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loreleismusings99 · 10 months

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Two-Body Problem

Mark Watney x reader

Grad School AU, (academic) rivals to ??????

No use of y/n

[Masterlist]

Not Beta-read, we die like Spirit and Opportunity.

CW: networking, Inaccurate depictions of organic chemistry, probably riddled with typos, but that's all I can think of. Please please please let me know if I missed anything and I'll add it to the top of the list

The reader and Mark are both PhD candidates at Northwestern and both happen to be GTAs for an o-chem/bio-chemistry class. They schedule and meet up on neutral ground(a library) to get some grading done together and some unexpected feelings creep in.

AN: This is the first fanfic I've ever written; critique is always welcome and encouraged, but, uh, perhaps manage your expectations? Idk 😅 I'm not the best when it comes to creative writing, but there's a criminally low amount of fic for The Martian and even fewer fic centered around Mark imo. I might continue this into something more, if there's demand and if I've the energy and motivation 🤷🏾

Alright, I'll stop trying to lamp-shade; Enjoy, and thanks for taking the time out of your day to read this 💚💚💚

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Wanna meet up to put a dent in the pile of grading I know you also have?

The two of you exchanged numbers at the beginning of fall quarter out of politeness, but it was still surprising to see the notification from Mark’s text.

Leaning back in your chair, you considered your options, the soft sensor schematic in front of you now fully abandoned after an hour of rearranging thermocouples and resistors trying to alleviate a stubborn inductive noise problem.

Mark had been a thorn in your proverbial side since the day you met him; well, night, to be exact—your blood begins to boil at the memory. You were engaged in cordial and calculated banter with a researcher working in a lab you were gunning for before being interrupted by someone exclaiming “Dr. Hernandez!” to your left. You blinked and the fragile connection you just began to form had crumbled as the attention of the faculty member in question whirled to the side and greeted a stocky and stubbly man who Dr. Hernandez introduced to you as “Mark Watney, one of my PhD students!” This confused you since his name tag clearly said, Plant Bio and Conservation and this was a mixer in the electrical and computer engineering department; “I’m working with him and a faculty member in my own department on developing novel ways of monitoring soil properties in areas in Illinois hardest hit by industrial runoff” Mark says with a smile that oozes levels of confidence and hubris only considerable privilege can spawn. He gives you a quick glance before saying, “which actually reminds me-” and steering Dr. Hernandez away from you. Now, this certainly stung, but it wasn’t anything that you couldn’t get over. No, what made this a problem was Mark’s uncanny ability to draw the room’s attention to him and his work, making it a just a tad difficult to properly network without having to entertain talk and conversation surrounding the department’s charismatic new wunderkind apparent. This combined with quite publicly challenging a design of yours for a class you two shared had firmly placed Mark in your list of worst enemies. Which, admittedly, might be a bit dramatic, but after some quippy and well worded critiques and suggestions to optimize a C++ script he’d written for the same class it seemed you’d made your way onto his hit list too, if department gossip had any veracity to it—so at least the feeling was mutual.

Which brings you back to your confusion at this new development in your communication with him; Mark hadn’t exactly jumped for joy when, in some sick reversal of the infamous two-body problem, the two of you got hired as TAs for the same introductory o-chem class. You exchanged numbers, but neither reached out to the other to host joint office hours, or to work together to get through the ever-growing pile of completed homework assignments that you two need to finish grading—in fact, this is the first time either of you texted the other since the first text you sent confirming your number as yours. Staring at your phone’s screen you weighed the pros and cons of saying yes; on the one hand, it’ll help the two of you get ahead on the imposing pile of work that had accumulated just in the first 2 and a half weeks of the quarter. On the other hand, it meant that you’d have to breathe the same air as your infuriatingly handsome nemesis for longer than you were required to. Not that he was your type. Absolutely not. He just… had an objectively strong jawline…. Choosing not to think too hard about that and reasoning that getting grading done was more important than your pride, you typed out a curt sure. See you at Galter in an hour? And waited for his equally as curt sounds good before getting up to go change out of your comfy, at-home garb and head out the door with your half of the grading pile and your laptop tucked away into your backpack.

