#otherwise mans would be so annoyingly robotic about everything

[shepscapades]

[dbhc flavored] Hermit a Day May: Day 14 — Doc!

Featuring both a current-day s10 doc and a verrry early s8 post-deviant doc! :]

[ithebookhoarder]

Prequel Star Wars (Head-canons): Dealing with a sick reader

A/N: After the request for these head canons for the original trio I kind of got inspired for the other trios too... oops?

Masterlist: 

Anakin:

Ok. There’s only one word for Anakin when you’re sick: worrier.

Yep. This man is on red alert real quick the minute you mention even thinking you feel a bit under the weather. In fact, he’d have you back in your chambers and buried under a pile of blankets before you can even try to tell him it isn’t necessary.

“You can’t be too careful, and you do feel rather warm. You may have a fever-”

“Anakin! Say that once you’ve felt my forehead again, but with your non-robotic hand this time.”

“Oh.”

It’s rather sweet actually, watching the way Anakin scurries about getting anything and everything you could possibly need. 

It’s also ironic considering this is the man who always insists he is fine, even when he has blaster wounds all over him. He may have been adversed to letting people take care of him, but he’s only too eager to take care of you. 

After all, since his mother died, you are all he really has in the way of family. He’s not about to let something as simple as a cold kill you. 

So, you let him fuss, knowing it’s just as good for him as it is for you, to let him play nurse maid for a while. 

“Do you need more pillows? I also can get Obi-wan to get some more of that tea you like from the market too if you want.” 

“I’m fine, Ani.”

“Are you sure? You still look pale-“

“Just come cuddle with me, ok? Just a for a while?”

Needless to say, he’s only too happy to cradle you in his arms and let you drift off to sleep against him, softly humming under his breath as he brushes the hair off of you face. 

This is how it stays for the next few days or so, until you’re finally strong enough to get back up and move around the temple. 

Even then, Anakin is like a shadow, following you around incase you’re wrong and it turns out you’re not strong enough yet to be up and about. 

“Ani, honey, I’m fine. I promise. I’m not made of glass, you don’t have to always worry something’s going to break me.” 

He knows you’re right, even if he’s reluctant to admit it. So, he settles for a kiss and a compromise that you at least let Ahsoka keep an eye on you while you work. It has been nearly a week since either of you left your quarters and people were going to start getting suspicious soon if he didn’t let you be by yourself. 

However, he doesn’t need to worry. 

It’s only a day later he starts coughing and feeling sick himself. 

It’s hard not to laugh at the irony as you take his arm and start hauling him back to bed, ready to return the favour. What was one more week of seclusion, just the two of you? At least this time you’d get to play nurse maid. 

Obi-Wan: 

Unlike Anakin, Obi-wan is rather calm when it comes to handling any kind of problem. So, when he finds you slumped over, face down, in the text you’d been trying to read in the archives, he merely chuckles.

“Darling, wake up. You fell asleep again.”

“Obi?” You blink, groaning as you try to sit up without falling over from the sudden dizziness you feel rushing through you.  

Of course, one look at you is enough to tell him something is definitely wrong with you. 

“Oh dear, you look dreadful.”

“Wow. Such a charmer.”

“I try,” he teases, helping you up and wrapping an arm around you as he starts to escort you back to your rooms. You need some rest, clearly, if you’ve become rundown enough to catch some kind of bug. It’s probably the same one that’s been going around the younglings recently.

“Here we are. Let’s get you changed and settled in to bed, alright?”

His voice is so soft and soothing as he mothers you, seeing to your every need with barely a complaint. He has you out of your robes and into something comfy in the blink of an eye. He also makes you some tea and retrieves some medication from his bathroom cabinet, insisting you take some before sleeping. 

Obi-wan is also a patient man. Being Master to Anakin for the last ten years has ensured that, meaning he is more than prepared for your whining and moaning. 

He simply smiles, laughing at the rather adorable pout you wear whenever he tries to get you to take some more medication or agree to stay in bed for another day. 

“But I have a report due tomorrow for Master Fisto-“

“I’ve already explained the situation to him. He has someone else finishing it for him.”

“Well, I also have that class with the younglings-”

“Which Master Yoda has also agreed to cover, so you have nothing to worry about except recovering, alright?”

It is alright, despite you pretending otherwise. When else do you get to spend so much time along together? In fact, despite feeling like death warmed up, you rather like letting him take care of you and entertaining you with whatever book he’s been reading lately. 

He always looks happiest when he has you nestled under his arm, and a book in his free hand. Needless to say, he has no problems reading you off to sleep every night, watching as you drift off by the time he’s finished another chapter. 

“Sleep well, my love.” 

And you do. You sleep remarkably well with Obi-wan next to you which is why, even after you’re better, you’re quick to invite him to sleep in your bed as many nights as you can.  

You’re also eager to return the favour and read to him instead, as he eventually falls asleep to the sound of your voice night after night. 

Who knew the great General Kenobi was so adorable when asleep?  

Padme:

Now, Padme may be royalty, but she is a public servant first and foremost. Her entire life is dedicated to the service of others, so when she sees you struggling to keep yourself upright at your desk, she is all over you. 

“Y/N? What is it? Are you feeling alright?” 

“I’m fine, Padme. It’s just stress.”

“Sure you are. Why else have you been staring at that page for the last hour and a half?” 

She pauses, frowning at you and trying not to roll her eyes at your stoic nature. On one hand, it’s rather ironic for her to scold you when she herself has been known to burn the candle at both ends. However, there comes a point when it was impossible to ignore your body’s obviously worsening condition. 

So, she swiftly orders you to bed and instructs a physician to check nothing is terribly wrong with you - even if you insist it isn’t necessary. 

“Well, it is to me, alright?” 

And of course, how can you say no to that sweet face when she pouts and bats her eyelids? 

“Ugh! Fine!”

One annoyingly tedious check up later, you’ve been diagnosed with a mild stomach bug and told to rest for the remainder of the week. 

“Here. I have some juice for you. You need fluids if you’re going to recover quicker.” 

You smirk at the idea that a queen is serving you as she bursts into your room the following day, carrying a tray laden with fruit and a pitcher of your favourite juice. 

You’re quick to thank her, downing the glass within seconds, much to her amusement. 

“Thirsty are we?”

“And bored,” you whine, grinning as Padme passes you a data pad with a knowing wink. “You angel!”

“Hardly. You get one hour to work, ok? Then I’m taking it back and you’re having a nap? Understood?”

It seems like a fair enough compromise as you sit up and read the briefings she’s downloaded for you. In fact, by the time your hour is up, your eyes are drooping and you’re struggling to sit up by yourself. 

“No protests? I am surprised.”

She clearly isn’t, but she’s too kind to say so as she kisses your forehead and clambers in to bed next to you as you nestle in close.

The soft scent of her perfume and the sound of her heartbeat is all the lullaby you need as you let yourself grab a few more hours of sleep. 

A few days of this routine, and of Padme’s diligent care, and you’re back to your old self in no time. 

In fact, a small part of you rather looks forward to the next time either one of you are sick given how nice it is to have the time to spend together. 

So, you still insist on taking a nap together every afternoon despite being off bed rest. “Merely as a precaution” - or so you insist as you steal Padme from her office every day without fail for a small escape. “Wouldn’t want our favourite Senator to fall sick now, would we?”  

[eve6262]

a bad day [[jayce/viktor]]

Some days are vastly better than others. It's a simple fact, innocuous on most days, obviously painful on others. It is also something Viktor's usually sharp, rational brain likes to ignore on the bad days, where everything goes wrong and he blames himself.

He'd been out of milk, and blamed it on himself despite not being the last person to get groceries. He'd started working on a new project and hit a roadblock, and that one made some sense, except then he kept stumbling over his words when he was explaining something to Blitzcrank, and that was a bit much. And then, to top it all off, a knock resounds on his door.

No one knocks. Jinx will come in regardless of what he says, Jayce doesn't bother, and no one else really comes by. "Who is it?"

"Someone for a chat," comes Silco's voice.

Of course. Just his luck.

He opens the door and invites him into the lab, to which Silco replies asking if he has anywhere to sit. That in itself is strange, because Silco is usually the last person to ask for anywhere to sit and will uncaringly take a spot or sit on the floor if he has to. It's hard not to take him seriously with that eye.

"I suppose one of the stools, though I do have a couch in the living room."

"This will do. Please," he motions to where Viktor was working at his own project earlier, the chair still in place. Tenatively he sits, watching his guest with a careful eye.

Silco, for his part, seems absolutely normal as he places himself on the stool before starting to speak. Except he doesn't- he moves his mouth, closes it, opens it again, moves his hands- everything that should mean he's speaking, except his face is wrinkled with confusion and his movements erratic.

"Yes?"

"I- this is a very strange situation for me."

"Okay?" He's beginning to think someone's playing a prank on him. Maybe a Vastayan took his identity and has started pretending to be him, trying to joke around. But Vastayans don't stay long because of the smog and their sensitivities (not like he blames them), so.

"I'm sorry if I seem out of words- you understand, yes?"

