Dolores and Isabela 💕🌱

We Were Always Going to End Up Together - Ch 15

Suptober 22, Day 15: Smoke

On AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42237885/chapters/112204855

(Or read from the beginning: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42237885/chapters/106051008)

“You said Sam disapproved of Benny’s job?” Cas asked. He was watching Dean get dressed while sitting on his bed. They had decided it would be easier if Cas met Dean at his place and then they could go together to meet Sam and Eileen at the Roadhouse. Dean was trying to decide what to wear and Cas had been perfectly noncommittal about the options Dean held up. Dean was beginning to think Cas had forgotten they had someplace to go and was just enjoying ogling Dean shirtless.

“Yeah. He worked a bunch of part time gigs. Worked in a lot of kitchens, some pickup construction jobs when the local outfits needed an extra set of hands for the day. Sam’s always had white collar aspirations for both of us.”

“It seems like that was achieved.”

“I mean technically. I work a desk job, but Sam would prefer I was a bit more ambitious about corporate ladders.”

“Do you think it will bother him that I am unemployed?”

“Are you? I wondered about that. If he does, he’ll just have to deal with that on his own. Silently.”

“I’m not exactly unemployed.”

“Okay.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t asked more questions.”

“Well we kinda rushed the beginning of this thing and then we were having so much fun together. I only remembered I didn’t know when we weren’t together. And it doesn’t matter to me unless you’re crossing some serious ethical lines.”

“Like what?”

“Murder for hire? Intimidating old ladies into selling their property? TV evangelist?”

“I can assure you I am not doing any of those things.”

“Are you doing things that might be on that same sort of list?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s okay then.”

Cas sighed. “My dad died and left me money even though I hadn’t seen him since I was a teenager. I mostly live off of that. The corn maze thing…Gabriel did pay me fairly for the rental and my time. So I was employed in October.” “That sounds kinda nice. Not needing to work. When our dad died he mostly left us debts. Though I did get the impala, but that was before he passed.”

“Was it hard paying off the debts?”

“Sammy was in school still, so the timing wasn’t the best. I had finished my own degree with minimal debts, working way too many hours around all the schoolwork. I had been looking forward to getting Sammy covered and then Dad’s debts landed on top of me. It took me a few more years than I would have liked, but I paid off his debts and Sammy graduated without having to take out loans.”

“You paid for Sam’s schooling?”

“He got some big scholarships and had a work-study job, but I didn’t want him saddled with a bunch of debt so I just kept hustling to make up the difference. And all that’s in the past now anyway, so I’m down to working a typical 40 hours a week.”

“And Sam’s a lawyer?”

“Yup. He was always the one with the brains in the family.”

Cas frowned at that statement. “I think you are selling yourself short.”

“Yeah, well, wait ‘til you meet him.”

“Wear the purple one.”

“Yeah?”

“I like that one.”

“Alright.” Dean pulled on a black tshirt and then slipped on the purple plaid. The softness of Cas’ smile matched the softness of the flannel. “C’mere.” Dean pulled Cas to his feet and hugged him tight, kissing him softly. Cas kissed him back just as softly. Dean thought he could drown in those blue eyes.

Eventually they realized that they had better get going if they didn’t want to be late for meeting Sam. Dean tried not to worry about whether or not Sam was going to be judgmental. He ended up chattering at Cas for the entire trip, but Cas didn’t seem to mind, sitting there looking at Dean with a fond smile.

The Roadhouse wasn’t too crowded, which Dean hoped would lead to a relaxed evening for everyone. He hated that his palms were sweating as he opened the door for Cas (like a gentleman). It wasn’t hard to spot his brother’s tall frame folded up in a booth along the wall talking to Jo. Dean grabbed Cas’ hand and made his way determinedly towards his brother. Cas gave his hand another little squeeze in return.

Jo noticed them first and gave Dean a big hug as a greeting. He wasn’t entirely sure why he warranted that kind of affection when she whispered, “Dude, we gotta talk later,” into Dean’s ear.

“Hey Jo. This is my boyfriend Cas.”

Jo smiled even wider and shook Cas’ hand. “So glad you crazy kids worked it out.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re hilarious.”

Jo sashayed off with an offhand remark about bringing drinks to the table in a minute.

Dean took a deep breath. “Hey Sammy. This is Cas.”

Awkwardly Sam leveraged himself out of the booth and held a hand out to Cas. “Good to finally meet you.”

Cas shook Sam’s hand firmly, “You too.”

“Where’s Eileen.”

Sam’s face lit up and Dean turned around to see Eileen headed their way, a smile lighting up her face.

“Hey Eileen. This is Cas.”

“Hi Cas,” Eileen said and signed. “Is it one S or two?”

To Dean’s surprise, Cas replied out loud as well as in sign, “One S. It’s a nickname. My name is Castiel.”

Dean could almost track the finger-spelling of Cas’ full name, but it was clear he was much better at this than Dean was. He definitely needed to practice more, especially since Eileen and his brother seemed fairly serious about each other. He should be able to sign if Eileen was going to become even more a part of the family than she already was.

“You can sign?” asked Sam after they all sat down.

“I learned in college and have made sure to keep up with it over the years.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why’d you learn?”

Cas tilted his head and squinted a bit as he responded, “To learn how to communicate with the deaf community?”

Dean glared at Sam. They hadn’t even gotten to personal topics and Sam was already treating Cas like some sort of interrogation subject instead of his brother’s boyfriend.

Thankfully, Eileen intervened, “I think it’s great.”

“Do you sign, Sam?” asked Cas evenly.

“I’m learning,” he said testily.

“That’s good,” answered Cas.

Dean got the feeling that Cas was going to take full advantage of being able to speak to Eileen without Sam necessarily understanding what they said.

Jo brought the drinks to the table, handing them around and taking everyone’s food order. Sam made a face at the burgers Cas and Dean ordered, haughtily ordering a salad with grilled chicken. He deflated a little when Eileen joined Cas and Dean on the side of burgers.

The conversation lightened as general getting to know you chit chat flowed, mostly covering Sam and his career, and Eileen and her career and how they met. Dean was happy to stick to interjected comments instead of being the focus of things. He had to admit, now that they were all together, Dean really enjoyed how well Cas seemed to fit here, like he was always supposed to be part of Dean’s life.

Of course it couldn’t last.

“So Dean said you two met at a haunted house?” Sam asked skeptically.

“Corn maze.”

“What?”

“It was a haunted corn maze.”

“Right, so did you scare him into asking you out.”

Dean was watching the pair of them like he was at a tennis match, although this seemed to be a much less friendly game.

“No, he abducted me.”

Dean had to try hard not to spray beer all over the table at the flat statement. He sputtered a response, but didn’t quite make words.

“What do you mean, he abducted you?”

“Sammy…”

“Dean grabbed part of my costume thinking it was his friend’s sleeve.”

“Then what happened?” asked Eileen, her eyes alight with good humor.

“We reached a quieter part of the maze and Dean turned around and saw I was not his friend at all and…”

“And that’s enough of that story!” interjected Dean.

Cas smiled and patted Dean’s leg under the table.

“So you were working at this maze.”

“Yes.”

“But it’s closed now.”

“Yes.”

“So are you off to be one of Santa’s elves?”

“No.”

Silence settled over the table. Dean could tell that Sam was trying to figure out how to ask what Cas did for work. He almost wished Sam would just ask, but if the way Eileen was staring at him meant anything, Dean guessed she had forewarned him not to make trouble about this.

“So Dean, do you think you’re going to get that promotion?”

Dean had to try very hard not to roll his eyes at Sam. Cas gave him another supportive squeeze. “Sammy, there’s no promotion.”

“But you’ve been in that job for years now. You have to keep looking for the next thing.”

“Why?” asked Cas in a quiet but steely voice.

“Why what?”

“Why does your brother need to do more than he already is?”

“Look, I know you haven’t known my brother that long, but he tends to ignore the bigger picture, doesn’t really have his shit together. I’m just helping him.”

“What bigger picture?”

“Dean can be…irresponsible. And then his family, I, have to clean up after him. This way I keep him on the straight and narrow…”

“Hopefully you at least noticed your brother isn’t straight.”

Sam blushed and stammered.

“And he seems to be living his life just fine. He has a home, a job, a car. And he seems very together.”

“For now,” muttered Sam.

Dean sat there as a very uncomfortable silence descended. He didn’t think he was that bad, and he was doing his best. But he liked his life the way it was. “Look, it’s fine. I’m still not going to try to manufacture a promotion opportunity where there isn’t one, but things are going well.”

“Dean, I just don’t want to see you settle for less. I promise.”

“I know Sammy. I know.”

The conversation moved on in a stilted unsatisfying way as the meal wound down. Cas was lost in his own thoughts and none of them seemed positive towards Sam. Eileen kept shooting pointed looks at Sam that he was clearly ignoring. Sam seemed perpetually on the cusp of starting an argument with Cas, or launching an interrogation. And Dean. Dean just wanted everyone to get along. The feeling that they were all meant to be together had not so much dissipated as cracked and shattered. It was times like this that Dean wished he smoked, just to have the excuse to leave the table and take a few minutes for himself. Not that he would abandon Cas.

Finally the meal ended, Dean paid the bill, goodbyes were said and Dean and Cas were again sitting outside the Roadhouse in the impala, minus the horny happy anticipation of the previous time.

“I’m sorry,” said Cas softly.

“For what?”

“I shouldn’t have been so direct with your brother.”

“You were fine. I wouldn’t want you to not be yourself. Defeats the point of you two meeting.”

“But you wanted this to go well.”

“Yeah, I did.” Dean sighed. “But there was always a chance it wouldn’t. And there’s always next time, right?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Course you can, Cas.”

“Why do you let him talk about you that way?”

“What way?”

“Like you’re a screw up.”

Dean grinned without any warmth in it. “’Cause I am a screw up, Cas. Might not look at it from the outside, but…”

“But what?”

“Look, man. I dropped out of high school. Got my GED eventually. Got through an associate’s degree. Worked whatever jobs I could get, some of them less reputable than others. Had a lot of ugly bumps in the road romantically both before and after Benny. Some that ended up in legal trouble.”

“Dean…”

“No, look. Sammy never had any of that crap. And he just wants what’s best for me. To, you know, make something of my life. Trouble is, all I really knew I needed to do was take care of him. Now he’s grown and successful and even found an awesome woman to settle down with…not sure I know what my next move would even be.”

“I don’t think you need a next move.”

“No?”

“No.”

The silence in the car felt more gentle than it had just moments before. Dean just wanted to forget about the tension between Cas and Sam and have a little fun. “What if I wanna make my next move on you?”

“That was awful Dean.”

“Can’t help it.”

“Is this your way of changing the subject?”

Dean sat quietly for a moment. “Yeah it is.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to come home with me?”

“You still want me to?”

“Definitely.”

Cas smiled and leaned over to kiss Dean on the cheek. “Then let’s go home.”

The Scientist Bringing Fresh Fish Back to Philadelphia's Underserved Neighborhoods This article is republished from Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com. Sometime in the 1970s, once a week every week, along the narrow streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a fish truck came around. It came to neighborhoods of North and West Philly, their brick row houses one room wide, set tight against each other right along the sidewalks; some houses with a little grass and trees, some with concrete; some with porches, some just with steps on which people can sit and talk. A few years ago, college students recorded some of these people; this is a reconstruction of what they said: Voice #1: There was a fish man in a pickup truck. Voice #2: You could hear him as he was driving around, “Fish man. I got whiting. I got porgies.” Voice #3: He had a big loudspeaker. He would speak to the whole block. Say, “I’m the fish man. The fish man.” Voice #4: It was always on a Friday. Because for my race of people, which is African American, we always cooked fish on Fridays. Voice #3: My mom would always tell me to go downstairs from out the house and wave the truck down so my mom could get her fish. Voice #4: Once the truck came, all of the mothers would come outside, and the whole time that they were waiting to purchase, they would be outside congregating, you know, talking. Voice #3: Just the taste of the fish. I actually don’t think I ever tasted any kind of fish that was as good as the truck’s back then. Voice #4: This is a porch block, so people always set out on their porches. And it was the same if you lived in a block where you set on your stoop. And after dinnertime, you would hear neighbors asking each other, “Did you buy fish today?” “Oh, I did!” ”How was it, did you enjoy it?” It was a magical time. Voice #4: Things was so much different 40 years ago to the way that things are now. Voice #5: When I was in middle school, I stopped seeing the fish truck. Voice #4: I guess it hasn’t been one in 20 years. It’s like anything else, that once it’s gone it’s usually gone.The fish truck stayed gone, but in the Philly neighborhoods, the fresh fish came back. An outfit called Fishadelphia buys fish from the New Jersey docks, then drives it to a high school in North Philly where it’s packed into coolers, which people take home to their own porches, where neighbors pick up their assigned fish. Fishadelphia’s founder and executive director is Talia Young, whose PhD is in ecology, who’s a visiting assistant professor in environmental studies at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and whose goal in life has never been to sell fish. “I’m sort of a scientist,” she says. “I’m not doing science but I can. I’m an academic by default, I’m a teacher for sure, I’m sort of an activist, and technically I’m a business person but I know nothing about it.” So why is she selling fish? “I’ve spent my professional life figuring out how to occupy a space that includes the environment, science, and social justice,” Young says. Scientists don’t usually combine science with activism, worrying that the combination would undermine a reputation for unbiased research. Young, however, has only ever cared about finding the nexus between her three interests and, she says, “Fishadelphia is the closest I’ve come.” Fishadelphia is a community-supported fishery, a CSF, in which people subscribe for a season of deliveries from local fisheries; it could meet Young’s personal criteria for environment and science. The social justice criterion is met by Fishadelphia’s subscribers: Almost one-quarter of them say that they’re low income and therefore qualified to pay less than market price. Young was raised in privilege, she says, “surrounded by people owning second houses in the Hamptons.” After college, she spent nine years working with young people in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods of color. Young put together her socioeconomic privilege and scientific education with the sensibilities she’s learned from working in Philadelphia neighborhoods, and somehow for her, Fishadelphia was inevitable. Fishadelphia lives at the same intersection of science, environmentalism, and social justice that Young does: Fishadelphia has its own character, but in general, Young is what it would look like if it turned into a person. Young is not tall and not thin; she’s in her early 40s, wears glasses that slide down her nose and sometimes get pushed back up, identifies as queer, and is overbooked. She teaches four undergraduate classes, writes scientific papers, is a single parent, runs Fishadelphia with four other people by having many weekly meetings, and holds in her head every detail of its operation, which is never quite the same two weeks in a row. She manages to be collaborative and decisive at the same time; she’s self-possessed, and she’s a little hard to figure out Young grew up in New York City: Her parents are scientists and academics whose first language is Chinese but who spoke English at home, so Young didn’t feel like a first-generation child. She went to an elite private girls’ school in Manhattan where she was happy, she says, but she understood neither race nor class. She liked environmentalism: At the time, the environmental movement was in high gear, warning that the rainforests were in danger, as were the spotted owl and the global climate. In Young’s fancy private school, she joined the environmental club and, she says, “walked around trying to get people not to use straws and to recycle paper” and putting on plays about the Lorax speaking for the trees. Later, Young read Alan Weisman’s Gaviotas, about a village in Colombia that reinvented itself as “an environmental utopian community,” she says, and “I wanted to do that.” She wrote essays on The Communist Manifesto. She took an environmental quiz about a sense of place that asked questions on when the spring flowers bloomed and migrating birds returned, and though for a city girl like her those were not the right questions, she says they “cemented that I feel I am of a place.” Her place, her home, was the city, and her interests began shifting to communities. She wondered why she should save rainforests and whales when “there were all these pressing issues closer to home.” So after an undergraduate degree in biology from (also elite, private) Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, she spent the next nine years, until 2010, educating herself on the pressing race and class issues of Philadelphia. She worked in young people’s programs focused on racial harmony and environmental education, programs which were, she says, “crash courses in race and class” and in which she learned that teaching “could be magical.” She taught the sciences at Mastery Charter Thomas School, a Title 1 school receiving federal money to teach low-income students in South Philly. As a science teacher, she learned “a ton,” she says, but worked way too hard for way too many hours and was on the fast road to burnout. Ten years after graduation, she rebounded into a PhD program in ecology, not in the Pacific Northwest where she’d originally thought she’d study, but closer to home at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “The East Coast is so much better for me,” she says: “The grittiness, the deep patterns of racial inequity on the East Coast,” with its long history of waves of immigration, each new wave abusing the next one, all living just streets apart. Those patterns, Young says, “are familiar to me, and they need to be figured out.” But a doctorate means proving your academic merit through scientific research and publications. Young’s dissertation was a trio of projects generally on food webs in aquatic biology: It was “classical ecology,” says her adviser, Olaf Jensen, a conservation ecologist now at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “She proved she could do [the science] and maybe felt freer to pursue her own interests.” By now, her own interests did not include a traditional academic career. Most young scientists with a fresh PhD set out to compete in the high-stakes game of academia: Find postdoctoral fellowships, publish research, and get faculty positions on the track to tenure, move to wherever the next position is, meanwhile continue to research and publish. Young likes aquatic ecology, she says, “but I’m much more interested in fish as a vehicle for justice, more interested in the combination of community and science.” While in graduate school she co-led a collaboration at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), an organization that brings together graduate students, professors, and researchers from different fields to work on socio-environmental projects. Young and the SESYNC team charted the northward shift of fish in response to climate change and the corresponding northward shift of the fisheries’ fishing grounds, and found that the fisheries catching more species were more likely to continue fishing. “She had the ideas in the beginning,” says Mikaela Provost, part of the SESYNC team and about to join the faculty at the University of California, Davis. “She was the social glue.” While working on the project, she met Joshua Stoll, another graduate student and now an ecologist at the University of Maine, who’d started a CSF called Walking Fish in eastern North Carolina. CSFs, which began in Maine in 2007 and sprang up independently across the continent from the east coast to the west, take many forms but are generally ways of bypassing commercial seafood’s geographically convoluted supply chains and getting fish more or less directly from a local fishery to a local consumer. Stoll and Young “hit it off,” Stoll says. They talked shop—about their futures, about their mutual interest in communities, social justice, and applying scientific findings to the real world. He said to her, “How about if you integrate your science life and your social justice life?” Stoll’s suggestion converged with other life nudges in the same direction. Young was awarded a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant for local food production, plus a David H. Smith postdoctoral fellowship in conservation biology to take to Princeton University in New Jersey, both awards to further explore CSFs. She went to a conference where she heard about small-scale fisheries worrying about limiting their catch to the large market of Americans who know how to eat only cod and salmon fillets; and Young, having worked in Philadelphia’s Black and Asian communities, thought about dinners made with whole fish, fish heads, sea cucumber, jellyfish, abalone, and squid. And then she thought, We’re not talking about the same Americans. She talked to a CSF owner who told her that typical sustainable seafood costs $30 for half a kilogram, and she said, “So poor people can’t buy sustainable seafood?” and he said, “Yes.” Meanwhile, she bought a house in Philadelphia in which she still lives. She used some of the Smith fellowship and the USDA grant to start her own CSF in South Philly, based on a unique premise: She’d connect small local fisheries and their fresh nonstandard seafood with the local Black and Asian communities; and she’d run the CSF with local high school students. She did it fast: In 2016, she got her PhD; in 2017, she held focus groups in the community in which she’d taught; and in 2018, she opened Fishadelphia. It’s not the normal academic career, not even for applied science–minded ecologists. Simon Levin, the ecologist who advised her Smith fellowship at Princeton, says, “If I’d tried to turn her into an academic, she would have found another adviser.” These are Fishadelphia’s operating principles. Take orders for the whole season and sell fish every two weeks. Set prices on a sliding scale according to ability to pay. Accept payments both in advance and on a weekly basis. Accept cash, credit cards, and electronic payment. Offer fillets, whole fish, and fish not usually offered: tilefish, black sea bass, monkfish, skate, fluke, porgy, dogfish. Communicate with the customers by text, email, in person, and WeChat (used by the Chinese community). Tell the customers which fishers caught the fish, who processed it, what the fish’s life habits are, and how to cook it. Choose pickup porches in the customers’ neighborhoods. Pay the high school students who do the packing and selling. (It’s useful that most of them speak the languages the communities speak, including Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Khmer, and Vietnamese.) Young hired local knowledge, beginning with Tasha Palacio, who grew up in Philadelphia, and George Mathis, a third-generation clammer who lives in New Jersey halfway between Philadelphia and the docks, and who knows the mid-Atlantic fishermen. The staff has grown to 10, all former students or customers or people who knew people, whose roles are set by what needs doing and what they’re good at. Young brings in grants that pay the bills. She begins a Fishadelphia week on Sundays by calling the docks to see what the fishers are catching. Then she texts the staff to decide what and how much to buy. On Mondays, she texts Mathis to pick up the order. (January 31, 2022: Mathis woke up to 40 centimeters of snow and a bad knee, so his family shoveled the driveway and he made the pickup.) He drives from the Atlantic docks, two hours across central New Jersey into Philadelphia, to the People’s Kitchen, a collaborative project supporting food security where professional cutters take two days to fillet the fish and pack it on ice in coolers. (February 1, 2022: after filleting, they found they had enough for four coolers, not three as agreed.) Then on Wednesdays, Palacio and her various relatives pick up the coolers. (February 2, 2022: texting each other, “Does anyone have a car that can handle four coolers?” “Yes, if I get the furniture out of it.”) They drive them to Simon Gratz Mastery Charter high school. (February 2, 2022: school was closed for weather, texted maintenance staff to get in, the elevator wasn’t working so three students carried the four coolers upstairs.) Gratz high school has a culinary suite with commercial sinks and tables where students open the coolers, bag up the individual orders, and put the bags in more coolers. (Palacio: “Ripping open that scallop bag, it’s a sexy moment, that sweet smell.”) The 10 cooler hosts pick up their assigned coolers from the school and fan out across the city to their own porches where between 10 and 45 neighbors pick up their orders. (Staff member: “One customer didn’t pick up, I called her, she ignored me, but I know her mother so I’ll sort it out.”) Also on Wednesdays, students in the Fishadelphia after-school programs at Gratz high school in North Philadelphia and at Thomas high school in South Philadelphia set up fish stands for the public, first come, first served. (At Gratz, mostly Black students tend to be interested in food sovereignty and food justice; at Thomas, mostly Asian, the students tend toward business practice and getting fish for their families; both schools share all these tendencies.) The following Monday, the Fishadelphia staff debriefs the previous week, what went well, what to fix, what’s to be done next, how much was spent (salaries, supplies, delivery, People’s Kitchen) and how much was brought in, and the expenses are usually larger than the income. Notice that things routinely go wrong and everything that goes wrong gets fixed. But the whole enterprise is perched on the edge: Young says they’re going to run out of money, “and I’m trying dramatically to get us not to do that.” Also notice that every possible failure is followed by a plan. The plan to make the business self-sustaining is to recruit customers who can pay market price to subsidize the customers who cannot. They have 265 customers, she says, “and that needs to be at 600,” so they’re creating “a more coherent brand” and have set up a marketing department. They operate on the short term: “We’re in the high weeds,” Young says. “We’re putting out fires.” So they’re creating departments—member experience, member management—and they’re documenting what everyone does so everything can be done by anyone. “Structure is in process,” Young says. “We used to drop all the things, now we drop only a few.” Kristin Hunter-Thomson, director of Dataspire, an education consulting company and on Fishadelphia’s original board of advisers, thinks Fishadelphia will stay in business: “I do think it will. If I’ve learned anything it’s that Talia is phenomenally good at making things happen.�� Fishadelphia moves thousands and thousands of fish to hundreds of people, but otherwise its impact on students, communities, and fishers—the point of its being— is hard to measure. No one has yet traced the social networks of customers and family members and their connections to ask about Fishadelphia’s effect on its communities. The only quantifiable effects so far come from surveys and interviews and are unsurprising: customers like knowing how the fish get to them; students mostly want to learn how to run a business; suppliers mostly want to sell fish. The nonquantifiable effects are more interesting: Whether or not the networks are being studied, they’re growing in real time. Fishadelphia runs field-trip buses to the docks: “People on [the] docks were like ‘who are these people?’” Young says, “and people on [the] bus were ‘what is this ocean?’ I don’t need Chinese grandmothers and fishers to talk to each other, but they do. They talk about fish; they actually care about fish.” Customers tend to come back every season, and in fact, during the pandemic, the number of customers rose, partly because pickup could be done at a distance. The most noticeable effect is on the students. They sign up for Fishadelphia year after year. They see Fishadelphia as safe and comfortable, says Palacio, they offer each other support, “and I think, Oh, y’all are trying to make sure each other are healthy. They’re like good family.” One of the several students who came back as staff is just old enough to remember the fish truck: “The fish truck, it’s ironic that being that young and having that impact on me. And it’s also the same impact that Fishadelphia has on me now altogether. And it’s like I was meant to be here, you know what I mean?” What Young wants most for the students, she says, is “for them to have had a community.” “That’s what I do,” she says, “I create community.” She thinks communities are created less by programs than by the individual relationships that she sees unfolding. “That’s where change mostly happens,” she says. “It happens in relationships.” It’s an old idea, still revolutionary, that relationships are the breeding grounds for communities and communities breed change. And big changes, like economic, gender, and racial equity, start small: on field trips to the docks, at the fish stands, during porch pickups; two people, a few people talking; fishers, grandmothers, students, customers, Fishadelphia’s staff, Black and Asian and queer and straight people, people with money and people who are low income, and people who like fish. “They’re connected,” Young says, “the world works in a way that they’re all connected. We don’t live in a world in which we can just sell fish.” And meanwhile, she adds, even before sweeping social change, “we’re all bound up together and there’s something glorious about it, we all get to be in it together.” Also meanwhile, Fishadelphia may have a future or it may not. Tasha Palacio, now Fishadelphia’s assistant director of seafood management and youth programming, met Young when she was 15, one of Young’s first hires. “I like to imagine people going home after work and saying, Tonight is fish Wednesday.” Palacio says. “I like Fishadelphia being in people’s homes, being part of their conversations. I feel like we’re creating a little safe haven of fish Wednesdays.” And if, like the fish truck, Fishadelphia goes away? Even then, people still remember the fish truck, Palacio says, they still talk about it, and she would like Fishadelphia to be the same; she would want people sitting on their stoops saying, Remember Fishadelphia where you could get fresh fish? She would want Fishadelphia to still be a little safe haven, to still be giving people a reason to talk to each other, still spreading a net invisibly over the community it helped set up. Acknowledgments The podcast from which the opening conversation was transcribed was done by students at Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges outside Philadelphia: Mimi Tran, Rachel Gass, Julie Rebh, Avery Matteo, and luigie alequín. The people interviewed about the fish truck were Zakheem Lindsay-Moore, Mary Yee, Paul Uyehara, Rennie Murray, and Khalil Steward. This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/fishadelphia

Maybe

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR LOKI SEASON 01 EPISODE 05: ‘JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY’ AND SEASON 01 EPISODE 04: ‘THE NEXUS EVENT’

Pairings: Loki/Sylvie

Rating: General Audiences

Word Count: 4,124 

Status: One Shot - Complete

Chapter Preview:

He had meant for it to come out more as a question, an offering. A possibility for the both of them. But what it really sounded like was a… well; a sincere, hope-filled attempt to keep hold of… this. Whatever this was, he knew he wanted it. However things went, he knew-

He wanted Sylvie in his life.

His heart was racing in his chest, pounding almost as hard as it does in the midst of battle. In the unlikely event he’s a free man after all of this over, he’ll have to go and find his brother - if he’ll even talk to him, that is - and apologize for the harsh insult he used; for berating his older brother over his affection for that Earth woman.

He understood now.

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Author Note: 

Oh Boy, here I go again, getting sucked into yet another ship. Basically, this is a dive into Loki's thoughts during the blanket scene in Episode 5 "Journey Into Mystery" because man, I sure do love getting into a character's head and breaking down their thought process.

P.S. No joke, I think I re-watched the blanket scene like... over 40 times I counted, roughly. Wanted to make sure I got every detail right lmao.

Oh wow, would you look at that - yet ANOTHER fic based on the blanket scene? I'm sure this hasn't been done by many different people ever since Episode 5 aired! Nah, I'm sure this is purely original stuff.

(Listen, this scene and - consequently - this fic got stuck in my head and I just had to write it down and... well here we are.

* * *

This was, as he had said, new for him.

