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maladaptive-ninja-returns · 4 years

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The Siren & The Healer (8)

Natasha Romanoff arc

Chapter 8: The Raven Haired Man

Platonic Natasha x fem!Reader, Loki x fem!Reader (soulmates?)

Theme: With cracks between the most powerful superheroes of the earth, Natasha Romanoff does not find rest when she is assigned on a mission to find the missing pieces of a puzzling power that once nearly got into the hands- rather, tentacles- of Hydra. In order to unearth the pieces, she must dig through her own past and make a decision that might decide the fate of the earth in the coming wars.

Series: Will contain violence, death, destruction, softness, fluff, smut, friendship, and whatnot

Chapter warnings: alcohol, dreams, shock, love, lots of PDA

A/N: This was written a few years ago with an OC in mind so reader has a name but it is a reader insert.

Word Count: Will I ever be able to find love?

MASTERLIST in bio, love

“Identification.”

“Alianovna. I’m here to see your boss.”

The six and a half feet tall muscled giant looked down at the redhead with emotionless eyes, not making an effort to move even his eyelids.

“The boss isn’t in,” he finally huffed out, eyeing you standing behind the assassin.

“Really, Krugo? Do you want to tell your boss you made her wife walk away from right outside her door?”

Natasha could feel your eyes go wide with a muted gasp barely escaping your lungs. “You are-” you tried to hold the excitement within, balancing your voice- “married. Cool! Very cool! Cool cool cool cool cool cool!”

“Boss’ wife had promised me cookies,” Krugo muttered under his breath.

Natasha smirked and you felt the need to come into full view of the bodyguard with a huge box in your hand. “This must be for you then,” you declared, opening the lid to show huge chocolate chip cookies waiting to be devoured.

Krugo watched the bounty intensely before breaking into a smile. “You never forget.”

“Of course not, Krugo,” Natasha acknowledged with a hug for the cute giant, who went ahead and opened the door for her and you to be let in.

“How do you balance your-” you flailed your hands in the air for the shortage of words for what you were experiencing- “work and personal life?”

Natasha kept walking down the dark corridor till she was at the door marked ‘Restricted entrance’, turning the knob to open it for the both of you. “It’s not that hard when you and your partner are in the same line of business,” she put it mildly before directing you to walk inside the room equipped with monitors, recorders, IR boxes and whatnot. And in the midst of it all stood a woman with her arms across the chest and her demeanour that declared she ran the goddamn place without even saying it.

“Rosa,” the assassin greeted her wife with a tone dipped in the morning dew and spread all over the skin with the utmost tenderness by the lover.

Rosa was an entire world in herself from where you stood. Her soft curls ending from the raven hair into golden brown ends framing her face perfectly. Her lips wore a mocha shade- soft and notoriously sexy at the same time- while everything else was bare. She was dressed in a black blouse over blue jeans being complimented by a black leather jacket and for the second time in one day, you were starting to question your orientation.

“Tasha,” Rosa greeted back- her heavy voice a strong declaration in itself- taking a step towards her wife, bringing her hands to settle on her waist before running up her back as she kissed her. You pretended to find a coffee mug on the table interesting to give the wives some privacy till Natasha made introductions.

“Are we adopting her?” Rosa casually spewed while opening beer bottles for the guests. Natasha burst in giggles while you stood there confused.

“I am an adult,” you stressed, “a full-blown adult, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Beer, adult?”

“No,” you shook your head, “I’d prefer something stronger with the kind of day I’ve had.”

Rosa smirked and you could see the same movements that you saw in Natasha when she first had a conversation with you. She was already studying you up and down. “I’m sorry I have to ask because curiosity is killing me. Are you a black widow too?”

Rosa took a sip of her beer while Natasha sat in her wife’s chair and looked at her with her fingers resting on her lips and other hand caressing the beer bottle in her hand- looking like a human struck with love for the very first time.

