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#i didn't even notice that i forgot the name lol but i dont wanna retag or anything so we use both
Note
I am looking forward to reading the continuation of the alternative ending of satisfied! Can’t wait! 😜
Happy Easter lmao here’s your monthly dose of depression ig
Though this one is slightly more lighthearted than usual
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@solangelo252
The life of a captive of Bruce Wayne was surprisingly posh.
Maybe her standards were just really low because the last place she’d been held had been a lab where fear gas was tested on her almost daily(? her concept of time was fuzzy)... or maybe the Waynes just knew how to treat a kidnapee. Who knew.
But, hey, she’d been given a phone!
It was hacked, of course. Anything on the internet that even vaguely mentioned Bruce Wayne, the bats, or the Rogues was impossible to access. This had been a little annoying, but not necessarily unexpected. She was more surprised that they were giving her a phone at all.
She sat on the end of the bed, legs swinging like a toddler’s as she looked through twitter.
Gotham twitter just wasn’t the same, though. Where were the people joking about how they’d been praying for a Scarecrow attack so they wouldn’t have to take their finals? The underpaid cafe workers talking about how Batman had come in at 5am for coffee to get through the last leg of patrols and they had to turn him down because they weren’t open yet? Even the usual jokes about the Next Wayne(TM) were hidden from her! No, the internet almost seemed empty.
This left her with very few things to do. It wasn’t like she could request people to talk to her -- not that she’d wanted to, she didn’t want to bother them -- so… she was pretty much always working out or sleeping.
Working out was nice. She hadn’t been allowed to do it much while with Harley and it felt weird to be so out of shape. Who knew it could happen so fast? Certainly not her, and she was going to rectify her newfound lack of athletic ability. Dick even came by daily to help, so she was quickly getting back into the swing of things.
But as for sleeping...
Kwami, she missed caffeine.
Her subconscious was apparently determined to torture her.
(She supposed someone had to do it, since Joker hadn’t followed through on his intentions.)
Most dreams were haunted with memories of the stupid fear gas-induced hallucinations. The bats, now accompanied by Harley, would tell her exactly how much of a screw up she was. They’d give her disgusted looks and admit that they regretted ever talking to her or taking her in. And then they’d leave her, alone, surrounded by the corpses of she hadn’t been able to help.
She’d wake up crying and alone. She’d put on a random podcast and then wrap herself up in her blankets to try and trick her mind into thinking someone was with her.
And, when it wasn’t that dream, she found herself drowning in acid again. For such a short part of a series of unfortunate events, it sure did have an effect on her. She’d scream as the acid touched her skin, burned her lungs, tried to seep into her ear canals… and then she’d get pulled out to look at Joker’s smug face and she’d almost want to be pushed back under because she hated to see him looking so satisfied.
Those ones hurt. She’d wake up, her throat screamed raw, her lungs aching. Even hours later, she’d find herself running her hands over every bit of exposed skin to try and get rid of the feeling of the acid gnawing away at her.
The worst dreams, though, were the ones where she’d be visited by Bruce. Everything would go to plan. She’d stab him in the jugular and then pull the pen out, watching as blood spurted from the wound. He’d fall to the ground at her feet, unable to speak above the blood gurgling in his throat, and she’d just watch him. He didn’t even look betrayed, he just looked… he looked like he accepted it, like he accepted her and what she’d done and that he still cared for her after all that she’d done.
And then she’d wake up, but she never really felt awake when those dreams came. She felt like she was still half asleep, her body more limp than Bruce’s had been at the end of her dream, and any emotion she should have seemed impossible.
She hated the numb. At least she could do something with the screaming and the crying, at least she could bring herself down from those. How do you bring yourself down when you aren’t up in the first place?
But, maybe it was a good thing she was numb. It boded well for her. At least she wouldn’t be hurting if -- WHEN -- she managed to do it for real.
~
She turned off her phone, disappointed as always by how little content interested her, and almost cringed when she caught her appearance in the black screen.
Her skin was bleached from her time in the chemicals. The blood vessels under her eyes had burst when she’d been forced to go without coffee for too long. One of her cheeks were sucked in seemingly permanently from how often she’d been biting it. Her lips were stained cherry-red and stretched thinner than she remembered. Where her ears should have been were large holes in the sides of her head...
