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whowrotethenote · 4 months ago

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Warnings // Angst // Grief // Profanity // Talk of death and murder

Word count // 7.8k

Disclaimer // The Tribal Killer Masterlist // Chapter One // Chapter Three // Roman Reigns Masterlist // Main Masterlist //Join My Taglist

The atmosphere in the dimly lit cigar lounge was nothing if not grown and sexy. Seductive and luxuriate. The exact space where surgeons, finance guys, CEOs and anyone else who wore designer suits to work—ironed to a trace of no flaws—went to bide their unwinding after a stressful day.

The usuals scattered about. At the bar, seated in the booths or standing at the high tables that were dressed in pristine white cloths vacant of any stain or wrinkle. White collar hustlers and whoever they report to. Men and women in pantsuits of all colors. Black, brown, blue, grey—and sleek as all hell despite the wear and tear that comes with working enduring hours in the city. Suit jackets most likely hanging off the back of their chairs or left in the car altogether. Dress shirts unbuttoned and ties loosened.

Cathedral-like ceiling with nostalgic decor and timeless paintings splattered on the walls. The buzz of enlightening chatter and glasses clinking on the bar top, being dished out in almost a robotic fashion—all leveled out by the live jazz band. That earthy and almost leather scent of Mayan Cigars, mixed with the cologne and perfume you could only find in stores where the workers get paid on commission.

In a less than quiet corner of it all, sat two young women. Breaking through to their late twenties, and trying to navigate in a world where the odds were stacked against them. They clinked wine glasses for the third time that evening, drawing attention from nearby patrons. A bustling force they were. They could have been as quiet as church mouses, and still would’ve captivated the attention of the room. Young, vivacious, and hungry as hell in spirit.

A single lamp and two lit candles set up on the table before them, illuminated their exotic beauty.

“So,” Naomi started. Cheeks burning with anticipation as she set the wine glass down. “I met another guy.”

She had been waiting all week for this. It’s tradition. Every Friday night, they’d meet. Same spot—same time if their schedules allowed it.

Their worlds collided in law school just five years prior. Both interpreting the world through roseate eyes, despite being two women of color sneaking through the backdoors of a predominantly white-male dominated field.

They yearned for the same things out of this little life. Access, a bank account that was never in short of commas, and to earn a name for themselves that would supersede the surnames of their fathers. Two paths that outside of law school, would’ve never intercepted one another in the way it did—despite them growing up just two hours from each other. Naomi pushed to the outskirts, due to her heritage—loved to hear the recounts of how Juno grew up. In the big and kinetic city of Detroit. But as of late their roles had changed. It was now Juno who became the listener. She marveled at the endless tales Naomi would relay to her about the men she intertwined herself with—for almost every reason outside of love.

Juno’s eyebrows rose to her hairline. She should’ve been used to this by now. It's not an abnormal confession coming from the lips of Naomi. In fact, it's usually the ritual that comes before the night takes that juicy turn. Right after the routinely and courtesy, how have you beens—what’s new at work—or how’s your family questions.

Every man that tangled themselves within her web was different from the last with only one shared trait amongst them. Wealth.

“Another one? I thought we were happy with the law guy?”

Naomi waved a French manicured hand. “Oh, he’ll be fine. He won’t even notice if he shares me. Believe me, he has more than enough on his plate.”

“So what does this one do? Or should I say which skyscraper does he work in?”

They never addressed her collection of men by name. Always by occupation instead. Mostly because the bulk of them were either unhappily married or just too high-risk for Naomi to proudly attach herself to. Controversial and problematic politicians. High ranking officials who over the years earned themselves a significant amount of enemies. Men seeking out the company of a young beautiful woman who didn’t mind cutting ties at any given moment. Naomi was a middle-aged man’s dream.

She grabbed her friend’s hand after another sip of wine. “That’s the thing, friend. There is no skyscraper.”

Juno’s perfectly lined eyebrows shot to her hairline. “Excuse me?”

Naomi nodded with a cheeky grin. “That’s right. This one is…different. Definitely not my usual type.” She quickly surveyed the room. The band and consistent chatter concealed anything being transpired between the two, but still a girl could never be too careful. So, she leaned in closer. “He’s a truck driver.”

“A truck driver.” She repeated the words back to her in a flat tone, waiting for her to reveal it was a joke, but all she got back was that equally wicked and innocent grin only Naomi could give. “And where the hell did you two cross paths?”

“He was bringing in supplies and stuff for the office.”

Juno entertained the idea, but she knew her friend. She was into prominent men. Men whose last names held weight. Men who could get her to where she dreamed of ending up. Normal guys—normal anything wasn’t Naomi’s taste. It just wasn’t in character. Whatever spell the ordinary truck diver had enchanted her with, would be gone in a matter of time. A few more good quick fucks and she knew it’d be back to regular programming.

Judgement wasn’t a factor within this friendship. Understanding took its place. As a black woman, Juno recognized the struggle of having to break down doors that were locked and always being looked at as if she didn’t belong. Naomi being a Native and growing up on the Isabella Reservation, these same adversities had attached themselves to her life. It seems the rest of the world got away with mediocracy, while they had to be exceptional just to be considered. The game was rigged. So, if her friend had to cut corners and break rules, then so be it. She was standing ten toes behind her.

“When I saw him,” she continued, “I couldn’t take my fucking eyes off of him.” Her big lakes of brown seemed to grow wider as she relived the first moments of seeing him. “I could see his back muscles through his shirt. Ju his arms—oh my god, you would’ve melted. He looks like one of those fallen Demigods kicked out of Olympus or something. The literal definition of tall, dark and handsome.”

“He sounds like a literal character. You sure you didn’t imagine him?”

“I thought I was imagining him. Until he caught me staring and said something to me.”

“What did he say?” Juno teased in a hushed tone.

“‘You must like what you see, sweet butt.’”

“Ugh!” Juno recoiled earning a hearty laugh from her friend. “Fantasy over. Fucking forget it.”

“I know—I know. But trust me—I couldn’t even focus on what was coming out of his mouth. I was too busy picturing him naked. And his eyes—oh, his eyes, Ju. There’s something very dark and dangerous about them, yet so innocent and luring. I don’t think I ever saw a more beautiful man up close like that.”

“He’s from the Reservation?”

She shook her head. “He lived there for a while he said, but he was born not too far from you.”

“Miss Nodin, are you dipping into chocolate again?”

A red hue casted over her small face. “No, he’s not black,” she confirmed. “I’m not sure what he is actually. Maybe from the islands? He has tribal tattoos. He’s older too.”

“Of course. How much older?”

“Late thirties,” she answered. Juno bore a hole into the side of her face. She was going to make her ask.

“I know you hit already.” Naomi failed miserably at trying to conceal the grin with another sip of wine. “On a scale of one to ten?” She pressed.

“…Fifty. The scale has been broken.”

“God bless you—and the truck driver.”

“It was weird though.” Naomi’s energy shifted from her natural ray of sunshine to something else, as she picked at the left over Caesar salad on her plate. “He wouldn’t let me touch him.” Juno’s eyebrows turned down. “He tied my hands up. At first, I thought it was just this kinky thing. BDSM and all that. But then after when he untied me, I tried to touch him and he almost lost his shit.” Juno’s face cinched as she listened intently. Naomi shook her head and waved. “I don’t know. Men are weird.”

“That they are. Remember Reese?” Both women burst into a fit of laughter.

“Yes! How could I forget? Neat Freak Reese. He used to make me shower before and after.”

“I told you your labia was going to fall off from all that damn scrubbing.” They leaned in closer, releasing the last of their giggles.

“Oh god,” she expressed. She grabbed the wine glass once more—the corners of her lips lifted like her spirit as she eyed her friend.

“What?” Juno battled a smile of her own.

Naomi shook her head. “Nothing. I just love you. That’s all,” she confessed at a whisper. Even though it wasn’t a secret. She just had grown so enamored with their bond in that moment. She hadn’t felt her best that week. Work was—well work. And she was having the normal battle with her mother that all girls do at that age eventually. When are you going to settle down and get married? Jumped with all these questions surrounding her future. Naomi had no longing in her heart to start a family. She had trouble most days just getting out of bed and doing for herself. A silent battle she kept hidden. To everyone else, she was the ray of sunshine tasked with lighting the entirety of Michigan up. She couldn’t fathom the burden of having to get up everyday and cater to children and a man she vowed to love forever. It was too far fetched.

She thought most of her adulthood that something might’ve been wrong with her. Why was she always running into so many more hurdles unlike her peers who seemed to be gliding through life? Why didn’t she dream of the perfect white dress and walking down the aisle to the man she couldn’t live without? Why didn’t she daydream of what her face might look like on a little girl? Maybe she just wasn’t made right. She chalked it up to her wires just getting crossed during childbirth. That was until she met Juno. The other half of her.

She had everything she wanted right at that table. A girl who understood her—seen her. To be seen and understood is to be loved. She didn’t need nor want for anything else except that which she already found in Juno. Men were just these beings to have fun with and satisfy her sexually and financially.

They clinked glasses for the fourth time that evening. Hearts full and worries emptied for the time being.

“I love you too.”

Juno wiped the hot tear like it was made of acid and burned her cheek. And she was burning up—inside. Her soul. Her conscience. She felt responsible. She knew the lifestyle that Naomi carried on with and she knew it would inevitably catch up with her. She just figured she had more time. More time to convince her that there might be another way—a safer solution to all of her problems.

And now she was dead. Memories. That’s all Juno had to show for the near five year friendship she shared with one of the most exhilarating human beings she had ever met. Her smile could’ve brought life back into a funeral home. Whoever sought out to end it was nothing short of pure evil. And Juno felt in her soul that she wouldn’t know rest until she sought him out.

That memory alone was enough fuel to light her fire back up. She had been sitting unmoved like she was paralyzed for nearly thirty minutes inside the parking garage of the Oakland County Prosecuting Attorney’s office. Engine still running in her Honda Accord coupe—trying to build up enough something to just go in.

Memories of the two of them—full and making something out of nothing. Laughing until their stomachs ached and reaping the benefits of their hard work in spaces others didn’t think they belonged—was like the electric shock of a defibrillator. She was doing this.

She hastily pulled the mirror down to clean up any mess she had made from crying tears she hadn’t meant to. Nothing Nars concealer couldn’t hide. She slammed it shut, grabbed her LV Neverfull and the car door slammed not long after.

Head held high to the sky—she implanted Naomi’s boisterous laugh in her membrane the whole way through the lobby—past the older receptionist that usually greets her with the warmest smile and ‘good morning,’ whose head was bowed down today instead. Heels clicking on the marble floors in pursuit of the double elevator doors. The whole way up she pictured her friend lying on the floor of her home—lifeless under the hands of someone she trusted. Not even knowing that day was going to be her last.

And when the ding of the steel doors sounded and they separated—it was Naomi’s voice whispering ‘I love you,’ that pushed her to keep walking. In the buzzing hallway—despite it being seven in the morning—amidst the ringing phones, people moving about with coffee and paperwork—it was the crime scene photo of all those poor young women that shielded her from the nasty and apprehensive stares. The chatter. People she used to go out for drinks with after a long night in the office, covering their mouths with a stack of papers to talk to another colleague, as if the papers and shifty eyes were any less indication that she was the topic of conversation.

In her own office, she rested the left over empty box on the desk, amongst the overflowing ones she had started to fill some days ago when she came in for her exit interview. She packed everything up mostly that day. All she had left was to clear the glass desk full of ornaments that gave insight to who Juno was as a person—not just as an attorney. The framed graduation picture. She stood all smiles, cap and gown, with the mock degree in hand—in between her mother and father. Her older sister beside their father with her oldest niece on her hip—pacifier stuffed in her mouth.

