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sparkleofpizza · 4 years

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Being a Kent and dating a batboy - headcanon

Tim Drake

You were Clark’s adoptive daughter, he had decided to take you in after your parents left you behind;

You were Conner and Jon’s little sister;

Very overprotective over you;

You had known Tim for a very long time now, since he was Conner’s best friend and all;

You though he was very cute, not that you would admit it to anyone;

Lois knew - she knew everything, but didn’t say anything to you, letting you tell her yourself when you felt comfortable enough to;

She knew the boys would freak out if they found out, even Clark;

Lex Luthor was planning something big and bad, very bad;

Lois was out of the country for some conference she would be covering for te Daily Planet and they’d be damned if they let anything happen to you, so they did the most logic thing they could think of at the moment: send you away to stay at the Wayne Manor while they sorted things out;

You weren’t a super and although you knew how to fight they couldn’t risk you getting hurt;

You were offended they thought you couldn’t handle yourself, but knew they were only doing it out of love;

You also wouldn’t pass up the opportunity of spending some quality time with Tim without one of your brother lurking around;

He was over the moon to know you were staying over for a while;

The both of you did everything together;

Stayed up all night working on cases;

Drank a lot of coffee;

Went on little coffee dates, not like you actually called it a date;

Watched movies and lots of tv shows;

Sparred together;

The nights Tim left for patrol were the worse, you would stay up waiting for him to come back, worried out of your mind;

I mean, your brothers and father were fighting a big threat back home, and your crush was risking his neck to save the city, it is impossible not to worry;

So one night you wrapped yourself up in one of his blankets and lied on his bed, waiting for him to return;

Oh, when he saw you so peacefully asleep, he felt like his heart was going to explode, you were just so so so adorable;

He lied down next to you, groaning a bit since he got hurt during patrol;

You sat up, eyes wide open when you heard that sound, turning around and grabbing his face in between your hands;

“Are you hurt?” You asked, way too serious “It’s just a broken rib” He smiled at you, leaning in your touch

To this day you still don’t know what gotten into you, but you pressed your lips against his in a heated kiss, pouring all of your emotions in it;

He obviously kissed you back;

You spend the rest of the night in each others arms, professing their love for one another;

Actually, you started to spend most of your nights like that;

And days too;

You were always in each others embrace;

You were afraid to tell your brothers and father that you and Tim were dating;

You were pretty sure Conner would freak out, you are his little sister and you’re dating his best friend;,

The both of you would sneak out a lot after you went home;

Whenever Tim was around you and your brothers or his brothers were there too, he had to fight back the urge to just wrap his arms around your waist and prep kisses all over your face;

You would sneak off a lot, not really wanting anyone to know about your relationship;

Damian was the first one to find out about you and Tim and surprisingly allowed you to tell the news to everyone when you were ready for it;

Lois knew, of course she knew, you couldn’t just get your first boyfriend who was also a vigilant and your brother’s best friend and just not tell your mother about it;

It was a chaos when everyone found out;

You and Tim were cuddling in the Cave, him working and you sitting on his lap, massaging his scalp and playing with his hair;

Conner yelled and tried to kill your boyfriend the moment he saw it;

Jon tried to kill him too, Clark was just too shocked to say something;

Bruce stood still watching the scene unfold before he tried to break them free;

Jason slid some money to Dick, loosing the bet they had placed on the both of you as Damian shook his head in shame;

The fight had escalated way too quickly;

You were so frustrated you said you would only talk to them when they learned how to behave like proper human beings and not treat you like an object of possession;

Walking alone I’m Gotham at 3 am couldn’t possibly be a good idea, but there you were, on your own only wearing a hood and not even carrying your phone with you;

You ended up with a superficial cut on your side and a bruised hand after kicking 4 thugs asses on your own;

Tim was the first to find you, pulling you into a tight embrace, but panicking once he saw some blood dripping - it was really a small cut, but he carried you to the hospital despite your protests;

Your father and brothers soon learned about where you were, they were kind of shocked that Tim thought you should get medical help when you clearly had a very superficial cut and Alfred could’ve handled it in a blink of an eye;

That kind of made them start to change their minds about you guys relationship;

Of course it doesn’t mean that Jon and specially Conner didn’t threatened to kill Tim very slowly if he ever hurt you, and that they were always keeping an eye on you;

So secret make out sessions had to become even more secretive and silent, God you hated super hearing;

You once had to stay with your hair down for almost a week because of a hickey Tim left on your neck, and from there on you both agreed that hickeys were only allowed in the body parts that would remain covered in clothing;

Overall, dis-considering your family overprotectiveness, you were just too happy;

Tim made you happy and you loved him.

Damian Wayne

You were Clark’s baby daughter;

Actually just two years younger than Jon, but they still treated you as a baby;

You didn’t really want to take on the mantle of being Supergirl, so you only ever did superhero activity when it was extremely important;

That being said you weren’t a big part of meeting your family vigilantes and superhero acquaintances;

You actually randomly met Damian not knowing he was your brother’s friend - you knew of him, but didn’t remember his face;

He was in Metropolis to visit Jon and they were supposed to meet at an ice cream shop, but he got lost, running into you. You being he nice person you are decided to take him there, and then once you saw your brother, you were really confused until you realized they were friends;

Damian thought you were a bit stupid, he knew who you were and you didn’t recognize him - he was just bitter that you didn’t remember his face;

You took it upon yourself to make up for the fact that you didn’t remember him, you were feeling so guilty over it;

So every time you saw Damian you would brightly smile at him and ask him how he was doing, ask him about his pets - you learned that from Jon - ask him about Robin, but he didn’t seem to want to talk;

You were sure he hated you, and that made you really sad;

You just had a minor huge crush on him;

One day you had a horrible day at school, people were mean, you failed a geometry test and it just straight up sucked to the point that literally anything could make you cry, so when you only muttered a small hello upon seeing Damian he knew something was up, and he was onto it to find out what it was;

Oh boy, once he cornered you and saw your big round sad eyes full of tears and lip quivering from trying not to cry he promised he would break every single bone of whoever had done that to you;

See, he had a crush on you too;

He started tutoring you on geometry, and you actually improved, he was done with school, but was so smart and that made you a bit more attracted to him;

Your mom, Lois, asked you about your feelings towards him, but you just brushed it off, you didn’t confirm nor denied it;

One day during one of your study dates, Damian placed his hand on your thigh, you tried to ignore it, but before you could realized it you were both kissing each other with you being lied on bed with him on top of you;

That became normal and shortly after you two were dating;

Damian wanted to make things right, so he planned a dinner with both his and yours family to announce you two were dating;

Everyone was shocked, Damian was dating? And it was you????

Jon wanted to jump up his neck and kill him, how could he date his little sister? The bro code!

Damian was unfazed and so were you, not letting anyone get in the middle of your relationship;

Clark was a bit weirded out because you were dating Bruce’s son, but he knew he was a good kid so it was ok for him, Conner thought it was odd and gave Damian a threat if he ever hurt you, Lois was over the moon;

But they were all a bit skepitical about your relationship, everyone thought you wouldn’t last too long;

You were happy everyone took it better than expected, Jon would get there someday too, he couldn’t be mad at you both forever;

Or so you thought;

You and Damian had a date planned? Better think again, Jon is there to ruin it;

You two are making out? Better run fast because Jon is ready to punch Damian;

The truth was that he was feeling left out, Damian is his best friend and he didn’t say anything about liking you, he had to find out when you both got together, and well you’re his sister dating his best friend! It is weird for him!

Everyone soon found out Damian meant serious business with you, the hardest and most horrible way, but they did;

You were out on the field with everyone, it was one of those times there was a big threat and you had to help out;

You were about the get shot and Damian just jumped in front of you, taking the bullet for you;

“Did you just take a bullet for me?” You yelled, kneeling down and pressing on the wound He smiled weekly at you “Of course, beloved, I couldn’t let you get hurt” You looked skeptically at him “You do realize I’m bulletproof, right?”

Jon was flipping his shit once he saw his best friend, collapsing by his side and apologizing for ever thinking he was just messing around with you, and also stating he was stupid for jumping in front of a bullet;

You stayed with Damian 24/7 during his recovery, doing everything for him and just being extra cuddly and lovely;

Jon stopped bothering you, stating he was 100% on board of you two dating, but the moment he saw you making out, Damian without a shirt and you on his lap, boy... He was traumatized.

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aquariusrunes · 4 years

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The Superfriends AU (part 13)

He felt sick.

He’d felt sick since being sentenced to his room by Enda. The small woman found him in the lobby with Jon shortly after the Kryptonian’s meltdown. She dragged him to the door of his room, tossed him inside and slammed it shut, but not before telling him he was forbidden to leave and informing him that she would be making some calls. She told him he was lucky he had such good aim.

She didn’t believe that it was an accident either.

Jon had come to his room, asking what had happened and wondering why he was in trouble. Damian told him it was nothing for him to worry about and that they should focus on Luthor for the time being. He stayed for awhile, the two brainstorming ideas on how to help their fathers, but eventually Jon decided he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. Damian didn’t try to stop him from leaving, but wasn’t too keen on the idea of the boy being alone, so he sent Titus with him.

It made him feel better about Jon, but now Damian was the one by himself.

Being alone used to never bother him, back when he was with his mother he’d be left alone for hours. At first he had well trained nursemaids to take care of him, but once he grew out of that he was given a few guards to watch over him. Even once he learned how to properly defend himself, guards were always by his side. The risk was too great to leave the prince unguarded. But the guards learned quickly, they knew not to overstep, to stay outside of the room, to not speak unless spoken too.

So being alone wasn’t new and it didn’t bother him, it didn’t used to bother him. But then he came to Gotham, and yes he was alone for a long time, but then Grayson came around and Drake started warming up to him, or rather he started warming up to Drake. Alfred was always there and he quickly learned just how many children were in his father’s life. And of course there was Jason. They pretended to be strangers but Jason he’d known longer than all of them.

And now he didn’t like being alone so much.

Usually if trapped by himself he would text. He’d text Colin first, but Colin was upset with him. Then he’d go to Jon, who needed to be alone. He could always text Marinette, no matter the time, but currently the Parisian girl was angry with him. There were his classmates, Gotham Academy may not have been what he expected but he did like the people in his class, even enjoyed their presence on occasion. He could always text the group chat, it was typically teeming with drama. He was probably behind on the drama, seeing how Colin and Marinette had been occupying his phone so often on the trip.

Damian sat on his bed, pillow in his lap, staring at the device. The screen was darkened, making his reflection prominent. He glared at himself. He was still angry, and still very confused. Why was everyone so upset? He hadn’t meant to shoot Adrien, it was an honest to god accident. In fact, if not for Damian’s quick thinking, for the jerk of his hand, the boy would be dead. They should be thanking him!

Damian pressed the home button, typed in his passcode and watched his lockscreen, the nightwing symbol, change to a bright photo of his animals. His finger loomed over his texting app, a silent debate happening in his mind. In the end, he decided he just didn’t have the energy to deal with his classmates.

Instead he opened his contacts and scrolled through them until he found his brothers’ names. Dick was at a wedding, he’d be busy with stuff surrounding the ceremony all week long. Apparently titans from all over the world were gathing. It was more of a week long party with a random wedding thrown in the mix than something traditional. He shouldn’t bother Dick.

Tim was at a conference and Jason was who knows where doing who knows what. Stephenie never gave good advice, at least Damian didn’t think she did. Cass would probably just scold him for almost killing the Agreste boy, no he couldn’t call her. Duke would just be confused if Damian tried contacting him. Kate was also out, knowing the red haired woman, her girlfriend would get involved and Damian would just spend an hour being mothered by the pair.

He could call Barbra?

No. That was a bad idea as well.

Damian fell back on the large pile of pillows, thumb randomly scrolling through his contacts. He had so many numbers listed. He probably didn’t need all of them. He’d copied a copious amount JLA phone numbers into his cellular device, just in case he needed someone specific form the League and didn’t have time to go through his father. If it weren’t for all the trouble with the Luthors Damian might have called Diana.

He tossed his phone to the side, head resting back.

Was there really no one he could call for advice?

