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herradhighpriestess · 3 years

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The Butcher and the Maiden

Summary:

Summaries are hard, has a definite foundation in the series for names, faces and identities but then goes in a different direction. An abducted Vought scientist, secret formula. Starts slow, but smut and major character deaths ahead. Becca isn’t a part of this Butcher’s world. Lots of triggers and consensual non-consensual activities afoot. I hope you enjoy, xoxo

Chapter One: Outpatient Surgery

“Were you this much of a sniveling cunt before the Compound V or is this the effect?” Butcher growled before he depressed the trigger on the detonator and watched the Supe’s midsection explode from the C4 belt that Frenchie had wired together from phone charger cords.

“Goddammit Butcher, we needed to try and get some answers first. That’s the fifth Supe you’ve blown up, you know how hard they are to get a hold of,” Mother’s Milk growled as he shook his head.

Butcher chuckled as he wiped grey matter from his forehead. “He wasn’t going to give us anything, these fucking Supe’s are all the same.”

“How do you know? You didn’t even ask him anything?”

“No, but I got this,” Butcher said and tossed a laminated ID badge at MM’s broad chest.

MM examined the badge, seeing it was an access pass for one of Vought’s off-site research facilities.

“So, what, we’re going to go walk right in the front doors?”

“Something like that,” Butcher said with a smirk.

Both men looked to Starlight when she spoke from the doorway.

She couldn’t conceal her disgust at the blown apart and remaining visceral stump of the Supe and averted her gaze up to Hughie as he came to stand beside her.

“I could go there, if I got stopped, I could say I was returning the badge, that I found it.”

Hughie immediately began to protest and both Starlight and Butcher simultaneously interrupted him.

“Let me do this,” Starlight murmured.

“She’s a Supe, she’ll be fine,” Butcher grumbled and pushed past all of them.

Hughie followed him to the shabby bathroom as he wiped a damp cloth over the most obvious of the blood stains he could see and paused when Hughie didn’t move from the doorway.

“Stop getting distracted, your bird wants to help.”

Hughie blew out a breath and stepped aside so Butcher could find Frenchie and the Female and bring everyone together to discuss a way of getting into the Vought facility with the access badge.

Frenchie pulled up some info after hacking a Vought firewall and according to a glossary of Vought’s offsite facilities, this particular badge granted access to a building that was classified as Medical Research and Development.

Frenchie continued to check the schedules of the various companies that hauled away documents to be archived or shredded and trash abatement.

MM noted a few things that would be needed with a stubby pencil on a yellow pad of paper.

Everyone gathered around the dimly lit table in the rundown safehouse. As MM outlined a rough outline of the Vought facility, putting x’s on the entrances and rear access doors as well as the safety required fire escapes, Dr. Olivia Phillips pulled her luxury sedan into her reserved parking space behind the Vought Medical R&D building. She flipped down her visor and checked her teeth to make sure her breakfast bagel from the drive-thru espresso hut hadn’t left a poppyseed lodged in between her front teeth.

Olivia dabbed on a fresh coat of peach gloss before pulling her purse and backpack from the passenger seat. She juggled her coffee as she clicked her key fob and the car beeped twice.

She adjusted the thin strap of the hot pink backpack over her shoulder as her high heels clicked on the pavement of the freshly paved lot.

Olivia gritted her teeth as she slid her access badge and heard her co-worker Craig’s voice sound from behind her.

“Morning Florida,” he drawled.

She fought to keep tension from making her shoulders rise and plastered a saccharin sweet smile on her face before glancing back at him as the door buzzed loudly as it unlocked.

“Good morning Dr. Dalton,” she said and fought to not walk stiffly to the employee lounge and locker room as he called to her back. “Oh, come on, call me Craig.”

Olivia stuffed her bags in her locker and slipped on her lab coat before draining the last of her now tepid coffee and taking the stairs down to the sprawling lab in the basement.

She was buzzed in by security and washed her hands thoroughly before grabbing her daily inventory sheets and reviewing the notes left by the night shift.

Olivia pulled a few cultured specimens from one of the deep-freezes according to an urgent work order from a Vought scientist on the third floor. She tagged the specimen and checked the task off her task list.

Doctor Olivia Phillips had no idea that in just a few hours, her life was going to be completely turned upside down, shaken apart and turned inside out.

Olivia was listening to a voicemail and didn’t hear Craig until he tapped her on the shoulder.

She nearly dropped the phone as he held his hands up and pretended that he hadn’t purposefully made his approach as stealthy as possible.

“How’s it going Florida, what do you have planned for your Friday night?” he asked openly leering at her chest.

“I’ve asked you to not call me that,” Olivia said stiffly and deleted the voicemail.

“Sorry, sorry,” Craig said and leaned on the stainless-steel counter and pulled one of the ink pens from its mesh holder.

Olivia hated her pens getting stolen, so she decorated them with garish artificial hibiscus blossoms and gaudy feathers.

“Come get drinks with me tonight,” he said easily and deftly twirled the blooming pen in his long fingers.

Olivia reminded herself to keep smiling, “no thanks. I’m driving to my parent’s house this weekend, it’s their anniversary.”

“Bring me as your plus one,” he quickly countered.

She shook her head as her smile started to fail around the edges. “It’s just a small family get together; my mom hasn’t been feeling well.”

“You always have an excuse,” Craig said snarkily and shoved the pen back in the crowded holder.

As Olivia took in a deep inhale as the head of Vought’s R&D pouted, across town, MM, Butcher, Hughie and Starlight loaded into the dark nondescript van as Frenchie kick-started the foreign made motorcycle and the Female climbed onto the seat behind him, molding herself against him.

They started towards the Vought facility, obeying all traffic laws, and not drawing any unnecessary attention to themselves.

After checking to make sure it was Friday, they decided to approach through the delivery entrance.

There were several surveillance camera blind spots, but that facility wasn’t considered high-risk for break-ins.

As the van and motorcycle closed the distance between themselves and the facility, in the basement lab, Olivia blew out a relieved breath when Doctor Craig Dalton was paged on the overhead system and he had to leave.

She tapped her fingers on the stainless-steel counter as she listened to the next voicemail message and looked up at her educational accolades in matte grey frames with a simple ivory mat.

“Dad says this job is just a stepping stone,” she mumbled aloud, reminding herself that as soon as she logged enough hours she could get a better job in the main Vought laboratory downtown. She needed two-thousand hours with Dr. Craig Dalton before she could apply.

As she logged some chemical panel results from a high-pitched lab assistant in the downtown lab, MM and Butcher breached the service entrance and went to the right in search of the freight elevator that led to the basement as Hughie, Starlight, Frenchie and the Female took the second freight elevator to the first floor in search of the security office.

Olivia cranked the satellite radio station when one of best classic rock songs ever began to play.

As she sang along to the song in a blissfully unaware off-key tone, out in the hall, a security guard who was taking a smoke break returned early and turned the corner, nearly colliding with MM’s formidable frame.

The fresh-faced guard pulled his firearm as Butcher raised his own gun.

Several gunshots were rapidly exchanged and called the attention of two more nearby guards who began sprinting towards the sound of gunfire.

MM’s hand shot out and pulled the guard into a chokehold and easily snapped his neck, letting his body drop heavily to the gleaming linoleum.

Butcher and MM dashed into an alcove and exchanged gunfire with the two guards. MM threw a flash grenade down the hall and the inexperienced guards were too slow to react and shot wildly as the explosion disoriented them.

MM and Butcher’s sites each found a guard and ended them efficiently with a shot to the head and heart.

Butcher staggered and dropped to one knee as his side felt like it was coming apart. MM saw the blood soaking through his ribbed, grey shirt and half-pulled Butcher to the closest open door.

Olivia nearly fell off her padded stool when MM practically kicked in the door, dragging a bleeding Butcher behind him.

She fumbled for the phone as MM slammed the door shut and engaged the deadbolt.

“Put down the phone,” MM ordered calmly as he aimed his titanium gun at her.

Olivia nodded and replaced the phone and swallowed hard in relief when MM put the gun into his waistband. “You’re a doctor?”

Olivia nodded, not trusting herself to be capable of speech.

“Do you have the supplies here to help him?”

“It’s not really that kind of lab but there are some emergency supplies in the cabinet.”

“Get them,” MM shouted and Olivia scrambled to the cabinet and yanked out a plastic-handled case and nylon duffle bag of emergency supplies. She dropped next to Butcher as she yanked on a pair of snug-fitting green chemotherapy grade gloves.

MM watched Olivia as she yanked Butcher’s blood-soaked shirt out of the way and pressed a large, square gauze to the bullet’s entrance wound. MM dialed Frenchie and told them to pull the van around the back and that Butcher had been injured.

Olivia dug around in Butcher’s side and eventually her gloved fingertips brushed against the bullet lodged in his belly.

“You need to keep pressure on this,” Olivia said to Butcher as she needed both hands to get to the suture kit. The blood threatened to seep around her fingertips as she pressed a fresh white gauze to the wound.

Butcher looked at her and arched an eyebrow, his pupils seemed to truss her up and see inside her before he blinked and added with a ragged chuckle.

“I don’t have time for that love,” he grunted as he leveled his gun at the door as it was broken down and a pair of bulky guards rushed inside.

Olivia blew out a sharp breath and shifted until she could lean her hip against the bandage and hold pressure long enough to dig out a sterile needle and length of sterile suture.

Butcher tried to focus on the door and not the woman who within minutes of seeing him, had a gun pointed at her and was then saving his life. He let his eyes move over every bit of her exposed skin as she put several internal stitches to stop the bleeding and then stitched him close.

She felt herself flush at her uneven stitching. “It’s been a long time since you were in clinical, you stopped the bleeding and that’s what matters,” she told herself.

Olivia looked up startled as a skinny pale guy with huge, unblinking eyes and a cute blonde dropped into the room from an off-white ceiling panel.

“What the fuck is going on?” Olivia murmured to herself, but Butcher heard her. He kept his expression neutral and tried to conceal the pain that was radiating from under her busy, gloved hands.

Olivia taped the edges of a thick absorbent dressing as the skinny guy and blonde each got on a side of her impromptu surgical patient and hauled him to his feet.

She found herself walking with them as they scrambled out the rear of the building, pressing a sterile swab to the wound’s seeping edges.

Olivia shadowed Butcher’s half-carried steps until he helped half-slide himself into the back of a van and then started to back up with the intention of returning to the safety of the building.

“I’m going to need you to get in the van doctor, please don’t make me repeat myself,” MM ordered easily.

Olivia felt her bladder tighten at the emptiness in his words and nodded as she kept her eyes on MM’s broad frame as she climbed into the back of the van.

The skinny guy climbed behind the wheel as the blonde got into the passenger seat. The muscular man pulled the van’s doors closed and Olivia turned her attention back to the man she was pulling a bullet out of just minutes after seeing him for the first time.

Hughie pressed the accelerator and the van lurched as it gained speed. Olivia pressed two smooth fingertips against Butcher’s neck and found his rapidly pounding pulse.

“Don’t worry love, I’m still alive,” Butcher murmured as he sagged against the bare metal floor of the van.

“This will sting,” Olivia murmured as she started a saline IV on Butcher and only had large bore needles available that would part his flesh more than necessary.

She taped the plastic IV catheter in place and injected a broad-spectrum antibiotic, not trusting how sterile her technique was considering the field circumstances.

Butcher grunted and then fell silent as Olivia cleaned the coagulated blood off his side to make sure he had stopped bleeding.

Olivia glanced up at him, finding his eyes closed. “Are you with me?” she asked as she tore off a fresh strip of paper tape and affixed it to his side.

“Yes doctor, but I could use some mouth-to-mouth when you’re done there,” he murmured in a heavy, masculine tone despite the blood loss and ensuing state of shock.

Olivia shook her head and attended to the smaller wounds and lacerations Butcher had sustained as Hughie continued driving the van for another hour before pulling into a low-rent mechanic shop that would serve as the new safer safe house.

MM and Hughie flanked Butcher and moved him to an industrial green cot as Starlight held out her hand towards a visibly shaken and fish belly white Olivia.

“Hi, I’m Annie, I promise you’re going to be okay. Just bear with us a while as we get things straightened out.”

Olivia stared at Annie’s extended hand before tucking her hair behind her ears and clearing her throat.

“Hello, Olivia, Olivia Phillips,” she said and closed her hand around Annie’s as she stood from the rear of the van.

Annie trailed her eyes over Olivia’s blood splattered form. “Let me show you where you can clean up, I have some stuff you can change in to also.”

Olivia felt a touch of relief as she followed Annie to the rear of the auto shop and a shabby bathroom with glorious soap and hot water.

Annie set a stack of clean clothes on the counter and hovered outside the door as Olivia took a long time cleaning up. She washed her hair three times and scrubbed her fingernails until the cuticles threatened to bleed. She turned off the water when it began to cool off and dried with the rough towels before slipping into knit pants and a long-sleeved thermal top and blue-grey hoodie with a local burger chain’s brightly colored logo.

As Olivia got dressed, on the other side of the shop in a room that used to be the manager’s office, MM adjusted the lumpy pillow behind Butcher’s head.

MM paused and looked over when Olivia appeared in the doorway and moved to the other side of the cot. She peeked under the edge of the gauze dressing and nodded in satisfaction that the swelling had not increased nor a return of blood loss.

“Why don’t you go clean up,” Olivia said to MM, gesturing to his blood-stained hands and shirt.

“I’ll stay right here, I swear,” Olivia said dramatically and managed to keep from rolling her eyes.

MM finally nodded and went to clean up in the same cramped bathroom.

Olivia tucked the rough wool blanket around Butcher’s side and felt how saturated his shirt was with blood, sweat and topical antiseptic gel.

She tisked to herself and rooted around in the nylon bag she had carried with her from Vought, the company’s name in bold embroidery on the bag.

Olivia found a couple bottles of sterile water and spied a half-empty cardboard box of clean shop rags in the corner of the room.

She was tearing the cellophane seal on the first bottle of water when Butcher’s pained groan broke into her thoughts.

“Am I going to live?”

“I think so, just don’t aggravate the stiches by moving around too much,” she cautioned before she laid the back of her palm against his forehead as she counted his respirations.

Olivia flinched as he shot out his hand and captured her wrist, keeping her hand pressed to his forehead.

“You should get more rest,” she murmured as she tried to tug her hand free.

Butcher nodded in agreement and gave her wrist a final squeeze before releasing her.

The instant knot dissolved in Olivia’s gut when he let go of her and she adjusted the linen up and around his shoulders.

MM reappeared at the very moment her phone chimed from deep inside her lab coat’s pocket. He crossed the room in three long strides and yanked at her jacket, ripping the pocket until he could close his large hand around her phone.

He frowned as his eyes moved over the text message.

“Are you okay Florida? Call me ASAP,” MM read aloud from the rectangular screen.

“Is that some fucking Vought code?”

Olivia shook her head and stared at her phone solidly in his grip. “It’s a stupid nickname, that’s my direct supervisor.”

Butcher hovered between a conscious and unconscious state, but he heard the stupid nickname and tucked it away for later reference.

Annie rapped on the door jamb and broke the growing heaviness in the small room. “You should get some rest too, we’ll take turns keeping an eye on him,” she said authoritatively nodding towards the passed-out Butcher.

Olivia nodded and followed Annie to another room that had a couple chairs and broken-down sofa kept company by a buzzing, blinking vending machine.

She ate a bag of stale sour cream and onion potato chips and can of flat soda before curling up on the sofa with a similarly scratchy wool blanket that Annie had left for her.

Olivia settled on to her back and shifted uncomfortably as she stared up at the water-stained ceiling.

Her frenzied, stressed mind and physical shock response had her thinking of the most unimportant things.

“I forgot to mail the mortgage,” she whispered to the empty room as she thought about the rectangular envelope on her hallway oak entry table. “Will I ever get to wear that new DVF to Caroline’s wedding?” she murmured before sleep finally conquered her taxed system.

Hours passed as she slept, her future still murky and composed of the unknown.

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killshield · 3 years

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they’ve become quite the paradox. shield, unironically, and spear; unstoppable force and immovable object. two incompatible premises with an uncanny ability to piss each other off.

the intel that had fallen into ward’s lap two weeks prior would have been inconsequential to anyone else. it was an easy connection to make: one of sunil bakshi’s close associates, a low - ranking member of old hydra, apprehended by SHIELD agents during a routine sweep of a former base of operations. ward harbored no delusions as far as allegiance went; what he’d done to bakshi was enough incentive for anyone to flip. no coincidence that this follows so closely on the heels of roman briggs’ jailbreak. coulson needed the excuse, and ward’s schedule happened to have an opening.

a change in the very air between them as soon as they’re alone. charged; alive, like the air before a storm.

alone. curious, ward notes, that coulson doesn’t hide behind deathlok this time.

he holds up a photograph, a full - color freeze - frame printed off the footage from a surveillance camera. not an accident: a challenge.

“nice glamour shot,” he says dryly.

ward smiles. “should’ve had it framed. not my best angle, but —”

“c’mon, ward.” what curves the line of coulson’s mouth isn’t amusement. “let’s skip the pleasantries. we both know you’re not that modest. you wanted my attention? congrats. you got it. now tell me what you want with briggs.”

“it’s funny,” ward muses, disregarding the second half entirely, “you say that like i ever lost your attention in the first place. and here i thought you had bigger fish.”

“it’s a wide net.”

“is it.”

“you exposed yourself to break him out of a secure facility crawling with agents, most of whom would kill to see you back in a cage. why?”

again, the question is ignored. “you tried that. didn’t work out so well.”

“you wanna know what i think?”

“not really.”

another tiny, humorless uptick. coulson leans forward on the table, wary, measured where ward is relaxed.

“i think you might be just deranged enough to believe you’re actually doing him some sort of favor. that in your own backwards, twisted way, you’re setting him free, when all you’ve really done is take away his only chance at starting over.”

deranged. deluded. same song, ward thinks disinterestedly; different verse, albeit only by a key or two, if that. his brow arcs.

“right. a clean break, no more looking over his shoulder — sounds familiar. it’s a good speech. almost had me fooled the first time around. second time, not so much. don’t patronize me, coulson. SHIELD was neutralizing a threat, nothing more, nothing less.”

“and you took it upon yourself to willfully unleash that threat,” coulson says. “so i’ll ask again — why? i’m sure you did your homework. roman briggs is an unknown variable, a powder keg ready to go off. some might say he’s a liability. i know you, ward. you’re way too calculated to bet on that kind of horse.”

“see, that’s the difference between us.” ward cants his head a fraction of an inch to one side, arm poised, elbow bent, along the back of his chair. “where you saw a wild animal that needed breaking, all i saw was potential. an opportunity.”

“an opportunity for what? don’t tell me loyal henchmen are in such short supply these days that hydra’s resorted to bargain - hunting from SHIELD holding cells. oh, speaking of —”

“henchmen, or shopping trips? sounds like a date.”