But nevermind that! The door slid open with a metallic hiss.
She didn’t know why she’d hoped it would be Bruce, she’d known perfectly well that that wouldn’t be happening for quite some time -- if ever -- but there she was, hoping it would be him. That this would end quickly.
Nope.
She looked up at Cass and Duke and her heart twinged painfully when she saw them.
She had missed them. So much.
(She’d almost been disappointed when she’d found out that they wouldn’t be home when she was going to try and kill Bruce, but then again she wanted them to continue liking her so maybe it was for the best she didn’t attempt to kill their father right in front of them...)
It was nice to see them again. Honestly, she’d missed them more than anyone else. They were her favorites.
(She couldn’t bring herself to feel bad about that. They were pretty much everyone’s favorites.)
She practically threw herself into Duke’s arms. He laughed and, though he struggled a little, he managed to catch her. She buried her face in his chest.
“Wow. I see how it is,” Cass said, but Marinette could hear the smile in her voice so she didn’t bother pulling away. Instead, she reached an arm in the direction of her voice and, once she’d managed to catch the sleeve of her shirt, dragged her into the hug.
The three Diversity Adoptees stayed like that for a long time.
And then she pulled back. “You guys better not have gone ahead in the show without me.”
Duke’s face twitched into a frown momentarily before he smiled again, ruffling her hair. “We didn’t. Scout’s honor.”
“You were a scout?”
He snorted. “God no.”
“Then --?”
“Shhhhhh,” he said, using the hand already in her hair to pull her into a noogie.
“Fuck offfffff,” she whined, trying to peel his knuckles away from her scalp.
Cass pulled her away from Duke. Strong arms wrapped her in a new hug and she blinked before returning it.
“Little sister. Leave her alone,” said Cass.
Marinette shot him a nasty grin from between her arms and Duke sputtered. “But I --.”
“Little sister,” she said again, like that explained anything. Maybe it did. Marinette didn’t particularly care because Cass was smoothing out her hair and it really did feel much better than the noogie she’d been getting…
She closed her eyes and leaned into her, relaxing.
Or, at least, she’d tried to relax. Until Duke sighed dramatically and said “Oh well, I guess I have five months of episodes to go through alone…”
“Wait --!”
~
She barely managed to lift her head up when she heard the door slide open, and then she bolted upright when she saw who it was.
Jason.
Her hand slid into her pocket, to the pen resting there, and she slowly pulled off the cap.
No. She couldn’t do that. If she tried to kill him then her pen would be confiscated and she couldn’t even imagine being able to kill Bruce with her bare hands.
(Granted, she didn’t really think she had a good chance of killing him with a pen -- it was a PEN -- but it the chances were more than 0% so it was overall way better than just trying to choke him out or something.)
She closed the pen and settled for glaring at him.
This fucker was the reason that she was there in the first place, and he hadn’t even given her an honorable battle that would have felt satisfying, what a --!
He held out a cup of coffee as a peace offering.
What an amazing person. Literally an angel. She loved him. Her favorite member of the batfamily.
If she’d had any less pride, she would have ran to get the coffee. As it was, she still speedwalked to take it off his hands.
The moment the drink touched her tongue, tension she hadn’t even noticed seemed to dissipate. The calm was quickly taken over by desperation, though. She had to fight herself not to chug it down.
(She also had to fight a wave of nausea, her body was not at all used to taking in any food or drinks anymore, but damn it she was going to get this coffee down if it killed her... again.)
Even with her super amazing self-restraint, the drink was gone within seconds. She swirled the remaining dregs, considering the pros and cons of trying to drink it because she remembered someone telling her that the last sip of drinks are always backwash…
But it was backwash that might have had caffeine in it, so she drank it.
She smiled brightly at him. Kwami, she’d missed caffeine so much. The only person who had given her coffee was Riddler the few times he had come to visit. Apparently Harley didn’t approve of it, though, because he had only brought her coffee three times before he’d suddenly stopped appearing.
… she hoped Riddler was still alive. She’d liked Riddler.
But she knew that asking about any of the Rogues would make the bats think that she wasn’t ‘healing’ up properly. So, instead of asking about him, she said “You know, B is gonna kill you for giving me coffee. I just got unaddicted.”
Jason groaned. “Great. Thanks for telling me AFTER you drank it all.”