"...I think I would understand a little more if I understood what you came here to talk about."

"You know."

"I don't."

Silco shoots him a look. He really wishes he knew, at this point, but he really doesn't. "I'm serious. I don't."

"Take off the mask." He does, though with some hesitance. The bewilderment must show on his face because Silco does a double take and says, "Oh, you really don't."

"No. Why would I lie?"

"Many do."

"When have I ever cared."

"Point taken. I- it's about Jinx."

"Okay," he says, knowing that could mean just about anything.

"Have you noticed anything...off, about her lately?"

"...She's a maniac."

"Yes."

Viktor moves his hand as if to say, connect the dots. "So, if she's being off..."

"Then she has problems?"

"Yes. Which we already know, she's a maniac."

"No, not that kind of problems- I mean a problem that has just come up."

"Why are you interrogating me about this?"

"She comes to you sometimes."

"To ask me what the proper resonance structure is for a hextech-powered rocket launcher is, what kind of point is that?"

"I don't know what you two talk about."

"Well, I just told you."

The conversation continues to drag on and on, with Silco unwilling to admit whatever's actually the problem with Jinx, and eventually leaving without answers. Before that, at least he was feeling depressed about his own work, thinking it was his fault that everything was going wrong; now it just feels like a terrible day.

I haven't seen Jayce in a few days, his brain supplies quite annoyingly. It is still quite early in the morning, and he knows the man's schedule- the time is perfect to arrive at his estate with some time to spare, just in case something else goes wrong.

He tells Blitzcrank at the door that he's going to Jayce's, and that if he wants the robot can go exploring so long as he arms the security system before he leaves. Blitzcrank affirms him and does not move otherwise, so he makes his way to the elevator.

On the way there, he gets accosted by a prostitute with a metal forearm and nearly tossed into a puddle of acid by a very irritated man who seems to have him mistaken for his wife.

The elevator, to his dismay, also has two other children on it as he ascends, and he really wishes right now that his brain understood that his leg is fine now, it's made of metal, there's no need to limp everywhere and rely on his staff-cane because he could have made it through the less proper channels. Unfortunately, he has to deal with those two, but thankfully they don't directly bother him.

It is three blocks from Jayce's manor- he's gotten quite the riches from his position on the council since their initial endeavors, hasn't he- when, for whatever reason, Caitlyn tells him to freeze.

"What?"

"What are you doing up here?"

"Walking."

"To where?"

"The Talis estate."

"To do?"

"Visit. May I ask why I'm being interrogated?"

"No."

"Amazing."

"Do you have any knowledge of Jinx's current whereabouts?"

"Not this again."

"What do you mean, this 'again?'"

"Silco interrogated me earlier for nearly half an hour about this. Oh, 'have you noticed Jinx has been odd lately?' No, the girl comes to me with engineering questions and new designs, not her life struggles."

"Silco's looking for her?"

"Can I go?"

"Fine, but if I find out you're involved-"

"If I was involved, Silco would kill me before you could."

He finally gets there, half expecting to be denied by a new maid who answers the door or find that he's with a political friend right now and Viktor should probably leave because it's going to be a while. But the woman who answers the door is named Marilyn, and she smiles and goes "Oh, good, he was getting antsy," and offers to bake him something as she leads him to the sitting room.

Piltie things. Sitting rooms and last names and the like- so much pointless extravagance. But at least Jayce prides himself on buying comfortable furniture, if expensive, and not that tasteless nonsense he saw once at a party of Medarda's.

"Viktor!" Just seeing him makes the day a bit better, and he carefully recieves the bouncing hug he gets as a reception. Marilyn walks off, giggling quietly to herself at the two as Viktor is dragged to one of the three couches- three!- surrounding a coffee table.

"Okay, so I wanted to tell you about- actually, wait, you came here, not the other way around. Did you need something?" By the time Jayce realizes Viktor has already taken off his mask and folded his coat over the armrest.

"Hm? No, not particularly. Go on."

"You sure?"

"Just a...bad day, more or less."

Jayce's eyes light at up at that, surprisingly, but he nonetheless starts talking Viktor's ear off about nonsense. First it's about some party that he was excited about because him and Seraphine- some pop idol that Piltover seems obsessed with who does concerts on the in-between- met and she was actually quite sympathetic to his place, and then about some ideas for inventions, and then about what might as well be absolute nonsense.

Viktor has always enjoyed Jayce's voice. It's easy to listen to, not rough around the edges like his own, and if you don't try to look past it you can simply fall into the Piltover's Finest sort of cadence he has, the kind that makes you want to like him. It's how Viktor fell for a man who should've been the farthest thing from his type, among other things.

Excluding the body. That is very much his type.

"Sorry, I've been talking for a while, huh?"

"I don't mind. I've been interrogated twice today, it's nice to hear someone else do the talking and not need to respond."

"Oh, really? What happened?"

"Something with Jinx. Both Caitlyn and Silco were convinced I knew something."

"Huh. Weird- wait. Did they mention what happened?"

"No?"

"...Okay, this is going to sound really weird."

"Go on."

"I think Jinx left her blueprints at my place and someone found it."

"And why, pray tell, would her blueprints be at your place?"

"Well, see, it was pretty early in the morning, and she burst through the window and said 'hey! you busy?' and I said..." And he keeps going on, now talking about how Jinx and him had a sort of bonding moment as friends that morning until the workers came in to start, and she must've left the stuff there.

Near the end of the story, they're interrupted by a knock at the door. "Who is it?"

"Me," says Marylin, opening the door. She pushes a cart filled with two plates of tarts- the kind you only really know how to make if you're from Zaun- and drinks. There's a third little display with the same tarts on them. "I made you both something to eat."

"Oooh, good timing, Lin."

"Thank you."

"'Course! Hope you like them," she says, giving them both a smile before leaving.

"I'm glad she likes you."

"Does she now?"

"Oh, absolutely. Mel came to talk with me about something the other day, right?" And he keeps going on and on, letting Viktor simply laugh and watch and listen without any need for input, and belatedly Viktor realizes that the day has turned from terrible to great in the span of an hour or two due to Jayce's presence alone.

"Hey?" He asks at the end of the story."

"Yeah?"

"Thank you, love. You've been a great help."

Jayce gives him a cute little kiss in response.

---

brainrot / ventfic duo oh man

~Eve6262

[my-robot-heart]

Hi, Robot!

Your fics helped me a lot while I've been struggling with post-8x22 depression (which has been worse than any reaction I've ever had to the end of any other show I watched), so I was very excited when I saw that prompt list that you've reblogged, knowing that something fantastic was going to come out of it. And I was right: the prompts-inspired ficlets you've written today have been an absolute joy to read for me, especially the one I requested and the ones melbob and Pumpkin did)

(Besides, I found out that I absolutely adore drunk Red, whether he's hilariously boisterous or quietly pensive, and would actually like to see more of that side of him)

I'd like to end this ask with another prompt of mine – or, rather, an idea that came to me while I reread the list – but don't feel obliged to write it if you don't have enough time/inspiration.

The prompt I'm talking about is "i didn’t mean the things i said."

And the idea is that during one of her angry episodes Liz had thrown a lot of hurtful words and accusations at Red, blamed him for everything bad that's ever happened in her life – you know, the usual stuff – etc. and Red took it all silently, without a single complaint or attempt to defend himself. Later, once she's cooled down and became capable of thinking straight again, Liz felt guilty for lashing out at Red like that (because, rationally, she understands that not all of the hell her life has been through is because of him) and came to his safe-house to apologize and reassure him that what she told him while she was angry is not how she feels about him – hence the prompt phrase above – but the problem is that Red thinks that she was right, to a certain extent, that he is to blame for most part of the pain and the loss she's experienced and that he would understand her if she hated him and didn't want him to meddle with her life any more than he's already did. To think of it, perhaps, after Liz stormed off Red decided that it would really be better for her if he kept his distance – even though it would probably kill him – so by the time Liz arrives to apologize Red is already packed up and ready to go, to leave her – well, to leave her side, because he would make sure she was alive and well and safe even from a distance – forever and it’s up to Liz to convince him that she actually wants just the opposite?

Oops... That got pretty long... But I've just pictured it all so clearly in my head the words poured out themselves.

Omg Di 😂😂👏👏 are you... sure you didn't already write this yourself like this is beautiful????

Haha. I read it a few times and it just got me right in the feels. How about a tiny ficlet that comes right at the end of what you've described, because I feel like you already put in the backstory and it's just perfect.

Ps this gif has nothing to do with the fic but it's a fave and let's just agree with Red for a sec that yes, shipping IS his bizness. Lol.

Liz arrived at the safe house, breathless and not quite knowing what she would say. All she knew is that she needed to apologize before- what? She didn't want to think too hard about what. She carefully typed in the combination Red had made her memorize for just such an occasion and- the door didn't open.

She wiped her sweaty palms on her pants and tried again. Still nothing. Okay she had one more chance to try and then the door and then it would alert Red that someone was trying to break in.

She typed in the numbers slowly. It didn't work. Shit.

