grinned and offered him a hand to get up on the counter, and then was reminded of the fact that he was a literal trapeze artist as he vaulted off of her hand and jumped over her head to get to it.

She whispered a quiet “holy shit” in English, then covered her mouth with her hand. She and Adrien had a sort of unspoken rule that you can only curse in English, it’s just a weird thing that bilingual households do where cursing in the second language just doesn’t count, but now this was an actual kid who spoke (as far as she was aware) only English. She can’t teach him curse words!

But he didn’t seem to hear it, instead smiling as he reached towards the sink and started cleaning his hands.

She washed her hands after him and then started pulling down things to make brownies. Should she do chocolate chips or just cocoa powder…?

She remembered The Brownie Incident.

She shivered.

Cocoa powder. Definitely cocoa powder.

She put some butter in the microwave.

“What does ‘holy shit’ mean?”

She wheezed. “Uh-- I-- um--.”

“I’m just messing with you. I already know.”

Oh thank fuck.

Well, maybe not. She was kind of glad that he was feeling comfortable enough to joke around with her, but… the idea of him secretly being a little shit, while not necessarily surprising, was a bit worrying.

“Okay… good? Just… don’t swear in front of Adrien. I don’t really care, but if he hears you he might think I taught you… so it’s just our little secret, okay?”

He smiled and made a zipping motion across his lips. She copied the motion.

Aw, she’d almost forgotten how cute kids were when they weren’t in dangerous or sad situations.

The microwave beeped and she hummed as she combined the butter, cocoa, and sugar. She stirred a bit and then handed Dick the eggs.

“Here, you can crack three of them into the bowl. Do you know how to do that?”

He huffed. “Yes!”

He, in fact, did not know how to do that.

She watched in open-mouthed horror as he attempted to just pull the egg open without cracking it.

“N… no, sweetie. You need to break it on the counter, first.”

He nodded and then slammed the egg on the counter.

Marinette wiped some egg off of the front of her shirt and then took a few breaths to steady herself. Now that the shock had worn off, she was very tempted to laugh and she was not going to do that to this poor, confused kid.

“I think I did it wrong.”

She snickered and then coughed to cover it up. “I… yes. I’ll show you how to do it.”

He gave a tiny smile as she took his hand and taught him how to crack an egg. He repeated the process with the other two eggs and she worked at cleaning up the mess he’d made.

… how the fuck was there egg on the wall? That was a good seven feet away from the island they were cooking on. Sure, he had to be strong to be an acrobat, but what the fuck?

She sighed and set the napkin done now that he was done and smiled as she added the vanilla, salt, and flour.

She handed him a spatula.

“Stir. Go wild, kid,” she said,

Big mistake.

Dick took her words to heart, and she watched as he stirred madly, batter flying everywhere.

She laughed, only to get splashed with the batter.

She managed to stop his hand and sent him a tiny glare.

“I'm starting to think you’re doing this on purpose.”

“Whaaaat? No.”

She narrowed her eyes slightly, and then gasped when he lobbed a tiny bit of batter at her shirt.

“Oops,” he said, giving her a feral grin.

Marinette couldn’t help but smile back… then she reached past him and grabbed a handful of flour. She flicked her fingers and smiled when it got on his face.

He pouted and started rubbing his eyes. “Ow…”

Panic.

“Oh, sorry, did I get it in your eyes?” She leaned down. “Let me see.”

He nodded and slowly brought his hands away from his face and she checked his eyes with her fingers carefully --.

Only to feel an egg smash itself on top of her head.

She wiped some egg from her face and narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll get you for that one, you traitor!”

He squealed and set the batter down, then did a backroll away from her.

Marinette and Dick grabbed their weapons…

An hour later, they were both breathing heavily.

“Truce?” She said, lowering her flour-covered arm.

He nodded slowly… and then threw an egg at her.

She dodged it easily and glared at him, her hand already reaching for her flour again —.

“Now truce! Now truce.”

She hesitated, then clicked her tongue as she let herself relax.

They looked around the mess that was the kitchen... at the batter still somehow untouched on the counter… the oven, which hadn’t even been preheated yet…

“Do you just want to eat the batter?”

“Let me get some spoons.”

A few hours later, Adrien walked in… only to stop short when he saw his wife and new kid there, covered in cooking ingredients. Dick had fallen asleep with his head on her shoulder. She was fine with this, there was still some batter left.

“Um…?”

“Brownies are cursed,” she told him, then she took another spoonful.

“What?” Said a bewildered and still half-asleep Adrien.

She looked her husband dead in the eye as she pulled the spoon from her mouth with a tiny ‘pop’.

“Brownies are cursed.”

Adrien felt bad homeschooling the kid.

Really, it had brought him a lot of grief growing up. He hadn’t known anyone besides Chloe and Kagami until he was twelve years old.

But, as it turned out, Dick really needed to be homeschooled.

On top of just… having no formal education whatsoever and his general knowledge being a toss of the dice, it was also the middle of the school year and everyone knows you can’t just dump new kids into a class halfway through.

Adrien tipped his head back against his chair and closed his eyes.

Dick was taking a test to see what he had to teach him, but he wasn’t concerned about the kid cheating. What was he going to do? Sneak away, grab a textbook, and start flipping through it without him noticing?

He sighed.

The kid was… weird.

He was always smiling, always in motion, always affectionate. It was something they’d figured out quickly, but it had taken longer to notice that he was only like that when he was talking about things he actually wanted to. If they asked how he was doing, because it had only really been a week since it had happened, he would clam up and start semi-subtly shifting the conversation away.

He was avoiding his problems. And Marinette and Adrien really didn’t know what to do. He had stolen their unhealthy coping mechanism and now they were forced to stand back and watch as the kid destroyed himself the same way they did. And they knew it was a terrible coping mechanism, even Dick might have known it, but what were they supposed to do? They had been around much longer and they hadn’t found a better mechanism, what could they do for Dick?

He peeked an eye open and looked at the kid, who was chewing on the end of his pen as he thought through the question he was on.

… damn, he was actually going to have to learn how to cope, huh?

So, that afternoon, he passed Dick off to Marinette like a baton in a relay race and took a bus to the bookstore.

The psychology section was huge and filled to the brim with case studies. It was honestly daunting to look at. Instead, he made his way to the clerk.

The woman looked him up and down once. “Rough week?”

“You have no idea,” he muttered. “Can I have some recommendations for books on adoption, parenting, and coping with trauma? And also a highlighter, that would probably help.”

He skimmed through the parenting and adoption books. He and Marinette had already done this a few years back when they had first been considering kids, he was mostly just getting a refresher.

And then he turned to the five books on coping mechanisms he’d bought.

He took a deep breath and started looking methodically reading his way through it, highlighter in hand.

The next day, he found Dick, who was drumming his fingers on the table as he glared at the textbook in front of him.

Adrien had some suspicions about the kid in front of him, though he wasn’t absolutely sure yet. Still, he figured he should test his theory.

Besides, it would also help keep the kid safe and physical activity was one of the things a book on coping mechanisms had suggested.

Multi-tasking!

Or maybe it was just efficiency…

Whatever!

He smiled. “Hey, kid, want to try something different for today’s lesson?”

Dick looked up, frowning. “Like what?”

“Well… how do you feel about learning self-defense?”

“Where are you going?” Asked Dick with a tiny frown as she started bustling around the living room in search of her shoes.

“Uh… work!” She said.

They’d both agreed that telling Dick that she was going to go do the exact job his parents had just died in was a terrible idea, so they’d thought up a cover story… too bad she couldn’t think of it at the moment. She finally saw her shoes tucked under the couch and dove down to grab them, then sent her kid a smile.

“Have a good day, sweetie, I’ll see you later,” she said, walking over and pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

She ducked out the door and started running all over again. Her eyes found their way to her watch. It was a tryout and she was going to be late…

But she wasn’t.

Barely.

She stumbled inside with one minute to spare, panting, and it took everything in her not to slump over the nearest bench and die.

“Hi,” she wheezed at Haly, who raised his eyebrows slightly at her.

“You’re really cutting it close, here. Have anything to say for yourself?”

She rested a hand over her heart as if that would somehow bring it back to normal. “I need a fucking car.”

Haly paused, then nodded. “That explains that. I’ll let you off with a warning that you should try not to be late again.”

“Oka --.” She stopped, and then looked at him. “I got the job?”

He shrugged and pointed around at the empty tent. “You’re the only one here.”

Wow. She’d suspected that people would be less than eager to take the job offer, but to be the only person…

Well, she figured that she should just be thankful. That made things much easier.

She smiled faintly. “Cool. Should I still show you my skills and everything?”

He motioned to the trapeze. There was a net under it. The man had learned his lesson, at least. “Please.”

It turns out that being Ladybug is really helpful when you want to be a trapeze artist.

Actually, she found that being a trapeze artist was actually easier in some ways. Instead of having to hold tight to one thin string when swinging around, she was able to get a proper grip on a bar.

It was a lot of fun. Recently, she’d been using her cane more. Having a yoyo was impractical as a weapon when people were firing guns, so she’d more or less stopped using it. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to feel the wind in her hair. It was calming...

Also, she got to show off, which was always fun.

She stopped after a few minor tricks and gave a bow to Haly, who seemed to just be glad that she actually had an idea of what she was doing.

“You’ll need about a month of training before you do any shows. Do you have any other expertise?”

She shook her head. It was a lie, she would probably be good with aerial silks or contortionism, but she felt some weird need to do the trapeze…

Just then, her phone buzzed.

She glanced at it and read the news headline.

She groaned and turned to Haly. “Can I have a minute? I need to take this.”

The man nodded.

She scowled as she stepped out and dialled a number.

“NYGMA.”

“Ladybug!” Riddler said cheerfully. She could hear a woman sobbing in the background. “What’s up? Did you see the news?”

“Yes, I saw. I’m at a job interview!”

The smile in the man’s voice disappeared as he spoke next: “Oh, I’m sorry. I can reschedule the death trap.”

“YOU CAN, CAN YOU?”

“Yep! How does tomorrow sound?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to relax. “I can do tomorrow. Thank you. And let go of the poor lady, will you?”

“Fiiiiine.”

She hung up on him and then stepped back inside, giving Haly her brightest smile.

“I can start working in two days, if that sounds good to you.”

Adrien hesitated.

Really, he should be getting Marinette to train Dick on self-defense. They had similar movement styles…

But his hunch had been right. This kid seemed to learn a lot better when he was multitasking and, as much as he loved his wife, he didn’t think her English was good enough to teach someone else.

And, besides, he wanted to spend time with his kid, dang it!

He stopped Dick before he could throw another punch at the dummy to fix his form. “I know putting power into it is hard when you’re so little, but you need to rotate your hips so you can get at least some kind of force behind it.”

The kid pouted. “But this is so boooooooring. It’s just the same thing over and over again! I want to do cool stuff!”

“Not yet. You have to understand the basics before you start messing with it.”

Dick gave another pout, this time adding puppy-dog eyes, but, unfortunately for him, Adrien had never been fond of dogs. He raised his eyebrows, unimpressed.

The kid groaned and started punching the pads again.

“I before E, except after C, or when sounding like A, as in neighbor and…”

It didn’t take long for Marinette to notice The Guy.

She had a pretty good vantage point from the ladder to her trapeze. She would stop at the top, her hands up in a salute, and pause for ‘dramatic effect’.

Her eyes flicked over the crowd and locked on the face of The Guy.

He was at every show, his face pulled into a bored frown as he rested his head on his hand. He’d sit there the whole time, watching the same performance over and over again, and then leave the moment the show was over.

She pursed her lips for half a second before bringing her face back to its smile.

She’d brought a camera this time. This time she’d be able to get his face so she and Adrien could get information on him.

But, for now, she concentrated on making the first jump to the trapeze…

She sat down after her act, still breathing heavily. She was in shape… but, kwami, that kind of stuff is hard! Still, she couldn’t help but smile. She hadn’t been challenged in a while. It was kind of fun.

She wondered, vaguely, if this was what she’d be doing if she hadn’t gone back into crime fighting.

Marinette pushed that thought from her head as she downed her water. It wasn’t the time. She only had a few more minutes before she was on again for the outro. She needed the picture now.

She grabbed her camera from her locker and snuck her way to the stands, and pointed her camera --.

The Guy had spotted her. He looked directly at her camera, his face set in an even deeper frown than usual.

