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Spring Moments
Hello!!! This is the fic I wrote for @swspringfling! My recipient is @p-s-brooklyn (it’s not letting me tag you for some reason....) and this is a Modern AU Codywan fic with a healthy serving of Rainshowers, Thunder, Lighting, and Illness! There are first meetings, kissing in the rain, and even a proposal in the rain! 
Oh, there’s also an off-screen character death that decided it wanted to make an appearance. It’s in the second to last section of the fic and it’s not Cody or Obi-Wan, don’t worry. 
You can read it on ao3 or you can read it here! It’s kind of long, so be wary of that!
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Obi-Wan loved the rain. He loved the way it sounded in a quiet house as it hit the roof. He loved the way the drops looked on windows and the way it made everything smell just that much nicer.
(And, yes. His favorite smell was petrichor, thank you for asking.)
Obi-Wan loved the rain. He loved walking in it…
At least, when he had an umbrella and slightly warmer clothes he loved it. 
He didn’t mind not having an umbrella or warmer clothes to help, though. 
“If you just learned how to drive…”
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes at the memory of his brother saying those exact words to him on a day very much like this one. It wasn’t that Obi-Wan had strong feelings about driving...well...actually…
“Hey!” A voice not from a memory jolts Obi-Wan. He turns wide eyes to the owner of the voice. 
A man had stopped his car in the middle of the road, rolled his window down, and was looking a touch concerned. 
Obi-Wan blinked at the stranger, feeling water droplets fall from his lashes and onto his cheeks.
“Uh…” Obi-Wan fumbled for words. “Hello there.”
“Do you need a ride?” The man asks.
“Pardon?”
“Well, it’s pouring rain, you see, and you don’t have an umbrella.”
Obi-Wan blinks again and raises an eyebrow. “You don’t say.”
The man chuckles. “I know you don’t know me, but you look absolutely drenched. I promise I’m not a murderer or anything of the like.”
Obi-Wan hums and the corner of his mouth quirks up. “That sounds like something a murderer would say.”
The man snaps his fingers. “Damn,” he says in a false as though he was disappointed or sad his “deception” didn’t work. “I thought I could fool you.” 
Obi-Wan huffs out a laugh. “Alright,” he says.
The man stares at him. “Alright?”
“If your offer still stands, a ride would be nice.”
The offer does, indeed, still stand. So, Obi-Wan gets into the car and is immediately flooded with warmth. 
“Thanks.” He says through lightly chattering teeth. 
“It’s no problem. I’m Cody, by the way.” Cody informs him.
Obi-Wan turns his attention to Cody and his mouth dries at the sight of him up close. 
His hair is black and slightly curly. His beautiful dark skin is blemished only with a scar wrapping around his left eye. And his eyes are kind and bright. 
He’s gorgeous.
“I’m Obi-Wan,” he says a bit breathlessly.
“Obi-Wan,” Cody says his name almost reverently. “I like that.”
“Thanks.” Obi-Wan replies. 
“So, Obi-Wan,” Cody grins at him. “Where to?”
----------------
“Obi-Wan grumbles to himself as he stands under an awning. His arms are wrapped around his body as he tries to preserve some warmth. 
The weather matches his mood with its dark clouds and rain shower, His date had not gone well.
The man he ate and talked with was rude and far too loud in the restaurant. Not to mention, he was late, ordered the most expensive item on the menu, then made Obi-Wan pay for it. After those unfortunate events, he left and didn’t offer Obi-Wan a ride for his trouble. 
Obi-Wan was surprised to find, though, that the waitress had been watching everything, spoke to her boss, and refunded him. Obi-Wan may or may not have cried at their kindness.
In the end, he decided to walk home even though it started to get late. Of course, his luck ran out and rain poured down. He’d pulled his phone out to call someone and ask for a ride, only to find his phone had died.
So, here he was.
Under an awning, freezing, and miserable.
Sighing, Obi-Wan closed his eyes and huddled further into himself. 
“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this.”
Obi-Wan’s eyes opened and he looked up with a smile.
“Hello there,” Obi-Wan greeted a drenched Cody.
“You got room for one more?” Cody asks, gesturing with his head to the space under the awning.
Obi-Wan inches over and tilts his head. Cody slides into the small space.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Obi-Wan says. 
Cody rubs his hands together and smiles. “Bad date.” He says.
Obi-Wan hums. “What a coincidence.”
“You too, huh?”
“How bad?” Obi-Wan asks, inching towards the shivering man. 
“He didn’t even show up.” Cody mumbles, rolling his eyes. He presses closer to Obi-Wan. “You?”
Obi-Wan groans and relays the events that occurred during his date.
Cody hisses in sympathy. “I’m sorry.” 
Obi-Wan shakes his head. He doesn’t quite realize how close the two of them are until Cody speaks again and Obi-Wan can feel the words vibrate through his body.
“Wanna try again?”
Obi-Wan quirks an eyebrow. “How so?”
“Cody shrugs. “I happen to know a place with great food, a comfy couch, and a warm fire.” He replies with a teasing smile. 
“Let me guess,” Obi-Wan returns the smile. “Would that be your place?”
Cody grins wider. “If that’s alright with you.”
Obi-Wan chuckles and pressed closer to Cody. “It sounds lovely. Lead the way?”
“With pleasure.”
-----------
“The rain seems to like you,” Cody says with a smirk as he pulls Obi-Wan close to him.
There are no places for them to hide from the downpour that seemed to come out of nowhere. They don’t mind.
Obi-Wan rolls his eyes and scoffs. The rain does well to hide the happy tears on his face. His fingers toy with the newly placed ring on his left hand. 
“You know,” Cody continues, locking eyes with Obi-Wan. “We missed a crucial part of this proposal.”
Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow and Cody can’t help but think how beautiful it makes him look. 
How more beautiful it makes him look. 
The year since Cody gave Obi-Wan a ride home had gone quickly. Here they were, a year since then with Obi-Wan tearfully accepting Cody’s proposal and Cody’s heart just about bursting with love out of his chest.
“How very cliche of you.” Obi-Wan remarks dryly.
Cody shrugs with a smirk. “You know you want to be part of that cliche. A kiss in the rain.”
Obi-Wan tilts his head as though seriously thinking about the idea posed to him.
“Why not.” He finally says. 
Cody snorts and tugs Obi-Wan closer.
“I love you,” Cody whispers.
“I know,” Obi-Wan retorts with a gleam in his eye.
Cody laughs and plants his lips on Obi-Wan’s.
They kiss there in the rain, oblivious to the water and the cold. Only seeing and feeling each other.
------------------
A miserable-sounding cough rips its way through the living room and into the kitchen. Cody winces at the sound produced by Obi-Wan and scoops one last bit of soup into a bowl before making his way to Obi-Wan. 
“Obi-Wan?” Cody calls as he enters the domain of on ill Obi-Wan.
The redhead is bundled in blankets on the couch and is watching the rain shower.
The drops slide down the window and Cody can’t help but think of the times when he was a child and would watch the drops, choosing one to cheer for as though it were a race to see which drop would slide all the way to the bottom first.
Yeah, maybe he did that as an adult as well, but it brought him joy.
“Hey,” Cody says softly as he sits next to Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan smiles. “Hi,” he says shortly, coughing harshly into a blanket not long after.
“You sound horrible,” Cody says, earning a glare from Obi-Wan that doesn’t have the same heat it normally would. “I brought you soup.”
Obi-Wan makes a face. He hadn’t been able to keep anything down. His throat was probably raw and aching, and Cody knew he was scared to try and eat.
“Just try a little. If it doesn’t stay down, we’ll try something else.”
Obi-Wan relaxes at the soft, soothing tone and for a moment, all that can be heard is the rain as it hits the windows and roof. 
The ill man nods after a moment and opens his mouth.
Cody carefully feeds him a small spoonful of the light broth. 
Obi-Wan swallows and they both wait. A tremulous smile makes its way onto Obi-Wan’s face and it’s Cody’s turn to relax. He feeds Obi-Wan spoonful after spoonful until he’s unable to eat anymore.
Cody places the bowl somewhere out of reach, then maneuvers Obi-Wan a bit until he’s resting against Cody’s chest. 
The two sit there in silence and watch the rain until both succumb to the call of sleep. 
-------------------
Thunder crashed through the quiet home of Obi-Wan and Cody. Obi-Wan stood off to the side as Cody’s face paled and his smile dropped inch by inch. 
“No,” Cody breathed out and Obi-Wan saw his grip tighten on his phone. “He can’t - I just saw him -” Cody cuts himself off with a choked back sob.
Obi-Wan’s heart aches for his husband. He won’t step in. Not until he knows it would be alright to do so.
“Alright,” Cody whispers. “Thanks. Bye.” Cody hangs up and the hand holding the phone drops from his ear and swings limply at his side. 
“Cody?” Obi-Wan softly calls his husband's name. 
“My brother,” Cody swallows thickly. “Fivel, Fives, he’s dead.” Thunder crashes again and Cody finally allows his tears to fall. 
Obi-Wan’s breath hitches and he’s quick to gather Cody in a hug. 
He’d met Fives a few times. He was kind and welcomed Obi-Wan into the family with a wide smile and some jokes at Cody’s expense.
To hear that he was gone-
Lightning flashed and Obi-Wan pulled Cody closer. He squeezed his eyes shut as he felt Cody shake with sobs. 
“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan says. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Lightning flashes and thunder crashes in the quiet home. Cody’s cries are the only thing that breaks the occasional silence.
------------------------
“Obi-Wan?” Cody calls across the house. He’d woken up alone and concern and worry were the first things to cross his mind. 
Then, he heard the thunder and saw the lightning flash through the windows. He knew where Obi-Wan was.
His feet led him to the living room, and sure enough, Obi-Wan was on the couch with a blanket wrapped loosely around his shoulders and a bag of marshmallows in his hands. Cody smiled at the sight, recalling what Obi-Wan told him the first time he’d seen this exact display.
“It’s something my parents used to do,” Obi-Wan said as he pulled a marshmallow from the bag before popping it into his mouth. “I was always terrified of the lightning, more so than the thunder. They tried to tell me I was safe. It was difficult for me to believe.” Obi-Wan cuddled deeper into Cody’s side, his eyes never leaving the window as lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating his features.
“So, to try and calm me, to try and wash away my fear, they brought out marshmallows and said it was like a show. A light show. We sat and watched the lightning while eating marshmallows, and though my fear is gone, it’s something I’ll always do.”
“That sounds nice,” Cody said, looking at Obi-Wan as he’s once again illuminated by the flashes of lightning.
“It is.”
Coming out of the memory, Cody took a few more steps to the couch before speaking.
“May I join you, beloved?” He asks softly.
Obi-Wan turns and smiles tiredly at Cody. “Always, dear one.”
So, Cody joins him on the couch with a blanket of his own and Obi-Wan leaning on him just a bit.
Later, the bag of marshmallows would fall to the ground as Cody and Obi-Wan sleep on the couch and in each other’s embrace.
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goulets · 3 years
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Heartland
Chapter: 3/8 Pairing: Jason Todd/Dick Grayson Additional Characters: Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne, Colin Wilkes, Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake, Duke Thomas Rating: T (for now) Case Fic / Kid Fic a03 link
The library has its benefits: no harassment from over-familiar family members, no Dick sexually frustrating him within an inch of his life, and, if he’s willing to be a little sentimental, he kind of does want to show it to the baby. She’s too young to appreciate it, probably, but it stirs something in him to share it with her all the same. He’s heard it’s never too early to get kids into reading - his parents sure as hell never tried, but Jason had read anything he could get his hands on, once he learned how. It had saved him, back then. Maybe it can do the same for her one day.
“Could’ve sworn Bruce had a Dr. Seuss anthology somewhere in here,” he says to her, combing over the shelves with his eyes. “Guess not. You up for something more sophisticated?”
She grunts, squeezing his shirt in her fist. “Alright,” he agrees, pulling Twelfth Night off the shelf. “Shakespeare it is. You’ve got taste, kid.”
***
(dick)
Venice is a nightclub that has gone by many names during its Gotham tenure, and just as many owners. Dick has been undercover here at least twice, back when the club was catering to the wealthier patrons of Little Italy. The current management clearly hasn’t bothered with maintaining that exclusivity - the building is now shabby and outdated, even for this neighborhood. One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the real draw of Venice, which is the illegal casino in the back rooms beyond the VIP lounge. Through all the club’s owners, the casino has always been run by the Falcones, and always frequented by the city’s most morally flexible elected officials. In the past four nights that Dick’s been staking the place out, he’s seen five judges, two city council members, and even the new police commissioner slipping out the back door into the alley, stinking of gin and cigar smoke and patting their coat pockets with an air of satisfaction. It’s good intel to have, Barbara’s told him. Always helpful to keep the files updated on who’s being bought and by whom. None of that really makes him feel better about the fact that he’s been staking this place out for four nights and still hasn’t managed to pin down their actual target.
It’s embarrassing, is what it is. He’s Nightwing, for God’s sake. He’s taken down whole Russian mobs in Bludhaven, and now he’s being completely eluded by a third-string Falcone no one’s even heard of.
Oracle had ID’d the doer of the Torres/Howard murders in a matter of hours, true to her word, and the ballistics had predictably matched up with a few other murders that the police never bothered investigating. Susanna “Susie” Falcone, a second cousin once removed with a rap sheet that puts many of her relatives to shame. Her name must still have some pull in political circles, because she’s only done time once, in spite of being indicted almost a dozen times. Gotta love good old fashioned judicial corruption, Jason had said. No one had been able to argue, looking at the number of charges dismissed.
All in all, it was supposed to be a fairly simple tag-and-bag. Once they’d found her place of work - officially, the Venice nightclub, unofficially, the family casino - he’d been tasked to track her, question her, and then turn her in to the police. He’d chosen his stakeout perch well, on a hotel roof high above the alley, he’d followed her, unseen, and so far, she’s given him the slip every freaking time. The woman has vanished through every doorway from here to Robinson Park, as only the most enterprising criminal can. Were this a different kind of case, Dick might have been impressed.
Instead, he’s annoyed, and having to compromise - his vantage point is lower, closer but more exposed in the thin shadows of a third story construction platform right above the alley. He can see the door to the club without any difficulty, but the moment he moves, he’ll be open to attack.
He’ll just have to move fast. Fortunately, that’s what he’s best at.
There’s a soft motion behind him, almost quiet enough to escape his notice entirely. It’s Jason - Dick hadn’t expected him to actually turn up. No doubt he’s here to make sure they finally succeed in catching their mark tonight, but he’s been so adamant about not leaving Danielle with anyone except Dick that it’s still a surprise to see him. What’s equally surprising to Dick is that he was apparently hoping Jason would show, if the relief he feels at seeing him is anything to go by.
It’s a nice moment of solidarity, until Jason opens his mouth. “So, fourth night’s a charm, huh?”
Dick bristles. “What happened to not leaving the baby?” he retorts.
Jason bristles back, but doesn’t rise to the bait. It’s a little wrongfooting - a reminder that things are changing between them. Dick is used to the veneer of antagonism that hangs over his relationship with Jason, the unresolved tension they both pretend not to notice. They’d gotten into a pretty good groove when he was acting as Batman, staying out of each others’ way for the most part, and working together when necessary. Dick’s pretty sure Jason doesn’t actually harbor any murderous feelings towards him, just like he doesn’t actually hate Bruce, no matter what he says.
“The girls and Alfred ganged up on me,” Jason says, leaning back against the scaffolding. “Whatever. I needed to get the hell out of there anyways. I don’t know how you stand being around them all so much.”
Dick laughs. “They’re not as interested in me,” he admits. “I’m not the cool sibling.”
Jason doesn’t respond right away. It's hard for Dick to tell, when he’s wearing the helmet, but he thinks Jason is probably waiting to see if Dick is joking. It’s another way things have shifted between them - Jason’s holding back, not jumping straight to lashing out, like he used to. It should be a good thing - it is a good thing, but it’s throwing him off balance all the same. He feels like he's spent most of the past several days looking for Jason, even when Jason is right in front of him. He’s used to trying to find the Jason he knows - or knew - the Jason who was taken away from him. Now there’s a new Jason, a Jason he’s still getting to know. Dick can’t choose between them, can’t decide which one he wants to find every time he looks at him. Maybe that’s why he can’t seem to find his one lousy mafia shooter.
“Looks like the cops are covering up the ballistics report on Reynolds,” Jason says, after a moment. “Go figure.”
Dick frowns. “Just Reynolds?”
Jason grunts. “Hold on. What.”
Dick turns to look at him.
“Did you burp her?”
Oh, Dick realizes, he’s on the comm. Someone back at the Manor must have pinged him on a private line.
“Then get Alfred to do it.”
It’s curious that the ballistics on Cy Reynolds’ murder are the ones being suppressed, Dick thinks. He was the only one killed with a submachine gun - the bullets from most of the other crime scenes had come from a standard Beretta APX, and the object of his stakeout, Susie Falcone, had used a Glock on Danielle’s parents. The Glock matched a few other shootings, the Beretta matched none. None of that is particularly noteworthy - after all, Susie is a criminal, and Beretta shell casings are a dime a dozen at any mob shooting.
“Fine. I’ll check back in five. If you asswipes don’t pick up, I’m coming back there.” Jason makes an aggravated noise in the back of his throat, which Dick takes to mean he’s hung up.
“Everything OK?”
“Just peachy. By some cosmic fucking joke, I’m the only person in the family who can get the baby to take a damn bottle. I told her they just need to burp her, but I guess that’s too complicated a task for a family of genius detectives,” Jason grumbles. “I knew I shouldn’t have left her. Shit.”