You’re chewing the last bite of a pop tart you got, realizing you unfortunately forgot to eat dinner before leaving, and scrolling through Instagram when Mark walks through the glass doors leading into the Galter Health Sciences Library. Under a mild windbreaker, he’s wearing what’s presumably a band t-shirt but with a worn-out and unrecognizable logo tucked into his cuffed light wash jeans. He"s carrying a clearly well-loved canvas satchel with a Cubs patch sewn onto the front. His hair was artfully tousled as he ran a hand through it while he looked for you in the spattering of students who occupied the library at minutes to 9 on a Friday evening. When his eyes finally land on you, he looks taken aback, the carefree look wiped off his face for a moment before he smirks at you through an obviously clenched jaw. “Glad you didn’t decide to stand me up. You reserve a conference room?” You returned his tension-filled smirk with a smile resembling a sneer and responded, “Of course. We’re on the second floor.” You stood up from your seat and started walking in the direction of the staircase, looking behind you to make sure he was following you only to find him in the middle of a light jog to position himself on your right side.

“So, how’s the dissertation writing going?” he asks over his shoulder. Scoffing, you respond with an incredulous “How’s yours?”, hoping he pics up on your clear annoyance at being asked that dreaded question yet again. Wincing at your retort of a question, he concedes with a “Fair enough” And the two of you are plunged back into the awkward silence that permeates the sparsely populated library.

after finally finding the room you reserved(the library is like a maze, capable of ensnaring even the most seasoned of academics), you shuffle into the study room together and set up your computers and piles of homework to be graded before settling into a serene flow with Mark working quietly beside you.

after about thirty minutes, you look over to Mark’s pile and notice that his “complete” pile is, unfortunately, larger than yours, which ignites a spark of competition in you. You start to try to work through your pile faster and Mark seems to pick up on your haste.“Worried about falling behind?” he scoffs with a shit-eating grin, clasping his hands together in front of his mouth. “Oh, not in the slightest; just trying to optimize my time, I've more work to get back to, you know.” you say, smirking back at him but with a glint in your eye, tacitly challenging him to try to get through his pile before you get through yours.

The two of you actually make some substantial progress in both of your piles before you encounter one of the more difficult homework assignments your students have been assigned. You’re stumped by the multi-part problem at the top of the page, trying unsuccessfully to follow the student’s work in front of you.

“... You on homework 15 yet?”

“Yep.” you nod.

“... You have any idea what Dr. C is asking them to do?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Alright, just checking.”

Mark sits back in his chair with a thud and runs a hand down his face. you stand from your seat and move to the small whiteboard on the wall opposite where you were sitting and start to list out the knowns and unknowns in the problem statement. You can feel Mark’s eyes on you the entire time, following along with your work and your movements as you draw out the reaction being described in the first part of the problem. You get stumped at the end of the problem, trying to piece together the end products of the reaction. You hear Mark shift behind you before turning around to see him walking toward the whiteboard to silently walk himself through your work, nodding at each step you took. He picks up a marker and starts adding onto where you were stumped and you watch intently, absorbing what he’s writing. As he finishes the problem, you get the chance to actually get a look at him while he’s working; he furrows his eyebrows and you notice a small crease he gets between his eyebrows as they cinch together, and the faint spattering of freckles across his nose becomes apparent with how close he is to you now. God, he is so close-"that should be it? I think?" He looks to you with an indiscernible look in his eye; first, a hint of shock as his eyes widen--looks like he noticed how close you are too-- then something else you can't quite identify. It takes more effort than your willing to admit, but you eventually tear your eyes away from his and look at his work on the board. It all makes sense, you also note how messily he draws his diagrams of the assortment of carboxyl groups created by the process at the center of the problem(and it also takes everything within you not to smile at that, thinking to yourself, when did this start feeling nice???). "It, uh, it looks all good to me. And the rest should follow from this too." you utter awkwardly and turn to face him again. "Yeah?" His state of mind is still elusive to you, and he responds with an almost dazed sounding "Yeah."