She quickly snapped the picture, then darted back behind the curtain. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. Shit! Shitshitshit --!

Okay. Breathe.

He wasn’t going to just kill her. If the way they’d offed the Graysons was any indication, they didn’t want to draw too much attention to the circus. It was unfortunate what had happened, but not suspicious. However, the trapeze was new and there was a net. An accident like that couldn’t happen again.

No, they’d probably wait until after the show. That would be fine. She could deal with that. At least then she could stall until she had energy by waiting with someone.

She felt a hand tap her shoulder and looked over at the contortionist. “Time?”

“Time,” he said simply.

She hid the camera and ran out with him, smiling like she wasn’t about to face off with a mobster.

Two hours later, she stepped into her train car and crossed her arms over her chest. “Right, I know you’re in here,” she said quietly.

Or, at least, she hoped so. Because otherwise she would be looking a little silly --.

Wait, a knife pressed to her neck. Maybe she wished she was wrong.

She clicked her tongue and leaned into her attacker, closing her eyes. “You Americans still say ‘yo’, right?”

The Guy tensed a little under her, and then whispered a confused, “No…?”

She huffed. “Damn. Why do you change your greetings so often? Whatever. Kaalki, a little help would be nice.”

“Who --?” Began The Guy, but he was quickly cut off.

Because a portal opened under them and dumped them into a back alley in Gotham.

Marinette grinned and grabbed his arm, using his confusion to lean forward and flip him over her shoulder. He cursed as his back hit the ground and the blade clattered to the floor.

She grabbed it nonchalantly and her eyes flicked over the hilt.

A name was engraved there.

Zucco.

“You mob people make this too easy. Now, tell me everything you know.”

He glared up at her. “They’ll kill me!”

“And what gave you the impression that I wouldn’t?” She twirled the knife in her fingers. “Quickly, please, I have a kid to get back to.”

A half hour later, he had spilled everything he knew.

And his guts…

She rolled off of him and glanced at the bloodied dagger in her hand. Her nose scrunched up as she dropped it beside him. There. Now it looked like a mob hit.

She pushed herself to her feet and dusted herself off, only to groan at the sight of the blood staining her front.

She gave the corpse a kick as she cursed him out:

“Asshole. I liked these clothes!”

He smiled as he pulled his wife into his side.

Dick had finally gone to bed, so it was just them two. For once.

Marinette had a show in an hour that she needed to portal back for, and Adrien needed to go out as Chat Noir soon, but they didn’t want to get up just yet.

She yawned and curled closer to him. “I guess…” She yawned again. “I guess I should tell you what I found out. Which is basically nothing. Apparently, hardly anyone has ever seen Zucco in person, just the higher ups. He just sends people to do his bidding.”

He groaned and buried his face in her hair. “Great. Did you at least give the sample to Nygma when you saw him yesterday?”

“Obviously.” Her watch beeped and she mumbled a curse. “Alright, I have to go.”

“Nooooooo.”

“Yeeees,” she said, gently pushing his chest until he let go. She stretched out a bit and then walked to the bedroom door.

It swung open before she even touched the knob.

Dick was standing in the doorway, hugging a Chat Noir doll to his chest. “I had a nightmare. Can I sleep with you guys?”

Marinette glanced at her watch and then at the kid and then at her watch again.

“Or are you guys both going out again?”

Adrien winced. “You noticed that?”

“It’s, like, every night,” he said irritably. He sighed and wiped his eyes a little bit. “Fine. I’ll just go lay down again.”

She bit her lip and then leaned down to look him in the eyes. “I’ll be back in four hours, okay, sweetie? Can you handle that?”

Dick looked at the ground. “Sure.”

Marinette grimaced. “I’m sorry.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I’ll be back soon.”

They could hear the coatrack hit the ground in her hurry to grab her jacket and get out the door.

Adrien sighed and looked at Dick, who was still standing in the doorway.

He really should be going on patrol. The people of Gotham had begun to notice that Chat Noir and Ladybug had been showing up less frequently. Crime rates were rising…

He laid back in bed and opened his arms. “I won’t leave. Come here.”

Dick gave a tiny smile, though it seemed a little forced. Still, he got into bed and curled up in Adrien’s arms.

“Would you like to talk about it?” He tried.

“No.”

He sighed. “You’re going to have to talk about it, eventually. Avoiding it is just going to make it harder to deal with later.”

“Nope.”

He gave a tiny laugh. Dang. This kid really was just them but younger. Now all he needed was a miraculous and he’d be a perfect mini version of them…

“Where do you guys even go?” Asked Dick, his voice muffled in Adrien’s chest.

“Work,” he said after a few minutes’ deliberation.

“I thought you didn’t really have jobs.”

He laughed quietly. “Marinette has a million jobs, and I have my one. Though we don’t really get paid for what we do most of the time.”

“Why do you do it, then?”

Adrien raised his eyebrows slightly, then gave a tiny shrug. “Why did you do the trapeze?”

He’d meant for it to be a rhetorical question, meant for it to be something that would make Dick change the subject, so it was a complete surprise when the kid whispered: “It was all that I knew.”

Internally, he was screaming. It was happening! Finally! He had opened up a little bit!

Externally, he nodded and rubbed circles into the kid’s back. “Hopefully, we can make it so it’s not all you know. Help you branch out a little bit while you’re here.”

He felt tiny hands clutch the back of his shirt. “Can’t do that when you’re always gone.”

“I know,” he mumbled, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

They stayed in silence for a long time. Adrien was pretty sure that Dick had fallen asleep, but he wasn’t going to move. The kid had noticed that they were gone often, but the two of them had always made sure to wait until he had fallen asleep to leave. He had to be waking up at least once a night, so…

He held the kid close to his chest.

A few hours later, the door creaked open.

Adrien opened an eye blearily and saw Marinette get into bed. He lifted an arm for Marinette to join the cuddle and smiled faintly when she actually did.

He let himself drift off.

A few days later, Marinette and Adrien came back from patrols to find Dick talking to the kwamis. All of them gave sounds of surprise when they saw the two vigilantes in the door and disappeared except for Trixx, who turned and fixed their purple eyes on them.

Marinette pursed her lips tightly for a second, considering what to say, and then decided on: “What the fuck, guys?”

Adrien removed his arm from around her waist so he could bury his face in his hands.

Trixx smiled. “It’s not what it looks like. He found us.”

“He…” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “So… you’re telling me that this kid pushed our bed aside, pulled up the exact right floorboard, and pulled out the miracle box...”

“... yes.”

“Forgive me for being skeptical, but I’m not buying it.”

Dick pouted and hugged the tiny fox to his chest. “Are you mad at her?”

Marinette hesitated.

Before Dick had known about the kwamis, they had a chance of giving him back. They would have been able to find better parents for him, been able to give him a genuinely good life. But now… they couldn’t risk giving him up. The reason they’d taken him in in the first place was that he was relatively loose-lipped. Now that he knew something so important, there was no way in hell that they could risk him ever telling anyone.

Of course, she doubted they would have been able to give up Dick anyways. She’d grown annoyingly attached to the kid, he was sweet and generally made her life a little more fun, but now there wasn’t an option at all.

Still, this part of their lives… beyond needing to keep things a secret, it was extremely dangerous to involve a kid in this kind of thing.

Adrien answered first: “No, we’re not mad. Just… this wasn’t exactly the plan.”

“And what was the plan? Never telling me that we have a bunch of… what did they call themselves? Kwamis? Whatever, they’re gods. There are just gods living in our house!”

Marinette shrugged. “We weren’t telling you because we didn’t want you to get dragged into this part of our lives, sweetie.”

Dick huffed. “And are there any other secrets that I should know about?”

“They’re Ladybug and Chat Noir,” supplied Trixx.

“TRIXX?!”

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY’RE CHAT NOIR AND LADYBUG?!”

The fox kwami laughed and disappeared.

Marinette scowled. “I know you’re still here, Trixx, where are you? I will hunt you.”

“Please, Mari, you don’t need to do that. Just get the fox miraculous and summon her here, it’s much easier.”

“Smart.”

“WHY HAVE YOU STILL NOT DENIED IT?!”

Marinette and Adrien looked at each other awkwardly.

Well… the secret was out.

She opened her purse and he opened his jacket, and their kwamis slowly poked their heads out to look at Dick.

Poor kid was not prepared.

He covered his eyes with his hands and took a few deep breaths. “So… I… wow…”

Well, she supposed there could be worse reactions.

“Wait, so are you investigating what happened with my parents?”

Like that. That was a worse reaction. Fuck.

Marinette carefully took a seat on the floor by her kid. Adrien sat down as well.

“We’re working on it,” she said carefully. “I’m following a lead and I got help from a… an associate of ours.”

Adrien nodded. “It will take a while. It’s just the two of us -- and Nygma, I guess -- so it’s not going to be done quickly.”

Dick removed his hands from his eyes and looked at them both. “I want to help.”

“No,” said both adults instantly.

“But --.”

“Nope,” said Marinette.

“I --.”

Adrien held up his hands. “Not allowed.”

Dick pouted and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why not? They’re my parents.”

Marinette shook her head slowly. “It has nothing to do with that. You’re a kid, we can’t just let you fight crime.”

“Oh? And when did you start fighting crime?”

“Eighteen,” said Marinette, which technically wasn’t a lie…

Which means it was unfortunate that Adrien gave a more accurate answer: “I was twelve, she was thirteen.”

She groaned and rested her head in her hands. “Damn it, Adrien.”

“So, when I’m twelve, can I join you guys?”

Marinette pursed her lips tightly. She didn’t want to be a hypocrite, but she also didn’t want to let an actual kid fight crime. She had fought crime as a kid, it had messed her up. She wasn’t eager to pass that on to someone else…

But…

“Fine. How about this: if we don’t solve it by the time you’re twelve you can join us for that case specifically.”

Dick pouted a little, but seemed to understand. “Okay.”

She and Adrien met eyes. They had three years to solve this case before Dick would get involved, and they couldn’t let that happen.

But it was three years.

How hard could it be?

He and Marinette sat on the floor in front of the miracle box, sorting the miraculi into two different piles: ‘Will Protect’ and ‘Can’t Protect’.

Once that was done, they started sifting through the ‘Will Protect’ pile.

“Turtle?” Marinette said.

Adrien shook his head. “Doesn’t fit his fighting style. Bee?”

She shuddered. “Don’t need another Chloe. Snake?”

They tipped their heads from side to side as they considered it, but then Trixx piped up: “I’m right here, y’know.”

The two vigilantes jumped out of their skin. Then they glared at the kwami.

“Must you always sneak up on us?”

“Yes. Anyways, I’m the best fit for the kid and you know it.”

Marinette pursed her lips. Adrien raised his eyebrows.

It was true. From the moment they’d started considering giving Dick a miraculous (because, even if they doubted he was ever going to get to that point, they figured they should at least make sure he was safe), they’d both been eyeing the fox miraculous…

Thing was…

“You’re just going to tell him more of our secrets,” he complained, sighing.

Trixx crossed their paws over their chest. “Do you really have any other secrets you care about?”

They considered this for a minute, before Marinette clicked her tongue.

“Fine. Fine! Adrien, you’ll need to train him on his powers, your secondary powers are closer than mine. I’ll take up sparring to teach him a fight style that better matches his circus training.”

Adrien pouted and fell back until his head hit her lap. “You don’t think I was teaching him well enough? Because our fight styles and training were completely different? I’m wounded, M’lady. I’ll never recover.”

She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his lips.

He smiled. “I’ve been cured.”

She clicked her tongue.

Adrien smiled…

And then her watch beeped. He groaned and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her stomach. “Nooooo, don’t gooooooooooo.”

“I can’t just not go, Chaton.”

“Why nooooot? It would be so easy.”

She slowly peeled his arms off of her, smiling fondly. “Relax. I’ll be back later. Hang out with… with Di --... Nope. With the kid. Maybe train him a little in his powers or whatever.”

He laid on the floor with a pout as he watched her leave, and then looked down at the necklace in his hands.

Well, he supposed he might as well. What else could he do? Protect the city? Nah.

He walked to his kid’s room and rolled his eyes when he saw the kid standing with his ear pressed to the wall.

“Hello?”

Dick’s face reddened and he turned to Adrien with a bright smile. “It’s not what it looks like.”

Wow, he really was a good fit for Trixx.

