#nikoletta bordeaux
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Pit of Vipers (Nikoletta x Abner)
Summary: While in Belle Reve, Nikoletta realizes that a fight broke out the night before - and Abner didn't even try to fight back
Tags: pre-relationship, angst, violence, depictions of injuries, brief references to suicide
Word Count: 3.1k
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“Adrian.”
She appeared out of the shadows and slid onto the bench beside him, and Adrian just about jumped out of his skin.
“Jesus Christ- don’t do that!” he blurted, glaring at her from behind his glasses, “Do you know how close I get to punching you in the face when you do that? It’s a reflex.”
“But you never have.” Nikoletta pointed out, giving him a slanted grin.
“Yeah, ‘cause I stop myself every time. Those aren’t exactly the knuckle tattoos I’d want,” Adrian said, wringing his hands together as he imagined it. Nikoletta scoffed. He talked a lot of big game, she thought, but she’d only ever seen him fight when it was premeditated. He didn’t strike a single blow without considering it first. It was part of why she chose him as a confidant. He wasn’t reckless like the others were.
“So… what sends you popping up over my shoulder like my sleep paralysis demon this time?” he asked, seemingly recovered from his bout of shock, and shot her a broad grin. Someone else probably would have found it charming. Nikoletta just pressed her lips together.
“Someone’s missing.” she said, dark eyes scanning the cafeteria around her, “One of the newbies.”
“Hm. Yeah. The skinny one, right? With the-” Adrian guessed, gesturing vaguely at his own neck, “The one who always looks like he’s sad he can’t hang himself from the bars of his cell like the guy in Goonies?”
“He doesn’t-” Nikoletta started, but cut herself off with a huff, “The guy from Goonies didn't actually hang himself. But… right. Him.”
“Oh, yeah, he’s in medical,” Adrian pressed on, his voice just as light and conversational as it had been in the moments before, “Couple’a guys jumped him late last night. Didn’t see who, but they got some good hits in before the guards got there. Looked pretty bad.”
“Bastards.” Nikoletta growled, “They know the rules. He wasn’t marked.”
“Maybe they thought nobody would care.” he guessed, casually picking through his French fries without a care in the world. Sometimes he scared her. “I mean, the guy doesn’t even talk, why’s he even worth protecting?”
“It’s not about being worth protecting,” she said, “Why do you pay your insurance premium if you never get sick?”
“Ah, I never had insurance. Even the cheap ones denied me. I get in too many fights.”
“But you know how insurance works, don’t you?”
“Sort of.” Adrian said with a one-sided shrug. Nikoletta rolled her eyes.
“Good enough.” she decided, “What I’m saying is… whether he’s ‘worth it’ or not, everyone gets my protection, whether they need it or not, unless they decide to stir up trouble. And he hasn’t stirred up any trouble. They shouldn’t have gone after him.”
This was far from the first time something like this had happened. Even with her system in place, there was no way to control every stroke of violence in Belle Reve. People got… pent-up after a while. Marking the unruly prisoners kept things peaceful in more ways than one - removing some violence from the pool entirely, and giving the others a chance to release their frustrations - but it wasn’t a perfect solution. She doubted there was any perfect solution to be found.
And it was always the quiet ones who seemed to slip through the cracks.
“I need to find out who did this,” Nikoletta said, standing up from her seat in one decisive motion. Adrian twisted around to look at her, giving her a strange look.
“Y’know, if it were up to me, I’d just mark him now. Just to get it over with. His blood’s already in the water. I’d be willing to bet someone’s gonna rip him apart eventually. Might be better just to let it happen, save yourself a bigger fight. I mean… you’ve seen him, Nikki, the guy’s a walking target.”
This was the side of him that Nikoletta had to keep on a very short leash. Underneath his lighthearted and even charming exterior was the same thirst for violence as anyone else in Belle Reve, and she knew that. And as much as she liked having Adrian as her right hand man, she had to be careful about that ruthless streak of his. She had the sense that if it was a matter of his safety, even his escape from Belle Reve, he’d would break anybody’s neck without hesitation. Even hers. He was only loyal to her because she set her terms clearly and followed them.
In a way, that was more comforting. Loyalty based on emotion always felt… shaky. At least here, she didn't have to worry about some social faux pas meaning the difference between ally or enemy. She didn't need an emotional bond with Adrian. Really, she wasn't sure he formed emotional bonds with anyone. But as long as she kept her rules transparent, consistent, she could trust that he had her back.
Even when his ruthless side showed its face.
“No.” she replied with a shake of her head, “He hasn't done anything to deserve being marked.”
“C’mon, Nikki. I know you like him, but-”
“It’s not a matter of liking him. It's a matter of principle.” she huffed, “If I mark him without warning, people are going to start to wonder if they’re next. That’s just the fast track to me losing what little control I’ve managed to scrape together in here- and if I go down, you’re coming with me. And it’s a Band-Aid over a bullet wound. The ones who attacked him are just going to find another target if he’s gone. It doesn’t solve anything.”
She took a step back, comforted by the brush of shadows against her skin. There she paused, just for a moment, and met Adrian’s eyes.
“And I don’t like him. He’s just another prisoner.”
“I dunno, you didn’t get this mad about the last guy who got beat up.”
“You were the last guy who got beat up.”
“That’s what I’m saying!”
Nikoletta rolled her eyes and fell into the shadows.
She reemerged from a pool of darkness in the corner of the medbay, suddenly enough that a nurse in the hall flinched at the sight of her. Most of the staff had grown used to Nikoletta’s habit of slipping between rooms, but that didn’t make it any less startling to see her suddenly appear in a once-empty room like some kind of apparition.
It didn’t take long for her to find Abner. He was in the bay closest to the wall, far away from anyone or anything else. Ever since he’d arrived, she’d gotten the sense that the staff was a little afraid of him. She didn’t understand it - aside from the power dampener, he was about the most unassuming guy she could have imagined in a place like this. She doubted he even tried to shoo away the rats that sometimes scurried through the halls.
But the staff were afraid of her too. She didn’t usually give it a lot of stock.
Abner’s eyes were closed, but the faintly pained expression on his face told her he wasn’t asleep. She didn’t blame him. Half his face was swollen in a brutal black eye, and the rest of his skin was equally littered with bruises and dried blood. Nikoletta wondered, briefly, if he’d even fought back. From the nature of the wounds, harsh and dark and from every direction, she guessed that he hadn’t. The power dampener had been removed from his neck, showcasing a dark band of bruising around his throat - like he’d been shoved to the ground and landed hard on the dampener. Nikoletta couldn’t help but wince at the sight. Some of the bruises were almost dark enough to look like her shadows, save for the faintest purple-red tint.
“Who attacked you?”
She must have been moving more quietly than she realized. Abner’s eyes snapped open with a sharp gasp, and he jolted upwards in the bed. A faint light glowed from somewhere near his wrists, but he tamped it down with a grimace just a moment later.
“Nikoletta?”
“Who else?” she replied, planting her hands on her hips and frowning again at the bruises painting his skin. She waved a hand vaguely in his direction, every movement sharp. “Who did this? Who attacked you?”
He opened his mouth to respond, then frowned and shut it again. He shook his head.
“You won’t tell me.” Nikoletta guessed, clenching her jaw in anger, “Goddammit, Abner, I’m trying to help you! I’m trying to make sure this doesn’t happen again!”
“It won’t fix anything.”
“This isn’t like grade school bullies,” she insisted, “If you tell me who did it, the problem will go away. Permanently. I need to know who did this.”
“So you can kill them?”
“I haven’t killed anyone.” Nikoletta snapped. The words came out too harsh, and she wanted to wince. Abner flinched, but there was something deeper in his eyes. He raised his eyebrows. Nikoletta resisted the urge to scoff. “Listen. All I do is mark the ones who have it coming to them. I don’t sponsor any violence of my own, I just… rescind my protection. Anyone who’s marked has to fend for themself. That’s how it works.”
“But they all die anyway, don’t they?” he asked. His voice had gone soft. It sent a maelstrom of emotion through Nikoletta’s chest. She wanted to be angry - with him for poking holes in all the rules that should have kept him safe, and with his attackers for sparking all this to begin with - but strangely couldn’t find the emotion within herself. Abner’s eyes were tired and sad, the effect only magnified by the fact that one was nearly swollen shut.
“Yes.” Nikoletta finally hissed, “They die. That’s the nature of Belle Reve. If I didn’t have my system in place, they’d have killed you too.”
“Maybe that’s not so bad…”
If it were up to me, I’d just mark him now. Just to get it over with.
Nikoletta grimaced as the words echoed in her mind. Adrian wanted her to mark him. Whoever had attacked Abner wanted her to mark him. Hell- it seemed like Abner himself wanted her to mark him, just to rip the Band-Aid off.
For the slimmest moment, she was tempted.
But only for that one moment.
“Stop that. You’re in pain. Death won’t bring you the relief you want.” Nikoletta muttered, “Trust me, I’ve been there myself. The only way to make things better is to fix them yourself. Now tell me who attacked you.”
“STAR Labs?” he asked instead, apparently ignoring her demands, “Is that what brought you there? Is that why you… you hurt like that?”
“Of course it was fucking STAR Labs.” she said, reaching for the sleeve of her jumpsuit and tugging it up to expose the silvery track marks at her elbows, “You think I had these before STAR Labs? You think I was in prison before STAR Labs? You think I had to cover every fucking inch of my skin before STAR Labs?”
“Why are you angry?”
“Why aren’t you?” she fired back, “Look at yourself. Look at the bruises. It’s going to happen again if you don’t tell me who gave them to you.”
Abner was quiet for a long time. He stared down at his hands with a distant look in his eyes. Nikoletta shifted on her feet. It shouldn’t have been this difficult of a decision to make. It was a choice between safety or pain, and he didn’t have to do anything but give her a name. There wouldn’t even be any guilt in it, she thought. They’d struck the first blow. The Queen of Belle Reve had very particular rules, and those rules had been broken. It was all fair play.
Finally he looked up and met her eyes. Nikoletta lifted her eyebrows, awaiting his response.
“Will you do me a favor?”
“Hm?”
“Will you get me a glass of water? Please?” Abner asked, his voice falling back to that near-whisper of his, “The nurses don’t like coming over here. Not when I don’t have the…”
He trailed off but gestured vaguely at his neck. Nikoletta nodded. She still wasn’t sure what power it was that had the nurses so afraid of him - something to do with that odd light when she startled him, she was sure - but it must have been something big. Most things that came from STAR Labs were.
Nikoletta took a step back and melted into the shadows. She was back a moment later, a half-filled plastic cup clutched in one gloved hand. She held it out, and Abner took the cup with a faint but grateful smile. He sat up and took a sip, grimacing like every motion hurt. Looking at him, she believed it. She hoped the nurses had at least given him some sort of painkiller before they vanished.
“I don’t like killing people.” Abner mumbled after a few long moments of silence. His fingers worried at the edges of the cup. He refused to meet her eyes.
“So you’d rather let yourself get beat to shit like this than tell me who did it? None of the blood is on your hands here, Abner. They attacked someone under my protection, so they deserve to have their own protections stripped away. It’s all just turnabout. Fairness. Really… if you tell me now, they’ll probably be gone before you get out of that bed. Why the fuck are you protecting them?”
“Because it’s still…”
Abner trailed off, shaking his head with a low sigh.
“I’m sorry, Nik. I can’t.”
