#Man in the Iron Mask reference

[flowerbarrel-art]

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And here ya go!

What? I bought them!

Most of them.

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Reference:

[sleepyheadnat]

Wait, I've just learned of the "Man in the Iron Mask" mystery, and the similarities to Genshin Asogi stood out to me immediately. Was the game inspired by this story?

[youngbugandtonystank]

Irondad references in Deadpool and Wolverine (2024)

—Their framed photo.

—Peter's Iron Man mask toy.

[gossippool]

GOD OKAY SO i skimmed through the script specifically to look for discrepancies in the character names because i had an inkling they would do something like that and i found exactly what i wanted. i formally present my findings:

so for wade the distinction is pretty clear cut; when the suit and mask are on, he's referred to as deadpool. when he's out of the suit, or even just when his mask is off, he's wade.

pretty simple even though it IS still interesting--he's literally masking when he's in the suit; he adopts a persona that comes off with the mask. but here's the fun part! LOGAN doesn't wear a mask throughout most of the movie, and yet he is referred to as the wolverine sometimes and logan in others.

firstly, take the bar scene:

he's introduced in the script as LOGAN, but the moment the bartender attacks him and wade questions if he of all people is going to let himself be spoken to this way, he becomes WOLVERINE. a defensive wall. and it switches right back to logan the moment he says "you don't want this"--back to the person he is who's lost everything, who doesn't want to fight anymore, instead of his x-man mantle.

same with the scene in the diner:

he's wolverine until he finds the rubbing alcohol and downs it. then he's logan until wade brings up his position as an x-man and the version of him who died, and then he switches back to being the wolverine.

and one part i find especially intriguing is the scene in logan's mindscape:

"cassandra and LOGAN stand in a gorgeous, ethereal place." "WOLVERINE falls to his knees."

i found it very curious that when he confesses what he did to laura, he's logan all the way through, but he's wolverine when talking to cassandra about the same thing, even though she did have an effect on him.

you could argue that he has his walls up because he's still wary of her, or that it's ironically even harder for him to talk about the past when he's in his own mind, or that he was aware of what was happening outside the whole time and part of him had been playing into it on purpose even through it all. i think all of them make sense in their own way.

there are a few more instances of this, but tldr i just think it's so so fucking cool that they play with his two different identities in the dialogue names to show when his walls are up. it's a fantastic visual representation of which side of him he shows at what time, and it's just great direction too for the actors reading the script.

he's wolverine throughout the entire honda odyssey fight scene and even in the hideout, or when he's reminded of who he thinks he's supposed to be and, consequently, of his failures. he's logan when he tells laura about what he did. when he's stripped down to his most vulnerable, or when he can forget about being the wolverine for a while, when drinking helps him forget--

or when he's back home with wade and has found peace within himself.

[randomshyperson]

classified love - wanda maximoff x kryptonian!reader

summary: wanda is new to the avengers, and learns the concept of a secret identity. or the one where kryptonian!reader has a secret, and a crush.

warnings: reader is superwoman; mild angst; mutual pining; nervous flirting; soft wanda; protective reader; fluff with feelings; light humor; superhero bureaucracy; canon divergence; minor ultron reference; mild language; happy ending.

a/n-> i'm going for my old drafts and this is from months ago when i was reading a bunch of supercorp fics, especially ones about lena learning about kara's secret identity. So i made my own with this two lovely dorkies. (nope, this is not related to the series with kryptonian!reader i'm working on).

General Masterlist | AO3 |

-&-

It wasn’t that Wanda didn’t know what a secret identity was.

Of course she did. She just hadn’t quite grasped the weight of it.

In her defense, the Avengers weren’t exactly the poster children for discretion.

Tony Stark made sure everyone knew he was Iron Man. Steve Rogers had been the star-spangled face of American propaganda since the forties. Natasha was arguably the most famous spy on Earth - and somehow still mysterious - and poor Bruce had his green alter ego splashed across news channels since his very first rampage. And then there was Thor. A literal god. No mask could hide that hair.

So maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t completely her fault when she leaned over during breakfast, bright-eyed and curious, and casually asked you,

“So… what’s your name, by the way?”

The room fell dead silent.

Wanda blinked, eyes flicking around the Avengers compound’s cozy living room. The sun spilled lazily through the tall windows, warming the hardwood floors and catching dust in the air. A pot of coffee burbled in the kitchenette, and the smell of waffles hung pleasantly in the background. But the atmosphere shifted like someone had cut the power.

Tony was the first to crack. He snorted into his mug, trying and failing to smother a laugh.

Wanda’s eyes widened further when Natasha silently reached over and handed him a crumpled five-dollar bill.

Your smile dropped. Just seconds ago, you’d been grinning at her, saying how nice it was to finally have someone around your age on the team. Now your expression shuttered. Calm, professional. Guarded.

“Uh… that’s confidential,” you said simply.

Wanda let out a short laugh, confused. She tilted her head, hoping she’d misheard.

“What?”

Your eyes flicked over to the group still half-watching from the couches. Clint was biting back a grin. Steve looked conveniently invested in stirring his coffee. You exhaled through your nose.

“I guess nobody warned you about the secret identity policy,” you muttered, not bothering to hide your disappointment. Your arms crossed over your chest - biceps straining slightly under the fabric of your suit - and Wanda was momentarily distracted by just how much muscle you were hiding beneath the armor. She didn’t think that was allowed.

“I’m not trying to be rude,” you added, your voice softer. “But I can’t tell you my real name.”

Her brows drew together. “But you know mine.”

From the couch, Natasha barked out a laugh. You shot her a look that was half glare, half plea, before turning your attention back to Wanda, a flicker less certain than before.

“I do,” you admitted. “But that’s because… everything about you is already public knowledge.” Your voice lowered a little, like you were offering her something real. “It’s nothing personal. It’s about safety. The only reason Ultron didn’t find my family was because I wasn’t in any of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s databases. Not the Avengers’, either. Same way they kept Barton’s family off the radar.”

That explanation landed - she could feel the weight of it - but it didn’t soothe her. Not really.

Wanda forced a tight smile, but a bitter coil twisted in her stomach.

Of course, it still came back to Ultron.

She hadn’t fought beside you back then - hadn’t fought against you either - but that didn’t mean the past was erased. That didn’t mean trust grew overnight. Clearly, it hadn’t.

And suddenly, she was the one on the defensive. Because why should you get to know her when she was still in the dark about you?

“I don’t think that’s very fair,” she said, echoing your posture with a huff and crossing her arms. “You get to know everyone’s names, but we don’t get to know yours?”

You blinked, surprised by the shift in her tone. But it only lasted a beat.

Clearing your throat, you held your ground. “They know. You’re the only one who doesn’t.”

The offense hit her like a slap. She turned sharply toward the others, sending each of them a scandalized glare. They all conveniently found something fascinating to look at - the wall, the floor, the coffee machine.

Only Natasha had the nerve to smile into her cup.

“Hey, I don’t know either!” Sam piped up from the back, his voice light, trying to cut through the tension like sunlight through fog.

You cracked a small smile at that, grateful. But Wanda didn’t move.

Her arms stayed stubbornly crossed, a pout tugging at her lips, and whatever iron-clad resolve you’d been clinging to softened immediately.

“Hey, if it’s any consolation - for both of you,” you start again, your voice lighter, trying to reset the energy to what it had been before your name became the hot topic of the morning. “It’s only because I’ve known them longer. Maybe… if we hang out a little more, I’ll tell you.”

You flash Wanda a tentative smile. There’s warmth behind it - an invitation, not a promise - but she doesn’t take the bait.

She presses her lips together, visibly fighting the tug of a grin, but loses the battle to her pride. With a sharp turn of her head, she mutters, “Don’t bother,” and spins on her heel.

You watch her walk away, ponytail swaying with each step, her back impossibly straight and her jaw clenched in defiance.

And just like that, you’re certain - painfully certain - she might be the most charming girl you’ve ever met.

Unfortunately for you, Natasha doesn’t miss a beat.

She catches the way your gaze lingers a moment too long, your head tilted just slightly as Wanda disappears down the hall. The corner of the assassin’s mouth curls with amusement as she leans back into the couch, arms crossed.

You snap out of it fast, frowning in her direction. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you paying Stark when Wanda brought that up,” you accuse, tone laced with mock betrayal. “You two were betting on this again?”

Tony lets out a bark of laughter from his seat and shrugs like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Natasha raises both eyebrows, feigning innocence. The five-dollar bill is already gone, stashed away like evidence in a classified file.

You sigh, rubbing your hand over your face. “Unbelievable.”

“Oh, come on,” Natasha says, barely hiding her amusement. “You’ve gotta admit - it’s hilarious when people realize Superwoman isn’t your actual name.”

Steve chuckles from the other couch, finally giving in. “That reminds me - remember that poor waiter in D.C.? The one who panicked and couldn’t decide whether to call you Miss Super or Madam Alien?”

Laughter ripples through the room at the memory. Even Banner cracks a smile. You roll your eyes dramatically, throwing your hands up.

“I told him just ‘Ma’am’ was fine,” you mutter as you start walking toward the door, shaking your head. “And for the record,” you call out, tossing a glance over your shoulder with a perfectly straight face, “I am from another planet.”

Tony doesn’t miss a beat. “See? Knew it.”

The room erupts into fresh laughter, but you just shake your head, waving a hand dismissively as you walk off.

“Still unbelievable,” you mutter under your breath, though this time, there’s amusement in your tone. The kind that sits warm and quiet in your chest, like sunlight through clouds.

-

A new bet had been circulating through the Avengers Compound ever since your disastrously awkward introduction to the team’s newest recruits.

How long until Wanda Maximoff discovers your true identity?

Clint said a few weeks, tops. Steve and Tony were betting for a couple of months. Thor, bless him, didn’t even understand the concept of keeping a secret identity and nearly shouted your actual name across the room - only to be stopped by a flying metal gauntlet Tony launched with frightening precision.

Bruce, ever the scientist, made a whole prediction chart - color-coded and everything - outlining the likelihood of various exposure scenarios. According to his behavioral analysis, you’d eventually slip up and reveal yourself accidentally. Tony called him a spoilsport but still convinced him to place a bet anyway.

Maria and Natasha, meanwhile, were curled together on the couch like shadows stitched at the hip, indistinguishable in the half-light of movie night. Natasha didn’t even look up from the screen as she muttered, “It’s not fair to bet on that. Wanda could just read her mind.”

Maria hummed her agreement. “And not tell anyone. Classic Maximoff move.”

Right on cue, as if summoned by sheer chaos, Wanda reappeared in the doorway, arms crossed, eyebrows drawn tight in a frown.

“I would never invade someone’s mind like that,” she snapped, voice low and tight with restrained indignation. “If she wants to keep secrets and build walls, that’s her choice.”

Then she turned on her heel and walked off, her crimson flannel pajama pants fluttering slightly with the motion. The room sat in silence for a beat, then Natasha grinned.

“New bet,” she announced. “How long until Wanda admits she has a crush on Y/N?”

Laughter erupted.

It only got more ridiculous from there.

Maintaining a secret identity was hard enough with your crazy schedule, missions popping up at ungodly hours, and an internship at Oscorp that demanded more from you than legally acceptable. Peter Parker was the only one who truly understood the madness. You had a little ongoing competition: “How many times did I almost get caught today?” A point system. The winner got free shawarma.

But lately, things felt… off.

It was as if the team had collectively decided to test you. You were being sent on last-minute missions, brought back in civilian clothes, tossed into briefings before you had time to shed your disguise. It felt deliberate. Sabotage by friendly fire.

Of course, no one mentioned the bet to you.

It was one of those mornings - chaotic, cursed, and running ten steps behind the clock. You were still in your Oscorp clothes, your signature lead-laced glasses perched on your nose, hair slightly frizzy from rushing. Your dress shirt wasn’t completely buttoned, and beneath it, a glimpse of the familiar blue and red peeked through like a bad omen.

As you stumbled barefoot into the Tower’s common room, scanning for your shoes, you froze.

Wanda Maximoff was standing there in oversized pajamas, her hair a sleepy mess, blinking at you from over a mug of steaming coffee.

“Oh, uh. Hi,” you said, voice cracking just a bit under the panic.

This was it. This was the moment you’d have to change your name, disappear to the Arctic, and start a new life herding goats.

Wanda just blinked, forced a smile, and murmured a polite “Good morning” before turning back to the coffee machine, like you were no one. Like you were just some intern passing through.

Your shoes sat mockingly on the far side of the room. You crossed to them, fumbling with your shirt to make sure not a single thread of the Superwoman suit was visible.

You sat down, tugging your laces tight, when her voice broke the quiet.

“Are you… Friends with anyone here?” she asked suddenly. Wanda leaned casually against the counter, but there was something soft in her voice, almost cautious.

Your mind blanked. Friends? With anyone?

“Uh yeah,” you blurted, nerves turning your brain into static. “I’m friends with Superwoman.”

You could hear your soul leave your body.

Wanda tilted her head. “Oh?”

Before she could press further-or laugh, or question the absurdity of what you just said, the automatic door whooshed open.

Bruce stepped in with a file in his hands and a furrow on his brow.

He took one look at you, then glanced at Wanda. You weren’t often in civilian clothes around the Tower - especially not so early, or without warning. His pause was subtle, but it said enough.

“Y/N?” Bruce asked, tone neutral but probing. “Didn’t know you were here.”

You jumped to your feet, trying to act casual. “Hey, yeah. I came by late last night. Needed to grab some documents.”

Bruce blinked slowly.

“I, uh, ended up staying. Superwoman said it was okay,” you added, your lie falling apart as it left your mouth.

Bruce, mercifully, decided not to comment. The brilliance in his eyes suggested he knew exactly what you were doing. He gave a slow nod. “Right. Of course.”

You grabbed your shoes, already half out the door. “Nice meeting you, Miss Maximoff,” you said quickly, voice almost too formal as you escaped, waving once and not daring to look back.

Bruce stood there for a moment in silence, then looked at Wanda.

She simply lifted the cereal box into the air with her magic, poured it with too much force into her bowl, and carried it off, pouting the whole way.

-

The worst part of the whole secret identity thing isn't the exhaustion, or the constant lies, or even the juggling act between superhero landings and corporate deadlines.