He sighed and offered the necklace. “You’re not in trouble. C’mon, we’re going to teach you to use these powers.”

Trixx floated over to rest on Dick’s shoulder and Adrien waved him along to the training room.

Adrien held up a hand before walking to the window and quickly shutting the curtains.

He smiled as the kid transformed.

Adrien stretched lazily. “Right, on your back right now is a flute. It… works like a flute. You can play music with it if you want, and also hit people with it if you want. It also summons your power.”

Dick nodded and pulled it off his back. “What can I do?”

“You play a note and envision an illusion of some sort. The limit is just your imagination.”

“Like a Green Lantern?”

“I… kind of. You just have illusions, if you touch them they disappear.”

“That sucks.”

“I guess. Alright, so you’re probably going to have side-effects.”

He watched the kid’s eyes widen and rushed to explain: “It usually isn’t bad. Just weird. It’s why I like to sit on counters and why Mari’s always so cold. It also changes looks a little. Like… Mari has a lot more white in her eyes and my hair has those two little tufts that I have to gel down.”

Dick’s shoulders relaxed a little. “Okay. So… powers.”

“Yep.”

He pulled out his flute.

Adrien smiled. “Right, let’s start simple. The main thing you need is a clear vision. I’m going to close my eyes and you’re going to make something appear in the room. If you’re doing it right then it should appear real, if not then we’ll figure out what’s going wrong.”

He closed his eyes and waited for a few seconds after he heard the shrill note of the flute. Then he opened his eyes.

And came face to face with a giant, bright pink inflatable elephant.

“I…”

Dick grinned. “Think we should address the elephant in the room?”

He blinked once, then broke into a matching grin. “You’re what’s been missing from my life. Oh my kwami. That was beautiful.”

Then he actually went to inspect the elephant. It was pretty good. The lighting was a little off but it wasn’t plainly obvious it was fake, if he wasn’t paying attention he doubted he would’ve noticed. That made sense. Powers were usually pretty instinctual.

He nodded slowly. “Now try something that makes sound.”

Dick brought the flute to his lips and played another note.

He had expected the elephant to disappear and get replaced by something. Instead, it let out a high whine as the air in it slipped out of a new gash on its side.

Adrien smiled.

“Nice.” He sighed and let his smile lessen. Now for the reason they had thought the fox miraculous could be used for protection: “Okay. Make yourself disappear.”

He got a frown for that one. “Sorry?”

“It’s… you’re still a kid. You need to know how to cloak yourself so you don’t get hurt. We can’t really stop you from coming with us in an ethical way, but we need to at least make sure you’ll be okay if you come along.”

Dick frowned. “I thought you were going to let me help.”

“In three years. If we haven’t already solved this case yet. And if we think that you’re going to be able to handle it.”

“But --.”

“We were heroes at a young age. True. We weren’t ready for it, though, and we don’t want to screw up a kid in the same way we were screwed up. That’s the whole thing about having kids, we want you to have a better life than we did.”

The kid gave an annoyed expression before bringing his flute to his lips. With a shrill note, the annoyed face disappeared.

Adrien tipped his head from side to side as he considered this. He was pretty sure that he could sense something off, but he wasn’t sure if that was just his mind messing with him because he knew that Dick was there…

He walked towards where he’d last seen him to make sure and then stopped short when he realized what was off. His feet weren’t making any sound.

There wasn’t any sound at all, actually.

“You’ve done too much. You got rid of all sound, not just your own.”

Dick appeared, a grin on his face.

“This is boring. Can we make it into a game? Like hide-n-seek?”

Adrien hesitated, then shrugged. “Don’t see why not.” He brought his hands up to cover his eyes. “Thirty… twenty-nine…”

She hummed absently as she and Dick stretched to warm up.

She was a little jealous, if she was honest, he was way more flexible than she was even though he was out of practice and she wasn’t. She’d been stretching before this kid was even born. How dare he still be more flexible than her.

Still, she rolled to her feet and offered him a hand up.

Dick’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly and he did a backhandspring from the floor.

How the fuck?

But she wasn’t going to act like this was an amazing thing. She was already bitter enough about his flexibility, admitting that he was also better at gymnastics would be even worse.

Instead, she grinned. “Hey, kid, what should we call you?”

He thought for a minute, taking his flute out and twirling it in his hand like a baton. “Robin?”

“I…” She held up a finger to say ‘one minute’ and then pulled out her phone. After a quick google search to make sure they were talking about the same animal, she gave her kid a confused look. “You’re a fox.”

“Yes.”

“Robins are birds.”

“Yes.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She really didn’t know why she asked a kid who called himself ‘Dick’ to name himself. Really, she should have expected this.

Marinette shrugged to herself. “Fine. I’m just gonna keep calling you ‘sweetie’.”

“Okay!” He stopped twirling his flute and pointed it at Marinette. “So, you’re going to teach me to use my circus training for fighting?”

She sighed and pulled out her cane, leaning against it. “Right. I’ll need to check to see how well you know the basics, first, though.”

Dick groaned. “I’m ready. I feel like I’ve been ready for ages!”

“I know, I know, but I need to make sure, okay?”

He gave her an annoyed look.

Marinette pursed her lips tightly. “Okay. Fine.” She dropped her cane. “Spar with me.”

Dick’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Yep. You’ll have first swing and I won't get a weapon.”

True to her word, she let him have the first swing. She dodged and grabbed his arm, then pressed her foot to the middle of his back. He hit the ground with a groan. She pulled the flute from his hand and sent him a tired glare.

“You got lucky,” said Dick, his voice muffled against the floor.

She pulled him back to his feet. “No, you’re a child and I’ve been fighting for years. Like pretty much everyone else you’re going to fight. Which means that we can’t rush your training, okay? You have years before we let you into the field, if we do, so…”

He brushed himself off with a bitter expression.

“Fine. We drill basics.”

Riddler grinned, spinning around in his chair.

“Ladybug and Chat Noi --.” He stopped short, his eyes widening as they spotted something behind them. “What the heck? You guys brought a kid to this?”

He glanced behind himself and cringed lightly. He reached out and gently pulled Dick behind himself a little. Nygma had never been one for random attacks, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to make sure that this kid was safe.

And why had they brought him?

Marinette clicked her tongue once in annoyance. “Hey, sweetie, show the nice man your powers for a second.”

Dick brought his flute to his lips. With one high note he was gone.

Yep. They were really regretting giving him that miraculous right about then. They hadn’t even realized that he was coming along until Adrien had missed a jump and realized that his bones hadn’t audibly cracked like they usually did when he messed up like that.

He reappeared with a fox-like grin playing across his thin lips.

(Or maybe they just thought it was fox-like because he was currently dressed as a fox. Who knows.)

Riddler considered this for a minute, then nodded. “I understand now.”

Adrien sighed. “Yep.”

Marinette pulled out her yoyo and summoned a coloring book and some crayons. Dick beamed and plopped down on the floor to color.

The parents smiled fondly at their kid and then turned to Riddler.

“Now, you have news?” Adrien said.

“Good news and bad news.”

The adults looked at each other and gave tiny shrugs.

“Good news first,” said Marinette.

“Good news is that there’s only one person who supplies that specific acid.”

Adrien’s eyebrows knit together. That sounded good, but…

“Bad news is that she’s pretty popular. Over two-hundred customers popular.”

Ah. There it was.

Marinette covered Dick’s ears so she could curse.

Adrien, however, shrugged. “Do you have a list of her customers?”

Riddler nodded slowly. “Of course. I’ll forward it to you guys.”

“Thanks for the help, Nygma. See you in a few months.” With that, Marinette picked up Dick and held him to her hip.

“I’ll get you with the next one!”

“Mhmm. Sure.”

Adrien gave an apologetic smile and a friendly wave as he hurried out after his wife.

Marinette hummed absently as she pulled her jacket on, then froze up when she heard a gun click behind her head.

“Turn around. Slowly.”

She pulled a smile to her face and held her hands up in a kind of surrender, then turned around.

Wow. This man looked exactly like how gangsters looked in movies. She probably would have laughed if he wasn’t pointing a gun at her.

And, even with the gun pointed at her, she had to suppress a smile.

“Who are you?” He asked.

She frowned. “Shouldn’t I be asking that of you, sir? You’re the one attacking the random trapeze artist.”

“You’ve killed every single man I’ve sent in here to make sure everything was going to plan.”

“Maybe you should’ve sent a woman. We apparently get the job done better.”

“Who. Are. You?”

“Marinette Agreste, but I’m sure you knew that. Otherwise you wouldn’t know that I’ve killed ‘every single man you’ve sent here’.”

He scowled. “That wasn’t what I was asking and you know it.”

“Do I? Maybe you should be clearer,” she said. “Or, you could just tell me your name and I promise I would be much more compliant.”

The man seemed to consider this for a minute, his face tinged red with annoyance. She tried to push down the twinge of satisfaction. Even if this wasn’t Zucco, he at least had to be pretty high up and was likely the person who had ordered the goons to kill Dick’s parents. This bitch deserved all the hell she gave him, in her not-so-humble opinion.

“Giovanni,” he said carefully.

She smiled. “See? Was that so hard? Now, who am I...? I don’t know. I sometimes fight people. What else is there to say?”

He didn’t seem amused. “Why are you killing all my men?”

“I wouldn’t have to if they didn’t notice me noticing them every time. It’s getting very annoying. Send less observant people.”

Her eyes caught Kaalki’s. The kwami was hiding in a duffel bag that had been left open and she gave a tiny shrug to say go.

The man gave a scream as a portal sliced his hand off.

Marinette hummed absently and leaned down to pick up the gun. She pried the hand off of the gun and tossed it aside.

“WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK --.”

“I know, I know, it hurts, but could you be quieter?” She rubbed the side of her head. “Right, I have a few questions about Zucco.”

“He’d kill m --.”

“Yes. Yes, he would. But maybe you should concern yourself less with him, who has already made up his mind about killing you, and more about me, who’s still mulling it over.”

An hour later she stepped out of the changing room, humming as she tossed the gun back over her shoulder lazily.

“Haly?” She yelled, and smiled when his head popped out from his train care.

He looked stunned for a moment before he pulled himself together. “Yes?”

“I’m quitting. It’s been fun, though!”

She bit her lip as she strode out into the night.

Well, if she wasn’t already on Zucco’s radar she definitely would be now.

Greeeeaaaat.

It’s hard to look into people when you’re on the run from the mob.

They’d done everything they could think of. Marinette had withdrawn everything from their accounts, Adrien had altered all their appearances, Dick had... come along.

And it turns out tracking down 237 people is hard or something. Who knew.

You have to:

Figure out whether or not the person you’re after has pseuds. In order to do this you have to track their income patterns. This requires pretty high tech stuff, which they were generally trying to avoid because of the whole ‘mob out to get them’ thing.

Then, if they do have pseuds, you have to find all their assets. Then you have to go and check every single safehouse to see if it is, in fact, Zucco or someone working for him. It’s not fun. Most people in the mob are trained to not tell secrets no matter what, and getting to the point where you can get that information is… time consuming.

And they didn’t have time.

They glared at the remaining names. Dick was turning twelve tomorrow. They hadn’t even realized it because time was getting fuzzy again, but then they had come home to him hanging upside down from one of the lights on the ceiling and chanting about how close his birthday was.

After checking to make sure their kid hadn’t somehow gotten high or drunk, because what the heck, they had flown into a panic about how much work they still had to do.

“What’re the ethics of killing all 92 people tonight?” She asked, leaning back against her husband as he clicked through files.

“Even if we could, I’d say it’s probably frowned upon.”

She groaned and closed her eyes, then opened them again to glare at the papers in front of her. “How much you wanna bet that the very first one we choose after the kid joins us is going to be the right one?”

“Knowing our luck? That’s definitely going to happen.”

She gave a bitter laugh before pushing herself back up. “I’m going to break into a bakery to make a cake.”

“Cupcakes. You know he’s going to want to spend the day out in the field looking for answers, we might as well have food we can travel with.”

She clicked her tongue but nodded.

He fell back on the bed and glared at the list. He should have said they started at eighteen...

Well, at least it hadn’t been the first person that they’d looked into with Dick.

It had been the second.

After… ‘interogating’ the guy they’d found, they’d been given the name of this cruise ship and where it often docked. Then Dick had given them all cover so they could sneak on undetected.

And now night had hit. The three of them sat, perched on a railing as they observed the goons below them.