Nikoletta scoffed and took a step back from him. She couldn’t believe this - beaten so badly he’d landed in the medbay, covered in blood and bruises, so severe they’d even removed his power dampener, and he still refused to give her a name. Did he really have so much guilt for something he hadn’t even done? How had he managed to take down STAR Labs, with a hyperactive conscience like that?
The sadness in Abner’s eyes only deepened as Nikoletta took another step back. It was hard to look at. She sighed.
“Do you need anything else? Before I go?”
“Um… no. I don’t think so.” he said, “But if you… if you wanted to come back sometime? Just to talk for a while? This place, it reminds me of the lab. It’s hard to be here.”
She could understand that. Normally she avoided the medbay like the plague for that same reason. She didn’t like her cell much either, but this was… worse. Nikoletta pursed her lips but gave him a singular nod.
“I’ll be back in a few hours. Try to think of some things you want to talk about before I get back.”
She took a final step back, returning to the familiar not-quite-comfort of her shadows, and had already begin to slip into that other realm when she heard Abner’s soft voice one more time.
“Nikoletta. Thank you.”
She was back in the cafeteria before she could even think to respond, but the words rattled around in her mind much longer than they should have. That whole interaction had been… odd. He was an odd man. In a lot of ways. She didn’t quite mind it, but it was certainly different from the interactions she was used to.
“Any luck?” Adrian’s voice, deceptively chipper, pulled her from her thoughts. Nikoletta shot him a lukewarm look, irritation bubbling just underneath the surface.
“No. He won’t give them up. For whatever God-forsaken reason.” she said, shaking her head, “Lands himself in a hospital bed but won’t even tell me who put him there.”
“I’m telling you, Nik, you could save yourself a lot of trouble if you just-”
“I’m not marking him. Especially not now. That sets a precedent I don’t want to set.”
“Suit yourself.” he muttered, though he clearly didn’t agree with her decision in the slightest. After a moment he shrugged, tossing it aside like water off a duck’s back. He waved a hand towards the opposite side of the cafeteria. “Well, in that case… I’ve been doing a little recon-”
“I’m assuming that means you walked straight up to their table and dared them to give you the gossip?”
“It was recon. I was very subtle.” Adrian repeated with a huff, “And it sounds like one of the guys that jumped him was that calendar guy, with all the tattoos? Heard one of the cameras got footage of it, just a couple frames. Y’know, it’s probably not a great idea to attack a guy in the middle of the night if you’re one of the four prisoners in here who can be recognized from the back si-”
“Thanks.” she said, cutting him off before he could get into one of his diatribes, “I’ll take care of it.”
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“Julian.”
This time, she meant to be startling. The tattooed criminal sat bolt upright in his cot, frantically scanning the shadows for where her voice had come from. Nikoletta took a step forward, allowing herself to be lit by the dull yellow bulbs that shone in from the hallway. The sight of her didn’t ease the fear on his face.
“I heard you broke my rules.” Nikoletta continued, drawing each word out, “You attacked a prisoner who wasn’t marked. You know what the punishment for that is.”
All lingering dredges of sleep had vanished from his posture, and he looked at her with wary eyes. His fingers were curled tightly into his bedsheet, as if he were debating trying to smother her with it. Surely he had to know he was outmatched here. Surely he had to know that was why she confronted him in the dead of night, blanketed on all sides by her shadows.
“So what? Not like I did anything big, just knocked him around a little. Fuckin’ creep deserved it, too.” he replied, the words so loud and barbed that she could hear cots creaking in the neighboring cells. Tension drew into Nikoletta’s posture, both from the words and the growing audience to them. She took a step closer, aiming to administer her punishment swiftly and potently. With a mark, and with all the gossip that had been swirling over the ordeal, he’d be gone by breakfast.
But they all die anyway, don’t they?
I don’t like killing people.
Nikoletta froze on the spot, jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. It was a matter of principle. Julian broke her rules, she administered punishment, it resolved the conflict that landed Abner in the medical wing and secured Nikoletta’s reputation as a strict but objective ruler. Half a second’s action to repair a host of issues. All it took was one little death.
But she found herself stepping back. Confusion crested across Julian’s face, in equal share with the same sharp wariness.
“No more second chances.” Nikoletta warned, darkness dripping off every word, “Do better. This will be the only mercy you’ll get from me.”
And with that, she vanished into the dark.
#did i just post a nikoletta fic yesterday? yes. did I write this one over the course of one day and decided to post it anyway? also yes#my writing#my ocs#nikoletta bordeaux#oneshot#angst#tw swearing#tw violence#tw depression mention#the suicide squad#abner krill#polka dot man#adrian chase#vigilante#calendar man
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Nikoletta Bordeaux
@practically-an-x-man's OC
Individual images below the cut
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And here's Nyx! (this one's long, sorry, she's got a backstory I'm really proud of)
Born Nikoletta Bordeaux, she grew up impoverished on the streets of New Orleans. The threat of Belle Reve always loomed over her head, but crime was the only way she was able to stay afloat. She began running a voodoo scam since she was a teen, claiming to be a descendant of Marie Laveau who could communicate with spirits from beyond and even read the future. Of course, none of this was real, and that idea of "voodoo" is flawed to begin with, but gullible tourists lined her pockets enough to stay alive. It also gave her a confidence, and an ability to lie without blinking, that would eventually suit her very well in Belle Reve.
Shortly after becoming an adult, she was kidnapped off the street and taken to STAR Labs, where she was experimented on in an effort to study an undiscovered "shadow realm". She was sent to the realm and eventually manages to escape, but not unchanged. Any skin-to-skin touch will leave a permanent ink-stain on another person's skin, even the slightest touch. She also learns to dive into shadows and step back into the shadow realm, and now lives between worlds
She continues running her scam, supplementing it with some B&E and thievery now that she can slip into the shadows to escape, but eventually gets caught and sent to Belle Reve. From there, she spends years building a reputation as the Queen of Belle Reve - she collects a gaggle of followers, and a handprint ink-mark becomes the symbol of who to kill (once, there was an inmate who came in after charges against minors... she walked right up and slapped him clean across the face, leaving a handprint on his cheek. he didn't make it through his first day in prison). Her word becomes law... who will pass their sentance in silence, and who becomes the scapegoat.
Technically, she could slip away at any time, since there's no way to keep someone imprisoned when all it takes is a shadow to escape. So instead of trying to police it, she comes to an understanding with Amanda Waller... Nyx doesn't raise too much fuss, keeps things neat, and every once in a while, Amanda decides she wants an inmate gone off-the-radar, and it gets done. After all, better to be the Queen of Belle Reve than another broke kid on the streets, right?
When Abner Krill arrives, Nyx immediately decides he's off-limits. Her followers say he's dangerous, destructive, unstable, but she sees a scared young guy who's like her in a lot of ways. She ends up protecting him, though they rarely meet face-to-face. There's a bit of understanding between them: being experimented on, given too much power and being plagued by it, they're the same. Nyx also protects Cleo, seeing her almost as a younger sister and finding charm in her love of animals.
They're placed on the same team during the Corto Maltese mission, and Nyx finds perhaps the first real connection she's had in her life - the first that wasn't manipulation, blind following, or fear. She finds herself holding hands with him, with gloves carefully in place to avoid giving him what she now associates as a death-mark, and even shares a kiss (through a napkin) while they're in the club. During the final fight, she gets there just in time to save him from Starro (hated that death btw) - she shoves him in the back, fueled by panic alone, and quite literally pushes him into the shadow realm.
She wakes up in the hospital, bruised and battered and exhausted from the fight... and finds him asleep on the chair beside her. Holding her hand. No gloves. No marks. Once they get reacquainted, he takes off his shirt and shows her his back - two inky handprints over his shoulderblades, and a spray of dark rays like tattooed wings covering his entire back from the force of the shadows she'd left in her panic. His mission suit was ruined too, looking like someone had dumped a bucket of ink on it (she'd left the marks through his mission suit, it was so much magic). However, something about expressing so much of that shadow energy has rid her of the excess, and she can now safely touch people without leaving a death-mark (though she can still choose to mark things with shadows if she needs to)
oooh I love her and her backstory so much omg!!! (I also hated that death lol I like this ending way better) so much good angst and I love her with Abner, he deserves love, so cute <3333
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Due to shenanigans, your OCs have to go clubbing! What do they wear, and what do they do?
Oooh thank you!! Good question!!
(just for the record, this is like... a random mix of their actual faceclaims and just random outfits I picked out for them lol)
Rae: The only reason she'd be in a club is for some sort of mission assignment (she doesn't drink, and doesn't really enjoy being crushed in by the crowd anyway). She'd have to borrow a dress, probably from Raven, which means that she ends up in something quite a bit more revealing than she wanted
Robin: I could see her in a green cocktail dress like this, and she's probably up by the speakers, enjoying the feeling of the bass rattling under her feet
Madison: She doesn't really enjoy attention from strangers, so she's probably wearing something looser and less form-fitting, and sticking to Alex the whole time (honestly, the only reason she'd really be in a club at all is if they needed to do recon at the Hellfire Club or something)
Ophelia: Honestly I think any one of Rhea Ripley's stage outfits could work for her, but I'm gonna go with this one in particular
She probably dances for a bit, until one of the speakers glitches out and she ends up stepping up to tweak/fix it
Jasper: Hm... they're probably just tossing on a band t-shirt and a pair of jeans, maybe would throw on a little punk makeup if they felt like it. They probably wouldn't worry too much about their outfit, since they'll probably be hiding out in the bathroom until they can leave (since the emotions of everyone else out on the dance floor would be suffocating)
Katherine: I don't see her as much of the clubbing type, but I imagine she'd wear something like this (and probably just bring her sketchbook and hole up in the corner to sketch the crowd until she's allowed to leave lol)
Kestrel: Has no idea what a clubbing outfit should look like (has never been inside a club in their life), so they end up going in whatever they were wearing before - most likely a button-up and work pants.
Quinn: Most likely something so punk and revealing it's probably right on the verge of getting them thrown out, but I also really love this look (and Mason Alexander Park is my faceclaim for Quinn anyway)
She doesn't really dance anymore, but she'll get a few drinks and watch the rest of the Ghosts make fools of themselves as they get progressively more drunk.
Eris: In all honesty.... I have no idea if Eris would wear this to a club, but I need you to appreciate this picture of May Calamawy because holy shit
Nikoletta: This is actually the dress I picked out for her to wear in la Gatita Amable, so...
As far as what she's doing, she's dancing her heart out. She used to love clubbing before she got her shadow-touch, and she'd love to step back into that world once she's safe to touch again. She's a fantastic dancer, but you can bet that everyone around her is wondering why she's turned down about four different men (and women) in favor of staying next to the guy who looks like he stepped out of a bad 70s disco XD
#my friends!!!#answered asks#my ocs#jasper wilson#ophelia octavius#madison douglas#oc quinn/aces#oc kestrel#oc eris#nikoletta bordeaux#rae mckinney#robin cassidy#oc katherine johnson
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Cassandra crashes through your OCs' window, battered and covered in blood. It looks like she just lost a fight with the supervillain of the week, and she has a broken wing that she can't reverse the transmogrification spell on without hurting herself more. What do they do?
Ooooh, thank you!!
Rae: Actually knows how to set a broken wing, thanks to living with Warren, and promptly does so. She bandages up Cassandra's other wounds, offers her some water and a quick meal if it'll help, and sends her on her way.
Robin: Sends her down to Hank's lab to get medical attention, and immediately calls someone to repair the window - it wouldn't be the first time she's had to get that replaced.