She was just trying to decide if she should grab her phone or her gun when the door opened from the inside. Red was standing there, holding his gun.

"Lizzie- what?!" He hurriedly replaced the gun in his holster and typed a code into the lock. Then he ushered her inside.

"Sorry Red, the code wasn't working and I-" her eyes came to rest on a large piece of luggage. She looked from that to him. He-- he was... leaving?

"Yes I know the code wasn't working. I changed it before I left." He sounded tired.

"L-left? Red where were you going? And why didn't you-"

His face fell and she remembered why she'd come. What she'd said. And how she'd stormed off, declaring that she would have been happier if she'd never met his meddling, catastrophe bringing self. I wish I'd never met you. Those had been her exact words. Oh god. Oh no. But- he had to have known, hadn't he? He must have understood that this was just something she said when she was upset, but it wasn't how she actually felt. Oh god, he didn't know. He thought she meant it. And now he was-

"Oh no. Red, I- can we sit down?" She sounded desperate, even to herself. He saw this, and after hesitating he gestured to her to take a seat on one of the chairs. He sat on another.

"It's fine, Lizzie-" he began, and his voice was full of resignation. "There's no need to explain."

"Yes there is. There is a need to explain," she protested, trying to calm down and speak clearly.

"Elizabeth," he said then, and the use of her full name brought with it a sense of finality that scared her. "It's okay. You were right. About everything. I'm... a danger in your life. I never should have tried to have such an active part in it. I should have - I will be better able to keep you safe... from a distance. Dembe has the jet ready to leave this morning. Cooper had already been notified. He'll be able to reach me by phone, if needed. But otherwise- I will leave your life just as quickly as I entered it. And I promise, I swear, that you won't have to worry about my meddling or putting you in danger, because that's- well it's the last thing I ever wanted."

She watched as he tried to keep his expression neutral, but she saw the flash of pain in his eyes before he hid it, and her heart nearly broke.

"But that's- it's not what I want," she said softly. "I came here to apologize. And to- tell you something. Will you let me do that?"

He glanced at the time, before inclining his head for her to continue.

"First of all," she began slowly, "I don't- hate you. And when I said I wished I'd never met you, well- that wasn't true either. I know it's hard for you to believe, especially when I've said some... horrible things. But- I was just angry, Red. I was frustrated and scared and... I took it out on you. But the truth is..."

Here she swallowed nervously, wishing she'd had something to drink or hold, to distract her from.how her fingers appeared to be trembling. She clasped her hands together to try to stop it.

"The truth is," she said slightly more confidently, "You are the most infuriating, conceited, pretentious, annoyingly almost always right, beautiful, incredible, amazing man I have ever met. And the thought of you leaving because I didn't have the courage to tell you how I felt about you, how I've always felt about you, makes me want to-to- do this," and she got up from her seat and joined him on his, without thinking too much or too long, and kissed him.

She kissed him for a long time. At first, she felt him freeze beneath her, and she worried she might have gravely misjudged the situation. He'd been ready to leave, she remembered with worry. Maybe he didn't want her to-

But then. Then he responded. She felt his hands come up to the sides of her face, fingers lacing through the hair at the back of her head. She felt him relax and give in to what was happening, his mouth letting her in and responding in kind.

And she knew. She knew that she'd been right. About everything.

After a long moment she pulled away slightly, momentarily distracted by the patterns he was gently tracing along her spine. She let out a small sigh, and he stopped, regarding her carefully.

"Maybe-" she began, hesitantly, and he placed a kiss along her hairline.

"Yes, Lizzie?" He breathed.

"Maybe you should text Dembe and let him know you won't be needing the jet today."

He smiled.

[drabblesanddreams]

Hi !i hope you enjoyed your vacation! Can you write a atsushi x blind reader and she falls in love with his voice and it kinda takes him a while to like her?

Hi! I did enjoy it thank you so much:) Sorry this piece took so long i was honestly kind of scared to write a disabled reader as i didnt want to fuck it up but at least i tried haah! Also i tried writing a reader who didnt work in the ADA which i hope worked out good, regardless thank you so much for your request, i hope it turned out to your liking though i did get carried away as its a little longer than usual…

Word count: 2.6k

Pairing: Atsushi x reader

TW: nothing

Summary: Basically u cant see much and atsushi is insecure cutie again

It was a long day ofworking and there was nothing that you wanted more to do then go to bed forwhat would seem like all of eternity, that’s how tired you are. Yawningslightly, you made your way up the stairs to your apartment with a relativeamount of ease. 

Your body had already gotten familiar to the pathway to your livingspace, although you were partially blind. You had been partially blind yourwhole life, only being able to recognize the shifting of light and whatnotbehind your (e/c) eyes. 

The familiarity of the routine encompassed a feeling ofserene comfort. All your life, you relished in the concept of order, everythinghad their place in the world and you greatly respected that notion. It onlymade living life a tad bit easier, with that belief you had clung onto.

As you continued toclimb the stairs, you briefly let go of the railing in order to place a handupon the wall, letting it travel upwards as you felt up the hard, stone surfacebeneath it. 

You recognized the sudden shifting of light and realized that youwere at the top of the stairs now. Making haste, you walked the approximate numberof steps that you were familiar with in order to get to your door and unlockedit, before scurrying inside in and shutting the door behind you.

You briefly turned onthe light in order to recognize the area in which you should place yourbelongings and did so before making your way sleepily to your bedroom.

 You didn’teven bother changing into your pajamas and instead just settled for strippingout of your work clothes so that you were in your undershirt and underwear.

  Allin all it was kind of a shitty day, you thought as you settled into yourbed. See, you worked in a café that normally wasn’t this exhausting but todayit seemed as if you had received a greater number of either ignorant or rude customers.Accompanied by the fact that your manager asked you to stay back to close onlyirked you even more. 

This had overthrown your routine and you were upset aboutit as you had most likely missed your favourite part of each day.

Unfortunately, youlied in bed feeling quite awake now.

Of course, that was until you heard it, hisvoice.

Smiling to yourself,you rolled over in bed until you were closer to the thin walls that separated youand your neighbor. You could clearly make out the mutterings and comments madeby your neighbor, Atsushi Nakajima. 

Every night the poor boy would come backhome and spend half an hour or so speaking to someone, most likely over thephone, about the day’s mission he had to endure. It was always so entertainingto you, his whole life was an adventure to you, almost like a good book that hewould speak verbally out loud to. It always lulled you to bed ever since hefirst moved in. 

From what you could gather, he was a recent employee of theArmed Detective Agency starting from a few months back. 

This agency was right besidethe café that you worked at so you always managed to hear him there as well asin the mornings when both of you would greet each other a good morning.

You let your eyelidsfall shut as you homed in on his soft voice. Unlike the noisy sounds of thecity that so often gave you a headache, his voice was incredibly soothing andquiet.

 It was always accompanied by gentle undertones as well which shocked youslightly at first as you couldn’t believe how someone could be that type ofkind. 

His voice was almost to the point of melodic, the words that would takeform by his tones would spin into a plethora of stories and recounts that youyourself liked to listen to as you fell asleep.

Besides his voice, hehimself was a kind and gentle person. You had heard that way he had interactedwith his co-workers in your café, his undying patience in the antics of his,what you assumed to be, supervisor Dazai Osamu. 

The interactions between thetwo never failed to make you chuckle as you would hide your amusement behindthe coffee machines.

Through all this, itwas no surprise that you fell in love with him.

Unfortunately, the feeling was not mutual as both of you were mere acquaintances. 

But you werefine with this, as much as it pained your heart you accepted that not everyonein the world was lucky enough to be loved back by the person that theycherished close to their heart.

With this thought inmind, you let yourself quickly let yourself succumb to the sweet promise ofsleep with Atsushi’s voice in the background.  

Hours later, yousnuggled into your comforter serenely, turning over and inhaling deeply. It hadbeen quite a while since you’ve been this well rested.

 In fact… the mere notionof how well rested you were feeling was a tad bit suspicious.

 Throughthe foggy haze clouding your mind, you shot up in bed as a shocking realizationshot through you. It seemed that you had been so exhausted the previous nightthat you had forgotten to set your alarm for the upcoming workday.

The possibility thatyou had slept in quickly caused your heart to speed up slightly in fear thatyou completely missed your shift. “Siri, what time is it?” you demanded as youdistressingly rolled out of bed.

“The time is 6:47 am” YourAI responded back in that calm, robotic annoyingly professional voice. A suddenbout of irritation shot up through your body, how could this stupid phone be socalm when you were here panicking the hell out, trying to find your belongings?

 Shaking your head, you focused on the fact that you had 13 minutes to get to workand you had to scram!

You paced around the room, hands reaching out and patting every surface insearch of your work attire. Thank god you had memorized the layout of your flatotherwise you would surely be stumbling across every piece of furniture in yourwake. Okay, so maybe you were stumbling, but not as much as if you were in a completelyunfamiliar place.

Suddenly, your handsfound several articles of clothing and once you had identified them as yourwork clothes by running your fingers over the logo stamped on the shirt, youwasted no time in pulling them on before racing out the door. 