He had begun to pride himself on the strides he was making in socializing. Grayson beamed everytime Damian asked for permission to spend time with his classmates. His father would pat his head and tell him how happy he was that his son was branching out. Everyone seemed so excited about him becoming more social. Yet here he was, alone.

Damian reached for his phone again, contacts still open he began to scroll through his classmates. None of them seemed like a good fit for his current predicament. JLA members, the entirety of the Gotham Police Department, all of his classmates, a handful of Gotham rogues, plus his family and he couldn’t call one person for advice. Maybe he wasn’t as good at socializing as he once thought.

He sunk lower into his pillows, phone resting on his chest underneath his hands. He shut his eyes, trying to force himself to sleep. Maybe things would be better in the morning, probably, one could hope. Once everyone got a good night's rest, they would no longer be upset with him. They’d apologize for overreacting…yeah.

Or Edna might decide to be done with him, not worth all the trouble after all. It wouldn’t be hard to reshoot, he’s only modeled a few outfits. Marinette wouldn’t come to his defense, of course not, she’d be too busy playing nursemaid to that dumb blonde cat. Gabriel would most likely file a lawsuit as soon as business hours started. His father would be so angry, years of progress all washed down the drain. Once an assassin always an assassin. He’d probably be sent back to the monks, or some other form of boarding school. Somewhere Damian could be reformed, learn how to be good.

Colin would break up with him.

Were they even still together at this point?

It wasn’t entirely out of the question. They didn’t fight, typically if they had a disagreement or were angry with one another Colin would get frustrated and eventually force them to talk it out. None of their problems lasted long. But it’d been nearly nine hours since they last talked. That was a record, Colin never went that long without talking to him if Damian was upset or if they had a fight. An hour maybe, two if they were busy. But it was now well past eleven at night, Colin was probably asleep. He always said how important it was not to go to bed angry with one another. The red haired boy had a habit of talking like they were married, which Damian didn’t mind, but his brothers often teased him for it.

But it was almost midnight, and Colin was probably asleep.

His boyfriend went to bed angry, meaning they probably weren’t dating anymore.

Colin hated him and never wanted to speak to him again, that was really the only explanation. His ex and cousin probably spent dinner together discussing how much they now hated him. Damian should have seen this coming. He tried so very hard to hide everything he had been taught to be by the League of Assassins, but some of his darkness escaped and now everyone around him saw how ugly he was on the inside. They all hated him, it was the only explanation. Damian would probably get home and be hated by his family as well, maybe even his animals.

God his chest felt like lead.

Why was it so hard to breath?

And why was it so hot all of a sudden?

His heart rate was also accelerated, which was strange. Why was his heart beating so fast?

Oh.

He was having a panic attack.

…

Marinette sat in the cafeteria of the Mode Building, tablet propped up on the table. The place had been practically abandoned for the night, the only light coming from the kitchen doorway. She’d come down to make herself some hot chocolate, hoping it would quell the pit in her stomach, and had found the silence of the large space rather comforting. Plus the view of the city scape that the floor to ceiling windows gave her was gorgeous at this late hour.

She typed away on her device, using her stylist pin every now and again to rearrange what was on her screen. Today had been a mess, and now she was left to pick up the pieces, reshaping them into something that resembled a functioning strategy. Her plan with Lila had been full proof. She had her crew to antagonize her, get her to claim ridiculous things, a growing list of lies Marinette documented flawlessly. Then she and Max set to work debunking everything that came out of her mouth. The bluenette had only needed a little more time, she was so close to proving everything.

But then Lila had uttered Damian’s name.

The very mention of which was making her sick at the moment.

The Wayne’s were powerful, the name alone had so much influence, she’d seen it herself whenever she would visit Gotham. That cursed city believed anything they were told. If some random french girl started spouting off about her and Damian Wayne’s forbidden love, the public would eat it up. And they’d burn Colin at the stake in the process.

She had vivid memories of when she’d visited Gotham at age eleven. She stayed for a month during the summertime. It was her second in person meeting with Damian, the first had begun rough but they’d come out of it extremely close. Within days her picture was everywhere. Everyone referring to her as “the secret girlfriend.” Hordes of Wayne fangirls, varying in age from nine to twenty-six, openly threatened her, they swarmed her cousins whenever they were in public. She recalled one girl getting her hand in Damian’s hair and then breaking down into sobs because she’d gotten to touch one of them.

Damian sued her, if Marinette was remembering correctly.

The tides changed the moment that it was announced she was their cousin. Suddenly, all the fangirls were just as obsessed with her as they were with her cousins. Which somehow made them scarier in Marinette’s eyes.

She could recall every awful thing that the news outlets had said about her. It was like the city itself hated her up until they realized she was a Wayne. Those nasty things were often what swam through her head in the midst of an anxiety attack. Gotham was a horrendous place, she had decided that long ago. It was like the people themselves thought that the only thing their city had to offer was the Waynes, probably because everything else was corrupt or in ruins within seconds. It really was no wonder they were turning out crazies at such an accelerated rate. The city was like a breeding ground for metahuman accidents and mental illness.

She shutdown her folder on Lila.

She wasn’t going to be able to update anything till she got in touch with Foxtrot. She needed to be fully briefed on the aftermath. Of course once she was able to contact her crew they would give her the rundown, but she needed to know what was going on inside, and with Nino on the outs with the Liar, Foxtrot was her only source of information left.

She clutched her stylist harder, she hated what that girl was doing to her. Lila had turned Marinette into the one thing she swore she would never become.

Batman.

She had her army, her spies, spies that not even her spies knew about. An enemy that absorbed her every waking thought. She’d begun to encrypt everything. She had even asked Tim to instal Batcomputer level software on her tablet. He ended up just sending her a new one. Told her it was an early birthday gift and that it would be their little secret. But knowing her cousin, he could probably see everything she did on the device.

She had encrypted files for the war against Lila, and encrypted files for the war against Hawkmoth. Now if only it was possible to get a spy on the inside of Hawkmoth’s operation, god knows her life would be easier. Instead she just had maps of the city, charts of the most frequent akuma attacks, and a list of possible suspects. But investigating the terrorist was much harder than she had originally thought it would be. It wasn’t like Ladybug could just go around randomly questioning people, she was lucky enough to have the relationship she did with the Paris Police, she didn’t need to rock the boat.

She’d even resorted to walking around the city and having Tikki mark places on a map that she felt another Kawami was close. Of course none of those locations panned out. The small magical creature later admitting that she got a strong feeling from the Agreste Mansion, but knowing Adrien was Chat Noir she had excluded it from the list.

All of her cousins, and her uncle, had at one point or another offered their services. Her Uncle Bruce convinced if she’d just let the League into Paris, they would have Hawkmoth in custody within the day. But she couldn’t risk it.

They were damn lucky that no metahumans or supers had shown up in Paris thus far. If Hawkmoth got control of someone with actual powers, the consequences could be disastrous. Marinette knew she could fix any damage an akuma did, but if that akuma had heat vision before getting akumatized, and lasered a building in half? Well she was far less confident that she could fix that.

Hell, she was hesitant to let Bruce Wayne into Paris, and he was family. But her uncle was an emotional time bomb. All his children were, and if Hawkmoth got control of them and saw into their minds...the girl physically shuddered at the thought. Though, with her knew knowledge about Chloé, she had some small amount of hope. Maybe Hawkmoth didn’t have an all access pass to a person’s mind like they had originally thought. It was hard to question anyone about their experiences when they couldn’t remember a thing in the aftermath.

Her head jerked to the side as the soft ding of the elevator rang through the quiet room. She watched as the metallic doors slid open bathing the slim build of Gabriel Agreste in soft yellow light. The girl’s body froze as she watched him step from the elevator and walk through the empty room. He paused roughly halfway to the kitchen, seeming to finally notice the girl.

Marinette’s fingers moved without much thought, shutting down the file she had on Hawkmoth and opening up a random folder on her screen. She smiled and gave a small wave before turning back to her tablet, seeing a handful of Agreste fashion spreads now laid out and illuminated.

“Great.” She whispered. “Just fantastic.” She circled a few of the designs with her stylist before shutting the folder and opening up one filled with Galbaki’s latest spread. Damian had a working theory he had mentioned the other day, before all of the Lila drama unfolded, that Galbaki was copying old lines of famous designers and just giving his version a face lift with a new color scheme and different material.

It was basically what he did with super suits, every single one he created was basically a carbon copy of an old suit Edna had designed, just with ‘edgier’ colors and sparkly material. Damian had asked Marinette to examine the lines more closely, seeing as she had the designer eye in the family. And once they’d built up enough evidence they’d take it to Edna and probably get a parade thrown for them by the small woman.

By the looks of it his last collection was just a color redo of an older Agreste summer line, with a handful of more futuristic elements thrown in for that signature Galbaki style. Liars and cheats made her sick. There were so many hard working good hearted people in the world, who busted their asses everyday for years just to get recognized, for a chance at their shot. And then assholes like this come in and just take it all.

For a second Marinette had a hard time distinguishing Galbaki and Lila in her head.

Her attention lured away from her tablet by the elevators again, seeing their doors close on Mr. Agreste’s form. He was holding a tray of coffee in his hands. That was...very strange.

Why was he getting his own coffee?

And where was Nathalie?

Actually, now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen Nathalie at the shoot this morning. Where was Nathalie?

…

The jet was quiet, save for the bubbling of the champagne. Oliver sat, leg resting on his knee, opposite the beautiful redhead woman whose eyes were focused out the window. The tall, slender woman’s bicep flexed every few minutes as she moved the champagne flute held between her fingers. Her angular face rested in her other hand, lips painted a dangerous shade of red that complimented the olive color of her irises.

“France?” Oliver finally asked, it had taken him a few minutes to process the information he’d been given.

“There’s a man I met in college that I’m hoping to reconnect with.” She answered.

“Does he know?” Oliver asked, leaning forward, setting his own flute on the table between them.

“He only ever knew me as Tess, never Lena, or even Lutessa.” The woman answered. “He had the kindest smile.” Her lips quirked into a grin of her own. “A very humble man, didn’t come from much, I imagine he’s got a nice blue collar job now.”

“Doesn’t sound like your type.” The smile she shot Oliver was lethal.

“Because I’ve had such great luck with billionaires in the past.” She rolled her eyes, taking a sip from her glass, lipstick staining the rim.

“Well, maybe try a nice millionaire, if you’re looking for a change of pace.” She laughed at that, setting her glass down, her green eyes sparkling with mirth.

“Isn’t the whole point of me going undercover in this ridiculous version of witness protection to not attract attention?” She leaned forward. “I think Lex would notice if some random rich man married his baby sister.”

“I don’t know. Lex can be a little dumb sometimes, I should know, I went to prep school with him for ten years.” Oliver offered a smile of his own.

“He’s a genius Ollie. A son of a bitch, yes, but a genius all the same.” She picked her glass up and took another swig. “Besides, Roger was a sweet boy, I’m sure he turned into quite the kind man. I’ve never had enough of those in my life.” Oliver scoffed at her comment, transforming her smile into a smirk. “Of course, that comment does exclude Clark Kent.” She said, lips hovering over the rim of her glass.

“Excuse me?” He rested a hand over his chest.

“Oh come on Oliver, I’ve known you for quite some time, you weren’t always so nice. You still aren’t too terribly nice.” She took another sip before setting her glass down. “You’re kind of a jack-ass Ollie.”

“Yeah but I’m a kind jack-ass.”

She smiled, crossing her legs. “Plus, Emilie is in Paris now. Figured I could reconnect with her. Surely she’d keep my secret.”

Oliver’s eyebrow quirked. “Graham de Vanily?” He asked.

“Mmm.” She took another sip from her glass. “She married that designer, remember?”

Oliver turned to look out the window. “Yeah, I remember.”

The woman’s gaze turned pitying. “The two of you would have never worked out Ollie.” She sighed. “Plus with your extracurriculars I doubt Emilie could have handled it.”

Oliver squinted his eyes. “She was Amanda’s best-”

“Which is why she got out. She hated working for Mandy.” The woman turned her head towards the window. “Despised it, if I'm remembering correctly.”

“Yeah well, I wouldn’t spend too much time with Emmie. Her husband’s an ass.”