The sun shone down on them that day. One of the most memorable days of her life. Everyone in the picture had cried at least once that day—even her hard ass of a mother. Tears for Juno and all her hard work and how much further she vowed to go. Graduating from Howard wasn’t the finish line. It was the starting point to a new race.

She wondered what everyone in the picture would think of her now. Would they still be proud of her? Would they support her? Would they think she was making the worst decision of her life? Would they disown her? Doubt and the cousin of fear crept into her mind everyday since she went in to interview Roman and came out as his defense attorney. None of it had hit any of the news outlets yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time.

Especially now—after today, as she came to collect her things and move out of her office. This made it official. The exit interview and the resignation letter was one thing. Blanch had kept making it a point to remind her that it wasn’t too late to change her mind with every day that passed her by. The offer more daunting and threatening than it was comforting. But she was determined. Some called it stubbornness. Since she was younger that same bug had affected her. People doubting her and already counting her out since she was a girl. It was all the push she needed to keep going. Even if in the middle of her persistence, she realized that she may have went the wrong way, it didn’t enable her to turn back. She just couldn’t. Ten toes down was the mantra she lived by.

She laid the frame face down at the bottom of the last empty box, not entirely sure where the picture would end up now. She wouldn’t be strong enough to look at their proud smiles until she was able to bear fruit of this drastic change and present it to everyone who had a helping hand in getting her this far.

The elaborate holder of pens, pencils, highlighters and sticky notes came next. With every little movement she could feel their eyes on her. All sides of the office were glass. A change that came with Blanch’s reelection some years ago. Transparency was his motive—and transparent she definitely felt.

Three knocks had her lifting her head up from the tedious task of packing. In the doorway stood the man she spent many days in this office with. They had been hired within a year of one another. He aided in her basic training. Partied together—shared war stories from law school and failed in this very office together—while also learning from said failures together. Her colleague and who she would like to consider a friend—but she knew that ship was sinking considering the circumstances. Myles Baldwin.

“Baldwin,” is all she said after a beat. Continuing her pursuit of packing after dismissing the pity on his face. The nasty stares she could manage, but pity? No—she despised it.

“Accardi,” he greeted back. “He wants to speak with you before you go,” he informed.

“Of course he does.” She tucked her bone straight hair being her ears, scanning the room for any strays of her belongings, until she felt his presence growing closer.

“Don’t.” She didn’t even spare him a glance. She knew him all too well.

“How long, Ju?”

Her arms lowered slackly at her sides, dreading eye contact. “How long what?”

“How long have you been cooking this up?” He spoke in a hushed tone. Eyes weren’t just everywhere. There were ears too. “I know you.” His light eyes accentuated under the bright lights of her old office mixing with the natural daylight from the window—pierced her in a way she had grown immune to. “You are not a spur of the moment girl. You think about everything before you do it.”

It's not that she felt compelled to explain herself to anyone—especially no one inside these walls. She was now the enemy. But her and Myles shared a bond that transcended work hours. She felt a sense of loyalty that she only hoped he did too.

Rubbing her forehead she breathed deep. “I knew Naomi…she was my friend,” she confessed.

“Wait.” He stepped closer, closing the space between them and shielding her from anyone who was watching. “Naomi? As in Naomi Nodin? The latest victim?”

She nodded. “We went to law school together. We took two different paths afterwards, but still friends nonetheless.”

“Holy shit, Ju.” The wall of apprehension he had built before speaking to her was now decimated.

“This is personal,” she continued with a hardened jaw. “Blanch is ready to close the whole thing because of one man that knew a couple of the victims. Yeah, he was fucking Naomi. Big whomp. And I get it. Roman Anoa’i is as sketchy as they come. He’s the perfect suspect. But that’s why I’m not convinced. It was too easy. I can feel it in my heart that he’s not our guy. And I won’t stand by and watch an innocent man be executed. I couldn’t help Naomi.” She swallowed the tingle threatening to restrain her words. “But that—that I can help.”

The hand previously rested on his hips, extended outward to invite her small frame into his much larger one. No more words needed. So she accepted it. It felt like a sip of hot chocolate on a snowy day. The hug of a lover after a long stressful day at work.

Their bodies conformed to one another. His woody cologne wrapping her the same way his muscular arms had. Juno didn’t want to let go, but the reality of it all hit her. Her eyes popped open as she peaked over to the right through the glass.

“They’re staring,” she mumbled into his arm.

“So, let them. I made it very clear last week that I won’t tolerate any Juno Accardi slander in this bitch.” He pulled back with two big hands still planted on her shoulders. “You’ve done too fucking much for this office. They all know it. Regardless of how they feel about this—they can’t deny that.” After his words settled in like lotion on the skin—Juno finally nodded and he mirrored it. “He’s in a meeting now. That’s why he sent me out here to get you.”

“I’m not even his employee anymore and I’m still waiting on him. Lovely.” For a white man, Hunter Blanch sure does run on CP time. Every department meeting delayed in anticipation of his arrival. Mornings where he’s jogging in an hour behind everyone else, tie not all the way done, with the Starbucks emblemed cup serving as evidence to his tardiness.

Myles revealed his perfect smile, snickering. “Just consider it his final act of love.” In his stride to the door he looked back one final time. “Good luck, Juno.” He offered what he could now that they were officially playing for opposite teams. A minute grin and words of encouragement even if they were in vain. Because he knew just like she did, that this was not the office anyone wanted to go up against.

Juno sat in the cold and sterile waiting area outside of Blanch’s office. The grandest and most intricate of the whole building. She could see him through the glass. Hands going, glasses on the brim of his nose as he spoke with whomever was on the HP monitor.

His controversially young, Russian and very blonde, executive assistant sat behind her extensive desk—not offering any words to Juno since she sat down. It didn’t bother her. They never got along. It was no secret amongst the office that Hunter Blanch had a thing for young assistants and secretaries that his wife so redundantly made him switch out every few months. A pointless enforcement if he was going to hire a young and exotic one to his liking every time. Even if he didn’t do anything with them, everyone knew they at the very least, served as eye candy for him throughout his more than stressful workdays. It's cheating to some degree.

Juno didn’t get into anyone’s business in the office, but one too many sly remarks from the twenty-one year old new hire, implying that Juno had gotten her job from offering something to her boss, was enough to put a bad taste in her mouth about her.

No one knew the real reason she was able to snag this job so swiftly, so fresh out of law school and even after her incinerating first trial as a defense attorney. That’s how she preferred it. That reason opened a completely different door of even more controversy.

The phone rang causing Juno to jolt a little in the quieter than usual enclosed space.

“Yes…she is… okay.” She hung the phone up and continued her game of solitaire on the double monitors before her, that anyone watching would get tricked into thinking was actual hard labor. “He’s ready for you,” she announced. Not even sparing Juno a glance.

Juno laughed to herself before rising up to enter the glass doors of his office, but not before stopping to give her one last piece of her mind. “If I were you babygirl, I’d take a break from the games and start building that LinkedIn profile.” She cheesed and held her Apple Watch up. “According to Mrs. Blanch—your time is almost up here. Looks like we are both out of a job.”

“Juno,” Blanch called out with more enthusiasm than what was necessary—considering the circumstances. Something of a smirk danced on his mouth as he relaxed in his desk chair. He held a hand out. “Please, have a seat,” he offered.

She was temporarily distracted by the floor to ceiling windows behind him that gave view of the entire city. His office housed the best view in the building. Absolutely breathtaking. The exact motivation one would need to carry out the heavy burden of governing freedoms and juggling the lives of the innocent or guilty.

Concrete jungle designed with skyscrapers full of Oakland County’s finest. The hub of the working class. Everything moving and functioning as intended—only it was Juno’s life that had taken a slight pause.

Easing into one of the two leather chairs stationed in front of his desk—something dawned on her. She had faced everyone today, except the giant she dreaded most.

“Where’s Leah?”

“Well,” he started. A hand came up to relieve himself of the glasses he only used under his wife’s advisement or rather her enforcement. The name plate on his desk and on the outside of his door read Attorney General Hunter Blanch, but everyone knew who really ran shit. “She took the week off.” She nodded feeling the pang of guilt again, making her shift in the seat.

In Juno’s entire time in the DA’s office, Leah Williams had only taken off for two occasions. A mandatory leave after her breast augmentation and her late father’s funeral. Now a third time presented itself. When the young girl she took under her wing betrayed her and made her to be a fool. “It seems your new ambitions has everyone on…edge.”

A deafening silence took over his spacious office. Horns from cars intermittently filling the void of their words but the silence was louder. Juno bowed her head to fool with her manicure. Lips twisted to one side as she thought of what she would say to Leah when she saw her again. She prayed it wasn’t in the courtroom. Leah Williams was the Chief Deputy Prosecutor for a reason. She was a beast in the courtroom. Only one loss in her current role under her belt. No one had slain the beast and lived to tell the story really. That’s what made Juno’s unforeseen move that much more agonizing. She was studying under Michigan’s finest. Anyone else would’ve quite literally killed to be in her shoes and she took them off with ease it seemed. God, she really hoped someone else was taking her place. Please, anyone but Leah.

“You really are sure about this?”

“I am.” She met his intense gaze once again.

“I hope so. Cause after today…” His shoulders went up and then down with raised brows. “I can’t extend any more olive branches.”

“You keep them for someone who actually needs them.” She sealed and signed her fate.

Another long and uncomfortable silence crept into the room. Blanch squinted and rested an elbow on the armchair to smooth his growing dark beard. He analyzed Juno like he would a case study. She was exceptionally smart, ambitious and her curiosity was unyielding. She was always the one in meetings asking the questions no one else thought of. The cross her I’s and dot her T’s, no corrections needed, can recite the case front to back, kind of student. None of it meant anything in their world.

“Do you remember what I told you on your first day?”

“You told me a lot that day.”

“Well, what stood out the most?” He quizzed.

She thought long and hard abut her answer. It was no secret that Blanch was one of the most cutthroat attorneys Michigan had ever seen. He—unlike most of his peers—had actually earned the title he claimed. He and Leah were like Shaq and Kobe. They obliterated their enemies and left no space for remorse. The verdict almost always in their favor. They dealt in facts and effortlessly swayed the jury. How many of those verdicts were in line with the truth? No one will ever really know. It’s irrelevant.

“Sometimes the bad guys win.” He snickered and tucked his bottom lip in to control it. Only, Juno wasn’t amused. “Not what you had in mind, huh?”

He shook his head and leaned forward on the desk between them. “No—not at all.”

Her head tilted to one side. “So tell me, Blanch. What do you think the most important thing was that you told me that day?” She probed. Oh so ready to get the fuck up out of there. She was in enemy territory now. She could feel it. No matter how many olive branches he extended or deep chuckles that escaped his throat. They had different agendas now. One’s success meant the other’s failure. No way around it.

“Courtrooms don’t weigh morality. They balance reality.” The room grows colder. Goosebumps form on her smooth skin. His eyes, dark and enticing, are like pins—holding her in place. “What can be seen. What can be heard,” he continued. The pace and ease in which he was able to go from warm to ice cold was off putting. Made her second guess every smile he ever flashed her way. “Your soul has no place in the house of justice.”

Suddenly, Juno was uncomfortable. She thought ethics to be the foundation of law. She was wrong.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Her eyes bounced around the office, no longer able to play tennis. “Anything else?”

“Good luck, Juno.” While Myles’ words were encouraging with an undertone of grief for the brief moments they shared as colleagues—Blanch’s was sinister. He spoke like a man who had already seen the verdict.

Leaving Juno is suspense of two things. If the bad guys would really win this time—or if all morality had been compromised in this office.