“loyalty. you’re already slipping. how do you think i managed to track you down?”

“educated guess — ? bakshi’s guy folded like a cheap suit the moment you promised him protection. how’s he enjoying SHIELD custody so far?”

“you’re good.”

“and you’re predictable. you didn’t just come here to talk about briggs, and you definitely didn’t come without backup.”

a grim smile, peppered with skepticism. “but i’m supposed to believe you did?”

“well — yes and no.” something almost metallic flickers behind ward’s eyes, a hollow - point spark. slow pull to draw a cellphone from his pocket, his opposite palm mildly raised at the spasm of movement across from him: coulson, on reflex, twitching toward a weapon. ward regards him with another scant raise of brows and connects the call with the successive press of two buttons, then a third to put it on speaker. still watching coulson, he says, to the receiving end, “how are we looking?”

roman’s voice. calm, steady. “target secured. ready to move on your signal.”

coulson boomerangs his focus; ward, down to the phone, up again to ward.

“good. hold position and wait for the green light.” the way his mouth curves at each corner isn’t a smile, not even the facsimile of one. it’s a quiet taunt, preceding the ghost of something thoughtful that falls short of sincere. “you know, SHIELD still has a surprising number of active safe houses, and most of them really aren’t that hard to find. couldn’t have been fury, he was too cloak - and - dagger for that. so it must’ve been your call, huh? pretty careless, director. seems you’re already slipping.”

a muscle tic. the flare of both nostrils. otherwise, coulson is composed; ward will give him that. “quit screwing around, ward — what did you do?”

“yeah, i don’t screw around, you of all people should know that. and i haven’t done anything, at least — not yet. if he doesn’t hear from me in the next fifteen minutes, though,” he gestures with each hand, a blown out breath, mimicking an explosion. “different story. you’ll be down half a dozen agents, just like that. good people, too. i checked. so, the question is, are you willing to make that sacrifice just to take me in? you know you won’t be able to hold me. you never could.”

“you’re bluffing.”

“like i was bluffing with may’s ex - hubby? c’mon, coulson. maybe it’s been a while since we’ve exchanged christmas cards, but things haven’t changed that much.”

no. they’re past that.

“okay.” aside from the shadow that crosses his gaze and the barely perceptible curl of his lip, coulson maintains neutrality. or what passes for it. "then answer me one thing.”

a beat. ward waits, unmoved.

“what’s randall prescott have to do with any of this? what was so important that you and briggs went all the way to portugal to murder a guy who’s been off the radar for years? i’ve seen briggs’ file — they were in the same orphanage, back in the day, but after that, it’s quiet. no connections, or none that left a paper trail. so what is it about him? what’s the significance of executing a defected hydra agent and his wife in cold blood? on their anniversary, no less, but you probably knew that.”

“they had a falling out.” in deference to coulson’s look, he elaborates, “prescott and briggs. wanted to reconnect, dig right down into the roots of their true feelings. i’m not a shrink, but i really think they made some progress.”

“ah — so that’s what this is.” the look shifts from uneasily perplexed to comprehending, disparaging. “a revenge kick, just like you manipulated agent 33 into. figures. i mean, after you shot her to death, you were a clyde without his bonnie. should’ve known it was only a matter of time before you found yourself a replacement.”

the first slip of emotion — visceral, raw, but securely contained, effectively distilled — comes out in the brusque undercurrent of a scathing tone. “and what about you, coulson? you find your replacement yet, or can you still not shake the memory of rosalind bleeding out in your arms?”

a mirrored response. “i’m not the one who slaughtered her, you sick son of a bitch.”

“but she’d be alive if it weren’t for you. let’s skip the pleasantries.” ward’s jaw works at the curve, hard and sharp. the hint of a sneer. “as for what happens next, you have two choices. i get up, and i walk out, and you tell your reinforcements to stand down — or, six SHIELD agents pay the price. they’ll die quick, which is more than i can say for you. so what’ll it be? we’ve got about,” he tips his wrist, checks his watch, “nine minutes left. and trust me when i say, he isn’t the ‘no news is good news’ type.”

“you’re not walking out of here, ward. i won’t make that mistake again. it’s over.”

“shoot me, then,” ward invites, arms spread as he rises to a stand. “end it, right here, right now. you’ll still lose some of your people, but ...”

“i’m never gonna stop,” coulson levels out, as he, too, gets to his feet; levels, although emphasis catches on every word like his tongue is serrated, “you do know that, don’t you? that for the rest of your short, miserable life — no matter what you do, ward. no matter where you go, or how far you run, i will always be right behind you.”

“and that’s just it, coulson.” ward lowers his arms and smiles. no warmth reaches his eyes, nor the deep well of shadow around them. “you’ll never be able to catch up.”

he moves, and almost anticipates coulson to follow.

he moves, and almost expects an icer to the back. maybe a real bullet. maybe they’re past that, too.

he moves, and coulson stays.

at the door, he pauses to catch coulson’s eye one last time.

“give my best to the team,” he says. “you know — for old time’s sake. i’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again soon.”

#debrief.#au / a hybrid signal: both shelter and warning at once.#this is a mess but it's fine #mythscar #coulson tag.

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quicksilversquared · 5 years

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Keeping Up With the Ladyblog Pt. 2

A reporter has to adapt and improvise. It’s an important skill to learn, especially when one is a reporter who is still in school and can’t skip out to film all of the akuma battles without getting grounded. So Alya gets creative and starts using old security camera footage of akuma attacks. It keeps the Ladyblog active and maybe, just maybe, she’ll finally get her scoop of a lifetime.

links in the reblog

It was much harder to get Ladybug and Chat Noir alone than Alya would have thought. Now that she had important information- super important information, crazy important information- she never seemed to be able to catch them on their own at the end of a fight. They were always surrounded by adoring fans, reporters, and too many cameras for Alya to be comfortable with when they had a little bit of time left at the end of a fight, and when they didn't, well...

They just took off far too quickly for Alya to catch them.

Alya was just starting to get frustrated when Nino suggested that she just tell Ladybug or Chat Noir that she needed to talk to them privately and soon. That way, she didn't need to get them all on their own or risk other people overhearing and breaking the story before she could.

That was a much better idea. Nino got a kiss for that.

After that, it was a piece of cake for Alya to get to Ladybug before she and Chat Noir could run off at the end of a fight. Ladybug seemed a bit distracted, trying to smile for the cameras and answer the questions being thrown at her like usual, but Alya persisted.

"Ladybug!" Alya called, weaving closer to the superhero. She ducked under Madam Chamack's cameraman's arm to get past them. There was a "Hey!" as she disrupted the video, but Alya didn't care. She rushed up to Ladybug, tugging lightly on the superhero's arm.

Maybe she wasn't going to tell Ladybug exactly what her scoop was right now, but she still didn't need any other reporters sticking their noses in and messing everything up.

"I need to talk to you and Chat Noir privately," she told Ladybug in a hushed whisper, glancing around to make sure that no one was listening in. "I have a scoop- it's about Hawkmoth."

She saw Chat Noir glance back at them, his cat ears flicking backwards briefly. He and Ladybug exchanged a look, wordlessly communicating something that Alya couldn't decipher.

"We can swing by tonight," Ladybug told Alya, one eye still on Chat Noir. "It'll probably be late, though."

"Understandable." Alya flashed Ladybug a quick smile. "And I'll try to be fast about it. Thanks!"

Ladybug nodded, and seconds later she and Chat Noir bounded out of the crowd, back to the rooftops to go back home. Alya watched them go for a second, then beat it before Madam Chamack could catch up to her and start scolding her for messing up her shot or something.

Ladybug and Chat Noir showed up at ten thirty on the dot, landing just outside of Alya's window. She let them in right away, pointing them towards her computer. Onscreen, she had the edited Heroes Day footage up, paused right near the end.

"So you might have noticed that I've been going through security camera footage to edit it into a cohesive video of the fight for the Ladyblog," Alya started, settling into her chair in front of the computer. She was feeling a little nervous now, probably because Adrien was going to end up losing his father because of this. And while it wasn't her fault- it was his asshat supervillain of a father's- she couldn't help but feel a little bad. "And this is Heroes Day. I was going through the footage from the Eiffel Tower, and I saw- well, this."

She hit Play. Onscreen, the superheroes were blown away by the giant moth's wing blasts. Hawkmoth made a hasty exit, swinging off the side of the tower and out of sight. Seamlessly (thank you, Nino- he was definitely getting a lot of video editing practice in while helping her), the view switched to the iced-over camera from the lower level. The purple blur that was Hawkmoth appeared and landed, heading unsteadily away across the platform. Another angle switch showed him heading past a camera, then slumping against the wall, fully within the camera's view. There was a flash, and the distortion effect made the view even worse.

"That's what happens when you guys transform and detransform," Alya explained to the superheroes. "It's to help keep your identity safe, I guess."

Ladybug and Chat Noir nodded. Neither looked surprised. Alya had to wonder if maybe their kwamis had already told them that, so that they wouldn't have to scramble to make sure that there were no cameras nearby when they transformed or detransformed. She wouldn't be surprised.

The ice was cleared away in a flash of red, and the three of them watched as the pixilated, staticky Hawkmoth sat on the ground for a bit before getting up. The screen split in two as he walked away, showing the clear feed of the stairs.

"I'm positive that this is Hawkmoth," Alya told them, briefly pausing the video before Hawkmoth could exit the first feed. "Look at what he's wearing there, and then in the next screen. And there shouldn't have been that many people on the Eiffel Tower in the first place. It got evacuated pretty quickly."

"There were a couple employees that got trapped up top, that Volpina girl, and then Hawkmoth," Ladybug agreed. "And those red pants and white top are pretty distinctive. Let's see it, then."

Alya nodded, starting up the feed again. She could feel the tension mount in the room as Hawkmoth headed down the stairs unsteadily, more and more of him coming into view. They hadn't even gotten to his shoulders when Ladybug gasped, a couple words that Alya had never expected to hear from Ladybug slipping out. Less than a second later, when they had gotten as far as Hawkmoth's neck, Chat Noir hissed.

Okay, so apparently the two of them were familiar with Mr. Agreste, then?

"I knew it!" Ladybug half-snarled when Mr. Agreste's face came into view. "He threw me off when he got akumatized- when he akumatized himself- but we have him now."

Chat Noir nodded, strangely pale under his black mask.

"I wanted to show you first, since I'm sure that the police would bungle the whole thing somehow," Alya said, moving over so that Ladybug and Chat Noir could see the screen better. The video had been paused again, with Mr. Agreste in frame. "I don't think that they're entirely able to deal with magic powers."

"Right, right." Ladybug's glare was practically burning through Alya's computer as she stared down the image of Mr. Agreste. She gave herself a good shake and refocused on Alya, all business again. "That's great that you found this, Alya. We probably won't act on it right away-"

Alya nodded eagerly. "You have to plan the final boss battle, right?"

"Well, we have to do a bit of planning, yeah. We want to be safe as possible." Ladybug smiled at Alya, then pulled her yo-yo off of her hip. After tapping away on her screen, a USB stick popped out of the side of her yo-yo. "Do you think you could give me a copy of that video? We might need it in the future, if we do end up using the police to help us."

"Of course!" Alya accepted the Ladybug-patterned USB and plugged it in. She paused as her computer worked to recognize it. "Uh, you'll tell people that I was the one to do this, right?"

"Of course! I wouldn't deny you your credit, Alya," Ladybug assured her. "Actually, have you added the Ladyblog watermark to it yet? We can wait if you want to do that first."

Alya startled because oh, yeah, that was definitely something she should have done and then preened. "You noticed that?" It was something that most people didn't even register when they were watching, but it had taken Alya several tries to get the watermark to work on uploaded videos and several weeks of testing to get it to automatically show up on livestreams. Max had helped her a bit with that, but it had mostly been Alya's trial and error that finally had them figuring it out.

"Yeah. It's smart, since there's a ton of knock-off blogs now." Ladybug watched as Alya quickly clicked through her settings, inserting her new and improved (thank you, Marinette) Ladyblog logo into the corner of the whole video. She saved it, then made a copy for Ladybug. It took a minute to transfer. "How much of the fight does that include?"

"The last five minutes, maybe? And then a couple minutes of Hawkmoth at the end." The file finished loading and Alya ejected Ladybug's USB, handing it back to her. "My boyfriend and I are still working on getting the rest of the footage from the fight put together. When I post it, I'll post the version without Hawkmoth detransforming and his real identity, at least until he's been defeated."

"I think it warrants its own post, honestly." Ladybug tucked the USB back into her yo-yo. "Thank you so much, Alya. I'm sure we'll be in touch."

Alya looked up sharply at that. Ladybug winked, and for a second Alya was confused. Then it dawned on her.

Oh my GOD I'm gonna get the Fox back! I'm gonna be part of the boss battle!

Oh gosh. She wasn't sure if she was ready for that. She had only been out for a handful of battles and saying that it had gone well was probably an overstatement. She was still very much in the middle of a very steep learning curve. But if Ladybug had faith in her, then she wasn't going to let Ladybug down.

Chat Noir nodded in agreement, looking far more serious than Alya had ever seen him before. With a start, she realized that he hadn't said anything after seeing the video. That was pretty strange, but maybe seeing Hawkmoth's secret identity onscreen had really made the possibility of a final battle possible, and Alya knew how final battles went in the comics. Not everyone always made it out in one piece, and as Ladybug's self-appointed shield, Chat Noir was more likely to end up hurt.

...yeah, okay, there were definitely some scary parts to this whole superhero business. Maybe Alya could ask that they do some training sessions before jumping right into the final battle bit.

Ladybug and Chat Noir said their good-byes after that, waving to Alya as they headed out. Just as Ladybug had one leg out the window, something she had said earlier finally caught up with Alya and she reached out, the reporter in her practically begging for answers. "Wait! Ladybug, you said something earlier-"

Ladybug paused, glancing back. "Yeah?"

"You- you said that 'that Volpina girl' was on the Eiffel Tower," Alya started, frowning. "Don't you know her name?"

That got a frown on Ladybug's face. "No, why should I remember her name?"

"Lila said- Lila said that you were best friends!" Alya said, reaching for her computer again. "I have a whole interview on the Ladyblog-"

"I remember seeing part of that," Ladybug said once the page loaded on the Ladyblog. "I had never even met her before that. I did go and tell her to stop trying to use me as a way to get popular after that, but I'm going to guess that she didn't do that. Even though she definitely hates me now for calling her out like that."

Alya spluttered. "But- but she said-"

Ladybug shrugged. "Some people lie to try to get what they want. I'm going to guess that she's lied about a lot of things. She seems the type."

Alya nodded slowly. She- she was starting to get that impression, too. After all, there was the whole issue of Lila being in Paris when she was meant to be traveling. Ladybug's comments shouldn't have surprised her, really, but somehow they still had. It also meant that maybe Alya should do a bit of investigation about that, now that she had let Ladybug and Chat Noir know about Mr. Agreste.

"I certainly wouldn't trust anything that she says," Ladybug added. "But that's just me, of course."

Alya nodded as the superheroes swung off into the night. She watched them go, then turned back to her computer.

If she focused, maybe she could make some progress on what promised to be her second scoop of the summer.

Alya couldn't deny that she was a bit disappointed when two more weeks went by like normal, akuma attacks happening nearly every day and running just like usual. But it did give her more content for her blog, and that was good, so…

Maybe planning was taking longer than she had thought. Maybe they had a mentor who was on vacation at the moment. Maybe they were staking out the Agreste house to try to figure out where Mr. Agreste transformed.

Alya would have volunteered to go in and do a little poking around to try to find whatever secret entrance Mr. Agreste no doubt had to enter his lair, but she was sort of banned from the house after she had been caught doing a bit of unapproved exploring. At the moment, she was pretty sure that Marinette was the only one of Adrien's close friends who was allowed to actually hang out with him in his house. And there was no way that Alya was going to put Marinette in danger by asking her to poke around, so that was a dead end, at least for now.

So Alya decided to turn to her other scoop: figuring out what, exactly, was going on with Lila's stories.

She knew that Lila was lying about some things, at least: being on a trip abroad for several months, and about being friends with Ladybug. Those were pretty big things, so it was pretty logical to assume that a lot of the other things that she had told them were probably also lies. Still, Alya wanted to do a little digging.

And that little bit of digging turned up a lot.

"Disproving the Jagged Stone's kitten thing was easy," Alya told Nino the next time they met up. "When he was at the Dupain-Cheng bakery, they asked him about pets and he's only ever had Fang. And there aren't any of his songs that could possibly be about her, it's obvious now that I'm looking. But I don't have Prince Ali's number, Rose does, and it's not like I could just call up a bunch of movie directors and ask them- well, I could, but why would they bother replying?"

"Do you really need to find and disprove every last one of her lies?" Nino asked, waving at Adrien and Marinette as they approached from across the park. "I mean, we know. Once we tell everyone else, they'll know, too. But isn't the obvious solution right there?"

Alya gave him a puzzled look. The obvious solution? What did he mean by that? It was obvious that this was another test of her reporting skills, seeing how much information she could seek out. What else was there to it?

"The teachers?" Nino prompted after a few seconds. "If she was just telling a few lies to try to fit in and make kids fast because of new student syndrome, that would be one thing. The teachers wouldn't really care about that. But Lila was trying to get out of things and get favors because of her connections and for her 'illnesses', and she was skipping school. I think that's the kind of thing that would be important for them to know."

Groaning, Alya slouched down on the bench. "Great. Another scoop, and I have to just turn it over to an authority and wait. I hate waiting."

"It's probably an important part of reporting, knowing when to let go and let someone else take over." Nino nudged her shoulder. "Hey, cheer up. It's not like you have to stop digging once you tell Ms. Bustier or Mr. Damocles. Or you could always take the time that you've been using to research Lila's stories and go back to getting the security footage all ready to go up on the Ladyblog. Don't you still have a ton of that to do? And it'll probably get more interest before the final battle is over and Hawkmoth is defeated."

Alya had to give him that. Besides, she was getting more footage every day, and if she waited for too long then school would start again and she would never catch up.

"And if that gets old, we can always hang out with Adrien and Marinette more," Nino added quietly. "We haven't gotten to spend that much time with them this summer- especially you- because we've been busy and they've been busy. And we need to enjoy this while it lasts."

She could only nod in agreement.

As always, it was hard to hang out with Adrien and Marinette without updating them on the biggest scoop of her life. She would have updated them about her Lila research instead, but, well, Marinette clearly had suspected all of the lies already (and Alya had scoffed at her suspicions at the time, whoops) and somehow Alya got the feeling that Adrien had, too. It was all old news to them, and she felt a bit ridiculous that it had taken her so much longer to catch on. On top of that, Alya rather belatedly remembered once telling Marinette that a good reporter always checked her sources when they were discussing Lila. She hadn't done any research or fact-checking of her own then, and now Alya was feeling rather sheepish about how easy it was to disprove the lies that she had once fallen for.

