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wutheringmights · 3 years

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Can I be greedy and ask for all of the boys ? And any characters you have strong opinions on? Pretty please? With lots of cherries and chocolate on top? ( for the ask meme ofc)

Anon, I'll finish up all of the boys in the Chain just for you. And trust me, I have an Infinite Amount of Strong Opinions. You have no idea how Opinionated I Am.

If anyone is coming in late to this, here are the boys I have done already and a short summary of my thoughts (click the hyperlinks to get the full Opinion):

Warriors: he's best when he's the trashy anti-Link, and I like him so much

Twilight: kind of boring, but I have a soft spot for him anyway because you never forget your first

Wind: should have been aged up a little so that he can have that identity crisis I'm craving

This... gets long. Really long. 3-hours-of-work-long. Before you read, please note that even when I speak negatively about something, it’s not to diss anyone who does like the thing. I’m not vague posting or being passive aggressive. This is all written in good humor and good faith.

That being said, let’s a-go!

-Sky-

What I love about them: He has one of the best character arcs of all the Links. I love that he starts off being lazy and kind of a jerk, but grows as a person because he wants to save his friend. And I love that he's truly the most courageous Link. He has no other successful hero of past or legacy to lean back upon to reassure him. He walked into that fight with Demise with no assurance from anyone that he would succeed. Yet, he does it anyway. Because he's a true hero and someone had to be one. And he's rewarded with a curse that he does not initially take seriously. He thinks he's saved everyone, yet he's cursed his spirit, possibly his bloodline, and his entire legacy of the kingdom of Hyrule into a doomed cycle of destruction. All because he dared to face evil incarnate. I love him.

What I hate about them: You know how I called Twilight boring? I should have saved that critique for Sky. LU Sky is actually the most boring interpretation of his character. All of his negative traits? Gone. All of his positives? Also gone. He's the blandest version of himself, and like Twilight, I now feel like I gotta add some spice to him to make him more interesting while still keeping him recognizable. Even so, he's still one of my favorite Links.

Favorite Moment/Quote: When he kicks Twilight's ass at sword fighting. That's stuff is *chef's kiss*

What I would like to see more focus on: You would think that there would be more angst out there about him realizing that he's actually been cursed, but it's still kind of hard to find. He's the Cursed Knight! The beginning of a terrible legacy! Imagine meeting a bunch of heroes for the first time, and instead of being relieved at having someone who understands your experiences, you're filled with horror at realizing that your victory was a false one. You didn't win. Your spirit will never be at rest. Imagine dealing with that realization for the rest of your life. You could never be at peace.

What I would like to see less focus on: I love that he loves his wife, but he's more just the fact that he's married, y'know? I would like to see a little less blind devotion to Hylia and Zelda, and more complicated feelings about being manipulated into being the hero.

Favorite pairing with: Sun/Link/Groose OT3! I have no reasoning behind this other than I like Groose and Groose definitely had a crush on SkSw Link.

Favorite friendship: I won't answer Groose again even if I want to, so I'll say Warriors. I cannot begin to describe how elite this friendship would be if you gave it a chance. They're just two boys dealing with unique positions of leadership and responsibility. They would probably even bond over being shitheads at different ends of the shithead spectrum. It's so good, okay?

NOTP: Ghirahim. I'm not too adverse to this one, but the ship hinges on whether you can redeem Ghirahim or not. In my opinion, Ghirahim is awesome because he's such a fun villain. Redeeming him ruins the fun.

Favorite headcanon: I have a whole life story planned out for Sky. Basically, he lives to be close to 500 years old by the power of the Triforce. He is the Link throughout the Era of Chaos who banishes the Dark Interlopers to the Twilight Realm and seals the Triforce in the Sacred Realm. He actually seals himself in the Sacred Realm as well to keep the Triforce safe, and he fought Ganondorf in when he broke in. Sky, like Time and Wind, does not get a happy ending.

-Four-

What I love about them: Four is origin of the heroes of Hyrule being known for being children. What a legacy to leave behind. He's such an interesting case of an incarnation of the Hero's Spirit, too. He fought Vaati, and he did his job so well that Demise's next incarnation had to be Ganondorf. Four did his job the best out of everyone, and it came at the cost of creating a magic sword that changed him permanently. I like to think that the Four Sword was not meant to split him, that it was a mistake he made with the design. And it's sad, isn't it? You made a defective sword, and like any good sword, it has a symbolic double edge. It gifted you with so much, and yet he can never be the same again. And his story is never well-remembered because it is overshadowed by the Links who fought the King of Evil. He's does so much, yet his legacy is underappreciated.

What I hate about them: I want to prepare you for this Opinion, because I know it's unpopular. Are you ready? Okay. I don't like the Colors. I'm sorry. I want to like them, but they don't interest me at all. Because they are parts of Four’s personality, they have to be one-note archetypes which does not make for exciting storytelling. I also haven't found a fic yet that has been from Four's POV that did the internal monologue of the Colors in a way that wasn't a pain in the ass to read. Maybe if someone can figure out how to do the Colors in a way that doesn't feel like a drag, I would like them more. But in the end, I think Four himself is more interesting than the Colors.

Favorite Moment/Quote: The fact that he didn't want to touch the Master Sword because he doesn't trust magic swords. That is every I need to know about his opinion on his own adventures.

What I would like to see more focus on: I want more of Four as Four. It's getting harder to find content of Four being his own person first and the Colors second.

What I would like to see less focus on: Four being the Colors first and his own person second. There is something about viewing Four as this cover identity for the Colors that doesn't feel right. There's a balance that needs to be strike between his ability to split, how that affects his every day life, and his own identity of being Four. I think I may have read one fic that hit that sweet spot for me, but still.

Favorite pairing with: Shadow. I'm such a sucker for befriending and falling for the enemy. That is all.

Favorite friendship: Dot! Their friendship is super cute. I like the idea of them being super close when they were younger and struggling to keep the friendship going as they age due to how much their paths in life diverge.

NOTP: This isn't necessarily a Four or an LU problem, but people who ship the Colors together? Bro. C'mon.

Favorite headcanon: I'm torn between two different Four and the Master Sword headcanons. On one hand, Four thinking that the Master Sword is just legend until he meets Sky and everyone else is just a fun idea. He sees the legendary sword for the first time and his mind is blown. On the other hand, I also like my Four with a side of hubris. What if he had the option on his quest to draw the Master Sword himself? What if he could tell that if he did that, the consequences would be terrible. He's not sure what would happen, but he knows it would be terrible. So he decided to make his own sword instead to disastrous results. Wouldn't that be tragic or what?

-Time-

What I love about them: Last winter, I did a two hour powerpoint for my friends about the Legend of Zelda timeline. During that powerpoint, I was rating every iteration of Link. What I said about the Hero of Time then holds true to my thoughts of LU Time now. Time is the original Link, more so than Sky in the lore and Legend/Hyrule in real life. Every other hero is a reflection of him. So the fact that his story is about the loss of childhood and the tragedy of that is incredible, and you can see those themes reflected in every other game. Moreso, he’s the only Link with a confirmed tragic ending. Not only does he end his life unsatisfied, but his adventure is failure on every timeline. In the adult timeline, Hyrule is swallowed by the sea. In the child one, Ganondorf returns again. In the fallen timeline, Hyrule fell. I like the idea since that the games themselves are the legends that are past down about each hero, Hylians have also remembered Time as a tragic figure. Yet, they also remember that the happy moments for his life come from small acts of kindness. Even someone as sad as him finds joy in helping others, even if it’s just to small deeds that will not be heralded as grand heroic quests. It’s beautiful.

What I hate about them: This is more about Mask than Time, but Mask is not an adult in a child’s body. He did not rewind time in Termina enough to be considered mentally an adult. He’s a young teenager at best, and that’s me being generous. He is a child who was forced to be an adult and despite the gods being done with him, he cannot conceive of ever having a childhood again. So he can say all he wants that he’s an adult, but he is not. That’s just what he thinks he is.

Favorite Moment/Quote: Anytime we get a flashback to him being a younger adult is great. I want to see more of his in this his early adulthood.

What I would like to see more focus on: I think I just want more of Time being... not a bad leader, but being an imperfect one. I honestly think he’s only the leader because he’s the oldest and enough of the heroes recognize the title of Hero of Time. But he is not the leader type, and he is struggling to keep it together and has to defer to Twilight and Warriors for help a lot.

What I would like to see less focus on: I’m not the biggest fan of Dad!Time for any of the Links. He’s not emotionally ready for it. And I think he defaults to treating the boys like adults because that’s how he wanted to be treated when he was their age.

Favorite pairing with: Malon. He has this great partnership of equal respect with her and it’s just. So good.

Favorite friendship: Linebeck. I know. This exists only in my head. But if these two ever meet, you cannot convince me that they would not get along swimmingly. It would be so good (once Linebeck gets over his crush on Time and stops hitting on him, of course).

NOTP: Child Timeline Zelda. Let me explain: I fully believe in Bi Time supremacy, and when in OoT, he definitely had a crush on Sheik. However, one of the worst parts of rewinding time and being in the child timeline is that Zelda is a completely different person now. They may have been friends in the other timeline, but her life experiences are completely different now. She is not the same person as he once knew. And it’s tragic to know someone as who they could have been, not as they are.

Favorite headcanon: After Termina, Time spent a lot of time with the Nabooru because out of everyone he knew, she’s the only who took him seriously even as a child. She has big older sister energy, and he considers her a part of his family. However, being treated as such made it easier for him to ignore his issues and put off his healing process by a few years.

-Legend-

What I love about them: Veteran of Heroes! What a freaking title. I love that he keeps on finding adventures, and that he keeps hustling. Even if he complains about never getting a break, you can tell that he loves helping others. He loves being on the road, never settling down, and finding adventure after adventure. Honestly, if any of the Links had a calling to be a hero, it’s him. Is he tired? Sure. Is he a little jaded after having saved Hyrule and a bunch of other kingdoms multiple times? Yes. But at the end of the day, he likes being a hero. This is who he is. His complaining is not genuine; he just plays the martyr because, at this point, he’s earned the right to.

What I hate about them: If you can’t tell by now, I have a, uh, different interpretation of Legend from popular canon. Fandom Legend is not right to me. He is unrecognizable. It is hard to write him because I feel like I have to balance what other people think Legend should be versus how I think he is. The people who are big Legend enjoyers probably feel the same way about my version of Warriors, and that’s fine. I’m not going to gel with every character and I don’t expect everyone to gel with how I see characters either. It’s goes both ways, y’know.

Favorite Moment/Quote: I like how subtly he tried to approach the Wolfie problem at first, trying to ask questions and get more proof before confronting Twilight. It’s a good touch.

What I would like to see more focus on: If I had to choose one thing, it’s this one throw away line about him never wanting to settle down. I’m telling you, folks! He likes his lifestyle! And did you see him when he does presenting the origins of the hero? He’s not bitter about being a hero! Legend is moody, but he is not angsty about the whole hero thing. Have fun with him please!

What I would like to see less focus on: If you can’t tell by now, Legend is my least favorite Link. There is a lot I want to see less of, but just to name one thing, it’s the headcanon that Fable is his sister. I live and die by common born Link, and whether he’s a legitimate heir or the royal bastard, I am more than bored with the persistent Prince!Legend content.

Favorite pairing with: Marin. It’s a good tragic story and I like it well enough. She’s cute, and he’s cute with her.

Favorite friendship: Warriors. I’m with everyone else on these two have peak sibling energy. They tease and pick on each other, but only they are allowed to mess with each other. They’re each other’s bully, and it’s always good to see.

NOTP: I do not have enough energy to have a lot of strong opinions about Legend’s romantic relationships, but I will mentioned that I have lost a lot of love for Ravio recently and am liking seeing him with Legend less and less. I have no better reason for this than the fact that I finally played ALBW and hate how many of my hard earned rupees he’s taken from me by withholding important, lifesaving items. Rat bastard.

Favorite headcanon: Remember my headcanon about him being the coolest bad boy folk hero on the block because everyone thinks he kidnapped Zelda? Yeah, I still stand by that one. I did good there.

-Hyrule-

What I love about them: If there is any Link that I would call a gutter rat, it is this one. I struggle a bit to talk about Hyrule since his games gives us so little, but in the end, I always fall back on him being a hero of the people. He is the one who has nothing and relates the best to people who are at their lowest. Yet, he is still a hero. He earns the right to be a hero because he helped Impa in her time of need. He’s selfless and competent. Even if he never got a traditional education, I bet he’s wicked smart too. He is the Link that symbolizes all of the parts of the Triforce the most. And, god. I cannot talk about him without mentioning the blood sacrifice part of LA. It’s such a cool concept, and I cannot imagine what it must be like to go from being the rough and tumble, win-at-all-costs fighting to protecting yourself first because if you don’t, the consequences are disastrous. It’s paradoxical, and it must be such a different mindset to fall into. But it must also be a blessing in disguise since now he has a reason to finally care about himself.

What I hate about them: Who started the Hyrule is innocent headcanon? Come over here because we need to exchange some words. If there is anyone who would be a realist and know how the world works, it’s this guy. And while we’re here, who came up with the Hryule is always lost headcanon? I also have some words for you. And you know what? WHILE WE’RE HERE, who let him be named Hyrule? I’m have more than choice words for you. His name scheme is the bane of my existence and the express reason why I don’t write him more. God.

Favorite Moment/Quote: That one panel where he takes utter delight in Warriors hiding from his scorned lovers? That is a central pillar in my understanding of Hyrule.

What I would like to see more focus on: Again, his relationship with other people. Even if his games are lacking in NPCs, we know from lore that he’s a good guy who will jump in to help others. He must know plenty of people, and I want to see who exists in his world with him.

What I would like to see less focus on: I have an on-going joke with my brother that certain characters are Catholic, even if Catholicism does not exist in the world of the thing we’re watching or playing. Of course, we’re not being serious. we’re just joshing around. So imagine the gut punch I feel whenever I see people say Hyrule is Christian and realize that they’re being serious. I just can’t take it seriously.

Favorite pairing with: Aurora. It’s cute and I’m a sucker for that hero and royalty dynamic, especially when the hero is a peasant. It’s so cheesy, but I love it.

Favorite friendship: Legend. But not the way everyone else pairs them up as the grumpy one and the sunshine one. I think of it more as them being the pinnacle of boys being boys. They’re shitheads. They do stupid shit together. They both have a dark sense of humor. They joke that they’re practically the same person sometimes.

NOTP: uhhhhhhhhh.... Is he paired with anyone else?

Favorite headcanon: I love the idea that he just likes his way of life and refuses to accept anyone saying otherwise. Legend wants to teach him to read? Sorry, but he’s never had to read before in his life so he’s pretty sure he’ll never need it anyway. Want to participate in the treasured Hylian tradition of piercing your ears when you come of age? Why would he ever do that when a monster could rip those earrings off? He’s stuck in his ways and it frustrates everyone else to no end, but he has no interest in ever changing.

-Wild-

What I love about them: When I was 9, I spent my time online on Legend of Zelda forums. I remember one of my forum friends saying that they wanted a Legend of Zelda game where Link lost. And I think of that friend whenever I think about Wild. BOTW Link is the best Link that has ever been. He is the epitome of every trait we associate with any Link. He’s smart and sassy. He’s hard working and kind. But underlining all of that is the fact that he’s still the one who failed. If Demise’s Curse in SkSw is the set-up, the Great Calamity is the payoff. And I haven’t even talked about how confirming him as being non-verbal before the Calamity does so much for his characterization. I don’t even know where to start or how to articulate it. By game storyline alone, Wild is one of my favorites.

What I hate about them: You guys knew this one was coming, but I’m going to have to say it anyway. Fandom Wild.... not good. I’ve said it for half of these boys so far, but god is it true. I have a way I see Wild that is rarely done in the fandom. Fandom Wild has a lot of the traits I also see in Wild, but to all of the extremes. I will mention one thing in particular as being a pet peeve, and it’s how some people headcanon him as always being nonverbal. I know what they’re trying to do, and I think they’re on to something, but they’re also missing the point of what BOTW Link’s character arc is. I just wish more people would forget fandom and work more off of the games for how to characterize him.

Favorite Moment/Quote: Weirdly enough, my favorite moment is when he got mad at everyone for making fun of his Gerudo outfit, so he dumped Goron Spice in his cooking. It’s encapsulates a part of his character I think a lot of people forget about.

What I would like to see more focus on: I think he has a really complicated relationship with his past. He said himself that his old self felt like a different person, and I think that should be explored a lot more. That idea actually fascinates me so much that instead of CTB, I almost wrote a character study fic about Wild. His emotions are not as simple as feeling guilty about letting his friends die and not preventing the Calamity. His emotions would be so complicated and because I don’t have the time to explore it, someone else needs to do it for me.

What I would like to see less focus on: There is a weird fascination with Wild having memory loss and essentially being like a kid again. And this feels infantilizing to me. It honestly bugs me a lot every time I see it.

Favorite pairing with: I can’t decide between Zelda, Mipha, and Revali. They’re all different dynamics and they’re all good.