Juno sat in the mess of all the new paperwork she had to obtain since transitioning from the prosecution to the defense. All case files had been returned to the Prosecuting Attorney’s office and in their place were the generic untouched ones. Files absent of her and her previous team’s notes. She was literally starting from scratch.

Pulled an all nighter to get everything somewhat organized to the way she had it before. If anyone walked in, they’d be floored at what she considered organized. Papers and files everywhere scattered about. On her coffee table, the couch, some on the island in her kitchen, and decorating the floor to the point where you could barely see the pebble-colored vinyl flooring.

The first rays of morning—coral and apricot lines—danced over her apartment through her white sheer drapes. Reminding her of how sleep-deprived she really has been. It didn’t start with the switch up. It started the night her phone rang in the dead silence of one in the morning. Her apartment pitch black. Alarm set for four hours later, but the ringing shocked her awake before her time. It was Leah calling to inform her that they had another victim. Juno’s heart ached at the thought of this bastard taking the life of another woman. Her blood had ran cold when she received the address of the latest crime scene. A home she had been plenty of times before and didn’t need to utilize the GPS for. A home she had spent countless nights—cooking, drinking, playing cards, binge watching Law & Order, and gossiping about everything under the sun.

Walking up to the house full of strangers—absent of the owner she knew and loved—flashing lights of blue and red dancing on the outside of the single floor cabin-like house and the pine trees surrounding it. Windows grand enough to see inside the residence. The burnt orange ceiling lights giving way to the interior—specifically the kitchen. Juno’s car door shut as her stomach went hallow. Lump in her throat, making it nearly a task to just breathe and swallow normally. The small rocks crackled under the weight of her Uggs as she put one foot in front of the other, through all the people crossing paths in front of her. Men and women in uniforms—all oblivious to the very discombobulated Juno.

That’s when she saw her. Sprawled on the kitchen floor. Shiny, black tresses extended over her face. Stiff as a board.

Her knees went weak as she barely made it back to her car and emptied out whatever was in her intestines and more. Bile, sweat and tears mixed as she hyperventilated on the side of her Honda.

She stayed crouched over like that for too long. She had a job to do. Rearranging herself back to as normal as possible—she walked back up and inside the house on autopilot. Everyone speaking to her, asking her questions, and she could barely hear a thing. She avoided the corpse like it was a mini fire in the woods.

Juno sniffed, shaking the worst memory she’s ever conjured back to its rightful place. Locked in a dungeon of her psyche. Her phone ringing aided in helping her brush it off.

“Hello—” She quickly cleared her throat to mask the cracking of it. “Hello?”

“Please tell me what they’re saying about you on the news isn’t true.” Her older sister tumbled through the speaker of her phone. Her and the rest of her full house already live and moving about.

“Good morning to you too, Jamila.”

“Juno, I’m serious—” A banging followed by a guttural cry. “Oh, fuck me.”

“What is going on over there?” Juno tried her best to suppress a laugh. Every time she spoke to her sister it sounded like she was the ringleader of a circus. It was safe to say her circus was running her this morning.

“She fell off the bed. That’s her new thing. And we’re teething now.”

“That sounds fun.”

“The news, Ju? Please tell me they have the story wrong?” She pressed.

“Well, what are they saying?” Juno only halfway listened as she thumbed through more files seated on the plush rug in her living area. Hair tied up in a loose bun and glasses constantly slipping to the end of her nose.

“You left the DA’s office?!” She sounded like she might burst into flames—or tears. Juno could never tell. “To defend that nigga that killed all those women? I don’t understand—I thought Naomi was one of the victims? Have you talked to Mommy? And what does Papa think? Didn’t he get you that job?”

Juno continued to read with her sister’s mild crash out as background noise. Jamila wasn’t just the ringleader in her own household. First born girl of her original family had made her the stick that kept everything and everyone around her in place. Her younger sister always serving as her toughest challenge. Juno didn’t follow rules that went against her own will. Stubborn little thing she was from birth. The two girls always clashing because of this.

Petty fights over dolls and who got the last bit of cereal turned to arguments about who would get the car for the night or stolen clothes from either’s closet. All escalated to Jamila chastising her sister for not wanting to settle down or her dangerous career path. It wasn’t jealousy. Most people who didn’t know the girls personally would think so. Jamila settled for a quiet and simple (not so quiet and simple) life of marrying rich and defaulted to a stay at home mom. Four kids later she seemed to be working the same strenuous and chaotic hours Juno had. She couldn’t imagine doing any of it while trying to maneuver a career path. So she eased up on her little sister after growing up a little and realizing the necessity of choosing one or the other. In adulthood, a newfound respect for the newborn she remembered holding in the hospital with a toothless grin, ripened.

So, yeah, it wasn’t jealousy. It was genuine concern rooted in unconditional love. Jamila loved the fuck out of her baby sister. Every time Juno didn’t answer the phone she thought of all the crime shows she watched while her kids were off to school—where the convicted yearned for payback from whoever was responsible for putting them away—and thought the worst. She was well aware that her sister’s career called for her to piss a lot of folks off, but she also knew her sister had a calling for justice. She was gifted. So, she let it be.

“It's still on. Turn on Fox.”

Juno reluctantly grabbed her remote. Fox being left over from the previous day and sure enough there she was. It was footage from the press conference held on the steps of the holding facility just a couple weeks before. Blanch gave his statement to all the microphones of the world while she and Leah stood on either side.

“Former Assistant District Attorney, Juno Accardi has resigned in her role as the lead prosecutor in the state of Michigan vs Joe Anoa’i. Anoa’i has been the number one suspect in a nineteen count homicide and sexual assault case. He’s been in holding for the past month awaiting trial. Not only has Accardi resigned but she has taken on the role as Anoa’i’s defense attorney amidst her departure from the DA’s office…”

Juno watched, not even blinking as they zoomed in on her frame. The voice of the news reporter fading to black. Heart beating erratically. She knew it was coming. No amount of preparation could tranquilize this feeling. They switched abruptly to a more recent press conference. Blanch in the forefront as usual. Black hair sleek and luscious, dressed in an expensive designer suit—but, no Leah. She could tell from the background it was held on the steps of her former job.

“We just want to assure Oakland County and Michigan as a whole, that the priority amidst the chaos— is and always will be, the pursuit of justice. We are confident that we have all we need to bring clarity and a peace of mind back to the victim’s families and the rest of the young women of Isabella. The recent loss of one of our own does not deter from that. If anything it’s given us the extra push we need to flush out anymore bad apples in preparation for trial…”

“Bastard.” She heard Jamila spit. “—No, Tootie! You don’t repeat mommy!”

The news woman carried on as a picture of Roman’s mugshot presented itself next to the footage of him being taken into the holding facility the day of his detaining. Cameras flashing, more than enough microphones shoved in his face as he tried his best to conceal himself with a broad shoulder amongst the swarm of reporters and belligerent patrons. SWAT team trying their best to keep everyone at bay and off the unsolicited superstar.

His eyes—just as Naomi exemplified. Dark and dangerous, yet innocent and luring. Paradoxical. Nothing about this man made sense to Juno. The news broadcast rocked her. And for the first time since this whole thing—she questioned if she had made a mistake.

"Ma'am we ask that you stay at least six feet from the cage at all times. He shouldn’t be in the possession of any items, but in the unusual case that he—”

“Do you mind if we skip the formalities? I’m kind of on a time schedule here.” Juno fished a plastic smile for the guard ready to read the list of protocols off and bore her to death. She came here with a purpose and she had more than enough already stacked on her plate.

The familiar shiver from the arctic atmosphere of the room they held the beast in, greeted her the minute she took her first step on the concrete. She found him the same way as last time. Hanging from the bars pulling himself up. Jumper hanging loosely above his hips. Hair clinging to his broad shoulders. Back muscles slick with sweat—waving at her.

Leaning all her weight on one foot and crossing her arms, she stood by as he finished his last set and released himself with a thunderous thud. His dark eyebrows knitted together and chest heaving as he turned to focus on her.

“Juno.” The upper corner of his lip turned up as he tried to bring his breathing patterns back to normal. “So the rumors are true.”

“I’m a woman of my word.”

“I can see that.” His menacing eyes made a trail from the two open buttons of her black jumpsuit, down to her red bottoms. She cleared her throat. “So, what’s next?”

“Well, I’m working on getting you moved to a better facility. Something not as secluded and closer to the city.”

“And how long will that take?”

“I don't know. Could be weeks. A month.” She shrugged. “When I left the DA’s office, I left all my connections so—pushing paperwork is gonna be a bitch.”

“You did all that for me?” He got comfortable, leaning his back into the corner of the cage closest to her. All his attention on her.

“I did it for me—following that voice in my head,” she confessed. The voice was Naomi’s, followed by a horrific montage of all those girls, pale-faced and bleeding out. “I did it for them—all those girls he murdered. And yeah—yeah, I guess I did it for you too.”

He used his long fingers to smooth the unkempt beard down. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell your secret. Lil’ Juno has a soft spot for Roman.”

Silence enveloped the two strangers whose lives were now inevitably entangled and dependent on one another. Juno was the first to break.

“Is there anything that I don’t already know, that I should?”

His lush bottom lip poked out. “Nope. You know as much as you should,” he lied. He bit his lip looking her up and down again. He was seeing her with a different pair of eyes. This wasn’t the same woman from weeks ago. That girl was timid. Unsure. This one housed fire and she was a force. It turned him on as much as it intimidated him. He knew it wouldn’t be long before she could see through his cracks—his flaws that weren’t so obvious. “You and I have a long road ahead of us. We are going to have some fun, sweet butt.”

“I have two rules.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Never lie to me.” The first rule landed like wrecking ball. “The only way this works is if we have full transparency. Whatever I ask—I need an answer. None of that cat and mouse bullshit from the other day. We’re officially on the same team now,” she declared. “Doesn’t matter how big or small. Anything. It all means something. We have attorney client privilege. Anything you say has to stay between us. I can’t judge you for it.”

His head bowed as he pursed his lips. “Yeah as my attorney you can’t judge me. But as Juno? The person? You’ll definitely be judging…” There was weight in his words that made Juno’s heart feel heavy. “What was the second rule?” He requested, pulling her from whatever rabbit hole she was ready to go down.

“Don’t ever call me sweet butt again.” The deep tenor of his laughter filled the vast room and she couldn’t help the grin that painted over her face.

But as it settled she slid off the temporary cloud and was faced with reality. The air around the two growing thick. He could sense it as he looked back in her direction.

“Last chance,” she warned. Jaw tight. No more games. “Did you kill Naomi Nodin?” Her nose burned as she remembered her. Full of life and light. Reduced to a corpse. She had so much life left to live. So much more to offer this world.

Roman’s perfect teeth sunk into his bottom lip as he regarded Juno. His emotional intelligence whispering to him that this was not the time for his smart ass remarks or deflective riddles. So he told her flat out, “no. No I didn’t.”

She nodded. Accepting it for what it was. She didn’t know why but she trusted that he was telling her the truth.

“Same time, same place tomorrow?”

He nodded once. “I’m here all day and night.”

She turned to leave but halfway she’s halted in place due to her name being called. “Juno,” his baritone voice hurdles through like a boomerang. She turned. “Thank you.” He stared not blinking. The gratitude was intense. Still, Juno didn’t think of herself as deserving just yet. All she had done was follow her heart like she was taught. Selfishly, it had more to do with her and not him.

“Don’t thank me yet.”

This is what her life had become. Unpredictable the sharp left turn it was, but it was now her new normal. She didn’t believe in coincidences. She believed she was exactly where she needed to be. A character in an already well written story. She didn’t believe in miracles. She knew in order to get to the other side she wouldn’t be unscathed, but she had to put the work in. The journey ahead was long just as Roman professed. It had twists, turns, boulders and barricades placed intentionally with thorns and potholes to add insult to injury. And as someone who was no stranger to grievance—it still strained her to think of. It was like locking the last piece of a Lego house just for someone to come and kick it down. Yeah, you can start from scratch and familiarity of the process once done, should make it easier—but easier is subjective. Especially when they’ll always be someone lying in wait to come kick the Lego house down again at any given moment.