“Jay, relax. She’s fine.” Dick can’t help but grin at him. It’s honestly sweet, the way Jason and the baby have gotten attached to each other. Dick likes to think he’s her second favorite, but it’s pretty hard to tell. No matter who’s holding her, she’s always looking at Jason, and Jason never stops looking at her.
“It’s fucking cold out here,” Jason says mulishly.
Dick raises an eyebrow. “I noticed. It’s April, not August. If you really want to go back, I’m not gonna stop you.”
“I don’t…” Jason sighs. “Look, I’m here, okay? You bungled this grade school op three nights in a row, so congrats, you triggered the bat buddy system. If I leave and you fuck it up again, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Dick supposes it’s his turn not to rise to the bait. “Fair enough,” he says easily, turning around to face the alleyway again. “What were you saying about the ballistics on Reynolds?”
“Oh, Oracle ran the bullets through Interpol. Turns out our ill-fated gang boss was offed by one of Carmine Falcone’s personal weapons. The record’s been scrubbed from US databases, but Babs had a hunch.” Jason sounds impressed.
“Been scrubbed meaning...there was a record,” Dick follows, “and some people might still remember, if they saw the bullets. Hence the coverup.”
“Yup. Hence the coverup.”
“Could explain what the commissioner was doing here the other night,” Dick muses.
Jason snorts derisively. “See, this is what I hate about the mafia. They’re so goddamn predictable. Kill the competition, pay off the cops, around and around forever. It’s so pedestrian.”
Dick laughs. “You’d rather deal with Clayface?”
“Fuck yes I would. Clayface has flair, you know? Anybody can be a mobster, shit.”
Jason has started shifting with agitation, or maybe impatience. Either way, their vantage spot isn’t hidden enough for him to be moving around. “Get low if you’re gonna be twitchy,” Dick tells him. “Or if you’re gonna have a cigarette, but I’d really rather you didn’t.”
“Lucky for you I quit then,” Jason says, crouching down next to him. “I’m not jonesing, I’m just fucking cold.”
“We could huddle together for warmth,” Dick jokes, grinning unabashedly when Jason’s helmet fixes him with a death glare. “Wait, you quit smoking? When?”
“When I started taking care of a baby, obviously.” Jason goes still, suddenly. “Is that her?”
The door to the alleyway opens, and they both tense - but it’s just a man, a bodyguard, by the looks of him. Close-cropped blonde hair, early 40s, used to throwing his weight around. Feeling there’s something familiar about him, Dick nudges Jason and motions for him to take a photo. Jason starts almost imperceptibly at the contact, but follows suit. They both hold perfectly still in the shadows as the man looks around, glances in a cursory way along the rooftops, and then sets off down the alley towards the street.
“I know him,” Jason mutters. “From Tim’s case files - he was with Intergang.”
Dick doesn’t say anything about Jason calling Tim by name, but it’s a welcome development. “Looks like he switched sides, if he’s hanging out here.”
“Wonderful,” Jason says. “All right, I’m gonna check on the kid again.”
Dick represses the urge to give him a shoulder squeeze, or ruffle his hair. It’d probably result in him getting shoved off the platform, but Jason’s being so....not different, because Dick’s always known that this Jason was still in him, somewhere. Always hoped, anyways. When Jason had been younger and acted like this, surly with his words but tender with his actions, Dick had always thought of him as cute. It’s like that now, too, except it’s not just cute, because Jason has several inches and at least two weight classes on him. It’s cute in a different way, an adult way. It’s cute in a way that makes Dick want to push harder against Jason’s armor, to catch as many glimpses of that side of him as he can. If he thinks about it too long, it’s cute in a way that makes him want, recklessly.
“Red Hood to Batgirl,” Jason says. He’s calling on the family line this time. “Give me an update.”
“You’re seriously a helicopter parent, you know that, Hood?” Steph laughs in Dick’s ear. “We figured it out. Well...Black Bat figured it out.”
Jason’s shoulders sag a little in relief. Cute, Dick thinks, involuntarily. He needs to get a grip. “About fucking time.”
“She prefers being propped up,” Cass says. “It helps her swallow.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier. And she likes her back straight.”
“You said none of that, actually,” Steph says. “You just told us to support her head. Which we have been, thank you very much.”
“You have her now?”
“Robin has her.”
Dick and Jason look at each other. Jason says, “What the fuck?”
“Right?” Steph sounds amused. “I was surprised too....his friend is here, that ginger kid? He’s the one that took her from the orphanage, right?”
“Batgirl, I swear to god, if anything happens to her - ”
“Oh, calm down, jeez,” Steph groans. “They’re being supervised, okay? It’s honestly precious, you would agree with me if you could see it. I’ll text the pictures to N.”
“Please do,” Dick says. Speaking of cute, in a way that’s much safer to think about.
“Go do your job now,” Cass tells them. “We’re handling it.”
“Yeah, what she said. Batgirls out.”
“Feel better?” Dick asks, after a moment.
“Don’t ask me that,” Jason grouses. “And show me those pictures when you get them.”
Dick grins. “Sure, Jay.”
“Ugh.”
Dick decides to change the subject, before Jason gets too antsy and tries to bail. “So how do you want to play this, when Susie shows?”
Jason points to a dumpster halfway down the alley. “We wait until she’s there. I’ll get the club door, put a taser on it to stop her getting back in or anyone else from coming out. You cut her off before she gets to the street, and we question her on the backside of the dumpster. I’ll take line of sight, since I’m packing.”
Dick nods. “So is she.”
“So is every goon in those back rooms, sure. That’s why we lock their asses in.”
“And if they come out the front?”
Jason spins a gun in his hand. “Rubber bullets do the job just fine if you know how to aim. Let me worry about the backup.”
Another thing that’s changed about Jason - or that hasn’t changed, depending on how far back Dick looks. He uses rubber bullets now, whenever he’s working a case with one of them. Supposedly it’s a stipulation from Bruce, but Jason didn’t use lethal force on the couple cases he and Dick worked together, either, back when Dick was wearing the cowl. Dick thinks Bruce just gave him an excuse - whatever bloodlust Jason was fueled by when he first came back to Gotham has long since dried up. There are still things that set him off - Barbara had informed them about a dead rapist in the Narrows just last month - but Bruce hadn’t even commented on it, besides the barest acknowledgment. Dick thinks he might be the only one that actually cares when Jason kills someone, anymore. And what’s really disturbing is that he’s not actually sure how much he cares. For instance, he knows Jason has a third gun, holstered under his jacket, loaded with live ammo. He could call Jason out on it, insist he ditch it or at the very least unload it.
He says nothing. Let me worry about the backup. If this mission ends in a massacre, Dick will only have himself to blame.
The door opens again, and out steps Susie Falcone.
She immediately looks around, staying still in the doorway for a minute or more. Dick is pretty sure she hasn’t seen him following her, but he’s familiar with the sensation of being watched. He and Jason both shrink further into the shadows, waiting for her to make a move.
The whole process takes about six seconds. The moment she gets a few paces into the alley, they drop down. Jason electrifies the door handle, and Dick outmaneuvers her easily, slapping his police-issue cuffs on her and kicking her gun aside, then spinning her into the wall behind the dumpster. She hits it with a grunt. By the time she’s glaring at him, Jason is at his side again.
“Nightwing and Red Hood?” she says. “Damn. Didn’t expect to see you fellas out here.”
She doesn’t seem scared of them. Dick guesses they’ll have backup coming their way soon.
“Hey, what do you know,” Jason says conversationally, picking up the gun and emptying the clip in one swift motion. “Nightwing, I do believe this is our Glock.”
“Not mine,” Susie objects. “Picked it up off the club floor.”
“Come on, Susie, you’re smarter than that.” Jason crosses his arms. “Look, I can appreciate a sensible weapon. The Berettas the rest of your family favors? Too flashy for me. I loved Sopranos as much as the next guy, but come on.”
Dick suppresses a laugh. “Thought you were a Sig man,” he says in an undertone. He hadn’t expected Jason to take the lead, but it’s working. Susie looks agitated at the mention of her family.
“Wow, stalker. Remind me to move safe houses,” Jason quips back. “Aw, look, she slipped your cuffs.”
There’s a taser in Susie’s newly freed hand, and Dick quickly sidesteps it, twists it out of her wrist and sends it clattering down the cobblestones of the alley. Jason sweeps her legs out from under her and knocks her down flat, maybe a little harder than Dick would’ve. Thankfully, she goes down without a fight.
“Let’s try this again,” Dick says, kneeling next to her and zip-tying her wrists. If he wasn’t sure before, he is now - she was expecting them. They won’t be alone for long. He throws a couple smoke pellets down to the ends of the alley, and clips a nearly invisible wireless mic to the shoelaces of her boot under the guise of patting her down.
“You’re obviously not surprised to see us, so just tell us what we want to know,” Jason tells her, squatting down. “I’ll be honest, I don’t really give a shit that you shot Big Mouth, but what did Linda Torres ever do to you?”
“Let me up,” Susie snarls.
“No. Talk, or I’ll give you a taste of that taser you tried to pull on us.”
“Hood,” Dick hisses.
“See? He knows I’ll do it. Save yourself the grief, Susie.” Jason points the barrel of his gun lazily at her temple.
Susie narrows her eyes. “Fine. The two of them robbed me, last September. Dumb motherfuckers didn’t know who they were messing with. But I let them live because the bitch was pregnant.”
Jason makes a noise of disbelief. “Oh, sure. You’re a real bleeding heart, is that it?”
“Like you’re any better,” Susie fires back.
“You said you waited on Linda because she was pregnant,” Dick says. “Why’d you wait to kill Big Mouth?”
Susie’s mouth twists. “Guess I just felt like it.” Dick doesn’t need to see the tension in her shoulders to know she’s lying.
“Strike two.” Jason clicks the safety off. “Who put the hits out?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Susie answers. “I’m dead if I talk, so pistol whip me if you want to. Here’s the God’s honest truth: I really didn’t need a reason to kill those assholes. I was out for ‘em anyways. But I’m not crazy enough to kill a baby, all right? I don’t need shit like that on my conscience.”
“Keep talking,” Jason growls. Dick hears the whoop of a siren a few blocks off. “Where’s the baby now?”
“Somewhere safe, I swear. If anybody comes for her, it won’t be me.”
Susie still thinks Danielle’s at the orphanage, then. That’s good for them, but potentially bad for all the other kids, Colin included. These guys clearly have no problem killing children, even if Susie won’t do it.
The sirens are getting closer. Someone inside must’ve called the cops. Dick motions to Jason, indicating they need to wrap things up.
“Who is coming for her,” Jason barks, every line of his body a threat. “You’ve got five seconds.”
“You don’t.” Susie looks triumphant. They can hear the shouts of police from behind the smoke. “But don’t worry, boys. You’ll find out who really runs this town soon enough.”
“Hood,” Dick mutters. “We need to go, cops in this neighborhood aren’t cape-friendly.”
Jason stands, visibly enraged, and for a moment Dick thinks he’ll shoot Susie anyways. He’s prepared to move - but then Jason pulls out his grapple, fires, and flies up onto the roof.
“Talk about a bleeding heart,” Susie says to Dick. “He have kids or something?”
Dick doesn’t like her tone of voice at all. She’s too relaxed, too unconcerned about being under arrest. She won’t stay in long.
“It’s Nightwing! Get your hands up!”
Dick obliges, ready to pull his escrima sticks.
Three police officers come through the smoke, weapons drawn. “You better have a damn good reason for being this far out of Bludhaven,” one of them shouts at Dick.
“Sure do!” Dick calls back. “Arrested a murderer for you, no need to thank me!”
“Shut up,” a different officer retorts. “Keep your hands up, pretty boy.”
“Oh, fuck this,” Jason mutters over the comm. “I’m throwing you an escape, we’ll recon on the library roof. Stop being so goddamn chatty.”
One smoke pellet later, Dick is three rooftops away and flying. He gets to the library before Jason, exhilarated as ever from a good run.
Jason drops down next to him after a minute or so, laughing when he gets a look at Dick’s smile. “Running from the cops still does it for you, huh?”
Dick elbows him, momentarily forgetting to keep his distance. “Doesn’t it for you?”
Surprisingly, Jason doesn’t move away. “Usually they’re shooting at me, so.”
Dick leans closer, testing. “So…yes?”
“You’re so annoying,” Jason says, but he lets Dick nudge his shoulder, bump their arms together. He’s so solid, Dick thinks. So big. More like Bruce than any of them.
“So, how fast do you think she’ll get out?” he asks, when Jason stays quiet.
“Fucking tomorrow, probably,” Jason sighs. “Next week if we’re lucky.”
“Sounds like she didn’t know about Danielle, at least.”
“She’s not the problem,” Jason says, shrugging Dick off and standing back up. “Falcones will blow up the whole orphanage if they get wind of it. We need to put them down first.”
“We need to find out who’s in charge,” Dick agrees. “I planted a mic on her shoe. In the laces. Hopefully she won’t find it for a few days.”
“Good thinking,” Jason nods. “You gonna keep patrolling?”
“Might as well,” Dick says, standing up next to him and stretching his arms over his head. “I’m still stiff from that stakeout, I need to move.”
Jason’s gone quiet again. Dick thinks he hears his breath catch, but the helmet muffles it enough that it could be a yawn.
“You’re going back to the manor?”
Jason groans. “Fuck my life, yes.”
“You miss her, huh.” Cute, his brain chants.
Jason doesn’t answer, but Dick has a feeling he’s getting the stink-eye.
“I miss her too,” Dick offers. “It’s okay.”
Jason sighs. “Dick…”
“It’s a good thing, Jay. You care about her! We all do,” Dick adds, seeing the rigidity in Jason’s posture. “I mean, you’re practically her parent right now. Of course you miss her.”
“...Don’t say it like that.” Jason’s voice is low, almost pained, and Dick knows he pushed too far. “Like…like I have a right to, okay, just. Don’t.”
“Jason, wait,” Dick starts, but he doesn’t get to finish. Without a backward glance, Jason fires off a line to the neighboring building, and then he’s gone.
***
(tim)
The docks are quiet, unsettlingly so, as Tim prowls around the towers of shipping containers, keeping to the deep shadows they cast along the chipped pavement. It’s overcast, so there’s no moonlight to expose him, but it’s also too dark to see which of the trucks and campers parked all over are occupied, which ones might suddenly turn their headlights on him and catch him out.
One truck in particular - an innocuous looking Isuzu with a stunningly weaponized interior, is the object of his search. The driver, Felipe, is one of Tim’s best informants within Intergang - or had been, prior to the upheaval. Tim’s reasonably sure that Felipe is too lowly a grunt to make an example of, but still, he’s concerned that he hasn’t heard from him in a few days.
As it turns out, he needn’t have worried. He finds Felipe a hundred yard away from his truck, taking a piss off the wharf. He lets himself into the passenger side of the truck, and immediately notes that it is packed. There’s hardly a spare inch in the back, and Tim has a tough time even getting into the passenger seat with all the bags, clothes, and blankets stuffed into it. He pushes the majority of it to the floor, and waits.
Felipe comes back a few moments later. He opens the door and starts, eyes going wide when he sees Tim, but Tim puts his finger to his lips and motions for Felipe to get in so they can talk.
“Red Robin,” Felipe says, once the door is closed. He looks even more shaken than usual. “What the fuck, man?”
Tim crosses his arms. “You tell me, Felipe. You’ve been dodging my calls for days, and now I find out you’re skipping town?”
“I ditched that phone, man. Boss Reynolds had my number in there, you know? Ditched it as soon as I heard about him. I wasn’t trying to ghost you, honest.”
“Relax,” Tim tells him. “I’m not mad. I’d dodge me, too. Just tell me what happened, and I’ll shadow you out of town. Make sure you’re not followed.”
“Shit, man,” Felipe sighs. “Okay, look. There’s shit I can’t tell you, not if I ever want to hench again. You gotta figure that all out yourself, yeah?”
Tim shrugs. “Fine.”
Felipe swallows. “It started last week when Boss Reynolds met with somebody - I don’t know his name, God as my witness, but from what I heard, ‘cause I was unloading some of that funky alien tech, and you know Boss Reynolds wanted to supervise that personally - anyways, this guy in a suit took a meeting with him, and it sounded like he was offering Boss Reynolds a job. Said he had a new operation, bigger than Intergang, bigger than anything Gotham’s seen in a while.”
“Did Reynolds believe him?”
“Nah, he told him to get lost. They had some words, and then everybody started pulling guns, and I went back to the ship so I didn’t get fuckin’ shot, but I didn’t hear anything after that. Next thing I saw, Boss Reynolds was calling his son up and telling him to demo some building down by the old boardwalk - a hotel, maybe. Guess he wanted to expand that way, I don’t know.”
“That was the old Falcone hotel,” Tim says, mostly just to see Felipe’s reaction. He isn’t disappointed - Felipe goes pale, and his eyes flash to the rosary hanging off his rearview mirror. Tim likes Felipe as an informant because he’s nosy, shockingly competent for a henchman, and because he really likes to gossip. He’s never held back on Tim before this.
“Few days later, one of ours, this merc named Tiberius, comes down to the warehouse and says he’s got something to show us. Takes out a fat fuckin’ folder full of pictures…man, it was some sick shit. Boss Reynolds, his wife, Reynolds Jr, and every fuckin’ guy under him. Kids, man. He just passed it around, made everyone look at it. Then he says, we can either be in the folder, or we can come meet the new boss.”