Favorite friendship: Paya. I firmly believe that Paya is Wild’s best friend. I am the only one in the world who believes this. But I am also the only one in the world who is correct.

NOTP: Wild is good with everyone. Good for him!

Favorite headcanon: An essential scene of my Wild character study I will never write is one where his horse dies. He goes into shock and walks back to Kakariko to talk to Impa. But once he goes to her, he breaks down in tears and has an absolute melt down over the horse. And Impa sagely says, “It’s not about the horse, is it?” She’s implying that he’s actually mourning the loss of his friends, Hyrule, his life, everything-- but through his tears, he keeps tell her that she’s wrong. He barely remembers them. He doesn’t know them. He doesn’t have any feelings about them. He just really loved that horse. But Impa refuses to listen to him, just repeating over and over again: “it’s not really about the horse.”

And that’s it! That’s all of my opinions! I know a lot of my opinions are polarizing, but everything I said is in good faith, and I am not trying to diss anyone for how they approach these characters.

I welcome you to send me your Opinions on the Links, even if it’s just to disagree with me. I’m cool with it, and I like knowing what everyone else thinks!

#so there are my polarizing opinions #heed my note at the beginning and end about acting in good faith #anyway if you read all of this you are obligated to tell me some of your headcanons and opinions #sorry i don't make the rules except i actually do #linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu #lu sky #lu four #lu time #lu legend #lu hyrule #lu wild #lu twilight #lu wind #lu warriors #me rambling #ask #anonymous

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clara-licht · 4 years

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Just Out of Touch | Part Two

PART 2 OF 2

Summary: Midtown’s Academic Decathlon team managed to score a field trip to the one and only Stark Industries Headquarter located in Stark Tower, leaving behind a Peter Parker who was not allowed to join for “faking” documents regarding SI internship. In a strike of fortune (or unluckiness) for the team, they had Tony Stark’s own daughter to guide their tour. And she was not happy.

Join their trip through the industry with glimpses of a certain arachnid and a young Stark’s relationship!

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Word Count: 10.4k

Warning: cursing

Note: thank you so much for your enthusiasm in this story! I really didn’t expect this to take off like it did! I hope you can enjoy this one, although I think this chapter might be a little confusing and rushed, especially the ending. As promised, I posted the badges’ designs used in this story yesterday, so check it out by clicking the link below if you’re interested.

Title Inspo: BTS & Zara Larsson - A Brand New Day

Part One | Badge Designs | Best of Me Masterlist | Marvel Masterlist

——————————

Ned looked at MJ, confused. "What was that?"

"I'm not sure." MJ frowned. She glanced at Hecate's exhibition next to Spider-Man's.

Despite being acquainted to Spider-Man, the public knew little to nothing about the vigilante called Hecate. They just showed up out of nowhere one day, focusing mainly on kidnapping cases. Unlike Spider-Man, medias never really said anything incriminating against them, seeing as all they did was found kidnappers, beat them, and returned the children to police stations.

Police officers were wary due to their violent nature against the kidnappers. They always made sure the criminals were beaten half to death. Public supported them, saying kidnappers deserve it, so law enforcers couldn't really do anything.

Yet it seems that (y/n) had something against the hero.

Once everyone was gathered and Mr. Harrington finished his headcount, (y/n) led them back to the elevator, asking FRIDAY to take them to 25th floor.

(Y/n) blinked as something dawned on her, "Merda, I forgot to explain about the tower before the Museum." She clicked her tongue, irritated. "This is why we have interns to do tour!" She grumbled.

The students glanced at each other, confused and unsure about what to do. They didn't want to upset their guide (more than she already was anyway) by saying something they probably shouldn't.

The elevator dinged and they exited. Instead of a reception table like the Hall of Heroes, they were met with cubicles upon cubicles.

"An office?" Flash scoffed, "What are we going to see here? How to sell a phone?"

(Y/n) turned to look at him with a heated glare that made him flinched, "That's exactly what you're going to see. What, do you think an industry can survive only with R&D? Do you even know how real life works?" She snapped venomously, eyes glowing dangerously.

"I'm sorry for his attitude, Miss Stark." Mr. Harrington hurriedly intervened, pushing Flash behind him. "He's just a bit too excited to see the labs, you know, coming from a science school and all…"

Thankfully, a middle-aged woman came and interrupted before (y/n) could possibly curse Flash out. "Welcome to Stark Industries' Marketing Department!" She greeted them with a cheerful grin. "My name is Sarah Keynes and I'm Public Relations Officer! Midtown High School, right?"

"Yes, they're from Midtown. I assume the presentation is ready, Mrs. Keynes?"

"She was basically burning Flash not even a minute ago and now she's so professional-looking, that's awesome." Yasmin whispered to Jason.

Jason nodded and whispered back, "It's like earlier didn't happen at all."

(Y/n)'s back was straight, hands clasped in front of her, chin lifted just a bit, and her expression was mild. She made eye contact with Sarah and her eyes were calm. No one could tell she was livid just a moment ago.

Sarah smiled, "Indeed it is, Miss Stark! We know you will be punctual as you always are. If you would just follow me."

They followed Sarah to a meeting room of sorts on the floor where a small group of people, mostly wearing intern badges, were standing in front of the room. In the middle of the room was a big table surrounded by chairs, which they were asked to sit on. (Y/n) sat on the back of the room, leaning against the wall.

"Once again, welcome to Stark Industries' Marketing Department!" Sarah exclaimed.

"We have some of our team members who will join us in learning about our department here," she gestured at the group of people beside her who waved at the students, "and I promise we're all friendly here, so if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask! Let's begin now, shall we?"

One of them, a man in his early thirties with an employee badge, thanked Sarah before opening their presentation.

"Hey guys, my name is Roberto Salvatore, Advertising Manager. Let's start with…"

(Y/n) tuned out once Roberto started the PowerPoint slides. She already knew everything about their Marketing Department, Pepper made sure of it.

——————————

"This is so boring." (Y/n) lamented as she slouched on the table, a tall stack of paper sitting in front of her innocently.

Peter, who was doing his homework, looked at the dejected figure beside him. "Can't help it, you're going to take over the company one day, after all."

"But why do I have to read all of this now?" She pouted. "Why would I need to know every single detail about marketing! I bet dad didn't even know any of this when he was CEO."

"To be fair, he did admit he was a shitty CEO."

(Y/n) grumbled, "Not helping."

Peter let out a laugh and gently ruffled (y/n)'s hair, (y/n) halfheartedly swatting his hand away.

"Hey, Pete."

"Hm?"

She turned her head, now her cheek was pressing against the table and she could look at him directly. "If I don't want to take over SI, will you?"

He tilted his head slightly and looked back into her eyes. "It's called Stark Industries, (y/n). It belongs to Starks."

"I'm dad's only child, as far as we know. Maybe in the future I'll have a younger sibling, but if I don't or we don't want to, who will take over then?" She wondered. "And I know I won't be able to manage the whole company alone. I'm not like Pepper. She always said I'm so much like dad, and you know how he is."

Peter dropped his pen in favor of holding (y/n)'s hand and squeezing it.

"You know Mr. Stark won't force you if you don't want to."

(Y/n) gave a non-committal hum.

"And you know I'll always have your back."

(Y/n) gave another hum.

"So if you ever need help, I'm always available."

(Y/n) suddenly sat up and stared at him with wide eyes. "Wait, you said that Stark Industries belong to Starks only, didn't you?"

"…Yeah?"

She grinned mischievously. "If you marry me, you can take my last name and be a Stark so you can take the company too!"

"WHAT IS THIS ABOUT MARRIAGE?" Tony's loud voice boomed, saving the now red and speechless Peter from having to form any sort of reply.

"PORCO CANE! YOU'RE STILL CHILDREN AND WHO SAID I'M EVER ALLOWING YOU TO MARRY-"

——————————

(Y/n) spent the time working on her newest project schematics through her phone, sometimes looking up when a discussion topic seems interesting. Despite Flash's remark earlier, the group was actually interested in and was invested through the presentation, throwing questions related to the topic here and there. The marketing team had prepared some quizzes related to the presentation and answering students now had a gift bag with them.

"That's a wrap, guys! Let's give an applause for our marketing team!" Sarah clapped her hands, prompting the others to follow.

Realizing the presentation was over, (y/n) glanced at the clock on her phone before putting it away and moved to the front of the room.

"We still have some time before lunch, so I might as well tell you things about the tower I forgot to earlier. Is it okay if we use the room for a bit, Mrs. Keynes?"

"Of course!"

"Thank you."

As the marketing team left the room, (y/n) turned on the projection and put in her credentials. Anyone could access their account from anywhere in the building as long as a capable device was available. This was for the sake of convenience.

(Y/n) found the file she was looking for and accessed it. A hologram of the tower sprung out in the middle of the table, making the group awed.

"You are currently in Stark Industries Headquarter here in Stark Tower. This tower was previously named Avengers Tower, but after the team's fall out, dad sold it. There were complications-" She stopped, frowning.

"Didn't the Vulture's daughter go to your school?"

Some of them squirmed uncomfortably on their chairs.

"Liz was our senior before she moved to Oregon." Betty answered softly. Memories of Liz still hurt her sometimes. She was good friends with her, after all.

Of course, (y/n) actually already knew this.

——————————

"Pete, hey, look at me. Come on."

Grunting, he slowly opened his eyes despite his pounding head that screamed at him to just pass the hell out. He squinted; the soft light emitting from the park's lighting was somehow blinding to him. He didn't notice that it was drizzling until a few drops slid down from his eyebrows.

"(Y/n)…?"

(Y/n) smiled at him. "Hey. Let's get you out of here, okay?" She spoke softly, careful of his senses.

Her words made him realize where he was. "How did you find me?" He asked, voice raspy.

"That's for later. Come on, can you climb down?"

Without replying, Peter gently held (y/n) close to him and jumped down. (Y/n) didn't let out any sound, as if she already guessed Peter was going to do that.

She led him to a car she stole from her dad and strapped him in before reaching for a towel and a soft blanket on the backseat. She gave him the blanket and used the towel to rubbed his hair slowly.

Peter was quiet as he let her dry him. He wasn't drenched; the sky was kind enough not to give a storm and gently pour some droplets instead. Still, he was thankful for the blanket warming him.

Once satisfied with her work, (y/n) threw the towel back to the backseat, went into the driver's seat, and drove away.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?"

Peter looked out the window, sighing heavily. His whole body ached. The pounding in his head hadn't gone away. He was almost 100% sure that he had a concussion.

"Aren't you supposed to be in homecoming right now?" (Y/n) asked again, stealing glances at him while trying to still focus on the road.

For a moment, Peter didn't reply. (Y/n) didn't pester him and kept driving in silence.

"He's her dad."

"Hm?"

"The Vulture. He's Liz's dad."

(Y/n) glanced at him. He looked dead tired. And hurt.

"Liz? The girl you have a crush on?"

Peter nodded slightly. "He hijacked Mr. Stark's moving plane. I had to stop him."

"And you did."

"Yeah, I did…" He trailed off. "But why don't I feel good about it?"

Nobody said anything.

——————————

"Yeah, anyways, he tried to steal our moving cargo and Spider-Man stopped him. Dad then realized it was more of a hassle to leave this tower since it's powered by the arc reactor."

The hologram zoomed at the bottom of the tower, showing the huge arc reactor beneath.

"People would actually kill for its blueprints, you know?" She shook her head. "So he bought this tower back and made it the headquarter for SI. This tower has 100 floors, because dad likes the even number, and top 5 floors are private residential area and private labs."

The group started murmuring amongst themselves. Private residential area?

"When I said residential, I mean it. We live here when we're not out of the city, it's convenient. Of course, dad still has several other houses, but personally, I like this tower the best."

Because it's closer to Peter, she thought.

Besides the arc reactor, one of the reasons Tony had bought the tower back was for Peter. He realized that he couldn't stop the kid from being Spider-Man, with or without the suit. Helping keeping him safe was the least he could do, and if having Stark Tower means easier for Peter to reach when he needed something, then Stark Tower shall remain.

It had nothing to do with (y/n) blowing up at him for taking Peter's protection (the suit, not something else, you dirty minded) and asking (forcing) him to be more active in their mentorship.

Nothing at all.

(Besides, Tony had also developed a soft spot for Peter. He looked at the boy and saw a much better version of himself.)

"The floors are divided into the departments; Marketing, Human Resource Management, Accounting and Finance, Legal, and Research and Development. Other departments like Production and Purchasing are on other branches of SI. Most branches have R&D labs because dad, as I quote, will go crazy if he doesn't have any lab to mess around after a shareholders meeting." She rolled her eyes.

(Y/n) swiped away at the hologram, effectively shutting it down. "Okay, that's it. Now let's go get lunch."

——————————

The cafeteria was bustling. (Y/n) told them they had $40 inside their badge and they could buy any food they wanted from the cafeteria simply by swiping their badge to pay.

"Gather in front of the elevator at 1.30 PM on the dot. Now go eat."

As the group dispersed, she headed back to the elevator and asked FRIDAY to take her to the top floor.

A voice called out her name when she stepped out from the elevator.

"(Y/n)!"

For the first time that day, (y/n) let her lips curved up to a genuinely pleased smile.

Peter was sitting on the sofa in front of the TV, a messy sandwich in his hands and soot on his cheek. His clothes were clean, although his hair was dirty with dust and she could smell something burnt. He must had changed his clothes. It wasn't hard to figure out what he had been up to as he did tell her he was messing up with DUST earlier.

Something must had blown up.

"What did you explode today, Mr. Scientist?" She asked playfully.

"Nothing!"

(Y/n) raised an eyebrow, still smiling.

"…I connected wrong wires when trying to fix DUST's heat sensor."

Chuckling, she shook her head amusedly and made her way to the sofa. Peter handed him a wrapped sandwich after she sat down which she accepted gladly.

"How's your presentation going?" Peter asked between bites.

(Y/n) peeled the sandwich wrapping away, showing the gorgeous rib sandwich practically dripping with warm barbecue sauce. The smell was heavenly.

She took a big bite, moaning quietly as the flavor burst on her tongue.

"I love ribs." She mumbled, still chewing.

After she swallowed, she heaved a sigh. "Presentation was boring. I still have some to do after this, but really, it just feels like a waste of time."

Peter hummed thoughtfully. "What is it about anyway?"

(Y/n), already prepared to answered any questions that he might shoot her, answered easily with a lie, "That upcoming high school internship program dad came up with."

Peter stopped chewing. "That's real?" He asked, frowning.

"Of course it's real!"

"I thought it was just a joke or something to cover my alibi…"

(Y/n) stopped chewing as well and put down her sandwich. "You know, I'm not supposed to tell you this yet," she started slowly, "but dad is planning on making you the head of internship program."

If (y/n) hadn't anticipated it and held a hand in front of Peter, his sandwich would've flown away with how hard he practically jumped out of his seat.

"WHAT?!"

"You're his first of his only two personal interns, who also happen to be the only two interns of SI still in high school. He said it's an obvious choice, to make sure the upcoming high school interns will be more comfortable." She explained, putting Peter's sandwich on the table in front of them. "Pepper agrees with him, so there's that."

Peter's eyes were wide.

"No, no, that's an awful decision!" He stammered. "I'm not leader material! I barely even know what I'm doing! I-I'll mess it up!"

"Pete-"

"You saw me! I blew DUST up because I connected wrong wires! That's such a newbie mistake! And what about Spider-Man? I barely have enough time now, I'll neglect my responsibilities!"

"Hey-"

"And my school! Nobody believe I'm an intern in the first place, but head of program?! Principal Morita will have my head for lying extensively! They already disregard my internship papers anyway-"

(Y/n) pulled Peter down to sit back on the sofa and gently grasp his chin.

"Hey, look at me."

He did.

"Remember what you told me when I said I can't take care of SI alone?"

Peter didn't answer, but his eyes that looked back at (y/n)'s had calmed down slightly.

"I'll always have your back. So if you ever need help, I'm always available." (Y/n) smiled at him. "You don't have to worry about messing up, Pete. You're not doing it alone. Harley will take the position with you and I'll always help if you need me."

Peter sagged on the sofa, crossing his arms. "Still…"

"Also," (y/n) scowled, "this time I'll make sure they believe you, so now worries for that one."

"What do you mean?"

(Y/n) only smirked at him, offering no explanation. "Finish your sandwich, Spidey. I have to go downstairs soon."

Slightly grumbling, Peter reached for his sandwich. "Oh, where's Harley, by the way? I haven't seen him today." He asked before biting into his sandwich again.

"I think he said he wanted to mess around in R&D today."

"Maybe I should visit him later."

——————————

When (y/n) went back downstairs after leaving a pouty Peter with a peck on his cheek, she was greeted with the sight of Ned massaging his shoulder with a grimace amongst his friends. She was actually familiar with Ned and MJ's faces, having seen their pictures whenever Peter told her about his school day. Keeping her dad's words about formality in mind, she didn't show her familiarity at all.

Although now Ned was acting weird. She knew that gesture meant he hurt his shoulder, but what happened during the short time she wasn't there to supervise?

