#if you notice it says robin i was going back and forth between naming him robin and robert while playing

[thepettymachine]

With Robert reaching level 4 of his career, it was time for him to move in with Agnes

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

can you see the stars in your dreams (and do they have a lot to say about me) - Part 18

Or: a secret Admirer AU

PART 1 || PART 2 || PART 3 || PART 4 || PART 5 || PART 6 || PART 7 || PART 8 || PART 9 || PART 10 || PART 11 || PART 1 || PART 13 || PART 14 || PART 15 || PART 16 || PART 17

Steve doesn’t see much of Eddie for the next few weeks. Presumably there are still Dungeons and Dragons sessions and band practices, but Steve and Chrissy are no longer invited. Jeff flits back and forth between their two groups like a child of divorce, and Steve? He just misses Eddie.

Eddie, who even once Steve slinks back to his usual seat in the cafeteria for lunch, no longer gives his table top rants. He doesn’t say anything at all, not where Steve might overhear him. But he still has Chrissy, and Robin, and Jeff, and that’s enough.

In his free time, he writes aimless letters destined to never be read.

Steve’s moving on—getting over it is a process, or so he tells Chrissy. He never shows her the letters, can’t bear to see the pity on her face. He doesn’t talk about it with Robin again either–just hides his notebook away and gets on with his life.

Eddie’s just a boy, and it’s just a crush. Steve can move on, he always does. He tells Eddie as much in a letter he’ll never read.

Everything changes when he opens his locker and something drops out. It’s a bright yellow envelope, sloppy sunflowers drawn on the sides with black pen, and there, dead center, is his name written in a handwriting he’d recognize anywhere, is his name. Not Secret Admirer, not even Harrington, just Steve.

He shoves it into his backpack before Robin can close her own locker and notice.

It stays hidden there for the rest of the day as Steve’s heartbeat rabbits away in his chest, and his palms itch with sweat. He doesn’t open it that night either, too afraid of what he might find in it. It’s like that one story Robin had told him, where the guy goes crazy after burying someone under the floorboards or something? It’s calling to him, no matter how hard he plugs his ears.

Steve doesn’t get much sleep that night.

He still hasn’t opened it by school the next day. Might not ever have opened it if he hadn’t glanced toward Eddie during lunch and caught his eye. Eddie’s staring, gaze intense even with all the distance between them. But then, the weirdest thing happens—Eddie smiles just a little, and finger waves at him, like they’re friends.

Steve just stares, gobsmacked until Eddie’s entire face starts to turn a splotchy red and he looks down at his lunch table as if embarrassed.

“What was that?” Chrissy asks, looking behind her at whatever had caught Steve’s eye.

“I have to go,” Steve blurts, rushing out of the cafeteria before she can ask anymore questions.

His and Chrissy’s usual abandoned classroom has a teacher in it, so he ends up in his and Robin’s bathroom stall, this time alone. Still, he sits on the ground, leaving enough room for the ghost of Robin to have a seat, too.

He opens his backpack, zeroing in on the envelope instantly—as if he’d ever, for a second forgotten about it—and finally pulls it out.

He traces the sunflowers on the paper, memorizing the grooves Eddie’s pen had made before finally turning it over and sliding his fingers beneath the seal to tear it open.

The paper’s thicker than he’s used to getting from Eddie, and it’s that same, bright yellow that doesn’t fit Eddie’s aesthetic at all. But it fits Steve’s, and that’s the thought that finally gets him to bring the letter closer to his face and begin to read. 

   Steve,

   I wanted to start this out by saying that I’m sorry—it’s a phrase I’m becoming alarmingly used to saying in recent weeks. To Jeff, to Gareth, and now to you. No matter how surprised I was, I had no right to say all that shit to you. And for that, I’m sorry, okay? Really, truly sorry.

   As Chrissy and Jeff pointed out once you’d left, I was a dick, and there’s no excuse for that. And as my uncle told me when he was doing his disappointed parent shtick, I might have been projecting, just a tad.

   Eddie Munson might be gay—who knew?

   So, I’ll hope you accept my sincerest apologies for how I’ve handled this whole thing, Steve. I can’t imagine how it must have felt. Well, I can now, a bit. And it’s scary, right? But, I think it’s my turn to be brave. If I haven’t already ruined any chance I might have had, maybe we can go on a date?

   I’ll pick you up this Friday at your house, say around seven? If you don’t answer the door, I’ll understand. That’ll be my answer.

   But I really, really, really hope you do.

   Yours, always, hopefully,

   Eddie

Steve stares down at it, flummoxed. He reads it again, and again, and again. When the words on the page don’t change, he slips it delicately into the envelope, and goes to his next class, mind swirling away with the clouds.

“Can I drive you home?” Steve asks Jeff before he can climb into Chrissy’s car.

“Uh, sure?” Jeff replies just as Chrissy cuts in with a near-frantic, “are you okay?”

Steve smiles tightly at her and says, “I’ll call you tonight, okay? I just need to talk to Jeff.”

She bites her lip, looking even more worried than before, but all she says is, “I’ll hold you to that.”

Jeff and Chrissy trade an indecipherable look and then Jeff dutifully follows Steve to his car and climbs in. Before he starts the engine, he pulls the envelope out of his pocket and hands it to Jeff.

“What’s this?” Jeff asks.

“Read it,” Steve replies, starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot so he doesn’t have to see whatever expression crosses Jeff’s face as he reads.

It’s silent for a few minutes aside from The Clash filtering quietly tinnily from the radio, but then Jeff says, “so, he finally did it.”

Steve’s fingers clench on the steering wheel at the vague answer to the question he hasn’t yet asked. “Is it some sort of joke?” Steve grits out, still unable to look at Jeff’s face.

“No, man,” Jeff replies, doing that same shoulder clasp thing he’d done last time he’d been in Steve’s car while he was upset. “He’s just been working through some stuff.”

“So he’s…” he finally shifts his gaze toward Jeff, hoping to convey his question without having to say it aloud.

“Seems so,” Jeff replies.

And Steve shudders, all those same feelings he’d been working so hard to suppress bubbling back to the surface, the most dangerous of all being hope.

“Are you going to go?” Jeff asks, voice even enough not to show his opinion on the decision one way or another.

Steve swallows, throat dry. “I don’t know.”

They don’t talk for the rest of the drive, and when he calls Chrissy later that night, she asks the same thing.

“Are you going to go?” she asks breathlessly, like she’s hanging on his every word.

Steve sighs. “He said he might be gay, Chris. What if we go out and he’s wrong?”

Left unmentioned is the niggling voice in the back of his head still insisting that the whole thing is some sort of cruel prank to get back at him. He’d lied, and strung him along, and gotten him hurt. No matter how many times Eddie apologizes, Steve knows he’s not really the one that should be.

“What if he’s right?” she asks.

Steve knows, deep down in his bones, that he’s going to go, just at the chance that Chrissy’s right, that Eddie’s right, that Jeff’s right. Steve desperately wants to be wrong. 

***

Steve doesn’t show any outward appearance of having received the letter. Eddie watches, obsessively trying to catch even the barest hint of what he thinks of the note– if, when he knocks on the Harrington’s front door, he’ll open it.

He keeps looking, and looking, and finally, blessedly, when Eddie looks, Steve’s looking back. Their eyes lock, and such a wave of relief courses through Eddie that he, like a fucking idiot, waves at him. Steve stares, mouth open, and does absolutely nothing back.

Eddie looks down at the table, whole body aflame with mortification, hair dangling messily into Doug’s mashed potatoes.

“Dude,” Doug says, shoving Eddie’s shoulder, forcing him away from his precious lunch.

“You good?” Jeff asks, leaning across the table to poke at Eddie’s bowed head like it’s potentially diseased roadkill he found on the side of the street.

“He hates me!” Eddie whines, turning his head just enough to glance towards Steve’s table, spitting a chunk of hair out of his mouth.

Steve’s not there at all anymore.

“Harrington?” Gareth questions around the bite of apple lodged in his throat. “Aren’t you trying to steal his girlfriend?”

“Of course no—not anymore!” Eddie stutters, turning his head the other direction to glare at Gareth instead.

For his part, Gareth just looks down at him, supremely unimpressed. “Uh huh,” he replies, keeping his voice quiet even when very obviously fed up. “Is this more secret bullshit you’re refusing to tell me?”

“It’s not my secret!” Eddie hisses, finally removing his head from the table so he can crouch on it instead, leaning over Gareth like a gargoyle. “And I promised!”

“Bet you told Wayne,” Gareth mutters.

“Oh my god, I told Wayne!” Eddie cries, dropping off the bench entirely to crawl under the table where he belongs. It’s not like there’s anyone in the room right now that he wants to impress—he already scared Harrington off.

“Dude,” is all Jeff says, peering under the table to look down at him judgmentally. “Chrissy is going to kill you.”

Eddie clutches his hair hard enough that it hurts. “It’s Wayne! He doesn’t count,” Eddie whines, “does he?”

Jeff snorts, kicking his foot out until the toe of his sneaker connects softly with Eddie’s kneecap. “He doesn’t count,” he starts, continuing before Eddie’s even slumped with relief, “to you.”

When Eddie slinks out from beneath the table, Steve’s spot is still empty, and Chrissy’s sitting there, glaring across the cafeteria at Eddie like she can just sense that he didn’t keep his vow of secrecy.

God, girls are scary.

He avoids looking in her direction the rest of lunch, picking at his own potatoes and mushy peas just for something to do.

Steve’s not going to open the door—he knows that. But, even still, he wakes up early on Friday morning to sneak into Mrs. Johnson’s yard to carefully cut a few of her sunflowers, ducking low enough that the bushes in front of her windows will obscure him.

When he’s done, he’s got five perfect sunflowers, tied together with the brown shoelace he’d stolen from a pair of Wayne’s old boots.

He leaves them in the kitchen, awkwardly propped into a bowl full of water since the Munson’s aren’t the kind of family to own a vase, or even a tall enough glass, apparently.

By the time Wayne gets home from the graveyard shift, Eddie’s elbow-deep in a trash bag in the back of his van. Wayne peers through the propped-open doors, eyebrows already raised as Eddie freezes, hand in the metaphorical cookie jar.

“What’re ya doing, boy?” Wayne asks.

Eddie stares, brain full of ants and TV static as he fumbles for an answer. What comes out of his mouth is “I asked Steve out!”

Wayne’s lips quirk up, and he’s smirking at Eddie as if to say, see? told ya, the smug bastard. But all he says is, “is that so?” drawling and easy like he’s not acting all-knowing and superior.

Eddie groans and takes his hand out of the garbage bag to run it through his hair and pull. “Or I left him a note?” he says, gut churning as Wayne’s face drops to his more customary frown. “Oh my god, he’s not going to show!”

“Then why’re you cleaning your van out?”

Eddie puffs up, glaring back at Wayne now. “Well I’m going to show up, Wayne!” he replies, voice shrill. “I’m a man of my word.”

Wayne snorts when Eddie calls himself a man, just like he always does, but his lips are quirked up again, looking almost proud as he replies, “good man,” with only a slightly mocking intonation. “Want some help?”

They get all the trash out in a matter of minutes. When it becomes clear that the vacuum cleaner can’t reach no matter how close they park the van, Wayne comes back out with the broom from the kitchen and they sweep as much debris as they can from inside before Eddie steals the comforter from his own bed and lays it across the back carpet, masking the weird stains.

Wayne finishes it off with a spritz of his own rarely-used cologne, covering up any remaining funky smells. Even so, Eddie elects to leave the windows rolled down to air it out for as long as possible.

When Wayne notices his commandeered shoelace around the sunflowers, he doesn’t say a thing.

Then, he’s forced to go to school, wiling away the hours until he’s standing in front of the Harrington’s front door, boots shined for the first time in his life, sunflowers clutched in shaking hands, van parked neatly behind him, hair brushed into submission. He’d even used his fancy conditioner, thoughts of that half-remembered first letter waxing poetic about his hair fueling his action. 

All for a boy who won’t answer the door.

But, Eddie’s a man of his word, so he knocks.

And waits.

And waits.

And waits.

He waits such a long time that he jumps when the door opens, breath catching as he looks at Steve Harrington, face-to-face for the first time since that disastrous day in his living room. His mostly-healed eye aches with remembered pain, his ribs cold with the absence of Steve’s hands.

He’s missed looking at him.

Steve’s in light-wash jeans, hair perfectly coiffed, wearing a green sweater that makes the gold in his eyes pop, even in the dim light from the Harrington’s porch light. He looks good, put together enough for a first date, casual enough to just be his everyday clothes.

Eddie’s heartbeat flickers with something that feels alarmingly like hope.

“Uh, hey,” Eddie says, finally breaking the awkward silence.

He smiles, trying to be charming, but he’s never done this before, doesn’t know how to contort his face. He holds out the sunflowers, arm awkwardly extending, hoping desperately that his offering will be accepted.

Steve stares down at them, hand still clutching the door like he’s one second away from slamming it closed in Eddie’s face. Eddie holds his breath, heartbeat ratcheting up from the oxygen deprivation.

Steve reaches out, his fingers brushing Eddie’s as he tries to take the flowers from him. Eddie’s fingers stay clenched around the stems for a second too long, hand following the flowers trajectory toward Steve’s own chest until Eddie forces his hand open and lets it drop uncomfortably back to his side.

Steve stares down at them, leaning down to take a sniff. Eddie winces—they don’t smell like much, just dirt and nebulous green things. But Steve smiles, just a tiny, little thing that hits Eddie’s body like electroshock therapy.

“Thank you.” Steve says quietly, not looking away from the sunflowers as he asks, “come inside while I put them in some water?”

Steve swings the door open wider, and Eddie slides past him and into the Harrington’s house. As Steve wanders further inside, Eddie stands in the entrance—foyer?—feeling remarkably out of place. Even from here, he can see enough negative space to house twenty-odd people, a vaulted ceiling, and is that a chandelier? Eddie doesn’t step a toe off the mat beneath his feet, afraid his very presence will stain the perfect white interior.

He shouldn’t be here. Places like this aren’t for the Munson’s of the world. They’re for royalty, kings and queens, and all the upper crust that spits down on the rest of them. But when Steve comes back, sans sunflowers, he’s smiling just a little, tromping his own shoes over the white carpet like he doesn’t give a shit.

Maybe he doesn’t belong here either. Maybe it’s possible to carve out a space for him in the Munson’s shitty trailer, however small.

“Alright, Munson,” he says, still smiling just this side of awkward. “What’re we doing?”

As Eddie holds Steve Harrington’s own front door open for him to step through, Eddie’s mind’s buzzing with maybes.

***

Eddie’s van smells like mothballs and cologne, and the radio’s quietly playing the sort of generic pop music Steve usually mumbles along to on his way to school. But, Eddie’s fingers are twitching against the wheel, and he hasn’t said a word since they’d climbed in, so Steve sits on his own hands and keeps his mouth shut.

The longer the silence drags on, the more Steve regrets ever opening the door at all. Eddie pulls into Hawkins’ drive-in, and buys their tickets and two bags of popcorn. Steve’s hand clenches in his lap, Eddie’s words to Chrissy all that time ago running through his head—we can go to the drive-in and hold hands the whole time.

“I hope this is okay?” Eddie says, finally breaking the silence as he spins the dial to the correct channel to catch the movie. “I wasn’t sure if you liked horror, but this is all that’s playing this weekend, and I’ve been wanting to watch it so—”

“It’s fine,” Steve replies, and it is.

He’s never been much for horror beyond putting it on for dates so he has a built-in excuse to reach out. But, he’s not squeamish, and maybe those same thoughts are running through Eddie’s head: an excuse to reach out and touch.

But, as the title card flashes SLEEPAWAY CAMP in big, boxy font, all Eddie does is reach into his popcorn bag and stuff a handful into his mouth. Steve follows suit, the buttery kernels turning to ash on his tongue.

He watches with little enthusiasm as the stupid teenagers on screen fool around and get torn apart. Eddie makes little comments throughout the movie, but there’s nothing Steve can grasp onto.

What does one say to, “whoa, blood fountain,” or “god, that kid’s a douche,” or, “they should’ve killed him sooner.”

Steve still tries, humming and nodding along and verbalizing his own agreements. Eddie never responds, just keeps stuffing his mouth with popcorn until the bag’s empty. Steve stares down at his own mostly-full bag and wonders if the separate bags were just to make sure they didn’t accidentally brush hands. 

He hands his own popcorn over, and Eddie grabs it twitchily, muttering a “thanks, dude,” without really looking at Steve at all.

Steve just wants to go home, crawl into his own bed, and forget this whole thing ever happened.

But he just sits there, silent as the movie plays on. He doesn’t understand the end, but he missed so much of the beginning and middle that he barely questions it.

When it’s over, Eddie turns the dial back to that same, nondescript station that doesn’t fit him at all, fingers clenching hard enough on the wheel that Steve can hear it creak under the strain. Steve turns away, to look out the window, throat clogged up with feelings he doesn’t want to think about.

The longer this date drags on, the more excruciatingly clear it becomes that whatever is driving Eddie to this, it’s not him returning Steve’s feelings. This isn’t how dates go when you’re excited about them, there’s nothing clicking into place–it doesn’t even seem like Eddie’s trying.

He feels small, and sad, and every minute that passes with Eddie saying absolutely nothing at all only makes Steve feel more like a charity case that Eddie’s taken pity on. 

He never should have listened to Chrissy and Jeff’s encouragement. They’d both been so hopeful that he’d caved, but they’re not the ones stuck in the devastatingly uncomfortable moment. It’s just him and Eddie, living with the fact that Steve’s got a crush on a boy that can never like him back.

There’s no coming back from this, no matter how nice Eddie tries to be about it. Because he is nice, no matter how he’s been acting the past few weeks.

Steve’s the problem—always has been, always will be.

So, he stews in the silence, watching the same familiar buildings pass him by like it’s the last time he’ll ever see them. And maybe it will be, if Eddie decides to be not so nice. This was all so catastrophically, unbelievably stupid from that very first letter all the way to this moment, stuck in a van with a boy that won’t even look at him. 

He’s so lost in thought that he doesn’t realize they’re going the wrong way until Eddie’s pulling into a familiar clearing in the quarry. His headlights illuminate the skid marks Steve’s car had made in the dirt when he’d screeched to a halt to stop Jason Carver from rearranging his face.

Eddie slides into park much more levelly and cuts the engine. The quiet is absolute, made worse by the darkness surrounding them. Steve can hear the crinkle of Eddie shifting on his seat, the sound of his throat as he gulps like he’s about to go off to war.

 “I thought—” Eddie starts before petering off as his voice breaks. Steve listens to him take a few shuddering breaths before starting again. “I thought we could star gaze?”

Steve sighs, slumping back into his seat, so unbelievably tired. “Eddie—”

“Unless you don’t want to!” Eddie rushes out. “I just thought…”

Steve would kill to know what he’s thinking, but whatever it is, Eddie doesn’t pick up his trailing sentence, just leaves it hanging in the silence between them. Steve sighs again, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, desperate to keep an even keel.

“Look, Eddie” Steve starts, turning toward Eddie. He can see the silhouette of his frame hunched over in the driver’s seat, but his face is a black void for Steve to project upon. It makes him brave. “You don’t have to do this. You, like, tried it out, right? And it didn’t work out.”

“Steve—”

“It’s fine, Eddie,” Steve cuts in, exhausted. “You can just drop me off at home, and we can go our separate ways.”

Eddie makes a sound like a strangled cat, and then his silhouette lunges across the distance between their seats. Steve jerks back, head banging painfully into the window as Eddie’s mouth mashes against his, more teeth than lips.