Felipe takes a shaky breath. “Obviously I go with Tiberius, like everyone else. I heard a couple guys stayed on the ship that was docked, thinking they’d wait ‘em out, but the new boss blew it up. Says we’re not in the tech business anymore, and anyone caught trying to smuggle it is gonna get tied to it and tossed in the harbor. You can imagine my concerns,” he says, gesturing to his truck. Tim estimates half or more of the weapons in it are salvaged from alien junk. Roy Harper would have a field day with the setup this guy’s made for himself.
“So that’s why you’re bailing,” Tim says, understanding. He can hardly blame the guy. “Why not just hide the truck somewhere?”
“Well…I did think about that,” Felipe admits. “Tiberius made us a pretty sweet pitch, once we went along with him. Not gonna lie, I was tempted. Tech is my thing, you know, but I can make a gun out of pretty much anything. I could see the possibilities, is what I’m saying, but that was before we met the new boss.”
Tim nods encouragingly. This is what he’s been waiting to hear.
“Listen, Red Robin - I know we’ve had our differences, but I respect you, man, you know that. You’ve been good to me, so I’m gonna give you some advice here. Stay the hell away from the new boss. Like, don’t even get involved. I’ve been henching for a while, and I’ve seen some messed up shit, but they are crazy. Está loca, you feel me? I’ve seen the hit list, and you’re right at the top of it. You and all the other capes. Half of Arkham, too. And they’re connected, like you wouldn’t believe. Shit, I’m already saying too much, man. You see the position I’m in here?”
“I do, Felipe,” Tim tells him. He hands over a stack of hundred dollar bills, their agreed-upon rate for information. “Where are you going?”
“You’re crazy too, if you think I’m telling you that,” Felipe scoffs.
Tim wasn’t expecting a straight answer anyways. “Fair enough. You heading out now?”
“Soon as you get the hell outta my car, yeah. You said you’d shadow me out?”
“I will,” Tim says. “From a distance. If you don’t see me, it means you’re clear to cross the bridge.”
“All right,” Felipe nods. “In that case, I hope I never see your ass again.”
Tim laughs, and climbs out of the truck.
He finds his own way out of the shipyard, pulls a bike out of a safe house, and catches up with Felipe’s GPS signal halfway to the Fashion District. Once he’s sure there’s no immediate threat, he calls Barbara.
“Red Robin to Oracle. I’m uploading a recording to the server.”
Barbara is in his ear at once. “You met with your informant?”
“He wouldn’t give me a name, but he let a couple things slip.”
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” she says.
“First, he flinched hard when I brought up the Falcone name.”
“Confirms what we already know,” Barbara says. “Good. There’s more?”
“There’s more.” Tim tries not to gloat. This is, after all, a serious situation. “He was being cagey about mentioning the leader’s gender, so I was already suspicious, but then said ‘está loca’ when he was trying to warn me.”
Barbara whistles. “Well,” she says, sounding satisfied. “That’ll certainly narrow it down.”
“Yep,” Tim says grimly. “Looks like the new head of the Falcone family is a woman.”
***
(jason)
When Jason was Robin, the library had always been his favorite room in the Manor. It had spoken easily to his idea of what wealth was - rich people had fancy cars, sure, and maybe pools and expensive wardrobes, but wealthy people had art collections, and gardens, and libraries. Jason had spent hours upon hours browsing the shelves, reading anything he could wrap his brain around (and plenty of things he couldn’t), suggesting additions to Alfred, and avoiding his schoolwork in favor of learning about more interesting things, like string theory, or cryptology, or chemical warfare.
That was then.
Now, the library is the only place he can get a minute of peace from the constant barrage of his obnoxious, nosy, boundaryless family members. They’ve been characteristically persistent in their curiosity about him, and about Danielle, who is now Dani, courtesy of Stephanie. This is a nickname family, she’d said, and Jason hadn’t known how to disagree. So now she’s Dani, and Jason is family, and that apparently means he is no longer entitled to any privacy, or personal space for that matter. The only person who hasn’t barged in on him is Bruce, which is almost worse, in a way, because it’s one thing when nobody seeks him out, and it’s quite another when everyone does and then Bruce...doesn’t. Not that he wants Bruce to come up and bother him, God. But he’s in the man’s house, he’s hearing him on the comm constantly either on patrol or down in the cave, and all the other Bat brats and even Alfred are buzzing around him like flies. It’s too much - it feels like before, except for Bruce’s conspicuous absence reminding him that it’s not.
Sharing a bathroom with Dick is another before experience that Jason didn’t need a repeat of. In some ways, it was worse when he was Robin - stripping and showering after patrol in the cave with Dick a few feet away from him is a memory he really wouldn’t have minded leaving back in the Pit - and in other ways, it’s worse now, because Dick is always freaking around. There’s no reprieve, he’s not flitting off to the Titans every week like he used to be. Jason hasn’t gone half a day without Dick getting in his space, drawing up close to him and making that earnest eye contact he’s so annoyingly good at; sometimes wet, sometimes half-naked, sometimes both. And what can Jason do? He’s not going to leave Dani, and he needs Dick to be there so he can get some sleep every once in a while, or patrol, or shower. It’s actually been pretty helpful to have him around, in that regard, but if he has to see the guy walking around with bedhead and nothing but a pair of boxer briefs on one more time, he’s going to fucking explode.
So, the library has its benefits: no harassment from over-familiar family members, no Dick sexually frustrating him within an inch of his life, and, if he’s willing to be a little sentimental, he kind of does want to show it to Dani. She’s too young to appreciate it, probably, but it stirs something in him to share it with her all the same. He’s heard it’s never too early to get kids into reading - his parents sure as hell never tried, but Jason had read anything he could get his hands on, once he learned how. It had saved him, back then. Maybe it can do the same for Dani one day.
“Could’ve sworn Bruce had a Dr. Seuss anthology somewhere in here,” he says to her, combing over the shelves with his eyes. “Guess not. You up for something more sophisticated?”
She grunts, squeezing his shirt in her fist. “Alright,” he agrees, pulling Twelfth Night off the shelf. “Shakespeare it is. You’ve got taste, kid.”
He wonders, not for the first time, what exactly he thinks he’s doing, playing at this whole parenting thing. The rational part of his brain knows that this is a case, that Dani is a victim, that Jason is protecting her because it’s his job. The emotional part of his brain has gone completely off the goddamn rails. Case in point: he’s here with her in the library, prepping her for early literacy like some kind of Crest Hill soccer mom wannabe. Like he’ll even be in her life when she starts doing her ABCs - God willing, she’ll be as far away from him as possible by the time that happens.
It’s fucking hard to think about. He never thought he’d get this attached to a person who can’t even burp on their own. It’s been over a week, and he still struggles with putting her down, with stepping away from her, even when he knows he’s coming right back. Steph and Damian have been wanting to hold her all the time, and Jason knows that they’re capable, knows he has no claim over Dani, doesn’t even mind either of them all that much under normal circumstances, and still, he can’t help feeling like something has reached inside and gripped at his heart every time he passes her over. Which is ridiculous, because she’s not his, he has no more claim over her than any other schmuck off the street. She’s just a kid with unbelievably bad luck, and he’s the idiot who followed Dick up the stairs instead of booking it out the door like a sensible person.
He settles down with her on the couch, propping her up on a couple of pillows, giving her foot a little squeeze. She squeals, smiling at him, and stuffs her fingers in her mouth. God, Jason didn’t know he could feel the way he feels whenever she smiles at him. It’s gonna kill him when he has to give her up.
“If music be the food of love, play on,” he reads, walking his fingers up her leg. “Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die.”
Dani watches him, chewing happily on her fingers. “‘O, it came over my ear like the sweet sound that breathes upon a bank of violets.’ That’s you, you know.” He pokes her in the cheek, grinning. If music be the food of love…but hell, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of this. Especially when she’s all calm and engaging, the precious few minutes that he’s learned to appreciate in between finishing eating and being tired and cranky, when all she wants to do is look around at things, and all Jason wants to do, ever, is look at her.
The door to the library opens, and Jason goes from content to murderous in a fraction of a second. “What the fuck is it now,” he hisses, expecting Damian or maybe Tim, coming to nag him some more, and instead sees Damian’s friend Colin, who looks horrified to have intruded on him. Jason immediately feels like the world’s biggest ass.
“Sorry,” Colin whispers, mortified, and Jason waves a hand apologetically.
“My bad, I didn’t know it was you. Come in, it’s fine. She’s awake, you don’t need to whisper.”
Colin looks unsure, but soon nods and steps into the library, shutting the door firmly behind him.
Once inside, he dawdles by the nearest bookshelf, clearly at a loss. Jason probably should’ve just let him back out, because this is awkward. Should he keep reading to Dani? Talk to Colin? Ask him why he looks like someone just kicked him and stole his dog?
“You good?” he ventures, figuring he ought to at least attempt to be the adult in the room.
Colin glances at him over his shoulder, smiling tentatively. “Yeah, just bored. Damian’s sleeping, we had a rough patrol last night.”
“We?” Jason repeats, stunned. Bruce isn’t an exemplar of child welfare practices, sure, but letting Damian take other kids on crime-busting playdates? What the hell?
“Oh, I guess you don’t know,” Colin frowns. “I’m….uh, it’s probably easier if I just show you.”
He slides his jacket off, threadbare t-shirt hanging off his skinny frame. Jason tenses, not sure what to expect. When Colin’s arm starts to expand, his eyes widen. By the time his fist is as big around as Jason’s thigh, he thinks his eyebrows have probably disappeared into his hairline.
“Oh.” Jason has no idea how he’s supposed to react to this. Is Colin a meta? He’s pretty sure he would know if Colin was a meta. “How…?”
“Scarecrow,” Colin explains. Jason’s heart sinks. “He experimented on me with synthetic Venom. Batman saved me.”
Dani fusses, twisting her body and scrunching her face up. Jason sympathizes - this conversation is giving him gas, too. “Shit,” he says. Not the most articulate way of expressing his condolences, but Colin’s friends with Damian, so tact can’t be of great importance to him. “I didn’t know.”
Dani starts to cry, and Colin takes a couple steps forward, putting Jason’s hackles up at once. Stop it, he tells himself sternly. He might have fallen down a few pegs, but he’s not pathetic enough to square up against an abused fifth grader. He picks her up, rubbing her back, and then glances over at Colin. The kid’s gone shy, looking down at a point somewhere between Jason’s legs and the floor. Jason feels all the hostility bleed out of him, and he sighs.
“You can sit down.” He gestures to the couch, trying to sound nonthreatening. Dani burps, mouths at his shirt, and then gurgles and kicks her legs again. She leans back against his hold to stare at Colin, and Colin’s face splits into a huge grin. He tucks himself down into the cushions, keeping plenty of space between them, but Jason can sense from the inclination of his body that he wants to be closer. Well, if anyone has a right to be close to Dani, it’s the kid who rescued her in the first place.
“Here,” he offers, turning Dani around in his arms. His heart clenches, and he clamps down on his desire to flee. “You can hold her for a minute, if you want to. She likes you.”
Colin looks at him, eyes shining. “Really?”
Jason nods. “Go ahead. Honestly, you probably know a lot more about this shit than I do.”
Colin takes Dani from him carefully, smiling at her and laughing when she reaches forward to grab at his jacket zipper. A few seconds later, it’s in her mouth, along with most of her fist.
“Should I…?” Colin looks at Jason hesitantly.
“I mean…she’s had worse things in her mouth,” Jason tells him. A ringing endorsement of his child-minding abilities right there. “It’s fine, right? That’s how they build an immune system, or whatever.”
“Well, Alfred washed this for me last night,” Colin admits, looking embarrassed. “So it shouldn’t be too gross.”
Jason leans back against the couch cushions, crossing his arms. “Getting all the perks, huh?”
Colin shrugs, casting his eyes down again. “I like it here.”
Considering where Colin grew up, Jason supposes he can’t blame the kid. Still, he’s not quite wrapping his head around this sweet, genuinely nice kid being buddies with Damian. The demon brat isn’t exactly known for his winning personality, and Jason only knows vaguely how the two of them met, but what he’s heard doesn’t strike him as being particularly conducive to forging the lasting bonds of friendship.
Curiosity gets the better of him, and he decides to just ask. “Why’d you call Damian, the night you found her?”
Colin looks surprised. “I...don’t know,” he says, slowly. “I didn’t know who else to call? Damian’s my best friend, and he always knows what to do.”
Jason can’t keep the skeptical look off his face.
“And if he doesn’t, Bat….Bruce, I mean, definitely always knows what to do.”
Jason scrubs a hand over his face. Time to change the fucking subject. “How’d you two get hooked up, anyways?”
Dani turns her head to look at him, still eating Colin’s zipper. Sometimes, Jason gets the bizarre feeling that she can somehow tell when he’s about to blow a gasket. It’s probably a coincidence - she moves around a lot, and Jason has anger issues that flare up every ten minutes, so there’s bound to be some crossover - but it works, because it takes the fight right out of him every time.
“We worked a case together,” Colin says, holding Dani a little more securely against him. “About a year ago, I guess. Kids were disappearing from my orphanage, and from the shelters. I don’t think you were around.”
“I wasn’t,” Jason shakes his head. He and Roy had been busting a trafficking ring in Ibiza, and it had taken Jason over a month to get all the major players. “I heard about it a little, from Dick.”
Dick hadn’t given him too many details at the time - Jason had chalked it up to him having a few other things on his mind, but as Colin fills in the gaps, he starts to suspect Dick just didn’t want him going on a rampage. Which he absolutely would have - he still wants to, God. God. All those poor kids, just a stone’s throw from his old neighborhood. And of course the police had done jack shit - Zsasz is practically Black Mask’s pet, he probably paid them off to look the other way, not that most of them need the excuse - and Bruce was gone, and Jason was gone, and Dick was in over his head, and - fuck, it should never have fallen to Damian and Colin.
He waits for the fury to subside a little, not trusting what will come out of his mouth. Dani hums around her fist, blinking at him, and it helps. “Jesus,” he says, finally. “This fucking town.”
Colin’s mouth twists a little. “Yeah. But you were Robin, right? You probably saw worse things.”
Did he? Jason doesn’t remember. He doubts it, though. He can’t imagine he would’ve been satisfied with Bruce’s way of dealing with it.
“I wouldn’t have pulled my stroke, when I was Robin,” he muses. “Probably why Bruce never gave me a sword.”
No, Jason would’ve bisected the fucker. It still has appeal, though he thinks he would lean towards his favorite Sig rifle if he was taking care of it today. Headshots for the henchmen - anyone who signs on to that kind of operation, even in the most menial capacity, doesn’t deserve to breathe. Kneecaps and crotch shots for the spectators, to make sure they couldn’t get away. Gut shots for the kid-wranglers. And Zsasz....it’s tempting to want to draw it out, but Jason can feel the desire leaving him the longer he thinks about it. His imaginative tortures fade into a simple headshot, and even that isn’t satisfying. Fuck. He just can’t seem to hold onto his rage lately, even when he wants to. It’s all being replaced by some kind of anxiety, some kind of tenderness that aches, burning deep into him every time Dani looks at him, or touches him. Every time he thinks of her. Every time he feels Dick watching him with her, all warmth and affection.
Colin bounces her a little, making her laugh. Jason feels his revenge fantasy slip away.
“What’re you reading her?” Colin nods to the book still laying open in Jason’s lap.
Jason looks at it. “Oh, Twelfth Night. Shakespeare,” he adds, recalling that Colin is eleven, and likely not perusing great literature in his free time. “Figure it’s never too early to start her on the classics.”
Colin grins. “That’s cool,” he says. “Does she like it?”
“Beats me,” Jason shrugs.
“Read some?”
Jason raises his eyebrows.
Colin flushes. “Um. I mean, if you want…”
He decides to humor him. What the hell. “Sure, why not. ‘O spirit of love! How quick and fresh art thou, that, notwithstanding in thy capacity, receiveth as the sea.’”
Dani yawns widely, relinquishing her fist in a long string of drool. Jason laughs, and so does Colin. “Maybe jumping the gun a little,” he admits. “I don’t really know what kids are into these days.”
“Me either,” Colin says. “I think she liked it, though. See, she’s just sleepy.”
Jason feels a lump forming in his throat, and swallows hard against it.
“What does it mean? The part you were reading,” Colin asks.
“Um.” Jason doesn’t really know, he’s not exactly a literary scholar, but he’s always liked to work Shakespeare out on his own, finding meaning in the wordplay and running the metaphors through his mind until they line up in a satisfactory way. He doesn’t know if his interpretation is correct, exactly, but: “So this Duke, a guy called Orsino, is saying that he doesn’t want to be in love anymore. He’s talking about love and how everyone thinks it’s this wonderful thing, but the truth is that it actually just makes people miserable.”
Jason pauses, feeling like he just showed way too much of his hand. “Basically, he’s just complaining,” he finishes, uneasy.
Glancing at Colin out of the corner of his eye, he’s relieved to see that he’s occupied with Dani, and not paying attention to Jason at all. Thank fuck. If it’d been anyone else in the house sitting there, he’d be in for some horrible armchair psychology session, and he’d have to book it out the window and not return for several months.
“I think she wants you,” Colin says, as Dani ramps up her fussing. Jason takes her gratefully, holds her to his chest as she rubs her eyes and grumbles her displeasure at being passed around.
“All right, I hear you,” Jason murmurs, gently tugging her fists away from her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic, come on. It’s not so bad.” Like he’s one to talk.
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, ever since pursue me, he thinks, rocking her tiny body into a comfortable position. Colin was only holding her for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and Jason was sitting less than five feet away, but he missed her. God, what is happening to him?