Madison: Probably throws a knife at her at first, just as a reflex to her crashing through the window, but once she gets over the immediate shock she offers some field first aid and tries to get her broken wing set well enough for it to starting healing or for Cassandra to reverse the spell.
Ophelia: Brings her into her lab and patches her up, but asks way too many questions about how she's able to spontaneously generate functional, biological wings without any apparent conservation of matter. Probably also grabs her actuators to take care of the supervillain herself, once she's finished cleaning Cassandra up.
Gia: Screams and throws flowerpots at her until Cassandra staggers out to find some other help, then patches up the window with duct tape and a sheet of plastic and checks her bank account to see if she can even afford to have it replaced. She also doesn't sleep for a week after that.
Jasper: Dealing with wings is... new, but they look up a few anatomical diagrams and veterinary guidelines and are able to set the bone using that and their medical background to guide them. Cassandra might be a little surprised at how nonchalant Jasper is (at least after they've gotten over the shock of her crashing through the window), but they've dealt with witches before.
Kestrel: Goes to grab Warren, since he's got more experience with it than they do (hard to set your own broken wing when you're in kestrel form, and all) (also it's funny that both Warrens would have experience with this lmao), and he gets the bone set and splinted. Kestrel then uses a healing charm to heal it up enough for Cassandra to reverse her spell and remove the wings.
Katherine: Calls on Heka to regenerate Cassandra's own magical energy, so she can take care of her own healing and transmogrification spells, and the two of them proceed to spend hours talking about and comparing their respective forms of magic.
Quinn: Assumes it's some sort of hallucination and literally ignores Cassandra until she just gives up. Only realizes it was real when Billy asks her why the wall of her trailer is all dented in.
Eris: At best, offers to cut Cassandra's broken wing off so she can reverse the spell (it can't heal wrong if it's not there, right?). At worst, immediately jumps into the fight and probably does more damage than the original supervillain.
Nikoletta: Tries to help as best she can (there's a half-formed idea somewhere about sending Cassandra's wings to the shadow realm as a makeshift way of reversing the spell, but I'm not sure that really makes sense), but makes Cassandra promise in writing to pay for the window repair since Nik really can't afford to pay for it herself. She's also really curious about Cassandra's shadow-based magic and spends a while talking about it (and secretly spends the next week trying to see if she can summon wings of her own)
Jimmy: With much respect to Jimmy... what the fuck would he do? I guess he'd call someone at the Paranormal Research Center and see if they can help, but there's really not much he can offer here.
#my friends!!!#answered asks#my ocs#jasper wilson#ophelia octavius#oc quinn/aces#madison douglas#oc kestrel#rae mckinney#robin cassidy#oc katherine johnson#oc eris#nikoletta bordeaux#gia pantazis#jimmy luciano
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Shadows and Fallen Stars (Nikoletta x Abner)
Summary: Nikoletta and Abner share their experiences in STAR Labs
Tags: post-TSS, established relationship, angst, hurt/comfort, mentions of abusive families, needles, experimentation, happy ending
Word Count: 3k
____
She was cold again.
It happened a lot. Really, she was cold all the time, but sometimes it shifted from the usual disregarded half-chill into something deeper, impossible to ignore. Back in Belle Reve, that had meant nothing at all. She could find herself a cup of coffee if she was lucky, but usually there was nothing to do but wait it out.
The worst of that was that it hurt. Being so cold, for so long, knowing it couldn't kill you but also could never be cured... it wasn't just the cold itself that hurt, but how constant it was.
Here, there was more she could do. Here she could make a cup of tea, a pot of soup, wrap herself up with blankets and a heating pad to try and imbue herself with a little more life. She had a few more options. Finding genuine warmth was still effectively a pipe dream, but at least she didn't have to sit and wallow in the chill like she used to.
Nikoletta picked herself up from the bed, throwing one of the blankets around her shoulders as she stood up.
The apartment was a shoebox. It was hardly bigger than her old cell back in Belle Reve. But at least it was hers, genuinely hers, under her name and paid for in an entirely legal manner. That was new for her. She wasn't quite sure she was fond of it yet. Her life in Belle Reve, even her life on the streets before, were both so much simpler than everything she had to balance in this so-called "real world". More painful, yes, but... simpler.
Still shivering, she ducked through the doorway and squinted at the sunlight that pooled in the living room beyond. It had been darker in the bedroom than she realized. Maybe that had contributed to the chill. The shadows usually did.
Abner was stretched out sideways on the couch, propped up only enough to look at the old TV across the room. The picture was fuzzy and the screen was small, but... it was a TV. Still more than she'd had in either of her prior lives.
"Hey," he mumbled, turning his body to look at her with gentle eyes. Nikoletta offered him about as much of a smile as she could muster, which wasn't much.
If there was anything that coaxed a little more of a smile from her, it was the sight of him sprawled out on the couch like he was. When they'd first arrived here, months ago, he'd taken to perching on the very end of it, knees tucked up tight to his chest like he was afraid to take up space. He'd opened up slowly, little by little, but this was the first she'd seen where he completely, unabashedly let himself be comfortable here. Or... anywhere, really.
He looked healthier, too. The exhausted bags under his eyes had lessened, though not entirely disappeared, and his frame had filled out from malnutrition-gaunt to merely slender. A bit of dark stubble clung to his jaw, drawing attention to his impressive bone structure. And he was smiling. That expression alone contributed to a lot.
"Hey," Nikoletta responded, trying to match his gentle tone. She slid into the armchair at her right and drew her legs up, trying to pull in a little more warmth. "What're you watching?"
"I dunno. Reruns." Abner replied, almost sighing the words. The shift in topic had him looking a little lost in thought, and Nikoletta frowned.
"You okay?"
The Queen of Belle Reve would never have asked a question like that. The Queen of Belle Reve would never have spoken so softly. The Queen of Belle Reve would have told herself she didn't care about the crease that had appeared between Abner's dark brows.
She knew that expression. That was the face he wore when he was walking back through memories - and not all of them pleasant. Nikoletta pressed her lips together. She wondered how many placidities she'd have to stumble through before she could get to what was really on his mind.
"The lab?" she asked, unable to help herself. The crease between his eyebrows deepened for a moment, but Abner nodded.
"My mom used to like this show," he said, his eyes flashing back to the TV for a moment, "We'd watch it all together on the weekends. Me and my brothers and sisters, all piled in on the couch. Mom got her own chair, of course."
"You weren't... locked up?"
"No. Not usually." he answered, seemingly oblivious to how bluntly the question had left her lips, "Only when she took us down to treatment. Otherwise we just stayed in her floor of the building. It was like an apartment. There wasn't a lot to do, so we made up games."
Abner paused, dropping his eyes to the floor. The expression on his face... Nikoletta wanted to reach for him. But she twisted her fingers into the folds of the blanket, unable to move.
"And then they started getting sick." he finally continued. His voice was heavy with emotion. His dark eyes darted around the room wildly before settling on the TV. "And we couldn't play games like we used to. Everyone was so tired all the time... we could barely remember what the rules were. Some of them got really mean, too. We'd have arguments over everything. So eventually we just... gave up and watched TV instead. All crowded in on the couch."
That explained why he'd been so contained when they first arrived. He wouldn't let himself claim space now because he'd never been allowed to before. He got one tiny corner of the sofa, squished in with the rest of his family, and he thought that was what he deserved.
"Sometimes that was all we could do." Abner said, eyes still fixed on the TV like he'd entered some sort of trance, "We were just so... so tired. I still get tired now, but it was worse back then. I don't even know how long we were there, it's just... blurry. I just remember being crammed in with everyone else, watching old reruns of this show none of us really cared about."
It seemed wrong to feel jealous. He'd been through something terrible. So terrible that he still saw echoes of his mother almost everywhere he went.
But at least he hadn't gone through it alone. At least he had something like a normal life while he went through it. A couch, a TV, a family. Dysfunctional or not, it was more than Nikoletta had ever been given.
"And then Sven died. There was a little more room on the couch after that. But nobody moved," Abner continued, still lost in his thoughts. His eyes were distant, staring years into the past. "Then Deanna. And Maggie escaped. Mom was angry for a long time when that happened. I just remember wondering why she hadn't gotten the rest of us out with her. Maybe she thought Mom would come after us if we all went together. But she just left us."
He let out a deep sigh, his breath trembling faintly as if he were holding back a flood of emotion.
"The couch felt so empty with them gone. And my mom just... didn't care. She said the others were weak, and we were better because we were stronger than them. We were better because we stayed. But I... I didn't feel strong. And I didn't want to stay." he admitted, "And I... I burned it down. With the dots. I just wanted to make a distraction, but they- they hit one of the power generators and the whole building went up. They locked me up before I could figure out if any of my siblings made it out of there. I still don't know."
"I'm sorry," Nikoletta finally found her voice, but winced at how pitifully inept the words sounded, "I'm... I'm so sorry."
"It's fine. I'll find out someday," Abner decided, the haunted look gradually fading from his eyes, "How- how was it for you? The lab?"
Nikoletta shook her head with a grimace. Her own set of memories burned behind her eyes, demons awoken and dancing like something out of Fantasia. She wished they'd go back to bed. She still couldn't stop the shivering.
"Not like that." she forced herself to answer. He'd shared his story, after all. It was only fair she shared hers. She took a deep breath, forcing steel into her tone. It was the only way she'd make it through this. "They had me in a cell. Alone. I had a cot, and a toilet, but that was about it. No TV. No siblings. Nothing to pass the time. It was almost like the cells in Belle Reve."
As she spoke, she found herself tucking her limbs more tightly in. It felt as if even speaking the words made her colder - like her memories were even more soaked in shadow than the present.
"They'd take me down to one of the labs for their experiments. I still don't know what all they injected me with. I blocked most of it out. I just know that it... it hurt. And after the first few rounds... I learned to fight back." she continued. The words were stilted, like reading from a teleprompter, but that was the only way she could make herself continue. If she slowed down, even for a moment, the story would never leave her lips again.
"The first time I fought, I landed half the guards in the hospital. Broken arms, scratched corneas. I even bit a guy. From what I heard, he had to get a tetanus shot, just to be safe. That one felt good. I grew up on the streets, I wasn't above fighting dirty," she said, a rare flicker of pride entering her voice before dying out again, "So they started pumping gas into the chamber before they came to get me. So I couldn't fight back."
She still remembered the feeling - just conscious enough to feel afraid, but too dazed to fight back. Just tethered enough to her own body to feel the bruising grip of the guards as they dragged her out of her cell, but hardly able to move her limbs for all the drugs they made her inhale.
"They waited for it to wear off before they started the tests. Said they didn't want to skew the data." she sighed, rubbing at the silvery track marks that ran down her arms like waterfalls against her dark skin. So many needles. She couldn't count all the tests they'd done on her before the shadows finally stuck.
"It was like one big, endless paradox." Nikoletta continued after another moment, "They had a whole team of scientists, used these machines that had to cost millions, but they said they didn't have the funding to feed me every day. They ran tests wondering why my body temperature had dropped almost into hypothermia, but they kept my cell too cold and kept pumping those shadows into me. They complained that I hardly talked, that they couldn't fix my problems if I didn't tell them what they were, but they wouldn't even speak to me by my name. They just called me by this serial number."
She remembered the number, of course, but she couldn't bring herself to repeat it. That would have been too much. She wasn't their little project anymore. She never would be again. That number belonged to a broken girl in a cage, and she was not that girl.