PART 19

Shoutout, once again, to my beta reader and friend @queenie-ofthe-void for this one!!! I struggled for weeks on the date, and then they said, "what if you just make it as awkward as possible," and then I wrote this entire date in a day. Truly a muse for me <3<3<3

[queer-coffee]

simple words | pt. 3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Read on Ao3

Sanji has been sad lately.

Luffy has been noticing.

Sanji doesn’t hang out with everyone as much. Sanji spends a lot more time in the kitchen, preparing all the crew’s meals, creating new amazing desserts. Creating food that really takes a lot of time and preparation and love.

Luffy finds himself wanting to comfort Sanji. To hug Sanji, to touch Sanji. But something tells him that Sanji wouldn’t like that right now.

Sanji hasn’t been liking that for a while now.

Sanji also has changed things. Luffy didn’t really notice at first, but ever since Robin pointed them out to him, Luffy can’t stop noticing.

Sanji’s hair is short now, and Sanji’s suit fits different in some places. Sanji doesn’t talk as much anymore, either, when Sanji used to never stop talking. And it’s even more when things like clothes or showers or certain preferences come up. Things Luffy doesn’t even think about.

They’re small things, but Luffy knows. They’re not trivial things. Not to Sanji.

Sanji must think about those things a lot. That must be why Sanji seems so sad.

Luffy wonders why that is.

He misses Sanji’s smile. Sanji’s laugh. Sanji’s temper.

He would do anything to make Sanji not sad.

Luffy looks down across the lawn from his spot in the bird’s nest, watching Sanji water Robin’s flowers.

A gust of wind forcefully blows his hair back, as Luffy thinks, and thinks, and thinks.

………………

Sanji thought he knew who he was going to tell first. It was the obvious choice. There was no one safer. It was the one person Sanji could truly say he wasn’t worried about at all.

Until he started acting all weird.

Sanji can feel Luffy’s stare on him wherever he goes. Not that Luffy is trying to even hide the fact that he’s been looking at Sanji. A lot. So much so that even Chopper is starting to pick up on it. Sanji can see his furry head whipping back and forth between them at lunch, meaning it’s only a matter of time before someone says something. And that cannot happen.

Sanji isn’t ready.

The sun sets lower in the sky, casting long and looming shadows from the West. They stretch out endlessly before him.

Sanji adjusts the wheel a little, keeping the Sunny on her steady course, deep in his thoughts of how to make sure this doesn’t blow up. And his thoughts of that dumb marimo.

Sanji breathes in deeply, trying to recall before the memory fades to time.

The scent of warm spice, the feeling of arms around him, safe and capable.

Sanji shudders.

Suddenly, Luffy appears in front of him, and Sanji lets out a yell. This makes Luffy laugh.

“There you are!” he shouts, “I said your name five times, Sanji.”

“Oh.” Sanji’s shoulders fall. The wheel creaks.

He reaches into his pocket for his smokes. It’s not until he opens the pack that he remembers he’s out. He wonders how he forgot to throw the box away.

“Here!” Luffy says, he pats himself down until he stops at the final pocket possible, and pulls out a fresh pack. It’s not one of the brands Sanji currently has on the ship. “You used your last one.”

Sanji takes the pack, a little off guard. If it was anyone else he’d tell them not to fucking stalk him. But it’s not just anyone. “How could you tell?”

“You always look sort of happy when you take one out," says Luffy, "but not last time.”

Luffy leans forward and rests his arms on the wheel, rocking back and forth with it as Sanji makes slight adjustments.

Luffy’s eyes are limitlessly bright. It’s almost too much to look at.

So Sanji doesn’t. He looks down to the pack instead. He pulls one out, and finds his lighter.

Luffy rests his head now, too.

And Sanji realizes.

They’re alone. It could be the perfect time.

Sanji’s heart beats faster.

He sparks the lighter, and swallows, surprised to find a lump in his throat.

Sanji tries to swallow again, but it’s persistent.

He wonders where in the world that came from.

Sanji sparks his lighter again, guarding his cigarette with his hand. He has no good reason to be feeling like this right now. It’s almost embarrassing.

It could be the perfect time.

But then Sanji thinks of Luffy’s gaze, relentlessly lingering on the back of his neck.

When he thinks of that, the timing doesn’t feel so perfect anymore.

Sanji sparks his lighter. Really, it’s putting him on edge. Why has Luffy been looking at him so much? Damn near through him.

It’s making him nervous. It's making him...

He sparks his lighter once more, his shoulders relaxing when it finally catches. Sanji inhales generously. The cigarette flares in front of him, warm on his face.

“Hey, Sanji,” Luffy says, but Sanji barely hears it.

It’s not like he doesn’t want to tell Luffy. Holding onto this any longer isn’t something he wants to do. He is dying to let it out. In fact, it’s killing him not to. Finally being free is just on the other side of a few words.

It should be so simple.

“Sanji,” Luffy’s voice is low, just in his ear now. Now, Sanji hears him. “You haven’t been looking happy lately. Ever. Even when you don’t run out of those things.”

A shiver shoots down Sanji’s spine.

Is that why Luffy’s been looking?

Sanji exhales. The smoke is smooth on his throat, so painfully tight now. His breath shakes.

“Sanji.”

Sanji blinks again, annoyed at his eyes for being wet.

“Damn it,” Sanji says, and he can hear it in his voice right before it happens. But it's too late to stop it.

He lets out a sob. Then another. He muffles it with his sleeve, but he can’t stop.

And still he feels Luffy’s eyes on him.

“Sanji, can you tell me what’s . . .” Luffy pauses, then urgently leans closer. “Tell me how I can help you.”

Sanji covers his face, so frustrated that he can’t stop. That he can’t look Luffy in the eyes. That he can’t even bring himself to tell him, when it should be so easy.

Why can’t it just be easy?

“Sanji.”

“Luffy, I—” Sanji cries. The words are right there, but, “I can’t,” Sanji breaks down. “I can’t,” He shakes his head. His whole body shakes. “I can’t, Luffy.”

And he hates the tone in his voice, the way it’s so out of control. He hates how he’s shaking. He hates that he can’t even tell Luffy, and how it feels like even that’s out of his control too.

“That’s okay,” Luffy says, like it really is. Sanji wonders how Luffy does that.

“I can’t,” Sanji repeats. "I can't."

“I know," says Luffy, “I know something is on your mind.” Sanji nods, overwhelmed, unable to do anything else. “I know something is wrong. But," Luffy's voice is so gentle, "I’m here. When you can tell me.”

Sanji cries, surprised to feel a warmth inside now, too. It’s a feeling he places immediately.

"I'm here, Sanji."

Sanji nods. Thankful.

[xhoneygirlxx]

rated r: contains smut

warnings: plus sized fem reader. ethnicity/skin tone is not mentioned. eddie is a perv. pet names used.

*not proofread, ignore any mistakes plz or I’ll cry*

—

Eddie Munson loves to eat you out, specifically after a long work day. Now don’t get it twisted, he would eat you out any chance you got, but there was just something so special about a day long pussy.

It first started one day on a cold winter day, the two of you cuddled up on the couch watching some movie you had been wanting to see, when he noticed. Eddie didn’t say anything but he quickly noticed that warmth was radiating from in between your legs.

So warm in fact, he excused himself to the bathroom just to run his hands under cold water, when he returned he asked if he could put them in between your legs, ya know for warmth. That was the day Eddie found out that you carried a certain heat not a lot of people did.

When he came to you about it, he asked you as respectfully as he could. You shook you head and laughed, telling him since the plushness of your thighs and the fat of your pussy don’t have much of a gap between them, heat just radiates down there.

Despite you telling him that it’s not uncommon, most woman have heat coming from this area, it still didn’t stop his brain from short circuiting.

That was the start of his obsession, which was only made worse after you came home one day from a walk around the park trail with Robin. You had been gone most of the day, leaving him whining and whimpering like a puppy with neediness.

When you walked in, he practically pounced on you, begging to put his mouth on you. You told him no, not until you showered off. He pouted like a child, moaning and groaning about how unfair it was.

You had to essentially sit him down, tell him because you of the heat that comes from those crevices, well it could get really sweaty after a long day. The whole time he salivated imagining the salty taste of your skin and the sweet taste of your cunt.

After that day, Eddie was bound to eat you out especially after a long shift. He had become successful after he promised yo stop the minute you said so - which he always did.

That day he drowned himself between your thighs, pulling orgasm after orgasm from your wet cunt. He was like a man possessed, refusing to come up for a breath of air just for another taste of you.

From that day forward you let him eat you out any time he wanted, especially after a specifically long hard day.

You were pressed into the mattress, Eddie’s hands wrapped around the fat of your thighs leaving an imprint on the skin. He had been going at it for what felt like forever, sweat soaking your skin and the sheets wet underneath your ass from all the releases he pulled from you.

“S’fuckin’ good. Taste s’good, baby.” Eddie voice is muffled from the fat of your thighs.

Pornographic slurping rings out into the room, vibrating off the walls. Your chest heaves, fingers white knuckled as they twist the sheets under you.

Eddie pulls off your clit with a pop before resting his nose in the small bush of hair on your mound.

“I like when you don’t shave babe, makes the smell last longer”, he had once told you. From that day forward you always kept a good amount of hair not only for his perverted satisfaction, but also your own.

You take this time to allow your thighs to ease up, letting them fall slightly to relax. Before you can say whine and buck your hips up, Eddie’s letting out a loud inhale from where his nose is buried in the short curling hair.

“Fuck I love that smell.” Is all he offers before he’s burying his face back into your pussy.

You can’t even form words or chastise him for being gross, not when your pussy is growing wetter by the second and your brain cant even form words.

You moan loudly, head thrashing back and forth after a particularly harsh suck of your swollen clit. Eddie isn’t any better, he moans loudly against your cunt and busies his hips faster against the mattress.

“I could do this all day, baby. Shit- I could die between these legs with my face in this fat pussy.”

His words are spurring not only yourself on but him as well. You begin to right his mouth, jerking every so often the closer you get to your release. Eddie is in the same boat, his hips are beginning to stutter and you know he’s holding off so you can cum together.

“Yes baby, fuck my face. Fucking Christ- I love it when you use me, s’hot.”

You don’t even need to beg, you’re cumming loud and hard, back arched off of the mattress. Eddie is right behind you, a loud groan and the stiffening of his hips lets you know that he came without being touched, the messed in his boxers to be worried about later.

—

Hope you enjoyed!!! Love you all <3

[pholla-jm]

I Look Like You!

IMAGINE: I LOOK LIKE YOU! ~ ZORO X READER GENRE: FLUFF/CRACK WARNINGS: NONE NOTE: THIS IS DEFINITELY INSPIRED BY BOB'S BURGERS. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a boring day on the ship, and you had a lot of time to kill. It would be at least a few more days until the Thousand Sunny reached another island. 

Your favorite past time lately is to annoy your boyfriend, Zoro.

You had planned this out for quite some time and you knew that Zoro would not be amused by your actions. But you definitely would be. 

So, you got some temporary green hair dye and miraculously found some fake swords that looked like Zoro's. It wasn't that hard to find clothes like his either. 

So you died your hair green like his. Even did your make up so you could almost look like him as well. You even did the scar to match his. After changing your clothes and tying the bandana onto your right arm, you placed the swords onto your side. 

When walking around the ship, it didn't take long for you to get noticed. Especially by your energetic and childish Captain. 

"Woah, Zoro! You got shorter." Luffy shouts at you. 

You really couldn't tell if he was serious about knowing it was you or not. But he always fed into your antics, which you enjoyed. 

Zoro, who was napping on the side of deck, opened his eye upon hearing his name. A bit confused as to why Luffy would be saying that he's shorter. It didn't take long for his sight to rest upon you. 

He immediately stood up and made his way over to you. 

"(y/n) what are you doing?" He demands from you. "Who's (y/n)?" You respond and it takes everything in you not to burst out laughing at his facial expression. 

"Woah! There's two of you!" Luffy shouts in amazement.  Robin, who heard the commotion looks over to see what was going on. Nami, who was sitting next to her just sighed and shook her head.  

"I already can't tell whose who." Luffy continues causing you to smile and Zoro to grunt in annoyance. 

"Take that stuff off." Zoro says. "Robin, get in here and come settle this." You call Robin over.  Robin deciding it would be quite fun to entertain this, walks over. 

"Awe, it's a travel size Zoro." Robin teases as she walks over to the small group.  "Robin, you're encouraging this." Zoro shoots a quick glare over to Robin, which does nothing. 

Usopp who was walking by decide to join in on the commotion as well. 

"Oh, wow. This is confusing. There's two Zoro's." Usopp says. "No, it's not confusing." 

"You guys are my crewmates and I secretly all love you. But you're all terrible... all terrible."  "I don't say that!" Zoro shouts. 

"Mm, well that's all you say."  "I literally heard you say that the other day."  "All the time."  The small group around you agrees, just frustrating Zoro even more. 

Both you and Zoro groan and run a hand down a face at the same time.  This just causes some more laughter around you.

"(y/n)."  "Zoro."  "Enough."  "Enough."

The both of you go back and forth, while the rest of the group just looked back and forth between you. Not only did you look like him, but you also copied all his body movements and mannerism that he does.

"Alright, I'm not doing this." Zoro says. "Yes, you are." "No-" "Ugh." Both of you groan at the same time. 

It was like you memorized his responses and knew what he was going to react.

Luffy laughs the loudest. "This is great! I now have two Zoro's!" 

"No you don't!" Zoro shouts, an angry tick mark on his forehead.

"Wow. (y/n)'s really good." Robin comments as she watches you copy all of his movements.  "No, (y/n)'s not good at this Robin."  "Yeah, Robin. He's not good. He's not good Robin."  "Wow, (y/n)'s good."  "(y/n)!"  "What Zoro?!" "Ugh!" "Robin! Settle this." You shout, trying to sound as angry as him. But it was getting harder and harder to keep your laughter in. 

Especially since Luffy and Usopp were on the ground laughing while holding their stomachs. 

"(Y/n) stop!"  "Zoro!" You just shout back at him.

"That's it, I'm leaving!"  "I'm leaving!" You also say walking to where the sake was kept at. 

"Awe, they're so cute." Robin comments with a giggle as she watched the both of you bicker over the sake. 

Zoro's hand grabbed onto the bottle of sake that was currently in your hand. "(y/n), let go. This is my sake."  "No, it's my sake."  "(Y/n), I swear if you don't-" "What? What are you going to do??" You mock him, which quite surprises him a bit.

You took this as a chance to snatch the bottle away from him. His shock was quickly replaced with more shock as he watched you stick your tongue out at him. 

"Oh, you're definitely going to regret this later." "Whatever you say swordsman." 

[xenon-demon]

I... have no idea what this is. No that's a lie I know exactly what this is, it's 2.6k of a Frozen AU with Steve as Elsa and Robin as Anna that I wrote in a fugue state after seeing a friend's production of Frozen: The Musical tonight. I have several WIPs I'm supposed to be working on and this is exactly none of them. Bone apple teeth. (Also I'm genuinely unsure if my usual crew of beloved enablers would even WANT to be tagged in this so... for now I'm not doing a taglist, and if I write any more of this AU I'll do one next time 😂)

“Steve!”

At the sound of his name, the Prince — now King, and boy is Robin going to take a while to get used to that — turns his head towards her. Seeing it's Robin, Steve gives his apologies to whatever noble he was talking to and steps away from their conversation. He makes his way over to Robin in just a few short strides, but his eyes flick back and forth between Robin and her new... well. She doesn't really want to think about what Eddie now is to her. In any case, she can already see a questioning frown start to brew on Steve's face, meaning this will be a much harder sell than she expected.

“Robin!” Steve exclaims, his gaze almost immediately sliding over to Eddie and giving him a once-over. He sounds markedly more subdued when he continues, “I see you've... made a friend.”

“Well, I wouldn't say a friend exactly!” Robin laughs, shrill and stilted, and gives Eddie's arm a pointed squeeze when he doesn't immediately join in. Getting the hint, Eddie finally starts laughing along. Hopefully Steve didn't notice her hinting, since she's had her arm wrapped around Eddie's since before she even called him over.

Steve raises an eyebrow at her, and shit does she need to keep this moving.

“This,” Robin announces, using the hand that's not around Eddie's arm to do a quick flourish in the direction of his face, “is Prince Edward of the Kingdom of Forest-Upon-Hills. We met at the ball tonight.”

“It's an absolute pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty,” says Eddie, trying his best to show the proper respect and bow as he does so. Robin's death grip on his arm prevents him from getting very far.

“Likewise,” Steve replies, sounding incredibly skeptical of this whole conversation. He then shoots Robin a look, which, rude, but also entirely warranted given what she's about to ask him.

Steeling herself, Robin begins to say, “Prince Edward and I-”

“Just Eddie is fine,” Eddie interrupts her, leaning in a little bit closer to her as he whispers. He's got terrible volume control, however, so she wouldn't know it was meant to be a whisper if she hadn't spent the past two hours talking to him.

“Not one for formalities, Prince Eddie?” Steve asks, the weight of his gaze finally leaving Robin's shoulders for a moment. God, she often wishes her brother was easier to read, but never as strongly as she does right now.

Eddie, meanwhile, straightens up so quickly it's like he's been electrocuted.

“Uh, not particularly, no. They grate on me,” Eddie says. He pauses for a moment, and Robin can see the deliberation on his face before he adds, “Your Majesty.”

“I'm not one for formalities either, Prince Eddie,” Steve says. His mouth twitches into a very small smile. “I prefer Steve.”

There's a pause, then, where Steve and Eddie are locked into some strange stare-down, while Robin looks on in vague exasperation. She's pretty sure she could strip naked and swing from the chandelier in the center of the ballroom and neither of them would take any notice of her. She's about to intervene, actually, because they really do not have time for whatever this is, when Eddie miraculously breaks the spell himself. He blinks a bit, looking away from Steve and back to Robin, face significantly more flushed than it was a minute ago.

“I believe you were saying something to K- to Steve, Princess?” Eddie asks, just about tripping over Steve's new title on instinct before catching himself.

Robin just barely restrains herself from rolling her eyes. She really is the bravest, most long-suffering warrior in all of Hawkins.

Putting her brave face back on, Robin turns to her brother and says, “Yes I was, thank you Eddie, I was saying that Prince Eddie and I-” and here she falters, because Steve looks back at her and meets her gaze. She swallows, trying to be subtle, and looks very pointedly at Steve's forehead instead of his eyes. She can't do this if she's looking him in the eye.

She takes another half second to compose herself, then rips the band-aid off.

“Prince Eddie and I seek your blessing for our marriage.”

“Excuse me?” Steve says, more like demands, almost choking on nothing. Robin's never seen her brother this off-kilter in her life. He doesn't even try to compose himself at  all before he says, “Robin, can I speak to you for a moment? Alone?”

Robin swallows guiltily, knowing he'll see straight through her if she agrees.

“No. Anything you want to say to me, you can say to both of us,” Robin says, and how her voice stays steady, she doesn't even know. It probably helps that she's still not looking Steve in the eye.

“Robin- I don't-” Steve interrupts himself to run his gloved hands down his face. He pauses for a moment, face completely covered by his hands, and takes a deep sigh. When he removes his hands and starts speaking again, his voice is measured. Calm. Deadly.

“Rob, you can't marry a man you just met,” Steve states. The word man falls heavy off his tongue, and Robin knew she would regret coming out as a lesbian, she just didn't think it would be like this. Squaring herself up for the best performance of her life, Robin begins her improvised speech full of bullshit to convince her brother to let her do this.

Before she can, however, Eddie chimes in with, "You can if it's true love." Steve doesn't even spare Eddie a glance, but his frown does deepen significantly. Shit.