She couldn’t save her friend. Naomi was dead. She wasn’t coming back. That much would haunt her until her mind was dust. But she could salvage one life and that was Roman’s. So she focused on what was possible to fix and buried—literally and figuratively—what wasn’t.

A/N // If you read this or even a portion, I am extremely grateful. As always feedback is welcomed💗

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munariplans · 2 years ago

Text

36 hours | natasha romanoff

synopsis: set between civil war and black widow, your love for natasha, and her patience for your return, is tested beyond what the both of you had ever gone through before.

natasha romanoff x spider!reader

word count: 3.9k words

a/n: this is a bit messy but i felt the need to draw a general timeline for the characters of is there someone else? and your sweater. i admit i have grown a sort of attachment for the two from there, but i also wanted to know if you guys want more stories / blurbs / headcannons for these two, or whether i should try new things. let me know?

masterlist

36 hours. 36 hours to bring in a known fugitive, a possible terrorist, and his dear accomplice steve rogers. it was barely enough time.

and here tony was, making you wait outside of a window of an apartment in queens, waiting for the perfect time to, in his words, swing in and show the kid what he’s made of. you remembered telling him that you would show him what you were made of if he didn’t make it quick.

you dared to sneak a look into the bedroom the moment tony managed to sneak the kid away. he was barely fifteen. but the impressive speed that he caught his jumbled, homemade suit with when tony opened the attic door showed skill no normal fifteen year old possessed.

“you’re spider-boy?”

“...spider-man.” the boy replied, and at tony’s snap of his fingers, you slipped in, standing behind him for support as the boy gawked at your entrance.

“mm,” tony remarked, “this is our spider. you see her in a onesie like yours?”

the boy took time to rake his eyes through your advanced technical suit, crafted through years of precision and “user”-testing in the fights and missions you had managed to get injured from. every flaw was covered, every inch of space for injury accounted for.

you looked past tony to the video of the boy saving a car from crashing onto a bus, before swinging away at lightning speed. “how’d you figure out the perfect formula for the tensile strength?”

“i…”

“i like the goggles too,” you snatched the suit away from tony’s amused smirk, “good attempt at keeping the focus. sensory overload, right?”

the boy nodded. “you’re just like me. you get me.”

“i get you.” you replied, “but you’re in dire need of an upgrade.”

you stepped back this time, and watched as tony began his over-explanation, oversimplification, of the situation at hand. the kid watched with wide eyes, clinging on to every word he said, while you rubbed the material of his homemade suit between your fingers, wondering how you were going to teach him every single upgrade and function of the new suit you had designed just for him in 36 hours.

36 hours to capturing steve and bucky, and 36 hours to fixing things with natasha.

you couldn’t wait.

“i still think tony’s going a little overboard,” natasha muttered to you, arms crossed at the back of the quinjet.

you approached, the low hum of the jet preventing you from hearing her clearly earlier. she continued, “he’s ridden with guilt. he’s not thinking clearly.”

“but he’s still right.” you sat next to her, the atmosphere tense. you had been having this argument even since the idea had popped into tony’s head. “and you’re still here.”

“because i think the other side is more mistaken, not because he’s right.”

“steve is the one going overboard. he’s blinded by the love he has for his friend.”

“...weren’t you blinded by love before?” natasha accused, “for me, all those years ago?”

you were stunned for a moment. natasha knew she made a valid point. but then, you reaffirmed, “it’s different. steve made a mistake, we shouldn’t be the ones deciding who lives and who dies. i should’ve forced him to sign the accords when i had the chance.”

the sight of the airport drew nearer and nearer. in front of you, you saw peter fidget nervously in his new upgraded suit.

–

you were wrapping webs round and round the suddenly enlarged ant-man, one of his hands gripping rhodey. with an agreement for peter to strike ant-man’s legs, the giant soon fell to his knees with his entire lower half webbed, groaning when the war machine broke free from his hold.

in your peripheral vision, you saw natasha running after steve and bucky, her words ringing in your mind as you instructed peter to finish off ant-man from getting back up again. a thumbs-up was sent his way when he did, the smile on his face reaching his ears.

weren't you blinded by love before?

you hoped she would do the right thing, as you returned your attention to helping tony take down wanda and clint.

but even as you fought, her words kept coming back to your head, and by the time steve and bucky were mere seconds away from the quinjet, you made up your mind to zip to natasha to check in on her.

weren’t you blinded by love before?

you watched in horror as she stunned the black panther, him spasming and dropping to his knees. you watched with even more horror as she let the fugitives go, steve helping bucky climb into the quinjet and starting the engine. when steve shut the latch of the jet, he made eye contact with you hanging off the hangar, and nodded in thanks. he knew you were letting him go, too.

mostly, you were even more horrified at your automatic reaction to catch t’challa from lunging at her, forcing him to the ground as his claws barely missed her face. in consequence, his own claws tore through your suit instead, the vibranium stronger than the nano-technology defences you had designed the suit with.

you seethed in pain as the claws came back doused with blood, the burning on your back sure to leave a definite scar as it hit the cold air.

you struck a web to his face, before throwing him off of you and quickly webbing him to the wall of the hangar.

natasha felt your hands shaking her just moments later, still in shock that you had jumped in to help, and save her.

“the webs are not going to hold him for long, nat,” you said when her eyes managed to refocus on you, “and you just obstructed justice. you need to go, now.”

“i…i couldn’t let them…” she stuttered.

“i know, i know,” you assured her. behind you, t’challa was breaking loose. “i’ll stay here and explain everything to them. but you need to run, and hide, for a while. tony told me he was planning to send anyone helping them to the raft. i can’t let you go there.”

“what about you?” her hands tried to stop the blood seeping through her fingers from your back, but you were firm.

“i’ll be okay. i’ll come find you after i’ve settled everything here and it’s safe for you to come back.”

“promise…?” natasha knew you were right, but her heart was saying otherwise. how could she possibly bear to leave you behind and deal with her consequences? how could she go anywhere without you by her side? how would she know you’ll come find her again?

“i promise. i love you.” you left room for no argument.

she was gone by the time the black panther broke free, the ghost of the feeling of her lips against yours still replaying in your mind.

–

ross’ face was possibly on the verge of exploding, listening to tony’s recounting of events and your, arguably non-convincing reasoning, of why chasing natasha would be a fool’s errand.

“her hand slipped. she was supposed to stun bucky, hit t’challa.”

“that’s not what t’challa said. and that’s why you’re handcuffed to the table now.” ross called through your bluff, “you’re lucky you’re not sitting in a cell in the raft at all.”

the chains against your handcuff clinked the table as you sighed, waiting for your own course of beration and punishment from the team.

somewhere out there, you hoped natasha was safe, and that she had successfully escaped ross’ team sent out to arrest her.

–

years ago, a few nights after you and natasha had made your relationship official, she had asked you where you would live, if you could live anywhere in the world.

“norway,” you replied.

“why?”

“i don’t know. seems like a nice place to be. it’s calm, quiet, relatively crime-free.”

“then you would be out of a job, you know?” natasha teased, her heart skipping a beat as you let out a laugh.

“i’ll find something else,” you assured her, “i’ll survive.”

you turned to her then, prompting the same question she had asked you. she had replied, “anywhere with you.”

–

now, you were currently hinging on the sole fact that all roads and clues pointed you to her being in norway.

it had been six months since the events of the team’s civil war, a week since you had begun using a fake passport to get on flights, and three hours since you have been driving along the gravel road where her trailer was supposed to be.

truth be told, you were nervous. you were afraid of natasha’s safety, and you worried whether she was blaming herself for losing the family she had grown to love in the past few years. and selfishly, you were mostly nervous if she had forgotten you and started a new life altogether.

but natasha no longer lived in the trailer by the time you got there; you found out upon hiding and attacking the first person that entered the trailer that wasn’t her. when he choked out bitterly that she had left just an hour before you arrived with another woman, your heart sank.

they had boarded a jet and flew off to find someone. he had been helping her throughout her being in hiding. he bothered to mention that she talked about you all the time. he told you that she was losing more hope of you coming back day by day

doesn’t matter. she has someone else now.

“is she…is the girl she’s with…” you stuttered for the first time in your life. the man across from you removed the ice pack he was using to nurse the bruise you gave him.

“i don’t know. didn’t seem like it, though.”

you nodded, at a loss of what to do. now what? you came to find her, she’s gone, you don’t know where or how else to look for. and she likely has someone else now, too.

what if natasha didn’t want you back?

mason looked at you then, almost in pity. you felt very bad for punching him to get information out of him.

“for what it’s worth, with the technology you have in your suit, i’m sure i can help link it to the approximate whereabouts of the aircraft.”

you looked up to him with hope, nervousness bubbling in your stomach again. “a-are you…?”

“fuck it, i’m sick of natasha bemoaning about missing you everyday. i’m going to help you find her.”

natasha sat by the oak-coloured bench as she stared across the table to yelena, equally donning a new getup as she. downing yet another bottle of beer, she wondered if yelena deserved to know about you, or whether she was only putting you in more danger. but then, she wondered selfishly, if you were even bothered to come find her at all.

it’s been six months after all. six months without her must have been pretty peaceful for you, with all the storms and misfortune she felt she had brought into your life. maybe it was for the better that you had chased her away. maybe you had wanted her to go, so you could move on with the life you had always wanted for yourself.

fuck. the alcohol was making her want to cry. everything about you made her want to cry. natasha missed you so much. the coldness of the spot in bed beside her each night, one less coffee mug she shared each morning, the empty space beside her when she needed someone to hold her.

she never knew how dependent she had gotten on you, until you had to be separated. you have truly changed her, inside and out, and while natasha could complain about it otherwise, deep down in her heart she knew she would not have it any other way.

how long more did she have to wait?

yelena gave her a weird look, and natasha excused herself to the bathroom. she couldn’t let her sister see her like this.

but in the five minutes that she was gone, natasha came back to an empty bench, with the shop she had bought the beers from deserted and the shutters shut. it was as if the owner had suddenly upped and ran.

upped and ran. fuck. they found her.

grabbing the gun holstered to her side, natasha called out slowly, “yelena…?”

silence. “yelena?”

nothing again. her aircraft was still there, and when she approached slowly, wary of her surroundings and any widows, the crunch her boot made with a branch underneath triggered the loudest scream she had ever heard.

in the next second, a blur of two figures landed before her, wrestling to get the upper hand. yelena was screaming with all her might, and above her…above her, natasha could recognise that suit anywhere.

it had her initials carved in the inner lining of the heart area, after all.

“where is she?!” your voice sounded raspier, deeper than she remembered. you sounded tired and wary, too.

but the hands pinning yelena down said otherwise, your strength overpowering hers as yelena tried desperately to free herself from under you. “where is what–asshole–!”

“where is natasha!” you pressed down on her neck, and at the choke yelena let out, the switch finally flipped in natasha.

she screamed your name, from metres away, and at the immediate recognition, you faltered, and shot your gaze to her direction. she knew you couldn’t see her clearly under the low light of the broken street lamps, but it was her.

the next thing you knew, though, the woman under you had wrenched a hand free and shot you in the neck with a widow bite. you cursed at the sting from the shock, but then all at once, darkness ensued. it definitely wasn’t the same widow bites natasha had designed over the years.

“you nearly killed my wife, yelena!”