She watched Adrien send a wave before disappearing to take out the captain and destroy anything that could be used to contact land.

She turned to the kid next to her and reached out to ruffle his hair. “Ready, sweetie?”

Dick gave a slightly nervous smile before pulling out his flute.

“You’re only allowed to get involved if I’m dying, remember?”

He nodded, though she got the feeling that the kid wasn’t listening. Or, rather, he was listening and just opting not to take the words to heart.

She clicked her tongue once. Then she began walking along the outer edges of the ship, Dick trailing along behind her. She twirled her yoyo absently. They needed to get to the private quarters, as she was pretty sure that Zucco wouldn’t be anywhere else (he sent people out to do all his work, there was no way he was doing any work on his ship).

Then she heard laughter.

She looked up and scowled at the three henchmen who were leaning over the side of the railing above them.

“Oh my god, Ladybug has a kid!”

Her yoyo came to a stop. “Hilarious, I know.”

“Kinda! I mean the most deadly vigilantes in the world have a little kid trailing around like a lost puppy! That’s so good!”

She pressed her lips together tightly. “Mhmm. Please, tell me more...”

“Gonna say ‘or else’? Or else what? You’re going to change our diapers?”

She nodded slowly, then turned to Dick. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head. She opted to ignore the way the three roared with laughter above her at the action, instead concentrating on him.

“Sweetie, I want you to cover your eyes for a second, please. I’ll tell you when you can look again, okay?”

He nodded and brought his hands to his eyes.

She wheeled on the criminals, whose laughter was quickly dying.

“Oops,” said one of them, his voice so quiet she’d barely heard it.

But she did. And she fought off some laughter of her own. “‘Oops’ is right.”

Three minutes later, she smiled and pulled Dick’s hands away from his eyes.

“Hey, sweetie, how’re you feeling?”

He glanced behind her and she winced, expecting him to become horrified, but then he suddenly tossed his flute.

There was a satisfying ‘thunk’ as it made contact with the guy’s head and he fell over the side.

Marinette looked at Dick and gave him a tiny smile. He beamed in return.

“Thanks for the save.”

“No problem.”

She tossed her yoyo and recovered his flute for him, then took his hand. She led her kid through the ship.

When he caught up with them, Adrien smiled and rested a hand over the top of the kid’s head. “I found out where the private quarters are.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Follow me.”

The three of them went along in silence. Whenever they passed someone they’d casually knock them over the side. They might live that way.

But probably not.

Still, it was relatively easy.

They walked along the private quarters, poking their head in doors and then closing them.

Eventually, they came to the most grandiose-looking cabin. Really, they should have checked it first, but whatever. Marinette, Adrien, and Dick all gave each other wary looks before Adrien kicked the door open.

The poor guy had been asleep. Sucks.

Zucco looked up slowly and then gasped, reaching under his pillow and pulling out a gun.

Ah. Now that sucks for them.

Dick gave a high-pitched whine.

Marinette and Adrien instantly reached for Dick to push him behind them, only to stop short when their hands passed through clean air. They turned to look, confused expressions on their faces, only to find that the kid was gone.

Uh…

They frowned slightly and looked around. Their faces drained of color when they found their way back to where Zucco was.

Or, rather, had been. Because he was missing, too.

Marinette cursed beside him and Adrien felt like punching a wall. Dick hadn’t been making that noise because he was scared, he’d been making that noise because he’d been creating an illusion.

They had to stop Dick before he did something he would regret.

Their eyes searched the room desperately, their ears strained. There had to be something off. Dick and Zucco hadn’t left, Marinette and Adrien were covering too much of the door for both of them to squeeze past without the illusion breaking, so they were still in the cabin.

Marinette pursed her lips tightly and pulled the door shut, then lopped off the doorknob with her yoyo.

Adrien nodded and they began to shuffle through the room.

It was needlessly huge, but there was a lot of stuff in it. A bed, a mostly untouched kitchen area, a bathroom with a jacuzzi, a possibly real treasure chest, a vanity…

He knocked his staff against things absently. It should reveal illusions…

Where was this kid?

He kicked some jewelry on the floor in irritation and then blinked when they hit the wall nearby without a sound.

Wait a minute…

He swung his staff in a large circle around him and couldn’t help but wince when he hit something that he couldn’t see. The illusion shattered and Dick groaned in pain as he stumbled off of Zucco, holding his side where Adrien had hit him.

But, for once, Adrien wasn’t looking at the kid. His eyes found their way to the floor, where Zucco had curled up. He was beaten and bloody, bruises starting to form on his pale skin.

“Robin…” He whispered, looking at Dick.

Dick was crying, the blunt end of his flute bloodied.

Adrien walked over and carefully pulled the flute from his hands and then drew him into his chest. “You can’t kill him.”

“But --!”

“No buts.” Marinette gave Zucco a kick to the head to make sure he was down before joining the hug.

“But you kill people!”

“And we’re also adults. When you’re an adult you can kill people, too.”

“M’lady…”

She winced a little. “Yeah, I hear it. But… anyways, sweetie, we can’t let a kid kill anyone. Killing… it messes with you. We don’t want that life for you.”

Adrien sighed. “You’re a kid. You can’t kill someone, it’s not good for your psyche. Leave that kind of thing to us.”

Dick took a shaky breath, and then nodded.

They’d been right to not want to include him in this. Vigilantism wasn’t healthy for kids.

And they especially shouldn’t have brought Dick along for this part, they should have expected that something like this would happen. He was too close to the case.

He swallowed thickly and hugged him closer.

Marinette pulled away carefully. She hummed, grabbing Zucco by the back of his nightshirt and dragging him away.

He gently rubbed circle’s into the kid’s back. “You want some ice cream? I think there’s still some at home…”

Dick giggled a little. “That ice cream is so expired.”

“You don’t know that!”

“It’s been, like, three years.”

Adrien sighed. “Okay, maybe, but hush.”

He pulled away slightly from the kid and wiped some stray tears from his cheeks.

“Want to go home anyways?”

Dick smiled faintly and nodded.

She dropped back on the bed and smiled as she curled in the blankets. The night had been… interesting… but at least she was home now.

She felt tiny hands wrap around her and her smile widened as she felt a face bury itself in her stomach.

But then her smile lessened. She slowly combed her fingers through the kid’s hair.

“I need your miraculous back, sweetie.”

“No. I want to keep doing it.”

She gave Adrien a pleading look and he sighed, slipping into bed and wrapping his arms around them. “She’s right. We don’t want —.”

“And what about what I want?”

It definitely wasn’t an angle they’d considered. They’d been very concerned about the kid ending up like them (they had given up on trying to fix themselves a long time ago, but they were still self aware of the fact that they didn’t cope healthily). But… what if they were too late? The kid had already been exhibiting signs of their bad coping mechanisms, had been since the start, had they accidentally encouraged it just by being around him?

She didn’t know.

What she did know, though, was that they’d messed up by letting him come along. He’d had a taste of the adrenaline, and there was no going back.

She flinched. “I… are you sure?”

Dick nodded against her stomach. “I want to help people.”

She bit her lip. Dick was one of those kids that would sneak out and do it anyways, the least they could do was make sure he was safe.

Adrien seemed to come to the same conclusion, because he sighed again and squeezed them both tighter.

“As long as you make sure to always be with one of us while you’re doing vigilante work…” he said reluctantly.

“I can do that.”

Oh, thank kwami.