“Steve,” Robin begins, trying very hard to stay calm, “Eddie and I have a connection unlike any I've ever felt before. I lo-love him”—shit, she could feel the bile rising in the back of her throat saying that, and judging by the almost-imperceptible twitch in Steve's eye, he knows too—“and I think it's time I start giving back to the Kingdom of Hawkins.”

“Giving back?” Steve asks, and fuck he's folding his arms across his chest now. “How exactly is this giving back to the kingdom? What you're doing is running headfirst into the first bad decision you can find.”

”I'm a bad decision?” Eddie asks. Both Robin and Steve ignore him.

“No, Steve, I'm giving back by giving the kingdom a new celebration to look forward to after your coronation,” Robin hisses. “A royal wedding is another opportunity to open the castle gates and bring the kingdom together-”

“Absolutely not,” Steve snaps, interrupting her. “We are not opening up the castle gates again for a long time.”

“Why not, Steve?” Robin snaps back. “Tonight's been great for the kingdom's morale, it's been great for you to see people and actually socialize-”

“You have no idea what's good for me, Robin,” Steve says, making her stop dead. It hurts, hearing Steve say that like it's obvious and she's stupid for not knowing it already. What hurts more is that it’s true.

Once it's clear Robin won't keep talking, Steve continues, “You asked for my blessing, and I do not give it. I don't approve of this, and if you're doing this in some misguided attempt to make me happy- quite frankly you've gone insane if you think this would make me happy.”

With that, he turns to walk away.

Okay, sure, she has no idea what Steve's whole deal is or why he's always shutting her out, but Robin is sure she knows what will help.

Sure, part of this crazy scheme is the vague idea that if Robin has a picture-perfect capable-of-bearing-children partnership, then Steve will be under less pressure himself to marry someone who can produce an heir. Maybe, with less scrutiny on his personal choices, he'll learn to relax and open up more over time. That idea falls apart pretty quickly, however, as the thought of producing an heir with a man - even one as fun to talk to as Eddie - makes her want to gouge her own eyes out. No, the real reasoning behind Robin's (admittedly insane) plan to marry someone she met two hours ago at her brother's coronation is so she has an ironclad reason for Steve to open the gates again. Sure, ideally it would've been a woman who caught her eye tonight, but she can't be picky. Robin doesn't meet anyone, especially with the castle locked up like it always is, and she has yet to think of something other than a wedding that would convince Steve to open the gates. Then Eddie came along, laughing and flirting (she thinks, at least; Robin's tried to black that part out) and professing his undying true love to her, and this was the best opportunity she was ever going to get.

And she has to convince her brother to open the gates again. Steve's been thriving tonight. He clearly loves the thrum of people, all of them dancing and laughing and enjoying themselves, and he's slowly coming out of his shell with every conversation he has with their subjects. Robin's spent more time talking to her brother tonight than she has in a long, long time. Too long for her to try to quantify it without crying.

Watching her brother turn away from her, the promise of a relationship with him going forward about to slip through her fingers, she knows she has to do something.

“Steve, wait-” Robin says, reaching out for Steve. She grabs him by the hand, feeling the soft cotton of the white gloves he always, always wears.

“Enough, Robin,” Steve says, not even looking back as he yanks his hand out of her grip. She's trying to hold on, though, so she's left holding his glove as Steve pulls his now-bare hand away from her. God, how upsetting is it that it's been years since she saw the back of her own brother's hands?

Steve swears, then, under his breath. Robin almost doesn't hear it; almost.

“Robin, give me my glove.” Steve's not asking; he's demanding. Robin can work with this.

“Not unless you talk to me about why you won't open the gates. Look at how tonight went, it's been so good for you-”

“This isn't up for debate, Robin, give me my glove,” and Steve reaches for it then, but Robin quickly holds the glove up high above her head before he can grab it.

“Why isn't it up for debate? Why do you isolate yourself all the time?” Robin's almost dancing now, twisting and turning as she tries to keep the glove away from Steve's grabbing hands. It doesn't help that he's taller than her, but she's more agile than people think, especially since Steve's in full coronation regalia right now. The material's stiff as a board at the best of times.

“You wouldn't understand, just give me the- ugh!” Steve's stopped trying to grab the glove, instead trying to restrain her and make it easier to grab.

“Maybe I would understand if you'd talk to me instead of shutting me out all the time-” Steve's almost got her in a headlock, but Robin ducks out from underneath it and quickly steps away and out of Steve's reach.

“Robin, that's enough!” Steve shouts, and then several things happen consecutively.

Steve reaches out towards Robin with his right hand, the one missing the glove.

Robin thinks she's going crazy, but- what look like snowflakes shoot out from Steve's hand where he's reached for her.

The crowd, most of whom had turned to look at Steve's shout, gasp, almost in unison.

“I- Steve-” Robin says, not quite sure where to start with the -- actually quite sizable -- pile of snow now on the ballroom floor.

“No,” Steve gasps, and Robin's never heard her brother so distraught. It makes something keen inside her, the sheer anguish in his voice. “No, no no no, this can't be happening, this can't-” Steve reaches up to pull at this hair, but more snow and ice shoots out from his hand as soon as it's pointing towards the ceiling. He flinches away from his own hand, sheer terror on his face, but with every movement Steve makes more and more snow and ice surrounds him. Within a few seconds, there's a wind picking up as well, and it's like a snowstorm is starting to form right there in the castle dining room.

The crowd, originally shocked into silence, starts to move again. Robin hears screaming, people running, shouting from the guards about an evacuation plan, but it's all faint and distorted like she's underwater. All she can focus on right now is Steve, the way his terror is only worsening by the moment.

“Steve, let me help you,” Robin calls over the roar of the crowd and the storm, taking a few steps towards him. She needs to get his attention before getting closer, the last thing she wants to do right now is startle him.

“Stay away from me!” Steve yells, holding up his hands in an instinctive 'stay back' gesture. Yet more ice shoots out towards Robin as he does so. “I’m not safe!”

“I don't care! You're my brother!” Robin shouts back, but Steve doesn't seem to hear her. He's looking down at his hands in horror, then at the waist-high line of ice between the two of them.

Robin somehow knows what he's going to do the moment before he does it.

“Steve!” Robin screams, breaking into a run. Steve's faster than her, always has been, so he makes it to the doors of the ballroom well before she can catch him. It also helps that people, even the guards posted at the doors, part to make room for him whenever he draws near. Seeing Steve push open the ballroom doors just enough to slip through them, Robin yells again, “Steve! Stop!”

“Princess Robin!” Someone crashes into Robin then, nearly sending the two of them flying. (Robin mentally thanks whatever God there may be that she wore pants and not a dress.) After regaining her footing, Robin looks at her assailant to find- oh, it's that guy. The Duke of one of their main trading partners, Tommy something. Haggard? Halfwit? Yeah, something like that.

“Princess Robin,” Tommy Hapless says, bending over with one hand on his knees and the other holding Robin's elbow as he catches his breath. God, Robin does not have time for this. “Princess, you can't- we need guidance. We need someone to... to lead us while the King is... indisposed.”

“I really don't have time for this,” Robin snaps, brushing his hand off her elbow. “Steve's my brother, I have to find him before he gets hurt!”

“I don't think... he's the one who'll be getting hurt,” Tommy Hanger-On says between gasps, quietly, but not so quiet Robin doesn't hear. She makes a point to stomp on his toes as she stalks off towards Eddie, who is doing his best to help people follow the evacuation advice. He looks faintly queasy, and very much like he would rather be literally anywhere else, but he's actually doing a pretty good job of guiding people where the guards want them.

Eddie doesn't notice her coming, so he jumps when Robin grabs him by the shoulder. She turns him around to face her, then grabs him by the other shoulder as well so she's looking him right in the eyes.

“I need to find Steve,” Robin says, not waiting for Eddie to finish whatever question he's opened his mouth to ask before continuing, “Can you take care of the kingdom until we get back?”

Eddie goes pale instantly. “What? I can't-”

“You're a prince, right? I know Forest-Upon-Hills is a pretty small kingdom, but how different can Hawkins really be?” Eddie doesn't look reassured, but Robin cares very little about that right now. She claps him on both shoulders in what she hopes is an encouraging gesture.

She grabs Eddie's hand and thrusts it up into the air, shouting, “Prince Eddie is in charge until I return!”

She then drops his hand before turning and running out into the night, ignoring the chaos behind her and the faint sounds of Eddie's confused protests.

Nothing matters to her now except for finding Steve.

[roosterbox]

Thinky Thought time yet again. This one, though, doesn’t need a cut.

Tags: Steddie, ANGST, not a happy ending, time loops

It’s 9am, I just woke up, and it’s ‘thinking about Steve Harrington being caught in a Groundhog Day time loop’ hours again.

The repeating day is the day of the final battle, obviously. The first couple loops are spent with Steve just playing things out as they happen in canon, but being verrrrrrry confused the whole time. Then, after he realizes that the day is just repeating itself, he starts trying to change things. It never goes well. For example…

Loops 6 through 10: Robin dies

Loops 12 through 14: Dustin dies

Loops 19 through 25: Nancy dies

Loops 26 through 30: El dies

Loops 31 through 40: Steve himself dies

And so on and so forth. Everybody dies at one point or another. Not to mention the numerous, numerous days that end with Vecna being victorious.

The loop still resets.

After reliving the same fucking day so many times, Steve is starting to lose it a little. Understandably so. I’m surprised that Bill Murray’s character in the original movie isn’t completely insane by the end, frankly. But back to Steve. Throughout all these repeating loops, he starts noticing something. That something is Eddie Munson. And isn’t that just a brilliant cap on his entire cursed existence: falling in love with a guy whose fate seems to be to die. And then he considers the possibility that maybe the way to potentially break out of this hellscape is to somehow get Eddie to fall in love with him too. (Worked in the original movie, so why not? Not that he’d have any knowledge of the movie, of course - that baby won’t come out in his universe for another seven years or so.)

This… also doesn’t go well.

He tries everything, but it seems like nothing between them ever changes. Hell, one time he answers Eddie’s “Make him pay” with the most epic first kiss in the history of first kisses (Dustin covers his eyes, Robin screeches at them to “get a room!”), and yet… every time he’s had to come back from the battle of a lifetime only to see Dustin sobbing over Eddie’s inert corpse. Every. Time.

On one loop, he can’t take it anymore and just… confesses everything. Both that he’s in love with Eddie and that he’s somehow stuck in a time loop.

“I just thought,” he says to a very (understandably!) shocked Eddie, “that maybe if I could get you to fall in love with me, things would change. But I can’t. To you, it’s only been a day, but for me…” he chuckles, but there’s no mirth in the sound. “For me, it feels like years.”

Once Eddie manages to find his voice, the first thing he says is, “But that doesn’t make any sense.”

Steve nods, “I know, dude. The time loop-“

“No, not that part.” He reconsiders. “Well, not only that part. I mean-“ Eddie swallows, suddenly very nervous. “I mean, if that was the case, it would have already stopped.” At Steve’s confused look, he continues. “Steve, man, you didn’t have to try so hard - I’ve been in love with you since, like, 1985.”

The loop still resets.

One time - ONE TIME - Steve manages to work out a freaking miracle of a day. Not only do he and Eddie confess their love, but everyone survives. EVERYONE. They go to the hospital to get checked out, Eddie’s name is cleared, the whole fix-it fic shebang, and it’s all-in-all the perfect ending to a shit day. A shitty SEVERAL days as far as Steve’s concerned. He goes to sleep that night thinking finally, finally.

The loop still resets.

[stoptellinglieslois]

Red black and blue

From their first meeting they knew there was something special between them.

Superman x Robin/Nightwing pairing.

1.

I made it to Gotham on time it was my first time coming here as Superman it smelled of pollution of all sorts, flying down here was a big difference from Metropolis sunny skies to Gotham grim city that gave me no warmth at all.

I waited for batman on the roof where the bat signal was, It wasn't on I didn't want to turn that thing on anyway, I don't think he would like that.

It started to rain lightly I looked up as I saw no stars in the night sky in this city.

I waited looking around the flashy neon lights down below the roof. I waited for a few moments as I noticed a dark figure descending from another roof top on to this one.

And I saw another smaller figure coming at the same time as the larger shadow.

Coming closer to me Batman advances and then another small colourful of green red and yellow costume, Little boy who should be asleep by now who should be in the comfort of his home and not out here hanging off a roof.

Batman came in front covering the boy. "Superman thank you for coming I am glad you responded to my call." Batman said. He cut to the chase. "I didn't know Joker and Toy man are joining forces I am also sorry you had to deal with Joker breaking out of arkham and ending up in Metropolis." Yes that is a mess that I never thought that I would have to join up with batman and clean it up.

This isn't the first time I worked with Batman only three times before, And they were all brief encounters of us teaming up.

This time is different from the last time teaming up with Batman. Joker and Toy man decided to tag team and they are still loose somewhere. I didn't say anything at first but the little guy was there every time the Batman cape would blow in the light rain wind would push it out of the way and I would get a small glimpse of legs and green boots.

The rain started to pick up heavily this time and the wind blew the cape more and I saw more of the little guy, Green shorts and small little boots I could only see the bottom half of him his little heart beating so loud in his chest.

Batman caught me watching. "So what now we've got two crazies on the loose where do we start." I told him. My curiosity about this child is getting to me Batman hasn't introduced us yet.

I feel I need to take this into my own hands.

"I've also noticed you are not alone Batman." I said loudly. The boy of many colours came out of his hiding place with a big million watt smile on his sweet little face, His little heart beat a million times more than his smile.

"Hello there I was wondering when you would come out of your hiding place. What's your name." I bent down to be in his level of sight. "Robin I'm... Robin." He said. he is so excited and adorable his black hair is a bit wild. "How old are you." He got a little closer to me so sweet. "I am eight Sir." I laughed when Batman didn't interrupt the meet and greet but Joker and Toy man did on some sort of intercom loud and clear so the whole city could hear.

"Greeting Joker here with Toy man.... "

"And also Harlequin." A female voice broke out of nowhere and the microphone crackled horribly.

"Yes well thank you Harles like I said before greetings folks we are three fab villains." And I was hoping this night would be a quiet one.

"Me and Toy man have decided to visit the city of Metropolis to visit Superman." Joker rolled the last part in such a way I had to admit it was funny.

"Please note me and Toy man will be going back and forth into both cities first what will we do heaven knows." And a big loud honking boomed the city with evil laughter.

"All of this sounds terrible and a trap." Batman said. Robin just looked at me still in the rapture of meeting me even if Joker was in front of him I think Robin wouldn't be fazed at all.

"I will go to Metropolis."

"No we can't spilt up now."

"We need to stay here. How will I be able to communicate with you if anything happens I am in no way going to scream out at the top of my lungs and yell ! Superman come to Gotham." Batman replied sarcastically. Robin wanted say something but closed his mouth quickly.

I looked at him and bent down towards him my cape flowing behind me. "You want to help us out." I used my best fatherly figure tone for him to come out of his shell.

"We could use small devices to communicate B was trying to get me one he's inventing these types of stuff for us to talk all the time." Robin said. He looked up at Batman.

"Good work Robin that's what we will use to communicate in case of an emergency." I smiled at Robin who smiled back at me, He was so young to be out here crime fighting I wasn't sure of all of this and where he came from I hope Bruce would tell me the story before the media does.

"Deal then." I said as I was about to fly up to my city.

"Hang on don't fly yet... I am having a gala I would like it if you came and covered it like the press." Bruce said looking up at me, My feet are hovering above the roof top.

"I would love to catch them sooner before the gala." Batman said. I nodded in agreement Robin looked up at me with his hand on his small chest he saw me slowly lifting off the ground his mouth in the shape of an "O".

"Goodnight." I say to both of them as I left them.

I got to the gala Joker and Toy man is MIA they laid low.

I walked around as I watched people talk and mingle fancy expensive dresses and tuxedos adorned by the rich. I saw a lot of big wigs here and a couple of celebrities.

I took a couple of pictures of them Jimmy let me borrow his camera. As I noticed Lois coming towards me she wasn't supposed to be here, A man beside her hooking an arm in her's Lex ! I was so shocked and I wanted to yell.

I asked her out not too long ago and she said no to me for Lex. "Clark hey." I didn't know what to say to her no words would come out of my mouth I was too stunned. "Lex Luthor great work Mr.Kent I enjoyed the piece on the piece you did on-" I didn't listen to him my arch villain was talking to me and I didn't want to here it at all I was angry.

"Excuses me I need to use the restroom." I bolted out of there like I had ants in my pants.

My emotions are all high till I see a group of people gathering around looking up. A small boy wearing an expensive suit hanging off a crystal chandelier it made a chiming sound as the little boy swung from side to side.

I didn't want him to get hurt. People only stared and pointed but no one came to his aid. "Hey come down from there." I said to the boy my arms stretched as I went underneath the chandelier. "Come on darling." I don't know what it was but the boy stopped and looked at me and jumped down and the on lookers clapped as he got down.

I frowned as the little boy looked at me and smiled and did a back flip towards me. "Dick I' am sorry everyone it's just that he's not used to all of this without entertaining a crowd." Bruce dressed in his best pulled the boy away from the crowd and scolded him as they retreated far away from the group of onlookers.

With that I see Lois coming closer towards me Lex in toe. I needed to hide from these two. I maneuver away from the group and made my way towards an empty corridor I found an empty room and I walked towards a sofa and sat down it was nice and quiet here.

I could also do some work here and start on tonight's story and not be seen by them. I couldn't believe she did this but she doesn't know Lex is evil, I can't begin to explain to her how I know it led to.... Superman I can't do that.

An hour later in typing my paper I had enough material for a paper it was most of the same old same old.

Until I looked to my side and the boy who hung from the chandelier was in front of me, Where did he come from I didn't hear him come in here I was here for a while.

"Hello there remember me." I closed my laptop as he watched me. "Yes... what are you doing." He says looking at me getting close to me as he sits down next to me.

"I am a reporter I am doing a paper." I said. He looked at me with his little hands pressed on my leg to sit back more on the sofa. "Oh I was an acrobat." He says to me his blue eyes looked at me intently like he's searching for something.

I looked back at him with a smile on my face he is such a sweet looking boy. "Where's your parents fella." I stroked his back reassuringly. "They are dead... B takes care of me now." My eyebrows shot up. "Who's B." I say my hand is still on his back. "Bruce Wayne." Oh I see but I didn't put two and two together.

My hand is still on his back he got up off the sofa and stood in front of me.

I watched him as he got closer to me and took off my glasses. I wasn't expecting that at all he locked his blue eyes onto mine and for the first time in a long time longer than I can remember I felt like I connected to someone.

"My name is Dick." He whispers so sweetly we didn't break eye contact.

"I am Clark.., it's nice to meet you Dick." He blushed at that.

"Superman....." Dick says I take a long exhale of breath this unveiling was more profound then well when I revealed myself to Bruce.

"Yes." I reached for my glasses and he gave them back gazing back at me.

I put my glasses on slowly I smile at him "We better get back or someone will think we are missing or worse you've gone missing." I smiled.

"Ok. Let's go I hate these types of parties." He pouted it like something snapped and the moment left as we exchanged something much more than what I could even explain at this very moment.

We go into a room where the gala is taking place and find Joker and Toy man rounding everyone hostage.

Three months later.

We defeated Joker and Toy man putting them back in arkham and prison.

It is Christmas eve I invited the Wayne's to come and have Christmas here with ma and pa.

I wanted Alfred to come as well he needed to be here with us. I did this on purpose so Dick could have a Christmas that does not result in him being on patrol on Christmas Bruce agreed and tried to weasel out of it only to just send Dick and leave him behind and that was not my plan at all.