“I was,” Rosa stated, sitting down on the table, one leg dangling, “but I got out of the system early and made my way through the world till I settled here. For now. Currently, I’m a Detective and a home-made jewellery maker. What about you?”

“I’m supposed to be studying Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Networks but I’m currently at crossroads with my career decisions and have a couple of nicely suited hitmen chasing me for reason unknown. Your wife says it’s something to do with some ancient weapon that someone might have told me about. But all things ancient- especially the secrets- that I’ve been told about are either violent, racist or incredibly sexist in nature. And none of them mentions any ancient weapons to take out modern Nazis or that creepy guy who keeps calling your wife a...a...what was that word?”

“Rusalka,” Natasha helped, making Rosa’s head whip in her direction with her eyes going wide.

“I thought he was dead!” Natasha shrugged at her wife's reaction.

“Why does he keep calling you a mermaid?” you were genuinely interested in knowing the history there.

“He’s actually calling me a siren when he uses that term,” Natasha mentioned matter-of-factly. Rosa shifted from the table to a chair beside Natasha, taking her arm in her own, letting her fingers entangle slowly to rub away whatever stress she could. “He has always called me that. Ever since we were kids.”

“...because you lured enemies with songs?” You tried to guess.

“Because I was made into a weapon who would lure the enemies with the illusion of becoming what they desired the most. A damsel in distress they could dominate, an invisible records keeper they could blurt out their secrets to, a useless spy they would share their plans with because they had big egos, a lover, a widow, a victim, an object of pleasure, a friend, a keeper. It’s really not that hard to deceive men. I mean, so was every other black widow.”

Your furrowed brows took everything in for those two seconds of silence. “Yeah, the mermaid thing makes sense if every widow was a siren. Mermaids are pretty badass too. On top it a Russian Mermaid? I mean-” you ended the sentence by mimicking an explosion in the head.

Rosa chuckled. “I like her,” she muttered into Natasha’s shoulder before turning to you, “have a drink at the bar. On the house. Tell them my name. And if anyone tries to mess with you tell them they rather mind their business if they don’t want to end up like Damon. They’ll know what it means.”

“Cool!” you exclaimed before going back out into the club, leaving the two lovebirds to finally get some alone time to themselves. Rosa took the opportunity to drag Natasha into the couch with her, wrapping her in her arms and cuddling with her; showering her with kisses till she could feel her wife’s shoulders let go of the stress they had been holding throughout the day.

“Tell me what’s going on, Tasha,” she softly spoke into her ears while Natasha played with Rosa’s hair.

“Whoever Yuri is working with is after Keosha. At first, the theory was that she knows something or has something to do with the weapon Hydra is after. But I’m starting to question that after she saved me from falling debris by just placing her hands under it.”

“What?”

“Yeah! Rosa, she was making chunks of rocks float! When I asked her she said this had happened for the first time. She said she was taught this old Japanese art of healing where the force of the universe is used to heal and protect things. She said when she saw me trapped and about to be hit by the falling ceiling the force worked like an adrenaline rush and she blocked it. Well, the force blocked it. That’s what she kept saying. That she’s just a medium and the force was doing all of it.”

“Weird but okay. Go on.”

“So, Nakia went-oh, she’s-”

“I know who she is. Go on.”

Natasha raised her brows at Rosa, turning her face up a little to be caught off guard by the little peck that came on her forehead. “Nakia talked to her sources and confirmed that there is an existence of monks in Japan who practise this form of healing and are said to take on anyone as a student who is willing to learn. And often in the past, they have experienced a short surge of that...thing to protect people during floods or some catastrophic events. In comparison, what happened today was nothing.”

“Okay. So, if she’s a noob in this healing thing, she won’t be of much use as a weapon to Yuri.”

“Right?”