It’s remembering exactly why it's necessary.

Peter runs into an old friend - Harry Osborn - who, by some cosmic joke, also happens to be your boss. Superheroes have their own demons, their own secrets clawing behind the masks, and something serious unfolds between them.

When the dust settles, Gwen ends up in the hospital.

She’ll recover - Peter says it like a prayer - but the guilt is carved into the spaces under his eyes, and it doesn’t go away when he tells you what happened. About Harry, about the favors he wanted from Spider-Man. About how betrayed he felt when he discovered Peter was Spider-Man - and had refused to help.

You don’t sleep that night.

There's a pit in your stomach, bitter and deep. That could’ve been anyone. That could’ve been you.

There are only a handful of people who know who you really are. Your family. Carol - your lifeline, your salvation, the one who pulled you from the wreckage of your dying world. Fury - who raised you through SHIELD like some grim guardian angel. A few Avengers who found out under specific, inescapable circumstances.

Peter, of course. He understands the weight of the mask.

And then… there’s everyone else.

Your classmates. Your bosses at Oscorp. The coffee shop barista who always forgets your name. The world.

And Wanda.

Wanda, who bickered with Superwoman during missions like it were a sport. Who never let you win without a challenge and rolled her eyes so dramatically you sometimes thought she'd levitate off the ground.

Wanda, who always looked at Y/N Danvers like she was made of something softer. Who shared food without asking. Who nudged your knee during movie nights. Who once touched your badge, just to straighten it, and sent a shiver up your spine with the brush of her fingers against your neck.

Wanda, who was slowly becoming a reason to smile in rooms too quiet.

And precisely because of that… Wanda, who could never know.

You couldn’t stand the idea of putting her in danger.

Not just from enemies, but from you. From what it costs to be close to you.

By the time your distress becomes impossible to hide, the bet has long been forgotten. You walk through the Tower in pieces. The team stops whispering about when you'll slip up and starts worrying about whether you’re okay.

It’s Natasha who finally had enough.

She kicks you off the next mission.

No arguments. No chance to protest. Just a firm grip on your wrist and a silent march through the hallways until you're sitting in an empty room that smells faintly of metal and ozone. The door closes with a hiss behind you.

“Okay,” she says, arms crossed. “Let’s talk.”

You glance at the wall like it might give you an escape route. It doesn’t.

You can hear faint voices down the hallway. The others are whispering about your little outburst in the briefing room. You clench your jaw.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” you mutter.

Nat raises an eyebrow.

“Nothing,” you repeat. You shrug. Look at the floor. Your voice dips quieter. “It’s just…”

A breath escapes you. Heavy. Frustrated.

“…how did you know this was what you wanted?”

Natasha’s expression shifts. The sharpness in her posture softens. She sets her tablet down on the table behind her, unread.

“What do you mean?” she asks, but her voice is gentle now.

You hesitate. Your throat burns.

“I mean… back then. When you stopped being the Black Widow. When Fury gave you the option to just be Natasha Romanoff. Why didn’t you take it? Why didn’t you stop?”

She doesn’t answer at first. She just watches you, eyes trained and careful. You hate that they see too much.

You blink, and the tears well up despite yourself. You’re so tired. Of pretending. Of juggling two lives. Of wonder, which one is real?

“And now you’re living with Maria,” you continue, voice cracking. “You could’ve quit. You could be… happy. Quiet. Safe.”

Natasha sighs.

“I get it,” she says softly, like a truth you didn’t want to hear.

She sits beside you.

“But this isn’t really about me, is it?”

You shake your head, eyes shining with unshed tears. Natasha reaches out instinctively, finding your hand and resting hers over it. It's warm. Solid. A grounding force you didn’t realize you needed.

“I visited Gwen in the hospital before I came here,” you say quietly, your voice thick with guilt and fury. “Harry… he did a number on her. Four broken ribs. Internal bleeding. She’s lucky to be alive.”

Your breath shudders. “Peter hasn’t put the mask on in weeks. And I can’t stop thinking - if any of my enemies came for the people I care about…”

You don’t finish the sentence. You don’t need to.

Natasha squeezes your hand tighter. “Hey. I get the fear. I really do. But we’re not helpless. You’re not alone. We can defend ourselves.”

You let out a dry, humorless laugh and nod, though there’s nothing funny in any of this.

“I didn’t want any of this to be necessary, Nat,” you murmur. “The mask, the secrets. I didn’t come here to be a superhero.”

“I know,” she says gently. “But no one makes it through this life alone, Y/N.” She laces her fingers with yours. “And, if you must know, the weight got a little easier for me when I let Maria in. Turns out, sharing the burden isn’t so bad. Who knew?”

You huff a soft laugh and bump your shoulder lightly against hers. The touch feels safe. Reassuring.

There’s a brief silence before you speak again. “I’ll get my head on straight, okay? You don’t have to bench me.”

Nat smiles at you with that knowing tilt of her head. “Look, I think you’re one of the best heroes we’ve got. But maybe - just maybe - getting benched is a good thing right now. Take a breath. A day off. Ask a girl out.”

Your face heats immediately, and you mutter something about not having time for relationships.

Nat smirks, entirely unsurprised. “Then maybe you should consider someone who gets the job. Say, another superhero?” She wiggles her brows. “Someone in the Tower who, as far as I can tell, is very interested.”

You blink. “Wanda doesn’t even know I’m Superwoman.”

Natasha bursts out laughing.

“Oh, honey. Do you really think the mind reader of the group doesn’t know?”

You stare at her, stunned. “But - she never said anything! She treats me like I’m two different people!”

Nat sighs, her smirk softening into something more understanding. “Because you asked her to. Maybe not with words, but with walls. You put this distance between yourself and everyone. Between her and you.”

You look down, guilt landing like a weight on your chest.

“She’s the new kid, Y/N,” Natasha continues gently. “She’s trying to make real connections. Trying to earn trust. And you - ” she nudges your knee with hers - “you won’t let her in all the way.”

You swallow hard, throat tight.

“I just thought… maybe she didn’t know. Or maybe she liked Y/N Danvers more than Superwoman.”

Natasha throws her head back and laughs again, full and exasperated. “Wow. You really are the queen of self-denial.”

She stands and grabs her work tablet off the table, mumbling to herself as she taps through a few screens. “Well, since neither of you is cleared for the mission, it looks like you and Wanda are stuck with tower duty. Desk work, all day.”

You grimace. “Ugh, but I hate desk work - ” You stop. Catch the flicker of amusement in her eyes. Oh. Desk work.

Alone. With Wanda. In an empty tower.

“This desk work,” you mumble.

“I love desk work, actually,” you add quickly, sitting up straighter.

Natasha rolls her eyes and chuckles, already halfway to the door. “You just cost me twenty bucks, Danvers.”

It takes a second to process what she means. Another bet. Another chance. Another push.

And before the door closes behind her, you're on your feet again - chasing after her, heart hammering with something that feels a lot like hope.

-

Desk work is, without a doubt, the least glamorous part of being a superhero.

Bureaucracy. Mission reports. Intelligence logs. Inventory updates. Categorizing classified items into neatly labeled folders.

Endless, soul-crushingly boring stuff.

Boring enough that your focus slips every five minutes - though maybe that’s less about the files and more about the hum of Kryptonian energy beneath your skin, begging for movement. Or maybe it’s the presence at the other desk, steadily flipping through files, her brow furrowed in concentration.

You spin absently in your swivel chair, just to keep your body busy. One turn too far and the chair wobbles dangerously under your weight, threatening to tip. You gasp and grab the desk for balance - just in time.

Wanda lets out a small giggle, quick and unexpected. The sound makes your heart stutter.

“Sorry you got dragged into this too,” she says, trying to make conversation. Her eyes flick toward you, soft with something you can’t quite name. “I think this is just them getting back at me.”

You tilt your head, brows raised. “What do you mean?” Your voice is playful, but your mind leaps straight to the worst possible interpretation. “Wait - am I that bad to be around? Is this some kind of punishment?”

Wanda's eyes widen, and she scoffs, scandalized. “What? No! That’s not what I meant.” She sounds almost flustered, and when you give her your best wide-eyed puppy dog look, she glares, flustered but amused. “Come on, you’re not that bad.”

There’s laughter in her tone, and you offer a reluctant smile, looking away before it turns into a grin you can’t hide.

She leans back slightly in her chair, her voice softer now. “It’s because of Ultron, really. My fault he managed to compromise so many of our files. Now we have to go all analog. Hard copies for everything. Hence…” She gestures broadly to the pile of folders between you.

You pause, your smile fading a little. “You know you didn’t create Ultron, right?”

Wanda doesn’t answer immediately. Her fingers hover over the edge of a file. You can hear the shift in her breath, just slightly unsteady, before it evens again.

“Maybe it’s time to stop blaming yourself for something that wasn’t yours to carry,” you add gently.

There’s a moment of quiet between you, something unspoken passing in the space between your desks. A heartbeat. Hers, steady now. Yours, skipping like it’s forgotten how to keep rhythm.

Then Wanda clears her throat. “Still,” she says lightly, “I have to admit - it’s a little funny. Seeing Superwoman stuck behind a desk.”

You roll your eyes, shifting in your seat as the poor chair creaks under your weight. She smirks. “It’s like watching Thor try to sit on Tony’s designer couch. That poor thing never stood a chance.”

You laugh under your breath and adjust your posture before the chair gives out. “It’s not so bad,” you murmur, casting her a sideways glance. “I like my work partner.”

The words slip out before you can stop them. They land in the air between you with more weight than you intended.

Wanda blinks, and her cheeks flush instantly. You feel the heat creep up your own neck in response.

“I mean - like, in a friendly way,” you stammer quickly, eyes darting back to your file. “Like… liking my teammate. Not like liking liking - ”

She lets out a breathy laugh, somewhere between nervous and charmed, and turns her attention to the stack of papers in front of her like they’ve suddenly become the most fascinating thing in the world.

You try to listen - listen for the gentle rhythm of her heartbeat - but yours is pounding so loudly in your ears, you can’t hear anything else.

“I get it, Y/N,” Wanda murmurs.

And just like that, your mouth clamps shut. Embarrassment floods through you, hot and fast. You duck your head and pretend to care very deeply about the stack of inventory files in front of you, wishing you could disappear into them. Or, better yet, have one of those heavy boxes topple over and end this moment with poetic finality.

It takes a full five minutes for your brain to catch up - five minutes of sitting there in silence, pretending to work, heart pounding uselessly - before it hits you.

She called you by name.

Your eyes widen as realization crashes into you like a wave. You freeze, blinking at the words on the page that don’t even register anymore. Your breathing shifts, shallow and uneven.

Wanda brought it up first.

You didn’t even notice.

You’ve been so locked inside your own anxious spiral, so distracted by every small move she makes, that you missed the one thing you were most afraid of.

You’re so wrapped up in your panic that you don’t realize she’s stopped working, that she’s crossed the room, quiet as a shadow. She pulls something out of one of the drawers. It doesn’t belong to the inventory.

Your glasses.

The old pair, lost ages ago in the mess of the tower, now held gently in her hands like they were something precious.

You only catch her movement in your peripheral vision, and when she’s standing beside you, you instinctively hold your breath.

The chair shifts slightly beneath you, the telltale shimmer of her magic moving it to face her.

She doesn’t say anything. But there’s no anger in her face. No judgment. Just that patient, quiet look that always makes you feel like maybe the world isn’t such a bad place after all.

She brushes a few strands of hair from your eyes. Then, slowly, she slips the glasses onto your face.

“There you are,” she says softly.

It’s almost enough to undo you.

The contrast of the suit - the bright blue and red - and the old glasses feels ridiculous, but the way Wanda’s eyes soften makes it something else entirely. Familiar. Real. You.

“Wanda, I - ” you start, but she moves before you can finish.

She kisses you.

It’s soft, gentle - just the press of her lips to yours. Barely long enough to register before she pulls away.

Your cheeks go up in flames. “H-hm...” Your brain short-circuits. Words evaporate. You’re just... sitting there, in a slightly too-small chair, in your super-suit, with the most incredible girl in the world looking at you like that.

Wanda’s lips quirk in a smile. “Sorry. I just thought we had to get a few things out of the way.” Her fingers trace lightly down your cheek. “You’ve been thinking about it for days. But it didn’t seem like you were going to actually do anything.”

“I was going to,” you mumble, flustered. “Eventually.”

She laughs under her breath, warm and amused. “Sure. Eventually.”

Before you can think of a clever response, she leans in again - this time slower, more certain. Her nose brushes yours, a soft, teasing touch, before her lips find yours again.

This kiss is different. Unhurried. Confident. Her mouth moves against yours with quiet intent, and when her tongue brushes against yours, it sends a shiver down your spine.

Unfortunately, the chair makes a rather unfortunate groan beneath your shifting weight. You lurch slightly, catching yourself before you topple over completely.

Wanda pulls back with a burst of laughter, and you can’t help but join her, even as you cover your face in embarrassment.

Eventually, you peel the glasses from your nose and set them on the desk beside you. Your hands find hers and bring them to your chest, pressing them gently against the symbol on your uniform. Her gaze flickers down, then back to your face.

Your voice comes quieter now, almost fragile. “I’m sorry it took me so long to tell the truth,” you say. “I’ve never been this scared to let someone in. To risk putting them in danger just by loving them.”

Wanda doesn’t flinch. She nods, her expression softening as she wraps her arms around your shoulders.

“I do understand,” she whispers. “Come here.”

You fold into the embrace, arms slipping around her waist, grounding yourself in the feel of her - warm, solid, real. There’s a long moment where neither of you says anything. You just breathe each other in.

Then, voice low and almost conspiratorial, Wanda murmurs against your ear: “I love Mexican food, if you ever get brave enough to ask me out.”

You laugh into her shoulder, breaking the hug. “Oh my God, stop reading my mind.”

“But it’s so fun,” she teases, her smirk blooming again.

You roll your eyes, but the grin stays. “I can think of something better for you to focus on.”

She raises an eyebrow, intrigued.

But she’s the one leaning in first, closing the distance with a wicked little smile and a kiss that promises a thousand unsaid things.