She smiled and ruffled his hair. “I guess it would be kind of cool to have a whole family of vigilantes...”

~~~

As it turns out, I am unable to write pure fluff. It eludes me.

On the other hand, I managed a Christmas update!! Go me!!

Taglist

@i-am-ironic @nathleigh @mialuvscats @golden-promises @sassakitty @deathwishy @toodaloo-kangaroo

#another one?!#adrienette #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #adrien agreste #chat noir #dick grayson #nightwing #jason todd #red hood #tim drake #red robin #cassandra cain #orphan #damian wayne #robin #maribat

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kurt-nightcrawler · 3 years

Text

Decay: part II

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐈𝐈 𝐱 𝐌𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞! 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Warnings: this talks about alcoholism, implications of sex, mentions of technical assault (Jessie kissed Warren while he was drunk and she made him think she was Mother Nature!), also we get into Warren’s backstory a bit. I’m not trying to make anyone out to be a villain, but the story overall is much more upsetting than usual.

Word Count: 5.4K

A/N: I hope you guys enjoy! Not exactly the mood needed right now— I am very sorry, but I’m working on a much happier piece for Mother Nature and Warren! I’ll try to have it out before the end of the month!

Part 1 if you need a refresher!

Warren didn’t want to tell anyone about what happened. He wanted to pretend it never happened. To just hole up the memory of the night deep into his mind. He always hid and pushed away trauma. Why should this be any different?

His friends wanted to get Alex or maybe even Charles involved, but he protested.

“It’s my word against her’s.”

“Yeah, but everyone’s going to support you, and Jean and Charles are telepathic—”

“What can I really do? Press charges? If I do that then and use Jean or Charles to back me up, it becomes a whole mutant’s rights issue. It’s not worth it.”

(Y/N) hated seeing Warren look so defeated. Jessie going about Xavier’s unscathed by everyone who wasn’t close with Warren, and him thinking it was his fault.

(Y/N) had said she must have eaten something bad at the Halloween party, causing her to feel sick and sprout poison ivy. Also why all the plants died.

If Hank and Charles could tell she was lying, they didn’t say anything.

Rumors started amongst students about what had happened at the party— if Warren had actually cheated on (Y/N), if he did something to Jessie, or if Jessie forced herself onto him.

Warren didn’t like the rumors involving (Y/N) in the mess. He didn’t like the stares and whispers they got when people saw them together.

“Poor girl, staying with him even after he cheated.”

“Maybe she’s too naive to realize.”

“I knew they’d never work out— (Y/N)’s too good for him.”

“I bet he forced her into going out with him.”

“I mean… he’s not ugly—”

“Yeah, but he’s not a good person and (Y/N) is!”

It made him sick to his stomach. Warren didn’t force her into anything— and he thought he had changed, that people were finally trusting him.

Guess he was wrong.

—

Warren wasn’t even paying attention in his environmental sciences class. They were watching a video on how a plant species can be invasive, required to take notes on it.

Warren was texting (Y/N), phone brightness turned down all the way. He just wanted to go to bed for a while and ignore the real world.

When the bell rang, dismissing students, Alex told everyone they’d finish the video, next class.

Warren got up to leave, but Alex stopped him.

“You doing alright?”

“Uh, yeah.” He lied. “I’m not in trouble am I?”

Alex hesitated to answer.

“No.”

Warren nodded, noticeably nervous.

“There’s a rumor going around saying you assaulted Jessie Rowe.”

Warren’s heart fell into his stomach. “I didn’t.”

“Okay… But something happened, didn’t it?”

Warren didn’t respond.

“Warren, you have to tell me what happened.”

“I got tipsy and she kissed me. I thought she was (Y/N), but then (Y/N) walked in and Jessie tried to act like I tried to kiss her.”

Warren’s eyes were pleading— pleading for Alex to not get mad at him for drinking, or mad at him for not speaking sooner.

“Um, no one got hurt, and now there’s just a rumor going around, so you can like, give me detention for drinking or whatever it’s fine—”

“I’m going to have to tell Professor Xavier,” Alex told him.

“Please don’t tell him I was drinking! I can’t— I won’t—”

Alex could see the desperation in his eyes. Warren had nowhere else to go. He, like many other students, depended on Xaiver’s entirely.

“You’re a good kid Warren— you’ve opened up to others, you were sober for almost six months, you have a good group of friends and even a girlfriend— Charles isn’t going to punish you. I just don’t want you to spiral down and lose all the progress you’ve made…”

“I just,” Warren rubbed his eyes. “Don’t wanna make a big deal about it. I’d rather it just blows over. Everyone will eventually forget about it anyway.”

“Are you aware of the rumors involving (Y/N)?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, so, this involves her and Jessie. I know—”

Alex and Warren turned their heads to the door. Someone was opening it.

(Y/N) stepped inside. Warren hadn’t shown up to the library during their shared free period like he said he would, so she was worried about him. Plus, he hadn’t been doing too well since the Halloween party…. Neither of them had been.

Her eyes were pink and purple— she was full of worry for her boyfriend.

“Oh!” She gaped, soon as she saw Warren and Alex sitting at his desk, in the middle of what looked like an important conversation.

“Sorry, am I interrupting?” She asked.

“No. You can stay.” Warren told her. (Y/N) dragged a chair over and sat next to him.

“Right, as I was saying, Charles isn’t going to expel you, but he might want to make a police report. I’m not sure what good it will do, but—”

“I don’t want to. It’s not going to do anything but cause problems.”

(Y/N) was immensely confused. She had no idea what they were talking about.

“We’re gonna talk to Jessie, maybe a few of your friends, and knowing Charles, he won’t expel either of you. We’ll do everything we can to get the rumors to stop…”

Oh! It finally clicked in her mind.

It was about the party.

“Okay… Thank— thank you, Alex.”

“Yeah, we should go to Charles’s office— what class do you guys have next?”

“I have lunch.”

“AP art.”

“That’s… Ms. Burnwood, right, (Y/N)?”

She nodded.

“I’ll make sure your absence is excused.”

“Thanks.”

Alex took them up to Charles’s office. Warren then explained everything that happened, while trying to not get his friends in trouble for also drinking.

Jessie was brought up to Charles’s office and questioned. She caved pretty easily, with (Y/N) glaring at her the whole time, and amid their telepathic principal, lying wouldn’t do her any good.

Jessie was “grounded”— she couldn’t leave campus during the semester until after Thanksgiving break— she was also to stop encouraging the rumors, and had to talk with one of the school counselors once a week until they deemed it no longer necessary. Jessie’s parents weren’t in the picture, so notifying them wouldn’t do any good.

Warren’s punishment was less severe, he couldn’t be out later than nine on weekends, (just until Thanksgiving break) and he was required to go to group therapy to help him deal with his former alcoholism and past traumas, for the rest of the school year.

—

“You don’t have to tell me what goes on at group therapy.” (Y/N) told him.

“I know.”

“You don’t have to tell anyone.”

Warren smiled a little, “I know.”

“Okay…” (Y/N) kisses his cheek.

Warren wrapped his arm around her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I hope it goes well… it should.”

(Y/N) nodded, “Yeah… Here,” Her hand was in a fist. When she opened it, she revealed a daisy and a four-leaf clover.

“You don’t really need luck or anything but, um, I thought, you know—“

Warren accepted the small gift, taking it from her hand. “Thanks, baby. I love it.”

—

Group therapy was awkward. Warren hated it. He knew it would be good to talk about… well, everything, probably, but he had a hard time opening up to total strangers.

“Alright, in case you’re new or don’t remember, my name is Allison… We have a new member with us today, he’s going to be with us for a while.” Allison looked at Warren. “Why don’t you introduce yourself?”

“Okay… Um, my name is Warren.”

Everyone replied with, “Hi, Warren.”

“And um, I’m a mutant.”

Allison smiled, “That’s great! Do you go flying a lot?

“Uh, yeah.”

“What kind of metal are your wings made of?” A girl with washed-out blue hair asked.

“Titanium, I think.”

“Well, Warren, welcome to the group,” Allison interjected, trying to steer the conversation elsewhere. “Now, we’re going to do an ice breaker of sorts, and then just have like, regular conversation. We can all go around and say our favorite color and why.”

Warren blinked. He didn’t— he didn’t have a favorite color.

“And don’t say you don’t have a favorite color. If you can’t pick a favorite, choose one you hate the least… We can start with Trey.”

Warren thought of color options—

Black? No. Black wasn't his favorite, despite being 95% of his wardrobe. It absorbed the most light, helping him blend in with the darkness and look tough, something he needed in Germany.

Blue— The color of Kurt— his roommate and friend, who he tried to kill. Twice. Something he still felt remorse over. And Apocalypse. The man who gave him the metal wings and tattoos, forcing him to aid in mass destruction, only to leave him for dead when he was no longer useful.

Red— the color of Alex’s plasma beams. And how the Horsemen were a result in him almost dying.

White and Silver— the colors of his wings. Past and present. How each reflected hardships from Warren’s life. How he hated them and a child and almost resorted back to that self-deprecation when they shifted into metal and the consequences finally sank in.

But what about green? The color of healthy plants that thrive. The color of (Y/N)’s eyes when she’s happy.

Warren liked the color, despite (Y/N)’s eyes rarely being green around him. However, it didn’t mean she was unhappy with him.

Her eyes were pink around him. A way of saying “I love you” without actually saying it. The pink meant she cared about him more than most people— that she trusted him, accepted him for who he was despite his past, and that she would be there for him when he needed her.

Not many people could say they would do those things for Warren, or that they had.

His father cared more about the family name and how his son couldn’t possibly be a freak. His mother didn’t want his wings to tarnish her image, and while she was still his mother, she left him on his own most of the time.

And how all his past relationships and flings— they didn’t have much meaning. There was never any real affection behind them. They saw the cage fighting king and wanted a piece of that.

(Y/N) looked past all of that. She saw how he responded to what life threw at him. She saw the tough guy act, the big softie, the broken boy who ran away in fear, the man who thought he wasn’t good enough— she brought out his good side, making him realize he deserved happiness, love, and a home, that when you hit rock bottom, you can only go up from there.

He decided pink was his favorite color, because it showed someone cared for him in ways he wasn’t used to. He would do anything to keep it around forever.

“Warren, what’s your favorite color?”

“Pink.”

He got a few funny looks. They were probably expecting him to say black, based on his general aesthetic.

“And why is that?”

“Um, it’s my girlfriend’s eye color… she’s also a mutant.”

Allison smiled, “That’s very sweet.”

She moved on to the next person, “Rose, what’s your favorite color?”

She said, “Green.” But Warren wasn’t paying attention to why.

The ice breaker eventually ended, and Allison shifted the discussion to other things.

“Now Warren, since you’re new, usually new members spend most of their first meeting talking about themselves. Just so we can get to know you and whatnot.”

“Okay… um… anything specific you want to know?”

“Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

“Okay… So, I was born into a really small family. Just me, my mom, my father, and his brother. I don’t really know what happened to my grandparents. I never asked...

When I was three we moved from Westminster to Centerport.”

“Where’s that located?”

“Oh, uh, Westminster’s close to London.”

Allison looked impressed.

“I went to a private all-boys school when I was little. I don’t remember the name of it though.”

“Were you born with your wings?” Allison asked.

“No.” Warren responded. “They started to grow when I was eleven… I was terrified. I spent almost every day trying to rip them out… but once all the feathers are gone, you’re left with nothing but bone. It hurt like hell, but I used a pocket knife and a razor to try and cut them or at least file the bone down.”

“It wasn’t hard… but it hurt a lot. I spent so much time worrying about my wings and if people would discover them, that I started to fall behind in school… I wasn’t like failing or anything, I had access to all kinds of tutors and everything, but my parents quickly found out I was falling behind. My father was barely aware, telling my mom to ‘deal with it.’ She tried her best, but I was so scared of them discovering my wings…”

Warren sighed, “My parents had a beach house in Italy, and we were supposed to go there for my fall break. I was so terrified. I couldn’t go swimming, they’d see my wings… But I couldn’t find a way out of the trip. I was twelve at the time and my mom… She saw my back when I came out of the shower...”

“She screamed, and my father came running to us. When he saw my back, he was disgusted. The look on his face was drilled into my skull for years. And it wasn’t even that bad, they were just growing back after being cut, so they weren’t even that big… but I just remember how scared my mom was, and how disgusted my father was… I just started crying and apologizing, but it didn’t do anything.”

“We left our trip four days early and I was pulled out of school. My parents decided to homeschool me, which basically meant, cut all contact with everyone from school and have a few tutors come to the house.”

“Did you have contact with anyone outside of your home?”

“I saw some family friends, and one or two kids of my parent’s friends… my parents hired countless doctors and all kinds of people, doing tests on me, trying to find a “cure”. Every time they failed my parents just got more upset— I was becoming a waste of time and money. They were becoming more distant and cold, wrapping themselves up in their work, and I was locked up.”

“What happened to your wings?”

“My mom said the scars they would leave were ugly, but I was forced to let them grow out.”

“My parents were arguing a lot, always sad or angry… mostly because of my wings… I was getting tired, tired of hiding, tired of the arguing, I wanted it all to stop…”

“Can you please stop?” Warren thought he was going to cry.

His father glared at him, disgusted by the wings, and how his son was on the verge of tears.

Warren could hear his parents arguing from down the hall. That’s all they seemed to do when they were home— fight.

Warren blamed himself. If he was just normal. If he didn’t have those damn wings!

He wanted them to stop. He’d do anything to make them stop.

Warren thought about getting on to the roof and jumping. Not even flying down, just falling to his end. His end of suffering, and his loveless, lonely existence.

“Are you going to do it?”

Warren looked over his shoulder to find his father standing behind him. Watching him peer out the highest window in the house.

“No! I— I’m sorry! I wasn’t—”