“You’re only saying that because she refused to run away with you on the eve of her wedding.” Oliver’s eyes widened.

“You know about that?” He asked.

“You mean you practically begging her to run off into the sunset with you? Yeah Ollie. I’m the one who helped Emilie get out of the life. She told me everything.” She shrugged. “Though, I must admit, I do wish I could become friends with someone, just once, and not find out that you screwed them too.”

“It was never like that with Emilie.” Oliver turned away from her. “It wasn’t like that with you either. For the record. But for some reason whenever I fall for a woman she suddenly decides she hates my guts.”

“The mask doesn’t help.” The redhead whispered.

The silence that stretched between them was long before the woman spoke again. “She’s pregnant you know.” Oliver’s eyes snapped back to the redhead. “Expecting a little boy apparently.”

“He’s going to be a shit father.”

“But she’ll be an amazing mother.”

“She will.”

“I think Roger would probably be a good father,” The woman leaned farther back in her seat. “I wouldn’t mind starting a little family. I’ve always wanted a daughter you know.”

“What if you get a son?”

“Any Luthor progeny carrying a Y chromosome should be killed on sight.” She crossed her arms. “I’ll stand by that till the day I die.”

Oliver nodded in slight agreement. “So, Roger? What if he’s taken?” Oliver smiled cheekily. “Planning to play homewrecker and steal him away from some poor unsuspecting woman?”

“It might sound absolutely ridiculous to someone who falls in love every two seconds with any pretty woman who can match wits with him, but when I left Paris, after I’d finished school, he asked me to marry him.” The woman turned back to the window. “I was Tess then, but I knew I had to be Lena again soon. That my brother was coming for me. I couldn’t drag a good man like him into my world.”

“And?”

“He said he’d wait for me.” She smiled, eyes watching the dark sky. “And it’s the strangest thing but I believed him.”

“What if he’s ugly now?”

The woman let out a snort, leaning forward and covering her mouth. “Oh god Oliver, only you!”

“Definitely not only me. You know what those pricks that we grew up around were like.”

“Only assistants who are easy on the eyes.” The woman rolled her own sparkling irises. “Preferable leggy.”

“And the girls only wanted nice big buff bodyguards, broad shouldered, tall with a head of dark hair.” Oliver leaned forward, smirk wide. “Look, the girls found appearances just as important as us boys. The boys just had a higher sex drive and louder opinions.”

“Much louder.” The woman sighed. “Looks don’t matter that much anymore Ollie. I just want something simple. A family, a quiet life. I want to worry about homework and dinner for a change, instead of figuring out how much kryptonite needs to be melted down and added to the formula of a titanium bullet in order for it to be lethal to everyone’s favourite friendly farm boy journalist.”

“I’m sorry but anyone who prefers Clark to Lois,” Oliver shook his head. “has something seriously wrong with them.”

The woman laughed again, shaking her own head before smiling. “I am going to miss those two.”

“We could always protect you a little closer to home?” The man offered, eyes hopeful, but the woman just shook her head harder.

“I told you Ollie-”

“Rodger.”

“I really do feel like this is what I need to do.” She leaned forward, taking the man’s hand. “I’ll reconnect with Emilie. Get married, have a kid or two. I want to live my life without looking over my shoulder, without fearing that he’ll just appear behind me.”

“We’re going to do our best to give that to you Le-” Oliver stopped, almost biting his lip. “Tess.” He corrected.

“I sure hope so.” The woman smiled, her playful edge back. “Because if Amanda Waller and Bruce’s little Hero Club’s forces combined can’t keep my brother away, then humanity really is doomed.”

…

Oliver’s eyes were killing him. He’d been staring at the damn screen in front of him for hours. Tess had been his responsibility. She wanted out and he promised her safe passage to a better life, a life where the Luthor name, a name she had never wanted, would never catch up to her. He was supposed to protect her from her psychotic brother. He hadn’t been out twenty-four hours and she was unfindable.

The truth of the matter was Tess had stopped regularly checking in years ago. Oliver had contacted her and she had said she was getting married. That she didn’t want her husband to find out anything. She thanked him for everything and then he never heard from her again. He didn’t want to push or pry, he could respect someone starting over from scratch, she had built herself a life and Oliver wasn’t going to be the one who tore it away from her. But now she was likely dead or back in her brother’s clutches, and it was all his fault, and everyone in the room knew it.

Oliver waved his hand over the holopad in front of him, the screen disappearing as he leaned forward on his elbows. It felt strange to be in the Watchtower out of costume but here he was, accompanied by Clarck Kent, Diana Prince, Bruce Wayne, Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, Arthur Curry and the Martian Manhunter. J’onn had opted not to stay in his human disguise, which was fine, no one was going to force him to. When Lex had been released the whole League went to defcon one. None of them had really had time to change once they realized that not only did they no longer have eyes on Lena Luthor, but Checkmate didn’t seem to either.

They were all just sitting around the conference room table. No one spoke, everyone’s attention on their own holopads. He had relayed his story of his and Tess’s last in person conversation, the League had listened intently but now no one seemed interested in offering up opinions.

Clark moved to dismiss his holopad. “What happened after you landed?” The Kryptonian asked.

Oliver sighed, hand running through his hair before resting it on the table in front of him. “After we landed in Italy, we met up with one of Waller’s agents, and I handed Tess off to them. Maybe a year after that, I got a call about her reuniting with Roger, and that was it.”

Bruce sat at the head of the conference table, out of costume but Batman’s signature scowl present on his face. “The agent?” He wiped his hand over the holopad, screen disappearing.

“You’d have to ask Mandy about that one. She was older, grey hair, big eyes, gave me the codeword, introduced herself as Agent Indigo.” Oliver shrugged. “Tess recognized her though, and the codeword was correct, and we were in the agreed meeting spot.”

Clark sat on Bruce’s right, hands clenched into tight fists. “What about this Roger? I mean, how many Rogers can there be in one city?”

“You’d be surprised.” Arthur murmured, eyes scanning over his holopad. “We’re narrowing it down as best we can, but Lena attended five different universities, three of which were in Paris. We’ve got a total of one hundred and seventy-two Rogers and counting that she could have been talking about.”

“A hundred and seventy-two?” Diana asked.

“Paris is a large city with a big population. We’ve also got to account for all grade levels and for all we know Roger wasn’t even a student. He could have just been some rando she met.” Arthur shrugged, pushing some of his own hair out of his face. “But seeing as he’s all we’ve got to go on-”

“What about the girl you two were discussing?” Hal asked, leaning forward on his elbows. “You called her Emery?”

“Emilie.” Oliver corrected. “Emilie Graham de Vanily. She was an actress and came from a pretty prominent family. I met her when I was in my twenties, she also did a stint at Checkmate, worked pretty closely with Tess while she was there.” Oliver’s eyes lowered to his hands. “She was good, but got out after getting engaged to some up and coming designer. The two moved from America to Paris right after the wedding.”

“Great, let’s contact her. If Lena said that she was going to get in touch with her-” Oliver was quick to cut the Amazon Princess off.

“Emilie’s been missing, presumed dead, for years now.” He sighed.

“What about her husband?” J’onn asked, the Martian being the only hero in the room not sitting at the table, he stood off to the side, which wasn’t uncommon for meetings like these. “Would he know anything about Ms. Luthor’s whereabouts?”

“Agreste is an asshole and extremely anti-vigilante and anti-hero. He wouldn’t help us. He also wouldn’t help me if I asked. Guy hates my guts.” Oliver crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

“Agreste?” Bruce asked, eyebrow quirking. “Gabriel Agreste?”

“Uhh, yeah?” Oliver’s own eyebrow raised in question. “He’s kind of gotten big I guess, over the past few years. Some magazine started supporting him.”

“His son is modeling for Edna’s new collection. I met him just a few days ago.” Bruce’s face shifted. “He’s not the friendliest man.” He murmured.

“Do you think he’d be willing to talk to you Bruce?” Diana asked.

“Possibly?” Bruce’s brows nicked together. “But he’s not stupid, he’ll have questoins that I’ll need to be prepared to answer. And if he knew Lena at all well, he’ll want to know why she didn’t mention knowing Bruce Wayne.”

“Do we know what alias Lena used?” Barry asked, the speedster sitting with his legs propped up on the table, slumped in his chair with his arms folded behind his head. “I mean, we know she was using Tess, or a name that could be shortened to it. She’d have to for this Rodger guy’s sake. But, to keep Lex away she probably didn’t go back to using Mercer. If we could find out what last name she was using, we could do a search for Paris Marriages between some form of Tess and Roger expanding like three…four years after she went undercover.”

The room went silent, making Barry sit up and look around at his fellow heroes. “Oh come on guys, I could not be the only one who thought of that.”

“Let’s move on.” Bruce quickly supplied. “Start the search like Barry suggested.” His holopad reappeared. “We’ll need a list of all possible first names she could have used. Amanda forwarded us all of Lena’s known aliases, we can use those to compile a possible last name-”

A sudden buzzing noise came from the businessman's suit jacket. Bruce reached inside the breast pocket and pulled out a slim black smartphone. He stood excusing himself and walked towards the wall of glass at the end of the room, placing the device to his ear.

“Hello?”

Everyone was quiet, quick at work on their holopads, but all had their ears open, carefully listening to the man’s conversation. It was rare for him to take a Bruce Wayne call in front of them.

“Aunt Edna-”

“Yes I understand that Damian-”

“He did what?”

Clark raised an eyebrow, pulling out his own phone and checking over it. “No messages from Jon.” He whispered.

“Yes Aunt Edna, I understand.” The man’s fingers where clenched over his phone. “I’ll talk to him. He’ll apologize. Do you know why it happen-”

The man stopped, eyes narrowing as he listened to the woman on the other line. “Well Edna, if he said it was an accident-”

“Now listen, Damian may be a lot of things but he isn’t a liar!” Bruce’s voice raised, everyone in the room’s full attention now on him. “If he said it was an accident Edna, then he didn’t mean to do it.”

“I’m well aware that he’s a trained assassin, but he’s also a sixteen year old boy who makes just as many mistakes as any other teenager.” His voice became sterner. “I agree he should apologize to the boy, but if he said it was an accident, then it was an accident.”

He bid the woman goodbye before hanging up. His eyes stayed locked on his screen as he typed furiously. “Dick won’t answer,” He murrmured. “Jason would probably be best for this.” His voice stayed quiet as he walked back to the table and took his seat. “No, he’s on Themyscira-”

“Jason is on Themyscira?” Diana asked, the woman was seated on Bruce’s left, she leaned over the table to get closer to him.

“Artemis invited him for the week.” Bruce’s voice had gone back to its usual Batman monotone. “It’ll have to be Tim.”

“Got it!” Barry suddenly shouted, holopad in hand but body back in it’s relaxed position. With a swipe of his finger the contents of his screen were displayed on the window behind Bruce for the rest of the room to see. “Seventeen years ago, just outside of Paris, Theresa Kent, love that little jab at her brother, and Roger Raincomprix were married! Boom! Your welcome!”

“Theresa Kent?” Hal questioned, eyeing the picture of the couple now on screen.

Oliver and Clark shared a look, there was no mistaking it, the woman was definitely Tess. “Man she really wasn’t kidding about that guy not being her typical type.” Oliver whispered, eyeing over the photo of the man on screen.

“Do we have an address?” Clark asked, already halfway out of his seat.

“A moment good sir.” Barry’s fingers flew across his screen, super speed kicking in. But suddenly his hands fell flat. “Oh my god.” He whispered.

“What?” Arthur asked. J’onn had approached the speedster’s seat, he loomed over the redhead. His eyes widened only slightly as he read the words still only Barry had access to.

“Theresa Raincomprix died of radiation induced cancer six years ago.” The Martian supplied. “Survived by her husband, Officer Roger Raincomprix, and their ten year old daughter.”

Oliver’s heart sank.

“Radiation induced cancer.” Clark said, falling back into his seat. His eyes glued to the table as they slowly morphed into a glare. “Kryptonite induced cancer.”

“Son of a bitch killed his sister.” Oliver hissed.

“At least she’s finally free from her brother.” Barry offered.