So instead she said nothing. The four of them just hung out and Marinette showed off some of her designs and Nino played a couple of his mixes as they ate their picnic and wandered around the city, enjoying a relatively mild day.

It was normal, and Alya…Alya knew that it was going to end soon. Adrien's father would be arrested and what would happen after that, she didn't knew. Hopefully Adrien would be able to stay in Paris with all of them at the very least.

"It's so hard acting natural with him," Alya told Nino as they headed back to her apartment after their gathering broke up. "Like, I know that his life is going to change a ton soon- well, whenever Ladybug and Chat Noir act- and he's just oblivious. And it's awful."

"He'll be safer once his father is in jail," Nino told her. "Just focus on that. Him and all of Paris."

Tracking down a teacher in the summer wasn't anywhere near as hard as snagging Ladybug after a fight. As it turned out, Ms. Bustier was teaching summer school and all Alya had to do was get up a little earlier than usual and go in before the summer school students arrived.

And as it turned out, Alya got to see a bit of the fallout. Ms. Bustier was so taken aback by the video footage of Lila clearly in Paris on Heroes Day that she had immediately gone to the computer, looked up the phone number for Lila's mom, and called her up right then and there. It went through, and Alya listened in, trying not to look too interested. She wouldn't be able to stand it if she had to leave the room and miss hearing everything.

"Yes, I was Lila's teacher this past year," Ms. Bustier was saying. "And just this morning, we had some concerns arise about the trip that Lila was on during the school year- no, not before she arrived. She was here for a day and then said that she went on a trip around Europe for several months- you say she didn't leave Paris at all? And-" Ms. Bustier listened and then frowned. "No, we didn't close the school for akuma attacks, at least not for any extended period of time. We occasionally have had to evacuate and closed the school for the remainder of the afternoon or the morning, but we never even closed for an entire day, let alone any longer period of time. The akumas don't disrupt us that much."

Alya's eyebrows shot up. Another scoop! Lila must have told her mom that they were doing online learning in place of going in to the classroom, and somehow her mom had never checked on that. Kind of like how the school had clearly never verified Lila's claim of being out of the country.

….that seemed like a fairly large breakdown in communication, honestly.

"Lila must have lied to both of us, then," Ms. Buster was saying. "She will face consequences for that when school resumes in the fall. And- yes, consequences at home would be a good idea, too. Ah- if you have time, I wanted to ask about some of Lila's other claims?"

Alya listened raptly as Ms. Bustier listed off as many of Lila's stories as she could remember, with occasional help from Alya chiming in. On the other end of the line, Lila's mom was clearly denying that any of those things had ever happened. When she heard Lila's claims about tinnitus and arthritis, she exploded on the other end of the line, loud enough for Alya to hear halfway across the room.

Clearly someone was going to be getting in a lot of trouble tonight. Alya wasn't going to be surprised if Volpina made another appearance.

"Well, that was….something," Ms. Bustier said with a sigh once she had hung up several minutes later. "Some of Lila's stories had seemed far-fetched when she was telling them, but there were so many that I thought that there would be no way that she would lie that much. I didn't see any reason for her to. But clearly I was wrong."

Alya nodded. She had kind of taken the same approach, honestly. One out-of-place story would have been suspicious. Dozens of them? There had to be some truth there.

Apparently not.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Alya," Ms. Bustier told her. She looked tired. "I'm sure Lila's mom and I will be in contact to keep a situation like this from happening again. And… while I would normally ask you to not share this with other people, since you overheard a phone call I had about another student and normally we don't do that, this time it's fine. Normally everyone would know all of that already. And I might send out an email tonight to the families, since Lila was trying to manipulate people with her 'connections' and we need to cut that off." She sighed, massaging her temples. "I'll add it to my list of things to do. And- oh, my students are coming in now. Was there anything else, Alya?"

Alya shook her head. "No. That's it. Well-" she hesitated, thinking up one last question, something that had been bugging her ever since she shared her video with Ladybug and Chat Noir. She hadn't wanted to ask her parents (and they weren't likely to know anyway), but Ms. Bustier might be able to put her mind at rest. "I had a hypothetical question."

A hint of a smile showed up on Ms. Bustier's face. "Ah, yes, the famous hypothetical question. What were you wondering, Alya?"

"If- hypothetically- if someone were to only have one parent and that parent got arrested, what would happen to them?" Alya asked, hoping that Ms. Bustier would know. "Hypothetically!"

Ms. Bustier frowned. "Does this have something to do with Lila? She still has both parents, Alya, even if they aren't together."

"No, nothing to do with that whole mess," Alya said quickly. "And it's hypothetical."

That got a smile on Ms. Bustier's face. "Alya, in my experience, the more hypotheticals someone adds to a question, the less hypothetical it is." The smile vanished as she grew serious again. "As for your question…. well, if they have relatives around who are able and willing to take them, then they would likely go there. Otherwise, a trusted family friend might take custody….though if one parent was arrested, the family friends would be very closely examined to make sure they were innocent."

Alya nodded. She still didn't know where that would leave Adrien. Were Nathalie and the Gorilla innocent in all of this?

"Is there…" Ms. Bustier glanced at the door, then back at Alya. She lowered her voice. "Alya, can I ask who you're asking for? So I can be on the lookout to help?"

"It…" Alya hesitated. She didn't want to go and spoil Ladybug and Chat Noir's work, but it wouldn't hurt to have an adult looking after them, too. "I don't know how much I can say, because it's an ongoing investigation…"

Ms. Bustier frowned. "Alya, what have you gotten involved with?"

"It's a Ladybug and Chat Noir thing! I'm not getting tangled up with normal criminals," Alya assured her teacher. Ms. Bustier didn't look any more happy with that.

"Magical criminals aren't any better. That might be worse, actually. Alya…"

"I just did some research for them," Alya assured her. "There was no legwork involved."

Ms. Bustier didn't look convinced.

"And I promise I'll let you know more as soon as I can." Alya shifted from foot to foot, glancing towards the door as the noise level outside got a little louder. "And I'll try to stay safe."

"Coming from the girl that goes charging towards akuma fights, I'm not sure how reassuring that is," Ms. Bustier said with a sigh. "But- Alya, let me give you my phone number and my email. Contact me when you're allowed to. Promise me."

"I will," Alya vowed.

Finally, finally, Ladybug and Chat Noir showed up at Alya's window again, only an hour after she got back from the school. Much to her excitement, they were carrying her Miraculous.

"There's no boss battle today, but we think that we'll need the Fox's powers," Ladybug told her. "So we thought of you, of course."

Alya grinned as she accepted the box and opened it up, beaming as her kwami popped into view. "Hi, Trixx!"

"Hiya, Alya!"

"So what are we going to be doing?" Alya asked eagerly as she hooked her Miraculous around her neck. "Training?"

Ladybug laughed. "Not quite. Your comment about the police gave us an idea, that we might be able to use them to set a trap. So we told them about Mr. Agreste and showed them your evidence, on the condition that they'll follow our lead and not try to take him on on their own. They're going to get him to come in to the station, where he'll have a harder time transforming."

"We didn't want to try to attack him in his lair," Chat Noir chimed in. "We scoped it out a little- well, my kwami did- and what we found was…. well, disturbing. And we have our suspicious about Mayura, and we don't want them nearby, either. One at a time is easier."

Alya frowned. "So… what are we doing today?"

"Well, the police are going to call Mr. Agreste today to claim that they have a lead about where Mrs. Agreste is," Chat Noir said, glancing at Ladybug. "And that he has to come in- in person, not via Skype- to look over some things. We want to see his reaction to the call."

Alya was still officially lost as to why they needed her.

"But we want to hear it, too," Ladybug continued, seamlessly picking up where Chat Noir picked off. "And- we asked Trixx about this- if you do a small illusion, maybe something not very big or noticeable- then you can use it as basically a- what do you call it, Chat Noir? Those spy things?"

"Why do you assume that I would know what they're called?" Chat Noir pouted at Ladybug, and honestly, Alya regretted ever thinking that the two of them were cool. "They're like the Extendable Ears things in Harry Potter, I guess?"

"It's essentially like setting a bug," Alya corrected them dryly. Then she perked up. "Oh! I'll be doing the listening! That's cool!"

"Do you have the time?" Ladybug asked her. "Like, you don't have to babysit today, do you?"

Alya laughed as she shook her head. "Nah, Nora's taking Ella and Etta for the week. It's about time, too, since I did most of the babysitting during the school year."

"Good." Ladybug headed towards the window. "Ready? Or do you need to let someone know that you're going out?"

"I'll tell my mom that I'm going out with my boyfriend," Alya decided after a moment's thought. "And then I'll transform in the alleyway. Meet me down there?" she added.

"Of course," Ladybug agreed easily. Chat Noir nodded.

Alya made to move towards her door again, then paused and glanced back at the superheroes. "Do you two have to tell your parents when you're going out, too? What excuse do you use?"

"Oh, I told them I was going out with my boyfriend," Ladybug said breezily, grinning at Alya cheekily. "They were fine with it, of course."

"It's not like she was lying ," Chat Noir added in, his grin twice as cheeky. "After all, she's hanging out with me."

Ten minutes into their stakeout, Rena Rouge still hadn't managed to get a straight answer out of Ladybug and Chat Noir about whether they were kidding about the dating thing or not. She wanted to think so, of course- three big scoops in one summer would be amazing, and confirming Ladynoir would actually be a positive scoop- but they weren't giving her anything.

"Okay, they're going to call in the next couple minutes," Ladybug said, checking her yo-yo. "Rena, send in the mini-illusion. And then we're going to have to focus."

"This won't set off my timer?" Rena Rouge checked one more time. "Because that would stink to miss anything."

"No, it only uses a fraction of your power. Trixx said you would have half an hour at the least before the timer might start counting down." Ladybug glanced at her yo-yo again, then hunkered down on the rooftop. "And we have to make sure that we're not seen. If we are…"

Rena Rouge nodded. Mr. Agreste might just start acting instead of actually reacting realistically, and they didn't want that. That would completely defeat the purpose of coming out at all. It was a basic rule of stake-outs, really.

Bringing her flute to her lips, Rena played a short tune, envisioning a small white butterfly as she flicked the light off of the end. It formed and fluttered away, headed right for the house. Rena Rouge bit her lip as she watched it go, hoping that she had done it right. They wouldn't know right away, but hopefully they had a couple minutes for her to check the butterfly's hearing abilities first.

"A little lower- to the side- yes, hover it right there," Chat Noir urged, peeping over the side of the rampart. "Or maybe have it land against the house."

"Done and done." Rena held down her ears and peeped over for a moment as well before flattening herself to the rooftop. "Okay, and now I listen, I guess…?"

On top of her head, her fox ears twitched back and forth as she tried to focus on her connection with the butterfly illusion. Slowly, she started picking up voices. As Rena strained to listen, they got louder.

"-this zipper isn't the right shade to go with this fabric, what was the sewing room thinking? It's too bright, it'll catch the light if even a hint of the zipper isn't covered. Must I really specify every single bit of the design? What's next, telling the sewing room that the right side of the fabric is meant to face out?"

Great. Fashion talk. Nothing interesting yet.

Nathalie's voice joined Gabriel's. "I'll look into it at once and see who was responsible. I'll let them know that this will be a dark mark on their record and further mistakes will put their job in jeopardy."

"See that you do. I won't stand for employees that can't use their brain when sewing."

"Anything?" Ladybug whispered, making Rena Rouge startle. "Does it work?"

"It works. They're just talking fashion. Something about the wrong finish on a zipper."

Oddly enough, Ladybug looked interested. "Wait, what-"

"Not the time, Bug," Chat Noir murmured, and Ladybug settled down with a bit of a pout.

The banal fashion talk continued for another minute, and Rena tried not to groan as it turned to the business side of the fashion house. She was saved, though, by the ringing of a phone.

"It's happening!" Rena Rouge told Ladybug and Chat Noir, pulling their attention back from whatever whispered conversation they were having. "The police are calling, and Nathalie is headed over to get it!"

The other superheroes froze, then scrambled into position. Rena Rouge returned her attention to the conversation, though there wasn't really much to it. Nathalie was listening more than talking, and her tone gave nothing away.

"She's impossible to read," she faintly heard Ladybug complain. "C'mon, give something away."

"She's thanking them now," Rena Rouge relayed. "And hanging up- now shush so I can listen!"

The other superheroes shushed.

Rena Rouge held still as a statue, listening closely as Nathalie relayed the police's message to Mr. Agreste. Next to her, Ladybug and Chat Noir huddled around her yo-yo, watching Mr. Agreste's expression on the zoomed-in feed.

"He looks super annoyed," Ladybug whispered. "There's- there's something not right there. Why would he look annoyed?"

"If he knows that they can't have a lead, maybe," Chat Noir suggested after a second. "Or can't have a correct lead, at least." He was pale. "He's a supervillain. Do you think-"

"Shh! I'm trying to listen!" Rena hissed at them. "I don't want to miss anything!"

Ladybug and Chat Noir promptly shut up.

"They would come here if they suspected anything about us," Gabriel was telling Nathalie. Down below, Rena could see him pacing, going back and forth in front of the window. "If they suspected that we know what happened, or that we know where Emilie is, they would come here and take us into custody. No, they've found some false lead. But I'm still going to have to go in, just to keep up appearances."

Rena Rouge gasped. Adrien's father knew where his wife was? That was awful. Had he done something to her?

"What did they say?" Chat Noir wanted to know. "What-"

"Shh, I'm listening!"

"I said that I would call them back once I had talked with you about when we could go in. Unless you just want me to go?"

"No, they would consider that strange. I'm going to need to go in myself." Gabriel scowled. "And they're going to expect me to be rushing in right away. It's what anyone else would do. When…?"

"They said that the detective would be in all day tomorrow, just choose a time. You have meetings throughout the morning, then a break from eleven fifteen to two forty-five, then again after five."

Rena Rouge reached blindly for the notepad that she had brought along, scribbling that down. Just in case.

"I'll meet with them at twelve-thirty. That gives me some time if anything runs over." Gabriel sounded irritated. "I hope it doesn't run for long. I need to get some designing done."

"Of course, sir."

"And I'm going to go check on Emilie now. I want you to keep an eye on her tomorrow, while I'm at the meeting. Just in case."

Nathalie was frowning, and it was clear in her voice. "You think they might be up to something?"

"Something doesn't feel right. Why would they even think that they might have any leads on Emilie? It's impossible." Gabriel headed over to the portrait of his wife. "I don't like it."

"Wishful thinking, perhaps. Or they've actually got a lead on some other missing person, but they just misidentified them."

"He said he was going to check on Emilie," Rena Rouge hissed. "Keep an eye on him. Watch what he does."

The dual curse that she got from Ladybug and Chat Noir wasn't unexpected this time.

"I'm switching this to video mode," Ladybug announced. "Chat Noir-"

Chat Noir already had his baton out. "I'll take a backup video, so we don't miss anything."

"One would hope that Paris's esteemed police department would be more careful than that." Mr. Agreste didn't sound impressed as he addressed Nathalie. "But I agree, that's the most likely explanation. You can take care of calling the police back?"

"Of course."

They fell quiet, and Rena Rouge glanced over at Ladybug and Chat Noir. They both had intense looks of concentration on their faces as they manipulated their screens. Within a minute, both let out an exclamation and sat back.

"He's got some sort of elevator built into the floor," Ladybug explained to Rena Rouge. "And the buttons are built into the painting. We're going to have to look at the recording more closely to figure out exactly what they are. Hopefully that goes straight to- to wherever Mrs. Agreste is."

"Are you going to try to find her?" Rena Rouge asked excitedly, visions of a stealth mission already dancing through her head. "Are you going to break in in the middle of the night and push the buttons and-"

"We're going to go in once both Hawkmoth and Mayura have had their Miraculous removed and are in police custody," Ladybug said firmly. "We don't want to make Mr. Agreste any more suspicious than he already is."

…Rena supposed that that made sense.

They didn't stick around for long after that. Nathalie called the police back and when Mr. Agreste hadn't reappeared by the time the call ended, they decided that that was about as much information as they were going to get today.

"Are you going to need me tomorrow?" Alya asked once they were back in her room. She didn't want to give up her Miraculous, not yet. "For the confrontation?"

Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged a glance, then Ladybug rolled up on her tiptoes to whisper something into his ear. After a quick discussion, they seemed to reach a consensus.

"There's not going to be much of a battle, hopefully," Ladybug said slowly. "I mean, I'm going to restrain him as soon as he gets into the room- or as soon as I get into the room, I don't think we've decided which way we're doing it yet."

"I'd say have the detective give him a made-up story first," Chat Noir suggested. "Then he'll be more relaxed."

"Right. But Mayura is still a wild card. So maybe keep the Miraculous and Trixx will let you know if we need help. If things go smoothly, we'll let you know when you can make your post about Hawkmoth's identity," Ladybug told her. "You might want to have that ready to go as soon as we contact you. I'd be surprised if the police don't make the announcement as soon as they can, so you'll want to beat them."

Alya nodded. "Already written and formatted. I just have it in my drafts and set on private posting right now, just to be safe."

"Good." Ladybug smiled. "We'll be in touch, Alya! Have a good rest of your evening."

"I'll try," Alya said wryly, trying not to think about how Adrien's life was soon going to be uprooted. "I'll try."

"I can't believe we're hanging out this morning. This morning, of all times!"

"Well, it's our last chance to do it normally." Nino squeezed her hand. "D'you think you can manage to act normal for a bit?"

Alya winced. Honestly, after hearing what she had the previous day about Adrien's mom? She might have to refrain from talking to Adrien too much until after everything came out.

"And speaking of normal- or not so much," Nino murmured all of a sudden, shaking Alya's arm. "I know Adrien and Marinette were getting closer- well, you've missed most of that, actually, since you've been so busy- but look at them!"

Alya's head shot up. Her two other friends were headed down the street together, Marinette's arm wrapped around Adrien's. Their heads were close together as they talked, and Alya couldn't deny it- they looked a lot closer than they had been even only a couple weeks before. She wanted to squeal with glee- if they weren't dating now, they were definitely close- but at the same time, she couldn't deny the tendril of dread that curled around her heart.

She wanted Adrien and Marinette to be together, of course. Marinette had had a crush on him for so long, and they would be adorable together. But now?

Adrien would be going through the hardest part of his life soon, and there was no way that he'd actually be in a state of mind to be a good boyfriend during that time. They might be able to weather it if they were in an established relationship, but with a barely-started one?

Alya didn't want their relationship to crash and burn before it had even gotten a proper chance.

"Okay, but at least Marinette will be amazing at supporting him," Nino pointed out, almost as though he were reading Alya's mind. "And if they aren't dating this morning, what are the chances that they'll be able to start before everything? I mean, there's two hours before he goes in to the station. There'll only be, what? Thirty minutes max before he gets arrested?"