His father scoffed. “Did I raise a coward?”

Warren couldn’t look him in the eyes. “No sir.”

“I’ve scheduled for you to have spinal surgery next week. Your doctor is coming to prep and evaluate you for it. This surgery should fix you.”

Warren’s eyes were closed, trying not to imagine the pain, trying to not cry in front of his father.

“Or you can fall out the window… in a freak accident.”

“So I jumped out the window. I didn’t fall to my death as he had hoped, but I flew. I flew far away. I flew across the Atlantic for a few hours before I started to get tired. I spotted a ship and I got close. It was a fishing boat, a large one. The crew let me stay for the night until they went back to land… After that, I flew from São Miguel to Cascais. From there I just kind of fucked around Europe.”

Warren sighed. Allison told him to take all the time he needed and he could stop if he wanted for the day. Let someone else talk.

Warren nodded and kept quiet for the rest of the meeting.

—

Alex picked him up when the meeting ended. Alex didn’t ask about the meeting. It wasn’t his business and he knew Warren would talk when he was ready.

“Where do the others think I went?” Warren asked.

“Training. They’re busy anyway, most didn’t notice you were gone.”

Warren silently nodded.

Alex pulled into Xavier’s garage, parking and letting Warren slip out and go up to his room.

Warren kicked his shoes off and laid on his bed, putting in his earbuds and playing some soft songs.

(Y/N) was heading up to Warren’s room to use his shower. She was covered in paint, for she helped clean up after the fourth graders used the art room.

(Y/N) knocked on the door, making sure no one was there before she entered.

Warren didn’t hear her and (Y/N) almost didn’t notice him laying on the bed. When she did, however, her entire demeanor changed.

“Hi, Angel!” She went over to practically smother him in light kisses.

Warren pulled out his earbuds and smiled. “Hi, Flower.”

“When did you get home?” She asked, scooting over to the open side of the bed.

“Like ten minutes ago. What have you been up to?”

“I got paint all over me,” (Y/N) frowned. “I was going to take a shower and wash it off.”

“You can do that. I was just kind of laying here.”

(Y/N) bit her lip, unsure of how to handle the situation.

“If you disassociate your whole day will feel off. You should take a nice relaxing shower with me, instead.”

Warren chuckled.

“Not like that, Bird brain!” She exclaimed. “We can use one of my lush bath bombs and my rose-scented exfoliator.”

“Are you saying I smell?” Warren joked.

“Eh,” (Y/N) shrugged before slipping her bra off and throwing it in the hamper.

Warren scoffed and wrapped his arms around (Y/N), peppering her neck in kisses. “How dare you!” He teased.

“Ah!” (Y/N) laughed. Warren’s lips on her neck tickled her skin. “That’s why I’m going to bathe.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll join you.”

(Y/N) hummed in victory, wiggling out of Warren’s grip, and headed into the bathroom to grab her stuff.

The last time she used the girls’ communal showers was before they were even dating. (Y/N)’s toothbrush made its way into Warren and Kurt’s bathroom, then her shampoo and conditioner, and then eventually most of all her other hygiene products.

(Y/N) set her soap and other things on the edge of the tub and drew up warm water, filling the bathtub up about halfway.

She sprinkled in rose petals and got Warren into the bathroom. They both stripped off their clothes and stepped in the tub. A bit difficult, for Warren had to fold his wings back and get in first, with (Y/N) practically sitting in his lap, face to face, but they made do.

(Y/N) dropped an orange bath bomb in the water and grabbed her jar of exfoliating scrub, rubbing it on her arms and legs to help remove the paint.

Warren closed his eyes and rested his chin on her shoulder.

“How’d it go today?” (Y/N) asked as she grabbed a bar of soap and rubbed it onto her skin.

He didn’t respond.

“I’m sorry…” She murmured.

“Don’t apologize. It wasn’t terrible… I talked a little bit about my parents.”

(Y/N) nodded as she applied her rose exfoliator onto Warren’s skin.

“I’m really sorry…” Warren let out. He sounded as if he was on the verge of tears.

“Baby,” (Y/N) looked into his eyes. “it’s okay.”

“I— I just—“ Warren hiccuped, letting out a choked sob and releasing some tears from his eyes.

(Y/N) rubbed his back, avoiding the tender spot around his wings, whispering, “Let it out, it’s okay, Angel.”

Warren silently cried into (Y/N)‘s shoulder. Her arms wrapped around him in comfort. The emotions he felt almost made him sick— love and affection— and a lot of it too. He couldn’t remember a time before when he felt like that. He never wanted to leave (Y/N)‘s embrace.

Warren lifted his head up and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Sorry— um—“

“It’s okay.” (Y/N) cupped his face in her hands, leaving a kiss on each cheek. “Want me to wash your hair?”

Warren nodded.

“C’mere—” (Y/N) grabbed the shampoo from the bathtub ledge, pouring some in her hands, and then lathering it into Warren’s mop of curls.

Her hands gently massaging his scalp felt like a touch of heaven to Warren. He didn’t want to cry again, but he couldn’t help himself. (Y/N) was heartbroken at her boyfriend’s demeanor, but it was good he was letting it all out.

She finished washing his hair and drained the tub— them both getting out— Warren holding onto (Y/N) as she gently dried them both off.

“Thank you, He mumbled.

“Of course, Baby…”

—

Most of their dates shifted to either being at the mansion or during the day. Warren felt bad, having to limit things for them, but (Y/N) didn’t care.

“We can do more stuff during the day… And at night all our friends will be gone… We’ll be all alone…” (Y/N)’s tone was almost teasing. Warren had to chuckle to himself, she was doing her best to make the situation work.

His second group meeting was set a bit later in the day, around 6 pm on a Saturday. Warren told (Y/N) he probably wouldn’t be back until after dark.

“Call me if you need me. I’ll be here—” She motioned to her empty bedroom.

“Don’t have too much fun without me,” He teased.

“You too, Baby.”

Warren drove himself to his second group therapy meeting. Alex offered to drive again, but Warren felt bad having him taking time out of his day to drive him to group therapy.

Not everyone who was at the first meeting was at the second one— but Warren saw some familiar faces.

“Hey, Warren! Welcome back,” Allison greeted him.

“Hi.”

He took a seat near a guy in a grey hoodie with an eyebrow piercing.

“Alright everyone, we’re going to go around, say our name, and if we have any pets. If you don’t that’s okay! You can say, what kind of animals you’re interested in. Let’s start with Collin…”

Warren zoned out for a bit until it was his turn. He didn’t have a pet, and he didn’t really have an interest in a specific animal. People made jokes about him being a bird, but he didn’t necessarily have a connection with them.

“I don’t have a pet… My girlfriend has a lot of plants though…”

“Ooo! What kind?”

“Um… Almost all kinds— her mutation helps grow them and stuff…”

“That’s cool.” Someone commented.

Warren awkwardly nodded. The ice breaker continued around the circle, and when finished, Allison had some people give updates on how they had been since the last meeting, others talked about how they were feeling in general.

“Warren—”

“Yeah?” He asked.

“Do you want to continue talking from where you left off last week?”

“I can, sure.”

The floor was given to him, and Warren continued his “backstory”.

“I ended up in Germany. Messing around, staying overnight on stranger’s couches. I tried to find work, but it was hard being almost 15 at this point and no papers… I ran into muggers and they tried to, well, rob me, but I fought back. I wasn’t very good but it got them off and away from me… I ended up in a bar… The last thing I remember was falling asleep and then waking up in a locker room of sorts. A bunch of men shouting in German, um, some in English, but basically I was told to go out into ‘the ring’. People were watching— shouting and cheering, for the other guy in the ring. He was kind of short and hairy, but he had these claws, and he could really kick ass. I barely made it out of there— I didn’t win— but I didn’t die. People enjoyed watching us. They cheered, calling him Wolve-something, and they called me, Angel.”

“I wanted to leave, but the people running the ring gave me some money and I found a place to stay for the night… the job offers weren’t exactly lining up… so I agreed to more fights. I got really good, fighting other mutants, probably in the same situation as me, but I quickly realized, kill, or be killed…”

Warren quickly realized people had very concerned looks on their faces. “I didn’t kill anyone! But I did beat them up pretty badly— the more fights I won the more money I got— and it was that or die… I did it for about two years before I met someone…

I was alone at a bar, I was bruised and a bit bloody, and this girl with purple hair came up to me. She was one of the guards in the fight club— she worked for some guy named Caliban, I think. I don’t remember… Anyway, her name was Betsy. She said she’d been watching me for a while, saying my fighting was impressive but could be improved… Uh, She offered to help me out, and we went back to her place. She helped clean up the blood on me, and um, then we made out, and I spent the night… This went on for a while, she’d watch me fight and give me tips and pointers, and we’d make out and stuff…”

“How long is, awhile?” Allison asked.

“Um, Like two-ish years? I don’t know— but um, we had this like thing going on, and I thought we were maybe dating? I dunno. But whatever we had I fucked up.”

Warren groaned as Betsy aggressively pressed her mouth against his. He had just won another fight and went back to her place to “celebrate”.

“God, B… I love you...”

Betsy froze, her body tensing up.

“What?”

Warren panicked, her face did not seem pleased. “It slipped out— I’m sorry—”

“No… You don’t mean it… We can’t be together.”

“What do you mean?” He asked. “I thought we were together.”

“Angel— this isn’t a relationship— we just fuck while I give you some pointers on your punches.”

“I know this isn’t traditional, we don’t go out on dates—”

“You don’t love me! We’re too young— I’ll lose my job. I spend all this time one you so I don’t lose my job, you’re the best fighter—”

“You keep me trapped here?” Warren asked, slowly piecing things together.

“It’s not like that—” She tried to explain.

“I’ve tried to quit fighting for almost a year now! I told you I wanted to leave, and this whole time you’ve been keeping me here?”

“You’re young and naive, and I’d lose my job, everything—”

Warren stood up, ignoring Betsy’s excuses.

“Where are you going?”

“Away. Since we’re not together and I don’t love you.” Warren slammed the door behind him and headed back to the ring. He needed to let out his anger.

—

Warren went on a winning streak— he won ten fights in a row— the feeling was borderline euphoric, the crowds cheering for their champion, Warren getting to sink someone’s teeth in or watch them fall to the ground.

Warren was amped up for his eleventh fight— the announcer was talking about his next opponent—

“The Incredible Nightcrawler!”

A lanky, devil looking, blue boy fell out of a cage onto the floor of the ring. Warren circled him for a moment before meeting him on the ground.

He wasn’t fighting, just teleporting around the cage in small bursts.

“Fight!” Warren yelled at him. “Or they’ll kill us both!”

The blue boy looked terrified, but he fought back when Warren attacked him.

At one point he managed to drag Warren against the side of the electric cage, burning his wing.

“Ah!” Warren cried out in pain. Suddenly he saw the blue devil escape from the bottom, so in a risky move, he flew up and ripped off the upper walls of the cage, and flew out. His flying was wonky and jagged for one of his wings was broken.

Warren had nowhere to go, so he went back to the one place he shouldn’t have—

Betsy’s place.

—

“I was drunk as shit and angry and this blue wrinkly man came with Betsy and some other girl I didn’t recognize, and he just held his hand out and metal grew out of my back and on top of my wings. I was healed, in a way, but also it kind of ruined my life. The blue man also just held his hand out and gave me these tattoos…”

“You weren’t one of the horsemen with Apocalypse, were you? Like last spring I think… Out in Cario?” One girl in the circle asked.

“Yeah… Um, I never killed anyone, and I don’t do that anymore. The X-Men took me in and I’m trying to get my shit together.”

“We don’t judge here, and from what I’ve heard, the X-Men do great things! Like the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man.” Others in the group murmured in agreement.

“You’re built like a transformer dude,” The guy sitting next to him commented.

“Thanks…”

“I think you can do a lot of good, Warren. You’ve spent a lot of time running from your problems, but you seem like you’re grounded now… I was told you came here because you relapsed.”

“It was an accident— I haven’t drank since.”

“And that’s good! It can be really hard to open up and talk about your past, but you did it…”

Warren nodded along to what Allison said.

“I think you can do even better if you acknowledge your mistakes and learn from them… and don’t be afraid, don’t push them into the back of your mind… I think— if you haven’t already— talk to your girlfriend about some of this. Doesn’t have to be a lot or all at once, but being open and honest does good in relationships.”

“Yeah, um, sounds good.” Warren’s heart fell into his stomach. He was terrified to talk about all of this with (Y/N).

She didn’t deserve the burden. (Y/N) was this innocent, happy, light in his life. Warren didn’t want to ruin that.

He thought (Y/N) was too good for him, and she would eventually realize that and leave him.

But he trusted her. He trusted (Y/N) with his life. Perhaps a bit foolish, but he rarely ever felt sure about those types of things. He decided to trust his intuition.

—

Warren drove home in silence.

He pulled into the garage and put the keys on the key rack before heading up to (Y/N)’s room.

He didn’t even bother knocking on the door. He just walked right in and flopped onto the bed, in (Y/N)’s lap.

She was surprised, but she quickly came to her senses and tried to figure out what happened.

“Baby?...” (Y/N) looked down at Warren’s face as she tucked a piece of his hair behind his ear.

“I…” Warren burst into tears, all his bottled up emotions coming out at once.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Warren sat up and (Y/N) hugged him tightly.

“I have… things… I want to tell you… about my past…” Warren scrunched his nose.

“My parents and other stuff… but I’m scared.” He admitted.

“Warren, baby, I’m not going anywhere. Tell me whatever you need to, whenever you feel ready, okay?”

He slowly nodded, still crying.

(Y/N) kissed his forehead and rubbed his back, being silent and supportive.

“Can… Can you promise me… Promise me you won’t leave because of my past. I’ve done really bad shit and—”

“I promise I’m not going anywhere. I mean it.” She reassured him.

Warren wiped his nose with the back of his hand, his tears slowing down.

“Thanks…” He mumbled.

“Of course, anything for you, Angel.”

#warren worththington x mother nature #warren worthington #warren worthington iii #warren worthington x reader #warren worthington iii x reader #x-men oneshot #x-men x reader #xmen x reader #ben hardy x reader #xmen oneshot #warren worthington iii x mother nature #angel x reader #archangel x reader #warren worthington iii x you #warren worthington x you #mother nature reader