"I was there for... a month, I think?" Nikoletta concluded, "They did tests every few days. Finally the shadows just... stuck, and I learned how to use them, and I got out of there. Never went back."
Her shivers had turned to shudders, racking her body in ripples of chill and pained memories. The room was silent for far too long, save only for the low, tinny crackle of the TV in the background. Nikoletta looked up just long enough to notice Abner's eyes on her, dark and flooded with something like pity.
For the briefest instant, she was hit with a well of hot red anger. She didn't want to be pitied. She'd had enough of that when she first left the lab. There was a reason she'd built up such a reputation for herself. Power was better than pity.
But Nikoletta caught herself bristling and paused. This wasn't pity. She knew this wasn't pity. Abner had never pitied her like the others did. This was... something gentler. Empathy. Concern.
"Are you still cold?" his voice, quiet and hesitant like it used to be, pushed through that silence like a searchlight through a pea-soup fog. His dark eyes danced over her figure, taking in her cramped and trembling frame.
"Always."
"Want to... um, want to come lay down? Here?" Abner offered, shifting on the couch to make room.
"No, it's okay, I was just-"
She stopped mid-sentence. Why was she refusing?
Was it because she thought it wouldn't help? No. Organic warmth was about the only thing that chased off the shadows, she'd learned. It had plagued her for years. It was only recently, very recently, that she could allow herself that luxury.
Was it because she didn't want to be close to him? Of course not. Physical touch scared her as much as it did warm her, but she liked being near him. And he didn't seem to care that her skin was always a little too cold to be pleasant.
She knew it would help, much more than other fixes like a cup of tea or an extra blanket. And she knew she wanted to be close to him, frightening as that thought was. Maybe... maybe that was why she refused. Not because she knew it wouldn't help, but that she was scared of how well it would. She didn't want to rely on anyone else.
Besides, she could see what he was really asking. Behind the initial offer was something else. Something for him. He said "let me warm you" at the same time he said "crowd this empty space for me". He needed it too.
"Nik?"
"Okay," she surrendered, shaking off the last of her thoughts and sliding onto the sofa with the blanket still wrapped around her. Abner shifted a little, sorting out the tangle of limbs when she first laid down beside him, then wrapped her in his arms.
And Nikoletta burst into tears.
It was almost a reflex at this point. She'd been so deprived of touch for so long, years on end, that she didn't seem to know what to do with it when it came. Emotions flooded her with something as simple as a brush of the hand.
And the influx of memories certainly couldn't have helped.
To his credit, Abner didn't so much as flinch when the crying started. Now three months in, he was more than used to this odd little reflex of hers, and didn't let it faze him. He just tightened his grip and ducked his head, surrounding her with his touch.
Nikoletta twisted around and pressed her face into his chest, waiting for her tears to subside. It was more of a nuisance than anything else, by now. Abner ran his hand in smooth circles over her back, all too patient with her.
Moments like this made her feel small. She was still warming up to the concept. There was a part of her that felt scrutinized, like an animal in a glass enclosure, powerless in a way that she never wanted to feel again. There was a reason she made herself so untouchable back in Belle Reve. It was impossible to feel small when she was at the top of the food chain.
But here was something new. She felt small, but she felt safe. Protected. That was... strange. Very strange. Yet she couldn't get enough of it.
"Warming up?" Abner murmured. His voice was quiet, though missing the hesitance she'd begun to grow familiar with. Nikoletta nodded against his chest. She'd been so lost in thought that she'd almost forgotten the cold. And now, finally warm in a way that had seemed impossible for years, she found herself growing faintly drowsy. She wondered how long it had been since she'd last slept peacefully. Far too long, to say the least.
"Maybe we should get a cat," he added after a few more minutes. Nikoletta lifted her head enough to shoot him a confused look. Abner lifted his eyebrows - the impression of a shrug without jostling her. She wondered where he'd picked that up.
"You said organic warmth helps, right? Living things. So I mean... we could get a cat. And it could curl up on your lap when you're chilly. Keep you warm," he explained, then tilted his head, "Or a dog. But I'm more of a cat person."
"We can't afford a cat." Nikoletta mumbled.
"We could find the money. I'm sure we could." Abner insisted, though a note of that familiar hesitance had crept back into his voice. It was better than shutting down entirely. When they'd first begun living together, even something as simple as a discussion over dinner plans or TV channels would send him into a painful silence, and he'd fold in on himself. There was no separation between mild disagreement and total shutdown. He wasn't used to his voice being heard at all. But he'd gotten better.
"And it... it would help. I really think it would," he concluded, nearly whispering.
"A stray for a couple of strays?" Nikoletta replied. A faint smile crept onto her face at the thought. This little... not-quite-family was continuing to grow. She didn't mind it.
"Heh. Yeah," Abner agreed, ducking his head to kiss her temple, "A stray for a couple of strays."
#my writing#my ocs#nikoletta bordeaux#oneshot#angst#hurt/comfort#the suicide squad#abner krill#polka dot man#oc x canon
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alright y'all i'm torn, i need opinions
*either of these will be posted on AO3, and I plan to make a collection/series and post the oneshots I've already written for her on AO3 as well
#honestly i'm leaning towards the collection of oneshots for this one since i've already written a couple for her#but i'm torn bc walking through a longfic will give more depth and context to their relationship#however it also requires fitting nikoletta into the events of tss and slogging through all the scene-syncing. which is tiring#my ocs#nikoletta bordeaux#polls#tumblr polls#my polls
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if you had to limit yourself to ONLY ONE song for each of your OCs, their "theme song", what would you pick?
Oooooh, now that is TOUGH! Some of my OCs definitely have a particular "theme song" or song that I chose for them in particular, but others I have a whole bunch of songs that all fit them...
Rae: April Come She Will by Simon and Garfunkel (her fic is a lyric from it)
Robin: Let's Hear It for the Boy by Deniece Williams
Madison: Take Your Time (Coming Home) by fun.
Ophelia: Heartbreaker by Pat Benatar
Gia: West Coast by Imagine Dragons
Jasper: Hold the Line by TOTO
Kestrel: Fair by The Amazing Devil
Katherine: Who Wants to Live Forever? by Queen (her fic is a lyric from it)
Quinn: True Trans Soul Rebel by Against Me!
Eris: Weapon by Against the Current
Nikoletta: Whispers by Halsey
Jimmy: Francesca by Hozier
#my friends!!!#answered asks#my ocs#jasper wilson#ophelia octavius#oc quinn/aces#madison douglas#oc kestrel#rae mckinney#robin cassidy#oc katherine johnson#oc eris#jimmy luciano#gia pantazis#nikoletta bordeaux
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Relapsed (Nikoletta x Abner)
Summary: Months after her shadows were drained in the battle against Starro, Nikoletta finds an unpleasant surprise
Tags: post-TSS, established relationship, angst, hurt/comfort, mild body horror, soft ending
Word Count: 2.7k
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She woke in the middle of the night, blinking in the darkness.
That wasn't unusual in the slightest. It was rare, very rare, that she made it through a full, uninterrupted night of sleep. Either her dreams were flooded with turbulent nightmares and painful memories, or she woke up shivering.
But tonight she seemed... fine. Confusingly fine. She couldn't remember any particularly rotten nightmares, and she was actually somewhere adjacent to warm with Abner right beside her. She'd slept through worse than this. Much worse.
So what had woken her?
She pondered that thought for an extra moment before concluding she'd probably just been stepped on by one of the cats, or something equally innocuous.
Nikoletta turned over in the bed, finding a grip on the topsheet to tug it back over her body.
Shadows spread out from her touch.
For a split second, she thought it was just a trick of the light. Something about the angle, the light streaming in from the window, her half-conscious mind filling the gaps in any way it could. Because she hadn't spread shadows in months. Not since Starro. She was past that years-long nightmare.
Wasn't she?
Nikoletta's fingers slid along the fabric, leaving an unmistakable trail of inky darkness in their wake.
Her drowsiness vanished in a heartbeat, like the tide before a tsunami. Panic flooded in its wake, fast and all-consuming.
She was moving before she even realized it, wildly kicking herself off the bed - away from Abner, away from the cats, away from anything she could ruin with her shadows. Her limbs tangled in the sheets, keeping her rooted to the bed for one terrifying moment before she wriggled herself loose.
Her knee hit Abner's thigh somewhere under the covers, and raw fear stole her breath for a moment. She was suddenly grateful for the twist of sheets, for her constant chill keeping her in full sleeves, for the few thin layers of fabric that still separated her from him. He'd already been marked by her once. She couldn't imagine granting him that curse again.
Finally she freed herself from the bed and crashed unceremoniously to the floor, clocking her hip on the nightstand as she fell. Nikoletta's fingers dug into the carpet beneath her - cheap vinyl, thank God, no shadows left behind. Nikoletta scrambled for the door (aluminum doorknob to safe, safe linoleum on the other side), trying to place some distance between her dangerous touch and the things she loved.
She reached the door and pulled it open, careful that her fingers touched only the doorknob and not the wood around it, and pushed her way into the living space beyond it. The carpet was safe, the linoleum was safe- but she was careless about the doorjamb, and her bare feet left dark streaks on the wood as she crossed it. Dimly, through her haze of panic, she could hear Abner shifting on the bed.
"Nikki?" he asked, voice raspy and confused from sleep, "Was it another nightmare?"
She couldn't answer. She couldn't speak. She pushed herself a little further into the kitchenette, pushed until she found the refrigerator - metal and plastic, blessedly immune - at her back. Streetlights shone in from the window across the room, granting her a brief glimpse at herself. Her pajamas were stained in odd patterns, like she'd been sweating ink, from everywhere the fabric touched her skin. Her breath came too fast, in harsh and jagged bursts.
"Nik? Hey, are you okay?" Abner called out, and a moment later she saw him silhouetted in the doorway. He passed a hand over his eyes, trying to rub the sleep out of them, then frowned as his gaze fell on her. He took a step closer.
"Don't touch me!" Nikoletta blurted, all too sharp, and grimaced as he flinched. She shook her head, struggling to pull her thoughts together, "They're back- the shadows, they're- they're back. You can't touch."
She watched his eyes dance over her figure as he caught up to speed. Her whole body was shaking, not from cold but from the raw adrenaline pumping through her veins. And to think, she'd had a whole four months where she didn't have to be afraid of herself. Nikoletta wrung her hands together so tightly her knuckles hurt.
Something passed over Abner's face a moment later. In the darkness of the room, Nikoletta couldn't quite tell what it was. But he took another step towards her- and held up his hands in surrender when she tried to shift away.
"It's okay. I won't touch," he assured her, crouching to meet her eyes, "What can I do to help?"
"Gloves, I- I need my gloves."
"You got rid of your gloves," Abner pointed out, though he stood up anyway. Nikoletta's eyes traced his motions, though she still couldn't bring herself to move from the floor.
He was shockingly calm for the circumstances, she thought. Calm and patient and gentle like he'd dealt with this a thousand times before. She had no idea how. This was the man who could hardly bring himself to change the TV channel when it switched to something he didn't want to watch, and yet here he was as steady and decisive as an EMT staunching a gunshot wound. Nikoletta sat curled on the floor, shaking uncontrollably with her knees pulled tight to her chest.
Abner was back a moment later, a pair of thick winter gloves in one hand and a box of blue nitrile gloves in the other. She had no idea where he'd found either. Nikoletta reached for the disposable gloves, then froze. She didn't trust herself to get them out of the box without brushing his fingers in the process.