[dontbesoweirdkira]

howdyyy, what do u think of plat yan! dick grayson (or platonic yan father bruce wayne up to u) with a batsis who is very disinterested with him primarily bc when she was younger she idolised him a lot but now not so much. there are comics where grayson has cheated on his partners before so imagine batsis coming to realise as she aged and matured that her doting brother is a bit of a playboy…. a lot like a playboy actually—

You know, this is actually extremely realistic. There's nothing like the rose color glasses falling off and realizing just how messed up your family truly is.

I'd like to think that there was plenty of jokes and mentions about Dick being a playboy but Batsis would just be absolutely clueless. You probably just thought it was a reference to his charming appearance or the way he gets hit on at least once whenever he goes out. Not really that he was an notorious heart breaker.

Like i don't think the other batkids had serious talks about it in front of you because of your (then) age or maybe it was a request by Dick so he could keep on his perfect mask with you?

Ironically, he wouldn't want any man to treat his little sister (or any of them) the way he does to other women but he has a problem. I will say though, it makes absolute sense that Dick or even the others would have issues keeping relationships or even have sex addictions. I mean it's a real issue that many people are struggling with right now. But can you imagine your father constantly bringing home women and cheating your entire childhood? Like Bruce introduces some of these women to them, they get attached to this potential mother then it's ripped away to be discarded for the new catch. I think that definitely warped Dick's view of women and romance stems from that. *intense mommy issues* But also i mentioned before that it's hard for him to maintain relationships while taking on the fatherly role in the family. His obsession with making sure all of his siblings are cared for and protected(mixed with being nightwing), makes it all the more difficult. Maybe that leads him to just hooking up with and being sloppy in his relationships. Maybe its just a means of stress relief and that causes him to almost dehumanize/objectify the women he "romances".

I'm not saying this is justifiable, cheating is disgusting and his behaviors are something that needs to be corrected regardless of mommy issues but for headcanon sake we are entertaining the concept

I'm not sure how you'd exactly find out about it. Maybe one of the kids let it slip and didn't bother to do damage control because you're old enough now? Maybe you spoke to one of his exes that is still friendly with the batfam? Or maybe your brain started to develop and you realized he wasn't hanging out with that new super model as just friends all night...it was something more and his girlfriend definitely didn't know about it.

Regardless, I think when you finally found out about everything, your world crushed. I don't think you'd hate him but you just feel yucky about the whole thing. Now when you look at him something in your stomach just sinks. You might even wonder if you can trust him. I mean if he's got that much of a problem to be dishonest with his lovers, then why would it be so left field to suggest he lied to you too when he said he loves you or that you were his favorite? The transition from you idolizing him to being standoff-ish would be extremely noticeable to him. I mean it's hard to ignore when you were his mini me. Even as you got older you followed him around and never skipped an opportunity to be near.

He wouldn't think that it was because of the playboy thing, maybe just you needing some space as a teen. Everyone has gone through that phase before but when he notices your shift is only directed towards him, he's a little upset about it. He doesn't understand what he did wrong? One day you guys are eating ice cream together while having a sleepover in his room to you treating him like a disease.

Eventually your big brother corners you and makes you to confess whats bothering you. He apologizes if something he said rubbed you the wrong way but you couldn't keep treating him this way.

"uhm..i dunno, dick? I found out how you've been treating you partners and i think it's kinda gross. I guess i just don't really wanna be around someone who treats women like that right now..."

I think Dick's reaction would be complete shock....who tf told you?! He has no defense but he tries to muster up one before realizing this is just making him look worse when EVERYBODY knows how much of a whore he is lol. He'd back off of you and maybe even mutter an apology before walking away to go collect himself.

He's furious as well...whoever told you will be getting an earful because they just ruined something precious to him. (yeah they did. totally not his OWN actions) If it was one of his brothers, he will be throwing hands.

Dick does very much care about others perception of him, i've said this before. He knew he had a problem and his other siblings have spoken to him about it and it affected him but never enough to change. It's just a far deeper issue than wanting a quick fuck in the expense of his partners...But seeing his baby sister look at him with just so much disgust and disappointment was enough to cause him to spiral. He's not proud of his actions and knows he's hurt and discarded of many, many women for his own satisfaction. It's deplorable. I can imagine him taking maybe a few days to himself, he's just in his head while being overtaken by heavy guilt.

I'm not sure if Dick would actually change for you though? I think he is even debating it. Yeah he's a yandere for his batsis but is his obsession with you enough to kick the other one to the curb? That's up to you. A hopeful person would say, yes he would. Anything for his babybat! He's going to do whatever it takes to prove himself again, anything to make you proud. This habit isn't worth it if hes loosing you.

My opinion? No, he won't change after his guilt wears off. He'll just pretend like he's reborn. Dick would try for like a week and then go right back to doing his habits. He's a manipulative piece of work and yeah, lying to you is bad but he wants his cake and to eat it too. He's not willing to give up anything that gives him a euphoric boost. Shh...what you don't know, won't kill you.

[reidrum]

good night moon | s.r

A/N: hi again ! this one is deeply self indulgent i fear but who cares i hope you like it as much as i do <3 ps let me know what kinda fics i should write next !!

cw: spencer reid x bau!reader, cm type violence, reader is afab but this only is referred to when mentioning reader is a daughter, sad thoughts, hurt/comfort, talks about nightmares, spencer just wants to take care you gdm it why won’t you let him

wc: 2.4k

_______________________________________________

trudging up the stairs of the bullpen, you tried your best to use whatever sense you had left to beeline to the kitchen to make another cup of coffee. thank god the bau had minimal reflective surfaces because you’re sure you look like the evil old lady from snow white. that was just, your opinion of course. to everyone else you looked fine.

fine was so subjective. what did these fuckers know about being fine? they weren’t the ones on the mission. they don’t know what you saw, how you did nothing, how you couldn’t do anything.

“FBI hands up!” you yell holding your gun and flashlight at the unsub. he’s holding the victim at knifepoint, a twelve year old girl who reminded you too much of yourself.

this unsub’s MO was kidnapping eldest daughters of families that had sons as well, because he believed the son should be the eldest child with the most responsibility and that the daughters were only there to create more babies. the team had deduced that he was the youngest child to an older sister who he felt had too much control over him, combined with his fascination with the perfect nuclear family, it slowly turned him into a sociopathic killer.

“come any closer and i’ll slit her throat!” the unsub bellowed, getting dangerously close to her carotid artery.

“you don’t wanna do that, man,” derek says behind you, “just put the knife down and we can talk.”

“there’s nothing left to talk anymore! i’m already going to prison. there’s no point.”

you called out the unsub’s name, “i know how you’re feeling, i have a younger brother too and he feels the same way you do sometimes. what your sister did to you was not okay, but not all sisters are like that. we just want to care for our family. let them have the chance to be the big sister you wished for.”

the unsub seemed to contemplate your words for a minute, then looks up at you with eyes devoid of any light, “then this one is dedicated to you, agent.” and he drags the knife across her neck leaving waterfalls of blood coming out.

you’re not really sure what happened next. a gun went off, presumably derek’s, to kill the unsub. and then it was you screaming as you rushed to the young girl to try and stop her bleeding, but it was no use. the cut was deep enough to nick that damn carotid and all you could do was hold her in her last moments.

“te- tell my family i love them, and that i’m sorry.” the young girl spurts out so softly you almost didn’t hear it.

“no sweet girl, don’t be sorry,” you say through hiccuped cries, “i’m sorry i couldn’t save you.”

the last thing you remember was feeling strong hands carrying you out of the building. you couldn’t hear much, the sound of your wails pretty much masked anything in a five mile radius. you could taste the iron lingering in your mouth from biting your lip too hard and desperately collecting the salty tears and sweat trickling down your face. at first you smelled smoke and dust, most likely from being in the cave where the unsub was. but as you were being dragged away from the crime scene you were influxxed with a musky scent, and a hint of vanilla with that fresh laundry smell. spencer. the last thing you see are his worried little brown eyes staring down at you before everything goes dark.

that was monday. it is now thursday. the case had wrapped up, the unsub was dead the families were notified and now you all were in the office doing your paperwork for the case.

and all of you were doing fine, right? everyone else had already coped and processed the case, already stepping back into their normal life routines. but you, you couldn’t have it that easy, but god you wish you did.

since that day, you’d been holing up in your apartment with all the lights turned on. you sat in your living room, eating a bowl of fruit loops and watching bluey, because listen it’s a great show and we should acknowledge it. you cry out loud seeing bluey care for her little sister bingo, and it brings you back to that dusty cave and the bloodied hands.

you could feel sleep creeping up on you, yet you subconsciously found a way to push bedtime by doing menial tasks like cleaning, extra long skincare, watching a movie. when you ran out of things to do, you entered your room and just stared at your bed. how were you supposed to admit to yourself that the horror isn’t in the movie you just watched where the creepy demons kill everyone, but it’s what is waiting for you behind closed eyelids.

so the only logical solution was to just, not sleep. you whipped out every trick in the book to stay awake for as long as you could— energy drinks, coffee, splashing cold water, anything so you wouldn’t have to reface your plagued memories.

spencer observed you from a distance. he watched as you got coffee a whopping three times before 10am, you picking at your skin, not to mention the bags growing under your eyes. it was then he formed a hypothesis, he was a scientist after all. that you simply were not sleeping because of the case. it was much less a hypothesis and more of a fact because he knew exactly what it was upon first sight of you, hell he invented the sleep avoidance look.

and as the inventor it meant he knew the feeling more intimately than he would like to admit. spencer knew what it felt like to be debilitated by the confines of your brain, holding onto shreds of memories you know are not worth remembering but have somehow marked their territory anyway. and everyone coped differently, for spencer he isolated himself for days and then threw himself into work. for you? well, that was the next part of spencer’s experiment.

spencer approaches you in the kitchen as you’re pouring your fourth cup before noon, “hi.”

“hi.”

“how are you? feels like we haven’t talked in a bit.”

“i’m good, sorry i’ve just been. busy.”

spencer frowned internally, he knew you weren’t doing a single thing but working at the office. “are you okay? do you want to talk about last week?”

you cut him off abruptly and start walking out, “i really have to finish these reports spence, talk to you later.”

spencer knew better, he should give you space to cope by yourself. you were an adult, you can take care of yourself. but you shouldn’t have to, he thinks. spencer still tells himself he knows better as he’s waiting on your doorstep that night, about to the rapp the door.

after a minute of no answer he knocks again this time calling your name through the door, “will you let me in please? i want to show you something.”

still nothing. he continues, “i know what you’re feeling, and i want to help, please.”

he almost gives up and turns around when he hears the turn of a lock and slight creek of the door opening to see you in all your beautiful glory.

now you, you were definitely a sight for sore eyes. avengers pj shorts with a baggy uni t shirt, hair flying in any direction, and a look that spencer could only describe as grief. but god if you weren’t the most beautiful human he’d seen in his life, he’d be lying.

you were coming up on day 3? or was it 4? of no sleep. it’s not like you were not sleeping at all you took little 30 minute naps each day, enough to get you some shut eye but not enough to make it your rem stage of sleep.

spencer speaks again, “can i come in?” you nod silently and open the door wider for him to step in. he removes his shoes and it’s then you notice a big ole tote bag he’s lugging to your living room.

“what’s in the bag?”

“ah, come sit. i brought magical things.” he smiles playfully.

you shuffle over to sit a seat’s cushion away from him and watch as he starts pulling item by item from his mary poppins bag.

candles, essential oils, books, but specifically romance novels with the silly cartoon covers that he swears aren’t real books but you argue with him until he concedes, melatonin gummies, pillow sleep spray, and one more item that he’s holding onto for what seems to be dramatic effect. you’re not amused.

“and the piece de resistance,” he presents the last item, and you look confused for a second, until you recognize the item in front of you and immediately start tearing up. in his hands is a grogu weighted stuffed animal that he holds out for you to take. “i know you’re not sleeping. it happened to me when, you know. i figured it would be helpful if you had someone who could empathize how you’re feeling. and because you’re my best friend and i care about you.”

your bottom lip trembles, and you feel the ice block you’ve kept yourself in this past week start to melt uncontrollably. “spence…” you breathe out so quietly. he did all this? for you? doctor spencer reid went out to the store, and bought a grogu stuffed animal for you to cuddle at night to ease your loneliness?

the concept of being taken care of was so foreign to you, as the eldest daughter in your family it was always you taking care of others and making sure everyone was okay. but rarely did anyone check on you, how you were holding up. and you had learned to cope by yourself, to handle the big emotions by yourself, but for once, someone was willing to take all that weight off your shoulders and let you breathe. and god, did it feel so cathartic you could burst out in sobs.

so you did.

“hey,” he says scooting closer to you so he can scoop you into his chest, “was that a lot? penelope said i’d probably overwhelm you but all of the things i brought are scientifically proven sleep additives-“

“no i just, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.” you whimper.

spencer’s eyes soften, “you deserve it. what happened last week… was hard. i just wanted to help.”

“thank you,” he hears a muffled response and rubs his hands affectionately down your back, “damn, all this crying is making me so tired.”

“see! the magic of the poppins bag.” he chuckles. you laugh too. spencer thinks all the flowers in a mile radius just bloomed.

“it’s just,” you start out, nuzzling into his chest deeper, “the second i close my eyes and dream, i see her. and how i couldn’t save her. and how the others i couldn’t save either.” you feel your chest seizing up again.

“okay well hey, hey. you did what you were trained to do. any other agent in your position would’ve tried talking him down the way you did. and your personal story gave you an advantage that no one else would’ve had. statistically speaking, you were the best chance at getting through to him. yeah it didn’t work, but it wouldn’t be probability if it always worked,” he cradles your face in his big hands, “we’re all so proud of you, you know. rossi’s waiting for you to be back on your feet so he can host pasta night at his hou- sorry his mansion again.”

spencer looks down at you properly to your tear stained cheeks and brushes your hair back. he sees the pain and tiredness fighting behind your eyes and asks softly, “what do you need right now?”

“i’m tired.” you lament.

“then lets go sleep.”

“i can’t.”

“why not?”

“im scared.”