I didn't want to do that at all everybody needed to be on board. So I got what I wanted for Christmas I sat on the sofa as I watched ma and Alfred fuss in the kitchen.

I sat on the sofa watching them preparing dinner, Tinsel and glowing multi-colour lights flash on and off. As I looked through my old family album pa sleeping on the single sofa snoring.

Dick showed up out of nowhere the popcorn that was supposed to be laced around the tree is now dragging on the floor and in his mouth. "What are you looking at." Dick says chewing popcorn.

I laughed at him chewing popcorn I didn't stop him from telling him that it's for decoration. "You wanna look at pics of me when I was your age." He nodded so eager to see what a young Superman looked at his age.

"This is me when I was five I went to the harvest festival." I heard two heart beats at that moment I looked up and saw Bruce's cool gaze locked into mine.

I invited him in my gaze to a secret offer his gaze skirted away from mine he rejected my offer of whatever I was willing to give, He didn't want what I was offering instead he listen to Alfred and ma talking about turkey and how to prepare it.

This is the second person who rejected me this year more and more people just pushed me to the side, If I could swear I would it wouldn't solve anything but it would make me feel good.

I breathed in and out as I flipped the next page. I put that thought somewhere in my mind and tucked it away for now. "Wow is this you." Dick exclaimed as he pointed a photo of me in the third grade. "Yup that's me." Dick little fingers skimmed over the picture in amazement. "I like this one." He says a light blush on his face from between my legs as I caught sight of the blush.

I had a lot of these pics they made duplicates of these I have in another album. "Do you want this one Dick." His eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. "Oh yes please." His eyes are wide like a saucer.

I knew Bruce heard this not saying a word looking away like he never heard a thing, I knew all to well he was paying attention to every detail of my interaction with Dick.

"Oh thank you uncle Clark." I took the picture out of it's plastic keep and gave it to Dick.

The picture is of me wearing a red sweater and a blue shirt under neath a small smile on my face, I looked at Dick and maybe he found comfort in this picture.

I watched him stare at the picture for a long second and he wandered off from between my legs.

Later on at dinner time I sat in between Dick and Bruce at the dinner table and my parents and Alfred sat in front of us. I enjoyed the meal very much the ham was so smokey and the outer part was crisp to perfection.

"Ma and Alfred goodness this is so good hmm." I all but purr through talking in between bites. "Hmm." Dick copied my reply I ruffled his hair.

"Yes Martha this is so good Alfred I have to hand it to you this is hands down the best damn meal I ever had." Pa said. Praising them both.

They felt so good about themselves I like this Christmas eve it is low key full of Christmas cheer.

We finished and made it to the living room and all of us gathered around the tv. I sat on the floor with a cushion underneath me and I looked over my shoulder Dick sat right beside me.

I looked at him and he looked up at me I smiled and he smiled back it is comforting to have a sweet little guy around. I was alone most of the time or at work It felt nice to have the Wayne's around here really good for ma and pa.

We sat there watching a classic Christmas movie pa has fallen asleep. Bruce and Alfred and Ma went to the kitchen to prepare the turkey for tomorrow's dinner pa snored so loud I chuckled a lightly.

Dick was awake he leaned his head on my arm feeling very comfortable as he snuggled close to me. "Hey I hear Santa's coming you better get to bed then." He looked up with no sigh of sleep in his eyes it wasn't late I just wanted Dick to rest well while he is away from Gotham.

"I don't believe in Santa I would prefer if Superman came for a visit." He said looking up at me with a smile from ear to ear.

"I... I guess that could be something... ok sure." Dick looked at me with pure joy in his blue eyes.

"Can Superman give me a gift can I fly with him." Dick said. As he got up off the floor bouncing up and down. "We should ask Bruce first and we will see." I told him I sat looking at him getting excited he didn't even get an answer from Bruce yet.

Dick did a continuous summersalt in one spot and it also woke up the pa.

Christmas morning.

I slept on the sofa and ma was already in the kitchen fixing everything for today's meal.

"Merry Christmas ma." I got up and rubbed my face I forgot to take off my glass last night.

"You to hun." I got up and went to the washroom no one was up except me and ma.

I hopped in the shower it felt so good against my skin the sprays are like therapy to my impervious skin, I got out of the shower and dried myself off I could have sworn I closed the door when I got in here the door is cracked open just a bit.

That couldn't be. I wrapped a towel around my waist I didn't want to cause concern where it needn't be, I listened to the heart beat it's small and beating fast like a drum.

I didn't know what to do instead of opening the door and confronting Dick I shaved and continued my morning grooming.

But he is still outside the door.

Ignored it.

Later that morning we opened all the presents and ate breakfasts, Dick came up to me and asked. "Can you take me flying." Dick had a light blush dusting his sweet face.

But I remember what happened this morning.

Bruce had said yes to Dick's proposal of me taking him flying as a Christmas present.

Dick needed to know what he did was not ok I needed to tell him without letting anyone know what just happened this morning.

"Have you been naughty or nice Dick." I looked him in the eyes. "Of course he has Master Clark." Alfred said. Joining in Dick never took his eyes off of me.

"well I would like Dick to answer that." Dick looked at me thick long lashes fluttering closed and then opening up again looking at me nervous etched on his face. "Yes I've been a good uncle Clark." He said. Hmm the boy seemed to know exactly what I've been talking about but is playing a good poker face.

"Clark take him." Ma said. Shoeing us out the door with her hands.

I got up I didn't want to make this into an issue in front of everyone so I got up.

Dick followed me out the door and we made it into the far distance. None followed us out the door they all stayed inside where it was a bit warmer.

I super speed my clothes off and into my costume Dick looked at me in amazement.

I picked him up he all but squealed with glee as I held him in my arms.

I looked at him before taking off. "Hold on to me ok." And we were off Dick put his arms out as if he was flying as I didn't go fast at all. "I think you were naughty Dick." I told him.

His heart skitter crazed I flew lower and more lower for his heart rate. "I.. don't know what you're talking about uncle Clark." I knew he was lying I didn't want to push this but we are alone and I wanted to tell him I knew he's been peeping on me.

"I know Dick about this morning." I told him he didn't look in my direction just kept his arms stretched out eyes closed. "Dick." I sing song his name he slightly smiled at my off beat melody.

"I never looked at you uncle Clark."

"How do you know you looked at me when you said you don't know what I am talking about." I said to him shaking him a little in my arms.

He said nothing to that I caught him and he chose to side step it.

"I hope it won't happen again ok Dick." I said to him.

We came down to earth and he ran to the house I let him run he didn't open the door yet.

I reached the porch I bent down to his level I held up his chin. "little bird this stays between us ok." I told him he nodded but made no other comment.

Bruce left me on my birthday to go on a business trip.

I had no one to be around me, He told me my friends can come for my birthday party but it's not fair.

I was turning nine why does he always do this to me I wouldn't do that to him.

I am alone in the house except for me and Alfred.

I am mad I am really really mad.

I needed someone to talk to.

I remember the communicator B gave me and Superman, B didn't bring his on the trip.

I tapped on the ear piece and I heard grown ups talking a man shouting.

I heard static on my ear piece as I listen to Perry talk about the latest media princess scandal. [Uncle Clark...] I heard Dick's little voice on my communicator, I didn't answer him because Perry is on fire right now any movement and he will hone in on me and rip me a new one.

[Can you come to my birthday party.] He sounded so alone and sad. "Clark I want you to cover this piece." Perry pointed his finger at me everyone is looking at me I shook my head in agreement, I felt like the spot light was on me.

I needed to talk to Dick in private.

I walked to the washroom.

I scanned and no one was here. "Hey little bird what's wrong Darling." I heard a bit of sniffling. "Bruce left me on my birthday can you come please." I didn't know what to do I needed to write this story it is the scandal of the year.

I don't usually go for these pieces but Perry's the boss I can't fight turning down these types of stories just yet. "I am a bit busy this weekend Darling." A heavy sigh in my ear and I felt my heart plummet it to the floor.

I felt for him and I thought to change my plans and accommodate the weekend and tried to be more flexible for Dick. "Ok Little bird I'll do my best to show up and be there for you this weekend." The energy shifts quickly and Dick is happy again.

"Ok kiddo I gotta go talk to you soon." I had to close the connection and get back to work and start on this story as soon as possible.

I blew the candles of my cake as most of my school friends started singing happy birthday no sign of Clark where is he. B isn't here now Clark I didn't like this I hated this.

Until I saw him hat on his head and brief case in hand he came in clumsliy tripping over nothing I smiled at him. "Uncle Clark." I jumped out of my seat we are in the backyard it's hot and Alfred decided to have the party outside.

I launched in his arms and he mumbled his apologies to me. "You're here that's all that matters uncle Clark." I was over the moon to see him I wonder if he will ever take me there one day.

I all but drag him where they are making animal balloons. "And what will you be having young man." The old man was talking to uncle Clark I laughed at the way the old guy was talking to him. "A giraffe kind sir." I giggled he did quick hand movements and handed over uncle Clark the giraffe.

"I would like a monkey." I said. They looked so cool most of the kids had few and I wanted one just like them, He handed me the balloon of green and blue.

"I am so happy you came uncle Clark can you sleep over." I asked him I hope he says yes. "I .... I'll talk to Bruce and see if that's ok with him if I stay over the night." I did a perfect twirl with my feet and I held his hand as we walked around the massive garden.

Bruce agreed for Dick to stay with me for a few nights in Metropolis.

I loved spending time with Dick he is such a sweet boy.

I was typing my article when I heard small feet coming towards me, Dick sat next to me swinging his feet I could tell he is staring at me.

"What you up to Dick." Still typing without taking my attention off the laptop asking him. "Nothing." I felt him leaning into my arm I looked over his eyes drifting off to sleep.

I finally finished the story I looked over my shoulder and Dick was fast asleep, I smiled I enjoyed watching him sleep like an angel resting on my arm so sweet.

I picked him off the couch and gathered him in my arms and took him to my bedroom, I put on my bed and tucked him in like a bug in a rug I thought.

I walked back to the living room and went to lay down for a few moments to collect my thoughts on the sofa.

But I dozed off before I got a thought and I didn't realise it was midnight. I felt a small pressure on my chest and felt something warm on it, It's Dick sleeping on my chest his light breathing I didn't know he got up and found me....

I stroke his back soothingly I didn't want to admit to myself but I needed this, It's hard to come home every night and have no one to come to.

I should wake him and tell him to go to sleep in the bed, I didn't do that I lay there and I let him sleep on me, I felt good and secure knowing I got him.

I rubbed a bit too hard as he stirred in his sleep and he snuggled on my chest to get more comfortable. I stroked his black locks liking how to have someone with me even if it's this little guy giving me attention.

It helped not being alone in this world that I am trying help save.

Was that bacon hmm it smells so good I got up and found uncle Clark cooking by the stove.

"Hey there little bird want breakfast." I got up and did a cartwheel I was careful not bang anything while I did my cartwheel, Uncle Clark looked at me but he wasn't smiling. "Stay here ok kid I'll be right back." Uncle Clark backed away as he said that to me.

He changed so fast I couldn't even understand what I just saw and then Superman was in front of me.

"Dick stay right here don't go anywhere ok here I'll get the pan off the stove." And then he leaped out the window.

So I made toast and put the pan back on the stove and fried bacon and cracked some eggs.

I ate my breakfast and I waited for Superman to come back.

He did come back. "Sorry Dick I had to go to Hawaii for a sec." He is in his costume I smiled wide I couldn't understand why but I was in aw with him I could't control my emotions I just loved to see him I knew I am lucky to have him around me.

He sat down at the table with me I knew I was blushing I looked away, His blue eyes are so blue it looked like the colour really didn't belong on this planet.

"I haven't given you a birthday present yet."

"I wanna go flying uncle Clark."

2.

Thank you for reading

[megwritesfanfiction]

Sins

A/N: Well. Well, well, well. Yeah I know I don't use this site anymore but I said I would write a DamiRae fic for a friend, and I did so I figured I should post here.

Yes, I still write fanfiction. I write My Hero Academia fanfiction. I mainly use twitter now (https://twitter.com/megwritesfanfic).

But here's the fic.

Nice popping back in! :P

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“What’s your problem?”

Damien blinked, shocked. He adjusted his posture as his fist nervously moved from in front of his mouth to his lap to the arm of the couch. “Excuse me?” His lips wobbled as he tried to keep himself from laughing.

“You’re staring,” Raven answered, not bothering to look up from her book.

“You-” His eyes darted back and forth.

Obviously tracing the path that Gar had just taken back to his room.

“You didn’t see that-” Alfred had lectured him more than once about the difference between being honest and rude. And as much as Damien hated to admit it…

Well, he would never admit it out loud, but he knew that Alfred knew that Damien knew the advice was more meaningful than ever working with a team.

“-that-” Though he was struggling with a polite way to describe that shameful display.

“You mean Garfield’s atrocious attempts to flirt with me?”

“Yeah.” Well then. “That.”

So, she had noticed. Damien couldn’t tell if the empath was blind or dense when she hadn’t so much as flinched as the green teen obnoxiously strutted around the kitchen. Supposedly, Gar was making a sandwich, but Damien was sure there was nothing erotic about a grilled cheese.

Especially a grilled cashew cheese sandwich, but- “I think he might be attracted to you.” Judging by the way he assembled and devoured that sandwich, it was more than attraction.

“He is,” Raven answered as she continued to read, “but he also just got dumped, again, by the blonde girl who betrayed us and conveniently has amnesia about the whole ordeal.”

His eye’s widened.

Damien already knew about Terra. It was one of the many events he’d been briefed on before joining the team. Clearly, he hadn’t been given all sides of the story.

“Oh.”

“Garfield will get over it once he finds a new blonde traitor.”

“You’re jealous.”

Raven blinked, flashing four angry eyes before a pair of confused violet snapped to him.

Alfred had warned him about his mouth, Richard had specifically warned him not to piss Raven off, and Damien had only been at Titans Tower for thirty-six hours.

“I don’t do jealousy,” she replied coolly, clearly bothered.

“So it’s envy?” Might as well go out with bang.

The mood between them shifted.

A wicked smile curled at the corners of her lips as she placed her book in her lap. “More like,” she drawled, licking her lips, “wrath.”

The word coiled around him dangerously. “Really?” His father had warned him about her. “You went from looking like you wanted to dismember me to amused.” She had ended worlds by shedding a few tears. “Why?”

“As Cyborg would say,” Raven started with a nod, “you’ve been here all of five minutes-”

Damien snorted.

“-and you’ve decided to point things pretty much everyone else ignores,” she smirked. “Good boy.”

He struggled not to react to the praise.

Her smile widened, eyes flashing. “Empath,” she reminded him pleased.

Damien cleared his throat, trying as discreetly as possible to adjust himself.

“Oh, Robin-”

The name he’d longed for had never sounded like this. It burned his ears and immediately wrapped his muscles in tension.

Her eyes bore into him as she stood up. Raven opened her cape as she strolled toward him in slow sultry steps. Crossing her ankles with each step, her hips swiveled deliciously as the heavy dark velvet brushed against the sides of her thighs. A hand twirled around her belt, pulling his eyes down her body.

A socoress indeed.

“-I-” she started, walking behind the couch. She leaved over and moved her lips a hair away from his ear. “-am so looking forward to getting to know you better.”

Damien bit his lips, a shudder pulsing down his spine.

Raven chuckled, darkly as she walked toward her room.

“Hey!” Damien called out.

Raven stopped. She looked over her shoulder, brows raised.

“This-” He was so eloquent today.

Thank goodness Alfred wasn’t here to witness this.

“This is-” He didn’t want to read too much into this, but Damien hated how quickly he’d found himself entranced by the half-demon. “Is this gluttony?” At this point, he wouldn’t mind if he was just a snack for her to devour. “Or greed?” He would willingly let her take every single drop of him and then go for seconds.

“No.”

He wouldn’t be so bold as to assume he’d be vanity.

“You’re not.”

Maybe pride, but-

Her eyes swept up his body.

Damien had never felt more exposed.

“Lust,” she breathed.

The word ignited something wild inside of him.

Raven turned away from him, voice dropping to her usual monotone, “Later Robin.”

How fitting a demon would tempt him into the depths of hell?

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A/N: Can't say if/when I'll pop in again or write Teen Titans, but it was nice saying hello again old friends.

Much love.

[cambria-writes]

crawling gasping heaving

somehow i made it i did it i actually wrote it before the end of the day and before i have to go to bed for work tomorrow holy shit i honestly didn't think i'd be able to do it

i didn't take the time to proofread this so i'm probably gonna be correcting the living daylights out of this tomorrow, but here you go!

rating: M, each chapter rated individually warnings: soft eddie, swearing, there's guns but no shooting, reader's going a bit off the deep end, a lot of essentially pointless rambling that may or may not eventually be foreshadowing, billy mentioned a singular time, typos bound to appear word count: 4,458

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𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕿𝖜𝖊𝖑𝖛𝖊: ℜ𝔢𝔪𝔬𝔳𝔢 ℭ𝔲𝔯𝔰𝔢

“Y’know that’s actually kinda hot,” you cough, parroting what you’d been told when you had pulled out your set of lock picks.

Robin steps in before Eddie can say anything, and there’s a quick back and forth before Steve eventually replaces him in the driver’s seat, once the thing has been successfully hotwired. You let them figure out the rest on their own while you make your way to the back of the RV to sit on the bed.

‘Stuck in the back of a speeding trailer with the awning still attached after your childhood best friend hotwired it just like his male genetic donor used to’ wasn’t exactly how you would’ve imagined the latter half of your spring break to go. Then again, you hadn’t entirely anticipated dimension hopping, either, or having to deal with what might potentially be the end of the world. 

Nancy had briefly caught you up to speed before the lot of you left to hijack someone’s home—and you’re desperately trying not to think about that for too long—and the entire thing left a sour taste in the back of your throat. Not just the world-endy bullshit, but the fact that Vecna slash Henry slash One had access to something you weren’t sure you could do.

Fucking divination. 

You’re digging your nails into the palms of your hands when Steve peels out of Forest Hills at a speed the RV you’re all crammed in would consider breakneck. There’s so much you haven’t tried, actually. And the more you think about it, the more you think that maybe you should’ve taken the asshole up on his offer. Maybe you should’ve let the stupid lich king teach you. 

Beyond the regret, though, as little as it may be, there’s a lot of contemplation. Dustin, Lucas and Eddie are chatting away, concocting some harebrained scheme probably, and with Robin and Nancy up front with Steve, you’ve got some peace of mind to think. Because thankfully, unlike her brother, apparently, Erica Sinclair is capable of recognizing when someone shouldn’t be bothered.

The idea of a phylactery had occurred to you, originally, when Eddie first brought up the concept of a lich. That even if you tried to kill him, it would just be a matter of time before he came back. What would the phylactery be, though? What could he have attached himself to so wholly and completely that he’d be willing to risk using it as a respawn point? 

When you look up from where you’re sat cross-legged on the bed in the back, you open your mouth to call for Nancy. You barely mutter the first consonant of her name when you notice that she and Steve seem to be… discussing, pretty intently. 

“H-hey, Robin?” 

“Huh? Yeah?” Robin answers quickly, turning around and shuffling her way to you, quickly whispering apologies to the kids for getting between them. “What’s up?” She asks, letting herself fall heavily next to you. 

“You went to Victor Creel’s house with the others, yeah?” 

“Creepy abandoned mansion, yeah,” she confirms, nervously drumming her fingers against her thighs. “What about it?” 

“Was there anything like…weird about that place? Anything that stood out?”

Robin frowns and hums for a second, turning to look down at her feet. “Something that stood out, huh…” There’s another moment of pause before she slaps her thigh and points at you. “We found the clock! The one you keep hearing, it was right there in the main hallway.” 