“Damian didn’t want to bring her here, at first,” Colin says quietly. “But I think he’s glad that we did. He really likes her, you know.”
Jason doesn’t quite know how to feel about that. It’s sweet, on some level. And he’s well aware that Damian likes her, going by the amount of time he spends hovering in the hallway outside Jason’s room, not to mention the increasingly expensive toys that keep showing up among her things.
He looks down at her, dozing off. “Well, she’s pretty easy to like.”
Colin nods, looking pleased.
“Damian, on the other hand....”
Colin grins. “He’s not so bad.”
He’s really not. Like hell Jason will ever tell him that, though. “You have bizarre taste, kid.”
Colin blushes, hard, and Jason blinks. Well. That’s interesting, isn’t it? Or it will be, in a few years. He makes a note to ask Dick about it, later.
“Are you gonna adopt her?” Colin asks, bringing Jason’s amused thoughts to a screeching halt.
Automatically, he says, “No way.”
Colin looks wounded. “Why not?”
“Because I can’t,” Jason replies. “I’m the last person who should be a parent, trust me.”
“Doesn’t look that way to me.”
Doesn’t feel that way either - the thought floats up, unbidden, uninvited. He can’t. “She deserves better,” Jason says, heavily. “Even if….even I could handle it. She deserves better than this family.”
“But your family is - ”
“A death sentence.” He’s being harsh, but if Colin’s gonna be hanging around, he’ll find out for himself soon enough. “It’s fucking cursed, look. I couldn’t do that to any kid, especially her. You should get out too, while you still can.”
Colin looks angry, which surprises him. His hands are balled into fists, and Jason sees a tremor in them, a bulging that immediately sets off alarm bells in his head.
“Kid,” he says sharply. “Colin. If you’re gonna hulk out, take it outside. Alfred will have an honest-to-God stroke if you do it in here.”
A few deep breaths later, Colin looks normal again. “Sorry.” His voice is hoarse. “You’re wrong, though.”
Jason’s temper flares. “No offense, but I think I would know better than you,” he snaps. Dani grumbles sleepily in his arms, and he sighs out in frustration. “Trust me, okay? She’s better off. It never ends well, not in this family. I’m proof of that.”
But Colin shakes his head. “You don’t know,” he says. “My mom said the same thing, when she dropped me off at the orphanage. She gave the nuns a letter - she said I’d be better off with them than with her.”
Jason stills.
“It didn’t matter,” Colin continues. “Scarecrow still got me. Victor Zsasz still got me. Maybe they would have gotten me with her, too. Maybe I wouldn’t have been that much better off with her, but at least I would’ve been with her.” He sniffles, and Jason holds Dani a little tighter.
“I know she loved me.” His voice cracks. “I just wish...I wish I could’ve stayed with her. I wish she would have known that I never would’ve been better off away from her.”
He looks absolutely miserable, pitched forward and rubbing hard at his eyes. Jason is reminded painfully of how young Colin is, closer to Dani’s age than his own. He remembers being Colin’s age and younger, thinking the same thoughts about his own mother. How fiercely he’d guarded her, chased away the cops and the social workers, doing everything in his power not to be separated from her. Not that it mattered, in the end.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “Colin, I’m sorry. For the record, I actually kind of get where you’re coming from.”
Colin looks up at him.
“Wish I didn’t, but. That’s life.”
“You should adopt her,” Colin says again, softly.
Jason shakes his head. “Colin…”
“You’ll think about it.”
He exhales. “Sure, I’ll think about it.” Like he’ll be able to think about anything else after this.
“She needs you,” Colin insists stubbornly.
Jason doesn’t reply. He knows on some level Colin is right - Dani does need him right now. She needs someone, at least, someone who can take care of her and protect her. Someone who isn’t afraid to shed blood to keep her safe. Jason doesn’t relish the thought, but he’s certain this won’t end tidily. Mob cases never do. It’ll be messy, and bloody, and Bruce will have a shit fit, and Dick probably will too, and Jason will go back to Crime Alley and Dani will get shipped off to Witness Protection or something, and damn, does that hurt to think about.
He looks over at Colin, still hunched over on himself, vulnerability written into every line of his posture. He’s desperately in need of a hug, or some kind of affection, validation, maybe. Or that’s just Jason projecting, who the fuck knows. If Dick was here, he would know exactly what to do for him. Jason’s at a loss, unable to separate his young self from the damaged kid sitting next to him.
He adjusts his hold on Dani carefully, laying her down flat along his arm, while he works out what to say. Finally, he settles on, “Damian’s lucky to have you.”
Colin sits up a little straighter. He looks like he’s waiting for more, but he’s shit out of luck, because Jason has no idea what else he needs to hear. No idea what he could say that wouldn’t be completely insincere, anyways. We can be your family, Colin. Like hell. Bruce has enough kids lined up waiting to die for him, he’s not about to encourage another one to be turned into cannon fodder for the man’s principles.
“Uh, yeah,” Jason says, after a moment. “That’s all I got.”
Colin smiles wanly. “Thanks, anyways.”
Jason snorts. “Sure.”
“Can I hug you?”
Jason stares. “Can you…what? Me?”
“I won’t if you don’t want me to,” Colin adds, averting his eyes.
Jason can’t even remember the last time someone hugged him. He thinks Roy might’ve, some eight or nine months ago, after they’d narrowly survived a warehouse explosion. Jason’s whole body had been ringing from the blast, so he doesn’t exactly remember the sensation of it. And before that…?
He imagines Dick’s reaction, if he was here. He’d be disappointed in Jason, that’s for sure. Really, Jay? You can’t hug a child? It’s a fair argument, he has to admit. Jason’s fucked up personal space issues don’t really apply to children, or babies, clearly. Colin’s obviously attention-starved, and Jason’s already holding one kid. What’s another, really.
“Okay,” he relents. “Hit me.”
There’s a shuffling motion next to him, and then Colin is hugging his free arm, leaning his head against Jason’s shoulder. Jason can’t quite contain his surprise - it’s weird, as expected, but it’s not dramatically increasing his desire to bolt through the nearest exit like he’d thought it would. It’s a little funny, actually. He’s pretty sure both Bruce and Damian would lose their shit if they could see him right now. Dick, too, most likely, but to his credit, it would be a happy kind of shit-losing. Damian would probably try to gut him.
Are there cameras in the library? Jason can’t remember. He kind of hopes there aren’t, because if anyone else sees this, he will absolutely never live it down.
***
(dick)
“Wait, I think that’s him.” Dick leans forward to peer at Tim’s screen. He points to the familiar looking figure. “That guy. Do you have a clearer shot?”
Tim skips a few photos ahead, and zooms in. “Him?”
“Yes. That’s the guy. Jason said he recognized him from your surveillance files. He was at the club the night we caught Susie Falcone.”
“The fourth night, was it?” Tim asks, innocently.
“Don’t be mean, Timmy.”
“Just clarifying,” Tim grins. Dick raises an eyebrow. “Okay, okay. I don’t have a ton of intel on this guy, he’s really slippery. According to my informant, he goes by Tiberius - some kind of mercenary, Greek or Albanian national. I doubt that’s his real name.”
Dick nods, studying the photographs. Tim continues, “He came over with Intergang as an enforcer, I think. Might’ve been Reynolds’ personal bodyguard.”
“Could explain how Reynolds got taken out,” Dick says thoughtfully. “He’s on the Falcones’ payroll now, but he’s not family. Might be an easy target.”
Tim opens his mouth, about to reply, when there’s a choked-off sound of fury from the Batcave below them.
“Was that Damian? He’s up already?” Dick asks, glancing down towards Bruce’s computer. He hops over the ramp to see what the fuss is about. Tim follows close behind.
“Everything okay?” Dick asks, approaching the wall of screens. There’s nothing that jumps out at him as being particularly alarming; Bruce is looking at DNA analyses, and Damian is looking at the Manor surveillance, tapping furiously at his ear.
“Todd!” he hisses. “What do you think you’re doing? Colin is my friend!”
“Robin,” Oracle’s voice comes through the speaker. “No names on the comms. And Hood isn’t wearing his earpiece, so you’ll have to tell him in person.” She sounds amused. “Oracle out.”
Damian swears.
“Holy shit,” Tim says faintly. “Look at them.”
The screen that all the Manor surveillance feeds run to is showing just one room - the library, of all places, but Dick vaguely recalls it being some kind of sanctuary to Jason, years and years ago. It makes sense that he’d end up back there, and it makes sense that he’d have Dani with him. What Dick doesn’t expect to see is little Colin Wilkes, all five feet and change of him, snuggled up to Jason’s side and hugging him, wrapped around his arm like a gangly koala. Dick can’t help but notice that Jason’s bicep is about as big around as Colin’s head, which is certainly...something. He’s not quite ready to classify how he feels about that, so he refocuses on the hug itself, which is nothing short of charming.
Damian grinds his teeth audibly. “It’s still going.”
“Oh, man.” Dick can’t help the grin he feels creeping up the sides of his face. “Bruce, are you seeing this?”
“I am,” Bruce says, stiffly. He looks like he’s in pain. Dick fights the urge to roll his eyes.
“What’s wrong with you? Look how sweet they are!” he exclaims, gesturing. It’s adorable.
“It is not sweet,” Damian snarls, whirling on him. “Todd is a corruptive influence, and Colin is young and impressionable! Where is your concern for him?”
Tim coughs, and it sounds a little bit like “jealous”. Surprisingly, this does not diffuse Damian’s indignation.
“I don’t get it,” Dick says, stepping between them quickly to block Damian’s spinning kick. “I thought you and Jason were fine, Damian. You’ve been spending enough time in our - in his room lately. Where’s this coming from?”
“Incredibly, I don’t feel as concerned about Todd recruiting an infant onto the path of lawlessness,” Damian retorts. “Colin lacks paternal guidance in his life, as you know. Todd clearly senses it.”
“Jason is very paternal these days,” Tim agrees.
“I’m pretty sure it’s just a hug,” Dick says in exasperation. “No one’s recruiting anyone, Damian. And look, it’s over. Your friend is just a hugger, that’s all.”
“I must agree with Master Richard,” Alfred says from behind them. “Having been the recipient of many such embraces from young Master Colin myself.”
“See? I’ve gotten hugs from him too,” Dick tells Damian. “And I know you have, so don’t bother denying it. He’s probably gearing up the courage to get one from Bruce one of these days.”
Bruce looks slightly alarmed by the prospect. “He is?”
Damian looks conflicted. “He is?”
Dick casts his eyes heavenward. “Colin, I’m so sorry.”
Before he can say anything else, the Cave door opens below them, and Duke’s bike comes shooting in, whipping around into its parking spot in a move that would send Dick flying over the handlebars. Bruce takes about half a second to look impressed, and then clears the main screen to pull up their intel on the Falcone case.
“What’s up, guys,” Duke calls, pulling off his helmet and jogging up the steps. “I’ve got news. Where’s Jason?”
“Being hugged, in the library,” Dick tells him. “You just missed it.”
Duke looks nonplussed. “Damn. Wait, that’s not some kind of weird euphemism, is it? If it is, I don’t want to know.”
“It most certainly is not,” Damian says venomously.
“Cool. I tried to get him on the comm, but he didn’t respond. Should I go get him? He’ll want to hear this.”
“Damian will get him,” Bruce says.
Damian is…already on the elevator. Dick spares a thought for Jason. At least he’s holding Dani, so Damian won’t attack him outright.
“Your news?” Bruce prompts.
“Right,” Duke nods. “I’ve been all over City Hall records, and spent yesterday afternoon getting intel in the East End. I’ve got names and faces of most of the major players in this. They’re trying hard to front some distant nephew of Carmine Falcone as the head of the whole operation, but it wasn’t quite adding up. You said the new Falcone boss is a woman, right?” he asks Tim.
Tim nods affirmatively.
Duke looks triumphant. “Then I know who she is.”
***
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thepartyresponsible · 4 years
Text
here’s a short, relatively fluffy fic about what happens when jason todd and clint barton, a pair of career criminals and expert thieves, steal the winter soldier.
and to the anon who asked for a fluffy fic featuring hot chocolate, blankets, and warm feels shared by clint, jason, and tony....um. i’m really sorry. i’ve had a lot of cold medication. my reading comprehension is compromised.
Popular opinion would no doubt suggest that stealing the Winter Soldier is the ballsiest heist Jason and Clint have ever pulled. Jason’s not sure he’d rank it that high. After all, their Batcave stunt was pretty egregiously ill-advised, and then there was the time they stole fifty grand worth of Kryptonite with the use of a clipboard and some fake EPA inspector badges they printed out at a public library.
But keeping the Winter Soldier. Yeah. Sure. That’s pretty ballsy.
No real other options, though. At least none that either of them could live with.
Jason knows they’re doomed the moment he hears the quiet horror in Clint’s voice, the way his words catch, just a little, when he says, “Um. Jay? I think it’s a person.”
Because stealing a serial killer robot from HYDRA and then handing it off to the League of Assassins for “decommissioning” is one thing, but turning over a living, breathing human being is another. He and Clint walk all kinds of fuzzy ethical lines. God knows even Selina gets shrill about their activities sometimes. But they don’t deal in people. Not ever.
“Okay,” Jason says, nudging Clint gently out of the way. “Go steal us something fast. I’ll handle this.”
Because, between the two of them, Clint’s got the softer heart. He doesn’t get fussy about what happens in an honest fight, but he can get downright melancholy about the necessities of after-battle cleanup, and Jason’s happy to spare him from it, when he can.  
So Clint goes to get them a car that’ll get them out of the country before Ra’s realizes he’s been screwed around, and Jason goes to hover over the Winter Soldier, freshly defrosted, still barely twitching his way back to consciousness.
And Jason’s not an asshole. Whatever this guy’s done, he hasn’t done it to Jason or anyone who belongs to him, so none of this is personal. It’s gonna be fast and easy, just a bullet between the eyebrows, but the Winter Soldier blinks his pretty eyes open, looks up the barrel of the gun, and stares right into Jason’s face.
“я готов отвечать,” he says.
Ready to comply, Jason thinks.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jason says.
And so, after that, Jason doesn’t have the heart to kill him, either.
  There’s a lot of yelling in the days that follow. From all conceivable sides. Ra’s al Ghul threatens every kind of unpleasant thing, and HYDRA hounds after them like they’re supposed to be scared of a group of megalomaniacal old cult assholes too creepy to get invited to the local Free Masons, and Selina calls Jason every day for a week to shriek at him about how she didn’t save him from the streets of Gotham so he could get murdered for stealing the world’s most brutal assassin.
“Selina, c’mon,” Jason says, muttering into the phone. Winter’s asleep in the backseat, shackled up like Houdini before a trick, and they’ve had a couple exciting moments, but he’s mostly just been quiet and kinda eerily empty-eyed. He keeps asking Jason about the mission. “He’s fine. I mean, he’s a little rough around the edges, sure. But I found Clint in a dumpster.”
“Hey,” Clint says, whisper-hissing at him from the passenger seat.
“And he looked great,” Jason tacks on quickly, with a wink he hopes will smooth things over. “Amazing. That dumpster didn’t know how lucky it had it.”
“You need to be careful,” Selina says. She put down two HYDRA goons this morning. They barged in on her in her pajamas, and she’s probably more pissed about getting caught with bed hair than having to dump two bodies before noon.
Although, she never was much of a morning person.
“We’re being careful,” Clint promises, leaning over to talk into the phone. “We couldn’t leave him, Selina. You didn’t see him. It was--- it was really bad.”
Selina’s quiet for a moment. “He’s an international criminal,” she says. And then, probably after she remembers that every single person in this conversation has their own personal INTERPOL file, she adds: “He’s an assassin.”
“I think he’s nice,” Clint says, stubborn and loyal. As always.
He only thinks that because Winter keeps trying to palm him extra food. Jason has to make a big show out of giving Clint food at the same time as he unlocks Winter for meals, or Winter will only eat half his food and then stash the rest so he can sneak it to Clint later.
Jason does not consider this behavior an endorsement of HYDRA’s caretaking expertise.
“He’d better be worth all the trouble,” Selina says. But she doesn’t mean it. Selina’s a thief and a liar and sometimes a killer, but she’s just like Clint, really. Softhearted for lost causes, both of them.
Jason can’t complain. It’s that shared weakness that brought both of them to him.
“Well,” Jason says, “if he’s not, we’ll just drop him with whatever country’s offering the biggest bounty.”
“That’s my boy,” Selina says. “But remember to start a bidding war first.”
  The thing about Winter is that he’s actually James Buchannan Barnes, Captain America’s best friend. He’s a Goddamn war hero, and HYDRA took him, tortured him, blended his brain, and made him kill people.
Jason grew up in Gotham, spent his formative years playing sidekick to Catwoman, so he’s seen some fucked-up situations. But it makes him sick, watching Winter work it out. Catching those sporadic flashes of Bucky Barnes, the miserable, devastated way he closes his eyes when the memories come, like it was better, somehow, when all he knew how to say was Yes, No, and Ready to comply.
And Clint was right. He is nice. He’s painfully sweet, really, in the way he frets over Clint until he figures out that Jason doesn’t actually run things, doesn’t own Clint, and sure as hell would never hurt him. And then he frets over both of them. Stoic and steely-eyed and stone-jawed, fretting like a Goddamn mother hen.
HYDRA wants him back, and Ra’s wants him dead, and Jason and Clint, as insistently and dramatically as they can, invite both of them to fuck right off.
They don’t really mean to keep him. Not forever. Just until people stop trying to murder him. Just until they can stash him in some nice town, where no one knows who he is, where he can go back to being Bucky Barnes full time and forget all about everything HYDRA made him into.