Without missing a beat, Abner set the winter gloves down beside him and worked a pair of nitrile gloves out of the box. He offered them to her, pinching them by the fingers so she could safely grab them. Nikoletta tugged the gloves onto her hands, feeling marginally better to have that shield between her and the rest of the world.
Abner reached out, wordlessly offering her his hand. Nikoletta hesitated. The gloves were old, found in some God-knows-where corner of the apartment, and they didn't quite fit her hands. Without so much as a sigh, Abner reached back into the box and pulled another set of gloves over his own fingers.
Two layers. That was better. Safer. When he offered her his hand a second time, she took it. Abner squeezed her fingers once, and Nikoletta let out a shuddering breath.
"Better?"
"A little."
For a minute or two, they just stayed there: hands clasped through thin rubber gloves, sitting together on the cold linoleum floor. Slowly, Nikoletta's heart seemed to settle back into her chest, her panic bleeding out of her in slow ripples.
"I don't know what happened, it just-" she found herself stammering, looking down at her shadow-stained clothing, "It just came back, like it used to be. I don't know... I don't know what to do. I- I can't stay here if the shadows are back. There's just too much I could ruin."
Abner didn't respond at first, though he squeezed her hand again to let her know that he'd heard her. She could see the gears turning in his mind, working through undisclosed thoughts.
"Okay." he finally said, "Here's what we're going to do."
There was a shocking level of assuredness in his voice. He didn't hesitate, he didn't go quiet, he didn't stammer through the words. It felt as if they'd switched roles, her timid and trembling while he took charge. But it was comforting to know at least one of them had their head on straight.
"We're gonna go out to the lot behind the building. Where I go to release the dots, remember?" Abner asked, waiting for her to nod before he continued. He still hadn't let go of her hand, and gave it another gentle squeeze as he spoke, "And you're going to let out as many shadows as you can, okay? Just let them go, like you did when you saved me."
"How do you know that will-"
"Because it worked once. You did it once." he insisted, "Can we at least try?"
Nikoletta pursed her lips, but nodded. There was no harm in trying. Nothing to lose and everything to gain. And it was safer to be outside than in here, surrounded by wood and cotton and a pair of all-too-affection cats. She didn't know where Baron and Barbie had run off to, and she didn't want to find out when one of them brushed up against her leg and painted their fur with permanent ink.
Abner stood up, carefully offering her his other hand as he did. He didn't reach for any more touch than that, though his pajamas covered most of his skin anyway. All this carefulness reminded her of the early days - earlier - but his confidence was brand new.
It only took about thirty steps to get from the apartment to the dirt lot behind it. That was part of why they'd picked this apartment above any others: Abner needed a place to expel the dots, twice a day, without causing undue damage to what was around him. The dirt was soft but dry under Nikoletta's bare feet, a trail of shadowy footprints following her.
Abner paused in the center of the lot, dark eyes flicking over Nikoletta's figure for a moment before he spoke again.
"I'm going to go upstairs and change the sheets," he said, "And see if anything else got, um, shadowed."
"The doorjamb," she muttered, "By the bedroom. It's ruined."
"Could be worse," Abner pointed out, "That's something we can replace."
She nodded, though she found herself twisting her fingers uncomfortably into the hem of her nightshirt. Her gloves squeaked with the motion.
"Check the cats." Nikoletta blurted as another thought struck her, "Please. And- and yourself. You were right there in the bed with me."
"I will."
It wouldn't have made much difference if she'd brushed against Baron. He was a black cat anyway. But Barbie - short for Barbershop Quartet, for no reason other than she'd been found in an alley behind a hair salon - was an American shorthair, pale gray and striped, and any accidental touch would be obvious. Say nothing, of course, of Abner and how pale he was. Even the marks on his back were almost supernaturally stark against his skin. At least he could hide those with a shirt.
Abner reached out, clasping her shoulder and giving it a brief but comforting squeeze. Then he was gone, and Nikoletta was left alone.
She peeled the gloves off her hands and crouched in the dirt. She'd let go of those shadows once, in a desperate attempt to save Abner's life. And it had worked. She'd thought for months that the spray of shadows across his back would be the last mess her touch would ever leave.
Apparently she was wrong. They'd keep coming back. The shadows were an endless poison, forever welling up inside her.
Nikoletta set her hands in the dirt and purged herself of the darkness.
When Abner released his dots, he claimed it was the best he felt all day. As the day went on, he got more tired, more achey, more sick, as the virus took hold of him again. Gruesome as it was, she always found herself grateful for his little twice-daily ritual. It was the most unburdened he ever looked, and he deserved to be free of pain. She only wished it last longer than the sparse few hours he got.
But for her it was the opposite. Purging her shadows did not feel good. It did not relieve her of any pain or sickness. Instead she only felt hollow and exhausted when she finished, hardly able to hold herself upright. Despite the muggy nighttime air around her, she felt chilled to the bone. Something about the shadows kept her together. Without them, she was weak.
Nikoletta ran her shaking hands over the front of her shirt, exhaling a sigh of relief when no more shadows followed the touch. It had lasted a whole four months the last time she'd drained them - but that was life-or-death, and she'd been unconscious for days afterwards. She didn't know how long it would last this time. Days? Weeks? Or would she be going through this whole routine again tomorrow night?
"The cats are alright." Abner's soft voice came from behind her, an unknown number of minutes later, "Not a mark. Me too. Everything's okay. As long as... you're okay too?"
"I'm fine." Nikoletta mumbled as he approached and crouched beside her, "Safe to touch again. For a while."
"It would be okay either way," he said, then reached out to set his palm on her knee. He hesitated a little before he did it, like he was expecting her to pull away. "We'd find a way to make it work. It wouldn't be any worse than dealing with my dots."
Nikoletta nodded, though she bit the inside of her cheek. She didn't quite believe him, but she couldn't argue without it sounding like his condition was a burden to her. She was a little impressed, all things considered. It was a clever choice of words.
She moved to stand, but her knees crumpled under her. There was that weakness, her strength drained alongside her shadows. Abner darted ahead to catch her before she could fall, and a heartbeat later had lifted her into his arms.
She'd been surprised the first time he carried her. It was on her way out of the hospital - they'd insisted on pushing her out to the car in a wheelchair, but she hadn't realized she was still too weak to walk until they'd made it to the parking lot of the apartment they lived in now. After a moment or two of debate, wondering how to get her up the flight of stairs when she couldn't even stand on her own, Abner had finally come to a decision and lifted her into a bridal carry.
She hadn't been fond of it then. She wasn't sure she was fond of it now. Vulnerability as a whole was a difficult thing for her, and what was more vulnerable than being carried?
But it was either that or wait out here until she got a little strength back. And that could be all night. Besides... if it were going to be anyone, she'd rather it be him.
"I'm glad it happened now." Abner mumbled, seemingly out of the blue as he helped her back into the apartment. Baron and Barbie brushed against his legs and mewled softly as he stepped inside, and a faint smile twisted at Abner's lips.
"I wish it hadn't happened at all," Nikoletta huffed in response. Abner shrugged as he set her down on the bed. He lingered just an extra moment, daring to lean in and kiss her forehead before he pulled back.
"I mean if it was going to happen. If it couldn't be avoided. I'm glad it happened now, and not another time," he explained, "I mean, if it happened earlier, I wouldn't know how to help you. And if it happened later, we might have forgotten how to deal with it. And now we know how to fix it if- when it happens again."
Baron hopped up onto the bed and picked his way over to Nikoletta's side. He bumped his face into her hand with a rumbling purr, demanding affection. Nikoletta forced herself not to freeze or flinch. It was fine. Everything was fine. The problem had been dealt with.
"I guess you're right." she sighed, finally convincing herself to run her fingers through Baron's soft black fur, "I guess... if it had to happen, it was better we got it over with."
Abner nodded and lifted the covers, ready to slide back into bed next to her. But he paused, half in and half out.
"Do you... want me to sleep on the couch tonight?" he asked, frowning just a little as his eyes flicked over to the door, "If you need space?"
He pulled back just a little, but Nikoletta's hand snapped out and caught his wrist before he could go far. Abner froze in place. She swallowed hard.
"No. Please." she admitted, the words sticking in her throat, "I don't want to be alone."
#my writing#my ocs#nikoletta bordeaux#baron and barbie#oneshot#ficlet#angst#hurt/comfort#mild body horror#the suicide squad#abner krill#polka dot man
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A movie has been made starring your OCs! Who are you casting?
Oooh, interesting! So this is like... faceclaims but they don't have to be perfect, kind of. This will be fun :D
Robin: Erin Kellyman. She's already her faceclaim, so that much is easy. There are a few different details, but she's by far my number one for Robin
Ophelia: I struggled to pick something for her, but I think Rhea Ripley would be a good pick. She's a little short to play Ophelia, but she's got the right facial features and that strong fighter's build.
Rae: I struggled with Rae for a WHILE and I have no idea why. Nothing just clicked, I looked through so many lists before finally landing on Nell Tiger Free. She's just about the right height, has the perfect eye color, and overall has the right sort of vague intensity for Rae (that sounds weird but like... her bone structure and the way she holds herself, I can see Rae's first fight in the alleyway right there)
Jasper: I'd definitely want an actor who's trans irl. In all actuality, it would probably be an open audition rather than pulling from the pool of existing actors, as a way to introduce more queer talent into the industry. But for the sake of picking someone.... Miles McKenna, if we punk him up a little bit.
Madison: I think I decided on Dove Cameron for her a while ago, and that still works. She's need to be put in some SFX makeup for her mutation, and her hair and eyes might just have to be CGI because of that mirror effect.
Katherine: It's hard to find actresses with Katherine's facial features AND vitiligo (again, would likely be an open audition if I actually were making a movie), but I think Dara Reneé with SFX makeup for her vitiligo would be a good fit.
Quinn: Same with Jasper, I'd probably open it up to wider auditions, especially since Quinn is very visibly trans and actors who fit her character aren't always given opportunities to get into the industry. But again, for the sake of picking someone... I dunno man, I really fuckin love Mason Alexander Park. They're a little too short for Quinn but everything else is just about perfect.
Kestrel: I'm gonna be honest... I have absolutely no idea. They're intentionally designed with a few incongruous features (since they chose their own appearance, it's not genetic), so I really don't know who would even come close.
Eris: I was scrolling through a list of Middle Eastern actors to try and pick someone out, and I'm thinking either Alia Shawkat or May Calamawy. Alia looks a little more like the picrew I made for Eris, but May (having done Moon Knight) would potentially get Eris' fight scenes and general character a little better.
Nikoletta: Let's give Teyonah Parris her dual Marvel/DC credit, why don't we? I think she'd kill it as Nikoletta, and it would be neat to see her in a more villainous/dark role
#some of these took a while to decide tbh. I have the curse of making my OCs so hyperdistinct that I can never pick a good faceclaim#my friends!!!#answered asks#my ocs#madison douglas#jasper wilson#ophelia octavius#rae mckinney#robin cassidy#oc kestrel#oc quinn/aces#oc katherine johnson#oc eris#nikoletta bordeaux
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Your OCs are told they're going to watch a Star Wars movie. Which one will make them happiest and which one will be the most disappointing?
Ooooh good question! I'm gonna open this up to movies and shows because... I'm a nerd lol
Rae: happiest with Empire Strikes Back, most disappointed with the prequels
Robin: Loves all of them, but would be particularly pleased at the Tuskan Raider sign language in Book of Boba Fett
Madison: I think she'd love the sequel movies, actually! She'd like Rey as a protagonist for sure. And she's not familiar enough with them to have a least favorite.