“Okay yeah, that does stand out.” But not exactly the kind of thing someone would bind their soul to, you figure. Way too obvious and easily spotted. “Anything else? Something maybe hidden? Like, a lot better?” 

Robin chuckles but nods, letting her head fall back and crossing her arms as she thinks. 

“We kind of split up, so it’s hard to tell but I heard Steve screaming like a girl. Something about spiders?” 

“It was a god damn black widow!” Steve shouts from the front seat, and you can’t help but stifle your laughter. 

“A black widow, alright. Where was it, do you know?” 

“Yeah, it was on the second floor. In the bathroom, I think? It was like, hidden under a vent in the floor ro something.” You frown and open your mouth to ask another question, but Robin excitedly flaps her hands. “Oh, oh! And there was this freaky shrine in the attic with a bunch of jars with spiders in them too!” 

“Oh wooow,” you say, putting as much nasally sarcasm into it as you can. “Love that. Spiders. Awesome. Anything else?”

“I don’t think so, place was pretty run down. I mean no one’s lived there since the Creels were murdered and I don’t think ‘home to a demonic serial killer who pops your eyes from the inside out’ sells too well.”

“Yeah, probably not,” you mutter, bringing your thumb up to chew at the nail. 

Something related to spiders would be way too obvious as a phylactery, right? Anyone with any kind of knowledge about Henry would be able to guess something like that. And though the grandfather clock does feel like a decently significant item, too, that’s beyond obvious. No way that someone like Vecna would use that as a phylactery, either. It’s too flammable, anyways. 

You squeak in surprise when Eddy drops himself on the bed on your other side. Robin quickly excuses herself to move back up front with Steve. You’re about to pull her back and tell her to give him room, but when you glance ahead it seems like whatever discussion he was having with Nancy is over. 

“What was all that about spiders?” Eddie asks, letting himself fall back on the bed with his hands behind his head. “I thought you hated spiders.”

“Ugh, god do I ever,” you groan, letting yourself fall back onto the mattress as well. “I’m just trying to figure out like. If I was a lich that ended up in a parallel dimension, right? What would I choose as the one thing to bind my soul to and make sure I can respawn?”

“You’d probably have better luck asking Wheeler,” he replies, end of his sentence fading into a yawn. “She’s the one he gave his weird psychic visions to.” 

“And you’re assuming he has a phylactery to begin with.” Dustin has his has steepled in front of him on the small table, leaning out just a bit to be able to look at you. You left yourself up on your elbows to look back at him and frown. 

“There’s no way he’d be able to survive in that place for as many years as he has without dying,” you state, closing your eyes for a second to try and recall the small fragments of conversation you were able to catch when you were In Between with Eleven. “He took control of that thing, right? The thing you call the mind flayer? What if that’s what turned him into whatever the hell he is now?” 

“That doesn’t really matter,” Lucas pipes up, turning around in his seat and throwing his arm up against the back of the bench-like seat to look at you. “If we cut him off from the mind flayer, he won’t be able to do anything, right?”

“Yeah, and then all hell breaks loose, genius,” Erica scoffs, and you can tell without looking at her that her eyes are rolling. “If Vecna’s the only one keeping the monsters in check, we’re screwed if they all decide to do whatever they want.” 

You groan and let yourself fall back onto the bed Eddie pulls a hand from behind his heat to pat yours. 

“We’ll figure something out,” he says quietly, while the others continue discussing what to do about both Henry and the Mind Flayer. “You should probably take a nap while you can.” 

“I just got up from a nap like two hours ago!” you whine, kicking your feet. “I feel like all I’ve been doing is sleeping. I need to think while I’m awake. Shit gets weird when I’m asleep.”

There’s a beat of silence before Eddie turns his head to look at you with a brow raised.

“How weird are we talkin’ about?”

You groan again. “Being sucked into a weird not-dimension by someone else levels of weird.” When you turn your head to look at Eddie, you almost flinch at how close your faces are. You keep your eyes on his nose; nice, safe, doesn’t give any kind of weird impression. Right? Right. 

“That’s how you talked to their friend? Eleven?” he asks, quietly, and the breathiness of his voice makes you swallow thickly. You nod twice and clear your throat, turning your head back to look up at the ceiling of the RV.

“Y-yeah. Um, yeah she, uh, she said it was In Between. Whatever that means.” 

“Sounds more like dreamwalking to me.”

“You’re not wrong. Would be nice to know who was doing the walking though. Me or her?” 

Eddie shrugs, and somehow, without your realizing, he’s wormed an arm under your head and pulls you in. He’s extremely nonchalant about it, which you wish you could be. You try to lift yourself up on your elbows again, but he makes sure you can move, and in fact holds your head fast against his shoulder. 

“Sleep,” he said, an edge in his voice even though it’s nearly a whisper. “We’re going out of down to buy guns and traps. You need your rest.” 

With the rumbling of the RV, the constant bump and jostle of it, and the presence of someone warm next to you, you find that your eyes are starting to feel a bit dry and heavy. 

“Fuck you,” you grumble, but close your eyes and clasp your hands over your stomach anyways. 

“Sucks to sucks,” Eddie chuckles, and the last thing you register before falling into a light slumber is the feeling of fingers raking through your hair. 

You wake up to the sound of the RV door slamming open and Eddie jumping out of his skin next to you. Nothing much happened—Erica making a quip to her brother, Steve shouting, everyone on edge and holding on to the nearest stationary object while Steve puts the RV in drive and bolts out of… 

“Wha—where are we? What hap-happened?” you mutter, sitting up on the bed, noticing that you’d been scooted up to lie down on it proper rather than just half-laid at the foot of it. “Did you move me while I was asleep?”

“We saw Hawkins’ star basketball team,” Robin says quickly, moving past you on the bed and kneeling by the window to peek out. “They didn’t seem super stoked to see us and honestly seeing a bunch of white boy jocks out for blood in a military surplus store doesn’t give me good vibes.” 

“Military surplus?” You ask, sleep still fogging your brain as you rub at your eyes. “That’s where we are—were?” 

“Yeah, Dustin and I stayed in here while they shopped around,” Eddie explains shortly, and there’s a tightness in his voice you don’t like. He’s sat with his back against the wall, Robin fit snugly between the two of you before she climbs back off the bed. “Did you grab anything good?”

“Oh,” Robin starts, turning around to face you two with a grin that feels just a little bit unhinged. “We grabbed something good. Nancy found a shotgun and, get this.” She leans in, and if you weren’t in a literal ride-or-die situation with this girl, you’d be a little worried about the teeth showing in her grin. “She’s gonna saw the thing off herself. Nancy Wheeler, illegally modifying a firearm. Amazing.”

“Amazing,” you mutter back, scooting yourself up on the bed to put your back against the wall, and leaning over to let your head fall on Eddie’s shoulder. “You were right. I needed a nap. I think I need a few more naps, actually.” 

“You can probably keep napping until we get there,” he says quietly. And again, there’s a warm arm around your shoulders that keeps you fixed to his side. You don’t even notice when your eyes drift shut again. 

“Where… when we get where?” 

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. Just sleep.” 

Sweetheart? That’s a new one. You wish you could analyze the speed of your thrumming heart and the wings of the butterflies in your stomach, but again, you’re unconscious before you can make too much of it.

You’re sitting on the steps to the RV while Robin and Steve prepare, of all things, Molotov cocktails. Dustin and Eddie are off in the field to your left hammering nails into trashcan lids, and though you’re exceptionally doubtful of their efficiency—”Aren’t the nails just gonna pop right out the second something hits them? What’s gonna keep them from just popping out?”—they seem pretty content doing that. Max is holding onto the previously mentioned shotgun while Nancy is, indeed, sawing off the barrel as short as is probably safe to do.

You’re not doing anything at all. Rest, they said, you burnt yourself out for hours teleporting both yourself and Nancy out of the Upside Down, they insisted. Not that there’s much for you to do. Even looking off to your right at the Sinclairs, and to what even you can tell is a shit wrapping job from Lucas, you wonder what you place is here, right now. 

You take a particularly long drag from the one cigarette you were able to convince Robin to let you have. You’d agreed, if only verbally, not to get involved with any of the fighting. And that had been after you’d tried to argue with both Eddie and Dustin that acting as a decoy was a stupid idea. Stupid, dangerous, reckless, pick a descriptor. 

Roughhousing catches your eye, and you hear Dustin shriek about wedgies. You take another drag and hop off the steps. 

“Where’re you going?” Steve pipes up, making Robin turn around almost owlishly to be able to see you. 

“Something on my mind,” you say vaguely, waving Eddie down when he eventually looks at you. “DnD nerd shit I gotta run by him.”

“Ugh, have fun,” Steve says with a shudder, turning his focus back on the bottles in front of him and waving at Robin to pay attention. 

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Ed,” you say, once you’ve got him to follow you to the other side of the trailer. You keep walking a bit, though it’s more of a nervous pacing. “There’s no way this is going to be an ambush.” 

“You’re thinking about it too much man,” Eddie replies easily, hands in his pockets and slightly out of breath. “It’ll be fine.There’s no way he’ll see us coming.” 

“That’s the thing,” you say, a bit too loudly, rounding on him. You look around quickly before walking up to him and leaning over, clearing your throat and quieting your voice. “Did they tell you what happened with the mind flayer before? Two year ago?” 

Eddie frowns and shakes his head. “They mentioned something about one of their friends being like, possessed or something, but they didn’t really… explain anything.”

“Right, Will was possessed,” you reiterate, grabbing at Eddie’s upper arm. “By the mind flayer. Whatever Will could see and whatever Will knew, the mind flayer knew, too. That’s how—” You cut yourself off before you can mention Billy. Not my story to tell, you think bitterly. “That’s how all of them almost got caught. Will was leading the demodogs right to them. If El hadn’t come back in time they would’ve been screwed.” 

Eddie doesn’t speak, looks off in the distance. Slowly, he reached up to grab the hand at his upper arm to pry it off, but doesn’t let it go. 

“What are you trying to say?” 

“Max is cursed, Ed,” you whisper, balling your hand into a fist in his. “She’s cursed, and just last night he took a joy ride in Nancy’s head. I’m pretty sure he’s well out of mine, but can we really be sure that there isn’t some kind of—a fragment of him, in either of them?” 

You can see Eddie twisting his tongue in his mouth, clenching his jaw. It’s a possibility that makes for a very grim reality; one where nothing you do matters because there isn’t a way for you to keep anything secret. There’s no way anyone is going to want to exclude Nancy from what’s going on. Nancy wouldn’t want to be excluded, if the ferocious expression she had earlier was anything to go by. 

And Max…

When Eddie turns back to look at you, there’s something a little wild in his eyes. Different from last time. He looks… not feral, like this, with his hair all out of sorts and his knuckles bloodied and bruised. No, he just looks dangerous. You bite the inside of your cheek when you realize that maybe this is what everyone in Hawkins was seeing all along. Ridiculous to be scared of this Eddie; everything about him right now is about protecting people. 

Not an ounce of malice. 

“You got a backup plan then?” 

You take a deep breath and shake your head. “I haven’t been able to come up with something that makes sense, yet, no.” 

Eddie lets out a breath that’s almost a sigh and finally lets go of your hand. He lets himself fall down onto the grass to sit, cross legged, and gestures at the ground next to him for you to follow. You sit directly in front of him, hands on your knees, drumming your fingers on them. 

“What do we have so far?” Eddie asks. 

“We’re working under the assumption that Henry’s a lich,” you start, looking down at your hands to count on your fingers. “We know he’s a psychic kid, like Eleven. Nancy mentioned that he said something about keeping everyone he kills up in his head. Is power absorption even a thing?” 

“In ADnD? Sure,” Eddie answers, leaning back on his hands and looking up at the clouds. “There’s ways to take someone else’s abilities, so I guess it’s not impossible for him to have yanked the other kids’ abilities from them.”

You stay quiet for a moment. Max had also mentioned that Henry’s, his… whatever weird mind palace he has going on had the bodies of the three teens he’d killed all strung up. You can’t help but wonder if maybe the other people he’s killed are somewhere in that psychic sanctuary, too. You shake the thought out of your head and continue. 

“Right, okay. So he’s yanked abilities from kids before. He’s psychic, and somehow being shoved into the Upside Down turned him into a lich.”

“Or being in there long enough turned him into one.”

“Shit,” you mutter, bringing a hand to your mouth and frowning. “No, you’re right. Steve was choking on something when we got to your trailer in the Upside Down and I remember dreaming about them being in the tunnels. And Will…” You growl and wave your hand in front of you. “Doesn’t matter, point is that he’s acting like a lich so we should probably treat him like one. I’m still worried about the phylactery.” 

“When you were with Nancy, in there,” Eddie starts slowly, and he has the impression of someone who’s trying to describe a picture while he’s still putting the puzzle together. “When Vecna got in her head, you like, froze when you touched her. Did you, y’know?” He motions vaguely at his eyes and you snap your fingers at him. 

“Yeah, yeah! I did! I saw some of that!” you exclaim, slapping your knee excitedly. “Okay, okay wait. So I saw the house, and saw the spiders. Fucking hate the spiders,” you mutter under your breath, screwing your eyes shut and trying to recall more. “There’s… this weird shrine in the attic, for the spiders. There’s something—I know there’s something else there besides the jars but I can’t—it’s too, I don’t know. It was too out of focus, I can’t remember what it was.” 

You let the end of your sentence trail off and start tracing patterns in the grass. “If he has a phylactery, and I’m pretty sure he does because everything else is Dungeons and Dragons related, I’m pretty sure it’s got something to do with that shrine.” 

Eddie nods and frowns. “He goes up there when he hunts people, right? It would make sense if he kept it close to him there.”

“But here,” you say, putting your hand out in front of you and pointing at the back of your hand. “Or there?” You flip your hand over and point at the palm. 

Eddie looks enthralled until something seems to click in his brain. He leans back from where he had, at some point, gotten very invested in the conversation and leaned into you. You lean back, in turn, frowning at him. He shakes a pointed finger at you at squints. 

“You’re going somewhere with this and I don’t like it.”

“Yeah well I don’t like the idea of you attracting a swarm of bats with fucking Metallica but here we are, aren’t we.” You slap his hand away and lean back in. “Look, if you can find a way to get me that disgusting ‘double the caffeine’ soda, like as many as you can.” 

“I’m pretty sure dying of a caffeine-induced heart attack is the opposite of helpful, y’know.” 

You can’t help the bark of laughter that escapes you. “No! God, no, look. Doing the plane shifting shit is draining, right?” He nods. “Right. So I just figure—”

“No, nuh uh, that’s a shit idea,” Eddie cuts you off, crossing his arms. “There’s a reason you pass out when you do it too much. Your body can’t handle it.” 

“When I’m starved, sleep deprived and freaked out of my mind, sure!” You exclaim, throwing your hands up. You clear your throat before lowering your voice again. “Look, it’s a—not a theory, fuck, uh. It’s a hypothesis, okay? We don’t have time to test it, I just have to trust that it’s gonna work.” 

“And what exactly is your backup plan?” 

“While you’re distracting the bats with Dustin and not getting yourselves killed,” you start, placing your hands back on your knees. “And while the other bozos are busy trying to blast Vecna back to whatever hellscape he crawled out of, I go looking for the spider shrine here and torch it.” You pause, and hold your hand up when Eddie opens his mouth to speak. “And if it’s not here, I’ll just plane shift and get it in the Upside Down.” 

“M’hm, cool, there’s a problem with that though,” Eddie says, and flaps his hands at you to quiet down before he continues. “No, shush. Vecna’s gonna be in that attic when you go there. And then there’s Max.”

‘Let’s use me as bait’ Max. ‘It won’t matter if it goes wrong if it’s me’ Max. You swear under your breath and bite down on your lip. Vecna being in the same room you don’t really care about; provided that Sanctuary actually worked, there’s not much he can do to you. 

Once he’s in Max’s head though, you can’t control that.

“Not on my own,” you whisper, and when Eddie asks you to repeat yourself, you feel your face splitting with a grin. “I can’t do it on my own, I mean—look, no one’s gonna be able to convince Max not to be the bait. She’s cursed, that’s how it is, and we don’t know whether or not Vecna’s looking through her head. But once he’s in there,” you pause, standing up and starting to pace. “Once he’s hunting her, she said something about hiding in her own head, right? Like, in a happy memory or something. I’m gonna be honest with you, I don’t think that’s going to work.” 

“And you have the face of someone who somehow managed to come up with an even worse idea,” Eddie says, slowly pushing himself to stand up on his feet. 

“Right, okay, first of all, fuck you,” you spit, crossing your arms as you pace. “Okay, so scrap the idea of looking for the phylactery. For now. Eleven knows what’s going on, and I already ended up in that weird In Between place with her, right? So once Vecna starts hunting her I can just—”

Both you and your thoughts are interrupted when Eddie stalks over and grabs you by the shoulders. 

“Hey, stop for a second,” he says, quietly, to a point where it’s got you a bit concerned. “Look, I get—I don’t understand what it’s been like for you for the past three years, okay? But you have to stop for a second.” One hand goes to grab one of your wrists to pull your hand up into view. You frown at Eddie and look at your hand when he nods at it. 

You’re shaking like a leaf. 

“You’re trying to throw yourself at way too many problems.”

“I can’t do nothing—”

“And I’m not telling you to do nothing,” Eddie says, letting your hand fall in favour of cupping your jaw with both hands. “I’m telling you to use that giant brain of yours wisely. You don’t need to go looking for soulbound artifacts or fighting psychic wars,” he continues, a thumb coming up to rub at your cheek.

“What else am I supposed to do, Ed?” You whisper, bringing your hands up to grab at his forearms. His hands don’t move. “I-I’ve been having these nightmares for years, and all of a sudden I can—I can do all these things, and I just, I have to do something.” 

“And you can,” Eddie reassures you, and when he rests his forehead against yours, you can just barely feel his breath fanning over your cheeks. “Just, just stick with m—us, just stick with us.”

“And what, bail you out?” you huff, and Eddie snorts. 

“Yeah, yeah just be our getaway driver. Best one out there. You ever heard of a getaway driver that can dimension hop?”

You laugh quietly and shake your head. You don’t risk opening your eyes yet. 

“Yeah, no, not so much.” You breathe, clear your throat and lean your head back away from Eddie, “Okay. Yeah, I’ll stay with you and Dustin. Second anything goes south I’m getting us all out of there.” 

“Sounds good to me.” You get a finger pat on the cheek before you put a finger up. 

“I’m still gonna need that gross soda if I’m gonna survive shifting like, three people though.”

𝓣𝓪𝓰𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽

@storiesbyrhi @anothermunsonsimp @alovesongshewrote @doratheignora

please let me know if you'd like to be tagged for future chapters!

[quillsareswords]

1:20

Damian Wayne x reader

SUMMARY: You're lucky you've memorized Robin's schedule: it might me the only saving grace you've got left.

WARNINGS: blood, near-death

Master List in bio

It's 1:20 on a Tuesday morning in early June.

Gotham never really gets hot, but the humidity suffocates anything that might think that's a relief. You didn't check the weather this evening. You probably should have.

It's 1:20 on a Tuesday morning. He's gonna be here. You've had mixed feelings about knowing his schedule this well in the past, but now it's the deciding factor of your fate.

It's 1:20. That means you've been bleeding like a stuck pig for ten straight minutes, even if it feels like it's been hours. Or seconds. You don't really know anymore. You're getting dizzy.

So you've leaned against the wall. Some little roof access point that stands tall above the gravel covering the rooftop. The brick digs into your shoulder, even through your jacket.