But people don’t stop. The whole world keeps coming after them. And Bucky, for his part, doesn’t want to leave them.
Six months in, Clint catches a bullet, and Bucky gets stolen, and Jason has to choose to leave Clint so he can go grab Bucky before they wipe him clean out of his own head. And Clint’s going to be fine, knows how to look after himself, didn’t get shot anywhere vital. But Jason crashes into that transport van with Clint’s blood on his hands, and it makes him crazy, a little. It makes him a nightmare.
So, afterwards, Selina brokers a meeting with Batman, and Jason goes, because Batman’s owed him a favor ever since that years-long game of tag he used to play with Nightwing resulted in him accidentally stumbling into a situation where he saved Nightwing’s life.
He doesn’t bring Clint, and he doesn’t bring Bucky, because he figures Batman’s not going to kill him, but he might throw him in prison. If he does, Selina will bust him out on principle, and she’d almost certainly do the same for Clint, but Bucky’s so new and so much trouble that she might just leave him where he’s less likely to get Jason killed.
“Look, Bats,” Jason says, when they’re finally standing uncomfortably on the same rooftop. “We don’t like each other. You’re the delusional iron fist of the bourgeoisie acting out your punishment kink on the unsuspecting poor, and I’m just a guy trying to make a living. But we gotta work together on this, okay? Or I’m gonna leak the porn I found on the Batcave computers.”
Batman takes a long breath in through his nose. He seems to visibly weigh out which issue to raise first. “You planted those files on the Batcave computers.”
And he hadn’t, actually. Clint did that. He’d spent the whole night before the job downloading Superman-themed porn, and he’d filled Jason’s laptop with so much malware that Jason eventually just burned the thing in a purifying pyre. But Jason had to admit that running those videos on every screen in the Batcave had resulted in a truly awe-inspiring, immersive experience.
“We were just trying to be supportive,” Jason says. “Anyway. Look. You owe me a favor.”
There’s a lot of back-and-forth after that, consisting mainly of Batman holding forth about how saving a life is its own reward and he doesn’t owe Jason a favor and Jason really needs to reconsider his life choices while he still has the opportunity to do so. But he seems to listen when Jason tells him what he knows about HYDRA, about how deep its infiltration of SHIELD and various world governments goes. He’s quiet when Jason talks about Bucky. And, when Jason hands over all their intel, he takes the flash drive readily enough.
“If this is more porn,” he says, holding up the flash drive, “I’m throwing all of you in Blackgate.”
“Jesus, Bats,” Jason says, not even trying to bite back a laugh. “If it had that much of an impact on you, you should do some solitary self-reflection about it. Maybe some of those documentaries we left for you could help.”
  Jason leaves Gotham and drives through the morning and afternoon and early evening, doubling and then tripling back on his route, making sure he’s not being followed. When he finally makes it to the safehouse, he’s shivery cold and dead tired. Bucky goes over his bike, checking for any trackers Jason might have missed, and Clint bullies him right into the shower.
Afterwards, Jason faceplants on the couch, and Clint hauls him up a few minutes later so he can press a mug of hot chocolate into his hands. “Drink this,” he says.
“Coffee,” Jason groans.
“No,” Clint says, as he settles next to him. “You’ve gotta sleep, you asshole. You’ve been up for three days straight.”
“Whiskey,” Jason tries, a little less plaintive and a little more mutinous.
Clint sighs. “I already put bourbon in there.”
Jason hums, appeased, and leans over to press a smacking kiss to Clint’s cheek. “You’re a fucking saint,” he says.
“Oh, a fucking saint,” Clint mutters, rolling his eyes. There’s a pleased blush settling along the lines of his cheekbones. “Didn’t know they made those.”
“The patron saint of fucking,” Jason declares, sipping at his hot chocolate. “Endowed with the power of---”
“This should be good,” Bucky mumbles, from across the room.
“Oh shit,” Jason says, and nearly sloshes the hot chocolate on himself. He tries not to talk about sex too much in front of Bucky. He tries not to think about sex too much in front of Bucky. He’s helplessly in love with Clint, and has been since he hauled him out of that dumpster in Gotham, but, as Winter fades and Bucky manifests more confidently in this new century, there’s been a growing tension between the three of them that Jason, frankly, has no idea what to do with.
“No, go on,” Bucky says, like this is the conversation he wants to have. Like he’s not the slightest bit curious about the mission Jason just ran, the one that’s supposed to clear his name, open a path that allows them to work with SHIELD to burn HYDRA to the ground. “He’s the patron saint of what, again?”
“Yeah,” Clint says, blinking at him with his innocent face in place. “What were you saying?”
Jason rolls his eyes and takes a pointed drink of his hot chocolate. It’s nice, he decides. That everyone’s comfortable enough to shit-talk him these days. Real refreshing. A Goddamn triumph of the resiliency of the human spirit.
“It went alright?” Bucky says, because he’s almost always the merciful one. Maybe he enjoys the novelty of it.
When he wanders over, he snags a blanket off the nearby chair, and he curls up on the end of the couch beside Clint, tossing the blanket over the three of them. He holds his hands out toward Jason, and Jason, without even thinking, passes his hot chocolate over. Bucky’s fingers brush Jason’s, and linger.
Jason isn’t making this shit up. He knows he isn’t.
First of all, he spends half his life watching people hit on Clint. He knows the signs.
Second of all, people get hot chocolate on their lips every day, but nobody licks it off like that unless they’re trying to plant ideas in people’s heads about what else those lips and tongue could do.
“Um,” Jason says, when he realizes they’re both staring at him. “Yeah. I mean. He didn’t throw me off a roof or put me in prison, so. I think he’s gonna help.”
Clint and Bucky exchange a look and then shrug. By their standards, that’s the start of a highly promising business relationship.
“Well,” Clint says, as he sprawls out, tucked in tight against Jason’s side, with a casual ankle hooked around one of Bucky’s. “You guys wanna watch Dog Cops?”
Jason figures, between the bourbon, and the blanket, and the warm weight of Clint’s body, he’s gonna be asleep in fifteen minutes. But he’d give Clint anything he asked for. “Sure,” he says, eyes already drifting closed. “Sounds great.”
  Two days later, they meet with a reserved, competent, endlessly unamused man named Phil Coulson. He doesn’t smile or laugh or seem to like them even a little bit. But he doesn’t try to kill them, either.
Four years later, they’re Strike Team Delta, and they’ve acquired Natasha Romanoff and a hell of a reputation. Coulson smiles more and yells more, and still hasn’t tried to kill them. Not once. Not even after Budapest.
HYDRA is ashes, and Bucky is theirs.
So what the hell. Maybe stealing the Winter Soldier wasn’t their ballsiest heist. But it was definitely their best.
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bourbonboredom · 5 years
Text
Silver Lining Chapter 13
If you’re ever gonna find a silver lining, it’s gotta be a cloudy day
A ClydexReader fanfic
Word Count: 2,848
Warnings: talk of domestic abuse
Silver Lining Masterlist
Tag List: @oh-adam  @kyloren-supreme-ben   @xis23@elsablackswift   @ladygrey03 @grey-reylo-solo  @givemelifeorgiveme  @attorneyl @ayatimascd @redhairedfeistynerd @kyloxfem
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There seemed to be no end in sight for the Unlucky Logans. The agent would show up week after week, starting a tab that she never closed out at the end of the night. 
“I’ll be back, no need to close it,” She’d wink at Clyde. 
The tab only grew faster as she offered drinks to her favorite one-armed bartender. He'd accept some days, when he was feeling strong enough to entertain her, but would reject it most of the time.
Grey rocking quickly became the objective. Any prompt she offered, any bait she put down, Clyde played dumb. He acted as thought he knew nothing of what she was saying, keeping any answers neutral, offering her nothing in return.
He'd let his girl take over some days, when he didn't have the energy to fend off the agent. He felt bad afterward, it felt like he was putting her up for trial, but she always assured him she could hold her own. 
‘Think of it as tag-teaming,’ She told him one night. ‘When you need a break, I’m right here to tap in,”
Nights became restless, alternating between falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, and staying up until dawn worrying about the situation. They re-hid the money together, stashing it in the most discreet places they could find around her trailer. He felt guilty about that too. It was her house if it all went down. As the weeks turned into months, the "investigation" began to wear on the couple more and more.
"Why couldn't she be hangin' around the salon? Or botherin' Jimmy at his job? Why’s it gotta be my bar?" He'd grit out, hand clenching the arm of the sofa. He was sick of being the target, of this falling primarily on him.
"Because she thinks she's got you. But she doesn't. You’re gonna get though this. We're gonna get through this," She responded calmly, peppering his face with kisses.
“I sure hope so,” His face was drawn into a tight frown despite her kisses.
He wanted to pull her into his arms and know that everything was going to be alright, but that was getting harder and harder to imagine. He’d open the bar every night, hoping that the agent wouldn’t walk in. That she’d get bored of this game and he could be free again. Be free with her again. But the door would open and the agent would sit in her usual seat, smiling up at him like a shark.
It was an especially cold night outside. The frost had crept up the front window, making the light from the Coors sign appear hazy from the outside. Clyde kept the bar as warm as he could for his patrons, but it was still a little chilly. The heater wasn’t what it used to be and with the heist money stashed away, he had no way of paying to fix it. His usual patrons didn’t mind much, they’d warm up with beer and whiskey anyways. His girl would joke that it was Duck Tape’s attempt at icing the agent out.
‘The bar knows. It’s hoping she’ll get cold and go home,’ She laughed as she threw on a sweater the day after the plumber gave them the diagnosis. 
She was wearing one of his favorites today, a baby blue sweater that fit her just right. The agent was having trouble finding clothes that shielded her from the climate. She’d always opt for low-cut shirts, no matter the heater’s condition. 
Today was no exception for the agent. She shimmied out of her coat to reveal a black sleeveless top that was cut to show off her cleavage. He’d avoided looking at it for most of the night as he made polite conversation with the woman who was trying to ruin his life. Their chat slowly turned for the worse as they spoke.
“So I heard some gossip today,” She started slowly. She’d been shooting the breeze with him at the bar for about an hour, just small talk. He now realized she was probably trying to get him to loosen up for whatever she was about to say.
“Yeah, what about?” Clyde asked, cautious about what she might say.
“I heard a guy stopped over at the diner before leaving town a few weeks back. One of the waitresses said he walked in with a huge wad of cash in his hand, looking like he'd seen a ghost,”
The woman was watching him closely for a reaction. He could see his girlfriend stop stacking glasses at the counter out of the corner of his eye.
"He told her he was trying to visit his fiancée, and a guy with a metal arm paid him off to never come back," 
He did his best to look interested and not completely terrified.
"The waitress didn't see how much he had, but it sounded like way more than pocket change,"
"That's quite the story, this town loves to gossip,” He said as best he could. His heart was pounding in his ears, making it hard to hear himself speak. His mouth was becoming dryer by the minute.
"They sure do, and there aren't too many men with metal arms around here," She nodded toward his left hand.
"That's true," He said, choosing his words carefully. His dinner threatened to make a second appearance due to his stomach doing flips.
"But owning a bar in this county isn't quite that lucrative I'd imagine,"
"That's quite the assumption, what are you getting at?" His girl’s voice came from beside him before he could say another word. 
She was tapping in. She  stared the woman down, holding Clyde’s hand behind the bar where she couldn’t see.
"I'm just asking—" The agent tried to start.
"I don't think you're asking anything ma'am, it sounds like you're implying something," His girl’s voice was even and calm as she spoke. 
"I'm just asking why someone in this town would pay off someone's fiancée to go away, seems shady to me,” The agent’s eyebrows furrowed, her voice dropping to a dangerous tone.
"I'm the fiancée ma’am, that man was my ex. I broke up with him and he came back around when I didn't want him to,” She began, her tone matching the agent’s.
 “Clyde over here was helping me to make sure he didn't hurt me. He didn't pay him to go away, it wasn't even his money. It was mine from selling my wedding ring in order to pay for the medical bills my ex thought I owed him. Not that it’s any of your business,”
“I—” The agent’s face faltered. Any attempt to say something was cut off by her voice growing louder as she continued with her story. Heads were starting to turn around the bar to try to get in on the gossip.
"He thought I owed him medical bills because he beat me severely enough that it landed me in the ICU. I ran away from him and gave up everything I knew to wind up in this town, where he stalked me to and tried to force me back with him. This saint of a man protected me, if it weren’t for him I might be dead,” Her voice broke with that last sentence, making Clyde’s chest ache. His hand squeezed hers behind the bar. “I gave my ex the money he thought I owed him and made it crystal clear I was never going back to his abusive ass,"
"I didn't realize—" The agent stuttered, that was clearly not the answer she was looking for.
"I don't know what you were implying, but Clyde’s been nothing but kind to me since I got here and I'd appreciate you not spreading the gossip that my jealous ex started about him,"
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean any harm,"
"I'm sure you didn't," She said is a controlled tone. With her teeth gritted and her eyes threatening to spill tears, she squeezed Clyde’s hand and left the bar, walking to the back room. As soon as she was out of sight, Clyde turned back to the slightly-stunned woman in front of him.
"She's sensitive about the subject. I didn't want to bring anything up about it when you mentioned it," He deadpanned.
The agent was having a hard time making eye contact. She thought she finally had something, and it fell apart almost immediately.
"I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to insinuate anything. I wasn’t trying to—“
"Gossip gets the best of all of us from time to time," Clyde said in a clipped tone. "If you don't mind, I think I'm gonna close up for the night. I think we’ve all had a long day,”
"Yes, I understand," She avoided his gaze as she paid her tab and left the bar. He watched as she turned on her car and drove out of the parking lot and into the inky black night.
He let the remaining patrons know he was closing up for the night, and they trickled out, paying their tabs and saying their goodbyes. A few stopped to ask if she was okay, if what she’d said was true. Clyde worried his bottom lip between his teeth, unsure of whether or not he should say anything. He settled on telling them it wasn’t for him to say. He was finishing stacking the glasses when she came back out.
"She's gone," He told her as she walked behind the bar. "Are you feeling okay?"
"Yeah," She whispered.
Her voice was a little hoarse as she threw her arms around his body and pulled him into a hug. She buried her face into his chest, letting out a sniffle. Her fingers tangled in the fabric of his shirt, trying to hold him as close as possible.
"I'm sorry that happened darlin’,” He murmured, wrapping his arms around her. “I didn’t expect her to ever bring that up,”
"It's okay, I can't stop people from gossiping," She looked up at him, resting her chin on his chest. Her eyes looked a little pink, Clyde couldn't bear the thought of her crying over this.
"If it helps, I think you might've squashed her one lead. She left in quite the hurry after you straightened her out,"
"I figured telling her the money was mine might shut her up, people tend to clam up when you mention comas and runaway brides,” She tried to joke. 
Clyde gave a small smile in acknowledgement.
“You saved my back there, I didn’t know what I was gonna say. I—I was scared honestly,” 
“You did what you could, you were great sweetheart. I just couldn’t listen to her try to make you seem like a bad person anymore. Especially not for that whole incident. I meant it when I said I might be dead without you,” Her voice began to quiver again. He held her closer.
“I love you. I’d fight him off a million more times if it kept you safe. You mean everything to me,” He whispered. He knew he’d never be able to fully convey how much she meant to him, but he could try.
“I love you too. And I gotta be honest,” She looked back up at him, her tired eyes looking happier already. “You don’t look too good in that prison uniform. So you gotta stay out of prison okay? For me?”
“Anything for you,” He chuckled, leaning down to kiss her.
—————
It was about a few weeks later when Clyde had ventured out into the cold January night to pick up a few odds and ends from the store. He insisted his girl stay all warm and cuddled up inside their trailer while he went out to the Grocery Castle on their side of town. She helped him lace up his boots and gave him a kiss on the nose before he slipped on his warmest coat and headed out. 
He couldn’t wait for winter to be over. It felt even longer this year with that agent poking around. It was a good time of year for the bar, with people needing a place to warm up and socialize, but Clyde found himself yearning for spring as the windshield wipers on his car crackled to life after being frozen in place. The light dusting of snow had settled on the road, making it a little harder to find his way down the dimly lit road in the dark. 
The Grocery Castle’s sign glowed against the white powder and the cloudy sky. There weren’t many people out, the only other cars in the lot presumably belonged to the employees waiting to get off their shift. The automatic doors of the store whooshed open and Clyde walked a little heavier, trying to get the snow out from his boots before trekking on. 
The muzak of the store was soft in the background, the buzz of the fluorescent lighting almost as loud. He ignored both as he moved through the aisles, picking up the contents of the wrinkled list he held in his pocket. 
Bread
Milk
Bacon
Sausage (for the biscuits and gravy she wanted to make for dinner tomorrow)
Peanut Butter
He moved with a practiced efficiency, everything was in its usual place around the store. It was only when he got to the checkout line did he notice anything different. 
There was an unusual amount of pink and red decorations around the front of the store. He missed it when he came in but now that he was standing still, he saw it everywhere. The bin full of little stuffed animals holding boxes of chocolate, the cupid cutout that hung by the vent on the ceiling that twirled as warm air pumped out, the seasonal candy display set up over by the bottle return. 
He scoffed at first, he couldn’t believe they’d set this stuff up so early. It was only mid-January, there was no need to break out the hearts so far in advance. Who buys Valentines gifts from the Grocery Castle anyway?
It wasn’t until he saw the tabloid magazines by the checkout counter did things start to connect in his mind. A headline about some famous couple having a tumultuous breakup, complete with a closeup photo of a bruise on one of their arms followed by some sensationalized speculation. 
Valentines Day was coming up.