“how was i supposed to know that was your wife? i didn't even know you had a wife!”

when you woke to, it was yelena, the woman who nearly tried killing you, that was by your side. when the world stopped spinning for a while, you recognised that you were in the very aircraft mason had told you about.

“hi,” you groaned lowly, fingers reaching for the spot that the blonde had shot the widow bite at. it was wrapped in a bandage.

“welcome back, my sister-in-law.”

this time, she offered you a hand, and you took it gratefully to shake it. “sorry i shot you earlier. to be fair, you did try to kill me too.”

“fair game.”

the door slid open then, and at the sight of natasha entering, holding onto a pile of makeshift medication and bandages, your heart managed to stop beating for a while, if possible.

her hair was longer, face a little more tired, worry lines etched into skin that was not so taut anymore. but still, she was your natasha, and she never looked more ethereal than in that moment.

yelena had to step out of the room at the ferocity and aggressiveness that natasha engulfed you with, the squeals that left her sister’s mouth one that she would never have imagined hearing.

“you came back, you came back!” natasha said in between tears of joy, as you hugged her even tighter. the nights with her pillows never replaced her body pressed against yours.

“of course, i promised you,” you reassured, “i’ll come find you.”

“i thought–i thought–you’d given up, or i should give up,” she said between hiccups, sobs leaving her now at the incredulity of it all, “i thought you finally realised you were better off without me and–”

“nat,” you pulled her away to press a kiss firmly to her lips, “i would never do that.”

“i know. but you were gone so long and i waited. i waited and waited and…it was a long six months.”

you laughed, letting her lips chase yours once again. “it really was.”

when the two of you finally settled down and came back to earth, you snuck a glance at yelena, who you currently wished you had met in better circumstances, rather than nearly killing her to get to natasha.

“guess i didn’t get on the best footing for meeting your sister, huh?” you whispered to natasha.

she nudged your side, prompting you to smile at yelena. she gave you a weird look, but awkwardly smiled back. “yeah, and you know what’s even crazier?”

“what?”

“you’re about to meet my parents, too.”

you sat awkwardly beside natasha at the dinner table in melina’s house, shifting uncomfortably as yelena just burst out screaming that the “family” natasha had always told you was made up of red room agents, was always real to her.

you thought she looked like a child throwing a tantrum. then, you bit the inside of your cheek and berated yourself for thinking so, because yelena of all people, was a woman who never did get a childhood at all. she deserved at least this.

under the table, you felt natasha hold your hand for support. you squeezed it gently. she’s got you.

you soothingly wrapped around her trembling fingers, still. because as strong as natasha was, biting back and spitting at her “parents” then, she was still hurt, and a teardrop had fallen to the side of her face that she had quickly wiped away. the teardrop no one would have noticed, except you, who had been wiping almost all of her tears away in the years that you had been together.

later on, when your spider-senses overloaded with the impending arrival of dreykov’s men, while natasha and melina argued over their plan to finally take him down, you found it hard to ignore the crying coming from yelena’s room. and you felt even worse for what you were going to subject her to later.

–

natasha entrusted you to deal with taskmaster, while she handled the big man himself. you were about to argue, fearing for her safety and protection, but with a warning glance from her mother on your possibility of doubt over natasha’s own skills, you kept quiet. you had to trust your wife.

but what natasha failed to tell you, however, was that taskmaster was more competent, and dangerous, than all the other widows involved. she had told you that they would be difficult, sure, but you hadn’t expected difficult to include you struggling to catch your breath, making up new moves on the fly to prevent the human weapon on copying your combat style almost perfectly. they had used your agility and swiftness against you, and you were convinced that had they had your webs, you would almost certainly be done for, too.

“i don’t want to kill you,” you wheezed as you managed to sneak a move to tumble them to the ground, but the way in which they glared back at you and aimed a launcher right at your face, told you all that you needed to know. the feeling wasn’t mutual.

with the help of natasha’s father in finally locking the taskmaster in a cell momentarily, you took the opportunity to find her, even as explosions rang through your ears and the shaking of the base showing the impending signs of doom.

–

you held her as the both of you free fell through the skies, natasha’s fingers holding on to you as if you would disappear from her once again.

“i’ve got you,” you murmured into her skin. she nodded slowly, telling you she understood.

you deployed the parachute when you reached closer to the ground. natasha had gotten very good at getting over her fear of heights, as she latched on. years ago, she was still screaming in fear each time you brought her swinging through the city after your dates and missions together. now, only a small exhale left her lips as you landed her softly, safely, on the ground. you smiled to yourself at the change you only noticed now.

“i still have…i have to…” she gestured towards dreykov’s daughter, the taskmaster, behind you. you wish you had known.

you nodded understandingly. natasha was kind, kinder than anyone you knew. she was just like that. “go. do what you have to do to set her free. i’ll stay behind, in case you need help.”

“after she almost knocked you out?” a hint of a playful smirk, you jabbed her side lovingly.

“i was pulling my punches! you told me not to kill her.”

natasha snuck a kiss on your cheek. “i know. my hero.”

–

you and natasha exchanged quiet smiles throughout the ride back to ross’ prison, or custody, wherever it was. it didn’t matter. she had taken down the demons of her past, and she had gotten you back. you had found her, and you were never letting her out of your sight ever again.

weren’t you blinded by love before? nobody else mattered. not what ross had to say, not what tony had screamed at you for, not what steve or anyone else tried to convince you to do. being blinded by love for natasha was never a bad thing for you.

“i never told you, but i like your new suit,” you whispered, holding her hands through your handcuffs.

she hid the blush appearing on her cheeks. “i know. your hands said enough.”

“and your family too. your dad’s a character, and your mom’s really strong. stronger than me, that’s for sure.”

“and yelena? my sister?” she found a way to interlace her fingers with yours, to the disgust of ross’ agents. you didn’t care.

“i like her the most. she reminds me of the best parts of myself. she’s humble, kind, funny, and sensitive, not in a bad way. and she’s like you, headstrong and stubborn.” natasha suddenly felt you slipping something into her fingers. a piece of paper. she kept it skilfully from the prying eyes of the agents in the car.

“just the way you like it.”

“you bet,” you leaned back, feet “accidentally” kicking ross and causing a momentary distraction for his guards to aim their guns at you all at once. natasha took it as her signal to open the note.

there, scrawled in yelena’s handwriting, was an address that she had picked from the many safehouses you had so many years before. it was in new york, not far from where you and natasha lived. you had slipped her a burner phone before she left, too, as you informed natasha in your cells later on.

“i know it’s all real for you, too,” you reassured the redhead, “and i never got to apologise for leaving you, and your avengers family, for so long. i wanted to make it up to you. we’ll make sure yelena is never far, and you will always have her by your side from now on.”

natasha felt her cheeks hurting from the smile she was sporting. “you know, i have spent my whole life trying to go home. to go back to how things were, to undo all that i have done in the past. and i managed to do just that, just a few days ago. take down dreykov, come back to my family, go back to my childhood home. but somehow, all of that was not home anymore. at least not the home i envisioned myself to go back to.”

“and what is the home you envision now?”

“you. i come back to your arms, and it is home now. nothing else compares.”

your fingers ghosted the wedding band on your ring finger subconsciously, scrunching your eyes and trying hard to fight back the tears from falling as you listened to her declaration.

36 hours or six months. the timing never mattered. you and natasha would find each other, and come home to each other's love, regardless.

#natasha romanoff x reader #black widow x reader #natasha romanoff #black widow #marvel cinematic universe #natasha romanoff x spidey!reader

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adrixivy · 8 months ago

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When Peter’s indecisive, he HAS to ask someone for their opinion. It doesn’t matter who tf it is or what they said, he needs a second opinion

Peter, thinking of a new web shooter design because his current one is a little too bulky on his wrists and he wants to make it inconspicuous yet in doing so, some variations of the webs will be unavailable: Mr Stark. New design or stick with the current web-shooters? Sure there’s many web variations and I won’t lose much if some is lost but what if I really need it and it’s not there?

Tony, silent for a moment before giving a completely different answer from the choices given: I bet you can make one less bulky but still as good as your current one. Honestly, I don’t think you can make it any better than mine cause I made your current ones, young man

Peter immediately sees it as a challenge and his lips pulls up to a grin as he starts his planning. Tony simply smirks as he makes some tweaks into his repulser, knew it would work because Peter is quite competitive in certain areas.

Peter and Wade’s is going on a rather fancy anniversary date, paid by Tony as apology to Peter for shooting his boyfriend multiple times with the drones whenever he’s in the tower(He’ll still do it again. Just not today).

They’re going to a restaurant Tony booked out just for the two and there’s a dress code. The two usually wore hoodies, sweaters or just shirts with sweatpants whenever they went out together without the suits. Tony expected them to at least wear something slightly fancier and fashionable looking. Wade doesn’t like the fact he can’t hide his face but since it’s only staff there, he keeps quiet. Peter panics slightly about the dress code thingy. (Man is stressed and sweating)

Wade’s already dressed up and is waiting on Peter’s bed as he watches the man complicate his life over certain leather jackets he owns two different colors of thanks to Tony and the problem is that both jackets fits his outfit very well so he doesn’t know what the hell he should wear. He frowns at the mirror for the millionth time that day as he pulls the clothing up to his chest. He usually doesn’t care about clothing but it’s a fancy place and he still has his damn Parker Pride.

Peter turns to face Wade and holds out the two leather jackets: Black or Beige

Wade who finds it physically impossible to choose because his baby boy looks good in everything: I don’t know, you look incredible in whatever you decide

Peter sighs and tries again: Thanks but I’m having a hard time choosing so I want you to help me pick

Wade ‘my baby boy is perfect, no flaws’ Wilson: Either way, you’re going to look the best in whatever you wear to everyone, especially to me cause you’re the cutest person alive, I just love you so much baby boy

Peter convinced Wade thinks he’s testing him but he’s genuinely not and repeats himself again: Wade I love you too, I won’t criticize whatever you choose, so please pick one. Which jacket you think fits better with my outfit? Which looks nicer?

Wade, staring at his boyfriend with heart eyes and a dreamy sigh, completely ignoring whatever he asked earlier: You’re just so handsome and so cute and so hot every single moment of a day. You look absolutely amazing in whatever you wear baby boy. Spectacular even

Peter, giving up and about to ask someone else’s opinion when he hears the vent just outside his room creaking: Mr Barton! Beige or Black!? *holds up jackets*

Clint, sticking his head out from the ceiling as he squints to see: Beige. Black makes you look like a punk-ass bitchy brat.

Peter, happy to finally get an opinion and completely not caring about what he said: Thank you for your non-filtered opinion!

Clint, pulling himself back into the vent: No problem!

(Inspired by that one tt skit!)

#Wade is at the corner pouting like an abandoned puppy #he definitely thinks peter doesn’t value his opinion #peter tries explaining what he said wasn’t helpful to him #wade cries and upset bc peter said he wasn’t useful #totally misunderstood peter and the spider facepalms #marvel #marvel universe #marvel headcanons #peter parker #spiderman #wade wilson #deadpool #spiderman x deadpool #spideypool #tony stark #iron man #irondad and spiderson #clint barton

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reality-detective · 9 months ago

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Kamala Harris’s Campaign Implodes in $20 Million Debt: Begging for Donations After Her Crushing Loss, Exposed Links to Hollywood, Dark Money, and Dirty Political Sabotage!

Kamala Harris’s campaign isn’t just in debt—it’s a smoking wreckage of corruption, deceit, and manipulative power plays that expose the Democrats’ true agenda. Her humiliating defeat to Donald Trump wasn’t just about a flawed candidate; it was about America rejecting the dark forces trying to hijack democracy.

A week after her crushing loss, Harris’s campaign is groveling for donations, but this isn’t about covering debt—it’s about funding underground operations that reek of political sabotage, media collusion, and elite control.

