Whumpril 2023 - Day 7
Another one I've been kicking around for a bit!
TWs: fainting, (accidental) disordered eating, also hallucination mention
Numbness | Unsteady | “You look pale.”
"I just...wanted to talk to you." Mariano said, setting his phone down as he typed at the ancient computer. The video of Bastian on their couch, sketching away on his tablet, was clear and quiet. Calming. "Kept hearing footsteps."
Bastian snorted. "No one else is coming to rob that place." He paused, brow creasing as he tapped the screen a few times with his stylus before continuing to draw. "Not after you got the place in the news. People still think you're the owner."
Mariano laughed, shaking his head. "I know, I know. But you'd hear the front door bell too." The phone that Bastian had bought him was certainly good enough for the microphone to pick it up. He started printing off the reports for the night before standing and picking up his phone.
His head started spinning as he took his first steps toward the front. Mariano staggered, bracing a hand against the bookshelf that held their safe. Silver eyes flickered to the screen before narrowing.
"You good?" Bastian asked, slowly setting his stylus down. "You look wobbly."
"I'm alright, treasure." Mariano soothed as he continued walking, passing through the store room to the front. "I just need to finish locking up and shutting everything down, then I'll come home."
Mariano set his phone down by the register. He turned and knelt to turn off the ice machine, flicking the switch off. When he stood back up, he was barely able to turn back around before the world faded into a grey roar.
When the fuzz in his vision faded, Mariano realized that his head ached. He was on the floor, elbows and knees barely keeping his forehead a few inches from the tile. Distantly, he could hear Bastian.
"-iano, Mariano answer me." Bastian demanded. His voice was tense, bordering on a growl. "Dammit, you idiot, you'd better start talking to me or--"
Mariano groaned. He felt beyond nauseous. Only taking his glasses off and pressing his eyes into the darkness of his arm helped. The rest of him followed in a slow, controlled fall. The cool tile against his side felt nice. He swallowed hard. One deep breath in. Then out.
He'd fainted.
"Mariano, I heard that. Can you make another noise if you can understand me?"
"Mmmyeah." Mariano said, muffled. As he breathed, the nausea started to fade. "Yeah I...I'm okay." It felt like he was trying to talk while being multiple shots into some tequila.
Why had he fainted? He started running through the reasons, while Bastian said something else. He'd gotten enough sleep, he hadn't had trouble breathing, he ate lunch at noon, it was only midnight so he wasn't up too late--
All at once, embarrassment flared hot in his face. He hadn't eaten in twelve hours. His doctor had said something about this before. About recovery periods, and how continuous stress makes a body more fragile.
"Mariano? Hello?" Bastian's voice filled the front of the coffee shop along with the jingle of his keys. He heard the rustle of Bastian shoving his arms into his jacket, the soft growl as he struggled to get his shoes on quicker. "Hey, listen to me. If you can hear me just stay where you are. I'm coming to get you."
Mariano just hummed again, hoping that this one was loud enough for Bastian to hear. He heard the clatter of Bastian getting into his van and starting the engine, the purr soothing Mariano's thrumming, upside-down nerves. He just needed a few minutes, then he could sit up and crawl to the office to get the unopened soda he'd left there the day before.
Just a few more minutes, he thought, to lay on the steady, blessedly cold floor.
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AU where Steve has decent parents. They aren’t great, but they’re not bad. They show up for major things and tell him they love him, but they don’t understand him. They don’t get that he needs more than that.
So Steve’s nanny keeps in contact with him even after she’s let go because “Steve doesn’t need looking after” at the age of 10. She checks in with him all the time.
Ms. Munson is always bringing him a dish from her own dinner with her brother and son, making sure he has someone at the awards days at school, makes sure he has gifts at Christmas that he’ll actually like.
But she never invites him to her home and it doesn’t hit him until his senior year of high school that she’s Eddie Munson’s mom, that they live in the trailer park that he was never allowed to go to, that her brother must be Wayne, who took him fishing once when he got his heart broken by his first girlfriend.
He’s a different person now, but not to Eddie.
As time goes on, and he experiences more trauma than any single person should, and he gets Robin as a platonic soulmate, he realizes that Ms. Munson still shows up. His parents don’t bother much anymore, but she does.
And two days before spring break of ‘86, she sends Eddie to Steve’s house with a care package.
When Steve shuffles through the items, he nearly chokes on his own spit when he finds a bag of pre-rolled joints.