“Yes.” Diana folded her hands in her lap. “May she find peace in the afterlife.”

“Should we be worried for the husband?” Arthur asked. “I mean, he wouldn’t have any use to Luthor, right?”

“Probably not.” Hal answered. “Lex prefers to keep things in the family, and this guy might have married his sister, but I mean, look at him.” He gestured to the photos still on screen. “He’s no Luthor.”

Oliver felt sick and by the look on Clark’s face the same thoughts were racing through the Kryptonian’s mind as well. “But the daughter is.”

…

Damian laid on his side, knees curled into his chest, arms wrapped tightly around himself. He was trying to focus on his breathing but his head was killing him and the small noises around him had all become so acute.

He just wanted to sleep at this point. Well, really he wanted to cry, but Damian didn’t cry so sleeping was his next best option. However, the omnipotent force that watch over humanity and laughed at it’s suffer seemed to be targeting him. Keeping him from peace.

With a sigh he rolled back onto his back, glaring up at the ceiling as his phone began to buzz next to him. He didn’t even look at the name flashing across his screen before answering and placing the device against his ear.

“What happened D?” Damian let out an annoyed groan. “You can hang up on me if you want but I'm just going to keep calling.”

“Then I'll turn off my phone.” He snapped.

“Go right ahead, I'll just hack into it and turn it back on. And then I'll call again.” There was a pause, like the voice was waiting for some snotty remark, when none came it continued. “What happened?”

“Did Edna call you?”

“No daemon spawn, Bruce did.” Another pause. “He sounded worried.”

“And you care because?” Damian’s glare intensified.

“We’ve been over this Damian.” The voice softened. “Weren’t we making progress like a week ago?”

“Me saving Red Robin’s ass from the Joker isn’t making progress Drake, it’s me doing my damn job.” He sneered.

He could hear a sigh come from his brother. “Just talk to me Damian. What happened? You’re lashing out, just like you did this afternoon, apparently.” He could hear the eye roll through the phone. “Personally I think it’s Auntie’s fault for arming you but I got yelled at when I voiced that opinion. So please, tell me your side of the story?”

Damian took a deep breath, jaw set and eyes closed. He didn’t want to talk about this. In fact, it would be great if he could just forget the whole day had even happened. He just wanted to sleep and have everything be back to his weird version of normal when he woke up.

“I fucked up.” His voice cracked as he spoke, tears pricking the corners of his eyes when they opened.

“Okay, why do you think that?” Tim’s voice was calm as he questioned his brother.

“Marinette was upset. She’d been upset all day-”

“Did you ask her why?” His brother interrupted.

“I tried to,” God he needed to get his voice under control. “She wouldn’t talk to me. So I said I could go get Adrien-”

“The kid you shot?”

“Yeah, he’s cat boy, or whatever his name is.” Damian’s eyes trailed off to the side of the room. He knew the boy’s alterego, in fact Damian had been the one to put together Chat Noir’s file for the Batcomputer. But at the moment the feline themed superhero’s name left a bad taste in the former assassin’s mouth.

“Chat Noir?”

“Yeah him.” Damian grumbled. “You should have seen her, she recoiled so violently. The only logical conclusion I could come to was that Adrien was the cause of her pain.”

“So you shot him?” Tim asked, confusion lacing his voice.

“NO!” The word came out louder than he had intended it to. “I just-I was upset and angry and-I didn’t mean-no one believes me but I didn't-I didn’t mean-”

“Take a breath baby brother.” Tim whispered. “I’m not upset with you, I just want to understand what happened. So please, take a breath, and explain it to me.”

“The voices came back.”

That was all Damian had to say. Tim had been the only member of his family he had told about the voices that plagued him. How his grandfather had been in his head since he was little, the way his mother’s voice had joined his once he came to Gotham. How they would whisper horrible things to him, tell him to do horrible things.

How hard they were to block out.

“Oh Damian.” Tim whispered. The pity in his voice causing the younger boy to seethe with anger and a few other emotions he couldn’t quite name. Something akin to sadness or betrayal.

“Shut up!” Damian snapped. “I just-it’s hard to block them out...sometimes.” Damian sat up, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his chin atop them. “I was just so focused on not doing what they told me to that, well, everything else just faded away.”

“How did it happen then?” Tim asked, voice cautious.

“Edna clapped, I’m still not sure why.” Damian brought his free hand up to rest on his knees. “I don’t know, it just, I wasn’t prepared for it.” His eyes hardened into a glare as he heard a snicker from the other end of the phone.

“A four foot three inch tall woman got the drop on you?” Tim asked with laughter in his voice. “That might just be the funniest shit I’ve heard all day.”

“So glad my misery amuses you.” Damian hissed.

“Sorry D,” Tim murmed. “Look, I know things kind of suck right now, and everyone is probably really angry with you. But if you sit down and just explain to Edna and Marinette what happened, I know they’ll forgive you.”

“Yes, because Auntie is known for her forgiveness.” He spit sarcastically.

“No, because Auntie, for some weird reason, loves all of us seemingly unconditionally. And she would never be upset with you for something that stems from a childhood full of trauma.”

Damian huffed. He hated that word. Trauma. Everyone in his family seemed so big on it too, telling him he had nothing to be ashamed of, that it was okay. Yeah, no duh it was okay. Was his childhood fun? No, not by normal people standards, but he survived it and he’s moved on. He just wanted people to quit bringing it up. And he especially wanted them to stop pushing him to use it as an excuse. He was a big boy, and he took responsibility for his actions always. Well, except for this case, but this was different. They were all treating him like a criminal, when he hadn’t meant to do it. And as soon as they all understood that, then he would take responsibility for what he’d done.

“I’m sure Colin will tell you the same thing.” Tim added, a dull pain blooming in Damian’s chest. His eyes slowly traveled up to the wall, landing on the decorative clock mounted on the red wallpaper. It was well past two in the morning now.

“Sure.” Damian whispered. “How’s the conference?” He needed a subject change quick, before Tim picked up on something that Damian really didn’t want to talk about.

“Well, it was very interesting. But I’m not there anymore.” His brother huffed. “I’m actually on the road right now. I’m on my way to meet up with Bart, Cassie and Jaime. We’re going to see if we can’t track down the son of a bitch who ran Trisha Bailey off the road.” He paused. “Have you been briefed on-”

“Jon filled me in.”

“Poor kid. How’s he doing?”

“He’s tougher than people give him credit for. Right now he just seems to be more angry than anything else.” Damian uncurled form himself. “I sent Titus with him for the night.”

He could practically hear the smile in Tim’s voice. “That was very sweet of you Damian.”

“tt” The boy rolled his eyes.

“I’m sure he really appreciates the gesture Dams.”

“What I know he’d appreciate is some headway with this whole ordeal.” Damian huffed. “You said you spoke with father, did he mention anything?”

“They’ve got a lead on Lena Luthor’s whereabouts. But he didn’t give me anything concrete. He told me my main focus should be with Trisha Bailey right now.”

“Then why are you talking to me?”

“Dick’s at a wedding and has his phone turned off, wonderful timing for Rae and BB to tie the knot, seeing as how the world is ending and all. Jay is on Themyscira riding unicorns with Artemis or something. And we all know if any of the girls called you, you would have already hung up on them.”

“I would never hang up on Cass. How dare you insulate such a thing.” Damian slowly leaned back on one of his elbows. “Brown, of course. And I simply wouldn’t have answered if Kane called.”

“Which Bruce knew, hence why I’m calling.” Now his brother was starting to get annoyed, his tone made it obvious. Good. Damian was much better equipped to handle an annoyed Tim then a considerate and concerned one.

“He could have called me himself.”

“League emergency. Remember?”

Damian fell back completely against the comforter. “You’re dealing with that emergency too. You found time to call.”

“I’m driving across the country right now and am no longer aloud to multitask behind the wheel. Not after that parade incident last Easter.” He answered begrudgingly. “If Bruce had a spare moment he would have called himself, he’s just busy right now.”

He’s always busy. Is what Damian wanted to say, instead he opted for a quiet, “I know.” and a quick subject change. “Why are you driving? You could have just used the zaidatubes.”

“Bruce shut them all down, all except for the direct links to the watchtower. We’re at defcon one Damian.”

“Well, Luthor did go after the first lady of the league.” The sarcasm in Damian’s voice was evident.

“This is serious Damian, you don’t know what Lex is capable of.” The tone his brother took wasn’t lost on Damian. It’d been a while since he heard Tim sound so intense. “Back before you and Jon were around, Lex was a really big deal. He survived Brainiac, Kryptonite induced cancer, among other things. He’s a genius. And scary. Not to mention, we aren't even sure whose identities are still a secret to him. I think the League is right to be as cautious as they are right now.”

“You sound like you're preparing for war.”

“We are at war Damian.” There was a pause. “It’s all hands on deck as far as I can tell.”

“Should I-”

“No.” The answer was quick and a little cutting. “Like I said, we don’t know whose identities are safe right now. We know the Kents aren’t safe, but we have suspicions that he might be onto the Waynes too. You’re in the spotlight right now with everything Edna’s doing. It’s a good distraction. Plus, as long as Jon is by your side, he’s safe.”

Damian slowly sat back up. “What do you mean?” He asked.

“We know Lex isn’t above targeting Clark’s family. Kara is held up with Babs, Lois is being protected by Dinah, Conner is with Megan at the wedding, and Mama Kent has been moved to Wayne Manor. Being near you and Edna Mode’s security team is the safest place for that boy right now.”

Damian stayed quiet for a long moment. His first instinct, seeing how everyone here was mad at him currently, was to flee. He could be of great help on the watchtower. Give him a supercomputer and a few hours, he could probably find Lena Luthor faster than the big seven combined. But if this was the safest place for Jon…

“You’ll keep me updated, right?” His voice was small. “Father isn’t big on keeping me well informed. I’d like to know about any developments as soon as possible.”

“Of course I will.”

“Thank you.” Damian pulled his knees back up to his chest. “For calling.” He added, voice quiet. “I’ll keep Jon safe.”

“I know you will.” A sigh came from his brother, like he regretted that this was a responsibility Damian had to take on. “We all know you will.”

It was now official. Damian had hoped it wouldn’t be as big of a deal as Jon’s anxiety seemed to be making it out to be. Lex Luthor had declared war, and up until Trisha Bailey’s car accident the League had been winning. But now, now it was any man’s game.

_______________________________________________________________________

(part 1) (part 2) (part 2.5) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7) (part 8) (part 9) (part 10) (part 11) (part 12) (part 13) - here (part 14)

So it’s been a hot minute since I’ve last updated. Sorry for that. I rewrote this part like ten times. I started out with a very clear outline but that quickly got thrown in the trash. Anyway, some plot points I’ve been thinking about for forever have finally made it into the story and I’m very excited about them! Please let me know what you guys think of this part and let me know if you have any thoughts for what might happen in future parts! Hopefully part 14 will be out soon but I make no guarantees. As always if you have any questions about the story or AU feel free to ask, I love getting them and will happily answer any question you got (even if it’s not about this AU)! And if you want to be tagged let me know!

@graduatedmelon @northernbluetongue @violatiger8 @bamagirl513 @vixen-uchiha @beaversuenightly @tumbling-down-hills-and-stuff @todaylillypads @laurakinneylance @vgirl-10123 @wellcrud-blog-blog @silvergold-swirl @crazylittlemunchkin @an-ahez @queencommonsense @ladybug-182 @meganemily231 @driftingmoonlitpetals @kand-roo @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @theatreandcomicfreak @paradoxal-occurance @miraculousl4dybug @thanks-captain-obvious @sassydepression @multishipper1needshalp @wegan97 @redscarlet95 @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @synnesstra @fandomkitty8 @tired-yeetling @saluteswifties @kanamexzeroyaoifangirl @dast218 @naclychilli @royalchaoticfangirl @panda3506 @nataladriana9 @shreky-boi @my-name-is-michell @dawnwave16 @thethirdwheelfriend @quiet-oracle @heaven428 @dabub167 @kris-pines04 @severelyenchantedwonderland @urbanpineapplefarmer @goblinwhoships

#the superfriends au #enda mode meets miraculous ladybug meets batman #edna mode #the incredibles #miraculous ladybug #mlau #batman #dcmultiverse #dc #justice league #tess mercer #ml au

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naleyamelink · 4 years

Text

Are you Jealous? Pt 1

"Hey! What are you doing today" Link asks me whilst passing me a coffee we turn round the corner and begin walking towards the lobby.