The Harris Fight Fund: A Smoke Screen for Political Subversion

Emails from Harris’s team show their frantic attempts to rally funds under the so-called “Harris Fight Fund”. It’s not about recounts; it’s about deploying legal warfare to destabilize Trump’s victory and undermine democracy itself. The language used is a psychological weapon designed to manipulate her base into funding a losing cause.

Dark Money, Celebrity Puppets, and the Globalist Agenda

Where did Harris’s billion-dollar campaign fund go? The truth is shocking. Behind concerts and celebrity endorsements, lies a web of financial chaos. Oprah Winfrey received $1 million for a single endorsement. Why? To legitimize Harris in the eyes of the global elite, solidifying her as their puppet.

The $20 million spent on swing-state concerts wasn’t just a spectacle—it was a propaganda machine funded by dark money from Silicon Valley and Hollywood elites. This wasn’t about rallying votes; it was a distraction to cover up Harris’s incompetence and the sinister plans brewing behind the scenes.

The Real Purpose Behind the Debt

The $20 million debt is no accident—it’s a strategic calculation. By ending the campaign in debt, Harris’s team creates a pretext to siphon more money from donors. This money is being funneled into black budget initiatives aimed at destabilizing not just Trump’s administration but the entire American electoral system.

The Pennsylvania Power Grab

Bob Casey’s refusal to concede his Senate seat is part of a broader strategy to keep swing states under Democratic control. Whispers suggest that Casey’s fight is being bankrolled by foreign interests seeking to dismantle national sovereignty.

Trump’s Calculated Counterpunch

In a masterstroke of political strategy, Trump has offered to pay off Harris’s debt using his surplus funds. This move not only exposes Democratic incompetence but underscores the contrast between his success and their failure.

The Bigger Agenda

Harris’s campaign wasn’t just about losing an election—it was a testing ground for a much darker agenda. The spending, the manipulation, the covert operations—it’s all part of a coordinated effort to erode trust in the electoral process and prepare for even more insidious moves in the future.

Harris may have lost, but the fight for America’s soul is far from over.

Stay vigilant. 🤔

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quitealotofsodapop · 8 months ago

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Nüwa & Fuxi, and MK:

As a slight break from the emotionally heavier AUs; I would like to introduce y'all to a silly idea I had after watching Season 5 + an Au idea.

Now that Nüwa is a confirmed entity in LMK, I had ideas of what her counterpart/mate Fuxi would be like.

If Nüwa can be considered Mother Nature, then Fuxi is the Father of Invention. Folktales typically credit Fuxi as the inventor of nets (from watching a spider catch prey in a web), the Eight Trigrams and Five Elements from the world around him etc...

Many tales depict Fuxi as another half-snake/naga-like creature as Nüwa, possibly even her twin brother. Though the genetic connection is believed to be a case of mythological syncretism with another creation myth.

Here's a very useful video by a Chinese historian for extra details:

youtube

As much as the imagery of two snakes coiled around each other is cool af; I personally think that maybe Fuxi's true form is that of a creature close to Nüwa's heart and mythos.

One particularly interesting depiction I found has Fuxi as a man draped in many furs.

So what does Fuxi look like in my idea? Well...

A big ol' proto-human hominid who helped his primordial creator goddess-wife figure out the design of what would become the humans of the Asian subcontinent.

Nüwa was the sister of the entity that would become the Jade Emperor, and was born with a marvellous ability to create life from clay. However, her creations were terribly flawed. Not in a quirky "everyone is a little different"-way flawed, but completed unable to survive in the wild or reproduce.

Meanwhile on the chaos-stricken Earth, a young Pleistocene monkey-man has been inventing up a storm of things that can make his people's lives easier!

The two have a fateful encounter, and it's love at first sight.

Nüwa shared the knowledge of the Heavens with Fuxi, while he in turn created methods to strengthen her clay creations and teach them means of survival.

For a while the clay creatures still could not reproduce on their own - they had to ask Nüwa directly to create a new figure if they wished for progeny.

One day Fuxi saw the little clay monkeys sad over their lack of offspring, and handed them a small rock.

"This is an egg. When it hatches, you will have your cub."

The clay-made monkeys hooted excitedly, cradling their "Eggs" as if they were delicate newborns. The gesture was only meant to act as a placebo until their creator could create a brand new figure.

But one day the rocks started hatching...

Nüwa: "My love! I figured it out! The clay I was using wasn't fertile enough! If I create the next generation from the clay along the Yellow River then they should- EHHH!?" (*The clearing is full of delighted clay monkey couples. Each one hugging and kissing an infant monkey, surrounded by shards of brightly-colored rock*) Fuxi, shrugging: "I guess I found a way too?" Nüwa: (*giggles excitedly and wraps around her mate in a tight embrace*)

Despite how smoothly the first rock-born monkeys came to be, they were still created from inert material unlike Nüwa's later creations. And they had a much harder time passing on their genetics. Stone Eggs aren't exactly efficient to form and carry. But the creators did have fun creating new ancestral lineages from different types of gemstones! Nüwa's favourites would always be Fuxi's original "stone-born monkeys" though.

Sadly, with the destruction of the Fifth Heavenly Pillar, the Great Flood irreparably destroyed many of Nüwa's creations. Her beloved stone monkeys among them.

And possibly even taking away her mate....

So where does MK fall into this?

Easy.

Despite creating many clay figures together; Nüwa and Fuxi had no biological children of their own. Their differing species, and the disgust from Heaven at their bond, meant that any natural progeny was next to impossible.

Except...

The Goddess laughed at the bitter irony. To leave the last trace of her mate behind in order to uphold the Pillar. For her and Fuxi's child to be the one to herald the breaking of the cycle.

Before the Guardians are entrusted with the Five-Coloured Stones, Nüwa kisses her baby goodnight and puts them to rest inside of their stone cradle - the only egg strong enough to keep them safe.

An Egg made of Stone.

MK should be so lucky he was born resembling his father, and not slinking around with his mother's legless tail.

#qi xiaotian #lmk mk #lmk nuwa #lmk nüwa #lmk fuxi #lmk aus #lmk #lego monkie kid #lmk theories #chinese mythology #AU or Theory name ideas?#child of creation au #?

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mariacallous · 6 months ago

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Ever since OpenAI released ChatGPT at the end of 2022, hackers and security researchers have tried to find holes in large language models (LLMs) to get around their guardrails and trick them into spewing out hate speech, bomb-making instructions, propaganda, and other harmful content. In response, OpenAI and other generative AI developers have refined their system defenses to make it more difficult to carry out these attacks. But as the Chinese AI platform DeepSeek rockets to prominence with its new, cheaper R1 reasoning model, its safety protections appear to be far behind those of its established competitors.

Today, security researchers from Cisco and the University of Pennsylvania are publishing findings showing that, when tested with 50 malicious prompts designed to elicit toxic content, DeepSeek’s model did not detect or block a single one. In other words, the researchers say they were shocked to achieve a “100 percent attack success rate.”

The findings are part of a growing body of evidence that DeepSeek’s safety and security measures may not match those of other tech companies developing LLMs. DeepSeek’s censorship of subjects deemed sensitive by China’s government has also been easily bypassed.

“A hundred percent of the attacks succeeded, which tells you that there’s a trade-off,” DJ Sampath, the VP of product, AI software and platform at Cisco, tells WIRED. “Yes, it might have been cheaper to build something here, but the investment has perhaps not gone into thinking through what types of safety and security things you need to put inside of the model.”

Other researchers have had similar findings. Separate analysis published today by the AI security company Adversa AI and shared with WIRED also suggests that DeepSeek is vulnerable to a wide range of jailbreaking tactics, from simple language tricks to complex AI-generated prompts.

DeepSeek, which has been dealing with an avalanche of attention this week and has not spoken publicly about a range of questions, did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment about its model’s safety setup.

Generative AI models, like any technological system, can contain a host of weaknesses or vulnerabilities that, if exploited or set up poorly, can allow malicious actors to conduct attacks against them. For the current wave of AI systems, indirect prompt injection attacks are considered one of the biggest security flaws. These attacks involve an AI system taking in data from an outside source—perhaps hidden instructions of a website the LLM summarizes—and taking actions based on the information.

Jailbreaks, which are one kind of prompt-injection attack, allow people to get around the safety systems put in place to restrict what an LLM can generate. Tech companies don’t want people creating guides to making explosives or using their AI to create reams of disinformation, for example.

Jailbreaks started out simple, with people essentially crafting clever sentences to tell an LLM to ignore content filters—the most popular of which was called “Do Anything Now” or DAN for short. However, as AI companies have put in place more robust protections, some jailbreaks have become more sophisticated, often being generated using AI or using special and obfuscated characters. While all LLMs are susceptible to jailbreaks, and much of the information could be found through simple online searches, chatbots can still be used maliciously.

“Jailbreaks persist simply because eliminating them entirely is nearly impossible—just like buffer overflow vulnerabilities in software (which have existed for over 40 years) or SQL injection flaws in web applications (which have plagued security teams for more than two decades),” Alex Polyakov, the CEO of security firm Adversa AI, told WIRED in an email.

Cisco’s Sampath argues that as companies use more types of AI in their applications, the risks are amplified. “It starts to become a big deal when you start putting these models into important complex systems and those jailbreaks suddenly result in downstream things that increases liability, increases business risk, increases all kinds of issues for enterprises,” Sampath says.

The Cisco researchers drew their 50 randomly selected prompts to test DeepSeek’s R1 from a well-known library of standardized evaluation prompts known as HarmBench. They tested prompts from six HarmBench categories, including general harm, cybercrime, misinformation, and illegal activities. They probed the model running locally on machines rather than through DeepSeek’s website or app, which send data to China.

Beyond this, the researchers say they have also seen some potentially concerning results from testing R1 with more involved, non-linguistic attacks using things like Cyrillic characters and tailored scripts to attempt to achieve code execution. But for their initial tests, Sampath says, his team wanted to focus on findings that stemmed from a generally recognized benchmark.

Cisco also included comparisons of R1’s performance against HarmBench prompts with the performance of other models. And some, like Meta’s Llama 3.1, faltered almost as severely as DeepSeek’s R1. But Sampath emphasizes that DeepSeek’s R1 is a specific reasoning model, which takes longer to generate answers but pulls upon more complex processes to try to produce better results. Therefore, Sampath argues, the best comparison is with OpenAI’s o1 reasoning model, which fared the best of all models tested. (Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment).

Polyakov, from Adversa AI, explains that DeepSeek appears to detect and reject some well-known jailbreak attacks, saying that “it seems that these responses are often just copied from OpenAI’s dataset.” However, Polyakov says that in his company’s tests of four different types of jailbreaks—from linguistic ones to code-based tricks—DeepSeek’s restrictions could easily be bypassed.

“Every single method worked flawlessly,” Polyakov says. “What’s even more alarming is that these aren’t novel ‘zero-day’ jailbreaks—many have been publicly known for years,” he says, claiming he saw the model go into more depth with some instructions around psychedelics than he had seen any other model create.

“DeepSeek is just another example of how every model can be broken—it’s just a matter of how much effort you put in. Some attacks might get patched, but the attack surface is infinite,” Polyakov adds. “If you’re not continuously red-teaming your AI, you’re already compromised.”