The moment doesn't last for long though, as a soft knock sounds at the door, startling you both out of your joint reverie. "Hey, you guys are the TAs for o-chem this quarter, right? Do you have time to talk about the homework due tomorrow?" The two of you exchange a glance and invite the exhausted looking undergrad into the alcove.

After helping your wayward student, the two of you start packing up your now completed piles of grading in silence, the awkward air from the beginning of the night settling back in now that the distraction from grading was gone. The two of you are about to part ways at the entrance of the library when Mark stops you with a "hey," and says,"uh, so, I know we have this…whatever this is? Between us" He gestures chaotically back and forth in the space between you, and you raise an eyebrow at him. "But this is the most work I've gotten done in one sitting in a while. Would you, uh, like to do this again? Maybe? But at more reasonable hour?" Mark takes a defensive steps back, and this throws you off for a multitude of reasons. One, Mark is acting nervous, which is something you've had the pleasure of witnessing mabe once in your time being around him. Two, he seems to be genuinely asking spend more time with you. And, to be honest, after the silence between the two of you was broken, that was also the most productive you've been in a while. And it probably wouldn't hurt to actually collaborate with him instead of trying to compete with him. Just as you began to fear you were taking too long to respond, Mark pulls his hands out of his pockets and puts them up in the universal "I'm harmless" pose, "you don't have to, I just thought I'd ask-" "sure." You cut him off before he can try to answer his question for you. He looks at you with what can only be described as gleeful shimmer in his eyes and smirked again; this time, though, it didn't have his usual venom behind it. "Yeah?" He asks hopefully. "Yeah." You smile in return, it reaching your eyes this time.

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liopleurodean · 3 months

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Interviewer: so can you explain this gap on your resume? I see you were employed at NASA, but there's no job listed for the past few years

Mark Watney, space pirate: yeah, I was the King of Mars

#martian messages #the martian

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mark-watney-space-pirate · 6 days

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Fun fact about me: I am, by definition, a space pirate.

Legally, no nation can take claim to land in space. That makes Mars international waters.

While in international waters, I piloted a rover without direct permission from the owner, NASA. That makes me a pirate.

This happened in space, hence, space pirate.

I am Mark Watney, space pirate.

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veryace-ficrecs · 1 year

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Social Media Fic Recs

One of my guiltiest and pickiest pleasures in fic are twitter fics! This list is made up of some of my favorite in the category, including socials other then twitter.

This list will include all ratings and tags, so read at your own discretion! :)

The Martian:

The Mark Watney Report by AsperJasper - Rated G

Space Pirate-Ninja @MarkWatney nasa must agree with me if they only censored my f*uck a little bit last time i tried to swear at martinez they replaced it with an emoji

Space Pirate-Ninja @MarkWatney this is what power feels like: making some poor person at nasa decide which curse words are appropriate to be tweeted out over work wifi

You Know You Have a Permanent Piece of My Medium-Sized American Heart by tricatular - Rated T

“Hey Hermes!” The ambient suspicion level in the Rec ratcheted up significantly. Kapoor was disturbingly cheerful. “We’ve sent you some mission updates in the data dump, but Mitch and I wanted to personally let you know—” Mitch visibly rolled his eyes in the background. “—That thanks to some…strong suggestions from the White House, and on Annie and Director Sanders’ recommendation, we’ve started releasing Watney’s Mars logs to the public.”

Marvel:

Caption That by maddo - Rated T

Peter’s Instagram had been pretty popular since Instagram’s account noticed and reposted one of his photos, an impossible angle of the New York skyline (thank you Spider-Man) and was floating at around twenty thousand followers.

Then suddenly, @pparker was in the top 100 most followed Instagram accounts.

Just a bunch of little anecdotes regarding our favourite spider and his Instagram account, feat. a meme-tastic Tony Stark.

The Life of Spidey (As Seen Through A Spider-Man Fan Account) by hi_im_jared_19 - Rated T

Spidey-is-a-disaster @chaoticgoodboy

Disclaimer: I appreciate Spidey stepping up to help others. If more people acted like him, the world would be a better place. He is undeniably a good person. That being said, he is an entire human disaster, and I’m here to prove it.