“Maybe her teacher or someone like that is connected to the weapons?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. The last time the weapon was nearly in Hydra’s hand was in India. Keosha grew up in India till her father moved to Japan with her. Then she was between countries and continents for a while. If they had to come all the way for her, it could mean that the weapon wasn’t that country anymore. Or the person connected to it. And Keosha seems to be the only key.”

Natasha loved the rise of Rosa’s chest when she sighed, the former burying herself in that warmth and closing her eyes. “Looks like you have your work cut out for you, shortcake,” Rosa hummed, stroking those fiery strands to put her love at ease. “Hmm,” Natasha replied, breathing in the familiar scent of cocoa coming from Rosa’s chest, “I do. But for now, I’d rather lay here in your arms.”

The club was lit in a golden glow off the walls with a dance floor separated from the bar with a decent sitting arrangement right in the middle that faced the stage for occasional performances. You enjoyed tonight’s performance by someone who went by the name Serena with a Long Island in your hand and another on its way. It was relaxing, the serenade of the sweet voice mixed with whatever incense was burning inside this place to make it smell so good. Wonder what Rosa’s looking for in such a place.

“Hey, beautiful. Can I buy you a drink?”

You had jumped at the voice being so close to you before turning around to see a man leaning on the bar, next to you, almost at the edge of invading your personal space.

“I have one, thanks,” you politely declined, going back to enjoy the performance.

“Come on, sweet cheeks,” the man continued, stepping closer this time to raise all the alarms in your body, “let’s take a corner and get to know each other a little.”

Your brows crinkled hard and turned to face him. “I’m sorry, are you hard of hearing? Or is something wrong with your sight?” The man did not know what to say so you continued. “Are you sure you can hear clearly? Because I just said no. And if that doesn’t suffice, do I look like someone who would be ready to bang the first person she sees in the club?”

The man made incoherent noises like a lost ostrich, not sure what to say. “She’s wearing a Hello Kitty t shirt with baggy jeans to a club, man. How could she not be more obvious?!”

“Yes! Thank you!” you acknowledged the other voice next to you, turning to see a middle aged man with a french goatee and shaded glasses nursing a glass of whiskey on the rocks that were raised in your direction.

“Aren’t you too young to be drinking?” the man shot his head back a little with a shade of confusion as he looked at you. You could not help but notice the expensive blue suit he wore to tell you he wasn’t some low life, unlike the other guy who made himself scarce as soon as the embarrassment hit him.

“Aren’t you too old to be wearing glasses inside a club?” you hit back, raising your glass to clink his.

“No, but seriously,” he continued after taking a sip of his whiskey, “you look too young. Hey, Marvin, did you check her ID? Did you come here alone?”

“Oh my G-”

“What! This isn’t a place for kids. Wait, are you safe? Are you in some kind of danger? Look at me. Look at me. Blink twice if you’re being used by some shady peeps for some shady businesses.”

An eye contest later- which this man lost- you finally spoke. “I’m fine. I’m here with a friend. And I am an adult. So, do you mind if I have my drink in peace?”

He raised his hands in peace and went back to his own drink.

A long satisfying sip later, something started bugging you. “Have we met before?”

“Me?” The man asked just to be sure. “You? I'm sure I would've remembered Hello Kitty."

You kept staring at him till your brain hurt. "Ugh! I swear I feel like I've seen you somewhere. But for some reason, you seem much...younger?"

The man feels his head jolt and his eyes nearly pop out. "You mean I was younger when we met? Allegedly."

"No. I mean when we met, you seemed old and...and wrinkled and definitely tired. Like dead tired."

Before he could say anything, he got caught in your eyes searching for something on his shoulder. "What."

"Is your arm okay?" You poked him over his blazer, making him smack yours away.

"Hey! My arm's okay. Don't touch me!"

"Huh...maybe it was someone else then?" You stared at his arm for a while before giving up. "You don't seem like the type to suit up in some weird funky suit anyways."

The man's back went straight as an arrow. "Okay, listen, young lady. One, no one wears and pulls off suits like me. Two, there hasn't been any mofo born who can do it like me. And three, why are we still talking?"