It was… strange, to say the least. Not just because the woman who was sat next to him was, technically, on some sort of level, himself. And yet… not. Sylvie was her own person, that was for sure. And the only Loki, from who he’s met, who refuses to be called Loki. She had chosen her own name, and was currently choosing – or carving, was more accurate – her own path. A way out of the never-ending, self-sabotaging, “only use is for improving others” apparent destiny they’ve all found themselves in.

She had lived an entirely different life from him - and the use of the word ‘different’ here is strongly applied. It makes him a little uneasy when he dwells on it for too long if he’s being honest with himself. Yes, there may some similarities between them, as to be expected, but Sylvie had lived her own set of experiences different to his. Differences that had shaped her, made her see the world… universe… timeline? All of that, in a different way to him. Learning of the things she had gone through, what she’s trying to accomplish… it made his “glorious purpose” of ruling over “Mid-guard” seem like a spoiled boy's desperate attempt to feel important.

Everything with Sylvie and the TVA had shut down that ideal very quickly. Or, at least, has changed his view of his “Glorious Purpose”. The one change that he hadn’t seen coming, that Sylvie herself had told him; the very first words she had actually said to him:

“This isn’t about you.”

No, it wasn’t about him. Not just him, anyway. It was… it was all of him. Every version of himself out there, and every other variant of... Of everyone to have ever existed. Those, just like him, who are punished for stepping out of their pre-written timeline. Those that, when they try to change themselves, to be the person who those that loved him did everything in their power to guide them to be, were snatched away by the TVA and sent here to this pit of unwanted, broken things; left with nothing but unforgiving and dirty survival, only to lead to their inevitable death. 

And it’s cold.

“Mobius isn’t so bad.”

Sylvie breaks the comfortable lull of silence they had found themselves in. They were, technically, supposed to be ironing out the details of this plan to enchant a creature much, much larger than them, whose only desire is to eat everything that enters the world they’re currently in. Which is why, perhaps, they had taken the moment to just… breathe. A moment of rest, side by side. Whilst it was true that his plan of killing the gargantuan cloud thing was near suicidal, it would be fair to say that Sylvie’s plan was equally as dangerous. Then again, what did he expect? Seemed that every type of Loki out there isn’t the best at creating plans…

“Or so good,” Loki counters. It seemed almost cruel to say, but… it was also true, wasn’t it? Sure, Mobius had done the things he’d done because he thought they were the right things to do – but that didn’t take away from the fact that he’d done them. How many variants, not only of him, but of so many other poor souls had been doomed to this place because of his work? Still, it wasn’t like Mobius had the full picture with everything. Mobius had been lied to just as much as he had. “I think that’s why we get along.”

A small smile pulls at Sylvie’s lips. She takes a deep breath in, staring out to the horizon where Alioth awaits prowling his territory. “He cares about you.”

That catches him off guard. He supposed that she and Mobius must have had some type of conversation in however long they’d spent driving to reach them. Apparently, the topic of conversation must have steered towards him at some point. And somehow, through that, Sylvie had deduced that Mobius… cared about him?

There’s a soft, knowing smile on Sylvie’s face as she catches sight of his reaction. It was probably the closest similarity they shared: friendships… didn’t quite seem to happen for them. 

But there’s something else there in Sylvie’s expression as she looks to him. Almost a twinge of… of sadness. It sends an aching sort of pain through his chest as he sees it, coming to a sudden realization in his head. He knew that, deep down, the reason for his own loneliness was all due to himself. He knows now that there were plenty in his life that loved him, that always treated him like family even when, genetically, he wasn’t. But he had been blinded by jealousy and hatred, hatred that they had kept the secret of his true nature quiet for so long. It was because of this; this stubbornness and this selfish, false ideal that he deserves more, that he had made himself alone. 

But Sylvie…? She had been well and truly alone. From such a young age, an age where his mother had barely begun teaching him the basics of magic, she had been snatched away from her life. Everything she ever knew and loved had been wiped away, the timeline dumped here just like everything else the TVA – or whoever the hell is actually in charge of the damn universe and its multiple timelines – decided was too much of a threat. Ever since then, from that very same day she had managed to escape their clutches, she had been running alone. All those years, fighting to survive, completely alone, existing in one apocalypse after the other. Even if she did try and interact with the people in those timelines, what would be the point? They were doomed to die, anyway… 

Her words echo in his head for a moment, her sad smile seemingly etched into his memory. A part of him, that strangely soft side he didn’t know existed that had been growing stronger and stronger these past few days, burst with the need to do something, to remove the pain she was feeling. For just a split second, he nearly gives into it. He nearly says the words that were forcing their way to the forefront of his brain. 

‘I care about you.’

But the words stay safely locked away in his head. Sylvie looks away from him, and the moment passes. He didn’t know if she had been expecting for him to say anything, and he certainly didn’t know what it is she might have thought he would say. His mind clambers for something, for anything to try and bring the moment back.

A strong gust of cool wind blows over them, sending chills across his pale skin - despite the long-sleeved shirt he was wearing. He knew that, if he really wanted to warm himself up, he could shift into his true form. Except, he didn’t see it as his true form. He has been an Asgardian as long as he can remember, and for all intents and purpose, this is who he’s meant to be. He is the son of Odin, son of Frigga, brother to Thor, an Asgardian, and he’s proud of that. 

And that’s when the idea pops into his head.

“It’s cold,” Loki states the obvious to Sylvie with a shiver of his upper body, glancing over to try and catch her reaction out of the corner of his eye. For a moment, he wonders if Sylvie has the same views on their true heritage as he does, considering that, in her timeline, she was told she was adopted much earlier than he was. 

She doesn’t mention anything about it, though. Instead, she simply agrees with his statement with a hum of “Mmm-Hmm,” but it’s exactly the kind of answer he’s looking for.

From the outside, it looks like an easy twirl of his fingers and a burst of lime-green light, but in reality, it’s years and years of practice, both by himself and… and with his mother. The weight of the blanket - though light - is comforting as it wraps around his shoulders; silky smooth to the touch and of a darker green than the light of his their magic. 

The burst of color gets Sylvie’s attention, looking over to Loki again to see the new blanket he had materialized out of seemingly thin air - which… he did. 

“I could conjure one for you, if you like?” Loki offers.

Sylvie smiles for just a split second, enough for Loki to believe that she might just say yes. But then her nose scrunches as she comes back to herself, and the belief is gone. “Tell you what, you could conjure me a new outfit,” Sylvie says off-handedly, pulling at the tight collar of her outfit. “You have no idea how uncomfortable something like this is.”

It’s a deflection. He knows that all too well, because… because it’s something he’d do. Not that he can blame her in the slightest. As he had said, just before he was pruned through the heart and sent here - this was entirely new for him. Sure, he had had his fair share of flings back home. Rare occasions when he would give in to temptations, let himself experience a slice of normality. But it was never real. He did not doubt that those that fell into his bed did not do so because they felt a connection, or saw a future. And neither did he. He was a prince, a God, and for most, saying you were able to seduce a prince was an achievement. And for him? Well, it was an easy means to an end, he supposed. 

But this? This felt real. It was strange, it was something he had never experience before, and quite frankly, it scared the ever-living God’s out of him. So sure, he knew how to flirt… somewhat. But with this, with Sylvie? Everything was different, and he had no clue whatsoever what he should do.

“So…” Sylvie breaks him out of his thoughts. “Mobius, and his theory about…”

Oh. Well, he certainly hadn’t been expecting for the conversation to go there. Really, he had thought she might try and pretend to have never heard what Mobius had said. 

“Right, right. About our Nexus event-,”

“Total rubbish, right?”

He’d be lying if he said that didn’t sting a little bit. “Absolutely,” ‘Liar’, a voice in his head hisses. “Of course, I mean-,”

“I don’t mean that it wasn’t a nice moment,” Sylvie hurries to say, and it lessens that sting just a little bit. 

“No, it was great! It was really nice.”

“It just… sounds like another TVA lie.”

Which... Yes, when he thinks about it, could you easily have been a lie. Not that he thinks that Mobius would lie to them about this, no, but that someone else within the TVA had fed Mobius the lie. For what reason, he's not entirely sure. To throw them off the scent perhaps? Keep them from figuring out what can really cause a Nexus Event so powerful that it could conceivably take the TVA down. 

Or, perhaps they just enjoyed lying. More than him even - and that's saying something. 

"A hundred percent. I mean totally, yeah."

And oh, what was this? Loki tries to meet her eye, expecting her to nod her head vehemently in agreement to his statement. But... She won't look at him. She gives a somewhat strained-looking smile, more like a grimace than anything, and if he looks hard enough - by which he means projects his own feelings onto Sylvie and hopes she feels the same - he could almost imagine there was a flicker of disappointment there, too. 

"I don't know how to do this," Sylvie says, an admission he didn't expect. She looks about as awkward as he feels, eyes fixated on her fingers as she plays with them. 

"I don't even know what we're doing," Loki returns, and dear oh dear did he genuinely mean that. One moment he thinks he should take that step, say something, anything. And then the very next moment it becomes the wrong time, the wrong thing to say, and he's back to square one. 

It was frustrating, to say the least.

"I don't have friends," Sylvie carries on, and it's another dagger through the heart. Yet another thing that was so similar, yet so, so different. He had been given so many opportunities for companionship, for friends, but he repeatedly threw them all away. But Sylvie? She wasn't even given the chance. She truly had-

"I don't have..." Sylvie trails off, a long gap where she struggles to find the right word to use. Her eyes had locked onto his, and he knew that nothing less than Alioth appearing right above their heads would get him to tear his eyes away.

"... Anyone." 

"Well, there are more important things, right?" Loki desperately grasps for something to wipe away the blank, dejected look that was etched onto her features. 

"Right? Yeah, like bringing down the TVA." 

For once, one of his plans was going well. "Saving the universe, even."

"Well, there's no need to be dramatic - but yeah, kind of!" 

Then there it was again - a particularly strong breeze pushing up to the little hill they were sat on. Sylvie gives a little shiver as it washes over them, a barely noticeable shuffle in an attempt to get warm, and Loki jumps at the opportunity. 

It only takes one small adjustment, a brief push of magic, and then the blanket is growing, wrapping itself around Sylvie's shoulders in a motion so smooth, you'd think he'd done something like this hundreds of times before. Loki smiles gently to her when she notices the change, and his smile only grows more as Sylvie pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders, shuffling closer to him by just the smallest of movements. Yet another plan he could now say was a success. 

"It's not very snuggly."

Or, maybe not. "Okay," Loki manages to get out through a surprised laugh, but he does get some sort of gratification in seeing her smile at his response. 

"Is it a tablecloth?" 

"No, it's a blanket," Loki finds himself strangely defending his materialized choice of cloth. 

There’s a pause, the quickest of glances up to him. He sees a brief flash of pink as she pokes out the tip of her tongue between her lips, wetting them as she struggles to get out her next words. “Thank you.”

Loki gets a strange feeling she doesn’t get to say that all too often. Whether that be because she chooses not to, or because she’s never had the opportunity to. When was the last time someone did something nice for her…?

“My pleasure.”

Sure, this was all new, and all types of scary. But, as he sat here, shoulder to shoulder with Sylvie, looking out to the dreary yet oddly beautiful landscape scattered with remnants from pruned timelines, he can't help but feel that this moment right here? It was… nice. Despite the TVA, despite Alioth, despite the fear of imminent death he’s had to live through nearly every moment since the Tesseract flung him into that desert in Mongolia, he had managed to find himself some semblance of peace. 

And it was because of the person next to him.

“How do I know that, in the final moments, you won't betray me?”

Now, this was a conversation he had been expecting. How can he not? It seemed that nearly every single person he’s ever come across, who he hasn’t immediately tried to murder, wonders the exact same thing. The ‘inevitable’ betrayal every Loki seems incapable not to carry out. 

And he couldn’t blame them, just as he can’t blame Sylvie for wondering the same thing. Really, he had thought the whole reason she had wanted this moment to talk to him was to have this very conversation. It was… it was something he had thought about himself, ever since being dragged in by the TVA. It was Mobius that had shown him his consistent deceitful nature - quite literally, by showing him film of every moment in his life where his flair for dramatics and affiliation for backstabbing was apparently used for ‘the bettering of others’. 

It had become deeply ingrained into his nature. It became what he was known for, what his family knew him for. He supposed it gave him some sense of… satisfaction, perhaps? A false sense of security, that he always has the upper hand when need be. It was almost like a trial, opportunities to prove to himself that, when the time comes, he can do what it takes to claim what he, false-fully, felt he was owed. He was certain that the only path to being a rightful ruler was one filled with betrayal. 

And now, after only a few days with Mobius - and an even shorter amount of days with Sylvie, his previous ambition he’s been working towards for so long suddenly wasn’t as important. Things had changed. 

He had changed. 

And that was part of the reason the TVA wanted him dead. 

“Listen, Sylvie, I…” Loki starts, but then stops. He sighs deeply, wanting to find the best way to get this across to her. He needed her to understand. “I betrayed everyone who ever loved me. I betrayed my father, my brother… my home.”

He at least had her full attention now. No more awkward glances at one another, unable to maintain more than a few seconds of eye contact. This was important, and they both knew it. “I know what I did. And I know why I did it. And that’s not who I am anymore. Okay?”

There’s nothing on her face that he can read, nothing that says whether she believes him or not. She had been expecting him to say this, he supposed. “I won't let you down,” Loki says, and he says it like a promise - one he fully intends to keep. 

“You sure?” Sylvie asks, and he nods his head straight away in response. “ ‘Cause if we make it, and the TVA is gone, there might be a timeline for you to rule.” Sylvie continues with a challenging - yet slightly teasing- narrowing of her eyes. 

“Ah,” Loki says wistfully, looking out to the horizon as if dreaming of such an event. “And then I’d finally be happy.”

Except, he wouldn’t. He only has to look at his older self to know that. The only one of himself that had beaten the one event that’s supposed to define their lives. He had tricked the mad titan himself, found himself a little corner of the universe to live out his life in peace. No more people he has to challenge, no more opportunities for betrayal - by him, or to him. 

And he looked… miserable. 

Now, though? Right here and now, he wasn’t miserable. He certainly wasn’t relaxed, that was for sure, but far from miserable. He had ended his little exclamation with a rare smile that wasn’t a smirk - or forced- and miraculously, Sylvie returned one just as wide as his; wide enough even for him to see the little laughter lines crinkling at the corner of her eyes.

“What about you?” Loki asks. “What will you do when this is all over?”

Sylvie takes a moment to think, tucking an unruly strand of hair away from her face. “I don’t know.”

He couldn’t even begin to try and put himself in her shoes. Sylvie had spent… hundreds, perhaps even a thousand years of her life just running. Surviving. Doing whatever it takes to make sure she wasn’t wiped off the board by some mystery figure, or group, that had deemed her too dangerous to the timeline. And for what? Some kind of sick desire to have control over every single living thing in every type of Universe to ever exist?

Which… which sounded an awful lot like himself, now he thought about it. Maybe whoever was in charge of the TVA was another variant of himself…

“I don’t know either,” Loki said, and that added to the tally of growing truths he was admitting to people - perhaps the most in his life. 

At some point, this all had to be over. Whether… whether it ends in his death once again, another defeat by a power-hungry being, or with their victory. No more TVA. No more pruning of variants. No more control. Sure, Sylvie had made that joke about him ruling a separate timeline, but… what would he do once this was all over, assuming her survives it? What did he want to do?

What does he want? 

‘Look at your eyes! You like her!’

‘What?’

‘You like her! Does she like you?’

‘Was she pruned-’

‘No wonder you have no clue what caused the Nexus Event on Lamentis; both of you are swooning over each other!’

‘Tell me the truth-’

‘It’s the apocalypse! Two Variants of the same being, especially you, forming this sick, twisted romantic relationship - that’s pure chaos! That could break reality, it’s breaking my reality right now! What an incredible, seismic narcissist - you fell for yourself!’

‘Her name was Sylvie’.

Mobius had truly tricked him there. At least now he knew how cruel it was to be on the other side of such a bluff, he supposed. He had always prided himself on his acting abilities, his innate way of lying to others. Yet, apparently, when it came to Sylvie… he puts his full emotions on display. He had become too overcome with emotions at the mere thought of Mobius telling the truth, that Sylvie was well and truly gone, and he had snapped. He was…

Yes… That was the word. 

He was heartbroken. 

‘You conniving, craven, pathetic worm. I hope you know you deserve to be alone and you always will be.’

‘Do you really think you deserve to be alone?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well then you better figure it out quick, because the Nexus Event the two of you caused, whatever that connection is, can bring this whole place down.’

Maybe, just maybe… Mobius was onto something there. Maybe Sif, even in that small, once insignificant memory buried in his mind, was wrong. 

Maybe he didn’t deserve to be alone.

Maybe he didn’t have to be. 

“Maybe…” The words get caught in his throat, spoken softer than he intended to. He involuntary finds himself leaning closer to Sylvie, to the warmth radiating from her, trapped within the blanket wrapped around them. “Maybe we could figure it out... together.”

He had meant for it to come out more as a question, an offering. A possibility for the both of them. But what it really sounded like was a… well; a sincere, hope-filled attempt to keep hold of… this. Whatever this was, he knew he wanted it. However things went, he knew-

He wanted Sylvie in his life. 

His heart was racing in his chest, pounding almost as hard as it does in the midst of battle. In the unlikely event he’s a free man after all of this over, he’ll have to go and find his brother - if he’ll even talk to him, that is - and apologize for the harsh insult he used; for berating his older brother over his affection for that Earth woman. 

He understood now. 

He almost misses the slightest of reactions as Sylvie looks up to him - and what he knows is an earnest, vulnerable glaze in his eyes. It’s the smallest of things, almost impossible to see, but there’s a slight pull to the corner of her lips as she looks to him. Almost as if she was fighting back a smile at his proposition. 

“Maybe,” She whispers back to him, just as quiet and tender as his own words. It’s not a yes, not in the way his frantically racing heart was hoping to hear, but it was a start. It was Sylvie’s own returning of a proposition, her own olive branch. The possibility he had given that she was extending right back to him. 

Maybe. 

Maybe.

Maybe.

Yes… Maybe they’d survive this. Maybe he and Sylvie would bring down the tyrant who oversees ‘the sacred timeline’. Maybe he’ll find Mobius again, alive and well, having turned the entirety of the TVA’s workforce against the organization they devoted their lives to, and burn it to the ground. 

Maybe Sylvie will let him stay by her side. 

Maybe, he’ll carve that new path in his life - with Sylvie’s intertwined with his.

Maybe he’ll find that new Glorious Purpose.

Maybe he won’t be alone. 

Maybe he’ll be happy. 

Maybe…

You know what? He was starting to like that word. 

Satisfied, Part 40

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~~~

Marinette didn’t know when exactly she ended up living at Wayne Manor full time, all that she knew was that it happened. Eventually, staying over to work with Tim, to spar with Damian, to talk to Jason and Dick, morphed into her never really going home. After all, it was always too late, or the bed was too soft to get up, or there was a dog asleep in her lap how dare you suggest she move.

But her routine didn’t change much at all. Their coffee was returned to them, so Tim and Marinette spent basically all day binge-drinking and working (with mandated breaks enforced by Jason and Dick). At night, well…

“Another boys night?” She said innocently, barely even looking up from what must have been the millionth flower she had embroidered.

Jason shrugged. “Sorry, Mari, you just wouldn’t want to come.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. Honestly, how had boys night been the best thing they could come up with? They’d been doing this for years. How did they even have secret identities at this point? Still, she nodded and smiled. “Sounds great. Have fun.”

“Try and get some sleep!” Called Dick over his shoulder.

“I won’t!” She yelled back, then went back to work. After a few minutes she stood up and brushed herself off. “Tikki, spots on.”

She grinned when she saw her outfit was finally back to normal. She’d kept the leather jacket, boots, and fighting gloves to hide the fact that she’d been weakened before, but now she’d added some tiny features to complete the look. Long, red ribbons tied her hair into her trademark ponytails, and she’d given herself a utility belt to match the rest of the family (also to hold snacks).

She hopped out the window and then made a large loop around the city to get to her and Damian’s meeting spot.

She rolled her eyes when she saw him. “Man, why’d you have to go for the utility belt first? I owe Bats one hour of sleep,” she whined.

He huffed softly. “Shut up! It’s small and easy to manage!”

She shook her head exasperatedly and pulled a bag of chips from one of her many pockets. “Mhmm.”

“You can’t judge me! You’re the one with streamers following behind you! That’s terrible for battle!”

“But great for aesthetic,” she said, grinning. “But you’re actually wrong. Pull on one.”

He gave her an incredulous look but did reach out to pull on one of the four trails of ribbon. It crumbled in his hand and, after a few moments, began to regenerate itself. “Uh….”

“Yep! It’s essentially streamers but even easier to break. I’m better at fashion than you, Kit.”

He sent her a glare. “Whatever. Let’s get on with patrols.”

‘Patrols’ was quickly derailed when they found a cute stray cat and started chasing it. Bruce would probably let Marinette have a pet if she asked, and it was so cute. She was about two seconds away from catching it when her receiver sprung to life.

She pouted and skid to a stop, bring a hand up to turn it on.

“Ladybug, you should come see this,” said Red Hood.

“Fine, location?”

He gave it to her and she turned off her comm.

“I have to go. Catch him for me?”

“Only if you agree to call him BatCat.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll agree to consider it.”

Damian grinned at her and disappeared in search of the cat.

After a bit she managed to find her way to where Red Hood sat on a rooftop. “Hey,” she said casually, dropping down next to him.

“Mari,” he greeted, reaching out to poke her cheek.

“So, is there actually something or did you just want to see me?” She teased, smiling.

He didn’t smile back, nodding to a billboard nearby.

Her eyes found their way to it and she cringed. It had been completely defaced, an uneven coating of black spray-paint making whatever it was originally advertising worthless, the words ‘Come home NightMare <3’ where displayed proudly across it in an acidic green.

She balled her fists. She didn’t want to go back yet, but the Wayne Gala was only a week and a half away at this point. They’d obviously need her there to go over the plan.

The therapy sessions were helping, but the idea of getting back in that suit again… even seeing Kaalki made her feel a little sick to her stomach.

She steeled herself. “Right, I’ll go tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to, y’know.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. Technically, he was right. She could technically  just opt not to go and they could hope that the security the Waynes had put in place would be enough. But, on a far more real level, he couldn’t be more wrong. She knew that they were getting in no matter how many people they had to fight against them because, ultimately, Batman wouldn’t have them killed and the Rogues had no such reservations.

Marinette pressed a kiss to his cheek. “It’ll be okay.”

~

She sat on the billboard, swinging her legs back and forth as she rested her head back against the paint. This was fine, she told herself. She wasn’t going to be killing anyone anymore. All the Rogues knew she wouldn’t, if the fact that they’d allowed her to disappear for weeks was any indication.

She wasn’t supposed to kill anyone last time, a pessimistic voice said.

She was glad to see the familiar uniforms below and hopped down, waving at them. “Hey, boys, been a while!”

They didn’t return her smile. She felt a needle prick her neck and next thing she knew she was in a warehouse.

Harley leaned into view, her blue eyes scrutinizing her. “Hey, darlin’, how you feeling?”

“Could be better,” Marinette mumbled.

She felt Harley and Ivy pull her into a hug and numbly returned it, closing her eyes. It only lasted for a few seconds, though, before Harley was quiet literally pulled away. Poison Ivy quickly scampered off into the corner.

She looked up to see Joker and cringed internally. She’d been hoping to never see him again, but she supposed she never had been lucky.

“Hello,” she said carefully, giving a weak grin.

“Hi!” He said, giving a wave and of course he was the one to return her smile. “We have some work to do.”

Marinette bit the inside of her cheek. “We?”

“Yup! Us three are going to Wayne Manor!”

She frowned confusedly and glanced around at everyone else. She couldn’t gauge anything from their faces, but Harley didn’t seem upset so she hoped this meant that she wasn’t about to be killed. She nodded hesitantly.

“Right. I’ll have to get inside the building and find a room that won’t change.”

Joker nodded and offered her a hand up. “You know where Wayne Manor is?”

She stared at his hand and swallowed thickly before taking it. She winced when she realized how warm it was. She’d been expecting something cold and clammy, like a corpse, but this was somehow worse. Knowing he was alive and just like that made her stomach turn.

She opened a portal to outside Wayne Manor.

“I don’t know how we’re supposed to get past the cameras.”

“Like this,” he chirped, pointing his gun at the nearest one and shooting it out.

Marinette clenched her fists. “Yeah, that’s one way of doing it,” she mumbled. She opened a portal to get inside the fence and cringed as another gunshot rang out. He was shooting out every camera, which was a good thing from a ‘breaking in’ standpoint but bad from a ‘protecting the Waynes’ standpoint.

They slipped through the house, undisturbed. Of course it was undisturbed, there was no one here --.

Except there was. And she looked right into the face of Tim.

Her eyes widened and she looked at Joker and Harley, hoping against hope that they would somehow miss him. He was short, this could work –.

But she never was lucky. And Joker had his gun out.

She jumped in front of Tim, pushing him to hide behind her.

Wow, she really wished she could stop having guns pointed at her. It really hadn’t gone well for her since she’d come to Gotham. Last time Robin had been shot, the time before that she’d been.

She wasn’t anxious to see what would happen if she got shot this time, she had no clue how Joker bullets would work with her costume. Would she not be affected? She hoped so, but what would happen if she was? This was a chemical thing, not just the usual brute force. Would the suit be useless against it? Would it keep her alive, choking on her own blood until the chemicals were out of her system? Which would be worse?

And she knew he would shoot her.

Because, ultimately, she was expendable. All the Rogues were to Joker. Sure, it would be a pain to plan around it, but they could always mow down security guards and get inside that way.

She just needed to reason with him. Would he listen to reason? She hoped so.

She felt hands grip the back of her dress and looked back at Tim. He was definitely playing up whatever fear he had, because he looked terrified. Good, at least they would never expect him to be a vigilante.

Not that it would matter if Joker shot them.

“What’s wrong, NightMare? You look like you’ve just had a bad dream.”

She resisted the urge to gag. She’d heard of how bad his jokes were, but really? He was worse than Chat Noir and – WAIT DON’T LOAD THE BARREL LIKE THAT.

She swallowed thickly, a hand reaching back to make sure Tim didn’t try and do something stupid like push her out of the way.

“Joker, we can’t shoot him,” she tried.

“I told you she would be a liability, Harls,” Joker said. “She just doesn’t have the balls to kill people.”

Harley winced beside him, her eyes falling to the floor.

“But it’s not even that!” She said. Except it was. But she could work around it. Reason. She needed a reason. “Listen to me! If we kill him then the Gala probably wouldn’t happen. Bruce loves his kids, right? If he ended up dead, then he would probably cancel. We can’t kill him!”

Joker stared her down. He wasn’t smiling behind (the mask? his face?) anymore, his lips set in a grim line. This was almost worse. She almost missed the smiling, at least then she had an idea of what was going through his head.

And then he lowered his gun.

She let herself relax a little. They continued through the house with Tim at their side. She made sure to stand between him and the Rogues. Just in case.

After she had pretended to memorize every room in the house (because, really, she knew most of it by heart thanks to the prank war), she opened a portal for them.

Joker stepped through and Harley stopped her before she could follow. “Puddin’, we’re just going to have a little chat, okay?”

“Fine!”

Marinette tensed. The portal closed and they were cast into silence. She hadn’t made it too obvious she was a hero, right? After all, it could just be brushed off as her hating the idea of killing…

Right?

Harley waved Tim off and she glanced back at him. He was still holding onto the sleeve of her dress. She gave him a small smile. “Hey, it’s fine. Go back to work, alright?”

He gave her a slightly skeptical look, but then nodded. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

She watched him leave and then turned to Harley. Was she suspicious? Did Marinette give anything away accidentally? Was this it?

“So, how do you know Tim?”

Marinette tensed. “I’m sorry?”

“You know him. How?”

She bit the inside of her cheek. What could she say? She couldn’t call him her friend, that would make it to obvious who she was. But she couldn’t act like she didn’t know him at all, that would make Harley suspicious…

“I guess I could call it…” She took a deep breath to steel herself. Her face reddened. God, he was going to hear this. “A celebrity crush?”

Harley squealed. “That’s so cute! Oh, and you saved his life? C’mon! He owes you a date!”

Damn it, Joker should have shot her. It would have been less excruciating than this. She buried her face in her hands. “I’d prefer… not doing that.”