Ophelia: Hm... she regularly has Star Wars marathons with the Peters and Ned, so she's familiar with all of them, but I think she'd be the most fond of the Clone Wars show (and would have it on constantly when she's working in her lab)
Jasper: Also has a lot of Star Wars marathons and loves them all, but I think they just couldn't sit through Rogue One. It's not bad, it's just... long, and they prefer to have established characters.
Katherine: Being a nerd kid (like me!) she grew up on the original and prequel movies and those will always be close to her heart. Though she'd go nuts for how cool and artistic the different episodes of Star Wars: Visions are!! And she found the Rise of Skywalker to be a little disappointing, like a lot of people
Kestrel: Has not seen any of them, and probably only would if one of the kids managed to corral them into it.
Quinn: I think she'd actually really enjoy the Force Awakens, but neither of the other sequel movies. She likes how many cool ideas were set up, but felt like they sort of lost focus and got less compelling as the series went on
Eris: Has only seen them because Rick made them have a marathon one day, and doesn't really have any strong opinions. If they had to pick a favorite, he'd like Mando: a rogue fighter, affiliated with no one side? That's Eris' thing for sure, and they think the fight scenes are neat.
Nikoletta: Likes them all, but in a detached way. No favorites, no least favorites, they're entertaining to have on (and Abner likes them) but she won't seek them out on her own. She's more of a Star Trek fan (and before you ask, the original series and Next Gen mainly)
#my friends!!!#answered asks#my ocs#jasper wilson#ophelia octavius#madison douglas#oc quinn/aces#oc kestrel#oc katherine johnson#rae mckinney#robin cassidy#oc eris#nikoletta bordeaux
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Lost in Thought (Nikoletta x Abner)
Summary: In the middle of the night, Abner falls into a painful thought spiral. He's never had someone to help him out of it before, but things aren't the way they used to be
Tags: emotional hurt/comfort, discussion of self-hatred
Word Count: 3.2k
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Nikoletta turned over in the bed, wincing at the light flooding in behind her eyelids. Sunlight? No- it was the middle of the night, the sky was dark, and the light from the street wasn’t enough to have woken her. She forced her eyes open and squinted, looking at the room around her illuminated in a myriad of colors.
Her sleep-dredged mind still hadn’t quite caught up with her. She’d been sleeping surprisingly well, for once not chilled or plagued with nightmares. It was… nice. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so deeply. It must have been years. She had a cat tucked against her arm, the other between her feet, Abner asleep right beside her-
Ah. Right.
“Mm.” she mumbled, fumbling towards the light until her fingers found his shoulder, “Abner. Honey. Dots.”
He stirred immediately at the sound of her voice - even on the best of nights, he wasn’t a particularly heavy sleeper, and this clearly wasn’t the best of nights - and picked himself up from the bed with a low groan. His movements were rough and graceless, half from fatigue and half from the virus eating its way through his body. Abner ran a hand down his face, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes but only grimacing when his fingers found multicolored, swollen skin instead. Seeing him like this, with that look of well-practiced pain held deep in his eyes, cut Nikoletta’s heart every time. Months of this, and it never seemed to get easier.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, glancing down at her with something almost guilty in his eyes. Somehow that was worse than the outright pain. He took a shuffling step towards the door, leaning on the bedpost when his balance faltered. “I’ll be right back.”
He shuffled his way out of the room before Nikoletta could convince her tired brain to come up with any sort of response. She heard the front door swing open with a low creak, and Baron leapt up from the bed to follow the noise. Abner’s low voice carried through the apartment as he shooed the cat away from the door, and then the lock latched behind him.
For as tired as she’d been in the moments before, it was impossible to sleep while she waited for Abner to return. For one thing, it was hard to hold any warmth with him gone, especially with the cats still off investigating the door. For another, she couldn’t get the sound of his voice out of her head - the apology, the way he sounded both so pained and so flooded with that strange guilt.
She was used to the routine by now, him getting up in the middle of the night to release the dots as the virus collected and seethed in his body, but this was different. Normally it was a chore for him, but tonight he seemed more burdened than usual. Was it the fact that the light had woken her? The fact that she’d reminded him instead of waiting for him to get so uncomfortable that he woke himself up? Or was it something else entirely - nightmares or otherwise haunted thoughts as she knew he struggled with?
Nikoletta wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, her heart ached for him.
She heard the door open and shut again just a few minutes later. Something in her jolted at that, a static shock between the ribs, but Nikoletta forced her breathing to remain steady. That was a little remnant from her years in Belle Reve, she was sure. She couldn’t sit with her back to the door, and it always made her flinch to hear an entrance she couldn’t see.
But that tired, shuffling gait was Abner’s, as was the mumbled greeting he gave to the cats when he entered. The tension bled out of Nikoletta’s body in a rush. Even though she knew why he’d left, how long he’d be gone, even if logic told her there was nobody else who could have entered but him… that little ribbon of anxiety was woven in with her nerves. Short of clawing herself completely numb, it would linger with her forever.
Nikoletta shifted on the bed, turning herself over and tucking the duvet around herself as she waited for Abner to join her. Except… he didn’t. She heard him pour himself a glass of water, a routine that was usually followed by him returning to the bedroom and pulling her into his arms, but tonight it was followed by several long minutes of near-silence. Nikoletta frowned to herself, again pushing herself up and rubbing at her eyes.
She wasted only another moment, lamenting the soon-to-be loss of the warmth she’d managed to scrape together here between the sheets, then sighed and slid out of bed. The cheap vinyl carpet was cool and rough under her bare feet.
“Abner? You coming back to bed, hon?” Nikoletta asked, propping herself against the doorway to look him over. He was seated on the end of the couch, hunched over, though he glanced up at the sound of her voice. His eyes were tired, heavily-lidded- at least, more than usual.
“I don’t know.” he sighed, wringing his hands in his lap, “Maybe.”
Nikoletta frowned as she picked her way over to the couch. Baron and Barbie wove between her feet and nearly tripped her. Abner’s dark eyes tracked her with every step, even as she found a spot beside him on the sofa.
“What’s wrong?”
He just shrugged at first, and didn’t say a word. Nikoletta waited in silence, fingers twitching in indecision. She wanted to reach out to him, to take his hand or run her fingers through his hair or tug on his shoulder to kiss his cheek, but she wasn’t sure he’d want that now. After all, he’d pulled away, and he sat hunched in on himself like he wanted to take up the smallest space he could.
“I didn’t mean to wake you up.” he finally said, the words so mumbled they were almost incoherent. Abner curled his fingers against his legs, squeezing until it looked like it hurt. “I don’t mean to be so… so weird and gross and ugly all the time. I’m sorry.”
“Whoa, hey-” Nikoletta started, finally finding the drive to reach for him and draw his hands away from his thighs before he bruised himself. Abner hardly seemed to notice her, his fingers squeezing hers so hard it made her bones creak. She fought down her wince.
She was too tired for this - too tired to think of what to say, what she could do to comfort him, if there was anything she could do to comfort him - and that sent a flash of guilt sparking through her. She wished she could be better for him. She wished she could be better about these quiet moments, when her instinct was to grow cold and pull away herself. She wouldn’t give in to that instinct, but… it would be so much easier not to have that instinct at all.
“I’m just an- an anchor,” Abner kept going, his voice twisted into a low, self-hating mutter, “I’m this weight dragging you down, I’m a drag on your life- you’d be so much happier without me-”
“When did I say that?” Her voice came out too sharp, in her desperation to get a word in before he pressed on, and Abner’s eyes flashed up to hers like he’d been kicked. Nikoletta almost flinched, pierced by another sharp quarrel of guilt, and she swallowed the urge to look away. “Abner, sweetheart- when did I say I’d be happier without you?”
He fought for words for a while, struggling with the logic of it.
“Well- you didn’t, but I-”
“I didn’t.” she repeated, “I didn’t, Abner, because that’s not true. You asked me, back at the hospital, if I wanted to stay with you. And I said yes.”
“That was months ago.”
“And you asked me again before we adopted Baron and Barbie, because pets are a big commitment. You said they’d tether us together, and they’d get sad if we split, so you had to double-check that I wanted to stay with you. I thought it was… sweet.” Nikoletta added, twisting around on the couch to look at him directly. She was finding her words now, getting a rhythm, and maybe she wouldn’t have been able to manage it if it weren’t so late at night. “And you ask me the same thing every time you get sick, or have a nightmare, or sometimes for no reason at all, and I always say the same thing, don’t I?”
He nodded - a sort of loose, low motion that said he didn’t want to let himself believe her, but at the same time he couldn’t find any ground to refute it. His eyes flicked up and down her face, unable to find any steady place to land. It felt like the early days. These little spirals of his always did.
That wasn’t to say she didn’t spiral just as much. Some days went by where she couldn’t bring herself to touch him, so convinced she’d leave a mark like she used to. Sometimes she was too sharp with him, too distant, throwing up those old walls even though she knew he deserved so much better than that. It was almost fair, in a way. And strangely, she almost appreciated when it was his turn - it broke her heart to see him hurt like this, but it reminded her she wasn’t the only one.
“Maybe… maybe you just didn’t want to be alone.” Abner finally said, so softly he was almost whispering, “Maybe I was just… easier?”
“You’re right. I don’t want to be alone.” she admitted, dropping her gaze down to their linked hands, “I… I don’t ever want to be alone again. Not like I was. And maybe- maybe that is part of it. But honestly? I don’t think that really matters much. I’d rather be not-alone with you than not-alone with someone else. It’s not just having another body in the house, y’know, just to take up space, it’s… I like you, Abner. I love you. It’s more than just wanting someone else here with me. I want you here. You’re not replaceable.”
She still wasn’t good with the softer words. She still wasn’t used to it. But… these came out about as well as she could have hoped. Abner’s expression softened, just for a moment, and Nikoletta thought she felt him lean in a little closer. She released her grip on his hands, though only to reach up and brush her fingers through his hair.
“Will you come back to bed?”
“I don’t know.” he mumbled. She couldn’t tell whether he was reacting to the question or what came before it. Abner ducked his head in a way that made her fingers fall away from him. It made something ache within her. For as long as she’d spent shunning all touch, it hurt to be on the other end of it. “I don’t think I deserve to be in bed right now.”
You do, she wanted to say, but she knew that wouldn’t help. It was too… easy. Too open. By now she knew how his mind worked. She needed to give him something harder to brush aside- something that placed it outside himself.
“Well… maybe I deserve to have you with me. Maybe I deserve to be warm, hm? Maybe I deserve to feel safe? You know it’s hard for me to sleep without you next to me.” she tried, “Maybe… it’s not about what you deserve tonight, it’s about what I deserve. Come back to bed. You’ll feel better once you sleep.”
“I don’t want to feel better. It’s not worth feeling better.”
Nikoletta sighed. This was a bad one. And she was running out of things to say. The darker side of her, that cold steel core, wanted just to walk away. She’d tried, given it her fair share of effort, but maybe he just wanted to wallow for a bit. She was already exhausted, and this could go on for hours. He wouldn’t blame her for being selfish, she thought. Not for this.
But she’d blame herself.
“Where are all these thoughts coming from?” she asked, setting her palm on his knee and tilting her head to try and meet his eyes. Abner ducked her gaze with a faint shrug.
“My head, I guess.” he mumbled. Nikoletta knew what he really meant. Those thoughts hadn’t just originated in his mind like he said. She knew who had planted them there, years ago, alongside the virus that racked his body.
“Hm.”