"Mr. Harrington," she called the startled teacher, "is everyone accounted for?"

"Y-Yes, Miss Stark. We're all here and ready to continue."

"Anyone needs bathroom breaks before we leave?"

Several of them lifted their hands.

(Y/n) looked around before catching an intern's eyes.

"Hey! Uh, Miss Macready!"

The intern looked surprised like a deer caught in headlights. Maybe she didn't expect to be called out by her name by the company owner's daughter that day.

She approached (y/n) hesitantly. "Yes, Miss Stark?"

(Y/n) was pleased when she saw her intern badge and found out that she knew the intern's name. She remembered seeing her around when she was in Finance Department.

"Can you show these students to the closest bathroom? I need to address something right now."

"Right away, Miss Stark."

The Finance Department intern, Mindy Macready, beckoned the students to follow her, leaving (y/n) and a handful of the leftover students in front of the elevator. Mr. Harrington had gone with the rest.

Seeing the students were occupied with talking between themselves, (y/n) moved closer to Ned who was still massaging his shoulder and talking with MJ in hushed voices.

"Mr. Leeds."

Ned turned around quickly, expression not unlike Mindy when (y/n) called her earlier.

"(Y/n) Stark knows my name…" He muttered in disbelief.

Ignoring his mumbling, (y/n) asked, "What happened to your shoulder?"

He hadn't even gotten over his surprise of (y/n) knowing his name, but now she noticed his pain?

Ned could only gape, leaving MJ to respond, "A kid in our class is a jerk."

(Y/n) narrowed her eyes in displeasure. "And does this kid called himself Flash?" She sneered.

At this point, MJ wasn't surprised that (y/n) had known about Flash. She deduced that Peter must have told her a lot more than just Flash anyway, so she only nodded curtly.

"You don't have to tell me what happened, I'll find out later. Thank you, Miss Jones."

(Y/n) took them to visit Legal Department where the Director, a surprisingly young man on his late 20s or early 30s named Isaac Latimer-Reed, talked to them briefly about what his department deal with. SI's Legal Department didn't only handle cases related to their products and company name; SI had included legal aid in each of their employee's contract. Tony had put some of his best lawyers to work in the company instead of just for himself. Shall an employee ever find themselves in a situation where they needed legal aid but couldn't afford it, SI had their backs.

"So if someone is in a fight with her husband or something, you can help them, I don't know, divorce him?" Flash asked with a frown. Why something so trivial? He had thought. "Isn't that against privacy?"

"It's not something that simple." Isaac said. "What if that fight results in violence? What if one of them had lifted a hand against the others? Our employees are free to talk to us and give us enough reason to make a case. We had freed quite a number of our employees from their abusive family simply after they just told us what happened."

Isaac smirked, "They didn't stand a chance against us. No matter how hard you try to hide a rotten core, the smell will always escape."

His dark expression made the students gulped and stepped back a bit.

(Y/n), on the other hand, smirked alongside Isaac.

She had always liked the man. He was quite a shrewd man who wouldn't stop pursuing "justice". That was how he got to such a high position despite his young age. Tony knew he needed someone sharp who could be ruthless in his Legal Department, and Isaac was the perfect candidate.

"We are against violence here in SI." (Y/n) said out loud, gaining their attention, "Any kind of abuse or bullying is not tolerated. Whether it's verbal or physical, direct or implied, we do not accept such behavior." She glanced at Flash who definitely had a sweat rolling down the side of his neck.

After some Q&A session, (y/n) thanked Isaac for his time and led the group away.

"Miss Stark?" Zoha called out. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but can we get some water before proceeding, please?" She asked, Yasmin nodding beside her.

"Follow me."

They stopped by the closest kitchenette. As she promised, it was fully stocked. For a small kitchen in an office, it was quite bizarre to see baskets of chocolates, cookies, and snacks beside plates of fruits and nuts. A coffee and tea station on the side of a big fridge and a juicer and blender beside it didn't seem quite… right either.

"You can eat and drink whatever you want but finish it here. We're heading to the labs after this."

She let them snacked around in the kitchenette for less than 10 minutes before whisking them away.

"We have a lot of R&D labs." (Y/n) explained, "In this tower alone, R&D span from 61st Floor to 80th. Each department usually have 10 floors max, but since dad is biased, R&D got more attention."

"Excuse me, Miss Stark?" Charles called. (Y/n) looked at him, waiting. "What does R&D interns do? Are they classified to do experiments by themselves?"

"Not really." She answered. "Level 1 interns mostly make reports and do research with or for their supervisor. Sometimes they'll get to help with the fun part, but that's for level 2 interns, usually."

"And level 2 interns?"

"Product testing, chemical experiments, engineering trials, they're allowed to do them all under supervision or with their supervisor's permission. Level 3 interns don't need supervision, but they still have to report."

The elevator dinged.

"Come on."

The floor they were at was spacious. Unlike the offices with their rooms and sections, the lab was mostly just open space with tables and cabinets. On the far end of the room was glass doors leading to testing rooms, while on the other end was a white door leading to the floor's supervisors.

"Welcome to Medic Lab!" A man in his 40s greeted them with a smile. He was tall and lanky with dark hair and equally dark eyes with laugh lines around them.

"This is Dr. Henry Clark, this lab's Assistant Director. He'll be Director soon though." (Y/n) introduced. "Dr. Clark, Midtown Science and Tech."

Henry blinked in surprise. "Midtown? Isn't that-"

"Yeah, it is." (Y/n) cut him off.

"Is he here?"

(Y/n) shook her head, "No, he's upstairs. He's going to T04E later, I think."

"Bring him here sometimes, will you? We're extremely grateful that you're here a lot, but we need both your brains sometimes too, you know!" He laughed. (Y/n) only smiled at the man.

Being very interested in the health department, (y/n) spent a long time in this particular lab. Unlike Peter who was more into engineering, although he did help out in various labs sometimes.

"Who are they talking about?" Abe whispered.

Henry turned to the confused students, "As Miss Stark said, my name is Henry Clark and this is Medic Lab 01. We focus on the medic field in this lab, especially on the chem side. Medicines, to put it simply."

He brought them further inside, passing through several scientists having heated discussion over a white board filled with numbers and equations.

"While focusing on pure chemistry, we also work closely with the lab above us which focus on chemical engineering. Sometimes with H03BE too, but they're more likely to work with people from Tech Labs instead of us." He stopped in front of a table filled with equipment and solutions where 2 interns were waiting for them.

"What is H03BE?" Ned asked.

"Oh, sorry, that's the code for labs!" Henry apologized. "That one is also medic lab, but for biomedical engineering."

"How about this lab?"

"What does the code stand for?"

"This lab is H01C, because this is the first lab in 'health' department and we play with chemicals. Only scientists and interns in R&D use them though, since it's more just to make reports easier to categorize."

"Officially, this is just Medic-1." (Y/n) added.

They gathered around the table. "Currently, we're trying to find a breakthrough in our Alzheimer's disease cure and how to deal with autoimmune issues. We almost got it, really." Henry continued.

"I'm still most excited for the cancer research though." An intern with fire red hair said with a grin.

"We're going to a little fun test with you guys to see your potential! Maybe you're good enough to be an intern here and might get scouted!" Another intern with cropped black hair exclaimed.

"What do you mean by scouted?" Cindy asked.

(Y/n) spoke before Henry or the interns answered, "I will explain that later, it's part of this trip program."

When (y/n) had told Peter she had presentation for the internship program, it wasn't exactly a full-on lie. SI planned on scouting students from field trips and it just so happened that the owner's daughter was guiding one. She was supposed to explain it on the last session.

The group looked at each other with grins. A chance to be an intern in SI? Hell yes!

"You're the boss, Stark." Henry grinned. "Let's begin, shall we?"

It was a simple enough test. They were given written reactions such as (2C12H22CaO14 + O2 → 22H2O + 21C + 2CaO + 3CO2) and they had to figure out which chemical solution it applied to and conduct it. Being from STEM school, most of them could figure their reaction out, although some who clearly didn't pay attention in chem class struggled. Finding out which solution was easy, but how to make it react?

Ned grinned as grey snake-like foam rose from his heated calcium gluconate. So far, he was the fastest guy to successfully figure out his reaction, only being beaten by Zoha.

"You're fast!" Henry said as he looked at Ned's petri dish. "Can you explain what you did?"

"Yeah, it's simple." Ned answered. "C12H22CaO14 is formula for calcium gluconate, and it reacts with O2; oxygen. But calcium gluconate doesn't just automatically react with oxygen. It was completely fine touching air before we started, so I heated it up and it reacted."

"Very good." Henry complimented with a smile. "Now do you know why it becomes like this?"

"The molecular structure expands due to the heat. This grey foam formed because any water contained inside vaporized and hydroxyl groups within the compound were dehydrated."

"And in conclusion?"

"Calcium gluconate rapidly decomposes after being heated."

"Great job!" Henry complimented again. Ned thanked him happily before Henry moved on to MJ who created a bright blue flash and loud sound that sounded like woofing, shocking Jason beside her.

MJ grumbled under her breath, "Out of all things, they just have to give me nitrogen monoxide and carbon disulfide to burn."

As Ned took pictures of his grey foam (after Henry said he could, of course), (y/n) stood beside him and peered at the petri dish.

"That was quick. I thought you're more into coding."

Thankfully, this time Ned could hold his surprise and just grinned at the girl. "Chemistry is fun when it's actually conducted and not just lectured on. How do you know I like coding?"

"Peter told me about you and Miss Jones." (Y/n) answered simply.

"You can just call me Ned and her Michelle, you know." Ned said. "A friend of Peter's is a friend of ours too. He talked about you a lot."

(Y/n) flushed a bit, "He did?"

"Yeah! It's as though we know you already!" He chuckled.

She silently glanced at the grinning boy.

Maybe I should try to make more friends…

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Flash frowning at his paper while grabbing cesium and-

Is that water? Wait-

Before Flash could drop the alkali metal into a flask of water, (y/n) quickly reached her hand out.

CLINK!

A loud clink sound echoed as water dripped down from the table to the floor, stopping Flash from dropping the cesium.

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!" (Y/n) yelled.

Everyone in the room halted.

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU PUT THAT IN WATER?!" She yelled again, eyes glowing with anger.

"Uh, I…" Flash mumbled out. His eyes moved quickly from (y/n)'s furious face to the small petri dish with cesium in his hand.

"DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT'S IN YOUR HAND RIGHT NOW?! HUH?!"

"It's, uh, it's iron salt…?"

(Y/n)'s face grew even redder as she tried to held back her anger.

Henry approached them and gently took the petri dish away from Flash who was shaking with fear. "This is cesium, young boy. It reacts violently with water. If you had combined the two, that glass flask would explode and hurt you." He explained.

(Y/n) snatched the paper containing the reaction assigned to Flash and scoffed, "You were supposed to form valence oxide and took cesium? Cazzo! Do you pay attention in class?! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO MIX FERROUS AND FERRIC IN BASIC SOLUTION! DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW IRON SALT IS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE?!"

Trying to calm the girl down, Henry patted her shoulder, "Calm down, Stark. This is also my fault for including cesium on the table. Everyone is okay, that's the important thing."

"But what if I didn't notice what he held, Dr. Clark? What then? His parents may have signed the papers allowing him here and swearing not to blame us for accidents, but you and I know those papers mean little to parents whose children are hurt!"

(Y/n) snapped her eyes back to Flash, "You're from STEM school, for fuck's sake! And you're in this decathlon team! You're supposed to be smart," she emphasized, "yet you can't do this simple experiment?!"

Flash, clearly offended, snapped back, "It's not my fault that you put unsafe things here! What kind of work environment is this?! You just put danger on my life and I can sue you for this!"

"Flash!" Mr. Harrington tried to scold, but (y/n) had grown even angrier.

"VAFFANCULO!" She shouted angrily as she took a step closer to him, the anger in her eyes looked so close to snapping.

And maybe she would have done something to Flash if the lab's sliding door didn't suddenly open and Harley hurriedly rushed in and held (y/n)'s arm back.

"Whoa there, calm down, Princess Stark." Harley soothed, "FRIDAY told me there was almost an incident and I heard you screaming your favorite Italian word, so what happened?"

"Why don't you ask this figlio di puttana?!" (Y/n) gritted out, although the glow in her eyes had started to settle.

Mr. Harrington quickly grabbed Flash who was just opening his mouth to retort back and put him behind his back with a quick glare, warning him not to say anything stupid.

"I apologize, Miss Stark, I truly do, please forgive him! I'll make sure he won't do anything stupid anymore!" He bowed his head.

Knowing (y/n) was still too pissed off to say something intellectual, Harley answered, "I'm sure it can be forgotten. It's okay. Can someone tell me what happened, though? I might have to report this upstairs later…"

Henry sighed, "The young man almost put cesium in water, but (y/n) stopped him."

Harley nodded, "Okay, and?"

"What do you mean, 'and'?"

The sandy-haired teen snorted, "There's no way (y/n) would just tell this guy to go fuck himself if she stopped him in time."

"Flash mouthed back, saying he would sue SI or something." MJ interrupted.

Realization dawned on Harley and he nodded again. "Yeah, that sure can pissed Princess Stark off."

When he turned his glance on (y/n), her face had lost almost all of its redness and her eyes were no longer glowing, but he could still see repressed anger in them.

"Do you want me to take over?" He asked gently. "Peter is in T04E, do you want to go there instead?" He asked again, murmuring softly.

(Y/n) heaved a heavy sigh and rest her forehead on Harley's shoulder. "It's fine, I can continue." She mumbled. "We're scheduled to go to T04E after this anyway."

"Alright, alright." Harley patted her head. "Want me to come with you?"

Feeling her nodded against his shoulder, Harley cleared his throat. "Alright then, let's forget about what happened here and move on, shall we? Dr. Clark?"

"Ah, yes," the good man stepped closer to them and clasped his hand, "that's all for today, everyone. Good job on your work! I hope I'll see you again, maybe as an intern or even an employee here someday."

The group hesitantly chorused a thank you before Mr. Harrington hurriedly ushered them out from the lab to follow Harley and (y/n) and before long, they were back in the elevator again.

"Okay guys, we're heading to Tech Lab now!" Harley said cheerfully. "It's one of my favorites, if I'm being honest! This particular one, especially."

"Why? What's in the lab?"

"He's just allowed to make things explode. Can't do that in medic-researching labs." (Y/n) said shortly.

Harley just grinned at her.

The elevator opened.

"Welcome to Tech-04, guys!"

Unlike Medic-01, Tech-04 was more… chaotic.

Medic-01 was relatively quiet, maybe some discussion here and there with liquid upon liquid sloshing around. Sometimes small pops when wrong solutions were mixed. Tech-04, on the other hand, was filled with a lot of noise.

Someone was groaning and then grumbling at a circuit board in front of them, a solder whirring (should it even whir?) on their hand.

Two people were arguing loudly over hologram displaying blueprints.

Another person was hitting a small bot with what looked like a small hammer, making loud clanging sound every hit.

Some tools were accidentally dropped, the metal hitting floor sound followed by a loud 'sorry!'.

Heavy machines made weird noises that sound so unfamiliar to a high schooler's ears.

Harley and (y/n) walked in, unbothered by all the noises around them. The group flinched at sudden noises, but they followed the two silently.

"Usually we take tour groups to Tech-01, but they're doing something classified right now." Harley explained. "Since you guys are from STEM school, we thought Tech-04 is the best place to visit since every cool stuff happens here." He grinned.

"Holy shit are those arrows?!" Tyler screeched out.

"Those were supposed to be Hawkeye's prototype multifunction arrows, but after the Accord debacle, Tony dumped them."

"What's that?" Cindy pointed at black bracelets on a display. "It looks like normal bracelets…"

"Black Widow's widow bites." (Y/n) answered.

Cindy tilted her head, "Bites?"

"Electroshock weapon."

"W-Weapon?"

"You just saw Hawkeye's weapon, what makes Black Widow's surprise you?" (Y/n) scoffed, still feeling irritated from before.

"W-Well…"

"Tech-04 is the best lab because a lot of Avengers weapons were designed here!" Harley exclaimed. "Almost all of them had something that came out from this lab sans Tony because he doesn't like people touching his stuff. A bit stuck up, isn't he?" He chortled.

(Y/n) rolled her eyes at him. "Can't help it. The last time he trusted his stuff with someone, Stane dealt him a bad hand."

"Not true, the last time was when he left JARVIS with me!" Harley argued.

"That was because he had no choice, dumbass."

"Still counts!"

"Sure."

Sniffling, Harley turned away from the girl.

"Anyway, we have another test for you all! You got tested in Medic-01 to see your chemistry knowledge, here in Tech-04 we'll see your engineering skill!"

They gathered around a big white table, scraps and tools scattered on top.

"Nothing hard, just make a simple bot in 20 minutes. You can use everything on this table. Don't forget to name them, we'll take a look and judge them. Who knows, maybe someone will like your work and want to scout you."

"Time starts now!"

Harley left the group who immediately began working and stood a little to the side with (y/n).

"How are you feeling?" He murmured.