“well that’s why i brought the stuff silly goose,” he taps your nose, “come on, let’s go set it up.”

spencer brings all the sleep aids to your room and sets them up appropriately, even plugging in your sunrise lamp to help with the ambient lighting. the only thing left to do is for you to get into your bed.

you both stand on opposite sides of your bed, and he’s waiting for you to get in so can tuck you in. you hesitate and look up at him with the same worried eyes he saw all those days ago.

“could you stay for bit?”

“i can stay for some time if you want” you both speak at the same time. you giggle again, spencer thinks an angel got its wings.

thank god he wore sweats and a comfy t shirt he thinks. he slid in under the blanket and holds it open for you to come in, “come on, you’re missing the cuddle party with grogu and i!” you beam widely and finally sink into your bed.

spencer pulls you into his chest, wrapping an arm around your shoulder blade, and the other taking a spot on your hip rubbing soft circles. you lay your head to rest on his chest, right above his beating heart. you try to let the metronomic thumps lull you to sleep, but spencer can still feel your eyelashes fluttering about on his chest. he knows what you’re thinking, because of course he does.

“look at me,” he nudges you, you look up at his eyes again and see nothing but pure love and reassurance as he continues, “you are safe. nothing can hurt you. i promise.”

“are you sure?” you let out meekly,

“i’m sure. it’s okay, go to sleep,” he presses a gentle kiss to the crown of your forehead. “i’ll be here when you wake up.”

you shakily take a deep breath, and close your eyes.

after five minutes of spencer rubbing shapes into your back, he can finally hear the soft snores coming from below. he places another kiss on your head, whispers, “good night angel girl,” and doses off.

you wake up the next morning feeling so rested and relieved you can’t help but give spencer a big hug that wakes him up. spencer thinks he’d be the luckiest man in the universe if he could wake up like this everyday.

[sleepynoons]

jing yuan x gn!reader, 18+, not beta read

cw: yandere jing yuan (kinda unavoidable since this is a yakuza au), mentions of bodily injury and harm, ever so slight sexual tension

notes: i wanted to write smth wayyyy filthier with this au, so maybe... i'll follow up on this drabble with a pt 2.... hrm...

FOR A yakuza – and an oyabun, no less –, the man sitting in front of you is quite nonchalant. it's probably from his decades of experience and the trust he has in his men to properly protect him, but most wouldn't be able to discern either of those things by the way he looks. but you know that beneath his lackadaisical expression and his relaxed posture, there's a danger that you'll never fully be able to imagine or grasp the full extent of.

you didn't intend to put yourself in this position. you have no interest in interacting with gangs or yakuzas anymore, and you have a stronger distaste for exploitative schemes and bloodied money. it's quite ironic, actually. you were only trying to protect a little boy from a leering stranger in black, and somehow, you've ended up in the headquarters of a massive organized crime syndicate.

even worse, you've wound up receiving the thanks of jing yuan, an ex-member of a chinese triad who decided to employ his skills in japan. you've heard the rumors back when you were much younger. he can break necks with his bare hands, hold grudges until they're settled (permanently), and mask all of his cruel and sinister manners with closed eyes and a content smile.

you think you've learned your lesson. mind your own damn business, or else fate will find a way to drag you back into this hellhole!

not that you can say your thoughts out loud. instead, you take a sip of tea and keep your head bowed otherwise.

"you still haven't told me what you'd like in exchange," jing yuan muses. it seems he's trained his voice as well, with the way he speaks so gently yet so precisely. you're sure he's capable of pulling out classified information and dangerous secrets with that easy, seductive tone of his.

you're not sure how to refer to him, so you make do with something formal, something distant. "sir, i appreciate the offer, but again, i didn't save that child for something in return."

"i understand, but i'd like to give you a token of my gratitude anyway."

you've had this back-and-forth four times now. coupled with the silence in between your responses, you estimate that you've been kneeling in this tatami room for at least half an hour now.

this time, though, even if you don't want to notice it, you see jing yuan roll back his shoulders as if he's stretching, and immediately, the two guards standing beside the door pace over to remove the floor table separating the two of you. you expect the guards to return after they place the table elsewhere, but they never do.

it's just you and the oyabun, and you regret not wishing to be left alone as soon as jing yuan asked you the first time for what it is that you desired. you internally sigh, taking the last sip of your tea before the porcelain cup is emptied.

even though it's been a while since you've found yourself in a situation like this, you're grateful that your instincts and prior experience are kicking in. you're not frazzled, nor are you concerned. while it's possible that jing yuan is masterfully concealing his killing intent, you doubt he'd dispose of you when you saved his adoptive son. that means you might as well ask for something random and inconsequential so that this situation can quickly come to its end.

"fine, sir, since you're kindly insisting. how about a set of tea ware? the ones you have out are quite beautiful."

"of course."

you offer an appreciative bow and wiggle your toes, ready to get up.

but it seems jing yuan's not done. "anything else?"

you startle, but you know you must not show any weakness in front of a lethal predator. at best, from the outside, it seems like you're deep in thought.

you respond, "and maybe some tea packs along with it? otherwise, sir, i sincerely mean it when i say there isn't anything that i need or want."

jing yuan tilts his head. "i understand. however…"

the yakuza boss gets up, and you would follow along, except for the fact that he gives you the briefest of glances, enough to root you to your position. you watch as he pads over to you and sit downs next to you. the familiar prickle of heat at the back of your neck, along with the goosebumps that rake along the entirety of your arms, are clear indications of your alarm, and again, you wonder how terrifying jing yuan must be in violent encounters when he already exudes so much pressure just by lingering near you. somehow, even when you've been telling yourself to not be tricked by his facade, your instincts have underestimated the yakuza leader, and you're suffering from the repercussions of your carelessness.

a warm finger settles underneath your chin, and you let jing yuan guide you until you're looking up at him. his eyes are sharp, glinting with a mischievous, ambrosial gold, and the black and red strokes of his chest tattoos, as if drawn by a large paintbrush instead of the needles and teeth of a machine, peek out from the flaps of his loosely tied kimono. he also hums, though it sounds more like a satisfied purr.

there's no use, you think. you can't win when it comes to mind games, and you most definitely cannot put up a physical fight.

"what do you want from me," you mutter with a shaky, wispy voice.

he purrs again. "i want you to answer my question."

"i said i didn't –"

"then i'll help you find what it is that you desire."

he places the pad of his thumb against your chin, holding your head in place, and leans close, so close that your lips are barely brushing against each other. at the same time, his other hand has enclosed itself around your wrist, and has pulled your arm up so that your palm is settled right over his heart, beating at a solid, steady pace, completely unperturbed, radiating a warmth that is unlike his lifestyle or nature.

you're not sure how much jing yuan knows about you – though it's probably more than you'd feel comfortable with –, but either way, his actions make you fume.

"don't act like you know who i am." you're seething, but because you cherish your life, you grit out those words as your teeth sink deeper into your bottom lip, to inhibit your lashing out. "if there's anything i desire, it has nothing to do with you."

"oh?"

you almost squint as his eyes flash with molten amber sparks, slight intrigue, and transparent amusement.

you figure you'd make yourself clear, right here, right now. and so, you growl, "you can't give me what i want. and you never will."

"i see."

you don't know how you make it home. all you can recall are staggered steps, an almost kiss, and several rude shoves to jing yuan's men.

–

two months pass, and neither jing yuan nor his men seek you out in any way. it doesn't seem like you're being targeted by anyone else from other organizations either. you're just relieved that you can resume your peaceful life.

on one unassuming saturday morning, when you're awoken by your doorbell, you rush over to find a deliveryman waiting outside for you. you open your front door cautiously.

"here's your package. can you sign this slip for confirmation?"

it doesn't seem like the man is a fraud. you also can't recall ordering anything as of late. you sign the slip anyway because it really does seem like the man is impatient to get to the next customer, and heave the box back inside to your living room.

you open it, as the exterior doesn't seem suspicious. but your body freezes when you see the contents: a set of teacups made out of fine china and several boxes of rose buds, dried chrysanthemums, and matcha powder. there's also a letter, signed legibly enough so that you can make out the sender's name.

you were never left alone in the first place.

[wordsandrobots]

Fear not, everyone, I am here today with an exhaustive* spotter's guide to that bunch of masked lunatics we like to refer to as 'Char clones' in the Gundam fandom. Because people are always getting into this monolith of the mecha anime canon and I thought it would save some confusion.

Row 1, left to right:

Char Aznable (Mobile Suit Gundam, 1979): hey, it's that guy!

Quattro Bajeena (Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, 1985): it's that guy, again, supposedly

Free space (Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, 1986): ZZ omits masked lunatics to make room for all the unmasked lunatics

Iron Mask (Mobile Suit Gundam F91, 1991): evil uncle stepfather dad cut-price Darth Vader

Cronicle Asher (Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, 1993): some guy who is not really trying with this whole 'mysterious masked man' thing

Schwarz Bruder (Mobile Fighter G Gundam, 1994): just your average German ninja sportsman guy (honest)

Row 2, left to right:

Zechs Merquise (New Mobile Report Gundam Wing, 1995): a totally new guy with very familiar fashion-sense

Jamil Neate (After War Gundam X, 1996): ersatz guy, but not the one you think

Harry Ord (Turn A Gundam, 1999): what a guy!

Rau Le Cruset (Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, 2002): not that guy

Neo Roanoke (Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, 2004): also not that guy, or that guy

Graham Aker (Mobile Suit Gundam 00, 2007): This guy...

Row 3, left to right:

Full Frontal (behave yourselves; Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, 2010): not that guy either, probably, maybe, perhaps

Zeheart Galette (Mobile Suit Gundam AGE, 2011): a guy named after baked goods

Luin Lee (Gundam Reconguista in G, 2014): 'Captain Mask'

McGillis Fareed (Mobile Suit Gundam IRON-BLOODED ORPHANS, 2015): a guy who is way too into this

Vidar (Mobile Suit Gundam IRON-BLOODED ORPHANS, 2016): say, Iron-Blooded Orphans, how come mom lets you have two guys in masks?

Prospera Mercury (Mobile Suit Gundam the Witch from Mercury, 2022): mom

*Mainline series, at time of writing

[aventurineswife]

Hi! Another beloved parenting request (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)

Basically the reader and the character(Aventurine, Sampo, Childe And dr.Ratio) have a 4 year old son who one night has a nightmare and asks both of them if they can sleep with them in the middle, In short the child sleeps with both parents. Take all the time you want with this, I mean it all! (⁠＾⁠∇⁠＾⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠♪

-💤🩵 anon

Safe Between Us

Tags: Aventurine x Reader, Ratio x Reader, Sampo x Reader, Childe x Reader, Fluff, Domestic Life, Parenting, Comfort/Wholesome Moments, Nightmare Comfort, Soft Relationships, Family Bonding, Established Relationship.

Warnings: Mentions of Nightmares (non-graphic), Mild Emotional Vulnerability, References to Past Trauma.

A/N: Someone's a bit obsessed with a certain hydro character here ahem ahem, can't blame you if I'm obsessed with a certain gambler here ahem ahem 🧍‍♀️ also Renny is used for gender neutral term of parent since it would've been weird if the child called you parent

The quiet hum of the city outside your window was a faint backdrop to the stillness of the room. You were beginning to drift off to sleep when you heard the sound of small, hurried footsteps padding down the hall. Moments later, a little voice called out, trembling with fear.

“Papa? Mama/Dada/Renny?”

You sat up immediately, your heart clenching. Your four-year-old son stood at the doorway, his hair sticking up in all directions, his eyes brimming with tears. Clutching a small stuffed peacock—Aventurine's ironic gift—he sniffled.

“I had a bad dream,” he whispered. “Can I sleep with you and Papa?”

Aventurine, who had been lounging on the bed, glanced at the child. His ever-present enigmatic smile softened. “A nightmare, hmm? Well, dreams are just gambles in our sleep, aren’t they? Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. But tonight,” he said, patting the bed, “you’ve hit the jackpot, little man.”

You rolled your eyes at his theatrical explanation but moved aside to make room. Your son climbed into the bed, nestling himself between the two of you. Aventurine adjusted the covers with an exaggerated flourish, ensuring his boy was snug and warm.

“Tell me what scared you,” Aventurine said softly, his voice losing its usual playful edge. He reached out, brushing a few stray locks from your son’s forehead.

“There were… monsters,” your son murmured, curling against your side. “And they wanted to take me away.”

Aventurine’s smile grew tight for a moment—a rare crack in his facade. “No one’s taking you anywhere,” he promised, his tone firmer now. “Not while your parents are here.”

You leaned over, pressing a kiss to your son’s temple. Aventurine mirrored your gesture, his gaze meeting yours briefly. It was in these quiet, vulnerable moments that his guarded mask slipped entirely, revealing the man beneath.

As the three of you lay there, the child’s breathing grew steady, his fears banished by the warmth and love surrounding him. Aventurine murmured a soft, “Goodnight,” his hand lingering protectively on your son’s back. For once, there was no gamble, no risk—just family.

The air was cool, and the soft glow of the moon filtered through the curtains as you and Sampo settled into bed. His mischievous grin, as usual, hadn’t faltered even after a long day. But the peace of the evening was soon interrupted by the sound of your son crying out from his room.

Both you and Sampo bolted upright, exchanging a quick glance before hurrying down the hall. You found your four-year-old sitting up in his bed, his eyes wide with fear and tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Hey there, champ,” Sampo said, crouching beside him. “What’s got you so spooked?”

“I—I had a bad dream,” your son stammered, his small hands clutching the blanket. “Can I sleep with you and Mama/Papa/Renny?”

Sampo’s playful grin softened. “Of course you can. What kind of dad would I be if I said no to my favorite little guy?”

Carrying your son back to your bedroom, Sampo made a show of fluffing the pillows and tucking him in. “Alright, bud,” he said as your son settled between the two of you, “you’re in the safest spot in the world now—between two top-tier protectors.”

“Papa,” your son whispered as he clung to your arm, “are you sure the monsters can’t find me here?”

“Monsters?” Sampo chuckled, ruffling the boy’s hair. “Not a chance. Besides, if they tried, I’d outsmart them in a heartbeat. You’ve got a merchant dad, remember? I’d sell them some fake monster repellent and send them running!”