The woman wasn’t listening, though. “Oh, you two would be so cute together! Your kids would be --!” Marinette decided that she was not going to pay attention to this, glaring at the ground as they walked through the mansion.

She was never going to live this down.

~~~

SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE THERE WAS A HURRICANE

~

Taglist

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<3

Super Genius Marinette Ch. 2

I hand the taxi driver a few American bills as payment just after he sets down my bags on the sidewalk. I was right in front of the Avengers building, which had a small collection of reporters outside of it. The man smiles as he pops back into his car. I give him a small wave as he drives off. Swinging my backpack over my shoulders and I take both of my bags by the handle, wheeling up to the door. The reporters, for some reason, didn’t seem to notice me until I was typing my password into the keypad by the door.  

“Ma’am? Who might you be and what business do you have with the Avengers? Are you with the other children who have been seen entering this building?” A darked haired woman is holding a mic out to me, her cameraman fixating on my face.  

I shrug as the door opens up on its own. “There will be a press conference later this summer to answer all of your questions. That is all I will say for now.”  

I wheel my bags through the door, leaving behind the small gaggle, who were still attempting to ask my questions. A few of the workers on the bottom floors look at me weirdly as I pull my bags into the main elevator.   

“Hello FRIDAY, how are you?”  

“Very well, Ms. Stark. Your father is located on the communal floor, would you like to go there first, or visit your floor?”  

“The communal floor, please.”  

“Of course.”  

I pull up my sunglasses from my face and quickly pull out my phone. I sent a quick text to my parents back in Paris that I arrived at the tower. As The elevator dings at the floor, I tuck my phone back into my back pocket and grab both of my bags. I walk out the door into the general floor, high heels clicking on the tiles. Several heads whip around and look at me from the couches.  

“Crap.” One of the men, Clint Barton, groans. “Tony, your security sucks! There’s another Captain America fangirl up here?  

I raise an eyebrow. “Ok, first of all, I am not a Captain fangirl. He puts up a good fight, but he needs some serious wardrobe help.” Said man flushes at my words. “Secondly, the security is fine here, I helped set it up. Thirdly,” I look up at the ceiling. “Friday?”  

“Yes?”  

“Where is my Dad?”  

“Right here, my little genius!” My father practically runs me over as he goes to hug me.   

The people at the couches stare. “You have a kid?   

I pear over my father’s shoulder. The collection of Avengers were all staring at us with gobsmacked expressions. “Yes, he does. Who’s asking?”  

One of the guys sticks his arm up. “Sam Wilson. When did this happen?”  

“14 years and 364 days ago.”   

Sam Wilson stares at me with wide eyes, “So, you’re 15 tomorrow?”  

“Yup.”  

“Are you French?” Steve Rodgers decided to pop into the conversation at this point.   

“Yes, well not technically. Dad,” I gesture to my father, “is American. My Mom is from China, she moved to France to study baking. She married my Papa who’s ½ French. I did grow up in Paris, however.” Rodgers nods.  

Thor puts a large hand up. “Does this mean the other younglings here are your children too?”  

Dad sighs. “No. I’m mentoring them. Mari is my only child.”  

“And we were never told because?” Clint Barton is still looking between my Dad and I.  

I shrug. “I wanted a normal childhood. Being the daughter of Tony Stark would have made my childhood crazy. This was before Ironman and the Avengers became a thing.”  

Clint nods in agreement. “Fair enough. Why are you here now then?”  

“My little genius,” My father kisses my cheek. “Is starting MIT in the Fall!”  

“Oh, God. She’s a mini you!” I easily recognize Bucky Barnes from his signature metal arm.   

“But with better fashion sense!” I give all of them a winning smile.  

“Can we come back to Captain America needing fashion help.” The Black Widow is grinning from her place next to the couch.  

The Avengers all look at me with expectant gazes. Barnes looked all too happy at the topic. I simply shrug. “You look like America's 4 year old daughter after she’s finally allowed to pick out her own clothing. You were practically glowing, that outfit was so bright. It’s like you were asking for the enemy to notice you. Get a stylist!”  

Steve Rogers’ face starts to turn red. “It worked back in the 40’s during the war.”  

“No, honey, it didn’t.” Bucky and Sam are starting to laugh behind their hands. “People just loved you more than they disliked the suit.”  

Rodgers’ face is a deep red right now. “It’s an iconic antique.”  

“Then put it in a museum and leave it there.” Bucky finally snaps and roars with laughter. Sam isn’t far behind as he lands on the floor to roll around.  

“I’m sorry, who is the tiny french girl who’s verbally beating up Steve?” Bruce Banner is standing by the elevator with the most confused expression on his face.  

“Tony’s daughter, apparently.” Clint shrugs.  

“And Tony has had a daughter for how long?”  

“15 years.” I give Banner a bright smile. “I’ve read several of your papers. Your gamma radiation and nuclear physics work is amazing, but I preferred the stuff on Biochemistry. I have some ideas I was hoping you take a look at.”  

Bruce blinks a few times. “I-15 years-What kind of ideas?”  

“Bacta patches. I want to see if I can make them real. I’ve written out some formulas, but haven’t been able to really talk to anyone about them yet or test them out.”   

“Uhh...Sure. Bacta patches, like from Star Wars?”  

“Yup.”  

“Tony, your daughter is a fashionista and a nerd. I’ve only ever heard of such rare creatures.” Bucky was no longer laughing at Steve, but still looked too happy.   

“Technically, I’m a fashion designer.”  

“Tony, you daughter is a fashion designer and a nerd.”  

“Who has an IQ of 265!” My Father is smiling down at me, pride filling his eyes.  

A glass drops and shatters across the floor. “Holy shit!” is whispered from someone in the room.  

My Father ignores all of this. “Well, I’m going to introduce Mari to the rest of the kids. Carry on!”  

I give a small wave to the stunned adults. “Bye! It was nice to meet all of you! I’ll speak to you later Doctor Banner.”   

My Father pushes me into the elevator, leaving several flabbergasted Avengers. I raise an eyebrow as the elevator moves down a few levels. “You didn’t tell them about me.”  

He snorts. “And miss that interaction. That was so much better than I could ever have ever dreamed.”  

The door dings open and I’m suddenly in a smaller version of the top floor living room. There were 9 teenagers sitting around a coffee table, a variety of bags scattered around the couches and loveseats. All of the heads look up at me when I come in.  

The oldest male swears in english. “Damn it Stark, how many of us are you going to kidnap?”  

I raise an eyebrow and turn my head up. “Kidnap?”  

My father gasps dramatically. “Kidnap? I did not kidnap! Your parents practically threw you at me once I showed up.”  

One of the other boys snorts. “Aunt May is still angry about Germany. She said if you showed up at our house again, she’d throw you out the window.”  

My father shrugs. “Your Aunt is a terrifying force of nature.”  

A blonde girl rolls her eyes and walks up to me. A hand shoots out. “Gwen Stacy, I’m from New York and I’m 17.”   

I take her hand. “A pleasure.”  

The oldest boy sticks his hand in the air. “Harley Keener, Tennessee. Also 17.”  

The boy with a terrifying aunt gives me a small wave. “Peter Parker, Queens. 16.”  

Brown haired latina woman gives me a nod. “Anya Corazon. I’m from Brooklyn. 16, as well.”  

The last guy briefly looks up from the computer in his lap to give me a smile. “Ned Leeds. I’m from New York and I’m 16, too.”  

The girl next to him does even look up as she waves. “MJ. New York. 17. Nice shoes.”  

I glance down. “Thanks.”  

MJ nods, still looking at my computer. She nudges the guy on the floor next to her foot.  He pulls off his headphones and gives me a wave. “Oh, hey! Miles Morales. Brooklyn native. Freshly 16.”  

A girl about my age looks up from the small project in her hand. “Riri Willaims, Chicago. 15.”  

Lastly was a girl who looked even younger than me. She waves from her seat on the floor by Riri. “Peni Parker, no relation to Peter Parker. I’m from New York. I’m 14, but will be 15 in two months.”  

I wave back. “Hi, I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng-Stark. I’m from Paris and I turn 15 tomorrow.”  

Harley chokes on the drink he’d just swallowed. “I’m sorry, Stark?”  

I nod. “Tony’s my Dad. We’ve just kept it on the downlow so I could have a normal childhood.”  

Everyone one is looking at me. I simply shrug it off. “So, you guys are all going to the International Technology Showcase in D.C. this summer, right?”  

There’s several nods. “Yup.” Peni gives me a wide smile. “We’ve all got stuff to showcase. What about you?”  

“I’ve got my showcase pieces.”  

My Father claps me on my shoulder. “Ok, now that you are all here,  can give you guys a tour.”  

Ned shuts his computer and Riri sets the components in her hands down on the coffee table. I set my backpack on the ground as my father guides us to a door on the right. He flips on a switch to reveal a large game room, complete with several large TV’s and game consoles. “This is the Game Room.”  

He walks across the main living room and flips on another light. A huge kitchen with a large table sits in this room. “Kitchen and dining room are here.”  

He points up. “Bedrooms are on the next two level. Boys on the next floor, girls above them. All of the rooms have labels and there is a central living space where the stairs and elevator dump you out. The floor below us is a training room. The two floors below that are labs. Engineering labs on the upper floor and a Biochem lab on the floor below. We expect to see you all at some point, so don’t live in isolation.” Dad walks back over to the elevator. “Have fun, just don’t blow up the building.” We all watch him wave as the elevator door closes.  

It’s silent as everyone looks at each other awkwardly. I roll my eyes after a few seconds. “So, Star Wars marathon? Who’s in?”  

Ned and Peter immediately stick their hands up, to the amusement of Gwen and MJ. Riri nods. “I’m up for anything. What are we doing for dinner?”  

Miles shrugs. “I don’t know how to cook.”  

I roll my eyes. “I’ll order pizza. How does a Deluxe, Margarita, and a Meat Lover’s sound.”  

“You getting drinks?” Harley raises an eyebrow.  

“A couple two liters, some normal breadsticks and some of those dessert pizzas that look like someone dumped a whole bag of sugar and icing on top.” I get a nod from Harley.  

Anya nods. “I don't know what you all are going to do over the next hour, but I’m moving in. Pizza and movies in an hour or so?”  

I pull out my phone and start to put in the order. “Should work. I don’t know about you all, but I am putting on sweatpants.” I grab my bag from the floor and handle of my suitcase as I make my way to the elevator.   

Peter starts to pull out his wallet. “How much do we own you?”  

I shake my head. “Nothing.”  

Peter shakes his head. “That doesn’t seem fair.”  

I raise an eyebrow. “My Dad is a billionaire. He paid for a quart of strawberries with a Jaeger-LeCoultre watch. He can buy us pizza.”  

“A Jaeger-LeCoultre watch, serious?” Riri looks absolutely annoyed.  

“Stark just gave a bunch of teenagers 6 floors all for ourselves with no supervision.” Harley snorts. “He doesn’t seem to think everything through.”  

“He has FRIDAY watching us.” I press the confirmation button on the Pizza. “Pizza will be here in 45. But, ya. My Dad has FRIDAY and KAREN keeping an eye on all of us.”  

Harley gets a look in his eye. “We have babysitting monitors!” A scary smile graces his lips. “I say we revolt!”  

Gwen face palms, but it’s too late. MJ, Peter, Riri, Peni and Miles all look too excited. Frankly, so was I. “Anyone know a lawyer?” Riri is grinning now too.  

Peter sticks his hand up. “Mathew Murdock.”  

Anya seems to be getting excited too. “So, what are we rebelling?”  

“Baby monitor protocols!”   

Gwen rolls her eyes, but caves. “We need more than that!”  

I bite my lip. “We also need time. We need our own AI.”  

“How are we adding in our own AI to the tower?” Ned has his computer under his arm as we enter the elevator.   

“I helped design the security for this building. Once we have our own AI, I add them to the tower’s system. Once we’ve done that I’ll take FRIDAY out of our 6 floors and add in our AI.”  

Silence for a second as the elevator doors close. “Can you keep Tony out of our floors?” Peni is practically vibrating.  

“I can keep everyone off our floors.”  

Harley throws his arms into the air. “We revolt at dawn!”  

“After the Star Wars Marathon!” Peter and Ned have thrown their arms into the air too. Peni joins in with Miles and soon several teens are cheering in this tiny elevator.   

I blink a few times and van’t help the smile that forms onto my face. How did my dad find these crazy teenagers?  

Before ~~~~~ Next

Moonlit Throne historical clarifications/references

i want to accurately represent the history from the joseon era, but sometimes for the sake of story/ease of accessibility, things had to be minorly changed. the following is a list of creative choices/changes i make in the writing of Moonlit Throne, as well as further information about the history/culture that i’ve found through my own research 💓 i hope this can also provide some more context for those interested. this list is to be updated as the series progresses so i always recommend you read the latest drabble before checking for more info here for risk of spoilers. please correct me if i get any info wrong!!

for even more information about the world, check out the tag #moonlit history!

last updated: after drabble 43!

new information for the latest drabble will be under the moon.

king gwanghae - as mentioned in the line “gwanghae flow” & in the rest of the MV, Daechwita was inspired by this historical king & the movie about him. Moonlit Throne is not inspired by any king. any event that is similar is purely coincidental!

topknot - various sources state that only married men were allowed to wear their hair up, though this is often not the case in popular korean media. even though Yoongi is unmarried, i chose to pay homage to the daechwita MV & give him a topknot throughout the series. *** same goes for the blonde hair color!

months - traditionally, they followed the lunar calendar in the Joseon era. but i thought that that would be a bit difficult to explain for modern audiences so i am choosing to use the months/modern equivalents of dates.

yoongi’s scar - i am aware that Scarlet Heart Ryeo depicts the facial scar as a reason that someone could not become king. i haven’t found much on this in the way of historical sources, so it’s not a factor in my series!

uinyeo - aka. reader’s mom, and eventually reader herself. at the time, it was believed that women could not be treated by male doctors due to the shame of showing a man their body, even in a medical context. this position was generally occupied by a woman that was ranked below middle-class & commoner (think merchants/fishermen/etc.) as it was not a very desireable role. reader’s mom, Eun-a, is the head uinyeo, which is why she is called “su-uinyeo-nim” by others.

***i haven’t found any information that says men couldn’t be treated by women due to the Confucius beliefs, so at least in this story, reader helps out the male physicians from time to time.

eunuch - eunuchs were impotent or castrated men (had all or part of their genitals removed) who worked within the palace walls, serving and attending the royal family. they had their own hierarchy, like head eunuch, etc. it was possible for eunuchs to marry & have families of their own.

***Eunuch Kim has a 🍆! it’s just his testicles that were removed.

yoongi’s name - technically kings use temple names that end in jo or jong instead of their given names, but i’m keeping it as Yoongi!!

age - it’s revealed in the march 1858 drabble that Yoongi is officially turning 10 years old that year, but this is in Korean age. his birth year is 1849, which would make him 9 years old in age as we know it internationally. Korean tradition dictates that people age up at the start of the new year (Jan 1), not on their actual birthday. traditionally, they also add an extra year as they consider the baby 1 year old at birth, not 0 years old. to do the math, reader is two years older than him, which would make her born in 1847 & turning 12 that year!

*** the average life expectancy around that time was ~35-40, so their understanding of a teenager would be very different than ours, at least in terms of maturity. thus, even though the main characters are relatively young by today’s standards, i’ve written them to come off as older. UPDATED INFO: it seems court ladies could live up to rather elderly ages, even up to 70, so i’m not sure if the earlier statistic was just mainly for men.

birthdays - i couldn’t find any information about whether they celebrated the actual day of birth as well back then, only about 100 day milestones, etc. but it is part of Korean culture to celebrate the birthday in modern times, so i kept it in.

jeonha - similar to mama, this is how you refer to the king as an equivalent to “Your Majesty”. wangseja-jeonha is the full title for the crown prince. usually people just call him seja-jeonha.

women’s rights - how much freedom you have kind of depends on what rank you are. most of the upper court/noble ladies (yangban) are born & raised within the palace. they were very, very rarely allowed to leave (& if they were married off, then they would have to leave with like guards/people with them). it’s unfortunate but they were treated like property, passed off from father -> husband. from what i can gather, the lower ranked women (like the uinyeo) had a bit more liberty about going into town (or at least ive seen in media), mostly bc no one cared about them.... sad truth but truth nonetheless.

king’s authority - even though the king is the ruler of the entire land, he doesn’t have absolute authority over everything. generally kings in the joseon era had to listen to the advice of the court officials if they thought he was making the wrong choice.

Minister Choi’s execution - so actually there were several types of executions for people of different ranks. someone of Minister Choi’s status likely would have been given a less gruesome death via. poison (sasa or 사사). but i’m keeping it as a beheading to pay homage to the daechwita MV!

***i also came across an article that said only royal blood could be spilled on the palace grounds so i’m not 100% sure where the public execution square was located, only that there was one & it was separate from the palace. also a lot of dramas seem to ignore this rule, so i’m not sure.

perfume - this existed back then! along with cosmetics. they were a luxury item for mostly the upper class, but they definitely existed.

Queen Jeonghui’s birthday - fun fact! i borrowed this real life queen’s name first, for drabble 3. then i found out, it just so happens that her real birthday falls in November as well. it was a total coincidence haha. 

OC’s outfit/hairstyle - this is what she would have worn!

palace - the layout of the series setting is loosely based off Gyeongbokgung Palace! if you look at the map, i’ve set the private gardens at #24 (though the position of the island is different than how it looks in the map. it’s instead from the right side going towards the left), Yoongi’s private residence is #25. reader is moved into #23. #26-28 are libraries, which includes the crown prince’s private library.

*** also the palace is much bigger than you might imagine so to get anywhere takes some time & a bit of walking!

jipgyeongdang (집경당) - #22 on the map. along with #23 (below), were traditionally houses for concubines & palace maids before Yoongi moved them.

hamhwadang (함화당) - #23 on the map. where reader lives post December 1868.

sanggung - the highest rank available for women who served the palace/royal family. a woman could become a “favored sanggung” if she slept with the king, but not a proper concubine. normally from the “commoner” class.

sangmin - “commoner” class. made up about 80% of joseon’s people. were the farmers, fishermen, laborers, etc. these were the people that paid taxes and were ruled over by the nobles!

cheonmin - the rank below commoner, described in English as “vulgar commoner.” the upper classes considered these people “unclean.” among their numbers were butchers, sex workers, performers, shoemakers, and yes, uinyeo. they were normally given little to no respect at all within society.

concubine - women that had the honor of sleeping with the king. concubines had their own ranks within them as the king usually had many (think around a dozen). more info.

town - from what i can gather, directly outside of the palace is a small town. if you think of the Daechwita MV, it’s like the town that Yoongi walks through when he has black hair. this is where mostly people of the middle/lower class, like sangmin & those below that, live.

chuseok - Korean harvest festival! it means “autumn evening with the brightest moon”. it’s usually celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month in the lunar calendar. that would put it anywhere around sept 9-oct 2 in our modern calendar depending on the year!

yangban - these are the “ruling class” or gentry of the joseon era. generally means their families own land, are somewhat (or very) wealthy, and they are well-educated. (think Mr. Darcy, for a British equivalent)

why does no one recognize the prince in town? - with a lack of access to pictures & internet, it was common for the normal citizens of the country to not know what their monarchs looked like. generally to identify people & rank, they had to rely on appearance. gold was a color only reserved for royalty, so only the king & his sons could wear the royal robes with gold embroidery. once Yoongi takes off those robes, it’d be hard to identify him from among regular yangban!

jeon - these are bits of shrimp/vegetables/fish/other small things that are deep fried in egg batter!

nokdujeon - this is like a small, savory pancake made with, you guessed it, mung beans!

Chun-ja calling Eunuch Kim “Kim-nim” - look. i’ll be straight with you i have no idea how a commoner would refer to a eunuch. i’m flip-flopping between his title (which i also cannot figure out bc idk which of the 18 political ranks he would be, but not for lack of trying y’all T_T) & his name with the respectful -nim. so just to be safe, i’m going with it.

***i also am not 100% on this, but i believe Eunuchs rank higher than commoners because they work in the palace? which is why Eunuch Kim uses “-ssi” for her.

hangul & hanja - so the Korean alphabet as we know it is called hangul, and it was invented in 1443. in the past, they used to use hanja, Chinese characters, to write documents.

female literacy rate - as related to above, it was rare for women to be able to read/write even up until the late 19th century. they weren’t allowed to learn hanja at all & only around 4% could learn hangul. of those 4%, it was mostly noble women, who received good education to be better wives.

***books were then thus read aloud by those literate to crowds, so people could still enjoy stories.

face - the concept of “face” is very much rooted in Asian culture. in Korea, it’s called chemyon, & is basically related to your reputation + how others see you. you can lose, build, or gain face through your actions or what rumors of you spread. for example, if parents have children with bad grades, they + the child lose face. people should strive to do things to build their family’s honor & face up. i’ve experienced firsthand how people go to sometimes extreme lengths to “save face” as the term goes. basically, if you’re going to do something shameful, it’s better to do it where no one can see. (this concept isn’t going to have a huge influence in the series, at least not so far & i use it rather lightheartedly in October 1865 but i just thought that it’s really interesting + important to know about Asian culture!)

French expedition to Korea (Byeong-in yangyo) - in October 1866, the second French empire tried to invade Korea (or Joseon as it was called at the time) because the king at the time executed seven French missionaries. after several months of fighting, Korea won with only four soldiers killed & 3 wounded (compared to France: 3 killed, 35 wounded). Joseon was able to stay relatively isolated from all the other countries, continuing the practice of isolationism.

gossip - i couldn’t find any laws prohibiting people from talking about court going-ons/battles, though i would assume that it’s punishable if you’re doing it to talk badly about the king. but even if there were laws in place, word gets around, as word tends to do. therefore, i’ve given Eunuch Kim a bit more freedom in his letters.

royal funerals - it could actually take up to 5 months for the coffin to begin its journey to the resting tomb, but i’ve expedited the timeline for plot purposes!

coronations - these actually weren’t super common in Korea or Asia in general, but it did happen once in the 1700s for King Yeongjo. i’m using that as inspiration for Yoongi’s crowning.

*** also i couldn’t find info on the exact wording that King Yeongjo used when he announced his succession to his deceased brother’s body so... i took some creative license there.

gama - how yangban & up women travelled, carried by their servants. here’s a visual!

the royal engagement - actually, Beom-su would not have lived within the palace walls. she would have lived in a detached palace that was further away from the main palace, and there would be a whole procession where the king goes to her during their wedding rites. however, i’ve seen several dramas have the bride-to-be hang around a lot, which seems to be true because she would have had to learn the customs of the palace, so i’m not sure how much she would have been around realistically. i’ve just chosen not to address it, like the dramas do.

Beom-su’s name - i chose this name for her because of one of the possible hanja for beom: “犯”, which i would pair with the hanja “秀” for su. her name would basically mean excellent invasion, which i thought was a bit cruel, slightly humorous, & overall fitting. it is normally a masculine name though! 

why are Beom-su’s father’s actions such a scandal? - so all the unmarried women living/working in the palace were considered the king’s property. he could sleep with them if he wanted to, but essentially they belonged to him. by laying hands on the maid, the minister committed a double sin because he not only was he assaulting someone, but he was infringing upon the king’s territory. 

civil service exam (gwageo) - this is an exam issued every 3 years that any man, commoner rank & above, could take in order to enter into civil service. it’s what Jimin takes to enter into the court! i’m not sure what month these were held or if it was just at the king’s discretion (could not find much info)

more on eunuch kim & the re-marriage process

royal tombs - these were often quite far away from the actual palace but looking on maps, i found that there were a few tombs rather close to the palace that people could have conceivably travelled to within a day, over several long hours on horseback!

on natural disasters - yes, in history, natural disasters like floods/earthquakes/eclipses were said to be the king’s fault because he wasn’t a good enough ruler! things like this could seriously derail the people’s trust in the king and was a big cause of concern.

on Queen Jeonghui being in court meetings - i couldn’t find actual evidence that said the queen couldn’t be at these daily meetings between officials. in fact, the real life Empress Myeongseong in the ~1870s was pretty involved in politics and was quite interested in matters of law, etc. so, i’ve decided to allow Jeonghui to be present and address the ministers alongside Yoongi!

Chunaengjeon - i kind of explain more about this already in the drabble itself but if you’re curious, it’s the only solo court dance in the Joseon era and the highlight of the dance is a moment where the dancer mimics a bird perched on a flower and smiles :’) i thought it was fitting for these two. here’s a video of a performance that i used as reference!

janae - there were quite a few different terms for couples to call each other during this time. “janae” was meant to represent wife and is kind of their equivalent to our... “honey”? it was mostly used among the commoners/lower classes to convey affection and closeness. (aka eunuch kim continues to be the cutest)

on adopting a child as a eunuch - the readings i found say that eunuch kim’s children must be eunuchs themselves if he adopts them directly, but they don’t mention anything about this particular case of a eunuch marrying a widow, aka the child is not directly adopted by Eunuch Kim himself. so Han-jae will not be a eunuch when he grows up!

american invasion of korea (shinmiyangyo) - this is a true historical event, as i’ve mentioned in my author’s note for “June 1871.” Americans repeatedly violated Korean soveriegnty and invaded their land, resulting in many, many deaths for the Korean side. they were hoping this destruction would force Korea to accept the trade treaty. Korea did not, and eventually were able to chase the Americans out of their land a month later. the wikipedia page goes into greater detail if you’re interested, and is a quick overview of the situation.

seong-min’s living situation - as i’ve mentioned earlier with the whole Beom-su situation, i’ve chosen to not use the detached palace again for this engagement as dramas tend to do.

the wedding ceremony - similar to my reasoning about the detached palace, i’ve chosen to focus on only a few parts of the marriage rites while only briefly mentioning the rest. why? well, while i would LOVE to explain all the details and intricacies of such an incredible process, i feel like that would take a lot away from the heart of the story and be distracting, especially at such a critical stage. so i’ve explained what i can, and given brief overviews where i am able. ofc i adjusted the parading ceremony because of the change of the detached palace custom. if you’d like an easy-to-read source on the whole process, please check out this link! basically the MLT chapter depicts a tweaked vers of steps 5 and 6. 1-3 happened behind the scenes, and i mentioned #4 in the “summer 1871″ drabble.

chungin - our equivalent of “white collar” workers, or the upper-middle class. this rank was made up of low-level bureaucrats, accountants, physicians, etc. some royal servants would also be part of this rank because they’re allowed to enter the palace. there is an exam (chapkwa) to become this rank!

conception dreams (taemong) - as uinyeo-nim explains in the drabble, these dreams were often seen as omens of impending pregnancy. depending on what you see in your dream, there are different interpretations. possible symbols are animals, fruits, elements of nature, children, and jewels. eg. if you dreamed of fruits, it was often considered to be a sign of having a baby girl.

other conception myths - i know from my own experience that Asians often have a lot of superstitions regarding conception and pregnancy and medical things in general. however, i couldn’t find any specific conception myths for the time period in question (most of my research only uncovered superstitions for after you’re already pregnant), so i’ve taken some creative license here, using the conception dreams and current beliefs as inspiration!

on Queen Jeonghui calling oc “dear” - since I prefer not to use Y/N, ___, etc. for reader’s name and just generally avoid mentioning it, it’s nearly impossible for me to convey the tone with which Queen Jeonghui would’ve been calling OC in this chapter. in Korean, she would be saying “[name]-yah/ah” depending on the ending syllable of the name. adding that suffix to the end of a name conveys closeness and intimacy between people. I’ve chosen to substitute it for “dear” to make things sound more natural in English. it’s not an exact match, but it’ll have to do!

Zack Snyder's Justice League Review!

Zack Snyder's Justice League dir. Zack Snyder (2021) Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Films, Atlas Entertainment and The Stone Quarry Science Fiction, Action, Superhero Movie

Rating: 3.5 Waves

Summary: Tormented by visions of a dark future, Bruce Wayne aka The Batman attempts to gather a team of superheroes to defend the planet. When alien tyrant Steppenwolf arrives on Earth seeking a long forgotten technology, this group of heroes must do everything in their power to keep him from locating all three Mother Boxes and destroying the world.

Content warnings: Violence, Death, Body Horror, Gore

This review DOES NOT contain spoilers for Zack Snyder's Justice League

A bit of background for those of you thinking “Didn’t Justice League come out years ago?” You are exactly right! Justice League was released in theaters in 2017 and is the fifth movie in the DCEU (DC Extended Universe). The same company that produced Justice League then funded Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) which is a different version of the story that was released in 2017. Zack Snyder was actually the original director of Justice League (2017), but he stepped away from the project during post production and the film was handed over to director Joss Whedon. Whedon’s creative decisions led to rewrites, heavy editing and a notorious reshoot that required removal of Henry Cavill’s mustache via CGI. Therefore, Justice League as it premiered in theaters in 2017 was Joss Whedon’s vision of the story. As some of you might remember, Justice League (2017) was considered a “flop” as it lost the studio ~$60 million overall and was received by fans with mixed to negative reviews (6.2/10 IMDB, 40% Rotten Tomatoes). But since Zack Snyder had left so late in the project, there were rumors that his version of the film had been nearly finished and there was hope that the movie Snyder filmed was actually better than what Whedon had created. Fans took to social media to demand that Warner Bros release the “Snyder Cut'' of Justice League and in a move I personally find baffling, Warner Bros actually gave Zack Snyder another $70 million to finish his version. Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) which was released on HBO Max is the final product.