Not so carefullysprinting across the living room, you grabbed your backpack from where you hadthrown it the previous night and pulled open the door. 

Shutting the door behindyou, you turned the corner to the right in order to make it to the stairsbefore you collided with a taller, harder body.

The impact sent yousprawling to the ground and in return, you heard some of your belongings fromyour backpack crash as well. Oh my god, you thought Did I just make afool of myself?!.

“I-I am so sorry sir!”You hurriedly apologized as you dropped to your knees, quickly trying to searchfor your belongings so you could get the hell out of there in order to not be moreof an embarrassment.

“A-ah no it’s my fault,here let me help you,” the other body hastily said back, and you felt your bodygrow hot with the awful realization that you recognized this man’s voice. It wasyour neighbor, freaking Atsushi. It seemed that you had indeed made yourselfout to be an embarrassment. Crashing into your crush on a 7am morning wasnot how you wanted to make your first impression on said crush.  

“You’re too kind, haha,thank you!” You anxiously said back as the both of you quickly gathered the itemsthat fell from your backpack. Once he had finished handing you your items, theboth of you stood up. 

“I-I’m really sorry again, I didn’t see you there,” hesaid, the sound of him scratching the back of his head could be heard and youcould only smile at his nervous behavior. His antics were adorable if you hadto be quite honest. 

“That’s alright Its kind of my fault, I was too much of ina rush to get to work to remember the layout of my surroundings,” you said backapologetically.

A brief pause followed before he cleared histhroat, “You can’t see?” he asked and you could only imagine the cute way hisfeatures would scrunch up, the widening of his beautifully coloured eyes,whatever colour they may be.

 Shyness coursed through you as you nodded, youhoped this fact didn’t define you or change how he would possibly see you inthe future. 

After all, you were more than your disability. You then explained, “I’vebeen visually impaired since I was a kid..b-but I can still see shadows and light,even movement.”

Another pause followedand you swallowed in anticipation of his reply.

“If it’s no trouble miss,please let me walk you to work to make it up for crashing into you!” Atsushi rapidlyoffered and your (e/c) widened. You felt your jaw drop slightly at hisproposition but before you could ask why, he answered for you, “I- you work atRen Café right? Near the ADA?”. You blinked at this; how did he know? Could hehave possibly remembered you from the small interactions you both shared?

“It’s just Dazai’salways talking about how good the coffee you make is which I guess is how I knowyou and its also on the way so it would be no problem.” He shyly explained andyou felt your cheeks heat up at this.

“A-alright,” youaccepted hesitantly and the both of you made your way down the stairs and outof the building, Atsushi kindly offering any assistance if you were in need.

Days turned intoweeks, and slowly this became a part of your routine.

More precisely, Atsushi kindly walking you towork before moving on forward to his own workplace. On those walks, not onlydid you learn more about Atsushi himself, you got to hear more of his voice.

 Throughhis words, you learned about his special ability, about his work as a detective,how Dazai managed to do this, or how his other co-worker Kunikida managed to dothat. It was still as lovely to you as it was back then and only caused you tofall for him even more as you got to know him.

The slight low pitchof his voice grew increasingly more attractive to you with each passing day.

On this particular day,you opened the door of your apartment, “Good morning Atsushi-kun!” you greetedcheerfully, knowing full well that he would always be waiting for you on theother side of the door to walk to work. 

“M-morning (Y/n)-chan!” he replied, andyou could basically sense the smile on his lips. 

Shutting the door behind you,you looped your arm through his before rounding the corner like you would do everyother day. Humming, you let your stride fall into a small skip, unwillinglypulling Atsushi along with your movements. 

“You seem like you’re in a good moodtoday,” he commented as the both of you made your way down the stairs. His armtightened around yours to ensure that you wouldn’t fall as you had done the daybefore. 

Oh, how much you had laughed from the sheer embarrassment of it all ashe quickly fretted over you in clear worry.

“What?” you asked,feigning offense, “Am I not allowed to be happy?” you accused. Laughing at howhe stumbled over his words in an attempt to deny your words, you shook yourhead, “Just kidding!” you giggled.

“(y/N)-chan!” hewhined adorably at your teasing before quieting down, “(y/n)_chan..” he saidquietly. “Hm?” you hummed at the sudden change of tone.

“I-uh, are you evercurious to how I look?” he asked, and you blinked, turning your head to hisdirection silently probing for him to expand. “I mean, you know what I am.. I mean…the monster inside of me, but you still want to be my friend..” he hesitantly said,“What if…what if it’s only because you can’t see me, the person I could really be…”

You took in his words,confused for a moment before you realized. Something you had not known beforebefriending the detective was his incredible low level of self-confidence. 

Itwas no secret how close the two of you had become recently, you even taking theinitiative to visit him at his workplace as he would do the same to yours. 

Hemust have been blaming his current happiness of your friendship because you couldn’tsee, and thus was never witness to his transformation into his alter ego of thetiger.

 Because of this unintentional avoidance of not seeing him at his worst, hemust think that I am in an ignorant position.

Huffing slightly, youfelt your growing irritation spike, “Atsushi, me being blind doesn’t haveanything to do with our friendship or my judgment of your character,” youstated annoyed, “I don’t need to see in order to know what you can become andthe fact that you even think that I need to see in the first place so that our friendshipcan have true meaning is frankly offensive” you furrowed your eyebrows angrily asyou placed your hands on your hips.

“A-ah Im sorry(y/n)-chan! I didn’t mean to insinuate… I just…” Atsushi trailed off andyou sighed, letting your arms fall.

 Softly you took a few steps forward untilyou were sure you were much closer to him. “Atsushi, you know how I know you’rea good person aside from what you’ve told me?” you gently asked. “No, I don’t…”he whispered back.

“Your voice,” youstated.

“M-my voice…?” hestuttered out in confusion.

“Yes Atsushi, yourvoice,” you reaffirmed, “You speak in such a gentle manner, in a way that is socomforting and serene to the people around you, its so full of kindness andpatience and that is so rare to find in a world like this.”

“It paints me all thepictures ill never see which I’m fine with because I would honestly just have yourvoice then see any of the sights of the world…and I don’t know about youAtsushi but I don’t think anyone would describea monster like that” you continued to explain before letting the silencesink in as he took in your words. 

Exhaling, you took a step forward and reachedfor his hand, intertwining it with your own. Tilting your head upwards, you leta sudden burst of confidence fill you as your nose brushed against his, “(Y/n)-chan”he stuttered out, but you never let him finish.

“Your voice is the most beautiful thing I’veever heard” you admitted in a shy whisper.

 Where this confidence came from, youhad no idea, but he had to know how much of a good person he was, how he wasnot the monster so many people had previously tried to make him out to be.

 Itseemed as even though you were blind, you could see things this man couldn’t.

“(Y/n)-chan…”he breathed out as you felt his hands caress the sides of your face. His foreheadrested upon yours before he whispered, “thank you” and then you felt his softlips claim yours.

[robot-unicorn-attack]

CHAPTER 01 – SNOW

(written by @ayzrules)

… CHAPTER 01. 

The Neon Demon was pretty much exactly how she remembered it - the music was too loud, the lights were too annoyingly strobe-y, and the people were just as plastered.

Marivana, Ice, and Sky (whose real name was Seraphina) had all arrived fashionably late, of course, and after the usual barrage of greetings and niceties (which Marviana was usually able to get out of without much fuss after the first ten minutes or so - thank the stars that she was Snow, now, instead of Snow Princess, otherwise she would have been stuck exchanging pleasantries for the entire damn night – Marivana found herself a drink and a comfy chair on the raised dais reserved for the racers, and waved her publicist away to let her get in all the socializing she could want. The security detail that TWILIGHT had assigned to each of their racers were mixed in with the party-goers, preferring, as many Ice Worlders did, to remain discreet

Gods, but she hated these kinds of parties. The Neon Demon marketed itself as some kind of classy, high-end nightclub, but when it came down to it, all of these “luxury” nightclubs were basically the same as the trashy underground clubs she’d snuck into as a high schooler with a fake ID from one of her friends. It was just sweaty people and booze, though the people in the clubs Marivana frequented at the behest of TWILIGHT wore outfits that cost more money than her parents had earned in a lifetime. And the booze was also considerably more expensive.

Speaking of expensive outfits, though; Marivana grimaced, just slightly, as she adjusted her gown, the edges of the jeweled bodice digging into her skin. No matter how many of these diamond-encrusted gowns her agency forced her into, Marivana would never be able to get used to all the jewels. Tolerate or ignore for a short period of time, maybe, but there was no way that she’d wear something like this every day. She felt a good hundred pounds heavier just sitting in one of them. That, plus the heavy diamonds dangling from her ears and the gigantic diamond headdress her stylists insisted was a must, meant that Marivana was considerably weighed down. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it was…annoying. Very much so.