You couldn’t help but laugh, shaking your head at his antics. But it worked—your son giggled, the fear melting from his face. Soon, he was fast asleep, snuggled between you and Sampo.

Sampo leaned over, pressing a kiss to your temple. “See? Problem solved. My charms work on everyone.”

The house was silent save for the rhythmic sound of waves crashing on the shore outside. You were just drifting off to sleep when a tiny knock came at the bedroom door.

“Come in,” Childe called, sitting up immediately. The door creaked open to reveal your four-year-old son, clutching his blanket tightly.

“Papa… Mama/Dada/Renny… I had a bad dream,” he said, his voice shaky. “Can I sleep with you?”

Childe was out of bed in an instant, kneeling to scoop the boy into his arms. “Of course, little one,” he said, his tone soft and reassuring. “Nightmares can’t hurt you when we’re here.”

Your son nestled against Childe’s chest as he carried him back to the bed. As the child crawled into the space between you, Childe tucked the blankets securely around him. “What was the dream about?” he asked, brushing his fingers through your son’s hair.

“There were… shadows,” your son whispered. “And they tried to take me away.”

Childe’s jaw tightened briefly, but his voice remained calm. “Shadows, huh? Well, they don’t stand a chance against us. Your parent and I are the strongest team there is.”

He glanced at you, his eyes softening as he reached over to take your hand. “We’ve got him, right?”

You nodded, smiling. “Always.”

Your son’s breathing slowed as he relaxed, lulled by the warmth and safety of your embrace. Childe watched him for a moment, his hand resting protectively on the boy’s back. “I’ll never let anything happen to him,” he whispered, more to himself than to you.

The soft glow of the night lamp illuminated your room when the faint sound of sniffles reached your ears. Moments later, your four-year-old son appeared at the doorway, his small frame trembling.

“Mommy/Daddy/Renny… Daddy… I had a bad dream,” he said, clutching his blanket. “Can I sleep with you?”

Ratio adjusted his glasses, his intense eyes softening as he looked at the child. “A nightmare?” he murmured, rising to kneel before him. “Dreams are merely the mind’s way of sorting chaos. Let’s bring some order to this, shall we?”

You smiled as Ratio scooped the boy into his arms, his scholarly tone transforming into something gentle and warm. “Come,” he said, settling the child between you. “There is no safer place than here.”

As your son curled up, Ratio placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Tell me what frightened you,” he urged.

“There were big, scary shapes,” your son whispered, his voice muffled against your chest. “And they were chasing me.”

Ratio nodded thoughtfully. “Ah, shadows. A product of fear and imagination,” he explained. “But fear loses its power in the presence of love and knowledge.”

Your son’s eyes fluttered closed as you and Ratio soothed him with quiet reassurances. “Sleep now, my little prodigy,” Ratio whispered, his hand lingering protectively on the boy’s back. “Your dreams will find clarity, and we will always be here to guide you.”

[laboratory-for-peace]

Villain Analysis: The Garuda Himself

AKA What turns men into monsters; Is it ideology and propaganda? Projection and insecurity? Class and upbringing? Or perhaps, it is all of these combined.

A not-so-quick analysis of Vinsmoke Judge, what makes him so despicable and hate-able, why he works as a villain, what does this mean for Sanji as a character and WCI as an arc, and how the brains of awful men like his work.

Warning: this is very very long (around 2k words) and talks about topics of abuse and imperialism, obviously. Also, a lot of this hinges on personal subjective interpretation of the narrative and speculation, so please be patient.

For starters, let’s get a quick comparison between Judge as a villain and other antagonists throughout One Piece. There’s, in my opinion, something that quickly separates him from the rest.

While most villains in One Piece are often motivated to do horrible things because of personal pathos and experiences, wants, needs, desires and traumatic memories, Judge –at first glance at least, seems to be motivated by something very different: Ideology. He is an imperialist, a fascist, a eugenicist, a classist, a warmonger, and so on and so on.

He is most similar to a villain like Hody Jones in this regard. There’s no personal big event in their lives (that we know of, at least) leading this type of character to their horrible actions, but rather a worldview. Most other antagonists in One Piece are in my opinion written as “person first, ideology second”. They’re often motivated by their own specific experiences, even if they can be assigned an ideology on top of that. But Judge and Hody seem to be more symbolic of broader ideas at their core, so they’re in a sense the odd ones out. They’re the reverse; “ideology first, person second”, almost feeling like they’re representatives of broader harmful structures, rather than being their own individuals.

I think also it’s worth mentioning why the ideology is here, and what it offers in terms of the narrative of Sanji’s abuse. Some might think it was an unnecessary element that isn’t that thematically connected to Sanji’s struggles. Couldn’t his family simply have been abusive, without all that Germa nonsense? Well for starters, it’s mostly here for the pop-cultural Kamen Rider references, yeah. But getting that out of the way, I think Sanji’s suffering is connected to his father’s terrible worldview pretty directly.

For starters, fascism is all about control. It preaches scapegoatism, demonization of “weakness” and fetishization of strength. Judge is a man that runs his family the same way he runs his state; with an iron fist. Sanji’s abuse IS a direct result of him being unable to meet these horrific standards. It also helps that we know Sanji as a kind person, so juxtaposing him to his comically evil literal-supervillain family, makes it simply easier for us to root for Sanji and hate his relatives, from a narrative building perspective. Ideas around masculinity and what an “able body” is in Judge’s eyes, are both part of Sanji’s backstory of abuse. It is also important that the Vinsmokes are royalty, because the first thing we learn about Sanji in One Piece, is that he suffered through great hunger. These people are wealth itself; they have never experienced that hardship.

However, while I think it’s true to an extent that Judge at first is simply “walking ideology” without being much of an actual individual, the way WCI is written, he starts showing interesting cracks behind the mask that reveal hints of specific personal motivations. In other words, the awful person behind the just as awful ideology starts to subtly show, and can be pieced together by looking intently.

As we experience the arc through Sanji’s eyes, Judge is a man who initially seems like an intimidating “strongman”, an impossible-to-read stoic threat, with no thoughts of his own outside cruelty. He’s a walking stereotype without much depth to be found. But slowly, the faults of his character begin to show; he is hasty, he has emotional outbursts, he is pathetic and hypocritical, he is careless and thoughtless, falling easily into Big Mom’s trap. In other words the imperfection and insecurity that Sanji was never able to spot in his father as a scared kid, starts to reveal itself, as Sanji slowly overcomes his fear of this man. He is not terrifying anymore; he is pathetic. And he is human, the worst kind of evil. The image of a man who is as perfectly mechanical as his genetically augmented sons, is shattered. They have no choice in their cruelty (to an extent, at least, due to Judge’s actions no less), but Judge is perfectly capable of compassion. He simply chooses to disregard it. His evil, unlike his sons, is his own choice.

Judge often laments his own humanity, doing so multiple times throughout the arc. He complains about how he can’t bring himself to take “his own son’s life as a father” to Sanji’s face, or often shows his twisted love for the rest of his children. This is a man who wishes nothing more than to be like his so-called “perfect” cruel sons, these unfeeling warriors, soldiers with no fear or sorrow. He fashions himself after them, in a way. But that is not the truth of who he is, and he very very clearly hates that.

This is where his hypocrisy comes in; he punishes Sanji for the very same things he himself is very capable of. To me, that’s kind of the point of the scene of him crying during the assassination, a highlight of his “rules for thee but not for me” behavior. This might sound absurd at first, but don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say. I think out of the three parental figures Sanji has had in his life (Sora, Judge, Zeff) he is the least like his birth father. He is in every sense, much more like the other two. However, no matter how absurd it feels, out of all his sons, Judge is most similar to Sanji. And he hates every second he is reminded of it. Not in the kindness, of course, but in his emotional nature. This is a man who, I think is not a stretch to say, projected on his eight-year-old son.

But here comes the problem, of course. As I said earlier, I think this is a man whose ideology came first. He doesn’t latch onto it to cover up for his insecurities, but rather, they are comorbid, it’s the reverse. The elements he sees in himself as “weakness” are elements that he hates, precisely because they clash with his worldview, not the other way around. The ideology is a result of upbringing, similar to the Celestial Dragons; taught from birth that as royalty he is superior to others, that he deserves everything by existing, that his kingdom’s horrific nationalism is excused due to whatever scapegoatism the Vinsmokes have been propagandizing for centuries. So when he is reminded that these ideas might be false, when he looks at his own “weak” son and realizes he is more like him than he is like his other “perfect” sons, he lashes out in ways the escalate in cruelty. I think he is at his core, a disastrous mix of entitlement and insecurity. After all, secure and happy men don’t fall for such ideas.

There’s an interesting moment right before he gives his last horrid speech where he lists all of the things he hates about Sanji (that scene where Luffy lovingly responds with “Why did he list all the good things about you?”). Before he starts angrily and pointlessly rambling, there’s a panel where he looks down at Sanji, their faces juxtaposed, with his bandages covering one eye; just like Sanji and his hairstyle, and while making a similar facial expression to him. There’s a pause in that moment. I think the narrative is telling us in a way, and if you want to interpret it as such, about the insecurity and projection hiding behind this man’s “strongman” mask. Literally a mask- Big Mom broke his helmet. He is here without it. And of course, he cannot change. He will not change. He will keep acting out his cruelty; it’s too late for horrible old men like him. But not for someone like Sanji. This is the last moment where we see the two reject each other for good. And it’s a reminder of how that man’s shadow no longer looms over Sanji. Sanji can see through him, he sees the real, pathetic, sad man behind the intimidating persona. Maybe he does see himself a little bit too, but he rejects that. He rejects a future where he grows to be like this man.

The last element I want to talk about however, one that I didn’t touch on so far, probably has to do with Sora. There’s two things that stood out to me in regards to Judge’s relationship to Sora that I never see anyone talk about.

The first is the fact that Judge calls Sanji “his greatest failure”. Think about it for a few seconds. Why would a man so self-absorbed not simply blame Sora for what happened? He could have easily gone “Oh, there’s no failure on my part here, my science was perfect! I didn’t make any mistakes; I was simply sabotaged. Sabotaged by a third party.” But he doesn’t. He doesn’t use Sora as a scapegoat. I mean- it wouldn’t have been inaccurate either. The reason Sanji was born human IS because of Sora’s interference, not because of any mistake in the science.  So why? Why does he not do it? Why is Sanji “his mistake”. I simply couldn’t figure it out at first, but then it dawned on me.

If Sanji is “Judge’s mistake”, than it can’t be “Sora’s success”. He is erasing her. He’d rather present himself as someone who messed up, than include her and acknowledge her actions. It’s about taking agency away from her. If HE is the one that failed when it comes to Sanji, he can make it about himself, and take her out of the picture. He can strip her of her power and decision. This is at his a core a man who is obsessed with control. Everyone else exists to serve him, in his eyes.

We see this even further in one of the most interesting and under-analyzed parts of Reiju’s speech to Sanji in WCI. While trying to figure out her father’s behavior, she makes the suggestion to Sanji that right after Sora died “he blamed you for everything that happened, and started to mistreat you accordingly.”

While Reiju is an unreliable in-universe narrator, she is one of the few people close enough to her father to be able to figure out his behavior. And here, she is suggesting that a big part of Sanji’s mistreatment is because, in his twisted mind, Judge blames Sanji for Sora’s death. This to me reads in a couple of ways. For starters, it’s once again taking agency away from her. It couldn’t have been her own decision; it had to be the fault of something or someone else. In this case… their unborn son…? Wild choice on who to blame. But it works in his head; Sora didn’t CHOOSE to disobey him, it was all that child’s fault. But also, it does beg that question again of what happens when you mix that complex villainous humanity with wretched ideology. Did he love Sora? Or is him mourning her just a feeling of loss of something he owned, a loss of ownership and control? Well, if I had to guess, it’s probably a bit of both. And that’s what makes Oda’s villains much, much more interesting to me, compared to simple walking stereotypes. Twisted abusive love expresses itself this way very often. To people like this, genuine feelings of love and horrific desire to control and hurt are the very same. And I think the same can be said for his “successful” children. I do think he loves them, genuinely, but a man like this experiences that emotion through a sense of ownership, control, and an extension of his own ego. It's not that is isn't love, or that it's performative. It is simply twisted, selfish, abusive, but it is there. But Sanji? He doesn't even get that.

God I hope this man suffers a terrible punishment for everything he’s done. An excellent villain, I need him dead and rotting in hell. Whole Peak Island. Thank you Mr. Oda.

[hadesoftheladies]

choice feminists consistently misattribute insult. feminist analysis is often taken to be infantilization, and doing so ironically shows a lack of maturity. but by far the most insidious thing about choice feminism is how it perverts the concept of empowerment to the point that women go to war fighting for dogshit treatment. they conflate being respected like a man with being like a man, which totally masks the fact that they are ritualistically disempowering themselves in an eternally rigged game.

bdsm choice feminists will say "pain gives me pleasure and i'm an adult!" and yet your male dom hisses and whines when he feels even the tiniest scrape of your teeth on his member. why does men's pleasure centre around their comfort? is he not empowered because he hasn't rationalized and eroticized his discomfort? why are you the exception?

christian choice feminists will say "i have a right to worship whomever i want" and yet your fellow male observers froth at the mouth whenever god is referred to as she. you see male as neutral and male and female as equal, yet your male leaders consistently do not. female is sexual or domestic. they can't stomach calling a metaphysically transcendent being she. why is "she" the exception? why are female biblical heroes exceptions?

muslim choice feminists will say "i get to wear the hijab" and yet male observers are not treated as inherently provocative for existing. why are you the exception?

female rappers or celebrities and women like them that dress in exceedingly impractical and revealing outfits say "my body my choice" and yet their more powerful and rich counterparts never have to do any of that on the red carpet or in their music videos. why are they the exception?

tradwives will say "it's my right to marry" and it is, but why do so few men marry without an education or job? why are they never told to do it young or quit their jobs to raise their kids? why is no man advocating for men's right to be stay-at-home dads? why are you the exception?

pro-makeup choice feminists will say "i choose to do this for fun!" and yet male counterparts have never once felt a need to shave or decorate their faces to minimize facial "flaws." they can walk anywhere, attend any party or job, without any performance or effort outside of hygiene and basic decorum. why are you the exception?

anti-separatist choice feminists will say "i have a right to pursue romantic relationships with men" and yet the men in their dating pool have zero interest in romance itself and pursue women for very different reasons. they don't risk their lives to date you, neither do they tolerate disrespect or disagreement with whoever they're dating. they don't allow themselves to be talked down to. they don't tolerate anyone they don't find exceedingly attractive unless they want a quick fuck. they don't patty-cake their opinions or tone police themselves or praise women for being women or fanboy about female sex characteristics, especially not for women they don't know. they don't defend the integrity of women. why are you the exception?

instead of asking this question, most of them would rather say that it is feminists that are insulting and infantilizing them for pointing out the way they are being insulted and infantilized by men via femininity and the performance of female socialization.

which makes it ironic. because it is immature for an adult to refuse to reflect on their choices. it is immature for an adult to invest in something they have been told time and time again is unstable and rife with fraud with poor returns. holding onto things that harm you because of peer pressure is something we hopefully outgrow post highschool. it is immature to believe something based on unsubstantiated evidence. to refuse to examine something potentially harmful simply because it gives you comfort.

i'm not going to be complicit in validating women's internalized masochism and misogyny because i refuse to agree with any patriarch on what a woman is or should be.