While understanding the context of how this movie came about is neat and honestly pretty hilarious, I never got around to see Justice League (2017) so I cannot give any commentary on whether this new film is any better. For those who are curious, my fiancée who has seen both says that the movies are extremely similar in plot, but there are significant changes to characterization and pacing. This review will solely be on the merits and shortfalls of Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) in a spoiler free context since the movie was released just over a week ago (if you want to talk spoilers DM me I have So Many Thoughts).

Honestly, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this movie. My expectations were quite low considering what I heard about the original 2017 version and the fact that I’m more of a Marvel fan. The most surprising thing for me was that I sat through the entire 4 hr and 2 min runtime (for reference the runtime for Justice League (2017) is 2 hrs). Aside from Lord of the Rings (Return of the King runtime 4 hr 11min), I usually don’t indulge in movies that require me to block off an entire day, but I was curious and I love bandwagons.

The highlight of this movie are the characters. Each of our main characters had a deep, solid backstory that drew me in and made me invested in what was happening in this world. One thing lacking in a lot of ensemble superhero movies is balanced screen time between the main cast, but Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) uses its time wisely to give each character depth and critical purpose in the narrative. Even the villain had compelling motivation as to why he is on earth doing dastardly deeds, and while I wasn’t rooting for him, I respected his motivations. I also appreciated that the writers of this movie made the characters intelligent. Sure, some decisions were driven more by emotion than logic, but the way defenses are set up and how our heroes use their unique powers left me incredibly impressed.

The characters’ interactions with each other was also very enjoyable. Snyder took the time to include scenes centered around the team chilling with each other in ways that were refreshingly low stakes and mundane. The story was interspersed with scenes like Wonder Woman and Alfred making tea, Aquaman and Wonder Woman musing over cultural differences, and Cyborg and Flash digging up a body where you could really see the characters grow from strangers to teammates to friends. These scenes also peppered in some light humor that kept the movie from becoming too dark without distracting from the tone.

Since Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) is technically an action movie and it is rated R, I feel like I should touch on the action sequences. Overall, the action was incredibly fun to watch! It was made for the big screen so watching the epic battles for the first time on my TV at home was a bit underwhelming, but the well choreographed, high stakes fights were still visually pleasing. For a rated R movie there was not as much gore as there could have been, which I appreciated and the level of violence was pretty much what I expected from a comic book movie.

The action scenes also do a fantastic job with power escalation. By that I mean the action illustrates the limits of one character’s power clearly in relation to other characters’ powers. This way you are aware of exactly how impressive the characters and their powers are on their own and so when someone or something stronger shows up we have context for how big of a threat we are dealing with. The clean way the story shows us everyone’s respective powers and their limits makes it so the stakes feel more tangible and it's not just unfathomably strong characters beating the shit out of each other with the winner decided by chance.

There are a few reasons the movie didn’t get a full five waves from me. First was that the Amazon’s outfits were very clearly made by horny men based on how much skin they were showing. I, a bisexual, personally love to see superheroes in less then full coverage, but when the Amazon warriors have their entire stomachs and cleavage out of their armor for no reason it exhausts me. What happened to the tasteful and stylish armor from Wonder Woman (2017)? This feels like a step in the wrong direction.

The next concern I have that has kept me from recommending this movie to people is the overall pacing and length. While there were some great uses of the extended run time like the action sequences and team bonding I mention above, there were so many scenes that were way too slow for me to stay engaged. I found myself editing the movie in my head, like did we really need 2 full minutes of Bruce Wayne and his horse climbing a dreary mountain? I don’t think so. This was a narrative where I needed to pay attention lest I miss critical pieces of the story, but the random scenes that dragged on too long had me going to get snacks and checking my phone throughout. If I could rate the movie by halves the first half would get 2.5 Waves because of how it dragged and the second half would get closer to 4.5 Waves since the story really picks up and fun things start to happen.

The final part of this movie that kept it from getting a higher rating was how closely it was tied to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In fact, the first scene of Zack Snyder's Justice League is the final scene of Batman v Superman. There were many plot critical tie-ins to previous movies that left me feeling confused until I googled my questions during the slow scenes. If you have never seen Batman v Superman or Man of Steel then you will miss a lot of this movie, which I thought was unfair because other DCEU movies came out before the first iteration of Justice League like Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad and while events in those movies are mentioned in passing they are not nearly as important as the Batman and Superman-centric films. If the DCEU is going to pick favorites, the least it can do is pick movies I actually like (Wonder Woman (2017) remains my favorite DCEU movie to date). In general, superhero movies seem to be trending toward sagas and I prefer movies that you can just watch and enjoy without needing to see a bunch of other movies first.

Overall, I did very much enjoy this movie, but based on the run time alone it is not going to be for everyone. Measuring movie success during the pandemic is trickier than looking at box office numbers and labeling it a success or a flop, but it does appear that Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) is doing well as far as critical reception and viewership. I hope that this success will allow the DCEU to explore all of the fun nooks and crannies of the universe Snyder pulled together. In fact, half of the epilogue of this movie felt like set up for future movies. I hope they come to fruition because there were some pretty compelling teasers at the end that I would love to see played out on the big screen.

As I mentioned before, I’ve never seen the original cut of Justice League, but Snyder’s version left me fulfilled and satisfied with the narrative, so I am happy to have seen this newest cut first. This is a movie for people who love DC, love superhero movies or are just really invested in the hype.

~TideMod

Wierdly Human

Alternate title was "Jon the Archivist is Kinda Hot"

Little in between snippets from the assistants and their impressions of Jonathan Sims.

I declare this a fluff and humor only zone! Episode 160 can kiss my butt.

You can also find this on AO3 under the same title.

I got the inspiration for this from a tumblr post about Jon being a clean boy despite crawling through hell and back but I think the writer deleted it because I spent forever looking for it and couldn't find it :n: Also 2 Drink Jon is a reference to 2 other fics I've read so his wild ass is not mine.

Supplemental Headcanons at the end.

--

Pre-Show

There was somebody new at the Institute. 

He was short and dark with black hair neatly trimmed and styled. A pair of browline glasses perched in front of wide brown eyes that seemed to absorb everything around him.

“Hey, uh, Tim,” Martin whispered as he leaned over to where his coworker was digging through a drawer, “Who’s that?”

“Hm?” Tim’s eyes widened as he looked up, “Oh shit, he’s cute.”

“Not helpful, Tim.”

“Um, I think he might be Daniel’s replacement. I think his name is Joe or something,” Tim swallowed, “I wonder what modeling agency Bouchard raided for him.”

Martin elbowed him in the ribs hard, his face going as red as his hair, “Shut up!”

“But look at him, Martin! He has to have a skincare routine an hour long and don’t tell me you didn’t notice that those trousers are bloody tailored. I see you looking at his arse!”

“SHUT UP!”

”What are you two fighting about now?”

Both researchers jumped away from each other as Sasha popped up behind them.

“Hot new guy,” Tim said, earning another jab and a hiss.

Sasha looked at Martin and grinned, “Short, scrawny, Persian, and angry?”

“He’s Persian?” Martin stuttered before slapping a hand over his mouth.

“Yeah, I got to talk to him during his follow up interview. Smart guy but kind of grumpy and super awkward. We got talking about foriegn food and he offered to give me his grandma’s recipe for chelow kababs,” Sasha said.

“What’s his name.” Tim asked, looking back at where the new guy was glaring at a row of filing cabinets with several drawers ajar.

“Jonathan Sims.”

--

Pre Episode 44

Basira watched as Sims limped away with the tape clutched to his chest like a lifeline before sighing and heading out to the car where Daisy was waiting.

“Well?” Daisy asked, “How’s our favorite murderer?”

Basira swatted her feet off the dash, “He looks like he hasn’t slept in 3 weeks and recently got hit by a car.”

“I wasn’t asking about his nasty, worm-eaten face, Basira,” Daisy said, “Does he know we’re watching him?”

“I don’t think so -put your seatbelt on- it seems like he’s more invested in what’s on those tapes for now. I get the feeling he’s more worried about watching the people he works with than us.”

“What a sad little librarian. I’m looking forward to how he managed to kill Robinsen without getting his ass whipped.”

“She was old.”

“Yeah, but Sims looks like he’d get knocked out by a light breeze even before he got munched on by some nasty fucking bugs. Did you see the surveillance from Robinsen’s initial investigation? I went back through to track Sims and watched him struggle move a box that was in front of a filing cabinet for a solid twenty minutes; the big ginger guy had to move it for him.”

“That’s-” Basira snorted, “That’s pathetic.”

Daisy grinned, “He has to be one manipulative bastard to get anything done.”

“Is that your theory?”

“I mean look at you.”

“What about me?”

“He gives you the puppy eyes once and now you’re smuggling him tapes from the evidence locker? I have never known the great Basira Hussain to ever cave to a suspect’s wishes in my life- and don’t say it’s to keep a closer eye on him. We have less illegal tactics for that.”

Basira opened her mouth to argue but found that Daisy had a point. She really only gave into suspects if the circumstances were dire. This was technically classed as a low priority case.

What was going on here? 

--

Post Episode 76

Melanie flopped dramatically onto Georgie's couch and let out a long winded sigh.

"Oh?" Georgie asked from the kitchen door.

Melanie sat up slightly to let her sit down before plopping her head down on Georgie's thigh, "I had to go talk to Sims at the Institute again."

"How's Jon?"

"A fucking bastard is what he is."

"Well I knew that," Georgie laughed, gently beginning to brush through Melanie's hair with her fingers.

"I don't know, he's was wierdly defensive and I think he was trying to gaslight me about one of his new assistants."

Georgie paused her brushing, "I haven't seen Jon in a while but that seems… out of character for him. He's a grump, sure, but I've never known him to be a bully -on purpose that is."

"Yeah, well…"

The pair lapsed into a tense silence.

"Would it make you feel better if I show you a picture of Jon in university that he is very embarrassed about," Georgie ventured after a few minutes, "He's still mad I have it.~"

Melanie twisted her head back and grinned, instantly breaking the tension and sitting up to look at the phone screen presented to her.

On it was a picture of Jon passed out, mouth wide open and drooling, on the ugliest couch she'd ever seen.

"He still owns that couch by the way," Georgie said. Melanie waved a hand in her face to silence her as she took in the details.

Jon was in a pink crop top that Melanie was sure she'd seen in Georgie's closet, union jack boxers, gladiator sandals, and The Admiral was planted square on his chest, though he was about half the size of the fluffball that roamed the flat now. Surrounding them where piles of papers and books on the paranormal.

Melanie began to cackle.

"Our friend group used to call him '2 Drink Jon' and this was after he'd done four shots in the kitchen and decided to lecture us on how ghosts are bullshit and he could beat one in a fist fight," Georgie elaborated, "I'm still not sure when he ended up in that outfit but honestly, if we had recorded his rant he probably could have used it for his Masters thesis."

Melanie wheezed into her shoulder as tears began to stream down her face.

"2 Drink Jon was actually a lot more charismatic than sober Jon. This one time he almost had us convinced that he could talk to plants after two gin and tonics, granted we were also drunk but-,"

"Stop, please," Melanie wheezed, "I'm dying."

"Gosh, one of these days I'll have to tell you about tequila and the alien conspiracy. Randall could almost recite the whole speech from memory."

Melanie fell off the couch.

--

Post Episode 109

Julia and Trevor exchanged a look as the Archivist powered through the spiciest Thai food they could find without even breaking a sweat. 

It was supposed to be a joke, spiking Jon's food, the cashier had even given them a panicked look at the restaurant and Trevor's eyes had been watering the whole way back to the safe house. They'd even waited by the door in case Jon tried to make a break for the case of water bottles in the car but he just unwrapped the plastic fork and dug in without even asking for a drink.

Julia picked at her own food but couldn't quite manage to eat it and glanced back at Jon, "Are you sure you don't need a water or anything?"

Jon looked up for a moment, his eyes were more alive than they had been all day and practically sparkled in the shitty fluorescent light. He shook his head and instead reached for another packet of chili sauce to add to his food.

"What the hell is he," Trevor whispered to Julia in horror.

"I don't know but he's definitely not normal."

--

During Episode 132

Daisy had misjudged Jon. She'd grossly misjudged him.

She flexed her fingers around his, ignoring the way the sand dug into her skin, and gently pulled him closer. The man she'd called prey gave her a soft smile and compiled, pressing against her side like she'd never held a knife to his throat, like she hadn't just admitted to planning his murder before she was trapped here.

Daisy turned her head awkwardly and dug her face into his shoulder savoring the human contact, her tears soaking into his shirt.

The Hunt in her blood tried to sing, tried to fight the Buried, "Safe, Mine, Pack, Protect", it echoed faintly.

Jon said something and began to move, pulling Daisy forward along with him.

"Safe, Mine, Pack, Protect"

Hours past as they shimmied through the coffin, the pain of being scraped and crushed was overpowered by the sheer ecstasy of moving more than an inch every few days.

"Safe, Mine, Pack, Protect"

There was a door, Jon tucked himself under her arm and pulled her up the stairs to the blinding lights of the institute. She ducked her head down to his shoulder again and grimaced as her joints popped and groaned.

"Jon, you stupid idiot! What did you think-"

Daisy looked up to the person she thought she’d never see again and smiled.

"Hi."

--

Post Episode 132

Martin had horrible timing really. He just needed to pee, was that really too much to ask?

Of course it was. The universe hated him.

So instead of slipping into the private bathroom upstairs which was magically broken, he had to go down a level and walk in on Jon shaking dirt out of his clothes.

Martin was going to die here but at least he'd die happy.

Jon didn't even seem to register that someone else had joined him (thank the Lonely) so Martin took a second to sneak a guilty look before darting back out and hiding for 40 years.

Jon was painfully thin. Martin got the idea that he could count every vertebrae and rib if he was allowed and even at a glance he could spot the sunken area where at least one rib was now missing.

Worm scars and burns were peppered up his back along with a few moles and freckles. Little red marks circled his chest in a way that Martin immediately recognized as being from the black fabric crumpled at Jon's feet.

And to top it all off, much to Martin's delight, were a set of three black gears tattooed down Jon's right shoulder blade. Sasha had mentioned once that she had gone out for drinks with Jon when he first started and they'd managed to get on the topic of tattoos. Tim had spent months trying to get Jon to show it to him before 'giving up'.

Martin stepped out and stood in the hall for a moment, red faced and giddy, before stumbling off in search of another bathroom.

--

Somewhere between Episode 132-154

"Hey, guys?" Melanie called.

Daisy and Basira glanced up to see Melanie holding a giant plate of the best smelling food they'd seen in weeks. Steam wafted up into her very confused face.

"Did either of you make this? I went to ask Martin and I can't find him."

"I didn't make it," Basira said, "Daisy?"

"I once made spaghetti and lit it on fire.

Basira grimaced and walked up to Melanie, "Kebabs, Tahdig rice, flat bread, and jam cookies. Those are Iranian dishes, or Middle Eastern at least.”

Daisy looked at Basira, "How do you know that?"

"Took a foreign cuisine course focused on middle eastern food a few years ago," Basira said as she made her way to the kitchen area with the group in tow.

Sitting on the table were three more huge plates of food and two empty plates sitting in the sink. Martin was standing next to the table with pure confusion on his face.

"Did you make this?"

Martin jumped and looked at the group, "Uh, no? I really only do pastas… this is a little outside my skill set. I think-"

"It could be a trap," Daisy interrupted, "Maybe it's laced with something?"

"No, I'm pretty sure-"

"Could be, but who would go to this effort, the Web?" Basira said.

"Guys, it was probably-"

"It was the Archivist!" Helen exclaimed from behind them, somehow having opened her door without making a sound and scaring the shit out of them, "He is an excellent cook."

"Bullshit," Melanie wheezed, setting her plate down before she dropped it.

"No, she right," Martin sighed, "Jon actually cooked something similar a few years ago for a company thing. He gave this whole speech about how grandparents immigrated here from Iran, well Persia at the time, and his grandma made him learn to cook what she called 'real food'."

"You mean to tell me that Jonathan Sims, the skinniest guy I have ever met, can cook like this," Basira said in disbelief before cautiously sitting down at the table with the rest following suit.

"He called it his grandmother's curse," Helen provided cheerfully, "He said that no matter what he does,  he always makes far more than he needs and never has people around to give it to. So he just never cooks."

"You talked to him?" Melanie asked. Daisy began to pick at a plate and made a sound of confusion and delight at the taste.

"Oh yes, he even let me help by getting things off high shelves!"

"This is amazing," Daisy said in disbelief before grabbing a fork and beginning to eat in earnest.

"It is! Jon and I had a lovely chat and I'm not much for 'real' food these days but he really convinced me!" Helen declared, spinning back around to re enter her door, "And I must say it was delightful."

"Huh," Basira shrugged and began to eat.

Not bad.

--

Post Episode 159

For the second time since he woke up, Martin pinched himself. He had to be dreaming, the smaller body smooshed up against his chest and the boney limbs clinging to him had to be a figment of his imagination.

Jon huffed in his sleep and burrowed deeper into Martin before settling again. A few stray rays of the morning sun slipped through the blinds highlighting Jon’s gray hairs and the raised edges of scars that trailed along his skin.

Gently, Martin carded his hand through the wild mess of hair, marveling at how soft it was despite everything. Jon sighed, leaning into the touch without stirring.

He could stay like this forever, with Jon safe in his arms and the dangers of the world outside, away from his happiness.

"Wha' time?" Jon mumbled, stretching before re-draping himself over Martin. He looked up and the light caught his eyes in a way that Martin could see all the blue heterochromatic spots in Jon's left eye through dark, heavy lashes. 

"Doesn't matter," Martin whispered as he pulled him closer, "We have all the time in the world."

--

Supplemental Headcanons: - Jon is a 3rd gen Persian/Iranian immigrant. His grandparents on his dad's side moved to England post WWII. (Persia became Iran in 1979) They took the last name Sims during immigration. - His mother was full blooded English. - He can out cook 87% of the local grandma's when he really gets into it - He built an unnaturally high tolerance to salt and spice as a kid to keep people from taking his lunch or trying to mess with his food and now thoroughly enjoys spicy foods. - Jon does care a lot but his grandma never taught him to show it in any other way but tolerance and mute acceptance. It's hard to know where you stand with Jon because of this. - Was a runner while in school. - Was forced to take violin lessons as a kid and Georgie taught him some piano in University. - Jon is and always has been feral little man though he is more bark than bite (unless he's under the influence of something). He learned it from his grandma. - He's one of those drunks that often wanders/ runs away from his drinking group. He has strong drunk college girl tendencies. - He changed his middle name to Ulysses when he got his first name legally changed because he’s a nerd. - Jon has had the same pen pal since he was 10. They are one of the few points of normalcy he has left. - Jon and Daisy are trans mlm and wlw solidarity. Fight me.

Fun Fact: Sims means "the Listener" which seems almost too on the nose.

Full Women's Figure Skating ShortProgram | PyeongChang 2018 | Throwback Thursday - A Sports Review

Court Dimensions:

Olympic-sized rinks have dimensions of 30 m × 60 m (98.4 ft × 197 ft), NHL-sized rinks are 26 m × 61 m (85 ft × 200 ft), while European rinks are sometimes 30 m × 64 m (98 ft × 210 ft). The ISU prefers Olympic-sized rinks for figure skating competitions, particularly for major events.

Equipment:

Tennel (USA) – she had a red ice-skating dress and wore white skates.

Williams (Brazil) – she had a purple ice skating dress and had the same white skates.

Khnychenkova (UKR) – she had a black and gold ice skating dress and had brown skates.

Nikitina (LAT) – she had a black ice skating dress with shiny stuff and had white skates

Hanul (KOR) – she had a pink ice skating dress and had brown skates.

Oestlund (SWE) – she had a white and brown ice skating dress and white skates.

Xiangning (CHN) – she had a pastel blue ice skating dress and white skates.

Paganini (SUI) – she also had a pastel blue ice skating dress and had white skates.

Mambekova (KAZ) – she had a dark blue ice skating dress and white skates.

Peltonen (FIN) – she had a gold ice skating dress and white skates.

Austman (CAN) – she had a black ice skating dress and white skates.

Meite (FRA) – black and gold ice skating dress and white skates.

Craine (AUS) – pink ice skating dress and white skates.

Toth (HUN) – black ice skating dress and white skates.

Russo (ITA) – also had a dark blue ice skating dress and white skates.

Hendrickx (BEL) – blue ice skating dress and white skates.

Schott (GER) – had a light blue ice skating outfit and white skates.

Rajicova (SVK) – fuchsia ice skating outfit and white skates.

Sakamoto (JPN) – had a fading blue ice skating outfit and white skates.

Nagasu (USA) – red ice skating outfit and white skates.

Daleman (CAN) – black and red ice skating outfit and white skates.

Chen (USA) – white ice skating outwit with white skates.

Tursynbaeva (KAZ) – red ice skating outfit and white skates.

Dabin (KOR) – green ice skating outfit and white skates.

Medvedeva (OAR) – pastel blue fading ice skating outfit and white skates.

Miyahara (JPN) – pink ice skating outfit and white skates.

Osmond (CAN) – dark blue ice skating outfit and white skates.

Zagitova (OAR) – she wore a beautiful outfit that had pastel purple and black which represented a black swan and had white skates.

Kostner (ITA) – red ice skating outfit and white skates.

Sotskova (OAR) – pastel pink ice skating outfit and white skates.

Basic Skills:

In figure skating, there are some basic skills that you need to learn in order to go farther down the road with this challenging sport. Hops is one of those skills, the bunny hop is one of the first jumps learned by beginning figure skating . It is a non rotational jump performed while skating forward in a straight line. Another skill is stroking, the term stroke refers to a push of the blade so stroking basically just means skating. During stroking lessons, skaters work on blade pushes, posture, speed, technique, and knee bend. Occasionally, skaters will do field moves during stroking as well. The next skill is blade control, now what this is that skaters first need to know blade control in order to move swiftly and gracefully on ice. Lastly is spins, spins are categorized by the body position of the skater and range from easy to difficult. Sometimes they even include jumps and lifts. A spin can be classified as either forward or backward. After skimming throughout the entire video, I have found several skaters that stood out with these basic skills. Daleman had really good hops and that I could really say he excels in that skill. Mambekova really stood out with her stroking and she was really careful with it. Miyahara had really good blade control and that it didn’t really look like she had a hard time. Nagasu had really amazing spins and it looked creative. Out of all the skaters in the list, in my personal opinion I really found that Alina Zagitova had the best performance and she exceeds in all of the basic skills.

Technical and Tactical skills:

Presentation – All of the figure skaters did a wonderful job at performing the presentations that they have prepared for but the person who stood out the most from the 30 performers was Alina Zagitova since every move, spin, and positions that she did had no boring side, everything that she did was graceful and I can say that she stole the entire competition.

Technical elements – The face of all the figure skaters in the arena can clearly be told that they had prepared for this competition for a long time but the ones who were the best were in the top 5 considering everything that they done has captured the eyes and minds of the judges.

Rules of the game:

· The rules depend on the type of figure skating: women’s singles, men’s singles, pair skating, as well as pair ice dance.

· Men and women must skate two programs – a short program and a free skate program – during the single skating season. Figure skaters are obliged to perform in any order eight mandatory elements (dual or triple axle, three or quadruple hop, one combination of hops, various kinds of spins and two-step sequences) for a short program lasted up to two minutes 40-50 seconds. One factor should be excluded and fined.

· It takes about 4.5 minutes for men and 4 minutes for women to skate free about twice the length of a short program. Skiing figures aim to include the most dynamic elements (for which one can get more points).

· The rules of the pair are quite similar to the rules of the single one, only in the necessary elements. Thus, lifts (the partner lifts the partner), throw jumps (while the partner lifts the partner) and synchronize jumps and spins are required for the couple.

· The dancers' program is very different. They have to dance obligatorily, openly and initially. The obligatory dance is the same dance as all figure skators with a number of necessary elements. This will be accompanied by an original dance in which all participants will receive a special theme for variety. Well, the dancers will show all their creativity, talent and dance abilities. The skaters themselves choose music and costumes and gestures here, so the amount of scores is the biggest – 50 percent.

· Synchronized skating is also available, with sixteen to twenty skaters competing for one team. The goal of the discipline is to achieve the entire team. The technical, gliding and synchronized skating elements are entirely equivalent to classical skating. Synchronized skating has unique features of its own, such as circles, lines, rollers, crossings and blocks.

· Figure skating jumps are split into two groups: edge jumps and toe jumps, according to the segment of the skate. Skaters are now making 6 styles of jumps, including: the toe loop, the Salchow, the loop, the flip, the Lutz and the axel.

How to officiate the game:

To officiate the game, you have to hire the following: accountants, announcers, ice technicians, judges, music technicians, referees, and technical panel officials.

Accountants - Weeks, often months, before the competition begins the position of the accountant. The accountants are responsible for the drafting of the paperwork in cooperation with the Local Organizing Committee and the Chief Referee.

Announcers – announcers must announce rivals before participating in a competition. Announcers may also be asked to provide ratings, official names and additional information on the general competition if appropriate.

Ice Technicians - Ice technicians are used to ensure protection and consistency of the ice surface at some qualification and international competitions. The ice technician is used mainly in large competitions as a conduit for the referee and staff of the event and ensures that every event is operating securely and smoothly.

Judges - Judges are perhaps the most popular category of official figure skating. Although the score cards last several days, Figure Skating relies still on judges to determine competitions and interpret rules and regulations. Judges operate in all four skating disciplines, and Figure Skating provides every competitive opportunity.

Music Technicians - For set-up, demolition, and operation of the equipment used to play music in contests, music officials are responsible. The job requirements include basic audio equipment expertise, basic knowledge of the competition in figure skating and its protocols, computer fundamental operational skills and team skills.

Referees - Referees are the designated leaders and spokespeople for an event. They also manage the panel of judges and, depending on the size of the competition, may serve as one of the event's judges as well. Before becoming a referee, one must be certified as a judge.

Technical Panel Officials - Technical panel officials are required for any events using the International Judging System (IJS). There are four different types of technical panel officials certified.

Femme: 40

[MASTERLIST]

Pairing: BTS - OT7 x Reader, GDragon x Bigbang

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Pregnancy, Alcohol Consumption (drink responsibly), mentions making love, cumplay (not really), birth, tasting breast milk, emotions and more that I cant think of.

Length: 5.8k words

Announcement: This is dedicated to the Sherlock holmes anon who guessed the dad debate correct. It was Yoongi. Autocorrects may occur and other errors just let me know if there is anything majorly wrong.

Recap: Back from America. You and the boys have to deal with sickness as the last of winter turns to spring. You are finally able to go back to work, however, you find out you are pregnant. The doctor is running the DNA test who is the father.

The boys joined you one by one, each taking boxes and sorting through them, you helped to carry a rubbish bag for anything they were finally ready to part with. You organised so much stuff, and could finally see the crisp cream walls and grey marble tiles. 

“We finally can have a computer room for our games?” Taehyung wiggles excitedly bumping fists with Jungkook who was wearing a pair of rabbit ears.  “Or a new dance studio” Jimin grinned at Hoseok who made a cheerful noise while he was buried under a pile of little bags. 

“Actually I was wondering if perhaps I could have this room” You spoke quietly folding an old shirt of Jin’s.  “What why?” Namjoon was quite alarmed, “did we do something wrong?”

“No it is not that, I just want to make something special in this room. A surprise” they nodded some did so reluctantly. You got the key to the room. And ushered them out so you could start planning. 