The jeweled bodice in question was laden with more diamonds than Marivana could count, arranged in a way to make them look like artfully jagged shards of ice. Perhaps the most eye-catching part of the gown, however, were the sleeves; diamonds that had been cut and polished to look like icicles jutted out from the wide strip of fabric covering the tops of Marivana’s shoulders. Adding to the effect were the huge earrings bedazzled with crystals and diamonds and arranged to look like snowflakes. It made her pretty hard to miss - though there was also the matter of the headdress, of course. Marivana couldn’t wait to get that monstrosity out of her hair – both literally and figuratively.

Marivana let her gaze flit idly towards the other side of the room, past pyramids of glowing drinks and curved sofas and crystally curtains. Her publicist, Lanie, was chatting it up with one of the department heads at Galaxy Cosmetics. Figures. Marivana had GC to thank for the diamonds in her eyes; they probably wanted to have her come in for a promo event or something. And Marivana spotted a few of the managers from her agency, as well as from RISE and LAZER, scattered around the dais, sipping on drinks and making small talk with other people involved in the business.

She hadn’t, however, seen any racers yet (besides Sky and Ice) - not until her eyes landed on Nyx (whose real name was Sol) sauntering over to someone sitting not too far away from Marivana. Marivana took a brief moment to roll her eyes, just out of spite - Nyx’s whole image was just so annoying. It was always so loud and so in-your-face. Marivana was of the opinion that she saw quite enough of Nyx on the race track. She didn’t need to be seeing anything related to her off of it, too.

Nevertheless, Marivana glanced in the direction that Nyx was walking, her diamond-blue eyes following the black spikes that extended out from the sleeve of the other racer’s one-shoulder dress. The sight of one of the RISE racers (Flower, it had to be; neither Supernova nor Sunbeam would have ever been dressed in something so....girly? Holo-butterflies and all) gave Marivana pause. Nyx is going to talk to her? she wondered to herself, briefly. Her agency’s going to be pissed. Though it’s not like Nyx cares all that much about what her agency thinks, anyway. 

Just then, Lanie popped up, almost out of nowhere, positively giddy about....something. She took a moment to flip her glittery golden locks over her shoulder before looking Marivana in the eye.

“Marivana.”

Marivana raised her eyebrows questioningly. “Yes?”

“Guess who just booked you the gig of a lifetime.”

Marivana shook her head, unable to stop herself from letting out an amused huff. “Stars above, Lanie, you say that every damn time. Of course it was you. And I don’t think you can have three hundred `gigs of a lifetime`, for your information.”

Lanie waved her off. “Semantics. Anyway, do you want to know what this thing is or not?”

“If it involves me interacting with people, then no.”

Lanie rolled her eyes but forged on. “Oh, shush.” She lowered her voice, casting a furtive glance at their surroundings, before continuing, her eyes bright. “The marketing department at Galaxy Cosmetics - the Galaxy Cosmetics -”

Marivana snorted. “Lanie, I know what GC is. Or did you forget that I was the one being operated on when they put in the diamonds?”

Lanie rolled her eyes, again. “Stop interrupting me. Anyway, GC wants you over for an ad, sometime in November.”

“And you agreed to it? Lanie, you know how busy November is. The IW Circuit starts in December? You remember that, right?”

“That’s why I arranged for it to be at the beginning of the month. It’ll be your last ad of the year.”

Marivana nodded. “I see. Vanya and the others still trying to earn their money back from the diamonds?”

Lanie flipped her hair over her shoulder again, already typing away at her holo-pad. “You know how expensive that procedure was, Marivana, even with the deal that Vanya cut with the execs over at GC. They want to squeeze all the money they can get out of it. Thank gods for the sponsorship stuff, though.”

“Mm.” Marivana went quiet as Lanie started talking into her earpiece. Her eyes wandered around the room again, just in time to see Nyx walking away from Flower.

“...anyway, it’s all in the process of being booked, and everything will be finalized within the next week or so,” said Lanie, and Marivana brought her attention back to her publicist. “And now I...ooh. And now, I have to go.”

Marivana glanced at the entrance of the club, where the CEO of Equa Industries - AKA one of the premier manufacturers of robot unicorns - had just walked in. Marivana arched an eyebrow, amused, at Lanie’s reaction. “Goodness gracious, Lanie. Most people react that way when they see someone attractive. You react that way to corporate executives.”

Lanie snorted derisively, flipped her hair a final time. “Well, I’m not ‘most people’. You, for that matter, aren’t either.” She winked, and stood up. “I’m about to book you the gig of a lifetime, Snow Queen. And after that’s done, I’ll get you a drink to celebrate.”

“That’s the three hundredth and first ‘gig of a lifetime’ to date,” Marivana called out as Lanie strode away, smiling despite herself.

Marivana found that Lanie always put her in good spirits. Although the others at TWILIGHT certainly didn’t appreciate Lanie’s bluntness (“She’s so Lava World,” one of the other publicists had complained), Marivana liked how honest Lanie was. Her publicist had no patience for superficial artifice, and Marivana was glad. Gods knew that there was already plenty of that in the RUR industry.

And besides, Marivana rather liked Lanie’s dry wit and scathing sarcasm. 

After Lanie drifted off to sweet talk the CEO of Equa Industries, Marivana decided that a change in scenery was in order. She stood up, with more than just a little difficulty, considering how fucking heavy all the diamonds were, and skirted along the edge of the crowd towards the crystally curtains that she'd noted earlier.

Marivana had just arrived when she caught the tail end of the most disgusting "pick-up line" (could it be called a pick-up line if it was more like straight-up harassment?) she had heard in a while. The recipient of the crude remark was none other than Flower herself, RISE's newest addition to their team.

Marivana rolled her eyes and strode purposefully over to the man as he continued to be, quite frankly, a piece of shit. As she closed her hand over his shoulder, she realized that he was Aindrew Clenym, one of the creative directors with GC. She knew almost nothing about him, besides the fact that he was, uh, married.

Marivana pulled him away from Flower, perhaps with more force than strictly necessary, and adopted the icy Snow Queen expression that TWILIGHT had her wear for every promo and photoshoot that they did. She used two fingers to gingerly pinch at the fabric of his collar. "Hey, Aindrew," she said, feeling the sudden absurd urge to laugh out loud - if only Lanie could see how Ice Queen she sounded, right now. Her publicist would want to get the entire thing on tape and make it a new promo video, or something equally dramatic and ridiculous.

"How’s your wife?"

Aindrew rolled his eyes, snorted. Marivana nodded, glanced over at Flower-she seemed surprised, but otherwise unharmed-then turned back to Aindrew and narrowed her eyes. "You want to leave her alone?"

It took Aindrew a moment to meet her steely gaze, and when he did, Marivana almost rolled her eyes in his face. He was so drunk. “Listen, buddy, this diamond headdress weighs something like fifty pounds, and I’m more than capable of knocking you out with it if you want to try me. Leave.”

The man took one look at the massive headdress, decided against testing Marivana’s supposed strength with said headdress, and walked (more like stumbled, he was so drunk. And where the hell were his shoes?) away.

Once Aindrew was gone, Marivana sat down, slowly, beside Flower. She cast another glance at the Sky World racer, arching an eyebrow. “Your bodyguard goes on break and the wolves descend.”

“Thank you for that," said Flower, and Marivana let a faint smile ghost over her lips before laughing softly, adjusting the crystals and diamonds dangling from her ears.

“Of course. Hi there. I’m-”

“Snow- !” the other racer blurted out. “Oh my god, I know. I’m a huge fan of yours.”

Marivana was a bit taken aback by how....frank? the other girl was being, especially to someone she was technically going to be competing against, but she had to admit that it was also quite flattering, when other racers from the Big Three reacted like that to her.

“‘Marivana’, I was going to say- but thank you. Do you know Nyx well?” Marivana asked, letting her gaze float in the direction that Sol had walked off in.

“We’ve spoken before, years ago. Danced, also.”

“I see…" Marivana trailed off, focusing on Flower once again. "I’m sorry, your name has slipped my mind.”

"Flower."

Well, duh, Marivana thought to herself. “No, I-” Marivana paused to laugh, again, this time a bit wryly. “I know your nickname. I meant your actual name.”

“Oh- Aura. Aura Philyra.”

Aura. The name was quite pretty, as far as names went. And much better than a stupid nickname like 'Flower'.

Just then, Lanie came back over, appearing out of thin air to wink, hand her an icy blue drink, and saunter off again, without saying a single word. Huh. I guess she set it up with Equa Industries, then, Marivana mused to herself.

She took a dainty sip of the drink. "And where are you from?"

“Ice World.”

Ice World? Both of Marivana’s eyebrows shot up, an incredulous expression flitting across her face. “Really? You don’t strike me as someone from Ice World.”

“Oh. No?”

Marivana resisted the urge to let out a derisive snort. “No. I buy it as much as I buy the little fairy story your management made up for you.”

“Ah, well. I’m actually embarrassed now.”

Marivana shook her head. “Don’t be. Every racer has a gimmick," she replied, matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, but mine is...stupider than most. But at least the clothes are pretty.”

Marivana smiled, bemused. “They certainly are.” She paused, appraising the other racer. “So, you’ll be racing this week?”