[ozzgin]

I'm...I'm begging, Sakaki ref. I wanna draw him so bad. Begging for crumbs of the man if possible

That doodle was actually the first time I drew him and I kind of improvised on the spot. 😭 Like, I already knew what I wanted, but never got around to putting it on paper.

I did a quick reference just now and I'm not 1000% sure about it, but I feel like I got my point across. I thought it'd be neat if he was similar to Sekiya, but mirrored? So very pale skin, black hair, hot pink eyes as opposed to the faded-out turquoise of his tomb pal...Plus the mandatory dark circles and overly formal, traditional Shinto outfit.

Sakaki is a tengu, or mountain God! I forgot to include his wings, but he can switch to a bird-like appearance if desired. It's a little ironic, you know, since birds are associated with freedom, and he's always been an enslaved miser.

I originally planned to give him a tengu mask, but with a sad expression instead of a wrathful one. Then I remembered that stagehand mask I never get to wear in Animal Crossing and thought, why not? So that veiled thing bottom right is a theatre kuroko. I think it works even better, given his artistic inclinations haha. So yeah, there you have it! I'm very glad he caught your interest! :D

[tongueinatree]

Reckoning (Sylus x Zayne Love and Deepspace Fic / Sylus x Zayne x Reader Fic) 

Pairing: Sylus x Zayne / Sylus x Zayne x Reader (polyamorous)

Fandom: Love and Deepspace, lnds, LADS, L&DS 

Fic Series: starlight trio (Part 2) 

Word Count:  3.4k

Warnings: fluff, angst, no NSFW material. Not canon compliant. Profanity is used. Canon-typical violence / Guns and gun violence are featured. Night terrors are mentioned.

Description: Zayne’s been in love with you for what feels like forever, and he doesn't intend on that changing. Zayne hadn’t realised that that love could expand to include Sylus, too. Until now.   

Author's Note: Main character is gender neutral. No use of "Y/N" but the second person (“you”) is used and “__” in the place of a given name and they/them/their (by Sylus and Zayne). The reader/main character's appearance is not described.  

POV is third person omniscient, addressing the reader and following Zayne.

Zayne, Sylus and the reader are in (the beginning) of an ethical throuple/polyamorous relationship. This fic focuses on Zayne x Sylus, with the MC being absent. 

Not beta read.

I’m not caught up with the main story/playthrough, just drawing on everything up until Sylus’s myth. Count this an alternate universe of sorts, regardless. SPOILERS for everything up in the game up until this Sylus’s myth. 

Comments, likes and reblogs are welcome and appreciated!

All my work, including this fic, is copyright protected. You do not have permission to copy, repost or translate my work! You also do not have permission to submit this work into any AI model or software. Disregarding any one of these stipulations is illegal.

Reckoning (Zayne x Sylus fic / Zayne x Sylus x Reader fic)

Zayne’s never too selfish; Zayne never overplays his hand in hopes of meeting with a pliant and generous fortune. Ironically, this altruism is what pushes him straight into Sylus’s arms. 

Furthermore, Zayne’s life is a tale of caution. Every decision he makes is born of several carefully undertaken equations, of several layers and layers of forethought. And above all, there has to be some sort of payoff. Though, in truth, this balance is usually skewed towards the greater good and against Zayne himself. If seven lives are saved in return for a week of  agonizing night terrors, so be it.  

Zayne’s got you, of course. He hadn’t expected that (see again: good fortune). But then came Sylus, too – albeit via you – and now… Now, Zayne’s confused. Now he wants so intensely.

All of this – it’s what leads him to the N109 Zone on a dull, ordinary Friday.  

Getting into the N109 Zone at night is easy enough, but then again, Zayne’s not a renowned surgeon for no reason. Surgical skill doesn’t simply call for steady and precise hands. It also requires steely resolve and a mind given to problem solving. And if there’s one thing that Zayne Li is, it’s an overachiever. Not that Zayne isn’t careful, though. He wears nondescript, all black clothing that’s totally at odds with his work clothes – sweats and a peak cap – and keeps his head down. He’s got only your directions to go off of, so finding Sylus’s residence takes a while. 

When he arrives at the threshold, he’s promptly intercepted by Luke and Kieran, though Zayne doesn’t know who’s who, especially with their crow masks. One of the twins releases a low cackle at the sight of him. The other tilts his head. Zayne knows he’s considering something. 

They’re armed, because of course they are, but Zayne’s surprised to feel nothing beyond apathy at the sight of their weapons. Besides – his Evol’s enough.

Zayne clears his throat, tugs the cap lower over his brow, “I’m Z.” The alias feels strange on his tongue, like a too-sour sweet. Still, the alias was decided on by the three of you. At first, you’d suggested “Ice Man” but that’s too obvious a reference to Zayne’s Evol, whereas “Z” could be anyone.   

When neither one of the twins moves, Zayne continues, “I’m not sure if Sylus… if your boss mentioned me.” 

A beat of silence. Zayne adds, “I was here once before.”  

One of the twins – the one to his left – responds coolly, “We remember you.” 

The twin to his right reaches for his pistol; Zayne’s gaze skims over the weapon: semi-automatic, 9mm caliber, short-recoil. Zayne lets the twin cock the gun at him, click off the safety and pull the trigger. 

The clap of the shot resounds, Zayne blinks and then… nothing. There’s a block of ice encasing the bullet. It hovers in mid-air for a second, then clatters to the ground. Granted, it was a mere centimetre clear of Zayne’s nose. The twin fires again, but there’s ice down the barrel too, and so all that happens is that the gun’s recoil worsens and the twin’s arm jerks to the side. 

The one on the left says, with what sounds like grudging admiration, “That was quick.” 

Zayne shrugs, “Reflexes. Now, are you going to let me in?” 

The twin on the right turns his head towards his brother and grumbles, “He’s no fun.”

“Follow us,” says the collected one. 

They turn and stride over the threshold. It’s so dark in the N109 Zone, Zayne can barely make out the shape and size of Sylus’s home. He can see that it’s all pitch coloured granite, though.    

When he enters after Kieran and Luke, the monochrome, all-black colour scheme is as he remembers it. He doesn’t remember the floor having such a marble sheen though, nor the blood red accents. Zayne stifles a chuckle. It’s all so bold, so dramatic, but in a way that screams danger rather than eccentricity. Fitting for Sylus.  

They go down a doorway, and stop at an intersection. There’s a passage to the left, one to the right and then the one they’re in, which is parallel to those two passages. The twins stop at a door at the end of the passage. The livelier one sticks his head through the door, murmurs something. Then the twin shuts the door and turns to face Zayne. He can’t see the twin’s expression through his crow mask, of course, but he goes oddly still, and Zayne knows he’s seriously contemplating Zayne’s presence and the implications of it. 

Finally, the twin shrugs, says, “He’ll be out soon.” 

Then he adds, “I’m Luke.” 

The other echoes his brother’s greeting, “Kieran.” 

Luke and Kieran look at each other for a moment; Luke laughs to himself, murmurs something too low for Zayne to hear and the pair head off down the hallway, away from Zayne. 

Left to his own devices, Zayne finds himself frozen ahead of the door. Nerves erupt in his stomach and curdle there. What are you doing here, Doctor Li? Truly, this has to be one of his craziest – and stupidest – ideas. 

He’s spared from any further agonizing by the click of the door, and by Sylus entering the hallway. Sylus doesn’t quite reel backwards at the sight of him, but he does go stiff, for a briefest of seconds. 

Zayne speaks first, “They didn’t tell you it was me.” 

Sylus’s mouth curls. He doesn’t quite meet Zayne’s eyes, “They specified that you were ‘my special visitor’.” 

That comes as a blow, “You thought I was __”

Sylus’s eyes flicker towards him, assesses Zayne’s face. Sylus is as neutral as ever, but there’s something probing in his gaze, and it makes Zayne shrink back. 

There’s something else, too. It’s something heated, something that tangles with the nerves in his stomach, and it intensifies the longer that he stares at Sylus.   

Eventually, Sylus just says, “The twins will get a talking to.” 

Zayne can’t help how chiding his response is, “Leave them be.” 

Sylus raises an eyebrow. Once again, he doesn’t respond directly, “They’re not here, you know.” 

Zayne nods, “I know.” 

“Do they know that you’re here?” 

Another shake of his head, “No. I… I wanted to work things out for myself before I told them.” 

“I see.”

Zayne winces. I see. Not, “I understand.” Perfectly neutral. 

He and Sylus lapse into silence. It’s not that you're a thorny topic for them. It’s not even that they’re competing for your affections. No, it’s so much more complicated than that. And while you’ve made no demands, issued no ultimatums, you have made it clear that, at least for you, there’s room for both of them. 

The sentiment stings and thrills Zayne all at once. 

As the silence grows suffocating, Zayne shifts from foot to foot. He opens his mouth, closes it.

Sylus breaks the silence, with a quiet murmur, “I suppose I owe you a proper tour of the house, this time.” 

Zayne waves off the offer, “No need. I remember it well enough.” 

Sylus’s mouth thins into a line, “Very well.” Then, a bit more gently, “You look tired.”

Zayne chuckles mirthlessly, “I’m always tired.” Lest another silence befall them, he adds, “I’m also hungry. Do you have any food on hand?”

Sylus is taken aback by the request, Zayne can tell from how his eyes widen a fraction. Still, this openness only lasts a second before he’s as composed as always. Sylus turns and goes sweeping down the passage to the right, “Follow me.” 

Zayne follows and they enter a kitchen that is both gargantuan and state of the art. 

Again, everything’s marble, though here the colour scheme is mostly scarlet. Sylus gestures lazily at the island’s countertop, “Sit.” 

Zayne’s suddenly aware of how tired he really is, and an achiness overcomes him as he trudges towards the counter’s stools. 

Sylus approaches the countertop from the other side; his gaze is still probing. “What do you want to eat?” 

Zayne, now sitting, blinks in surprise, “What do you have on offer?” 

Sylus’s mouth tilts up in one corner, into the ghost of a smirk. “Anything.” 

“Uh,” Zayne thinks it over, “Chicken soup?” 

“Do you want the clear one, or traditional?”

“Clear.” 

Sylus goes deadpan, “That’s the plainest, most uneventful dish.” Sylus goes over to the sink, washes his hands and then starts collecting ingredients and utensils.

“I like plain.”

Sylus is back at the countertop depositing everything alongside the stovetop, when he chuckles, “When __ was last here, they begged for spicy tomato pasta.” 

Zayne feels his hackles rise, “I’m not them.” 

Sylus pauses in the middle of rolling up his sleeves, “I know.” His voice lowers, “Trust me, I know.”

Sylus resumes rolling up his one sleeve, and Zayne traces the movement with his eyes. It’s like something out of a romantic drama, but Zayne finds himself entranced by the firm sinew of Sylus’s arm. As Sylus pulls the sleeve higher, and more and more skin is revealed, the heat in Zayne’s stomach crackles.

As for Sylus, well, his eyes follow Zayne’s gaze; he leans forward, so that his arms are braced on the countertop, and the sleeves ride up further.

Zayne blinks again, slumps further into his stool. “You’re teasing.” 

Sylus does that half-smirk, half-smile of his. All he says is, “I’m adding noodles to the soup.”

When Zayne opens his mouth to protest, Sylus adds, “Non negotiable.” 

Zayne sighs, “Fine.” 

The soup is cooked suspiciously fast, too fast for a simple gas stove to manage. Zayne peeks under the plates a few times, hoping to catch sight of the red-mauve tendrils of Sylus’s Evol, but has no such luck. 

Zayne can’t see it, but as he lowers his head to ogle the plates, Sylus’s eyes are on him, and when he does look up, their eyes meet for the briefest of seconds. Zayne is first to look away, because of course he is. 

When, a few moments later, Sylus turns off the gas and places a bowl of soup before him, Zayne freezes up. It’s a simple gesture, being handed a bowl of soup, being fed, and yet…

Zayne swallows, “Aren’t you going to eat, too?” 

Sylus tilts his head, “Do you want me to?” 

Zayne nods back, “It would be impolite otherwise.” 

Sylus huffs, and there’s something frustrated about the sound. At last, Zayne thinks, a crack. Sylus complies and dishes himself a bowl. Neither one of them actually starts eating, though. Zayne can’t help but crack a smile at their shared hesitation. 

Another ache racks him, suddenly, and this one’s more cold than tired. Between shivers, he asks, “Can I light a fire?” 

Sylus stares at him for a whole three seconds before responding, “You’re a guest. I’ll light the fire.”  

Zayne acquiesces with a resigned chuckle, “Lead the way.”

… 

Sylus cheats, and lights the fire with his Evol. Well, more accurately, he uses his Evol to strike the matches. Zayne tuts at this, but doesn’t bother reprimanding him. He just sits as close to the fireplace as he can without singing his skin and practically inhales his soup. 

He’s slurping up a noodle when he finally realises Sylus hasn’t sat down. Sylus is standing, taking sips of the soup. He’s also still watching Zayne. Zayne chews on his noodle, contemplating this whole situation. He came here of his own free will, without you. What for? A declaration? How can it be one, if he’s too afraid to say anything of consequence?