"Well Tom has set this meeting up with a colleague of his who wants to train under me. Be my fellow, I guess."

"That's exciting." he paused for a second and looked at my face - it did not look happy.'Why do I get the feeling that you're not looking forward to this at all"

"For one this meeting means I have no surgeries booked unless a head trauma comes in and also it's just, I don't care for the teaching aspect you know. I have interns that I teach that's enough for me I don't need someone else, you know what I mean?

He paused and looked at me confused "You do realise this is a teaching hospital right?"

I teasingly leaned into him and laughed "shut up!"

He laughed too and placed his arm around my lower back. I smiled.

"Okay, I've gotta go. Thanks for the coffee"

He smiled "You're welcome. Now go kick some ass"

I looked at him before pressing my lips against his "you've never said that before in your life have you?"

Before my lips met his he laughed and replied with a simple "No."

Our lips touched just for a second as I pulled away i saw him smile "I love you"

"I love you too" I quickly pressed my lips against his "alright I've really gotta go"

He looked at me "alright, you go. I'm not stopping you" he kissed me again and I sighed as I pulled away "Stop, I really do have to go" I said.

He laughed and removed his arm from around by back "Okay, go"

I laughed and turned away. I was dying to look back but I knew he'd be watching me.

I walked into the conference room and I was introduced to Tom's colleague. He was the definition of tall, dark and handsome.

"Hi" he smiled as I entered the room. I gave him a small smile back before holding my hand out. He grabbed it and gave it a strong shake "I'm Dr Sam Hudson, its a pleasure to meet you Dr shepherd"

"Likewise, also you can call me Amelia. " I replied whilst pulling out a chair to sit in.

We spent 40 mins in the conference room discussing Dr Hudson's plan for if he became my fellow. I didn't want to admit it but the plan sounded really good. It meant I could teach and have someone who could cover for me when necessary which was great considering I wanted to spend more time with Link and the baby.

I showed Sam around Grey Sloan before heading to the cafeteria for lunch where we bumped into Link.

"Hey! " I said as I approached him at the table he was sitting at by himself.

" Hey!" He jumped and looked up at me. A smile instantly grew on his face his eyebrows furrowed when he saw the man standing behind me.

"Who's this?" he asked.

" Oh, this is Dr Hudson, he's considering joining Grey Sloan to be my fellow. I turned to Dr Hudson and introduced him to Link. "This is Dr Atticus Lincoln he's our Head of Ortho" I told him.

Link stood up and held his arm out "you can just call me Link"

Sam acknowledged his hand and shook it "you can call me Sam". They both chuckled to themselves

Once he had finished shaking Sam's hand Link put his arm around me. Making me smile instantly.

He then turned towards me "Do you want to join me for lunch?"

"That'd be great!" I replied "We're going to eat and then go down for surgery"

"Surgery?" he questioned " You said you didn't have a surgery scheduled today"

"I didn't but" before I could finish Sam had interrupted me

"I really wanted to operate with Amelia, before deciding whether I wanted to join the program so she and Dr Koracick were able to schedule a craniotamy for us to do. I mean she really is the best in the business" he smiled and I found myself smiling back.

"Oh I know" was Links reply.

"Amelia and I worked together on a really difficult spinal cord surgery in New York a while back. It was amazing, that was the first surgery where I was really able to witness her incredible talent"

I turned my head to look at him and I smiled. He smiled too. That Surgery had been crazy that whole weekend had crazy. That was the first and last time link ever met my family, its crazy to think that we were just having sex then and now we're in a strong healthy relationship and parents to a beautiful baby boy. I smiled at the memory.

"Yeah, that was such a good case." I paused for a moment and turned towards Sam "If you do decide to join Grey Sloan then maybe you and I could work on a case like that".

Sam nodded whilst picking up his glass of water. Before taking a sip he added "I would love that"

He and I both laughed but before we could continue Link spoke suddenly "Cases like that are incrediblely difficult to find, we were just so lucky, right babe? "

Babe? I looked at Link with furrowed brows, he had never called me babe before. Not during our entire relationship, not at home and especially not at the hospital.

"Right" I replied sounding confused.

Dr Hudson placed his glass down and began to stand up "Well, we should be going our patient will be going for pre op shortly"

"Yeah" I agreed whilst standing up

Link rose to his feet too "it was nice meeting you"

"Same here" Sam replied whilst walking away.

Links lips touched mine before I could even acknowledge what was happening.

"Bye" he said whilst pulling away.

"Bye" I replied.

I had started to catch up to Hudson when I heard Link call my name "Amelia!"

"Yeah?" I asked whilst turning around

"I love you" was his reply.

I stood there dumbfounded "I love you too?"

I walked way feeling really confused. That whole conversation was just weird. I'd never seen link act this way before and I didn't really know what to think.

We had just finished our craniatomy when I was paged 911 to the pit.

"What we got?" I ask whilst entering trauma 1.

"Rachel Evans, 40, crashed car and has distinct fractures to C4 and C5" link replies.

He looks up for a moment "what's he doing here?" he asks under his breathe

"He's a neurosurgeon who's going to help us with the case" I reply sarcastically

Link just makes a face and checks the woman's heart rate. I begin to check her reflexes.

"Can you feel this?" I ask the woman whilst I prod her with a metal stick

"Yes" she replies

"Thats good." I smile

I turn my attention towards Sam "Dr Hudson what do you suggest we do next?"

"Take her up for an MRI" he replies in an instant

"That's right, let's go" I say

Sitting in that small room waiting for the scans to show is probably one of the awkardist experiences I've had to endure. Link isn't talking. Sam isn't talking. Then there I am not talking. The atmosphere is just very weird.

The silence breaks when Link informs us. " the scans are up"

Sam and I both learn forward in our chairs

"Okay there are bulging discs at C5" I state

"Crap. Do you see L-3?" Link asks

"Yeah but L-4 is worse. There's total oliberation of the CFS space and displacement of the cauda" I reply

"She could end up paraplegic" Sam adds

I nod "I want to update the patient and do one final neuro exam before we take her up for surgery. I want to make sure we have all information we can before opening her up"

Sam and Link both answer at the same time "Sounds good".

"Okay, Rachel you suffered two injuries to your spine. The lower one is quite severe." I begin to inform the patient but before I can continue Sam jumps in

"Your neuro-exam is getting progressively worse, so we need yo get in there before you are paralysed from the waist down"

"I could become paralysed? " the patient asks, her voice breaking.

Link steps forward "We're going to do everything we can to reverse the compression on the nerves."

"No, I can't I can't be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life I can't!" the patient sobs

I hold her hand and reassure her "We are going to do everything we can Rachel"

I turn to Link "let's book an OR" he nodds and walks away.

We are now in the OR.

"Pick ups please"

"You did a beautiful job on that first laminectomy Dr Shepherd" Sam informs me

I take a breath "Thank you Dr Hudson." I pause for a moment "ahh this one's tougher. The vertebra is crushed. This is the one that"

"Let me see if I can ease it off" Sam asks.

"Oh I think I should do that" Link jumps in

I shoot him a look but he doesn't notice.

"I think Dr Hudson can handle it." I state

"If Dr Lincoln wants to do it it's fine"

"No, this is good experience for you. I trust you to do it" I say firmly.

"Okay" Link sighs "Be careful. If it shifts just a little she'll be in a wheelchair forever"

"Thats helpful" I whisper under my breath.

I can see the fear in Sam's eyes I try to reassure him "you've got this, I will guide you if necessary"

He nods and begins to release the pressure

"Good. Good. Good. Stop. That's enough" I say whilst watching the monitor

"That was amazing thank you." I say "I'm just going to get that last bone fragment" I add.

"Alright, let's run the potentials again please?" Links asks the nurses.

"Strong motor and sensory signals throughout" the nurse replies

"Okay, Okay. Once we get out of here we're going to reposition for the C5 repair" I inform everyone in the OR.

I look towards Link "Can you get.."

"This little bit right there?" he says whilst completing the task I was about to ask him to do.

I give him a smile "Thank you"

"it's really impressive how you guys do this?"

Do what? "I ask looking confuse

" Neuro." he replies simply " this much pressure? Brains, spines a matter of life or death everytime you step foot into an OR. I couldn't do that."

" Well, I mean" before I could finish my sentence Link interrupts me "I'm saying its impressive, take the compliment Amelia"

He chuckles to himself. I just stand there and admire him. How did I get so lucky? I ask myself.

Before I could answer my question the monitors starting to bleep.

"We're losing signal to both the upper and lower extremities" a nurse states

"What?! Why?" I ask with concern

"Did you nick something when we were removing the disc?" I look at Link

"No!" he says defensively "I wasn't anywhere near it neither were you"

He pauses for a moment and turns his attention to Sam "Did you nick something?"

"No, I-I don't think so" Sam replies shakily

"I don't think so, isn't good enough!" Link shouts

"He didn't!" I intervene. I look towards Link and he looks at me "He didn't, I watched his every move, he didn't" I say.

"Okay, okay. Why are we losing signal then?" he asks confused

"I don't know" I reply

"Is there a residual disc. A penifield 4?" Sam asks.

"Now they've gone completely!" the nurse states

"Is her blood pressure dropping. Is she getting fluids?" Link asks

"Her blood pressure has been stable"

"This makes no sense" Sam interjects

"Recheck the signal!" I say

"Negative! No response in arms or legs"

(I hope you are enjoying this story so far, part 2 will be up shortly!)

#amelia shepherd #atticus lincoln #amelink #amelinkfanfic #amelia and link #greys anatomy #grey's anatomy

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eponymous-rose · 5 years

Text

Best-Laid Plans...

We had a great arc-ending session last night, so I thought this might be a fun chance to share how I prep as a DM... and how things inevitably changed in the game itself!

(If you’re one of my players stumbling onto this, hi, and also thank you again for the amazing scotch. Please let me know you’ve found this account so I can be careful about what I give away in these posts in the future!)

Basically, the entire goofy premise of this arc was, “Hey, so bards have access to the spell Modify Memory. With carefully targeted concerts, a boy band could secretly be changing the fate of nations.”

This campaign’s set (mostly for my convenience in early-game worldbuilding) in CR’s Tal’Dorei campaign setting, during the year gap that happened toward the end of their first campaign. The party started in Kymal, since it was a good-sized city in the middle of everything that hadn’t really been explored too much in the show.

As the campaign begins, the monster-hunting guild from the show, the Slayers’ Take, are expanding their operation into Tal’Dorei’s Dividing Plains (in large part because Vanessa wanted to get Lyra out of Vasselheim for a while), and their first round of advertising for potential new recruits has pulled in a pretty good crowd. Under Lyra’s eccentric delegation, the players get grouped together for a job that involves checking out the mysterious disappearance of a bookish elf in town, under the assumption that some monstrous beastie has devoured him, and that beastie should probably be hunted. Instead, they find a lot of deep-dive research into the Feywild, along with a weird portal in his basement that takes them to a strange pocket plane where they fight some sentient plants and talk to an extremely creepy entity that offers them protection from scrying eyes in exchange for an ill-defined favor.

After getting jumped by a group of kobolds (one of whom they sort of accidentally befriend via cookie-related bribes and implications that they may be some sort of deity), the group decides that avoiding whatever’s trying to take them out is a good call. They head back to report a modified version of their findings to Lyra... and find her standing over the corpses of all the other Slayer's Take hopefuls, badly shaken and completely baffled as to why she'd do such a thing. They opt to hang out and wait for the authorities to take her into custody, which results in a bit of confusion and a night spent in jail with their kobold pal.

The city watch eventually opts to let them go, but offer the party a job joining their security detail for the city's charismatic but not-terribly-effectual margrave as he does a meet-and-greet tour of the local casinos. The group agrees to meet at the margrave's mansion that evening to help out... and they promptly spend the day smuggling illegal materials across the city wall for a friendly local tavern owner. As you do.