(Y/n) tilted her head up, softly hitting her head against the wall behind her. "Still a bit annoyed, to be honest. That little piece of shit." She grumbled.

"I feel like I've seen him before."

"That's Flash, Harls."

"Flash?" Harley turned to her, startled. "That Flash? The one Peter talked about?"

She nodded.

"Well… Fuck."

"Fuck, indeed."

For a moment, they stood there in silence, watching their assigned group tinkering with various tools while chattering within each other. (Y/n)'s eyes followed Flash's every movement like a hawk.

"I think he did something to Leeds earlier." She mumbled.

"What is it?"

"I don't know, but Jones confirmed it."

Harley hummed and looked around. His eyes caught a tablet sitting on top of a cabinet near them. He pushed himself away from the wall.

"Wait here."

He approached the cabinet and grabbed the tablet before going back to (y/n).

The tablet, a standard StarkPad issued for every department in SI, was locked with password. They easily unlocked it with the lab's code.

Harley quickly accessed FRIDAY with his credentials.

"FRI?"

"How can I help you, Harley?" Her voice came out from the tablet.

"Can you show us security footage from- when was it again?"

(Y/n) snorted.

"Don't laugh! You didn't tell me!" Harley complained indignantly.

"Footage on the trip group after lunch please, FRI."

"Right away, (y/n)."

——————————

"Hey, fatso!"

Ned and MJ didn't respond, continuing eating their lunch in peace.

And that peace was interrupted when Flash clasped Ned's shoulder and pulled him back hard, making him fell from the backless chair. "When I call you, I expect an answer!" He sniggered.

Unluckily for the two, Mr. Harrington was in line waiting for his meal, completely missing the exchange.

MJ quickly stood up and pushed him away to help Ned. "What the hell, Flash?!" MJ exclaimed angrily.

"Not my fault he's so heavy he can't stand gravity pulling him down." Flash snickered.

"Why you-"

"It's fine, MJ." Ned assured, putting a hand on her arm. "What do you want, Flash?" He asked tiredly.

Flash ignored MJ's heated glare (an amazing feat, really) and smirked at Ned. "Why haven't we heard anything about Parker, huh? If he's really an intern someone would've said something, right? Especially since we're from the same school."

Ned rolled his eyes.

"We only visited the Museum, Flash. Do you think he works there? He's probably in the labs a lot."

"Pfft, there's no way he's in the labs! That fucker can't even do anything right! The only thing he can work as is probably a janitor or something."

He reached out and gripped Ned's shoulder, nails sinking into the muscles tightly, ignoring Ned's wince. "So how about you stop lying and tell us the truth, hm? You're just embarrassing yourselves."

Already fed up, MJ grabbed Flash's wrist and forcefully removed his clutch on Ned's shoulder. "How about you stop bothering us, huh? Why are you so obsessed with Peter anyway? You in love with him or something?" She hissed out.

"I'm just saying that people deserve the truth after hearing stupid lies over and over again!" He snatched his hand back, huffing indignantly. "Fucking Penis Parker…

"You're the one spreading the news, Flash. Peter never really said anything." Ned mumbled, one hand massaging his sore shoulder. He could actually feel nails indent through his shirt. Flash's grip was just too tight.

"Oh shut up." Flash scoffed and finally left them.

——————————

"I'm going to kill him."

"(Y/n)…"

"Don't stop me, Harley."

The angry glow on her eyes returned, this time even brighter. Her (e/c) eyes almost looked like neon blue. Her face was completely blank, only the wide glowing eyes showing just how much anger she was feeling.

Harley held unto her shoulders and crouched down slightly to match her eye level. "Calm down, (y/n). Your eyes are glowing."

"As they should."

"No, they shouldn't!" He whispered-shouted. "Come on. Take a deep breath."

(Y/n) gritted her teeth.

CLINK!

"My bad." Zach said, reaching down to take a screwdriver that fell from the table.

CLINK!

Mr. Harrington frowned. "Did I knock it over?" He mumbled to himself, grabbing the fallen wrench.

CLINK!

"Shit, my pliers!"

CLINK!

"What-"

"An earthquake?!"

The table was shaking violently, throwing tools down to the floor. Above them, lights were flickering on and off.

Alarms started blaring.

"EVERYONE UNDER THE TABLE!"

"WATCH OUT FOR SHARP TOOLS!"

"COME ON GUYS MOVE IT!"

"(Y/N) STOP IT!" Harley tried to shout between the panic screaming.

(Y/n)'s (e/c) eyes were now fully neon blue, glowing brightly in the dark room. She took a shuddered breath and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Harley…" She whispered. "I can't."

——————————

"How do you get used to your power?"

"Hmm?" Peter looked up from his on-going web fluid. "Practice, I guess…"

"What did you do?"

Peter put the flask on the table. "That depends on which power I try to control. Like my super strength, for example. I practiced juggling eggs and tomatoes without crushing them. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be."

(Y/n) hummed and looked up to the ceiling, contemplating.

"How about you?" Peter asked.

"Me?"

"Yeah. Hecate is always mindful of the children they saved. Their control is amazing."

"…That's Hecate. Not me."

Peter dropped his arms. He removed his gloves and walked towards the girl and plopped down beside her on the sofa.

"We've talked about this, (y/n). Hecate is you and you are Hecate."

"Sure doesn't feel like it." (Y/n) mumbled.

"Is it because of the pronoun?"

"Hm…"

He propped an arm on the backrest. "Didn't you come to the conclusion that you're bigender?"

"Yeah…" She sighed. "But that just makes Hecate feel more like a separate being than me."

"Why are they not you?"

(Y/n) removed her stare from the ceiling to Peter's face. "When I go out as Hecate, I don't… I don't feel like (y/n) Stark." She said softly. "When I don Hecate suit, I just… changed, I guess. Hecate feels like a different person. Hecate doesn't think like (y/n) Stark and they sure as hell doesn't act like (y/n) Stark."

Her voice dropped. "Their control over their curse is also better than (y/n) Stark's."

Peter shuffled closer to her and pulled her into an embrace. He buried his fingers into her hair, gently playing with them slightly. "Spider-Man feels like a different person too. But for me, I know that it's because of the mask." He murmured against the side of her hair. "Why do you think they feel different?"

"I'm not sure…"

"Also, it's not a curse, (y/n). It's a gift."

"A gift? Given by HYDRA?"

"Where it comes from doesn't matter. How you use them does."

"Yet I can't even use it without hurting someone as (y/n)."

Peter pulled back, looking straight into (y/n)'s (e/c) eyes. "How about this; if you ever feel like you're not in control of your power, you tell me. I'll try to help you."

"Can you?"

"We can try."

——————————

(Y/n) kept her eyes firmly shut. She could hear everyone screaming in fear as everything in the room shook. Small tools even started to flew around, narrowly missing some people.

Harley tried to shout words of encouragement to calm her down, but to no avail.

It was only when his hands holding her shoulders were replaced by another pair and a familiar voice murmuring out her name did she finally open her eyes.

"Peter?"

"Hey, Hecate." He smiled.

She shook her head. "Not Hecate. This is (y/n). Hecate wouldn't lose control like this." She whispered.

"Listen," Peter said softly, "Hecate is in you, whether you feel like they are or not. Hecate is you, (y/n). You can be both Hecate and (y/n) at the same time."

(Y/n) shook her head again.

"Close your eyes, (y/n)."

She did.

"Now think of the times you went out as Hecate. Recall those feelings. How did you know to stop when a child, bruised and hurt, was near you? How did you know not to harm them?"

And that was the thing with Hecate. They may have a violent nature when it came to despicable people who decided that taking a kid from their parents was a great money source, but when faced with said kid, they would cease all action. They may thirst for the blood of those people, but they would never harm a hair on a kid.

Because they knew what it was like to be that kid once.

——————————

"And that's how I became Spider-Man." Peter concluded.

"I wonder if that kind of spider still exist."

"Well I know that I killed the one that bit me."

(Y/n) snickered. "So your power comes from an experimented spider, huh?"

"Yep! And you?"

"Same as you."

"Experimented spider bit you?" Peter frowned.

"Nah, they experimented on me instead of a spider."

"Wait what-"

She stretched her stiff shoulder. Sitting for too long did that to your muscles. "Where do you think I was before I live with dad?" She said nonchalantly. "HYDRA took me when I was about 6. Thought I was a great asset, really. Made me do lots of jobs too. Dad found me during a mission."

Peter almost choked on his own saliva. "W-Why did you never tell me?"

(Y/n) blinked. "You never asked." She deadpanned.

After Peter regained his bearing, he braved himself to ask another question. "Where's your mom now?"

"Died."

He almost choked for the second time.

"Dad didn't know I'm his daughter, so he tried to track my mom. Turns out she died a few months after I was kidnapped, so, yeah."

"(Y/n)…"

"I guess that's why kidnapping cases irked me so much." (Y/n) hummed thoughtfully. "Children don't deserve that kind of horror. I remember being so scared those first few weeks."

——————————

As he guided her through breathing exercises, the shaking around her finally started to cease as her heartbeat slowed down.

(Y/n) opened her eyes to find Peter's own warm brown eyes looking straight to hers. "How are you?" He asked softly.

She bit her lower lip and hung her head in shame.

"Hey, come on, eyes up here, Princess Stark." Peter lifted her chin up.

"…I haven't lost control like that since years ago." She murmured. She didn't dare to even steal a glance at Peter's face. She kept her eyes down to the floor, letting the shame fill her.

"(Y/n)-"

"What the fuck is Penis Parker doing here?!"

Peter turned his head, finally seeing his decathlon team for the first time. "What the-"

"And what the fuck was that?! It doesn't feel like earthquake! What kind of freak shit is this?!"

Peter was about to speak when he felt (y/n)'s shoulder shaking under his hand. Eyes widened, he looked down at her only to find her already glaring at Flash, eyes alarmingly glowing again.

So he did what he knew would definitely distract (y/n) from possibly killing his classmate.

Peter grabbed (y/n)'s cheeks and quickly pressed a quick kiss to her lips.

And distracted she was.

"You're,"

Peck,

"Okay,"

Peck,

"Just,"

Peck,

"Ignore,"

Peck,

"Him",

Peck,

"Alright?"

Finally pulling his face away, he could see (y/n) blinking owlishly at him. The glow in her eyes had gone, replaced by the beautiful (e/c) he loved.

He didn't bother to see how Flash or the rest of his teammates reacted to seeing him, the nerd of the group, openly kissing the infamous daughter of Tony Stark.

He did, however, registered Ned's delighted giggle and MJ's sigh.

Unfortunately, (y/n) seemed to still be aware of her surrounding and caught Flash's squawk.

(Y/n) closed her eyes and sighed. She side-eyed Flash with a slight glare.

And before Peter realized it, Flash was flung back to, thankfully, a chair behind him. It was still a hard shove and his back would be aching as hell, but at least it wasn't to (or even through!) the wall, Peter rationalized.

(Y/n) quickly removed Peter's hand on her cheeks and approached the now mildly terrified Flash. She grabbed the front of his collar.

Peter didn't stop her. Her eyes may seem brighter than normal, but the absence of neon blue glow was a good sign that she was in control. That was purely (y/n) Stark needing to vent her anger by threatening a bitch out and not Hecate. Peter knew better than to get between a woman's wrath and the object of her animosity, after all.

Yeah, a little threat wouldn't hurt, would it?, Peter thought amusedly. He had it coming after all.

"Listen to me, figlio di puttana," she hissed out, face only inches away from Flash's, "if I ever see or even heard about you being a bag of shit like you are ever again, you won't know what's coming for you."

"I-"

"Don't ever say or even think about Peter and anyone close to him anymore, you fucking hear me? You touch a hair on them, and the end of the world will seem mild compare to what I would do."

Silence fell upon the room.

The trip group was still shaken over the 'quake', and add that to seeing their teammate got thrown back by an invisible force, they were just… stunned. They didn't even really register that Peter was in the same room as them. Aside from Flash, Ned, and MJ, at least.

"Well, this is a disaster."

Tony's voice rang in the lab, catching the attention of everyone in the room. He stood in front of the glass sliding doors, dressed in impeccable suit and wearing a pair of sunglasses despite the lack of sun in the lab.

His eyes swept upon the room. His employees seemed fine, just a bit surprised. They were already used to unforeseen incidents, he supposed. His interns slash pseudo-sons also seemed fine, if not a bit miffed. The group was still shocked, which was no shocker (pun intended).

But then he saw his daughter in the middle of threatening someone, eyes wide and shining, teeth gritted.

He sighed.

At least he knew his scientists would be no problem. They had signed confidential agreement to keep everything happening while in work to themselves in their work contract, especially if it included any of the Starks. The group, on the other hand…

"People, remember your NDAs. You all, follow me." He gestured at the group before turning away.

After a few steps, he stopped as if he just remembered something and looked back, "Oh, and Pete? Take her upstairs, will you? Stay with her."

"Of course, Mr. Stark."

"Harls, come with me. I need the whole story."

Harley nodded but said nothing, prompting Tony to turned away again and started leaving.

"Come on, let's go." Harley told the group.

Ned worriedly made an eye contact with Peter, but Peter only shook his head.

Hesitantly, they started leaving, but not without throwing curious looks towards Peter who already pulled (y/n) back from Flash.

"Go now while you can, faccia a culo." (Y/n) jeered. "I can't promise your life if you don't."

Gulping, Flash hurriedly stood up and ran out of the labs.

Before following the group, Harley looked at Peter and (y/n). "Are you two going to be okay?" He asked.

(Y/n) didn't answer, but Peter slung an arm around her shoulder and held her close. "We'll be fine. Sorry for the interruption, Harley." Peter apologized.

"Nothing to be sorry of. Everything will be okay, so don't think too much about it, okay, Princess Stark?" Harley smiled at the girl.

(Y/n) nodded once.

With a final look between Harley and Peter, Harley left the lab to follow the group.

Peter gently held (y/n)'s hand and pulled her towards the private elevator. He took them to the penthouse, straight to her room.

Once inside, he sat her down on her bed.

"How are you feeling right now?"

(Y/n) sighed heavily.

"Mostly angry." She mumbled.

Peter hummed. He sat beside her, an arm behind her to sneak a hand and hold her waist. She rested her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes tiredly.

"What happened?" He murmured.

Slowly, (y/n) started telling her story, from when she first went downstairs to meet the group until when Harley and her watched the footage.

"I've been on edge the whole day," she confessed, "and I guess that video just pushed the limit."

"It's not your fault, (y/n)."

(Y/n) scoffed, "Maybe not all, but part of it is. I couldn't control my power, Pete! That's just a recipe for disaster!" She yelled in frustration. "It's been years since that happened! I thought I had this under control!"

Peter squeezed her hand. "Alright then. We'll train. We'll practice until you're absolutely sure you can use your power freely even as (y/n) Stark." He said with a smile.

"But how?"

"We'll figure it out."

Although not entirely satisfied with Peter's answer, she only nodded.

"By the way, why did you lead the trip? I thought you said you had a presentation." Peter asked, changing the topic.

Rolling her eyes, (y/n) answered with a slight scoff, "I lost a bet to Harley."

——————————

Tony stood in front of the meeting room. Peter's decathlon team was all sitting in front of him, his teacher and bully included. Harley had told him about what happened earlier. Needless to say, Tony was not happy.

He had thought of Peter and Harley as his sons; his children aside from (y/n). The fact that Peter had something going on with (y/n) didn't matter, it was a bonus in his eyes. So knowing that Peter had to deal with a bully every day was not something he could really tolerate. Not to mention that said bully also angered his daughter enough to lose control.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He had asked Harley earlier.

"It wasn't my story to tell, Tony." Harley had answered.

His eyes swept across the room once more. He saw their teacher, Harrington, if he remembered correctly, was openly scolding Flash.

Good, he thought, at least the teacher isn't just ignoring this problem.

"Alright!" Tony clapped his hand loudly. "Let's just keep this short, shall we? I'm supposed to be in a meeting right now and Pepper is not happy that I left."

His face turned serious. "Your parents signed NDAs for you to be here. You are not allowed to say anything about what you saw in this building to anyone, including your parents, or you will regret it. Even if we can't get to you directly, your parents are on the line here, and losing them would be a great loss for you, wouldn't it?"

Some of them gulped nervously. Flash just looked terrified.

"Just remember that I have better lawyers than you ever will. Capisce?"

Once he saw them hurriedly nodded, he grinned. "Okay then! I'll let you ask me questions now for compensation after that incident. Gotta take care of my daughter's problem, right?"

The group looked at each other, still miffed and hesitant to ask anything. They just got threatened to lose practically everything they had, after all.

However, Ned, who already had no intention to tell anyone about what happened thanks to Peter anyway, raised a hand.

"Yes, you, uhh… Fred!"

"It's Ned." Harley rolled his eyes. Tony pointedly ignored him.

Even wrong, Ned still felt joy in knowing that Tony knew him. "Hi, I was wondering about Harley's badge? Don't interns have half-white badges?"

Tony gestured at Harley to answer. "Well?"

Harley scoffed at Tony before answering, "Yeah, mine and Peter's are special badges since we're this dude's personal interns."