Over the next few weeks, Jiyong and Moon Inshik helped paint and they snuck in furniture while the boys were out. Jiyong was designing the whole thing. Describing your dream nursery with sketches and the colour scheme was white, grey and peach. Later moving on to clothing and designs preferring no pictures or words on the clothes. The baby clothes colour scheme was peach and yellow. 

“You think the baby will be a girl?”  “I think the baby would look cute in pink and yellow” “Have you heard back from the doctor about the DNA test?”

“Uh yeah yesterday I received the letter, I just wanted to make it special, I don’t know whether to tell him first or if it should be a group thing?” “Whatever feels right” he leaned down to your belly, his hands were cold and fingers thin, his daughter followed his actions touching your stomach as well and whispered to your baby giggling. “Uncle Jiyong is going to spoil you rotten” 

“I don’t think you could if you tried”

Yoongi was in his studio returning home in a formal suit, he had met with a client and it seemed the meeting had gone really well; by the way, he didn’t shuffle and drop his bag but was actually humming. Knocking politely before opening the door he grinned “y/n? come in kitten” 

The studio was brightly lit, which seemed odd, and his lips were pulled up in a smile. He looked content just satisfied with his day. You walked over slowly, he looked too happy, you were now having second thoughts. Maybe you shouldn’t tell them who the father is and just say we are pregnant to all the boys. “How was your day?”

“Really good, those boys are hectic, but they liked the song and I got a good percentage of its profits. And there will be more if I help them with the rest of their album. They actually invited us all to dinner tonight so, would you like to come”

He was so chatty and bubbly you hoped this didn’t ruin it, he kept trying to pull you forward and you were subtly avoiding him. Touching things on his desk and cleaning up a few papers. His sweater paws laid on the arms of his desk chair no longer grabbing for you.

“Why are you avoiding me, did I do something wrong?” His smile faded and you wanted to hit yourself for being the reason.  “No, you are perfect Yoongi,” Not looking at him, the guilt of ruining his happiness set in.  “Did you do something wrong, did you break something?”

“Yoongi, I have something to tell you and it’s important” he licked his pretty pink lips in anticipation. Standing with a sigh he ran his hand down his face, loosening his tie and removing his jacket. The sight stirring you, you liked watching Yoongi undress. He walked you to the couch, where he held your hand and waited patiently. 

“Tell me” his voice was low and serious offering you a moment.  “It’s good news well I think so, but I am worried how you will feel”

Searching your face for the answer, your hands were shaking as you pulled the opened letter from your pocket and you handed it to him. 

Opening the paper he began reading, he was quiet for a long time frowning “what does it mean? the DNA results confirm with ninety-nine point eight percent accuracy that Min Yoongi is determined as the biological father”

He looked up to see you crying. “I’m not your great great great granddad or something am I, we aren’t even from the same country”  “No idiot” Laughing through misty eyes you pulled out the ultrasound photo and sniffled “This is our baby, Yoongi. You're going to be a dad”

Lunging into your arms he pulled back alarmed touching your belly to make sure he hadn’t hurt the precious bean inside. He wasted no time kissing your lips, face and neck. Laughing even though he was crying, he held you to his chest. “My kitten we are having a baby”

The afternoon was spent cuddling in his bedroom. He rubbed your tummy humming quietly, it was a soft tune that you had never heard before and he looked so content. Stirring only occasionally to ask you questions, “How long has it been?”

“Well I found out when I was about nine weeks, and I technically didn’t want anyone to know until after sixteen weeks, but currently I am twelve weeks which is three months. I’m not showing just yet, but, will you still love me when I get fat?” “I want to see you big with my baby inside of you” he grinned leisurely tracing his fingers around your belly button. 

Deciding to show Yoongi the nursery, the two of you agreed to keep it a secret until sixteen weeks. Just in case anything went wrong. Yoongi stepped inside and you showed him the crib, little toys, blankets and a few outfits. “There’s a little rocking chair for when I am nursing the baby, everything is themed peach and yellow because I don’t want my baby limited to ‘girl colours’ or ‘boy colours’. I just want them to be clean, happy, healthy and look cute like their dad”

“It’s beautiful” he smiled sitting in the white rocking chair and humming the tune again.  “What are you humming?” “Ah, nothing just something my mum used to sing to me” he rubbed his neck sheepishly pulling you onto his lap rocking you both as he hummed. 

You were so peaceful you didn’t hear someone come home. Not even when they stepped into the room. “Wah these boots are so little and cute,” Namjoon was holding the tiny boots up to his face, eyes wide marvelling at how they sat on the palm of his hand. 

“Ah, Namjoon!”  “Are we having a baby?” He asked glassy eyes meeting yours. You could only nod before he pulled you into a hug  “Is Yoongi the father?” “We are all the fathers, I can’t do it on my own, I have no idea how to raise a child, but biologically yes” 

“Congratulations, we should celebrate wait till the boys find out,” grabbing Namjoon’s arm before he ran off. “Joonie no, we have to wait until sixteen weeks, because before that it seems too early what if something happens and the maknaes get sad because of it,” he nodded getting serious. 

“Okay I won’t tell anyone” he raised his hand to his heart to swear it to you. The three of you left the room locking it up so no one would enter. You got ready for dinner dressing up nicely and stepping into Yoongi’s bedroom. 

“Hoseok just came home, did you tell them about dinner tonight?” “Mm, I texted them earlier today” he rolled out of bed his hair dishevelled and his crescent moon eyes bright. 

Arriving at the restaurant you saw a large group of young men, each well dressed, handsome, tall and very lean.  “hello you must be Suga’s family” “Suga?”  “Yeah that’s his producer name” Taehyung whispered before playfully nipping at the shell of your ear. 

“Hello my name is Taeyong, I am the leader of NCT” he shook your hand bowing. Everyone sat down ordering food from the elaborate and expensive menu, “how about some champagne, to celebrate”

“Excuse me, Can we get a bottle of Champagne and what would you kids like?” Jaehyun grinned slapping the boys on the back.  “Hyung?” They pouted, not happy with being called kids.

“Can we get a pitcher of cherry coke and another of sprite please?” You asked the waiter and he nodded, the boys looked at you curiously. “I feel like some soda” 

You had fun playing games with Chenle and Jisung. Proud that you only had to go to the bathroom twice throughout the whole meal. Namjoon and Yoongi were getting really drunk as Namjoon kept slurring Congratulations to Yoongi and toasting to him. Taehyung the only other sober adult at the table helped you call rides for everyone to head home.

Carrying Namjoon inside your apartment building while he was singing at the top of his lungs Taehyung had started to sweat. “Moonchild you shine, When you rise, it's your time, C'mon yo” he tried to get the others to sing each wobbling comically in the elevator. Someone stepped onto the elevator and he grinned at the stumbling detective, recognition on his face.

“Namjoon?” “Moooooonchild dooooon't cry, When moooooon rise, it's your time, C'mon yo” Namjoon was trying to convince this man who seemed to know his name into singing his strange song with him.

“Namjoon how have you been?” “Soup-” he snickered into his hand “sooper dooper good” “I haven’t seen you since school, hey I just moved into this building so I guess I can see you around” He laughed patting him on the back making him fall forward. 

“Sorry about him they were celebrating tonight, I am Y/N” “Jackson Wang, you’re the girl who does the femme guide videos that BamBam has been watching. How did I not recognize Namjoon in the videos?”

“Do you have a femme?” “No, but we will very soon and are kind of scared about what to do?” “If you have any questions feel free to ask” you gave him your number and herded the boys out the elevator and towards your apartment.

Once inside you sent the boys who were more cognitive to shower and go to bed. While you and Taehyung were practically carrying Namjoon and Yoongi to their rooms. Yoongi was kissing your belly giggling a wide gummy grin. “I am your dad, and I love you and…” Wondering if he had fallen asleep you heard a sniffle 

“... I will try not to fuck up, okay so just go easy on me, I don’t really know what I am supposed to do, I will be there when you get sad and I will try to not get mad at you when you break my things, which you will cause you’re a child. I love you and your mum loves you and when the boys find out they will love you, I know this cause I am a dad, your dad”

There were steps thumping back down the hallway and Taehyung covered in tears ran at you stopping to delicately hug you. “we’re having a baby.” He was square mouth crying his body shaking with the small sobs “Namjoon said Yoongi is the father?”

“Don’t cry, it’s okay, I am a dad, you can hug me,” Yoongi said so sure of himself, puffing his chest out, standing to hug collapse against Taehyung “You want to say hi to the baby, you can’t see them ‘cause they are in there Tae, I put the baby in here, cause I am a dad”

Namjoon stumbled in holding the little baby shoes he had stolen from the nursery. “Yoongi, I got you a present for you, look they are so little” Namjoon and Yoongi curled up on the bed together holding a shoe each. Only after they argued on who got the left one, Namjoon said it was the most important as the left always goes missing. “I should have the left one because I am a dad”

Taehyung ignored the two drunkards and lifted your shirt bending down to place a kiss on your tummy. Whispering quietly and rubbing soothing circles on your hips. He lured you to his room and stripped and laid you on his bed so he could take photos. 

“Hello my friend I expect it would be warm inside someone’s belly, I don’t know where you are hiding because I can’t see you yet, but I know your in there” he looked up at you, “can they hear me?”

With no time to answer Taehyung opened your legs and practically shouted into your vagina, you lost it laughing so hard and he pouted.  “It’s really sweet but don’t scream at my business” he grinned and wiggling his eyebrows 

“Would you rather I do something else” you nodded at his offer. Slowly and hesitantly he buried himself between your legs, rolling his body against yours in slow thrusts trying not to hurt you. 

For the first time, he wasn’t chasing his high with you, he was holding your hands and telling you how much he loved you. You felt so special his slow moans were in a thick baritone. The two of you cuddled all night listening to classical music.

You had such a peaceful rest, Taehyung had exhausted you into a deep sleep. When you woke you felt sick rushing to the nearest bathroom. Vomiting in the toilet, your throat burnt with the acid from your stomach. No matter how bad the morning sickness got, you were thankful that it always faded quickly.

Washing your mouth out and heading to the kitchen, you saw Jimin was making some toast. He was dressed in a pastel blue button-up and tan trousers, looking angelic. He pushed the plate of toast across the bench towards you and proceeded to make another two pieces for himself.

He looked tired from last night and you giggled, his thick lips pursed staring out the window. “My prince you look-“

“Princess, I think you might be pregnant” he blurted out “I don’t know much about females but I started researching after the incident in the bathroom and well... you have been throwing up every morning and you have been to the bathroom a lot and you didn’t drink last night and just so many things”

Shock.

Jimin crossed the bench and hugged you, burying his nose in your hair where he gently inhaled your scented conditioner. “it’s okay love we are all here for you, have you been to the doctor, we can book you in for a check-up-”

“Jimin, I have already been, you can’t tell anyone okay?” “Tell anyone what?” Seokjin walked in heading to the fridge, he opened the doors and was shuffling around the fruit and vegetable crisper, his broad shoulder facing you. Throwing an egg at the kitchen window, it hit with a loud bang. Seokjin jumped at the noise turning around eyes wide looking for the source of the noise. Only to see Jimin frozen and looking at you like you were crazed.

“Don’t tell anyone Jimin threw an egg at the window” Pointing accusingly at Jimin and then at the said window, his mouth opening and shutting trying to speak and defend himself before he deflated. “Please don’t tell” he pouted, Seokjin took a cup of coffee and his fruit breakfast and left for work, the two of you alone once more eating toast silently.

“Jimin, pregnancies are really unstable you don’t tell anyone until sixteen weeks, I am only twelve please don’t tell anyone, imagine how devastated everyone would be if something happened” You held out your pinky and he took it with his, swearing to you he wouldn’t tell before sharing a kiss.

“You are not lying to me are you, you really are?” he whispered nodding you told him that you were, in fact, pregnant and it was Yoongi’s baby, but you wanted all the boys to treat this baby as if it was theirs as you were one big family. He dragged you to his room, locking the door, and sitting you on the bed. 

You felt electricity buzz through you, as he knelt between your legs, followed by warmth when he hugged your middle. “Hello Um… baby, my name is Uh Jimin, I love you little one. I know you will be loved by everyone. I will teach you everything I know, and when you need help I want you to know you can come to me. I promise” he was smiling so brightly at your tummy his fingers delicately caressing and tickling your sides. He saw you had started crying hand pressed to your mouth to suppress whimpers. 

“Princess don’t cry,” kissing your forehead he smelt like orange blossom and when his lips met yours he tasted like plum jam on toast. “I’m sorry it’s just everyone has been so good and talking to the baby and I’m so hormonal and emotional” 

Rounding up all the boys who knew your secret and dragging them into Yoongi’s studio much to his dismay, you discussed keeping it top secret. They all understood swearing they would try not to let it slip.

“What are you working on? A lullaby?” Taehyung read the computer screen, “Is it for the baby, I want to make a song too please” “Me too” Jimin piped up, they all got Yoongi to agree, Namjoon was also onboard with the idea of writing something. You were all excited and in your own thoughts when you heard Hoseok shout from the kitchen. 

“Why is there an egg splattered on the kitchen window, god I hope that’s egg if it’s not y’all need some sort of god to save your soul from sins and maybe a doctor yellow-orange is not a good colour”

You didn’t make it till the end of the day until they all knew, “You're pregnant!” Hoseok accused the ultrasound had fallen from Yoongi’s pocket, “this is a baby right, not a lumpy tumour, I have seen an ultrasound before”

Seokjin was choking on noodles, “really?” “Jagiya have you been playing with strays?” Hoseok grinned “You knew and didn’t tell us?” Jungkook pointed

Jimin put on a shocked face, pretending like he didn’t know “princess, you are pregnant? Since when? who is the father?” “But Jimin you already knew,” Taehyung said causing everyone to facepalm.  “You all knew?”  “I just found out” Seokjin breathed trying to console the screeching Jungkook.

“Same” Hoseok raising his hands innocently. You explained why you didn’t tell them and how the boys had found out you were expecting. “I told Yoongi, because, this is his biological child. Namjoon found out on and got drunk accidentally telling Taehyung and Jimin figure it out on his own.

Jungkook finally forgave you and each of the boys took turns talking to your belly and looking at the ultrasound. 

Seven months pregnant and staying in a hotel, you walked out of the elaborate bathroom and got dressed. You had a small paid crew filming you for your channel. 

Your phone started ringing the caller ID said Seokjin, you answered, “hello my love” “Are you ready, the boys are getting tired of waiting?” “Alright stop complaining I need to get my room key” you scooped up your things up and headed to the elevator. Handing T.O.P your room key. 

Looking at your reflection in the mirror the dress you wore made your little round tummy look cute and you felt like you were glowing. The elevator stopped on the ground floor and you slowly walked out and headed towards the hall. Seokjin's hotel was a luxury style building a perfect place for all occasions and the food was lovely. 

The boys would be waiting for you just around the corner, there was a sweet piano piece playing. You recognised it as the one Yoongi had gifted you in the piano-shaped music box. 

Inshik smiled by the entrance and took your hand kissing it. He told you how beautiful you looked and Jiyong placed your veil in your hair. It was time to go in. The boys next door, we’re all dressed in pretty suits each carrying a basket of petals. They were your flower boys.

They each hugged you Kai and Soobin patting your round belly. “Rub the belly for good luck?” “I’m not Buddha”

They went down the aisle first throwing the petals. Jiyong followed wearing a spectacular bridesmaid dress, he had made it to perfectly work with his shape and it was in your weddings accent colour.

Inshik held out his arm and you hooked yours around it, “you don’t have to do this, just remember we can leave at any time if you are scared or have second thoughts”

“Nothing can stop me from getting married today.” He led you down the aisle. Everyone you knew was there the NCT group, Rose, Lisa, Jennie and Jisoo, Jiyong’s family including Misuk who had the rings and Jackson and his family there. Jackson had introduced you to his family which had a new member a lovely femme who you had visited and helped her get settled in this new lifestyle. 

One look at each other across the hall and you all started crying, thanking the heavens you wore waterproof makeup. Reading your vows addressing them each one at a time and telling them intricately how much you loved and adored them. They read theirs to you each telling you how much you completed them and made them better. The celebrant was an old friend of Seokjin’s. His name was Leeteuk. Apparently, he officiated weddings often for the hotel. He had great fun making everyone feel special and relaxed during the ceremony. 

“I now pronounce you, husband, husband, husband, husband, husband, husband, husband and wife, you may now kiss your bride” They each took their turn kissing you each kiss different. But each kiss was filled with love and passion. 

The ceremony led into the reception where you danced a small progressive waltz with the boys, spinning you onto the next partner. Cutting the cake and throwing the bouquet marked the end of the evening. The honeymoon suite was spacious and very romantically set. You were worshipped through the evening and well into the morning until you were utterly exhausted. 

Nine months pregnant and waddling to work beside Jungkook, who was trying and failing to hide his amusement at the way you swayed. Going to work was less about actually working and more about talking with Inshik. You sat keeping him company and served a few customers. It wasn't a hard job, you also liked the cool temperature of the icecream van. You had some ice cream and was talking with Inshik about the book you bought for his birthday two months ago. He had finally finished it and was discussing the plot twists and character development.

Jungkook arrived to pack up the picnic tables and umbrellas, he refused to let you set up or pack up the equipment. He would just smile and tell you to go easy as pregnant women shouldn’t lift or exert themselves. Then at the end of the day, the two of you walked home hand in hand picking up, Jimin and Seokjin along the way. 

The moment you stepped in the door Taehyung was waiting to whisk you away into Namjoon’s office where he would undress you. He had been using the back of the office for photoshoots. Most people have one maternity shoot you had one every day, sometimes he just took different angles of your belly. Your favourite photo was one he took where your feet were peeking out from behind your belly.

You couldn’t say no especially when he praised you so much and made you feel beautiful, it always ended with the two of you making love in Namjoons office. Which Namjoon himself had confessed was always a nice sight to come home to. 

Namjoon and the boys had all practised how to change a baby’s clothes, Jungkook was admittedly better at it than you. “I love you mama bear” Taehyung whispered helping you into your robe. Jimin poked his head into the room with a bright smile, he clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Taehyungie, you not supposed to leave marks like this every day, our princess has work”

“I didn’t leave any yesterday” he held his arms up with a grin. 

“Princess, I got another bottle of cream” Jimin excitedly hugged you his chest pressed to your back swaying you both his hands under your tummy taking the weight off your back. Moaning in relief you laid your head back. “I will rub it onto your belly, this is the best for stretch marks they say you won’t even be able to see anything.”

“Mmm?” “And then afterwards I can cut some peaches” he kissed your jaw.  “Mmm yeah then what baby?” “Then maybe I can rub your back” “I love when you talk dirty to me”

After you were lathered in vitamin E cream, fed and massaged, everyone had returned home. Seokjin massaged your feet and painted your toenails.

“Excuse me, are you single?” You grinned at the broad-shouldered gentleman at your feet.  “Ah I am married and my pregnant wife is so stunning” he smiled wiggling his hand to flash the ring on his hand. 

“My pregnant wife is pretty too” Hoseok kissed your temple making hearts at you.  “Oh, what are your wives names?” “Y/n” they answered in unison and pretended to raise fists at each other.

“You trying to steal my wife?” “Ya! Who would want to marry your horse face” 

You took their moment of distraction to sneak of looking for Jungkook. He was supposed to be making dinner. You looked everywhere. Instead finding Yoongi sitting in the nursery hands clasped together gently rocking back and forth on the rocking chair. His eyes closed as he made a sound that could have been mistaken as a purr. 

“Hey daddy” you grinned he didn’t even flinch but his lips pulled up in a soft lazy smile. He blinked slowly coming out of his daze and looking up at your swollen figure, “you still love me?” 

You asked them every day and each one replied the same. ‘Always’ he held his arms out and you walked into them his long arms wrapping around your waist just touching at the small of your back. He gently pressed his soft and squishy cheek against your tummy, you felt the baby shift pressing an elbow into his face. “hey are you ruining my moment with your mother, when you get out we will have words”

Yoongi walked you to his room, passing the chaos in the lounge. He shut the bedroom door cancelling out the noise, he took a moment to admire how beautiful you looked just being yourself. You were flicking through the books on his bedside table. 

“Jimin has been on our backs to read these stupid books about pregnancy. Reading is what we have Namjoon for” You laughed smacking his arm, his eyes darkened and he growled at you “did you just hit me?”

“Get on your hands and knees” he pulled off your robe. Undoing his pants and grasping his shaft firmly he slipped himself inside you gently. His long arms reaching around you to hold your round belly in his hands. You moaned as he took the weight off your back. He always did this and when you asked he said it wasn’t fair that you had to carry the weight all the time. 

You were feeling really good he was warming up, he always started so cautiously and gentle until you asked him for more. Being pregnant made orgasms feel so much stronger except this time you felt weird all of a sudden really really weird. 

A sharp pain in your back and a tightness that rolled down your stomach, you felt trickling down your legs. Yoongi moaned thrusting a little harder at how you had tightened so hard around him he was so close. He was about to let go when you shouted.

“Yoongi wait stop. bangtan bangtan!” He pulled out and looked at you worried, never hearing you say the safe word before touching your face and then your stomach. 

“What did I do?”  “My water just broke” “Your what”

“How far did you get through the fucking book Yoongi” you snatched the book off the bedside table finding the dog eared page, “you’re on the third page?” “Yeah” he frowned guilty his voice breathless and his cock rock hard and throbbing in anticipation to his release. Laughing at his cluelessness.

“Fuck I love you” you kissed him, his hands rubbing your belly forgetting the contraction that had passed through you not a second ago. You scraped your nails along his scalp and moaned into his mouth and this seemed to be all he needed as he came hard on your thigh. 

The two of you looked down, your eyes staring at the pool of cum before your eyes travelled back up his chest to his guilty and pissed off expression. “Did you just come on my thigh?” “What a waste” He pouted, smirking you ran your finger over it swiping a little for a taste which made him smile even though he tried his hardest to still be pissed. 

You cleaned up and began pacing slowly, you needed to hold out for a while before heading to the hospital. Your contractions weren’t anywhere near close. You called the birthing clinic to let them know your water had broke and that you would come in when your contractions get closer. You were timing the contractions on your phone. 

That night at around nine you made your way to the hospital, you had the baby later that evening just before midnight. A little boy. He had his father’s crescent eye shape, cute nose and mouth. The boys stepped into the room their cheeks wet, noses pink. Yoongi had the first hold and the boys patted his shoulders gently in congratulations. 

“His name is Min Kyung Ju” 

Jungkook was a mess he hadn’t stopped crying, he didn’t like to see you in pain and especially didn’t like to hear you crying during the delivery. Taehyung had filmed a little of you in the hospital room before you went into active labour. 

The boys loved Kyungju named as the 32nd generation of the Min clan. The boy’s parents stopped by the hospital dropping off some flowers and meeting the baby. 

You were breastfeeding one day when Kyungju opened his eyes you started giggling he had your eye colour. They weren’t the dark brown almost black colour of Yoongi‘s they were lighter (lighter brown, green, hazel, grey, blue, pink). 

Your channel had become so popular. You had the NCT boys on your show for mukbangs, especially with Seokjin. Playing games with the younger ones. The TXT boys had their own channel now and collaborated with you guys often. 

Misuk loved Kyungju. She would lay on her belly and watch him wriggle around on the floor. “Kyungie is so funny”

You came home from an appointment on a particularly hot day to see Jimin shirtless with the baby lying naked on his chest on the couch. Everything was so beautiful you decided to take a photo. Jimin groaned in exasperation his eyes snapping open. “Really, why would you pee on me?”

“I will get a towel” giggling at Jimin who was glaring up at you to get a towel.

Kyungju was a vocal baby but never really cried, ever since birth, he would make gummy squeaks and little sounds when he breathed, he liked to hear his own voice, Yoongi had made a space in his studio where a small bouncer sat beside the desk and he could watch his son chew on the ears of his Woogie. (A floppy cat toy that had a small rattle sound inside)

Taehyung took so many photos of your son you couldn’t help but grin as he ran to you with his camera showing you all the photos. “This is when he started to yawn, this is him smiling the same gummy smile as Yoongi.”

While playing with Seokjin, he started babbling a string of dadadada and blowing raspberries, the whole room went quiet as he squealed and giggled at his Woogie before pulling his feet up to hold, his foot in his mouth. 

“Ew, feet are not for mouths” Seokjin grinned at the boy, “did your foul mouth daddy teach you that one?”

Namjoon was playing with Kyungju bouncing him, while you got dressed for the day. Kyungju’s eyebrows pulled together in concentration made Namjoon laugh that is until milk poured from the infant’s mouth and onto his suit. He called for help. “Ahh someone grab the baby, he vomited on me” 

“Hold him properly, you’re scaring him” Taehyung scolded grabbing a cloth to clean the mess. Hoseok scooped up the bundle and cooed making the boy giggle once more. 

It was a special night you went on a date with Jungkook. You went to Han River on a dinner cruise and had delicious food. Returning home late Jungkook led you to his room pulling off your dress and kissing your neck. You were both excited to have some time to indulge in your pleasures, it had been two months since having Kyungju, two months since you last had sex. Wearing your best lingerie. You told him you wanted to ride him and he responded with a grin, laying back on the bed propping his head up with pillows. He pushed your panties to the side and guided you down his thick length.

Getting really into the moment, Jungkook gripping your hips as you bounced on top of him. He hissed when you circled your hips. Yet the moment had to be broken by a cry from the baby monitor, freezing in place, you both turned to the monitor screen which was in all the boy’s rooms. You watched as Hoseok entered the Nursery to take care of the baby his voice playing through the monitor. “Your mum just wants one night off” the crying settled but you heard a gasp from underneath you. 

Looking down you noticed your bra was wet, the babies' cry made your milk start leaking. Jungkook gently massaged your hips and bit his lip. His shy bunny smile and his knitted brows showed you he was curious and wanting to ask something. “Yeobo, can I try some?”

“I mean if you want. I heard a lot of bodybuilders actually use breast milk” Laughing at how quick he was to sit up. He shushed you his cheeks flushed pulling down your bra and tasting some of your milk. You blushed and he grinned up at you. “It’s weird, not horrible just different, I think I will stick to regular milk”

Kyungju was a lazy baby, but still liked to wriggle and roll across the floor, he was always up to mischief. Whenever he was picked up by Namjoon he had a habit of drooling or blowing raspberries, you knew it was because he liked the faces Namjoon pulled when he did it.

The baby album which was released with songs you all had written for Kyungju, it sold twenty thousand copies and every day you sold a few more. It wasn’t anything too spectacular but it made you some money. You discussed the possibility of hosting live shows where you can talk to audiences and meet fans of the channel perhaps even sing a song or two live. However, you decided you were not ready for another overseas type experience, especially with a baby. 

Waking to a cry. This one sounded different and Namjoon was the first to respond, he arrived at Seokjin’s room with your precious baby.  “Love, I think Kyungie is sick”

You and Seokjin shot out of bed and got dressed heading to the hospital, it was just a fever caused by a cold. After a course of antibiotics, he was back to normal. 

Kyungju was scared of the vacuum he started crying when Seokjin started cleaning the living room. Jimin tried his best to console him, but it wasn’t going well. Unable to handle the sound of his sons crying nor watching the tears run down the poor boys face Yoongi took his son and walked him into the soundproof studio and patted his son to sleep. You were amused listening to the boys argue.

“So now I am the devil for cleaning the house, no one is yelling at Hoseok for cleaning” “Because the mop isn’t screaming in our son's ear”

Femme Media 40

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∞Yeah I’m out for the night, fellows. Reasons below. 

Today turned real hard this evening because I finally got news about Hell’s Granny. She’s relatively fine, but at 93 she finally had her first (minor??????) stroke. She seriously waited until 6 AM this morning to call my dad (who lives literally four doors down the street for this reason) because she thought it was just a migraine and wanted to make sure he got enough sleep because he’s a banker and has been working his ass off during the pandemic restructuring federal and public loans. And while she’s amazingly cogent and in good shape, because of my maternal grandad’s super abrupt coronary in April, she’s now my last grandparent. And I love my grandad, but between Hell’s Granny and my late gran, those two women were the reason why I never went to daycare or had a babysitter as a kid. This woman taught me how to hold a fucking pencil, write in cursive, arrange silverware according to high tea standards, garden like a badass, iron collared shirts, make Yorkshire pudding, and pick and process raspberries and rhubarb all before I was 7. 

She left her small hometown in Saskatchewan before she was 10 because her mother took her and her (technical - weird rural families are weird) niece to Drumheller, Alberta because of some truly horrendous shit done to that niece. So great-gran said Fuck The Patriarchy (because my gran was also an illegitimate child which at the time was Yikes), and took these two young girls to a mining town where Hell’s Granny later - with only the education a 14 year old woman could get in rural Alberta in the ‘40s - fucking took, didn’t ask, just took a job at the local mining office. This woman never finished high school, but then was the sole business partner and dispatcher for my paternal grandad’s trucking company, and often did delivery drives on her own. And she still lives in the house my dad grew up in (after they moved to the States) and drives? (She should definitely be doing neither, but predictably she’s a stubborn old bat.) 