“Of course. I wasn’t going to let you take it away from me,” she chirped.
He rolled his eyes. “Rude. Fine, I guess you won’t be addicted since it was only one cup. Can’t get in much trouble if I don’t give you more.”
Her eyes widened. “Wait --.”
“Yeah. I’d really prefer if the bats weren’t annoyed at me, so I guess that’s all you’re going to be getting.”
“Jay, wait, I didn’t mean it --.”
“Oh well,” he sighed. He brought a hand to his forehead like he was feeling faint. “If only I had an amazing little sister who would give me a hug --.”
She was wrapped around him before he’d even finished his sentence. Sure, it was blatant manipulation, but there was no way in hell that she was losing her one chance at caffeine.
(Besides, it was a hug. Hugs were nice.)
She’d spent the rest of the day with him, exchanging jokes about death.
The others didn’t really like them. Even Dick, who always liked a good pun, would only get sad when she joked about how she wasn’t alive anymore.
Jason, though… Jason understood.
And his death had been years ago. So he had a lot more jokes than she did.
“Ohohoh one time someone tried to flirt with me by saying they were a necrophiliac and I said ‘deadass?’ and…” He snickered. “And they said ‘yeah, exactly’.”
She brought a hand to her mouth, trying to hide her smile. “Oh my kwami, really?”
“I’m dead serious.”
She rolled her eyes. “I mean, I’d say they were going to hell, but they’d probably like it there.”
He laughed a little, shaking his head.
“It’s nice having someone to make jokes with. Damian doesn’t like joking about it.”
“I know. He’s always all…” He screwed up his face and raised his voice to a whine “‘It is not a joking matter, Todd’.”
She gasped. “It’s almost like he’s here with us.”
“Uncanny, right?”
She closed her eyes, allowing herself to relax.
“... I missed you. We all did,” he said quietly.
She didn’t know what to say to that. Not really. She ended up just giving a tiny laugh and shrugging her shoulders.
His phone beeped in his pocket and she heard him shift to check it. He groaned. “Sorry, kid, I’ve got patrols.”
She nodded slightly and fell back on the bed with a yawn. “You’re coming back tomorrow, right?”
There was a beat.
She cracked her eyes open to see him considering the idea.
“Please?” She tried.
Another beat.
He broke into a grin. “You just want more coffee.”
“Guilty as charged,” she said, not even a little sheepish. “But I don’t mind the fact that you’re coming either.”
“I feel so loved.”
“You are,” she said, with a little pout thrown in for good measure.
He ended up agreeing to bring her coffee daily. She smirked after him. He wasn’t the only one that could manipulate people for things he wants.
Her smirk dropped the moment her hand slipped into her pockets and she realized he’d taken the pen from her when she’d given him a hug.
Bastard.
~
Her eyes flicked past her visitor briefly and she was met with a nondescript, white wall. She was pretty sure that this wasn’t Wayne manor, with it’s dark reds and browns, but she was almost willing to ignore that logic so she could believe that it was. At least if it was Wayne manor she might have been able to guess her coordinates by making portals appear in rooms at random until she found it. But if she was just… in a place then how was she supposed to ever get out?
She didn’t let this show on her face, because of all of them Dick was the most emotionally intelligent and would definitely notice. Instead, she beamed at him.
“Ready for our workout session?”
It was kinda weird, because it was so much like their old routine. They would stretch and talk and practice new moves… but it didn’t feel at all the same. Before everything had happened they had talked about meaningful things; list off their emotions and talk shit about the other bats (they loved them, sure, but they were a handful).
Now, though, neither of them were actually talking much. There was very little going on in her life, so she didn’t know what to say and he… he seemed to think she was weak or something, like she couldn’t take it. One time he’d almost slipped up and told her about how Tim was worrying him because he was getting borderline obsessive and then, when she’d politely pressed for more, he’d clammed up and told her that she didn’t need to worry about that.
She kind of didn’t like the sessions with Dick. They felt wrong.
But she really missed him and his octopus hugs that she could melt into. So she never told him and they kept doing them.
“Jason gave you coffee,” said Dick instead of greeting her.
“... I managed to do a triple backflip!”