Spider-Man's rise to popularity through the lens of a random twitter account dedicated to his dumbassery.

the conspiracy kids by tempestaurora - Rated T

Series: 3 Works

in which peter, harley and ned ask the all-important question: WHO IS SPIDER-MAN?

one mask at a time by natelette - Rated T

Spider-Man is unmasked, and the world reacts.

Or how Peter, the internet, and the entire world deal in the wake of Mysterio’s video. Spoilers for Far From Home.

DC:

The True Identity: Bruce Wayne by November_Clouds - Rated G

makayla | sc mkyla457 @mkyla456 lmao watch him go off [attached: Video of Bruce Wayne in business casual clothes screaming as he charges towards The Penguin brandishing a long black pipe. Behind him is the main center for the Martha Wayne Foundation, front windows shattered and reception desk on fire. The Penguin looks Scared.]

After a tweet goes viral, people think they've finally figured it out. The real identity of Bruce Wayne.

Red Hood.

(social media fic, based off that tumblr post)

Gotham Online by julidoesnotwrite (notjuli) - Rated T

The Waynes and the Bats as seen through social media.

gotham : a conspiracy thread by noahfense (orphan_account) - Rated T

ti(i wanna die)m @nightwingsass

the real reason Batman hasn’t responded to my conspiracy thread is because he’s jared,19,

in a world where Jason Todd didn't die and Tim Drake has parents that actually care about his wellbeing, Tim runs a popular batfam stan account and his followers convince him to start a YouTube channel.

Yuri on Ice:

Night is Young and the Music's High by opalish - Rated T

"Best press conference ever," the Japanese Nationals silver medalist says when asked. “Ten out of ten, would medal again.”

"I would die for Katsuki-kun," Minami declares, with terrifying sincerity.

On ICE!!! by Watermelonsmellinfellon - Rated M

The first time Katsuki Yuuri saw Victor Nikiforov perform, he realized he had a great desire to see figure skating in a video game. In fifteen years, his dream is realized. Little does he know that Victor's attention has been caught by the very game he unknowingly inspired. So ensues the cutest meeting ever and the relationship that follows.

Love Born in the Eye of the Storm by ScribblerQueen1 - Rated T

After a snowstorm cancels their return flight and all the hotels are overbooked, Yuuri decides to detour home to wait it out. He offers to let other stranded skaters stay at Yuu-topia, he just didn't know one of them was Victor Nikiforov.

(i'm) the boy you'd die for by jenmishe - Rated T

v-nikiforov ✓

[Video: A short clip where Victor is laying dramatically on the couch with miserable expression. “Heartbreaker” by Marina and the Diamonds is playing.]

13,481 likes

v-nikiforov✓ Am I the another one? (((

vitYASS victor,,,, honey,,,, i lvoe you so much,,,, but WHY are you like this.

red-blue-gay but??? does that mean that somebody has broken victor’s heart???? I DON'T UNDERSTAND

christophe-gc ✓ You’re ridiculous.

starsaregay But who recorded it?? Makkachin???

vityathebabe user @starsaregay asking the real question.

--- The adventures of Yuuri "Heartbreaker" Katsuki, or: how Yuuri became known as a cold player full of himself who doesn't care about anyone. (Hint: it's an anxiety and obliviousness.)

Haikyuu:

Framing by Fayah - Rated M

At age 22, Kozume Kenma had millions of subscribers on youtube, one blissfully fucked out Hinata Shouyou on his bed, and a plan.

conflict of interest by zukushou -Rated T

“If you are familiar with the world of D-1 volleyball, chances are you’ve heard the names Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio. Both twenty-four-year-old athletes are famous for their skill and athletic prowess, but they’ve recently become household names for their intense rivalry.

Early this year, Hinata Shouyou signed onto the MSBY Black Jackals as a wing spiker after a two-year stint in Brazil, playing beach volleyball. He was an unknown in the V-League, but he quickly proved himself with his defensive skill and incredible jumping height and speed.

It wasn’t until the fateful Schweiden Adlers vs. MSBY Black Jackals match just yesterday that viewers came to the realization that Hinata Shouyou was the long-awaited rival of Kageyama Tobio.”