And at fucking 93 she’s been starting to “feel her age.” 

Like. I’m sorry but for this literal ironsides woman to be feeling frail is hitting so fucking hard. Especially considering she sent me a care package to NYC before my parents even fucking managed it, and of course she sent me a gorgeous glass tea pot and cup set for blooming tea, and half a dozen tea bulbs. She watches the news every morning at 6 AM MST to know the weather in New York to know if I’m going to have a nice day. This woman wanted to buy a Hummer or a Camaro when she was car shopping in her 70s, and went on vacations to Mexico almost every year during that decade of her life. She wanted to go skydiving for her 80th birthday, but her blood pressure was too high. And even now, she wants to last long enough to meet both of her newest incoming great-grandchildren (due in November and February), and then come to see me in NYC if and when COVID resolves.

And even today when I called her in the hospital she hits me with the, “Well, love, time for the old noggin to get an oil change I guess.” Her job is to worry about her family, not be worried about and I am just. I’m hurting for her putting on that brave face for her grandkids, and holding out for her great-grandchildren.

So for those of you that don’t know even aside from the above totally valid wibbly nonsense, I’m also flashing back very hard to about 2017. Because back in 2017 I’d graduated from my first MA and had gotten into a PhD programme at the University of Edinburgh, which naturally I was over the moon about. My late gran at that time was at the final stages of serious terminal downward slope from dementia - a fight and decline I as the youngest of my siblings had been helping my mum through both emotionally and physically in helping her move her from facility to facility for almost 10 years - and in fact was too fragile to even be moved into a hospice facility so had to stay in her facility. She was literal skin and bones, and we had to sponge swab water onto her lips and eyelids. It was truly gruesome at the end. 

I knew then when I left for Scotland I would never see her alive again, but even after making peace and saying goodbye to her, it fucking ruined me that it turned out while I had been in flight and out of service she died the morning I arrived. Not only was UE a bad fit for me - because there was no funding available and I would have ended up $200K in debt from that alone - but my mum was in absolute pieces because of lack of family support from her husband and her brother (let alone her sons, who I am still bitter toward for that). So I spent less than a week in Scotland before wrapping up the programme - I cancelled my student loans 2 hours before the deadline - and flying home barely in time for her funeral. (My return flight even got delayed by hurricane Irma evacuation efforts, so I landed less than 10 hours before the service.) So needless to say, not a happy time. I had no job, no savings, no plans. I spent three months living with my parents which for my mum’s mental health was vital because my step-dad has the empathic capacity of a pile of bricks, but for me it was the darkest time of my adult life.

This year is the first time my career has gotten to get back on track since then.

Now, where I’m at with NYC isn’t that at all. Literally. I’ve got great savings, have good funding from the school, and have had an amazing (totally unwarranted) cashflow this year in spite of the pandemic. New York is right, and I’m enjoying it and feel much more comfortable (in spite of roomie drama) than I ever did in Edinburgh. 

I have so much to do, and Hell’s Granny is far from gone. In fact she’s told me every time we’ve talked that she’s proud of me and wants me to keep going no matter what. That I’m her legacy.

But all that good shit aside, today was a huge trigger and kicked me straight back into the hugely traumatic similar situation I dealt with in 2017: in a cutting-edge graduate programme, far away, grandmother/family matriarch having end-of-life health problems = (to my mind) oh god you have to put your entire life on hold again and go fix it, and how long is it going to take to pick your career back up this time? And that’s not what’s going to happen because it can’t. There’s nothing I can do for this situation, for better or worse. 

All the same, I’ve seen where this road goes, and my dad has been incredibly blessed that it’s only starting now. Because it’s not pretty. It gets harder and more painful from here, and at her age that’s just the reality. But I don’t know if I can do this for her. I honestly don’t know if I’m strong enough to walk another parent through this downsizing-until-death stage, now of all times. I’ll be there for her the whole way as a grandchild, but I just. If I don’t keep going on my own path through this, I don’t know if I’d recover from putting my entire life down again. 

So I’m fucking terrified for this woman I love so much, deeply sad that there’s no turning back from here for her, and just... unsure how to be distant, how to be resigned, how to be self-preserving just yet. I’m working on it, working on deconstructing the trauma and working on being brave by staying true to my life. But I have to be, from a complete lack of alternatives.

Thus, there are two options for tomorrow. One: I stay home, panic, and mope. Maybe pick at things? Probably miserably lurk. Two: I jump a train into the city and go take pictures of the sights for my gran in a fab outfit and take a day for me. Buy some books or records? 

Maybe do a fucking touristy bar and have a finger of scotch for the old bird, in case she doesn’t get to.∞

Thanks, Zoom | Harrison Osterfield x Fem!Reader

Summary: You and Harrison have been dating a while, though have yet to meet each other’s parents. You’re trying to plan the perfect way to introduce him to yours until Zoom does it for you. 

Words: 2K

Warnings: None, just pure fluff.

A/N: I apologise but I have been on a massive Harrison buzz lately. I just need him to be my boyfriend. Let me know what you think! Enjoy x

            You squeezed the tea bag against the side of your cup before removing it and adding a drop of milk, stirring it into your tea as you waited for your laptop to connect. You had it set up on the island in the kitchen, sunlight streamed through the overhead skylights and birdsongs drifted through the open back door while you waited for the newly installed Zoom app to connect to a meeting with your parents back home. You’d been forced to download the app to see your family since the government had announced a lockdown and you couldn’t travel home for the Easter break as you had planned to see your loved ones. Instead, you were stuck indoors with four boys who you loved dearly, but it still didn’t take away the ache you felt from missing your family.

              You’d moved to London about a year ago to start your career as a writer and it was going incredibly! You had your own flat, your dream job, and you’d even started dating the most amazing man a couple of months ago. You had met Harrison through work, technically. You were sent to interview a couple of the models at a Joshua Kane runway event to get a take on how to models themselves felt about the line and how to clothing made them feel. You were more interested in writing about film and pop culture but when your co-worker went on maternity leave early, you had to share her projects with two of your other co-workers; something you’d have to thank her for profusely when she got back because otherwise you wouldn’t have fallen head over heels for Harrison. You had never been one to believe in that ‘love at first sight’ crap but you didn’t really know how to describe it otherwise. He was so captivating. He answered all of your questions honestly and really went into detail, giving you lots of material to write with. You were hanging onto his every last word, marvelling at the innate beauty he held, the slight goofy way in which he presented himself (extremely different to how he displayed himself on the runway), and the adorable crumple of his nose and hand gestures he made while cracking little jokes mid-conversation.

             Too nervous, and professional, to ask for his number or anything like that, you’d thanked him and left kicking yourself that you didn’t know more about him. Sure, you looked him up you realised who he was and what acting projects he was involved in (for future reference so you could request to cover those interviews) but he was practically a stranger. Until, a week after your article was published one of the interns at your firm popped his head over your computer monitor to let you know a Mr. Osterfield was in reception waiting to see you. You freaked. Had you misrepresented him? Paraphrased too much? Was he pissed that your article focused on what he had to say too much? Or not enough? Your legs shook as they carried you towards reception. You curled the ends of your hair around your fingers, cursing yourself for not foreseeing this and wearing a nicer outfit, or putting more makeup on this morning. Here you were, meeting an actual male model and you looked like a complete Plain Jane in a bottle green jumper and dark grey slacks.

             Except, when you saw him in the waiting area, he was a completely different Harrison to the one you’d met previously. Fluffy hair pushed back loosely, an oversized cream jumper hiding his perfect frame, and a pair of baby blue jeans on him. He also had a pair of glasses balanced on his nose and wore a nervous expression, much like the one adorning your face. Oh no. You liked this Harrison so much more. He was adorable, stumbling over his words as he explained he had searched for your article on the web so that he could contact you, disappointed in himself for not getting your number that night. His eyes darted around the room and he scratched at the back of his neck idly as he nervously asked if you would be interested in meeting him for lunch the next day. You had giggled like a schoolgirl and told him ‘of course’, before exchanging numbers with him and waving goodbye from the foot of the stairs up to your office; vaguely catching him high-fiving a very familiar brown eyed and brown haired man once he thought he was out of sight.

            You two quickly became inseparable. He’d introduced you to the boys and you’d gotten along with them amazingly, especially Tom who confirmed he had bullied and encouraged Harrison to contact you once he found the article. Harrison had brought you with him to walk Monty and was a little put out when Monty seemed to favour walking beside you rather than him. You made it official between the two of you after a couple of months of seeing each other, but you still had one major obstacle to get over before you could be 100% solidified as a couple; meeting each other’s family. You’d both spoken about it, wanting to find the perfect time to arrange dinners and get togethers which was especially hard with both your work schedules. But any half-plan the two of you had made was now moot since quarantine began. You were thankful when Harrison cleared it with the boys and invited you to stay with them for the duration of lockdown since the thought of spending all that time alone in your flat was lowkey killing you. The topic of meeting each other’s family was on hold for now, though you both knew it was the first port of call as soon as this was all over.

            You had told your parents briefly about Harrison, said you were dating someone from London, but never actually mentioned how serious the relationship was and your parents never pried. You had been reluctant to video call them from Harrison’s shared house for some reason but when Tom and Harry went out to bring Tessa for a walk, Tuwaine was locked up in his room, and Harrison said he was going to workout for an hour or so, you thought it was the perfect time for a quick video call before the lads wreaked havoc on the house again. So here you were, sipping on your tea and appreciating the springtime sounds drifting through the windows while waiting on your laptop to connect. Eventually the screen changed from a loading one to one of your parents sitting in front of their computer screen. A bit pixely, but they were there. You smiled and waved enthusiastically at them and laughed when they waved back before lowering the camera to show you the family dog back home, wagging his tail at the excitement.

           “Hey, honey! How are you? How have you been coping?” Your mum asks as you tell them all about your boredom in lockdown. They fill you in on all the family drama you’d missed over the last few months and ask if you’re coming to see them when lockdown ends. Before you’d realised it you had already been on video chat with them for almost 40 minutes, laughing and swapping inside jokes.

           “Where are you, darling? The background doesn’t look like your flat. Have you gotten some work done?” Your dad asks inquisitively. Just as you’re about to tell them you’re staying at a “friend’s house” you hear movement coming from the kitchen door.

           “Y/N? Sweetheart, have you seen my headphones? I’ve decided to go for a run instead but I can’t find – oh. Sorry are you in the middle of something?” Harrison catches your wide eyes and frantic expression. You’re desperately trying to think of a way to avoid your parents asking about who’s calling you ‘sweetheart’ but it doesn’t work.

          “Ahhh, you’re staying with the boyfriend? I didn’t think it had gotten that serious.” Your mum quips, eyeing the camera knowingly. It’s now Harrison’s turn to look frantic, his eyes going as wide as saucers. He mouths the word ‘sorry’ at least 7 times before you let out a nervous laugh.

          “Ehh, yeah, Mum. I’m staying with my boyfriend for lockdown. Couldn’t stand being in my flat alone for God knows how long.” You say, desperately hoping she won’t ask what you know she will. Harrison is frozen to the spot, not really knowing what to do. Should he go? Should he just appear on screen? You’re not sure either.

         “Well…? Is he invisible? Can we meet him?” Your dad asks gruffly, a hint of humour to his voice. You let out a relenting sigh. Scooting your chair to the side while meeting Harrison’s eyes in question over the screen. He nods frantically in response, running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to tidy it up.

        “For the record, I wanted to introduce you in person over Easter but with all that’s going on we never got the chance to visit. I suppose this is the next best thing. Mum, dad, this is Harrison, my boyfriend.” You present as Harrison appears on screen beside you, a relaxed smile appearing on his face. He really is a great actor.

       “Uh hi it’s really great to meet you guys! Well, see you guys, technically. I know Y/N was really excited about introducing us properly and I was really looking forward to meeting you.” You hold your breath as you wait for this encounter to be less awkward than it was turning out to be and soon enough with Harrison’s charm and your parents’ easy-going demeanours, the four of you were chatting comfortably and making plans to meet up as soon as lockdown was over.

       “Oh Y/N, I can see why you were keeping this one to yourself. He’s quite the Prince Charming.” Your mum exclaims, causing you to groan and drop your head into your hands while Harrison held in a delighted chuckle.

       “Okay, Mum. Yep, thanks. Listen, I’ll call you tomorrow okay? It was lovely seeing you, stay safe!” You call, waving though the screen.

       “Nice to meet you, guys! Look forward to actually meeting you!” Harrison shouts, waving like a madman. You close the lid on your laptop and groan as you lower your head into your arms. You can hear Harrison chuckling behind you, arms coming around your frame comfortably.

        “I’m so sorry. I should have warned you I was going on video call.” You mumble and Harrison’s body vibrates against yours with laughter.

        “Why are you apologising? That was really nice, actually! Trial by fire, as it were.” He laughs out and you turn to face him. He’s smiling so widely at you and your heart melts a little. “I mean, as much as I would have loved to drive out to your parent’s house for dinner with a lovely bottle of wine and a bouquet of flowers for them, the impromptu meeting was perfect and makes me all the more excited to actually meet them. At least I’ve already laid down some groundwork with your dad, he definitely won’t hate me now, I’m sure of it.” He tells you and you slap his chest lightly, laughing with him.

       “Oh shut it, you know no one could ever hate you. You’re way too charming. Plus, you play golf so that’s an immediate common ground with my dad.” Harrison leans down and presses his lips to yours sweetly. Holding you in a delicate embrace.

        “You know, this means that now you definitely have to meet my family. Maybe I can feature you in my next Zoom call? My sister has been asking me endless questions about the ‘mystery woman in my life’.” He jokes and you both laugh again.

         “Mystery woman! That sounds like an article half the people in my office would write. You know I don’t do tabloids.” Your eyes narrow at him and he holds his hands up in defense. “But I would love to feature in your next Zoom call, on one condition; Monty is in it too.”

        “Deal.” Harrison then swoops you up into his arms making you cry out in surprise. “I’ve decided not to go for a run. There are other ways to get my cardio in for today.” You giggle as Harrison lightly peppers your face in kisses as he carries you up the stairs towards his bedroom.

Maybe this Quarantine wasn’t half as bad as you thought.

Title: Computer Love Collaborator Name: ceealaina Card Number: 3088 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A3 - Artificial Intelligence Ship: Stony Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Steve Versus Technology, Get Together, Smut Summary: A spam email and a misunderstanding from Steve lead to him accidentally revealing something very surprising. Word Count: 6228

Contrary to popular belief, Steve had adapted to technology wonderfully. As far as he was concerned, microwaves were the greatest things ever invented, right after the internet and computers. He still used physical newspapers, but it was mostly just to drive Tony crazy. He could use a tablet and his phone without even thinking, and loved the array of information and music and games that were instantly available at his fingertips. And he could spend hours binge-watching tv shows and movies. 

What took a lot more getting used to was people. The way they interacted now was different. It had taken him probably too long to realize that men especially didn’t stand as close, didn’t touch the same way — except for Tony, who was as touchy feely as they came. He’d apologized, once, but Steve had told him he didn’t mind, that he appreciated that easy, friendly, physical intimacy that he’d thought he’d lost in the 40s, and since then Tony had made a point of touching him, probably more often that he did anyone else. 

Other interactions hadn’t been so easy. 

So when Steve woke up one morning, and found the email in his work inbox -- from his own email address -- he had a brief heart attack. 

Hello!

I have very bad news for you. on this day I hacked your OS and got full access to your account xxxxxxxxxx

So, you can change the password, yes… But my malware intercepts it every time. 

How I made it:

In the software of the router, through which you went online, was a vulnerability. I just hacked this router and placed my malicious code on it. When you went online, my trojan was installed on the OS of your device. 

After that, I made a full dump of your disk (I have all your address book, history of viewing sites, all files, phone numbers and addresses of all your contacts). 

A month ago, I wanted to lock your device and ask for a not big amount of btc to unlock. But I looked at the sites that you regularly visit, and I was shocked by what I saw!!!

I’m talk you about sites for adults. 

I want to say - you are a BIG pervert. Your fantasy is shifted far away from the normal course!

And I did an idea… I made a screeshot of the adult sites where you have fun (do you understand what it is about, huh?). After that, I made a screenshot of your joys (using the camera of your device) and glued them together. Turned out amazing! You are so spectacular

I’m know that you would not like to show these screenshots to your friends, relatives or colleagues. I think 51551 is a very, very small amount for my silence. 

Besides, I have been spying on you for so long, having spent a lot of time!

Pay ONLY in Bitcoins!

My BTC wallet: 182pjesSewBUj8PEgfM58p64jbok3i1gNU

You do not know how to use bitcoins? Enter a query in any search engine: “how to replenish btc wallet”. It’s extremely easy

For this payment I give you two days (48 hours). As soon as this letter is opened, the timer will work. 

After payment, my virus and dirty screenshots with your enjoys will be self-destruct automatically. If I do not receive from you the specified amount, then your device will be locked, and all your contacts will receive a screenshots with your “enjoys”.

I hope you understand your situation.

Do not try to find and destroy my virus! (All your data, files and screenshots is already uploaded to a remote server)

Do not try to contact me (this is not feasible, I sent you an email from your account)

Various security services will not help you; formatting a disk or destroying a device will not help, since your data is already on a remote server. 

P.S. You are not my single victim. so, I guarantee you that I will not disturb you again after payment! This is the word of honor hacker

I also ask you to regularly update your antiviruses in the future. This way you will no longer fall into a similar situation. 

Do not hold evil! I just do my job. Good luck. 

“Oh shiiit,” Steve breathed. 

It wasn’t that he had any problem with porn, or his own sexual proclivities. He had known he was attracted to both men and women since before Captain America was even a thought in anyone’s mind, and he felt exactly zero shame about that. He had, in fact, been just waiting for a Republican broadcaster to bring it up so he could announce his bisexuality in the most satisfying way possible. The increase in acceptance of different sexualities was one of his other favourite things about the future. 

But that didn’t mean he wanted everyone getting full frontal shots of him jerking off. 

He knew, logically, that it happened these days. He had watched exactly thirteen seconds of Tony’s sex tape before realizing that oh shit, it was real and snapping his laptop shut. But he didn’t think he could handle it quite so well -- he lacked both Tony’s sense of self-confidence, and his utter lack of shame. And he was Captain America, he was meant to be a role model, there were certain things people expected of him. 

And then there was the whole other aspect of the Captain America issue. If they’d managed to hack his personal email, who knew what other sensitive information they might have come across in the process. 

A feeling of panic starting to pool in his stomach, he hopped out of bed. Pausing just long enough to pull on sweatpants and a t-shirt, he grabbed his tablet and made a dash for the lab. 

Tony was elbows-deep in some circuitry, although he seemed to have been expecting Steve, giving him a quick glance and a warm smile as Steve burst into the room. 

“Nice outfit, Cap,” he told him, and Steve glanced down to realize his shirt was inside out and his sweatpants were on backwards. “What can I do for you?” 

“Uhh.” Now that he was here, Steve wasn’t entirely sure how to explain. “I could use your… Technical expertise?” he tried, tightening his grip slightly on the tablet. “It’s sort of sensitive. And time sensitive too, for that matter.”

That, apparently, intrigued Tony enough to finish up what he was doing and give Steve his full attention. “What’s up?” he asked, taking in Steve’s harried appearance. “You okay?” 

“Yeah. I mean… I think so?” Steve sighed and held out his tablet, holding it like it might explode at any moment. “I got this email this morning,” he said, deciding it would be easier to let Tony read it for himself, rather than trying to stumble his way through an explanation. “It came from my own account.”

Tony arched an eyebrow, but he looked more curious than concerned. His eyes flickered as he read over the screen, and he couldn’t have been more than a few seconds in before he started laughing. A little nonplussed, Steve folded his arms across his chest, frown creasing his forehead as Tony kept laughing over the email. 

“Oh god, this is priceless,” he choked out. “The spelling! ‘A screenshot of your joys!’” There were actual tears in Tony’s eyes, he was laughing so hard, and Steve was starting to get a little offended now. “Oh god, and then trying to convince you at the end that he’s actually a good guy, and not to hate him.” Tony actually snorted, wiping tears from his eyes as he set the tablet down on a table. “Oh man. Thanks, Steve, you big pervert.” He giggled again. “It’s been a day. Or, uh…” He glanced somewhat guiltily at the clock. “Night, I guess. I really needed that.”

“Uhh… Okay.” Steve watched as Tony walked back over to his project. “But what are we going to do about it?” 

“Do about it?” Tony repeated, looking utterly confused for a minute before his eyes widened. “Oh. Oh, Steve, it’s not real.” 

His voice was kind, but something about it made Steve feel squirmy and uncomfortable, embarrassed by his own ignorance. “What do you mean it’s not real?” he asked.

“It’s a scam, Steve. It wasn’t even sent from a real person. It’s just a real basic AI, and an automated message.”

“But it came from my account?” Steve hated that it came out as a question. 

“It’s a spoof; it didn’t really come from your account, the program just makes it look like it did.” 

Steve felt his eyes go wide. “They can do that?” 

“Pretty easily, actually, if you know what you’re doing.” 

Steve picked up the tablet again, frowning down at it. He felt silly now, but still couldn’t help being a little worried. Tony had just written it off so quickly. What if he was wrong? 

Tony sighed, coming around to stand beside him. “Look, Steve, just read it over. The writing is a mess. It’s barely comprehensible in some places.” 

“Not everyone gets to go to some fancy-ass finishing school, Tony,” Steve pointed out, sounding grumpier than he’d really intended. “Their grasp of the English language doesn’t mean it’s not legit.” 

“Okay,” Tony acknowledged, obviously starting to get frustrated in response to Steve’s tone. “But Steve… a ‘vulnerability in the router?’ Who has two thumbs and personally designed every bit of technology in this joint to make sure it would be completely secure?” He pointed to himself with both thumbs. “This guy! For fuck’s sake, Steve, your work computer doesn’t even have a webcam. How would they even get these screenshots?”

“Well, I don’t know, Tony,” Steve snapped back, once again opening his mouth without thinking. “You’ve got a robot butler, alright? Someone secretly taping me jerking off to Iron Man porn could definitely happen.” 

For a moment, Steve didn’t even realize what he’d said, glaring mutinously down at the email. But Tony’s lack of a snappy response grew suspicious, and Steve looked up to find Tony staring at him with wide, unblinking eyes, mouth hanging open. 

“I’m sorry. You jerk off to what now?”

“Uhh,” Steve cleared his throat, doing his best to give off an appearance of nonchalance. “You know, I just meant in like a… General sense of the meaning.” He was pretty sure the blush he could feel setting his cheeks on fire was giving him away. 

“Right,” Tony said, tilting his head as he eyed him consideringly. He leaned back against a table, crossing his legs at the ankles and folding his arms across his chest. “So you only jerk off to Iron Man porn in a general sense.” 

“Yes,” Steve said with confidence that he didn’t feel. “Wait, no! I don’t jerk off to Iron Man porn. I just meant that… someone could… jerk off to Iron Man porn.” 

“Oh, I see.” Tony nodded sagely, but he was openly grinning at him now. “You were referring to the general me, and not the specific me.”

Steve glared, but it was lacking in heat. “I know you’re just making fun of me,” he grumbled. Tony gave him a pointed look in return, like he deserved it. “Look, you’re very…” He gesticulated wildly at Tony, trying to encompass everything he was. “You. And then the suits are amazing pieces of technology, and the way they move and…” 

“Huh.” Tony licked his lip almost nervously, before a shit-eating smirk crossed his lips. “So is that why you spend so much time hanging out with me down here? Perving on my suits and storing up images for the spank bank?”

“No!” Steve burst out. “No, of course not. I’m here because I enjoy spending time with you!”

Tony’s eyebrow arched, tongue flicking out again. It was very distracting. “So then is it Iron Man porn you’re watching, or Tony Stark porn?” 

Steve’s eyes went wide. “There’s Tony Stark porn??” he demanded, before realizing that his voice probably came out just a little too enthused at that prospect. “I mean, uh… Like you were in a blue film, or…?” He trailed off as he suddenly realized what Tony probably meant.

“Uhh.” Tony’s expression was difficult to read. “Well, I was just talking about the knock off pornos, some guy with a business suit and a poorly maintained goatee banging a bunch of blondes. But, uh.” He rubbed at his eyebrow. “There were some definite lapses in judgment, when I was younger. Some tapes I made when I was too… inebriated to think the better of it, and had extremely poor taste in partners. They’re probably still floating around the internet, if you take the safe search off.”

It was said flippantly, but Steve spent a lot of time watching Tony. He could see the slight edge to his smile, the twist of his ankle that meant he actually was a little embarrassed, even if he was playing it off. 

“It’s Iron Man,” Steve told him quickly. “It’s definitely Iron Man. Something about that suit… I don’t know.” He shrugged helplessly.

“Ah, well then.” Tony was still grinning, wide and bright, but for just an instant it seemed like his eyes had dimmed slightly. “Remind me to adjust your permissions so you’re not allowed down here alone, huh?” 

Steve rolled his eyes. “Tony.” 

Tony waggled his eyebrows at him, laughing, but he was turning away and it felt like something had shifted between them. Steve couldn’t help feeling like he was disappointed, somehow. He couldn’t get a read on him, but Tony had been licking his lips an awful lot and, well. Steve had always been a bit of an insufferable idealist.

“I mean,” he started, before he could talk himself out of it. “I also didn’t know that Tony Stark was an option, so… That might change things, a little… Now…” 

Tony had gone still, his back a straight line, and with a sinking feeling Steve started to wonder if he’d gotten it entirely wrong. 

“I mean, um. Unless that makes you uncomfortable, in which case… I mean, I would never violate your privacy and look at your tapes, but if even the idea freaks you out, I just…” He winced as Tony turned around again, openly grinning at him again. “I just mean if it freaks you out we can forget I ever said anything,” he finished lamely. He could feel his skin growing hotter and he heaved out a sigh before burying his face in his hands. “Don’t suppose you have a built-in feature that let’s the floor open up and swallow me whole?” he mumbled into his skin. 

“No,” Tony told him, and there was laughter in his voice. “But I’ll get to work on that right away.” 

Steve just nodded, still hiding his face as he waited for the flaming heat of his skin to die down a little. Before it did though, Tony was kicking his ankle. 

“Hey. Steve, you’re fine. I’m not mad. I’m really, really not mad.” 

Steve nodded again, finally lifting his head back up although he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at Tony directly. “Right, well. I’m going to quit the team and become a vigilante instead. Maybe make my own costume… I’ve always liked blue and yellow.” 

He made no actual attempt to leave though, couldn’t seem to manage to remove himself from Tony’s orbit. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tony chewing at his lip. 

“You know,” Tony said after a minute. “I never actually told anyone this, not even Rhodey — don’t know why, we were dating for fuck’s sake. But uh.” He shook his head, realizing he was distracted. “When I was a kid, I had this vintage Captain America poster on my wall?” 

Steve's head snapped over to look at him, feeling his breath catch in his chest. Tony shook his head, grinning a little foolishly. 

“Come on, Steve. You know where I’m going with this.”

Steve shrugged, grinning at him helplessly. “Tell me anyway.” 

Meeting his eyes, Tony kept perfect eye contact as he continued. “So when I was a little older, I started getting these urges…” He smirked when Steve rolled his eyes. “Spent a lot of nights jerking off to that poster, Steve. Fantasizing about, well… You. And honestly? Not a lot has changed since then.” He pushed off the table he was leaning against, moving forward. Steve’s heart stopped as Tony stalked toward him until he was close enough that Steve could practically feel his breath on his lips. “Tony Stark is definitely an option,” he breathed.