Eddie comes up with excuses, brushes it off as just a friendly gesture for someone his mom cares so much about.
But Steve won’t hear it. He asks him to stay and smoke one with him, take the edge off since he’s been dealing with midterms.
They get high on his back patio, talking and laughing late into the night, so late that Eddie almost worries he’ll have to go to school in his clothes from the day before.
Steve won’t hear it, offers his shower and his “most metal” clothes- his only black jeans and a plain white t-shirt with the sleeves cut off- and says he can sleep there for the couple of hours left before school.
Eddie wakes up to Steve making coffee and toast, using the jam his mom had included in the care package and a smile that made Eddie’s cynical heart flop in his chest.
Eddie didn’t think the next time he saw Steve would be when he was holding a broken bottle to his neck, terrified of everything and everyone, but the moment they had a second alone, Steve hugged him close.
“It’s a shit way to be welcomed into the group officially, but I’m glad you’re not alone.”
Steve and Eddie were inseparable while fighting Vecna, both of them insistent on protecting the kids.
When Steve managed to get Eddie to the motel the Munsons were staying in after El managed to get rid of Vecna, Ms. Munson was standing at the door with tears in her eyes.
“My boys.”
She patched them up, better than any doctor probably would have, giving them small kisses on the head when they winced in pain.
And eventually, she tucked them into one of the beds in the room, ignoring how they hadn’t stopped holding hands for the entire night.
She’d been hesitant to introduce them; Eddie, for all his talk of accepting people for who they are, struggled to accept how much she did for Steve, not understanding why he may need it.
But it seemed like she didn’t need to force anything. They found their way together in the end.
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Ok, not only did Moon Dong Eun avenge the villains of this story. She found love afterwards and was able to pursue architecture like she always wanted to. She now dresses freely with her tattoo, proudly showing her scars. She's no longer confined to her trauma. Dong Eun got her revenge AND her happy ending!
Even though she was so convinced that she's a terrible person for wanting revenge, she actually managed to touch the lives of the people around her through simple acts of kindness (empathizing with them for being victims) and those same people came back to support her as well.
It's usually "revenge is bad" this "you got revenge but at what cost" that, but no, she got her revenge AND her and other people's happy ending. Even though it's a dark story about how victims suffer, there's always the underlying message of hope, where they also understand and help eachother. Even if they had to bend the rules to get it, The. Victims. Won. Oh. My. Goodness.
In the end, it wasn't exactly just "revenge," it was also about bringing justice to the victims.
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i need to get this out of my head before i continue clone^2 but danny being the first batkid. Like, standard procedure stuff: his parents and sister die, danny ends up with Vlad Masters. He drags him along to stereotypical galas and stuff; Danny is not having a good time.
He ends up going to one of the Wayne Galas being hosted ever since elusive Bruce Wayne has returned to Gotham. Vlad is crowing about having this opportunity as he's been wanting to sink his claws into the company for a long while now. Danny is too busy grieving to care what he wants.
And like most Galas, once Vlad is done showing him off to the other socialites and the like, he disappears. Off to a dark corner, or to one of the many balconies; doesn't matter. There he runs into said star of the show, Bruce who is still young, has been Batman for at least a year at this point, but still getting used to all these damn people and socializing. He's stepped off to hide for a few minutes before stepping back into the shark tank.
And he runs into a kid with circles under his eyes and a dull gleam in them. Familiar, like looking into a mirror.
Danny tries to excuse himself, he hasn't stopped crying since his parents died and it's been months. He rubs his eyes and stands up, and stumbles over a half-hearted apology to Mister Wayne. Some of Vlad's etiquette lessons kicking in.
Bruce is awkward, but he softens. "That's alright, lad," he says, pulling up some of that Brucie Wayne confidence, "I was just coming out here to get some fresh air."
There's a little pressing; Bruce asks who he's here with, Danny says, voice quiet and grief-stricken, that he's with his godfather Vlad Masters. Bruce asks him if he knows where he is, and Danny tells him he does. Bruce offers to leave, Danny tells him to do whatever he wants.
It ends with Bruce staying, standing off to the side with Danny in silence. Neither of them say a word, and Danny eventually leaves first in that same silence.
Bruce looks into Vlad Masters after everything is over, his interest piqued. He finds news about him taking in Danny Fenton: he looks into Danny Fenton. He finds news articles about his parents' deaths, their occupations, everything he can get his hands on.