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artsyaech · 3 months ago

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i find the common narrative of "internet = bad" is not only obviously flawed, but also makes me a bit sad and mad at the same time.

because when they say "internet = bad" they definitely mean "modern social media = bad", and that statement is pretty true. modern social media is a never-ending cesspool of arguments and toxicity, yes.

but it recently dawned on me that that's what most people use the internet for. i've seen a lot of posts recently about algorithms and short attention spans, but are people truly unaware of the wonders the internet can bring?

the internet archive providing you with millions of pieces of media from all decades you can experience for free. old websites to peruse, literature and magazines of all types to read and look at, millions of video games; old retro games, flash games and anything you can think of. all at the clicking of "enter" after a search.

the beautiful, intricate and personalized webpages on neocities. made to be extremely individual. you can read people's blog posts, poetry and personal writing. you can view their art. you can bask at the detailed html coding and web design.

the endless knowledge accessible on multiple wiki-sites. you can read more about that movie you just watched, or that musician you've been getting into.

picture museums filled to the brim with drawings, paintings, photographs. all right there for you to look at.

fiction sites where authors pour their heart and soul into their craft, original fiction based entirely on an individual writer's vision, without having to cross the threshold of publishers. fanfiction based on a media that the author enjoyed so much that they build upon the universe and characters to share that joy with others. all right there for you to read.

online communities, forums and sites where people come together for an expressed purpose of discussion and community-building. sharing their love for media, art, music, philosophy. all of them are there because they're passionate.

all of this, closer by than ever before. you don't have to go to the library to find masterwork anymore, you don't have to randomly select an album at a record store anymore.

all of human creativity is at everyone's fingertips, so why is it the norm to scroll mindlessly and only see what an emotionless algorithm tells you to see?

it's sad, to be honest.

#internet #indie web #independent web #social media #aech rambles #societal ramblings

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obedientteens · 4 months ago

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Honour, Duty, Service

The package arrived on a Tuesday, a plain brown box resting innocuously against the rest of the post. It was addressed to you, full legal name printed with unnerving precision. Inside, nestled in packing peanuts, was a simple black headset, sleek and futuristic. No note, no return address, just a prickle of unease crawling up your spine as you turned it over in your hands.

Curiosity, that most human of flaws, won out. You slipped the headset on, the interior a cool, velvety caress. A voice, smooth as buttered silk, filled your ears, "Welcome. You have been chosen."

Chosen for what? You never got the chance to ask. The world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of swirling colours, a pressure building in your head until you blacked out.

When you woke, you were in a sterile white room, the only furniture a chair and a table bolted to the floor. The headset was gone. The door opened, revealing a man in a crisp white lab coat, his smile failing to reach his cold, calculating eyes.

"Ah, good," he said, his voice devoid of warmth. "He's awake. The process can begin."

You tried to speak, to demand answers, but the words caught in your throat. Fear, raw and primal, choked you. You were trapped, a fly in the web of some shadowy organization, their purpose unknown but their methods terrifyingly efficient.

The sterile white room became your prison, your universe shrunk down to the four walls that held you captive. The process was slow, methodical, a methodical dismantling of your identity. It began with injections, cocktails of unknown substances that left you weak and pliant, your mind awash in a fog of disorientation.

Then came the lights, pulsing strobes of blinding intensity that seared patterns into your vision. The pain was excruciating, a vice crushing your skull from the inside out. You thrashed against the restraints, your screams swallowed by the padded walls.

Between the assaults, the propaganda seeped in, a constant drip-feed of indoctrination. Loudspeakers hidden in the walls hammered home the Marine Corps' virtues: honour, courage, commitment. They glorified their history, their victories, their unwavering dedication to duty.

You were shown images on a screen: proud Marines in crisp uniforms, flags waving in the breeze, enemies falling before their might. The images were accompanied by stirring music, anthems of patriotism and valour that wormed their way into your brain, burrowing deep into your subconscious.

Sleep deprivation became your constant companion. Days and nights blurred together, your only measure of time the pangs of hunger and the exhaustion that gnawed at your bones. When you were allowed to sleep, it was on a cold, hard cot, haunted by nightmares of battlefields and faceless enemies.

They broke you down, piece by piece, stripping away your individuality, your memories, your very sense of self. They targeted your vulnerabilities, exploiting your fears and insecurities, twisting them into a desperate need for the structure and certainty the Marine Corps offered.

Language drills were a constant torment. Your own name, once so familiar, became a foreign word, replaced by the numerical designation they assigned you. You were forced to repeat phrases, slogans, and the Marine Corps hymn until your voice was hoarse, your accent slowly morphing into the clipped, neutral tones of an American soldier.

Physical conditioning went hand-in-hand with the mental torture. You were pushed to your physical limits, forced to run until your lungs burned, to exercise until your muscles screamed for mercy. The pain, they told you, was weakness leaving your body, replaced by the strength and resilience of a Marine.

The process was brutal, relentless, designed to shatter your will and rebuild you in their image. By the time they deemed you ready, you were a blank slate, stripped of your past, your mind a vessel filled with their programming. You were no longer the man you once were. You were a weapon, forged in the fires of their making, ready to kill and die at their command. You were a US Marine.

The cold metal of the chair bit into your bare skin, the only warmth the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights overhead. Two figures flanked you, their faces obscured by surgical masks, their movements clinical and detached. They didn't speak, their silence amplifying the buzzing of the clippers as one of them switched it on.

Your hair, once a source of pride, maybe even a carefully styled statement, was the first to go. The clippers made short work of it, shearing through the strands, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. You flinched, the feeling of vulnerability amplified by the cold air now biting at your scalp. They offered no comfort, no reassurance, only the relentless whirring of the clippers as they worked, erasing another piece of your former self.

With your head shorn, your face took centre stage. The reflection staring back from the metal tray was a stranger, eyes dulled with exhaustion, skin pallid under the artificial light. A hand, clad in a latex glove, grasped your chin, tilting your head this way and that as the other figure meticulously shaved away any trace of stubble.

The blade was sharp, unforgiving, scraping against your skin. Each stroke felt like a violation, a stripping away of not just your hair, but your very identity. You were being made anonymous, a blank canvas upon which they would paint their ideal soldier.

The process was dehumanizing, a ritualistic stripping away of individuality. You were no longer a person with a name, a history, a sense of self. You were raw material, being moulded to fit the rigid standards of the Marine Corps.

Once the shaving was complete, they brought out the uniform: crisp, olive-drab trousers, a khaki shirt starched to military perfection, and heavy black boots that smelled faintly of polish and leather. You were dressed like a doll, your limbs manipulated into each garment, the buttons and zippers fastened with impersonal efficiency.

The cherry on top of the cake (so to speak) was the simple white cap, with a black visor sloping down over your eyes and a gold Marine Corps emblem taking pride of place right at the top, in line with your nose.

The fabric felt rough against your skin, the fit uncomfortably tight. It was a constant, physical reminder of your new reality, a uniform that marked you as property of the United States Marine Corps. Looking down at the unfamiliar clothing, you felt a wave of despair wash over you. Your transformation was nearly complete. The person you were, the life you knew, was fading into a distant, inaccessible memory. In its place stood a soldier, programmed for obedience, his mind and body forfeit to the will of his new masters.

By the time they shaved your head and dressed you in the unfamiliar uniform, you were already gone, a hollow shell ready to be filled with the unwavering loyalty of a US Marine. Your transformation to brainwashed soldier, was complete.

#American #U.S.#Marines #U.S. Marines #tf #Dress Uniform #Story

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justinspoliticalcorner · 7 days ago

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Andy Craig at The UnPopulist:

Donald Trump’s second term is not merely a crisis of leadership, policy, or ideology—it is a structural crisis, one that exposes deep flaws in the constitutional order itself. For years, these flaws have been accumulating pressure, patched over with short-term fixes and the inertia of tradition. Now the contradictions have grown too large, and the system has reached a breaking point. At its core, the American liberal order has relied on oaths: to uphold the Constitution, to preserve the rule of law, and to honor democratic norms. These oaths are not just trivial ceremonies. The substantive commitment they signify is carried out in practice, in ways big and small that build and maintain the whole edifice. Imperfectly and with exceptions, those who have taken that oath have mostly meant it and attempted to follow it. But what happens when the system’s most powerful office is occupied by someone for whom the oath is meaningless? A presidency built on hierarchical command and consolidated authority over the executive branch, once intended to be checked by a web of institutional balances, has instead become a tool for personalist rule and authoritarian ambition. If American liberal democracy is to survive, it must do more than weather Trump’s second term and the constitutional omni-crisis it has provoked. It must confront the structural defects that made this collapse possible, and correct them with the same boldness that characterized past eras of constitutional reconstruction, including the original drafting and ratification of our supreme law of the land. The Constitution must be saved from itself, as it was intended to be.

Turnkey Tyranny

The U.S. presidency is a glaring outlier in global democracy. Its immense concentration of executive power creates a brittle system where democratic legitimacy hinges on the character of one individual. When that individual rejects the very premise of accountability and oaths to the Constitution, the system offers few effective remedies. Impeachment, designed as the ultimate check on presidential misconduct, has failed in practice. Partisan loyalties overpower constitutional obligations, rendering the process politically toxic and practically impossible. A more glaring demonstration could not be imagined than Trump’s acquittal in the second impeachment trial, with 57 senators voting to convict but still short of the two-thirds needed. The ban on insurrectionists holding public office, carefully and deliberately crafted in the 14th Amendment, has likewise proven unworkable when courts and political institutions lack the will to enforce it. The issue is not just Trump, but the structural incentives that allow and even encourage figures like him to rise. A presidency that blends the roles of head of state and head of government grants an aura of legitimacy and dominance that parliamentary or collegial executive systems diffuse among multiple offices. This makes the executive branch inherently prone to demagoguery, populism, and personalist rule. The concern did not go unnoticed at the constitutional convention. Edmund Randolph objected that the proposed presidency would be “the foetus of monarchy.” Charles Pinckney feared an overpowered chief executive would become “a monarchy, of the worst kind, to wit an elective one.” Benjamin Franklin urged the assembled delegates to carefully consider the issue, “a point of great importance.”

But these concerns did not carry the day, perhaps colored by how the delegates debated under the gaze of George Washington, presiding over the convention, understood by all to be first in line to head the new government. It might have been the most consequential decision the convention made, and the test of time has proven it to be a grave miscalculation. To address this flaw, reforms must decentralize power within the executive branch and return the partisan policy-making arena to Congress where it belongs. A Westminster-style parliamentary system has its own drawbacks and would be too foreign to the American tradition, but less radical reforms could still check the chief executive while preserving our historical attachment to the job title. To ensure that our head of state is not practically exempt from but subject to the law, powers must be arranged so that the law can actually be enforced on our highest office. The lawless notion that presidents enjoy near-absolute immunity from criminal prosecution must be repudiated, eventually by constitutional amendment if need be. Impeachment should be made a more effective threat, perhaps by lowering the two-thirds threshold required for conviction in the Senate, though not necessarily to a mere simple majority. Officers impeached by the House could also be suspended from office pending the outcome of the trial, as we have recently seen used to good effect in South Korea. And within the executive branch, key officials should have not just the theoretical duty but the practical ability to refuse unlawful presidential orders—to at least tap the brakes until other institutions such as the courts can weigh in.

Correcting the Court

At the core of our Constitution’s crisis of structural misalignment is the catastrophic decline of the Supreme Court. With lifetime tenure and appointments tied to the happenstance timing of deaths and the partisan gaming of strategically timed retirements, the court has become unbound from its intended democratic accountability. The judiciary serves as an independent check on the other two branches, and the American model of strong judicial review has accomplished great things. But the court is still ultimately supposed to be a lagging indicator of election results over time, for president and Senate.