For a moment silence hung between them, heavy as Tony waited for Steve to make the next move. And then all at once Steve surged forward, hands curling tight around Tony’s hips as he yanked him up tight against his body. He’d probably used a little more force that was strictly necessary, but judging by the way Tony’s eyes darkened, and the soft, breathy noise he made, he didn’t mind in the slightest. Steve hesitated only a moment longer, eyes locked with Tony’s, before he leaned in to kiss him. It was gentle at first, a little tentative, but then Tony made another soft, needy noise, and Steve couldn’t stop himself from reacting, pushing the kiss deeper, licking along the seam of Tony’s lips until he opened up for him, kissing him until Tony was out of breath and pulling back with heavy panting breaths. 

They stood there, grinning goofily at each other for a ridiculously long minute before Tony finally cleared his throat. “So, Cap? Did I measure up to all your fantasies?”

“More than,” Steve told him quickly, not even giving it a second thought. “Jesus Christ, Tony.” His hands flexed on Tony’s hips, and then he was drawing him in for another kiss, feeling his knees go a little weak as he felt Tony’s cock hardening against his thigh. 

“Um.” Tony was looking a little flushed when they pulled away again, and Steve delighted in the fact. “No pressure, if you’re not up for it.” He snickered then, pressing his face into Steve’s shoulder for a minute as he got his ridiculous laugh under control. “Metaphorically speaking, since I can tell part of you is very up for it.” He emphasized this with a purposeful grind of his leg against Steve’s dick and Steve groaned in exasperation even as he nearly choked at the sensation. “What is it I see in you again?” 

Tony beamed at him, and then his hands were curling around the back of Steve’s neck, dragging him down for another kiss that had Steve seeing stars. 

“That,” he told him smugly, and Steve couldn’t even argue. “But as I was saying, if you want, we could, uh… See how many more of your fantasies we can bring to life?” 

He was waggling his eyebrows like an absolute idiot, but there was also something soft and tentative and a little nervous in his expression. It cleared a moment later, when Steve nodded his head so fast that he nearly gave himself whiplash. “Yeah, that uh… That sounds good. Please.” 

Tony’s grin grew impossibly wider, and then he was turning around, heading for the far corner of the lab. “Normally I’d try to impress you with my incredible view and high thread count sheets,” he said, glancing over a shoulder and snickering when he caught Steve blatantly checking out the bounce of his ass. “But uh… You’ve already seen all that, and I honestly don’t think I can stand to wait long enough to get you upstairs.” He plopped himself down on the side of the cot he kept down there, legs spread wide, and crooked his fingers at Steve. “C’mere, baby.” 

Steve eyed the cot skeptically. “I don’t think that’s gonna hold us,” he told him, although it didn’t stop him from practically sprinting over to join him. 

“Relax, handsome. It’s reinforced for Iron Man. We’ll be just fine. It’s science.”

Steve was skeptical about this particular brand of ‘science’ but Tony was leaning back against the mattress now, arching an eyebrow at him enticingly. His t-shirt had rucked up a little, revealing a deliciously tanned bit of skin at his hip, and the image was too good to resist. Steve moved forward until he was kneeling on the mattress, straddling Tony’s hips and looming over him. Tony licked his lips, staring up at him with wide eyes, and Steve leaned down to kiss him, groaning as their upper bodies pressed together.

“Fuck,” he cursed, couldn’t stop himself from grinding down against him, toes curling at the pressure on his cock. “Jesus, Tony. Wanted this for so long.” 

Tony bit his lip, looking absolutely delighted, and then he was leaning back until he was flat on his back, spreading his legs to make room for Steve in between them. He curled a hand in Steve’s wrinkled t-shirt and tugged at it. “This? Needs to come off.” 

“You first,” Steve told him, trying to at least pretend like he was cool.

Tony arched an eyebrow, looking like he was considering arguing just on the principle of it, but then he relented, sitting up a little to haul his t-shirt up over his head. He didn’t give Steve time to look before he was grabbing at the hem of his shirt too, yanking until Steve shifted enough to let him pull it off over his head, leaving his hair rumpled and messy. Tony grinned at him, combing it back from his hair in a surprisingly soft gesture. Then his eyes were drifting lower, catching somewhere around Steve’s nipples.

“Christ, look at you,” he mumbled. His hips rocked up and Steve groaned, fingers clenching against Tony’s hips, grinding down against him again. 

“Tony,” he gasped, head tipping forward to press against his shoulder. Tony huffed out a low laugh, and he slid a hand down Steve’s chest, tracing the lines of his pecs and making Steve pant into his skin. “Tony,” he said again. “Shit, I’m —,”

“Yeah?” Tony asked. He sounded like he was smirking. “Feel good?” 

Steve nodded, unable to put into words exactly how sensitive his chest was. His cock ached and he couldn’t seem to stop himself from grinding down against Tony over and over, feeling his balls pulling up tight. He mouthed desperately over Tony’s neck, sucking against his skin, and Tony’s legs tightened around his hips, his fingers tangling in the strands of Steve’s hair and tugging just hard enough to send sharp fizzles of pleasure shooting up Steve’s spine. 

“Me too,” Tony hummed, rubbing up against him. “God Steve, you feel amazing.” 

He groaned deep in his throat, tilting his head when Steve’s teeth scraped over his pulse point. And then his hand was shifting again, pinching and rubbing over Steve’s nipple. Steve’s eyes went wide and sightless, and he sobbed a moan into Tony’s neck as he came right there, grinding down against Tony as he dragged out his orgasm. 

“Oh god,” he muttered when he felt like he could breathe again. “Oh fuck.”

He could feel Tony’s hand rubbing soft and soothing over the back of his neck, and he squirmed a little in embarrassment. 

“Um.” He lifted his head to give Tony a somewhat sheepish look. “Hey.” 

“Hey.” Tony was grinning back at him, actually looking pleased. He shifted a little, moving back until he was on the bed properly, sitting up and leaning into the couple of pillows at the head of the bed, half dragging Steve with him owing to the way they were all tangled up together. His grin grew wider when he was met with Steve’s flushed face, and he brushed a flop of hair back from his forehead. “Don’t worry about it, Cap,” he told him, his other hand stroking absently over Steve’s thigh. “Happens to the best of us. Honestly, I’m flattered that I--,” 

Tony cut himself as his hand shifted over a little too far and Steve made a faint, punched out noise. For a long minute Tony just blinked at him, and then, deliberately this time, he gripped Steve through his sweatpants, thumb rubbing over the head of his still-hard cock through the damp material.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he breathed, soft like Steve wasn’t supposed to hear. “Are you… Again? Already??” 

“Uh.” Steve felt his cheeks flush even deeper red. “Well, still. But yeah.” 

A high-pitched, desperate noise slipped out of Tony’s mouth and his hands pulled away from Steve, clenching against the sheets like he was trying not to come himself. “Is…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Is this a common thing, or am I just special?” 

“Yes,” Steve answered before he’d even fully processed the question. “Yes, you’re definitely special.” He watched Tony’s face go soft and a little flustered at how sincere he was. “But uh… Two or three times is pretty much the norm for me.” 

Tony blew out a long breath, shaking his head and looking absolutely thrilled. “I am one lucky man.” 

Steve couldn’t help smirking at him. “Not yet,” he told him. “But you’re about to get very lucky.” 

Tony blinked at him, then started laughing, and while he was still cackling delightedly, Steve ambushed him. Getting his hands around Tony’s hips, he yanked him down a little lower. Amusement still on his face, Tony looked up at him with an arched eyebrow, clearly waiting for Steve’s next move. Steve ran his palms up and down over Tony’s thighs, noting the way Tony’s eyes followed the motion, the way his abs clenched at how big Steve’s hands were against his legs. 

“Can I…?”Steve didn’t finish the question, instead shifting his hand to toy with the button of Tony’s jeans. Tony swallowed hard and nodded, staring at Steve with wide, dark eyes. 

“Be my guest.”

His cock twitched.

With one orgasm out of the way, Steve was feeling more relaxed, not quite so desperate as before. He couldn’t resist teasing Tony now, sliding his hands up his thighs again, thumbs on either side of his cock, not quite touching him through his jeans. He felt the strong muscles in Tony’s legs clench, flicked his eyes up to see Tony open his mouth like he wanted to protest only to clench his jaw and keep quiet, eyeing Steve as he waited for his next move. Steve grinned and rewarded him with a quick stroke of his thumb over the bulge in the denim, his own cock giving a gratified twitch at the sharp inhale that Tony couldn’t quite hold back. 

“You’re a fucking tease,” Tony breathed, sounding both surprised and pleased by this revelation. Steve looked up at him again, gave him a wink, and took advantage of Tony’s resulting eyeroll to thumb open the button of his jeans.

Tony groaned at that, the sound coming from deep in his chest, the perfect blend of aroused and content. His hips twitched a little as some of the pressure was relieved and when Steve’s eyes tracked the movement, Tony rocked them again intentionally, letting his pants slide a little lower on his hips. 

Steve grinned, and instead of opening his pants further, he curled his hands around Tony’s thighs again, easily spreading his legs wider, just because he could. 

“Can I blow you?” he asked, just to see if he could pull another one of those incredible sounds out of Tony. This one was better, a high pitched breathy noise, like Steve had left him utterly shocked for a brief moment. 

“Yes,” Tony told him, nodding a little frantically and mussing up his hair against the pillows. “Yes, absolutely. Hell, Steve. You get these pants off me, and you can do whatever the fuck you want.” 

“Oh yeah?” Steve grinned and settled himself between Tony’s legs, unable to resist rocking down against the mattress for a moment. His own pants were starting to feel sticky and uncomfortable now, and he considered a minute before shoving them off entirely, the movement quick and perfunctory. 

Tony made a soft noise, clearly disappointed that he wasn’t getting a better view, and Steve hid his smile against his hip. Without further ado, Steve slid Tony’s zipper down and then shoved his jeans down over his hips. Tony moved with him easily, as in sync with each other as ever, arching and wiggling in the appropriate moments to get himself unclothed as quickly as possible. When he saw the bright red silky thing that Tony was wearing underneath, the thin fabric straining against the weight of his hardon, Steve had to take a minute to just shake his head. 

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “You’re so fucking… Decadent.” 

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Nothing wrong with a little decadence, Steve. You ever try anything besides those cotton boxer briefs you like so much? I’ve got a hookup, if you wanted to... expand your horizons, a little.” Tony’s gaze went a little unfocused, mind jumping seventeen steps ahead, as usual. “God, you’d look amazing in something lacy. Maybe a pretty little thong, show off that ridiculous butt of yours. Or--,” 

Tony made a noise dangerously close to a squeal as Steve, without any warning, cut him off by dipping his head, sucking at him through the fabric. Tony clapped a hand over his mouth, like he could somehow take the sound back. “Or that. That’s good too.”

Steve huffed out a laugh, drawing another gasp out of Tony as the sensation vibrated up his dick. “You got it, boss,” he hummed, grinning when Tony shifted beneath his hands. 

“You’re such an asshole,” Tony protested, although he was laughing. Steve just looked up at him and winked again; if Tony thought he was an asshole, he could show him a real asshole. 

Taking his time, Steve placed gentle, sucking kisses up the length of his thick cock, still through the silky red fabric, more of a tease than any real pressure. Tony shuddered, whining under his breath, and out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw his fingers twist in the sheets beside his hips. 

Steve pulled back long enough to catch Tony’s hands in his, meeting his eyes steadily as he placed them on the back of his head and gave Tony a pointed look. 

“Jesus Christ,” Tony groaned, head tipping back. It didn’t stop his fingers from tangling in Steve’s hair. “This is not what I was expecting from you.” 

Steve shivered at the idea that Tony might have thought about this before. “Well, you know me. I’m just full of surprises.” He didn’t give Tony a chance to answer before he ducked lower, nuzzling at his balls. Tony made a pained noise, like it was so good he couldn’t stand it, and tightened his legs around Steve’s shoulders. Steve grinned and moved his hands back to Tony’s thighs, sliding them up and running the pads of his fingers through the coarse hair there. He slid them up until they were sliding under the elastic at the tops of his legs, teasing the skin hidden from view. He watched Tony’s cock twitch again, as he slid toward the crease of his groin. 

“Fuck,” Tony groaned, yanking at Steve’s hair until he shuddered. His voice was rough and hoarse. “Steve, if you don’t get these fucking things off of me…” 

Steve grinned, dipping his head to scrape his teeth over Tony’s hipbone. But he was itching for more too, and relented after that, pulling his hands free to grab at the waistband instead. Tony made a pleased sound, arching his hips to help Steve slide the fitted material down over his legs. 

“Shit,” Steve breathed as he was met with Tony’s thick cock, flushed and full, curving up toward his belly. “Look at you.” He blew out a slow breath, grinning when it breezed over Tony’s sensitive skin, making his cock twitch and back arch again. 

“Steve,” he groaned. “Steve, come on. Give me more, I need more. Please.” 

Steve shivered, rewarded Tony with a lick from base to tip. “I like the sound of that,” he said, hearing how low his own voice had gone. “You saying please.”

“Yeah?” Tony was grinning, obviously playing all cool and collected, but Steve had seen the wall his cock had throbbed. “You gonna make me beg, Rogers?” 

“Maybe.” Steve settled back between Tony’s legs, teasing his legs with his tongue and teeth, avoiding his cock altogether. Tony made a soft whining noise, trying to push himself closer, tugging at Steve’s hair to try and get him where he wanted, but Steve responded by pinning his hips to the mattress, holding him still as he mapped out the sensitive parts of his body, the places that made Tony twitch and moan and tug reflexively at the strands of Steve’s hair. He didn’t relent, no matter how much Tony tried, teasing him until he was a panting, shifting mess, head rolling back against the pillows as Steve wound him up until he couldn’t see straight. 

“Fu-uck,” Tony gasped, arching his back and tipping his head back. His neck made an enticing image, and for a moment Steve was distracted, thinking about how badly he wanted to mark it up. “Okay, Christ, you win. Please Steve, please. I’ll do anything, just please. Fucking touch me. Let me come, Steve, please.” 

Steve had ignored his own erection in favour of tormenting Tony, but it came back with a vengeance at the sound of Tony begging for him, his cock throbbing between his legs. He ground down against the mattress once, stroked a thumb over the curve of Tony’s hipbone. 

“Yeah,” he said, suddenly done with teasing. “Yeah, sweetheart. Whatever you want, you got it.” And then, because he’d always be a troll, he glanced up at Tony with a wicked smile. “Hey, did you know that I can hold my breath for fifteen minutes?” 

And while Tony was still parsing that in his flustered state, Steve curled his hand around the base of his cock and lowered his head, not stopping until Tony was pressing into his throat and Steve was groaning around his mouthful. 

“Oh Christ,” Tony wailed, hips bucking despite having nowhere else to go. He yanked hard at Steve’s hair, and Steve felt it in his balls. “Oh fuck, Steve, your fucking mouth.” He rocked desperately against him, going nearly cross-eyed as Steve sucked around him. He cursed and shifted as Steve pulled slowly off his cock, tongued at the head, before sucking him back down again. “I’m not… You can’t… Don’t judge me cause I’m gonna come in about two -- fuck!” 

Steve’s free hand moved, thumb rubbing harshly over his perineum, and for a brief moment Tony went stock still before he was coming hard, hands holding Steve’s head down as he came down his throat. The feeling was too much for Steve, who rocked down hard against the mattress, spilling against the sheets. 

It was a minute before Tony’s hands let go enough for Steve to pull off, panting more from the thrill of his orgasm than from any real exertion. He rubbed his sweaty forehead against the smooth skin of Tony’s abdomen, feeling it flex as he tried to catch his breath, and he grinned as Tony’s hand resettled on the back of his head, combing absently over the short strands. 

“Oh fuck,” Tony finally said, sounding like he’d only just remembered how to speak. “Oh fuck, that was… That was incredible, Steve.” There was no teasing in his voice, sweet and sincere, and Steve felt a warm, comfortable weight settle over him at the sound. 

Lifting himself up on slightly shaking limbs, he crawled up the mattress until he was face-to-face with Tony again, flopping down on the pillows beside him. It was a tight fit, but gave him an excuse to wrap an arm around Tony’s waist. “Yeah,” he admitted, aware that he was grinning like an absolute idiot. “Yeah, it really was.” 

Tony grinned back at him, equally stupidly, and then leaned forward, kissing Steve all slow and lazy now. 

“Oh hey,” he said, pulling back suddenly. “Sorry about, uh…” He gestured vaguely between them. “Coming down your throat without asking like that. Terrible sex etiquette.” 

Steve snorted, pressing his head to Tony’s collarbone as he laughed giddily. “It’s fine,” he promised him. “I wouldn’t’ve let you if I didn’t want it.” He lifted his head again to find Tony watching him with that same soft expression and he reached out, catching Tony’s hand and toying with his long fingers. “So. What now?” he asked, not quite meeting Tony’s eyes. 

“Now?” Tony repeated. “Now I’m thinking we take a shower, get cleaned up, and then maybe go upstairs and crawl into my bigger, more comfortable bed for a couple hours together?” He trailed off a little hopefully, and Steve looked up at him, felt his breath catch. “And then, uh…” Tony ducked his head and twisted his wrist so he could rub his thumb over Steve’s pulse point. “Then maybe I could take you to dinner? I’ve got this little Italian place I think you’d love.” 

“Yes,” Steve told him, and it was entirely too earnest but Tony didn’t look like he minded at all. “Yes, that sounds perfect.”

@tonystarkbingo

Name: Unknown (For my personal portrayal his real name will be: Nicholai Albin Etzel)

Meaning of Name:  Nicholai:  Victorious; conqueror of the people. Albin:  White, bright. Etzel:  Noble One.  Nickname(s):  Jack Napier, The Joker, The Clown Prince of Crime, The Harlequin of Hate, The Red Hood,  Domino Killer, Ace of Knaves, Gravedigger, Oberon Sexton, Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska, The Fool, Public Enemy #1, Mr. Rekoj, Nemesis of The Knight, The Bandit, Mr. Face Paint, Patient 0, Patient 223, Joe White, Jocund Jack of Jocund Jack of All Crimes, Eric Border, One The Clown at Midnight, Joseph Kerr, The Pale Man, Ivar Loxias, Liam Distal, John Doe And whatever else he feels like, bitch.  

Age: Unknown, between 20-40 years old. Depends.

Birthday: Unknown, Theorized to be on April 25th(1940*Winkwonk*), April 1st, July 11th, August 1st ( My Portrayal will be on: May 25)

Species/Nationality:  Human/Altered, Slavic, French, German, American

Accent: Posh English, with hints of a mixture of others as undertones. Or you know, whatever fucking accent he wants to have that day. You know?

Language spoken: English, Old Prussian, Romanian, Italian, American Sign Language, German, French, Spanish, 

Powers/Abilities:  Resistance to Pain, Mister Mxyzptlk's Powers, Black-Ops Training, Fearlessness, Genre Awareness(Fourth Wall), Immune to Poison, Poisonous Blood, Escapology, Super Sanity(Fourth Wall), Trained Tactician,  Shape Shifting, Good Timing, Genius Level Intelligence, Enhance Mutation, Disguise Mastery, Adaptive, Marksmanship,  Agility, Stealth Mastery, Immortality, Unarmed Combat, Science Manipulation(Mastery), Regeneration, Mechanical (Mastery), Fourth Wall Breaking, Animal Handling,  Weapon Master, Narrator, 

Pet: Technically, none. One could say. But Three Hyena’s through Harley Quinn named Bud and Lou.

Illness/Allergies: Super Sanity, Severe Chemical Imbalances, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Facial Nerves are Paralyzed, 

Occupation:  Chemical and Mechanical Engineer/Comedian, 

Faceclaim: Jared Leto/Cameron Monaghan, 

Description: Unaltered by being kicked into a vat of chemicals, Nicholai looks just like any normal person. Black or Dark Brown hair, a normal skin color and complexion. Blue eyes some piercing scars on his ears, no tattoos. His looks after being chemically altered are roughly the same, his eyes change to green, his hair as well. His skin becomes a sleek ivory/grayish color. He starts wearing make up to exacerbate the darkness around his eyes and the color of his lips.  His nose is normal length and size in both his normal and altered phase. Facial scars and red lips. He has EYEBROWS lol.

Outfit/Accessories/Jewelry: TBD

Height: 5′10″-6′5″

Weight: 140

Body Build: Slender/Athletic

Backstory/Background:

Nicholai is born to a father who had moved from Russia to France two years prior to Nicholai's birth. Nine or so months before he had met Nicholai's mother.  The pair had conceived Nicholai during a one night stand together. After which, Nicholai moved to America, not knowing she had been pregnant then. Nine months later Nicholai had been born on May twenty-fifth, this incident lead to his mother and father ultimately hooking up for good thinking that it would be best for their son, rather getting together our of something as silly as 'love'. Throughout the following years however, it became a point of contention for the family of three. By the time Nicholai had been old enough to begin remember things, his father had taken to drinking excessively as well as flying into fits of rage upon the stresses of life trying to provide for his family. His then wife taking the brunt of many of these rage induced attacks. But often enough the trickle down had landed Nicholai in his fathers sights. Who would hit, yell at, or lock him in a small container for hours at a time.

By the time Nicholai had started school his father had lessened on the hitting part of the abuse toward his son but where that aspect had been lessened, the less obvious ones had heightened. However, Nicholai had still proven himself a very intelligent young boy. Getting praise from his teachers usually and suggestions to his parents to put him in gifted programs, noting that even for a boy so young he had seemed to be very intelligent. His father had refused to place him in such programs however, claiming that it would only get his boy bullied in school and make him into a freak. This, Nicholai had thought, was one thing he had liked that his father had done for him. As he also did not want to go to any of the gifted classes at that time either. As well, Nicholai's mother was very doting, often times it seemed she had taken on the burden to love Nicholai enough for both her and his father's concerning lack of love toward his son. It had often felt smothering to the young boy, now worried she would be and how nervous she had often made him feel growing up. It instilled in him a sense that he was in constant danger.

Nicholai had found it hard to make and keep friends while going to school. He often talked in a strange way that none of the other kids quite caught on to. He was also clearly smarter than all the other kids too, vastly smarter and so the conversations and play time had seemed challenging to Nicholai as he often felt he had needed to dumb himself down in order to enjoy these moments with the other children. Something he didn't really want to do. But, giving in a little, he started to clown around during classes, playing little tricks on others or showing off little tricks from childish inventions he would make on show and tell days. It was during one of these days where his parents had requested his parents switch him over to a private school that would be more suitable for him. Caving in, his father agreed, once he was told that he would not have to pay for this scholarship. So, Nicholai had to restart again, trying to make friends. Only this time, the children were not so easily amused by his tricks and toys.

The children at his new school were the children of very important, powerful or rich families in all of Gotham and some of the surrounding areas. Nicholai was new, and vastly different from all of the other children around him now, and like blood in the water of a bunch of hungry Sharks, a lot of the children could tell he was not one of them. So they ignored him most of the time. One day, another day of show and tell Nicholai had brought a frog to class, showing it off and letting it hop around the floor in front of him. He had been absolutely proud of the little toy he had made. Though none of the other children had seemed impressed. One raised their hand, and Nicholai had them ask their question. It was a rather innocent one, he thought, could the frog do anything else but hop. Nicholai had smiled at the other child before moving to pick the frog up and bring it toward the girls desk and telling her to stick her hand into the frogs mouth. Which she did, and the frog spit up some slime onto her hand. She was thoroughly disgusted but it did get a lough out of one other boy, a tame one, but a laugh.

Nicholai had looked over toward the dark haired boy sitting several desks away and watching as they tried to hid their giggling and go back to a more serious state. Looking away he brought his frog back and took most of the goop back as he moved back to his seat at the teachers behest. Later that day Nicholai had learned that the boy who laughed was Bruce Wayne, of all people. A Wayne. He could not believe he had made a Wayne laugh at something so simple! However, he could not get this boy to give him all that much attention. No matter what he had tried the other seemed distant from him, and everyone else. Away in his own world, it had seemed. Nicholai had eventually given up and looked elsewhere for friendship. As he was doing so, his father had again picked up beating him physically. This time making sure he kept quiet and to not hit the boy anywhere anyone might see. That was until one night he had managed to hit Nicholai so hard that Nicholai had need to go to the clinic to get healed. He was to stay their several nights.

This had not made his father happy, but Nicholai knew he would at least have a few days of sanity before going back home. There he had met Martha Wayne, Bruce Wayne's mother. Who, for some reason was there. She had come up to him and asked if he had gone to school with her son, then asked if he had been the boy with the toy frog. The reason for her asking this was because just a moment before Nicholai had been working on the toy frog in question while sitting in his bed resting. Then Martha had asked if he knew her son Bruce Wayne, Nicholai had confessed to the older woman that him and Bruce had not met yet. Martha seemed to look a bit desperate then, and asked if he would like to come over for a play date sometime that week, as she would love for her Bruce to make a friend, and Bruce had talked a lot about a boy who built a toy frog, with her. Martha had even tried to sugar coat her offer by bringing up that it would 'get him out of his house' for a couple of hours, daily, if the boys play date went well enough.

With that offer she told him she was going to go and that she would come talk to him later on and let him rest as he thought about the proposal to be her sons friend. Nicholai wasn't going to say no. Because he had also been wanting a friend for a long time too, and something about Bruce had told him that they could be very great friends. Over the next couple of days Nicholai had healed up and enjoyed the peace of the clinic, still not having seen Martha since her request to him.  His mother had left fifteen minutes earlier to go grab him something to eat at a local store, for lunch. However, an alarm going off had set the entire peaceful setting of the hospital into almost complete chaos. The lights had gone off, and Nicholai had to cover his ears upon hearing popping noises very close by. What he could only assume were the sounds of some sort of gun or something similar. Being just a young boy he couldn't tell, of course. Moving quickly he tried to get to his door before a man stepped in front of it. Then asked 'what he had here'.

The look in the mans eyes had told Nicholai to run, to get away from the man turning he tried darting for the other side of the room, but the much larger, stronger, and faster older man was too quick. Grabbing Nicholai by his left wrist and jerking the child closer, their arms had wrapped around Nicholai before he was being forcibly carried out of the room and down the hallway. Screaming for the man to let him go and all other sorts of things as he squirmed to try and break free, seeing several people working at the clinic being shouted at by either the man carrying him, or any of the men that were with him, before getting shot when they didn't tell the man what he had wanted to know. Nicholai had witnessed the majority of the incident take place, right toward it's conclusion where he had ultimately been kidnapped by the gang as they rushed to leave the hospital with whatever they had been there to do, being done. For several months or so afterword Nicholai was subjected to many forms of abuse from the gang, of even the most sadistic of natures.

Then, just like that, they had let him go, as if nothing had even happened. Even dropping him off back home. His mother was in tears about his return, happy he wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere like most other children. Nicholai's father however, greeted him with a smack to the back of the head and a comment on how stupid could he be to get himself kidnapped. Along with many other cruel things. Nicholai had gone to therapy after this for several weeks. When it was concluded that he had more or less blacked out MOST if not all of what had happened to his time in captivity. His mother was told to give him some pills that would help keep the memories locked away and eventually he would totally forget about them. After a month Nicholai had returned back to school as if nothing had happened, a few kids asked where he had been all this time, but for the life of him he couldn't really remember.  In time life did move on as usual, Nicholai returned back to his school work, focusing a lot more on that than in making friends, even though he would have stilled liked to have had them.

A couple of years passed without incident, Bruce and Nicholai never got the chance to have their play date. Martha had asked more often when seeing Nicholai, how he had been feeling, rather than bringing up play dates. However, a incident happened one day after a night out at the movie. Nicholai was across the street from the movie theater as he waited for his father to finish up some business he had to do. Looking out toward the lights of the theater, Nicholai sighed. He wished his father wouldn't bring him along for these sort of things, but his father had said one day he might have to learn the 'trade' in order to support himself and his family. Nicholai didn't think being a criminal was worth it. Though as he sat in the car he mused about his future, imagining himself most often telling jokes to a large crowd of people. The thought of people laughing at his jokes was much more alluring to him. Smiling he continued to look toward the lights, then toward the many people leaving the theater, their he had spotted a couple of familiar faces exiting later in the evening followed by those all too familiar popping noises. Ducking down, Nicholai had covered his ears, the sounds stirring in him a uncharacteristic response for him, absolute uncaring numbness.

With his body trembling he moved his hands from his ears and wrapped them around himself as he listened to the shouting, both Bruce's, he could tell and the people gathering around. His father had come to the car and climbed in looking toward the back where he had left Nicholai, seeing his son was there the man had started the car quickly before speeding off. Nicholai sat up, looking back toward the scene as police were arriving. He then looked toward his father as the other tossed a few items into the passenger seat. Nicholai had crossed his arms over his stomach, before commenting that Gotham's criminal side was growing out of control. Nicholai had noticed that Gotham had a very high crime rate some time ago, and with each year it got worse. The next day at school, Bruce was of course not there. It seemed that the Wayne's were gunned down, the news had been nonstop talking about it since the incident happened. Bruce was now an orphan, left to be raised by his butler all alone in the mansion on a creepy side of the city.