Zayne swallows down the last of the noodle, smiles weakly, “Sit down.” 

Sylus moves towards the other side of the fireplace. Zayne frowns, “Next to me, I meant.”

Sylus changes course instantly, as if he’s been tugged by marionette strings. He sits so close to Zayne that their knees are almost touching. 

Zayne takes a final sip of his soup; it’s light, but infused with a tangy chicken flavour, and the noodles are perfectly al dente. Zayne pops the bowl in front of him, “This is good.”

Zayne addresses the compliment to his bowl, but Sylus catches it anyway, “Thank you.” 

“Do you like cooking?” 

Sylus lifts his left shoulder, lets it drop unceremoniously, “Sometimes. It’s… calming. Methodical, but not in a way that exerts stress.” 

 Zayne responds without thinking, “No one really cooks for me.”

Sylus is non-committal at first, but then he replies in a tone that’s dangerously light, “Maybe because you seem to like the blandest dishes.”  

Zayne snorts, “I don’t.”

Sylus raises his eyebrows, and the movement is more delicate – more pretty – than it has any right to be. 

Zayne continues, “I usually try to combine the healthiest stuff with some sort of flavour.” 

Sylus pulls a face, “Good lord. You’re the kale smoothie sort.” 

Zayne laughs in spite of himself, “They’re good for you! Besides, I like sweets. I’ve had about three cavities just from eating macarons.” 

When Sylus looks less than convinced, Zayne parts his lips and tilts his head back to show Sylus his latest filling. Sylus leans forward, looking intrigued, and inspects Zayne’s molar. 

The action brings his face within a hair’s breadth of Zayne’s; something traitorous stutters in Zayne’s chest at the sudden closeness. 

As he moves away, Sylus’s expression is softer than Zayne’s seen it all night, “Who’d have thought Linkon’s best doctor has a raging sweet tooth.” 

He can feel his timidness receding as he snips back, “Life’s dreary enough. I don’t think I can get through any surgeries without dessert to look forward to.” 

Sylus hums, and the sound is weirdly pitchy, “Noted.” Then Sylus seems to recall his bowl of soup, and resumes sipping it. Zayne wonders if Sylus is nervous. 

What are you doing here, Doctor Li? The thought is unbidden, and Zayne swats it away as he moves along the conversation, “They tried to kill me, you know? Luke and Kieran. Well, Luke, mostly.”

Sylus actually laughs at that, between sips, and the sound is low and surprisingly warm, “They do that.” 

Then Sylus asks, “What did you do to evade your impending murder?” 

Zayne gazes into the flames; he feels shy and cocky all at once, “I froze the bullet. And the barrel.”

Another laugh. This one is proud, “Our ingenious Doctor Li.”

Zayne turns his head Sylus’s way, “Am I?”  

Sylus plays dumb, “You’re plenty ingenious. Our misadventures have shown that.”  

“No. Am I… Yours and theirs?” 

This time it’s Sylus averting his gaze, Sylus dodging, “I’m meant to be on a patrol of sorts, tonight.”

“Oh?” 

Sylus sets his bowl aside, clicks his teeth, “Just overseeing some, ah, elements. Some moving cogs. I chose not to go as soon as I saw you, of course.”

“You mean you cancelled it as soon as Luke told you I was here. Because you thought I was __.” 

“No. I made up my mind as soon as I saw you.”

Zayne can feel his brow furrowing under the weight of his confusion, “But…”

“If you were __, I’d be able to go and come back, and they’d wait for me. Or maybe they’d ask me to stay. But you’re different, at least at this point in time. I told Luke that if I didn’t personally inform him and Kieran that I was going out, they were to go in my stead.”

“Why?” Zayne feels stupid asking, but he can’t bring himself to ignore what’s just been said, either. 

“Does it need saying?”

Oh. So, Sylus wasn’t dodging at all. 

Zayne can feel how his gaze has become more fierce; it practically drills a hole into Sylus’s head. He’s still aching, but this time it’s in an entirely different manner.

Sylus returns Zayne’s look, undaunted. 

“Zayne.” Sylus’s tone is beseeching, “Why are you here?”

Zayne swallows, “I –”

Zayne wants to look away, to run, to scream, to hide. 

Instead, he turns his body so that he’s facing Sylus and pushes himself closer to Sylus, until their knees knock together. This time, Sylus’s smile is full-blooded. He also doesn’t seem to mind the sudden intrusion into his personal space, given that he leans into Zayne and lets their noses touch.  

The kiss that follows is chaste and sweeter than any one of Zayne’s macarons. Zayne’s breath is shaky when they part, and Sylus is caressing the swell of his cheek with his thumb. 

A beat follows in which they simply gaze at one another. Then Sylus shifts his hand from the Zayne’s cheek to the nape of his neck, pulls him in, and kisses him again. There’s nothing delicate in this kiss, and Zayne matches Sylus’s ardour with the eagerness of someone who’s still new to this sort of enthusiasm. Still, even as Zayne slides onto his back and pulls Sylus down with him, it all feels unhurried. It all feels right. 

 …

Later, Zayne’s still on his back, with his head braced against Sylus’s thighs, and Sylus is reclining on his palms. The fireplace crackles pleasantly across from them, and Zayne’s body is a floaty mass. Before now, he’s only ever felt this happy with you. 

He and Sylus haven’t spoken for a while now, but this silence isn’t as terse as the earlier ones were. It’s just new and a bit fragile, much like their sudden intimacy. 

Zayne is the one to break the silence, with his eyes shut as he murmurs, “I didn’t know. Didn’t know that… I barely envisaged that I could love __ as much as I do. How could there be room for two, then?” 

Sylus hums again, and the sound is still off-key. Zayne wonders if he can sing at all.

Sylus’s voice is softer than Zayne’s ever heard it, “We want each other, and we want __ and they want us in turn. This doesn’t need to be a conventional relationship.”

Zayne snorts, “I happen to have conventional taste.” 

Sylus offers him a grin, frees his one hand to point at himself, “I doubt that.” 

Zayne sighs, “It’s not about being conventional. It’s just…” 

Zayne takes in Sylus, albeit upside down. The snowy hair, the red gaze. The sometimes eerie presence of his Evol. “I know that you’re more. More than you let on. And I know that your bond with them is more, too.”

Sylus seems unbothered by the admission as he traces a circle into Zayne’s forehead with his fingertip, “You’re not wrong. But it’s not as if my bond with __ overrules yours with them, either.”  

Sylus’s hand falls away. Sylus lowers his voice, whispers to himself, “And I’ve some theories about you, too.”

Zayne tugs at the hem of his sweatshirt and fights the urge to fidget. Zayne yanks his sweatshirt down about ten times before giving up. He sits up and turns to face Sylus head on, “But then – how do I fit in?” 

Sylus doesn’t reply to that. His gaze is distant and pained. For the first time this night, it occurs to Zayne that Sylus might be as afraid of all this as he is. 

That Sylus might not have planned for anything beyond you, if even that. 

Finally, Sylus makes an admission of his own, “Zayne. I have a voracious appetite. It’s just a part of my nature. Trust me when I say I’m not going to want to lose sight of you.” 

Sylus cups Zayne’s chin in his palm, runs his fingertip over Zayne’s cupid’s bow, “Have you still got room?”

Zayne knows what the real question is. He and Sylus only met because of you; they’ve only bonded because of the misadventures that the three of you have had. He and Sylus are fundamentally incompatible. Sylus is a literal crime lord; Zayne’s sworn to defend and preserve life. So why does it never feel that way to Zayne, nor to Sylus? 

Does it even matter, Doctor Li? 

Zayne exhales, and this time the sound is steady and assured, “Yes.” 

Sylus’s eyes are still widening in wonder when Zayne kisses him yet again. Sylus responds in full, the heat in Zayne’s stomach turns molten, and time slows to match their heartbeats.

[crepes-suzette-373]

Mirror, Mirror

Niji and Sanji are designed to be very similar in a lot of ways, but also direct opposites. It's like mirrored images, which are almost identical except reversed.

There's the obvious opposite ones like how Sanji really cares about not wasting food and Niji didn't even eat anything at all. You can see his plate is completely untouched.

Also, if this is meant to show that Niji is a picky eater, you can kind of say that it's the opposite of a chef (while the Reiju novel did describe Ichiji/Niji/Yonji as all picky eaters, the description there are not necessarily true as the novels are not always supervised by Oda-sensei).

And of course how they treat women:

But there's also background stuff like this:

Certainly there's possible lore reasons for why Niji wears goggles even as a child, but since Ichiji wasn't wearing his sunglasses when they were kids, it just makes Niji's goggles stick out like a sore thumb.

Sanji's helmet also has possible lore/thematic reasons for it, like Man in the Iron Mask reference, but then why not make the helmet just straight up covered his whole face? The fact that it was specifically designed to have this large hole for the eyes makes me wonder.

They both kick as their primary choice of attack. And if the Wanze battle is any indication, Sanji clearly could be very good with blades if he wants to be. He just chose not to.

There's also the superficial like the black-blue-yellow colour scheme in Sanji's initial outfit and Niji's raid suit.

In the finalised drafts we saw that Oda-sensei noticed and thought over the fact that if Niji is "blue" it would clash with Sanji who is also already "blue". We don't know what the little note saying "yellow" means, but whatever his thought process was, we ended up with "double blue".

The raid suits cover art is just for fun, sure but because Niji and Sanji have identical colour themes, blue, well... aside from the gloves and scarf having a different colour and the belt buckle, Sanji just looks like he store Niji's suit.

This has to be intentional, right? If this is just coincidence, that's sure a lot of coincidence and it's such a waste.

[jackels-in-space]

╔⏤╝MAKE A TRADE: PART 1╚⏤╗

Renata Glasc was a wanna-be Chem Baron and was becoming a pain in the ass for Silco's business. He sent Sevika to negotiate a deal to bring Glasc Industries and bring it to heel. Sevika didn't know what to expect but she didn't think it would lead to this...

Also posted on AO3 W.C: 3.7 Tags under cut off - no smut but still reference sex

Tags: Former Sex Worker!Sevika (it's just mentioned at the end), Shimmer strap, sex as part of business negotiations? Imma be real this is just yapping the smut happens in part 2. flirtation, top!renata, switch!sevika

Renata Glasc and her budding empire were situated in the deepest part of Zaun, spreading across the lowest levels capable of housing life. It meant that the Grey was prominent and anyone wanting to visit Glasc Industries had to have a high-quality respirator.

Sevika didn’t like wearing the masks. It felt too claustrophobic, making her skin itch and her heart rate spike now and then. Add in the thickness of the smog, the fact that she had to cover all of her skin because of the Grey and the tiny laneways of Old Zaun, Sevika was not having a good time.

Shrouded in permanent night, Glasc Industries was a toxic lighthouse in the dark, tubes of neon chems lighting the way to the main office. There were plenty of workers moving about, equally covered, masked and goggled up, and none stopped the Right Hand as she moved towards the heart of Zaun’s lowest industrial complex.

An outsider, like a Piltie, would have thought that the choice to go so low, so deep that you were almost touching bedrock, would be a detriment to business and yet, there it was strong, powerful, a testament to Glasc’s identity.

Sevika sighed, the noise being altered by the respirator as she pushed a door open with her glove covered hand. There must have been some sort of seal because it required a fair amount of effort to open it up and then…there was another door, just as heavy. Renata really was making an effort in deterring people from coming to her office.

The inside of the main building was less derelict than its outside but just as dark. The receptionist area had grey tiles darkened by pollution and age, the walls that were probably a lavish purple wallpaper now black, and any metal now an oxidised copper or tarnished iron. It was probably one of the nicer looking places down this deep, especially with the collection of noxious plants and tubes of circling chemicals.

“I’m here to see Glasc,” Sevika grumbled out, resting her arm on the countertop as she looked down at the receptionist.

The theory that there was a seal on the door must be correct as the receptionist, wearing a far more stylised mask, had her arms bare as she wore a short-sleeved, buttoned up shirt. There was a long coat hung up on a coat rack off to the side.

The little redhead looked up from her bookkeeping, her eyes widening slightly before nodding and putting her pencil down.

“Of course, Ms Sevika.”

She picked up a telephone, holding it with one hand to her ear as she quickly dialled in a number.

“Ma’am, Ms Sevika is here to see you,” the receptionist said efficiently, pausing as she waited for her boss’ answer. “Of course.”

The phone was put down and with the same hand, she indicated to a hallway on Sevika’s left.

“If you could take the elevator to the sixth floor, please. Her office isn’t hard to miss. Sorry I can’t show you, Ms Sevika. Someone’s got to man the desk.”

Her head jerked down to the table and Sevika quickly looked over and down. She huffed out a laugh, the noise rattling because of the respirator. Two guns sat in easy reach.

“Shit, you get a lot of trouble then?”

“Ain’t my place to say but uh…if you wouldn’t mind…could you bring it up with Ms Glasc?” the redhead asked and the twinge of the muscles under her eye implied a shy smile.

Sevika gave a non-commital grunt and nod of her head before walking over to the elevator. 

Renata Glasc wasn’t even a Chem-Baron but the power and technology she was amassing might as well have made her one and that…that was a threat. Glasc Industries was in partnership with Madame Margot and her Vyx’s before shimmer had been brought to market, the range of aerosolized chem’s being a key interest to the Rapture Walk. Why Silco hadn’t extended a hand of business to the woman, Sevika had no idea, because now Finn and Smeech were having a hissy fit of Renata’s exclusivity.

So, of course the best option was to just outsource their tech from Renata.

Sevika was here to make a deal as Ms Glasc had refused to go out to Silco and seeing the guns the receptionist had, the Right Hand could only assume that someone had been attacking her industry (probably the shitheads Finn and Smeech.)

The elevator dinged when she had reached the sixth floor and she slid open the protective grating. 

Renata was waiting for her, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. She was as tall as Sevika, if not taller by a small, miniscule amount that Sevika would rather ignore. Her hair was black with two sections starting to become white at the roots already and her eyes had a semi-permanent pink ring around the pupil from shimmer usage (the drug had only been on the streets for a year so how much had this woman consumed?) A blue-black blazer was thrown over her shoulders in such a casual manner that had the Right Hand’s eyes twitching in suspicion; she was hiding something, probably a gun.