The holiday that brought her to Boone County, to him. She’d walked into his bar exhausted, covering her bruises with a hoodie and a pound of makeup, drinking his vodka with the last of her cash to help heal where her tooth had been knocked out. His fist balled up around the cart’s handle at the thought. 
Her physical wounds had healed. She knew she was safe with him, they had a home together, they owned a business together. A lot had changed for both of them in a year. But he wondered where her mind would be on February 14th. She hadn’t mentioned it to him yet. Granted, they’d both been overwhelmed with an FBI agent until recent. Things were just starting to get back to normal, they could finally begin to unwind.
But was she going to be able to unwind with this day coming up? Was it something he should bring up? He felt a bubble of uncertainty rise in his chest as he dropped his items on the conveyer belt for the clerk to scan. He was a gangly high school kid, probably saving up for college. He didn’t pay too much attention to Clyde as he paid and collected his bags with his metal arm. 
He walked back outside, the cold air hitting his face as soon as the automatic doors opened. It filled his lungs and made them ache just a little. He dropped his bags in the trunk and circled to the driver’s side. He sat in his car with the engine on for a moment, realizing he still hadn’t made a decision about what to do. 
He didn’t want to bring up anything that might upset her. Maybe she hadn’t thought of it at all and he was just over thinking it. Maybe she had been thinking of this day for months and just never said anything. She’d have to be reminded at some point, just going about her day. Even the damn grocery store had decorations up. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, keeping it from hanging in his face. He didn’t know what to do, to be honest. She meant the world to him, and he never wanted her to feel alone and scared again. 
As he shifted gears and stepped on the gas to travel back down the snowy road, he tentatively made his decision. This was her past and it would be her decision of what to do. He didn’t want to bring up any painful memories by accidentally saying the wrong thing. He would wait for her to say what she needed. 
And he would be right by her side the whole way. Just as she’d done for him.
------------
NOTES
Oh hey this is super overdue! I’m trying to wrap this up for y’all, its about damn time! Thanks for being so patient with me, I know its not much. I don’t know if her story would be enough to throw off an FBI agent in real life, but I do know people really don’t like hearing about traumatizing events. I’d think this would be the agent’s last ditch effort, she finally thought she had something she could use, and Clyde’s girlfriend just isn’t having it. 
There should be just one more chapter left, I hope to get it out soon!
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theouterdark · 5 years
Text
Tag: Ten Questions
Thanks for the tag, @zmlorenz, I’m looking forward to answering some questions.
Rules: Answer ten questions, tag ten people, and ask ten questions of your own.
1. How do you title your WIPs?
Naming things is close to second-nature for me. I keep a document full of tiny ideas for chapter/story/book/scene titles. I use titles as a brainstorming and outlining tool. I subscribe to less is more, so I like to keep them ambiguous enough to keep folks guessing.
2. Do you tend to come up with the plot first, or the characters first?
Plot, usually. Plots inherently demand characters just like characters create plot. If I dive into the plot before I know too much, the characters kind of act as way-finders, and help me fill out the rest. But I rarely come up with characters first.
3. Preferred writing soundtrack?
Lately it’s been Lady Gaga, The Beach Boys, and Tally Hall. Almost anything, but it has to be something I’ve listened to before because it’s easier to zone out and let my brain take over. If it’s new I won’t be as productive because I’ll be too busy sussing out the lyrics. But ABBA Gold is a big go to. As are my 80s and Oldies playlists. Soundtracks work too. Specifically the soundtracks for Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel.
4. How specific are the appearances of your characters in your head?
These are usually ill-defined until I’ve spent ages developing a character or if I delve into a dream-casting fantasy where I’m filling out the cast list with actors. But I don’t spend much time thinking about this, to be honest.
5. What’s your favourite trope to use?
Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu, probably. It’s the most relevant at the moment anyway.
6. Did you do NaNoWriMo this year? Why or why not?
I did participate in NaNo this year, and that was mostly because I had a project on the back-burner for the better part of a year, and just couldn’t take it anymore. Will I participate next year? Perhaps. We’ll have to see.
7. How do you handle the dreaded writer’s block?
I usually bypass the scene and work on something else or start writing anyway, even if that means it’ll be poorly done, because once the tap is open the words will come readily. Just gotta give it a little push sometimes. On the occasions that doesn’t work, I ignore it and do something else entirely. Go for a walk or run an errand.
8. Where do your characters fit in the cinnamon roll meme?
Both Kenny Deegan and Adam Brand are these to me. Even more possibly Juliet Saint-Yves from The Devil from the Outer Dark. Blake has too much edge to her to fit into this category I think. A few from my space opera series fit in here too, but I won’t go into detail about that now.
9. What do you wish you’d see more of in stories?
Bisexual males would be nice.
Interesting traits beyond a character’s gender identity/sexuality, especially when it comes across as pandering. Also, sex without being gratuitous or pushed away by a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole. I think there’s a healthy middle to explore. Too often, I think, folk forget a majority of people/characters make decisions rooted in sexual desire, interest, repulsion, etc.
Also there should be more dinosaurs and magnets. If both can be implemented, it’s a win-win. 
Also, I want to read a fantasy or sci-fi work where the world-building and characters are pungent and not just copy-pasted search-and-replaced pale imitations of pop-lit.
Less trilogies, more duologies.
10. Aside from writing, what’s your favourite way to pass the time?
Gaming and film/television. Can’t choose b/w the two.
Probably gaming because it’s more social, and I use it to stay connected to friends near and far.
I run a group through Call of Cthulhu, and that’s been pretty fun. Considering trying to rope in some interested users on writeblr/tumblr into a campaign. If any of y’all are interested in pen and paper RPGs that hit a little harder than D&D and prioritize role-play and horror, hit me up.
Tagging: @writingmyassoff, @byjillianmaria, @erinisawriter, @dantedevereaux, @sassypandacandy, @alinakerrin, @haunted-by-neptune, @justanotherwriteress, @littlenebulablr, and @els-writes.
Your questions:
What is your biggest writing hurdle?
What is the work of fiction (written, filmed or otherwise) that made you interested in storytelling?
Name the most underrated character in fiction. Why did you choose them?
Do you have a day job you love, or one you would drop in an instant if you could make money off your writing?
What subjects in fiction are squicky to you?
What’s the most experimental piece of writing you’ve done, and why did you write it?
Do you budget your time or are you more of a free-spirit?
What’s the one project/story/work that most makes you want to jump ship on your current WIP?
Are there any genres you despise, or have no plans writing in?
Have you ever played a pen and paper RPG? If not, is it something you’re interested in?
No pressure. Pass it on!
D
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dilfhakyeon-moved · 6 years
Note
coffee shop au 4 (the one with the different names written on the coffee on different days) with ralbert? :)
disclaimer: don’t give me shit for their names i am TERRIBLE at names
but yea here are the sappho de lesbos stans
Once again, the ‘mystery customer’ was striking.
That sounding pretty ominous, it was nothing that serious. It was just that every week, always on a different day, they’d get that girl coming in. And she’d come at times it was pretty dead, most likely to get the same barista. There she always went, leaning on the counter, giving these soft eyes and these sweet words, and she’d leave with her order. It was never the same order either, she just… drank of everything, apparently. Your fave could never.
Somehow, she was indeed having an effect on that barista she was messing with, but that didn’t make her any less frustrating to deal with. Yeah, the flirting was nice, but if she had a set name it’d just be so much easier, wouldn’t it ? Because giving a different name every week was getting a little old.
Of course, the barista would get quite frustrated after some time, how couldn’t she ? It’d been going on long enough. And the list of names… were similar, for some. Sometimes just complete unrealistic jokes. She could remember them all - Race, Racer, Racetrack, Antonio, Anthony, Tony, even Edmund and Ed,… Pretty Girl, too. Maybe this one was fitting, but Berta absolutely refused to believe any of these other names were that “pretty girl’s” name. For one, some of these weren’t names, and well… the others were masculine, and judging by that last nickname, she wasn’t a guy.
Either way, the redhead had a hard time staying calm as the blonde began babbling, her oddly squeaky voice fitting so well with her messy accent and pronunciation, her tripping over words and her obnoxious giggle sounding somewhat endearing… Okay, maybe she totally wasn’t paying attention to what she was being told and she got too busy getting lost in thought, but who could blame her ?
… Right, herself.
Once she woke from this kind of weird daydreaming phase, she tried to harden her expression a little. “Okay, yeah. And the order ?” She said, maybe a little harshly. But it didn’t bother her customer, whose grin widened despite her cheeks perhaps darkened a tad.
Quad venti blonde breve latte, extra hot, no foam, four pumps vanilla, three pumps cinnamon dolce, two white mocha, stirred, light whip, extra cinnamon topping.
This was ridiculous. Once again, the girl’s order had to be ridiculous. Maybe that was one time too much, and that “one time too much” the barista didn’t bother waiting for the girl to give her a name. No, she was choosing it herself. It was obvious to see on the blonde’s face that she wasn’t exactly expecting that, but did she really have a choice ? No.
“Look at it once you’re outside,” Berta muttered, groaning quietly when the girl smiled again and poked her cheek before making her way out, whistling pretty loud - and getting looks from other customers, although admittedly there really weren’t that many. It still grabbed some of them’s attention, enough for them to notice the  barista quickly yet quietly following after her, letting her coworkers take care of the place if even just for a few minutes.
Keeping sight of the blonde wasn’t the hardest task. She hadn’t gone far, just walked a few metres away and was now reading the name written on her cup with some sort of surprise.
Endearing, the shorter girl would tell you.
Casually enough, she made a few steps until she was close enough to the girl, before pausing and more or less working up the courage to talk. She wasn’t all that good at communication all the time, but she still tried. “So, Foxy,” she called out, causing the other to jump and turn around. Her gaze was always as captivating, perhaps due to how obviously emotional it was - reading her mind was impossible, but her state of mind was all too obvious at all times. What really got Berta though, it surely was how evident the blush on her face was. Striking, such a contrast with her blue eyes and her blond curls, that pink really fit well. Made her look softer, and maybe a little less insufferable.
Her lips moved incoherently for a few seconds before she frowned, and pointed at the cup. “Y'ain’t wrote that, it’s ‘Vixen’ on it,” she protested, getting the other to raise an eyebrow. Maybe it’d been easy to guess making that flirty girl flustered wasn’t hard at all, but it still gave her some satisfaction. Oh, and also it was cute.
“I know what I wrote and I know vixens are foxes.” That sure wasn’t the answer that girl had hoped for. Berta could see her bite down on her lip as she thought of a reply.
“… Yea, but– still. Why’s that anyways, I 'on’t look like a fox !”
“Reminded me of one.”
Could the girl make it any more obvious that she clearly wasn’t used to being teased ? Or, flirted with, depending on how she took it. Either way, just one more endearing, sweet thing about that cute fellow, and it kind of made the former more confident.
This time though, maybe she actually put some thought into what she was about to say. Nothing crazy, but she’d always worked on that “speaking before thinking” basis, pretty much ; having to really work out some sort of appropriate response, or even question for the situation. Because in the end, that barista had ended up following her outside, there must’ve been a reason. Yes, that’d be her question.
“So… What’s ya doin’ here ? Ain’t ya workin’ ?” She uttered, her accent somewhat worsened. Oh, maybe because she was chewing on the… the cup. Was that a stress reliever ? Whatever.
“I wanna get your name.”
“What, I gave–”
“Your real name, so I don’t sob to my friends about a cute girl named Anthony,” Berta insisted, almost mockingly - although that was all light-hearted. The poor girl seemed to whimper after “cute girl”. Haha, she found her cute, she could die happy was what the whimper meant.
“Well… 'f ya want my name, then I bet you should invite me for a sleepover some time !” The blonde tried. It probably came off as silly, even if Berta just thought it adorable.
“A… sleepover ?”
“Yea, like… the best kind'a date.” She continued, managing to sound genuine about it. “It ain’t too fast if I’ been comin’ to your shop for two months. We can totally have a sleepover.”
“But I could be a murderer an’ kill you in your sleep.”
“Bitch, wha’s the issue here ? I’d die a happy death.” She retorted - maybe a little too quickly. A chance she hadn’t pulled out the whole “oh, crush me with your arms” or any sort of stupid stuff she looked like she would totally say. And the redhead clearly wasn’t wrong about that, that kind of answer had definitely come out of that girl’s mouth a few times… Maybe she shouldn’t be thinking about it.
“So, name ?”
She seemed embarrassed to say it. “Anya.”
“That’s a real pretty name.”
“Yea, shut ya’ trap, spare me the compliments.” Anya groaned, her gaze wandering elsewhere. “ ’S just a name.”
“Sure, Anya,” Berta answered with a chuckle, shaking her head. “So you said a sleepover ?”
“Yea.”
“Then gi'mme your phone number or something.”
“Ya wrote yours on the cup.”
“… Ah, I did that.”
“Yea.”
It was her time to be embarrassed again, it seemed. Had she really forgotten so easily ? That was a shame for sure, but Anya wouldn’t be too bothered by it, she could tell.
“Anyway, I’m… I’m gonna need to go back to work. Maybe come more often. Oh, and you don’t have to run away everytime, you can drink it at the shop,” the shorter girl offered. But she was met with a head shake, and that bright, quite shit-eating grin the blonde always wore. Back to normal, huh ? Couldn’t stay away too long.
“Nah, I’m a busy gal ! Gotta get goin’ as well. I’ll catch ya later.”
“Oh, well…” Was that sadness ? Yes, maybe she’d have liked to talk to her some time, at the shop. But if she was busy, then… “Talk to you soon.”
Anya waved, blew her a kiss and then… ran away. And Berta watched her, frankly smitten. What a goddamn rowdy… cutie.
|Text| to: she alt deleted my ovaries
> hey> pretty girl here
|Text| to: pretty girl
> oh hey.> how do you spell yr name ?
|Text| to: she alt deleted my ovaries
> howevs u want idc> yknow if i didnt have no decency id have said such bs> like huge
|Text| to: pretty girl
> like ?
|Text| to: she alt deleted my ovaries
> crush me w ur arms
|Text| to: pretty girl
> oh my god> shut up> or i will
|Text| to: she alt deleted my ovaries
> pls do> >:3c
|Text| to: pretty girl
> you’re impossible
|Text | to: she alt deleted my ovaries
> ur used to it now suck it up> im even funnier thru text> i send memes> n shit> hey?> also> cats have three lips
|Text| to: pretty girl
> hey you know wht maybe u should sleep !
|Text| to: she alt deleted my ovaries and my heart
> lol maybe!!!!> wish me gn
|Text| to: pretty girl
> goodnight. dont dream of people crushing you
|Text| to: she alt deleted my ovaries and my heart
> hdskjdghsdh> ill update u on that
Tag list:@well-the-kids-do-too@racetrackcook@i-got-personality@imjusttheoutgoingsidekick@thatfancyclam@we-dont-sell-papes@ben-cook-can-cook@not-your-cigar@nverkept@jackhasdreams@racescoronas@suddenly-im-respecsable@purplelittlepup@hopeful-broadwaybaby@broadwayandbookblog@crazymecjc@maiawakening@awwwwwwdang@albertdasillva@daveys-pet-snake@be-more-chill-evan-hansen
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crasherfly · 3 years
Text
Weekly Update
Nothing to report.
I had a big ol’ ripper of a rant, but it was pretty much everything I’d already said in therapy. Y’all don’t gotta take that on. So I’m gonna let it lie where it ought- with a professional.
I’ll just say I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. I miss everyone a lot and I hope we can game together soon.
Video Games
Holy smokes did I play some games or did I play some GAMES. (I played some games). Gonna do my best to recap everything I did below. 
Crusader Kings 3 (PC)
Crusader Kings 3 is a grand strategy game about facilitating a royal line in the medieval world and leading it to ever greater heights of fame and power. Eventually, you’ll see your humble bloodline climb to the highest echelons of the lite.
Crusader Kings 3 is a grand strategy game about overseeing a perpetual house fire of family turmoil in the medieval world and watching over the course of hours and days as it burns itself straight to the ground.
Both of these things are equally true. And shockingly, both are equally fun.
I played about 30 hours of this game over Thanksgiving break. And although my first royal family was more of the house fire variety, I can’t deny that my experience was memorable and deeply enjoyable.
In Crusader Kings 3 you play as a king- not a kingdom, but the actual ruler. You have stats and abilities and traits, and the decisions you make throughout your reign affect them in dramatic ways. You also oversee an entire family of individuals who you can similarly affect with your actions. 
While the game itself also has traditional strategy concepts such as war and economy, the real meat and bones are in the simply click to choose narrative bubbles that pop up throughout your playthrough. Will you attend the ball, or slink away into the night? Will you charge the rampart or let your knights serve as your shield? Will you marry the unskilled heir of a powerful ally, or commoner with the brilliant stewardship abilities? Every decision ensures that your playthrough will be nothing like anyone else’s.
It is a complex and robust system, demanding you take on an encyclopedia’s worth of terms and vocabulary to fully understand what is happening. Everything- and I mean EVERYTHING- has a stat modifier attached to it. War is unforgiving and often devastating, and economic buildup is fragile and requires immense patience. This is a slow experience, to be sure, one that makes games like Civ or even Endless Space seem lightning paced in comparison.
There aren’t many folks I could recommend this game to. The few I know who have tried it have given up after a couple hours, discouraged by the obtuse volume of systems and intricacies that I won’t even pretend to have a full grasp of as of this writing.
But what I will say is that it is rare for a strategy game to be so accepting of ignorance and mistakes- and if you’re willing to give Crusader Kings 3 the time to open up, it will reward you. 