"Oh, I'm sitting here because you're giving off such a dad vibe that no douchebag has come over to offer me a drink. And you're sitting here because you are waiting for someone that clearly hasn't shown up yet," you concluded, popping a peanut in your mouth before taking a good sip of your Tea.

"Phone Call for you, Mr Stark." The bartender drove a metaphorical sword through the whole conversation with a wireless phone in his hand.

"Looks like you a busy man, Mr Stark. See ya later."

"Hey," the man addressed as Stark called out for you when you left your seat at the bar, "you better not be running into trouble, kid."

You guffawed, trying to hold your stomach to not barf any of the liquor you just had. "Thanks for the advice, dad, but it looks like trouble is kinda my thing now."

With that last salutation, you tried to make your way back to wherever you came from- your drunken brain trying to make sense of the passageways that appeared in front of you.

In those very passageways you tried to make sense of dreams- the ones that reluctantly came to you- and some unrelated memories that somehow always found its way to mingle with the present, no matter where you were, what you were doing; there always seemed to be ghosts of the past revolving around you, questioning your existence.

“Stark,” Your tongue repeated that name, time and again, like some forgotten flavour wanting to be revisited by your brain forcefully. Oh...only if you knew. Only if you knew.

I have to go to the loo. Where the fuck is the fucking loo?! It was a nightmare for two minutes before you finally found the door with the engravings shouting out “female” before you ran in and shut the door behind you and let the dams break as soon as the mirror showed you your sweet face.

You knew it was just the drinks but the feelings inside you poured themselves out, trying to find an outlet they could before they were shut down.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! What the fuck is happening?! I never asked for this?! What the fuck is happening?! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Oh Fuck! Why am I crying? Why am I CRYING?!!”

As if to answer your prayers behind those closed eyes, you saw a green pair of eyes looking straight at you with the intensity of a thousand burning suns. “You are stronger than you give yourself credit for,” they announced in your direction, forcing you to get up and find your way. And so you did.

Turning the knob you barged into that one room you knew was safe.

“WE HAVE TO FIND MY MASTER, NAT! SHE’S IN JAPAN!”

It was one of those moments when- even though you were proud of yourself, you did not want to live anymore, thanks to the peak of drunkenness you were currently swimming in. The flush of heat in your cheek was proof enough to drive you out when you saw Natasha and Rosa busy in...having the time of their life.

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry,” you nearly felt yourself cry before bowing to the host and running outside, never remembering Krugo leading you to the VVIP lounge where the Stark guy let you sleep with your head on his lap while he waited for the news on his friend and gently patted you to sleep while constantly cursing himself and calling his girlfriend to ask what to do in case of a drunken kid sleeping in his lap.

Loki woke up with a headache- a low compensation for what he had experienced right before he had been tormented into a coma.

“What happened?”

Though the question was a genuine throwback from his end, it irritated the hell out of the sisters who had tried to mend the biggest crises of their lives seconds ago.

“You hit your head and went into a coma” Nebula narrated with ease and patience fit for a storyteller of the ancient times. “Here, drink this,” she offered him some water.

Loki, reluctant to be deceived by any more mind tricks, observed the water in Nebula’s hands before being convinced it was safe to drink.

“Why are we even helping him?” Loki heard Gamora utter those words before being given a judgmental stare by her sister to quiet down and let her take the lead.

“Are you alright?” the younger one asked the God with genuine concern in those beady eyes as she wiped away the blood from the wound slowly healing in Loki’ head.

Loki did not give a convincing answer before drowning- once again- in the maze of the leftover chaotic flashbacks he was witnessing of some life unknown- something different to his own existence before he regained control of his presence; his true present.

“I’m fine,” he finally blurted out, his hands still grasping onto the metal rod in the ship that was helping him maintain his equilibrium. “Where’s the loo?”