“Glasc,” she acknowledged, stepping out of the lift.

“It’s Miss Glasc,” the woman bit back, her mask adding a slight rumble.

“Mhm,” Sevika hummed out, not fazed by the biting correction.

Many people had tried to instate some sort of rank or title upon themselves and the only one that had managed to make it work was Margot but does Sevika call her madame? Fuck no. The only person that has earned her respect was Silco and as such he gets to be called ‘sir’ and ‘boss’.

“Not very polite, are you, dolly? Exactly what I expected from Silco’s little hound.”

Sevika had to momentarily look away and grind her teeth, biting back the urge to punch her. After a moment, she rolled her eyes back to Renata and shrugged, feigning boredom.

“We gon’ do business or not?”

Renata looked Sevika up and down, one of her eyebrows raising in appreciation before nodding and pushing off the wall. Her arms uncrossed themselves, and rested by her sides as she walked. The Right Hand’s eyes were immediately drawn to the industrialist's left arm. 

Talons that were similar to her own glinted in the artificial light. They looked cleaner, a silver metal instead of Sevika’s copper plating, and seemed to faintly glow with pink-purple chemicals.

“You got a good piece there,” pointed out Sevika, trying to suss out who Renata was.

Was she like Margot and Reni, where the odd compliment helped with negotiations?

Or is she like Finn and Sevika’s gonna have to beat her down as violence is the only language she speaks?

Maybe she’s like Chross and Smeech: opportunists?

Sevika followed her as they walked towards Renata’s office.

Renata took her blazer off, folding it over her right arm. It meant that her purple waistcoat and sleeveless shirt were shown off and that she had a complete prosthetic from shoulder to finhertips. There was a hint of burn scars on her shoulder blades peeking from the edges of the waistcoat. Sevika could imagine the now-healed wounds spanning across Renata’s torso. 

The industrialist flexed her bionic arm and the glow of shimmer became more prominent.

“Why, thank you. I’m sure you recognise the design?” 

The Right Hand did. It was very similar to hers. On instinct, Sevika rubbed her prosthetic over the poncho. It was a year and she still didn’t know how she felt about it.

Renata spotted the motion, her head tilted to the side to watch the other woman from the corner of her eye. 

“How’s it treating you, sugar?”

“It’s…fine…” Sevika gritted out, lying. 

It wasn’t fine and it seemed that Renata knew that, somehow. There was a pinch in the eyebrows and the respirator shifted as if she too was grinding her teeth. 

The other woman clicked her tongue as they entered her office, the noise sounding unnatural from the muffling effect of her mask.

“Sit down,” she instructed, indicating a pair of chairs in front of a solid looking desk. 

The trip down to the lower levels had admittedly taken it out of Sevika. The combination of reduced oxygen and excessive clothing having made her hot and bothered and not in a fun way either. She slumped down into the chair, legs splayed out and her head tilted back in exasperation. It was probably overly relaxed for a business deal but within the first few minutes of meeting, it seemed that Renata had some sort of respect for Sevika and honestly, vice versa. Perhaps it was the fact that both had lost their left arm, a tale that neither would explain to the other. 

Renata moved about, the clatter of tools making Sevika’s ears perk up. She was in the process of lifting her head when Renata, with such ballsy confidence, sat on the edge of her desk, one foot on the empty chair, the other between Sevika’s legs, the toe of her boot coming close to Sevika’s core. 

If Sevika was a lesser woman, she’d screech and cower away, demanding to know what game Renata was playing but she wasn’t; she knew what the other woman’s aim was. So, she raised her head and lifted an eyebrow, keeping her breathing and heart rate slow. 

Renata leant forward, her elbows resting on her thighs and Sevika spotted a screwdriver in her right hand. The respirator did make it hard to read Renata’s expression but the relaxed eyebrows and half-lidded eyes implied some sort of attraction. 

“Take your poncho off.” 

“Why?” Sevika replied, putting in an effort to sound indifferent. 

“I made that arm of yours. I want to see how it’s holding up.” 

“You…you made my arm?” 

“Silco didn’t tell you? Hmpf, funny that.”

Sevika didn’t say anything afterwards, reaching to unclasp her poncho and pulling it off. Immediately, the loss of the extra fabric started to cool Sevika down. She sighed in relief as she tossed the red cloak to the side. 

“You can take your respirator off too, doll.” 

The Right-Hand raised an eyebrow, suspicious. 

“I know what business you and Margot have, Glasc. I ain’t trusting you or your air.”

The industrialist merely rolled her eyes and reached up to take off her mask. It hissed slightly as the seal was broken. 

She was an attractive woman with the respirator on and she was stunning with it off. Her lips were full and a soft, dusty pink colour. There were smile lines, but they were more likely formed from smirks than actual smiles; Glasc didn’t seem the type to really smile. Sevika couldn’t help but watch the way her tongue darted out as she lifted the screwdriver to hold in her mouth.

The other woman’s eyes lit up with glee, or was it smugness, when she caught the brawler staring.

Janna, she’s as bad as Margot.

Renata shifted so she was nearly off the edge of the desk and reached for Sevika’s hand, lifting it with ease. Her hands were steady as Sevika relaxed her shoulder muscles, letting the arm be twisted around as much as the joints allowed it to. She was analysing the metal work.

Then, Renata tugged on the prosthetic, her body deceptive about how much strength she had. Sevika was pulled forward, near enough face planting into Renata’s chest if she hadn’t quickly placed her other hand on the desk, between the industrialists’ legs.

Yeah, definitely another Margot.

“What are you doin’?” Sevika demanded, trying to get her arm back when she looked up at Renata, the shimmer glow of her eyes was brighter. “How? There wasn’t enough time for you to knock some back…”

Sevika’s eyes widened when she saw part of Renata’s bionic arm raise up and fill up with sloshing shimmer, the pink-purple chem casting a glow on the sharp angle of the industrialists cheekbones. So, that’s how Renata had been consuming enough shimmer to cause the colour change but then…why wasn’t she sprouting tumours like the rest of the poor fucks that had been chugging the chem the moment it was for sale?

Whatever process that was happening was cancelled, the shimmer draining and the vial that had raised settle back into the main body of the arm.

“It’s a prototype I’ve been testin’, sweet cheeks,” Glasc stated after taking the screwdriver out of her mouth. “I know this arm intimately so there should be space to put in a distribution unit unless you want a whole new arm?”

“How much is that gonna cost me, Glasc, hm?”

“Well, with the tech Silco wants from me…” She paused, having located a screw in the shoulder platting of Sevika’s arm. “And this upgrade as well as the specialised shimmer for it…’bout three percent share in the business and two-hundred units of condensed shimmer a month?”

“Fuck off.” Sevika tried to pull out of Renata’s grasp, but the woman had found a way to disable Sevika’s arm and when the Right-Hand looked down, she saw the chems used to power her prosthetic dripping down her claws and onto the ground. “The fuck did you do?”

“Just unplugged a cable. Don’t worry, doll, when we’re done with making a deal, I’ll put it back together and reinstall the chems. Free of charge.”

“How generous of you,” Sevika gritted out, her eyebrows furrowed in annoyance.

She was back to grinding her teeth, forced to be in proximity with someone more annoying than Finn and more fucking manipulative (and, admittedly, more attractive) than Margot.

“Mm, very generous,” Glasc purred. “I don’t do acts of charity. Only for pretty girls like you.”

Pretty isn’t the usual descriptor people used when talking about Sevika’s body; brutish, strong, even handsome were the usual words thrown about but never pretty. Not since she was younger, inexperienced about the world and doing a job so far from where was now.

It caught Sevika off guard.

“Fuck you,” she bit back, the only decent response she could come up with.

“You could though, I would prefer fucking you.”

The lecherous grin the industrialist wore felt both predatory and sinful. The tip of the screwdriver that had disabled Sevika’s arm was dragged up her neck, following covered glowing, blue scar tissue to her cheek. The slight sharpness of the tool combined with how sensitive the scar tissue was, it made Sevika shiver.

Her back momentarily arched and her jaw dropped for a moment as she hissed or groaned as the head of the driver pressed down on a sensitive area on the meat of her cheek, sending a spike of something through her body. She had managed to desensitise the brunt of her healed wounds, but her face and neck were the two areas she just…couldn’t bring herself to touch. The rest could be hidden away but those scars…

The other woman was watching, studying. Renata knew all too well the healing process of scar tissue, how impossible it felt to return to normalcy after the loss of a limb. Sevika’s long sleeved top made it hard to judge how much of her torso had been affected by whatever caused the blue spiderweb, but Renata assumed it was a fair amount.

Sevika was vulnerable, obviously touched starved (Renata was the same, spending years in isolation before letting someone touch her after the fire), and it was a vulnerability Glasc was going to take advantage of. Always thinking on her feet, Renata could switch up a plan. She was originally going to strong arm (metaphorically) into the deal she had mentioned but then…well…she didn’t expect the Right Hand of the Eye to be so fucking hot.

When Silco had contracted her to build an arm for his second-in-command, he hadn’t mentioned what or who Sevika was and because Finn decided to be a little bitch and attack her factories, Renata hadn’t had an opportunity to find Sevika and suss her out.

From rumours, Glasc knew the woman to be a loyal dog, willing to take control of situation. Janna’s tits, she did more of Silco’s work than Silco himself so that meant Sevika had a very interesting set of skills. Renata would need those later and thus the long-term benefits outweighed the immediate.

She smirked as she put the screwdriver down. The foot that was between Sevika’s legs (the entire position was just a slight tease of pleasure) moved as Renata used that leg to hook Sevika in. The industrialists mechanical hand dragged up Sevika’s arm, talons scratching through the long sleeve top as Renata made her way to grasp at the longer sections of Sevika’s hair. Her organic hand cupped the other woman’s scarred cheek, her thumb swiping across blue scars.

Sevika gasped again at the overstimulation, Renata’s leg only helping to deepen the arch. They were so close, just what Renata wanted.

“So pretty,” she murmured, angling her face down to brush their noses. “You’ve not let anyone touch you.”

This was about creating a biological connection, binding the two women together in hormones and emotions so that they had something to last them years.

“Glasc, what are you doing?” Sevika asked, justifiably suspicious.

They were so close that every moment of their lips could be felt.

“I want to offer a new deal.”

“Okay?”

Renata tightened her grip.

Sevika wasn’t a fool. This was a similar tactic Margot had used before and always failed.

“I have this prototype for the Rapturewalk that needs testing…help a girl out and I’ll settle for two percent and a hundred-fifty units every four weeks?”

Sevika rolled her eyes.

“You want me to fuck you just to get a better deal?”

“No, I want us to spend a good night together. The better deal is just me showing how generous I can be,” purred Glasc. “Besides, testing the shimmer strap with someone other than Margot will really piss her off.”

The air seemed to have left Sevika’s lungs as she pulled back as much as she could with Glasc’s grip on her.

“I’m sorry. The fucking what?”

-/-/-/-

Having her arm disabled was about as worse as not even having it on. She had to use her long sleeve shirt to tie it close to her torso, so it wasn’t swinging uselessly by her side. Even with her poncho on to cover it, those close to her had noticed it (and the fact she was only wearing her chest bandages and a ripped-up tank top) and tried to question her about it. She only waved them off as she headed up to Silco’s office.

Her boss immediately spotted the issue, turning his attention from reports he was reading to Sevika. His eye was getting worse.

“I take it Glasc Industries will be a problem?” he coldly asked, hands folding neatly on top of his desk.

Sevika slumped down on a couch, her legs splaying open.

“Glasc is a piece of work, but I managed to score a good deal for us.”

She twisted her neck, feeling it crack and release tension.

“And what does she want?”

“I managed to haggle it down to two percent share and seventy-five units of highly concentrated shimmer every three weeks.” Sevika leant forward, unbottling one of the finer quality liquors Silco had in his office and pouring a solid amount into two glasses. “In return, it’s what we agreed upon; Glasc handles most of any necessary technological development, and she gets to keep her business with Margot. I get my arm fixed up too even though the bitch was the one that fucked it up in the first place.”

As she was talking, she had stood up, using her fingers to carry the two glasses over to the desk. Silco accepts his with a nod, watching his Right Hand as she leans against the desk.

“Seems disproportionate…there’s something else, isn’t there, Sevika?”

He was taking a sip of his drink when Sevika spoke:

“I’ll meet her at Babbette’s in two hours and will be assisting her in developing her shimmer line of sex toys for Margot.”

Silco chokes. He tries to cover it up but the sting of small amounts of alcohol going into his airway caused him to cough. Sevika just looked down at him, finding a small amount of humour at seeing her usually stoic boss frazzled.

“You good, sir?”

Silco had put down the glass, rubbing at his throat and waving off her concern.

“I feel like I should be asking you that, Sevika.” Even in a moment of complete embarrassment, he still managed to sound like he always did; in control. “Are you comfortable with such a deal? If you aren't, I'm sure we can come up with something else.”

Sevika sighed and took another sip of her drink.

Admittedly, it had caught her very off guard, experiencing a flashback to the past when her father had died and she had nothing left, nothing to get her by as she rebuilt her life.

Sex was just sex to her, nothing special. Being a sex worker for half a year when she was eighteen wasn’t an issue and Babbette was probably the best person she could have been working for. Probably why, when Sevika and Renata had finished coming to an agreement about what would be happening, she had suggested booking a private room in the brothel.

Besides, since the accident…somehow it felt…nice that Renata wanted her. The industrialist understood the struggle of losing a limb and how much it fucks with everything going on in her head.

“Appreciate your concern, sir, but I’m fine with this.” She meant it. “I know it’s setting up for something down the line. Could’ve helped her with her Finn issue but she chose me instead. That implies she’s planning something and if getting into her bed means getting the drop on her in the future, then I’ll do it.”

“No-one can deny your loyalty to the cause, Sevika. If she causes you any trouble though, deal with it in whatever way you deem necessary; no matter what the clean-up will look like.” Silco raised his glass in a salute. “So, tell me about this Finn issue of hers.”