At the next gala, he sees Danny again. And he looks the same as ever: quiet like a ghost, just as pale, and full of grief. Bruce sits in silence with him again for nearly ten minutes before he strikes a conversation.
"Do you like to do anything?"
Nothing. Just silence.
Bruce isn't quite sure what to do: comfort is not his forte, and Danny doesn't know him. He's smart enough to know that. So he starts talking about other things; anything he can think of that Brucie Wayne might say, that also wasn't inappropriate for a kid to hear.
Danny says nothing the entire time, and is again the first to leave.
Bruce watches from a distance as he intercts with Vlad Masters; how Vlad Masters interacts with him. He doesn't like what he sees: Vlad Masters keeps a hand on Danny's shoulder like one would hold onto the collar of a dog. He parades him around like a trophy he won.
And there are moments, when someone gets too close or when someone tries to shake Danny's hand, of deep possessiveness that flints over Vlad Masters' eyes. Like a dragon guarding a horde.
He plays the act of doting godfather well: but Bruce knows a liar when he sees one. Like recognizes like.
Danny is dull-eyed and blank faced the entire time; he looks miserable.
So Bruce tries to host more parties; if only so that he can talk to Danny alone. Vlad seems all too happy to attend, toting Danny along like a ribbon, and on the dot every hour, Danny slips away to somewhere to hide. Bruce appears twenty minutes later.
"I was looking into your godfather's company," he says one night, trying to think of more things to say. Some nights all they do is sit in silence. "Some of my shareholders were thinking of partnering up--"
"Don't."
He stops. Danny hardly says a word to him, he doesn't even look at him -- he's sitting on the ground, his head in his knees. Like he's trying to hide from the world. But he's looking, blue eyes piercing up at Bruce.
Bruce tilts his head, practiced puppy-like. "Pardon?"
"Don't." Danny says, strongly. "Don't make any deals with Vlad."
It's the most words Danny's spoken to him, and there's a look in his eyes like a candle finding its spark. Something hard. Bruce presses further, "And why is that?"
The spark flutters, and flushes out. Danny blinks like he's coming out of a trance, and slumps back into himself. "Just don't."
Bruce stares at him, thoughtful, before looking away. "Alright. I won't."
And they fall back into silence.
Danny, when he leaves, turns to look at Bruce, "I mean it." He says; soft like he's telling a secret, "Don't make any deals with him. Don't be alone with him. Don't work with him."
He's scampered away before Bruce can question him further.
(He never planned on working with Vlad Masters and his company; he's done his research. He's seen the misfortune. But nothing ever leads back to him. There's no evidence of anything. But Danny knows something.)
At their next meeting, Danny starts the conversation. It's new, and it's welcomed. He says, cutting through their five minute quiet, that he likes stars. And he doesn't like that he can't see them in Gotham.
Bruce hums in interest, and Danny continues talking. It's as if floodgates had been opened, and as Bruce takes a sip of his wine, it tastes like victory.
("Tucker told me once--")
("Tucker?")
("Oh-- uh, one of my best friends. He's a tech geek. We haven't talked in a while.")
(Danny shut down in his grief -- his friends are worried, but can't reach him. When he goes back to the manor with Vlad, he fishes out his phone and sends them a message.)
(They are ecstatic to hear from him.)
It all culminates until one day, when Danny is leaving to go back inside, that Bruce speaks up. "You know," He says, leaning against the railing. "The manor has many rooms; plenty of space for a guest."
The implication there, hidden between the lines. And Danny is smart, he looks at Bruce with a sharp glean in his eyes, and he nods. "Good to know."
The next time they see each other, Danny has something in his hands. "Can you hold onto something for me?" He asks.
When Bruce agrees, Danny places a pearl into his palm. or, at least, it's something that looks like a pearl. Because it's cold to the touch; sinking into Bruce's white silk gloves with ease and shimmering like an opal. It moves a little as it settles into his hand, and the moves like its full of liquid.
Bruce has never seen anything like it before, but he does know this; it's not human. "What is it?" He asks, and Danny looks uncomfortable.
"I can't tell you that." He says, shifting on his foot like he's scared of someone seeing it. "But please be careful with it. Treat it like it's extremely fragile."
When Bruce gets home, he puts it in an empty ring box and hides the box in the cave. He tries researching into what it is. he can't find anything concrete.
Everything comes to a head one day when Danny appears at the manor's doorstep one evening, soaking wet in the rain, and bleeding from the side.
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