He raised his eyebrows at her and she chose to interpret this as him being disbelieving of her ability to do a triple backflip from the ground (which was fair, she’d taken ages to manage it even once and she had nothing but free time) and not him noticing her feeble attempt at changing the subject.
“I did! Look!”
She tried and landed flat on her face. She could hear his strained breathing as he tried his hardest not to laugh. She wished the floor would just swallow her whole.
At least he wasn’t concerned about the coffee thing anymore?
He took a seat in front of her and she slowly raised her head to look at him despite the fact that she very much wanted to burrow into the floor and never emerge ever again.
“We have footage of it, so I’ve seen it, don’t worry. Tim was pretty proud of you so he showed everyone… and I’m proud of you, too, obviously. That took me years.”
She smiled brightly. Tim was apparently proud of her. She didn’t see much of him, so it was kind of nice to know that he was watching over her... even if it was a little creepy that there were people watching her pretty much every moment of every day to make sure she didn’t escape or kill herself.
“Seriously, though, I’m not letting Jason back if he keeps bringing you coffee.”
The smile on her face dropped and she bit the inside of her cheek. Part of her was kind of mad that Jason had taken the pen from her -- really, she should have figured out that that was what was going on, though, he was never the most cuddly -- and the other part was desperate for coffee.
The coffee addiction won out.
“But…” She sniffled a little and pulled tears to her eyes. She tried not to think about how easily they came. “But I need…”
Dick groaned quietly and she felt arms hook under hers and pull her into a hug.
“This isn’t going to work.”
She buried her face in his shoulder and let the tears fall.
“I know what you’re doing.”
“I can’t sleep,” she whispered. “Please. I can’t. Please.”
Ah. That was a little more genuinely vulnerable than she’d intended on being.
But, hey, it was working. She heard Dick’s breath catch at the admission.
“Why not?” He said softly, running a hand up and down her back.
Why he even bothered to ask, she didn’t know. The bats knew about her nightmares. They knew about everything she did, why would they stop when she fell asleep? But she hadn’t mentioned it up until that point and they hadn’t brought it up either.
Still, she mumbled “Nightmares.” She hesitated only slightly before adding that it was “Ironic that NightMare has nightmares, but...”
Dick gave a laugh and she felt herself smile at the sound. He always did like bad puns. Her smile dropped a little when he told her “You still need sleep.”
She laughed bitterly. “It’s not like I’m getting much of it when I wake up every ten minutes anyways.”
He sighed and she felt his head rest on top of hers. “I guess one cup a day isn’t that bad…”
She gave a halfhearted cheer.
“Would you like to talk about your dreams? Sometimes that helps...”
She didn’t even hesitate to shake her head no. She did, however, hesitate to pull away from the hug. She liked Dick’s hugs far more than she’d ever admit, and ever since she’d come back she’d liked them even more. He was just about the right size and just squishy enough for her to pretend she was getting a hug from Harley.
But, eventually, she managed to pull herself together and she pushed him off as gently as she could.
“Ready to workout?”
Dick was wearing a particularly sad look that she decided didn’t look right on his face.
But then he brought a smile to his face and nodded. “Bet you I’m still more flexible.”
“Probably, but don’t get used to it. Your days as the world’s best gymnast are numbered.”
“Hm. We’ll see.”
~
 Damian.
She blinked at him. She really hadn’t expected him to… come by at all, honestly. Sure, they’d been getting along better than they’d used to and they were partners before she’d disappeared, but they weren’t partners anymore. He had no reason to come talk to her.
She smiled at him nonetheless. Company was company, and she wasn’t about to be picky when she was locked in a room for the foreseeable future.
“Dami!” She said brightly, crossing her legs criss-cross applesauce and then -- after thinking about it for a moment -- smoothed her dress out to make sure everything was hidden. (Damian was only a few months younger than her, she knew that logically, but some dumb part of her kept saying ‘child’.)
He regarded her for a moment before taking a seat beside her.
“Marinette,” he greeted carefully.
“Are you here for something?” She asked.
He hesitated, just slightly, and then nodded.
Ah. She wasn’t sure how she could be of help, compromised as she was, but she was certainly ready to try.
“I would like to know about my miraculous. Plagg has been… behaving oddly recently.”
Her smile slipped off her face at that. “Oddly how?” She said, eyeing his pockets like she believed the kwami would pop out at any moment and show her himself (which, granted, was entirely possible, but apparently not going to happen).