Years had passed after that, Nicholai continued to work on his studies, eventually growing an interest in chemicals. By this time he was in middle school and starting into a phase some might have called his punk phase. In this phase he got really into piercings and wearing fake tattoos for a while, before eventually switching to other phases. You know, as a person finding themselves is one to do. Nicholai eventually settled on all of them, because he became a big fan of having multiple choices. Also during this time he met a young blond girl who was a bit of a spoiled brat, but he never quite got her name, something to do with a motorcycle or something of the sort, was all he could remember. The reason for this is because at some point in middle school he had moved up a few grades, having taken on the programs that would allow him to skip grades and graduate from school earlier than others. From time to time for a while he would even see Bruce Wayne here and there, but the two had, by that point in time moved on with their own separate lives. He had heard some rumors that Bruce had gotten very aggressive since his parents deaths.

Nicholai continued with his school work, excelling and eventually he had met the young girl who would in some years time become his wife. By this time in his life he had been sixteen years old and helping his father with some odd petty theft jobs here and their to help support his family. His plate was full, but he hadn't minded it all too much. Still he found himself wishing to become a comedian, that way he didn't need to work so hard anymore. He and Jeannie had become quite close and were absolutely enamored with themselves. He had truly fallen in love with her, and he couldn't imagine any good future without her in it. In time he had graduated early from high school and moved on to college, Jeannie and Nicholai had remained close even as he had to go away for college. Four years later he had graduated and taken a job offer to work as a chemical engineer in a plant in Gotham, by this time in his life he had long stopped helping his father do petty thieving jobs and decided to move on from that life and move Jeannie to a decent part of the city.

About a year after moving out of his parents his father had been murdered by someone in the crime world. Nicholai had ignored the majority of it, not wanting to know what had happened and quietly laid his father to rest without looking into the death any further. About two years after his mother had also gotten in a horrific car accident that had left her in a coma where eventually Nicholai had to give the order to take her off life support. Jeannie had supported and taken care of him through all of it, showing him that she had loved him just as much as he loved her. Eventually they talked about having a child together, starting their own family. In this time Nicholai continued to work as a chemist and work with the plant, however, his dreams of being a comedian had not waned. So one night, he went to Jeannie and asked her opinion. She had encouraged him to do what made him happy. Sure that he could always go back to the plant if things didn't go well. After hearing her opinion he decided to take the chance, he could live with a chance to do something he had always wanted to do.

Though about a year or so into his attempt the pair had fallen onto hard times, Jeannie was nearly nine months or so pregnant at the time and had decided to raise some concerns about money. Eventually she told Nicholai that he should think about returning to his job at the plant. Nicholai sighed, agreeing at first but remembered his connections with the criminal world. One night after his acts he went around asking about little bits of information for some hits on a few houses, petty thievery was something the Gotham police barely even bat an eye at half the time, he knew he could make some quick cash this way to both support his dream career and wife and child with a few marks here and there. Nicholai had failed to find anything however and retreated back home. It wasn't until a few weeks later when two familiar goons he had known came around his house, and mentioned in front of Jeannie that they had some jobs for him. She of course was not happy about it, Nicholai could tell. But he knew from his time in childhood that it wasn't something to be so worried about.

Trying to assure Jeannie that everything would be okay, he would do some odd jobs for the men and their gang here and there in order to support them until he made some headway, he was sure he was close to breaking into the business of comedy in no time. As people who were fame hungry usually thought before ending up homeless on the streets of California shooting up through their toes and shitting on sidewalks. Nicholai agreed to take on the odd job the two men were offering. Looking toward the red hood they had brought along with them. He wasn't so sure what the point of it was to continue the sideshow, but he knew the routine. Eventually donning the hood and costume while committing the petty thefts. However this had only served to bring him more attention than he would have liked. Again and again the news would report on the 'Red Hood' and it was just growing more and more popular. Eventually Nicholai had decided to tell his new bosses that he wanted out, that the risk was too high now and he decided he would go back to work in chemical engineering.

Jeannie had been more than thrilled to hear about this, however, the gang he was working for had not been, at all. Nicholai told Jeannie he would not do any more jobs, and he would work a legitimate job to support her and their child. It had seemed to take a lot of stress off Jeannie's shoulders that he only then had just realized was effecting his wife, the woman he would claim was his soul mate if he had even believed in such a thing. It made him feel ashamed for having been so selfish and put her through something like that. A few nights later, however, the two men had come back to their home one night. Again, the suggested a job to Nicholai, which Nicholai had turned down. But this time, they weren't asking him to do it, they were telling him to do it. Or they would expose him as the red hood to the entire city and he would be locked up and never even see his child or wife again. Jeannie had told him it was alright, to take the final job and then they could move on with their lives. Nicholai wanted to protest, knowing how this worked for criminals, having grown up around it.

But seeing his wife's worry had returned and being concerned for his unborn child he agreed, not wanting his wife to become stressed this close to having their child he told the men he would take on this last final job for them and then asked where it would be. They had said it would be at the plan, where he had worked. They had known, and knew he would be perfect for this particular job. Oh, they had assured him that it would be the last job. They prooomised she would be save and they could move on with their lives. Then they told him where to meet them the next day. After they left Nicholai had hugged his wife, apologizing to her for being so stupid and allowing this entire thing to happen and get this far. Before then kneeling and holding her stomach, cooing at it a bit and telling his child that he was going to fix it, he promised.  Then he stood and helped his wife to bed. The next day he had met the men at the spot they had instructed, just before sun down they had arrived and handed him the suit. Nicholai put it on, reluctantly.

Some time later they were breaking into the plant and making their way to the destination point where they would be retrieving their package. However as they were leaving a pair of glowing eyes from the darkness had them stopping in their tracts. It was The Batman, as the other two men had probably said. Nicholai thought he was hearing them right anyway. Batman, what a silly name for a superhero, he thought. Of course he had heard of the thing before, everyone knew about Batman by now. The guy was running around like a chicken with his head cut off bringing justice all over the city. Batman was a big reason for Nicholai to want to stop before it got this far. However, it was too late for that now. Taking off he managed to dodge Batman’s attempts to stop him and leave the other guys behind. Which had at least given him some time to come to terms with his life as he knew it changing forever. He was going to prison, no doubt about that. How was he going to explain to the police that he had willingly chosen to commit all those crimes, except for this one time. This one time he didn't want to do it that meddling Batman had caught him.

It was a poor excuse and now the false floor was breaking underneath him. Bolting toward the chemicals he runs onto one of the bridges only for Batman to drop right in front of him. As the man yelled at him to stop Nicholai turned and darted the other way, still carrying the package. Taking another bridge he runs across only to get his arm sliced by something the other male threw at him. He was definitely not going to beat this guy, and he knew that. But he was also not going to give up, he was going to get out of there and get back to his wife. At least he would have liked to think that's how it all worked out. However Batman eventually catches up to him and kicks him over the side of the bridge and down toward the vats of chemicals. Landing on the concrete floor, hard, he was sure he broke something then. Pushing himself up he continued to try and flee. Batman dropping behind him and holding up something. Nicholai turned down toward one row of chemical filled vats, surely thinking that Batman wasn't stupid enough to throw anything that might break any of the vats-

And oh would you look at that. Batman decided to blow it all up.  This caused the vats to break apart and spill their contents out all over the place, sending the chemical waste splashing all over Nicholai. Batman was fine though, he just zipped on out of their, as you do when your a millionaire dressed up like a bat and it's not Halloween. Anyway, back to the backstory. So Nicholai was washed away with some chemicals and somehow went down the drain and out into the sewers where he continued to be contaminated and horrifically mutated into what everyone would later come to know as The Joker. Eventually getting spit out of the sewers and into some nice fresh air and your normal every day dirty muddy water Nicholai lay on that cool mud as his body continued to change, smoke rising from his now overheating form. Then, eventually, it all stopped. The world had stopped spinning, the heat no longer bothered him, everything just stopped and then went black. At some point he woke up to the moon overhead, lighting up the entire area around him.

Nicholai eventually got up not noticing at first what had happened to him. Moving toward the water he tore the hood off his head and tossed to the side angrily, ripping away at the rest of the suit he was wearing, wanting nothing more to do with it or the gang. He hoped that them along with Batman had thought of him to be dead. Hearing a noise when he did this he could only think of it as clicking, constant clicking noises. Nicholai eventually noticed that he had changed and this had caused him to go into a fit of giggles. Eventually he had made his way back to the city and to his home only to find it had burned to the ground. Dropping onto the ground, Nicholai laughed even louder then he had back at the drainage pool he woke up by. Eventually he would come to learn that his wife and unborn child had died from a short circuit.  From that point on the man known as Nicholai had stopped existing.

Some years later the man known as The Joker and a million other alias' by this point in his life had been sitting in a chair waiting to meet his newest psychiatrist and begin the game again. He had taken to scaring most if not all of his previous psychiatrists away. One day a young girl with long blonde hair and big bright blue eyes, wearing glasses had come into the room. From what he could tell, she was just out of college. Not like the old coots he had put up with before her. Or the staff he had to deal with any other time while at Arkham Asylum. So the Joker did what he did best, when he began the game. When he wasn't running his criminal empire directly. When he was 'calm'. He talked to her. Teased her and befriended her. It was easy. It was easy because he could see in her what someone he once knew had been like. Without a friend in the world, that yearning. Then there was the look of an animal who had been locked in a cage. He could see it all in this girl. Each day he would win her over, more and more.

Many would say that he had manipulated her. That he used her and turned her from good to bad. But He had only freed her. She just needed that extra...push. Everything else about her was there all along, scratching at the floorboards, waiting, wanting to be freed. Joker had the key, only him. Because it was only her that needed the freedom he could provide. Then one day, with the cage door open she had come to him, it had been the first of April, if he would later remember right. She was excited, because she knew what crimes she was committing as she walked those halls, key in hand, stabbing guards and other staff in the throats with needles filled with...who knew what. With a smirk on his face he had taken the young woman's hand and let her drag him through the facility to their get away car. The woman had taken her new freedom to such an extreme level, another fit of giggles had rocked Joker as he watched her chaotic bursts of energy and her decisions based on a whim. She was hair brained. Then she turned to him, she said, she would be called Harley Quinn from that day forward.

So she was, Harley Quinn, from that day forward, and he was hers. Joker smirked however, not showing the same kind of attachment to her. The days went on like that, till it came time. She wanted to commit to him entirely, all of her. During a drive she stopped at the chemical plant, reminding him of the time he had told her in a session they had, when it came to questions about his odd inhuman features. He told her he took a swim in one of the chemical vats at the plant. It wasn't exactly the truth. But it was clearly something she had fixated on and she herself had decided that she would also, take a chemical bath. Joker didn't stop her, of course. Why would he. He was curious about what would happen to her. So into the plant they went and he watched her amp herself up to jump. With a little prodding he asked her if she would die for him. Harley exclaimed a yes, still working up her nerve. Then he asked her if she would live for him. This had seemed to stump her for a moment. Then a serious look came over her face, she said yes and ran toward the vat, leaping from the ledge and dropping down into the pool of chemicals.

Joker thought that she might have been dead, then. He was just about to leave but, suddenly, he had stopped himself and turned back before jumping back in after her. Plunging into the chemicals and grabbing onto her. Rising out of the waste he lift her unconscious body up from the liquids. Then opened her airways, chemicals had dripped off his dark green hair that half clung to his face. Staring at her that day, something old and familiar to him stirred, if only for a moment. He thought for a moment he might have cared about this woman. As impossible as it would seem to him, something had told him he could let her die, that he wanted to keep her. Dragging her out of the liquids he gets himself and her out of the plant and back toward their car where he sped off into the night.

Some nights later Joker took her too get some pets. She had wanted them after waking up, and though he really didn't want any on his own. Again the feeling, small yet familiar had hit him. He caved, taking her to get three baby Hyena's in the black market. Joker didn't pay them much mind, but they had made Harley very happy, and sometimes he found himself amused by this before going back to ignoring them again as he worked on his plans to deal with Batman. Sometimes Harley would be more than annoying with her need for attention, however. Which had grated on his patience as time had gone. His prior attempts to get her to leave him alone was often ignored. But he did cave and eventually find that hitting her or threatening her silenced her up real good. So he went with that option instead of being rational. Because why not, he's not a saint, and the man he used to be was no longer their. That man was dead, he was The Joker now, and who was she, getting on his nerves half the time. Almost, he had noticed, intentionally.

That is how life had gone on for many years, him and Batman playing their game back and forth. Harley being a third wheel, but every so often he would show her how he felt, even if she had annoyed him a lot. He had secretly loved her, too. But after about forty minutes he would abandoned her to get back to his game with Batman, starting the cycle again. At some point he had those Hyena’s of  His and Harley’s eat Salvatore Guzzo alive.

(Work In Progress)

Personality: Daring, Unpredictable, Changeable, Lack of empathy, Unconcerned, Lacks a conscience, Apparent insanity, Leader, Joker, Humorous, Adaptable, Sensor,  Self Evaluation, Meditative, Mischievous, Murderous, Unreliable,  Sadist, Believes he cannot be saved,  Aware of himself and others and how he effects them, Seemingly Illogical Nature, Asexual/Sexual, Manipulative, Private, Uninterested in Sexual Relationships, Hyper Fixating, Capable of romantic relationships, Nonreciprocating, Uncaring, Abusive, Lover, Physical, Melancholic, Obnoxious, Fighter, Abused, Chiding, Hardworking, Egomaniac, Grandiose, Nontraditional Romantic (With Batman), Urbane, Wishes to make Batman the best he can be, Chaotic, Defines his existence through conflicts with Batman, Does not care about Batman’s real identity, Disturbing, Complex, Doesn’t want to kill Batman, Repressed, He only wishes to continue playing his game with Batman, Steely, Glamorous, Determined, doesn’t want money or power, Can express remorse when in a certain state of mind, Faithful

Quirks/Savvies/Other: Tech, Science, Combat,

Likes:

Dislikes:

Fears:  None

Personality Tests:  The Challenger, The Enthusiast, The Peacemaker, ENTP, 8w7, The Nonconformist, Hufflepuff, Slytherpuff, Thunderbird, Thunder Serpent,

Other: Gemini, Tropes (Part 2),

Spouses: Jeannie (Dead),

Children:  Unborn Child (Son/Dead), Second child

Significant Other: Harley Quinn,

Parent(s):

-> Father: Unknown (Dead)

-> Mother: Unknown (Dead)

Sibling(s): Unknown

Starters

Chat’s

Para’s

Face

Stuff

Information

Asks

All

                                                                             Alternate Universes

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy AU

There are TWO Harley’s AU

There are FOUR Joker’s AU

The Joker’s are TWINS AU

The one where The Joker does NOT become The Joker AU

The Joker is one of the Good Guys AU

The Joker is related to Batman AU

Star Wars Joker AU

Beelzebub AU

Chapter 4

An: I was slipping plain and simple. I truly hope you enjoy this chapter. Please leave your feedback, all is welcome. Sorry for the long wait but another chapter is coming Thursday!!

Disclaimer: DON’T OWN ANYTHING ABOUT ON MY BLOCK, JUST MY CHARACTERS DAISY, JACKIE, AND MADELINE.

You ever get that feeling like your whole world is falling apart and then boom something exciting happens and everything is fine in the moment? If so, well, congratulations you’re human, and you’re not the only one with those feelings. When your world Is falling apart you have this crushing feeling in your chest; like there’s an elephant sitting there just waiting for you to stop breathing. Although it feels like your heart is beating faster and is going to beat out of your chest cavity it’s actually all in your head, that’s called panic. Your heart rate is picking up because of your fear of death. Then all of a sudden, your lungs start expanding like a balloon when someone starts blowing warm air into it. That crushing feeling is finally lifted off your chest and you can take a gulp of fresh air. That. I wanted that. As I'm sitting on my warm chocolate brown recliner couch, I wipe my eyes as I realize that the meeting with Oscar didn’t go as I had planned, or even hoped for. It was so much worse, and to be honest I don’t know how I'm going to face him or the kids for a while. ~THAT MORNING~ I wake before my alarm clock starts going off. Excitedly I get up to start my morning routine; hair up, brush teeth, wash face, moisturizer, pull hair down just so I can put 2 french braids in and dance my way to my closet to pick out a semi-comfortable outfit. Boyfriend jeans, a basic grey V-neck tee and a black and an old black and grey plaid shirt matched with some white vans. Smirking I all but skip to the white nightstand, unplug my phone, grab my necessities and walk to the wooden front door, set the alarm and walk to the car. Nothing is going to wipe this big smile off my face. That is until I walk into the back door of the bakery. “Daisy! Oh, thank god you’re here. I need you to pick up Jackie’s shift, she came down with the flu.” Maddy gagged, “It was real nasty! She facetimed me this morning, her nose was so red and her eyes were so puffy. OH and her voice was basically gone.”

“That’s fine, bu-but um wasn’t she trying to finish some cupcakes for a 8 year old's birthday party?” I asked swallowing hard.

“Yeah, so she finished half of the order, which was 50 cupcakes, but the other half of the order was the 2-tier cake.”

“I-I didn’t know about the cake. When is the deadline?”

“Sunday...but like I said the cupcakes are done!” She quickly adds when I look at her as my jaw hits the floor.

“Maddy! Today is friday, just please tell me she already has the framing of the cake.”

Walking to the fridge she opens the doors with a grand gesture. “She actually does, and she has base coating done.” Breathing a sigh of relief, I put my belongings away, put on my apron, wash my hands, and get started making the fondant for the marvel birthday cake. By the time I get finished covering the cake with the fondant, it was already 12. Short day my ass. Jackie owes me big time.

~4 THAT EVENING~

R- 3:13 pm: Daisy raincheck on tonight's meetup!!

R- 3:17 pm: You know you could at least text me back...

R- 3:19 pm: Okay so I know you got this message; it says it was delivered

M- 3:25 pm: DAISY! The boys, mainly Ruby, wants to reschedule. Call me as soon as you get this!!!

M- 3:40 pm: Why haven’t you called? Are you hurt?

J- 4:01 pm: Just to formally update you woman, we can’t make it to the meetup tonight...

Well for once I'm glad my phone was on silent. Hanging my apron, I clock-out and quickly head out the door putting my phone up to my ear.

“Hey, sorry I had to cover Jackie’s shift at work. I saw y’all couldn’t make it to the meeting tonight but why did you need me to call you?” I ask as soon as Monse picks up.

“You’re fine, yeah something about Ruby needing to move his things into his room with his abuela. But I actually need to talk to you. It’s really important.”

“Talk, I'm driving!”

“I think I might have feelings for Cesar.”

“Um yeah I know, I think we all know at this point.”

“But he’s pressuring me to tell everyone. He I feel like he wants to stake a claim, or something.”

“Are you home? I’m on the way, we’re going to my house to talk.”

“Yes, how far are you?”

“About 10 minutes away, be ready!” I reply hanging up the phone. Arriving I blow the once before she comes running out the front door and quickly jumping into the car.

“I didn’t know you had a record player.” Monse yells through the house.

“It was a gift from grandma, along with all of her old vinyls.” Picking up a Nat King Cole record I turn it over to show her the vintage vinyl.

“She was into Jazz?”

“Stop beating around the bush. What’s going on with you and Cesar?” Glancing at the clock, it’s already after 5.

“So, we’ve been seeing each other since I came back from camp and-”

“Having sex.” I interrupt as I sit down beside her on the couch.

“W-what?” She stutters looking at me with wide eyes.

“Monse, I'm not dumb I know y’all are having sex. Do I approve? Hell no. Do I wish you would have waited? Hell yeah. But hey,” I turn and look her in the eyes. “I’m not disappointed in you Monse. I’m not judging you either because there are worse things you could be doing. But just a 1 question, are you using protection?”

“Yeah...” But she’s looking everywhere but at me.

“Monse?”

“We’re only using condoms, but not all the time.”

“What?” I screech.

“Dad has never talked to me about birth control or even sex. I’m not even sure if I should talk to him about it. Wouldn’t that be weird?” Her round cheeks turn slightly red, reminding me of the time mama first told me about sex and I got so embarrassed.

“Well since you already technically know about sex, I'll let you know right now that condoms are good birth control but they aren't 100 percent effective. That’s why sometimes it is best to be on some kind of birth control yourself, not saying you have to though. There’s the pill, IUD, the shot, the patch, implant, ring, sponge, and so many-”

“Okay I get it!” Monse yells cutting me off. “There are many types of birth control, but um this isn’t why I wanted to talk you. I’m afraid if we say something it’ll break up the crew.”

Laughter bubbles up my throat and without warning it tumbles out. I stop when I see Monse grinding her teeth.

“See this is why I was afraid to tell you!”

“I thought you were joking, Monse you’re afraid of what the boys will say. The same two boys who are most likely jerking off to magazines or porn?”

“Eww I totally didn’t need to hear that.” Shuddering she jumps up and starts pacing the living room. “I just don’t want things to change between us.”

“Things are going to change, you’re growing up. Everyone changes Monse, you can't stop that. But if they don’t support you in this decision then screw them. Real friends support you in anything and any situation. From what I understand they love you both, right?”

“Right!”

“Okay then I have no doubt in my mind that those boys will accept you two. Maybe you’re just scared of your feelings for him.” She went to interrupt me but instead her stomach growling cuts her short. “I know you Monse, you’re just scared and nervous, which is normal. But maybe you should give it a try with you and Cesar just to see how things will work out. But for right now let's get some food in you!”

“Good idea.” She says chewing on her nails while walking to the kitchen with me following close behind.

Frozen pizza and tater tots were definitely a win tonight. Not the healthiest but who eats healthy 24/7 anyways.

“So, dad is picking me up. He should be here really soon” She says as we’re watching tv after dinner.

“Oh, when did he get back in town?”

“Yesterday, he said something about the two of you not really talking right now.”

“Yeah just somethings I guess we need to talk about.” I shrug not really caring to have this conversation with her.

“That bad?”

“Not really, I just don’t agree with everything he does.” Lights shine through the living room curtain. “Well I guess he’s here, come on I'll walk you to the door.” Heading towards the door she stops to ask me a question.

“Did you use birth control with Spooky?” Laughing I push her towards the door.

“Not at first no, but eventually I started taking the pill, which by the way there’s different kinds of.” Opening the door, I turn to her to give her a hug just to see her face frown with confusion.

“What are you doing here?” Turning around I come face to face with the devil himself.

“Hello to you to.” Oscar announces looking at me the whole time. 30 seconds go by before another car pulls into the driveway.

“Well there's my ride, I'll call you later Daisy, love you!” Monse yells running down the steps in towards dads car.

“Why are you here? It’s not even 8 yet.”

“Thought I'd surprise you; we need to talk.” He walks by me as if I wasn’t blocking his way in.

“Um, excuse me I didn’t invite you in!” I follow him once I close the door. “You can’t just walk into my house uninvited.” Laughing he sits down and leans back stretching his legs and arms.

“Come sit,” he pats the cushion beside him. I choose the other end of the couch. 10 minutes go by before I decide the silence begins to get to me.

“What did you want to talk about?” How awkward.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He locks his jaw in place.

“What are you talking about?”

“Don't play stupid with me.” Playing stupid? No, I'm actually stupid because I have no clue what the hell he’s talking about.

“Honestly have no clue what you’re talking about Oscar.”

“The baby...” It gets eerily quiet. My body runs cold, it feels like my body turns to stone.

“Got nothing to say now huh?” Hanging my head, I lock my fingers together in my lap.

“I did...I-I came to you and told you.” Glancing up at him, I see him look at me with disgust in his eyes.

“You didn’t tell me that you got an abortion.” His voice gets deep and raspy.

“No, who told you that?”

“That’s not important, you were my girl. You come to me about these things not-”

“How was I supposed to do that when you were behind bars? Huh?” My voice gets louder and louder. “I was 15 and scared Oscar. You weren’t here to help.”

“I would've been if you just told me from the beginning.” His neck is turning red from all the straining and yelling he's doing.

“You know that wouldn’t have stopped you from doing what you did!”

“How do you know?” He laughs, but it wasn’t one filled with humor, no, it was filled with sarcasm. “I would’ve done anything for you.”

“You told me to leave and build a life for myself.” I try to change to direction to conversation.

“That doesn’t mean leaving town, and getting an abortion.”

“Stop saying that, I didn’t get an abortion. Why do you keep saying that?”

“Why won’t you tell me what really happened? I want to believe you, but since you won’t tell me what happened I can only believe what other people tell me.” Was his smart ass response.

“Why can’t you just believe what I’m telling you and leave it at that?”

“Because it was my child!” He yelled.

“It was my child too.” I scream back officially breaking down in tears. “I lost the baby…” I manage to say as I’m trying to breathe through my soon to be panic attack.

Silence.

I guess he didn’t expect that. When you’ve been told one thing for years, a lie, and then hear another thing that might be just as worse as the lie, I guess it would render you silent.

“I was consistently worried about you, me, the baby, what my mom would think, and so stressed out. God I was so stressed, that before I knew it I had lost the baby. I was only 11 weeks along” Wiping my eyes I get up just to slowly pace the floor. “Please…say something.”

“Do you blame me?” Looking up at me, we lock eyes as so stop and face jinx

“No, I never would. The doctor said it happens often.”

“Did you believe them? That it happens often?” He whispered.

“No…it was my fault. I knew I shouldn’t have been that stressed but instead I still decided to take on everyone’s problems and my own.”

“You should’ve told me. You were mine, the baby was mine.” With his head hanging between his broad shoulders he starts running his fingers through his hair. “Had everything planned and written down in there. I was going to behave and get out early. Come home to you and our child. Get a job, buy a home, and have more children. Build a better life for our family. That’s what I wanted.”

“Im so so sorry Oscar!” Closing my eyes as tears run down my cheeks.

“That’s what kept me alive in there. Knowing I had you and our blessing to come home to. Then that all came crashing down when I found out the truth, well what I thought was the truth.” I stayed quite to let him get what he needed off his chest. “I don’t blame you, you shouldn’t have had to worry about me, I put you in that situation. For that I’m truly sorry Daisy.”

“Yo-you don’t owe me an apology.” I know my under eyes had to be an angry red from all the wiping and rubbing.

“I do, because no matter how mad I am I’m still in love with you.” I can’t move, I think I’ve stopped breathing too. “I’ve tried to stop, god I’ve tried. But I know where my heart is and who it belongs to.”

“You don’t mean that, you’re just upset Oscar.” Whimpering I sit down beside him.

“I mean everything I just said. But it’s because I love you that I can’t love you.”

“What? I’m confused. You love me, but you can’t love me?”

“That would put a target on you. Being my girl in the streets would put you and everyone you love in danger. I can’t have that, I would kill everyone for even looking at you the wrong way.” Oscar explains himself.

“I’ve dated you before, I know what it’s like.”

“But things have changed, I’m more powerful than I was before. I won’t put you in danger again, end of story.” He gets up and starts heading for the door. Jumping up I chase after him.

“You can’t just tell me you love me then walk out the door Oscar. That’s not fair. You’ve done this to me before and it left me in pieces last time.” I grab his arm to stop him from walking. “Please just talk to me more before you just close the book on us.”

“Goodnight Daisy, I’ll see you around.” He pulls his arm from my hands and locks the bottom lock before heading out the door. A loud sob comes from somewhere in the room and it’s once I collapse in the chair when I realize that the sound came from me.

~THE PRESENT~

As I’m wiping the tears from my face I decided here and now that this won’t be the end of us. He might’ve walked out but I refuse to just give up on him so easily. Then that’s when it hits me. All this time I’ve been running away from my feelings for him. Everything is so clear.

I’m still fucking in love Oscar Diaz.

My phone ringing brings me out my trance. Running to the kitchen I find the phone on the kitchen table and as soon as I seen the name something else comes to realization within these last 5 minutes. Only 2 people knew of me losing the baby. I hit decline just for the person to pick call right back. I have to options, ignore them and turn my phone off or answer them and confront them of their disgrace and lies. I hate confrontation so option number one sounds really nice right now. Too late! 

“Why would you lie to Oscar and tell him that I had an abortion?” I spit in the phone. 

“Daisy baby...”

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