Even though it was satisfying for the entire spaceship for the moment, it wasn’t sufficient for him. He walked with a pretentious walk towards the loo before locking the door behind him as he tried to balance his mind. His fingers was digging into his temple while he was trying to get to the root of whatever he had been witnessing- the incoherent cries, tumbling buildings, fast-paced heartbeats, chaos and whatnot till he was focused on those y/e/c eyes reflecting the cheap lights of some shady dancefloor till they were mixed in them, dancing and mingling with them right till the second a heavy voice rang in your ears. “We have to get you to a safe place.” If it weren’t for the emergency, Loki’s subconscious was sure of having already mingled with the sweet poison that was those eyes and be lost in them.

You were sure you had cried. Cried while Natasha and Rosa tried to get you out of the club and to the plane waiting for you by the edge of the city, You were pretty sure Aneka wanted to throw you out of the jet if weren’t for Natasha and Nakia holding her back, asking you to drink water after every thirty minutes.

“Where are we going?” Your teary, subconscious state asked Nakia.

“Japan,” she answered before she was content that you had ample amount of water and that Aneka was at a considerable distance from you as possible. For now.

“Who is that guy with that long, black, sexy hair?” you asked a genuinely confused Natasha.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about sweetie” were the last words you heard before slumber took over everything in this dark world.

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originaldetectivesheep · 6 years

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A Life of Riley Part 2: The Building That Had A Grudge Against Furniture Or Something ch 1

may want to go read part 1 first

"I'm sorry, miss," one of the overgrown Cub Scouts said to me as I tried to walk past him, away from the shelter at the bus stop towards the quad, "but we're going to need to check your bag."

I stopped and squinted at him, him and his equally corn-fed buddy in blue military shirts that had probably been bought in bulk and passed out at random to whoever fit them the closest, stupid red braid wound around their armpits like half-assed Japanese rope bondage. "Excuse you?" I said. "Check my bag? For what? Why? Who died and made you the TSA?"

The kid took a half step back, eyes open in shock like he wasn't used to being challenged. "I – I'm sorry, miss, but it's the rules." He pointed to a giant red poster on the side of the bus shelter: Grinckle Elimination Front Certified Grinckle-Free Area – Mandatory Checkpoint. "They certified Engineering Campus grinckle-free last night, so we need to check everyone who comes in. To make sure people aren't bringing fish across the perimeter." I looked over the poster, looked over the frosh Chuckle Brothers playing cop; they were being serious. For real, they were taking this seriously. Screw it.

"I tell you what," I said, undoing the clasp on my handbag, juggling it a little to make sure that the brass knuckles in it ended up underneath my pocketbook or spare sanitary supplies that these babies would be too scared of cooties to touch, "I'll come back tomorrow, and if you find even one fish in someone's backpack getting smuggled in here, I will eat it in front of you raw. This is the stupidest thing ever, or at least since this whole stupid friggin grinckle invasion started in the first place. God. Look, there it is; look, no fish. Can I go now?"

"Just – just one second," the other one said, bumping at the bottom of my bag with the back of his hand. "We have to check and make sure there isn't any fish in a false bottom. That's clear – but – Sid, we also got to check –" He cupped his hands in front of his own overfilled chest.

"Yeah," the first one said, trying not to snort. "It's possible; we got to be sure. That you aren't – you aren't carrying any fish under your shirt."

I saw red, and gritted my teeth. "The shit you hurfdurfs are going to feel me up looking for your imaginary fish. This, do you know what this is?" I hauled my lab pass out of the side pocket on my bag, brandishing it in their faces. "Read it, turdball: this is an Applied Physics lab door card. You know what the AP lab is, right? You know what this means, right? This means that I can go in that lab, even when Riley isn't there, and use the lab materials however the hell I want. Let that sink in a little. And when you're done thinking about that, think a little bit about Riley, about how Riley would react if it got around that some jumped-up crossing guards thought it was okay to grope lab members – think a little bit about what I could do to you with the AP lab materials, and how likely it would be that anyone would ever find your bodies." The wannabe fish gestapo had backed up away from my door card, nearly all the way to the hedge at the side of the path, and they were sweating like they were about to piss themselves in another second or two. "Are we clear? Are we good? Am I good to go?" The one who'd first suggested molesting me grabbed the other dude in a panicked bearhug, whimpering, and I figured that as as intelligible a reply as I was going to get from these idiots.