"Personal intern?" Abe chimed in, face curious.

"He's hopeless, trust me. This whole building would've burned if it weren't for us." Harley snickered, blatantly ignoring Tony who was glaring daggers at him.

"I'll let you know that I'm perfectly fine being alone in my lab." Tony huffed. "I've been doing it for years and I'm fine."

"Uh-huh, sure, old man."

Betty, pushed by Ned's nonchalance, raised a hand as well, "Mr. Stark? What is the requirement to be an intern here? Harley and Peter are our age, so does this mean we also qualify?"

Cindy also raised a hand, "Earlier we had tests in the labs. They said we can get scouted, is that true?"

"Ah yes, you were supposed to be given the internship program information at the end of the tour!" Tony said. "Basically, we have a new internship program for high school students. The interns will be handpicked by your 'test' results."

When Tony offered no other explanation, Harley added, "We just put the information on our web. Just go to Stark Industries' official website and click on the Internship Program. Sorry guys, you were supposed to get full session on this, but (y/n) was the one who had to give the presentation and she's not… available."

"Or Peter. He's one of the head of that programs after all. Wait," Tony stopped, looking at Harley incredulously, "you're the other head of the program. Why don't you give the presentation?"

Harley only shrugged with a grin.

"How is Parker already an intern?" Flash asked in disbelief. "And Head of Internship Program?!" It seems that his terrified daze from earlier had dissipated, which was really quick. He was quite a thickhead, after all.

Tony squinted at him, scrutinizing. This kid just never stop, huh?

"I scouted him myself." He announced.

Flash was taken aback by Tony's nonchalant answer, but he pressed on, "But why?"

"Because he impressed me. Genius kid, really. Better than nearly everyone I've ever known. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to attend." He quickly said, already losing any will to interact with children any longer.

Before he left, he did add, "Also, Mr. Thompson, is it? I'll have a meeting with your parents and the principal soon, so get ready."

Flash's eyes widened.

Once he left, the room erupted in chaos.

"What just happened?!"

"Peter is really an intern!"

"Not just an intern, but already head of a program!"

"HE KISSED (Y/N) STARK OMG!"

"Who cares?! We almost died again!"

"But we might get to intern here too!"

"No, no, back up! We almost died! And by what?! What was that?!!"

"Wasn't it (y/n)?!"

"How did she do that?!"

"I don't know! But you saw what happened to Flash!"

"I guess (y/n) is Hecate then." Ned whispered to MJ. MJ nodded.

"She looked like she hated her power earlier." MJ muttered. "No wonder she snapped at you when you asked about Hecate."

"OKAY EVERYONE CALM DOWN!" Harley shouted, trying to gain control over the group.

One by one, they started to quiet down.

"I suppose this is the end of your trip. Remember the NDAs; not a word!" He said, which the group answered with a chorus of yes. "Great! Now follow me to the lobby!"

——————————

"You okay, il mio tarassaco?"

"I am now. Sorry about earlier, dad."

"Nothing to worry about. I really have to go to meeting now, but we'll talk later, okay? Take it easy after this, maybe just sleep or mess around in your private lab, if you want to. Don't overexert your power."

(Y/n) smiled gratefully. The public may saw her father only as an egocentric hero, but she knew better. He always tried to be the best dad and she was grateful for it. Tony Stark wasn't a perfect dad, but he tried. He knew better than to be like his own father. Even if his daughter was an accident he only discovered a few years back, Tony knew there was little he wouldn't do for her.

"Okay. Love you, see you later."

"Love you too."

As she ended the call, Harley rushed towards her and pulled her into a tight hug. "I'm sorry for putting you through that hell, Princess Stark! It was that stupid bet!"

"HARLEY I CAN'T BREATHE!"

Harley let her go with a sheepish grin. "Are you okay now?"

(Y/n) rolled her eyes. "Everyone asked me that. I'm fine. How's the situation?"

"Tony threatened them with the NDAs." He shrugged. "I don't think they really connect you to Hecate, but Ned definitely did."

She nodded in understanding. "Leeds is fine, I think… Peter trusts him."

"He won't tell anyone. But if he knows, MJ definitely does too." Peter piped in.

"You trust both of them, don't you?"

"Yeah, they're great."

(Y/n) smiled at him, "Maybe I should try befriend them then. Share my own secret like you did too."

Peter smiled back.

——————————

Bonus:

"Dude! You're the story of the year!"

"What?"

"Everyone's talking about you and (y/n) now!"

MJ sipped on her drink. "How is she anyway?"

"She's fine. Excited to meet you guys, actually." Peter answered.

"But we met her already?" Ned frowned.

"As a friend, Ned."

"Ooh…"

For a moment, no one said anything as they chewed on their food. "Hey, so (y/n) is really Hecate, right?"

"Ned! Shh!"

The End

——————————

Dictionary

Merda: shit

Cazzo: fuck

Vaffanculo: go fuck yourself

Figlio di puttana: son of a bitch

Faccia a culo: assface

Il mio tarassaco: my dandelion*

I looked these terms online, so they may not be 100% accurate. I’m sorry if I make any mistake!

*My Dandelion: a few months ago, I got into doll customizing and decided to make my own (y/n) Stark into a doll form. When I plugged in her hair, it had poofed up like a dandelion and stayed like that for weeks while I worked on her face-up. I got used to calling her Dandelion after that. Because of this, I’ve been nicknaming (y/n) as Dandelion.

Afterthoughts

Wow it’s over already... This story was an experience. It started as a fun little thing to celebrate my birthday with and to finally tell Meggie my handle to a 16k-word mess. Thank you so much to everyone who read, liked, reblogged, and commented on Part One! I hope you like this part too :)

——————————

Just Out of Touch Taglist

@spn-assemble-seven @racewife2004 @lukesbabylon @serendipitous-amor @sovereign-parker @ifangirlninja @lyzalovealk @lookuptotheskiesandsee @tommysparker @starlight-starks

Permanent (Marvel) Taglist

@marvelexi @lou-la-lou @spiderbibby @hello--zuko-here @everydaymj

Mutuals

@allegra-soleil @spideygirl2003 @delicatepeterparker @parkerpeter24 @terrifictomholland @quackeroos @angel-spidey @greenorangevioletgrass @the-crazy-fanfictionist

#peter parker imagine #peter parker #peter parker x reader #spiderman x readr #spiderman imagine #stark!reader #tony stark #tom holland #mcu #marvel fanfic #field trip trope #peter x reader #peter x you #peter parker fandom #peter parker angst #just out of touch

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gypsydanger01 · 4 years

Text

THE STORM - Part eleven

Fandom: The Boys (Amazon prime tv series)

Pairing: Black Noir x OC

Disclaimer: I don’t own The Boys, only my OC characters and certain pieces of au plot.

Comments, reviews, constructive criticism, and other requests are always more than welcome!

Posting new chapters on Wednesday and Friday!

Mallory

The following day started out cloudy but ultimately turned out to be a lovely day. Unfortunately, though, the pale sun in the sky gave little warmth, and Sarah trudged on towards the local park, hands stuffed in the pockets of her coat.

Waking up in a fairly good mood, she decided to go for a walk, and maybe make a trip to the local park. Children’s laughter grew louder and louder until she turned the corner, and there it was. To be honest, it wasn’t much of a park, run down and covered in graffiti, but children are quick to move past that. All that mattered to them was playing, running around, and having fun.

Sarah looked away and sat on a bench, legs crossed one over the other. She checked the time and flipped open the burner phone she kept for contacting Mallory. After five minutes, at precisely eleven o’clock, she selected the only registered number and called.

“Mommy, mommy, look—look at me, mommy,” a little girl called from the swings, her mother smiling and assuring that she, indeed, could see her.

It reminded Sarah so much of her younger self calling out to her mother, and it hurt. She'd visited the playground they used to go to before the Vought trials, but it had become abandoned, all grass and rusty edges. It was sad how it'd been left behind.

She waited for the other end to pick up.

“Hello?” a voice called out, and Sarah smiled lightly.

She paused and breathed out, “Hey Mal, how are you doing?”

Mallory chuckled on the other end, “Well these knees aren’t what they used to be, but I’m okay,” Sarah heard her plop onto the sofa, “More importantly, how are you?”

Sarah ran a hand through the curly tresses that had been blown into her face.

“I guess it’s decent, can’t really complain. I’m still working as a data analyst for the labs, in bioinformatics…,” she trailed off. “But I heard a slot is opening up for a researcher in the developmental biology labs, so I’m going to try and see if they’ll hire me.”

“Please, Sarah—just be careful, keep your eyes open,” she murmured, “always vigilant, alright?”

The young woman stared out at the children crawling over the playground’s castle, tumbling down the slides, running after each other and laughing out of pure, innocent joy.

“Where are you?”

“Neighborhood playground.”

“I thought I heard children. How’s school?”

“Well, actually well, I’ll be finished with my post doc soon enough. They hired me as an assistant professor a couple days ago, I’m teaching a microbiology class for some juniors.”

“That sounds interesting, it would be entertaining to see you teach. You’re a mix of patient and impatient—don’t really know what that would look like in the classroom.”

Sarah snorted lightly, “Fortunately, they seem to be good listeners, quiet and respectful—I don’t know what I’d do if they were a bunch of little arrogant rich kids.”

Mallory too started laughing, thinking back on the young woman’s training. She was proficient in using a great number of weapons and could easily hold her own without one. In an interrogation room, she was skillful in psychologically manipulating a suspect into confessing or giving up information. She spoke multiple languages and was a natural at reading body-language. She had a good eye for meaningful details that are often overlooked. She was the perfect field agent. Mallory had a hard time seeing her as a professor, calmly explaining a powerpoint to a bunch of students.

“I guess it’ll help you further develop that patience of yours,” Mallory surmised.

Sarah couldn’t help but agree.

“Hey, Mallory?” she asked tentatively.

The older woman stilled on the couch, “Yes dear?”

“Do you remember Dr. Roberts? The doctor I saw for my…” she trailed off, searching for a better word, “for my health problems?”

Mallory pursed her lips and stayed silent on the other end.

“I need to contact him—”

Mallory cut in, “What happened? Do you need to come home?”

Worry laced in her voice, the older woman couldn’t help the string of worst scenarios playing in her head. She knew the danger correlated with the young woman’s plan and felt helpless in being left out. If anything happened to the girl, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself.

When the dust finally settled, there was nothing left but a crater and a little girl lying amid the smoke and ashes. That’s how they found her: curled in a ball, shivering with her skin covered in soot.

When the perimeter was deemed safe enough, Mallory and a team of experts approached the figure. Alive, yet on the brink of death, the little girl had slipped into a coma, and they were quick to have her internalized in a secured section of a local hospital. Only Mallory and few others had the security clearance to access the small room that held her.

Months passed and the room stayed quiet. Mallory went to gather updates from the doctors once a week. At the CIA they had many hypothesis but couldn’t seem to put together the disaster that had been the implosion of that Vought clinic. She had her underlying suspicions and didn’t trust the little girl who had survived. She had to be enhanced, she had to be a supe. There was no other explanation, no other alternative. And yet, she was the only link that would allow them to piece together the accident. The news had presented it as an explosion due to an accidental chemical explosion, but Mallory knew they were far from the truth.

It was an experimental factory for building little supes. And evidently, it had worked.

The proof of that was the little unknown girl lying in her white, pristine cot.

Mallory would look at her with detachment, knowing the child was probably a victim, and yet not feeling any remorse. She had leveled an entire building.

But then one day, as she watched a nurse report her vitals while tucking the little girl in, she opened her eyes. Afraid and trembling, she looked around wildly and fixated on the woman standing at the door.

With her height and professional attire, she was the epitome of rigidness. Blonde hair perfectly pinned back into a bun. Sharp light blue eyes guarded and alert. The two stared at each other, both with underlying dread and a sliver of fear.

And then something twisted in Mallory. Maybe it was the blatant fear in the young girls’ eyes, or maybe it was the innocent tears trailing down her cheeks.

“Where’s my mommy?”

Mallory moved forward, compelled by some unknown force.

She sat at the girl’s side, “She’s not here at the moment, okay?” she explained softly, tension visible in her rigid shoulders. She had no idea what the little one was capable of, and she didn’t want to find out.

The nurse gently took a hold of her bony wrist, taking her vitals once again. “How are you feeling?”

The little girl wiped at her face, “Sleepy.”

“Okay, and can you tell us your name sweetie?”

She looked up at the strict woman beside her, “Marianna,” she said matter-of-factly before adding, “my mommy calls me Mari.”

As the minutes passed, Mari seemed to grow livelier and more awake, her skin less pale and clammy than before.

The nurse pressed a button on the side of the bed, calling the assigned physician, Dr. Roberts.

“Marianna, I’m going to have to get a little bit of blood so we can have it tested and make sure you’re okay. Is that alright?”

The girl pulled her legs into a crisscrossed position and shrugged her shoulders.

“Okay,” she answered as if it were the most normal thing in the world. The nurse hurried to prepare the syringe and test tube, comparing her to the hundreds of kids who cry and scream in vicinity of a needle.

Marianna watched her sterilize the needle, then looked back at Mallory.

“Can I hold your hand?”

Mallory was left speechless and felt like she should distance herself before growing attached. Nevertheless, she nodded and let Marianna’s small fingers grip her own.

“Mallory?” Sarah called into the phone, suddenly worried.

The woman was brought out of her memories and focused on the task at hand.

“Why are you bringing this up now? I haven’t heard from Dr. Roberts in years.”

Sarah explained, reciting the story she’d come up with, “I know but I have some samples I took that need to be tested,” she explained. “Discreetly,” she stressed.

Mallory thought about it and let go of the tension in her shoulders, “Alright, I thought something happened with you.”

Sarah felt terrible for lying but couldn’t see any alternative. “No, I’m doing alright, I just need to contact him for these samples. I don’t know anyone else who would do it. And he’s trustworthy.”

Mallory nodded to herself, “Alright, I’ll look for his number and email—I’ll send you the info by tonight.”

“Great, thanks Mal.”

Mallory laughed lightly, “Please, you won’t let me get involved, this is the least I can do.”

They chatted for a few more minutes before saying their goodbyes with the usual promise of talking at the same time next Sunday.

Sarah stayed seated on the park bench for a little while longer, trying her best to recall details on Dr. Roberts. She’d met him only a few times at the hospital after she had woken up from the coma.

Mallory was seated on the edge of her cot, answering Marianna’s flood of questions. Mostly, she tried to avoid answering questions about her parents. Mallory’s heart squeezed tight every time the little one inquired about their whereabouts, and why they hadn’t still been to see her.

They were waiting for word on her final results, and when Dr. Roberts finally entered, they both fell silent.

“Good morning everyone,” he greeted, lively energy in his movements, “how are you doing today, Marianna?”

The little girl looked at Mallory and answered shyly, “M’okay”

“That sounds great,” he smiled, “I have your test results here and everything is looking good. Great, actually.”

He further explained certain details and made sure to indicate what medications she would need to take over the next few weeks.

Finally, he rose and excused himself to speak with Mallory. In the meantime, the little girl put on the clothes the woman had brought for her.

“She’s really doing fine, she must have some regenerative enhancement as well, because she’s healthier than what she should be.”

“And will the other enhancement manifest?”

“I don’t think so. It seems like it’s linked to the amygdala—the center for processing fear, stress, anxiety, and the likes—" he paused. “The accident took its toll, I think. And when she’ll remember, or you tell her, I think it’s going to effectively shut that part of her down.” He thought about it and added, “Think of it as an emotional wall.”

Mallory nodded, processing the information. The little one might have a chance at a semi-normal life.

“Just follow the instructions on the papers I gave you and you all should be fine. She just needs to be looked after and cared for. It’s going to be a shock when she finds out.”

Mallory agreed and her chest squeezed at the thought of the pain the girl would go through.

She thanked the doctor and headed back into the room.

“Are you ready to go, sweetie?”

She watched the little one scramble off the bed in fresh clothes, a small light blue backpack on her shoulders. It contained some items Mallory had brought her over the course of her stay at the clinic. There was a comb for her unruly hair, chap-stick, some crayons, and a small notebook.

“You remember what we talked about?”

The little girl nodded, “My name is Sarah now.”

Mallory smiled, her usually frigid expression melting away. She reminded her of her grandchildren at home.

“Come on, let’s go meet your new friends.”

Marianna, now officially named Sarah Burns, skipped along with her down a hallway and out of the building. As she climbed into the back of her car, Mallory scanned the premises for any watchful eyes. She slipped into the driver’s seat before looking back at Sarah.

“I was almost forgetting—I got you something,” she said reaching into her jacket pocket.

Sarah’s eyes widened at the Snickers bar she extracted. The little girl laughed and clapped her hands.

Sarah was pulled back into the present as a little girl ran past her—she felt the movement of air in waves. The woman stood and took her leave, heading back home.