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arcticfox007 · 3 years

Text

The Wych Elm and the Cemetery

Happy Christmas @aibari! I’m you’re secret santa and I hope you enjoy your gift!

Thanks to @destielsecretsanta2020 for putting all of this together :)

Wishlist fulfilled: Angst with a Happy Ending, Case Fic, Weird Small Towns (well city in this case), Weird Angel Lore, Hand holding, and Americana (I tried to work in as much as I could) – if you want specific info on all of the Americana I tied in, check out my endnotes on AO3 😊 Also, @aibari I’m happy to list you as the giftee on AO3 if you have a name over there.

The is roughly set during early Season 12, but I’m not married to canon or anything.

***

Dean wasn’t easily impressed these days, but even he had to admit that the tree growing out of the grave was unlike anything he’d come across before. The historic cemetery in the middle of Missouri had its fair share of trees, but they had come here for this one. Cas stood next to him looking like he was attempting to interrogate the tree with his mind. For a moment Dean was distracted by the angel, smiling a bit at the memory of the time Cas had insisted on interrogating a cat. Luckily, Cas had gotten better at blending in, so at least he wasn’t actively asking the tree questions. There was the sound of someone clearing their throat to Dean’s other side and Dean directed his attention back to the cemetery’s caretaker, Mrs. Paige.

“I’m not sure why the FBI would be interested in something like this.” The older woman sniffed and looked at both Cas and Dean suspiciously. Dean turned on the charm and gave her a warm smile.

“Unfortunately, we aren’t at liberty to discuss the details of the case, but we’d appreciate anything you can tell us about this tree Mrs. Paige, or the woman who was killed, Louisa Abbot.”

We’d also like any information you might have on the person who was buried here,” Castiel interrupted. “Most of the marker seems to be missing, perhaps destroyed by the sudden growth of this tree.”

“Well, I can certainly get you the information on who was buried here, this was one of our more famous gravesites. The man buried here died in the early 1800s, he is one of two Revolutionary War veterans laid to rest in the cemetery, his name was William Abbot. I believe he held the rank of Captain. The Boone Historical Society may have more information about him, but he is one of the earliest burials in the cemetery and a lot of those records have been lost over the years.” Mrs. Paige chewed on her lower lip for a moment, staring along with Dean at the tree once again. “The tree will have to be removed to restore Captain Abbot’s grave.”

“Was Captain Abbot an ancestor of the victim?” Cas’ question caught Dean off guard. There was something strangely mesmerizing about the massive twisting trunk rising out of the ground exactly where the remains of Captain Abbot would have been. Dean registered that Cas and the caretaker were continuing to talk, but Dean stepped away to examine the tree more carefully. It’s roots, on the surface at least, didn’t seem to spread out much. Rather they seemed to go straight down into the Earth. Its trunk was thick enough to have been there for hundreds of years despite having only appeared a few days ago. The tree itself was knotted in appearance, with ugly, twisted branches shooting out in all directions. For some reason it occurred to Dean that the tree looked like it was screaming in pain. Dean jumped when he suddenly felt Cas’ hand on his shoulder.

“Dean. Are you listening?” Dean pulled his eyes away from the tree and turned towards Cas who continued to keep his hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“Ah, no, sorry. This,” Dean waved vaguely at the impressive scene before them, “is kind of distracting.” Cas nodded seriously. Dean noticed that the caretaker had left, but was distracted again by Cas pulling his hand back. They always touched a bit longer than was probably normal, but Dean still regretted the loss of the warmth on his shoulder.

“Mrs. Paige said that the victim may have been a descendant of Captain Abbot, but she wasn’t sure. She suggested the Historical Society again, if we needed further information. She did say that she knew Louisa Abbot when she was a teenager. She was one of several teenagers she used to call the police on for breaking into the cemetery after hours to party. Mrs. Paige said she hadn’t really seen her in more recent years.

“Is there any way to tell if the good Captain is still here?” Dean waved towards the roots of the tree. Cas shook his head. “Ah well, I’d be surprised if they were still here. I guess we better find out what exactly Louisa Abbot was into.” They started walking back towards the car.

“I agree. I’d also like more information on the tree. I know it’s a type of elm, but I’m not sure of the significance, if there is any.”

“Call Sam and get him to work on it.” Cas let out an exasperated huff in response to Dean’s delegation of research to his brother.

“Dean. The entire reason we are here without Sam is so he can rest. He needs to sleep to get over the flu, especially since he refused to let me heal him. I am more than capable of finding the information, perhaps while you visit the historical society.”

“Alright. You want me to drop you off at the library?”

“That would be acceptable.” Cas paused to look out over the cemetery again before opening the passenger side door of the Impala. Dean noticed the angel’s hesitation.

“Everything okay man?” Castiel turned towards Dean upon hearing his words and Dean notices the sadness that ghosts across the angel’s face. “Seriously, Cas, what’s going on with you? You seem more, I dunno, out of it than usual.”

“I – this place is a lot like the cemetery where Mary was originally buried. I don’t like the memory of you leaving to die.” Cas looks away abruptly and climbs into the passenger seat. Dean is at a loss for words, so he doesn’t say anything at all. He drops Cas off at the library with all the things left unsaid hanging between them.

***

It’s off season for the small college town, most of the students having gone home for winter break, so the hunters end up with better than normal accommodations. Dean is more than happy to discover a decent grill-themed restaurant practically in the parking lot of their hotel, and Cas is happy to wait until his companion is content with food before telling him what he’d found during his time in the library. Dean talks ideally about the pie store the server had told him about, wondering if they’ll have time to check it out before they leave. Cas lets Dean talk, he finds himself still grateful that he can have these moments, he truly thought he was going to lose him in the attempt to destroy Amara.

Ever since Castiel’s brief time as a human he’s found that the emotions he’d been slowly acquiring over the years have amplified at a rate that he has had difficulty adjusting to. He’d hoped at the beginning that regaining his grace would have given him back some of the control that had spiraled away from him, but he can’t help but dwell on almost losing Dean.

When they reach their room, Dean opts to take a shower before swapping case notes so Cas tries to take that time to compose himself. When given moments away from Dean, where there is a chance for quiet, the angel forces himself to let the feelings he has for the infuriating man wash over him. He lets himself feel the pain at having to let him go up against Amara alone. He lets himself feel the overwhelming joy at seeing him alive once again. He lets himself feel how much he’s fallen in love with the beautiful human being. He recalls talking to Anna at the beginning of what would become his fall, her telling him it only gets worse. He has no doubt now that she wasn’t just referring to his struggle with doubt. An angel that can feel things akin to a human can easily become overwhelmed. They were not built for these sensations, and so, every time Castiel lets go to indulge in the wash of his emotions he pulls on his grace and works to reign them in one at a time. By the time Dean emerges from the shower Castiel has regained some semblance of stoicism.

“So, this lady at the historical society was great. She apparently teaches genealogy classes for free to the public or something, so she was able to pull up the victim’s ancestry pretty fast. Captain Abbot was her ancestor all right, so at least we have that connection. Couldn’t find much out about the family besides that, so we should talk to Louisa’s next of kin tomorrow. I think the police report said she had a sister locally.” Castiel agrees to the plan and pulls out some information he had printed at the library.

“The tree is called a ‘Wych Elm’ and is a common wood used to build coffins, which may explain it’s presence. It’s possible, if Captain Abbot’s coffin was made from this wood, that whatever spell was cast had the side effect of growing a new tree from the wood.” Dean raises his eyebrows skeptically when Cas shares this information.

“It’s called a witch elm Cas; do you really think it’s there because of the coffin wood?” Castiel rolls his eyes at his companion.

“W-Y-C-H Dean, not witch. It means pliable, it’s named for the characteristic of the wood. But no, to answer your question. I doubt it has anything to do with the coffin wood. It’s not a tree common to this area.” Dean waves his hand to indicate Castiel should continue. “You are not the only one to mistake the name of the tree for something else. More recent lore does associate the tree with actual witches as many of them seem to like these trees as ritualistic sites. The rest of the lore associates them with melancholy and death, especially because the trees are known for unexpectedly dropping branches and injuring the unsuspecting people standing below them.”

“Yeah, okay. Does that mean that Louisa was some sort of witch, and grew the tree there on purpose?” Cas thinks about Dean’s suggestion for a few moments.

“Possibly. The other thing these trees are known for is guarding the entrance to Hades, so it may also be a result of an attempt to raise the dead. I cannot be certain as this seems unlike any other necromantic ritual I’ve heard of. I am also uncertain at to the motivation of raising someone who died over two centuries ago, as the more recent dead are usually preferrable to necromancers.”

“Alright, well there’s not much more we can do tonight.” Castiel nods and watches Dean dig through his bag. Dean hesitates for a moment and Castiel begins to wonder if he forgot something at the bunker. Dean shakes his head and pulls a bundle out of his bag, tossing it to Castiel.

“Here, I forgot I brought this for you.” Dean looks expectantly at the angel as Cas looks at the material in his hands.

“Clothing? Dean, I have no need to change clothes.” Castiel’s confusion is evident on his face. Dean sighs rubs the back of his neck.

“I know man. Just try though, you’re more human-like than before with Heaven losing power. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I noticed that you eat more often, and even sleep sometimes. I think you’ll actually appreciate relaxing in something that isn’t a suit and trench coat.” Cas looks at the clothing in his hands, dismayed that Dean has seen the weakening of his connection to Heaven. He hadn’t wanted Dean to think him less capable but at the same time he’s touched by the thought the man had put into the angel’s situation.

“Thank you, Dean. I will try.” Castiel goes into the bathroom to change and when he emerges, he finds Dean sitting on one of the beds flipping through TV channels. Dean slides over, indicating that Cas should sit down as the TV is only visible from the one bed. Dean complains that the only thing on is a Law & Order marathon because the hotel doesn’t have a streaming service on the TV. Cas doesn’t mind though, sharing the bed to watch television gives him an excuse to watch over Dean as he sleeps without Dean complaining about it. Even nicer is how Dean falls asleep gradually in the middle of an episode and doesn’t seem to notice how he curls into Cas’ side as he does it. Cas smiles and allows his feelings to wash over him again as he thinks about how the softer PJs must be more comfortable for Dean to lay on.

***

The following evening found the hunter and the angel at a place called Warm Springs Ranch. When they called Louisa’s sister, she told them she could talk during her break. The ranch ran some sort of Christmas event and Janice Abbot was one of the people in charge of it. Dean tried to play it cool, but he couldn’t help getting a bit excited over the chance to see the Budweiser Clydesdales. He did remind Cas that interrogating the horses was unnecessary to which he had received one of the angel’s full body eyerolls. Dean would never admit it out loud, but he really enjoyed Cas’ sarcasm. He thought the eyerolling was kind of adorable.

Dean hadn’t meant to spend last night half snuggling with his best friend, but Cas didn’t seem to mind so he wasn’t going to worry about it. Dean figured his secret crush on the guy was his problem, not the angel’s – as long as it didn’t mess up their friendship it wasn’t worth agonizing over.

They had unexpectedly spent the morning at the morgue. There was another strange death last night, something had eaten the victim’s spleen. They’d only received a call about it because the original victim, Louisa, had also been missing her spleen along with several other organs and most of her blood. If it was the same creature it certainly seemed to enjoy the bloodier organs of the body. The only other thing the victims had in common was proximity to the cemetery. The most recent victim had visited the cemetery the previous day according to her wife.

After that trip, they had gotten access to Louisa’s duplex and were now in agreement that she had been a practicing witch dabbling in necromancy. Cas had been on the phone with Rowena during the drive to the ranch giving her a rundown on the information they had in the hopes that she could help then understand more of what was going on. Eventually Cas had given in and called Sam, admitting that the younger Winchester had a much easier time getting Rowena’s cooperation.

When they finally arrived at the front of the line of cars entering the ranch, Dean began to understand why there was a crowd. The lights draped everywhere were impressive and Dean was happy to note that Cas seemed taken in by the display. It always cheered Dean up to see Castiel happy, it felt like those instances were all too rare in their line of work. Dean and Cas showed their badges at the entrance and asked where they could find Janice. They were directed to a side road for staff and Dean noticed the small frown of Cas’ face.

“Hey, want to ask if we can drive through the light display if we have time before we leave? It looks kinda awesome.” Castiel didn’t exactly smile but Dean could tell the suggestion pleased him. Dean wasn’t always sure why, but he was much better at reading Castiel than anyone else. Dean drove around to the back to park his car in what he assumed was the employee parking lot. They made their way through the staff entrance and asked around until they found Louisa’s sister.

“I honestly don’t know what I can tell you guys that I haven’t already told the other cops. I’m sorry she’s dead but Louisa and I were not close. She and I have barely spoken since we were kids. She was friends with some really weird people and did a lot of drugs when we were younger. I’m really not surprised she ended up dead in a cemetery.” Janice was clearly frustrated at her sister’s death and the notoriety it had brought with it. They did manage to find out the names of some of the ‘weird’ friends Louisa hung out with but beyond that she had been more than happy to offer them free access to the Christmas event just to be rid of them.