"I wish we could warn him somehow before the news breaks, but there's no way." Alya frowned. "D'you suppose I should try to contact Ladybug and Chat Noir and ask...?"

"They're pretty compassionate, Alya. I'd be super surprised if they haven't already come up with a plan." Nino squeezed her arm reassuringly. "I bet that the police are planning to send someone to talk to Adrien before they let you know that you can post the video."

"I hope so."

"Someone sure looks serious today," Marinette called, and Nino and Alya hastily broke apart."Did someone rain on your parade?"

It certainly felt like a dark stormcloud was overhead, just waiting to burst, but Alya couldn't say that. Instead, she forced a smile. "We were just discussing having to babysit the twins and Chris later this week. They don't exactly get along well."

Marinette made a face at that. "Ugh. Yeah, I can see where they might clash a little. But- oh! Do you know who Chris would probably love? Max! He's big on all of the 'big kid stuff', as Chris calls it."

Nino grinned. "Oh, you are absolutely right. I'll text Max about that and see if he's even interested in spending a bit of time with Chris."

Alya had thought that the anticipation would make the morning absolutely creep by. She wasn't wrong- but anticipation wasn't the only thing making it go so slowly.

It was worry, it was concern, it was the nagging feeling that maybe she should say something to Marinette and suggest that she and Adrien hold off on dating, if they hadn't already started.

Surely they would have said something if they had decided to start dating in the world's absolute worse sense of timing? Alya thought they would, but then again Adrien and Marinette were clearly super close now, far more than they had been even a week earlier. Right now, Adrien was sitting with his head pillowed in Marinette's lap, looking thoroughly content as Marinette ran her fingers through his hair. Earlier, they had seemed practically glued together at the hip. It was clear couple behavior, and it was making Alya nervous.

And then at the end of their little friend get-together, the two of them left together. Alya peered after them and spotted their interlaced hands.

That was not good.

"Don't worry too much about it, babe," Nino told her. "Marinette's smart, she'll understand that Adrien won't be feeling his normal self for a bit and she won't judge him for it. And maybe they'll even be together when the police find him. It'll be good for him to have someone actually supportive around when he gets the news."

Alya couldn't help but worry about it. She worried about it while she ate lunch (read: played with her food). She worried about it while she washed up their dishes (read: ran the dishes absently under water and waved the sponge vaguely in their direction). And she especially worried about it as she got everything set up in her room, ready for Ladybug's message.

The clock ticked forward. Alya watched as it reached twelve-thirty, then twelve thirty-five, twelve forty, twelve forty-five...

Surely the superheroes had taken Hawkmoth's Miraculous by now. Alya pulled up a news feed from Paris, nervous that something had gone wrong.

Ugh. She would have much preferred being there herself.

Twelve forty-seven. Twelve forty-eight.

"They likely have to find and inform Adrien first," Trixx reminded her. "I'm not feeling any signs of distress from Plagg or Tikki."

Twelve forty-nine. Twelve fifty-

Alya's phone dinged with a message. She grabbed for it.

Ladybug: Hawkmoth and Mayura in custody. Go ahead and post, then come down to the police station ASAP. They'll be making an official announcement at 1:15.

Alya grinned, reaching for her computer. After one last check- the post time would be correct, the post would be public, not private, and it would sent out an alert to all of her subscribers just like the live akuma streams always did- Alya hit post. The page refreshed and there it was, right at the top of the page.

Hawkmoth's Identity Revealed!

Ladyblog Live Stream: Paris police announce the capture of Hawkmoth and Mayura; Ladybug and Chat Noir victorious!

"Today, at twelve thirty, Paris police called Gabriel Agreste in for questioning. At twelve forty-one, we made an arrest, and his Miraculous was confiscated. At twelve forty-five, we determined Mayura's identity to be Nathalie Sancoeur and arrested her several minutes later. At this moment, Ladybug and Chat Noir are searching the mansion, trying to locate the Peacock Miraculous."

"How did you discover his identity?"

"We were presented with a video put together by the Ladyblog that showed Hawkmoth detransforming on Heroes Day. Without the Ladyblogger's efforts to go through all of the footage from the akuma attacks, we would have been unable to make this breakthrough. She presented the video to the superheroes a couple weeks ago and then they brought it to us so that we could collaborate on our strategy to take him down. We wanted to avoid a battle as to avoid unnecessarily endangering our superheroes and the citizens of Paris, so we called him in using a cover story that we had found a lead on his wife, Emilie Agreste's, disappearance. It was an effective strategy, and there was very little struggle."

"And Mayura? How did you find out who she was?"

"Gabriel Agreste told us, though not intentionally. He called out her names while caught off guard when Ladybug restrained him. Police waiting close to the house had no trouble getting in and arresting her as well."

"Are there more suspected collaborators?"

"Not at the moment, though we are keeping the possibility in mind."

"How did Mr. Agreste get his hands on the Miraculous?"

"We don't know that. It will certainly be part of our investigation. That is all the information that we have at this time."

Three Months Later

Alya couldn't help but grin as she looked around her room. Clipped articles hung from her walls, chronicling the crazy, crazy journey that she had been on ever since she discovered Hawkmoth's identity. Her classmates had helped her collect every article that had been written about the arrests and all of the subsequent investigations, and now they papered her walls.

Ladyblog Breaks the Case! read one, featured predominantly. Below was a still from her famous video, with Gabriel Agreste headed down the stairs of the Eiffel Tower. The article was one that she had memorized, and in particular the section with the interview that Ladybug and Chat Noir had given the city's reporters. They had given her full credit for figuring out who Hawkmoth was, and even for giving them the idea to collaborate with the police.

Her blog had gotten a huge spike in attention when she posted the video unveiling Hawkmoth. It had gotten an even bigger spike after that, with everyone who heard the interview curious about what other work Alya had done. She had had to resist the urge to go back and edit all of her early articles, the ones that had included a whole lot of inaccurate speculation and fangirling. Those hadn't been great reporting at all, but in the end Alya let them be, as an example of how much her work had improved over the past months.

She had, however, gone back and switched the page with Lila's "interview" to private, keeping the footage as a just-in-case but not wanting to keep that train wreck of lies up.

(That particular investigation of hers had ended up having a newspaper article of its own, since the news that a collège student had skipped several months of school by lying to both school and her mom about her whereabouts was pretty insane. Mylène was the one who had spotted the article, which didn't mention the student by name but did say that the student would be attending a school for troubled youth in the fall rather than going back to their previous school. That was probably for the better, because, well, none of Lila's former classmates had been particularly thrilled about being duped for so long.)

Alya moved her attention on to the next section of wall. There had been a whole slew of discoveries right after the arrests- a book about the Miraculous, a cursed Miraculous pin, scrolls in some strange code, Hawkmoth's lair (armed with a crazy amount of weapons), and notes about combining the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculous. And then, right after that-

EMILIE AGRESTE FOUND- ALIVE, CURSED, ASLEEP

-Adrien's mother had been found under the mansion, sealed away in a glass coffin. Ladybug and Chat Noir had taken her, the cursed Miraculous (and Hawkmoth's Miraculous), the book, and all of the scrolls to an undisclosed location. Two weeks later, Emilie Agreste had showed up in the hospital, tired and weak but awake and alive. Adrien had been thrilled, and doubly so when the superheroes and the police announced that Mrs. Agreste wasn't guilty of any wrongdoing and was free to resume her life. Mrs. Agreste had largely kept to herself after her return, preferring to stay in the mansion rather than going out, but Adrien had said that that was because she was still recovering from being in a coma for so long- she got tired very easily- and she didn't want to be harassed by reporters searching for an interview.

Alya had only met her once, and briefly. Marinette, who spent a ton of time in the Agreste manor (even though she claimed that she and Adrien weren't dating yet), said that Mrs. Agreste was a perfectly lovely if perhaps very nervous woman.

(Once, Alya had asked if she was good mother-in-law material. Marinette had turned bright red and said nothing, which- well, Alya could tease, but she wasn't going to push. Not yet, anyway.)

Smiling at the memory, Alya continued running her finger down the wall. Under the batch of articles about Mrs. Agreste's discovery, recovery, and innocence from the Hawkmoth mess was another headline, this one smaller.

No Further Suspects in Hawkmoth Case

According to Adrien, absolutely everyone in the household had been questioned, including him. He had been pretty quiet for several days after that, and Alya suspected that he had been shaken by whatever interrogation that the police put him through. He had been taken out of the mansion by child services during the questioning and subsequent searches, which hadn't helped at all. Thankfully Ms. Bustier had stepped in at once, taking Adrien in until his mom was released from the hospital.

All the questioning ended up producing was false leads that petered out, and a few small charges against the people who had created the system to get up to the lair and down to Mrs. Agreste's cavern but hadn't mentioned it as anything out of the ordinary and worth looking into at any point, but no one else who had worked directly with Hawkmoth or known about his secret identity. Adrien's bodyguard came up clean, which both Adrien and his mom seemed relieved about.

Thankfully Adrien didn't seem to hold any hard feelings towards Alya for being the one to find out about his father. She had worried about that after he was questioned, since she had seen him talking to Marinette but not her, but Nino had assured her that Adrien wasn't really talking to anyone else, either. After a few days, though, he was mostly back to normal.

Trial for Gabriel Agreste Starting Today: What to Expect

The trial went on for several weeks, and as the person who had found the video evidence, Alya had to go in. Much to Alya's delight, Rena Rouge had been called in as well for one last hurrah, testifying in front of the jury about what she had overheard when the police called the manor. Saying good-bye to Trixx after that had been hard, because she really, really doubted that she would get the Miraculous back again. There wasn't a need for it to be out and, as they had just seen, it was dangerous for too many Miraculous to be out and about in case someone was trying to find them.

She would be fine, though. Being a superhero had been cool, but she was being taken seriously as a reporter now, and that was super-cool, too.

GUILTY! Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sancoeur Both Sentenced

Hawkmoth and Mayura Behind Bars For Good

The End of Terror in Paris: Hawkmoth Trial Ends with Guilty on All Counts

There had been celebrations in the streets that night, and the balloons for all of the city's superheroes had flown again. Alya rather suspected that the mayor had something to do with that, since only Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Rena Rouge had been directly involved with Hawkmoth's defeat, but she wasn't going to complain. After all, her boyfriend's balloon got to be part of the parade, too. Alya and Nino had been in the thick of the celebrations, and so many people had gone up to her to thank her for her role in discovering Hawkmoth's identity and get a photo with her.

Alya was pretty certain that she had blushed for the entire evening. It had been a bit overwhelming for sure, but hardly in a bad way. The superheroes had dropped in partway through to pose for pictures with her, and the photos had ended up on the front page of the newspaper the next day.

And now...

"Alya, are you coming? We need to leave soon!"

"I'm almost ready!" Alya called back, smoothing down her dress for the awards ceremony. She checked her reflection in the mirror- the dress fit her to perfection, thanks to Marinette's tailoring skills- before returning her attention to the final clipping, one that she had only just put up that morning.

Paris's Ladyblogger to Receive Young Journalist of the Year Award

"Alya!"

"Coming!" Alya called back. With one last look at her wall, she headed out the door, smiling to herself. The past few months had been pretty crazy, but honestly?

She wouldn't change it for anything.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #Keeping up with the Ladyblog #alya cesaire

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roswelldetails · 5 years

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Episode 105: Don’t Speak - details

Episode Summary: I’ve decided I’m not going to bother putting the official episode description in here anymore. Those can be found online if you really want them. Instead I’ll just say - this is the one where Isobel blacks out and winds up in the desert, Liz almost gets killed by Wyatt, and Alex and Kyle talk about the good old days before Kyle became a jock/jerk - oh yeah, and apparently Rosa was Jim Valenti’s secret daughter. Remember that? Good.

Details - this is not an exhaustive list of every single detail, just just a few that might be important now or later.

Noah & Isobel

According to Noah, Isobel didn’t come home last night. (She was dropped off by Michael, but must’ve left sometime before Noah got home.)

She must’ve been getting ready for bed because she had her nightgown on when she left.

Noah’s grandfather had a drinking problem and used to store his booze in old bottles of laundry detergent - making him suspicious of the bottles of nail polish remover he found hidden all over the house. He thinks Isobel is either having an affair or has a drinking problem.

Isobel says that she doesn’t know how she feels about her husband because she doesn’t know how he feels about her because he doesn’t really know her since she doesn’t even really know herself so everything has always been an act.

In other words - if she isn’t sure who she is, how can Noah really know her and love her?

At the hospital with Kyle & Liz & Dr. Avila

The box of Jim Valenti’s stuff has (among other things) the recorder labeled from the night Rosa died - it’s the RPD tip line 8pm-12am shift. The box also has a paper with a flower that Rosa drew, some magazines, a canteen, a trophy, a big white letter R, and the key to the chest in Jim’s underground bunker bedroom that’s not creepy at all.

Kyle has learned that his dad had multiple affairs, a drinking problem off and on, and a “pervasive obsession with aliens.”

During her interview, Liz tells Dr. Avila that the work they are doing is “borderline science fiction.” But she’s excited about it because it just happens to be the field she’s always wanted to work in.

I have a theory about this detail.

The Turquoise Mines

What a hub of activity! Rosa & Friends were mysteriously floated out of the cave here, presumably by Michael whose hand was broken at the time.

This is also where Rosa had stashed her getaway backpack that contained her bus ticket.

Grant Green & Liz

At the diner, Grant tells Liz, “Nothing is an accident, got it? People who talk end up dead.”

Inside the alien-crap storage warehouse, Grant points a (confetti) gun at Liz and wants to know who sent her.

Before becoming an alien podcaster of fake news, Grant claims he was a “peyote documentarian.”

Peyote is a type of cactus that also happens to have hallucinogenic properties when ingested.

According to Wikipedia: “The effects last about 10 to 12 hours. Peyote is reported to trigger rich visual or auditory effects (see synesthesia).” Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peyote

This is why Liz’s next line is that he was tripping that night in the desert. Though whether he actually was is uncertain. But Liz assumes that his work with the hallucinogenic cactus is the reason why Grant was not considered to be a risk.

Grant claims that “a couple of guys showed up later that year” and basically told him he could cooperate with them or enjoy a “slow death.”

Jim Valenti had a slow death. Just sayin’

Grant says, “Every general and scientist who investigated the original crash - dead. Okay? Your sister, I bet she knew. Dead. Jim Valenti, he knew. Dead.”

Before he runs off to save himself, Grant says, “You broke in, I tried to stop you.” We have no idea what he may actually have told Wyatt before Wyatt shot him.

Max, Michael, and Isobel in the desert

Max thinks Isobel’s blackouts are caused by trauma. He tells Michael, “Last time she had an episode like this was near the end of high school when she was afraid I was gonna abandon her. Okay, now she thinks she's gonna lose you, she thinks she's lost me to Liz; she's freaking out, man. It's triggering her."

Michael thinks the blackouts might be due to the talk about Rosa.

Max is able to telepathically link himself with Isobel in order to find her. (Like she was able to do with him in the pilot.)

Apparently this isn’t something Michael can do.

Isobel is passed out somewhere else - not where we originally see her wake up. So she’s blacked out (or passed out) at least twice and moved around between.

Isobel says, “It’s happening again. Just like it was before.”

Isobel thinks the current round of blackouts may have been caused by her exhausting herself by trying to use her powers to get Liz out of town. But then she accidentally lets Max know that she’s done it before.

Max didn’t know she’d done it before.

Last episode, Isobel told Max that if she was successful in getting Liz to leave, she wouldn’t forget about him, only how she feels about him. So we can assume that’s what she did last time.

Which means Liz has spent the last ten years loving Max deep down, but unable to access those feelings and unable to understand why she was having such a hard time connecting with anyone else.

Max says, “After Rosa, after high school. She didn’t abandon me, you sent her away.” Which may mean that Liz actually had some kind of relationship with Max before she drove off into the sunset.

Which explains why Max was so upset that he didn’t even warrant a goodbye from her.

Michael says that Max was the one who gave them the rules to live by including, “Never be extraordinary.”

Which actually, probably saved their lives with all the creepy stuff happening in this down.

Isobel still has a connection with Liz after having been inside her head a couple days prior. So apparently a lingering connection is formed both when Max heals and when Isobel mind-warps.

Max & Liz & Wyatt at the warehouse of alien crap

Wyatt wants to know who Liz told as he’s trying to murder her to death.

Grant Green was killed off camera, execution style with a single bullet to the forehead.

Max is shot in the shoulder by Wyatt, and Max shoots Wyatt in the leg.

The cops and ambulance show up at the same time, but no indication of who called them.

The cops drag Wyatt away and the paramedics go straight for Max.

At Max’s house

Max apparently has the supplies ready to do self-surgery. This may not be the first time he’s had to doctor himself.

Liz showed up after hearing from he hospital that he’d left - apparently you can refuse treatment for bullet wounds in Roswell.

And Liz’s car was blown up so... she walked? Or took a taxi? Or borrowed a car?

Max doesn’t think Wyatt’s actions make sense - he apparently doesn’t know about whatever shady entity is paying people like Wyatt and Grant Green to do their bidding.

Max is surprised to see the mark on Rosa’s body and wonders how it’s possible. If Isobel is able to leave a mark like that, Max didn’t know about it.

Max admits that Isobel killed the girls.

At least that’s his belief. No real indication of whether or not it’s actually true.

At Michael’s trailer

Michael tells Isobel, “Maybe it’s time we all tell the truth to the people we love.” - JUST WHO WOULD THAT BE, MICHAEL?

Also, Michael tells Isobel that he didn’t kill the girls, and she knows who did it - she’s always known.

Isobel knows what he’s getting at because she’s shaking her head in denial. No indication whether or not she actually remembers doing it, though.

At the cabin in the woods with Kyle, Alex, and the bunker bedroom

Kyle and Alex grew up together when they were young, but the closeness ended when Kyle got older and became “a nightmare of a bully. Like some bro jock from an 80's movie.”

Alex assumes it’s because he didn’t want other kids to assume he was gay like Alex.

One night when they were kids, Sgt. Manes made Alex and Kyle set up a tent to teach them extreme weather survival. Jim Valenti had driven home for the night so according to Alex, "mine concocted a brand new form of kiddie torture." The boys found a way to sneak back inside, though.

Jim Valenti left the cabin to Alex without saying anything about it to Kyle.

The bunker bedroom at the cabin has a notebook on the desk, a bin with a pink hairbrush, a radio, headphones, and a letter R standing up.

Alex says, "I wasn't loved. My mom was gone. My dad was a homophobic, abusive dick. And your dad saw it. He left me these keys so that I would have a place to go. He wasn't the type of person who would take advantage of a desperate teenager. He would help them."

The cabinet in the bunker has detoxing supplies, leading the guys to assume that Jim brought Rosa down there to help her detox.

The locked chest in the bunker contains various baby items and a photo of Jim holding Rosa as a baby.