MASTERLIST

Tag list: @ateliefloresdaprimaveraa @ellejo @dust-bun @coco724 @proximio-5 @damiminator @omegahighendpro @rpgluvr95 @sweetrabbitteamx

#the boys #the boys tv #black noir #the boys amazon #fanfiction #the boys season 2 #oc story #black noir x oc

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melissa-s23 · 4 years

Text

Test of determination

Summary: Thomas tries to overcome some of his fears by going on a horror ride on a theme park. shenanigans ensues.

Characters: Thomas, Joan, Patton, Logan, Virgil, Janus, Roman, Remus

Pairing: none really, but could be read as Intruality :)

Words: 2250 (nice number)

Warning: jumpscare, caps lock. Let me know if I should add anything else!

Author’s note: This is very silly and light hearted, but I had the idea a few days ago and I wanted to write it. Plus we don’t have nearly enough Intruality content so even if this is not romantic, it’s still the two of them. Hope you like it!

-----------------------------------

Thomas faced the attraction that stood before him. A horror ride. Even though it was mostly aimed for teens, he couldn't help but gulp. Did he really wanted to do this ?

« Joan, can you remind me why I asked to come here ? »

- « Well, you said you wanted to overcome some of your fears or something like that. And I thought we could start with something light to ease you into it smoothly. And if it ends up being too much, we'll stop. »

Thomas sighed, running a hand through his hair « Yeah... yeah. I can do this. How bad could it be, right ? It's just a silly attraction, nothing more. I can do this. » He smiled weakly. The hand of his friend on his should helped him ease some tension and so, he bought the tickets and went on the ride.

…

He absolutely could not do this.

The first minute of this was bearable... The second, not so much, and the poor man already had his eyes shut .

- « How long does this one take ? »

- « I think it's 10 minutes ? » said Joan, who was sitting just next to Thomas, unphazed at the thing.

10 minutes.... so he had to deal with.... 8 more...

He could do this.... He could do this...Even though right now, he was feeling like he could do anything but this.

And what does this mean for his Sides ?

Well, Virgil was curled up in a ball, his hoodie covering everything but his bang, and he was trying very hard not tell Thomas anything stupid. Logan was next to him, on the 17th slide out of 82 slide Powerpoint about why this ride was not in fact going to kill Thomas and how this ride was in fact most probably harmless. Janus also tried to calm Virgil, even though he couldn't help his irritated tone. « Could you not make Thomas feel miserable for two seconds ? » « Well I can't really help it, in case you didn't know you idiot.It's not like it's my job or anything. », on the other hand, Roman was stress-singing his heart out, his katana out and ready to smack everything that would appear too close to him.

And meanwhile, Remus was having the time of his life. He couldn't help his giggling and squealing. All of the sudden imagery inspiring more and more ideas from him, making Virgil growl at him with new levels of angry. Of course, the couldn't care less. The looks of rage directed at him everytime he spoke up were pleasing, even.

« OH !! OH !!! WHAT IF THE BATS SCRATCH YOUR EYES AND IT GOT ALL INFECTED ??!??? »

- « REMUS SHUT UP !!! JUST SHUT UP! »

- « Remus, if you want to blurt out thoughts like that right now, have the decency of speaking backward or something so we don't have to understand what you're thinking about. Taking care of the crying toddler is already not easy. »

- « You're the fucking toddler. »

- « Oh, look at Virgil, making comebacks and swearing. You're such a big boy. How mature of you. »

- « You two quit it. »

The two shut up for about 2 seconds before another jumscare made Virgil yelp and Janus groan. Getting the two to team up really wasn't easy. Roman examined the space quickly before frowning.

« Hey, has anyone seen Patton ? I don't remember seeing the puffball anywhere. »

- « What if he's hurt ? » the anxious side perked up.

« D-Don't worry kiddos ! I'm f-fine ! » came a shaking voice. Everyone looked as Patton tried to come closer to his friends without his legs betraying him, clearly not fine. Janus scoffed.

« Please. » he grunted as Logan punched his elbow a bit.

« What ? It's virgil's job to act like an incompetent child, I don't think we can deal with two of them. »

- « Can you not rub it in ?? Because I can make this unpleasant for the both of us. »

- « Implying I enjoy anything about this ... »

- « Stop. » Logan ordered firmly, silencing the two, then turned at Patton with a more gentle expression and a kinder voice. « Patton, what exactly is troubling you ? »

The emotionnal side couldn't find something to look at for more than five seconds and tried to stare at Logan as he replied « Mmmhhh... a- a little bit of...everything ? I know fear is more of Virgil's department but umhh... this ride has a lot of things that makes me... nervous. »

- « Sorry... » The anxious side mumbled.

- « Oh no don't worry it's okay ! I'm just... mhh... you know, this ride is very good at being scary, that's all ! »

- « Is there anything you think we could do to help ? Perhaps you could join Virgil as I continue to explain how most of the props are not made of flesh and therefore, most probably unable to harm us unless the people that made the rides are competent enough to write a very complex code to acomodate the machines used for the train. »

- « ...Wow... thanks kiddo. I think that might actually hel- SPIDERS!!!!! »

And just like that, the small comfort Patton had was gone. He jumped and tried to hold onto the closest whatever he could find.

And suddenly, the whole squad went silent.

Because the closest whatever Patton hold onto happened to be Remus.

The rat man stared, wide eyes at the poor mess Patton had become as the spiders pattern came from every corner of the ride and oh god so many spiders-

« What if they're deadly ?? What if those spiders came in and got into your mo- Oh god there are an awful lot, you could drown in that many spiders and WHY DO THEY MOVE SO MUCH- »

- « Virgil, stay with us. They aren't real it's just a light trick. » Even as his voice stayed even, it was clear that Logan was also nervous due to Thomas' general edge at the moment.

- « You okay there, Padre ? » Roman came closer to his brother, who was uncharacteristically quiet. Patton was burried deep into Remus' side and gripped the duke's clothes like a lifeline.

- « Umh... Y-yeah... Sorry kiddos ! You know how those little death dealer scare me... I can't help it.... A-Are you alright ? »

Roman raised a brow « ...Yeah... I'm doing okay. » the question was : was remus alright, though ?

Ever since Patton hold onto him, he had his eyes locked on the moral side, and he froze like a statue. And Roman wished he had a telepathic link with his twin at the moment.

...

Remus did not like that.

Patton was being scared. And not because of anything he said. Patton was scared by what was happening outside right now....

Remus did not like seeing Patton scared.

At all.

He really wanted Patton to stop being so scared.

He could feel his heartbeat, his shaky breath, his trembling legs. Patton has always been terrified of spiders, and the general atmosphere did not help him calm at all. And patton, even though through sheer panic, grabbed Remus for comfort. He went to Remus for comfort..... Remus... remus...

Remus had to help him.

'Okay, for once in your lifetime Remus, focus.' He had to think of something to distract Thoma from whatever was happening before him..... Let's see.....

Spiders.... Spiders have fur. Remember that furry art that you stumbled across yersteday, Thomas?? This shit was definitely por

Fur … Fur is soft.

Soft... like a pillow ?

Pillow... Sleep ...what if someone used a pillow to choke Thomas in his sleep ?

Sleep.... he could sing a lullaby ? Sounds too creepy. Let's start over. Let's see...

« oOOH MY GOSH !! » Thomas jumped as the statue of a Witch light up before him.

-« Okay. Next time you have an idea like that, remind me to stop yourself. We'll go sit somewhere calm after that »

- « I-I'm okay ! I'm okay, Joan.. I-... just... tell me this is finished soon, please. »

- « …Yyyyyep. » They were only halfway through it, but Joan couldn't bring themself to worry Thomas even more. Poor man...

They both passed by the awfully cliché witch. Crooked nose, witch hat, green skin.

Green skin ?

Remus stopped at that.

That's it. He had an idea !

He slowly opened his mouth, and Roman stood curious. On the other side, Logan and Janus tried to calm the river of thoughts that escaped Virgil at an impressive speed. They tried to muffle the sound of this scary voice, but that only made Virgil bring up even more ideas.

Remus inhaled loudly, and sang as loud as he could.

« SOMEBODY ONCE TOLD ME THE WORLD WAS GONNA ROLL ME- »

Every single side jumped at that. Virgil closed his mouth with an audible click and eyed Remus. Meanwhile Patton had to step back at the sudden sound, but kept his attention on Remus, who continued to sing.

The sudden song popping into Thomas' head made his nerves lose it and he started laughing uncontrolably

Virgil, Roman and Patton joined Thomas, and soon enough, the room was filled with wheezes and a perfectly on key sang 'All stars ' As Remus became more and more ridiculous in his movements. Roman joined him soon enough and they became the only thing you could focus on.

Janus sighed through his nose, but couldn't help his smile. Logan's eyes switched between Virgil, Remus and Janus.

- «Well this is new »

- « I think we already know this song ? »

- « No, I'm talking about Remus. Weird how for once, he tries to calm the chaos in Thomas' mind... A surprise to be sure, but a welcomed one. »

- « ...Was that a- »

- « Hey now, you're an all star, get your game on~~ » He hummed, obviously avoiding Logan's question. The logical side soon followed the movement, with virgil joining in slowly after.

Sure, Thomas would jump a bit at the sudden pop in of the monsters, but the rest of the ride went extremelly well. And before he knew it, the ride stopped, and they had to get out of their seats. Thomas was still giggling to himself.

- « Well glad to see you made it out alive ! What caused your sudden mood boost? »

- « Oh it's nothing. I just had a random song playing in my head and I wasn't expecting it at all. » He wiped a tear of laughter from his eyes.

- « Heh, I see. And hey. You did it ! You went through the whole ride first try ! »

- « I sure did ! I'm not doing that again anytime soon, though. »

They both laughed and travel through the park, looking for the next attraction to do.

In the Thomasphere, things went smoother, and Remus could swear that when he locked eyes with Virgil, he mumbled a thanks before retreating in his room.

Logan was now debating with Roman on the next part of the park to go, and Janus was away, listening to the conversation but mostly in his thoughts. Remus took a step in his direction but Patton caught him before he made it to the yellow side.

« Heya Remus... I just wanted to... emh... apologize for earlier. I wasn't at my best » he chuckled. « I didn't even ask before doing what I did and maybe I scared you as well so... if I did anything that bothered you, I apologize and know that I'll do my best not to do it again. »

- « Aaaww, don't worry, Daddy. It caught me off guard sure, but if I didn't like it, I'd push you away before you can say 'kiddo' ! »

- « Oh, that's good to hear. »

- « … »

- « ... »

- « Well, I'll be on my w- »

- « Thank you, kiddo. »

Remus' voice died on the spot.

« Thank you very much. I know I'm not the... nicest with you at times, but you helped me and that was kind of you. So yeah... Thank you. »

- « ... »

- « Boy, this is awkward. »

- « Yep. »

- « I'm not used to that soooo ummm....... You're welcome ?I guess ? I'll, uh... I'll see you around next time I cause problems on purpose. »

- « Oh, yeah alright. » was all Patton could say before Remus escaped the discussion. And the words would not stop repeating in his head again and again and he knew it would drive him crazy with an emotion he's never felt before. And he knew he needed a time for himself right now.

Before dissapearing, he looked one last time at Patton, who went back to be the happy pappy Patton they knew, and a quick glance at Janus.

And he knew damn well the pleased grin on the snake's face wouldn't leave anytime soon.

#Sanders sides fic #Sanders sides #remus sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #janus sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #I did not meant for it to pop out on Halloween month but you know what?#I'll live with it #Intruality #sorta #Joan #character thomas

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amarantine-amirite · 4 years

Text

A Portrait Of The Artist With Foot In Mouth Syndrome

Due to a combination of school closures and massive construction projects taking place at certain primary schools, my freshman year of high school was actually eighth grade.

That’s not important here. What’s important is that I have dodged the biggest bullet ever.

I had been making art since I was four years old, and at this time, I wanted to post my art on the internet. Aware of the dangers of giving away any personally identifiable information, I came up with an online nom de plume when I set up my Photobucket account. I punched in the painfully obvious moniker of "Fake Name".

I was still at risk. The same week that I set up my account, we had an assembly at school where the theme was “be careful about what you post”. The vice principal told us about a girl who got into some deep trouble because she wrote some weird poem about a silver banana. Someone interpreted the poem to be extremely phallic (obscene, even). She had no choice but to flee the country. The VP said it didn’t matter but she didn’t put it under her real name. They looked up her IP address, and used that to identify her.

That story scared the shit out of me. Who knew what others would think of my creative endeavours? Would they think they were obscene? violent? some other bad thing? There was no way of preemptively knowing.

I mainly restricted the art I put on Photobucket to the most anodyne things I could think of: lame-o abstracts that I made with the auto shapes in PowerPoint that I would cut and paste them into MS Paint. But that changed quickly. Within a week, I had moved on to bigger and better things: digital collages. The collages started off as your typical hodgepodge of snippets from photos in the news and incredibly generic backgrounds that you see online.

My art became more diverse as I learned new technology (such as photoshop) and I got bolder. My digital collages became more reflective of what I really thought and felt. They even incorporated my own drawings. Then came the day I learn how to code fractals. My digital collage got really wild after that.

But, there was one picture I did that became more significant in my mind than all the others.

I saw a thing on the Discovery Channel that talked about spontaneous human combustion. In high school I thought the idea of a person spontaneously combusting was very funny. It sounds terrible, but I found something about a person bursting into flames without any initial source of ignition inexplicably hilarious. One minute, you could be walking to get your mail and the next, you're doing your best impersonation of a Ford Pinto. Consequently, I made it my mission to do a piece related to spontaneous human combustion.

When I made the image, I tapped into my affinity for bad puns. I based my image on some play on the phrase "X is on fire!" (since, if you spontaneously combusted, you would literally be on fire). The end result had a black background with red, flame like dragon curves arranged to look like fire emanating from a girl in a hooded raincoat.

Months later, I began to have second thoughts. It occurred to me that when most people see a picture of a person bursting into flames, their first thought isn't "X is spontaneously combusting"...their first thought is "burn in hell, X". It didn't help that the image I used as a reference came from a Google search of the phrase "hell fire".

By Christmas, I started to worry that the girl's family would trace back my spontaneous human combustion picture to my computer, identify me, and I'd have to deal with the full extent of the wrath. It was so bad that I would get an intense feeling of dread if anyone mentioned bullying (not strictly cyber bullying, but also regular bullying), people getting fired/arrested over things they did online, or political correctness.

My anxiety got really bad in the spring. It bothered me so muhc that I felt compelled to come up with a hell of a defence (just in case it ever came up in court). It took me four months to get everything organized and write up the case. By the time I was done, it was 104 pages long.

Here’s a rough summary of what I wrote: "I understand that the girl in the picture was Eden Richmond of Sydney, Australia. I found the picture online at least a year and a half ago. At no point between now and then did I know that Eden had a terminal disease, let alone that she would eventually succumb to the disease less than 24 hours after I posted the image commonly known as This Girl is on Fire on Photobucket on. As an artist, I often represent scenarios that come into my mind, either dreams or my interpretations of current events. In this case, I attempted to represent the concept of spontaneous human combustion in a humorous and parodic manner. The idea behind such a representation lies in how I perceive the notion of a person combusting without any outside source of ignition. I personally consider the idea of spontaneous human combustion completely ridiculous and, in a strange way, funny. There is no objective evidence of spontaneously combusting people, and, through this, spontaneous combustion of a human being is nothing more than an urban legend and/or a dark element in absurdist humour. At no point was an image intended to represent spontaneous human combustion supposed to be a visual shorthand for "burn in hell", nor was it intended to represent anyone being eternally damned for any reason (if it were, there'd be a devil or two equipped with a very sharp pitchfork). I understand that placing an image of a person surrounded by flames can be construed as a visual shorthand for "burn in hell". I find it very strange that somebody would interpret this image as “burn in hell“, since it's the person, not the environment, that's combusting. However, I can see that it would make more sense to have the flames emanating from the person to convey the idea of the individual combusting spontaneously. From now on, I will make sure that I will adjust my art style before I attempt something like this again."

After writing it up, I felt better knowing that if I ever got in trouble for that picture, I was at least prepared to defend myself.

About a year came and went without anyone even caring about the picture. By that time, I had moved onto other computer programming related pursuits (demoscene, for example). The case that I wrote up about the spontaneous combustion picture stayed in a notebook in a drawer of a dresser in our basement; a relic of my adolescent paranoia. Time wore on, and so did my life. I went off to college, I worked a myriad of decent summer jobs, and all without repercussions of my spontaneous combustion picture.

Today, I realized that I dodged a bullet. When I signed up for Photobucket way back when, I came up with a handle (which was displayed) and my pseudonym (which wasn't, at least at the time). Nowadays, however; they updated the site so that your handle and your name are displayed together. It's a good job that I put my name as "Fake Name" when I signed up for it, because otherwise; I would have had my infamous spontaneous combustion picture linked to my real name.

#writing #writers #writers on tumblr #short fiction #short story

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georgetownuniversitypress · 3 years

Text

Darcy Lear: What will you take back to the face-to-face language classroom post-pandemic?

Like so many educators who’ve moved first to emergency remote teaching then to something more like online teaching, I have been overwhelmed by the information coming at me. At first, I eagerly attended all the Zoom workshops I could to get over the learning curve. Then I settled into a holding pattern that fit within my comfort zone for the online venue. Now I try limit my time on Zoom to the hours I am teaching or otherwise engaging with students.