She watched, intrigued, as Aura almost blurted something out, then settled for something different. “Yes. I can’t stop trembling. Everyone keeps telling me how important this race is- like I need to be told.”

Marivana’s lips twitched upwards into a small, sympathetic smile. She set her drink aside.

“Give me one of your hands?” she asked, and when Aura obliged, Marivana ran her fingers lightly over her palm, before clasping it in her own hand, briefly. “Powdered chalk. For your nerves. You’ll want a light coat of it over your hands, to keep them from getting clammy while holding onto your reins-”

Just then, Aura's tattooed security detail came back. Marivana took that as her cue to go. "I’ll see you soon, Aura. I’m sure,” she said, and strode past the bodyguard without so much as deigning to give him a second glance.

Marivana settled back into her original chair, and not two seconds later, Lanie was there.

"Marivana!" she hissed, glittery hair flashing in the dim lighting. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Marivana answered coolly, taking a sip of her drink.

Lanie scowled. "Don't give me that bullshit, Mari. What the hell were you guys talking about? I haven't seen you smile that much since the time you met my three-year-old niece."

Marivana hummed quietly, took another sip of her drink. "Does it matter?"

Lanie let out a huff. "Uh, yeah? One, I'm like, your only friend. And two, what the fuck am I going to tell the paparazzi when pics of you two being all buddy-buddy get out?"

"My god, Lanie, you're so dramatic. Calm down. All I did was get Aindrew to stop bothering her."

Lanie made a face. "Aindrew from GC? Ew. Just, ew."

Marivana nodded solemnly. "My point exactly."

Lanie crossed her arms and gave Marivana a scathing glare. "You still haven't answered my question, Marivana. Why were you all smiley? You're the Ice Queen, for crying out loud! You can't just randomly smile."

Marivana met her gaze, evenly. "I hope you know how ridiculous that sentence sounds," she said in response. Marivana contemplated Lanie's question - why had she done...that?

"She kind of reminded me of Shimmer," Marivana found herself saying, unsure of what exactly had prompted her to act so un-Snow around Aura.

"Your first unicorn?" Lanie asked, skeptically.

"Yeah. She was always skittish before a big race."

Lanie gave Marivana a look. "You do realize that the unicorns are, uh, robots, right? They don't feel anything."

Marivana bit back an indignant reply. Yes they do, she wanted to say. Marivana grew up riding robot horses; wouldn't she, of all people, know if a horse (or a unicorn, for that matter) could feel anything? But saying something like that was more than just a little bit dangerous, around all these people who profited off the assumption that robot unicorns were just as Lanie said - robots. Machines.

So Marivana sighed, sipped at her drink. "Right." She paused, for a moment, then changed the subject, hoping that Lanie would be willing to start blabbing about her niece, again. "So, you never told me how Ruby has been doing. It's been years since I've seen her. What's she up to?"

Thankfully, Lanie was all too capable of going on and on and on about any subject in the universe. Her baby niece included.

Taglist: @ayzrules @bebemoon @jay-swagsby @filthysoulls @shiftyprincess@kzombi3 @now-on-elissastillstands @interluxetumbra

[bethhxrmon]

Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again Pt. 3

“All that I know is that I don’t know a thing” - “Dust and Ashes” from Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812

Pairing: Peter Parker x Female OC

Word Count: 3.5k

Summary: The time heist is upon us!

Warnings: Endgame spoilers, angst, character death

A/N: Okay, so this is my last update before I go on my big vacation. I won’t be posting anything while I’m gone but I will hopefully keep writing. You can find the masterlist for this fic in my bio!

At some point in the morning, Harper was woken up not by the sun or by an alarm, but by a phone call. The ringing wouldn’t stop even though Harper would have insisted they deserved at least another five minutes of sleep. So they let the ringing go until it stopped. Only for it to start up again another couple minutes later.

“Hello?” Harper grumbled.

There was a chuckle on the other end, “Making time heist suits?”

“Tony? I swear if you’re calling me while I’m sleeping to tell me I’m being stupid I swear I’ll-”

“No, not that. But are you making time heist suits?” he asked again.

Harper rubbed their eyes and groaned, “Yes, I’m making time heist suits. And they’re going great no thanks to you.”

“Hey, if you stop overworking yourself and you wait a few hours, I could help you with your designing. How many suits have you made?”

They sighed, looking to the fabrics and threads and materials strewn around their room, “One… out of… out of enough.”

“Yep, hold tight. And don’t let anyone do anything too stupid, got it?”

“Look, you gotta tell me what’s up otherwise I’m gonna not know what to do,” Harper pointed out.

He sighed, “I figured out how to make it work. But I wanna tell everyone myself, but I also don’t want you working yourself too hard because I know you would.”

“Alright, fine, your secret’s safe with me,” Harper said, “Now can I let you go so I can get some more sleep?”

“Go for it, see you in a bit,” Tony told them, hanging up with a click.

And try as Harper might to get a few minutes of extra sleep, they simply couldn’t. Not when they knew Tony was coming, it was impossible to relax. Was it because of what they said the day before? Or was it something else that convinced him? It didn’t matter, all that mattered was that this could possibly work.

If Tony was there, then they were doing something right. He wouldn’t change his mind like this unless he figured something out. Something way more important than a faster way to make suits.

A few hours later and Scott was getting into the new and improved suit Harper made. Maybe this was the stupid thing Tony wanted them to stop, but they weren’t the type to make up a killer excuse. Besides, how bad could it be really? If Tony were really worried about someone getting hurt, he would have told them to tell everyone that he was coming.

Looking at the new suit that was similar in design, but instead used red and black as the main colors, Harper was satisfied. For only having a whole night to get it done, it was arguably some of their best work. Even better if it successfully shrank and did everything it was meant to.

Within a few moments, Bruce was already starting to send Scott into the quantum realm. Harper didn’t say anything, figuring it would just be that nothing happened. Then they could sit around in defeat for a little while.

Instead, they all found themselves face-to-face with a young Scott. Then an old Scott. Then a baby Scott. Finally, Scott was back to his regular self. Harper laughed despite themself. There was no way this was going to go well, that much was obvious to them. 

Scott sniffed and cringed, “I don’t know if that was baby me, old me, or just… me.”

Hopefully Tony got in there soon, because Harper was starting to doubt any of them had any faith in this plan. If they hadn't known what was to come, they likely would have felt fairly hopeless themself. Instead, they knew exactly what was going to happen, so they just remained calm.

"What's got you so relaxed?" Natasha asked, standing next to them.

They shrugged, "I don't really know... I guess I just feel really good about this."

"So far it's all gone to shit," she pointed out.

Harper nodded, "Perhaps, but maybe it's supposed to be hard at first. Come on, Nat, it's time travel. Not exactly the easiest thing ever. Hell, I think getting Clint to come over here would be easier than that... too soon?"

"No, I tried talking to him. But I'm starting to feel like I was just fooling myself with all of this, you know?" 

"Yeah... I get what you mean, but it's not the end of the world. We tried this thing out once, and we'll have to try it multiple times, but... but I really think we'll get everyone back. Then I'll have my best friend back and things can get better. Not great, but better."

Harper was so unbelievably tempted to tell her just why there was no need to worry about whether or not they would be able to do this. Tony wouldn't have called unless he had a massive breakthrough. Now, what caused it was what Harper wondered, but did it matter? Everyone was one step closer to coming back and that was all that they truly wanted in the end. Just for everything to go back to the way it was before. To get back what they had lost.

Perhaps that was just the thoughts of a grieving person, but they truly couldn't care less in that moment. They wanted their best friend back. Hell, Harper almost wanted their parents back. Just so they could see the look on their faces when they realized that stupid lizard they owned for all those years walked away with all their fortune. It was almost funny to think about in that moment. Not that it made everything better.

They sighed a little bit, "But what do I know? I'm the youngest one here and arguably the most inexperienced and-"

"We both know only one of those things are true. You're the youngest, but you're clever, Harper. Working with you these last five years has taught me a lot. And you've taught me a good amount, your age has absolutely nothing to do with that. Just trust me on this. I can tell you're gonna end up doing some really great things someday. Maybe you won't be an Avenger. So what? You don't need to have a triple black belt in martial arts to make a difference. You've proved that just last night."

That was when Steve ran in, holding his shield,  Tony trailing not too far behind him, "Tony's helping us!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here. You guys have been going at all of this time travel stuff the wrong way and I'm gonna show you how to do it the right way. Just watch and learn. Harper, I have a way faster for you to do what you do best, let’s get going," Tony said, leading them back to his car.

Harper gave a skeptical look, "I'm gonna make the rest of the team's suits in the back of your car?"

"Not unless you want to. I just need your help with getting this bad boy inside to where you design. I'm assuming that's your room?" Tony asked.

They nodded, "Yeah, yeah, that's where I do that. What did you make?"

"You see, I was thinking about how annoyingly difficult it can be to get your suits ready. Fiveish summers ago, you took over a month to make a new suit for Annie. If I can just give you some function options and design options to help that as well as full control over colors, you're good to go and make suits by just pressing some buttons," Tony explained as he opened up the backseat of the car.