“He’s been more energetic. Less hungry. It doesn’t make sense.”
She thought about this for a few minutes, resting her head on her hand. Damian was right, that didn’t make sense… if anything, Plagg had been getting more laidback and mellow as time has stretched on...
Unless…
“Have you been using him?”
“... no. Is he just hyper from not being used, then?”
She stared at him, her head tipping to the side slightly as she considered him. Why wasn’t he using the miraculous? She would understand if it was a tactical decision to keep Catw -- was she called something else now that she was using the ladybug miraculous? -- Selina from using the miraculous as often, but it seemed he didn’t really know about that… so why…?
She pushed the thought from her mind. Maybe Damian just didn’t like the smell of Camambert. She wouldn’t blame him.
“It’s a balance thing. If the ladybug is used without the cat, the ladybug gets weaker and the cat gets stronger. Opposite thing happens when you use the cat without the ladybug. They’re meant to be used as a pair.” She clicked her tongue. “It probably doesn’t help that you’re on different sides.”
He nodded his understanding.
There was a beat as they just stood there (well, technically they were sitting, but whatever). She was kind of wondering why he was still there when he apparently didn’t need anything else from her, but what was she going to do? Tell him to leave? No. She was kind of desperate for the company of someone that wasn’t Jason or Dick (Cass and Duke only came by weekly so she didn’t mind them as much… also, they were Cass and Duke, so...).
He cleared his throat awkwardly, pulling her from her thoughts.
“Drake has informed me of your state.”
“I’m dead, yeah,” she confirmed.
He winced and his eyes fell to his lap. “I have also died before, if you would like to talk about it.”
She stared at him. She really hadn’t taken him for the kind of person who would offer moral support…
She pulled a smile to her face and leaned over to press a kiss to his cheek. Her smile became a little more real as she watched him scowl and wipe away the kiss.
“Thanks for the offer, Dami, but I’m fine.”
He gave her a skeptical look.
“Really. I’ll tell you guys as much as I need to for you to believe it: nothing much happened while I was there. Honestly, it was more boring than scary. So relax, I’m fine. I’ll live.”
And then, because she couldn’t help it, she added: “Well, that ship sailed long ago, but you know what I mean.”
He clicked his tongue. “Now I have to deal with terrible death jokes from you AND Todd? I wish I were dead.”
“You wish you were STILL dead, you mean?” She teased, reaching out to pinch his cheeks and breaking out into laughter when he swatted her hands away.
He rolled his eyes at her and then, with a short ‘Goodbye’, he left. She watched him leave, and the smile slid from her face in time with the door sliding shut behind him.
She fell back on the bed and closed her eyes. She didn’t get why people were so concerned about her. They’d faced worse. Hell, even SHE’D faced worse. Why were they making such a big deal about it?
Nothing had happened! Did they believe her when she told them that? She’d had no reason to lie, and she hadn’t been lying... and even if they’d thought she had they had Cass to prove she wasn’t. Hell, that was probably why Cass had come by at all, to check on her mental state! So why were they all so worried? They should know it was fine!
And even if she wasn’t fine (which she was!) it wasn’t like she didn’t have the same training as them. She could spot the victim questions from a mile away and she could even ask them to herself. She knew the answers, and she knew which ones she should be avoiding because she knew that they sounded way worse than they actually were.
Some vague part of her whispered that if anything sounded at all bad to the victim questions then she was, in fact, a victim. She buried her face in her pillow and gave a strangled scream of frustration. Now she had their stupid voices in her head telling her something was wrong, too.
~
She didn’t even look up from her phone when she heard the door slide open. Partially because she was kind of addicted to Geometry Dash and she wouldn’t win if she was looking up and partially because she could smell coffee so she knew who it was anyways.
“Thank fuck you’re here, Jay, I was --.”
“Sorry, but you’re going to have to wait a little longer for him, bean.”
Her eyes snapped to the door and her little box thingy on her screen died but she could hardly bring herself to care.
Tim!
Her face lit up. She hadn’t seen him in a while and she had really been missing him. Also, she noted vaguely, he was apparently healed from all of his injuries. Nice!
Except, as she scrutinized his face, she noticed he looked even more tired than usual. His skin was deathly pale, the bags under his eyes made him look like a raccoon, his hair hung limply around his face…
“Damn, and I thought I looked dead on my feet,” she teased softly to hide her concern.