She didn’t say anything more than that, didn’t offer any encouragement or comfort, and she got up from the couch. Abner looked confused, even a little hurt, as Nikoletta slipped back into the bedroom. But she was back only a moment later, with a blanket tucked around her shoulders.
“Well…” she said, sliding back onto the couch beside him and tucking herself against his side, “If you’re not coming back to bed, I might as well keep you company out here.”
She swept the blanket off her shoulders and laid it across both of their laps. Abner’s fingers fiddled at the edge of it, like he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to push it away or not. He ended up leaving it where it was, but there was confusion still drawn into his posture. Nikoletta did her best to ignore it, instead folding her knees under herself and leaning her head into Abner’s shoulder.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know. I want to.” she insisted, “I said I want to stay with you, and that means… I want to stay with you.”
Finally, she could feel some of his tension bleed away, and Abner turned his head to press a firm, chaste kiss to her temple. It still wasn’t perfect, she could still feel the reservations in his posture, the way his hands stayed clasped in his lap instead of drawing her closer, but it was a start.
“How do you see me?” she mumbled, turning her head to look up at him, “Do you see-”
“No.” Abner cut her off, something firm coming into his tone as he said the word. His voice softened a moment later, returning to that gentle hesitance she knew so well from him, “No, I… I see you. I see this… this beautiful woman with black eyes and coily hair, and I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m supposed to be seeing.”
“Mm-hmm.” Nikoletta agreed, nodding faintly against his shoulder. Abner let out a faint breath, something almost relieved, like he’d been halfway worried it was all another hallucination.
“When I say I see her, I don’t…” he sighed after a moment or two of silence, “I don’t mean I really see her all the time. Sometimes I do, when I’m- when I’m stressed, or when there’s a lot of people looking at me, but I… I still know what people look like. But I hear her. In my head. All the time. ‘Abner, you fuck-up, why can’t you do anything right? Get rid of the dots, I don’t want to look at that, nobody’s going to love you if they have to see you like that. Sit down and be quiet, I should never have had a son this useless. Why couldn’t it be you that died instead of your brother?’”
He spoke the words tiredly, distanced by time, but Nikoletta’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t find her voice, swallowed and suffocated under so much old grief, but she found herself reaching for his hand and clasping it tightly between both of her own.
She could see now why he’d ended up pulling away. She’d urged him up out of nothing more than concern, knowing the dots made him feel sick and miserable and hating the sight of pain on his face. If there had been anything selfish in it, it was only the fact that the light had woken her. She’d meant it only as a gentle reminder, nothing worse than that.
And he’d heard his mother, shoving him away because she couldn’t stand to look at him.
“Abner…” she murmured, the sound of his name enough to make him glance back down at her, “You’re- you’re not gross. You’re not ugly. You’re not useless, and you are not a fuck-up. I don’t know why she thought she had to tell you those things, but she was wrong.”
She lifted his hand and kissed it, the same gesture she remembered him doing for her after she’d first woken up in the hospital. Nikoletta bit her cheek, urging herself to voice the rest of what was in her head.
“You’re one of the kindest men I’ve ever met,” she managed, and then it was a little easier to continue, “And I mean that. You’re sweet, and you’re smart, and you’re handsome, and I… I’m really glad you’re here with me. You don’t drag me down, you… you make me better. You knew me in Belle Reve. And I’d probably still be there if it weren’t for you.”
There were layers of truth to that. Emotionally and physically. When Waller had assigned her to Corto Maltese, she’d been a hair’s breadth away from slipping into the shadows and disappearing. She’d known the mission was bound to be a death sentence, and she’d known there was nothing Waller could do to keep her there if she chose to escape. She’d never been given a bomb. She’d ducked into the shadows every time they tried, and eventually they just gave up.
But she’d stayed for him. She caught the sidelong glances, the wariness and distrust cast in his direction, even the sheer animosity from the rest of Belle Reve, and she’d worried the mission would just prove an excuse for a very convenient slip in the middle of the night. Waller wouldn’t care. It could all be brushed aside, a mistake, an accident, a hapless casualty. She’d thought even then that he deserved better.
At that point, it had still been a distant sort of want - none of the fervent drive or desperation it would develop into, of course. She’d spoken with him rarely, and she didn’t deny that he was an odd sort of man, but he was still the only person within those walls who’d ever made an effort to reach out to her. If nothing else, she wanted him to make it out of Corto Maltese.
And it led her here: not only alive but warm, happy, safe in a way she’d once barely been able to dream about. It wasn’t a glamorous life, of course, it wasn’t without its share of struggles, but… she’d take these struggles. A hundred times over.
Nikoletta tilted her head to kiss his jaw - about the only place she could reach without stretching - and Abner let out a long, slow breath. Finally his arm snuck around her waist, long fingers splayed across the crest of her hip. Nikoletta shut her eyes, letting her weight rest against his side. She’d spend the night here on the couch, if that’s what it turned to.
“Alright,” Abner mumbled, just as she’d begun to drift off. Nikoletta shifted.
“Hm?”
“We can go back to bed,” he decided, “I’m, um, I’m ready. Thanks, Nik.”
#my writing#my ocs#nikoletta bordeaux#oneshot#angst#emotional hurt/comfort#tw emotional trauma#tw selfhate#angst with a happy ending#the suicide squad#abner krill#polka dot man#oc x canon
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Your OCs are put in the Hunger Games! Who's surviving, and how?
Ooooh thank you!! Very good question, let's see....
(long ramble incoming btw, I love thinking about survival strategy with my OCs lol)
Rae: With her abilities or without, she's not afraid to jump into a fight. She'd probably avoid the initial slaughter, but would run back to the Cornucopia once it's cleared out to get a weapon and whatever other supplies she can grab. This strategy probably gets her a decent way through the game, since she's an experienced fighter from training with the X-Men, but she stands a much better shot if she has her shields. Without them, she's surviving somewhere in the realm of 75% of the way through the game before being double-teamed or taken down by a better fighter, but with her shields she might make it to the end (or close to it)
Robin: Plays things a bit conservative, and works on generating an alliance with another player or two. She'd most likely get offed by something in the natural world - she's a good fighter and can manage a team or alliance well, but she's not as experienced with nature and would probably end up getting sick from tainted water or mistaking a poisonous mushroom for an edible one.
Madison: Disappears into the wilderness. She's playing the long game for sure - she can survive in the wilderness for years if she has to, the enhanced creatures and traps would prove a bit of a challenge but nothing she can't handle. She waits for most of the players to take care of each other, then works on quietly assassinating her biggest threats (this would be easier with her abilities, with her venom and camouflage, but she'd find a way even in a completely power-neutral Hunger Games). She could very likely make it to the end, unless someone catches her in the act of trying to assassinate them and manages to kill her first
Ophelia: Hm... this could go two ways. On the one hand, she is wickedly smart and resourceful, and could thrive in a tech-forward Hunger Games. She'd probably be the type to repurpose the unexploded landmines like those people in the first book, and use those and other resources to set traps. On the other hand, she's been a city girl all her life, and reading textbooks on wilderness survival is different from being in the thick of it, so a nature-forward Games wouldn't be good for her. Plus, there's the matter of her knee - she can still fight, but she wouldn't be able to outrun Mutts or a wall of fire or any other traps like that.
Jasper: I'm gonna be real, they're not surviving the Hunger Games. Their main resources in the Games would be their medical experience, so their main plan would be to use their nursing skills as incentive to form an alliance (since they could very well be the only one able to stop a person from dying of infection/blood loss/etc. if it came down to it). But that strategy only gets them so far, since their only "fighting" experience is roller derby and a single college self-defense seminar. As soon as someone invades the alliance, or they get to late-stage game where they have to turn on each other, Jasper's probably going down.
Katherine: Sadly... also not making it out alive. With her magic, she stands a much better chance, since she can call on the gods to aid her (they're motivated to keep her alive since she's about the only one able to act as a priestess in the modern world, so they'd be willing to give her strength and cunning and protect her from whatever threats they can), but even that can only go so far, and without her magic she'd probably be one of the first to die - shot down or speared in the first rush to the Cornucopia
Kestrel: With their shapeshifting at their disposal, they survive without winning - they'd shapeshift into a mundane animal somewhere in the battlegrounds, and keep moving and transforming until both the cameras and the other contestants lose track of them. They don't fight, and don't even really consider themself a contestant, but they can survive in the form of various animals until the Games are complete, then slip away when the arena is abandoned. Without their shapeshifting, in a power-neutral games, they probably tie Madison with pure wilderness survival strategy and can last a good long while, but they're not cunning or ruthless enough to get rid of their competitors first and would only be able to kill in self-defense, which leads to them eventually getting struck down.
Quinn: She'd have the Foxface strategy for sure - all cunning. Physically she could be swiped down easily, against physically-abled and highly-trained fighters from the First District especially, so she becomes the master of mind games instead. She's got a thousand tricks up her sleeve, everything from swiping tools from her competitors while they're unaware to weaving such an elaborate lie that they convince an "ally" that poisonous berries are really perfectly safe. This strategy probably won't get them to the end of the game, since it usually always ends in a physical showdown that Quinn likely wouldn't be able to keep pace with, but it's interesting to watch and they get a lot of support from watchers of the games (she expected food to be an issue, since she's a city girl and knows nothing about hunting or foraging, but between nicking food from other contestants and donations from eager watchers she's actually in pretty good shape. Once they even managed to get her pain meds, since all the physical movement is havoc on her back and legs)
Eris: The better question is, is there any way they're not making it to the end of the Games? I mean, if there was ever a place that was made for them, this is it. Good god, I pray for their enemies. The only thing I can imagine taking them down is if it's a power-neutral Hunger Games, Eris would dive into a fight with the expectation of their healing factor and would realize too late that they can't shrug off their injuries like they usually do.
Nikoletta: She is the assassin of all assassins!! Especially if she has her powers at her disposal, she's finding a knife and picking off the contestants one by one (and diving into the shadows to escape). Even without her shadow-touch, she's sneaky and a good manipulator, so she'd make a good assassin either way. If anything's taking her down, it would be an alliance - in all likeliness, she's not even opening herself up to the possibility of an alliance, she's a lone wolf who just wants to get out alive, but if someone actually managed to break through her shell and form an alliance, that could turn into a point of weakness for her (either by them turning on her, them being used as ransom by another contestant, or Nikoletta being so focused on her ally's safety that she gets blindsided herself).
(also oh my god could you imagine the angst of them being put into the Hunger Games with their partners?? i mean i'm talking about Nikoletta's weakness being a surprise alliance bc that's basically an echo of her actual story with Abner, but could you imagine if it actually was Abner on the other end of it? Or Eris being forced to battle Rick one-on-one, knowing that even as good as he is, they'll always be the better fighter, and there can only be one winner? Or Madison choosing to go completely solo, since she doesn't trust her ability to keep herself and another person alive and hidden in the wilderness during the Games, but then having the thought of Alex fending for himself always simmering in the back of her mind and pulling her focus? Or- let's take things really dark, her taking out a competitor in the dead of night and realizing only once the sun comes up that it was Alex? God there's so much angst in a premise like this)
#my friends!!!#answered asks#my ocs#nikoletta bordeaux#oc eris#oc quinn/aces#oc katherine johnson#oc kestrel#jasper wilson#ophelia octavius#rae mckinney#robin cassidy#madison douglas
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Ok, Eclipse day is over, did your OCs see the eclipse, and how did they react if they did?
Thank you!