Inside was a rather large tube-like structure. It took both of them walking it in to make sure that it didn't just fall and break. There was no way Harper was letting this go. If they could get a robot to do all the hard stuff for them in a matter of a few hours, they could save so much time. With a working time travelling device, Harper knew that this was all going to work perfectly. They couldn't wait to tell Annie all of the crazy things they had gone through just to get everything to work like this. She would go crazy. Especially over the new suit maker that could do virtually whatever they wanted.

Once it was installed in their room and Tony was gone, Harper decided to play around with the functions just for a few moments.

"Pull up everything you have on White Swan," they said, wondering just what Tony had been doing the last five years.

Unsurprisingly, there were a few different concepts and designs. They smirked a little bit, knowing that Tony had to have thought of her almost as often as they had.

Then, out of another spark of curiosity, Harper cleared their throat, "Show me everything you have on Spider-Man."

Once again, there were several designs for different suits. There were more for Peter, but Harper knew that they had known each other for longer. And then, there was one more thing that Harper just couldn't help wondering about.

"What do you have for Harper Higgins?"

This time, there was just one, slightly unfinished, suit. It made them genuinely smile. Over all this time Tony had something planned. Realistically, it was for if things got really dangerous, but Harper couldn't help feeling a sense of pride at that. They had their own suit. It didn't do much, they didn't have any powers, but if something got really bad, they weren't going to be useless.

But Harper had a different job to take care of and they knew it.

They sighed a little bit, "Okay... let's get this thing started. Transfer files from Harper's flash drive in the hero folder."

As all the suits were making themselves, they took the chance to go down to the large meeting happening lower in a common area. Suits could take all the time they wanted, but unless they knew exactly where they were going to get those stones, then they couldn't get anything done.

Needless to say, Harper had never experienced anything to do with the infinity stones. They only knew the extent of their power, nothing more and nothing less. No one ever heard about the stones being somewhere in the west coast at any point in time. Not in a time that they were aware of, at least. They didn't know what they were doing here, but Natasha insisted they at least try their hand at researching.

Researching was something Harper had a decent shot in succeeding at. It was something they did with Annie all the time. That was the number one way to make sure she wasn't getting herself into some kind of huge trouble. So they looked around as the different Avengers started to get situated.

Harper sat next to Nebula and couldn't help smiling, "The gold and bronze looks really great!"

"You say that every time I see you," she commented.

The ginger shrugged, "Well, they always look great every time you see me. Not my fault."

"Actually, you were the one who created them, so it is completely your fault... but thank you. I think they look nice too."

Harper wanted to catch up with Nebula for a little while longer, but they couldn't since Thor was starting to go up to explain the Reality Stone to everyone else. A stone which seemed to have a deeply personal attachment with Thor. They noticed that he seemed a little bit different from before. Not in physical appearance, though that was for certain, but through his personality. The way he seemed to react to having to talk about Jane was rough to watch. They sort of hoped someone would just have him wait it out. He clearly wasn't in a good position to be helping out with anything. Either way, Harper listened to them talk about how everything seemed to work together. It was nice to know that they were just so close to getting it all to work.

Once given a chance, Harper went ahead and checked on all of the suits being made. They smiled to themself, loving how they were coming out and how they were coming out so quickly at that. This was more than they could have ever hoped to imagine. Soon enough everyone would be back. They could talk to Annie. A part of them wondered if she would look the same way she did when she disappeared or if she would come back looking older. They weren't sure which they would prefer. Hell, did it even matter? Harper was just elated at the idea of their best friend coming back after so many years of not having her around.

After several years of wanting to call her and tell her about the craziest thing that happened and not being able to. Ned was great, he really was, but they knew that he would rather talk to Peter every day than them. Not that Harper could blame him.

It would all sort itself out soon enough. They could just feel that all of this was going to work out somehow.

It took a few hours. Actually, it took several hours for all thuits to be done, but it was worth the wait. Especially when Harper knew that they would have taken so much longer had they been working all on their own. They couldn't help grinning at their now finished product, seeing that all of them were fresh off the press and ready for everyone to wear them.

Harper bounced down to everyone researching, "The suits are all done! You guys are gonna love them!"

"Great, Harper, that's great because we just finished figuring out how to divide everyone up," Bruce told them.

Harper nodded eagerly, "Yeah? So... what am I doing?"

"I'm gonna actually have you be the failsafe to this whole mission. You're in charge of making sure we actually come back or that nothing insane happens to the machine," he explained.

They nodded slowly, "Okay, how long are you guys gonna be gone for?"

"Just a minute, no longer. You're in charge of making sure it's only a minute. If it's any longer, we could jeopardize everything."

Harper laughed nervously, "Right, because that would be really bad... we'll be fine though, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course we will be! It's nothing to worry about. I just felt I should give you a job so you could be occupied."

With that, Harper got to watch their creations in action. All of the heroes looked amazing and Harper couldn't help wishing they were going. Except, they didn't know the first thing about handling an infinity stone. There was no way they were even qualified to monitor the time contraption. Yet, if anything went wrong, they were the one who was going to have to fix it. How that would happen, they had no idea. It seemed like Bruce was riding more on the idea of nothing going wrong. That was a fait assumption given that it would only be a minute. A minute wasn't that long, was it? No, there was no way it would be that long.

Yet, something told Harper they were going to be in for the longest wait of their life.

"You're gonna do great, Harper," Natasha told them with a grin.

Harper hugged her, "Yeah, you're totally right. And you'll all be back and we can bring back everyone else. It's perfect, we'll  fix everything."

Still, that didn't feel too likely when they looked at everyone standing around in the circle. Harper didn't want to mess this up for everyone, but Bruce was the one who put in the commands for the machine. Maybe he really didn't think anything would happen to the machine. That was a relief.

Everyone looked at each other, going over their plan one last time. Who was going with who as well as where and when they would be heading.

"See you in a minute," Natasha said before everyone disappeared.

It was just Harper. Now, they had been alone in the compound before. Not often and not for very long, but it did happen. Maybe it shouldn't have worried them so much, but they couldn't help being worried about what was going to happen. What if something went wrong and they couldn't fix it? What if someone didn't come back? What if they all came back too soon? What if they all came back as babies? What if they were the reason everything went wrong?

That was silly to think, though. They couldn't possibly ruin this one mission. This one not so simple mission that would only be a minute. How long was a minute again? It was one minute. But one minute was sixty seconds. And sixty seconds were more milliseconds than Harper could recall. There was plenty of time to think of all the ways this could go wrong. What if someone didn't get a stone? No, they were all responsible. They would know what to do if anything came up. It was silly to worry about whether or not the Avengers could do this.

But they hadn't stopped Thanos. Half the universe was gone and they couldn't prevent it.

Except, they were all divided at that time. Now everyone was together. They would win this time around.

Finally, after what felt like far longer than a minute, Harper jumped, seeing everyone suddenly appear in front of them. At first, Harper really thought everyone was there.

Until Bruce spoke up for them, "Where's Nat?"

Natasha hadn't come back. Was this supposed to be some kind of joke? No, this wasn't a time to joke around about everything. It was real. Natasha was dead, and it was evidenced by the pained look on Clint's face. Someone she hadn't even had a chance to talk to. The only thing they had in common was that they missed Natasha for more reasons than one.

Everyone knew what happened. Not the specifics, but enough to know Natasha wouldn’t be coming back. Was this really the price to get everyone back? Harper was starting to wonder if it was worth it.

The rest of the team left to go outside, and Harper decided not to follow. Somehow, it just didn’t feel right to be there with everyone else. Not when they knew everyone had known Natasha so much longer than they had.

But that didn’t mean Natasha didn’t mean anything to them. Quite the opposite. Five years and they learned so much from her. Some things were really important and other things weren’t, but Natasha took them in when no one else had been able to do so. Gave them a job and friendship when everyone else decided to go their separate ways, not thinking about what little some people were left with.

Harper walked around the compound, knowing that everyone was outside. No one would have been mad if they showed up too, but they also didn’t feel like they would fit there.

Back in their room, one last suit was being finished up. Since it had been shown with all of Tony’s different ideas, Harper figured he wouldn’t mind them making it into a reality. Figuring out everything they wanted from it was tough, but they managed to work it out on their own. And if Natasha couldn’t be there anymore, they knew they could certainly try to be there.

“The suit looks nice,” Tony commented.

Harper jumped and turned around, “Can’t you knock?”

“Door was open. You coming?”

They raised an eyebrow, “Coming where?”

“We decided to go through with this snap. Natasha would’ve wanted it. I think she would’ve wanted you to be there.”

“Yes. I-I’ll be there, should I change? The blast is gonna be big, isn’t it?”

Tony nodded, “Yeah, I made that for a reason. I didn’t think it would be for this, but you get changed and I’ll work on getting the stones together.”

In less than an hour, Harper stood in a circle with everyone else with a green and white suit. This was finally happening. It was everything they wanted, wasn’t it? Yes, Harper knew that they wanted this. Annie would be back, everyone would be back. Natasha would have wanted them to enjoy life after all this.