My first king after the starter king died at 33, half-insane, wounded and tortured to death after an ill-fated war against a neighboring county who happened to be best buds with the King of England- a much, much stronger kingdom than I. But I kept going, and by the time I’d hit the 5th and 6th kings in my succession, my rulers were regularly living well past 55 years of age, occasionally winning wars, but more importantly, staying out of unnecessary ones, and making plenty of gold for kingdom improvements.
Granted, this all came crashing down after an opportunistic neighbor declared war on me as I was in the midst of my own expansion. They captured an incredibly valuable county from me, and my kingdom never recovered. I watched as my territory disappeared claim by claim until at last my army of less than 100 was wiped out, my last city captured, and my bloodline swiftly ended via jailing and executions.
But...it was a thrilling end to over 200 years of royal drama, and I was immediately plotting how I’d do better next game.
Hitman 2 (PS4)
So when I said I played some GAMES, I mostly meant I got deep into a couple of games that require a lot of investment and focus. I’ve put in over 150 hours with Hitman 1 and 2 combined. I maxed out the mastery level of every mission in the first game- twice, so I could unlock the old equipment for the new game- and have been working my way through total mastery on the second game ever since.
If someone were to ask me what I think the best game of the PS4/XBONE gen is, I’d say, without hesitation, Hitman. It’s rare to find a game that is so rewarding of your time, so dedicated to presenting you with a thoughtful and clever world as this. Every level is a perfect puzzle. Every solution is both humorous and karmic and deeply satisfying. The rewards are many and you earn them often enough to keep you coming back. There are more side-contracts than I could ever possibly play. There’s even a co-op mode that I haven’t touched, not to mention the custom contracts. There’s even more than that, but if I go on I’ll start to sound like a back of box summary.
I finally finished the Isle of Sgail this week. A massive, sprawling castle with multiple layers of security and triggered events, it took FOREVER to learn. In fact, it was so massive that I gave up on it several times before finally resolving to finish it.
Now, I’m a deeply obsessive Hitman player. I don’t move on from a level until I’ve maxed out its mastery rating and unlocked all of its items for my inventory. But had I not wanted to do that? I could have moved forward at any time. And that’s the joy of Hitman. It doesn’t force you to stick around longer than you’d want to. If you want to play every single hit the same way, you can! If you want to just walk into every single level, shoot your target in the head, and leave- it might be a bit tricky, but it isn’t impossible, and you could do that and conceivably play every single level in the course of maybe a week.
But if you want to take your time and really memorize these brilliant layouts over the course of weeks, months, or in my case- years? You can do that too. Either way can be the right way to enjoy Hitman. 
I’m guessing these games will go on sale a few more times before 3 drops. If you can pick up 2′s premium edition, which includes 1, I’d highly recommend it. It is rare that you will find a title with so much pure single player content. Years worth, if you want it.
Depending on how the devs handle inventory and progress crossover for 3, I’ll have a big decision to make on what console I choose to play. I couldn’t care less where the story is going, but then, has anyone ever? These games have been an absolute joy to play, and that’s what matters.
Also...a Bond game from the same devs?
Sign me up!
Link’s Awakening (Switch) 
I always told myself I’d never pay full price for this. Because Nintendo’s gonna Nintendo, I had to wait a full year before I could catch any sort of break on this price. 
Eventually picked up Link’s Awakening and so far it’s pretty much been exactly what I expected. My muscle memory carried me through 2 dungeons in less than 90 minutes. The visuals were gorgeous, the music delightful, and my continual nostalgic recall at times overwhelming. This really is the same game we all played on our Gameboys, brought back to life for a new gen.
There’s nothing new here to go over. However, if you have a child or a partner who didn’t grow up with this? I’d recommend picking it up for them. Link’s Awakening has always been one of the least intimidating and most accessible Zelda games out there, and this reboot (or remaster? idk!) is an absolute charmer.
Premium Bowling (Oculus Quest 2)
So it’s come to this. Bowling. The more things have changed since the Wii, the more they stay the same. Bowling is still the most satisfying motion activity you can do, it seems.
Premium Bowling is exactly what it sounds like- a game about bowling. You have a few different alleys to choose and no shortage of pin set ups. The added ability to track not just your hand motions but your steps is really cool- and I like to hope my actual bowling form has improved as I play this. I get a good light workout in and the ball and pins tend to behave the way I feel like they should.
Not much else to say here. The price tag is a bit steep for a bowling experience, but far as I can tell this seems to be the main, if not only, one out there, and the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, even as I have to admit the announcer bugs the daylights out of me.
Anime
Folks- I did the damn thing. I got out there and I watched some anime! FINALLY.
I don’t know what I keep avoiding this stuff. There are so many good and interesting stories out there at my fingertips, and I just keep ignoring them to go watch wrestling or bet on Spriteclub. It’s awful!
Well, no more. This week, I got to catch up on some stories. Here’s what I got so far.
Note: For titles I haven’t written about previously, I’ll provide a short summary. For others, not so much. For my more critical thoughts- my experiences are my own and not a judgement of others. Maybe you loved one series or hated another. That’s totally fine! Everyone should love what they love without reservation. As always, I love hearing about what you love. If you think I missed something, or just want to share something about your experience that really made an anime click? Hit me up! Also, I am ALWAYS taking recommendations- and I will almost always follow up if I give something you send my way a shot :)
Fire Force
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Fire Force’s season 2 is finally, after what feels like an eternity, winding down. It’s still a gorgeous show and certainly one of the most on-brand shonen out there. It’s also, for me, one of the most uneven.
Season 2 has been all over the damn place this year, introducing countless characters and following no small number of random threads before finally coming back to Shinra and the 8th’s mission to determine the cause of human combustion. 
The past couple of eps in particular have been brutal, with actual character death and mutilation taking a front seat- things I was not necessarily expecting from a fairly gung-ho shonen.
I still enjoy the world that Fire Force has built. It’s an undeniably cool aesthetic. I’ll be curious to see what, if any, cliff-hangers the writers leave us as the heroes close in on the evil Evangelist.
Jujutsu Kaisen
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Speaking of shonens, this particular title about a possessed teenager with a death sentence has really come into its own in its first season. Its lore is absolutely lovely, and the more I learn about curses and those who hunt them, the more I want to know.
I’ll spare the rundown on what this show’s about- I’ve gone over it in previous blogs. Suffice to say those who are after a more mature shonen with a darker plot will dig this one a lot.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?
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A young adventurer named Bell becomes an adventurer- not to kill monsters or earn glory, but to find true love. Eventually, he finds it, but not in the way he expects. After getting cornered by a monster way above his level, he is rescued by a beautiful warrior named Ais. The story follows Bell’s quest to get stronger so that he can impress Ais- and stand with confidence amongst other adventurers.
Only watched the first ep of this. It was charming, well animated. I hear it’s picked up a lot of steam in its third season. I don’t know that I can say the hook really grabbed me, but it’s a very cute show.
One-Punch Man
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Saitama has a problem- he’s trained so hard that he’s now TOO strong, and can finish every fight with just one punch. He’s now bored and despondent, as the hobby he took up for fun now lacks the spark that he once felt before. Dealing with these feelings and seeking a challenge that shakes up his low-stakes, humdrum day to day life- that is the story we follow in One-Punch Man.
So I’ve read the manga for OPM. I loved it. I thought, and still think, its animation is superior to the anime. When I first tried OPM I couldn’t get past that, and I eventually gave up. 
I also thought that a lot of OPM stories had kind of a weird tone- it’s definitely a loner/outsider story, and a lot of the villains and antagonists that get set up are absolutely poking fun at the typical things you’d expect an angry loner story to poke fun at. I won’t get too into it, but when I first tried OPM that weird undercurrent really made it hard for me to get into it the way a lot of other guys I knew were.
A few years later, I’m giving it a shot again. And overall? 
I don’t hate it. 
I think I’m looking at the protagonist, Saitama, in a different light. His boredom, his lackluster deference and his blank stares all play to a place that I find more familiar than I’d like to admit.
But also- the animation is fine and I’m a dummy for giving it grief. And the music is just super rad as well. 
I think I’ll eventually finish OPM now that I have both more distance between the manga now and now that I’ve kinda settled down on what throws me off, content-wise, in a story. I’m going to give OPM the benefit of the doubt and keep watching. I’ll report back when I finish.
Mob Psycho 100
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A lot of folks I know have ranted that Mob Psycho 100 is the best darn thing to happen to anime in ages. I guess the visuals, much as they did for One-Punch Man, sorta dissuaded me from seeing what all the hype was about.
And I guess they still kinda do. I...I guess Mob Psycho is pretty in its own way. It’s definitely not the visual aesthetic I go searching for in an anime, but I’m trying to do a better job of not judging that too harshly.
Anyway, Mob Psycho 100 is about a kid named Mob who acts as a powerful exorcist on behalf of his bumbling and powerless teacher. Together they take on demons as a for-hire service.
I feel like I’ve heard this show is hilarious? I don’t know. I didn’t find too much to chuckle about, but it was well-done and it certainly had no shortage of chaotic energy and visuals.
I’ll probably finish it, if only ‘cuz I’m mildly intrigued about just what so many others see in Mob as a protag, and ‘cuz I’m also curious what so many folks are drawing from the series as a whole. But so far, I haven’t found myself hooked.
No Guns Life
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The main character has a gun for a head. Honestly? That was weird enough to make me pass over the thumbnail for months.
Recently though, I’ve been rewatching Solty Rei, and it got me in the mood for weird sci-fi noir stories. So I thought what the hell, I’ll give the gunhead a try.
I’m so, so glad I did.
Of all the titles I tried out this week, No Guns Life is the best. It is dark, brooding, gorgeous, but also knows when to have fun. 
In a future world where prosthetic replacement has been normalized- if not popularized, a mercenary named Juzo is handed a case by a desperate “Extended” (the term used for more advanced cyborgs) who asks him to look after a boy that was just rescued from a corporate lab. Juzo takes the case, and his life immediately becomes more complicated- and dangerous.
It’s a classic noir hook that feels both familiar yet fresh in thanks to the series’ inventive visuals and intricate lore. Further, the voice acting is just pure hard-boiled goodness, whether you watch it in English or the original Japanese.
Do yourself a favor and give the first episode a try. You might just love it.
The Millionaire Detective Balance: Unlimited
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An honest and earnest blue-collar detective is paired up with a new recruit at his precinct- a recruit who turns out to be the richest man on the planet!
That’s it. That’s the show. It is not trying to hide anything- that’s its premise and it’s sticking by it.
And a few times, I even laughed at its brazenness. 
At one point during a high speed chase, the millionaire successfully resolves the chase by...telling his butler to pay everyone to get out of the way- at “twice the market value”. Which. What even...
The Millionaire Detective’s power is literally that he is rich and can afford anything. When he accesses his balances, they are listed as “unlimited”. He buys everyone off. Pays for every damage he causes. He can make city utilities such as traffic lights and draw bridges do anything he likes. At one point, the Millionaire Detective stops a foreign dignitary in the middle of the street and buys the dignitary’s vehicle on the spot so he can continue his chase. It’s...well. It’s the logical conclusion of the series title. I’ll give it that much.
No idea if I’d finish this. It has some funny ideas. I like that the eps end with a balance sheet that tells you how much was spent. 
Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out
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A loner in college is constantly shadowed and harassed by an indomitable girl named Uzaki who, true to the name of the series, wants to hang out.
I watched one ep of this show. I didn’t dislike it! I’m a sucker for low stakes slice of life comedies like this where the biggest conflict is whether or not the protag gets to go to the movies alone.
It’s not as clever as other slice of life anime I’ve seen, but it’s not abrasive. The namesake character Uzaki is a bit manic, and the loner is a bit of a bore, but there’s chemistry I could see following for a few more eps. I also just enjoy observing Japanese culture as it unfolds in stories like these. There’s so much to pick up in these kinds of stories, so I may continue on with it, if only out of curiosity. 
The Rising of Shield Hero
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A guy gets transported to a world in dire need of heroes. Everyone who is brought to the world is assigned a weapon which they will use to save the kingdom. Our protagonist gets the Shield- considered the weakest assignment. Derided by his allies and cast out after no small number of misunderstandings, Rising of Shield Hero is the story of one man’s drive to do the right thing and save the kingdom that never wanted him in the first place.
This is my second try with Shield Hero. I gave up once before. But now...I’m giving Shield Hero another shot.
I tried this title about a year ago. I was really harsh on its opening ep’, which hinges on a false rape accusation and a typical loner outsider isekai protagonist. Its “best girl” is a character who is introduced by way of being literally purchased from a slaver. None of this was presented in an especially egregious or even disrespectful format, but at the time I was watching it, I just lacked patience for it.
But time is a funny thing. We grow, we re-evaluate, and we make ourselves open to change.
I think I’ve had time to chill out since my first experience with Shield Hero and not be so bothered by the particulars (that, and...well, my experience with Goblin Slayer really put some shit in perspective, ugh). Did I think some of ep 1 was unimaginative? Yes. But was any of it actually a dealbreaker? Nah.I know a lot of good folks who I trust that have really resonated with Shield Hero as it has unfolded. It’s worth giving it another try.
Shield Hero’s setting is beautiful and its characters are certainly drawn to create an emotional investment. We want to root for the the Shield Hero, because he is quietly determined and righteous. We want to protect Raphtalia be cause she is vulnerable and kind. We want to see the antagonists fail because they’re all huge jerks. This aint rocket science, but I’ll grant it is effective and I want to be a part of the ride like so many others are.
I’m going to keep working through this, if only because I know season 2 is a damn event in anime and I don’t want to miss out. I’ll let you know if things keep improving. I’ve done episode 2 thus far, and I liked it more than ep 1. So we’ll see if that trend keeps up.
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kimmysfandomblog · 6 years
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Ohh, 6, 9, 11, 19 and 25. For all the games, but if it's too hard to pick, you can have one by game :p
Thank you, Serahne!!! ^ v ^
From here: https://kimmysfandomblog.tumblr.com/post/170470327942/lafumiko-hi-people-i-was-searching-for-a-good
Spoilers for V3, so these are under the cut!
6. Favorite plot twist?
DR1: Gosh, it’s a tie between Sayaka being the one killed and even planning to kill to escape the game and Naegi escaping execution!!! Bot of them realy threw me for a loop! I will say that discovering Sayaka was murdered left the greater impact, though, and was the reason I stuck to Danganronpa early on. It blew my mind at the time!
DR2: Hajime being Izuru/the “mastermind” was the most shocking thing to me! I really wasn’t expecting that??? I really came to love Hajime a lot by this point, and was feeling incredibly sorry for him already. When we were exploring the school for the last trial’s investigation and the Hope Cultivation Plan came up, I kinda figured it out. I don’t think I connected the dots completely though, ahaha. Also, just the fact that all of them were evil and responsible for spreading Despair worldwide was such a great plot twist, in my opinion!
DRAE: There weren’t many plot twists in this game, but I guess the most shocking was that Monaca was not an invalid. Like, she was pretty obviously the one running the show, and she was obsessed with Junko, but her faking being handicapped to control both her family and friends for sympathy and to get what she wanted was a genius plan on her part!
V3: I honestly didn’t like them all that much, especially Kaede not being the protag. The ending one where Tsumugi reveals everything is a lie (literally) wasn’t bad or good in my opinion. Like, I wasn’t necessarily disappointed by the ending like I thought I would be (that one was spoiled even before the game released in Japan because I couldn’t blacklist on PC and thought going through Hajime’s tag would be okay :( Damn you, dataminers!!!), I kinda just accepted that this was it. Also the trio being alive was not an exciting plot twist in the least (I love you Himiko and Maki, but your survival kinda makes me go ehhh with how the game ended). I guess that only leaves Kaito being ill and dying before his execution killed him as my favorite! I really liked how that last execution (not counting Danganronpa’s execution) was the reverse of the very first execution we see (Jin Kirigiri’s), and I already loved Kaito. It was nice that Kaito’s final goodbye was a middle finger to Danganronpa’s theme of killing the blackened with an over-the-top execution!
9. Favorite Ultimate Talent?
These are all very tough decisions…
DR1: Ultimate Biker Gang Leader! I honestly would never expect such a talent to exist, and I gotta wonder how HPA was able to gather data for that talent, hahaha. It helps that I found Mondo endearing even if he swears a bit and reacts with violence. He hast a golden heart full of regrets, and I liked his backstory! Also the talent itself is just… really cool.
DR2: Ok, so this is kinda weird, but Ultimate Lucky Student. Makoto was a totally different kind of Ultimate Lucky Student than Komaeda’s, where all-in-all he is an average guy and his luck only affects him sometimes. While that is an interesting talent, it’s not as interesting as Komaeda’s. Komaeda is probably the truest definition of Ultimate Luckster! His luck is tragic. It takes away any personal relationships and turns it into materialistic fortune. It is so powerful it warped Komaeda and his view of the world drastically. Gosh, it is very interesting and gets me wondering what could possibly happen around Komaeda because of his luck in different situations and with different people. Truly, a fascinating talent that I wouldn’t bestow on anyone!
DRAE: There were only a few people with an Ultimate Talent here, haha. I liked that Kotoko was the Ultimate Li’l Drama who actually will not perform for anyone (understandably) and the Fighter of the Group! If that counts, haha. Otherwise we only have Byakuya, Fukawa/Syo, Makoto, and Komaeda (and technically Izuru but he is on the screen for, like, 5 seconds and has every talent, so that would be boring anyways). If I had to choose between the four talents without Komaeda repeated, I think the most interesting would be Syo’s Ultimate Murderous Fiend! It’s really interesting to me that she’s a split personality of Toko. I kinda have to wonder how Toko can get exhausted easily, but Syo can slash and dash, even hurling herself several feet in the air, without breaking a sweat!