You're starting to think you've gotten it wrong. Or maybe he just didn't show today. Maybe you're out of luck this time.

It was dumb. Stupid to think that you could stop this. Stupid to think you would end any way other than alone.

It was on purpose, after all. Isolation, that is. You pushed and shoved everyone away with a friendly smile and kept them at arm's length, lest they wiggle their claws beneath your mask and expose you for every ugly thing you are.

You're a mole. An informant. Someone who plays every side all at once and somehow manages to stay neutral the whole time. You've been passing tips to the Bats for months now, means be damned. Trust was meager between you, but what little there is is mutual.

You'd hoped it'd be your saving grace. Hoped the side playing would leave you with at least one friend, even though it was the entire reason you're in this position in the first place. You had hoped your downfall would save you.

He appears before you two minutes late. 1:22 in the morning and he's late. He doesn't seem to have noticed you, a few feet away, surveying the street below him like it's his job (and it is), with his back to you.

"You're late, Birdy." Your voice comes quieter and rougher than it should, and the force it takes nearly sends you to the ground.

He spins around at the sound, hand already curled around the hilt of his sword by the time he faces you. He says your name lowly, like a warning, like always. His posture relaxes nonetheless. "You come with useful advice, I expect. The skirmish by the docks sounded quick, but Batman thinks–"

"I didn't know where else to go," you say suddenly, because you already know you aren't going to be conscious long enough for this conversation.

The effort gets you this time. Your knees, shaky as they've been, finally give out. You understand, and you forgive them; they carried you all the way here, after all. Your body turns on the way down, back of your jacket scraping terribly against the brick as your heels slide through the gravel. The noise you make is somewhere between a groan and a cry.

It rips the breath out of his lungs. Your name is in his mouth again as he drops to his knees beside you, gloved hands already pawing at the hand you have clamped around the knife still sheathed into your side.

"What happened?" he demands, and he's reaching for his pager with the other hand. "Who did this?"

You're too focused on the way your first name sounds in his voice. There's something nice about the way he spaces the syllables.

He says it again, all panic and worry, like he hasn't the time to mask it anymore.

You wonder for a moment if it has anything to do with his lingering stares and gruff get home safe's.

But then he's shaking your shoulder and you're wincing because it's bruised beneath the jacket.

"Stay awake, hey, stay with me. Batman is on his way. We'll fix this." There's a pause where he's sucking in a deep breath and you're trying to focus on his voice. "You're going to be fine."

You think it's a little funny. You managed to get all the way here, up a goddamn fire escape, but the moment you think he's got you, you lose all ability to keep yourself upright. You just want to sleep. You want to lay down and take a nice, long nap.

You hate to admit that it just might be because you trust him more than anyone else you know. You've only known him for a few months, but you're sure that you're safest with him. You're safe with him.

It shouldn't be much of a comfort, with Death staring you down like a lion on it's last meal. You won't need protecting if your decline doesn't level out soon. It's surprising what such little comfort feels like when you're staring Death down like a gazelle with an attitude problem.

You don't remember being moved. Or how you ended up in a medical bed with stiff, scratchy sheets and a nearly flat pillow. You do remember hearing Damian's voice, fading in and our with your consciousness. The words are all garbled and quiet, but you know the recall the sound.

Alfred is the first person you see. He's unfamiliar, but he introduces himself and offers you a warm smile and a glass of water. He brings you a bowl of soup and hands you a bottle of painkillers and another of antibiotics.

You fall asleep again, listening to some little body of water just outside the white room you're settled in.

When you wake up, it's to the sound of an argument. Batman and Robin. It's hushed, angry and patient whispers back and forth, but it's an argument all the same. You've heard them bicker enough over the last few months to recognize it.

You can't quite make it out. You hear your name a few times, something about time, something about healing, something about help. Batman finishes it.

Robin swings the squeaky door open a few moments later.

He stops halfway into the room when he sees you're awake.

You wiggle your way up the mattress to lean against the pillows behind you. "Birdy."

He sighs. "You nearly bleed out in my arms and that's how you greet me?"

He doesn't sound quite right. A little deflated, maybe. Relieved? As if he'd been holding his breath before he entered the room, and just remembered how to breathe when he caught your eye.

Course, you can't be sure he caught it at all, with those white lenses.

You cock a shoulder. "I'm sure you've seen worse. I'm sure I'll have worse."

His posture shifts as he crosses the room. He shakes his head. "That's not funny."

"It's kind of funny," you try, throwing the best carefree smile you can manage when everything beneath your skin is so sore. "I'm the one who was bleeding, that means I'm allowed to make all the jokes I want."

"That's an unhealthy coping mechanism."

"So is dressing up in red and yellow and calling yourself a bird."

His shoulders drop again. You think you might see a smile, but he turns his head away too quickly. "You should be more careful. I can't always be there to drag you out of every fire, you know."

You cross your arms, raising both knees to take some pressure off of your abdomen. He takes it as an invitation and makes himself comfortable in the chair beside the bed. He finds a comfortable position with a little too much familiarity. "I don't expect you to. I wouldn't have even been there if I wasn't getting information for you."

"For Batman–"

"Potato, pa-tot-oh."

He goes rigid again. "I never would have asked you to put yourself in danger like that."

It's defensive. Appalled, almost. Offended.

You don't know how to reply. That doesn't seem to matter though, because he's not done.

"And even if I had, I would have gone with you. I would have made sure you had backup, I would have– this never would have happened."

There's a certain distain in his tone that catches you off guard. A resentment, toward you or his partner you aren't totally sure.

He runs gloved fingers through slick black hair. Heaves a breath. Pushes himself to his feet. Falsely composed. "You may stay as long as you need. Alfred will take care of you."

"Where are you going?" It slips out before you can stop it. And perhaps you could play if off as a standard question—you are in an unfamiliar place, with unfamiliar people, aside from him—but it's much too quick. It sounds a little too much like don't leave me.

And you know he hears it too, because he turns back around so quickly you wonder if he even considered it. "Patrol. It's Wednesday night." And yet he makes to move to leave.

You nod. "Right. Yeah. You're, uh, what? You're over by the city museum tonight, aren't you?" You want to smack yourself. What are you doing, making small talk? He's got places to be, people to save.

"Yes." The top seal of his mask flexes when he raises an eyebrow.

You nod again. An awkward smile on your lips. "I, uh, I didn't know how to feel about knowing where you'd be most of the week, but I guess I'm glad I do. Saved my skin last night, didn't it?"

He drawls in a deep breath. "Suppose it did."

There's a long pause. You aren't sure if you're breathing, but you're sure he isn't. He looks tense, like he's torn between saying something and leaving, body angled not quite toward you.

"You can always come to me," he says suddenly. He must read something on your face, because he tumbles straight into the next sentence. "Last night, you said you didn't know who to go to. I'm telling you now, you can always come to me. I'll fix it, whatever it is."

His voice is tight. A little unsure, but not in the statement. Like a hiker on a rocky trail; unsure of his footing, but certain in his destination.

There's something else in his words. Something scrawled between the lines in thin, fragile letters. Something deeper than wounds and needing backup.

I'll fix it, whatever it is.

Your heart rate picks up, and the heart monitor reveals your secrets on the screen beside you. What it can't reveal is the way the poor organ soars, throwing itself to the clouds with reckless abandon, completely uncaring of the hard trip back down.

You still don't know how to reply. You'd like to say something witty. A little sarcastic, maybe a smidge mean. He's giving you a glimpse at his heart, beating bloody in his hands, and there's a large part of you that wants to poke it. Nothing too wounding, just enough that he never makes the mistake again.

But you can't help it. There's a much larger part of you that wails, who wants to snatch it from him to shield and cradle, because he obviously can't be trusted with it. Not if he's baring it to you.

The deciding party is the reminder of last night. Dragging yourself up a rusted fire escape, praying to anyone who might listen that he'd be there. That he'd help you. You remember thinking he wouldn't. You remember the thought hanging above you like gravediggers as you settled into a coffin: you pushed everyone away, you don't leave room for those who want to help you.

"Thank you," you attempt, and it comes barely above a whisper. You allow it to be tender. You let it embody the raw little piece of you that utters it; the piece that wants so desperately to let him in. The piece that knew he'd save you. The tender little sliver of soul who still believed you deserved to be trusted and supported. The one who still hopes for meaningful connections, even among your collection of throw-away contacts.

You can see the way he relaxes. The way he melts inside his skin, like he'd been expecting you to poke when you could have. Like it lifts a weight off of him, knowing that you'll trust him enough to come to him in the future.

"I'll be back in a few hours. You should sleep."

You roll your eyes. "Sleep in some weird ass white room I've never been in, surrounded by a bunch if people I barely know. Yeah, I'm sure I'll sleep like a baby."

He recognizes that you aren't entirely serious, but he also recognizes the orange pill bottles on the table beside you. "If Alfred has you on those, I trust you will—no matter where you are."

You chuckle, he offers you the tiniest smile, and then he's gone. Vanished into the rest of whatever strange building he whisked you into.

You should be worried about it. Not knowing where you are, exactly who you're with, who has access to you. But you aren't. And it might be the medication making you compliant, and you'll look back on this in a week and be horrified—or it could be that you've broken all your own rules and thrust all if your trust into the hands of a boy you've never seen without a mask.

[stxleslyds]

You always seem down on the idea of the Batfam. I mean, it is hard to take seriously when writers make Bruce hostile or downright abusive towards his kids, or when Batfam members never interact. But do you think the concept itself is good, and it's just been the victim of bad writing? Or do you think the Batfam is a bad idea that can never work?

Hi there Anon! Thank you for the ask!

Hmm, this is a difficult question. Maybe I can answer this better if I do it in parts because the concept of “Batfamily” is used in different ways currently. A way to separate them can be, DC’s Batfamily, Fandom’s Batfamily and Fandom’s Batfamily lore being introduced in comics’ canon.

DC’s Batfamily:

My rejection of this version of Batfamily comes from all angles, it is not a good concept within comics lore anymore, it’s badly written and used to hide and move on from truly horrendous actions done by Bruce towards the rest of the family, and DC uses the concept of “Batfamily” that fandom has become so attached to, so they can profit off of it without writing anything of real essence with it.

Why did I say that the Batfamily isn’t a good concept anymore? Well, because the Batfamily that I first came across in comics included, Bruce, Dick, Alfred, Barbara, Tim and Cassandra. It was rather small and their books interconnected and had pretty solid relationships with one another. Dick and Tim got along and spent time together, Barbara mentored Cass so she could become Batgirl and so on and so forth. The family was smaller and more connected. But they still had problems and bad habits then. So, I liked them as a group of people that worked together and the name they received was “Batfamily” as a way for DC to profit from it.

Right now, the Batfamily is huge, I don’t know if you have seen those splash pages with all the members of it for Rebirth and Infinite Frontier, but those promotional pages were crazy big, characters like Harley and Clownhunter are now considered part of the “Batfamily” and all that. Then there is the kind of characters like Cass, Steph and Kate who are all connected to Batman but that haven’t been appearing in books for very long, so putting them on that page really feels like DC is trying to prove that their “Batfamily” actually has women on it, but it’s just for show.

And then there is Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian, the most recognizable faces of the Batfamily aside from Bruce and Alfred (but Alfred is dead now so he doesn’t really count), all of them have had issues with Bruce or are indifferent to the existence of one another. Yes, Tom Taylor has included Tim in Dick’s book but here is the thing, it feels like he put him there just to make fans shut up about the lack of content with both of them acting as they used to do. But its false and lazy, Taylor just brought Tim to the book but we don’t get to see Tim and Dick interact in ways that can explain why they drifted off, it kinda seems like all those years where Dick and Tim were pulled apart never happened to DC and that makes me think “cash grab”. I would have loved to see them interact again if it meant that we would have some solid story for them to develop their relationship once more.

At the end of Rebirth, Damian was pissed off at Bruce and they had a fight and Damian left the manor completely. Bruce beat up Jason, then gave him a hug but still told him that he was banned from Gotham and all that abuse and manipulation was swept under the rug when DC came out with Urban Legends: Cheer, all they did with that story is lie and made-up stories about Jason wanting Bruce to go on a killing spree so Gotham can finally be the home to his beloved family (lies, lies, lies).

On top of all that we have the neglect, abuse and manipulation that Bruce had going on with Dick, ever since Bruce manipulated Dick into joining Spyral his actions haven’t faced any consequences (the family still believes that Dick was the one who lied about dying). And as recently as the end of Rebirth, Dick suffered from a head injury that left him amnesiac and Bruce absolutely didn’t care enough to look after him when he was so vulnerable and alone. DC had the audacity of having Bruce say that he was looking after Dick while Dick went from one villain manipulating and hurting him to another, and if we look at Batman’s run, we can see that he spent some of that time in a weird pit or playing catch the pussy with Selina in a tropical island.

So, taking all those things into account, I honestly believe that the Batfamily is a concept that absolutely does not belong in comics. If it were to be taken seriously then DC should come up with (organic, not forced) stories that make these characters connect once again, but they have to be careful, just because they can connect it doesn’t mean that everyone gets along and they have group chats and eat dinner together of Fridays, that would be a blatant lie and just too out there for their kind of dynamic, so, they should take things slow, start re-building what once was an make it better (if they want to make it work and feel like less of a cash grab).

I heard that there is a book with Cass and Steph being mentored as Batgirls by Barbara coming out in December, that to me is a good thing, what was done in Robin #5 was awful, Jason didn’t have or want to be there, Tim, what the hell was Tim doing there? The only ones that have gotten along with Damian and have had a solid relationship with him were Dick and Steph. Dick had a very nice moment with Damian in that issue, but Steph didn’t, they preferred to have Jason wanting to hug Damian instead (what the actual hell was that?).

Fandom’s Batfamily:

Fandom is a place where people can take any concept from anywhere and transform it into whatever they please. This fandom is just like any other in that matter, but I have noticed that sometimes the Batfamily Fandom tends to blur the lines between what’s fanon and canon. Their lore is so deep and established among people that they sometimes (willingly or not) make new readers or other people believe that how things and perceived in fandom is how things actually are in comics, and that is a huge problem.

Things like “Dick sent Jason to Arkham when the Joker was just a cell away”, “Jason has pit madness and when he gets mad his eyes turn glowy green”, “Dick was a horrendous brother to Jason before Jason died”, “Jason would be good friends with Tim and Cass”, “Jason is the only one that sees the world differently from Bruce and the other robins because he is the only one that comes from a life with no luxury” and so on and on and on…

All of those things are sometimes treated as the absolute truth by fandom and no matter how many times people have debunked and explained that those things aren’t part of comics’ canon because they are simply not true, fandom stills treats those things as the basis of their Batfamily lore.

That lore would be actually fascinating if people didn’t lose sight so easily of the fact that at the end of the day none of that lore can be applied to comics’ canon.

When you enter this fandom things can be extremely confusing and the way some of the characters are characterized are completely different to their canon characterizations, I knew that the Dick fandom was writing about was not real, but I had no idea that Tim being a coffee addict that hasn’t slept in five months and is an absolute genius in everything and anything that he does was completely out of character for him, I just thought that was true to his character in comics too. Something like that happened to me when I took a peek at Jason’s side of fandom, by that time I had read Red Hood/Arsenal, UtRH and New 52 RHatO (yeah in that order, Red Hood/Arsenal wasn’t finished yet though), with the already conflicting characterizations of those books, the first look that I had at fandom’s Jason confused me even more. After considering all those I decided that the Jason that I wanted to see and actually looked appealing to me was UtRH Jason.

Not all people in fandom read comics and that is ABSOLUTELY VALID, I have zero problems with people not liking the comic characterizations of the “Batfamily” characters, but that in itself also creates a rift between fans themselves.

Fandom’s Batfamily lore being introduced in comics’ canon:

This is obviously the intersection of the other two points and this is the biggest problem that I have with the Batfamily concept. The fandom lore has been leaking into comic’s canon for a while now but right now we are kinda drowning in it. Decisions that have been made recently in DC like, Jason giving up his guns, the group chats in Nightwing issues, the family dinners that were hinted at in Cheer #6, and Bruce having had at the ready a Red Hood suit for Jason with a Batman logo in its chest, have been proof enough that DC is planning on skipping any kind of solid writing for these characters to actually get along. We are never going to see these people sit down and talk about their differences and respect each other’s work ethics.

We are never going to get stories of actual essence that prove that these characters understand and care for each other, we are just going to be told that “all is good” and now everyone loves one another and they will build from there.

That is a problem for me.

-

And it also takes away duality from Gotham’s vigilantes, I know I say this too much but it’s the truth, putting all these characters under the ruling of Batman makes them all bland. Jason shouldn’t be part of any sort of group that involves Bruce! My god, I don’t want to see them interact anymore! Bruce has been absolute trash to Jason ever since he came back from the dead and I am tired of DC trying to make them be on good terms!

Jason and Bruce not getting along can co-exist with the fact that Jason isn’t a villain to Batman’s legendary hero. Jason is his own character, with his own morals and he doesn’t need a bat symbol on his chest or book logo to be relevant. Same with Dick, Tim and Barbara, let them be characters that can stand on their own because they have already done that!

Barbara as Oracle worked WITH Batman if she wanted, she had her own logo and had passed on the mantle of Batgirl because he had grown out of it.

Dick is Nightwing and has become an even better hero than Batman could even aspire to become, he has contacts with everyone in the DC universe, has led countless teams, he doesn’t NEED a batman logo on his book or to be constantly dragged back to him just to make the Bat more compelling.

Jason, my sweet Jason, he had his own logo! It was gorgeous and then Lobdell had the audacity to stamp a Batman logo in the middle of the book name and in Jason’s chest! Have we gone absolutely mad? Why did they do that? Lobdell’s constant back and forth with Jason and his feelings for Bruce, he respects him and he doesn’t, he kills and he doesn’t… each issue felt like a new take on the character! It was crazy!

And that has happened with everyone in the “family”. I will end this by saying that Bruce/Batman being at the centre of this “Batfamily” dynamic is the most laughable thing in the DC Universe. Batman isn’t family to any of the people that they constantly surround him with, he is a piece of shit.

Anyway Anon, I hope this answer doesn’t ruin your day and that you understand that even though I really don’t like the “Batfamily” concept, you and everyone else are allowed and encouraged to think differently!

Hope you have a marvellous day Anon!

[zayne-s]

happy new year!!!

I posted 20,559 times in 2022

That's 10,221 more posts than 2021!

822 posts created (4%)

19,737 posts reblogged (96%)

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I tagged 11,339 of my posts in 2022

Only 45% of my posts had no tags

#steddie - 2,597 posts

#dingus - 853 posts

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My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

how do the veteran knights explain merlin and arthur's relationship to the newbies?? they see merlin, a servant, mouthing off to the prince (or king, depending on which season you're watching) and they think surely he's going to be punished but then arthur's giving it right back and suddenly it's a back and forth that just has the older knights rolling their eyes and shaking their heads in fond amusement

711 notes - Posted November 7, 2022

#4

steve being a chaperone at the senior prom of '86 because he promised robin and nancy a dance at least once. all sad because eddie said he wasn't going and what's the point of being a chaperone if you can't whisk your boyfriend away for a private dance? but then halfway through the night eddie shows up dressed to the nines in a black waistcoat and a white button up, black tie tucked in and his chain hanging from the pocket of his black dress pants, wearing his nicest sneakers. his hair is pulled up into a ponytail and steve just stops. stares. and then promptly m e l t s.