Kageyama and Hinata are married. The press seem to think that they’re hostile rivals who despise each other.

On Great Rivalries and General Dumbassery by NocturnalNights - Rated G

It's not exactly that they were hiding the fact that they had been married for about 7 years now. It's that no one seemed to have caught on yet.

Or: Kageyama and Hinata may have forgotten to mention one very important part of their rivalry.

Good Omens:

it's a new craze by attheborder - Rated T

CROWLEY: I try not to make a habit of gratitude, but I must give our appreciation to everyone out there who’s been listening and subscribing to The Ineffable Plan. AZIRAPHALE: Ooh, yes, we’ve become quite popular, haven’t we? CROWLEY: Yeah, just hit number eight on the advice charts … No advertising at all. AZIRAPHALE: Mm. How … miraculous. CROWLEY: … Aziraphale. You did not.

***

Crowley and Aziraphale are very possibly the people least qualified, on the entire planet, to start up an advice podcast.

But what else is there to do when the world isn’t ending anytime soon, you’re technically on indefinite sabbatical from your lifelong careers, and you need a plausible excuse to spend more time with your best friend who you’re definitely not, absolutely not, maybe just a little, actually maybe overwhelmingly in love with?

hear that bell ringing (but won't get the door) by Rivran - Rated T

Social media: 1 Aziraphale and Crowley: 0.

These could all be read standalone, but it’s better if you read them in order. No, yeah, you should definitely read these in order. Each story features Aziraphale and Crowley, with a supporting cast of human characters for that sweet sweet outsider POV.

It (movies):

Retweet Verse by plinys - Rated T

Series: 12 works

A collection of post-It Ch2 fics that are a mix of domestic Richie/Eddie and social media interactions from all the Losers.

Buzzfeed Presents: 10 Times Richie and Eddie Tozier were Very, Very Married by kyaticlikestea - Rated T

Stanley Uris @surisaccounting I was going through my most recent photos and came across this nice one of @richietozier and @etozier at their wedding last week. Congratulations to the happy couple. They’ve never looked better. [attached image is a photo of two penguins arguing]

Richie ‘My Husband is Also A’ Tozier ✔ @richietozier replying to @surisaccounting Hey @surisaccounting take down that tweet or I’ll keep doing this [attached image is a photo of a Common Potoo, which has been incorrectly labelled ‘Crow’ in Comic Sans font]

Buzzfeed makes a list of all the times Richie and Eddie Tozier, beloved husbands of the Internet, were incredibly married. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it isn't a short list.

Nicest Celebrity You've Ever Met? by atomicteaparty - Rated G

Richie Tozier is a loudmouth guy who can’t be kept down by any woman at all! He’s a party animal who’s constantly meeting new people and living up the party lifestyle… or at least, that’s what his onstage persona is.

What if people who’ve met him realize he isn’t the same guy in real life?

Or: Some people talk about how Richie Tozier surprised them on reddit

14 Reasons Why Richie Tozier and His Husband Are #relationshipgoals by robin_hoods - Rated M

Get yourself a man who looks at you like Richie Tozier looks at Eddie.

areas of expertise by dudski - Rated T

The Exoneration of Richie Tozier by Blissymbolics - Rated T

COMEDIAN RICHIE TOZIER VOLUNTARILY CONFESSES TO STRIKING AND KILLING AN ESCAPED CONVICT IN WHAT MAINE AUTHORITIES ARE CALLING A JUSTIFIED HOMICIDE IN DEFENSE OF ANOTHER

Tozier reportedly struck the assailant on the back of the head with a blunt object in defense of his childhood friend, Michael Hanlon, a librarian who lives in Tozier's hometown of Derry, Maine.

I killed a clown. AMA! by liesmyth - Rated T

I (39M) got stabbed twice today and now I want a divorce. Help?

Or: the one where Eddie is on Reddit.

October 14, 2016.

@PuzzleStan is:

-A puzzle enthusiast named Stan (44%, 3553 votes) -An anonymous stan of puzzles (44%, 3602 votes) -A puzzle enthusiast named Stan who is leaning into the wordplay (12%, 969 votes)

Misc - For Fandoms with only one fic:

#thatjacksonkid by The_German_Grim_Reaper - Rated G

Fandom: Percy Jackson

Following an episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved, several twitter users do their best to uncover the truth about Percy Jackson. They get surprisingly far.