V3: It is a tie between Ultimate Anthropolgist and Ultimate Mage Magician! Unlike with the previous installments of the series, I was able to just see the talents before knowing the characters, though, so Ultimate Magician was the one that really caught my eye since I’m obsessed with Fantasy AUs, especially of the RPG kind with that class system! I’ve also always been really fasinated by Magic and magicians in general, haha. After playing the game, though, Kiyo really sold me on the Ultimate Anthropologist talent! I was a Cognitive Science major in the school within the university that focuses on the humanities, so not only am I very interested in human cognitive thinking as individuals and as a group, but I took a lot of history and some anthropology courses. I really nerded out with Kiyo and Shuichi during those FTEs! History/Folklore is truly fascinating! 
11. A character you’d revive?
Alright, this is a tough one for some of these because most of the ones I liked who died died “well,” as in their story was finished and satisfying. I’d surely love to see them alive again, true, but if we are going by canon and I could only bring back one, then it almost feels cheap. Kinda like “DR3 cheap.” That makes most of these characters not my favorites, but ones i felt deserve a second chance/should have survived.
DR1: Ishimaru. He isn’t my favorite character (I’m honestly gonna place him in the “he’s ok!” range), but he clearly didn’t have any satisfying development. You can’t get FTEs from his Kiyondo form, and he dies having done very little as Kiyondo other then some inconvenience regarding Alter Ego! It would probably be super interesting to see what he would do in later chapters, and if he ever snaps out of it in the chapters after.
DR2 (assuming the DR3 anime never happened): Saionji died for nothing, let’s be real here, lol. She was just barely going to reform herself and become a better person, and then she dies, offscreen, on accident. A friend also helped me realize that we never come across her murder weapon. I think that what would have been the best solution was not having a double murder. Plus, it would make it interesting to see whether she is able to forgive Kuzuryuu at all or not, how that affects the groups trust in each other in later parts of the game (since it is really hard to get close to her since she doesn’t trust people easily), and especially her reaction to being Ultimate Despair, as well as her growth spurt.
DRAE: Chihiro’s dad Taichi. He and Yuta died for shock, but how sad would it be if he was alive and found out his son was killed? And that his son’s legacy, Alter Ego, survived? Man, what a tragedy! It would have been nice to see him tag along with Toko and Komaru to the adult’s base and maybe try to hack into devices, or slowly give upgrades to Komaru making her life a little easier. He could also join Togami and leave Towa City.  He’d be an incredible asset to Future Foundation, but he would either refuse out of grief, or he’d take time to warm up to the idea, before accepting and becoming the head of any project regarding the Neo World Program/Alter Ego Chihiro, working closely with Miaya, and keeping close to those who had been Chihiro’s friends.
V3: hmmmm, this one I don’t know for sure. It’s between Hoshi, Miu, Kiibo, and… this may surprise you, but Angie as well.
*** Angie Negativity, you can skip it ***
I hate Angie, but she honestly needs the story development. She got the most abrupt ending, another offscreen death, and no resolution. Honestly speaking, if she had a better story and some form of redemption/questioning of her actions, I would like her a lot more. She just never learned that what she did was wrong, and unlike in her FTEs, telling her “no” made her stick more to her own opinion. Like, initially I didn’t like Celeste in CH3, but I actually grew to like her because she had that backstory that made her want to be more than she was, and she anyways accepted her death in the end without being spiteful and ruining the secret of Alter Ego, even giving the others a hint of where she kept him. She was leagues a better character than Angie. Angie, I was starting to kinda accept her after finishing her FTEs when I was still in CH2 (even if I hate the racial stereotypes, what with orgies, sacrifices, etc). She really made me mad when she refused to listen to anyone else and manipulated others to agree with her (I have an extremely soft spot for Himiko and Gonta, so my bias didn’t help her at all). I’ll give her that she’s really sly and a lot smarter than she tries to let on, but  her cutesy personality combined with manipulation to convert to a religion, suggested by light brainwashing using her paintings (and the fact the others were converted overnight), all so that she can get whatever she wants, and then not seeing any kind of downfall: no backlash or consequences because of what she did? It makes me mad. I’m sorry. I hate her and yet, she is one of the people I’d revive, hahaha. Geez, I honestly tried to like her despite my initial feelings I would dislike her, lol.
*** End of Angie Negativity ***
Kiibo dying while the other three survived is something that rubs me the wrong way since he almost never got respect until he was destroying the school, even when he was one of the few character that were actually helpful during the trials. Honestly, if the others survived, which, given the ending, was kinda pointless, then him surviving as well wouldn’t detract from the impact. Seriously, if anyone deserved to survive, it would be him or Maki.
As for Miu, her death felt like a cop out, for some reason. I can’t explain it exactly… I know that her being killed was because they needed her to go after Kokichi, so that they could get him to trick Gonta to kill her, but it feels wrong somehow? Like there was unfinished business? She had the electrohammers, electrobombs, a remote control, and a bug catcher, her more amazing inventions, made after her death. All her upgrades to Kiibo were very useful, but not as amazing. A drone and the camera set up are really simple, too. Her working with Kokichi on these amazing inventions feels like a plothole instead of plausible. It would be really nice to see her survive since, despite being vulgar, she’s really entertaining! And I wonder how she’d react to being told she wasn’t real, nor was she actually a genius inventor.
And I can’t forget Hoshi! He died horribly for no reason. Kirumi could have bashed him in the head with a tennis racket, or against the wall or something, after she knocked him out. There was no need to pin the blame on anyone. The second trial p*ssed me off so much because it was unnecessarily convoluted and cruel for no reason and anyways made no sense. My heart truly goes out for Hoshi. He had a horrible life! He was imprisoned for killing the Mafiai, was a true hero, and I wish he could have learned that he could find something to live for.
So yeah, V3 was the hardest for me this question, hahaha. I honestly can’t choose between these four. BIG SIGH
If this was bot the answer you were hoping for and you just wanted to get a list of my faves who dued, it would go like this: Sakura, Komaeda, Taichi, and Kaito! Priority goes to Sakura since Ko lives post-canon, hahaha
19. Favorite Free Time Events
DR1: Alright, honestly I need to actually play this game myself. I’ve only seen LPs of the game, and the anime does not have FTEs. The only FTEs I recall are Sayaka’s, Chihiro’s, Ishimaru’s, Kyoko’s, Sakura’s, and Asahina’s. I don’t think I can really say which is my favorite, but I really like Sakura’s and Kyoko’s. I just… can’t remember most of their backstories ^^
DR2: DR2 had too many good FTEs. Komaeda’s are probably the ones I liked the most, though? I didn’t care much for Komaeda initially. He was an interesting character, and I didn’t hate him (I was very neutral). I felt like there was more to him, so when I played the game myself after abandoning the LP I was watching, I went after him first and it changed my mind completely! I like it when a character’s background is explained and matches consequences and actions the character makes during the main story, and DR2 did this really well for my taste. Komaeda’s helped explain everything and made him a sympathetic character and helped me to understand him. Of course, it also sparked the Koma/Hina shipping, hahaha. If I had to come up with a runner up, it would be Souda’s for a similar reason! His also ties really well to the main story, especially with not being able to finish his FTEs until like after CH4, after he is done doubting Hajime.
V3: I’m stuck between Kiyo and Maki’s. Kiyo’s had more of an impact on me, though, because it flipped my initial suspicion I would hate him. Him being fascinated with anthropology and teaching Shuichi about it made me seriously love him as a character even though I was sure at the time I would hate him since I was spoiled about the incest plot twist. Maki’s was really well explained and tied nicely to the game’s story. She is kinda like Komaeda, in a way, hahaha. She had a tragic backstory because of her talent, been through hell, lost someone very precious to her, and her talent makes her actively try to avoid people and trust them. And, like I said before, I like FTEs that help explain why a character reacts the way they do (although in her case, a small part of her FTEs do land up in the main story, so I say they were slightly less effective, but tied better to the story)
DRAE doesn’t have FTEs, but there are explained backstories of the kids, and I loved Nagisa. His was the most relatable, with all of that pressure to succeed, never feeling good enough.
25. Saddest Death
DR1: 100% Sakura’s!!! She’s a real gem of a character, and I wish Danganronpa had more female characters that were like her! Anyways, she was so interesting, and not just for how she looks or her talent, but that she was the traitor torn by family duty and her loyalty to her friends. She thought that the best way to end this killing game was by sacrificing herself so that the group would not be split. She was so selfless and loved so much, yet she was treated horribly in her last hours because Monokuma made sure to make her as disliked as possible. And then he spits on her death further by stealing her last letter and will so he could use Hina to make the trial more interesting. My heart goes out to her more than anyone in DR1.
DR2: My gut instinct was to say “Komaeda” or “Nanami”, but truth be told, CH2 wrecked me! Peko’s execution really got to me because, firstly, I never suspected her, and secondly, her backstory with Fuyuhiko and the fact she killed and died to save him made the execution 10 times worse to endure! I hadn’t seen her FTE’s all the way through the first time, but I saw most of them and while she hadn’t been a favorite, she had a cute personality! I really did like her!. What made her death worse was Fuyuhiko’s reaction and him trying to intervene. I’m getting shills remembering it ^^;
DRAE: Most probably Taichi! Though it is hard to choose between him and Yuta, Taichi’s was the one that was most tragic, because up to his dying breath he was so excited to be able to have the chance to meet his son again. I mean, even if he did survive, his son would still be dead, but somehow it just felt worse than Yuta’s since we seemed to get to know Taichi better (he worked at Towa for the company, we talked to him more and his love for his son).
V3: Another hard one, and it is between Kaede, Hoshi, and Gonta… I feel like none of these three should have died, or at least for Gonta and Hoshi, not the way that they did. Gonta’s was the one I felt the most emotional over leading up to his death because of the present feeling of how Kokichi betrayed him and the feeling of how it wasn’t even his fault, really. Kaede’s I felt the angriest at because she was 100 times a better protag than Shuichi and I loved her. It doesn’t help that her death was especially tragic and her execution was gruesome (not that Gonta’s wasn’t gruesome, but it was too weird for me to feel much). Hoshi’s I felt the saddest over during the trial because of just how not-fair this was. I don’t even hate Kirumi, I really hate the writers for the trial because of all the pointless and illogical parts of the case and how Hoshi was murdered, but I ranted enough about it.
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bluebrrn · 7 years
Text
This Means War (part 2)
Summary:Two top CIA operatives wage an epic battle against one another after they discover they are dating the same woman (based on the movie)
Word count: 1,360
A/N: hey guys part two! Hope you enjoy it.
This Means War (Masterlist)
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You check the picture on your phone once more before you walk up to the blonde Adonis sitting outside of the local coffee shop. “Steve?” He looks up, “Hi, I’m (Y/N).” You take off your sunglasses and extend your hand.
“Oh gosh, hello. How are you?” He stands up like a gentleman and shakes my hand.
“Uh, very nice to meet you.” You can’t help but stare at the handsome man infront of you.
“You too, um…” He obviously felt the same because he couldn’t take his eyes off of you. “please, sit, sorry yeah.” He waited until you sat down before he sat down too. “Wow, it’s like- you’re really, really beautiful.”
You grinned, “Could you say that a few more times, because you’re voice is amazing.” You both laugh. “I feel like I need to apologize again for that bizarre profile-”
“No, no.” He shakes his head trying to assure you.
“-my friend Daisy is…” You huff.
“Oh, no. I think everyone should have a friend who’s a spaz.” He chuckled.
“I think I’m going to have to kill her.” You joke.
“Well, actually… I might be able to help you with that .” He nods.
You laugh. “I’m kidding.”
“So am I.” He smirked.
After a bit more conversation you asked, “So tell me something that’s not on your profile.”
“Um,” he thought about it. “I have a son.” He nods.
“Oh you do?” You smile.
“Yeah, his name is James,” you grin.“ He’s seven, and he’s really lovely, really lovely.”  He spoke admiringly.
“And his mom?” You asked.
“Couldn’t work.” He shook his head, “how about you?”
“Um, no kids that I know of.” You joke.
“Okay.” He chuckled.
“And no ex-wives either.” He smiled. “I have a very important question to ask.” You point.
He nods, “good, go on.”
“Have you ever been or do you ever plan on being a serial killer? ”
“Uhh, well I mean you’ve gotta keep your options open.” He joked. “but no.”
“okay good answer.” You both laughed. “So you’ve never killed anybody with your bare hands?”
“Not this week.” He chuckled.
“Great.” You smiled happily.
“(Y/N), you’re incredible.” He grinned.
“You’re not so bad yourself. "He chuckles.
"Alright, well I’m gonna go rent a movie and take a cold shower.” You start to pack you things up.
“I will too.” He smirked.
“Okay.” You chuckle. “And wait for your call for the next-” you check your watch,
“five minutes.” You both say simultaneously and laugh afterward.
Later on you were making your way down into the movie store. You glanced around not seeing many people. You smile to yourself thinking back to your date with Steve. He was such a great guy. He seemed so perfect.
You headed to the drama section and reached for your favorite movie, apparently someone else had the same idea. “Oh I’m so sorry.” He pulled his hand away.
“No I’m sorry, you take it.” You offer.
“No no no, that’s okay. You take it.” He smiled.
“You sure?” You ask.
“You know what?  You’re not gonna like it. Is got a Twist ending. You’ll see it coming from a mile away.” He shrugged.
“And how would you know what I like? "You smirk.
"Well I know movies. And women. ” he smiled, his bright blue eyes burning into your soul.
“Really?” You pretend to be impressed.
“Mhm.” He nods.
“Okay.” You put the movie back. “Well then, why don’t you tell me what I want?” You smirk.
He smiled to himself, and leads you over to the suspense and hands you a movie. “The lady vanishes?” You raise a brow.
“Mhm.” He nods, a proud smirk on his face.
“Why is that?” You ask looking up at him.
“Well, firstly you can never go wrong with Hitchcock. Ever. It’s got comedy, drama, romance, it’s a thriller. It’s classy, but not stuffy. And it’s a little obscure, so if you haven’t seen it you’ll thank me for introducing you to it. If you have, you’ll know what a good choice it was..”
“Well…I have seen it.” You say.
“Mhm.” He grins.
“And it is a really good choice…” you trail off.
“Mm.” He smirks.
“However,” you point out, “not as good as Rebecca, notorious, vertigo or pretty much any of his films from 1960 to 1972. "His smirk drops, "in fact, it’s sort of a second tier title.”
He chuckled nervously, “a second.” He mumbles to himself. “You know what? Scratch that-”
You sigh, “Look, I see you surveying the prospects that one over there in foreign? To much angst. This one in the sweater set picking out animated movies? That girl will have your children named before breakfast.”
He chuckled, “The problem is, no one looks like a clean getaway. I get it you come in here looking for a girl renting a movie clearly she doesn’t have a date for the night. We’re easy targets. You look like the kind a guy interested in a one day rental if you know what I mean. But if you knew anything about Woman or anything about me, you’d know I’m perfectly capable of choosing my own movies.” You grab the sea movie that you have chosen when you first walked in. “But thanks.” You glance at him. “Happy hunting.” You walk past him leaving him standing there shocked.
At work later on in the week you were standing infront of the group that had tested a new rotisserie grill.
“Good morning everyone.” you smiled.
“Good morning (Y/N) . ” they smiled back.
“We are here today to talk about grills. Does anyone have any first impressions? ” you look down at your clipboard before looking up.
“I like the rotisserie feature.” A lady in pink raises her hand.
“Perfect, that’s very helpful.” You take note.
A familiar voice speaks up, “I don’t think it heated up fast enough. ” you frown and look up. “Like something was wrong with the motor, maybe the spark was dead..” he put the news paper down and you internally groaned when you saw the same guy from the movie store.
“Actually sir, there’s nothing wrong with the spark some people think grills just burst into flames at the slightest touch, it doesn’t work like that. ” You smirk “does any body have any useful opinions? "You look out at the crowd.
A lady in blue raised her hand, "I thought the lid was hard to handle. ”
“Mhm.” You take note on your clipboard.
“Ugh the lid!” The same annoying man groans, “what a pain, right? I just felt the whole thing to be a bit stiff, uptight, not really user-friendly. ” he insinuated.
“Well I think it depends on the user. ” you glare at him.
“Mm, it just so happens I have a lot of experience with grills. I’m something of a grill master. ” he stands and begins to walk over to you.
“Uh, this is a sophisticated grill. Not sure if you’ve dealt with one of these before. ” you fake pout.
“Or maybe A grill like this is just so scared of being burned that it stays on simmer and never really heats up all the way…” he gets really close and his hand goes towards the grills.
“Don’t touch my grill.” You glare at him.
“I don’t think a grill like this can handle a guy like me. "He smirked looking down at you with his piercing blue eyes.
"I think it could.” You cross your arms.
“Really?” He smirked.
“Easily.”
“Prove it. 8 pm. Barcelona. Tomorrow.” He stared down at you.
You scoff, “I don’t think so.” You look away.
“Alright, I just I could stick around a little longer, talk about grills. Charcoal or gas, number 19 what do you think? "He looks out at the crowd.
You groan, "if I say yes will you leave? This is my job.” You mutter.
“Eight pm, tomorrow.” He smirked triumphantly.
“Fine.”
“Fine.” He smirked.
“Fine.” You glare before looking away.
He checked you out and leaned forwards slightly taking a sniff, “you smell nice.” You roll your eyes and he chuckled before walking out.
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