Kyle assumes that since Rosa was his daughter, “That’s why he was trying to help Rosa sober up. That’s why he was never the same after she died.”

OR maybe he was never the same after she died because he had to frame his own daughter for murder and make the entire town think she was a drug addict who crashed her car into a tree.

The summer they built a tree house, Manes found out Alex was gay and tried to beat it out of him. Alex hadn’t even realized he was gay yet. According to Alex, Jim Valenti tried to intervene, “But you can't make someone stop hating someone. And my dad hated me."

Once Kyle leaves, Alex goes back to check out the lamp in the bunker with the weird cut out. He turns on the light and sees a shape projected onto the wall. He then breaks open the wall at that spot and finds some kind of alien fragment that looks just like the one Michael has in his trailer.

#roswell new mexico #max evans #michael guerin #isobel evans #liz ortecho #alex manes #kyle valenti #episode 105 #details #roswell cw #roswell nm #roswell nm season 1

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fandammit · 6 years

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Loss like the sharp edges of a knife (5/7)

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4

[A/N: This veered off from my original outline, and I’m having to rearrange a few things for length and narrative purposes. So, now it’s 6 parts instead of 5 :/. Sorry for the length, the wait…and the continued wait, but thanks for reading! PS. A couple Filipino words in here: lola = Grandma, anak = child]

He takes the long way home from David’s house the following Tuesday.

It’s an inconvenient, circuitous route that he likes because it generally has less traffic on it on any given day, one that Gracie seems to like better too for all that she stays seated up and starting out the window rather than curled up and sleeping in the passenger seat like she normally does. That it happens to take him right past Karen’s apartment is something he tells himself is an additional benefit, rather than the entire reason.

The moment this thought crosses his mind, Gracie looks over at him and snorts before licking his hand, and he thinks – for about the thousandth time – that she’s way more perceptive and emotionally expressive than any one dog has the right to be.

Almost without meaning to, he slows the truck as he glances up towards Karen’s window. His heart knocks against his chest when he sees the pot of yellow daffodils sitting out on her windowsill, the weather now warm enough by midday to warrant putting them outside her window rather than pushing them up against it.

He circles the block twice before he finds a parking spot. He rolls down both windows about a quarter of the way. It’s still cool enough outside that he isn’t worried about Gracie getting too hot in the car, but figures a little extra air wouldn’t hurt. He gives her a few scratches under the chin, then gets out of his truck and tries to keep himself from jogging over to her apartment building. Manages it, but just barely.

He squints up at her window, shading his eyes against the afternoon sun. He doesn’t see anything held in place by the pot, but thinks he sees something small and flat stuck between the stalks of the flowers.

The corner of his mouth quirks up as he reaches up to grab the fire escape ladder, scaling it quickly and with ease, as though he’s done this two dozen times before instead of just the three.

(He wonders – briefly – if dreams can give you muscle memory.)

He reaches the landing outside her window and leans over, grabs what looks to be a photo wedged between the flower stems.

He turns it over in his hands and sucks in a sharp breath, his hand coming up to rub against the edge of his own beanie, the ache in his chest crystallizing into a sensation that can’t be ignored.

She’s standing in front of a semi-frosted window, the words Krav Maga Institute visible behind her. She’s clad in all black – black tights, a fitted black tank top – with a smirk on her face, her bright blue eyes especially piercing in contrast to the plain black beanie that sits low on her forehead.

He leans back against the peeling wall and looks closely at the photo, tells himself he’s studying the contours of the knitted cap rather than the shape of her mouth, the curves of her form. He swallows thickly, tells himself that the beanie could’ve been from anywhere or anyone, that it doesn’t necessarily have to have been the one he left her all those weeks ago, that photo of Gracie stick against the seams of it.

But no – he looks again, sees where she’s folded it up to keep from falling over her eyes, finds his eyes drawn by the fraying edge caused by his own worrying fingers. Her head is tilted slightly down, her hand reaching up to brush against that worn edge of it. He looks closer and smiles, swears that there’s a teasing edge to her smile, a radiating warmth in her eyes as she looks directly at the camera.

The effect of it – of seeing Karen wrapped in what he’s now sure is his plain, black beanie, her long blond hair tucked underneath it and framing her face, her blue eyes made brighter by its darkness – is immediate and intense and absurd. It sets off a sensation that nearly overwhelms him – a thrumming through his veins more pointed than the undefined longing he’s long grown accustomed to. It’s something sharper, more heady and intoxicating. Something that feels dangerously, exhilaratingly close to want.

He blows out a harsh breath and shakes his head, looks back down at the photo again. Stares at it like it’s the world’s last work of art, studies it like it’s some sort of sacred text rather than a 4x6 photo with CVS printed across the back.

She looks stronger, though he has to admit it’d be hard for him to really know since he’s only ever seen her wrapped in coats or else buttoned up in pencil skirts and blouses. But her posture is solid and straight, her arms curved with muscle, a coiled sort of readiness in her stance even though everything about her is relaxed. He thinks she looks happier, too – her expression shot through with real glee, her eyes wide and sparkling at the camera. It makes him smile, even though the ache of missing her, the low grade pain of absence that he tries to keep locked away in the very darkest corners of his mind, flares up as he does. It combines with the hum of desire in his veins in a way that’s nearly maddening.

He sighs and closes his eyes – builds a new life around Karen in his mind’s eye based on the photo in his hands and the six month of Bulletin issues piled high in the corner of his apartment, rather than on the memory of the last time he saw her.

Imagines her learning to break wrists and crack ribs, her lithe form and wide-open features now twice as deceptive as before. Pictures her happy and cared for, with someone close enough and trusted enough on the other side of the camera to take the picture without asking too many questions about what or who it might be for. He envisions her running down a lead or chasing down a harried cop, disarming them with her piercing gaze alone, then gathering up the wayward pieces of a statement or a casually dropped observation and fitting them together into a story with a satisfied smile on her face.

He glances back down at the photo, at the beanie pulled down low on her head, and chews on the corner of his lip. He can’t tell if it’s a trick of lighting or the yearning in his own heart, but he swears that it looks a little more worn at the edges than when he last saw it.

For a moment, he lets himself indulge in pleasure of believing that she’s worn it as frequently as he’s worn the one that she gifted to him. Lets himself believe that she thinks of him during those dark, cold nights in the city, finds satisfaction in thinking that some part of him is able to keep her warm even from afar.

He pushes off from the side of the building and glances into her apartment, wonders what her expression might be if he were to be waiting for her when she gets home. If she would be wearing his black beanie, if she would be clad in all black again just having come home from training. Wonders what exactly his own reaction might be.

He takes a deep breath in and very firmly steps back from that line of thinking. Tells himself that for now, it’s enough to know that she thinks of him, that he’s important enough for her to leave him tangible snippets of her.

He very carefully places the photo in his jacket pocket, looks at the daffodils on her window sill one last time, and climbs back down the fire escape. Thinks of what he might leave her in return the entire way home to his own apartment.

He’s early to Gracie’s final obedience class a few weeks later, his toolbox in hand.

Mrs. Abaya sees him from across the training field and smiles, walking over to him and giving a few pets to Gracie before looking up at him with a feigned look of surprise.

“You’re an hour and a half early, Peter. Were you really so excited for your last obedience class with Gracie?”

He gives her a wry look and shakes his head, lifts the toolbox in his hand.

“Heard you talking last class that the kitchen sink in the staff lounge was leaking. Figured I could try and help some if you were ok with it.”

Her face lights up with delight as she claps her hands in front of her, taps them against his chest.

“Oh, praise Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Peter. We’ve just turned the water off for the last two days. I kept meaning to call someone but, you know – I get so busy here.”

“Uh huh,” he says with a skeptical look and a teasing lilt to the words. It’s the sixth time in the last four weeks that he’s come over early to fix something around the shelter – a leaking faucet, a blown circuit, a faulty switch. The first time had been purely coincidental – he really had overheard Mrs. Abaya fretting about the fans in one of the kennels that had gone out and wondering if they had the money to fix it.

He’d come back the next morning with his toolbox, had simply asked to take a look at the broken fan and spent the rest of the morning fixing it until it ran smoothly.

That night, he’d noticed that Mrs. Abaya had refunded the entire cost of both the beginner’s obedience class he’d finished up and the intermediate class he was currently taking, a point of fact he’d made sure to bring up to her the following day at the end of class.

“I don’t need that money back, Mrs. Abaya. In fact, I’d rather you keep it. Fan’s not a big deal.”

She’d simply hummed some non-committal noise and patted him on the cheek before mentioning that the women’s bathroom toilet was constantly running, maybe he might have a second to look at it?

She never took the money back out of his account. But she also always seemed to mention whatever might be broken right when he was just within earshot, so it’s a trade he doesn’t mind making. Besides, he likes Mrs. Abaya, likes being at the shelter, likes doing something with his hands that reminds him that they can do more than cause pain and violence.

He walks with her to the lounge, listening to her talk about the new dog they just picked up that day, the string of families that have come in looking for a pet. She walks him just to the entrance before squeezing his arm and turning to go.

“I’ll go and get your assistant,” she says teasingly, smiling at him before turning around and shuffling back down the hallway.

He sets his toolbox down reaches over to pet Gracie before walking over to the sink and bending down to open up the cabinet doors.

“Hi, Gracie,” he hears a small, quiet voice say to the right of him. “Hi, Tito Peter.”

He looks over and sees Mrs. Abaya’s granddaughter, eight year old Emeline, with a young Doberman Pinscher mix as her side. She occupies the unique position of owning one of the few dogs in the class that Gracie actually seems to actively like rather than just barely tolerate, which is a godsend considering how much time she spends at the shelter. Her parents – a bleeding heart immigration lawyer mother and a social worker father – work long hours, which means Emeline spends a lot of her after-school hours helping out Mrs. Abaya at the shelter. Which also means that she’s become his de facto helper around the shelter as he fixes up faucets and fans and fences.

He smiles at the signifier before his name, which as far as he can tell is a Filipino word for someone who is but isn’t really your actual uncle. It opens back up a piece of his heart that he’d forgotten existed – the part that always wished for a brother growing up, the part that took pride in being called uncle whenever he met the kids of the guys in his unit.

He crouches down so that he’s not bearing down on Emeline from his height, smiles as she leans over to give Gracie a kiss on the forehead then steps forward to give him a hug.

It had surprised him the first time, the ease with which she was willing to throw her arms around some relative stranger introduced to her by her grandmother. But after having spent an increasing amount of time around Mrs. Abaya in these last four weeks and having met not just Emeline, but Emeline’s parents, a few of Emeline’s cousins, Mrs. Abaya’s sister and about half a dozen other members of the family – half of whom he’s not even all that sure are actually related to Mrs. Abaya – and receiving hugs and pats on the back and cheek, arms around his shoulders and kisses to his cheek, he thinks that touch and affection must come easy to them.

It doesn’t always to him, but there’s something comforting about knowing that it does to others, about recognizing that there’s a world in which softness isn’t a weakness.

He sometimes has the vague sense that he’s been adopted in some strange way, given that Mrs. Abaya has started showing up with trays of homemade lumpia and pancit that seem freshly made even though she swears they’re just leftovers that she doesn’t want going bad, the way she’s always fretting about the amount that he is or isn’t socializing in his free time.

Some part of him wonders if he should be wary or, at the very least, annoyed by the amount of attention and interest. But mostly he finds himself touched by it. And though it is Pete Castiglione, not Frank Castle, that Mrs. Abaya cares for, she knows enough of the very broad strokes of his story that make the two similar – widower, grieving father, former Marine – for him to feel at least a tiny bit less alone.

“What’re you fixing?” Emeline asks, breaking him out of his reverie as she rises up on her tiptoes to look over his shoulder at his toolbox.

“Your grandma said this is leaking,” he says, gesturing to the pipes under the sink. “So, here I am.”

She nods and then sits cross legged next to his toolbox, reaches over to open it.

“I’ll help you.”

He nods, then raises a brow at her.

“Your homework done already?”

She furrows her brow at him and blows air up through her bangs, an exaggerated look of exasperation on her face that only children can somehow manage to make and still be endearing. She’s too polite to roll her eyes at him, but somehow he gets the impression anyway – has to bite back a smile so that he can keep a stern look on his face.

“Ye - yes, I finished it.” She shrugs as she hands him a wrench. “It was only that one time that I forgot – just that one time, Tito. And I finished it after we got done with the bathroom and before mommy came to pick me up.”

He nods and lies down on his back, begins going through the process of fixing the pipes in the same way that he’s done every piece of maintenance with Emeline as his side – by carefully pointing out just what he’s doing, explaining each step of the process, wriggling out from under the sink and letting her help when and if she can. She’s surprisingly quick at picking up what he’s doing, easily remembering the tools and steps even though this is only the second sink she’s seen him fix.

It’s relaxing – working with his hands, chatting with Emeline about her day. She’s different enough from either Lisa for it not to ache too much when he does, and there are sometimes whole minutes that go by when he’s able to disappear into the fiction of Pete Castiglione – someone’s almost uncle who can be counted on to fix leaking pipes, who can laugh at a truly nonsensical second grade joke without being reminded of another joke, another 8 year old, another life.

When they’re done, he has her run around the back and turn the water back on. They test the sink and she gives him a high five and wide, toothy grin when everything drains through the pipes instead of pooling at the bottom of the floor.

“Mommy says that I’m probably better than Daddy now at fixing stuff,” she says proudly, calling her dog Macey to her side and giving her a good pat on the back.

“Oh yeah?” He picks up Gracie’s leash and starts to walk over to the training area. “Maybe your grandma can hire you instead of me to fix stuff around here.”

“Noooo,” she answers, drawing out the o sound as she shakes her head. “Lola says you’re the best. And besides, I need a lot more practice.”

“How much more practice, do you think?”

“Hrmmm.” She scrunches up her face, then squints up at him. “Like eleven years probably.”

He purses his lips to the side as he tries to force his smile back. He wants her to know that he takes this all very seriously.

“And how old will you be in eleven years?”

“Ummm - 19,” she says quickly, her eyes widening. “I’ll be old!”

He chuckles at that, then nods.

“And if I’m 36 right now, how old will I be then?” He asks, because he knows they’re learning to add double digits right now.

“You’ll be…you’ll be 47!” She exclaims triumphantly, and there’s a part of him that’s proud of how quickly she gets there.

She stops in the middle of the hallway.

“Tito, you’ll be really old,” she says, her voice hushed.

“Who’ll be old?”

He turns around and sees Mrs. Abaya walking up behind them.

“Uh - well, apparently me in eleven years.”

“He’ll be 47 then, Lola! That’s older than Mommy or Daddy.”

“Pah, anak,” Mrs. Abaya says, swooping down to rub her cheek and drop a kiss on top of Emeline’s head. “That means he’s 36 now? He’s only two years old than your parents. That’s still young.”

She says it to Emeline but he has a sneaking suspicion that it’s directed at him for whatever reason.

He doesn’t really have time to think about why that might because in the next moment, she’s shooing them off to the training grounds, telling them they better get ready for their session.

The final class concludes with a mini graduation ceremony. The dogs all get graduation caps and he’s stupidly proud of the fact that Gracie stays completely still as Mrs. Abaya puts on her cap, and that she’s one of the few dogs (Macey is another one) in the class that doesn’t immediately try to paw it off.

Gracie walks across the small, raised platform with her chest puffed out and what seems to be a smug look on her face, stands tall as Mrs. Abaya loops a ribbon that says “Overall best behaved” around her collar. He sneaks a few treats to her from his pocket as Mrs. Abaya makes a small speech talking about how proud she is of all the dogs and the trainers, and how there’s always more classes and things to teach themselves and their dogs.

He walks over to where Emeline is taking at least two dozen photos of Macey with her mom’s phone.

“Marisol, Jeremy,” he says in greeting, nodding to both of them as he stretches out his hand.

“Hey man! Good to see you again,” Jeremy says, taking his hand and giving it a firm shake, his face lit up with a big grin. “Emeline was just telling us how she helped you fix the kitchen sink.”

“And how apparently she’ll need another eleven years of practice before she’s as good as you,” Marisol adds, reaching over to give him a warm hug as she smiles at him.

He grins and shakes his head.

“Nah, she’ll need, you know, maybe another five years, tops, before she’ll know everything I know.”

Both Jeremy and Marisol laugh, and it seems like Marisol is about to say something else before they hear Mrs. Abaya’s voice from behind them, calling for Marisol to come over.

Marisol gives him an apologetic look and excuses herself, Jeremy following behind her with his hand at the small of her back.

He inwardly thanks Mrs. Abaya for the interruption, takes his phone out of his pocket and crouches down in front of Emeline.

“So, think you could take a picture of me and Gracie?” He asks, handing the phone in her direction.

“Yeah, I can!” She clicks over to the camera as he backs up until he’s crouched down next to Gracie, holds up her certificate in front of them both so that it faces the camera.

“Make sure you get the certificate in there, sweetheart.”

She gives him a look that says, of course, that same look that says she’s rolling her eyes without rolling her eyes, which makes him huff out a laugh.

He waits until Emeline is satisfied, which means he’s told about seven different times that he needs to smile, then scrolls through the three dozen or so photos quickly.

“Are you gonna put it as your phone background?”

He glances over at Emeline, who’s peering over his shoulder, looking at the pictures flashing across the screen.

He briefly considers just saying yes. Knows that’s the best way to keep away from the line of questioning he’s sure to get from Mrs. Abaya the next time he sees her.

But there’s something about keeping it a secret that feels wrong, makes it feel illicit rather than important. And there’s a part of him, too, that wants it to be real in some other way outside himself, that wants some evidence that it won’t disappear the moment he opens his eyes in the morning.

“It’s, uh, it’s for a - a friend of mine,” he finally says. There’s an instinct to frown when he says friend, even though that’s as good a descriptor as any for what Karen is to him, so he immediately follows it up with - “Karen - she, uh. I think she’d like to see how Gracie’s doing.”

Emeline narrows her eyes at him a bit, and for a moment the expression on her face is so uncannily similar to one Mrs. Abaya might give him that he nearly laughs out loud. She doesn’t say anything, just reaches over his shoulder and scrolls three photos to the left.

“There. That’s the one you should send her.”

He looks down at his phone. The photo she picked is him caught mid laugh, a small but genuine smile on his face, his eyes crinkled up with real amusement. Gracie faces towards the camera in complete seriousness, looking almost regal despite her ridiculous graduation hat.

“Why that one?”

Emeline shrugs.

“You look happy in that one. I think she’d want one where you’re happy, don’t you?”

He thinks about that question the entire drive home, mulls it over as he stops by CVS to print out the picture. The next morning, he pulls on his beanie and sweatshirt and tucks the photo into his pocket, doesn’t look at it again until he’s perched outside Karen’s window.

He turns the picture over in his hands, thinks about the photo she’d given him, carefully tucked away in the pages of his favorite book – the curve of Karen’s smile, the brightness in her eyes, the way it both soothes the ache in his chest and amplifies the humming in his veins to see it.