Once the clutter and confusion cleared a bit, I was able to start to look ahead toward a return to face-to-face teaching. And what I’ve realized is that emergency remote teaching reminds me of some of the most important basics of language education—things I want to take back to the in-person classroom as soon as that is possible.

Here are a few of the things I am doing now that I want to keep doing post-pandemic:

1. Keep it simple—technology edition

Just because you can doesn't mean you should. And just because a technology exists, doesn't mean you should incorporate it into your classes—especially during forced online teaching due to a pandemic.

I have necessarily added the online teaching platform used by my campus: Zoom. Otherwise, students and I are using the same tech we've always used—the campus online learning system and the publisher's online textbook and workbook materials. I know Flipgrid and Flippity and Padlet and Panopto and Quizlet and twelve different recording and transcribing options exist. I believe that some are great pedagogical tools and have true potential in the language classroom. But not now. There have been enough learning curves during the pandemic.

Takeaway Don't use bells and whistles gratuitously. Identify your problem first, then solve it using technology if and only if it meets your needs.

2. Keep it simple—curriculum edition

Simplify, simplify, simplify. Are high-stakes tests feasible in the new venue? Do I really need 8-10 course components? Are my own pedagogical materials consistent across different documents and platforms?

The first two questions were a pleasure to address when we were first forced online in spring 2020: high-stakes chapter tests and the final exam were eliminated and replaced by low-stakes daily online quizzes (this is stuff we've known is better for a long, long time). These were 5-10 item assessments closely tied to content covered in that day's class. I told students, "If you can't complete those quizzes without resources, that's a red flag for you. Did you miss class and so it makes sense that it was hard? Do you need to brush up on a grammar point? Do you need to meet with me outside of online class? Did you forget to do the online homework (from which some quiz items are copied and pasted)?" This is what assessment is for—to measure student progress and see if they are ready to move on.

In the meantime, students’ course-long blogs and research projects formed the kind of project-based portfolio assessment we also have known for a long, long time is a better way to assess student learning than a lot of our old-school achievement tests (the kinds of tests people are fretting over how to administer securely online while ‘monitoring cheating’).

I folded some course components, such as recorded TalkAbroad conversations, into students’ portfolio projects so that students reported on them within the regular blog posts they were doing instead of in separate assignments.

By the time the spring 2020 course started, there were three major course components: textbook content, an online blog, and a research project. There were a total of 5 grading categories: daily quizzes, daily blog posts, in-class mini-presentations, a course-long research project, and a final presentation of the research project.

A single thread ran through the entire course so that the work to prepare for class led smoothly into the synchronous class period, which was followed by homework and assessments that reviewed all the content before repeating the cycle. Even though this is how it’s supposed to always work, it felt more focused and streamlined than any face-to-face course I've taught in recent memory.

In cleaning up my pedagogical materials, I developed a kind of check list: Do I even need to keep this content? Is there a way to fold this material into something else (portfolio assessments, online quizzes)? Do I use the names I have for assignments consistently? Do they make sense? Why were assignments described as "personal readings" in course documents and grade book columns years after they'd become "blog entries" in practice? Ditto for "documents 1-5" that were really "research project" components. Getting ready to engage in emergency remote teaching forced me to revisit a lot of content that worked inside my own head but didn't make a lot of sense to anyone else, something I know is an issue when designing pedagogical materials, writing instructions, writing academic articles—you name it!

Takeaway Can I simplify logistics for students? Can the various bits and pieces be streamlined so it makes more sense to students and flows better for all of us?

3. Keep it simple—classroom edition

As the teacher, do most of your work outside of class. With emergency remote teaching, most of my time was dedicated to planning before class, then grading and meeting with students after. In the online class sessions, I mostly just set up activities for students then hang out and listen to them interact. Occasionally, I interrupt to correct or explain, but mostly I wait for students to self-correct or reach out to me for clarification. I’ve noticed a lot more self-correction when I gave students the time and space to do it—well, Zoom did that for me.

This experience has reminded me of the kind of planning and preparing required of a novice teacher. I set up my lesson plan, re-visit it after a day or so, then run through it before class starts to make sure I have everything ready to go on my laptop:

Is the ebook opened to the first page I'll reference?

Do students have the link to the Google doc I'll ask them to use?

Do I have the PDF opened and ready to click on?

Is the PowerPoint presentation launched?

Do I know when I'm going to use breakout rooms and how many I will need?

At the beginning of each class, I share my screen to show students the lesson plan and run through the major topics as well as assignments that are due soon. It begs the question: why haven’t I been sharing my lesson plans with students all along?

Getting everything set up seems to take more time and energy than the Zoom session itself, but in the Zoom session I also shed the novice teacher and settle into the role of experienced teacher.

As soon as a Zoom class ends, I go back into planning mode—I post the day's lesson plan and homework online for students to reference, then I prepare the first draft of the next session's lesson plan. Before I polish the next plan, I spend a lot of time grading—reading/watching students' work, making individual comments on it, and checking their progress with online activities and assessments. In the process, I make sure the homework and quizzes align well with the class sessions (something I haven't dedicated enough time to in face-to-face teaching over the past decade or so).

Takeaway Be transparent with students. Make most of your work happen in the prep and follow-up so class time can focus on smooth student activities.

4. Let students learn by doing: Be the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage

Zoom is a horrible venue for "teacher at the front of class soliciting responses from individual students"—but so is a classroom if your goal is for students to build communicative competence in the language. But in classrooms it's very easy to fall into old-school patterns of the teacher doing too much of the talking. Online teaching—where everyone is disembodied and there are awkward pauses combined with people talking over each other—forces me to abandon any remnants of the Atlas complex. If I'm talking on Zoom it's very obvious I'm delivering a lecture or a teacher presentation.

I do talk to the whole group at the beginning and end of each Zoom session, with some teacher-like explanations peppered throughout the entire course. But most of the time spent on Zoom has been students in breakout rooms interacting with each other in Spanish—sometimes discussing textbook content in groups, sometimes preparing brief presentations to give to the whole class, sometimes with student discussion leaders who are formally assessed on their performance. I pop in but try to leave myself on mute.

Takeaway Find a way to put myself "on mute."

5. Be flexible and go easy on yourself and others

Right now we’re in a pandemic, but in "normal times" there are always some individuals who are navigating crises. We don't need to know the details, but we can make interactions with us easier instead of harder—extend deadlines, take late work, allow students to make up tests, and be understanding when they have to miss class.

Takeaway Nobody needs a punitive work or learning environment—ever. Be flexible. Go easy on yourself and others.

Darcy Lear has a PhD in Foreign and Second Language Education from the Ohio State University and teaches Spanish at the University of Chicago. She regularly gives presentations on teaching strategies to departments around the country and has developed languages for special purposes courses at several institutions. Lear is also a career coach, helping people to position themselves to use their language skills in rewarding careers. She is the author of Integrating Career Preparation into Language Courses.

#language learning #language teaching #pedagogy #new books #language acquisition #actfl #online teaching #teaching online #pandemic #covidー19 #covid lockdown

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dangerouslysmartslime · 3 years

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Trying to understand college: My first Academic Development 101 Zoom Meeting

Discussion is going to start, and it’s going to be for Chapters 1 and 7. Academic Development 101… Starting with a check in, so… I didn’t read both parts because it is purely questions that you’d find at a mental hospital, which makes sense but it is a pain. So stop wathcing fucking shows like People Watching and get stuff done.

What is one thing you hope to accomplish this Winter Session

I hope to get used to online classes, unlike my Junior Year of High School, which was quite unpleasant. At the same time I also felt like I was being babysat by the school as there was no on the campus who knew what I was taking. Taking US Government, Trigonometry, English, Environmental, and such but a lack of continual feedback. Just trying to understand things day in and day out and the best thing I could seemingly think to do was to read the material and then look at what other people online thought, and then use both the actual sources and analysis of others. To be a lot better person than that is ideal, however it can be a lot harder than being at a class and there being discussions and then what happens outside of class is review.

There are a lot of folks who are here today, so they’re taking attendance and I feel unsure of what to do. I realize now that the three classes are interconnected, in the fact that they aren’t straight and narrow, they’re pieces that you have to read, go over, then respond with in your ideas. You have two days left before all the assignments are due for the week. A lot of people say they should earn at least a B+ GPA. One must first be stable before they can help themselves. Apparently a lot of people don’t know what to do with themselves, but they spend a great deal of money on education. Where do you take it to and pursue. Improving as a student and being more organized. It’s definitely something that I should work on, as there are Modules 1 and 2 at the same time, and getting it all done is important so you don’t get multiple 0s and fail classes. Just as you ended up getting an 80% in a Quiz just because you didn’t answer the questions quickly and efficiently. Learning better time management as folks can often be procrastinators. Passing, keeping focused, and keeping ahead of assignments.

Transitioning to online classes can be a pain for people. How to apply the tools you have, as there is a difference between getting dressed and being there or being online. And the program they use is something that people get used to. Her name is Stacy Hurley, who’s taught at CCBC Face to Face since 2011, taught Sociology classes in the evening and worked with child protective services for Baltimore City as well as nonprofit and therapy. She is an adjunct, and works with the Howard County. She does dog walking, dog sitting, and tutoring for fun. She likes that she is flexible, and her favorite thing is teaching. She started a post-graduate program, as not only she has a teacher perspective but a student perspective, so she was taking classes as well as teaching. She even asked for extensions, using the tools to keep yourself on track. Any questions? Nope.

Meets Tuesdays and Thursdays, and is a Synchronous class, meeting at those times and you are reading the chapters before class so there can be a good discussion. Know the material, and then review is in Zoom. There are quite a few modules she goes over, and the process is important. The “journey is the point of it” The final point is the “story of me” Where hopefully the class is at a different point in 3 weeks from now. All of the Office 365 applications are used, and there is a way that you can connect the google calendars to the school one. You can add those in there so everything is in one Calendar. Work on understanding everything so you can be organized. You also get a OneDrive to store work, and some people may also use a Google one, and saving it into the OneDrive is important so you can do it on your work computer, or home computer, or a library computer. You can make folders as to organize things by class, then week, then assignment (just as I have already done). I still need to make a To Do List for each week, and getting things done efficiently.

Announcements, and if you need tutoring, then you can arrange them through the virtual tutor. You go to getting Started, a tutorial to get to CCBC Email and Login, then the Keep Learning guide for online resources going from Face to Face, then logging into Blackboard. Going to Blackboard and it’ll bring you up, and if you don’t have it then you have to go to MyCCBC login. For the New Student Orientation there is a video and powerpoint to look at. The information will also be talked about in the next 2 hours (because it’s already been 30min) in the end there was the certificate, which I need to send to Stacy Hurley for Extra Credit.

Students improve and remain in college because of Academic Development 101. Think about Resilience and Grit. It’s not hard stuff, it just takes time and planning to deal with. Schoology is similar, for grades there is All, Graded, Upcoming, and Submitted. How much everything is worth, where you see discussion, assignments, and all of that. When she grades something you will see the grade out of how many points, then a text bubble giving feedback. “Hey you’re missing this, hey I like this, hey you should’ve had this.” And you can submit multiple times, taking her feedback into consideration. Practice your writing and communication.

In general the information hasn’t changed in the newer textbook, but it might be a good idea to buy, and we’re not going to get to all of the chapters. College Policy regarding etiquette for Zoom Classroom. Of course wear clothes. First part of the list, you must read. Student Success Navigators. There isn’t a counselor on campus, but they assist with finding resources like food, housing, applying for benefits, getting mental health help, referring for any of these services. You should be successful and going there is done at any way. Either talking to them or filing a report to need services. Someone contacts you to set up an appointment for what you need. There are disability accommodations, for different mental and physical disabilities depending on if you have a 504, and people don’t tell them why you get accommodations, as it is protected by HIPPA and such. There is also the Student Success Center offering tutoring, and avaliable for tutoring as the class fees pay for it. So use the link. Pay attention to the Academic Calendars, like when you can drop a class and when there are finals. Use proper college English, use proofreading. This is the time to do so. Turn your work in on time. Anything extra that was not assigned will be extra credit. Take advantage of it, as not every class has extra credit. Earn as many points as possible out of 800, so you earn as many as possible, then add the Extra Credit points, then the class grade is that out of 800. Know where everything is by keeping it in one place. Keep it in APA Owl Purdue College Format. It breaks down how to cite. Some courses may use APA, some may use MLA. You will be creating “The Story of Me as a Lifelong Learner” as each assignment builds up to the final project, which will be done using the app SWAY. Given each topic and skill you should be able to build a toolbox. The three words are Grit, Resilience, and

If you want to do the bare minimum, that’s on you, but if you want to do more, then you can. Really it is best to do as much as possible. The biggest Module is Module 4 as there are the most complicated pieces. Career Inventory, a survey that goes along with it, research links to look at careers you’re interested in. Looking at Educational Plan with DegreeWorks attached and information from ARTSYS website to plan Spring classes. I still need to talk to an advisor, so that is rather important. Transferring to another university later. You have to pay attention to each of the pieces. The final project is due February 1st, taking all of the pieces to have a Portfolio,/Presentation/Blog online about you as to finish it. The career piece will be on Animoto. You’re not paying for anything, you’ll just be using the free version. So manage your work and your stress to do what is needed. In person they used to do a career poster. Videos on how to set up Cornell Notes if handwriting. The templates were given for Word. You must write a summary of the chapter to show what you have taken away, it is pretty important. This chapter told me ABC. The notes must be in the format, whether typed or handwritten.

What is ACDV? Academic Development

Helps you be successful in your academics, to identify weaknesses, meant to help you develop good habits in academics, to come up with a strategic plan for yourself. Promoting healthy attitudes, to help sharpen your skills. To help you transition to college, to know where things are on campus and on Blackboard. To help make sure you are choosing the correct career path and educational path, to help you with a work/life balance with a new academic lifestyle, to help you prepare for the future, to help you have an idea of where to go. Getitng to know yourself better, developing academically. Exploring your passions, interests, values, skills, and talents. You can be interested in a great many things but you aren’t skilled in many. But interests can become skill. You can develop new skill based on the interests you already have. What are your values. The jobs that you’re thinking about, what is your motivation. Because if your motivation is purely money, then you could’ve taken a job that costs less to study for. What do you want to accomplish and look at. You don’t want to be a nurse if you don’t like blood or needles. Sure carrying tradition might be nice but it may not be fit for you. Do you want to have a career and not just a job.

What is academic development

To help us know what to do with our lives.

It can be quite difficult as there it can take a third of our lives to become who we want to.

A guide to CCBC and how to perform well in this institution.

What is Student Life is a thread that it has. There is the Community Book Connection as well. A book club, and the newest one is “The Truth about Stories, a Native Narrative” which if you do it, you get extra credit. Campuses are open, and you have to stop, they’ll check temperature and you have to ask questions on whether you’ve been close. The library and bookstore are open to go and get things. It is kind of a ghost town due to the plague, but things are still open. Blackboard has a list of Campus Events, Activities, and Resources she’s talking about. All of the folders are there, and things are due by tomorrow, while for Intro to Human Services my classes are due the day after. It is a pile of things stressing me out and the best thing you can do is to do your best at surviving and making the world a better place. Important things you need to cover, so let’s get done what is needed one thing at a time. Module 1 for ACDV is now due on Friday, and you’d get the rest done by Sunday. On Thursday we’ll talk about Finances, so that will also have to be handled. Filling your mind with sha helps no one, so take it one step at a time, use your peers and teacher. Try first, you will have to deal with things outside of time and sooner or later it will all click. We might not get to everything, so mainly do what is assigned. If it isn’t assigned, then wait until you’re done with assigned work before working on unassigned work or work due far later (following week).

#CCBC #Community College of Baltimore County #Academic Development

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quicksilversquared · 5 years

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Everyday Heroes

Marinette is always looking for ways to help, whether it be with bringing a student's concerns to the principal as class president, mending a torn jacket, or stepping up to babysit. For her second Heroes Day as a superhero, though, she's going the extra distance so that she can help even more in emergencies.

ft. Everyday Superhero Marinette and her fabulous influence on the class.

links in the reblog

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When the second Heroes Day of her superhero career came around, Marinette was no less taken off guard than she had been the first time. The days had blurred past in a blur of school, superheroing, and trying to balance the two with extracurricular activities, and so it really wasn't her fault for maybe thinking that it was another week away, maybe, or maybe a month.

This time, though, Marinette had a good deed in mind, something that she had been considering for a while now but hadn't actually gotten around to doing yet. Which was good, because once again, her teacher was putting everyone on the spot by asking them what they would be doing to give back to the city or at least the community around them.

And once again, expectations for her would no doubt be high.

"And Marinette?" Ms. Bustier asked, smile expectant as she turned to her. "What is your good deed this year?"