"All right," I said, stowing my card again. "I'll take that as a yes, and as long as you're actually getting rid of those fish you can do whatever. But if I hear one thing, if I get one DM about you jerkoffs or any other shitass pretend grinckle cops harassing people like this, I'm gonna come back down here, and there's not going to be enough of you left to bait a hook with. Do you get me, assholes?" The assholes got me, nodding frantically, wide-eyed, as I walked away, completely ignoring the other students and their backpacks getting off the bus and walking the other way around them towards Dittmarsch Hall. Some security checkpoint. Great job there by the pervert brigade.

As a way to ruin your entire morning, an attempted sexual assault by the shitbird wannabe fish police is just A-1 fantastic, and I stayed in a bad mood all the way over to the physics building, and then all the way up the stairs to the lab. I clicked my badge to the sensor by the door, and the EMO drop bars fell with a clunk, without even asking if someone was working on high-voltage stuff inside; I just wanted to get in, get in to my workspace, and get back to myself before this day got any worse. Nobody yelled or cussed like they'd gotten hit with a power cut, so that was good, and as soon as I came through the door, Carolína was standing up, leaning around a bookshelf full of greasy cylinders looking for me. "Sajitha!" she said, "are you okay? Are you all right?"

I picked my way past the wet-vac that someone had left in the middle of the floor and sat down at my workspace, stacking the sample parts on the tabletop out of the way and pulling the keyboard down from the hooks glued to the top of the monitor, switching the screen on. "Barely. I didn't get molested by the grinckle police, and I didn't have to punch either of them into the hospital either. Things could be worse. Did they go after you too? Check your bag, offer to squeeze and make sure you didn't have any fish strapped to your tits?"

Carolína shook her head, ducking to and fro as she tried to work around to my side of the work table to offer moral support. "No – no, they didn't; that's awful – I feel so bad for you – did you call security?"

"If I called security, they'd squeal about how I threatened to murder them if I found out they were harassing anyone else; lumpy freshmen threatening sexual assault gets laughed off as boys being boys, AP lab member telling someone they'll be ground up for fish food if they don't cut their shit turns into handcuffs and a terroristic-threats or conspiracy-to-commit-murder charge. They take us seriously. And you can't call the cops on the cops, even junior dress-up cops like this. How'd you dodge them? Do you have a secret way up here? I just came up on the bus like normal." Carolína had wrapped herself all around my back, chin resting on my shoulder. It wasn't helping me a whole ton, but if it helped her feel better, it was okay.

"No," she said, "no, I just came up that way too. I had my backpack, but they didn't stop me. I barely noticed them – I'm pretty sure they were there, but I was on the phone with my mom and I wasn't paying attention. Maybe that's it, like they don' pay attention to people who go by speaking Spanish."

"Either that, or it was just a clipping plane thing and they didn't see you down there," Leo said from somewhere up near the ceiling. I turned around, following Carolína's arm as she gave him the finger, and saw Leo hanging off a rickety shelf by one hand, knee braced on some kind of superstructure that he was nudging a heavy-looking bushing into.

"Leo!" I said, surprised, "what the heck? How are you up here already? And what are you doing? Do you really want to be jacking bushings around that high up without a harness?"

"If he wants to keep having a place to lay his head when he can't find some thirst monster to hook up with, he'll get that upper blister assembly fixed up by tonight, harness or no harness," Riley said, invisible behind a towering stack of binder specs at the back of the room. "This is a physics lab, not a Salvation Army hostel; you want to stay here, you have to work here."