Mr LAFD Updates Man by hammersmiths - Rated T

Fandom: 9-1-1

Series: 2 works

Eddie mans the LAFD Twitter account. Buck tries to be supportive.

Audience: 822,000 and Homeland Security by WerewolvesAreReal - Rated G

Fandom: Leverage

Hardison starts a live-stream for Dragon Age to show off his new mods. And he kicks ass. But his viewers are actually a bit more concerned about the angry guy in the background of his videos, and the blond chick who keeps peering through his windows.

"Is this some kind of performance art," asks peskytroll341.

Actually Me - Eddie Munson by Savi_Yoi - Rated G

Fandom: Stranger Things

This idea was bouncing around my brain at 3am so I just had to write it down.

Eddie is a famous musician. Gaining fame through the 90s with Corroded Coffin. Him and Steve have been together since 1987, but they were always very private about their relationship. Steve is like a cryptid in the Corroded Coffin fandom, with very little information about him, and very few pictures. Eddie is promoting a solo album in 2021, and Steve is pulled on camera to do a silly interview with him. They're about 54/55 in this fic.

This is the transcript of that interview.

#veryace recs #fanfic recs #the martian #yuri!!! on ice #it 2017 #haikyuu!!#dc #batman #good omens #9-1-1 #leverage #stranger things #percy jackson

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bulletsgirl · 1 year

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need a zazzle t shirt that says

I AM NORMAL (on the front)

ABOUT ASTROBOTANIST SPACE PIRATE MARK WATNEY FROM THE MARTIAN BY ANDY WEIR AND ITS BLOCKBUSTER ADAPTATION THE MARTIAN (2015) DIR. RIDLEY SCOTT (on the back)

#no one understand. Thatss my boyfriend

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spacepiratebeatdown · 5 months

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The Doctor - Doctor Who

The Master - Doctor Who

Mark Watney - The Martian (technically he's a mars pirate not a space pirate but. Whatever. There's a whole paragraph where he talks about how commandeering a vessel in uncharted waters without permission technically makes him a pirate)

Trexel Geistman - Stellar Firma

Added!

#spacepiratebeatdown #doctor who #the master #mark watney #trexel geistman #submissions

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eflen-n-reegee · 10 months

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Earth and Sky

This is a short fic about Mark Watney (from “The Martian” regressing on Earth. It may be a little out of character, but I’m generally happy with it. I hope you guys like it too!

Heads up: fic contains a little swearing and trauma regression, but ends with more happy regression.

Mark Watney was a lot of things. An astronaut; a botanist; the sole colonist of Mars; a space pirate. He had been the first human to farm produce from another planet; he had traveled faster than anyone in the history of space travel; and he had dropped the f-bomb in front of the entire world at least a hundred times (he hadn’t actually counted, but that seemed like a good guess).

He was also the first person (as far as he knew) to regress on Mars; but he didn’t talk about that as much. He wasn’t ashamed - the way he saw it, most people would have gone nuts in his position, so a slightly unusual coping method was no big deal. He just didn’t want it to be a casual conversation piece. Regression was really personal to Mark, and aside from his closest friends, nobody needed to know about it.

Which is why he decided to leave the university as soon as he finished his class - pile of ungraded papers be damned. He was already in his car and heading home when the rain started falling, and he sucked in an unsteady breath.

Mark usually only regressed when he wanted to, safe at home or with friends he trusted. But storms always set him off, and the weather station was predicting a bad one. That, plus the first-week-of-teaching jitters, meant he was definitely going to be regressed for a while. He shared an office with another teacher, and he didn’t know the campus well enough to have a good hide-and-regress spot. Heading home seemed like the only option.

Except it wasn’t really an option, because when the first crack of thunder hit, he almost swerved off the road. That decided things, he had to pull over. Fortunately, there was a parking lot coming up on his right. He pulled into a spot (and actually double-parked, but that was a problem for later), turned off the car, and immediately lost nearly all capacity for thought.