He wedges the photo between the window and windowsill, looping tape around the back to make sure it doesn’t fly away. As he climbs back down the stairs, he imagines her finding it. Wonders if she’ll build a life around him the way he has for her. Hopes she’ll know how hard he’s trying to build an after that means something, that he’s doing so to build his way back to her.

He huffs out a laugh. It’s a hell of a lot to pin on one photo, on one look, on one windowsill.

But he remembers the meaning in a single gesture, whole conversations told in single looks and in silence. Thinks about how much can be said in a single photo.Thinks about how it can be enough, for now.

#kastle #frank castle #the punisher #the punisher fic #fic: loss like the sharp edges of a knife #my fic

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smokeybrand · 3 years

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Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Well, Sh*t, Diana

I’m not a fan of the DCEU. I think they make capeflicks the wrong way. Sure, i absolutely understand there is artistic merit in he creation process and i do love a different interpretation of a character but there are certain elements that absolutely have to hit in order to make your version of the character, true to the core character. Spider-Man is a geek, Iron Man is an arrogant asshole with a heart of gold, and cap is a roided out boy scout. Unless the character has some nebulous history, like Donna Troy or Captain Marvel, the blue print for creating the characters is right there. Someone needs to be in charge to make sure you follow the plan. someone needs to be the one to reel you in when you stray too far from what’s been established before you go from Batman to Rorschach I know it sounds like i don’t like DC but that’s not true. I love them. Not as much as Marvel but i still dig their stories. Mostly. Hell, The Dark Knight is one of my all-time favorite films. I’m not saying they need to be as good as that but at least give me recognizable version of the characters, especially when there are excellent adaptions like this out there for comparison. Just because you CALL your movie a Superman movie, doesn’t mean it IS a Superman movie, ya dig? With that in mind, here’s hat i thought of Wonder Woman 1984.

The Good

Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman hits it out of the ark. This is the best I've ever seen her act in her short career. Look, i know she’s been doing it for a while now, but it's be honest; Wonder Woman is literally the strongest role she’s had to date. The emotional complexity of Diana Prince is easily the most nuanced character Gadot has ever played to this point and it took a while for her to really nail that as a reality. WW84 really demonstrates how Gadot has finally found a happy medium between her acting ability and the strengths of the character. I was a little sus when she was cast originally but immediately got on board when it turned out that she as the best thing about BvS. Since then, shes continued to grow with the character and seeing the ultimate version of her interpretation was a joy to watch.

Chris Pine as Steve Trevor was Chris Pine. Look, he’s great at his job. Dude knows his range and he stays in that lane perfectly. This makes his characters kind of same-t, you’d be hard-pressed to tell me the difference between Trevor and his version of Kirk, but I'm not mad either way. It’s always a delight seeing he show up to steal a few scenes then disappearing before overstaying his welcome.

I legitimately love the chemistry between Gadot and Pine. They are great together onscreen and it really lends a bit of authenticity to their relationship in the film. The way Trevor returns is wonky as f*ck and I'll get into that in a minute, but it was good to see him up there with Diana, for sure.

Pedro Pascal as this version of Maxwell Lord was pretty okay. I generally enjoy Pascal’s work, specifically on The Mandalorian and GoT, and he executes here to that inspired degree. He does an able job being a different kind of foil to Diana’s different kind of hero and it all works. Even if this version of the character does not.

Kristen Wiig’s Barbara Minerva was delightful. Look, i love Wiig, man. She’s great in everything she’s in. There is a charisma to her that only the very best SNL alumni can claim to have and it makes it really difficult not to root for Wiig in her projects. I mean, i paid money to see her version of Ghostbusters! Legit disappointed with that nonsense but i went because i like Wiig and she was the star. I was not disappointed in her performance as Minerva. No, she was exceptional as that character. I was, however, put off by her version of Cheetah but I'll get to that, too...

This movie is gorgeous. I’m an Eighties baby so seeing that whole aesthetic is always fun. Takes me back to when i was young. Part of the reason i love Stranger Things is because of that nostalgia. WW84 doesn’t execute as thoroughly as that show in their Reagan era retro run, but it’s serviceable. Big hair, big shoulders, big colors; It’s all there and it’s fantastic.

The effects are a little hit or miss but, overall, they’re okay. Certain aspects of this film’s super abilities, that fantastical sh*t which makes this a capeflick, could have been visualized better but i get why they weren’t. Most of my gripes with this type of stuff are nitpicks and you get over them pretty quickly. Most, not all.

Patty Jenkins is getting more and more comfortable behind the camera in films like this. The action in WW84 is much more detailed, much better shot, than in it’s predecessor. Free from Snyder’s grimdark influence, we have a relatively bright, relatively light, take on Wondy akin to the old camp from the Seventies show and i kind of dig it. It’ a choice and i commend Jenkins for making it.

The score is great. I mean, it’s Hans Zimmer, man. When does he ever drop the ball on sh*t like this? His score is actually incredibly important to this flick. There’s not a lot of action in it, thing is almost a character study or morality parable dressed up as a capeflick, so you need that extra impact to get you over the expository hump. Simmer delivers this with a delicate and powerful companion soundtrack. One could make the argument that this score is the best thing about Wonder Woman 84. I’m not, but one could.

The Monkey's Paw effect was executed pretty well in this flick. I was surprised by the level of escalation and how it all kind of made sense. I'd say that the writing was great because of that but it really isn't, just this one aspect.

That Lynda Carter cameo, tho.

The Bad

I hate this plot so much, man. The overall narrative is goddamn convoluted and a little inept. The primary conflict seems incredibly forced and the absolute hurdles this thing had to do in order to shoehorn Trevor back into the story is f*cking disappointing. It’s effectively Heaven Can Wait with Amazons, magic wishes, furry nudity, and Eighties excess. This sounds like a dope ass anime but it’s not. It’s a wonky, uneven, adequate time spent with contrived nonsense.

This is easily some of the weakest dialogue I've ever heard in my life. I cannot stress enough that I absolutely understand this is a capeflick so I'm not expecting Shakespeare but at least give me something better than this.

I hate this version of Maxwell Lord. Look, in the book, this dude was evil Batman. He bested the entire Justice league, every last one of them, with his sheer brilliance and terrifying capability. He achieved absolute victory over DC’s heroes prompting Diana to literally break his neck to rob him of his triumph. It’s wild to see. She actually thinks about it. Wonder Woman pauses, contemplates her options, and them murders Lord in cold blood, in front of Superman, and just walks away from dude’s corpse! It was brutal and understand. Maxwell Lord was a f*cking problem and he was only going to get worse. WW84′s version is not a problem and could have been much, much, better.

Full-blown Cheetah is gross looking. The effects for her wholly CG body are f*cking terrible, man. Obviously, they frame this “fight” at night to hide all of that but it’s still really, really, bad. I understand that there’s a budget that you have to hit but, f*ck, you couldn’t give me Rebirth version of Cheetah with two hundred million dollars? Word? I shouldn’t be surprised about this, all of the DCEU CG villains look like sh*t, but how hard is it to execute Cheetah properly? The Mortal Kombat guys did it for a game but you can’t do it for a movie? Really?

This feels like a throwback capeflick and i have a real issue with that. Of course, i like the old versions of superhero movies. Donner’s Superman and Burton’s Batman will always mean a great deal to me but we are beyond that now. We have a better understanding of how to do this now. It’s a legitimate film genre with prestige pieces and everything. Why the f*ck are we looking back instead of forward with this movie? I imagine the cartoonish nature of this movie was a conscious choice by Jenkins but it definitely feels like a miscalculation on her part.

There are a great many plot holes and loose threads left unexplored. Why didn't Barbara lose her powers when Maxwell lost his? That convoy really didn't see them f*cking kids in the road? How and why did she go full Cheetah for that matter? Why does Steve look like himself to Diana when he doesn't even look like himself to himself? How the f*ck did Barbara just walk into the whole ass White House like that? While on the the subject of Barbara, what the f*ck was the cost of her wish? Was the the Cheetah thing? None of that was very clear. Will Stagg get out of prison for the tax fraud thing in the beginning? I get that I shouldn't b e analyzing this movie to the extent that I am but it's so loose with its own internal logic, I can't help it.

Two and a half hours is a real big ask, man. This flick did not need this run time. You could easily trim thirty to forty minutes off this thing and still have a really compelling watch. As it is, there's too much time for the pacing to get dumb and, boy, does it get dumb.

The Verdict

Wonder Woman 1984 isn’t a Wondy flick. It’s a generic superhero vehicle that happens to have Diana slotted in the pole position. You could have put any character and their main love interest in these roles and it would have worked out fine with little to no tweaking. This sequel feels uninspired in a lot of ways. It’s completely devoid of the emotional weight that first run carried. I can’t say it’s terrible, though, because i know what else is in the catalog to this point. WW84 is still one of the best in the DCEU and that says way more about the franchise than it does this flick. It’s not all bad, however. I did enjoy Gadot as Wondy. She’s come a long way and you can see just how comfortable she is as Diana. Chris Pine is going to Chris Pine. His Steve Trevor is, once again, the best thing about this movie. Rather, his and Gadot’s chemistry is the best thing about this movie. The newcomers are pretty okay as well.

I always enjoy Pedro Pascal and this version of Maxwell Lord ain’t terrible but it is way too different from the core character for me to really get on board Just write a different character, you know? Nothing on the page about this version of Lord, come anywhere near the violent mastermind from the books and i think that’s a very real missed opportunity. I was a little sus of the Kristen Wiig casting for Barbara Minerva but she pulled it off. I really enjoyed her as Cheetah literally until she actually be Cheetah. i was curious why the marketing refused to show her in full-blown Cheetara mode and, when i saw it, i understood. They should have let those effects cook a little longer. That’s the theme of this entire flick, though, wen i think about it; Sh*t should have cooked a little longer.

WW84 is a decent watch, if a little long in the tooth. It;s mad campy, saccharine sweet at points, and is definitely a capeflick envisioned through the eyes of a woman. It’s not bad, mind you, it’s just not that good, either. Everything seems almost but not quite. The villains are almost compelling but not quite. Diana’s entire arc in this seems almost cathartic but not quite. The necessity of Steve Trevor seems justified but not quite. This thing just misses the mark and yet, somehow, it’s still one of the best in the DCEU catalog. hat sh*t just boggles my mind, man. If you know your Amazonian lore like i do, this film can be frustrating at time. If you’re a fan of the DCEU, you’ll probably enjoy this flick. If you’re a fan of this version of the Wondy myths, then 84 is definitely for you. There is enough other stuff here to entertain and distract so it’s an okay time overall. The first one is still the best out of the lot, though.

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beacon-of-chaos · 7 years

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Defenders of Aura - A Battle Century G Campaign Diary

Session 11 As the Chinese march us out of the building, Ax passes out once more. This time, the GM runs a little flashback session, showing Ax's dream from when he was knocked out the first time. Ax looks around. He's in some kind of dark space. There are walls around him but it's hard to see. A form materialises in front of him. It's Adam Westfield. Adam: Well done. I'm impressed you made it this far. Adam taunts Ax and reveals that he was the reason we were all hired in the first place, as pawns in his little game. Spectre for his scientific genius, Fiona for her strength and lack of ambition, Sinclair due to his link with Sara, and Ax as a charming face for the team. Adam: A mediocre musician was the perfect choice. Ax: MEDIOCRE!? Ax rushes forward and attacks. Adam socks him in the jaw but Ax is able to counter with a nut shot. Ax then fires back with his new fire powers, but Adam is able to use an energy blast to counter it. Adam: Impressive, but I have far more power and knowledge than you. You can't defeat me. GM: You feel a presence. Something familiar, something that's been with you all along. Ax: ...Riggnarok? GM: Yes. Ax: I call to it. Ax makes his willpower roll easily and doesn't just call his mech, he transforms into it. Adam is still grinning but he looks uneasy. Ax: Can I use mech weapons to attack him now? GM: Of course! Sinclair: Anti-mecha cannon? Juyon: Adam would be a fraction of the size of the bullet! GM: Actually, Ax's mech is currently human sized. Ax: Works for me! Fire! Adam is blown away by the attack. Ax's vision wavers and the dream begins to fade. The next thing Ax sees is Spectre's fist coming towards him, shortly before he blacks out again. Back to the current timeline: The rest of us are on board a Chinese transport ship. We're not handcuffed, but Sinclair has been fitted with a jamming device that restricts his hacking abilities. Fair enough. We're sat in the hold, surrounded by troops. General Aishi is interrogating us about the info we just found on Adam. She asks for his location so they can try and capture him. We don't know, but Sinclair offers Sara's location from the tracking device he put on her mech. The General then offers us a deal if we agree to surrender to the Chinese forces. Fiona tells her in no uncertain terms that we won't surrender and she can eff off. The rest of the team enthusiatically agrees. Aishi shakes her head and exits, leaving us with the troopers. Fiona: Well, I think it's about time we got out of here! Sinclair: One portal, coming up! The android attempts to use his wormhole powers but the device used to scramble his wireless access detects the attempt and shocks him with a heavy burst of electricity. He falls inactive. Sinclair: Motherf- *bzzzz* The rest of the team get up and try to grab weapons from the troopers. This goes poorly as Fiona and Spectre both get knocked out by tasers. Juyon fares better, managing to get a few good hits in, but in the end five troopers pile up on him, all using their tasers to drop the plucky teen. Juyon: Typical Chinese cowardice! Ack! We all wake up (Ax included) in white plastic cells. Sinclair notices with horror that his hacking rig has been removed. However, there's another piece of tech hidden on his body. A small device hidden in his clothing. As he examines it, it sends him a message. ???: Help is coming. You can use this to unlock the doors. It seems to be a minature hacking device. Through it, Sinclair is able to access the door mechanicisms for the cells and let everyone out. We sneak through the prison until we come across a section where several guards have been knocked out. A character that can only be described as a cyborg ninja approaches us and says: Cyborg: Come with me if you want to live. Seems like a plan. Juyon, Fiona, and Spectre grab some weapons from the KO'd guards (apparantly gene-coded, but Sinclair hacks them too), while Ax sticks with his flame powers. We head through the facility, taking on small groups of guards. Spectre gets a good moment where he blasts a fuse box near a pair of guards, sending them flying. Eventually we get to the roof, discovering that the prison is in the centre of Neovara. Guess it got taken over after all. Our ninja buddy attaches a rope and we rappel down and out into the streets. Ninja man takes us to a hideout where the Neovaran resistance resides. It's a run down bar down a narrow alleyway. After we get in, the ninja takes off his helmet... GM: ...and a mass of floppy black hair spills out. Fiona: Oh no. GM: It's Zack Adani wearing an advanced battle suit! Fiona: UGH. Other rebel members include two members of Ax's band: Yuri and Iron Eddie; Ajhani, the teenaged hacker; Fiare, the naul mage; and David Washington, the leader of Alpha Team. We spend some time speaking with them on an individual basis. Yuri and Eddie haven't heard from the rest of the band since the attack. Ajhani reveals that she was the one who put the device on Sinclair's clothes, hoping to use him as tool to get better internet access. David tells us that he lost the rest of his team in the fighting. Accoring to Fiare, he's been drunk ever since. She helps Ax heal up after his ordeal, but says that his body may not be able to handle the biofuel much longer, like he's burning out too fast. Ax asks if he's going to die but Fiare doesn't seem sure. It's like his life force is being replaced with something else. We need to come up with a plan. Zack tells us that our mechs are being held in the Neovaran military base, now a Chinese stronghold. This seems like a good place to start. David also tells us that Nina was captured and that we should try to get her out. He offers to come with us, but it's clear that he's in no condition to assist. We're going to infiltrate the base disguised as maintenance people. We make a list of things we need, including disguises and a truck. Iron Eddie pops up, tells us he's on it, and vanishes again. Ax tells us that Eddie, the band's roadie, is a man of few words but can always get stuff done. Apparantly he just showed up at a gig one day, face covered with scarf and goggles, and began helping out. No one questioned it. Sure enough, Eddie is back within a couple of hours with the truck and disguises. We ask no questions. The plan is to drive into the compound through the service entrance, then use Sinclair's wormhole generator to teleport into the mech bay where our mechs are being held. Ajhani warns that the Chinese may have already put their own systems in place so hacking may be difficult. We'll have to avoid being seen on cameras, rather than disable them. Once we've got our mechs, Fiare will aid Sinclair in warping us to the Argo, currently the only ship left in the Auran fleet. The next day, we make our way through the eerily quiet streets towards the base. We're stopped by guards who check our credentials. There's a tense moment when they scan Sinclair for his ID number, but he is able to hack the scanner just in time to put the team on the schedule. We move slowly through the compound, parking up around the side in a surveilance blind spot. Sinclair scans the surveilance to find that the Chinese have installed their own operating system over the old one. A rough job, but it means effectively hacking through two layers, both of which may activate alarms. We decide not to risk it yet and portal through the wall. Inside, we find ourselves in a store room near the mech hanger. A couple of guards block our way but they haven't seen us so Juyon and Fiona are able to take them down. David Washington radios us, asking us again to look for Nina. We have no way of getting to the detention centre without being spotted, so Sinclair and Fiona attempt to get access to the cameras to search for her. A couple of crit successes later (with help from Ax's leadership skill) and we have access to the entire facility. We get a camera on Nina. She's in a cell, battered and bruised and her hair has been shaven off. Sinclair patches the intercom through to her. Sinclair: Nina, it's me, Sinclair. can you hear me? We're in the base. Nina: ...You've tried that one already. Fiona: No, really, it's us. We snuck in. Nina: They've already gotten the codes out of me. Everything is theirs now. Sinclair: If I can unlock the door for you, can you get out on your own? Nina: ...Yes. I'll create a distraction. We unlock the door remotely and Nina darts out, grabs a gun from a guard before he can react and kills him and two others easily. She escapes, making her way towards the munitions store, planning to create an explosion. Meanwhile, we break into the mech hanger to look for our robots. We notice our mechs, along with Adam's and the strange monster we fought, the fleshy parts gone leaving only a metal frame. Unfortunately there are also two guard mechs patrolling around, perhaps expecting us. Ax gives us a look that says "I got this" and summons Riggnarok directly into the hanger. Fiona: Holy **** Ax, that's awesome! The guards are too surprised to react before Ax blasts them (While Sinclair plays "Invaders Must Die" through the tannoy). It's at this point that we hear an explosion ring out (Nina works fast!) so we head to our mechs. Before we head out, Sinclair attempts to access the records on Adam's mech to see if we can find out where he's gone. Unfortunely he fails the check and all he gets is a gif of Adam's laughing face. Sinclair curses that he was out-hacked, but it sounds like he doesn't have time to try again. There are more explosions and Fiare tells us that the entire place is about to blow. We get the warp coordinates from her and jump through a wormhole to the Argo. We have just enough time to register the smiling face of Eric greeting us before the explosion comes through the portal. Session ends with the GM cruelly laughing about the fact that we didn't say we were closing the portal behind us, despite never having needed to before. Git.