"Wait," I said. "Leo, you still haven't found a new place to live? You're still sleeping on the floor in here? How do you even live? And isn't it crowded with you and Yuping?"

"Hey, don't put Yuping in the same boat with me," Leo said, reaching back over onto the shelf for a wrench. "He doesn't live here – he just gets stuck sleeping on the floor sometimes when he's on deadline. On days when he doesn't, like today, he's back with Simon in, no lie, the perfectest twee-est one-bedroom bungalow apartment you could possibly think of. The place looks like a staged fake off some interior design magazine's Instagram. Ex this lab, Yuping's life is a goddamn model of domestic bliss, and we ought to respect that more."

"Oh-kay," I said, accepting Leo's domesticity thirst if he was still sleeping on cardboard, "that's fine, I'll send him and Simon a nice fruit basket on their anniversary or their move-in anniversary or whatever. But jeez, Leo, how the hell do you not have a new apartment yet?"

"I can't afford a new apartment," Leo answered, wrench gritted in his teeth as he worked on something with a pair of pliers. "It's kind of the middle of the semester and nobody's failed out yet or quit, so everywhere that's remotely affordable is locked down solid until next summer. There's a handful of places that aren't like student apartments specifically that have some vacancies, but the rent on all of them is so high it makes blood shoot out my eye sockets even thinking about it. I've been on Craigslist looking at roommate-wanted posts, but anyone who'd be accepting a single white dude, I'm following up with them and all of them are like in horrible trouble where they have like drug dudes leaning over their shoulder, or the house is full of mold – and there's not one of them that I'd trust to be out about being in with the AP lab with. If it wasn't just me, I'd look a lot less like a sketchy rando, and then maybe some of the other places might be more affordable, but it is just me, and it is what it is." He laid the pliers down and went back to the wrench.

Next to me, Carolína nodded hard, understanding. "Yeah – I get it. I want a little bit to move out, too: after Melanie, you remember, Remy's ex, moved out, it's just me and Kenji at the house and the rent is a little too much with just two of us – but you don' wanna move out on your own, because you don' know who these people who put up the roommate ads really are. It'd be different if I knew them, if it wasn't just me looking, but everyone I know, they're all settled, so…" She shrugged, leaning back against my workbench.

"You hear that?" I asked up at Leo. "Why don't you move in with Carolína? She's looking for someone else to split the rent, and you've got to be able to afford what she's paying, and you know she's a normal person."

"At Ham House?" Leo asked, like I was putting him on, and Carolína made a face. "No thanks; Carolína is chill and I could afford it, but I think Kenji has beef with me, and then there's that smell that hasn't completely gotten out of that place yet. Thanks, but no thanks; if that's option B, I'mma stick sleeping under the drill press."

"Hey, screw you!" Carolína yelled, giving him the finger again. "I don' like the smell neither, but it's not so bad, and I got my name on the lease – I don' got to hear a homeless guy tell me my apartment's not fit to live in!" Leo shot her a double-bird back, and wobbled like he was going to fall off the shelf, or have it completely collapse under him.

"Guys – guys –" I said, trying to calm things down before people started throwing wrenches at each other and someone got really hurt, "cool it – cool it. You're both in tough spots – it's not worth fighting about this crap for no reason." I was thinking – thinking about my nice one-room single in a shared condo that meant I never had to have any of these problems. It was nice and all, but it didn't feel like college – nothing felt like that so much as long nights in here, working with friends, arguing with friends, eating takeout with friends and fighting about who was holding out on the tip with friends. If I got a little out of my shell, and the three of us found a place together, we could have something like that more of the time (and maybe with less chance of Riley dragging us into other people's weird problems), and I could use my own privilege to help out friends who didn't have it, whether it was Leo who was actually homeless or Carolína who was just going broke living in a house that still smelled like the glop at the bottom of a pack of raw bacon. And I could sublet or Airbnb my single and keep it as a fallback – and if I did that, maybe we could afford to do our college communal living somewhere that wasn't a grubby college communal apartment.