Dean was fairly certain the interview had been a dead end outside of assuring himself the sister wasn’t also a witch, but he didn’t feel their time had been wasted as he watched Cas roam through the stables. Cas attracted the few colts in residence leading to the kids in attendance following him around so they could see the young horses up close. Dean felt a soft warmth spread out from his chest as he watched his best friend talk with both the children and the colts. The children didn’t think anything of Cas having conversations with horses.

They eventually made their way back to the car and drove through the light display. Maybe they should have talked about the case, but Dean didn’t want to ruin the moment. Cas gazed out at the decorations with a look of quiet contentment on his face and Dean reached for the angel’s hand without thinking about it. Cas threaded his fingers through Dean’s without even turning away from the window.

Later that night, after grabbing burgers at a drive thru, they poured through the case notes together hoping to find something they had been missing. Dean didn’t even remember falling asleep until he woke up to Cas rolling him onto a pillow and laying a blanket on him. He mumbled a drowsy thank you and sunk into a dreamless slumber.

***

Cas thought that maybe it was a mistake, but after last night he didn’t want to be away from Dean. Once he had pulled a blanket over his exhausted friend, Cas changed into the pajamas Dean had given him again and laid down beside him. He stayed above the covers and just watched Dean sleep. He didn’t tell Dean anymore that he’d watch over him as he didn’t enjoy being called creepy. Dean didn’t seem to understand that watching was part of who Castiel was as an angel. While he had rebelled and fallen it didn’t change his need to watch over the man he pulled out of hell. It would be like going to long without air for a human. Cas needed to watch Dean, to protect him, to assure himself that he was safe.

He noticed Dean shivering despite the blanket draped over him and Castiel found himself giving into another impulse that he wasn’t sure Dean would appreciate. He pulled on the smallest amount of his grace to give some substance to his wings and dropped one of them on top of the man he loved. They were broken and battered, but over the years they had healed enough to fill out a bit. Dean quieted as he felt the weight of the wing, and Cas saw a small smile ripple across his face. The angel would just have to pull his wings back from the physical realm before Dean woke up, but it was worth the grace to keep Dean more comfortable as he slept.

***

Dean opened his eyes in the morning to find a sleeping angel next to him. He froze as soon as he saw Cas there, more worried that the angel had fallen asleep than about the fact that Dean was all to happy to wake up to his best friend lying beside him. He reached over to see if he could wake Cas up and ran into – feathers? Dean quickly rubbed his hands over his face and woke up more definitively. Yup, those were feathers. Large, gorgeous, black feathers that shimmered like obsidian in the sunlight. It was as if every color that had ever existed had come together to create the shimmering black of Castiel’s wings. While concerned about why Cas was sleeping and why his wings were manifested when Dean had only ever seen shadows, Dean couldn’t help but be enthralled with the things. His hand reached out to pet the one blanketing him before he actually thought about it. He had just enough time to appreciate how amazingly soft they felt before Castiel awoke with a gasp. The wing pulled back suddenly and Cas was sitting up staring at Dean in shock.

“Sorry, sorry! Did I hurt you? I didn’t mean anything by it, they were just so amazing… I’m so sorry Cas!” Dean held up his hands trying to placate the angel as he also sat up. Cas looked at his wings as if he had just realized they were physically present. Surprise travelled over his features and with a roll of Cas’ shoulders the wings disappeared. Dean tried not to look as disappointed as he felt. Cas turned back to Dean and briefly touched his jaw.

“It’s alright Dean. I was just surprised. They were manifested more than I intended and the sensation of you touching them was unexpected.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“No, like I said it was just unexpected, not harmful. I apologize, I didn’t mean for them to be out for so long.” Dean was surprised to note that Cas looked embarrassed.

“I – I’m glad I got to see them. They’re fucking awesome Cas, the shadows were badass enough, but wow. If I had known you could manifest them like that, I’d have been begging you to show me for years.” Cas laughed and the tension between them evaporated. Dean got ready in the bathroom and found Cas back in his regular clothing hanging up the phone when he’d finished brushing his teeth.

“Rowena thinks she knows what happened, or at least some of it. She’s not completely sure about the role of the Wych Elm, but she did say that it’s likely we will need to use wood from the tree to kill the creature that was raised.”

“Did she say what it is?” Cas nodded in response to Dean’s question.

“She thinks Louisa was trying to make her own vampire. Ties of blood are necessary for control and the age of the corpse increases the power of the risen dead in a ritual like this. Rowena said that no one tries this type of thing though, because the amount of power and control needed are astronomical. She said she wouldn’t try it herself, that there are easier ways to get a loyal servant. Then she said something about how maybe Louisa didn’t have the ‘assets’ Rowena had?” Dean broke into laughter and Cas tilted his head in puzzlement. Dean always enjoyed Cas’ air quotes.

“Don’t worry about it, Cas. Okay, so Louisa was trying to make her own breed of vampire.”

“It would seem so. Obviously, she wasn’t successful, and not just in regards to her lack of control. Whatever the creature technically is, it’s not just drinking blood.” Dean chewed over Cas’ words as the angel did something on the laptop. All Dean could think is that this thing seemed to be some sort of zombie vampire. It didn’t really make a difference though, as long as they had a way to kill it. Or re-kill it as it were.

“So, Rowena said we can use the Wych Elm wood to kill the thing?” Cas didn’t even look up from the screen to answer Dean’s question.

“Not exactly. She said it had to be the specific tree that grew out of the grave. She also said it wouldn’t be enough by itself. I’m looking at the spell now.” Dean decided to leave Cas to it and work on getting their gear together. It was still a vampire after all, even if it was some sort of mutant version.

“Dean. I think this will work. Dead man’s blood should still help to incapacitate it. We also need the ashes of it’s creator and the blessing of the divine.” Dean widened his eyes at that list, but he supposed it was doable. They could steal Louisa’s body from the morgue if necessary. “We use the spell to seal the ingredients into the wood of the elm. Then we have to stab the creature with the elm wood through its heart.”

“So, we have to stake the vampire? Seriously?” Dean was amused at the idea of staking a vampire actually working.

“Yes, Dean. Afterwards I’d still suggest decapitation and burning whatever is left, just to make sure it stays dead.” Cas closed the laptop and pushed it aside.

“Sure. You have a plan for blessing of the divine?” Cas smiled at Dean.

“That’s easy enough.” Cas didn’t even warn Dean, one moment he’s standing there looking at the angel expectantly, the next he has a faceful of feathers.

“Um, I thought you didn’t want me touching them.” Dean couldn’t see Castiel, but he could hear him snickering. Dean pushed the wing away from his eyes in time to see Cas laughing at him.

“I said it was unexpected, not that I minded you touching. Anyway, this will work.” Dean watches as Cas runs his finger through the feathers and finds one that comes loose. In between one blink and the next the wings are hidden once again. Cas hold a single feather in his hand, the echo of his earlier laughter still present in his smile.

“What about the ashes? Do we need to break into the morgue?”

“We don’t need a specified amount; we can get away with most anything. Maybe just hair or something small, we needn’t steal an entire corpse.” Dean sighs in relief, that’s one less complication.

“Well let’s head out then, I’d like this taken care of before sunset. Wait, how are we going to find the thing anyway? You think it’s prowling around the cemetery?” Cas nods.

“Yes, Dean. Rowena seems to think it’s probably tied to the elm and with the other victim also being close to the area I’m inclined to agree with her. Using the tree for the spell may even be enough to draw it to us. If you want to drop me off at the cemetery, I can start preparing everything while you get the ashes.” Dean agrees and grabs his keys.

***

Cas is somewhat relieved to be dropped off at the cemetery. While Dean hadn’t reacted poorly to being draped in an angel wing this morning, or the fact that Cas was asleep in the same bed, he couldn’t help feeling that he had been pushing things too far. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep while also solidifying his wings. He needed to conserve his grace for more important tasks. While Castiel was truly content to just be a part of Dean’s life it was difficult to remind himself that he could not have more, especially with his poor control over the very human-like emotions he now experienced. What was really tipping him over the edge though, was how Dean kept reacting. Dean did not react with anger or defensiveness when he found himself in situations that hinted of a more intimate relationship with Cas. He acted as if it were normal and even welcome. It surprised Cas, but it also gave him some of the hope that he had never really allowed himself to have. It was distracting, which made it all the better that he would be prepping the spell by himself.

Cas collected a branch from the Wych Elm growing out of Captain Abbot’s grave, mindful of the tree’s reputation for dropping branches on unsuspecting passersby. Then Cas took a few moments to make sure the caretaker knew that he and his partner may be around afterhours because of the attack yesterday and was happy to find out that she had already decided to stay with a friend until she felt safer. Cas made quick work of the elm branch, pleased with how easy it was to shape into a stake. The sun would set soon so Castiel got to work engraving the sigil they would need directly into the tree trunk. Once Dean brought the last ingredient it should only take them a few minutes to complete everything. With any luck the vampire would come to them.

He was so absorbed in creating the sigil that he almost didn’t hear the movement behind him in time.

***

As usual, things had not gone according to plan. Dean had arrived to see Cas holding the mutant-vamp at bay, but clearly struggling to gain an upper hand over the creature they didn’t yet have the means to kill. Dean knew better than to jump into the middle of that fight, it was more important to finish Rowena’s spell. He dumped the ashes in with the rest of the material. Luckily Cas had left a copy of the actual spell out by the bowl with all the ingredients. The incantation was pretty straightforward and Dean quickly scooped up the resulting concoction on two fingers and began filling in the sigil carved into the tree. Dean picked up the branch Cas had sharpened into a stake and touched it to the sigil, running through the incantation one more time. In a brief flash of light, the sigil was absorbed into the stake.

“Cas!” Dean threw the stake towards the angel who managed to catch it neatly without even looking. Ducking down as the creature threw itself towards him, Cas pushed the stake up and underneath the monster’s rib cage with more force than a normal human could have managed. Dean breathed a sigh of relief too early, the vamp surged back up and made another run at the rapidly tiring angel.

“Rowena may have overlooked something.” Cas sounded remarkably composed considering how ragged he looked. Dean looked around them desperately for something they had missed. Then he saw how the tree was shivering and pulsing as if trying to reach out to the vampire. Of course!

“Hey asshole, leave my goddamn angel alone!” Dean knew the shotgun wouldn’t work against the creature but it got his attention, and with the impact to its shoulder and the stake still protruding from its ribcage the monster snarled as it barreled towards Dean. Dean was backed up against the tree as Cas turned on him with a horrified look on his face.

“DEAN!” Cas sounded both angry and devastated as he chased after the vampire, but Dean just yelled out instructions, all too aware what this probably looked like from Cas’ point of view.

“Stake it to the tree!” Cas caught on quick and as Dean threw himself out of the way Cas leapt after the thing that had once been Captain Abbot. Cas reached down to where the stake was sticking out and wrenched until the creature’s back was on the trunk of the Wych Elm. Pushing off from the ground Cas slammed the stake further in, until the vampire was stuck to the tree. It screeched as light pulsed from the stake into the tree. The Wych Elm seemed to come to life as it collapsed in on itself, dragging the mutant-vamp back to wherever the tree had come from. Within moments all that was left was a broken gravestone.

“Huh. Guess we don’t have to worry about burning it,” Dean quipped. Castiel rounded on him, clearly not feeling amused.

“What were you thinking? What if I hadn’t been fast enough?” Dean let Castiel rant at him for a few moments, standing up and dusting off the dirt from the back of his jeans.

“I’m sorry, man. I didn’t want to tip it off.”

“So instead, you made it look like you were drawing it away from me? Getting yourself killed for me!?” Castiel’s eyes flashed dangerously blue.

“Yeah, and it worked. For the record, I’d have done that even if it wasn’t to trick the thing though. Better me than you.” Dean was maybe angrier than he expected. He realized he’d been worried about how long Cas would last against that thing as he noted cuts that weren’t healing and the way the angel was swaying as he tried to hold himself upright. He also noticed that the blue in Cas’ eyes was in no way diminishing as he glowered at Dean.

“You. Are. Absurd. You are worth everything to me.” Then, rather abruptly, Cas fell over. Dean’s heart was pounding in his ears, both from what the angel had said and the sudden alarm he felt at a cosmic being fainting. He pulled Cas up into his arms, and damn, he was heavier than Dean had expected. Not just the muscle that Dean could feel, but he idlily wondered if the wings somehow added weight. Either way, Dean eventually made it back to their hotel room, although his back wouldn’t thank him for it later.

***

Cas woke up in the pajamas Dean had given him with an arm thrown over his chest. Confused, Cas turned slowly and realized that they were back in the hotel and Dean was asleep beside him, curled around the angel’s torso. As small rays of sunlight peeked through the curtains Cas could see his normal clothing folded nearby on a chair. He noticed that the wounds his grace hadn’t healed yet had been cleaned and bandaged, and that the blanket was pulled up around both him and Dean. As Dean let out a contented sigh in his sleep and burrowed closer, Castiel thought that perhaps he too was worth everything to someone. Smiling the angel allowed himself to drift back to sleep, happily thinking about how Dean had told the vampire to stay away from “his” angel.

***

@destielsecretsanta2020, @aibari

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