The meet-and-greet is fairly uneventful until the margrave enters one of the largest casinos in town (the two largest are, of course, fronts run by the Clasp and the Myriad crime organizations, respectively), at which point the party's recollection of events starts to diverge. The druid and the fighter see mysterious black-robed figures attacking from an upper balcony of the building, and are about to chase after them... when the other two members of their party suddenly collapse, unconscious and bleeding. The sorcerer and the ranger saw something very different. After succeeding at a wisdom saving throw that the others failed (the results of which were kept secret from the rest of the party), they managed to shake off the effects of a Modify Memory spell and see what really happened: a single black-robed figure stalking up to the margrave and shooting him in the head with a crossbow. They attempt to engage the attacker and are quickly cut down by the attacker's allies.

In the chaos, the party are joined by one surviving hopeful of that first night at the Slayer's Take, who'd disappeared before the carnage started: a human woman named Zo, who manages to smuggle them out through a passage underneath the casino. Once the injured party members are patched up, she reveals that she's a Spireling working for the Clasp. She's very careful to dance around most of the group's questions, and is very curious as to how they survived the attack on the Slayers' Take, which the group manages to avoid answering as well. It's all very tense, but eventually Zo strongly requests that they venture into the nearby mountains to find a powerful and ancient creature that once pledged its aid to the Clasp. When they hesitate, she casually threatens their families. Thieves' guilds, man. Often helpful, but definitely not nice. She smuggles them out of town through the Clasp's web of sewers and tunnels.

The group does a little meandering outside the city, makes some friends, has a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl, helps patch things up a bit between a devil and a deva (the most awkward of ex-girlfriends)... and everyone occasionally gets pulled into the Feywild for tests and trials, apparently being administered by an underling (a deeply sarcastic satyr woman who delights in her surreal brand of middle management) of the same entity that contacted them way back at the beginning. There's a lot of near-death experiences, an attempt at befriending a blink dog, and everyone winds up assigned a particular symbol. It's all very mysterious, but the party's getting stronger as a result.

Eventually, the group finds the Clasp's protector, a bronze dragon, killed with a dire warning written in its blood on the wall behind it.

They very nearly decide to make a run for it, but after some deliberation, they instead sneak back into Kymal to find that things are... pretty much normal, for the most part. According to the inhabitants of the city, the margrave's fine and dandy after the assassination "attempt". The party tries to head back to chat with their pal the tavern owner, but find his tavern abandoned and in the middle of being robbed... by a group including their old kobold buddy. The kobold cheerfully switches allegiances to their side (the fighter has a bag of infinite cookies), helps them chase off the robbers, and introduces them to a fastidious street-cleaner friend who witnessed a body being removed from the casino during the assassination "attempt".

The party finally decides to go poking around the margrave's mansion, where they run into their tavern-owner friend who seems to be doing the same thing. He admits that his relationship with the Clasp may be a little more friendly than he first implied, and says he's sniffing around on Zo's orders. He's startled when an ordinary-looking toolshed appears, covered in chains. The party realizes that the fighter's symbol from their Feywild excursion is a link of chains, and as soon as he touches the chains, they vanish.

The party, plus the tavern owner (a gold dragonborn monk from Marquet named Orshi), wind up in a strange sequence of puzzle rooms running under the margrave's mansion that generally require them to leverage the symbols they were given in the Feywild to solve - for instance, the solution to one puzzle can only be written in a book by the druid (whose symbol was a feather) using a feather quill, and the ranger (whose symbol was an eye) is the only one who can see the correct path through a maze.

And right in the middle of all those puzzles is where we left off!

So here's my preparation:

I had a set of things that needed to happen in this session:

Finish up the puzzles with something that leveraged the symbol of a glowing star.

Reveal that the Fantasy Backstreet Boys (mentioned in passing at least once per session as passing through Kymal on tour) are an illusion created by a powerful group of magic-users to get them access to (and the ability to modify the memories of and/or get away with assassinating) important figures in towns across the Dividing Plains and beyond.

Answer some of the party's extant questions, because they'd been in the dark long enough and deserved some closure.

I set it up with seven brief (1-2--page) documents, laid out as follows:

Recap of the previous sessions (we hadn't played in a few months).

Puzzle rooms! The first puzzle was a play on a moving tile puzzle from an Uncharted game, where the hints leading to the correct path could only be found by having the sorcerer (with the symbol of a glowing star) be the one to light the room up. I decided at the last minute to be a jerk and also do the classic countdown puzzle room, where the doors lock behind the party and an extremely ominous countdown from 20 starts, which can be reset by pressing a button in the middle of the room (the idea being that the party's own paranoia will keep them mashing that button while they search every inch of the room... but it turns out that the countdown is just until the door opens and means nothing more; it's a great test to see how convinced your players are that character death is a possibility, because if they hesitate a lot you're probably pushing it too hard, but if they don't hesitate at all to let the countdown run out they're probably feeling a bit immortal). These puzzles are being manufactured by an entity with a vested interest in just plain annoying the group, so it seemed like a good call.

Description of the final cavern, where they see a single yuan-ti in a blue robe practicing his illusion of the Fantasy Backstreet Boys while on a conference call with his boss (whose voice is the only thing present, coming from the form of a floating silver orb). This one took some rehearsal, because I had the ominous dramatic background music slowly fading out to "Backstreet's Back" to time up with the reveal. That was a real “what is my life right now” moment.

Two documents with different dialogue possibilities based on whether the group is detected or manages to stay stealthy (if they stealth, they can potentially overhear a long conversation between this yuan-ti and his boss; if their approach is noted, they're likely to be attacked on sight).

Stat blocks for the yuan-ti (essentially a warlock) and two clockwork snakes he keeps under the stage, as well as a stat block for Orshi, who's likely to be fighting alongside the party to help make up for the extremely lopsided CR of these enemies. In addition, the room has some fairly poorly built security features in the form of statues scattered around the room - at initiative count 20, roll a d12 to pick the effect the statues have on everything in a 10-foot radius. Ideally, they're supposed to have negative effects (the yuan-ti is smart enough to do anything to avoid getting caught in those radii) like a stun, a brief application of the Confusion spell, sleep, etc., but they're malfunctioning and occasionally result in positive effects like a brief application of the Haste spell or a small pool of temporary hit points. Strategy-wise, Orshi will fight as long as the group does and will generally try to help them out where he can; the snakes are unintelligent and will often attack random enemies if surrounded instead of strategizing; and the yuan-ti is extremely smart and ruthless and will target one enemy until it's dead before moving on to the next.

The aftermath of the fight: in the middle of any looting (some fun potions and a store of trade bars of gold and silver that were being used to help bankroll this operation), Zo comes in through a hidden passageway with some of the Clasp's people. She reveals that she'd sent Orshi poking around the tool shed explicitly as a distraction so she could get her people into the margrave's mansion to poke around. They found some of the margrave's very confused staff, but no sign of the guy himself, and eventually stumbled across a secret passageway leading from his sleeping chambers down here. They'd come down ready for a fight (and if the party had delayed another day in starting this whole exploration, that fight would've happened without them), but they missed the excitement. Zo answers a lot of the party's questions (I have six or seven potential questions listed along with some point-form answers she'd give) and helps them piece together that it looks like this yuan-ti and his boss are part of a larger cult that's been pulling in mercenaries and ne'er-do-wells across the continent to quietly usurp the leadership of cities and towns for some unknown purpose possibly related to one of their snake gods. The Clasp sent Zo to the Slayer's Take to make sure they weren't trying to make a bid for power in the city (which, surprise, was Vanessa's alternative motivation), and she coincidentally got caught up in this mysterious cult's more permanent way of dealing with this upstart organization that could pose a threat to their plans. She apologizes for the earlier brute-force tactics in getting them to comply, arranges to meet Orshi at his tavern the next morning to figure out how to proceed, and invites the party to join that meeting as well. Orshi invites the party to stay at his tavern free of charge.

As they're leaving, the party are briefly pulled into the Feywild by their very excited middle-manager satyr friend, who explains that, given their performance, she's been authorized to answer some of their questions. I wrote up a series of potential questions and answers about their employer (some unknown but immensely powerful Fey creature seeking to extend their influence into the Prime Material plane - essentially, the entire party is getting a bit of a Pact of the Archfey warlock vibe), the satyr (a minor dignitary with the Seelie Court who got herself into potentially fatal trouble and had this mysterious employer to thank for pulling her out of that situation), and the place where they've been training (not actually the Feywild, but a pocket dimension made to look like it). If they ask about the elf whose disappearance started all this, she reveals that he was doing research into the Feywild, made contact with their employer, and they'd been working together to start bridging the planes, which resulted in the portal they'd stumbled into. The yuan-ti cult got wind of his research and had him killed, which accidentally drew the attention of the Slayer's Take, which got them killed (with Lyra - an extremely powerful wizard - framed via Modify Memory spell to wrap up the loose ends). Once the questioning's done, she congratulates them again, and we leave it there for the night.

I also write something up for the possibility that the party is defeated: they have a different Feywild encounter immediately, where a more subdued satyr tells them that they've been revived/healed and are currently prisoners of the yuan-ti. She assures them that their mutual employer will be looking out for them, answers some of their questions, then regretfully leaves them to their fate. Whereupon, as it turns out, Zo is about to spring her attack...

So that's the preparation I had for this week's session! Very linear, without a lot of branching paths, but I also had to be very sure about every faction's awareness, motivations, and willingness to share certain information, so it wound up being pretty involved. It also felt really contrived on paper to have these info-dumps, but I suspected it would feel more natural to the players given how badly they were looking for those answers.

And... here's what really went down!

The party solved both puzzles fairly quickly (which was a good indicator that they may be getting a bit complacent vis-a-vis potential character death, which is Good To Know for ominous reasons). The stealth check into the main chamber was only DC 13, with a group check (so all they needed was 3/5 members to succeed), but they failed hilariously with a couple of natural ones, so the yuan-ti was ready for them when they arrived. The Backstreet Boys reveal was very funny.

Before the yuan-ti could just straight-up attack them, though, the party started taunting him mercilessly. He had snakes for arms (as you do), so they started asking how he did a whole variety of everyday tasks, causing a bit of an existential crisis. They pointed out the statues and asked if he really felt like he had to build an audience for his pretend band. The druid started flirting with him aggressively, which he was kind of into? This whole back-and-forth was being yelled across a cavern, so there was a lot of "WHAT? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? Seriously, I missed it, say that again." and at one point a couple people just got really amused by the echoes off the chamber walls and started yelling random words, adding to the chaos. The yuan-ti's employer was just listening to all this in confusion, and when the yuan-ti turned to explain what was happening, the ranger took the moment of confusion to attack.

The battle was really heated, with the fighter nearly dying a couple of times (the yuan-ti latched onto him with Vampiric Touch and kept leeching his life), Orshi taking an impromptu nap, and the sorcerer getting viciously downed by the yuan-ti after she managed to hit him with a Witch Bolt. Eventually, though, the clockwork snakes were dismantled, the yuan-ti was surrounded and out of spell slots, and he was down to 1 HP and extremely desperate. I was about to have him attempt an escape by transforming into a snake, but the party instead demanded that he surrender. I had the newly healed sorcerer roll a Persuasion check... natural 20. He compliantly went down on his knees and raised his snake hands in surrender; he's definitely smart enough to know it's best to live to fight another day.

The party tried to interrogate him, but he generally ignored what they were saying in favor of being a creep (quietly cutting in while the sorcerer was speaking to ask her what it had felt like to be so close to death, if she enjoyed the feeling, if she'd like to feel that again). The druid, in dire wolf form, responded by licking the side of his head until his hair was thoroughly messed up and he was coated in drool. They didn't get much information from him, and the group eventually decided to knock him out again.

A big debate followed: the sorcerer thought it would be best to help clear things up if they took him prisoner, but the druid argued (via replies to Message, since she was still a dire wolf) that nobody in this city would be competent enough to hold him prisoner and that it would be best to kill him. Lots of discussion followed while the group split up to do some looting, and eventually Zo's name was brought up, and it was decided that it might be best to bring him to the Clasp.