1,121 notes - Posted September 28, 2022

#3

read on ao3

really though, think about it.

girls in robin's year would totally still be hung up over steve "the hair" harrington. king steve. the boy they've created in their heads and would kill for a shot to go out with him.

so when they see his beemer in the parking lot after school on the first day in 1985, a game of telephone immediately starts. they gossip about how he's there to see a girl, nevermind the fact he'd never go for someone still in high school (unless you're a boy whose repeating his senior year but that isn't relevant just yet), and names start flying. news reaches inside the school building quickly and the halls are filled with whispers.

no one gets close to him. it's almost as if everyone is waiting with baited breath to see who's going to get in the car. they watch and discreetly point and make their predictions until a hush falls over them when they see steve perk up and sit in his seat a little straighter, turning his key in the ignition and starting the car. everyone looks around for the girl he's inevitably taking home, and the building doors slam open with a bang! and robin buckley comes tumbling out onto the sidewalk with all the gracefulness of a newborn foal. they pay her no mind and keep watch for the absolutely beautiful girl that has the honor of sitting in his passenger seat.

and then robin buckley moves in and throws her backpack into his backseat before sitting shotgun. says something that has steve letting out the most ugly cackle they've ever heard, a giant grin on his face.

there's no way.

how did robin buckley manage to capture the former king of hawkins for herself?

they watch as steve backs out of the parking space, still laughing and engrossed in whatever conversation the two of them are having, and drive away.

after he picked her up that first day, he's been driving her to and from school ever since just so she wouldn't have to ride the bus. even going so far as getting her breakfast and coffee before he drops her off. he's got her a little bit spoiled.

and it makes all the girls furious.

robin thinks it's absolutely fucking hilarious.

they mostly glare at her in the hallway between classes and she has to stifle her giggles behind her hand. they won't do anything directly, she's noticed, but she hears the jeers behind her back and it only makes her roll her eyes. if only they knew the real steve.

robin shows up late wearing a polo under her denim jacket that obviously belongs to steve. they had their weekly sleepover the night before (where they share a bed and oh wouldn't that knowledge make every girl see red) and they'd both slept through the shrill ringing of the alarm clock. she'd snatched the shirt off his floor in her haste to get dressed and neither of them noticed until someone was brave enough to point it out.

"woke up late and didn't have a clean shirt," robin shrugs. then, to be a little mean, "not my fault his bed's so comfortable."

and just like she thought, the girl's face goes bright red and the steam coming from her ears is almost visible. she storms off and they've got new gossip for the week.

it keeps happening. robin wears steve's clothes more than her own now after realizing how good she actually looks and how comfortable they are compared to her own. it's not all polos and buttons; there's a few plain tee's and a couple with graphic designs that she tends to favor more.

"keep 'em of you like them so much," steve had told her one weekend as she raided his closet. he was still bundled up under the blankets in his bed and looking at her fondly. "they don't fit me anymore and i'd rather they get more use than collect dust."

the day before christmas break, robin's sitting at her regular lunch table when the chair in front of her is turned backwards and eddie munson is straddling it, giving her a smirk.

"so, buckley, a little birdie tells me that you and harrington are going steady."

robin rolls her eyes. "me and the dingus?" she shakes her head. "there's nothing going on there, trust me. we are platonic with a capital P, all the way."

eddie hums in consideration and he's got that look on his face that robin recognizes well. she gives him a once over and leans in, beckons him forward like she's telling a secret.

"but you, on the other hand..."

1,315 notes - Posted October 25, 2022

#2

some trashy tabloid publishes an article about eddie (without prior planning or authorization from his pr team) basically trying to drag eddie's name through the mud and spread lies about him just for clout and views.

fans are rightfully upset and immediately take to defending him and mentioning him and steve in their tweets. eddie doesn't publicly comment on it but steve posts a video to instagram of eddie laying in the recliner with their baby on his chest, singing softly to her to get her to sleep, rubbing her back with his fingertips and a soft smile on his face.

his caption is the complete opposite. it's scathing and he shows the world just how big of a bitch he can be when it comes to defending his husband.

3,117 notes - Posted December 19, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

when steve and eddie finally adopt, everyone thinks that eddie's gonna be the fun parent and steve's gonna be the over protective one. when their kid falls from climbing the playground equipment at the park, they find out its the complete opposite.

eddie's on the ground with the kid pulled onto his lap and wiping their tears and speaking in soft tones to calm them down.

steve takes one look at their scraped knee and says, deadpan, "yep. we're definitely gonna have to chop your leg off." which makes the kid scream and cry harder into eddie's chest as eddie tries to scold steve without laughing.

13,769 notes - Posted November 15, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[fan-written]

Maribat Tropes Ch 4

I’m back!! I have world building and sibling fluff on the menu. There’s is a tiny dash of angst and salt, just to add some flavor.

First, Previous.

Marinette breathed a sigh of relief when she stepped out of Kaalki’s portal to find the bathroom still empty. She was out of costume, but the portal was hard to hide. It closed almost silently behind her and a small god landed exhausted in her hands. It was hard work, but Marinette and the Kwamii had practiced silent transformations and abilities after another Silencer attack. By now they were profficent around seventy percent of the time.

“Thanks, Kaalki,” she mouthed silently at the horse like kwami. “You know where the sugar cubes are.”

Kaalki nodded and dove in to find her treat. Per her request, none of the Kwami were speaking while they were in Gotham and Metropolis. Marinette had worked hard to hide her identity as the Guardian and she didn’t want to risk one of the Supers overhearing them since they were known to visit Gotham. The Justice League knew Ladybug was the Guardian, but she refused to tell them who she was. She knew now that it was only the magic of the Miraculous protecting her identity from the skilled detectives the Justice League had.

It may have been unfair of her to not trust the Justice League, but they didn’t trust her either. Marinette only learned of the League after she met Zatanna, who in turn told her that they were all informed about her new responsibility as Guardian. A responsibility she hadn’t even informed Chat or her team about yet. She was waiting until after Hawkmoth’s defeat to inform them. She wasn’t about to share her civilian identity to a group of people she’d never met.

In fact, now that she thought of it, even Superboy and Wonder Woman had never met Kaalki. Well, while Kaalki was in her care. They may know that she’s the Guardian, but she tried to avoid reminding them of that fact as much as possible. She had worked hard to set up monthly training sessions out of Paris under the guise of picking up a rare fabric and Trixx magic. Marinette would take a train in disguise to that month's town and genuinely find a textile to bring home. If she also brought a few bruises with her, her parents never knew.

A quick check in the mirror confirmed her hair was in its place, and her makeup. Marinette walked out of the bathroom calmly and smiled slightly at Allen when she returned to the cafeteria. She gave Adrien a quick glance and nod, but nothing more. Her easy reassurance set their shoulders at ease. Gigantitan wasn’t a difficult akuma, but her team worried anyway. Even the one who wasn’t fully a part of it any more.

“Maman and Papa are safe. Gigantitan was near the Louvre today so the shop was fine.” Marinette said as she sat down. It was code, just for Allen, that the team was okay.

Choosing a new miraculous team may have been one of the hardest things Marinette had ever had to do. She wasn’t sure she could trust her new friends, especially after her first meeting with Felix. The irony that he became a better friend than those she had made that video with always made him laugh. She spent a year testing them with different miraculouses, both in the suit and out of it. By the end she had a team that could adjust to whichever jewel they were given. One she could truly trust to make permanent holders.

It had taken another year, but once Marinette felt there wouldn’t be another Scarlet Moth incident she had asked her team to reveal themselves. After introducing herself as Ladybug, she asked the team to think of her as Multimouse instead to add another layer of anonymity to the world knowing she was the Guardian. It inadvertently created her nickname, Mini, after both the Disney character and her small size. But it was a good thing.  Marinette needed that support on both sides of the mask, and her team needed it too. 

Especially Adrien. The shock she felt when he revealed himself was nothing compared to having him hand over the ring seconds later.

“I can’t, M’lady. I, if I can’t be your everyday Chat Noir, then how can I continue being your partner?” He had cried.

She tried to return it to him then, but he continued to refuse. He claimed that he was worried he would be compromised soon. Lila had been pulling the noose tighter each day, and his father was taking advantage of the changes puberty had wrought on him. The number of photoshoots and modeling gigs were piling on and he was escaping less and less.

So Marinette settled. She would hold onto the ring, but she would pass it off to whoever she thought would use it the best. Whenever she had the chance, Marinette would return to Adrien first. Currently Felix was in Paris, working under the name Panther while she was gone.

A tap on her arm brought her out of her head. Allen handed over extra food he had bought while she was gone and she dug in. The fight might not have been hard, but it left her starving. “That’s good. I’d hate for the patisserie to get ruined, even if Ladybug fixes it all.” 

“Right,” she swallowed her bite before continuing, “Magic sometimes gives the pastries a weird taste.” Marinette wrinkled her nose and took another bite.

Allen nodded, “Sometimes, yeah. Hey Mini, what time is the play tonight?”

“Six. Why?”

“Nothing,” It wasn’t nothing. The small tilt of his head to his 6 o’clock caused her hidden Ladybug to perk up. “I just wanted you to remember so you’re not late tonight.” Allen grinned wickedly and she scoffed before glancing around the room. She continued eating to keep her mouth busy.

She didn’t look in that direction first, but settled on Alya a few tables away. From the looks of it she was ranting about Ladybug again. Luckily Allegra wasn’t part of this fight or Alya would have been even more vocal about Maid Marian being active. Allegra was a die hard Disney fan and it came as no surprise when she chose her name.

Marinette shivered and turned away when she overheard her once best friend talk about writing another email to her alter ego. She had set up a Ladybug account that was protected by magic which would help authorities or her Team reach her while out of the suit. Alya had wheedled the information out of a rookie cop who was still a fan of the Ladyblog and used it liberally. Marinette came to expect at least an email a day with questions about the new heroes and herself. She must have reached Alya’s limit with her refusals when the emails changed from personal to downright threatening. The last one still gave her nightmares about how she planned to track her down. Alya became borderline obsessive after she chose a new fox hero and she was becoming seriously worried for her safety as Ladybug. She would have blocked her by now, but she needed that possible heads up for if, or when, Alya truly became a stalker.

“Do you have an outfit ready?” Allen asked, thankfully distracting her from that downward spiral of thought.

“Mmhmm.” She swallowed her final bite and leaned back to finally look at where he wanted. “That black dress. You know, the one with the dark red ribbon straps and edging?” Okay, either Allen was trying to set her sights on two very attractive men, or they had been acting suspicious while she was gone.

Which may not be that odd. Marinette easily recognized Timothy Drake-Wayne. If you knew where to look it was easy to find that he was quite the amateur detective. It wouldn’t surprise her if he had looked into the class he welcomed into WE for the day, which would explain an odd reaction. Unfortunately, she could only see the back of the other man’s head. Something about his silhouette felt familiar, but she couldn’t tell while he was sitting down.

“The one where if you wear gold jewelry it’s easy to tell your inspiration was Red Robin?”

Marinette choked and jerked towards Allen. “W-w-what?! How dare you!” She slapped her hand against his arm and tried not to notice how the man next to M. Drake-Wayne started choking on his food at the same time. Allen pushed back and the two started a mini shoving war that barely lasted a minute. Finally he surrendered and Marinette sat back in triumph.

“I can’t believe you said that.” She sniffed and turned her nose up at him. “Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. You should be able to tell Red Robin was the inspiration without the gold.” Marinette tried not to laugh, but the second she caught Allen’s eye they both burst into giggles.

“Please,” Allen gasped between laughs, “please never do that again. I thought I would never have to hear that after Chloe switched out.”

“That was such a bittersweet moment.” Marinette said with a dramatic sigh as she calmed down. “My oldest rival, finally gone, but the most annoying one is still here. And she was only moved because her father refused to leave her in the Akuma class! Obviously he really cares about us. You know, the ones she helped akumatize.” Allen snorted at her sarcasm and dramatic arm waves and she grinned. “Anyway. Enough about that! Do you think I should wear my gold bangles and belt tonight or is that too much?”

Allen tilted his head back and forth like he was considering it, but she could tell half his attention was on the two he’d made earlier. “We will be in an opera house so I think it will be okay. If we were going to the club I'd say no. I can wear my red shirt and black tie and we can match if you want? We can have a hero themed night on the town.” 

He winked at her but they both watched as M. Drake-Wayne mouthed a word to the other. Neither were that great at lip reading, but they could have sworn he said vigilante, which could have been a response to their use of the title of hero if they had been sharing a table. But they weren’t. They were probably having a normal discussion, but Marinette’s Bug Sense, as she liked to call it, was tingling in the back of her mind. She was missing something. Something important.

“That sounds like fun. I have a few themed outfits to wear through the trip so let me know if you want to do it again.” She grinned again and he nodded. Marinette always felt grateful that Allen was still in her class. He knew and encouraged her fashion decisions, sometimes joining her. Not in the way Claude would with everything he had, but subtly. Just enough to tie them together, but not so much that they looked like a couple.

“Cool. I have that one black shirt with the yellow stripe across the chest if you want to do The Signal tomorrow. What about when we make it to Metropolis? I have a Superman shirt and I would be disappointed in you Mini, if you didn’t have something for him.” Allen teased and poked her side while she blushed and wiggled away. Just because the Team knew of that minute long crush on Superboy didn’t mean they still had to bring it up. He had a boyfriend and they were happy. Besides, that was a year ago. She was over it.

“Stop!” She giggled and pushed his hands away. “You know I have one major outfit for each city. If I happened to pick Superboy, that's no one's business except mine. Besides, you didn’t even notice today’s nod to Red Hood.” She tugged the hood of her faux leather jacket over her head to emphasize the color. Red, of course. Just like its namesake.

Allen laughed and jerked it off quickly, which messed up her hair. “Please don’t tell me you made that one too,” He asked over her shout of dismay.

Marinette smoothed out her hair while she glared at him. “No I did not. I only tailored it.”

“Good.” He ruffled her head, messing up the work she just did. “You’re busy enough already.”

She groaned and pushed his hand away roughly. “Stop that! I don’t have an older brother and I never wanted one.” She pouted at him and fixed her bangs again. Movement at another table caught her eye and she nudged Allen’s arm with her elbow. “Looks like Monsieur Grayson is ready to continue the tour.”

Allen turned his head and nodded when he noticed M. Grayson standing in front of the majority of the class. He followed their lead and helped Marinette clean their small table. “Well, two more hours with the sheep. Then we can relax until the play. Can you handle it, Mini?”

“Please,” She stood and straightened out her jacket and lifted a foot onto her chair to both pose and show off her combat boots. “I’m channeling the attitude of a known antihero today. Their petty insults mean nothing to me.”

“You just want a gun, don’t you.”

---

Next

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[headcans-oneshots-and-stuff]

Reality check

Fandom: DC Pairing: Damian Wayne x reader Word count: 4.1k Summary: It was a normal day for you when the sidewalk literally opens up and swallows you whole only to spit you back out into a world that you thought only existed in comics before. There you meet a certain Vigilante and things get more complicated very, very quickly... Warning: I think this classifies as angst, not sure though, Definitly almost drowning tho, also multiple instances of unconciousness, lil bit of fluff if you squint, also me trying to be funny and failing Requested by the incredibly, amazing, breathtaking @dudeidkwhattoputformyusername: Hi! I love your work! is it possible for u to do a Damian Wayne x reader one shot, where reader comes from reality and bumps into Damian in Robin form. Then u can develop from there anyway u like! preferably fluff tho. thank u!!!!!!!!!!

Everything was blurry and your head was throbbing like someone was working on it with a jackhammer. The pain was the first thing that you felt during the process of waking up, no other sense quiet activated yet. Next was the realization that your body was shivering uncontrollably and wherever you were laying definitely wasn’t a bed for as far as you remembered, beds weren’t usually wet, cold and stone-hard. Following was your eyesight that finally returned to you, alongside with your smell and hearing, and as if they were high-school bullies who were teaming up against the local geek in a 90’s sitcom, they all came crashing up upon you like a train. Now theoretically seen, you were able to see, hear and smell again, but practically seen, asking you to do either of the three was like asking someone to find a needle in a needlestack, or a single straw of hay in a haystack. It was just too much, definite sensory overload. A few minutes you couldn’t do anything but lay there, shivering and cold and miserable, before slowly your brain started to work through all the input and sort through it until you were able to comprehend it. The first thing you noticed was the smell. It wasn’t a very pleasant one, it smelled like you fish, water and something rotten and if you had any more control over your body you probably would have thrown up. The sounds that you could hear now put the smells a little bit more into perspective. What sounded like screams and the end of the world before was now identifiable as the screeching of seagulls, the honking of boats and the soft crashing of waves. So you were near a harbor or port? The last puzzle piece was the view you got when you opened your eyes. The cold, wet, stone-hard ‘not-bed’ that you had been lying on was in fact a concrete jetty. Only a few feet away from you was the cold dark sea and above you was the night sky. How long have you been lying here? What happened? How did you get there? As you were staring up into the sky something about it made you uneasy, the way the stars were shining, the darkness of the universe, the fullness of the moon- Wait, wasn’t it a new moon just a few days ago? You sat up suddenly, immediately regretting it when the pain shook through your head again, re-starting the throbbin at 100%, and - after you could open your eyes again - looked down at your body. You were wearing a soaked through sweater that you had bought a few days prior and just as soaked through jeans and socks, your shoes nowhere in sight. The sea was restless and splashed against the sides of the jetty, dops landing on your sleeves and face. For some reason, the sensation of the liquid against your skin brought forth a flashback that completely blinded you. It was like you were watching from above as you relieved the last thing you remembered, how you had been going home after your part-time job at the library when the floor had literally peeled open below you and you fell into a cold nothingless, only for water to come crashing down at you from all sides. When you finally realized that you were not on the sidewalk a few blocks away from your home anymore, but in raging water, somewhere below the surface you were already only seconds away from drowning. With all the power you could muster and adrenaline rushing through your veins you managed to fight your way upwards and upwards until your hand finally broke through the water’s surface. The breath that you took when you made it up completely must have been the best and somehow worst gulp of air you had ever taken in. The adrenaline was ebbing off and the exhaustion made its way through all your muscles, but when you saw the lights in the distance you managed to keep on going until you had managed to pull yourself up a concrete jetty where you finally blacked out. Your mind made its way back into your body and you grasped the situation, even though believing it still wasn’t the easiest task. I mean the earth quite literally swallowing you up? That doesn't sound reasonable. And yet, it was the thing you remembered so you would have to live with that truth until someone could prove you otherwise. More and more questions started to swirl through your mind - an unreasonable amount of them quite honestly - but you knew you had to take things one step at a time. Okay, what did you know? You were in an unknown location so there was no new there, but your former question of ‘how long have you been there’ was now answered. Given the state of your clothes and the fact that it was still deep, dark night you couldn’t have been unconscious for long. But that didn’t help you much - you were still sitting there freezing cold and soaked with no idea where you actually were. What would you do usually when you were lost? Phone, ah, right. You patted over your pockets and actually found it, only to be very unsurprised when it only gave you a black void to stare into. Sadly you didn’t have a bag of rice to put it into in the other pocket, instead only a set of keys that you didn’t recognize along with something that looked like a keychain in form of a piece of polished wood with the letters D and (Your first initial) with a plus in between engraved into it. “Great, I can open some doors now, too bad I don’t know which,” you spoke aloud to yourself, only for the worlds to come out stuttered thanks to your teeth that were shaking just as much as the rest of you. You stuffed the keys and the broken phone back into your pockets and managed to pull yourself up and stand, even though all your muscles were screaming in despair. The thing you really wanted to do was lie back down and fall asleep again, wait for the sun to rise and dry your clothes, but you knew that with the coldness and the water all around you, you’d probably be dead or at least deadly sick by morning, so you had to find shelter, warmth and - maybe most importantly - answers. With slow, little steps you walked down the jetty, towards the buildings that looked unoccupied at that time of day, with an unknown city stretching out behind it that promised life and warmth. For what felt like hours, but was probably just minutes, you managed to walk a few feet until you were a safe distance away from the water and near a bench that must have been put there for people who wanted to watch the water or have a break from work or similar things. It looked at you so invitingly, so comfortably, so perfect. Deep inside you knew that you should probably not sit down, even if you told yourself it would be just for a few minutes, but your exhaustion took over and you sunk down onto it, falling to the side and rolling as good as it was possible together into a little roll. You’d take a nap, just a quick one, only a few minutes, then you’d get up with new energy and find the warmth you were looking for. The longer you sat there the heavier your eyelids got until you couldn’t take it anymore and the darkness enveloped you into its safety again.