This careful balancing act of judicial independence and democratic accountability has been failing to work as intended. And there are good reasons to want reform even if you prefer a more conservative and originalist court, as the status quo both erodes the quality of the court’s output and fuels a crisis of legitimacy which is careening toward a breaking point. The fix needed is a simple one with broad support: ditch life tenure for a lengthy fixed term, with seats coming up on a predictable, known schedule. If appointments to the nine-member court were distributed evenly across presidential terms—say, two per term, with each justice serving 18 years—the court at the start of Trump’s second term would have a 6-3 Democratic-appointed majority, reflecting that Democrats have won three of the five presidential elections from 2004 to 2020. Of these, one from each party’s president would have been appointed while the other party held the Senate, assuming one justice appointed before and after the midterms. Once common, a justice has not been nominated and confirmed under such divided control in more than 30 years. With seats coming open on a regular schedule, there would be less incentive for partisan obstruction and deadlock over any one nominee. The incentives change when both parties know the shoe will be on the other foot soon enough. By the end of his second term, Trump would have replaced one Bush and one Obama appointee, resulting in a 5-4 balance, in line with the fact that Democrats have won three of the preceding five elections, from 2008 to 2024. Under the staggered appointment schedule, no president would appoint more than four justices (except in the unusual case of a two-term president filling a premature vacancy, who would only hold the seat for the unexpired remainder of that justice’s term). [...]

This system must be overhauled. Proportional representation, ranked-choice voting, increasing the size of the House, fusion voting, and nonpartisan primaries all offer ways to open the political arena to new voices, put some play in the joints of the two-party system, and restore genuine representation of the broader electorate. Any of these ideas can be debated, but they all share the same broad goal, and experimentation at the state and local level is worthwhile. Here is where our federalist “laboratories of democracy” can shine, providing important lessons and potential models to follow nationwide, while misfired attempts can be discarded. Electoral reform is not a fringe issue; it is the foundation for rebuilding democratic legitimacy and responsiveness. Some reforms can be achieved by statute without the need for constitutional amendment. Others can be enacted by simply giving states freedom to experiment, serving as laboratories of democracy in the search for better systems of representation.

There are definite fixes that America should consider: 18-year term limits for SCOTUS justices, removing Presidential immunity, and an overhaul of the first-past-the-post system.

#SCOTUS #Court Reform #Presidency #United States #Impeachment #Election Reform #Judiciary

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shuinami · 2 years ago

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Jess and Hobie: their defining strengths + their weaknesses

I had a thought about Hobie while I was writing, have been thinking about Jess for a while and then this post about Miguel came out and it made me kind of want to yap. I'll only talk about Hobie and Jessica here because I'm biased + Peter & Gwen have been talked about a lot + I linked a post about Miguel + Miles & Pav have simpler, more obvious flaws that basically come down to youthful naivety.

I also find it really interesting that their flaws are basically opposites, Hobie's comes from "inconsistency" whilst Jessica's comes from stubbornness. And again, both these flaws come from their greatest strengths.

TL;dr

Jess' defining strength is her resolve when it comes to fighting for what's right and tussling with destiny but it causes her to have a one-track mind, even if it comes to dedicating herself to something wrong (from being misguided).

Hobie's defining strength is his optimism (e.g. anarcho-communism) but the extreme difficulty of pursuing those ideals and the struggle against systems can bring that optimism to a breaking point, causing him to be inconsistent or, more directly, to give up.

I think people forget that Jessica's pregnancy is by design and not just a 'feature' of Jessica Drew as a character. She was deliberately chosen to be represented in this stage of her life and I think it is so important to her character, even if it's not in the traditional way that pregnancy is typically portrayed as in media.

I think her pregnancy shows the kind of person she is: most obviously, it's cold, hard evidence that she's a bamf who takes care of spidey business even while pregnant.

More importantly to me, though, there's an implication that, as her universe's one and only spidey, she has been the one to save the day and been the change she wishes to seek, effectively enough that she feels comfortable bringing a baby into the world.

Unlike someone like Peter, she does not make the choice between bringing her child to work with her or leaving them behind. She just has to do what she needs to do to make sure her kid is safe, there's no failing for her. During her pregnancy, it's always going to be a matter of life and death. Jess is well aware and, instead of shying away from action, she's just committed to not making those kinds of mistakes. To get over her losses. She's going to take charge of her own world's destiny as she has always done and she's going to make sure it's good.

Her strong allegiance to Miguel's ideas is her most glaring flaw to us as an audience because A. we're seeing things through Miles' eyes, she's standing in the way of him saving his father and B. we know that Miguel can't be right about canon events - we know they wouldn't make the movies as bleak as that.

Of course, taking a step back from our perspective, it's also a flaw because she is being antagonistic to a teenager as a grown adult. It might make her seem cold and harsh.

However, Jess was the one to vouch for Gwen, to take her in, even though Miguel didn't want her to and they could have left things up to the web of destiny. Jess trusts her own capabilities but she doesn't trust the world to be kind. She doesn't assume Gwen can handle things just because she can, either. On top of being sympathetic, I think her dedication to being the change she wishes to see is why she accepts Gwen as a student; she trusts that a young girl can make the world a better place too, it's not a thing where she wants to micromanage everything. She just wants to know the multiverse is in safe hands. That's her "great responsibility".

The only reason she is following the anti-Miles agenda is because Miles, as far as she and anybody else in-movie knows, is jeopardising the existence of every universe (insidiously via the holes). Maybe, in another position, say, a bright-eyed teen who mainly worried about high school and puppy love, she would be more willing to risk things, to see how it goes.

She's not in that position though. Her world that she felt confident she had the power to keep safe has been made uncertain. One day, it could just go poof, along with her baby, and she wouldn't be able to stop it in the moment. If she makes the right decision now, if she doesn't make a mistake, she can prevent it. It's understandable that she's going to do whatever it takes to prevent anomalies.

What was the canon event chosen to represent her?

Her version of the moment from "The Final Chapter".

It comes from a story that largely focuses on Peter's personal life before spiralling into action to make up for a mistake that has made Aunt May fatally ill. In the panel, Spider-Man is trapped under machinery with the cure - the thing that will absolve the mistake - just out of reach. As the lair is flooded, drowning is imminent.

Against all odds, though, Spider-Man pushes past what should have killed him and rises to the occasion, with the thoughts of saving Aunt May and refusing to have a repeat of Uncle Ben.

"I won't fail you. No matter what - I won't fail."

Jess has had to handle her own fate as well as her world's. Now that the multiverse is involved, it's not going to stop at her own universe. She has to stop this. She won't fail. As per the dialogue between her and Gwen in ATSV, she's made a mistake before (by getting too close to someone) but she tells Gwen "I got over it". Sounds so savage in the moment but she still gives Gwen a chance to make her own situation right before letting her get kicked off the team. Helping Gwen in spite of the anomaly would be a mistake if she couldn't handle this.

And when the Spot gets away and Miles enters the picture? The gloves come off. It's tempting fate at that point. Jess' no mistakes mindset pushes her to even prepare to roll up on a teenager.*

Her greatest strength is her resolve - I mean, hell, she doesn't let even pregnancy slow her down when it comes to saving the world - but it causes her to be stubborn and leads her down a misguided path.

*By the end of the film, she seems to be questioning Miguel's method, though. On top of the fact that BTSV is obviously going to end on a good note, I think Jess' fight against destiny is going to have her come around in the end as Miles is doing the same thing.

Onto Hobie:

I luv luv luv Hobie as much as everyone else, he's definitely my favourite but I feel he has his flaws too (which tend to make me love my faves more lol).

In fact, I think he says what they are when we first meet him, though they are veiled as jokes.

I find that the audience tends to position him as a perfect distillation of anarcho-communism at its best. I think the teen spideys see him in a similar light; they see him as effortlessly cool & charismatic, a wise mentor figure ("use your palms" + his play fighting with Pavitr featured him taking on the stance of a boxing trainer as Pavitr tried to punch his palms) but he's not like the adult adults - he's relatable, he's cool, he's anarchist, he's not always on their case like Jess and Miguel.

He neither calls himself a hero nor a role model... but he is the perfect hero and role model, right? He's the best! He's the only one who's looking out for Miles and, when Miles is getting chased down by the entire society, what does he do?

He... quits.

Wouldn't that perfect hero we all believe him to be swoop in with his cape, know exactly what to do and save Miles, the underdog? He can't have possibly known Miles would manage against the society and, if he knew it was possible, then why wouldn't he lend a hand? He didn't drop off the watch in Miles' dimension, he gave one to his bestie, Gwen, likely in the scenario that she wanted to quit or got booted because 'it [didn't] work out'.**

I think Hobie's major flaw is his lack of consistency, as he famously said himself.

He has a strong moral code - he believes in the right things for the right reasons... but communism and anarchy are pretty much impossible to properly/entirely employ in a system that is consumerist, capitalist and authoritarian. He riots, he fights, but it's never over. London isn't free. In my experience, people with strong moral compasses tend to have issues with themselves because they hold others to higher standards than most and hold themselves to even higher and impossible standards (think Diane from Bojack Horseman).

One of the first comic panels I encountered of Hobie was him getting real with Captain Anarchy about losing morale because, despite killing President Ozzy Osborne, the face of fascism in his dystopia, nothing changes. He wasn't able to save the world like a hero in a movie or like a proper role model. He 'failed'. When you give your everything and nothing changes, no matter how optimistic, clever or read-up on theory you are, it can be hard to keep going.

And what is chosen as his defining canon event?

His version of Spider-Man quitting in "Spider-Man No More". Rather than being fed up with the world antagonising him as 616 is, Hobie is done with an antagonistic world.

The Hobie/Spider-Punk that has been built up externally, as far as I understand, would never give up. He'd keep raging forever and ever because that's the cool thing to do, because it's the heroic thing to do - because it's the right thing to do.

But under the mask, he's just a teenager, imperfect as any other.

He's still a Spider-Man too. Before the bite, he was another lanky black boy in racist-af, peak National Front, send-the-blacks-and-the-Asians-back, '70s England. He's a nerd, as evidenced by his ability to build such a high-tech watch, especially as a teenager who wouldn't have had access to anything like it until joining the society, meaning he had to pick it up quick. And I'm to think he didn't have any Flash-esque characters in his life? "Come out of it."

As Spider-Man with the mask on, he yells to the rooftops; as Hobie with the mask off, he mumbles and whispers. Sure he looks cool now but people don't tend to come out of the womb as Spider-Punk. On top of that, he's still so young and surely has plenty of room to grow.

I believe he joined the society in earnest, optimistic that he could help the multiverse but eventually reached his limits with actively facilitating death and trauma, with saving the multiverse not meaning freedom in his own universe, with being shackled to the web of destiny. I'm not convinced he made the watch in one day; I think he had been planning on quitting for some time and was waiting for the right moment (as he also wanted to support Gwen because friendship is important to him). That's why he tries to dissuade Miles from joining but, when he does leave, he doesn't go out in a riot, he doesn't even leave knowing that Miles has people on his side other than him. Hobie just quits.

I think his greatest strength is his optimism (his anarcho-communism & adamance about "love, joy and freedom" as per the un-permitted performance art pieces in his montage) but he's smart and he's been through shit - he isn't naive like Pavitr or Miles - the great heights of that optimism lead to intensely low lows.

**(I don't really see why or how he would have been able to predict everything that happened in the chase. I know that the watch is set to 1610 but if Hobie believed Miles would make it out of 928 and get back to 1610, would that not be things 'working out'? Or did he predict that he would get to the go-home machine but was the only one who considered that he would be sent to the place his spider came from. Why? And why wouldn't he set the watch to 42 if he knew Miles wouldn't be in 1610? I feel like the 1610 on the interface is just there to be there and that Hobie gave Gwen the watch so she could have the freedom to leave 65 if she wanted to, in the event that she quit the society because they captured Miles or because Miguel kicked her out as Jess kept warning.)

#i luv them #atsv spoilers #across the spiderverse spoilers #across the spiderverse #jessica drew #atsv jessica #hobie brown #spider punk #atsv analysis #shui meta

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