Rae: Cancelled all her foreign-languages classes so her students could enjoy the eclipse with her (she knows it's only a few minutes and they could have just stepped outside and then gone back in for class, but the kids could use a break anyway), and she and Warren go up to the roof to watch it themselves.
Robin: Missed it - didn't realize what day it fell on, and was in the middle of an opera rehearsal at the time
Madison: Hiked up to Lake Zenith with Alex and her sisters to see it. She saw an eclipse as a kid, her family traveled to see it, but it's still impressive this time around.
Ophelia: Tried to see it, but it was cloudy in NYC that day and she missed it.
Gia: Didn't plan on leaving the house, but Kate showed up with two sets of eclipse glasses and dragged her up to the roof of her building to watch it together (she protests at first but secretly loves it)
Jasper: Drove out with Kyle to the middle of the swamp somewhere so they could watch it in peace, managed to catch a partial eclipse but not total coverage.
Kestrel: Nope, was out on a mission for the Knights and was on a completely different continent at the time
Katherine: Went to go see it, drew it, took pictures, and showed those pictures to everyone at the museum. Ahk was briefly worried about Apophis eating the sun, and Larry had to explain the concept of an eclipse to him.
Quinn: Didn't really bother, doesn't really see the appeal. Kinda laughed at the other Ghosts all staring aimlessly at the sky, sweating their asses off, trying to get a glimpse of it. They're in the wrong part of the country anyway.
Eris: Rick wanted to see it, so they took a trip up to the path of totality, but Eris has seen dozens of eclipses in their life and just doesn't get particularly amazed by it anymore. They did snag a glimpse or two, sans-eclipse glasses, and temporarily blinded himself until his healing factor fixed his corneas.
Nikoletta: Had never seen an eclipse before, and neither had Abner, so they actually both get the eclipse glasses and watch it for as long as possible, and are both incredibly impressed.
Jimmy: Heard that Lars and Lucky were going to pop out around lunch to try and catch a glimpse and asked to join them. They also weren't in the path of maximum coverage, but Jimmy was awed at even the little sliver they got (he'd never seen an eclipse before either). Lars insisted that he borrow his eclipse glasses, even though he's a ghost and probably wouldn't suffer any ill effects.
#my friends!!!#answered asks#my ocs#jasper wilson#ophelia octavius#oc quinn/aces#oc kestrel#madison douglas#rae mckinney#robin cassidy#oc katherine johnson#gia pantazis#jimmy luciano#oc eris#nikoletta bordeaux
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Prompt? (No rush, save it if you wanna)
Write a Drabble for each of your OCs with the theme of Breakfast.
Ooooh now this is a challenge! A drabble is meant to be exactly a hundred words... and I'm pedantic as fuck when I write. But I'll give this a try, thanks for the prompt!
Rae:
"Wanna go out today?" Warren asked, leaning backwards out the bathroom door to look at Rae in the bedroom beyond, "Coffee? Breakfast?"
"What's the special occasion?" she replied lightly as she ran a comb through the snarls in her hair. Warren shrugged.
"No special occasion. Just wanted to take you out to breakfast, is all." he said, then shot her his most charming smile, "Want to show off the fact that I've got the most beautiful girl in the world."
"You don't have to chat me up, you know." Rae said, but couldn't hide her blush, "I'm already all yours."
Robin:
"Wren, honey-" Peter started, then lightly rapped his knuckles on his daughter's dining tray to get her attention. The toddler looked up, and Peter switched to ASL seamlessly: Cheerios go in your mouth. Not the floor.
"Is your daughter making a mess again?" Robin asked, nursing her mug of coffee with a faint smile on her face. Peter raised his eyebrows at her, though he couldn't hold back his grin.
"Why is she my daughter every time she makes a mess?"
"Because she's my daughter every time she doesn't listen?" Robin fired back with a shrug, "I mean- metaphorically speaking."
Madison:
"Bravo, breakfast!"
At the promise of food, the wolfdog bounded eagerly off the foot of the bed. Alex, who had been lying half-underneath the animal, crumpled inwards with a sudden, sharp groan.
"You okay?" Madison asked, amusement quickly turning to concern when she saw the grimace painted across his face.
"Got used as a launchpad," he muttered, clutching at his lower abdomen, "Worst alarm clock ever."
"Pretty sure I've had worse."
"I mean worst for people who didn't spend half their life living in the middle of nowhere."
"Eh, I'll make it up to you," Madison promised, "Bravo, let's go."
Ophelia:
"Here, Ol's." Peter said, sliding a plate of steaming scrambled eggs onto the only open space on her desk - which happened to be exactly where she was working. Ophelia glanced up, vaguely startled.
"Scrambled eggs at two in the morning?"
"It's eight-thirty, babe."
"Oh, shit- have I really been working all night?" Now that she'd been pulled from her hyperfocused trance, the exhaustion hit her like a speeding train.
"Yeah. Maybe try to get some sleep?" Peter urged, setting a warm hand on her shoulder.
"No promises," Ophelia shot back, "But I'll try to wrap this up. Thanks for breakfast."
Jasper:
"Ugh," Jasper mumbled, splashing a bit of cold water on his face in an effort to ward off his exhaustion. He'd been pulling late shifts at the hospital, hoping to scrape a few extra bucks after Kyle's work laptop had decided to kick the bucket.
Speak of the devil - Kyle ducked his way into the bathroom, giving his partner a squeeze and a kiss to the top of his head as he passed. He stretched to grab his toothbrush, brown doe-eyes still a little bleary with sleep.
"I don't feel like making breakfast." Jasper sighed. Kyle smiled.
"Café du Monde?"
Quinn:
"Coffee is not breakfast."
"Coffee is close enough," Quinn muttered, tugging their mug a little closer and shooting Billy a firm look, "Don't have an appetite anyway."
"You want me to make you a bagel?" Billy persisted, already wandering towards the kitchenette.
"What part of I don't have an appetite didn't make sense the first time?"
"Made perfect sense, Q." he responded, briskly grabbing a bagel from the bread box - why did One have a bread box in the twenty-first century? - and slicing it in half, "But I speak fluent Quinn, and I know you'll feel better after you eat."
Katherine:
The break room in the museum was already awfully small, but it felt even more cramped with the press of a dozen bodies around her. Even Rexy, drawn by the scent of sizzling bacon, had attempted to press her bony snout through the door. Katherine was half-tempted to tell the more waxen-inclined to scram, under the guise that they'd melt from the heat of the stove. She restrained herself.
Pancakes at midnight. It sounded like something she'd have dreamed about as a kid. But when they weren't awake in time for a real breakfast... she improvised.
"Who wants chocolate chips?"
Kestrel:
They were awoken to the heavenly smell of crackling sausage and percolating coffee. From the kitchen, they heard Warren humming under his breath. Kestrel smiled to themself.
They slid off the bed and reached for their robe, tucking the soft fleece around themself. It was mornings like these that they always felt the most at home - waking up to a home-cooked meal, wrapped in soft fabrics and about to go greet their lover with the sunrise shining in through the windows...
For as much as they loved the excitement in their life, there was nothing that quite compared to this.
Eris:
"Okay, so that one's... a little crispy." Rick chuckled, tossing Eris' blackened French toast onto a plate with a lopsided smile, "Try again."
"It's fine, I'll still eat it." Eris insisted, reaching for the plate, "Don't want to waste food."
Rick got there first, and upended the plate into the trash can before Eris could take it. The slice of toast - effectively charcoal, if they were being honest - tumbled out of sight.
"This is not the fourteenth century," Rick said, reaching for the container of cinnamon on the counter, "This cost me four dollars. You can try again, I promise."
Nikoletta:
"I know you don't feel well, hon, but could you please try to eat something?" Nikoletta asked, speaking as softly as she could manage. She slid onto the bed, reaching to pass her fingers through Abner's dark, sweat-dampened hair. "Want me to make you some toast?"
He offered her a faint nod, all hollowed eyes and pallid cheeks. He hadn't eaten since the prior day's lunch, sick with a flare-up of the same virus that gave him his dots.
"You know you'll... you'll have to do this again. I'll get sick again."
"I'll still be here. We've been through worse."
This was actually really fun! It's made me realize, looking at it all in these side-by-side snippets like this, how different the tones of my fics really are when you put them all together. Cool!
#my friends!!!#answered asks#my writing#my ocs#jasper wilson#ophelia octavius#madison douglas#oc quinn/aces#oc kestrel#oc eris#nikoletta bordeaux#rae mckinney#oc katherine johnson#robin cassidy#wren cassidy
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Your OCs encounter Mothman in the woods! It's Arya, shapeshifting just to mess with them, but they don't know that. How do they react to this very mothy surprise?
Ooooh, interesting! Thank you!
Rae: Freezes in place, trying to figure out if "Mothman" has noticed her. She draws energy into her hands, but doesn't make a shield just yet. If she can, she'll back away before any sort of fight breaks out. This isn't the weirdest thing she's seen before, but she'd still rather not engage if there's no point to it.
Robin: Turns and runs - though she still maintains enough clarity to remember to block the sound of her footsteps so it's harder to follow her. She doesn't know what the fuck that thing in the woods is, but this is not the way she wants to die.
Madison: Her knives are in her hands in an instant, and she whistles for Bravo to come back to her side. She doesn't outright start a fight, but this definitely doesn't look good.
Ophelia: Where the hell is she going to find a forest in the middle of central NYC?
Jasper: Just keeps walking, pretends they didn't see anything. This is how things roll in the South - the woods don't belong to you, if you see something weird no you definitely didn't. They go home, toss 13 pennies on the porch, lock the doors, and pull the curtains. Though they do think it's weird that they could sense the "Mothman"'s emotions
Kestrel: Isn't even fazed. They work es effectively a wildlife researcher for magical creatures (not to mention, they're a magical creature themself) so the sight of Mothman would be a mild surprise at best. They probably try to find a quiet spot to sketch it and jot down some notes without disturbing it.
Quinn: She's walking with Billy (no way she's hiking anywhere in the woods alone, when her mobility issues mean she's more likely to get hurt), and at first she brushes the Mothman thing aside as one of her hallucinations and just ignores it. But Billy freezes ("what the fuck is that thing?!"), which tells her he sees it too, and that's when she freaks out. There's no known magic or superpowers in her world, she probably ends up freaking out to the point that she tries to run, trips over a root, and twists her back wrong. (Arya, being a benign prankster who didn't really want to hurt anyone, gets worried and shifts into another form to help, but that's a whole different thing to have to explain)
Katherine: Similar answer to Jasper: she's from the South and lives in a world where magic is a known phenomenon (at least to her), so it's probably safest just to keep walking and pretend she didn't see anything unusual.
Eris: Naturally, expects that this'll end in a fight and decides to make the first move. They might actually understand the prank bit if Arya's able to explain quickly, but otherwise things could get bloody.
Nikoletta: I know this is starting to sound repetitive, but... look, I live in the South and this is how things work here. She's turning around as casually as she can, taking about fifteen steps the other direction, ducking behind a tree, and shadow-jumping as far as she can. She comes home rattled and may even end up shutting down a bit, which is definitely not the reaction Arya was hoping for.
(I know this makes like three of them with the same response but you should know that most Southern people subscribe to the 'if you see some weird shit in the woods you just keep walking. tell your friends when you get home but you Do Not see it while you're there')
#my friends!!!#answered asks#my ocs#jasper wilson#ophelia octavius#madison douglas#oc quinn/aces#oc kestrel#rae mckinney#robin cassidy#oc katherine johnson#oc eris#nikoletta bordeaux
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