The next time you woke up, things weren’t so bad anymore, it wasn’t all that blurry and the throbbing had dialed down a bit, but your body was shaking worse than before. In fact, it was shaking so bad that your shoulder thumbed against the backrest of the bench before being pulled forward again and repeating the circle, the only weird thing was that it was just your shoulder. And there was this weird pressure around it. Wait! You weren’t shaking worse, someone else was shaking you as if they were trying to wake you up. You peeled your eyes completely opened and looked into white voids surrounded by black and like your eyes were the camera of a 2000’ kids-camera they slowly zoomed out and revealed the white voids to be the eye-parts of a mask sitting on the face of a masked (duh) boy who was wearing a very, very colorful and bright outfit. It seemed familiar and the gears in your head started turning. “Habibti, you’re okay,” the boy said in a relieved tone and while he helped you sit up you mustered him with a confused look. “That’s not my name, it’s Y/N.” The way his mask contorted gave off a sense of confusion that mirrored yours, just with a little bit more worry in it, but before he could say anything else you motioned to his outfit. “What is it with the outfit? It isn’t Halloween yet, is it?” “You don’t recognize me?” he asked you and the tone of voice he used almost made you feel sorry for him, but given that you had no idea what he was talking about you would probably be able to cope. “No, sorry…” you started before the gears finally fell into place and you recognized it, “Oh, wait, I think I do, you’re playing Batman’s sidekick right? I think it was Robin. That’s so cool, I myself was always more of a Marvel fan - you know with Black Widow and all that - but both are super valid so cool hobby dude. It looks pretty rad too.” Even with the mask you could see the complete bedazzlement in his face and you wondered if your weird world-swallowing-experience had magically changed the language you spoke from English to Mandarine. “What- What do you mean?” “You’re Cosplaying right? Dressing up as a Comic Character?” you tried to explain and you could feel a slight anger building up at how stupid he made you feel without even being able to see his eyes. “I’m not Cosplaying a comic character?” he said in a questioning manner. “Yes, you are. You’re wearing the outfit and everything, like the guy in the Comics who works with Batman. I think his name was Richard or something, but you should know better, you’re cosplaying him after all,” you tried to explain yet again, seriously questioning your sanity. Now he really didn’t need the mask to hide the fact that he was seriously triggered by what you had said - even though you weren’t quite sure why. Had Robin been cancelled over twitter while you were unconscious? “I think it’d be better if I bring you to safety and get you checked out,” he averted the topic of the conversation and started to position his hands like he wanted to pick you up, but you put a stop to it when you pressed him away. “Listen, I appreciate the help, but I’ll definitely not be going with a complete stranger in a comic costume, so if you could just give me your phone so that I can call my parents or my friends that’d be great.” For a few seconds he just sat there straight, as if unsure of the best course of action, before he sight and pulled a phone out, unlocking it and handing it to you. Your fingers hovered over the keyboard as you thought about who to call, thankful that your mum had made you learn her number by heart, but when you went to dial it your whole body stopped working, like there was a physical restriction keeping you from typing. Suddenly you realized it. You didn’t know the number - you knew you should, that you had been using it for years upon years and that you definitely should know it - and your eyes grew wide. You scavenged through your head searching for more numbers, but then you realized another thing. There were none. How was that possible? You didn’t even know the area code from where you lived. “I- I don’t- what?” you looked up at the boy with tearful eyes, the reality of the situation just too much for you. “It’s okay, I’m sure it will come back to you,” he tried to sooth you, but you were too frustrated and sad to be happy about soothing from some creepy geek. “Would you please finally tell me why you’re in costume?” you asked exasperated and moved further away from him. “I-” The answer of the boy was cut short when a ‘whooshing’ sound echoed around the area and a booming voice called out: “Robin”. The boy shot you another look before shouting back. “I’m here, I’ve-” he obviously wanted to add something, but he cut himself off this time and just looked at you. A man in a black, leather suit with a black cowl over his face that you noticed to be definitely inspired by Batman and very well done came rushing towards you. Again, you couldn’t see his eyes, but you recognized the same worried look that the boy already had. “Oh no, not another one,” you sighed and pushed your hair back, “Is there some kind of Comic Convention here? Or is this a weird sexual thing?” Now the man looked at the boy even more confused, and the boy just shrugged, but instead of answering you, he brought his hand up to where his ear was under the cowl and spoke to himself: “I’ve found Robin, he’s found her, we’re going to come back now.” If it had only been the first and last part of that sentence you would have made a joke about them being into LRPG or something, but the ‘her’ part scared you for some reason. You stood up and backed away, happy that the boy didn’t keep the grip on even though his eyes were following your every move. “This was fun and all, but I’m still soaked and really cold, and I had a nice swim earlier which I want to calm down from again, so I think I’ll just go back home now, call myself a cab or something,” you turned around, more than ready to strain your muscles yet again with running away, but it never got to that point, because a second later you were ripped up from the ground and sizzled through the air. It was so surprising that you didn’t even manage to scream before you found yourself with hard ground under your feet again. You looked up at what had pulled you through the skies and found the boys face yet again and - may it have been from the scare of everything finally becoming to much - the last thing you could say before you blacked out for the third time that night was: “That’s some on point cosplay dude.”

The soft sheets of your bed gave you a sense of relief as you woke up from that weird ass dream that you were having. You were unsure about why exactly your unconsciousness was making you see these things, but you made a mental note about checking the dream meaning of getting swallowed by the sidewalk later on. For now all you wanted was to go have some breakfast and call your mom to tell her about that dream. So you opened your eyes and threw the blanket back only to be surprised by the ceiling that was definitely not yours. There was a sound beside you and you looked over to see a boy about your age, black hair standing up from his head a little spiky and green eyes focused entirely on you. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” you cursed and moved as far away from the boy as possible, “Who are you?!” “What do you remember?” the boy asked you, completely ignoring your question. Your eyes flew to the door that was right behind him and you found that there was no way for you to get to it without having to overthrow the boy - but by the looks of him he’d knock you out easily. “I was on my way home from my job when the fucking ground opened up, swallowed me, thrw me back up into the ocean and then I met two werid ass cosplayers before I woke up here.” “You still think we’re cosplayers?” “We?” “Yes,” he just nodded with complete ease. “Well, I gotta admit that flying thing was pretty rad. What was that? Are you actors and you’re making a movie? Because if so then I’m sorry for bursting onto the shooting site.” “We’re not making a movie,” he stated, still completely chilled, even though there was something else lying under it. “What then? You telling me you’re actually Robin? Because if so I’m not the only one who needs to have her head checked out,” you scoffed and rolled your eyes, arms crossing in front of your chest. The boy just mirrored your look, completely stern and serious. “You’re not serious, are you?” you couldn’t help but let out an unbelieving chuckle. He kept silent and just observed you. “You fucking are, oh my gosh.” “How can I prove it to you?” he asked, still so incredibly serious that you felt like you were a clown walking in on a job interview. “Oh, I don’t know. Call Flash, Superman and the easter bunny over so we can have tea with the tooth fairy,” you answered ironically and made a ‘cray-cray’ gesture with your hand going in circles beside your temple, but instead of being offended by your comment, he just pulled out his phone - the same phone you had tried to use earlier you noted. “What are you doing?” you asked, but he just held his hand up to sush you and raised the phone to his ear. “Hello, it’s Damian Wayne,” he introduced himself to the other person -  and you noted that he was not a ‘Richard’ after all, “Yes, could you do me a favor? Could you come to the Manor real quick? Yes, yes I know, no it’s not an emergency. The suit would be great, yes. See you in a bit. You opened your mouth again when he hung up to ask who he called over, but he kept his hand up and motioned to you to wait, while he opened up the window, even though it was still cold out. A gust of wind filled the room and suddenly there was another boy standing besides the original boy - Damian as he had introduced himself - who was wearing a cape, a shirt with a logo that was definitely Supermans and ripped jeans. “H-How the fuck did he just? Was he here this whole time? What? How?” you stuttered and looked between Damian and the other boy who looked at you even more confused than you felt, but Damian waved him off and motioned for him to leave, which he promptly did. The new boy looked at Damian with question marks in his eyes, but he just waved him off. “You believe me now?” he asked, directed towards you and you had to admit it was pretty convincing. “But how? I’m in a comic?” “Y/N, this isn’t a comic, this is reality,” Damian told you with a soft voice, but your eyes just widened and you tried to move back even further. “How do you know my name?” “In your left pocket there is a set of keys and keychains. One of these keychains is a piece of wood with two letters engraved. A D and a (Your first initial), am I right?” Your heart stopped for a second and you patted the pocket where that exact thing was still lying. “H-How do you know my name?” “What do you remember about your life, about how you ended up in the water?” he avoided the question like a pro and you decided to play along, just in hope he’d answer your question sooner or later. “I was born the daughter of Y/Parents/N in Y/H/T. I grew up normally and went to school, nothing special, got a job on the side and when I went home yesterday the sidewalk started to open up like there was an earthquake and I was suddenly in the water, I told you about that part already.” “And you have never met me in your life?” he asked and sounded almost disappointed. “No, an hour ago I thought you didn’t exist outside of paper, the internet and movies,” you huffed and tried to figure out what his endgame was with this, when he pulled his phone out again and tapped on it for a bit before shoving it in your direction. “How do you explain this then?” You moved forwards with caution until you could see the screen and your breath stopped. It was a picture of you. Of Damian and you to be precise. The two of you were sitting on a bench, laughing and smiling and obviously happy, a cute dog on the ground between the two of you where something else drew your attention. In the photograph your left hand was intertwined with his right one. “W-What is this? Some sick kind of joke?” “You really don’t remember? Not at all?” he asked flabbergasted. “Remember what? What is going on here?” you almost shouted, the frustration becoming just a little bit too much, “Please just give me some explanation, please.” “You’re Y/N Y/L/N, you really are the daughter of Y/Parents/N, but you didn’t grow up in Y/H/T, you grew up here in Gotham. You went to Gotham academy, where the two of us met and...became friends. You found out about me being Robin and my father being Batman rather quickly too,” Damian explained and even though it didn’t match up even slightly with what you remembered, it felt weirdly accurate. You went to the bed again and sucked down onto it, before thinking back to the picture and raised an eyebrow at Damian. “Not that I say it’s true what you’re saying, but if we hypothetically say it was, then we weren’t just friends, right? We’re together?” “Yes.” “Okay,” a sigh escaped you and everything was feeling blurry, but you had to continue asking, wanting to know the truth, “Then how do you explain me ending up in the ocean?” “That’s where things get a bit harsher,” Damian sight too, but obviously for other reasons, “Yesterday evening you accompanied me to a party - a family thing - on a yacht and things were going great, but something went wrong. No one had an idea that the weather would shift like that, but a storm came and the yacht was thrown around and you - you were thrown off, I thought you died, I was devastated, but- uhm...well… You remembered that keychain? I gave it to you for our first year anniversary and it may or may not have a tracker in it, so that I could find you in a worst case scenario and if that wasn’t a worst case scenario then I don’t know what is.” For a few minutes silence filled the room as you worked through all of the new information, but the sad look on Damian’s face, the seriousness in his voice, the entire situation in itself? They made it hard to doubt what he was telling you. Your gaze was stuck on your fidgeting hands when you asked the one underlying question. “Why can’t I remember?” “I don’t know, I think you must have hit your head when you fell off and your mind mixed things up - mixed reality into something else and took a few actual things and made them fiction,” Damian gave you his half-assed, definitely not medically appropriate explanation, but you couldn’t blame him for that, you had no idea either. You pulled your legs up and hugged your knees close as you looked at him, really trying to see this supposed boyfriend of yours, but your mind just turned up blank. “What if I’ll never remember? What if that’s the way it’ll be from now on?” “I’m positive that things will turn out fine, we have friends who have the best medical experience you can get, we even have mind readers who could probably help you and if not, we’ll help you make new memories, I’ll help you and I’ll wait for the memories to come back just in case.” “That’s not fair on you though, Right now I’m not the girl you’re with, you shouldn’t have to go through this,” tears were now welling up at your eyes, even though you weren’t completely sure why your emotions were so strong. “I don’t care, I really don’t, because no matter what you remember or don’t, I love you and I really hope you’ll remember that you love me too…”

[finnyboywolfhard]

Now That I Saw You- Chapter 4- Jump Then Fall

Steve Harrington x Reader

catch up here

This Chapter is Inspired by Jump Then Fall by Taylor Swift 

summary: Steve and Reader are falling more and more for one another. 

warnings: cursing, fluff

word count: 1.4k

For yet another morning, Y/N woke to the feeling of Steve’s arms wrapped around her body. Her eyes looked over his face a few times, a smile spreading sweetly across her face.

“Don’t stare, it’s creepy.” Steve grumbled out in his grizzled morning voice. Chills went down her spine as he spoke.

“But you’re so handsome.” Y/N faked a pout in response. His hands pulled her tighter to him, and his hand reached up to cup her face.

“You’re absolutely adorable, you know that?” He said before pulling her in for a kiss. Despite both of their morning breath, the kisses between the two just kept getting better and better to her. He pulled away from the kiss and placed on her forehead. He climbed over top of her to get out of bed.

“I hate being an adult.” Y/N spoke from the bed. Steve gave her a confused look as he continued putting on his pajama pants. “I don’t want to go to work. And I don’t want to spend a weekend without you.” She pouted as she watched him get dressed.  

“Come here.” He waved for her to come towards him. She got out of the bed and shuffled towards him. Instantly, she was swallowed by his arms in a hug. They swayed back and forth in the middle of the room. “Listen, it’s just one weekend. It’ll be okay! Plus we have those plans with Dustin when I get back.”

“I forgot! That’s gonna be fun!” She smiled looking at him, her eyes looking at every feature on his face. He kept talking, and she could hear him but her brain was going 100 miles per hour about how much she really liked him and wanted to be with him. He just felt right for her, like they were meant to be together. Her eyes moved over to the clock propped on her dresser. “Shit! I’m gonna be late. And so are you! Aren’t you supposed to be picking up your mom soon?

“Oh shit, yeah. I-uh-I forgot completely.” He went silent for a moment while watching her get dressed. “Do you want me to take you to work before I go to my parents?”

“That would be great babe, thank you.” She said without thinking of the pet name she just used.  He didn’t say anything, but that pet name made butterflies go aflutter in his stomach and he realized he was falling again.

Steve dropped her off at work and the hours seemed to tick past even slower than usual for the girl. She kept re-reading the same paragraph because her mind kept going back to Steve and every little thing about him. He really was becoming the most important thing in her life, something that she had never experienced before.

“Y/N, call on 2.” Another intern piped up from the cubicle across from her.

“Hi, you’ve reached Y/N Y/L/N in the human resources department, how can I help you?” From the other end of the phone, she heard her favorite sound in the entire world- Steve’s laugh. She wished that she could listen to it all day.

“Jesus, you sound so professional.” Steve finally spoke.

“Wow, I wonder why I would sound professional at my job in the government?” They both erupted into a fit of giggles.

“You make a fair point, I just wanted to call and tell you that I got here safely. I miss you already.” Her heart melted at the gesture of his call.

“I miss you. I’ll be counting down the hours until I see you.”

“I already am. Sunday at 6, at the diner. Be there or be square.” He joked through the phone.                  

“I’ll be there.” She smiled.

“Okay, well-uh, I gotta go, but I’ll talk to you soon okay?”

“Okay. Bye Stevie.”

“Bye Y/N/N.” She hung up the phone and let out a groan. These next two nights without him were gonna be rough. It’s not like she didn’t love spending time with Robin, she absolutely did. Robin was without a doubt in her mind her best friend in Hawkins, but after spending nearly all of her time with Steve in some way shape or form, it was gonna be weird to not see him for a bit.

The days leading up to Sunday evening went by slowly. Robin and her had eaten dinner together every night, but with Robin at work all day and Y/N being home alone, things got boring. But things were all better when Sunday rolled around.

Y/N pulled into the diner and saw the oh so familiar BMW parked. She got out and looked into the car, noticing that it was empty. She bounded up the stairs and into the restaurant, instantly spotting her favorite head of hair in the whole world. As she approached, she saw Dustin flailing his arms telling Steve something.

“What’re you boys talking about?” Steve’s eyes lit up as Y/N slid into the booth next to him. He placed a kiss on her temple. She leaned into him and the feeling.

“Dustin here is trying to explain something that he learned in his AP Bio Class.”

“Oh, that will go right over my head. Me and science don’t get along.”

“Don’t you have a political science degree?” Y/N let out a laugh at the very valid question Dustin just posed.

“I mean, Yes I do but PoliSci is a whole different beast. It deals more in the social sciences and humanities rather than physical sciences.”

“Wait what do you mean?” Dustin asked her, which instantly sparked a conversation between the two. Steve’s eyes flickered between the two and how easily they had fallen into a conversation. He admired how they talked so intelligently without trying to make the other feel dumb, it was sweet.  

“Any new movies in the store?” Dustin snapped Steve back to full attention.

“Yeah…uh…a few horror movies came in, and some other ones I had never heard of that Robin likes.” They talked over their dinner for a bit, all enjoying each other’s company. Steve leaned over to take a bite of food, and his hair fell into his face.

“Oh my god, come here.” Y/N turned his head around and pulled the top portion of his hair out of his face, tying it up with a hair tie. He turned his head back to her after and she let out a giggle. “You look ridiculous, but I’m sure it will help.” She pecked his lips once before going back to her own food. Dustin’s face was turned up into a smirking smile, mainly happy that his best friend had found someone who works well for him and very clearly makes him happy. It also helped that he also really liked Y/N, she was fun, caring and most of all clearly infatuated for Steve, more than Dustin ever thought Nancy was. They walked out of the diner, with Y/N’s fingers laced with Steve’s, them both trailing behind Dustin.

“I gotta drive Dusty home, I’ll just meet you back at home yeah?”

“Perfect!” Y/N walked over to Dustin and gave him a hug goodbye before giving Steve a kiss. She walked back to her car and drove home alone, waiting patiently for her boyfriend to come home.

As she lay in her PJs she heard the front door open and footsteps approaching her room. When her door opened, she lifted the blanket up so he could crawl in with her.

“Hello.” She said as his face hit the pillow beside her. He let out a little laugh before responding.

“Hi. I’ve missed this.” He said sweetly. She smiled at the sentiment, and was overcome with her feelings.

“Steve…” She said, not sadly but more yearning.

“What my dear?” His voice laced with a little worry.

“I used to feel so scared to fall for someone but…but with you…fuck. With you, it’s like I’m jumping into freefall with no net. And I’m just…I’m just a little scared you’re gonna leave me.”

“Hey hey hey, I’m not gonna leave you, I can promise you that. After the shit with Nancy, I-uh-I never thought that I would feel like…this. I…I love you Y/N.” He said, looking deep into her eyes and placing a gentle hand to her cheek.

“I love you Steve.” She wasn’t scared with Steve, she felt the happiest with him and she knew that falling for him wasn’t even over yet. She loved him and he loved her, and frankly, that was all she was worried about.