Storm. Loud and bad, carried away, pain and all alone and scared scared scared…

Mark fumbled awkwardly with his seatbelt, whimpering softly. He finally got unbuckled and crawled into the backseat, pulling a picnic blanket over his head. That could block out the lightning, and pulling up some music on his phone helped with the noise; but nothing he could think of would stop the vibrations he felt in his teeth every time the thunder boomed overhead. He laid down on the seat, covering his ears and crying softly.

He flinched hard when his phone rang, and it took longer than he would have admitted to accept the video call from Melissa Lewis.

“Hi Mark,” she said gently, her eyes full of concern. “Did you make it home?”

He shook his head.

“Are you somewhere safe?”

“Mm.”

“Can you tell me where you are? I can come get you.”

Mark shook his head again. Even if he had the words to tell her (which, at this moment, he did not), staying in the motionless car felt like the new best option.

“Okay. I can stay on the phone, if you want some company.”

He considered this, then nodded. “Plees.”

“Want me to play some music?”

Despite his tears and the storm and his fear, Mark giggled. “Mmba,” he mumbled, chewing on the edge of his blanket.

“Abba. Okay.”

Within a few minutes, the opening of ‘Dancing Queen’ was playing through his phone. It was too old and too disco, but it was very familiar at this point, and Mark could take comfort in that. He shut his eyes and tried to focus on the music and the texture of the blanket against his lips.

When he woke up, the song was ‘Take a Chance’ and the volume had obviously been lowered. And the rain had stopped.

Melissa was working on her computer, but when she noticed him moving she turned her attention to her phone. “Hey, Mark. Feel any better?”

“Mm… kinda.” He was in a weird headspace, somewhere between regressed and not, but at least he didn’t feel scared any longer. “How long was I asleep?”

“About an hour. I was gonna try to wake you pretty soon.”

“Sorry.”

“Mark, you never need to apologize.”

He grinned. “Not even if-”

“For this,” Melissa amended, rolling her eyes. “You don’t have to apologize for this, you absolute child.”

Mark grinned larger at the “insult”.

“What are you going to do now?”

Mark shrugged and stretched and finally looked out the window. The lot he was parked in was next to a playground. “I still feel kinda fuzzy. Think I’m gonna wait a little longer before I drive home. I feel okay, though.”

“Will you text me so I know you made it safe?”

“Uh-huh… Thanks.”

After he hung up, Mark got out and pulled his backpack from the trunk. Obviously the playground equipment would be soaking wet, but since Mars he always kept emergency gear in his car, and that included a few extra sets of clothes. He found a pair of pants and a t-shirt, set them to the side so he could easily grab them, and let himself fall fully into regression.

It was almost hard to believe that what he felt a couple hours ago was in any way similar to this experience. When he regressed by choice, he always felt excited and curious and very much in control. He grinned and ran onto the playground, enjoying the feel of the wet grass against his ankles.

The playground had slides and climbing structures and a sandpit, but Mark’s interest was drawn to the swings. There weren’t just the regular swings or the ones for toddlers; there were also huge circular swings that could easily fit several children or a couple adults.

Mark grinned and pushed the swing up until the edge of it was at eye level. Then he jumped onto it, clinging to the ropes as he tried to settle himself without altering the motion. He finally flipped onto his back, and his delight turned to curious awe.

When he swung up, he could see the playground in front of him; the equipment, the grass, the trees, and so on. When he swung back down, all he saw was the sky. The setting sun had turned it orange and pink, and his eyes were drawn to a ribbon of colors; a rainbow, faint but definite, like frosting spread thin over a cake.

Mark Watney was many things, including an age regressor. He didn’t tell many people that, but it wasn’t because he was ashamed. He wasn’t ashamed to visit a playground after a storm, to lie across a swing and think of nothing but the Earth and the sky and the sensation of flying.

All he was, was happy. And there could be no shame in that.

#sfw age regression #sfw agere #Eflen writes #age regression #The Martian agere #The Martian age regression #Mark Watney agere #Mark Watney age regression #Mark Watney regressor #Melissa Lewis caregiver #(Kinda)#tw swearing

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