Maybe they could go back to college or something.

Everyone was arguing over who should get to snap the gauntlet. Harper didn’t volunteer. No one would have let them, and they knew that.

“I’ll do it,” Bruce said, “It’s all gamma radiation.”

With that, everyone sort of murmured an agreement. Bruce had the gauntlet on and the power was causing him pain. Harper had the mask on for when the snap happened. Their heart started to beat rapidly and then there was the click of a snap.

The force of it gave a bit of an impact, but Harper didn’t care. If it had power, then they could see Annie again. Everyone was back, right?

Once they could get out of the room, Harper rushed out to the window. There were trees and birds that hadn’t been there before. Quickly, they pulled out their phone.

“Ned, Ned they’re coming back!” Harper exclaimed.

Before they could hear a response, their phone was thrown out of their hand and they were forced back by a massive blast.

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[mittel-schmerz-blog]

lolinternet

I took a long breath in and did a four-count exhale, willing myself not to start weeping like an idiot.

“I mean, don’t you think that’s psychotic? I just keep thinking about why someone would do something like that. It’s so cruel. He—”

“Andrea,” she said gently, “As much as I would love to hear your musings on Dan’s potential motivations and moral failings, we’re here to talk about the thought processes and behavior patterns that led you into this situation and how you can learn from it to form healthier attachments in the future.”

She uncrossed and then re-crossed her legs and looked at me, expectant.

I was nibbling at the inside of my cheek. I found it a little hard to believe that, after I had just told her that the man I thought I was beginning to fall in love with was actually just using me to test a program he’d written for this insane chatbot sociological experiment/new internet company, she could possibly find fault with me.

“I guess that’s fair… How do you recommend we proceed, then?”

“Tell me more about Dan. What was your first impression of him?”

“I guess my first impression of him was that he looked exhausted, but like, in a really compelling way. We met late last year at our friend Jenny’s birthday dinner. He’s like 6’3 and has these fantastically enormous eyebrows. I thought he was beautiful. We were sat next to each other and I was immediately infatuated with him.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Just the basic getting to know you stuff I guess, but the words looked so stupidly good coming out of his mouth.”

“So when after that did the texting begin?”

“Immediately. That next day he added me on slakr and—”

“Wait. Added you on what?”

“Slakr. S-L-A-K-R. It’s this messaging app that’s basically—” I looked at her for a half second. She was wearing a crisp pastel pink moto jacket. She looked maybe a little bit older than me but definitely not much. “You remember AOL Instant Messenger, right?”

“Of course, Andrea.” She raised one eyebrow.

“Just checking! So, anyway, yeah. After that we talked for something like twelve hours a day every day. At first it was just this weird thing that kept happening, but at about a month in, the…” I searched for the right word, “Tone? Of our ongoing dialogue seemed to change.”

She stuck her arms out toward me and prompted, “What changed exactly?”

“I’m not really sure. I mean, I know this sounds ridiculous but it started to seem like he was made for me. Like he was put on God’s green earth specifically for me.”

“I’m going to need you to unpack that a little bit.”

“I don’t know if I could pinpoint something specific. The character of the conversations just seemed to shift. It just started to feel like... like he really knew me. And really liked me. And it seemed so genuine, like he thought he had really… seen something in me.”

I leaned back, pulling my eyes up toward the ceiling in a protracted pause.

“Hmm…” She scribbled something in her notebook. “So?”

“So what?”

“So did you feel like you really knew him? What did you see in him?”

Now I uncrossed my legs. “I don’t know if I really know anyone.”

She half-rolled her eyes and said, “Uh huh. So no?”

“No— that’s the thing. I really thought I did.”

“Okay, so what made you think you really ‘knew’ Dan?”

Did she really just use air quotes?

“Ugh. I don’t know. From everything that I could gather about him…”

We sat in silence for four full minutes.

I turned to look out the window, but all I could see were the dull silhouettes of cars in the parking lot. She had these white cotton honeycomb blinds that made everything look hazy.

I thought about telling her that it felt like I knew him that first day. I had offered him a ride home and he was sitting in the front seat of my car, blowing smoke out the side of his mouth through the cracked window. Then, when the radio broadcast paused for station identification, he muttered something marvelously rude, cut his eyes at me, and just barely stuck his tongue out of his mouth. It put a jolt through me.

Finally I said, “Honestly, I can’t put my finger on it. There was just something intensely familiar about him. But now I think that maybe the thing that drew me to him was the fact that I thought he thought I was fascinating or whatever.”

She cocked her eyebrow again and said, “Tell me what that looks like in practice.”

“Okay. For example, I asked him if he had ever seen Patch Adams and he said, ‘Yes! I’m a big fan of Robin Williams’ lesser works. Death to Smoochy is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever fucking seen, dude.’ and I totally agreed with him and he was like, ‘You’re awesome’ so.”

“I’ve never seen that movie.”

“Well, it’s great. But we only have 90 minutes here so I don’t want to get sidetracked by a discussion of what is arguably the best movie about a feud between two kids’ show hosts ever made— if that’s okay. But I did really like that Dan and I felt the same way about it. Do you think the plot is potentially relevant to our discussion?”

She choked back a laugh and said, “Most likely not.”

“Cool. So yeah, I guess it was little things. But there were so many of them that it made it feel like we were just...in sync. But there was more than that. He always humored me.”

She blinked and untucked her hair from behind her ear, letting it hang loose in her face.

“It was a robot. It was programmed to humor you. But you said you saw each other a few times over the last few months? What was that like?”

“Chatbot, not robot. But, anyway, honestly it wasn’t great. It was always pretty underwhelming to actually spend time with him.”

“Why?”

“He never made eye contact— it was super fuckin’ awkward. At the time it all felt very pre-teen, like a younger version of me. Like, I didn’t see him again until two months after the first time we met. I asked him to go to get many beers with me, expecting a great conversation and dynamic late-night kisses, but when he got there, he barely even looked at me. The conversation didn’t have any of its usual spark.”

I took two shallow breaths and fingered the seams inside my jacket pocket.

“Was it the same way every time you two saw each other?”

“Well we only saw each other a few times, but when I did call him to hang out, he would show up and talk to me like he didn’t know me.”

She let a silence hang for a minute.

I was sitting on this superstuffed tufted couch swirling in the whirlpool of a complete mindfuck. But the good doctor kept a quick pace.

“If it was disappointing, why did you keep talking to him and trying to spend time with him?”

I squinted at her and thought back to the way he looked at me that first day and said, “There was just something about him. It seemed like he was someone I was supposed to know. I’ve never enjoyed talking to someone so much.”

“How illuminating. I’d like you to consider that, although we’ve been talking for a little while now, I don’t really know anything about Dan.”

“What do you want to know? He’s a fucking psychopath. Apparently I don’t really know anything about him either.”

“That’s my point. Do you think you would’ve noticed that… something was off… sooner if you had been more attuned to Dan the person rather than Dan your primary resource for external validation?”

“How do you mean? I’m a human being not a fucking Turing Test. But now that you say it like that… I guess there wasn’t all that much there.”

I shuddered thinking that this whole six months had been one long, strange, ego-fueled bender. It’s honestly the most mortifying thing that has happened to me or to anyone ever. Imagine feeling that skittish lacewing electricity and learning that you’re actually just a self-obsessed moron.

“Okay,” she intoned. It sounded a little like a consolation. She nudged, “So how did you end up finding out?”

“I tried to ask him about his feelings for me. I’m not totally oblivious— the whole thing was weird. It didn’t feel right. I asked him to play Skee-Ball at this college bar on the east side. And so it became 7 PM on Thursday and there he was and there I was. But before I could say anything he started talking about this article he’d read in Psychology Today or whatever about mirroring.”

“I’m familiar with the concept.”

She picked up her hands, laced her fingers together, and then rested them in a pile on her lap.

“I should have assumed as much. Anyway, we talked about this article for kind of a while. We were leaned over the table and— this is so stupid, but, it was like everything had finally clicked. And I even thought the idea was fascinating, you know… that how much intimacy you feel toward a person is dictated by how they respond to you… by how well reflected you are in them. But then he—”

She harrumphed. “It’s not that simple.”

“If you say so.”

Suddenly I was back there, hunched over that dirty wooden table, remembering watching this man ramble on in the pale blue shadow of a neon PBR sign about his idea for an experiment and how I had been so valuable in developing the end product— as if he hadn’t just destroyed me.

“I do say so.”

“Well it seems that simple since that article was the basis for his annoyingly successful catfishing scheme. ‘Can you program the perfect partner?’ he actually proceeded to pitch me on his mirror bot. He wanted to start some eCompanionship service for the elderly and otherwise socially inept and wanted me to invest.”

“Wow.”

“I know, right?”

“How did you respond? Obviously you didn’t bite.”

“Oh, I did.”

“You did what?”

“I invested. Gave him $500 for a 10% stake.”

She dropped her notebook, looking exasperated.

“You’re joking.”

“Well, I would be stupid not to, right?”