#campaign diary #rpg #mecha #sci-fi #robots #longpost #battle century g

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zillowcondo · 7 years

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Berlin Street Art and the Leica Oscar Barnack Award

Photography and street art are two of my favourite things and Berlin has to be one of the best places to experience them. I was invited to Berlin to meet the finalists of the prestigious Leica LOBA Awards and to try my hand at photographing street art with the Leica TL2. Housed in a stylish yellow leather case, it’s an intriguing mix of retro style and modern technology. There are touch screen controls and high tech features such as Wi-Fi transfer and 4x video. I loved the slow-mo effect when filming! Paul and I have long been fans of Leica lenses for their precision but I’d never tried a Leica camera before. All their cameras are handmade at their factory in Germany and the quality really shows. I’d had a tutorial at Leica’s Mayfair store on Bruton Place but thankfully it’s easy to use once you get the hang of it.

Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2017

First we had the chance to interview the winners, Terje Abusdal and Sergey Melnitchenko, at the gallery exhibition in Neue Schule für Photografie. The overall winner of the awards, Terje Abusdal, has documented the lives of the Finnskogen ethnic group in Norway. His series, “Slash and Burn” portrays the lives of the Finnish descendants, also known as Forest of the Finns. Their 17th century ancestors originally used slash and burn techniques to clear agricultural land and the photos have an eery quality, reflecting their former shamanic rituals.

Sergey Melnitchenko won the Newcomer award and got into photography when he had a tongue piercing and his Grandma said she’d buy him a small camera if he removed it! Born in Ukraine, he currently lives in China and whilst working as a dancer there, he took fascinating portrait photos of his fellow dancers for his series “Behind the Scenes”.

London based photographer Vera Torok was one of my favourite finalists, with her innovative techniques. She accidentally loaded a pre-used film into her Leica L6 and exposed it twice. The series of photographs is entitled “Accidentally on Purpose” and aims to show the complexity of living in a digital world, continually surrounded by information.

Patrick Willocq also wowed with his colourful series of photographs, “You Cannot Pick a Stone with One Finger”. The French photographer worked closely with the Dagomba, an ethnic tribe living in Ghana to produce these vibrant images.

Then we walked to the evening venue, the atmospheric St Elisabeth Kirche, a former church that was lit up beautifully for the awards ceremony – Berlin at night looks as great as during the day. Dr Andreas Kaufmann – majority shareholder and chairman of the supervisory board, Leica Camera AG gave an interesting talk about the founder of Leica and awards namesake, Oskar Barnack. This visionary inventor realised that photos with a human element, such as someone running into your shot accidentally, can be much more interesting than “perfect” images. if someone runs into your shot. He photographed his children and the shots had a lot more life than most at the time. He also documented catastrophes, street scenes and events including reportage on local floods. The Leica was introduced in the 1920s and Oscar invented new aesthetics like cropping people to the side of the frame rather than always having them in the centre.

Beautiful Places in Berlin

Earlier in the day, I had time for a quick walk around Berlin. I haven’t been for many years and was blown away by the majestic buildings and sense of history. Walking to Brandenburg Gate, I came across monumental museums and leafy parks. The most striking of these was the Tiergarten and the memorial for the 220,000-500,000 Sinti and Roma victims of Nazi genocide. Designed by Israeli artist Dani Karavan , it’s a circular pool with a triangular stone at its centre upon which a flower is placed daily. There’s a sense of calm and reconciliation about this place. The Leica TL2 really picked up on the nuances of light playing on the water and leaves.

It was here that the first person approached me to find out about my camera. He was to be the first of many, as I soon found out that it’s a real conversation starter!

Photo by Chris Beastall

Brandenburg Gate was built between 1788 and 1791 and has an impressive statue on top with the goddess of victory and four horses. The weather turned dark and stormy when I visited and my camera picked up on the mood perfectly.

It’s hard to imagine that the photos above and below were taken within a few minutes of each other. Clearly the weather in Berlin is as changeable as in London. The Reichstag dates from 1894 and is the meeting place of the German Parliament, known as the Bundestag.

The TL2 seemed to lend itself particularly well to architectural details, like the patterns on Oberbaum Bridge and the colonnaded walkways of the Neues Museum. There isn’t a viewfinder, which can be disconcerting in bright sunlight although it’s possible to buy a bolt-on. My particular Leica didn’t have a zoom lens, which actually helps you to learn how to crop your photos better. Being a mirrorless model, it’s extremely light and fast to focus and shoot.

Flowers and a fountain gave me the perfect opportunity to attempt the bokeh effect for which Leica is famous. Bokeh is basically focusing on an object in the foreground such as a flower whilst deliberately blurring the background.

Berlin Street Art

The next day we were treated to a street art tour in the trendy Kreuzberg Berlin area. There are some interesting artworks here, many of which were created by famous street artists such as OSGEMEOS. These Brazilian twins once both had a dream in which they saw all people as being yellow, so now their signature style incorporates yellow characters.

Some of the street art aims to make you think but as our guide said, there are often multiple possible interpretations. For example, The Pink Man depicts a giant man and a multitude of smaller men, but are they helping each other or fighting? Is the character in the giant’s hand going to be consumed by him and what could this mean? He’s a different colour to all the others so is he being singled out for being different and could this be a statement about the situation in wartime? Italian artist BLU leaves it up to you to decide.

At first glance, this street art might look like a couple embracing but look a bit closer and the figure on the right could be engulfing the other person…

I asked our guide how the street artists managed to create such huge paintings without detection. Apparently the larger artworks are commissioned by the local council and sometimes by restaurants. However it’s a fine line as the street art is causing property prices to rise and they want to keep the area accessible for locals. Amidst the urban landscape there are occasional pockets of green.

After our tour we headed to RioGrande for a quick riverside lunch of goulash and the obligatory German beer ;-). My final destination was the infamous Checkpoint Charlie. After East Germany built the Berlin Wall to stop the mass exodus of its citizens to the West, this famous sentry point was established in 1961 as a gateway for foreign tourists and Allied diplomats. It’s a bit bizarre to see the fake American soldiers who pose with tourists for photographs for a fee.

Sadly, Checkpoint Charlie was often the final destination for those trying to escape. At least 140 people died and tributes to some of the victims are displayed close by, as well as the photo of an unnamed American soldier. The Allies could not officially assist anyone trying to escape although American serviceman Eric Yaw did help Hans-Peter Spitzner and his daughter to flee in the trunk of his car. The wall was finally knocked down in 1989.

It’s moving to think that East and West Berlin are now reunited. Berlin street art is a unifying element thanks to the diversity of artists that you’ll come across in Berlin. The past should not be forgotten but like this vintage Trabant car reimagined by Thierry Noir, it has been infused with a new lease of life and colour.

Similarly, the variety of photographers entering the Leica LOBA Awards is heartening to see. I can see why the LEICA brand inspires so much devotion from it’s fans, and hope that you like the photos of Berlin. If you’re visiting the city, you can see all the finalists’ photographs at a free exhibition at the Neue Schule für Photographie until 15 October, when the exhibition heads to Rome.

Are you a fan of street art?

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smokeybrandreviews · 4 years

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Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Bill Me

A few months back, i gushed about one of my all-time favorite films, Alien. I followed that up with a look at Predator. These films are on completely opposite ends of the the spectrum, but i love them both. Don't misunderstand, i adore Alien much more, it’s a much better film in almost every respect, but Predator appeals to the reptile brain in mean. So what happens when you combine that atmospheric, claustrophobic, dread with the balls-to-the-wall, macho-machismo, of an 80s action film? You get the sequel to Alien; James Cameron’s Aliens. The second outing to LV-426 was a truly interesting one as, while the same world is explored with these two films, Aliens is a very different take on the mythos. So much so, the one might even say it's a better view of that world. Aliens is one of the few sequels that has a solid argument to being better than the first. That is rarefied air. To be held in such high esteem as The Godfather part II and The Empire Strikes Back is ridiculous but, here we are.

The Outstanding

Out the box, I need to immediately recognize Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley. Holy sh*t, is this woman dope in this role. I loved Riley in the first film, coming into her own, learning how to survive, ultimately taking the reins of her own destiny. Her run in Aliens? Complete and total bad-ass. This is the Ripley every one talks about, the version of her that is entrenched in the cultural zeitgeist. This is Ellen Ripley made whole and Weaver executes that visage with such precision and passion, that it earned her an Oscar nomination. That is huge praise considering the type of film Aliens is and the types of films the Academy likes to snub.

Lance Henricksen's Bishop was a true experience. It was weird seeing such a performance on display in an action film. Henricksen imbued Bishop with this childlike naivety, that was all but infectious. His wry humor painted the bleakness of our heroes' plight. Bishop was never over the top, just quietly hilarious when necessary. I was surprised by how endearing that character turned out to be, definitely a credit to Henricksen's overall ability.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Bill Paxton as William Hudson. Dude is the second best thing about this film. Rest in peace to one of the greatest actors, ever. Hudson was a goddamn quip machine. His one-liners are some of the best to ever make it to film and I love the fact that Paxton delivers them with such extreme fervor. Seeing him completely lose his sh*t was an outstanding watch.

The entire cast is actually pretty great. I love Vasquez, even if they did paint up Jenette Goldstein in brown face instead of actually hiring a Latina actress. It was the 80s. Sh*t like that happened all of the time. Hicks was a little dry for my tastes but I wasn't mad with how Michael Biehn portrayed him. Dude basically did Kyle Reese but not so high-strung and that sh*t works marvelously. Apone was awesome. Al Matthews captures that smarmy, over-the-top, military brass energy perfectly. Paul Reiser's Burke exudes this sleazy corporate scumbaggery like every 80s cliché should. These cats are these characters and the comradely they demonstrate is palpable. The only flaw to this movie is the performance from the little girl that plays Newt. She's awful but she's a kid so that stands to reason. I don't really count her performance against the overall movie because of that fact, but it can be very distracting at times.

James Cameron is in fine form with this sequel. I always joke around, referring to him as the 1980s version of Michael Bay, but it's not far from the truth. Dude is one of the most skilled, technical, directors in the game today and he's been like that since the beginning of his career. The scope of his imagination and the tenacity to find a way to capture that on film is not only rare, but f*cking amazing. Cameron has a way with spectacle, taking a little and turning it into a lot. You see that in his early work with Roger Corman and beautifully displayed with the first Terminator but in Aliens? Mans pulled off a miracle with Aliens. This f*cking thing is gorgeous. It fits together so tight, you'd never know the entire shoot was a slog filled with unwieldy puppets, incomplete props, and constant insubordination from the crew. This movie is a miracle of direction and roved that James Cameron is truly belongs in the discussion as one of the greats.

While I'm on Cameron, I just want to acknowledge hos contribution to the mythos of the Alien lore, overall. He was the one that injected Space Marines and everything that came along with that. The Sulaco, the dropship, the APC; All of that was Cameron. However, the crown jewel of his film is definitely the Queen. That was all him. The reproductive system of the Xenomorph was displayed in the first film, sure, but it was Cameron that gave us the answer to the question everyone asked; Who was laying the eggs?

The writing in Aliens is absolutely amazing. The actual plot is about as deep as a puddle but how everything is presented turned out to be absolutely stunning. This is a war movie. This is an escape film. This is at home with The Dirty Dozen or Cool Hand Luke, on paper. This is a story of survival, framed with a splattering of inter-species violence. I imagine this script was a pleasure to read, even if it's rather straightforward.

I referenced this a little before, but the one-liners and dialogue are top notch. These interactions feel real. These characters feel like people, like they've been on missions together for years. I buy the Marines as soldiers and I buy Ripley as the final girl. The genuine nature of this film is unassailable, which is kind of a miracle, because it's a narrative about space marine fighting xenomorphs! To be so immersed in a world that fantastical is quite incredible.

This film is gorgeous. It too that retro-futuristic aesthetic from the first, and ramped it up to one hundred. This colony, even though it's been sixty years or whatever, fits in the world established by Scott perfectly. The look, the tech, the feel; All of it calls back to the claustrophobic halls of the Nostromo, but blown up to the size of that Space Jockey ship.

While I'm on the general aesthetic, I need to praise these practical effects. Everything is tangible and real in this film. There are no computer fakes or puppet composite shenanigans. Everything is in-camera and real. The Xenos are men in suits, the guns are physical props, and the starships are all miniatures. The Queen is a puppet built to scale and so is the Power Loader. All of that lends itself to the beauty of this movie and it's longevity. I watched this thing today and it holds up against any blockbuster made in the last forty years, beating out most of them with ease.

I touched on this a little bit when I was talking about Cameron's deft direction but these shots are f*cking stunning. You can take any single frame out of this thing and mount it on your wall. This movie is that gorgeous. The cinematography, the scale, the composition of shots; all of it is just so goddamn adept and lovely to see.

The pacing is kind of dope considering you don't see an alien for almost an hour of run time. I'm actually reviewing the directors cut of version of this flick on the Blu Ray because I, personally, like that one more, but, theatrical moves at about the same rate. There is a lot of character development in that first half, much needed I think, but you never feel impatient about it. You're never chomping at the bit to see the action promised on the horizon. Aliens walks that line perfectly. It's great at building your anticipation to the first clash then its all mania and body count after that.

Bro. But this sound design, tho. Bro!

The Verdict

Aliens is actually one of my all-time favorite film, no surprise there. I think the tidbits Cameron added were paramount to growing the world that Scott and O'Bannon birthed. Indeed, it was he who gave us the Queen and hive system. It was Cameron that chose to make the sequel an allegory for the Vietnam war, establishing the Space Marines as a force in space ways. Aliens did more to world build than it did with characterization, and that's saying the most because this is where Ripley becomes Ripley. We caught glimpses of her potential with Weaver's performance in the first outing but she's in full force here, establishing Ellen Ripley as the archetype for the female badass that every one in Hollywood has been chasing since. The practical effects are too dope for words and hold up to this day, while the overall film, itself, is gorgeous. For a feature that heavily makes use of miniatures and matte painting, Aliens is one of the most beautifully shot, cinematic, experiences, ever captured on film. Now, to answer the poignant question at hand; No. I don't think Aliens is better than Alien. I definitely prefer the more intimate horror of the first, rather than the bombastic action of the second. I think Aliens is the perfect action movie, just behind Terminator II, but I think Alien is as close to perfect film making, period, as you can get. That's not to take anything away from the sequel. Aliens is f*cking incredible and definitely stands on it's own. I can't sing this thing's praises enough. It's an outstanding action film, moonlighting in as a sci-fi thriller, while telling one of the best character arcs in history. Aliens is excellent and deserves that aforementioned debate of superiority, even if I, personally, dissent. It should be required viewing for anyone claiming to love cinema. If you've never seen this film, fix that sh*t immediately. F*cking love yourself more.

#Smokey brand Movie Reviews #Aliens

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smokeybrand · 4 years

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Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Bill Me

The Outstanding

Bro. But this sound design, tho. Bro!

The Verdict

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quicksilversquared · 7 years

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Hiccup Havoc

When Adrien gets the hiccups and an akuma hits, Chat Noir has to fight while still hiccuping the whole way, throwing off their sneak attacks on the akuma. Add in one frustrated Ladybug who is set on curing Chat Noir's hiccups no matter what it takes, and they're bound to have an interesting fight.

(AO3) (FF.net)

Adrien hiccuped, winced, and then cringed as the eyes of nearly everyone in the classroom turned on him. Marinette found herself wincing sympathetically as Adrien rubbed his chest. He had just started hiccuping a few minutes before and clearly was uncomfortable with both the feeling that the hiccups were causing and the looks he was getting whenever people heard him.

"Dude, you all right?" Nino hissed as Adrien tried to muffle another hiccup and failed. "Do I need to, like, try to scare you or something?"

"I'm fin-HIC!-fine," Adrien insisted. He cringed again.

"No talking during class," Madam Mendeleiev said without turning around. "Any more talking and I'll start handing out detentions."

Nino ducked his head down to focus on his assignment and Adrien muffled another hiccup. Marinette gave Adrien a comforting look- well, she gave the back of his head a comforting look, Adrien didn't actually even see it- and then went back to her own work. She could see his shoulders occasionally give a little jerk as he smothered hiccups, one after another, for the rest of the class. Only a couple more hiccups actually slipped out at full volume, attracting glances from classmates and glares from Madam Mendeleiev. He ducked his head lower every time, cringing until class ended and they could leave.

Adrien had hiccuped his way almost all the way to their next class- study hall- when Alya gasped, bringing their group to a halt.

"What now?" Nino asked as Alya swiped frantically at her phone. "Oh, let me guess- an akuma?"

"Of course! And Ladybug and Chat Noir are going to be there soon- ugh! And I can't go, the teachers would never let me go out to cover it." She perked up. "Maybe the fight will end up coming near the school!"

"You know, that's generally- HIC!- not a good thing," Adrien added. He cringed a little and rubbed his throat before continuing. "Maybe you should wish for a quick end to the fight so that you aren't missing much."

"That's no fun!" Alya protested, even as Nino tugged her forward down the hall towards their next class. "I don't get any original footage then, and then I have to rely on TV recordings to do my reports and that doesn't do the Ladyblog any good."

"Skipping class doesn't do your grades any good," Nino pointed out. They approached the classroom and Nino gently pushed Alya inside, ignoring her pouting.

"I think I'm gonna run to the bathroom before class starts," Marinette said quickly before she could enter the room. She took a quick step back, then another. "I'll, uh, be right back!"

Before anyone could say anything, Marinette turned and dashed away down the stairs towards the bathrooms. She had to get away and transform before the akuma could cause too much trouble.

Ladybug jumped over the Paris rooftops, heading for the highest point close to her so she could try to figure out where the akuma was. She didn't see anything, so she grabbed her yo-yo and pulled up the TV report that was streaming. Madam Chamack was reporting, of course, and she was standing in the shadow of a building near the Louvre. A colorful akuma was rampaging around in the background, darting in and out of the camera frame. Ladybug didn't wait to listen to whatever Madam Chamack was saying, since she knew from experience that the reporter's information usually wasn't terribly helpful to anyone not trying to avoid whatever strange akuma Hawkmoth had created most recently.

It would be easier to just go over there and watch the akuma for a minute before charging in and taking him down.

Snapping her yo-yo shut, Ladybug took off again. She moved quickly over the rooftops, swinging between buildings and jumping over roads as she made a beeline to the Louvre. After months of akuma fighting, she moved way faster (and way quieter) than she had when she first became Ladybug. It took barely any time to get to the Louvre and land out of sight on a nearby building. Ladybug crept closer to the edge, eyes narrowing as she watched the akuma down below. As far as akumas went, this one didn't seem particularly bad. It was just spray painting anything and everything it could reach. Still, appearances could be deceiving. She and Chat Noir would go all-out, just like they always did, and if the akuma was as easy as it seemed then maybe she could get to class before she was missed too much.