It felt like way too much of a coincidence to have Zo pop up at that moment, even thought that’s what I had planned, so I let them explore the cavern for a while, coming up with some great loot here and there, but also missing some very powerful items with slightly-too-low investigation checks. The conversation turned to the yuan-ti and the burning question that occupies everyone's minds if they think about it too much: if his arms are snakes... what other parts of him are snakes? The debate came to a head (sorry) when the druid, in dire wolf form, decided to try to pull off his pants and find out. I had her roll a general Dexterity check because she was, you know, a dire wolf.

Natural 20.

Biggest laugh of the night: the look on my face as I tried to mentally work out the logistics for a giant wolf pulling someone's trousers off Extremely Well, followed by "Okay. So. You know the tablecloth trick?"

We all learned something about snake anatomy that day, and the new catch-phrase of our D&D group became "Sorry about your browser history, DM." After cry-laughing as a group for several minutes straight, I finally had Zo wade into this mess and start answering questions.

She was startled that they'd managed to keep the yuan-ti alive and contained (as was I, honestly, since that wasn't a possibility I'd planned for) and agreed to have the Clasp take him into custody. I am Extremely Delighted that this villain is alive. The group was very concerned about Lyra, and Zo agreed to pull some strings with the city's guard to get her released. The party brought up the death of the Clasp's protector dragon in the mountains, and Zo fell silent for half a minute, processing what that meant. Finally, they all agreed to meet up at Orshi's tavern the next day. Orshi offered to let them stay, whereupon they revealed that his place was kind of ransacked and they may have left a severed head on one of the shelves in his back room. As you do.

They were on their way back, had their interaction with the satyr, and managed to hit nearly every answer I'd prepared for, and we called it a night from there.

Next session: wrapping up this plot, downtime, and a little fleshing out of backstories while everyone paints minis!

#eponymous d&d tag #long text post

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avengers-nextgen · 5 years

Text

The Aftermath III

“Have you seen the headlines?” Tony asked, looking intently at his daughter. She hesitantly put the screw driver down sensing that something was obviously important for him to be bothering her while working.

“No...should I have?” Piper asked skeptically.

“Listen, before I show you just know that this is meant to be pure gossip. The media needs a story so they make one up off of thin strands of fact,” Tony pulled a folded sheet of newspaper from his back pocket and smoothed it out on Piper’s work bench. “I knew it’d happen eventually but I was hoping not for another few years.“

Piper took the creased paper with care and examined the headline: Young Stark With Girlfriend? Piper scanned the sheet with wide eyes spotting a picture of her with Gen at some science convention they’d been to for fun the past weekend. “This is real?”

“Yes,” Tony nodded, “and chances are it’s not going to stop there.”

“Well, what do I do?” Piper frowned. “We aren’t even dating. This is bullshit.”

“I’m not sure if there’s anything you can do,” Tony sighed, “and if you make a statement denouncing this they’ll either twist your words or make a big deal out of the denial.”

“So I’m just stuck?”

“Yes,” Tony nodded, “but having thick skin will help. I’m telling you about this so you don’t get blindsided by it later. A few pointers I can give you are laugh at the headlines, don’t take them personally, and if you can- confuse the reporters.”

“Whatever,” Piper grumbled, shoving the paper away, “it’ll probably blow over.”

Tony studied her for a moment and knew she wanted to be left alone based on the slump of her shoulders-it mirrored Pepper exactly. “Alright, but if you need anything...”

“I know,” Piper pressed her lips into a thin line.

— — —

She expected things to return to normal fairly soon and kept an eye on the headlines. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case, and with mild irritation she dressed for the day, made last minute touches to the presentation, and headed out to the Renewable Energy Conference.

She’d promised months ago to offer research and develop a small prototype device that would store energy collected by solar cells. If all went well the prototype would be developed into a large storage system that could very well change the energy industry and lead to a more eco friendly environment.

For most of the ride there Piper zoned out staring intently at the back of the driver’s seat. She felt nervous-well, more nervous than normal-and when they arrived her heart leapt in her throat at the sight of reporters.

With shaking hands she collected the device and the case holding its design prints. Gen had arrived earlier along with Piper’s mom to handle most of the paper work she didn’t understand and they now stood expectantly at the top of the lecture hall steps.

Sucking in a sharp breath, Piper bounded hurriedly up the steps to where they stood, “Let’s get this over with.”

“You know you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Pepper frowned.

“I’ll be fine, besides this is more important than me. It’ll be helpful if everything goes well,” Piper pressed her lips into a thin line.

“Alright, well, they set up the stage so you could present and these are the notes you want to remember,” Gen held out a manilla folder that Piper struggled to take due to her full hands. At last, she resorted to taking it with her teeth.

“Very professional,” Pepper winced. Piper only rolled her eyes and rushed inside not wanting to be late. As promised by Gen, the stage was set with its pull down screen and projector already running.

Heading back stage, Piper quickly reviewed the notes she’d been given before giving the Okay to the manager. Out in front of the stage the crowd slowly quieted and with the manager’s cue Piper walked briskly to the small podium in the corner.

She was aware of the applause but it wasn’t only background noise to her thoughts. Taking another breath to steady her voice she began the rehearsed lines, “thank you all for coming, I would first like to say that it is an honor to be here with such intelligent and creative people. I know we all want to make an impact on the energy industry in a positive manner which also provides a safer choice for the environment.”

The crowd nodded and murmured in agreement. Piper waited for the noise to die down before continuing.

“After many trial and errors I managed to come up with something I think all of you will find interesting,” with a click of the button from her small slide show remote the screen shifted to an image of her prototype, “and hopefully a useful idea. This is a storage cell which can actually absorb not only currently produced energy but extra energy from solar cells. For a while it’s been a problem where energy is created but not effectively used due to the second law of thermodynamics. Well, this will combat the waste that we need to treasure. While only a prototype it’s proven effective under countless tests.”

Piper then switched to a slide showcasing all of the data she’d collected during the trials. She noticed some of the members in the crowd taking notes or exchanging ideas with one another and it seemed they were liking her design. With a bit of renewed confidence she pressed on.

“The material to make these is also relatively cheap and easily manufactured. This allows an overall lower production cost that benefits everyone,” Piper glanced at the screen to see her list of financial receipts. They were well organized and perfectly kept. She’d have to thank her mom and Gen for that later.

As she continued with the presentation all of her nerves disappeared and Piper felt at ease once more. She scolded herself for being so afraid when clearly there was no reason to be.

“Now, I would like to thank a few people for helping make this happen. One of those people is my father who has been very supportive along with my mother who makes sure I don’t lose my head in all of this, and lastly my assistant Gen. Without those three I probably would be up here in my pajamas,” Piper smirked earning a few laughs from the crowd. “With that being said I understand that there is a Q and A portion of this so let’s get at it. I am your source of info.”

At first the questions were relevant and Piper found herself enjoying the discussion clearly in her element. But as time went on the reporters gained more courage and began to drown out the voices of her colleagues.

“Is it true that you have a girlfriend?” One voice called out amongst the swarm.

“That question isn’t relevant to the topic at hand.”

“Do you in fact have an affair going on with your assist-“

“Once again not relevant. I’m not sure you people understand what science is,” the joke made her colleagues roar with laughter but it only seemed to egg on the piranhas with pens and notepads.

“How do your parents feel about this?”

“The device? They love it.”

“That isn’t what I was referring to Miss Stark.”

“You should learn to be more clear in your questions.”

“Are you or are you not gay?”

“That is one ballsy question- and so what?”

The more questions that came the more Piper was aware of how hot she felt. The stage lights seemed to be frying her like a fish and she wasn’t happy about it. The last thing she wanted was to sweat through her clothes but with all that was happening it was nearly unavoidable.

“We have to get her out of there,” Pepper sighed, passing her clip board to a dumb founded Gen. Piper watched as her mom wove through the crowd towards the wings of the stage. She wasn’t sure what the woman had planned but she was all too eager to let her mother take over the microphone.

“Alright, thank you for your useless questions and for ruining a perfectly wonderful presentation. The fact of the matter here is that you have no appreciation for the amount of work and intelligence in this building. The people you have cut off are here for reasons more important than your headlines, and we would like to get back to the discussion at hand for their sake and mine. I’ve had about enough of your repeated idiocy and would be extremely happy - and I believe everyone else would agree-if you took your cheap two dollar pens and left.” Pepper’s words received a chorus of applause and yells of agreement. The other scientists had enough of the pesky reporters and looked like they wanted to stone them.

Seeming to take the hint, the reporters slowly trickled out of the building completely flabbergasted.

“Well said!” Called a husky voice to which Pepper smiled.

“Thank you, now due to the unforeseen circumstances we are actually out of time but I will gladly provide contact information so you can ask Piper anything you wish. She will gladly reply. She’s been very excited over this and it’s an honest shame people ruined it,” Pepper glanced over her shoulder at the rather pale face of her daughter.

When the conference was over Piper sat quietly in the car the whole way home until she was finally in her room. Once there, she fired up her laptop and proceeded to respond to numerous emails from the men and women at the conference.

What surprised her most were the remarks of supporter and apologies on her behalf for the reporters. She didn’t quite understand why the community would feel the need to apologize for them but there was something reassuring about their reaching out.

A soft knock sounded on Piper’s door interrupting her work, “Come on in.”

As expected it was Gen. She seemed rather nervous about something before finally blurting out the words, “I think it might be best if I wasn’t working with you anymore. Clearly it presents some issues that get in the way of-“

“Gen, I’m not going to let some dumbass reporters make me fire my assistant and friend” Piper frowned, “they can go after me all they want but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re probably the only one who can handle the mess that is Piper Stark. If I fire you who else is going to keep up with my stupidity?”

“Piper, I don’t know...” Gen chewed anxiously on her bottom lip, “it just seems that this isn’t a good idea.”

“What isn’t?”

“Us.”

“Why do you say that?” Piper frowned, closing her laptop carefully.

“Like it or not we’ve been avoiding the obvious. And the longer we pretend certain things didn’t happen the worse everything is going to be.” Gen remained awkwardly by the door with her back against it like it was helping her stand.

“None of that meant anything, it’s fine,” Piper waved her hand and opened her laptop again ready to skim through more emails.

“That’s the thing, it did.”This caught Piper’s attention once more. “If I’m being honest, I do have feelings for you. They confuse me and don’t make much sense but they’re there.”

“Oh?” Piper pressed her lips into a thin line.

“Oh? What does that mean?” Gen worried.

“Nothing, I just didn’t know that’s how you felt,” Piper shrugged.

“So, you don’t have anything to say? You’re just going to shrug?” Gen’s timid voice took on a hint of irritation.

“I don’t know what to say,” Piper admitted. “I don’t know how one classifies feelings as romantic or not.”

“I see,” Gen nodded, “well, think on it I guess. I don’t know...”

Piper watched Gen leave looking uncharacteristically flustered. Sighing, Piper distracted herself with work until nearly an hour later someone came barging into her room.

“Piper Stark, you absolute jerk!” Alex frowned crossing her arms.

“Oh no what’d I do?” Piper worried.

Alex kicked the door shut behind her and crossed the room to pry the laptop free from Piper’s hands.

“When someone confesses their feelings for you you don’t just shrug and go back to work,” Alex glowered.

“I didn’t know what to say or do! I don’t even know how I feel,” Piper protested.

“Is it that you don’t know or you don’t want to know?” Alex arched a brow knowing she’d caught Piper off guard. “That’s what I thought. Listen, I get you’re in a tricky spot because of your family name and the media but don’t let it dictate important decisions like this. If you always let external factors dictate things in your life you’re never going to be happy.”

“How do I know if I like someone? You have a girlfriend! Help me out!”

“Oh wow, very observant of you,” Alex snorted looking seriously at her friend, “If Gen disappeared tomorrow how would you feel?”

“Uh, kind of confused, a bit lost, maybe even a little lonely?”

“If you had the chance to have someone else as your assistant would you take them?”

“No, I told her she’s the only one who can keep up with me,” Piper explained.

“Do you think life would be better had you not met?”

“No, of course not.”

“Do you want to take back any moments you’ve had together?”

“That would be dumb and it’s impossible.”