Marinette smiled, sitting up straighter as she answered. "This year, I've decided to take a CPR and First Aid class from the Red Cross so that I can know what to do in an emergency!" She wouldn't be administering first aid during an akuma attack, of course- Ladybug needed to have her priorities, of course, and while there were other people who knew first aid or could at least figure it out in Paris, there were only so many superheroes in the city- but it might come in handy during babysitting or if she happened across any emergencies during her day-to-day life. "And I want to talk to the instructor about possibly doing a class here at school, too, because the more people there are who know how to react in an emergency, the better!"

Ms. Bustier looked impressed. "That's a very good idea, Marinette! That reminds me that I need to get recertified, too- I took a class a few years ago, but I think the certification only lasts for two years or so."

Marinette nodded. That was right. It hadn't sounded like a particularly long time to her, but the site had explained that it was necessary, since people tended to forget information over time and had to be refreshed so that they could act quickly and safely.

"Perhaps you could do a presentation on what you learned after you've taken the class," Ms. Bustier suggested. "You probably can't do specifics, since people need to learn that from a certified instructor, but what people might do to help?"

Marinette nodded eagerly. It would get her classmates interested, which was a good thing. Even if she couldn't get a class at the school- maybe one with a discount, because those classes were not cheap and some students might not be willing or able to pay that much- then there was the chance that people wouldn't be quite as intimidated by the concept as before and would go seek out a class on their own. Then they could help people who got injured during akuma attacks, patching up scrapes and sprains and cuts that they got while trying to flee from the akumas.

"That training is a good deed that can keep on giving," Ms. Bustier finished, smiling. "Thank you, Marinette. Now Alya, what is your good dead for Heroes Day?"

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Marinette hadn't even taken her class yet, and already she was generating some interest. Several of her classmates had told her how cool it was that she was taking the course, and Rose had announced that she wanted to take it, too. Even Adrien had come up and told her that it wasn't something that he had thought of before, but he was definitely interested in the idea of learning first aid and being able to help out if something happened.

"You're definitely our class's Everyday Ladybug," he added with a grin. "Always looking for ways to help. I don't think anyone else had even thought of getting certified before, but I know there's more people than just me who are thinking about taking the class now. I'm really interested in hearing what all you learn about!"

Of course, before she could tell Adrien what she learned, Marinette actually had to take the class first. While she had been thinking about it for a while now, she hadn't done that much digging yet- she hadn't had the time- and what she was finding…

Well, it looked like it might be difficult to manage.

The classes that Marinette was seeing were all pretty long. Like, hours and hours and hours. It would be all too easy for an akuma attack to come up during that time, and then she would have to step away and then she wouldn't get her certification. Or an akuma would strike before the class could start, and she would be late and then not be able to take the class, and there would go that fee down the drain, with nothing to show for it.

"There have to be options for people who can't make a ton of space in their schedule," Tikki said as Marinette groaned, face-down on her desk. "I mean, people who work nights or have long shifts or whatever."

"You would think so, but I'm not seeing anything." Already, visions of not being able to fulfill her Heroes Day good dead for the second year in a row were dancing before her eyes, and she slumped further. She shouldn't have added that bit about asking about hosting a class at the school, because now people were going to ask and make sure that she followed up on it. If she hadn't, they would gradually forget, just as everybody else's Heroes Day good deeds were forgotten by the next day. "I'm going to have to take a whole-day class over a weekend or a holiday and just hope for the best."

Above her head, Tikki was still inspecting the screen. "One second- Marinette, can I have the mouse? I want to check something."

Obediently, Marinette's hand slid off of the mouse, giving it over to her kwami. As Tikki swooped down on it, Marinette raised her head up a couple centimeters to watch. Tikki scrolled up, up, up to the top of the page, then clicked on a button labeled course format. Immediately, three options popped up: in-person, online, and combo. She clicked.

"It says that fully online doesn't really give full certification," Tikki reported after a second. "But the combo online and in-person does, and-" she clicked on the option, then waited for the page to finish loading- "the in-person section of the combo is only an hour long."

Marinette straightened immediately. "Really?"

"Really! That shouldn't be too hard to manage!"

Re-energized, Marinette started checking the dates that Tikki had pulled up. Some she couldn't do- she already missed enough school with akuma attacks, she didn't need to skip on purpose- but others were during her lunch break or after school or on weekends, each only an hour long.

And- even better!- there was a note on each of the class listings that she was looking at, recognizing that sometimes people couldn't get to their scheduled class due to akuma attacks and if that happened, to just call the Paris office's number to reschedule the in-class section without having to repay.

Perfect.

"Give yourself plenty of time to do the online section!" Tikki reminded Marinette as she continued scrolling through the times and dates, completely eager and reenergized. "You have class and projects and outings with your friends and superhero-ing to do already, and you're going to need to take notes as you go for your presentation to the class."

"Right." Marinette scanned the list again, mentally striking some of the options out. If she went too soon, she would have to rush through the online section. If she waited too long… well, Chloe would no doubt make a Big Deal out of it, claiming that she was trying to back out of her good deed for the second year in the row.

Which was unfair, really- Chloe's good deed was always something dumb that any normal person would do automatically, like 'not insulting others'. It never involved any effort or extra time on her part. And Marinette had tried the previous year, she really had, but…

Well, even the best intentions didn't always work out.

"Maybe I can do just over two weeks out," Marinette decided. "There's one over lunch break that has lots of spaces, and it doesn't cost nearly as much as some of the others. I'll ask Maman to sign me up for it later."

"That sounds good!" Tikki agreed. "Just over two weeks gives you three weekends. As long as you don't over-commit yourself, you should be fine!"

"Well, you know me," Marinette said with a laugh. "I like overcommitting myself. It's not a busy time of the year in classes, at least. That helps."

"Good!" Tikki spun in a circle, then flew down to perch on Marinette's shoulder. "Okay, so now that that's sorted out- do you want to start on your homework, on start making up a slideshow for your presentation? You could put some stats on the first slide or two as a lead-in!"

"Homework, I think," Marinette said with a laugh. "That has a deadline, and the PowerPoint doesn't. But that's a good suggestion, Tikki! Thanks!"

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In a stroke of good luck, Marinette finished up the online section of the course with plenty of time and there were no akumas in sight as she headed into the building where her course was. She had a no-nonsense notepad tucked into her bag with all of her notes from the online portion and a whole array of pens and pencils, plus a couple index cards with her contact information in case the instructor thought that running a course at the collège would be possible (one to hand over, two extras in case the first one got misplaced). Marinette was ready for this.

Marinette was not ready to see Adrien Agreste already sitting in one of the seats around the table, his own notebook already in hand.

"Hi, Marinette!" Adrien said happily, lighting up when he saw her. He patted the seat next to himself in invitation, and Marinette sat, unable to resist. "I hope you don't mind me copying your Heroes Day idea. I just thought it was a really, really good idea and then you mentioned when you were going and that this type of class format lets you do a lot of the work ahead of time and how you could reschedule if there was an akuma attack and I don't get out to do this sort of thing often so I thought it would be less intimidating if I did it with a friend, so here I am," he finished, sounding a bit out of breath and more than a little anxious.

Marinette smiled at him. She couldn't deny that having a friend here made things less intimidating for her, too. "That's fine! It is nice to have a familiar face here. And maybe it'll help our cause when I ask about if they could do a class at the collège, if it's not just one of us."

Adrien grinned, relaxing at once. "Okay! I thought that maybe I should have asked you first, but I had already signed up and everything and I couldn't figure out the cancellation stuff."

"No, no, it's fine!"

It didn't take long for their instructor to show up, checking each of them off and making sure that they had completed their online section. Then she started, and Marinette had to hunker down and focus, taking a few notes as review before they moved to the back to practice some of the skills.

As they moved, Adrien stuck close to Marinette's side, anxiously hovering as the instructor pulled out the CPR dummies and demonstrated what they were meant to be doing. Once she had finished a few cycles, she stood back up and told them to partner up and sit down by a dummy.

"Partners?" Adrien asked hopefully, tapping on Marinette's shoulder. Marinette nodded, catching his arm as she moved forward to claim one of the dummies. Their instructor headed around, handing out little kits to each of them.

"This has a practice breathing mask," she told them as she handed one bag to Adrien and another to Marinette. "Don't use them on a real person, they wouldn't provide the protection that a proper one-way one would."

"I'm not gonna lie, when I signed up I was worried that we might be practicing the mouth-to-mouth on each other," Adrien admitted, leaning over so he was speaking directly in Marinette's ear. "And I got an embarrassingly long way into the online section before I realized that there was no way we would be doing that."

Marinette giggled. "Yeah, I think we would have a really hard time getting our classmates to go if they had to do mouth-to-mouth on each other. There's cooties, you know."

The pouty stink-eye that Adrien sent her made Marinette muffle another round of giggles.

With Adrien there to talk to, the class flew by in a flash. Marinette made sure to take plenty of notes, even though a lot of it was information that they had already covered online. She did take particular note, though, of a couple phone apps that she could download that would help her remember what to do in case of an emergency.

Another thing that might help make the class seem more approachable to others. If people had any worries that they might not be able to remember well enough to help out in an emergency, that should help.

"I'm glad I took this," Adrien told Marinette as the class came to a close and everybody started packing up. "It's well worth the price. Are we going to talk to the instructor now?"

"Yeah, once people have cleared away a bit." Marinette glanced around the room. There were several people lingering near the instructor, clearly wanting to ask for clarification about one thing or another. "Because my question will probably take longer than most of the others, and it's not about what we learned in class." She looked at the slowly dwindling line of stragglers, then at the clock, and winced. "Hopefully we'll still have time to eat. I didn't ask Mom if she could make anything for me, since I wasn't sure when I would be getting back."

Adrien perked up. "I was planning on going to a little cafe nearby after this. Want to come with? My treat!"

"Sure!"

"Well, it's nice to see young faces here," their instructor said, coming up to them once the last of the line had left, waving as they went. "We don't see young people often. Did you guys have a question for me?"

"I do," Marinette said, hopping up at once and hoping that she didn't look too flustered. She was Ladybug. She could do this. "I signed up for this class as my good deed for Heroes Day, and there was a lot of interest in it in my class. I'll be doing a presentation during class to try to drum up interest again, and I was wondering if there would be some way to set up a session at the school so that more of my classmates could learn, too."

Their instructor surveyed the two of them, looking a little doubtful. "Well…"

"I'm one of her classmates," Adrien spoke up, getting up as well. "And there really is a lot of interest. I decided to come outside of class, too, and it was all because Marinette brought up the idea. And I know some of our classmates are a little intimidated by the idea of signing up on their own, but they are interested in learning how to be able to respond in an emergency."

"I mean, they could coordinate to come out as a group." Their instructor didn't look entirely convinced. "They might need to schedule for a bit out, since otherwise classes tend to only have a small handful of openings."

"Part of the concern is transportation, I think," Marinette said quickly, even as her gut sank. She had so hoped that this would go off smoothly, but it was starting to look like that was misplaced hope. "It seems like all of the classes that we could get to during lunch break or after school are over here, and it's clear across the city from our school. We're all collège students, so we rely on public transportation. If we miss the bus over because class went late or we couldn't get to the bus stop on time or the bus was late, we don't have other options."

"I'll run the idea past my supervisor," their instructor finally promised. "I'll see what he thinks. Do you have contact information for, ah, your teacher? Or principal?"

"I have my contact info," Marinette said immediately, feeling a little nettled. "I'm class president, I can pass on information to my teacher."

"She's the best class president I've ever seen," Adrien said loyally, and Marinette resisted the urge to blush. He was just trying to back her up, she shouldn't read too far into it. "She's the one who came up with the idea, too."

Their instructor sighed. "All right. If a session at your school is feasible, he'll email."

"Thank you," Marinette said quickly, hoping she didn't sound too let down. She pulled out one of her prepared cards. "This is my email."

Several minutes later, she and Adrien were headed out of the building. Marinette couldn't help the dejected drag to her step. She had so hoped to come back to class today with a strong "maybe" at the very least, ideally a 'yes'. Instead, they got a very doubtful 'maybe'.

"I thought she was being pretty rude," Adrien told Marinette as they headed down the street. "I mean, they want more people certified, right? And I'm sure Mr. Damocles could get a grant to pay for people who are interested to get certified but they can't pay. It's just that this isn't a very convenient location."

"It's really not," Marinette agreed. "I had to rush to get here, because the bus was late." That was a half-lie, actually- she had had to transform and finish the trek as Ladybug, because the midday traffic in Paris had slowed the bus to a crawl. But even though it would have made her points a lot stronger, she couldn't just go and say that. "And the one after school would have the same problem, I bet. And there are weekend options, but people have stuff going on."

Adrien nodded. "Right. And it looked like those sessions fill up first, too, so people could have trouble getting in with their friends." He snagged her arm, tugging her towards a small cafe. "Is Greek okay?"

Marinette managed a bright smile for him. "That sounds fantastic."

It didn't take long for the two of them to order their food and get settled on stools at a counter by the window. By the time they received their food, Marinette was starting to come up with a new plan of attack.

Getting a class set up at the school had never been a given, she had known that. But there was so much interest that she couldn't just not do anything to encourage her classmates to follow through with the training. So maybe they could set their sights on a class that was a ways out- during the summer, maybe- and try to organize so that no one would be going on their own. She knew from experience that sometimes all someone needed was another person to walk them through something- in this case, the sign-up process- to do something like this, so she could still help. She was about to say as much when a blinking light caught her eye. Marinette glanced at her phone just out of habit, then did a double-take when she caught sight of the email she had received. In a sudden scramble, she set her gyro down and dove for her phone again, catching it just as the screen dimmed and opening up the email.

"What is it?" Adrien asked, craning his neck to try to see. "Mari?"

"I got an email from the first aid people!" Marinette said excitedly, pushing her phone over so Adrien could read it, too. "And look!"

Dear Ms. Dupain-Cheng,

Our CPR/AED/First Aid instructor Linda Ricky mentioned your inquiry about having a session at your collège so that more students could get their certification and be ready to respond in case of an emergency. We would certainly be interested in setting up such a session, as we want to get the younger generation involved in our training efforts. We can offer a mixed-format course at a reduced rate for students. Before we set anything up, I would like to know how many students would be interested so that we know if we would need more than one session set up. We can go with either the full CPR/AED/First Aid course or just First Aid depending on interest.

Thank you for joining us and I hope to hear from you soon!

"Oh, they're super interested," Adrien said with a laugh, pushing Marinette's phone back to her. "Good job, Marinette. So what's the next step?"

"Well, I need to get back to them by this evening at the latest," Marinette said, already starting to brainstorm. "Thanking them and trying to get a timeline set up for when I'll get back to them. I need to talk to Ms. Bustier and see when there's time for my presentation. It's mostly ready, I think, I just need to polish it up. And then I need to make sign-up sheets, and those will be up for probably a week. And if we want students from other classes to know about it, that'll probably take more presentations or fliers or something."

Adrien let out a low whistle. "That's a lot. If I can help out with anything, Marinette, just let me know." He grinned. "After all, even an Everyday Ladybug can probably use an Everyday Chat Noir to help out."

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Much to Marinette's relief, getting things all lined up for her presentation wasn't anywhere as much work as she had worried. With Adrien's help, she got things polished up and ready to go within a couple days. Ms. Bustier shifted a few things around so that Marinette could so her presentation, and that all went smoothly.

"Before they arrange anything, we need to know who would actually be interested," Marinette told the class at the end of the presentation. "So I have a sign-up sheet that I'll be posting on the whiteboard here, and then I have fliers, too- these were Adrien's idea, so we can get other classes interested, too." Marinette waved one of the aforementioned fliers. She had taken a fairly standard flier for the course and modified it, making it clear that they were hoping to have an opportunity to have the course at the school and where interested parties should sign up. She had also tacked on a FAQ with information answering the questions that she and Adrien had thought up. "I'm hoping to get one in as many classrooms as possible. Obviously there might be some classes here who are too young to take the class yet, so we don't need to get those classrooms, but I'm hoping to make sure that everyone who's old enough to take the class at least knows about the opportunity."

"I can pass those around in the teacher's lounge, Marinette," Ms. Bustier said at once. "That was a very nice presentation, and I hope all of you at least give this opportunity some consideration. It's very possible that none of you will ever need to use any of the skills that you learn during the class, but it's wonderful if you're prepared! It really can save a life."

Marinette beamed as her classmates clapped, unable to resist the urge to duck her head bashfully as she hung up the sign-up sheet and headed back to her seat. Adrien offered her a high-five and she complied with a grin.

"Can we sign up now?" Alya asked at once, sticking her hand up in the air. "Or do we have to wait until the end of class?"

"Well, if you want to sign up now while I set up our lesson for today, you're certainly welcome to," Ms. Bustier told her. "If you need some time to think about it-"

She was cut off as easily half of the class got up, rushing to the front with pencils in hand to sign up. Others were clearly still considering the option. Marinette couldn't hide her grin as she watched. She had suspected that there would be a lot of interested people in her class, just based off of the response after she mentioned it the first time. But this was incredible.

Maybe only Ladybug and Chat Noir could end akuma fights, but with so many students trained to help out others- maybe, just maybe, they could help make the battles just a little bit safer.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #adrien you ain't slick

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