"Hear me out – just hear me out a second," I said, still not quite sure of how to set this up so it wouldn't sound like I was patronizing Leo and Carolína, doing them a favor by going in with them. "What if we all make some time this weekend, all go out apartment hunting together? We don't have to all go in together, don't have to all get on the same lease, but maybe there's places that we could get into together that you guys couldn't get into separately – maybe we won't find anything and you'll be stuck the same way you are now, but maybe we will find something and it'll work out. How about it? It'll make a good break from school and work, and it'll be something to do that doesn't have anything to do with those stupid grinckles." I looked around, Carolína to Leo and back and forth again, looking for approval; maybe not yet, but at least they weren't jumping down my throat about it.

"This weekend? Apartment hunting together? Word, count me in – and if there's four of us, two chicks and two dudes, that's perfect for a good quad, right? I'll start up a group chat – Leo, send me over those listings you thought you didn't have a chance at, I'll send them around." I looked down at my feet, where Remy had suddenly rolled out from under something, like a landing gear assembly or something else that made all the sense in the world, and my heart fell right down into my shoes. I should have checked; this was the AP lab, and you never knew who was hiding under a pile of machine parts waiting for an invitation that shouldn't have been extended. No way I was going to move in with Remy – not and end up Netflixing every night on the same couch with him because he thought if he did that, the 'chill' part would go and happen by itself.

"Yeah, that'd be good," Leo said, tossing his tools over towards a bucket on the top shelf. "I'll be down for that; I'm free all day Saturday and most of Sunday as long as I can get the spare microwave emitter in here working in the next couple days. Loop me in on the chat, I'll send those listings over as soon as I get down from here."

"Yes, agreed," Carolína said. "It'll be better with more people, the four of us coming as a unit – people won't worry about a new roommate up in their room if we go as a quad, where we'll have all our own relationships just with us." She looked at me with a total poker face – they were doing this on purpose, they were absolutely doing this on purpose.

I took a deep breath. "Okay. Okay, fine. But Remy, why are you in this boat? Don't you have a dorm room or something, or a room in someone's house? I was pretty sure that I thought you were rooming with Derek and Howie from your team, weren't you?"

Remy smiled a goofy grin and put a hand to his forehead, rolling a little back and forth on the mechanic's tray. "I – uh – there's kind of a thing with that. I was real busy at the end of last semester, finishing up my big project for orgo, and I thought that I'd gotten in, but I guess it slipped my mind. I was supposed to be in a dorm this year, but I forgot to enter the housing lottery so yeah, while I've been kinda living with Howie and Derek, I've kinda just been sleeping on their couch and keeping my laptop and my spare clothes in this box in their TV room."

"Forgot. You forgot to have someplace to live this year." I facepalmed like I was going to tear my brain out with my fingers, and he waved his hands, starting up again to try and look a little less stupid.

"But it's gonna work out! It's gonna work out, I promise – I been saving up because they haven't been looking for more than like beer money to use their couch, and a couple bucks for the washing machine, so I'm flush now, yo! I'll take care of the security deposit on any place we want to go in on – I can handle it, trust me."

"Fine," I said, through the heel of my hand. "Fine. Whatever. It's okay. Everything's cool. No problems. Saturday then, right? Cool, whatever; just give me some space now so I can get ahead on my work and make sure we're ready to go out." I rolled my eyes and slumped back down for my chair and my workstation; out the corner of my eye, I was pretty sure that I saw Leo and Carolína giving each other a thumbs-up. This was going to turn out great, just great – but at least it couldn't be any weirder and dumber than that thing with the fish.

Chapter 2

#nanowrimo #alifeofriley #fiction #moar callbacks

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