He managed a smile and she waved him over to lay down with her. He hesitated before coming to sit beside her on the bed.
“When’s the last time you got some proper sleep?” She asked, tugging on the sleeve of his turtleneck to try and get him to lay down and cuddle with her. If she could get him to he might accidentally drift off.
He must have known what she was trying, because he resisted her attempts. “I’m fine. It’s been a while, but it’s nothing I’m not used to.”
She crossed her arms. “Fine. What’s wrong?”
He stared at her confusedly.
“You only get this bad when something is going on. What is it?”
He just kept staring at her and she shifted awkwardly.
“... bean…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s you. I’m worried about you.”
She groaned. “Not you, too.”
“Obviously I’m --.” He cut himself off and then mulled over his words for a bit. He decided on: “I don’t want to keep you here forever. I don’t want you to get ‘better’ because we Stockholm syndrome-ed you. Or re-Stockholm syndrome-ed you, since Harley already did it.”
“She didn’t --,” Marinette started, but she gave up on that. She knew they all didn’t understand it and arguing would probably only solidify their belief that Harley had messed her up in some way. Instead, she settled to address the rest of the statement:  “I mean… I already liked you all beforehand so… it’s not like caring about you would be exactly NEW...”
“It’s still wrong.”
She gave a tiny shrug. “It’s not like you have any other options. I’d probably be doing the same thing if everything was reversed.”
“That doesn’t really make me feel better,” said Tim with a tiny shake of his head.
She bit the inside of her cheek to keep the frown off of her face. “Then I don’t know what you want from me, Tim.”
He sighed. “I want you to get better.”
“Hard to do when I’m already fine.”
“But you’re not! You’re literally dead! How is that at all fine?!”
She rolled her eyes. She was getting a headache, though she wasn’t sure whether or not it was because of caffeine withdrawal (she was pretty sure Jason was supposed to have come in a few hours ago) or annoyance at repeating herself so many times. She pressed her cold hand to her forehead to try and alleviate it somewhat.
“It’s not even that bad, honestly. I can still drink coffee and sleep and that’s all I really care about. I can even feel pain! It’s pretty much the same except I don’t have to go to the bathroom and I can’t change clothes!”
Tim stared at her for a few moments before slamming his palm against his forehead. “That’s what it is!”
“Huh?”
“I thought something was weird about you being dead,” he explained, though it didn’t really explain anything. “Give me a minute, I’ll be back.”
She watched him practically run out the door and frowned confusedly. Sure, it was a little weird that she could still do most stuff, but that didn’t really warrant getting up in such a rush. Maybe the dead thing creeped him out more than he let on and he needed a breather?
So she picked up her phone and started playing Geometry Dash again while she waited for him to come back.
About an hour later she heard the door slide open and she raised her eyebrows at the sight of Tim holding a thermos and a plastic tray of food from Red Robin (the restaurant; anything he cooked was straight poison and if she tried it she might just die for real).
She watched him sit down with them. “You hungry?”
He shook his head and shoved them towards her. “They’re for you.”
Her confusion only seemed to grow.
“Sweetie, I don’t eat,” she reminded him, though she did take the thermos in case… nice! Coffee!
“Except you can if you want to, which is weird, right?”
She shrugged a little, not bothering to tear her lips away from her drink to give him a proper ‘I guess’.
“But where’s it going? Because you don’t go to the bathroom so it has to be used up in some way otherwise you would have probably exploded by now.”
She finished the drink and then set down the empty thermos beside herself. “Magic, probably…”
“Maybe,” he gave her, but that didn’t seem to put him out. “But then there’s the pain thing. Sure, it’s muted, but it’s definitely still there. Why should a dead person feel pain?”
“Because I’m not fully dead…?”
“Exactly!”
She shrugged again. “I really don’t see where you’re going with this.”
“What if you just need food or something to come back? Because you clearly had a headache, and it seems like it’s caffeine-related because you’ve relaxed a little since you had your coffee, which means we know that your digestive, nervous, and circulatory system are still working on some level...”
She stared at the food he’d given her.
“You think that if I eat enough I can come back.”
He nodded. “I know it’s a longshot, but we should at least try it, right?”
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