“So,” Alex narrowed her eyes, “You’re telling me you wouldn’t be able to live without her and apparently that doesn’t qualify as having feelings?”

Piper sat there for a moment processing all that she’d said and the more she did the more she realized Alex was right. Not having Gen around would suck ass and frankly Piper didn’t like or tolerate anyone else aside from her.

“I see your point.”

“Good,” Alex snorted, “now go find her!”

Clambering out of bed Piper was pegged on the back of the head by Alex and a pillow. “Dumby!”

“I get it, I get it!” Piper grumbled, wandering around the tower until she located the ever elusive Gen tucked under a car in the garage on a trolley. “Wow, look! I found some legs!”

“Ha Ha very funny,” Came the dry reply.

“Can I talk?” Piper asked setting her foot on the trolley and tugging Gen back out into view.

“I’m listening.”

“I was a jerk and I’m sorry. Alex beat some sense into me with a pillow,” Piper grinned, “so to make it up to you would you want to go on a proper date with me?”

“So you do like me?” Gen asked, arching a brow.

“More or less,” Piper smiled earning a glare in return, “I’m kidding! Yes, I like you.”

“I have half a mind to kick you in the knee,” Gen frowned.

“I probably deserve it, Piper admitted. “But seriously, I am sorry. I’m just a little scared. I’ve never been the center of direct national attention before.”

“Understandable, but it’s okay to be scared. I was when Killian tried to kill us, but you just have to manage it,” Gen explained. “Now, let me finish fixing this and I’ll decide on the date.”

“You think I can’t plan?” Piper scoffed.

“I know you can’t,” Gen smirked, rolling back beneath the car and leaving Piper as confused as she had been at the start of everything.

#avengers #avengers next gen #marvel #black widow #captain america #mcu #natasha romanoff #pepper potts #romanogers #scarlet witch #theaftermath #phase3

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gordonwilliamsweb · 3 years

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In Philadelphia, a Scandal Erupts Over Vaccination Startup Led by 22-Year-Old

It started as a group of college friends who wanted to help during the pandemic. They had tech skills, so they used 3D printers to make face shields. Then they organized as a nonprofit, Philly Fighting Covid, and opened a testing site in a Philadelphia neighborhood that didn’t have one yet.

This story is part of a reporting partnership that includes NPR, WHYY and KHN. It can be republished for free.

The organization’s leader, Andrei Doroshin, had bigger ambitions. Even before the first coronavirus vaccine was authorized, the 22-year-old graduate student at Drexel University planned to get involved, even though he has no background in health care.

On the evening of Oct. 7, Doroshin gathered 15 of the nonprofit’s staff members and volunteers for a meeting on a Philadelphia rooftop to show them a fancy PowerPoint. More people joined via livestream to watch him unveil his plan to vaccinate the city of Philadelphia.

In slide after slide, he laid out his vision with colorful graphics and maps, covering all aspects of a vaccination system, from scheduling to staffing to safety protocols.

The marketing plan hinged on inoculating local celebrities like rapper Meek Mill, a Philadelphia native, to attract his fan base.

“This is a wholly Elon Musk, shooting-for-the-heavens type of thing,” Doroshin said. “We’re gonna have a preemptive strike on vaccines and basically beat everybody in Philadelphia to it.”

Doroshin described scaling up until they were managing five mass vaccination sites and 20 smaller sites scattered throughout the city. He claimed they could vaccinate between 500,000 and 1.5 million people. And they would make a lot of money doing it.

“This is the juicy slide,” said Doroshin, clicking over to the financing plan. “How are we gonna get paid?” He explained that the vaccine doses were free, provided by the federal government. But Philly Fighting Covid could bill insurance companies $24 a dose for administering it.

“I just told you how many vaccines we want to do — you can do the math in your head,” he said.

A month later, Doroshin made a similar presentation, complete with colorful maps and a $2.7 million projected budget, to the Philadelphia City Council. He said his team at Philly Fighting Covid had begun submitting plans for building out five high-capacity sites that could each take up to 10,000 patients a day.

Philly Fighting Covid’s promise of efficiently vaccinating the population was an alluring one as city leaders were desperate to pull out of the pandemic. Doroshin told NBC’s “Today” show that his company didn’t think like a traditional medical institution. “We’re engineers, we’re scientists, computer scientists, we’re cybersecurity nerds. We think a little differently than people in health care do.”

“We took the entire model and just threw it out the window,” Doroshin added. “We said to hell with all of that. We’re going to completely build on a new model that is based on a factory.”

By Jan. 9, Doroshin had a deal with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration. The city never signed a formal contract with Philly Fighting Covid or gave the organization any money, but it did provide its unofficial sanction and publicity.

Most important, the city turned over part of its vaccine allotment to the group and helped it find recipients by sharing lists of residents who were newly eligible for the vaccine, based on the city’s own prioritization scheme. The city relied on Philly Fighting Covid’s registration as a vaccine provider with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Jan. 8, Doroshin and Kenney stood side by side at a press conference to kick off the first mass vaccination clinic at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. It was targeted at health care workers not affiliated with major hospitals, such as home health aides or doctors, nurses or therapists in private practice.

“What you see here is the problem that we’ve been solving for six months,” Doroshin told reporters. “This is the problem of vaccinating an entire population of people on a scale that has never been seen before in the history of our species.”

Kenney was also hopeful that the arrangement would help diversify the racial breakdown of vaccine recipients. At that point, only 12% of vaccinated Philadelphians were Black — in a city where 44% of residents are Black.

“Equitable distribution of this vaccine is extremely important to our entire administration,” said Kenney at the Jan. 8 kickoff event.

But in an early sign of trouble, Philly Fighting Covid failed to verify its progress on the equity goal. After that first vaccine event, at which 2,500 doses were administered, City Council President Darrell Clarke requested the demographic breakdown of the recipients.

The health department told him that Philly Fighting Covid had somehow lost all the racial and ethnic data for the patients. The group was blaming “a glitch” in the Amazon cloud. Still, the city continued to turn over thousands of vaccine doses to Philly Fighting Covid.

As the startup continued to hold clinics, WHYY began investigating the organization and its founder.

Reporters uncovered other serious problems, and it soon became clear that the group’s logistical strengths and self-promotional flair, which had once made the startup seem so compelling, weren’t working. The investigation revealed that in December, just before Philly Fighting Covid began its vaccination work, it reorganized and became a for-profit company called Vax Populi.

Philly Fighting Covid had spent months organizing city-funded testing events — at which residents reported good experiences. But in January, it abruptly shuttered those operations, leaving partner organizations in the lurch. The group posted this decision on social media, just a few days after the convention center kickoff, at which Doroshin had promised to open two new testing sites and to start offering free rapid testing.

Several groups that had been partnering with Philly Fighting Covid on testing events claim they received little or no notice, jeopardizing plans for testing in communities of color.

“They completely ghosted us,” said Cean James, pastor of Salt & Light church in Southwest Philadelphia, which had been planning a series of pop-up testing events with Philly Fighting Covid.

Michael Brown had been working with the group to organize a testing event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He said Doroshin told his group that testing wasn’t important anymore.

“The statement he made was very clear: ‘I don’t believe that testing is relevant anymore. People don’t follow the instructions, people don’t do what they’re supposed to do, and all it does is … cause panic,'” Brown said later.

There were signs that Doroshin wasn’t that concerned about standard clinical protocols. Employees with more clinical experience than he had said he brushed off technical questions as bothersome and approached the vaccination effort as if he were a tech mogul focused on disrupting norms.

“Stop using best practices,” Doroshin said during a recent interview with HealthDay. “I think the old best practices in health care, in terms of intramuscular injections, were written for a hospital visit that would take 30 minutes, that you needed to do a bill for as a provider visit. Those best practices can mostly go out the window.”

The city soon began to back away from the group. At the initial launch, the city promoted Philly Fighting Covid’s pre-registration website and encouraged everyone to sign up. Just a week later, officials changed course and claimed the city had nothing to do with the website. The conflicting messages caused confusion among the 60,000 Philadelphians who had signed up thinking it was an official city site. Many were left worried about what would happen to their personal information. The city then launched its own pre-registration site.

The process Philly Fighting Covid used to schedule appointments was also flawed. Anyone who received a hyperlink could sign up for a time slot, which prompted many who received it to assume they were automatically eligible, even though at that time the clinic was technically only for health care workers and the elderly.

Some who received the link in error went through with their appointments. Others backed out when they learned it wasn’t their turn. Still more had their doses canceled by Philly Fighting Covid upon arrival.

When Jillian Horn came to get a shot, she said she saw seniors waiting in line get turned away because of booking errors.

“There was literally 85-year-olds, 95-year-old people standing there, with printed appointment confirmations saying, ‘I don’t understand why I can’t get vaccinated,’ ” Horn recalled.

On Jan. 23, volunteer nurse Katrina Lipinsky was helping at one of Philly Fighting Covid’s vaccination events. She said that about half an hour before the event’s scheduled end, staffers started telling volunteers and other workers to call anyone they knew to come in for a shot because there were going to be extras.

Then she saw Doroshin grab a handful of vaccines and stuff them in his bag, along with the corresponding CDC vaccination record cards.

“The idea of somebody who’s not a licensed health care professional vaccinating their own friend, with or without observation, period, that certainly was not the right thing to do,” Lipinsky told WHYY.

Doroshin initially denied Lipinsky’s account but eventually admitted he took doses home during a Jan. 28 interview on NBC’s “Today” show. The following day at a press conference, he said he had vaccinated his girlfriend, but no one else. He did not explain how Philly Fighting Covid ended up with extra doses after it turned away people, including seniors, who were in line waiting for the vaccine that same day.

The city cut ties with Philly Fighting Covid on Jan. 25, citing the company’s abandonment of its testing work and the company’s new privacy policy, which would have allowed it to sell patient data.

Health commissioner Dr. Tom Farley has been asked to explain what happened. Doroshin approached with a vaccine plan, he said, that met the city’s health standards.

“I hope people can understand why on the surface this looked like a good thing,” Farley said. “In retrospect, we should have been more careful with this organization.”

The city had other options for a mass vaccination partner. Philadelphia is home to four major health systems, including the University of Pennsylvania medical system, which said it was prepared to ramp up community vaccination efforts as far back as November, well before the city started working with Philly Fighting Covid.

Kenney called for an investigation Friday, and several state lawmakers called for Farley’s resignation.

In a press conference at his apartment building Friday, Doroshin called the city’s decision to dissolve the partnership “dirty power politics” and alleged it was part of a political conspiracy. He said that if given the chance, he wouldn’t have done anything differently.

This story is part of a partnership that includes WHYY, NPR and KHN.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

In Philadelphia, a Scandal Erupts Over Vaccination Startup Led by 22-Year-Old published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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stephenmccull · 3 years

Text

In Philadelphia, a Scandal Erupts Over Vaccination Startup Led by 22-Year-Old

This story is part of a reporting partnership that includes NPR, WHYY and KHN. It can be republished for free.

In slide after slide, he laid out his vision with colorful graphics and maps, covering all aspects of a vaccination system, from scheduling to staffing to safety protocols.

The marketing plan hinged on inoculating local celebrities like rapper Meek Mill, a Philadelphia native, to attract his fan base.

“This is a wholly Elon Musk, shooting-for-the-heavens type of thing,” Doroshin said. “We’re gonna have a preemptive strike on vaccines and basically beat everybody in Philadelphia to it.”

“I just told you how many vaccines we want to do — you can do the math in your head,” he said.

“We took the entire model and just threw it out the window,” Doroshin added. “We said to hell with all of that. We’re going to completely build on a new model that is based on a factory.”

“Equitable distribution of this vaccine is extremely important to our entire administration,” said Kenney at the Jan. 8 kickoff event.

As the startup continued to hold clinics, WHYY began investigating the organization and its founder.

Several groups that had been partnering with Philly Fighting Covid on testing events claim they received little or no notice, jeopardizing plans for testing in communities of color.

“They completely ghosted us,” said Cean James, pastor of Salt & Light church in Southwest Philadelphia, which had been planning a series of pop-up testing events with Philly Fighting Covid.

Michael Brown had been working with the group to organize a testing event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He said Doroshin told his group that testing wasn’t important anymore.