It was always nice when she could pull that off.

As the akuma moved down the street, Ladybug prowled along behind. She was focused on the akuma, watching his every move-

"HIC!"

Ladybug shot nearly a meter into the air as she jumped and spun around, sliding into battle position. Her eyes scanned the rooftop, searching for a threat...

...and found a sheepish Chat Noir instead.

"Sorry," Chat Noir said quietly as he crept down the roof to join her. "I can't seem to- HIC!- get rid of my hiccups today. Normally they don't last this long."

"Ah, poor kitty," Ladybug teased as Chat Noir jumped down the last half-meter and together they jogged forward after the akuma. "The hiccups must be going around today. There was someone in my class who was having the same problem earlier."

"Great! I'm not alone in my- HIC!- misery then," Chat Noir managed to joke. He winced. "It's honestly starting to hurt a bit, I've been- HIC!- hiccuping for so long."

"Well, maybe the akuma will scare the hiccups out of you," Ladybug said, pointing to the supervillain down below. Clearly he had heard Chat Noir, because he was looking up at them now with a particularly devilish look on his face. "It looks like he's just painting things, but be careful. The paint might do something to us if we get hit."

"I'm always careful," Chat Noir claimed with a grin on his face. He pulled his baton off of his back and gave it a twirl. "Ready to kick some akuma ass?"

Thankfully, the paint doesn't hurt them at all when they get hit. Still, that doesn't make it harmless. Pressurized paint plus a superhero transformation equals a spraypaint blast that can both dye them bright colors and knock them nearly two blocks away. Charging at the akuma only led to them being blown off of their feet and stumbling back covered in a fresh layer of paint.

And to top it all off, Chat Noir hadn't stopped hiccuping yet. It was throwing them off of their game. He would flinch or pause whenever he hiccuped, or he would give away his position with a particularly loud hiccup. It had happened a few too many times, and Ladybug was getting fed up.

The hiccups had to stop.

There weren't any 100 percent effective ways to stop hiccups, Ladybug knew that. But she knew of some things that sometimes worked. She could insist that she and Chat Noir slip into a restaurant to grab a glass of water for him to sip from, but the akuma probably wouldn't let them slip away. Her father had once said something about sipping hot sauce or honey, but the same problem applied there. A quick search on her yo-yo between attacks suggested sucking on a lemon or eating peanut butter.

Seriously, didn't they have any suggestions that would work on the go, or in the middle of an akuma attack? And why did the suggestions all involve food of some sort?

The fight tumbled across the city, gradually edging in the general direction of Collège Françoise Dupont. Ladybug ground her teeth as Chat Noir hiccuped again, giving away their position for what seemed like the zillionth time. She ducked away in time to avoid the electric blue burst of paint, but Chat Noir was not so lucky. He tumbled away down the street, letting out muffled yelps the whole way.

"This. Is. Ridiculous," Ladybug growled. She snapped her yo-yo open again, scanning the page of hiccup cures. One person suggested scaring the unfortunate hiccup-er, and another person mentioned that holding their breath for a bit helped rid them of hiccups. Both of them wouldn't be easy to do during an akuma attack, but Ladybug was getting desperate.

So when Chat Noir went tearing after the akuma, Ladybug swung around to the side, just out of Chat Noir's field of view. Landing in the middle of the next street over, she raced up the street. Chat Noir's green pawprint locator blinked away on her yo-yo's screen as she ran, intent on gaining enough ground to pull this off right. After a few seconds, Chat Noir slowed for a moment- either he was wondering where she was or was dodging a spray of paint from the akuma- and then he sped up again. It wasn't much of a pause, but it was enough.

Ladybug took a hard right and somersaulted into position.

"I'll paint the entire city!" the akuma bellowed, coating an entire building in electric green and spraying a more focused shot behind him towards Chat Noir before racing onwards. "They can't remove it all!"

"You can't paint walls without permission!" Chat Noir yelled back. "That's called- HIC!- graffiti!"

The akuma howled. "It's art!"

Ladybug watched as Chat Noir shot back a fast retort, drawing ever closer to her hiding spot. His focus was completely on the akuma, so he was sure to be surprised when she shot out. Her sneak attack might add some time to their fight, but then again, if she could get Chat Noir to stop hiccuping...

Ladybug pounced.

Chat Noir yelped as he and Ladybug tumbled across the road. He gave an almighty twist, dislodging Ladybug easily, and flipped to his feet in the same move. His baton whistled as he spun it defensively in front of himself with a yell. Bright green eyes darted back and forth looking for an enemy. They finally settled on Ladybug, sitting stunned in the street.

The baton spun to a confused stop.

"...what on earth," Chat Noir managed, finally putting his baton away. "...what were you trying- HIC!- trying to do, my lady?"

"I was trying to scare the hiccups out of you," Ladybug admitted, accepting Chat Noir's hand. He pulled her to her feet in one smooth move. "Apparently it didn't work."

Chat Noir hiccuped again, then gave her a rueful smile. "Yeah, apparently not. Maybe it's because I was already in fight mode. Like, even if-HIC!- I could see the akuma up ahead, I was kind of expecting side attacks." He paused and frowned. "That's not quite right. It's more like- it's a fight, right? We never know quite what to expect. It's different each time. During some fights, we do have zombies attacking from the sides. We have sneaky akuma that come out from wherever. As sad as it is- HIC!- I'm kind of used to it."

Ladybug sighed.

By the time they caught up to the akuma again, he was spray-painting Collège Françoise Dupont with a slightly fuzzy, out-of-focus version of Starry Night. The school definitely wasn't the best painting surface- the- bricks around the windows stuck out a little, and then the windows themselves weren't holding the paint quite as well as the rest of the building- but it was still a somewhat decent painting.

"What- HIC!- what do we do now?" Chat Noir asked. "Keep trying to char- HIC!- charge him, or do you want to try something else?"

"Try something else," Ladybug decided. "Let's figure out where he'll move next, and then we'll do an ambush attack. If we catch him by surprise, maybe we can get his spray can before he recovers."

"He's moving towards the bakery," Chat Noir pointed out. "Let's go over there. If we run, we can probably- HIC! -probably get around and into an ambush spot without him noticing."

Ladybug gave a sharp nod. "All right. Let's go."

They ran.

"Behind that grey car," Chat Noir panted as they skidded around the last corner. "And then we can move- HIC!- move forward to end up behind the blue car. That should be close enough for an ambush."

"Sound good," Ladybug panted back, and they dove as one behind the grey car. They both tucked into somersaults and rolled past two more cars to come to a stop behind the blue car Chat Noir had pointed out. There they crouched and waited.

"He's coming this way," Ladybug hissed after a minute. "Ready?"

Chat Noir nodded and tightened his grip on his baton.

The spraypainting akuma had decided on painting something modern and abstract on the side of the school building. Neon green sprayed out in a geometric pattern, outlined in black. Over the next minute, he worked his way down the building towards the superheroes' hiding place. They tensed, waiting nervously for the akuma to draw close enough to pounce.

As they waited, Ladybug kept one eye on the akuma and one on her partner. One hiccup could give away their position. So far, he had managed to keep quiet, but-

Oh no.

As the akuma got closer, still hovering just outside of striking distance, Ladybug could see the obvious signs that Chat Noir was going to hiccup again. So without a pause for thought, she lunged. One hand clapped over his mouth, sealing his lips together, while the other pinched his nose shut. Her yo-yo had said something about stopping hiccups by interrupting normal breathing patterns, so if Chat Noir just didn't breathe for a few seconds, maybe-

Rather predictably, Chat Noir let out a startled squeak- muffled, of course- and twisted away, scrabbling at her hands the whole time. Ladybug held on for a second and could have kept her hold longer, had Chat Noir's protest not alerted the akuma to their sneak attack. He spun around and sprayed fuchsia paint at them, and Ladybug had to let go of Chat Noir's face so they could both dive out of the way of the blast.

"What- HIC!- was that for?" Chat Noir hissed as they scampered out of the way of the cars flying through the air. "Are you trying to smother me now? I thought we were partners!"

"The internet said that holding your breath can stop hiccups!" Ladybug yelled back as they retreated to the school rooftop. Down below, students scattered as they tried to find somewhere to hide. "And it looked like you were about to hiccup again!"

"A warning would have been nice!"

"I would have, but Mr. Spraypaint over there would have heard!"

A burst of midnight blue blasted past them, spattering flecks across Ladybug's already paint-covered suit. She sighed and brushed at the paint almost automatically, smearing it across the lemon-yellow color that had hit her earlier.

"If you stand in that spray, your hair might look normal again!" Chat Noir teased as he bounded across the rooftop. He grinned at Ladybug. "Or, well- HIC!- closer to normal than it is now."

Ladybug grumbled as she swung across the courtyard and landed on the other side. Her hair, stiff with paint and still mostly bright pink, stuck up at all sorts of odd angles. Chat Noir's hair was no better. Green, purple, and orange paint made his already messy hair even messier. Some chunks stuck straight up, while other pieces clung to his face and mask. Splatters of turquoise broke up the orange paint that covered his face. His formerly black suit was a patchwork of colors.

"I thought this one would be a fast fight for sure," Ladybug moaned as the spraypainter jumped down and started coating the inside of the school in electric blue. She and Chat Noir dashed into the locker room to get a little space and regroup.

"I'm sorry, I know this would be already over if I didn't- HIC!- have the hiccups," Chat Noir apologized. He cringed. "Maybe I should hang back and only come in if you're having trouble. I wouldn't give- HIC!- away our position that way."

Ladybug was only listening with one ear. She had been busy surveying the locker room for anything she might be able to use to take the akuma down. There were a few abandoned lunches sitting around- had they really been fighting that long?- and her eyes had caught on an abandoned bottle of hot sauce.

If scaring Chat Noir and making him hold his breath didn't get rid of the hiccups, then it was probably a long shot to think that drinking hot sauce might. But Ladybug wanted to end the fight already- and if she were being perfectly honest, the hiccups were really starting to get on her nerves.

Ladybug snagged the hot sauce and trotted after Chat Noir. Her partner realized that she wasn't after him after a few seconds and turned with a puzzled look on his face. His eyes fell on the hot sauce bottle as Ladybug tugged the top off. Chat Noir's eyes widened and then narrowed as he backed away. "No. Nuh-uh. Nope. Not toda- HIC!- not today. Do I even want to know what you're doing with that?"

"My dad says it stops hiccups," Ladybug insisted, bringing the bottle up near Chat Noir's face. "C'mon, you can at least try it-"

Chat Noir made a face and pressed his lips together, leaning away from Ladybug and shaking his head.

"Oh, come on."

He shook his head even more.

"Just a sip?"

"Mm-mmm!" Chat Noir insisted, keeping his mouth shut and shaking his head. Ladybug guessed from the head-shaking that he was still objecting. "Mmm-mmmm-mmmm-mmmm-HIC!"

"It might get rid of your hiccups!"

Chat Noir sent her the darkest look she had ever seen on him and shook his head firmly.

Ladybug groaned, finally capping the bottle and setting it back down. "Fine. You win. How about I ambush, you distract?"

"Sounds good," Chat Noir agreed. He grimaced and ran a hand through his paint-covered hair. "I'll be a walking paint blob by the end of- HIC!- this, but it sounds like a plan."

Ten minutes and one Lucky Charm later, the akuma and his can of spray paint had been taken down. Ladybug's Miraculous Cure had washed over the city, removing paint from buildings and people alike.

"I'll get this guy back where he's supposed to be," Chat Noir volunteered as Ladybug's earrings beeped. "It'll only take me a- HIC!- a couple minutes and I didn't use my powers."

"Thank you, Chat Noir," Ladybug said, holding out her fist for him to bump. "And, uh, good job."

Chat Noir cringed, bumped her fist with his, and took off with another loud hiccup, carrying the spraypainting artist back to where he had come from. Ladybug waited until her partner had vanished over the rooftops before she made her own exit.

"That took way too long," Marinette groaned once she detransformed, hidden behind bushes near the school. "I missed all of study hall again."

"Maybe you should have switched up your strategy earlier," Tikki suggested, reaching for the cookie Marinette handed her. "I mean, you did keep trying the same thing over and over for a while."

"Because we would get so close and then Chat Noir would hiccup! It would have worked if he hadn't caught the hiccups today."

"Marinette..."

Marinette's shoulders slumped. "...okay, maybe I got a little too focused on the surprise attack and trying to get rid of Chat Noir's hiccups. I'll be better in the future about not trying the same strategy over and over if it's not working."

Tikki looked satisfied.

Marinette jogged up the stairs to the school as she checked the time on her phone. It was still early enough that she could probably run home for a quick sandwich for lunch and still get back in time for her first class after lunch-

"Marinette! There you are!"

Marinette glanced up in time to see Alya and Nino rushing at her. They skidded to a stop right before they ran into her. "We were worried that you had gone missing too!"

"Too?" Marinette asked, frowning. That didn't sound good. "...are there other people missing?"

Alya nodded. "We can't find Adrien anywhere, and we've been searching ever since study hall got out." She sent a look at Marinette. "Study hall, which a certain someone else also missed. I was kind of hoping that we would find the two of you, y'know, together."

Marinette blushed fiercely at Alya's eyebrow wiggle.

"Maybe we should split up and keep looking," Nino suggested. "We can cover more ground that way. I've texted him, like, seven times, so if he's already gone home he'll know that we're looking for him."

"It should be easier to look now that a lot of people have headed home for lunch," Alya said. She glanced around at the stream of students trotting down the steps. "No one wanted to leave while the spraypainter akuma was on the loose."

"I'll stay here and keep an eye out for Adrien," Nino said. He nodded towards the familiar silver car that had just pulled up. "That's the Gorilla, so clearly Adrien isn't at home yet. I bet he heard the akuma getting closer while he was still in the bathroom and he decided to hide until it was gone. Maybe his father told him to get away from attacks and hide or something. I almost never see him anywhere near them."

"That makes sense," Alya said. Then she frowned. "Uh, how about I watch Adrien's car and you keep looking? I can't check the boys' bathroom, and neither can Marinette."

Nino agreed, and then they were splitting up to search for their still-missing friend. Marinette trotted up the stairs to the library, figuring that that would be a good place to start. There were some study rooms in the back that people sometimes used for group projects or for hiding from akuma. They would be empty during classes, which would make them a good hiding spot.

"Adrien?" Marinette called quietly as she entered the library. It was pretty empty, which was only expected at this time this early in the semester. "Adrien, are you in here?"

"Check all of the tables first," Tikki suggested. "He might have just decided to study or read instead of going home for lunch."

Marinette was fairly certain that Adrien would have had the decency to let his driver know that he wouldn't need the car, but she checked the tables anyway. Adrien wasn't there (and neither was anyone else), so she headed back to the study rooms.

"Adrien? Are you in here? Adrien?" Marinette peered in the first two rooms, one at a time, and found them both empty. She turned to head towards the third one and tripped right as she got to the door. "Adrie- eep!" Marinette stumbled forward. A strange light flickered from the open door she was next to, but she ignored it as she fought to regain her balance, grabbing the doorframe to keep herself upright. It only took her a short second to regain her balance (after all, she had a lot of experience with tripping and recovering), and then she was straightening back up and glancing in the room. Much to her relief, Adrien was in the room and was spinning around in response to her call.

And much to her surprise, he was white as a sheet.

Chat Noir had dropped the painter back off near the Louvre and then hightailed it back towards the school, hiccuping the whole way. He headed for the library, knowing that there would be empty study rooms that he could use to detransform. It took only a second to pry a window open on one of the empty rooms, and then he jumped inside. The door was open, but there wasn't going to be anyone nearby. It wouldn't be a problem.

"Plagg, cl- HIC!- claws in," Chat Noir managed around another hiccup. His transformation came undone in a flash, and then he heard the one noise he had never wanted to hear.

"Adrie- eep!"

Adrien froze and spun around to see Marinette standing at the door, looking a little startled. All of the blood drained from his face in seconds and his breath caught in his throat.

She must have seen him detransform. She knew that he was Chat Noir. There was no other explanation.

Crud. Plagg would be annoyed with him for not making sure no one was nearby before he detransformed. Ladybug would probably be even more upset with him, since if his identity was compromised, she was in danger as well. The room started to spin.

"I- I can explain!" Adrien stammered quickly, even as his brain flailed for anything he could say that might be remotely useful. He wasn't coming up with much. "I, uh-"

Marinette frowned, looking confused even as he floundered. "Explain? Explain what? You don't have to explain anything, you know. People hide from akuma attacks all the time! No one's gonna judge you for that."

Adrien froze as his brain ground to a stop. Hide from akuma attacks? What? He was Chat Noir, of course he wasn't hiding, Marinette would know tha-

Oh. Oh.

She hadn't seen him detransform after all. She must have been looking for him since he had been missing for study hall and the start of lunch, and then she must have tripped somehow right outside the door. She had been reacting to that, not to him detransforming.

"Right, right, of course," Adrien managed after a too-long pause. Marinette's confused look had faded away to concern, and of course he didn't want to worry his friend. Adrien took a couple small steps back so he could lean against the table. He didn't exactly want his shaking legs to give out from under him and make Marinette worry even more. "I just, uh-"

"Oh! If you're worried about making your driver wait, he just pulled up out front. I'm sure he'll understand why you weren't waiting at the door," Marinette said before Adrien could even try to come up with an explanation that was halfway decent. She waved her phone at him. "Here, I'll text Alya and she can tell your driver that you're on your way down- unless you were planning on staying here and studying over lunch?"

"No, no, I'm coming," Adrien said hastily. He didn't move at all. If Marinette turned around and started walking first, then she wouldn't see how his adrenaline-weakened legs were still shaking under him. He'd be lucky if he could make it down the stairs without tripping over his own feet and falling down headfirst. Maybe he should wait a few minutes first before trying to move. "...actually, there was a book I wanted to find while I was in the library. I'll be down in a couple minutes, okay?"

"Okay!" Marinette said cheerfully. She gave him one last curious look and then turned and left. Adrien waited until her footsteps had faded away before he let out the breath he hadn't even known he had been holding and slumped into the chair closest to him. Plagg zipped out and eyed his Chosen warily.

"Are you okay?"

"Ugh."

"At least she didn't find out your identity," Plagg pointed out. "That's good. I really thought she saw you detransforming."

"Yeah, that's good," Adrien managed. His heart was still racing a million miles an hour, but at least the world wasn't spinning anymore. He paused, trying to focus for a minute before he grinned. "And you know what else is good?"

"What?"

"My hiccups are finally gone!"

#Miraculous Ladybug #my writing #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Adrien Agreste #holy hell this is late #but I was sort of busy today soooo......#probably will not be posting writing again for a while since I won't have much internet while I'm in Canada #I will hopefully be able to get some writing done so I should have stuff to post once I get back

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